Knowledge Management Practices among the Internal Quality Assurance Network (IQAN)-Member Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Thailand

Abstract

Knowledge management is one of the essential processes in every organization because knowledge is recently considered an important asset that needs to be managed. However, in Thailand, it was observed that in many organizations more importantly the academe, knowledge management processed are not yet at fully implemented and employees are not really fully aware of the KM processes in their workplace. This research reviewed the status of knowledge management (KM) in the IQAN- member college and universities in Thailand based on the interpretation of the practice of their rank and file staff. This study was able to find out the majority of the staff know about KM and view it as essential and strategic part of their institutions. They consider their HEIs as knowledge –based. Furthermore, most of the staff believe that KM in the HEIs are still in introductory, intermediate and some consider that KM is their institution is its growth stage and rated differently their institutes’ KM practice from adequate, good to very good. The staff also affirmed that there is knowledge creation, storage, sharing and transfer via various modes. However, in the preference of use of technology tools, the rank and file staff least prefer the usage of the technology in KM management and prefer the use of communities of practice in the sharing of knowledge. It is therefore, strongly recommended that there should be continuous and cyclic process in KM wherein review of the different stages will be done regularly to update the staff especially in the use of technology because it is a very important tool in knowledge storage and sharing or communicating knowledge.