Within Knowledge Management Literature, Public Sector is claimed to be a specific research context where theories developed within the private sector cannot be applied verbatim. According to Massaro et al. (2015) “a separate research agenda is further justified because the public sector is organizationally specific, has different effectiveness concerns and has different levels of representativeness, accountability, and responsiveness.“
Interesting despite the recognized importance public utilities are an under-investigated topic in terms of knowledge management and intellectual capital development (Hendriks 2009; Pillania 2005).
Public utilities provide water, electricity, natural gas, telephone service, and other essentials to a large population. Because of their nature they usually involve many actors such as municipality and local governments where the infrastructure usually are installed and central governments that usually regulate public utilities to ensure that they provide a reasonable level of service at a fair price.
Managing knowledge that goes beyond the limits of a single organization becomes a central topic to keep these organizations successful. Several factors have been analyzed as knowledge enablers and barriers such us lack of time, lack of award, technological barriers etc (Amayah 2013). Interesting, most of studies are focused on understanding limits within single organizations. Public utilities represents a unique context where these organizations have to deal with several external actors and, therefore, provides a unique research context.
Within this context, our paper develops a comparative study between Italy and Brazil.
Results can have both theoretical and practical implications. On the one hand can contribute to better understanding the knowledge sharing determinants in a peculiar and under-investigated context. On the other hand can contribute to giving practical suggestions to managers and policy makers to increase efficiency and effectiveness of these organizations.
Reference
Amayah, A. T. (2013). Determinants of knowledge sharing in a public sector organization. Journal of Knowledge Management, 17(3), 454–471. doi:10.1108/JKM-11-2012-0369
Hendriks, P. H. J. (2009). Unveiling the knowledge-sharing culture. International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital, 6(3), 235–256. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-65649092150&partnerID=40&md5=403584b7ac46241df1a1c6de445e9b20
Massaro, M., Dumay, J., & Garlatti, A. (2015). Public sector knowledge management: A structured literature review. Journal of Knowledge Management, 19(3), 530–558.
Pillania, R. K. (2005). Information technology strategy for knowledge management in Indian industry. Journal of Information and Knowledge Management, 4(3), 167–178. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-69249234364&partnerID=40&md5=5eef667fffbe2dcb63931a4557ccf7bc
