A model for the implementation of industry-wide knowledge sharing to improve risk management practice

Abstract

This article examines the process of industry-wide OHS/safety information management in the Australian coal industry. It uses as a case study the novel RISKGATE interactive database that has been created as part of collaborative efforts between multiple coal mining industry stakeholders over the last five years. The RISKGATE database operates within both the information systems and organisational learning models of knowledge management, capturing inter-organisational expert knowledge and facilitating dissemination to field practitioners through the medium of a digital web-based tool. This discussion will utilise variations of the Data–Information–Knowledge–Wisdom (DIKW) hierarchy as a means of interrogating, firstly, the process of how the various industry stakeholders codify their tacit knowledge on safety issues in the coal mining industry; and secondly, how that data is then made available through the RISKGATE database to practitioners (and others) working in the field. While Frické (2009, 131) thinks the DIKW hierarchy out-dated by reason of its ‘philosophical backdrops of operationalism and inductivism’ amongst other problems, we believe it still has relevance if considered a dynamic entity and not a fixed hierarchy.