A knowledge management perspective on corporate portal: Processes and benefits

This pilot study examines a corporate portal from a knowledge management perspective by identifying the impacts of several corporate portal tools that support organizational knowledge management processes (such as acquisition, conversion, application and protection) on organizational processes (such as efficiency, effectiveness and innovation) and people (such as learning, adaptability and satisfaction). Preliminary analysis based on academic staff utilization of a corporate portal in a local university in Oman shows that providing tools through corporate portals that support knowledge conversion improves the effectiveness and efficiency of the organizational processes and people's learning, whereas providing tools that support knowledge applications improves the effectiveness of organizational processes as well as people learning, adaptability and satisfaction. Thus, the analysis indicates that knowledge conversion impacts organizational processes more than people, whereas the knowledge application impacts people more than organizational processes. Offering tools that support knowledge protection also improves the effectiveness of organizational processes. However, the preliminary analysis shows that knowledge acquisition process has no impact on organizational processes or people.