Segmenting critical factors for successful knowledge management implementation using the fuzzy DEMATEL method

Knowledge is a key source of sustainable competitive advantage. In response to increasingly drastic and competitive environments, many organizations wish to better utilize and manage knowledge for business success. For the purpose to execute formal knowledge management ( KM) effectively, some works have suggested several critical factors of KM implementations. However, in a strategic view, such a list of critical factors must be further honed to increase practical usefulness, as not all critical factors necessarily share the same importance. Moreover, assessing the importance of critical factors inevitably involves the vagueness of human judgment. Hence, this study presents a favorable method combining fuzzy set theory and the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method to segment the critical factors for successful KM implementations. Also, an empirical study is presented to illustrate the proposed method and to demonstrate its usefulness. (C) 2011 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.