Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

Figure 1 Information Management Strategy
Paul Parboteeah, Thomas Jackson and Ge<strong>of</strong>f Smith
5. Conclusions and recommendations
This initial scoping study <strong>of</strong> one UK council’s journey <strong>of</strong> getting ready for KM has produced a number
<strong>of</strong> areas <strong>of</strong> concern that enable a more detailed analysis to be performed with focus. The 4 areas <strong>the</strong>
detailed case study should centre around are: executive support/representation, cultural change
issues, appropriate use <strong>of</strong> technology and information management skills training. The direct focus
should not be on KM, despite being a precursor to KM, because <strong>the</strong> focus should be on adapting KM
approaches to <strong>the</strong> existing culture, as opposed to trying to change <strong>the</strong> organisational culture
(McDermott and O’Dell, 2001). This should also be <strong>the</strong> aim <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> KM initiative at <strong>the</strong> council.
However, <strong>the</strong>re will be some degree <strong>of</strong> cultural change occurring, as a result <strong>of</strong> moving to new,
smaller <strong>of</strong>fices, encouraging mobile working, adopting new collaboration tools and substantial cuts to
funding.
This paper presented an initial scoping study to assess <strong>the</strong> current information management
landscape at <strong>the</strong> UK local government council and to outline <strong>the</strong> key areas that need to be examined
and analysed in detail. This scoping study presented an overview <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> current research in KM in
local government and found that <strong>the</strong>oretically, public sector organisations are very well suited to KM,
but that <strong>the</strong>y are generally behind <strong>the</strong> curve when it comes to adoption. The current research also
showed that in <strong>the</strong> public sector <strong>the</strong> focus should very much be on s<strong>of</strong>t KM, or people based KM, with
technology in a purely supportive role. Coincidently, this also supports <strong>the</strong> notion that in <strong>the</strong> public
sector, tacit knowledge is more favoured and valuable. This paper moved onto present an introduction
to <strong>the</strong> council under study, highlighting <strong>the</strong> important features that <strong>the</strong> council had an extraordinary
amount <strong>of</strong> data, unconnected silos <strong>of</strong> information, an over-reliance on paper and several information
breaches from poor information management training. After this scoping study, <strong>the</strong> next stage is a
detailed analysis <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> KM environment at <strong>the</strong> council, which should yield a KM framework unique to
<strong>the</strong> council. The main impetus <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> research would <strong>the</strong>n be <strong>the</strong> implementation <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> framework.
The results obtained from <strong>the</strong> initial analysis showed <strong>the</strong> council suffers from several information
management problems such as a lack <strong>of</strong> executive support, a lack <strong>of</strong> KM awareness and a focus on
records management. The council is also introducing Micros<strong>of</strong>t SharePoint, but only just considering
how <strong>the</strong> tool will support collaborative working. With <strong>the</strong> numerous information losses, and attention
from <strong>the</strong> ICO, <strong>the</strong> council also has a severe need for comprehensive information management skills
training. This paper concluded with <strong>the</strong> identification <strong>of</strong> 4 main areas that need to be explored and
analysed in depth before KM initiatives can be rolled out.
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