Leveraging knowledge in higher education organizations

• Main Authors: Krishnasamy, Rajasegaran, Nair, Ramesh
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2004
• Subjects: LB2300 Higher Education
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/13845/1/KM114.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/13845/; http://www.kmice.cms.net.my

Knowledge has become the key resource in the present post-industrial society.Organizations around the world are now required to cleverly manage their biggest assets: their knowledge capital, in order to gain competitive edge in the complex and dynamic environments confronting them.In Malaysia, the K-Economy Master Plan was launched in September 2002 to drive the nation towards this new imperative and various initiatives are now underway.As a result of these initiatives, the demand for education and training is expected to increase in the near future and beyond. Higher Education Organizations (HEOs) in the country are confronted with the challenge of meeting these needs.To cater for this, HEOs must first begin to manage their most valuable asset: their knowledgebase.Managing this requires a concerted and structured effort in implementing Knowledge Management (KM).But the problem is that leaders at various levels in many of our HEOs are still struggling to make sense of the KM imperative.It is thus proposed that, as a first step in implementing KM, leaders in HEOs consider the following variables: identify the knowledgebase; identify how knowledge is created, shared and used, identify the role of information and communication technology (ICT); identify an appropriate ICT system; and identify appropriate people management strategies. This paper reports the findings of an inquiry undertaken at two HEOs, one public and the other private, via interviews with academics, in identifying the key features of the variables stated above.