Cultural Impact on Human Resistance - A Study of Companies Implementing Knowledge Management Software

Many organizations actively consider implementing technologies like Portals, Product lifecycle management and custom built Knowledge Management software. A successful Knowledge management implementation involves setting up the right process and managing the people in the organization to share their knowledge in the process. This paper looks into challenges involved in people sharing their knowledge and the resistance to change from a individual centric to enterprise centric knowledge management. A study is conducted to understand the reasons and factors behind resistance to change in people involved in adopting a Knowledge Management software application in their organization. This research investigates the relationship between cultural background and its impact on the degree of resistance and the expressive nature of resistance. The need for a culture specific approach towards implementation of knowledge management applications in India is investigated and discussed. This study intends to incorporate the learning towards a definition of a comprehensive software implementation methodology.