Assessment of Knowledge Management Practices in Quantity Surveying Firms in Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

In Global Construction Industry, Quantity Surveying (QS) profession has been identified as a knowledge intensive profession i.e. a profession broad in scope and provides expert advice and professional knowledge to clients. The study is aimed at assessing Knowledge Management (KM) practices in QS firms with a view to establishing the state of art of KM practice in QS firms in Lagos and Abuja.Well-structured questionnaire and Interview was used as the data collection instrument. Data collected were analysed using Mean score and Spearman rank correlation. The findings affirm that QS firms in Lagos and Abuja are aware of KM. In addition, all KM activities occur regularly in QS firms except knowledge maintenance. The study further reveals that knowledge acquisition has a positive influence on knowledge creation, storage, sharing, utilisation and maintaining. The study concludes that quantity surveying firms have a high level of awareness of KM and out of all KM activities that are regularly undertaken in QS firms, knowledge maintenance was still lacking. The study recommends that QS firms should develop and implement proper knowledge policy that will act as a guide for the organisations to direct its staff in managing knowledge and their application for effective practices.

Keywords: Knowledge, Knowledge management, Quantity surveying firms, Nigeria.