Posted by Yogesh Malhotra on March 07, 1998 at 10:33:12:

In Reply to: No Proof? posted by Geoff Hamilton on March 01, 1998 at 09:26:30:

The problems involved in measurement of concepts such as 'knowledge' relate to the confounding variables and reliability and validity issues. We recall the old acronym - GIGO (Garbage In - Garbage Out)... inaccurate / invalid / unreliable measures give exactly what one puts into the process. The care needed for the development of reliable and valid measures that provide some assessment of what one is _really trying to measure_ is _extremely important_ to avoid setting up surrogates that have no relationship with the constructs they represent.

Hence, any ratios or indicators must be checked for the 'acid test' of adhering to the underlying theory... in other words... there has to be justifiable basis for knowing _if they make sense_ over and above the reliability and validity issues mentioned above. The key problem with such measures of KM and IC seems to be that of the construct validity... are we really _measuring_ what we are _trying to measure_... After all, most of our measures are simplifications that are attempting to capture our representations of complex concepts that have technological, human, psychological, organizational, economic and other dimensions.

Hence, KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid - often attributed to Schumacher) is the principle to be observed... however one may want to keep it simple [so that it may be easily communicable and replicable]... while attempting to avoid making it stupid [so that it 'makes sense']... In that spirit, the message to the buyers of KM solutions is 'Caveat Emptor' - seek solutions to the problems, but beware of 'snake oil' and 'silver bullets'... in other make sure that there is 'substance' under the 'hype.' [On a sidenote, such buyers may like to read the results of believing in 'hype' without assessing the 'substance' in the recent Information Week (Feb 16, 1998) story that chronicled the 70% failure rate in implementation of enterprise management packages. The URL of the story is:
http://www.techweb.co m/se/directlink.cgi?IWK19980216S0049
]

For more details on such measurement and validity issues, one may like to peruse:

Role of Measurement in Organizational Research, http://www.kmbook.com/compint.htm

For problems with often used measures of intellectual capital, one may like to peruse the Forbes ASAP special issues on Intellectual Capital available online:

Forbes ASAP: Special Issue on Intellectual Capital, http://www.forbes.com/asap/97/0407/

Sincerely,

Yogesh Malhotra

• Yogesh Malhotra

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