KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC SECTOR

Abstract

Today, knowledge is increasingly recognized as an important, strategic resource
by all types of organizations and institutions, whether private or public, service oriented
or production oriented. Regardless of the importance ostensibly attached to it, public
sector organizations have often been less inclined to fully explore the benefits of
knowledge management than the private sector. But now many organizations in the
public sectors have started to realize the importance of knowledge management in
streamlining their operations This paper will focus on knowledge management in the
public sector. Common challenges and concerns that affect public sectors worldwide are
identified as: driving efficiencies across all public services; improving accountability;
making informed decisions; enhancing partnerships with stakeholders; capturing the
knowledge of an ageing workforce, and; improving overall performance. To deal with
these challenges public sectors often introduce several reforms including knowledge
management and most recently, e-government. The success of e-government depends on
knowledge management. Knowledge management provides the overall strategy and
techniques to manage e-government content eloquently in order to make knowledge more
usable and accessible and to keep it updated. This paper will discuss how knowledge
management can be put into practice as a reform instrument and an integral part of egovernment to address some of the above challenges and lead the public sector to
increased effectiveness, efficiency and productivity. This contribution investigates
knowledge aspects in e-government and gives a survey on relevant knowledge issues in
the public sector. Based on the comprehension of public sector knowledge, examples are
considered where administrative work is enhanced with knowledge.