Knowledge Management in Public Construction Project Initiation

Despite the importance of knowledge integration in construction project management, it rarely happens in reality. This chapter describes two case studies involving knowledge management of a public construction project for two universities in Finland. There were many different stakeholders involved in the projects. Although much effort has been put into the project during the initial stages, the projects’ starts were delayed. This chapter gives underlying reasons for the delays followed by proposing an approach where co-creation of value for knowledge integration can be used to overcome the problems with the conflicting interests of the stakeholders. The other project introduces a small project where the initiator is a facility owner. This study shows how the selection of the stakeholders for decision-making was a challenge.

The Four Levers for Change in Knowledge Management Implementation

The purpose of this chapter is to argue the connection between successful knowledge management implementation and a robust change management platform. The framework emanating from the platform is that of four levers: Mobilisation, Communication, Infrastructure, and Sustainability. Drawing on the research literature and the writers’ combined experience in implementing change and knowledge management in the Public Sector, the content examines utilisation of the four levers in overcoming the barriers to knowledge management systems and promoting commitment to their success. A planned outcome of this chapter is that Public Sector managers can consider and “leverage” the opportunity offered by knowledge management and sharing in the formulation and delivery of government policy. The framework of the four levers is considered from a conceptual perspective and acknowledges the opportunity for their exploration and testing in future empirical research.

Developing Organizational Renewal Capability in the Municipal (City) Organization

The objective of this chapter is to increase understanding and management of knowledge management in public sector organizations. In this chapter the knowledge management-based assessment and development process of organizational renewal capability is presented, and it is demonstrated in one large municipal (city) organization. The chapter thereby contributes to the discussion of the importance of organizational renewal capability and knowledge management for public organization renewal and for the performance excellence of public sector organizations in general. The development process of organizational renewal capability provides an approach and methods on how organizations can identify the current state of their renewal enabling factors and the related knowledge processes in order to initiate sustained renewal. Thereby, they can learn to utilize and manage their key knowledge processes by viewing their organization as a developing knowledge system.

Organisational Readiness for Knowledge Management

This study explores the factors that affect organisational readiness for Knowledge Management (KM). This chapter assesses the organisational readiness for KM at public sector organisations in Bahrain; furthermore, it utilises these findings to develop a guideline to enable the successful adoption and implementation of KM. A questionnaire survey was conducted at the public sector organisations in Bahrain. The research findings indicate that culture (collaboration, trust, and learning), structure (centralisation, formalization, and rewards systems), and IT infrastructure (IT support) all provide a sound basis for organisations to assess their readiness for KM. The results show that the public sector organisations in Bahrain vary in terms of readiness levels against the different variables. The findings are discussed and relevant recommendations are made with regards to KM adoption at the public sector organisations in Bahrain. The findings imply a need for intensified organisational and managerial commitment in order to promote collaboration, trust, learning, decentralisation, less formalisation, reward systems, and enhanced IT support at the public sector organisations in Bahrain. Implementation of these required changes in the public sector’s culture and structure will help in preparing the public sector and their awareness and readiness to implement KM. This study is among the first empirical works assessing organisational readiness for adopting KM. Moreover, this chapter has extended knowledge in KM, especially concerning the need for the consideration of organisational readiness before embracing KM. The most significant contribution of this chapter is that it provides an instrument for assessing organisational readiness. It serves as a guideline for leaders and helps them to ensure that essential preliminary factors and variables are promoted and covered when they start KM implementation within their organisations.

Government as a Partner in Knowledge Management

This chapter assesses the reliability and predictability of government departments as partners in corporate knowledge management systems. The specific topic is knowledge availability under the US Freedom of Information Act, but the general implications apply to governments at all levels around the world that hold business information, data, or knowledge assets. By comparing processes related to US freedom of information requests across departments and across time, separated by a dramatic change in presidential administrations and attitudes toward governmental openness, this study examines the relative reliability of agency processes. In particular, reports on the handling of confidential business information provide us with specific insights on this topic as do reports on records with personal privacy concerns. In the end, there appears to be little predictability in the process, even with clear instruction from the highest levels. The topic needs more in-depth study, but businesses, at least in the US, should share data, information, and knowledge with the government deliberatively.

Communities of Practice in the Catalan Public Administration

Communities of Practice are one of the leading strategies used to promote knowledge management processes aimed at generating both organisational and individual learning along with innovations that contribute to improving the public administration. The optimal design of Communities of Practice in organisations implies exhaustive knowledge of how they work, and particularly identifying and understanding the factors that determine their operation and effectiveness for organisational change. This chapter presents some of the most important results of a study conducted in two departments within the Catalan public administration. The goal of the study was to analyse knowledge management processes and propose intervention protocols and quality standards. This study enabled the authors to present proposals aimed at improving the dynamics of the Communities of Practice in the public administration and to suggest possible avenues of research focused on improving the functioning of the public sector.

Decision-Making Processes Based on Knowledge Gained from Spatial Data

The increasing popularity of spatial data opens up the possibility to include it in decision-making processes in order to help discover existing interrelationships between facts that might otherwise be difficult to describe or explain. To achieve this goal, Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) are seen as a platform to provide and share spatial and conventional data, especially among public institutions. However, SDI initiatives face many problems due to the lack of standards for data publications, the heterogeneity of participants that build and use the system, and participants’ different backgrounds, level of preparation, and perception about the objective that SDIs should fulfill. Furthermore, to obtain better benefits from using spatial data, non-expert users in geo-concepts (i.e., users unfamiliar with complex concepts related to spatial data manipulation) should count on a variety of tools that hide spatial data complexity and facilitate knowledge generation with the goal of shifting from traditional spatial data sharing to an intelligent level. In this chapter, the authors refer to different issues related to knowledge generation from spatial data in order to support decision-making processes with an emphasis on public institutions. They look for the answers to several aspects: what tools are available for non-expert users to handle spatial data, who will provide spatial and related conventional data to stakeholders interested in analyzing them, and how to ensure data quality.

Assessing Knowledge Management Systems Usage in Supporting Decision Making Processes in Organizations

With the advent of the knowledge economy and the growing importance of knowledge societies, organizations are constantly seeking new ways of leveraging knowledge assets to support Decision Making (DM) processes. This chapter presents an initial insight to the little-researched phenomenon of how Knowledge Management Systems (KMSs) can support DM processes in organizations. A synthesis of ideas from a literature review suggests a new conceptual framework with several critical factors that organizations should take into account to assess the usage of KMSs tools in supporting DM processes in organizations. The proposed framework, “USUQ,” will benefit managers in both public and private sectors in knowing how the Usage, Satisfaction, Usefulness, and the Quality of using KMSs can support DM processes.

Assessing Knowledge Management Processes and Competitive Advantage in Local Authorities using Knowledge Management Assessment Instrument (KMAI)

For academics and professionals, knowledge management has been widely known as a core agenda and has been recognized as one of the most important sources of competitive advantage. Managing knowledge to achieve organizational performance is not only crucial for private sector institutions, but it is significant for the public sector institutions as well. Since the study of knowledge management in the public sector is still in its infancy, this study is aimed at investigating the relationship between knowledge management processes and competitive advantages in local authorities in Malaysia to raise the awareness of the importance of managing organizational knowledge, particularly in the public sector. For this study, the data was collected from selected Heads of Departments in 42 institutions of local authorities in Peninsular Malaysia and yielded 82 usable responses. The analysis suggests that all six knowledge management processes (knowledge creation, capture, organization, storage, dissemination, and application) have a strong relationship with competitive advantage. This study is expected to raise awareness and provide initial guidelines to local authorities as knowledge-intensive institutions to formulate strategies on how to manage the knowledge management processes within the organization.

Best Value and Performance Management Inspired Change within UK Councils

This chapter focuses on an exploratory study from an operational perspective, investigating the role of Knowledge Management (KM) in the UK Public Sector, the case setting being within the council’s waste services. Key literary findings outline that while Government seeks to improve council service delivery, significant legacies remain from earlier change programmes that appeared to be restricting the Local Government Modernisation Agenda (LGMA). Given the exploratory nature of the study, a theory building approach is adopted based on results from the exploratory study. The findings show that although knowledge and information flows could inform performance management frameworks to trigger change, a lack of suitable networks or a culture of knowledge sharing, combined with tight implementation timescales and a shifting agenda, meant that councils did not respond as anticipated due to systemic weaknesses. As with many organisations, KM implementation did not reach full potential. However, there are a number of lessons learned and key findings that can act as a learning process for further knowledge management applications within public sector contexts.