Knowledge management challenges across nations

• Main Authors: Blackman, Deborah, Smith, Graeme
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2004
• Subjects: HD28 Management. Industrial Management
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/13824/1/Graeme%20Smith.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/13824/; http://www.kmice.cms.net.my

Knowledge management is an increasingly important part of organisational strategy (Brint, 2001; Malhotra, 1998; Nasseri, 1996) and its potential benefits have been widely discussed (see for example Santosus and Surmacz, 2001; Prichard et al., 2000;von Krogh et al., 2000).This has led to managers in all types of organisations, both private and public sectors, striving to implement knowledge management strategies in their respective organisations.Not only this, but the potential benefits of knowledge management are now being considered as vital in the development of national and international strategies.This paper will, initially, consider why knowledge management is seen as so important in current government terms, exploring some of the current issues in public sector management that could be, and are being, addressed by knowledge management processes.However, many of these initiatives result in failure, and very expensive ones at that (Smith et al., 2003) so, in order to develop useful knowledge management initiatives,it is important to consider some of the reasons behind these failures and how they might affect nations in similar ways. The paper outlines previous work undertaken by the authors, which developed an organisational model of the social interactions affecting knowledge management outcomes within organisations moving from public to private sectors.This model of ‘Social Architecture’ is used as a base framework for considering the challenges in place to develop effective knowledge management systems for co-operative nations.The importance of both learning systems and mental models are outlined as issues that need addressing if there is to be successful knowledge management across nations.