Impact of organisational cultural factors on knowledge management in construction

Knowledge Management (KM) is a process that focuses on knowledge-related activities to facilitate knowledge creation, capture, transformation and use, with the ultimate aim of leveraging organisations’ intellectual capital to achieve organisational objectives. Organisational culture and climate have been identified as major catalysts to knowledge creation and sharing, and hence are considered important dimensions of KM research. The fragmented and hierarchical nature of the construction industry illustrates its difficulties to operate in a co-ordinated and homogeneous way when dealing with knowledge-related issues such as research and development, training and innovation. The culture and climate of organisations operating within the construction industry are profoundly shaped by the long-established characteristics of the industry, whilst also being influenced by the changes within the sector. Meanwhile, the special project-based structure of construction organisations constitutes additional challenges in facing knowledge production. The study this paper reports on addresses the impact of organisational culture and climate on the intensity of KM activities within construction organisations, with specific focus on the managerial activities that help to manage these challenges and to facilitate KM. A series of semi-structured interviews were undertaken to investigate the KM activities of the contractors operating in Hong Kong. The analysis on the qualitative data revealed that leadership on KM, innovation management, communication management and IT development were key factors that impact positively on the KM activities within the organisations under investigation.

A self-assessment tool for knowledge management implementation in the construction industry

Knowledge management (KM) provides a structured process to establish the link between knowledgebased assets within an organisation and its desired business objectives. Although KM issues are becoming increasingly important to the construction industry, there is currently no measurement tool for assessing the implementation of KM programmes. This paper reports on the development of such a tool which can be used as both a means of self-assessment and also for benchmarking purposes. Important practices needed for successful KM implementation were identified from the literature and via a self-administered survey targeting large and medium construction organisations in Hong Kong. Survey findings demonstrate the potential of the proposed self-assessment tool to measure the individual’s perception of the relative importance of KM antecedents and practices, also providing early insight of KM implementation by highlighting the negative gaps between what “is” and “should be” happening, thus identifying areas that need re alignment of KM strategies and tactics. The paper also suggests this tool could be further developed to help organisations to formulate and modify their KM programmes according to their own specific internal business environment, and the nature of their projects.

Hepatitis B knowledge, testing, and vaccination among Chinese and Vietnamese adults in Australia

Hepatitis B is a significant public health challenge within some subpopulations in Australia, including Chinese and Vietnamese migrants. There has been limited research on hepatitis B knowledge and actions in these communities. The authors conducted a self-administered survey among 442 Chinese and 433 Vietnamese in Brisbane. Generally, the knowledge is best described as “moderate.” One in 2 could not identify the sexual transmission risk and less than one third knew that sharing foods or drinks did not spread the disease. The majority of Vietnamese (80%) and 60% of Chinese respondents indicated prior testing. Vaccination was reported in 60% of the Vietnamese and in 52% of the Chinese. Knowledge was better among Chinese people who had been tested and vaccinated compared with those who were nontested and nonvaccinated. Only 3.5% of the Chinese, but 11.6% of the Vietnamese, indicated having a positive test result hepatitis B virus. This study helps identify strategies for programs targeting both communities and practitioners.

Submission to National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention from The Australian Psychological Society

Executive Summary The Australian Psychological Society categorically condemns the practice of detaining child asylum seekers and their families, on the grounds that it is not commensurate with psychological best practice concerning children’s development and mental health and wellbeing. Detention of children in this fashion is also arguably a violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. A thorough review of relevant psychological theory and available research findings from international research has led the Australian Psychological Society to conclude that: • Detention is a negative socialisation experience. • Detention is accentuates developmental risks. • Detention threatens the bonds between children and significant caregivers. • Detention limits educational opportunities. • Detention has traumatic impacts on children of asylum seekers. • Detention reduces children’s potential to recover from trauma. • Detention exacerbates the impacts of other traumas. • Detention of children from these families in many respects is worse for them than being imprisoned. In the absence of any indication from the Australian Government that it intends in the near future to alter the practice of holding children in immigration detention, the Australian Psychological Society’s intermediate position is that the facilitation of short-term and long-term psychological development and wellbeing of children is the basic tenet upon which detention centres should be audited and judged. Based on that position, the Society has identified a series of questions and concerns that arise directly from the various psychological perspectives that have been brought to bear on estimating the effects of detention on child asylum seekers. The Society argues that, because these questions and concerns relate specifically to improvement and maintenance of child detainees’ educational, social and psychological wellbeing, they are legitimate matters for the Inquiry to consider and investigate. • What steps are currently being taken to monitor the psyc hological welfare of the children in detention? In particular, what steps are being taken to monitor the psychological wellbeing of children arriving from war-torn countries? • What qualifications and training do staff who care for children and their families in detention centres have? What knowledge do they have of psychological issues faced by people who have been subjected to traumatic experiences and are suffering high degrees of anxiety, stress and uncertainty? • What provisions have been made for psycho-educational assessment of children’s specific learning needs prior to their attending formal educational programmes? • who are suffering chronic and/or vicarious trauma as a result of witnessing threatening behaviour whilst in detention? • What provisions have been made for families who have been seriously affected by displacement to participate in family therapy? • What critical incident debriefing procedures are in place for children who have witnessed their parents, other family members, or social acquaintances engaging in acts of self-harm or being harmed while in detention? What psychotherapeutic support is in place for children who themselves have been harmed or have engaged in self- harmful acts while in detention? • What provisions are in place for parenting programmes that provide support for parents of children under extremely difficult psychological and physical circumstances? • What efforts are being made to provide parents with the opportunity to model traditional family roles for children, such as working to earn an income, meal preparation, other household duties, etc.? • What opportunities are in place for the assessment of safety issues such as bullying, and sexual or physical abuse of children or their mothers in detention centres? • How are resources distributed to children and families in detention centres? • What socialization opportunities are available either within detention centres or in the wider community for children to develop skills and independence, engage in social activities, participate in cultural traditions, and communicate and interaction with same-age peers and adults from similar ethnic and religious backgrounds? • What access do children and families have to videos, music and entertainment from their cultures of origin? • What provisions are in place to ensure the maintenance of privacy in a manner commensurate with usual cultural practice? • What is the Government’s rationale for continuing to implement a policy of mandatory detention of child asylum seekers that on the face of it is likely to have a pernicious impact on these children’s mental health? • In view of the evidence on the potential long-term impact of mandatory detention on children, what processes may be followed by Government to avoid such a practice and, more importantly, to develop policies and practices that will have a positive impact on these children’s psychological development and mental health?

Handbook on the Knowledge Economy : Volume Two

The second volume of the Handbook on the Knowledge Economy is a worthy companion to the highly successful original volume published in 2005, extending its theoretical depth and developing its coverage. Together the two volumes provide the single best work and reference point for knowledge economy studies. The second volume with fifteen original essays by renowned scholars in the field, provides insightful and robust analyses of the development potential of the knowledge economy in all its aspects, forms and manifestations.

Towards tacit knowledge sharing over social web tools

Purpose - Researchers debate whether tacit knowledge sharing through Information Technology (IT) is actually possible. However, with the advent of social web tools, it has been argued that most shortcomings of tacit knowledge sharing are likely to disappear. This paper has two purposes: firstly, to demonstrate the existing debates in the literature regarding tacit knowledge sharing using IT, and secondly, to identify key research gaps that lay the foundations for future research into tacit knowledge sharing using social web. Design/methodology/approach - This paper reviews current literature on IT-mediated tacit knowledge sharing and opens a discussion on tacit knowledge sharing through the use of social web. Findings - First, the existing schools of thoughts in regards to IT ability for tacit knowledge sharing are introduced. Next, difficulties of sharing tacit knowledge through the use of IT are discussed. Then, potentials and pitfalls of social web tools are presented. Finally, the paper concludes that whilst there are significant theoretical arguments supporting that the social web facilitates tacit knowledge sharing there is a lack of empirical evidence to support these arguments and further work is required. Research limitations/implications - The limitations of the review includes: covering only papers that were published in English, issues of access to full texts of some resources, possibility of missing some resources due to search strings used or limited coverage of databases searched. Originality/value - The paper contributes to the fast growing literature on the intersection of KM and IT particularly by focusing on tacit knowledge sharing in social media space. The paper highlights the need for further studies in this area by discussing the current situation in the literature and disclosing the emerging questions and gaps for future studies.

Provision of customer knowledge to supply chains

Knowledge about customers is vital for supply chains in order to ensure customer satisfaction. In an ideal supply chain environment, supply chain partners are able to perform planning tasks collaboratively, because they share information. However, customers are not always able or willing to share information with their suppliers. End consumers, on the one hand, do not usually provide a retail company with demand information. On the other hand, industrial customers might consciously hide information. Wherever a supply chain is not provided with demand forecast information, it needs to derive these demand forecasts by other means. Customer Relationship Management provides a set of tools to overcome informational uncertainty. We show how CRM and SCM information can be integrated on the conceptual as well as technical levels in order to provide supply chain managers with relevant information.

Knowledge unlatched : towards an open and networked future for academic publishing

Specialist book length publications in the humanities and social sciences (including but not exclusively monographs) are experiencing a crisis. It is clear that the current publishing system is failing both the producers and users of scholarship and neglects many of the opportunities associated with networked culture.

Knowledge management practices in construction : Evidence from Hong Kong

The acquisition and management of knowledge is the dominant source of organisational com-petitive advantage. As innovation processes in the management and procurement of construc-tion activities are becoming increasingly interactive, knowledge management (KM) has been widely recognised by construction organisations as an essential tool to be employed when dealing with growing complexity and cost of projects as well as increasing client demands. KM requires deliberate efforts by an organisation to maximise its performance through the acquisition, dissemination and leveraging of the organisation’s intellectual assets. The Hong Kong (HK) construction market has been described as one of the most open and globally competitive. This paper reports on KM practices within the HK construction industry, and through the analysis of a self-administered questionnaire survey, reveals managers’ opinions of the formal and informal KM practices that could be used to manage the flow of knowledge, and identifies the level of implementation within their organisations. The differences between managers’ perception and the actual state of implementation – as reported by the same man-agers – are statistically examined. The analysis leads to better understanding of how HK con-struction professionals currently manage organisational knowledge, and what areas for poten-tial improvement exist.

Conceptual model linking knowledge management with organisational performance

Better management of knowledge assets has the potential to improve business processes and increase productivity. This fact has led to considerable interest in recent years in the knowledge management (KM) phenomenon, and in the main dimensions that can impact on its application in construction. However, a lack of a systematic way of assessing KM initia-tives’ contribution towards achieving organisational business objectives is evident. This paper describes the first stage of a research project intended to develop, and empirically test, a KM input-process-output framework comprising unique and well-defined theoretical constructs representing the KM process and its internal and external determinants in the context of con-struction. The paper presents the underlying principles used in operationally defining each construct through the use of extant KM literature. The KM process itself is explicitly mod-elled via a number of clearly articulated phases that ultimately lead to knowledge utilisation and capitalisation, which in turn adds value or otherwise to meeting defined business objec-tives. The main objective of the model is to reduce the impact of subjectivity in assessing the contribution made by KM practices and initiatives toward achieving performance improvements.

Modelling the Contribution of Knowledge Management towards Achieving Orgnisational Business Objectives

Knowledge management (KM) continues to receive mounting interest within the construction industry due to its potential to offer solutions for organisations seeking competitive advantage. This paper presents a KM input-process-output conceptual model comprising unique and well-defined theoretical constructs representing KM practices and their internal and external determinants in the context of construction. The paper also presents the underlying principles used in operationally defining each construct using extant KM literature, and offers a number of testable hypotheses that capture the inter-relationships between the identified constructs.

Empirical analysis of knowledge management activities in construction organisations

Knowledge is a commodity. It is a by-product of learning that involves the creation, sharing, processing and possible use of information in the mind of an individual. Knowledge management (KM) is, therefore, concerned with the effective implementation of such activities within the organisation. It is simply the process of leveraging organisational knowledge to deliver a long-term competitive advantage. This paper presents the results of an empirical research investigation into the interaction between different KM activities within the context of construction contracting organisations. The different KM activities include: responsiveness to the knowledge of business environment, knowledge acquisition, knowledge dissemination, and knowledge application. A questionnaire survey was administered to investigate the opinions of construction professionals regarding the intensity of activities currently implemented by their organisations to facilitate knowledge capturing, sharing and application. A total of 149 responses were then used to statistically examine the inter-relationships between the different KM activities as practised by contracting organisations in Hong Kong. The paper presents and discusses the survey findings and proposes recommendations for improving the effectiveness of current KM practices.

Education for sustainability : a case study of pre-service primary teachers' knowledge and efficacy

This study investigated the relationships between knowledge and efficacy for teaching sustainability in a sample of 266 pre-service primary teachers at a large, metropolitan university in Australia. A survey gathered information about the participant’s attitudes and self-efficacy for education for sustainability, along with their perceived and actual knowledge of environmental sustainability issues. The participants typically believed they were confident in their abilities to engage with education for sustainability with self-efficacy increasing with increased levels of perceived knowledge. However no relationship was found between perceived knowledge and actual knowledge which suggests that the participants either do not feel constrained by their lack of knowledge, or are perhaps unaware of their actual knowledge of sustainability issues. This lack of relationship may have implications for the development of pedagogical content knowledge with pre-service teachers potentially developing shallow, tokenistic approaches to Education for Sustainability.

Investigating homework as a social practice : a qualitative approach

This thesis examines the social practice of homework. It explores how homework is shaped by the discourses, policies and guidelines in circulation in a society at any given time with particular reference to one school district in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. This study investigates how contemporary homework reconstitutes the home as a pedagogical site where the power of the institution of schooling circulates regularly from school to home. It examines how the educational system shapes the organization of family life and how family experiences with homework may be different in different sites depending on the accessibility of various forms of cultural capital. This study employs a qualitative approach, incorporating multiple case studies, and is complemented by insights from institutional ethnography and critical discourse analysis. It draws on the theoretical concepts of Foucault including power and power relations, and governmentality and surveillance, as well as Bourdieu’s concepts of economic, social and cultural capital for analysis. It employs concepts from Bourdieu’s work as they have been expanded on by researchers including Reay (1998), Lareau (2000), and Griffith and Smith (2005). The studies of these researchers allowed for an examination of homework as it related to families and mothers’ work. Smith’s (1987; 1999) concepts of ruling relations, mothers’ unpaid labour, and the engine of inequality were also employed in the analysis. Family interviews with ten volunteer families, teacher focus group sessions with 15 teachers from six schools, homework artefacts, school newsletters, homework brochures, and publicly available assessment and evaluation policy documents from one school district were analyzed. From this analysis key themes emerged and the findings are documented throughout five data analysis chapters. This study shows a change in education in response to a system shaped by standards, accountability and testing. It documents an increased transference of educational responsibility from one educational stakeholder to another. This transference of responsibility shifts downward until it eventually reaches the family in the form of homework and educational activities. Texts in the form of brochures and newsletters, sent home from school, make available to parents specific subject positions that act as instruments of normalization. These subject positions promote a particular ‘ideal’ family that has access to certain types of cultural capital needed to meet the school’s expectations. However, the study shows that these resources are not equally available to all and some families struggle to obtain what is necessary to complete educational activities in the home. The increase in transference of educational work from the school to the home results in greater work for parents, particularly mothers. As well, consideration is given to mother’s role in homework and how, in turn, classroom instructional practices are sometimes dependent on the work completed at home with differential effects for children. This study confirms previous findings that it is mothers who assume the greatest role in the educational trajectory of their children. An important finding in this research is that it is not only middle-class mothers who dedicate extensive time working hard to ensure their children’s educational success; working-class mothers also make substantial contributions of time and resources to their children’s education. The assignments and educational activities distributed as homework require parents’ knowledge of technical school pedagogy to help their children. Much of the homework being sent home from schools is in the area of literacy, particularly reading, but requires parents to do more than read with children. A key finding is that the practices of parents are changing and being reconfigured by the expectations of schools in regard to reading. Parents are now being required to monitor and supervise children’s reading, as well as help children complete reading logs, written reading responses, and follow up questions. The reality of family life as discussed by the participants in this study does not match the ‘ideal’ as portrayed in the educational documents. Homework sessions often create frustrations and tensions between parents and children. Some of the greatest struggles for families were created by mathematical homework, homework for those enrolled in the French Immersion program, and the work required to complete Literature, Heritage and Science Fair projects. Even when institutionalized and objectified capital was readily available, many families still encountered struggles when trying to carry out the assigned educational tasks. This thesis argues that homework and education-related activities play out differently in different homes. Consideration of this significance may assist educators to better understand and appreciate the vast difference in families and the ways in which each family can contribute to their children’s educational trajectory.

Teachers’ knowledge of anxiety and identification of excessive anxiety in children

This study examined primary school teachers’ knowledge of anxiety and excessive anxiety symptoms in children. Three hundred and fifteen primary school teachers completed a questionnaire exploring their definitions of anxiety and the indications they associated with excessive anxiety in primary school children. Results showed that teachers had an understanding of what anxiety was in general but did not consistently distinguish normal anxiety from excessive anxiety, often defining all anxiety as a negative experience. Teachers were able to identify symptoms of excessive anxiety in children by recognizing anxiety-specific and general problem indications. The results provided preliminary evidence that teachers’ knowledge of anxiety and anxiety disorders does not appear to be a barrier in preventing children’s referrals for mental health treatment. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.