Factors affecting the adoption and practice of knowledge management in the life insurance industry in Taiwan

In the trend of globalization and coordination of banks, insurance and security companies, Taiwan life insurance industry has been facing tremendous competitive pressure. As a result of the shift from focusing on tangible resources to intangible resources, enterprises are seeking for gaining more and more competitive advantages through managing and maximizing their most valuable asset, i.e., knowledge. While knowledge management (KM) has been used and operated in the business world for decades, its applications, which involve recognition of knowledge, development of information system and support of organization, have just been initiated in Taiwan life insurance industry recently. The issues of knowledge management have been discussed widely by a number of researchers. However, there is a genuine lack of knowledge management adoption and practice model for the life insurance industry. This study addresses this research gap via conducting empirical surveys with an embedded qualitative field study among the life insurance enterprises in Taiwan. The research aims to examine the value of knowledge, perception of knowledge management and the factors of knowledge management adoption and practice in the context of Taiwan life insurance industry.