Intranet characteristics as determinants of intranet utilisation for knowledge management in Nigerian banks

Abstract

Background: All banks in Nigeria have fully implemented an intranet, and it has been used to link all branches across the country and provide access to varieties of information and facilitate knowledge management (KM) activities. The potential of the intranet to facilitate KM in an organisation is well spelled in the literature. However, little attention has been given to its use for KM, and factors that determine its use for KM in Nigerian banks have not been examined. Objectives: This study investigates the determinants of intranet utilisation for knowledge management in Nigerian banks from the users’ perspective. Methods: A survey was adopted and a questionnaire was distributed to 555 banks’ employees across 11 banks head office in Lagos, Nigeria. Data collected were analysed using frequencies and percentages, Pearson multiple correlations, and multiple linear regression. Results: The result shows that the intranet is used for knowledge creation, storage, retrieval, distribution, and application in Nigerian banks. Furthermore, system quality was found to be the best predictor of the four KM processes followed by task technology fit, while service quality was not. Conclusion: The study concluded that system quality is the most important intranet feature in predicting intranet utilisation for all the KM processes followed by perceived task technology fit, while service quality was found not to be a good predictor. Contribution: This study is unique and one of the pioneer studies in Nigeria that focused on using intranet to manage knowledge in the Nigerian banking sector. The study identified intranet characteristics that are best predictors of KM processes.

Keywords

• knowledge management
• knowledge creation
• knowledge storage and retrieval
• knowledge distribution
• knowledge application
• intranet utilisation
• task technology fit
• system quality
• information quality
• service quality