Exploring knowledge management integration through EAI in local government domain

Information Technology (IT) infrastructure integration and knowledge management share communal objectives e.g. to make organisations more effective and efficient, agile and innovative, and more responsive to market changes. Such association when assimilates bona fide knowledge management philosophy, it offers the IT departments a headship opportunity for organisational transformation in affiliation with the rest of the establishment. Notwithstanding, in the context of Local Government Authorities (LGAs), the non-integrated nature of the IT infrastructure is associated with inefficient data and knowledge exchange and reduction in LGA services’ quality. Therefore, numerous data inconsistencies and redundancies occur that impact LGA services to their citizenry. LGAs have deployed Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) technological solutions to integrate their legacy with new developed Information Systems (IS). Literature indicates that EAI achieves integration at five layers namely: (a) connectivity, (b) transportation, (c) transformation, (d) process integration and (e) knowledge integration. This research adapts a Revised Model for Integration Layers (REAL) and tests through a case study in a local authority. The results indicate that cases leading to data inconsistencies and replication can be prevented by integrating knowledge through EAI

The knowledge transfer openness matrix facilitating accessibility in UK management education teaching

This is an empirical investigation considering how the Knowledge Transfer Openness Matrix (KTOM) could facilitate accessibility and Knowledge Transfer (KT) for the UK Higher Education (HE) Management Education Teaching when utilising learning technologies. Its focus is where learning technologies applications currently assist the KT process and support accessibility for the HE teacher and learner. It considers the philosophy of openness, focussing on its usefulness to support accessibility within UK HE Management Education Teaching. It discusses how the openness philosophy may assist the KT process for the HE teacher and learners using learning technologies. In particular, the potential to support accessibility within HE Management Education Teaching environments is appraised. There appear several implications for both teachers and learners. These are characterized in the proposed KTOM. The matrix organises KT events based on the principles of the openness philosophy. The role of learning technologies in events is illustrated with regard to teaching and learning accessibility

A Primer on Intellectual Capital

{Excerpt} Born of the information revolution, knowledge management has arisen in response to the belated understanding that intellectual capital is a core asset of organizations and that it should be circumscribed better. From this perspective, it is the growing body of tools, methods, and approaches, inevitably underpinned by values, by means of which organizations can bring about and maximize a return on knowledge assets, aka intellectual capital. That, Thomas Stewart explained pithily (yet broadly) is organized knowledge that can be used to generate wealth. (Conversely, it also helps to think of what intellectual capital is not, that is, monetary or physical resources.) More specifically, aggregated intellectual capital comprises • Human capital—the cumulative capabilities and engagement of an organization\u27s personnel, rooted in tacit and explicit knowledge, that can be invested to serve the joint purpose. • Relational (or customer) capital—the formal and informal external relationships, counting the information flows across and knowledge partnerships in them, that an organization devises with clients, audiences, and partners to co-create products and services, expressed in terms of width (coverage), channels (distribution), depth (penetration), and attachment (loyalty). • Structural (or organizational) capital—the collective capabilities of an organization—any of them codified, packaged, and systematized, including its governance, values, culture, management philosophy, business processes, practices, research and development, intellectual property, performance metrics, and information systems, as well as the systems for leveraging them

Managing by Walking Around

{Excerpt} Management by walking around emphasizes the importance of interpersonal contact, open appreciation, and recognition. It is one of the most important ways to build civility and performance in the workplace. The hallmarks of the modern organization are satellite offices, remote offices, home offices, virtual offices, hotelling facilities, and the electronic mail that underpins—and promotes—these. Today, knowledge workers receive few telephone calls and electronic mail is their communication vehicle of choice. (The use of videoconferencing is growing,too.) After all, why should they walk around if they can type, point, and click? At the receiving end, managers are known to collect more than 150 messages each day. Yet, as knowledge workers on the rise tote up electronic status, they also distance themselves from colleagues. Managing by walking around was popularized by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman in the early 1980s because it was (already then) felt that managers were becoming isolated from their subordinates. At Hewlett-Packard, where the approach was practiced from 1973, executives were encouraged to know their people, understand their work, and make themselves more visible and accessible. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard\u27s business philosophy, centered on deep respect for people and acknowledgment of their built-in desire to do a good job, had evolved into informal, decentralized management and relaxed, collegial communication styles. Theirs was the opposite of drive-by management

Wisdom Management: Tensions Between Theory And Practice In Practice

Because modern managerial discourse emerges from a dominant discourse characterised by neo-liberalism and rational managerialism, there is little place for wisdom in its theory and practice. A rare instance of management seeking to retain wisdom is a Canadian Public Service document, The Getting and Keeping of Wisdom. This document is (computer-assisted) text-analysed to determine the extent to which it meets nine criteria of wisdom derived from Aristotelian philosophy and recent psychological studies. Although the document soundly applies empirically-based psychological theory, there is a tension this and the values and assumptions privileged in the dominant discourse. Thus the capacity for wise management is inhibited to the extent that it attempts to work within the dominant managerialist discourse. Just as knowledge management is limited by a limited theory of knowledge, it is likely that wisdom management will be weakened by a lack of knowledge about wisdom

Changes in a Chinese interior design firm due to the development and use of a blog-based reflective practitioner knowledge management system inspired by Chinese philosophy: An autoethnographic case study

Dao (Way) The Way that can be experienced is not true; The world that can be constructed is not true. The Way manifests all that happens and may happen; The world represents all that exists and may exist. To experience without intention is to sense the world: To experience with intention is to anticipate the world. These two experiences are indistinguishable; Their construction differs but their effect is the same. Beyond the gate of experience flows the Way\u27. Which is ever greater and more subtle than/he world. Lao-Tzu, TaoDeChing, tr. Peter A. Merel This thesis is a reflective practitioner autoethnographic account of the way in which a Chinese interior design firm, through inspiration from Chinese philosophy (as exemplied in the beginning quotes), developed and used a reflective practitioner knowledge management system, called kBlogCentral, based around web-based blogs. The objective of setting up kBlogCentral was to build a simple, low cost knowledge management system for managing knowledge regarding various projects among the staff. All members of the firm are encouraged to perform reflective practitioner research and publish their knowledge as part of virtual teams regarding their professional practice. This reflective practitioner study depicts the rationale, process, and implications of building the system especially regarding inspiration from traditional and contemporary Chinese philosophy as this is seen as a culturally appropriate philosophical underpinning. The research outcome, present d throughout the thesis, is a rich description and reflections of employing action reflective practitioner research and a Web technology on the Internet, called Blog to manage knowledge in the interior design company in the light of Chine e thinking. Blog technology is mainly manifested in interactive websites that allow for rich Web based interaction and communication. The research question is: How did the process of developing an using a Blog-based reflective practitioner knowledge management system, through inspiration from Chinese philosophy, change the professional practice of member of a Chinese interior design firm? As part of answering this question, I report on my attempts to inspire change in the purpose, behaviour and underlying culture of a Chinese design firm aspiring to transform its management and practice. The major arena for this transformation is the KBlogCentral knowledge management system. The Dao (way) to such transformation is the member of the firm employing heuristic elf-reflective action research to \u27find it future\u27, with and through its people. In this process I have reported on innovative and, to my mind, valuable discoveries in knowledge elicitation and methods of integrating the views f my colleagues. This doctoral thesis, reporting on my finding of these discoveries, is my contribution to knowledge within the academic information systems, design, and management fields. The research reveals that knowledge, as a social product of human interactions, does not exist outside an agent - human beings. Thus the main role of knowledge management is to support social human interactions instead of just employing information technology to manipulate data, information and explicit knowledge as advocated by the functionalist approach. Knowledge management practices in China are found to be highly influenced by the contemporary interpretations of strands of traditional Chine e philosophy. The existence of a linguistic divide, resulting from some obsolete or misinterpreted doctrines of traditional Chinese philosophy, impedes the processes of creating and sharing knowledge in China. This thesis is a b ginning endeavour to critically examine these obsolete and distorted doctrines as a contribution towards a modem form of Chinese philosophy revitalizing Chinese to meet the challenges of a growing knowledge economy. Thus an undercurrent of heuristic hope runs through this thesis in that, within technology originating from and dominated by the West, this thesis reveals how knowledge management practice in China can be inspired by Chinese philosophy

Reimagining Sustainable Organization

This open access book reimagines a deeper sustainability in dynamic organization. Offering multiple perspectives on arts, design thinking, leadership, knowledge and project management, Reimagining Sustainable Organization addresses our need for thinking and coping differently when facing the many unknowns of real-life enterprises in society. Drawing on process philosophy, real-world case studies, and examinations of business practices as well as management research, the authors explore knowledge creation towards reimagining sustainable organization. The book includes frameworks and conceptual tools as well as insights for further explorations. This book will be of interests to students, scholars and teachers, and practitioners who are studying sustainable organization, greener management, leadership ideas, or knowledge and project management. It covers future pressing issues also for the professionals involved in co-creative work across organizational boundaries. This is an open access book

Learning to manage public service organizations better: A scenario for teaching public administration

In the context of public value, it is argued that there is a need to adopt the learning organization philosophy to manage public service organizations better. For collaborative work with public sector managers or in management education, a fictitious scenario is presented to develop the concept of the learning organization as paradox. Faced with multiple and conflicting demands, public managers find it difficult to change organizational behavior in response to new knowledge. The scenario demonstrates how learning organization philosophy can be used to translate new knowledge into new behaviors. Key skills required for public managers to exploit the knowledge of all organizational members and confront the challenges of a contested concept, such as public value, are developed and comprise: summarizing evidence; making judgements, sharing thought processes on a contentious issue, and arriving at a consensus together. Contributions to public administration theory and practice are discussed

The FairShares Model: a communitarian pluralist approach to constituting social enterprises?

Objectives - This paper is an exploration of the intellectual antecedents and philosophical assumptions that underpin the FairShares Model - a set of brand principles and Articles of Association published by the FairShares Association. It contributes to knowledge of the history of the social enterprise movement and its link to contemporary developments in mutual social enterprises. Prior Work - Previous contributions to the literature on social economy have drawn on communitarian philosophy to develop insights into mutual principles. This paper sets out a theoretical framework to evaluate whether the FairShares Model represents a communitarian pluralist discourse on the constitution of social enterprises. Approach - In January 2013, the FairShares Association published guidance on the FairShares 'brand' and 'model' (drawing on work presented at ISBE) to develop the concept of a ‘socialised’ enterprise . The framework developed from prior work is used to assess which aspects of communitarian philosophy are emphasized in both antecedent model rules (identified by the FairShares Association) as well as the FairShares Model (v1.2a). Results - The FairShares Model is theorised as a predominantly communitarian pluralist discourse with some ‘corporatist’ commitments. It represents an evolving set of guidelines for the ‘socialisation’ of enterprise by devising membership rights for two primary stakeholders (labour, users), and two secondary stakeholders (founders, investors). It is designed to reverse the centralising and accumulating tendencies of the private sector without returning assets to state control. It differs from philanthropic models by offering co-operative (par value) shares to three member classes: founders, labour and users, and (ordinary) ‘investor’ shares to all classes of member. Implications - The FairShares Model contributes to knowledge on the 'socialisation' of enterprise by identifying core characteristics of member-owned enterprises that deploy strategies for multi stakeholder ownership, governance and management. Value – By operationalising a communitarian pluralist discourse in the process of constituting a social enterprise, the FairShares Model offers an alternative to private sector models based on the subordination of labour and mutual models based on the primacy of a single stakeholder group