Review of Knowledge Creation and Management Processes Through Communities of Practice in Public Administration

Abstract

In today’s society, knowledge is becoming a valuable asset and, for that reason, ways of creating, managing and possessing this knowledge are being sought. In this sense, this research is focused on actors and processes linked to knowledge creation and management (Del Moral et al., 2007; Drucker, 2003; Holsapple & Wu, 2008) and to knowledge management itself (Basu & Sengupta, 2007; dePaula & Fischer, 2005; Milton, 2005; Stankosky, 2005; Weber, 2007; Lambe, 2011). The aim of this research is to examine knowledge creation and management processes through communities of practice in the public administration with an intensive use of ICT; the goal is to outline the key factors for success in the communities analysed. The research method employed was the case study, multiple case studies to be precise, with attention on the organizational innovation (knowledge creation and management processes) carried out by some organisations or communities (single cases), but with interest in a global view of the matter. As Yin (2009) proposes, multiple case studies are more solid and sound than a single case study. The main contribution of this paper is the identification of standards and good practices for improving the existing communities of practice in the Catalan Department of Justice and the Catalan Health Protection Agency and for communities of practice created in the field of Public Administration.