Organizational Development for Knowledge Management at Water ...

PART 2
THE SURVEY INSTRUMENT
The questionnaire has 15 questions, although Q1, Q2, Q6 and Q10 have multiple parts.
Six of the questions (Q1, Q5, Q6, Q7, Q8 and Q9) are built on five-point Likert scale. For the
multiple parts of Q1 the scale is as follows: 1 (very low), 2 (low), 3 (medium), 4 (high) and 5
(very high). Response is forced. A single question is asked—How would you characterize your
organization?—and followed by a list of 12 expressions as follows:
Level of trust among employees
Level of employee learning
Level of employee empowerment
Level of management control
Use of teams within the organization
Amount of knowledge sharing among managers
Number of new ideas implemented annually
Level of communication between departments
Flexibility of organizational policies
Level of process discipline
Quality of information contained in IT systems
Level of information system integration (information is consistent and accessible)
For Q5 through Q9, the five-point Likert scale is as follows: 1 (very poorly), 2 (poorly),
3 (okay), 4 (well) and 5 (very well). The alternative of “don’t know” is offered. The questions
are as follows:
Q5 How well does your organization accept and implement new initiatives?
Q6 How well do the following core processes support your organization’s mission?
Strategic business planning
Operational planning
Capital improvement planning
Human resource development
Life cycle planning
Information technology master planning
Q7 How well do employees share information and knowledge?
Q8 How well does your organizational structure support sharing of information and
knowledge?
Q9 How well does your human resource department support learning and knowledge
sharing?
Q2 asked the survey participant to place a D (doing), N (planning to do) or I (interested in
doing) next to each of seven KM initiatives. These were: Communities of Practice, Knowledge
Base Development, Yellow Page Library/Expert Locator, Team-Based Decision-making, Action
Learning, Knowledge Sharing, and Knowledge Retention of Individuals Who Are Retiring. A
blank space labeled “Other” was at the bottom of the list.
A-5
©2011 Water Research Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.