A temporal approach to expectations and desires from knowledge management systems

This paper studies the formation of users’ expectations and desires from knowledge management systems, and their impacts on satisfaction with these systems. Building on a foundation of expectations confirmation theory and interviews with top managers, three important insights are obtained: (1) expectations and desires differ in their formation and content; (2) the conversion of abstract level desires into concrete product attributes is challenging to top managers; and (3) expectations and desires lie along a time continuum, with expectations playing an important role in shaping perceptions of the knowledge management systems in the short run, and desires being more oriented towards determining satisfaction in the long run. Furthermore, the existence of desires can mitigate the impact of expectations on satisfaction as users look forward to the positive benefits of their desires’ future realization.