Overcoming Organisational Resistance to Using Wiki Technology for Knowledge Management

Although Wikis emerged in the public domain more than a decade ago, a number of business organisations are now discovering the advantages of using Wiki technology to manage knowledge. However, there are many who are not convinced about the merits of this relatively new Wiki technology and are not yet prepared to risk its adoption because it exhibits many ideas that have yet to be tested and many issues that have yet to be resolved. This paper studies the merits of using a Wiki for knowledge management. While some cases of corporate adoption of Wiki technology have been reported, cases of organisations deciding to disallow the instillation and use of Wikis are rarely reported. The paper focuses on the case of an organisation that has declined to adopt Wiki Technology by identifying some of the key organisational issues that have contributed to its resistance. These key issues include the challenge to centralised control of Information Systems, as well as social elements, such as a lack of recognition of authorship, vandalism and slander. The very nature of a Wiki makes it difficult to apply traditional Intellectual Property rights, such as copyright, and this may give rise to legal controversies and conflicts of interpretations. This paper concludes with recommendations on how to overcome the obstacles that can deter organisations from using Wiki technology to act as a knowledge conduit for the organisation.