The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm

Knowledge
Knowledge management adoption management
in times of crisis adoption
Wei-Tsong Wang
Department of Industrial and Information Management, 445
National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
Received 29 October 2008
Revised 6 January 2009
Abstract Accepted 20 January 2009
Purpose – Organizations are threatened by business crises that may be prevented or lessened if
critical knowledge is identified in advance. The purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding
of the role knowledge management (KM) plays in affecting organizational performance during crises.
Design/methodology/approach – A case study of a business crisis was conducted to investigate
how KM helped mitigate damage caused by the crisis.
Findings – First, KM plays an important role in crisis management. Second, organizations have
different knowledge needs that require the application of different KM strategies at different phases of
a business crisis to achieve the best results. Finally, the experience handling crises makes
organizations consider their incompetence and thus leads to the generation of organization-wide
learning initiatives which facilitate knowledge acquisition, sharing, and institutionalization.
Practical implications – The proposed knowledge-centered crisis management framework can be
used by organizations as guidelines to develop their KM strategies based on their concerns during
business crises.
Originality/value – Few prior studies have specifically addressed the role KM plays when
encountering business crises. This study focuses on investigating how organizations can apply useful
KM strategies based on their knowledge needs and thus achieve desirable crisis management
outcomes.
Keywords Knowledge management, Problem solving, Disasters, Corporate strategy
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Organizations are threatened by business crises that may be prevented or lessened if
critical knowledge is identified in advance. Many frameworks have been proposed for
helping organizations deal with crises (Pearson and Rondinelli, 1998; Richardson, 1994;
Salter, 1997). While these frameworks offer organizations valuable guidelines for
managing crises, they typically overlook the importance of knowledge in the
organizational performance during crises.
It is proposed that knowledge management (KM) has a role to play in crisis
management. Nevertheless, very few studies have been conducted to specifically
examine the influence of the application of KM to crisis management on organizational
performance. Consequently, this study aims to examine how KM practices affect
organizational performance during business crises. A knowledge-centered crisis
management framework that can help organizations apply KM concepts during crises Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 109 No. 4, 2009
The author thanks the studied company for providing precious data. The author also thanks the pp. 445-462
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
reviewers for their valuable feedback on this paper. This study was funded by the National 0263-5577
Science Council, Taiwan (project number: NSC95-2416-H-006-050). DOI 10.1108/02635570910948605
IMDS is presented. A case study of an energy company’s crisis is presented to demonstrate
109,4 how this framework can help organizations become less vulnerable to business crises.

2. Business crises
2.1 Nature of business crises
From the perspective of organizational management, academics contend that natural
446 (e.g. hurricanes) and socio-technical (e.g. air crashes) disasters are different from
business crises for two reasons (Richardson, 1994; Turner and Pedgeon, 1997). First,
disasters can be natural or man-made events, or both, while business crises are solely
man-made events. Second, disasters involve threats of injury and loss of human lives,
while business crises damage the quality of personal, social, and work lives of
individuals. Nevertheless, disasters can be viewed as a source from which business
crises may develop (Shaluf et al., 2003). To conclude, business crises can be defined as
man-made events with the characteristics of low frequency and high consequence
(Hensgen et al., 2003) that can significantly hinder organizations from continuing to
operate successfully. An example of business crises is the collapse of Barings Bank
(Sheaffer et al., 1998).
Additionally, Salter (1997) argues that risk is a function of the degree of
susceptibility and resilience of a social system to hazards. Risk management can thus
be defined as a systematic application of management practices to identifying,
analyzing, treating, and monitoring uncertainties to better advise crisis management
(Robert and Lajtha, 2002; Salter, 1997). Risk management, as an important part of crisis
management, must be supplemented by more techniques to help organizations plan for
their crisis management (Robert and Lajtha, 2002). In contrast to risk management,
crisis management is broader in scope and can be defined as a set of ongoing and
systematic processes for identifying, analyzing, and treating business crises by
applying management practices (Mitroff, 1994).

2.2 Business crises and KM

In the current knowledge-intensive environment, organizations need to treat KM as an
imperative organizational activity, and then take a strategic view to link their KM
practices with their missions, strategies, and goals (Asoh et al., 2007; Masrek et al.,
2008; Sahay and Ranjan, 2008; Zack, 1999). Pearson and Rondinelli (1998) contend that
organizations should treat crisis management as an integral part of their overall
business goals. The above statements demonstrate the necessity to conduct research
into critical aspects of crisis management, such as KM practices, for achieving
desirable crisis management outcomes (Mitroff et al., 2004).
Business crises, which usually generate task demands for an organization that
exceed, or come close to exceeding, its abilities to handle without considerable additional
resources (Smith, 2005), are different from the other business events. Crisis decisions are
different from routine decisions because of their relatively high uncertainty and
complexity (Dearstyne, 2007; Stubbart, 1987). During business crises, organizations
encounter a unique, threatening, and stress-inducing decision-making environment that
must be dealt with timely and consistently (Zhang et al., 2002; Pearson and Clair, 1998;
Zhou et al., 2008). These statements imply that in order to acquire critical knowledge for
making timely and accurate decisions during business crises, the development of a
specific set of KM practices for crisis management is necessary.
 The importance of applying KM for crisis management purposes has been raised, Knowledge
mostly indistinctly, in two types of studies. The first type of studies emphasize the management
importance of learning and utilizing the knowledge from past crisis experiences to
better manage similar events in the future (Lagadec, 1997; Simon and Pauchant, 2000). adoption
The second type of studies focus on investigating the application of various
technologies and methods, such as the Internet, to facilitate KM practices during
crises (Darling, 1994; Elsubbaugh et al., 2004; Zhang et al., 2002). Nevertheless, the 447
studies above did not specifically investigate the operational issues of KM, such as how
to find and utilize the needed knowledge to create powerful leverage for
policy/strategic intervention during crises. Consequently, an examination of the role
of KM during crises with reference to the knowledge needed for successfully
performing critical crisis management tasks is needed.

3. Crisis management frameworks

Generally, crisis management frameworks can be categorized according to those that
focus on why crises happen, which is termed operation-oriented frameworks, and those
that focus on how crises impact organizations and the tasks that need to be performed
in order to lessen their impact, which is termed process-oriented frameworks.
Operation-oriented frameworks are those that focus on crises that result from the
regular operations of organizations (Dutton, 1986; Salter, 1997; Ratnasingam, 2007).
Salter (1997) stresses the importance of analyzing the organization’s vulnerability to
crises and proposes nine information sets, such as emergency management and
communication, which can mitigate organizational vulnerabilities.
Process-oriented frameworks focus on how organizations can eliminate
vulnerabilities to a crisis that they encounter at different phases of a crisis life cycle
(Darling, 1994; Fink, 1996; Richardson, 1994). Mitroff’s (1988, 1994) framework consists
of five crisis phrases. In the signal detection phase, organizations focus on seeking
signals that might warn of a crisis. In the prevention/preparation phase, organizations
aim to eliminate their weaknesses so as to prevent a crisis or to be well-prepared for it.
In the containment/damage limitation phase, organizations aim to control damage
resulting from a crisis. Organizations mostly focus on fixing the damage caused by a
crisis during the recovery phase. During the learning phase, organizations examine
what happened during the crisis, and then identify what lessons they have learned.
Organizations can then use their crisis experience to enhance their capabilities to
prevent and mitigate the effects of similar crises in the future.
Among all these frameworks, Mitroff’s (1988, 1994) framework is preferred for this
study since it is the only one that explicitly identifies the need for learning and hints at
the need for KM. By learning from previous crises, organizations can create
repositories of best practices that will be valuable in helping them manage their
business crises (Pearson and Clair, 1998). Additionally, Mitroff’s framework segments
a crisis into five phases based on the most crucial tasks of organizations at different
phases of a crisis. This provides the organization with information as to its knowledge
needs to perform these tasks successfully.

4. Crisis management and taxonomies of KM

Current KM methods have been comprehensively summarized by Earl’s (2001)
taxonomy of KM strategy, which classifies KM strategies according to seven schools.
IMDS The schools are not mutually exclusive so that an organization might use several of
109,4 these strategies simultaneously.

4.1 Schools of KM strategy

The systems school strategies aim to capture and store the knowledge of individuals in
knowledge repositories. This implies that the fundamental concerns of system school
448 are the creation and codification of knowledge (Hansen et al., 1999; Nonaka et al., 2000;
Wickramasinghe, 2007). Additionally, Darling (1994) argues that organizations should
capitalize on the expertise of individuals in order to use their expertise to manage
crises.
The cartographic school strategies focus on mapping knowledge by creating yellow
pages or directories of knowledge owners. When people need certain kinds of
knowledge, they look in the yellow pages to find who has the knowledge needed and
how this person can be reached (Kess et al., 2008). Additionally, Lagadec (1997) argues
that a major challenge in crisis management is to rapidly identify experts who have the
knowledge needed. This indicates the importance of using cartographic school
strategies to identify and locate knowledge owners during crises.
The process school strategies aim to provide people not only with the knowledge
they request but also with the most useful knowledge that is relevant to their current
tasks (El-Korany, 2007; Grant, 1996; Kim et al., 2003). For example, Hewlett-Packard’s
“Electronic Sales Partner” system (Davenport et al., 1998) provides Hewlett-Packard’s
sales personnel with knowledge that might benefit them in the sales process, including
product information and sales tactics. Additionally, Shrivastava and Mitroff (1987)
propose that it is necessary for an organization to have a crisis management team,
whose members possess various types of expertise, in order to effectively respond to its
potential crises. This implies the need to equip individuals with the knowledge they
need to effectively perform their tasks.
The commercial school strategies support the concept of managing knowledge as an
asset (Davenport et al., 1998) and stress the importance of organizations’ capability on
recognizing the economic value of their knowledge (Gold et al., 2001). Kim’s (1997)
study illustrates how Samsung Corporation utilized its knowledge assets to develop
critical production technologies that leading American and Japanese manufacturers
refused to license to it, and eventually created benefits to ensure its own survival and
prosperity.
The organizational school strategies aim to facilitate KM activities by designing
organizational structures or inter-organizational networks that connect knowledge
owners for sharing knowledge (Mei et al., 2004; Phusavat and Kess, 2008). Hall (2001)
proposes that an intranet is more than a data repository and requires organizational
supports, such as the development of organizational KM culture, in order to maximize
its capacity to motivate knowledge sharing. Additionally, Zhang et al. (2002) argue that
by utilizing the Internet, organizations can facilitate inter-organizational knowledge
sharing and reuse, and then enhance their quality of decision-making during crises.
The spatial school strategies take advantage of the “use of space” to facilitate
knowledge exchange. A synonym for this school could be the social school since it
intends to facilitate knowledge exchange by encouraging socialization through the
proper use of space (Hansen et al., 1999). As Davenport et al. (1998) state, socialization,
such as face-to-fact contact, is critical since it accounts for a significant proportion of
the transferred knowledge. Additionally, Nishiguchi and Beaudet (1998) conclude that Knowledge
it is beneficial for an organization to hold social activities that involve face-to-face management
contacts among its employees and those of its business partners in order to facilitate
knowledge sharing when dealing with crises. adoption
The strategic school strategies aim to examine the knowledge, as a key
organizational resource (De Long and Seemann, 2000; Zack, 1999), preserved by an
organization in order to determine what competitive advantages the organization can 449
generate by utilizing its knowledge (Holsapple and Singh, 2001; Jordan and Jones, 1997;
Lin et al., 2008). From a crisis management perspective, knowledge, as a critical
organizational resource for generating competitive advantages (Connell, 2004), should
be made available and accessible for people to use in order to let organizations
well-prepared to the impact of their crises (Elsubbaugh et al., 2004).

4.2 A KM strategy framework for crisis management

Table I summarizes the attributes of Earl’s KM strategy schools in order to depict their
individual orientations and sorts of organizational intervention they represent (Earl,
2001, p. 316). Earl’s taxonomy is considered appropriate for this study because it
incorporates the key KM dimensions that have been widely discussed from the crisis
management perspective. Additionally, it systemically incorporates the important KM
initiatives that allow organizations to easily choose the best KM approaches for their
unique business situations, such as a business crisis.

5. Research methodology
The method of case study is adopted for this study with intent to answer the following
questions:
.
What kinds of KM strategies are developed in response to a business crisis?
.
Whether and why different kinds of KM strategies are developed and applied at
different phases of a business crisis?

A business crisis of a natural gas company was analyzed in order to examine the
application of KM during business crises. Pseudonyms were developed and used to
represent all the primary and secondary subjects to ensure confidentiality.

5.1 Data collection

Data for this study was collected from multiple sources, which included organizational
documents, archival data, and individual interviews, in order to achieve data
triangulation, and in turn ensure the construct validity and reliability of this study
(Yin, 2003). The collected organizational documents included memos, meeting minutes,
and project reports that were related to the target crisis. Additionally, archival data
was necessary to include in this study because it implicitly contained behavioral
patterns of organizations and their employees that were helpful for the study. The
sources of archival data included employees’ notes, newspapers, journals, and relevant
governmental reports. Finally, fourteen semi-structured individual interviews were
conducted with key informants in order to identify important themes and evidence
crucial to the study.
 450
109,4
IMDS

Table I.
Schools of KM strategy
School Technocratic Economic Behavioral
Attribute Systems Cartographic Engineering Commercial Organizational Spatial Strategic

Focus Technology Maps Processes Income Networks Space Mindset

Aim Knowledge bases Knowledge Knowledge flows Knowledge assets Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge
directories pooling exchange capabilities
Critical Content validation; Culture/incentives to Knowledge learning Specialist teams; Sociable culture; Design for Rhetoric;
success incentives to share knowledge; and information; institutionalized knowledge purpose; artifacts
factor provide content networks to connect unrestricted process intermediaries encouragement
people distribution
Philosophy Codification Connectivity Capability Commercialization Collaboration Contactivity Consciousness
5.2 Data coding and analysis Knowledge
All individual interviews conducted were taped and the recorded data converted into management
electronic versions for transcribing line by line. All the collected data were then coded
according to the method of analytic coding (Lofland and Lofland, 1995). In the first adoption
stage, initial coding, the data was examined line by line in order to determine what
could be defined and discovered. Focus coding, in which the codes were sorted and
categorized based on the themes of the theoretical framework, was performed when 451
initial coding was completed. When performing focus coding, codes that were
considered irrelevant or relatively less productive to the study were discarded. The
remaining codes were then re-examined and their concepts were further elaborated for
future analysis.
The analysis technique of pattern matching was used in this study to ensure
internal validity (Yin, 2003). The fundamental logic of this technique is to compare an
empirically-based pattern or a rival pattern with one or multiple-predicted patterns
(Trochim, 1989). If the patterns are identical, the internal validity of the case study can
be strengthened. If there are two potential patterns, the task is to determine whether or
not the data matches one pattern better than the other, and then to appropriately link
the results to the related research questions. Finally, the overall validity of the research
results was checked and verified by three research participants through follow-up
telephone interviews.

5.3 Research framework

By integrating Mitroff’s (1988, 1994) crisis management framework and Earl’s (2001)
taxonomy of KM strategy, a knowledge-centered crisis management framework
(Figure 1) can be developed that provides guidance to organizations concerning KM
approaches they should use at different phases of a crisis.
Additionally, since knowledge has been recognized as a crucial organizational
resource for enhancing organizational performance (Lin, 2000), the evaluation of the
KM effectiveness should be considered a part of the foundation for assessing
organizational performance. Consequently, criteria that are included in the Baldrige
Criteria for Performance Excellence Framework (Baldrige National Quality Program,
2008) for evaluating the effectiveness of KM (Table II) are adopted for examining how
KM activities affect the organizational performance during business crises.

Prevention/ Containment/Damage
Signal Detection Recovery
Preparation Limitation

<<apply to>> <<apply to>>

Schools of <<apply to>>

<<apply to>>
KM
Strategy

<<apply to>> Figure 1.

A knowledge-centered
crisis management
Learning framework
IMDS
How do organizations ensure the following properties of their data, information, and knowledge:
109,4 1 Accuracy
2 Integrity and reliability
3 Timeliness
4 Security and confidentiality
How do organizations manage organizational knowledge to accomplish the following:
452 1 The collection and transfer of workforce knowledge
2 The transfer of relevant knowledge from and to customers, suppliers, partners, and collaborators
Table II. 3 The rapid identification, sharing, and implementation of best practices
KM criteria 4 The assembly and transfer of relevant knowledge for use in the strategic planning process

6. Arena corporation’s crocodile industrial park crisis

The Arena Natural Gas Corporation (ANGC) was founded to provide natural gas
delivery services to the population of Chestnut City. The crisis investigated is ANGC’s
project of acquiring new business customers from the Crocodile Industrial Park.
Originally, the companies in the Crocodile Industrial Park used heavy oil and liquefied
petroleum gas as the main fuel sources. Because of the environmental pollution caused
by burning heavy oil and unsatisfactory service from the liquefied petroleum gas
providers, the companies sought alternative fuels. Consequently, ANGC executed the
project to promote its natural gas.
However, ANGC’s sales representatives found that most of the companies in the
Crocodile Industrial Park were not willing to use natural gas for two reasons, which
were the cost-effectiveness and security issues of using natural gas. Consequently,
ANGC could not obtain return on its investment in time, and was forced to officially
declare a loss of 1.7 million US dollars. ANGC’s president eventually took the
responsibility and declared his retirement. Rumors regarding personnel transfer and
demotion demoralized employees and decreased their productivity.

6.1 The signal detection phase

In this phase, ANGC aimed to perform a risk assessment to examine the feasibility of
the project. This project was not ANGC’s first investment project. Therefore, the
pre-assessment procedures for the investment project had been standardized by taking
advantage of ANGC’s previous experiences dealing with similar investment projects.
Consequently, ANGC referred to the relevant documents preserved in their data
repositories to plot its assessment plan. ANGC’s custom of documenting and
preserving knowledge acquired implies the use of the system school strategy.
However, ANGC employees occasionally encountered real-world problems during
the assessment operation. Consequently, ANGC employees tended to close their
knowledge gaps by seeking guidance from experts with whom they had maintained
good relationships, which included former employees and people from government
agencies. This action indicated that the cartographic school strategy was applied since
ANGC employees kept records on who owned what knowledge which made it possible
for them to identify and contact the right experts to acquire knowledge needed.
Additionally, it indicates that the organizational school strategy was applied, since
ANGC employees made possible the knowledge sharing with external experts by
utilizing their social networks.
 The project was going smoothly in the beginning. However, shortly after the project Knowledge
was initialized, a survey result indicated that most companies in the Crocodile management
Industrial Park were reluctant to switch to ANGC’s services.
To conclude, although ANGC employees were unable to keep the crisis from adoption
happening, they learned much from experts in other organizations using the
cartographic and organizational school strategies. For example, experts from
governmental agencies provide them with the trend of the future urban development 453
of Chestnut City. This knowledge was valuable for them to accurately evaluate their
business opportunities in potential markets. Consequently, they eliminated one of their
weaknesses when planning for future investment projects and avoided ending this
phase empty-handed. Based on the discussions above, the following propositions are
presented:
P1(a). The cartographic school strategies can help individuals identify people who
possess the knowledge needed, and thus enhance the organizational
performance at the signal detection phase of a crisis.
P1(b). The organizational school strategies can facilitate the transfer of knowledge
from external knowledge owners to an organization, and thus enhance its
organizational performance at the signal detection phase of a crisis.

6.2 The prevention/preparation phase

The unexpected reluctance of the prospective customers to switch to ANGC’s services
had become a threat to ANGC’s profits. ANGC soon found out that the reluctance
existed because of the prospective customers’ concerns on cost-effectiveness and
security issues of using natural gas delivered through pipelines.
To eliminate this threat, ANGC employees had to educate their prospective
customers about the merits of using natural gas. Various brain-storming meetings
were held to bring all ANGC’s experts together in order to search for solutions. These
activities indicated that ANGC applied the spatial school strategy to facilitate
knowledge sharing and creation. Additionally, ANGC employees used their expert
directories to identify and locate business friends, mostly employees from other natural
gas companies and ANGC’s former employees, who might have the knowledge needed.
The utilization of expert directories indicated that the cartographic school strategy was
applied. Furthermore, the organizational school strategy was employed since ANGC
employees contacted the identified experts and acquired their knowledge by utilizing
their social networks.
The use of KM strategies helped ANGC employees decide to adopt the strategy of
paying frequent personal visits to prospective customers in order to convince them the
merits of using natural gas, which included the efficiency of energy generation using
natural gas, the mechanisms of monitoring the security of natural gas facilities, and the
reduced environmental pollution. ANGC employees also learned that it would be easier
for them to convince their prospective customers to use their natural gas if the mutual
trust between them and their prospective customers were established. Based on the
discussions above, the following propositions are presented:
P2(a). The cartographic school strategies can help individuals identify the knowledge
owners who possess the knowledge needed, and thus enhance the
organizational performance at the prevention/preparation phase of a crisis.
IMDS P2(b). The organizational school strategies can facilitate the transfer of knowledge
109,4 from external knowledge owners to an organization, and thus enhance its
organizational performance at the prevention/preparation phase of a business
crisis.
P2(c). The spatial school strategies can facilitate the assembly, transfer, and use of
relevant knowledge to develop effective strategies for the problems
454 encountered, and thus enhance the organizational performance at the
prevention/preparation phase of a crisis.
Unfortunately, ANGC failed to persuade its prospective customers of the advantages of
using its services because its actions on improving cost-effectiveness and security of
pipelines were not effective to them. Consequently, ANGC was behind its original
schedule on acquiring new customers.

6.3 The containment/damage limitation phase

Since ANGC could not get returns from its investment from the Crocodile Industrial
Park project, it had to officially declare investment loss. The ANGC stockholders were
unhappy about the company’s performance. They held the management team
responsible. ANGC’s president eventually took the responsibility and declared his
retirement. This event demoralized employees and their productivity declined.
In order to prevent further financial losses, ANGC employees reviewed their
knowledge repositories in order to generate new insights from existing knowledge.
This action indicated that the system school strategy was adopted. Additionally,
various brainstorming sessions were conducted to facilitate solution formation by
encouraging socialization among experts. This action indicated the use of the spatial
school strategy. As an ANGC employee described:
We looked for archive data to seek potential solutions [. . .] We tried to look for tips that could
help us reduce the cost of remodeling the energy generating equipment of our prospective
customers from our previous project reports [. . .] We held many meetings and seminars to
facilitate and collect people’s ideas in order to find ways that could help us achieve our goals.
By using the KM strategies discussed above, three high-level strategies were chosen as
follows: to reinforce the operation of visiting prospective customers; to improve
technical knowledge to resolve the safety and cost-effectiveness issues; and to work
with the prospective customers to eliminate their concerns.
ANGC’s actions in employing the first strategy were effective. Its internal brainstorming
sessions made employees aware of a recent protest against the air pollution resulting from
the consumption of heavy oil by the companies in the Crocodile Industrial Park. ANGC used
this protest as a powerful tool to persuade prospective customers to use its natural gas for
environmental protection purposes. In order to employ the second strategy successfully,
they looked to personal or business friends who might have the knowledge they needed.
This action indicated that the cartographic school strategy and organizational school
strategy were used. A former ANGC employee recalled:
We consulted with people in a petroleum refinery company when dealing with the security
issues of the pipeline network. This company has been our supplier for decades. We have
relied on the guidance of this petroleum refinery company on technical problems since the
first day our company was founded.
Although ANGC employees made progress on enhancing the capability of the safety Knowledge
controls of their natural gas facilities, they failed to find a more economical way to management
develop and install natural gas equipment for their prospective customers. The
breakthrough came with the execution of the third strategy of seeking opportunities to adoption
work with the prospective customers and the manufacturers of the energy-generating
systems of these prospective customers through their references. Customer and
manufacturer professional expertise could be just what ANGC needed to accomplish 455
the task. This strategy was proven successful when it was eventually applied to most
of ANGC’s prospective customers and gained useful knowledge from them. ANGC
engineers eventually found a better way to develop and monitor their natural gas
equipment, making their equipment cheaper and safer. Consequently, the project
began to appear successful as ANGC acquired new business customers from the
Crocodile Industrial Park. Because of the successful development of the Crocodile
Industrial Park, its neighboring areas were starting to thrive, and ANGC began to
acquire new household customers from those areas. ANGC’s execution of the third
strategy was considered the use of the organization school strategy.
Based on the analysis results presented above, the following propositions are
presented:
P3(a). The system and spatial school strategies can facilitate knowledge transfer
and use to develop effective strategies for the problems encountered, and
thus enhance the organizational performance at the containment/damage
limitation phase of a crisis.
P3(b). The cartographic school strategies can help individuals identify the
knowledge owners who possess the knowledge needed, and thus enhance
the organizational performance at the containment/damage limitation phase
of a crisis.
P3(c). The organizational school strategies can facilitate the transfer of knowledge
from external knowledge owners to an organization, and thus enhance its
organizational performance at the containment/damage limitation phase of a
crisis.

6.4 The recovery phase

In this phase. ANGC aimed to further acquire new customers in order to catch up with
the original schedule of obtaining returns on its investment. ANGC continued to utilize
and reinforce the high-level strategies discovered earlier. ANGC’s representatives paid
more frequent visits to their prospective customers with relatively stronger technical
support from their engineers. Because of their own achievement in the previous crisis
phase, they now had more supports in manipulating their promotion strategies to
prospective customers.
However, they found that their efforts were not effective to persuade their prospective
customers to switch to their services. The key was to earn the prospective customers’ trust
in them. Consequently, they asked for assistance from people who had relationships with
their prospective customers. For example, ANGC contacted the Chestnut City Industrial
Association (CCIA), a non-profit organization that fostered the industrial development of
the Chestnut City. Most companies in the Chestnut City had friendly relationship with
CCIA, since it constantly assisted them to solve their problems. ANGC managed to
IMDS convince the CCIA personnel of the merits of using natural gas, and thus they agreed to
109,4 help propagate the use of natural gas in the Crocodile Industrial Park. Such assistance was
valuable since ANGC’s prospective customers believed the words of the CCIA personnel to
be trustworthy. An assistant manager of the ANGC stated when talking about the CCIA’s
chairman:
It would be more convincing for the business units in the Crocodile Industrial Park to hear
456 those things from him since they considered him as “one of them,” as someone they trusted
and who would not lie to them.
In brief, ANGC built a social network with CCIA, and then expanded this network to
include its prospective customers as the mutual trust with them was established and
enhanced. ANGC later utilized this network to share knowledge with these prospective
customers to help them acknowledge the benefits of ANGC’s natural gas delivery
services, and eventually subscribe it. This is considered a successful application of the
organizational school strategy.
Finally, the ANGC’s progress in expanding its customer base reached a promising
level as the number of new customers from both the Crocodile Industrial Park and its
neighboring areas increased. ANGC eventually recouped its investment and its
business in these regions has become stable and profitable since then.
Correspondingly, the anger of ANGC stockholders caused by its poor performance
in the early stage of this project dissipated. Consequently, no other employees in ANGC
were laid off or demoted because of this project and ANGC employees’ morale was
gradually restored. To conclude, the following proposition is presented:
P4. The organizational school strategies can facilitate the transfer of knowledge
from external knowledge owners to an organization, and thus enhance its
organizational performance at the recovery phase of a crisis.

6.5 The learning phase

In this phase, ANGC aimed to investigate what had happened during the crisis, what
had been learned from the crisis experience, and what should be learned to prepare for
future crises. Consequently, ANGC held company-wide review sessions, in which
employees’ perceptions about the crisis were discussed, made consistent, summarized,
and recorded into a project report. This indicated that the spatial school strategy was
used to facilitate knowledge sharing. Additionally, detailed documentation on the
context of the project was developed by ANGC. This indicated that the system school
strategy was employed. As an ANGC employee stated:
We had several review sessions to discuss what lessons we had learned from this event, such
as new understandings about some equipment construction techniques [. . .] We developed a
detailed report to keep the information on what had happened in the event, what we did right
or did wrong, and what could have been done better. In this way, we would have some
information on hand about how to handle similar events in the future [. . .] By having these
documents that keep detailed information about this event, we can help people clarify their
conflicts of memories about the event when they want to share their experiences with their
colleagues.
Furthermore, ANGC employees identified several kinds of knowledge that they should
learn but were incapable of learning it alone. Consequently, they began to seek
opportunities for learning from the others with whom they had good relationships.
This action indicated that the organizational school strategy was used for facilitating Knowledge
knowledge sharing and acquisition. An ANGC employee stated: management
We sent our employees to the training seminars sponsored by our government to learn what adoption
we should have known but didn’t know in order to respond this project in a better way than
we did [[hellip]]; We also invited and hired some experts to our company to teach us the new
techniques or knowledge that would help us to deal with the same problems we had in this
project [. . .] we sent our engineers to our suppliers in Japan to learn about the up-to-date 457
technology in the natural gas industry.
Based on the discussions above, the following propositions are presented:
P5(a). The system school strategies can facilitate the capture and store of the
knowledge learned for future reuse purposes, and thus enhance the
organizational performance at the learning phase of a crisis.
P5(b). The organizational school strategies can facilitate the transfer of knowledge
from external knowledge owners to an organization, and thus enhance its
organizational performance at the learning phase of a crisis.
P5(c). The spatial school strategies can enhance the accuracy, integrity, and reliability
of the knowledge learned, and thus improve the organizational performance at
the learning phase of a crisis.

7. Research implications
7.1 KM has a role to play in crisis management
This study’s primary implication for theory is the idea to build an organizational KM
capability to facilitate knowledge creation, transfer, sharing, and utilization in order to
better manage business crises. Based on the analysis results on ANGC’s crisis, a
summary of the application of KM strategies is presented in Table III. An important
implication derived from this summary is the usefulness of applying different KM
strategies at different crisis phases. In the previous discussions, how and why ANGC
applied different portfolios of KM strategies at different phases of its crisis in order to
fulfill different knowledge needs at each phase was examined. The research results
imply that an organization has different tasks to accomplish and different

Crisis phase Primary functional unit Applied KM strategies

Signal detection Department of Engineering; System; cartographic; and

Department of Sales and Planning organizational
Prevention/preparation Department of Sales and Planning; Cartographic; organizational; and
Department of Safety Assurance spatial
Containment/damage Department of Engineering; System; cartographic;
limitation Department of Safety Assurance; organizational; and spatial
Department of Sales and Planning
Recovery Department of Sales and Planning Organizational
Learning All departments , with the System; organizational and spatial
Department of General Table III.
Administration coordinating the Summary of the applied
efforts KM strategies
IMDS corresponding knowledge needs that require the application of different KM strategies
109,4 to fulfill at different phases of a crisis to achieve better crisis management results.

7.2 Learning initiatives and knowledge institutionalization

In the learning phase of ANGC’s crisis, ANGC employees’ experience of dealing with
their crisis made them seriously examine their incompetence and how they could have
458 done better during the crisis. As such, they were eager to learn what they should know
to survive their next business crisis. This, in turn, led to the generation of
company-wide learning initiatives, with ANGC managers actively organizing the
learning efforts by conducting learning activities aimed to facilitate knowledge
acquisition, sharing, and institutionalization. ANGC managers organized unofficial
and official discussion sessions to encourage employees to actively discuss and share
their experiences and thoughts about the crisis with their colleagues. These sessions
helped ANGC employees clarify what had been learned and how they should
institutionalize what was learned, and what should be learned and how they could
learn about it.
In the learning phase of ANGC’s crisis, ANGC developed detailed documentation
about the crisis to summarize and organize what was learned from the event.
Additionally, a number of ANGC employees were sent to attend a wide range of
relevant training programs held by ANGC’s business friends in order to learn better
crisis management practices. ANGC subsequently included what they learned from the
crisis as a part of their training programs for new employees in order to institutionalize
what was learned into its organizational structures, including employees’ mental
databases, operational protocols, and organizational regulations for future reuse. For
example, it refined the responsibilities of each individual and department when
executing similar investment projects and when encountering similar problems to
those in the crisis investigated. This action allowed ANGC to ensure that it had people
who were in charge of all important tasks and to make everyone’s responsibilities
clearer and more reasonable when handling similar events in the future. Additionally,
it utilized what was learned from its crisis experience to redesign the operating
procedures and guidelines for similar kinds of investment project. This modification
enabled its employees to take more effective actions when monitoring and preparing
for the impact of inevitable crises when executing investment projects. Generally, these
changes in ANGC’s organizational structure improved the perception of its employees
about potential crises and eventually reduced their vulnerability to them.

8. Conclusion
8.1 Research contributions
This study investigated the dynamics of crisis management from a KM perspective by
examining how and why certain KM strategies were developed at each of the phases of
a business crisis, and their corresponding results. The findings of this study indicate
that the use of appropriate KM strategies enables an organization to learn critical
knowledge in response to business crises effectively and efficiently, which eventually
leads to better crisis management outcomes. A knowledge-centered crisis management
framework that can help organizations apply KM concepts during crises was
presented. The relationships between KM and organizational performance during
crises are summarized in 12 propositions.
 This study contributes to organizational research in two main ways. First, by using Knowledge
the proposed knowledge-centered crisis management framework to examine a management
business crisis, organizations can gain a better understanding of what knowledge
entities they should maintain convenient access to, and who they should maintain good adoption
relationships with, in order to acquire crucial knowledge to successfully perform
necessary tasks when encountering a similar crisis in the future. Second, this study
demonstrates how organizations can examine their capabilities to manage critical 459
knowledge to better perform the critical crisis management tasks by learning from
their crisis experiences using the proposed framework. These kinds of understanding
would help organizations learn how to better manage their knowledge in response to
their business crises in the future.

8.2 Research limitations

Since the research findings are generated based on a single case study, the
generalizability of the findings is questionable from the perspective of quantitative
researchers. However, the goal of case study research is the achievement of analytic
generalization (the capability to generalize theories) rather than statistical
generalization (Yin, 2003). Consequently, this study should enable other researchers
to generalize the proposed theories by using vicarious experiences to develop
understandings about similar problems and social settings.
Another limitation is related to the question of whether this study incorporated the
full dynamics of the case investigated. The necessity to set up research boundaries
may have led to the problem of simplification of the case complexity. However, this is a
common problem shared by all social science studies. From the perspective of
interpretivists, this study can be considered valid since it was conducted with rigorous
research processes, and some defensible research propositions, were made (Weber,
2004).

8.3 Future research directions

Since the more cases that are investigated for a research topic, the stronger the research
results will be (Yin, 2003), further studies that aim to investigate the relationship
between KM and crisis management are encouraged to be conducted. A potential
research direction is to explore the development and deployment of KM strategies in
response to a crisis at personal, group, and organizational levels with reference to the
properties of crisis-prone factors, such as culture, communication, and configurations
proposed in Smith’s (1990) seven Cs crisis management framework.

References
Asoh, D.A., Belardo, S. and Duchessi, P. (2007), “Knowledge strategic alignment: research framework,
models, and concepts”, in Abou-Zeid, E.-S. (Ed.), Knowledge Management and Business
Strategies: Theoretical Frameworks and Empirical Research, IGI Global, Hershey, PA.
Baldrige National Quality Program (2008), 2008 Criteria for Performance Excellence, available at
www.michiganquality.org/files/2008_Business_Nonprofit_Criteria.pdf (accessed
December 12, 2008).
Connell, C.M. (2004), “Transformation of a business in risks: knowledge and learning for
reinvention”, Management Decision, Vol. 42 No. 9, pp. 1178-96.
IMDS Darling, J.R. (1994), “Crisis management in international business: keys to effective decision
making”, Leadership and Organization Development Journal, Vol. 15 No. 8, pp. 3-8.
109,4
Davenport, T.H., De Long, D.W. and Beers, M.C. (1998), “Successful knowledge management
projects”, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 39 No. 2, pp. 43-57.
De Long, D.W. and Seemann, P. (2000), “Confronting conceptual confusion and conflict in
knowledge management”, Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 33-44.
460 Dearstyne, B. (2007), “The FDNY on 9/11: information and decision making in crisis”,
Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 29-46.
Dutton, J.E. (1986), “The processing of crisis and non-crisis strategic issues”, Journal of
Management Studies, Vol. 23 No. 5, pp. 501-17.
Earl, M. (2001), “Knowledge management strategies: toward a taxonomy”, Journal of
Management Information Systems, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 215-33.
El-Korany, A. (2007), “A knowledge management application in enterprises”, International
Journal of Management and Enterprise Development, Vol. 4 No. 6, pp. 693-702.
Elsubbaugh, S., Fildes, R. and Rose, M.B. (2004), “Preparation for crisis management: a proposed
model and empirical evidence”, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Vol. 12
No. 3, pp. 112-27.
Fink, S. (1996), Crisis Management: Planning for the Inevitable, American Management
Association, New York, NY.
Gold, A.H., Malhotra, A. and Segars, A.H. (2001), “Knowledge management: an organizational
capabilities perspective”, Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 18 No. 1,
pp. 185-214.
Grant, R.M. (1996), “Toward a knowledge-based theory of the firm”, Strategic Management
Journal, Vol. 17, pp. 109-22.
Hall, H. (2001), “Input-friendliness: motivating knowledge sharing across intranets”, Journal of
Information Science, Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 139-46.
Hansen, M.T., Nohria, N. and Tierney, T. (1999), “What’s your strategy for managing
knowledge?”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 77 No. 2, pp. 106-16.
Hensgen, T., Desouza, K.C. and Kraff, G.D. (2003), “Games, signal detection, and processing in
the context of crisis management”, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management,
Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 67-77.
Holsapple, C.W. and Singh, M. (2001), “The knowledge chain model: activities for
competitiveness”, Expert Systems with Applications, Vol. 20 No. 1, pp. 77-98.
Jordan, J. and Jones, P. (1997), “Assessing your company’s knowledge style”, Long Range
Planning, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 392-8.
Kess, P., Phusavat, K. and Takala, J. (2008), “Managing external knowledge: framework for
organisational life cycles”, International Journal of Innovation and Learning, Vol. 5 No. 3,
pp. 255-65.
Kim, L. (1997), “The dynamics of Samsung’s technological learning in semiconductors”,
California Management Review, Vol. 39 No. 3, pp. 86-100.
Kim, Y.G., Yu, S.H. and Lee, J.H. (2003), “Knowledge strategy planning: methodology and case”,
Expert Systems with Applications, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 295-307.
Lagadec, P. (1997), “Learning processes for crisis management in complex organizations”,
Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 24-31.
Lin, C., Liu, A.C.P., Hsu, M.L. and Wu, J.C. (2008), “Pursuing excellence in firm core knowledge Knowledge
through intelligent group decision support system”, Industrial Management & Data
Systems, Vol. 108 No. 3, pp. 277-96. management
Lin, Z. (2000), “Organizational restructuring and the impact of knowledge transfer”, Journal of adoption
Mathematical Sociology, Vol. 24 No. 2, pp. 129-49.
Lofland, J. and Lofland, L.H. (1995), Analyzing Social Settings: A Guide to Qualitative Observation
and Analysis, 3rd ed., Wadsworth Publishing Company, Belmont, CA. 461
Masrek, M.N., Karim, N.S.A. and Hussein, R. (2008), “The effect of organizational and individual
characteristics on corporate intranet utilizations”, Information Management & Computer
Security, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 89-112.
Mei, Y.M., Lee, S.T. and Al-Hawamdeh, S. (2004), “Formulating a communication strategy for
effective knowledge sharing”, Journal of Information Science, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 12-22.
Mitroff, I.I. (1988), “Crisis management: cutting through the confusion”, Sloan Management
Review, Vol. 29 No. 2, pp. 15-20.
Mitroff, I.I. (1994), “Crisis management and environmentalism: a natural fit”, California
Management Review, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 101-13.
Mitroff, I.I., Alpaslan, M.C. and Green, S.E. (2004), “The FPRUM crises as ill-structured messes”,
International Studies Review, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 169-94.
Nishiguchi, T. and Beaudet, A. (1998), “Case study: the Toyota group and the Aisin fire”, Sloan
Management Review, Vol. 40 No. 1, pp. 49-59.
Nonaka, I., Toyama, R. and Konno, N. (2000), “SECI, ba and leadership: a unified model of
dynamic knowledge creation”, Long Range Planning, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 5-34.
Pearson, C.M. and Clair, J.A. (1998), “Reframing crisis management”, The Academy of
Management Review, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 59-76.
Pearson, C.M. and Rondinelli, D.A. (1998), “Crisis management in central European firms”,
Business Horizons, Vol. 41 No. 3, pp. 50-60.
Phusavat, K. and Kess, P. (2008), “Roadmap for knowledge sharing and transfer: sustaining
outsourcing relationships”, International Journal of Innovation and Learning, Vol. 5 No. 5,
pp. 496-511.
Ratnasingam, P. (2007), “A risk-control framework for e-marketplace participation: the findings
of seven cases”, Information Management & Computer Security, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 149-66.
Richardson, B. (1994), “Socio-technical disasters: profile and prevalence”, Disaster Prevention and
Management, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 41-69.
Robert, B. and Lajtha, C. (2002), “A new approach to crisis management”, Journal of
Contingencies and Crisis Management, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 181-91.
Sahay, B.S. and Ranjan, J. (2008), “Real time business intelligence in supply chain analytics”,
Information Management & Computer Security, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 28-48.
Salter, J. (1997), “Risk management in a disaster context”, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis
Management, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 60-5.
Shaluf, I.M., Ahmadun, F. and Said, A.M. (2003), “A review of disaster and crisis”, Disaster
Prevention and Management, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 24-32.
Sheaffer, Z., Richardson, B. and Rosenblatt, Z. (1998), “Early-warning-signals management: a
lesson from the Barings Crisis”, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Vol. 6
No. 1, pp. 1-22.
Shrivastava, P. and Mitroff, I.I. (1987), “Strategic management of corporate crisis”, Columbia
Journal of World Business, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 5-11.
IMDS Simon, L. and Pauchant, T.C. (2000), “Developing the three levels of learning in crisis
management: a case study of the Hagersville tire fire”, Review of Business, Vol. 21 Nos 3/4,
109,4 pp. 6-11.
Smith, D. (1990), “Beyond contingency planning: toward a model of crisis management”,
Industrial Crisis Quarterly, Vol. 4 No. 4, pp. 263-75.
Smith, D. (2005), “Business (not) as usual: crisis management, service recovery and the
462 vulnerability of organizations”, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 19 No. 5, pp. 309-20.
Stubbart, C.I. (1987), “Improve the quality of crisis thinking”, Columbia Journal of World
Business, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 89-99.
Trochim, W. (1989), “Outcome pattern matching and program theory”, Evaluation and Program
Planning, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 355-66.
Turner, B.A. and Pedgeon, N.F. (1997), Man-made Disasters, 2nd ed., Butterworth-Heinemann,
Oxford.
Weber, R. (2004), “The rhetoric of positivism versus interpretivism”, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 28 No. 1,
pp. iii-xii.
Wickramasinghe, N. (2007), “Fostering knowledge assets in healthcare with the KMI model”,
International Journal of Management and Enterprise Development, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 52-65.
Yin, R.K. (2003), Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 3rd ed., Sage Publications, Thousand
Oaks, CA.
Zack, M.H. (1999), “Developing a knowledge strategy”, California Management Review, Vol. 41
No. 3, pp. 125-45.
Zhang, D., Zhou, L. and Nunamaker, J.F. (2002), “A knowledge management framework for the
support of decision making in humanitarian assistance/disaster relief”, Knowledge and
Information Systems, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 370-85.
Zhou, L., Vasconcelos, A. and Nunes, M. (2008), “Supporting decision making in risk
management through an evidence-based information systems project risk checklist”,
Information Management & Computer Security, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 166-86.

Corresponding author
Wei-Tsong Wang can be contacted at: wtwang@mail.ncku.edu.tw

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com

Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints