Asian Productivity Organization Knowledge Management for the Public Sector

The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Asian Productivity Organization (APO) or any APO member. All rights reserved. None of the contents of this publication may be used, reproduced, stored, or transferred in any form or by any means for commercial purposes without prior written permission from the APO. CONTENTS Foreword v i v s t n e m e g d e l w o n k c A Introduction 1 About the Authors and the Volume Editor 80 iii As our society becomes increasingly knowledge based, enterprises and individuals must find ways to organize ideas and information so that they can be shared. The ultimate goal of sharing through knowledge management (KM) is to spark innovations that will allow people to think more creatively and work more productively. KM is supported by continuing advances in communication technologies, but is not limited to the high-tech digital world. As Peter Drucker famously pointed out, " If we apply knowledge to tasks we already know how to do, we call it 'productivity.' If we apply knowledge to tasks that are new and different we call it 'innovation.' " The KM concept is now being applied in new and different areas including community development and the mitigation of global climate change effects, combining both the productivity and innovation concepts. The APO has promoted KM for more than a decade and in 2010 began to focus on its potential for innovations in the public sector. Five volumes on KM-related topics were published previously, and public-sector KM will continue to be on the APO agenda. This research report focuses on KM for the public sector as an effective tool to improve its productivity. Public-sector organizations everywhere strive to deliver better-quality services with limited budgets that continue to dwindle, and the national productivity organizations in the APO membership in particular are mandated by their governments to undertake initiatives to enhance public-sector productivity. This publication contains the results of extensive research on and analyses of public-sector organizations in APO members conducted by a team of KM experts from Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and the U.K. The team examined why KM is important in the public sector, and then explained the basic concepts in the context of the APO KM framework. Most importantly, they included five detailed case studies showing how KM is …