Systematic analyses on knowledge implementation steps and themes at the organizational level

Abstract

The on-going global economic crisis drives the construction industry to even more competitive and many organizations are struggling to be survived in this harsh environment. It is believed that the effective knowledge management often leads to creative value-added innovations and consequently raises competitiveness of its products and services. Despite of the growing emphasis on the knowledge implementation effort, there is little research focused on the systematic knowledge implementation processes or themes. The main objectives of this study is to assess the current status of the organizational knowledge implementation efforts based on the implementation steps specified in the CII Implementation Model and on the implementation themes derived from the literature review. Identified implementation themes include management support, resources, communication, continuous improvement, integration, culture, benefit, documentation, research accessibility, and process. Various statistical analysis methods such as ANOVA and reliability tests were utilized in order to validate the findings from this study using the data collected with a structured survey. In general, management leadership and support are defined as strong areas when a construction related organization is implementing organizational knowledge. However, it turns out that organizations need to put more tangible effort to improve their organizational knowledge implementation level such as establishing systematic measurement system and assigning more resources including people, time, and money. This study successfully identifies the common areas where the participating organizations need to concentrate and proves the research hypothesis of that organizations have, in general, strengths and weaknesses in using certain implementation steps and implementation themes.