Knowledge management in non-pro®t
organizations
Emanuele Lettieri, Francesca Borga and Alberto Savoldelli
Emanuele Lettieri is a Ph.D.
Student (emanuele.lettieri@polimi.it),
Francesca Borga is a Researcher
(francesca.borga@polimi.it), and
Alberto Savoldelli is a Contracting
Professor (alberto.savoldelli@
polimi.it), all in the Department of
Management, Economics and
Industrial Engineering, Politecnico
di Milano, Milan, Italy.
`` NPOs are knowledge-intensive organizations. ''
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| JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Abstract The non-pro®t sector is at present involved in a deep renewal process. Non-pro®t
organizations are required to deliver tailored and high-quality services in order to overcome
environmental complexity and scarcity of resources. In this context, non-pro®t organizations are
being called to reengineer their core processes and organizational paradigms. To achieve
excellence, all available resources should be managed with increased effectiveness and
ef®ciency, the most important of these being knowledge. This paper contributes to the literature
about the role which knowledge management plays in achieving excellence in the non-pro®t
sector. In particular, the main results from an explorative survey of Italian non-pro®t
organizations are formalized and discussed.
Keywords Knowledge management, Non-pro®t organizations
Introduction
The non-pro®t sector (also called the ``third sector'') encompasses all the organizations aimed
at creating social value for society as a whole and which do not recognize as their main goal the
creation of pro®t for stockholders. This sector is at present involved in a deep renewal process
that is changing both the structure of the sector and its internal workings (Borzaga and Santuari,
2000; Lester, 1999; Ryan, 1999; Rifking, 1997). Non-pro®t organizations (NPOs) are required to
continuously improve their performance. The demand for services that are integrated, tailored
and timely, urges NPOs to follow new managerial paradigms.
Although this challenge is intuitively understood, neither the implications, nor how to pursue
these goals is clear (Mason and Melandri, 1999; Teebe, 1996). The heterogeneity of the non-
pro®t sector makes it extremely hard to de®ne a general roadmap to achieve excellence: the
de®nition of guidelines that ®t with the speci®c contingencies of an NPO is a utopian ideal; on
the other hand the de®nition of broad guidelines could produce useful hints for the speci®c
NPO. A possible way to solve such a dilemma is to identify which are the levers (success
factors) that promote achievement of excellence. In this view, the ability to manage
appropriately the available assets (knowledge in primis) is one of these factors. The creation
of an organizational culture that promotes knowledge generation, sharing and exploitation
| VOL. 8 NO. 6 2004, pp. 16-30, ã Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1367-3270 DOI 10.1108/13673270410567602
seems to be a necessary premise in order to create NPOs that are innovative, ¯exible, effective
and ef®cient. Only by identifying and sharing the available knowledge spread across the whole
organization, can each worker operate appropriately, synthesizing in each action he takes all
the experience the whole organization has matured until that moment. In this way, the
experience of each worker (especially the ones who are involved directly in providing services) is
®ltered by the successes and failures acquired by the whole organization.

Area of investigation and research questions

NPOs are knowledge-intensive organizations. Their knowledge-capital is heterogeneous,
widespread, rarely formalized and unstable (because of the considerable turnover rates among
volunteer workers). The creation of a corpus of knowledge that is unique, formalized and usable
by all members is a challenge that the NPOs are facing at present. The good practices
successfully developed by some local branches of an NPO, the impressions that the volunteers
gather day-by-day, the laws approved by the institutions for speci®c areas of intervention, the
means the sponsors use to evaluate the performance of the NPO they want to fund, are part of
the knowledge-corpus that an NPO should be able to manage. At present, such a corpus is
rarely formalized and usable because it is split among different people. The fragmentation of
knowledge (above all among the several branches of the same NPO) reduces the effectiveness
of actions, restricts cost-containment and makes dif®cult cross-fertilization between the
individuals involved.
In this context, the following research questions were formalized:
J How can strategies aimed at promoting the identi®cation, formalization, sharing, exploitation
of knowledge (spread among the community of those working with an NPO), contribute to
performance improvement and achievement of excellence?
J Are NPOs naturally inclined to manage knowledge? Are the different members that make up
the community around NPOs naturally inclined to create and share knowledge?
J Which characteristics are required to build up a strategy to support appropriately knowledge
management (KM) in NPOs?
J What are the key typologies of knowledge within a non-pro®t community? What is their
epistemology and their ontology (Nonaka and Takeughi, 1998)?
Within this broad area of investigation, this paper aims to discuss the main insights achieved
during explorative research. The boundaries of this ®rst piece of research are within the single
NPO (including local branches), excluding the external stakeholders (users, sponsors,
institutions) and partners in providing social services. Four in-depth case studies have allowed
us to:
(1) design a tailored framework to research the impact that an adequate strategy of knowledge
management (KM) has on performance;
(2) de®ne a nature-based taxonomy of the knowledge within an NPO, identifying its
epistemology and ontology;
(3) verify their position within the general cycle of KM; and
(4) identify the factors that affect the approach NPOs adopts towards KM.

State of the art in the non-pro®t sector and in knowledge management

The non-pro®t sector comprises heterogeneous groups, from small local associations managed
by a few volunteers to large international organizations with thousands of members and
many local branches. Besides this, some common characteristics can be identi®ed to give
physiognomy and unity to the sector (Borga et al., 2001; Ambrosio and Bandini, 1999; Caselli,
1998; Fiorentini, 1997):
J the existence of strategic goals that are not strictly linked to the creation of economic pro®t for
the stockholders: to achieve positive economic/®nancial targets is a means to pursue the
mission and not the key-target;

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| JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
| PAGE 17
 `` Within a non-pro®t community, knowledge is generated
and ¯ows through four different cycles.
''
J the need to achieve a large consensus on strategy because of the associative nature of NPOs
which requires agreed values and high motivation of the human resources (above all among
the volunteers);
J the provision of products and services characterized by a signi®cant relational content, often
strictly related to emotional and intangible factors and to the speci®c person who provides the
products or services;
J the focus in the short-term on resource allocation, because of the preference for activities
which give immediate results, rather than for long-term investments whose bene®ts are
postponed and uncertain;
J the presence of voluntary resources, often characterized by heterogeneous experience (and
knowledge), high motivation, non continuous presence and high rates of turnover; and
J the capacity to build cooperative relationships with other stakeholders, building communities
around speci®c social needs/problems; the various members (volunteers, employees,
sponsors local authorities, etc.) of those communities make available resources of different
types in order to achieve the agreed goals (Lettieri et al., 2002).
Within a non-pro®t community, knowledge is generated and ¯ows through four different cycles
(Quagli, 2001), shifting towards broader sharing environments (Figure 1). The ®rst cycle deals
with an individual level, where knowledge is created and exploited by the single person. The
second cycle introduces the activities of transfer and sharing and explains how to shift from the
individual to the group level. Through further efforts to formalize and diffuse (third cycle),
knowledge is made available to the whole organization, while the fourth cycle overcomes the
boundaries of the NPO to embrace the whole community (after an effort of integration).

State of the art in knowledge management

Although KM can support NPOs in achieving excellence, both academia and practitioners have
dedicated modest efforts to understanding such an implication. Rare efforts have been made to

Figure 1 Knowledge development cycles within a non-pro®t community

I cycle
(individual level)

Use
Transfer and
II cycle
(group level) Sharing
Creation

Formalisation
and Diffusion
Integration
IV cycle
(community level) III cycle
(organisation level)

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| JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
| VOL. 8 NO. 6 2004
design and implement knowledge management systems (KMSs) for the NPOs, and fewer
efforts still have been dedicated to research in this ®eld.
On the other hand, more attention has been paid to KM in the for-pro®t sector, where in the last
two decades several scholars have contributed to outlining the theoretical structure of the ®eld.
Two main research streams can be highlighted, which differ depending on the object under
investigation.
The ®rst stream focuses on understanding the concept of ``knowledge,'' emphasizing the
various attributes and formalizing different taxonomies. Knowledge has been de®ned as a range
of information (Zack, 1999; Davenport and Prusak, 1998) through which the single individual is
able to select the most appropriate actions in order to react to external pressures. The
knowledge an individual holds is ®ltered by his mind set and the ®nal form is strictly linked to his
culture and values (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995).
More taxonomies have been de®ned. Zack (1999) designs a taxonomy based on nature,
highlighting three main groups: declarative (know what), procedural (know how) and causal
(know why). On the other hand, Nonaka (1991) chooses as a criterion the level of diffusion within
a reference environment and de®nes knowledge held by individuals, groups, a whole
organization and several organizations. Then, Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) evaluate the level of
formalization (explicit vs. tacit knowledge).
The second main stream focuses on the concept of ``knowing,'' describing the process of KM.
Knowledge is accumulated dynamically (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990); its generation is due to
incremental processes, in which the available information is synthesized with the memory of
both the individual and the organization. The models present in literature focus on two different
issues: on the one hand the focus is on the identi®cation of the phases that make up the
knowledge ¯ow, and on the other hand the focus is on the contextual factors that enable the
¯ow.

Within the ®rst group, Bollinger and Smith (2001) describe organizational knowledge as a key-
asset that fosters the achievement of a competitive advantage. Bhatt (2001) argues core
competences grow from the symbiotic relationship between foreground knowledge (easy to
get, to codify, to imitate) and background knowledge (tacit and not easily transferable). Sarvary
(1999), focusing on consultancy companies, highlights that KM is a business process through
which a company creates and exploits its own knowledge (both institutional and collective).
Zack (1999) focuses on the management of explicit knowledge, researching the resources that
are necessary to manage it.

Besides formalizing the phases that build knowledge ¯ow, some scholars studied the external/
internal factors that can foster or hamper that ¯ow (that is often not spontaneous) both at an
individual and collective level. Von Krogh (1998) highlights how important it is to take care of the
informal relationships within a company to boost knowledge dissemination and sharing among
the workers. Lang (2001) argues that human relationships are one of the key-enabler factors for
a KM strategy and demonstrates how these relationships are strictly linked to the organizational
culture (according to the concept of an entrepreneurial-administrative continuum). Inkpen
(1996) analyses how knowledge is created and spread among a network of enterprises linked
by partnerships. Some factors which can boost KM are the de®nition of ¯exible targets for
education, the commitment of top management, a culture based on trust, a tolerance of
redundancy, the existence of a creative chaos and myopia towards pro®t-related performance.
Leonard and Sensiper (1998) commit themselves to researching the role tacit knowledge plays
in team-creativity and innovation, and formalizing the concept of ``creative abrasion.'' KM is
enabled by metaphors and high levels of abstraction, whose meaning is understood only at a
tacit level. Kim and Mauborgne (1997) recognize that both knowledge creation and sharing are
intangible activities, which should not constrained by strict controls since they only come about
when people cooperate on a voluntary basis. In this view, they introduce the concept of ``fair
process'' since people want (and need): their ideas to be evaluated and managed seriously;
and the evaluation criteria to be transparent and well known. Trussler (1998) argues that an

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 `` The knowledge an individual holds is ®ltered by his
mind set and the ®nal form is strictly linked to his
culture and values.
''
effective KM strategy should be supported by top management commitment, culture,
technology and continuous improvement tools. Andrews and Delahaye (2000) research the
process of knowledge transfer in the bio-medical sector. They recognize two main stages:
internal knowledge sharing with others and knowledge adoption from external sources. These
stages are affected by three main factors: social con®dence, perceived trust and perceived
reliability. Together they de®ne the psycho-social ®lter.
The models and the theoretical framework suitable for the for-pro®t sector could be a useful
point from which to start developing and testing models and tools tailored for the non-pro®t
sector. It is important to recognize the peculiarities of the NPOs, mitigate their weaknesses and
needs, and understand the role each member within the community should play in order to
create and manage knowledge.

Research methodology and theoretical models adopted

The explorative stage of this research was conducted from July 2001 to June 2002. The aim
was twofold: to investigating the characteristics of KM in the non-pro®t sector; and to design a
few models for effective KM in NPOs. The importance of understanding in detail how NPOs
work and the lack of literature on KM in NPOs meant using case studies during this explorative
stage (Yin, 1994). A sample of four NPOs (``Consorzio nazionale della cooperazione sociale
Gino Mattarelli'' ± consortium CGM, ``Fondazione IDEA,'' ``SocietaÁ San Vincenzo de' Paoli,''
``A.B.I.O. ± Associazione per il bambino in ospedale'') was selected. All these NPOs have a
network of local branches that covers all the Italian territory. Two to ten local branches for each
NPO were studied through semi-structured interviews with both volunteers and workers. The
reasons behind the de®nition of such a sample were to isolate the variable ``position along the
life cycle'': all the NPOs operate in the area of social services; the major difference is their
maturity (Fiorentini, 1997). In order to assure objectivity in the analysis, several triangulations
were made comparing data and interviews.
Three theoretical models were developed and used during this stage:
(1) a model that explains how NPOs can pursue excellence, and how an adequate strategy for
KM can contribute to this challenge;
(2) a model that formalizes the main phases in the KM process in the non-pro®t sector, in order
to map the internal/external factors that can affect that process; and
(3) a grid that supports the classi®cation of the knowledge held by an NPO, in order to clarify the
main characteristics of this knowledge.
In the following lines, each model will be brie¯y described.
NPOs are said to operate fully in a social system when they are aware of a community of
heterogeneous actors and when they are able to catalyze the resources that these people
provide in order to solve (or ameliorate) speci®c social needs. In playing this role, NPOs should
aspire to excellence. The adoption of techniques (and tools) for KM is a key lever, which alone is
not enough. A KM strategy must be coherent and integrated with a comprehensive strategy
whose goal is to pursue excellence, highlighting the mutual relationships among the planned
improvement programs.
The performance of an NPO can be evaluated from ®ve main perspectives (Figure 2) that identify
®ve different capabilities an NPO should have (Lettieri et al., 2002):
(1) ``community'' is the ability to build and manage a committed need-driven community;
(2) ``vision and strategy'' is the ability to translate a vision into both long-term strategies and
short-term activities;

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| JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
| VOL. 8 NO. 6 2004
Figure 2 The role of KM in performance improvement and in achieving excellence

SOCIAL VALUE
CREATION

SUSTAINABILITY EFFECTIVENESS
IN THE & REPUTATION
MID-RUN PERIOD & IDENTITY & AWARENESS
COMMUNITY
MANAGEMENT
& FINANCIAL
ECONOMIC

STRATEGY
NEEDS

& VISION
COMMUNITY
BUILDING

SERVICE MAINTENANCE
& PROCESS DURING
EFFICIENCY THE TIME

ASSET
MANAGEMENT

(3) ``social value creation'' is the ability to deliver social values, pursuing a high-quality outcome;
(4) ``asset management'' is the ability to manage all resources ± tangible and intangible (such
as knowledge) ± available within the network of local branches; and
(5) ``economic/®nancial viability'' is the ability to survive in the medium or long term.
According to this model, the main bene®ts that a KM strategy can address in an NPO are:
J a major ``gluing'' effect on the members of the need-driven community ± a unique and usable
knowledge on the part of the actors and the increased identi®cation with and awareness of
the objectives of the NPO;
J an empowered capability to create social value, from the ability to translate into practice all
the experience developed during the previous years;
J a higher operative and allocative ef®ciency, because of a deeper understanding of how the
NPO works, how the processes work and which level of performance could be achieved;
J an improved ability to maintain in the medium and long term coherence between the vision
and the short-term programs; and
J an enhanced ability to both manage and enlarge a need-driven community, pursuing
coherence between the skills/knowledge required and the skills/knowledge available, setting
realistic development plans.
The model that Quagli (2001) proposed indicates how knowledge ¯ows within an NPO, from the
single person to the whole community. However, such a process is not spontaneous; to
achieve positive and lasting results an NPO has to steer and support it through proper KM
interventions.

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 Matching the literature regarding the steps of the KM process (e.g. Nonaka and Takeuchi,
1995; Nonaka and Konno, 1998; Davenport and Prousak, 1998; Zack, 1999; Bhatt, 2001) with
both the contingencies and needs of the non-pro®t sector analysis, the following seven-step
process has been designed (Figure 3). This model indicates how an NPO should manage
knowledge to achieve the maximum bene®ts from it and from the community context.
The ®rst step is knowledge acquisition, i.e. knowledge should be acquired and brought into the
NPO from various sources (day-to-day experience, external information, operators'/volunteers'
know-how, community input). This step encompasses all the activities, performed both at
individual and group level, to collect and exploit knowledge, before being formalized and
diffused to the whole organization. A tendency of NPOs is to maintain the knowledge in an
implicit format and share it through informal and personal contacts, even when it could be
codi®ed. This behavior can cause a low level of sharing, imprecise exploitation and high
dispersion. The activity of codi®cation is aimed at gathering the available knowledge using
common formats, previously evaluated and approved. This does not mean converting all
available knowledge into explicit formats, tacit knowledge can be codi®ed using speci®c
formats, such as reports, success stories, or simply by creating ``yellow pages'' for indicating
who knows what (Davenport et al., 1998). Value-added activities are the assessment of the
individual's knowledge and its transformation into knowledge which can be used by the whole
organization. Once codi®ed, knowledge can be stored in proper repositories (such as
databases, archives, manuals, or in people's minds) and then retrieved according to the users'
needs. This activity should be kept as simple, fast and precise as possible, in order to make
knowledge really accessible and useful inside the organization. The next step deals with
knowledge distribution and presentation. Knowledge distribution means making it accessible to
whoever can use it. In doing this, the form of presentation is important: the de®nition of standard
and easily usable formats helps people to exploit in the best possible way the knowledge
present inside the organization. Moreover, different kinds of people (managers, professionals,
volunteers, sponsors, etc.) probably need information to be presented in different ways,
depending on how they have to use it. Considering the plurality of actors of a non-pro®t

Figure 3 The cycle of knowledge management

2–Codification

organisation
3–Storage
1–Acquisition - Evaluation 4–Retrieval
Tacit - Formalisation Systems
- Homogeneisation to store
Explicit knowledge - Definition
knowledge of simple
and efficient
rules
Technological
Infrastucture

External
souces 7–Creation 6–Application 5–Diffusion & Presentation

- Foster - Definition - definizione di canali

community

innovation of standard formali per la

and procedures distribuzione
creativity - standardizzazione dei
formati di

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| JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
| VOL. 8 NO. 6 2004
`` Acomprehensive
KM strategy must be coherent and integrated with a
strategy whose goal is to pursue
excellence.
''
community, it is easy to note that ¯exibility is another important characteristic of a KM system for
NPOs.
After that, knowledge can ®nally be applied, that is to say transformed into action and used for
NPO activities. In doing so, the organization accumulates new experiences, interacts with other
subjects and generates new ideas and, through this, it is able to create new knowledge for
nourishing and restarting the whole process. In this sense, the creation activity includes also
knowledge integration, as de®ned in the previous paragraph.
On the whole, the knowledge path is indeed a cyclical process that activates and nourishes
itself. In each step of this path, different members of the NPO's community could participate,
but normally the ``operative'' activities (knowledge acquisition, codi®cation, storing and
retrieving) are managed at organizational level, while the activities of diffusion, application and
creation should involve all the members of the community.
A key issue is to map the knowledge spread within an NPO, highlighting the core knowledge
and its critical attributes. To achieve this goal a speci®c grid was de®ned, matching three
orthogonal dimensions (Figure 4):
(1) the nature, distinguishing tacit vs. explicit knowledge (the latter split into codi®ed or not),
(Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Zack, 1999);
(2) the level of diffusion, distinguishing between whether the knowledge is held by individuals or
groups (Nonaka, 1993); and
(3) the holders of knowledge, recognizing three main clusters (volunteers, employees and
managers) inside an NPO ± all the other members of the NPO's community which are
outside of the NPO's boundaries are rejected, being out of the scope of this research.
The speci®c position within the grid clari®es the main characteristics of the different knowledge
typologies within an NPO. The ideal con®guration is when knowledge is mainly held at group
level and is codi®ed, in order to reduce as much as possible the dependence on speci®c

Figure 4 Knowledge map within an NPO

Codified
Knowledge Nature (Ontology)

TARGET
Explicit

Codified
Non
Tacit

TARGET

Main
Main from Main from Main from Main from Main from
Holders from
volunteers managers volunteers employees managers
employees
At an individual level Shared among groups
Knowledge Level of Diffusion (Epistemology)

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 individuals (above all on the volunteers who have high turnover rates). In accordance with
Zack (1999), the presence of tacit knowledge which cannot be made explicit is inevitable;
nevertheless, this knowledge can be codi®ed and managed. An adequate KM strategy should
favor these results, helping the NPO to codify the available knowledge and to transfer the
knowledge from an individual level to a group one.

Findings from the case studies

The models described in the previous section were utilized to structure an in-depth analysis of
four case studies. The sample includes large-sized Italian NPOs (for funds raised and volunteers
involved), that are present in the whole Italian territory as a network of local branches
(``Consorzio nazionale della cooperazione sociale Gino Mattarelli'' ± consortium CGM,
``Fondazione IDEA,'' ``SocietaÁ San Vincenzo de' Paoli,'' ``A.B.I.O. ± Associazione per il
bambino in ospedale''). All the NPOs operate in the social services ®eld, but are characterized
by a different status, a different position in their life-cycle, and a different service-mix (Table I).
The data was collected during semi-structured interviews, involving a panel of employees,
volunteers and managers. Due to the network nature of the NPOs, 2-10 local branches for each
NPO were interviewed, collecting 20 panel interviews. All the information was cross-checked
(mainly with documents like strategic plans and annual reports) in order to increase the average
reliability of the data collecting process.
Although the sample of the analysis was composed only by Italian organizations, the results of
the study seem not to be affected by country-speci®c issues. According to authors' experience,
other factors ± as the juridical form, the sector of activity, or the dimensions of the organization ±
impact the behavior of NPOs more than the place of origin. However it has to be noted that the
typical structure of NPOs varies in the different geographical area, thus the considered sample
is probably representative of the more common organizations in Italy and in the South of
Europe, while in other areas they represent just a minority of existing NPOs.

Knowledge-taxonomy within the NPOs

The case study analysis highlighted some common and speci®c clusters of knowledge within
the NPOs. In particular, six main groups can be de®ned according to their nature:
(1) Accounting/administrative knowledge: i.e. the knowledge required to manage an NPO
from the economic-legal perspective; it is explicit in all the four NPOs at an individual level,
except for CGM, which is owned by the employees in CGM and ABIO and by the volunteers
in Saint Vincenzo and IDEA.
(2) Managerial/organizational knowledge: i.e. the knowledge required to both coordinate
and manage the human resources and activities/processes; it is explicit and shared in all the

Table I The sample of NPOs included in the research

ABIO Consortium CGM Fondation IDEA Saint Vincenzo

Sector of activity Social services Social services Social services Social services
Status Association of volunteers Trust of trusts ?? of Research-aimed foundation Association of
cooperatives volunteers
Main activities Nursing and entertainment Coordination and support of Support, research sensitivity Help for families and
for children in hospital the trusts of cooperatives towards anxiety, depression the needy
Year of foundation 1978 1987 1993 1842
No. of persons About 4,000 About 23,000 About 300 About 19,600
Persons typology Mainly volunteers Mainly employees Mainly volunteers Only volunteers
No. of branches 52 local branches 5 trusts and 900 7 local branches 1,921 local branches
cooperatives
Life cycle position Development Maturity Creation Maturity

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| VOL. 8 NO. 6 2004
 NPOs, but in IDEA, where it is individually-held. Knowledge about KM itself belongs to this
cluster.
(3) Teaching/training knowledge: i.e. the knowledge about how to train and update the skills
of both employees and volunteers. This knowledge is critical for the NPOs characterized by
a high-level of volunteer-turnover rates. It is usually formalized and held at group level;
(4) Fund raising/public relation management (PRM)/marketing knowledge: i.e. the
knowledge required to both de®ne and manage relationships with the providers of ®nancial
resources, like partners, private sponsors, ®rms and local authorities;
(5) Operational knowledge: i.e. the knowledge utilized in daily activities; it is heterogeneous
and speci®c to the single NPO: it varies between socio-healthcare notions to the under-
standing of the issues of deprived-areas, from ways of re-introducing (disagiate)
disadvantaged workers (like ex-prisoners) into the labor market to techniques to support
and entertain children that are in hospital for long periods.
(6) Miscellaneous, non-characteristic knowledge: i.e. the knowledge continually acquired
from external sources ± above all from the volunteers ± and related to the life/background of
each operator. It is always in a non-explicit format and it is often neglected.
The full set of knowledge found in the four NPOs is synthesized in Table II, using the previous
taxonomy. The proposed categories cover with adequate precision the spectrum of knowledge
spread over the whole network of NPOs.
The above taxonomy is speci®c for the non-pro®t sector and is related to the taxonomies
proposed in the literature (Zack, 1999; Blacler, 1995). The latter typology ± miscellaneous and
non-characteristic knowledge ± is different from the previous ones. It collects all the knowledge
held by each individual that are not directly linked to the activities of a speci®c NPO. This
knowledge is a creative mean for the NPOs; although it is often ignored and its exploitation is
neglected, it can foster the achievement of radical performance improvements through
innovative solutions. The value of this knowledge is that people spend only a small part of their
spare time working in the NPOs, while they spend a large part developing other knowledge in
other activities (related to their job, recreation time, hobbies, etc.). So the NPOs are able to

Table II Knowledge taxonomy within the sample of analyzed NPOs

Knowledge ABIO Consortium CGM Fondation IDEA Saint Vincenzo

Accounting/ J Accounting J Accounting J Accounting J Accounting

administrative J Administrative J Budgeting J Administrative J Administrative
Managerial/ J Ward management J Managerial ± J Managerial ± J Organisational ±
organisational J Coordination of consultancy organisational motivational
volunteers, hospital J Social tourism J Coordination local J Organisational ±
groups, local branches J Know-how for branches managerial
J HR recruiting information
management
Teaching/training J Teaching J Teaching J Teaching J Coaching
J Educational J Educational J Educational
J Organisational J Training J Training
J Training J Coaching
Fund raising/PRM/ J Marketing J PR management J Marketing J PR management
marketing J Fund raising J Fund raising
J PR management
Operational J Know-how on safety, J Consultancy skills J Call center J Teaching ±
laws J Know-how on social management organisational
J Behavioural skills tourism J Behavioural skills J Socio ± psychological
J Entertainment skills J Know about laws
Miscellaneous J Previous experience in J Previous experience in J Know-how about
non-characteristic teaching pharmacy religions

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 exploit the miscellaneous knowledge their operators have. If well exploited and stored, this
knowledge could be a distinct advantage for the NPOs. In fact, the high turnover rate of
volunteers increases the acquisition of this heterogeneous knowledge more than in the for-pro®t
companies and assures new knowledge acquired seamlessly. The key challenge is the
evaluation, formalization and storage of this hidden knowledge.

Knowledge ¯ow in the NPOs analyzed

The case study analysis clearly highlighted the tendency of NPOs to maintain knowledge at
an implicit and individual level, even when the knowledge could be codi®ed and shared within
the network (Figure 5). In particular, the knowledge included in the clusters accounting/
administrative, organizational/managerial and fund raising/PMR/marketing is often encountered
at an individual level. This can be due, in some cases, to a modest commitment of the NPO to
make that knowledge accessible and visible to the whole organization, but it is often related also
to a limited interest on the part of the volunteers in organizational and administrative aspects.
In this view, the knowledge ¯ow (Figure 6) con®rms that not all the typologies of knowledge
complete the full-cycle and each of them covers that cycle to a different degree. For instance,
the accounting/administrative knowledge is normally well managed and all the steps are
covered. Thus, the reason why that knowledge is modestly shared within the network is
probably due to cultural barriers and not to technical issues. Differently, the knowledge
regarding managerial/organizational and fund raising/PMR/marketing knowledge issues is
usually codi®ed, stored and retrieved by the previous owners, while it is rarely shared, spread
and updated. Operative knowledge, in the NPOs analyzed, is always codi®ed and shared
among the operators. This knowledge is normally well managed and the NPOs clearly require
precise and formal procedures and guidelines for operators, in order to reduce organizational
dependence on single people, to more easily organize training courses and to provide higher
quality and standards for the services provided. This ®nding is opposite to the general wisdom
that NPOs work mainly with implicit knowledge due to the intangible nature of their services.
This apparent contradiction is due to the characteristics of the sample. Among NPOs, the level

Figure 5 Knowledge characteristics in the analyzed organizations

A (2-3) A (1) A (3) A (5)

Codified
Knowledge Nature (Ontology)

C (1-2-3-5) C (2-3)
I (1) I (5) I (3)
Explicit

V(1) V (2-3-5)
A (2) A (3) A (2-4)
Codified
Non

C (2-5) C (5)
I (2-4) I (5) I (3)
V (5) V (2-4)
A (2)
Tacit

C (3-6) C (2)
I (6) I (6)
V (2-6) V (6)
Main from Main from Main from Main from Main from Main from
Holders
volunteers employees managers volunteers employees managers
At an individual level Shared among groups
Knowledge Level of Diffusion (Epistemology)

Key:

A = ABIO ; C = Consorzio CGM ; I = Fondazione Idea ; V = San Vincenzo

1 = accounting/administrative K; 2 = managerial/organisational K; 3 = teaching/training K
4 = fund raising/PRM/marketing K; 5 = operational K; 6 = miscellanea, non-characteristic K

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| VOL. 8 NO. 6 2004
 Figure 6 The knowledge management process in the organizations analyzed

ABIO
Accounting/ Cons. CGM
Administrative Fond. IDEA
S. Vincenzo
ABIO
Managerial/ Cons. CGM
Organisational Fond. IDEA
S. Vincenzo
ABIO
Teaching/ Cons. CGM
Training Fond. IDEA
S. Vincenzo
Fund Raising/ ABIO
Public Relation Cons. CGM
Mgmt Fond. IDEA
Marketing S. Vincenzo
ABIO
Cons. CGM
Operational
Fond. IDEA
S. Vincenzo
ABIO
Miscellanea Cons. CGM
Non-characteristic Fond. IDEA
S. Vincenzo
Codification

Presentation
Distribution
Acquisition

Utilisation
Retrieval

Creation
Storage

of formalization of the KM process is strictly linked to some contingencies, such as the

closeness to the for-pro®t paradigms and the size. The sample includes only large-size NPOs,
organized as a network of local branches. The need to assure homogeneous services across
the whole network means moving beyond the simple sharing of a set of moral values and
obliges NPOs to seek standardization procedures (involving KM issues). Anyway this result
demonstrates that the knowledge at the basis of NPOs activities can be explicated and
formalized. If this is not done it is due to a choice of the organization or to contingent conditions,
not to superior, intrinsic reasons related to the sector. In all the four NPOs analyzed, the
operational knowledge seems to be codi®able in a large part; where it is still not codi®ed, the
reasons are exogenous to the nature of knowledge and are to be linked to the modest
commitment of the governing board, the excessive focus on the short-term and the absence of
a long-term strategy to achieve excellence. In all the NPOs, the introduction of adequate tools
and procedures for KM could be an opportunity.
The teaching/training knowledge shows different patterns within the sample. Usually the
holders of this knowledge are the volunteers and it is codi®ed. Nevertheless, the training
process is modestly ef®cient, since the volunteers require a coaching approach and neglect to
use their ability to focus too soon on the operative activity. The miscellaneous and non-
characteristic knowledge seems not to be valued at present within the NPOs, which are rarely
aware of its possibilities. They are strictly related to their owners and are in non-codi®ed formats.
In this view, an adequate KM strategy for the non-pro®t sector should face the translation of this
hidden tacit knowledge into a usable and practical knowledge.

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 The case study analysis has also allowed the identi®cation of the ``as is'' status of KM within the
non-pro®t sector and to design both ``should be'' con®gurations and the actions necessary to
get there. These results are summarized in Table III.

The contingencies that affect KM in the non-pro®t sector

The case study analysis aims also at investigating what the contingencies are that mainly
in¯uence the design and implementation of an adequate KM strategy in NPOs. The literature
highlights some variables to describe the status of an NPO (Fiorentini, 1997), but studies
focused on the KM process are still missing. The small size of the sample (four NPOs) is not
representative of the Italian non-pro®t sector and does not allow statistical-based conclusions;
nevertheless interesting insights have been gathered. In particular, six main contingencies have
been recognized:
(1) Position in the life cycle: it is possible to recognize four different phases in the life cycle of
an NPO, from the creation/introduction, to growth, maturity and then (rarely) decline
(Fiorentini, 1997; Merlo, 1997). The position on a life cycle curve is not strictly related to the
NPO's age; it seems to be related to the maturity an NPO shows in both management and
operations. The more mature an organization is, the more aware it seems to be of KM issues
and more favorable to the introduction of ad-hoc procedures for KM. A possible explanation
is that the younger NPOs pay more attention to how to create a committed need-driven
community: only in a second stage (after the set of values related to their mission have been
established) do they begin to solve managerial issues, as a more ef®cient use of the available
resources, like knowledge.

Table III Most frequent problems and suggested actions for organizations analyzed
Knowledge Problem Action Expected results

Accounting/administrative J Risk of loss J Increased use of IT J Better and more ef®cient

knowledge
Organisational knowledge
Teaching/training knowledge
Fund raising/PRM/marketing
knowledge
Operational knowledge
Miscellaneous/non-characteristic
knowledge
J Mainly paper documents
J High workload
J Low ef®ciency
J Error repetition
J Re-invention of already
existing solutions
J Low accessibility of data
and information
J Inef®cient links between
operative base and board
J Training needs analysis
J Risk of loss of past
experiences
J Insuf®cient coordination of
training activities
J Only partial explanations
J Absence of speci®c roles
J Best practices not
explained
J Lack of job enrichment
J High turnover of volunteers
J Completely individual
J Not easily found
instruments
J Creation of electronic
databases
J Increased use of IT tools
J Creation of an organisation
memory
J Formalisation of and
support to internal
communication
J Creation of formal and single
archive
J Introduction of training
activities evaluation
J Team working
J Centralisation of training
activities
J Identi®cation of people
responsible
J Long period strategy
de®nition
J Archive creation for
operative data and case
history
J Formalised training paths
J Yellow pages and/or
knowledge map de®nition
J Team working
document management
J Workload reduction, saved
time
J Knowledge sharing
J Information ¯ow
rationalisation
J Reduction of experience
repetition
J Higher ef®ciency and
instruction effectiveness
J Uniform and coherent
training and awareness
activities
J Customised and improved
training activities
J Increased ef®ciency in
course organisation
J Increased fund raising
ability
J Increased reliability on FR
activities
J Best practices codi®cation
and diffusion
J Higher operators' autonomy
and ef®ciency
J Increased availability of
personal knowledge
J Cross-fertilization

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(2) Set of values: according to the case study, NPOs seem to be in¯uenced by the ethical or
cultural way of thinking of the particular historical-social context in which they were created
and operate. These roots in¯uence the KM process, creating a culture more or less
favorable to the introduction of ad-hoc KM solutions. For instance, the set of values behind
San Vincenzo obliges anonymity and secrecy among the volunteers: such a mind-set is
surely an insuperable barrier to knowledge sharing.
(3) Judicial status and context of activity: the NPO judicial status de®nes the boundaries of
its range of action, and, as a consequence, it in¯uences the sensibility of the governing
board towards KM issues. The NPOs which operate in a context nearer to the for-pro®t one
(such as social cooperatives) seem to be better disposed to design and develop speci®c KM
strategies than NPOs operating in contexts farther away from the rules typical of the pro®t
sector (such as volunteers' associations).
(4) Hierarchical network structure and level of autonomy: KM depends also on the internal
structure of the network of branches. NPOs characterized by low levels of autonomy, with a
centralized power structure, where the value-added activities are managed directly by the
headquarters, are less interested in KM issues; while the NPOs characterized by a network
of peer branches, with a high level of autonomy, pay more attention to KM (in particular to
sharing good practices), being more sensitive to communication ef®ciency and effective-
ness.
(5) Governing board background and operators' average age: KM methods are more
common in NPOs with more managers coming from the for-pro®t sector than in others. This
is probably due to the major experience of these managers in such issues, but also to a
minor suspicion towards solutions coming from the for-pro®t context.
(6) Operators average age and turnover: these factors in¯uence mainly the attitude to
change of a NPO. The introduction of KM solutions is more dif®cult when the age of the
operators is older or their permanence in the organization is longer, especially if relevant
changes on procedures and new IT infrastructure are required.

Conclusions and further research

The case study analysis has con®rmed the initial consideration that KM in an average Italian
NPO can be exploited to cope with the challenge of excellence achievement. The quest for high
degrees of effectiveness and ef®ciency can be supported and fostered by the introduction of
ad-hoc KM solutions. Increasing pressure from local authorities, users and volunteers are
moving NPOs towards the acquisition of all the skills and resources necessary for adequate KM
strategies and actions.
However, speci®c models that support the design and implementation of KM systems within the
non-pro®t landscape are still missing because this research stream has only recently been
de®ned. This paper contributes to the debate: contextualizing the problem of KM in NPOs
(de®ning a model that links KM and performance improvement); and de®ning operative models
for the ``as is'' analysis of how an NPO manages the knowledge spread among the network of
local branches (i.e. knowledge taxonomy, knowledge map, knowledge ¯ow). All the previous
models support the process of design and introduction of ad-hoc KM systems.
The next steps should include re®nement of the proposed models, thanks to the contribution of
other research into KM in the non-pro®t sector. Their explicative and normative capacities
should be tested. The in-depth analysis of the four case studies allowed an understanding of
both the dif®culties and potentialities KM could have for the NPOs, but a generalization was not
possible due to the small size of the sample.
Coherently with the research being carried out at present in the for-pro®t sector, scholars
involved in research into KM in the non-pro®t sector should investigate three parallel research
streams: (1) the understanding of the main attributes of knowledge, clarifying its ontology;
(2) making explicit the levers that can enhance the process of knowing, formalizing its
epistemology; and (3) the de®nition of a comprehensive framework for the assessment of
knowledge, in order to avoid an a critical and useless storage and management.

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| JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
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