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Volume 6 Issue 2
October 2008
Knowledge Management Practices within Higher Education Institutions in the UK
Desireé Joy Cranfield and John Taylor
University of Southampton, UK
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This paper presents the initial findings of a case study conducted at seven Higher Education
Institutions within the United Kingdom. The Case Study utilizes Stankosky´s Knowledge Management (KM)
pillars to enterprise learning – leadership, organization, technology and learning - as a lens to
investigate and understand Knowledge Management practices and perceptions within Higher Education
Institutions, looking at challenges of implementation within this sector. Higher Education Institutions
within the United Kingdom are very complex institutions, with diverse backgrounds, history, culture,
resources and missions. The University presents itself in today´s knowledge economy with a dichotomy
of priorities, one which aims to provide quality teaching and research activity, and the other, to
ensure effective and efficient management and administration within an increasingly competitive market.
Being a service, non-profit organization ensures that the values of scholarship remain a very important
aspect of its mission; yet, the external environment within which HEIs conduct their business
today is rapidly changing, forcing HEIs to reflect on how they do ‘business’ given the external
pressures they face. This case study uses the Grounded Theory methodology to begin to unpack the
issues related to the implementation of Knowledge Management within this context. It focuses on
two aspects of the case study – the characteristics of universities and academics that hinder or
promote the implementation of KM, and the perceptions of Knowledge Management and its challenges for
implementation within the HEI sector. Initial findings are presented.
Keywords:
knowledge management, case study, grounded theory, higher education
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