Knowledge Management Systems in the Polish Private, State and Foreign Owned Companies

Abstract

The importance of knowledge management for enterprises increased significantly in the recent years. In this paper one element of knowledge management will be considered, namely knowledge management systems (KMS). The main purpose of this paper is to compare the level of use of KMS between Polish private and state owned companies as well as foreign owned enterprises of different size. To measure intensity of use of particular KMS technologies research questionnaire has been created. The sample was selected from Kompass Poland database and more than 1200 questionnaires have been collected. Statistical analysis of differences between target sections was conducted by Mann-Whitney U test. Overall analysis of results showed that foreign owned companies feature greater intensity of use of KMS functions than Polish state owned and private owned enterprises. Detailed results indicated that small and medium Polish private companies utilize discussed systems to a far lesser extent. Nevertheless, large private companies feature higher intensity of use of 4 out of 5 examined KMS than large state owned enterprises.