Expressions of Group Identities in a Organization-Wide KM Implementation

Large Information Technology (IT) organizations that implement Knowledge Management (KM) strategies contend with a number of internal organizational constituencies whose creation and sustenance while facilitating business operations, also introduces important challenges in the social landscape from a KM perspective. Organizational members tend to identify themselves closely with a host of intra and inter organizational entities and often issues of ‘identification’ come to the forefront subsequent to the implementation of a KM strategy that demands organization-wide support. Here, we analyze the qualitative data collected from an in-depth case study of the KM implementation at Wipro Technologies, one of India’s largest IT organizations and a KM pioneer, through the lens of the Social Identity Theory (SIT). Specifically, we looked at how the enactment and expression of group identities are embedded in the response of organizational members to KM. It emerged from the case that engineering an ‘identity switch’ among organizational members when they respond to information about organization-wide KM is the key to realizing the anticipated benefits from KM.