Organizational Development for Knowledge Management at Water ...

PART 5
RESULTS
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
In the Project 4003 survey participants were asked: How well does your organizational
structure support sharing of information and knowledge? On a Likert scale from 1 to 5, with 1
representing “very poorly” and 5 representing “very well,” the mean of the 203 responses to this
question was 3.59 and the median was 4. This was among the higher scoring answers to the
questions involving characteristics of the utilities. For example, the amount of knowledge
sharing among managers has a mean of 3.70, the level of trust among employees has a mean of
3.69, and the level of employee learning has a mean of 3.59. All the rest of the questions relating
to Utility characteristics are lower than 3.59, some considerably lower. The level of
communication between departments has a mean of 3.46.
In contrast, the ability of the human resource department to support learning and
knowledge sharing has a mean of 3.22, well below the mean of the means (the average mean for
survey response) of 3.44. This shows the perception that the organizational structure supports
the sharing of information and knowledge better than the human resource department.
KNOWLEDGE SHARING
The good news from the Project 4003 survey response is that the mean for the level of
trust among employees on a five-point Likert scale was 3.69 with a median of 4. This is one of
the higher means in the survey. In other words, while there is a disparity in responses ranging
from very poor to very well, the leaders and managers felt more positive about the level of trust
among employees than other areas assessed such as level of process discipline (3.24 mean) and
the level of information system integration(information is consistent and accessible) (3.08 mean).
In the Project 4003 survey response, when asked to assess the flexibility of organizational
policies, the mean for 206 responses was 3.26. The mean of the means—which provides the
average response for this survey—is 3.44. This means that the flexibility of organizational
policies is considered lower than average.
On Likert scale from 1 (very poorly) to 5 (very well), 205 responders to the Project 4003
survey valued the level of information system integration (information consistent and accessible)
at a mean of 3.08. This represents the lowest mean in the survey, and is considerably below the
mean of the means of 3.44. Further, the mean was 3.35 for the quality of information contained
in IT systems. See the discussion of the relationship between information technology,
information management and KM at the end of Chapter 6.
Although there is room for growth, knowledge sharing does occur among drinking water
Utility managers. Recall that in the Project 4003 survey response, on a Likert scale the mean of
207 responders was 3.68 when asked to assess the amount of knowledge sharing among
managers. However, for the level of communication between departments the mean was 3.46,
indicating a wider knowledge sharing gap between departments than between managers, or
between employees.
Appendix A 37
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