A study of Knowledge Management Practices in Taiwanese Insurance Industry

[[abstract]]Knowledge management (KM) has been an increasingly important topic for modern management In recent years organizations have become more efficient in many ways due to the emphasis of KM There are very few studies looking into the KM related study in insurance sector It is also true in the Taiwanese insurance industry Since 2001 insurers in Taiwan have experienced a set of regulation changes which have forced them to turn to KM to change their management procedures and business strategies These changes have resulted in serious competition from banks Banks in the Financial Holding companies which also have insurance sectors are permitted to sell insurance policies With a rich customer base banks hold clear information about customers’ financial statuses and thus can sell insurance becomes easily and further pressure the profitability of insurers The purpose of this study is to understand the existing KM practices of the Taiwanese insurance industry and to explore how insurers have changed as a result in terms of strategies and product designs since 2001 Data was collected through a questionnaire survey and one-to-one interviews ranging up to senior management positions were taken Our subjects were from the leading insurance organizations in Taiwan Cathay Life Insurance Fubon Financial and Allianz Insurance Our hypothesis model was developed utilizing the four KM enablers from the Model of Knowledge Management set by Authur Andersen Business Consulting (1995) These enablers are Leadership Culture Information Technology and Performance Measurement We found our results to be significant in these organizations that have emphasized their KM strategies and are always looking toward further improvement However we did discover some problems existing in their practice of KM Insurers in Taiwan should be made aware of these problems and they could also be recommended as topics for future researc