Approaches of Knowledge Management and ICT in Public Administration

Knowledge Management Efforts

Organizations can gain several benefits from implementing a knowledge management

strategy. Tactically, they can accomplish some or all of the following: reduce loss of intellectual
capital due to people leaving the company; reduce costs by decreasing the number of times to
do things repeatedly and solving the same problem, and by achieving economies of scale in
obtaining information from external providers; reduce redundancy of knowledge-based activities;
increase productivity by making knowledge available more quickly and easily; increase
employee satisfaction by enabling greater personal development and empowerment, and gain
a competitive advantage in the marketplace

Approaches to KM 
There are three fundamental approaches to knowledge management: the process, the practice,
and the best practices approaches.THE PROCESS APPROACH The process
approach attempts to codify organizational knowledge through formalized controls, processes,
and technologies. Organizations adopting the process approach may implement explicit policies
governing how knowledge is to be collected, stored, and disseminated throughout the
organization. The process approach frequently involves the use of information technologies to
enhance the quality and speed of knowledge creation and distribution in the organizations.
These technologies may include intranets, data warehousing, knowledge repositories, decision
support tools, and groupware.

THE PRACTICE APPROACH

In contrast, the practice approach to knowledge management assumes that a great deal of
organizational knowledge is tacit in nature and that formal controls, processes, and technologies
are not suitable for transmitting this type of understanding. Rather than building formal systems
to manage knowledge, the focus of this approach is on building the social environments or
communities of practice necessary to facilitate the sharing of tacit understanding. 

BEST PRACTICES
Best practices are the activities and methods that the most effective organizations use to
operate and manage various functions. A good practice, an implemented technique,
methodology, procedure, or process that has improved business results.
A local best practice, a best approach for all or a large part of the organization based on
analyzing hard data. In other words, the scope within the organization of the best practice is
identified.
An industry best practice, similar to the third level, but using hard data from industry.

Hybrid Approaches
In reality, a knowledge management initiative can, and probably will, involve knowledge
collected in all the previously mentioned approaches. These approaches are not mutually
exclusive. For example, community members would pass information from the community forum
to the organizational repository when they felt that the knowledge was valuable outside their
community.

Causes of KM Failure
No system is infallible. There are many cases of knowledge management failure. Estimates of
KM failure rates range from 50 percent to 70 percent, where a failure is interpreted to mean that
all of the major objectives were not met by the effort. Some reasons for failure include
having too much information that is not easily searchable and having inadequate or incomplete
information in the system . Failure may also result from an inability to capture and categorize
knowledge / data well and from the over management of the KM process to which creativity and
communities of practice are subdued. Other issues include lack of commitment, not
providing incentive for people to use the system, and an overemphasis on technology at the
expense of larger knowledge and people issues.
In a more recent study of KM, in organizations it was found that the factors contributing
to a perception of KM failure include the lack of management involvement, lack of a clear
understanding of KM benefits, lack of adequate staff and resources, and an overambitious
scope for the KM effort (Leidner 2006). A common overarching reason behind KM failure,
or for KM failing to achieve the benefits desired, occurs when an organization implements KM in
an effort to imitate the competition without really grasping all the cultural changes that a KM
system will introduce. The mere introduction of KM tools and the existence of a KM vision will
not guarantee KM success. Incentive programs often backfire, and in spite of advanced IT tools
to facilitate knowledge capture, codification, and distribution, employees often prefer face-to
face conversation over technology.

Factors Leading to KM Success

To increase the probability of success of knowledge management projects, companies
must assess whether there is a strategic need for knowledge management in the first place.
The next step is to determine whether the current process of dealing with organizational
knowledge is adequate and whether the organization’s culture is ready for procedural changes.
Only when these issues are resolved should the company consider technology
infrastructure and decide if a new system is needed. When the right technological solution
is chosen, it becomes necessary to properly introduce the system to the entire organization and
to gain participation of every employee.