Drivers, Benefits, and Challenges of Knowledge Management in Electronic Government

Abstract

This chapter explores the role of Knowledge Management (KM) and knowledge workers in the public sector organization in the broader perspective towards achieving the Electronic Government orientation in Malaysia. The future implementation of KM in the public sector organizations should leverage and articulate the experiences, ideas, and expertise of an organization's knowledge workers for the embedded organizational knowledge. A survey questionnaire was used to collect data from all public sector accountants working in the accounting specialist department of the Federal Government in Malaysia. This selected knowledge intensive accounting organization has a large pool of public sector accountants and the core competencies of the organization are to provide timely accounting information and quality accounting services to all agencies of the Federal Government. Public sector accountants (knowledge workers) are responsible for the strategic policies and operational management in various departments of this selected public sector organization. The responses from the questionnaires are aimed to preliminarily examine the organizational readiness in technology resources as well as to identify the perceived benefits and challenges in using KM as a strategic management tool to improve the internal operational efficiency and electronic service delivery system for E-Government in this selected knowledge intensive accounting organization in Malaysia.