ABSTRACT
This study examined the role of communication in knowledge management in Volta River Authority (VRA), one of the state own institutions in Ghana. The study sought to determine the communicative aspects used in the knowledge management process in VRA. The main challenge confronting the usage of communication in knowledge management in the VRA was examined. The qualitative research design approach was used in this study. The population of the study is comprised of senior, junior and middle level management at the knowledge management department. The respondents who participated in the study are two (2) Management, three (3) executives and directors, and fifteen (5) senior staff. In all ten (10) respondents were used for the study.
The study revealed that communication plays a pivotal role in knowledge management. Thus without communication, it will be very difficult if not impossible to handle Knowledge Management in organizations. Another important result of the study is about the importance of communication in revealing and sharing both the explicit and tacit knowledge.
Also, the findings of the study established that managers and employees at the VRA show interest in the usage of communication in the knowledge management processes. The study therefore recommends that there should be policies, framework, administration and processes to guide the implementation of Knowledge Management systems at VRA. Consciousness should be created by VRA Management to insure that staff is conversant with the Knowledge Management concept. The study recommends that with the rise of information age, electronic communication should be more employed in the VRA since electronic assumes an important role in sharing the recorded explicit knowledge.
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction/ Background
Like humans, organizations make and gather knowledge utilizing different components in achieving organizational excellence. Knowledge has become a strategically essential asset in many organizations. Knowledge management isplayinga key role in accomplishing work excellence (Rowley and Hartley, 2008). Under increasing competitive pressure, organizations are looking at how they can better their intellectual capital and transfer knowledge more efficiently across their organizations. The emerging field of Knowledge Management addresses the broad processes of locating, organizing, transferring and using information and expertise efficiently within an organization. New market forces have prompted an interest for Knowledge Management (Randeree, 2006). This keen interest has risen following the loss of essential knowledge by many business forces as a result of down-sizing as well as lossesresulting from the departure of long-serving employees (who have inside and out information that other staff could depend on). Due to this, it has become imperative for the acquisition, creation, storage and sharing of knowledge by organizations between the individuals and groups making it the ultimate goal of knowledge management which needs to be spearheaded by communication.
The communication’s role in the knowledge management is both normal and valuable, because the knowledge, which is a good value, must be transferred so it can be exploited to maximum, and the knowledge transfer is possible only through communication. The managerial decisions, strategies, plans, explanations must be communicated to the organization’s members so they know how, where and why it must be acted to assure its success. Despite these positive effects of communication in the management process, little has been written on. The significance of this
study is to fill this literature gap. The study also seeks to increase the interest of managers and top level officials in the research setting on the use of communication in the knowledge management process.
It must be noted that knowledge management, particularly knowledge creating and sharing activities, mostly depend on interaction and communication between individuals and groups and although many cases concerned with knowledge management are analyzed (not only in Ghanaian literature but also in international literature) communicative aspects of Knowledge Management have not been discussed widely enough.
Little attention has been provided or emphasized on communication’s role in KM unlike the ICT which is often seen as the medium in managing the acquisition, consolidation and the transfer of knowledge in an organization. As a result, some studies dominantly mention communication technologies (ICT) while others pay less attention to communication as a specific dimension of Knowledge Management activities in terms of knowledge management and communication relationship though in the current business environment, the implementation of Knowledge Management projects has become easier with the help of technological tools.
