Knowledge Management Practices: Issues and Challenges (With special Reference to Chhattisgarh Academic Institutions)

Knowledge management is about enhancing organizational effectiveness through creating environment among colleagues to share, develop and create new methods of skills in an organization. We are concerned with knowledge management because we believe it can contribute to our institutional vitality and success. Efforts to measure intellectual capital and to assess the effectiveness of knowledge management applications should help us understand the extent to which we are managing knowledge. This paper is based on an experimental approach about the Knowledge Management practices performed in the higher educational institutions in Chhattisgarh with respect to the Knowledge support needs etc. The survey also found that most organisations did not have an explicit knowledge management strategy or if they did, the majority of employees were not aware of it. A considerable percentage of respondents believed that their organizations structure and their Chairman/Director/Principal/CEO encouraged knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing activities seemed to be frequently assessed in individual performance evaluations. Best practice identification and transfer were identified as useful practices, but a large number of employees were neutral that it occurred in their organisation.

Age and gender based analysis also produced some interesting results. Although certain knowledge sources, for example co-location, meetings, email, printed publications, training materials and mentors proved to be important for knowledge seekers in small businesses. Other knowledge sources, including electronic discussion groups, knowledge maps, instant messaging, knowledge resources and web pages were deemed to be less useful due to non availabilities of facilities.

This research finds that Knowledge creation is a dynamic processes that occurs at individual, organizational and societal level and is linked to organizations actions and goals that support its survival.