Public Sector Knowledge Research Articles

Advancing public sector knowledge management: towards an understanding of knowledge formation in public administration

ABSTRACT The article proposes a novel way of conceptualising knowledge management in public sector by highlighting the social process of knowledge formation, where knowledge for public policies emerges and takes shape. This approach aims to overcome three main criticisms levelled at knowledge management, namely its excessive internal focus, solving tame organisational problems, and focusing on data over meanings. We take knowledge formation to be a social process in which information is collected, interpreted, and shared. We expand and contribute to the ongoing debate on KM in public sector by integrating insights from administrative sciences, organisation studies, and political science. The suggested approach provides an opportunity to understand the diverse conceptions regarding the role of information and the nature of knowledge in organisational decision-making and policy-making that complements the organisation-centric and instrumentalist approach to KM.

Digital transformation in enhancing knowledge acquisition of public sector employees

This research was conducted to determine knowledge acquisition by employing digital technology for public sector employees. This study adopts system quality, information quality, user satisfaction, service quality, and net benefit as the empirical considerations. The data analysis technique in this study used SEM (Structural Equation Modeling). Respondents in this study were 198 people consisting of public sector employees who used a learning management system. The results showed that service quality has a significant effect on user satisfaction. User satisfaction has a significant effect on net benefits. Meanwhile, system quality had no significant effect on user satisfaction, information quality had a significant effect on user satisfaction. The findings would imply the strategies to strengthen the implementation of e- learning is to increase user satisfaction. The finding managerially points out the necessity to evaluate the transformation of classical training programs in terms of face-to-face learning to blended learning by integrating online learning and face-to-face in the public sector knowledge acquisition model of training. The findings present an evaluation using empirical examination and highlights the importance of continuity to arrange action plans in public sector to synchronize knowledge acquisition model through training to obtain behavioral change and wider organizational impact of the training on public sector institutions.

Utilising a capability maturity model to leverage inclusion and diversity in public sector organisations

AbstractDiversity and inclusion (D&I) bring many benefits to society, particularly in public sector organisations servicing increasingly diverse communities. To deliver public value, government agencies at all levels must more intentionally direct public sector knowledge, skills, and experiences to shape the current and future capabilities of a more diverse and inclusive workforce. Fully optimising workplace D&I has proven elusive. An evolving array of new and residual policy and practice elements has led to a mismatch of goals and outcomes. Moreover, many accepted ‘best’ practice approaches are out‐of‐step with rapidly shifting societal and workforce compositions and mechanisms and societal expectations for organisations to reflect and embrace D&I. Accommodating these shifts demands a bolder, more agile ‘next’ practice approach that is fit‐for‐purpose in creating and maintaining a modern, diverse, inclusive workplace. This practice‐focused article constructs a Capability Maturity Model to guide D&I decision‐making and support continuous improvement.

Remodelling public sector knowledge management system using key knowledge management processes

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to recommend a framework for remodelling a public sector knowledge management system (KMS) using key knowledge management (KM) processes. The rationale is to provide insight and guidelines to organisations that struggle with KM. Design/methodology/approach This desktop study adopted the qualitative approach and literature to support the understanding regarding the remodelling of the public sector KMS using key KM processes. Findings The study found that if KM processes are not considered, the prospect of KM is limited. The best way to manage public sector knowledge is following KM processes using information technology. Without proper KM, organisations may not know how knowledge is generated, codified, stored, shared and used in an organisation. Originality/value The paper provides a framework to guide public sector organisations in the implementation of electronic KM. Thus, proposing a new way of managing knowledge by using the electronic KM processes in the public sector organisations. The study will also benefit other organisations implementing KM programmes.

Sharing tacit knowledge in public sector :

Tacit knowledge – experiences, skills, judgment and even intuition of the employees – as organizational resource, has recently gained significant attention from the organizational researchers. While such knowledge is difficult to identify, exhibit and describe, it can often determine the manner in which public administrators implement public policies. Taking a qualitative strategy of enquiry, this paper aims at identifying the pattern of tacit knowledge sharing among the local government officials in Bangladesh. The key findings suggest that majority of the local government officials are aware of the significance of tacit knowledge. Trust, both cognition-based trust and affect-based trust, determine their knowledge sharing behaviour. The ‘senior-junior’ relationship within the hierarchal structure is perceived to be the key channel of tacit knowledge transfer. In the context of inadequate formal sharing channels, officials perceived trainings to be the key formal mechanism of tacit knowledge sharing within public sector organizations in Bangladesh.

The nature of knowledge sharing in Indian organisations: a comparative analysis of public and private sector knowledge organisations

The purpose of this research paper is to decipher the nature of the knowledge sharing dimension of knowledge management processes, in Indian knowledge organisations, at the individual level and how they vary across genders and sectors (such as the power sector, the IT sector and the infrastructure, excluding power sector knowledge organisations, as well as between the public and the private sector knowledge organisations). For this, the primary data from a random sample of 204 knowledge workers (KWs) from six Indian organisations using a survey-questionnaire technique was collected and analysed. All the selected six Indian knowledge organisations are at the upper edge of the moderate effectiveness in knowledge sharing. In case of knowledge sharing, the private sector organisations are significantly better than the public sector knowledge organisations; the IT sector organisations are significantly better than the power sector organisation, and there is no significant difference between the male and female KWs' perceptions about knowledge sharing in their respective knowledge organisations.

The nature of knowledge sharing in Indian organisations: a comparative analysis of public and private sector knowledge organisations

The nature of knowledge sharing in Indian organisations: a comparative analysis of public and private sector knowledge organisations

Besta umbunin er að sjá eitthvað lifna: Upplifun sérfræðinga í ráðuneytum af ánægju í starfi

Starf ráðuneyta snertir alla landsmenn og sérfræðingar í ráðuneytum gegna mikilvægum skyldum gagnvart ráðherra og í verkefnum ráðuneyta. Nýlegar rannsóknir gefa vísbendingar um óánægju meðal starfsfólks ráðuneyta hér á landi og að þar þurfi að huga betur að stjórnun, samskiptum, vinnuskilyrðum og álagi í starfi. Undanfarin ár hefur verið unnið að breytingum og umbótum innan stjórnsýslunnar en fyrir liggur takmörkuð þekking um reynslu sérfræðinga í starfi. Þess vegna er mikilvægt að skoða reynslu sérfræðinga í ráðuneytum sem starfa undir miklu álagi og kröfum til að auka skilning á því hvaða þættir tengjast starfsánægju þeirra. Tekin voru djúpviðtöl við sérfræðinga með langa starfsreynslu. Viðtöl voru greind og túlkuð samkvæmt fyrirbærafræðilegri aðferðafræði. Fjögur þemu spruttu upp úr gögnunum: 1) Besta umbunin er að sjá eitthvað lifna, 2) Það tekur töluvert á að hafa stjórnlyndan yfirmann, 3) Það eru kröfur, ofboðslegar kröfur á okkur, alltaf meiri og meiri kröfur, og 4) Fá oft ekki að blómstra. Helstu niðurstöður sýna að þrátt fyrir að vinna undir miklu álagi og tímapressu hafa sérfræðingarnir ástríðu fyrir starfinu og brennandi áhuga á að láta gott af sér leiða fyrir land og þjóð. Þeir upplifa oft vantraust og skipulagsleysi, þekking þeirra nýtist oft ekki sem skyldi og þeir ná þess vegna ekki að blómstra í starfi. Rannsóknin veitir nýja sýn í störf sérfræðinga í ráðuneytum. Niðurstöðurnar gefa til kynna að bæta þurfi skipulag og stjórnun innan ráðuneytanna með áherslu á aukinn stuðning við starfsmenn og að efla enn frekar innri starfshvöt og ábyrgðarskyldu.

Knowledge management and hybridity of institutional logics in public sector

ABSTRACT This article analyses national policies, strategies, and programmes formulating knowledge management as a factor of national-level competitiveness. The article analyses a project, which aims to develop a service operator responsible for collecting and co-ordinating well-being data on the Finnish population. We present an in-depth analysis of an almost ten-year period in Finland, which is one of the leading societies in terms of public sector efficiency and governance. The article calls for a major shift in perspective and shows how hybridity of institutional logics significantly guides the perception of knowledge management, the measures taken and the development and selection of concrete methods and tools in knowledge management. We see the essence of public sector knowledge management in a combination of national-level knowledge governance and processes, where public institutions, private organisations and third-sector actors create, store and utilise a shared information base to convert knowledge into action in their everyday operations.

Improving public sector knowledge sharing through communities of practice

PurposeThis paper aims to study the impact of intentionally developed communities of practice (CoPs) on knowledge sharing and practice improvement in an administrative public sector organisation (PSO).Design/methodology/approachA case study approach was used to analyse the impact of the CoPs intentionally developed by four different teams at a Danish PSO. The study applied a CoP development framework suggested by the literature to develop the CoPs.FindingsThree out of the four CoPs were successfully developed, and they positively affected knowledge sharing and practice improvement. CoP participants engaged in conversations to explore individual ways of working, share knowledge and ultimately improve practice. Standardisation and boundary spanning were identified as contextual factors influencing the CoP activities.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings verify the framework and contribute to a better understanding of the factors affecting the development of CoPs that positively impact knowledge sharing and practice improvements in a PSO context.Practical implicationsThe study provides operations managers in PSOs with a framework for developing CoPs to improve work performance through better knowledge sharing among employees.Originality/valueThe paper provides case study evidence for the relevance of CoPs in PSO settings and highlights the necessity of investing resources in employee knowledge-sharing interactions.

EXPERIMENTATION IN THE INDIAN KNOWLEDGE CREATING COMPANIES

No organization can deny the importance of Experimentation in the process to innovate new products and services. The Experimentation in the organization allows companies to become knowledge-creating companies. This empirical study focuses on the prevalence of Experimentation Ethos in the Indian Knowledge Creating Companies and how they vary across genders and sectors viz., Power, IT and Other Infrastructure sector companies as well as Public and Private sector Knowledge Creating Companies of India. Empirical data from 204 Knowledge workers from the six Knowledge Creating Companies have been collected through the survey-questionnaire technique and further analyzed. The Private sector Knowledge Organizations have significantly higher Experimentation Ethos than Public sector Knowledge Organizations. The most important aspect and the takeaway of this analysis is that the Experimentation Ethos in the Knowledge Organizations belonging to the Infrastructure sector other than power sector crosses the middle of the norm and even a little bit better than IT sector Knowledge Organizations. Both IT sector and Infrastructure sector Knowledge Organizations are significantly better than Power sector Knowledge Organizations in the realm of Experimentation Ethos. The female Knowledge Workers are significantly better than the male Knowledge Workers in the realm of Experimentation Ethos. Even though the usual limitations of survey-questionnaire technique apply, this empirical paper tries to contribute to this rarely researched area.

Ensuring that the NHS realises fair financial value from its data

Ensuring that the NHS realises fair financial value from its data

Knowledge Sharing Behaviour and Human Resource Management

In the era of the knowledge-based and more attention to the knowledge of the management of matter investigators to understanding .Knowledge sharing behavior has been predictable as an significant factor for knowledge management. However, few studies have explored the behavior of sharing public sector knowledge. The latest Federal Viewpoint The survey data used in this study investigates the relationship between human resources (HR) practices and knowledge sharing behaviors in the public sector, including the role of moderating confidence in the general supervisor. Its believe that their confidence in supervisory practices and HR role-playing Sacred in promoting knowledge sharing behaviors. The results show that the confidence in the moderate supervisor the infliction of HR practices share the relationships between knowledge and behavior. Knowledge sharing can define employees' conversations, cultural exchange of information, until now the learning of skills or the whole free. Sharing occurs for knowledge the organizational and individual level. The details are inexpensive, knowledge sharing is talking to his colleagues help them get something done better, faster and more efficiently. The order of knowing it has no apprehend, organization, re-use them here and there, transferring it to the use of knowledge, according to which is located in the extremity Keywords: HRM Applications, Knowledge Sharing, Knowledge Management (KM), Human Behavior DOI : 10.7176/IKM/9-10-03 Publication date: November 30 th 2019

BIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC SECTOR ACCOUNTING LECTURERS

Purpose of Study: This research aims to understand the self learning process among accounting lecturers in mastering public sector accounting.
 Methodology: The present study has been carried out a qualitative approach within the interpretive paradigm using biographical research. By employing thematic analysis, it was scrutinized 41 curriculum vitae of accounting lecturers. It focussed on education background, work experience, training, and publication related to public sector knowledge.
 Main Findings: This research showed that the mastery of public sector accounting is learned by the formal and non-formal education, teaching activities and community services. Ontologically, this study is built on a belief that based on Bloom’s learning theory the effort of accounting educator could explain as lifelong learning in improving their cognitive, affective and pshychomotoric ability.
 Implications/Applications: Efforts public sector accounting faculty to master public sector accounting mapped to cognitive, affective and psychomotoric. Strengthening the cognitive aspect is done through formal and non formal education. Some lecturers who do not gain knowledge of public sector accounting from formal education to look through non-formal education in a variety of training activities, workshops and seminars. Basic self learning theory and assumptions andragogy as adult learners who are motivated internally reinforce this fact.

Review on the KM Applications in Public Organisations

The rise in awareness of knowledge management as a viable organisational resource and potential source of competitive advantage has been the subject of a myriad of research to date. The phenomenon covers a multitude of disciplines, roles and procedures, and its subjectivity has at times mitigated its potential for pertinent study. Add to this mix, the public sector, which exhibits unusual, specific, bureaucratic and insular hierarchies which can make it difficult to assess it from a research perspective, and a pertinent case can be made for investigating the process of implementing knowledge management initiatives in this area. Today's public organisations are confronted with considerable challenges in the dynamic knowledge economy and continuously adapt to shifts in societal needs, behaviour, and expectations. To keep pace with global trends and new demands, public sector organisations have to embrace new paradigms that place the management of intangible assets at the core of their strategies. Recognising the vital role of knowledge resources in driving organisations can lead to better performance. The idiosyncratic nature of governmental institutions creates peculiar barriers for attempts to manage knowledge within the public domain. Public organisations tend to be highly bureaucratic and cloistered in rigid hierarchies which require knowledge management (KM) strategies that are able to address their specific context, and equally consider their unique cultural and legal implications. The purpose of this paper is to present an inclusive literature review of the current state of KM research in the public sector in order to further research. An extensive review collated KM articles that have interest in public organisations during the last number of years. Initial findings of this research indicate that KM in the public sector is relatively under‑researched compared with its private sector counterpart. Despite the existing research that has been undertaken, more efforts are required towards the development of applied frameworks to support public KM initiatives. Inducing culture changes in public organisations and introducing mechanisms of accountability have also been revealed as imperative issues of importance in the context of KM. From an application perspective, most studies have been conducted within the education and healthcare organisations, with a dearth of research in certain important government departments such as the Police and Army forces.The purpose of this paper is to highlight the level of research into KM in the public sector and assess the benefits of taxonomising the literature. This will offer significant new insights into public sector literature and will benefit future researchers in the field. The historically dichotomous roles of public and private sector research present a unique case for reviewing the nuances of public sector KM and investigating whether there is a case for unilateral supposition of the public sector and its unique nuances and if so, is it fortuitous for this to continue. A total of 3000 articles published in peer reviewed journals over selected time periods have been analysed for content pertaining to public sector knowledge management. From this analysis a total of 150 papers have been selected for their direct relevance to public sector knowledge management.There are viable areas of demarcation in public sector literature, and these serve to illustrate a lack of research in some crucial areas, such as the emergency services and the military. The research also suggests that efforts to marry the principals of private sector KM to the public sector are difficult as the uniqueness of public sector culture and orientation makes KM reform challenging.

A public sector knowledge production function

There are no studies of the R&D-to-patenting relationship at the federal agency level. We estimate a public sector knowledge production function using federal agency patent application data over the years 2003 through 2014. We find that the patent application elasticity with respect to per capita R&D spending is about 1.06. This measure might be interpreted as one dimension of the social returns to public sector R&D generated through newly created knowledge.

Knowledge management, organizational commitment and knowledge-worker performance

PurposeKnowledge management in the public sector is relatively an ignored avenue of research and practice that has recently been given attention. Knowledge management initiatives in the public sector are now not limited to the developed countries anymore. The public sectors of various developing countries including Pakistan have developed knowledge management functions to address the problems of low organizational commitment (higher turnover rates) and knowledge-workers’ performance. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to examine the mediation role of organizational commitment in the relationship between knowledge management practices and knowledge-worker performance.Design/methodology/approachThe data were gathered from 341 knowledge workers of the public sector health department of Punjab Province, Pakistan, where knowledge management unit initiative has been taken. It was then analyzed using the structural equation modeling.FindingsOrganizational commitment partially mediates the relationship between knowledge management practices and knowledge-work performance.Practical implicationsThe public sector policy makers are strongly advised to implement knowledge management units and practices in order to enhance knowledge-work performance as well as organizational commitment.Originality/valueFirst, the model on the mediating role of organizational commitment has never been examined before. Second, the data collection from the public Health Department of Pakistan, a developing country, is relatively rare because the public sector knowledge management studies have mostly been conducted in developed countries. Finally, this study extends the literature on knowledge management in the public sector that is the developing theme in knowledge management discipline while adding knowledge management as a toolkit to enhance knowledge-workers’, organizational commitment and knowledge-work performance.

Promoting cooperation in innovation ecosystems: evidence from European traditional manufacturing SMEs

We investigate whether public support for innovation increases the propensity of SMEs in traditional manufacturing industries to cooperate for innovation—in particular, for incremental innovation—with other firms and external knowledge providers. Using data from seven EU regions, we find that support programmes do not promote cooperation with competitors, marginally promote cooperation with customers and suppliers and strongly promote cooperation with knowledge providers. These findings suggest that, in this case, the role of public policy is systems conforming rather than systems creating. Innovation support programmes can assist SMEs in traditional manufacturing industry to consolidate and/or extend their innovation ecosystems beyond familiar business partners by promoting cooperation with both private and public sector knowledge providers. Finally, our findings suggest that evaluation studies of innovation support programmes should be designed to capture not only input and/or output additionality but also behavioural and systemic effects.

Entrepreneurship and knowledge spillovers from the public sector

A compelling body of research has found that investments in knowledge from other firms and universities spill over to enhance the performance of entrepreneurial firms. This literature has shown that firm performance is positively related to investments in new knowledge by other firms and research universities. This paper addresses a gap in the literature by positing that public sector knowledge is also conducive to enhancing performance by knowledge intensive entrepreneurial (KIE) firms. Our findings suggest that the public sector provides a fertile source of knowledge for enhancing KIE firm performance.

Gestão do conhecimento no setor público: um estudo sobre os artigos publicados em periódicos nacionais no período 2005-2015

O conhecimento é um recurso de difícil tangibilização, sendo um desafio para os gestores gerenciá-lo, inclusive nas instituições públicas. Assim, são necessárias pesquisas que contribuam para o processo de gestão desse ativo nessas organizações. Este estudo teve como objetivo analisar os artigos sobre gestão do conhecimento no setor público publicados em periódicos nacionais da área, no período 2005-2015. A pesquisa caracterizou-se como uma bibliometria. Destacaram-se como principais resultados a grande quantidade de autores com uma publicação, poucas pesquisas com foco nos governos e temática centrada na estratégia e na tecnologia da informação. Concluiu-se que os estudos brasileiros nessa área estão em evolução e seguindo as tendências internacionais, com oportunidades para análise de outros campos relacionados à gestão do conhecimento no setor público.