Knowledge management framework for performance in a public sector organisation in Ghana

Abstract

The emergence of knowledge-based economies globally, has emphasised knowledge management (KM) practices in organisations as the emerging path for employees’ performance effectiveness. To this effect, one important way of solving employees’ performance challenges is that the HR department needs to articulate how the employees can apply KM practices to create knowledge value for the organisation that will lead to their effective performance. This study was, therefore, conducted to address a continued ineffective performance of employees of public sector organisations in Ghana, which was largely blamed on ineffective HR practices attributed to lack of understanding of KM practices among the employees. Here, KM adopted as an integrative lens on this research area, has been described as a systematic way whereby HR management decides on which knowledge resource employees should rely on for the smooth and effective operation of the organisation. Hence, the study aimed to develop a validated KM framework for effective performance of employees of the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs), which is a public sector organisation under the Local Government Service of Ghana (LGSG). In respect to this, the most appropriate philosophical paradigm and research design for this qualitative study was interpretive phenomenological approach (IPA). This approach helped to explore and explain the understanding and interpretation of the phenomenon, which was best done through the shared value, knowledge and experience of the participants working together in a group. Hence, employees of three metropolitan assemblies namely, Kumasi, Tamale and Tema zoned geographically as central, northern and southern zones respectively, which reflect the typology of most public sector organisations in Ghana, were purposively selected as the population for the study. These metropolitan assemblies are well-staffed with sub-metropolitan structures for effective personnel management. Informed by the IPA methodology, 18 participants were selected as the sample size using a heterogeneous purposive sampling technique for semi-structured interviews and also using a semi-structured interview schedule as the instrument focribed verbatim before analysed using an IPA framework of analysis which is sequential and a bottom-up approach. The transcribed interviews together with the observational field notes and reflexive research journal were used to generate inferential codes after they were compared with the codes of an independent co-coder for the development of superordinate themes used for interpretation of the findings for the study. The main findings revealed that nearly all participants had long years of working experience as well as good working relation with the HR management and practiced KM practices, which contribute to their commitments, competence, physical resource, and knowledge, which they used to increase their performance effectiveness as well as the knowledge resource of other employees in the organisation. In the findings, the participants described KM practices as the internal practices for sharing employees’ knowledge or internal strategies for sharing the documented knowledge of the organisation. They also revealed that enhanced internal practices and strategies also help to improve on their processes of sharing, transfer and application of the organisational knowledge (OK). This helps them to be more professional in their improved KM practices, which they described as improved practices for sharing employees’ knowledge or improved strategies for sharing documented knowledge of the organisation. The findings revealed that the HR management’s support for the enhanced internal practices and strategies was very necessary because these helped to improve on the employees’ KM practices through effective interaction and socialisation, which is the main contribution of the study. Hence, a conceptual framework on KM for performance has been proffered to guide employees’ effective performance in an organisation. It was, therefore, recommended that the HR management of the public sector organisations follows the necessary guidelines for its implementation for their employees’ effective understanding of their formal ways of sharing the OK, which helps them to become open-minded and to develop quick problem-solving techniques in the organisation.