scholarly journals Towards the development of a knowledge management practices survey for application in knowledge intensive organisations

2008 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Steyn ◽  
M. Kahn

Various surveys of Knowledge Management Practices (KMPs) in private firms show how an increasing awareness of Knowledge Management (KM) is a critical determinant of an organisation’s competitiveness. While private sector strategies favouring internal knowledge sharing and external knowledge protection often provide strategic advantage, public sector research organisations such as South Africa’s science councils operate in an environment where, for reasons of wider public interest, transparency is encouraged and knowledge is rendered widely accessible. Unfortunately, however, little has been done to develop rigorous measurements of KMPs in such knowledge intensive organisations (KIOs) that primarily engage in knowledge intensive service activities. To complicate matters further, the majority of studies have been inter-organisational and multi-sectoral, focusing on large organisations in the private sector. Few studies have measured perceptions of KMPs amongst employees of a single organisation and even fewer have focused on KMPs within the public sector. This paper will discuss the theoretical and methodological approach used in the development of a survey aimed at measuring employee perceptions of KMPs within the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), one of South Africa’s largest public KIOs dedicated to ‘social science research that makes a difference.’ Principal component analysis of the survey data revealed six factors or constructs applicable to the measurement of KMPs. The results validate the survey instrument and offer a contribution toward the development of a KMP measurement instrument that may be applied across other KIOs in South Africa.

Author(s):  
Fahmi Ibrahim ◽  
Diyana Najwa Ali

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are in knowledge intensive environments and play a central role in knowledge creation and production through research, learning, and teaching. It is important to consider that knowledge plays a vital role to HEIs and thus could benefit from established KM practices. The aim of this chapter is to evaluate the practices or implementation of knowledge management (KM) within HEIs in the context of Brunei Darussalam. It examines the importance, processes and the challenges or barriers of KM practices. The findings demonstrate that among the HEIs in Brunei that have developed KM initiatives, there are differences in the role and approaches. This verifies that KM is multifaceted concept and contextual in practice. Moreover, the findings revealed how knowledge in theory is managed and conceptualised. In conclusion, KM plays a significant role in HEIs in Brunei Darussalam with a contribution through a conceptual KMPro framework which has the potential to provide a guideline for HEIs practitioners to succeed in KM which was criticised as elusive.


Libri ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdus Sattar Chaudhry

AbstractAnalysis of knowledge management practices in a selected ministry in Kuwait showed that knowledge workers in the public sector identify personal contacts using traditional methods, but make heavy use of social networking tools and services to support personal networks. They communicate regularly with contacts that have expertise in their area of responsibility and prefer to follow up with those contacts whose work they admire. Knowledge workers perform a variety of activities on personal networks to strengthen knowledge management. However, a review of these activities indicates that there is a need to place more emphasis on collaborative learning through social bookmarks, reflecting and commenting on blogs, and editing wikis to provide effective support for knowledge management.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-75
Author(s):  
Luana Martins Basso ◽  
Wesley Ricardo Souza Freitas ◽  
Adriano Alves Teixeira ◽  
Jorge Henrique Caldeira Oliveira

Purpose: Knowledge management aims to maximize the results of an organization through processes that foster the creation and sharing of knowledge. The objective of this article was to analyse what the international scientific literature has focused on regarding knowledge management in the public sector and whether there is research related to knowledge management with environmental management.Design/methodology/approach: This is a systematic review of the state of the art of the knowledge management in the public sectorFindings: The authors’ main contribution is the proposal of a research agenda with recommendations for future researchTwenty articles pertinent to the purpose of this research were identified. The results of the study identified that the topic of knowledge management is still quite insipid in the public sector, encountering numerous cultural and technological barriers.Practical implications: The study showed that knowledge management practices in the public sector tend to significantly increase the performance of organizations, generating greater efficiency and productivity. As shown in the results, the proposed ideal is to align learning, leadership, technology and organizational culture to the process of sharing organizational knowledge.Originality/value: This is the latest research that conducts a state-of-the-art review of state-of-the-art knowledge management in the public sector and proposes a research agenda with several suggestions that can guide researchers, managers and governments to advance research that is truly useful to development the theme in a world context


2002 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 13-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. F. Botha ◽  
B. Fouché

This article reports the findings of the first phase of a longitudinal research project on knowledge management (KM) practices in the South African business sector. The overall objectives of the research are to describe prevalent knowledge management practices, to identify patterns and trends, and to develop knowledge management benchmarking and strategic management tools for the business sector. During the first phase of the project a data collection and analysis instrument for a recurring survey of knowledge management practices was developed and verified. The statistical verification of the instrument was based on a pilot survey of seventy-four respondents representing fifty-three companies in the South African industry, using one-way analysis of variance, cross-tabular chi-squared tests and principal component analysis. The data collected during the pilot survey was considered to be sufficient for a first order analysis of KM practices. The survey tested respondent perceptions on six factors scored by aggregation from 24 indicators. The selection of the factors and indicators was based on a KM reference model developed for the purpose of the research. The findings indicated clear patterns of organisational performance related to the factors of the model. The patterns corroborated to a large extent the published findings of research on KM practices in industrialised countries. This provided the confidence to use the preliminary findings as the basis of hypotheses to guide the further phases of the project.


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