Assessing Knowledge Management Processes and Competitive Advantage in Local Authorities using Knowledge Management Assessment Instrument (KMAI)

For academics and professionals, knowledge management has been widely known as a core agenda and has been recognized as one of the most important sources of competitive advantage. Managing knowledge to achieve organizational performance is not only crucial for private sector institutions, but it is significant for the public sector institutions as well. Since the study of knowledge management in the public sector is still in its infancy, this study is aimed at investigating the relationship between knowledge management processes and competitive advantages in local authorities in Malaysia to raise the awareness of the importance of managing organizational knowledge, particularly in the public sector. For this study, the data was collected from selected Heads of Departments in 42 institutions of local authorities in Peninsular Malaysia and yielded 82 usable responses. The analysis suggests that all six knowledge management processes (knowledge creation, capture, organization, storage, dissemination, and application) have a strong relationship with competitive advantage. This study is expected to raise awareness and provide initial guidelines to local authorities as knowledge-intensive institutions to formulate strategies on how to manage the knowledge management processes within the organization.