Fusing Knowledge Management into the Public Sector: A Review of the Field and the Case of the Emirates Identity Authority

Abstract

Organizations worldwide are showing increasing interest in knowledge management practices to address the contemporary challenges of today's digital age. Knowledge is becoming a critical core asset to sustain competitive advantage and as a vehicle for continuous improvement and innovation. However, most of the developments in the knowledge management field are driven by international organizations or private commercial companies. Considering the impact of knowledge management practices, government organizations have the potential for significant improvements in performance, transformation, and the development of a more responsive citizen-centric government.

This article has two objectives: The first is to provide an overview of knowledge management and highlight the importance of this field of practice, and the second is to provide a case study of the successful implementation of knowledge management in a federal government organization in the United Arab Emirates. This article outlines the adopted approach and framework and elaborates on each of the implemented components. The presented case study and lessons learned are benchmarks for best practices and contribute to the existing experimental cases. This, in turn, should help organizations and researchers to better understand how public sector government organizations are perceiving and practicing knowledge management, which should enable them to reflect and propose improvements.

Keywords: knowledge management, organizational excellence, public sector, organizational learning, public sector, competitiveness