Using a practice-based perspective to inform the design of knowledge management systems : evidence from supporting (e-)banking activities

The existing mechanistic view of Knowledge Management (KM) pursued by most IT initiatives in this stream, perceiving knowledge as a commodity has proven inadequate to support the highly knowledge-intensive workplace contexts. Drawn from the generic ideas of “technologies-in-practice”, as suggested by Orlikowski (2000), we emphasize the necessity of attaching a more situated character in the technical propositions for KM. In the center of our perspective stand the notions of activities and work practices, as the explanatory tools for interpreting roles and experiences of actors. Work practices serve not only as the context to knowledge, but also as the anchoring point for the enactment of collective learning and thus the support of communities of practice. Our work is substantiated with recommendations for technical approaches to KM. We ground our propositions on the experience of implementing a KM solution for the support of a newly employed and strategically important (e-)banking role, the “Front-line Customer Service”.

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