Knowledge QuotientTM (KQ): A Way to Measure the Knowledge Intensity of Your Team

Authors: Nirmal Pal, Shankar Sundaresan, Judith Ray, Hemant Bhargava, Edward Glantz, Michael W. McHugh

We report on a joint university-corporate effort to develop a conceptual framework to measure the business impact of knowledge management (KM) in the context of the corporation’s initiation of a network of knowledge communities. The effort attempts to integrate the unique needs of corporate practitioners as well as the theoretical perspectives of academic researchers. The framework highlights the importance of a comprehensive planning/measurement perspective as well as the alignment of KM and strategy and introduces the concepts of knowledge quotient (KQ) and KQ life cycle.

We gratefully acknowledge the support and collaboration from Unisys Corporation’s KM team in participating with us and providing the context of this study. All references to specific Unisys data have been removed from this paper for proprietary reasons.

The Pennsylvania State University is the proud owner of the Knowledge QuotientTM (KQ) developed by the eBusiness Research Center (eBRC) in the course of this study.