There is no doubt that obtaining objective measures of actual performance improvements
directly attributable to KM initiatives would have strengthened the study. In
the absence of such measures, it is perhaps better to gather users’ perceptions that act
as proxies for performance. Moreover, in a cross-sectional study such as ours, when
one is studying the generalized effect of multiple KM initiatives across a number of organizations, the units of measure for business benefits can be problematic.