Exploring U.S. Air Force Online Communities of Practice: An Examination of Content Management Practices

The management of knowledge assets has become increasingly important as organizations recognize the strategic value of knowledge. In an attempt to capitalize on its potential, many organizations have turned to Internet technologies for capturing, managing and disseminating their vast amounts of explicit knowledge. One application of such technology can be found in the use of on-line collaborative workspaces. These virtual workspaces facilitate and promote an environment for capturing and sharing knowledge among members of a particular field, task, or common practice. Despite the implied efficiency of such an approach, an ever-increasing volume of information/knowledge may impede the ability of users to navigate successfully through the workspace thus undermining the user participation and illustrating the importance of effective content management (CM). This exploratory study uses case studies to examine the CM practices of eight U.S. Air Force online communities of practice. The findings suggest that the development of formal CM processes, and procedures may help solve future CM problems as well as increase the benefits associated with on-line CoP usage

Investigating Barriers to Knowledge Management Implementation In the U.S. MIlitary: A Focus on Managerial Influences

The knowledge management literature identifies a variety of factors that may influence KM implementation in organizations. Over the past ten years, each of the U. S. military services has implemented KM programs to varying degrees. Although knowledge management research continues to grow, little has focused exclusively on efforts in the military context. Using Holsapple and Joshi’s KM “influences” framework (2000)--which addresses managerial, resource, and environmental factors--as guiding theory, this multiple-case study reports on the “managerial” factors that have influenced KM implementation across the U. S. military services. The results indicate a number of negative managerial influence factors (i.e. barriers) have thwarted progress, the most significant being lack of leadership commitment & lack of evidence/measurement that reveal a return on investment. Identification of these influence factors not only reinforces existing theory, but also offers a practical guide for specific interventions that focus on leadership & user KM education, KM proponent leadership/organizations, and service-wide policy, guidance, and governance

KM Capability Assessment: A Qualitative Approach

The knowledge management (KM) literature highlights both the desire of organizations to assess KM capability and the need to create better methodologies and tools to do so. Although some progress has been made in developing valid assessment tools, the topic still remains inadequately explored. Answering a call for the exploration of KM capability maturity assessment across a variety of organizations (Kulkarni & St Louis, 2003), this research uses the Knowledge Management Capability Assessment (KMCA) methodology (Kulkarni & Freeze, 2004) and Freeze & Kulkarni (2005; 2006) as a guiding framework to qualitatively assess the KM capability of the Secretary of the Air Force Financial Management and Comptroller (SAF/FM) organization—a military organization recognized for exceptional KM efforts. The research resulted in rich, contextual findings with regard to the specific KM efforts underway within SAF/FM. Interestingly, the nature of these efforts translated into KM capability levels lower than expected; however, precise areas for improvement were identified

IT Skills in the Public Sector: Comparing the Views of Middle Managers and Their Supervisors

This paper reports on a two-phased study designed to examine the perceived importance of a wide range of information technology (IT) skills by mid-level and senior managers in a large public sector organization. The first phase gathered data from 242 lower to mid-level IT professionals. The second phase gathered the same data from the senior supervisors of those professionals to provide some additional perspectives from those in the organization responsible for the career advancement of the individuals sampled in the first phase. The results suggest that both groups perceive interpersonal skills to be the most important IT skill set, followed by managerial skills. Technical skills, while important, were perceived to be the least important (relatively speaking) for current IT professionals within this organization. One possible explanation for the latter finding takes into account the current trend toward outsourcing some of the technical functions within organizations, rather than relying on in- house skills to provide those services. Recommendations for IT curriculum development and the education of future IT professionals are provided

Automatic Generation of Social Network Data from Electronic-Mail Communications

Most organizations have formal and informal elements. Formal structures are usually documented in organizational charts showing chain of command, levels of authority, and personnel resources