Knowledge Management: Issues, Challenges and Benefits for a Sustainable Urban Environment

Many organisations that currently engage in Knowledge Management (KM) accept that leveraging knowledge, both within their organisations and externally to their clients, is vital for the efficient execution of projects and for improving organisational competitiveness. It also helps with business entrepreneurship and for managing change. However, the increasing attention levelled at the importance of knowledge seems to be less targeted at Sustainable Urban Environments (SUE). Similarly, there are very few empirical construction-related studies that have been focused on KM in the context of a Sustainable Urban Environment. This paper presents some views from a thorough review of the literature of an on-going PhD study, which investigates the potential benefits, main issues and challenges associated with implementing KM within a Sustainable Urban Environment. It also discusses the perceived effectiveness of different technologies for KM. The nature of training provisions that will be of benefit in exploiting KM in a SUE context is also discussed. The issues of people, process and technology are equally vital in this context, and demand a robust research methodology in their investigation. It is concluded that the benefits from KM, in a Sustainable Urban Environment context, can only be fully reaped by organisations that are not only technologically adept, but also able to make the long term investment to align the cultural, managerial and organisational elements for KM. Finally, there is ample scope for more empirical research on KM for SUE, which takes a holistic approach involving people, processes and technology.