Purpose: This study aims at investigating if Citation/Reference
Management Software environments are suitable to general Knowledge
Management, reuse, and sharing purposes. It answers to the question “Does the
use of a Reference/Citation Management Software meet the requirements of
Knowledge Management?”
Design/Methodology/Approach: In order to respond to this question, the
SERVQUAL model for assessing service quality was employed to elaborate a
focused questionnaire on three Reference Management solutions. A focus group of
12 users belonging to a technical department, a design studio, and a research
group of a university was asked to use three software solutions and to respond to
the questionnaire on facilities, tools, and functions of these environments.
Findings: The analysis of responses has shown that, although these
environments may be helpful for general Knowledge Management and reusing of
documents in various formats, they can not be totally extracted from the context in
which they were born, namely PDF storage.
Originality/Value: Many companies designed customized personal
sharing and reusing solutions to be used within its boundaries. However, not all
organizations and groups have time and money enough to be spent for a
Knowledge Management tool. That is way it is interesting to know if cheap existing
software solutions, originally created for other purposes, properly respond to their
desired profile.