Capital Market Reaction to The Knowledge Management Initiatives; an Event Study

Abstract

Firms use knowledge management (KM) strategies to acquire, transfer, and share knowledge. Using an event study approach, this paper investigates the information content of three types of KM initiatives, and examines whether the 2000 stock crash affected the information content of those KM initiatives. The findings indicate that investors react positively to KM initiatives transferring knowledge across firms, and bringing expertise from external firms, but not KM initiatives related with the KM product awards. In addition, we find that the 2000 stock crash did not affect investors’ reactions to the KM initiatives announcements although the decrease of the reactions exists.