Implementing knowledge management to support executive decision-making in a joint military environment: Key enablers and obstacles

The project examined the use of knowledge management from the perspective of supporting executive decision making in the extremely dynamic environment of joint military operations. It used a sequential qualitative---quantitative methodology to analyze and synthesize data obtained primarily from senior U.S. Flag Officers, with a cross section that included the United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. This project extends existing theoretical frameworks used to frame and describe knowledge management and domains of organizational knowledge. An overarching conclusion was that knowledge management initiatives did not directly manage knowledge. Instead, knowledge management initiatives manage the organization's internal and external environment to enable and encourage information sharing that results in new knowledge generation, coupled with effective capture and presentation of that knowledge to decision makers. Dissemination of new knowledge and of executive decisions to the organization completes and renews the circular knowledge management cycle. Conclusions include five principles for executives wishing to implement a knowledge management initiative and a hierarchical knowledge management domain framework that distinguishes between, while integrating, technology infrastructure, information management, and knowledge management. A three-level stair step model for incremental implementation of a knowledge management project accompanies the knowledge domain framework.