Since its introduction as one of innovative strategies to improve corporate performance,KM (knowledge management) has worked very successfully in many kinds of industries and companies around the world. Especially, in the last decade, South Korean companies have adopted KMS very eagerly and applied it to eliminate many kinds of management inefficiencies and improve business performance. In recent couple of years, KMS evolved from a simple IS for helping workers reduce information search time to highly intelligent decision support system with which users can develop a new idea and come up with effective strategies to improve business performance dramatically. To add uniqueness to such advanced version of KMS, we call it as a next-generation KMS which differs from conventional KMSs in that the next-generation KMS is supposed to provide relevant decision support to workers and help them achieve significantly what they intend to do in their business activities. Recent web 2.0 technologies such as collective intelligence, wiki-style knowledge creation and sharing techniques, and participating knowledge activities provide a full support to the next-generation KMS. However,there exist very few studies to support the role of the next-generation KMS on improving corporate performance. To fulfill this research void, we apply a rigorous and empirical way by proposing a number of unexplored hypotheses. In this sense, this study proposes following research objectives.First, by performing a rigorous literature study, we induce that the next-generation KMS should fulfill its goal to provide a full support to the knowledge circulation process (KCP). Naturally, the first research purpose of this study is to test several hypotheses related to showing how each step of KCP is supported by the next-generation KMS. Herein, the KMS is assumed to consist of five steps such as knowledge creation, knowledge storage, knowledge sharing, knowledge utilization and knowledge learning. Second, this study intends to empirically analyze the impact of the next-generation KMS on corporate performance. As one of rigorous experiments, we built a number of research hypotheses to prove how much the next-generation KMS could contribute to the success of target companies. For this purpose, two professional KM consultants were recommended to review feasibility of a target KMS of H company to see whether it possesses the next-generation KMS properties this study requires. Feasibility test was to analyze whether the target KMS has the next-generation functionalities as required by literature. Results were clear- the target KMS has a number of functionalities to provide relevant support to workers. Empirical test process was performed like this. First, questionnaire items were prepared by using relevant literature. Final questionnaire was pre-tested whether it suits our research purpose. Among total 1,678 questionnaires distributed, 1,024 responses were collected which was about 61 % response rate. Researcg hypotheses were formed as a path analysis model,so SmartPLS 2.0 software was used to analyze and test the research model. Reliability test as well as feasibility test results were valid. Hypotheses tests were striking. all the KCP-related hypotheses were significantly supported, which indicates that target KMS is a truly nextgeneration KMS. Through the empirical tests, we came to conclude that a positive influence of the KCP on corporate performance was proven, and among the five KCP processes, only two processes such as knowledge utilization knowledge learning turned out to significantly influence the corporate performance.