In this paper, the authors demonstrate the suitability of IT-supported knowledge repositories for knowledge retention. Successful knowledge retention is dependent on whatis stored in a repository and, hence, possible to share. Accordingly, the ability to capture theright (relevant) knowledge is a key aspect. Therefore, to increase the quality in an IT-supported knowledge repository, the identification activity, which starts the capture process, must besuccessfully performed. While critical success factors (CSFs) for knowledge retention andknowledge management are frequently discussed in the literature, there is a knowledge gapconcerning CSFs for this specific knowledge capture activity. From a knowledge retention perspective, this paper proposes a model that characterizes CSFs for the identification activity and highlights the CSFs’ contribution to knowledge retention.