پژوهش در زمینه عوامل حیاتی موفقیت مدیریت دانش و طبقه بندی چارچوب پروژه در Yuan اجرایی دولت تایوان

This study investigates the key factors for knowledge management in the national government of Taiwan. The achievements of the government KM initiatives demonstrate two distinctive dimensions: core KM processes (organizational missions and values, IT applications, documentation, process management, and human resource) and KM performance (knowledge capture and transformation, business performance, and knowledge sharing and value addition). In terms of modern public administration, issues of paradigm shift and disruptive changes have arisen with the introduction of Information Technology (IT) service delivery and operation in organizations [Hori, K. (2000). An ontology of strategic knowledge: Key concepts and applications. Knowledge-Based Systems, 13, 369–374.]. The strategic roles of IT have emerged in modern organizations from the government, business and non-profit sectors. The initiatives created by the e-government include enormous capacity in processing information, reengineering government, empowering citizens as well as the potential in reframing the context of governance. These initiatives are seen as more than technological phenomena: they are also a key element in the strategies of government modernization

It is undeniable that knowledge has been increasingly regarded as an important asset and increasingly managed in several private sectors in order to maintain a competitive advantage (Davenport et al., 1998, Kaldor, 1939, Machlup, 1962, Machlup, 1984 and Wiig, 1997). Whether the government should initiate knowledge management (KM) projects or how governments should put these KM initiatives into practice are still unclear. In recent years, some scholars have noticed that governments may transform themselves by knowledge management initiatives to improve administrative efficiency, provide more accurate and timely information to the people, and raise administrative satisfaction levels (Misra and Hariharan, 2003, Prokopiadou et al., 2004 and Saussois, 2003). Unfortunately, these studies are mostly conceptual and the knowledge of implementing KM projects into the workplace is still limited. Organizational knowledge management has changed routine habits and operations, just like the process of education in thought and culture. By designing and arranging the process of knowledge management, we can transform tacit knowledge, know-how, and workflow into procedures, standardization, and context analysis of documentations, and lay the base for creating competence, competitive advantage and sustainable development. The purpose of this study attempts to fill the gap and investigate the ongoing KM project in the national government of Taiwan, and empirically examine the key dimensions of a KM initiative in the government.

5.1. Findings of empirical study The exploratory research reported here provides some insights into the government KM initiative implementation factors. A number of factors were identified, with several not included in prior frameworks (Misra & Hariharan, 2003). At first, the most important factor found in this study is the organizational mission and values, which include the organizational goals, project feasibility, priorities, top management support, core competence, and core values. Similar to the “management” factor in the Misra and Hariharan (2003), our findings are in support of the importance of organizational objectives. If a KM initiative is not aligned with organizational core values, no further support will come. Furthermore, IT seems to play a critical role in the governmental KM project. The factors of IT applications consist of search engines, user-friendly interfaces, feedback and assessment mechanisms, knowledge structures, key words and a thesaurus (see Table 7).Surprisingly, documentation and its management ranked third on the implementation lists. It seems that most government information is presented in the form of documentation, and special care should be paid to the explicit knowledge for efficient access and dissemination. Process and human resource management are still critical activities and implementation factors for any KM initiative. Our findings are the same with the prior research (Alazmi and M., 2003 and Misra and Hariharan, 2003). As for the KM performance dimension, our results show that knowledge capture and transformation is the most important activity especially in the initial stage of a KM initiative. In addition, business performance, knowledge creation and value addition may consist of important performance indexes (Fig. 1).The framework is part of the core businesses of the public sector. It also provides important reference rules to the general public, academia and government employees in doing information retrieval and analysis through the standardized classification, the consistency among terms in the category list, and the semantic framework of conceptual knowledge words and their synonyms and antonyms. Knowledge management (KM) can be used to convey knowledge legacy in the private sector. Whereas, KM is used, in the public sector, to promote government information disclosure, establish a fair and convenient channel for the general public to get government information, and support internal project management in the government. Unlike the single objective feature of KM in the private sector, the impact of KM is quite diversified in the public sector with regard to its contribution to internal Executive effectiveness improvement and external service improvement to the general public. Starting from knowledge accumulation and content management, KM demonstrates the value of knowledge in the era of knowledge-based economy. 5.2. Findings of CAKE project The findings of the study provide reference for future government KM projects and have served as a basis for a promotion plan of the administration knowledge framework of the government of Taiwan (<http://cake.ey.gov.tw>). The framework of CAKE is based on the administrative business categories of the annual executive report of the Executive Yuan, and serves as the common fundamental of administrative knowledge taxonomy of different-level agencies. The amendment of the framework is business function oriented rather than organization oriented, and based upon the “Guidelines for CAKE amendment”. The framework should consider the consistency for subject term selection in same hierarchical levels. Also, the categories in the same level should possess mutual exclusion and comprehensiveness. The importance and division depth for the knowledge nodes in different classification levels should be in consistency. The framework is categorized according to three aspects: business subjects, common affairs, and support affairs. There are two major subcategories for common affairs, including planning and evaluation, and international cooperation and exchange. The category list for support affairs includes seven items: personnel, accounting and budget, legal affairs, information technology, secretariat affairs, ethics, and public relation. CAKE has 19 main categories, a total of 5913 leaf nodes and 16,851 thesaurus terms (see Table 8).The framework has been employed in some of the information systems of the Executive Yuan, including the Legislator interpellation management information system, knowledge-based News information system, knowledge information system, official document and archive management system. The RDEC, which is a subordinate organization under the Executive Yuan, has implemented the framework into its project management system and organization planning system. Also, the framework has been widely implemented into the Archive management systems of government agencies. In future applications, it is suggested that the framework be gradually integrated into the e-government information and service common platform and various knowledge management information systems, and included as a mandatory metadata item for government information disclosure action plans. CAKE has been part of the “MyEGov OPEN Classification and Retrieval Service Project” of RDEC, and disclosed on RDEC’s MyEGov portal. The framework has been employed in the following systems of EY: legislator interpellation information system, news knowledge base system, knowledge management system, and official document and archives management system, and some piloting information system projects, such as the project management information system of RDEC. All of the decision support related information systems of the Executive Yuan can follow this classification framework to collect various kinds of information and allow all information to be presented by and used according to the same classification method and framework. Also, the framework may play as part of the foundation of Taiwan’s e-government. Although KM initiatives in Taiwan’s central government are still ongoing and the current research is exploratory in nature, it may lay a foundation for further discussion and practice. The knowledge gleaned from the empirical studies may enrich e-government and KM literature. 5.3. Policy recommendation At last, the research may have important managerial implications. Since most government units do not exactly know how to implement a KM project, the study may provide a checklist for any government KM initiative. The promotion of CAKE serves as basis not only for knowledge management within EY, but for integrating government websites, internal knowledge management systems and inter-agency administrative information systems to establish a common platform for information sharing. Also, it may deepen the application level of e-government and lead to a future knowledge-oriented government (see Fig. 2).We suggest the following six major steps for organizational KM project: 1. Ascertain the KM mission: confirm the mission of the KM project, and set up the priority and schedule of CAKE working group. 2. Identify the critical knowledge items: find out the map of core competence and critical essential terms in each of CAKE’s category (business subject) from interior and exterior experts. 3. Identify the owners of critical knowledge: work out whom these knowledge items belong to and how to transfer them from exports. 4. Set up one or multiple knowledge structures for a business: set up the ontology model and keywords (authority terms, UF, BT, NT, RT and SN) of the CAKE’s thesaurus. 5. Set up incentives for knowledge creation and provide efficient mechanisms for knowledge sharing: build up killer application in EY and cross-agency systems, and suggest the internal KM framework of subordinate agencies under EY. 6. Set up appropriate information systems to streamline KM processes: suggest a CAKE framework to be one of the common protocols for information transfer and integration in the e-government common service platform (GSP) project of the research, development and evaluation commission (RDEC). 5.4. Limitation and future The research has not yet touched upon the impact evaluation issue of CAKE. An impact evaluation—with a title of “The Impact of Government Knowledge Management Classification Framework on the Performance of Government Information Systems”—will be undertaken at later time and focus on the internal systems of the Executive Yuan, such as the internal knowledge management system, publicly disclosed information, inter-agency information system, etc. To fulfill CAKE as a government policy, the RDEC, which is in charge of Taiwan’s e-government development, has deployed CAKE as part of the services of MyEGov OPEN project. Metadata and classification retrieval mechanism have been also integrated into the project. Also, CAKE has been enacted as part of the articles in an executive code named as “The Electronic Data Circulation Code for Administrative Agencies,” which is mandatory for all subordinate agencies under the Executive Yuan. Although KM initiatives in Taiwan’s central government are still ongoing and the current research is exploratory in nature, it may lay a foundation for further discussions and practices. The knowledge gleaned from the empirical studies may enrich e-government and KM literature. The CAKE Project is competitively similar to various international thesaurus and taxonomy projects for the public sector.