TABLE OF CONTENTS The results indicate that more than half of the respondents (58 per cent) did not know about KM, in particular among the HKQS (63 per cent). This reveals that KM has only recently arrived and has not been widely discussed in the QS field. As stated by Davenport (1999) and Hansen et al. (1999), KM as a conscious practice is very young and is not yet tied to enterprise strategy and performance in practice. In general, the findings imply that the QS profession is unaware of the new development of KM. Fewer than half of the respondents in this study had heard about KM, reflecting that the QS profession is not fully aware of the latest market trends that can bring improvements to their organization.
Professional knowledge is defined here as the highly specialized knowledge and expertise that is required by QSs to carry out their professional duties in a competent manner. Ninety-four per cent of QSs (all of the UKQS surveyed and 89 per cent of the HKQS) have to apply much of their professional knowledge to their work. This shows that the nature of the QS profession requires that employees apply much of their professional knowledge to provide professional services to their clients. Thus, professional knowledge is very crucial to QS practices.
Surprisingly, 11 per cent of HKQS perceived that they did not need to apply professional knowledge to their work, and all of these were at a junior...
