Knowledge Management As A Reform Mechanism In Public Sector Administration
Date
2011-03-22
Authors
Browne, Rachel
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Abstract
The purpose of this research is to explore Knowledge Management (KM) as a
reformist strategy for public service administration. KM as a conceptual approach
to reforming organisational practice has been widely researched and discussed in
a private sector context, with little attention paid to its implications for the
public sector. With the comments made by the Public Service Commission in its
state of the public service report, 2002 – ‘One of the major challenges of
democratisation has been to change the nature of our state and its public service to
become developmental and service oriented ’ – setting the stage, the report will
investigate how a KM approach to reform might contribute towards changing the
modus operandi of the public service to meet this critical goal. The qualitative
research focuses on the human or social component in public service organisation
and will work from the premise that reformist management approaches must be
located within a wider transformation agenda in the public sector. Within this
wider agenda, therefore, the research develops a perspective on reform based on a
knowledge-driven organisational strategy using the Treasury as a medium of
study. Key findings of the research indicate that although knowledge management
approaches are beginning to be identified at the National Treasury, they are in the
main isolated and not integrated into a wider knowledge-driven strategic
approach that is conceptualised at the leadership level and uniformly implemented
by means of ‘knowledge champions’ across the departmental divisions.
Description
MM - P&DM
Keywords
Knowledge management, Public sector