The Effectiveness of Knowledge Management Towards Organisational Performance of Internet Business in Malaysia

Abstract

In today’s digital economy, rapid access to knowledge is critical to the success of many organisations. The Internet is a form of information and communication technology that is combined with other network technologies and services, which constructs a digital environment that consistently creates new knowledge, quickly disseminates it, and applies it to organisations. Thus, due to this characteristic, the Internet is profoundly changing knowledge management (KM), and the World Wide Web has promoted KM from a trend to the Internet business reality. KM is known as a tool that seems to gain a more relevant role as managing knowledge and information has become increasingly critical to all companies. The implementation of KM within organisations is among the key factors in ensuring organisational success and providing benefits such as improved efficiency, improved competency, and better decision-making, particularly in the Internet-based context in local organisations. The assumption underlying the use of virtual KM is that by locating and sharing useful knowledge, organisational performance will improve, particularly in the digital environment. Several researchers suggest the important role of KM in Internet business. However, the extent of KM contribution to the performance of Internet business is yet to be established due to lack of empirical evidence. Furthermore, KM effectiveness can only be conceived as the effectiveness of an organisation in managing the knowledge acquired, shared, and applied by the Internet entrepreneurs. Based on this issue, this paper aims to bridge the gap between KM and Internet business performance literature by providing a conceptual framework for KM effectiveness specific for Internet business. Therefore, the objectives of this article are to develop a conceptual framework related to KM effectiveness and to identify the relationship between KM effectiveness and performance achievements in Internet-based context. The expected result of this research will provide potential benefits to Internet entrepreneurs and enhance the performance of Internet business accordingly. This could be achieved by implementing the effective KM and reinforce its importance as an integrated Internet business tool.