Influence of IT on Knowledge Management

Four of the organizations appear to correspond to our expectations on the influence of IT on KM: In NARI in the Gambia and in all Nigerian organizations, the ranking in IT is similar to ranking in KM. Two exceptions to this consistency were found. In MRC, a high level of ITI existed with low level of KM. In ITC, a high level of KM existed despite low level of ITI capability.

The ranking of IITA and NISER in both KM process assessment and their IT infrastructure capability tallied and reflects the way they have been able to apply the available IT infrastructure in supporting their knowledge management efforts. IITA had a well-developed IT infrastructure. NISER had a reasonable level of infrastructure, which is put into proper usage. In these two organizations, people have been able to put the IT infrastructure into proper use for the purpose of their work. NIMR and NARI had low IT infrastructure rank and they were also low in their KM assessment, thus showing the relationship between IT infrastructure and KM processes similar to IITA and NISER. MRC needs to be studied further to find out their specific deterrents to efficient KM despite high ITI capability. The performance of ITC in KM efforts could be explained by their strong focus on organizational efficiency and on research, leaving all the IT management of the small organization to be taken care of by an outside vendor (see Table 1).

Table 1: Nature of IT management, IT infrastructure capability and KM rankings

Name	IT Unit	Status of the Head	Outsourced services	IT Staff No.	Est. expenditure on IT per year (in US dollars)	Total Staff Strength	ITI capabilities ranking	KM efforts ranking
MRC	Yes	Expatriate	Some	7	$ 142 243	600	2	5
NARI	Yes	Local	Some	2	Not known	211	5	4
ITC	No	N/A	All	N/A	Not known	122	4	2
IITA	Yes	Expatriate	Some	10	$ 200 000	1400	1	1
NISER	Yes	Local	Some	8	$ 8 900	500	3	3
NIMR	Yes	Local	Some	4	Not known	130	5	6

ITC is the smallest among the case organizations, with about 122 staff members and attracts visitors and researchers from major agricultural research laboratories with interest in tropical agriculture. Due to their small size and their view towards IT, they do not see the need for running in-house IT department, as remarked by one interviewee. Hence they outsource the management of the IT unit to local companies.

"If your staff strength is not high, the cost benefit is not there…We have IT support from ITS and other ISP, that is better for us, because again of critical mass, there is no point hiring a permanent staff, if no computer breaks down in a month then he sits down idle. If there is a problem, then we call our engineers."

The Gambia is one of the smallest countries in the sub-region. There is a shortage of IT personnel. It also shares other difficulties facing the countries in the sub-region in the areas of training and low expertise. Nevertheless, there are a few IT companies serving the needs of local businesses. We do not go into detail of the kind of agreements ITC have with the outsourcing partners. However, they tried to avoid opportunism and monopolistic bargaining by using multiple competing vendors strategy (Ngwenyama and Bryson, 1999). From our interview, we are aware that they use at least two different outsourcing partners, the Internet service provision is from one company while the regular IT management services are from another.

"Now it is difficult and we have asked for a network and we are hoping, a man was just here from QuantumNet or ITS to make a budget for Network."