Knowledge Management infrastructure for Governmental Ubiquitous Services

Knowledge has become as a key strategic component of economic development. The World Development Report published by the World Bank precisely emphasized: “For countries in the vanguard of the world economy, the balance between knowledge and resources has shifted so far toward the former that knowledge has become perhaps the most important factor determining the standard of living – more than land, than tools, than labor”. The moves towards a knowledge based economy by the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), which includes a move towards knowledge management (KM) in government, is an example of a policy response to this new global situation. This article reports on empirical research that has examined two aspects of the implementation of this policy. First, an investigation of KM infrastructures in IRI government departments, and second, levels of user centred architectures for effective deployment of KM within IRI governmental organizations. Twenty government ministries were selected for the study. These ministries provided data on the six KM infrastructural components identified from theory. Data covering sector and organizational aspects of KM implementation were collected using questionnaires. The first part of the questionnaire was completed by plan, budget and ICT offices and covered three components: 1] strategy and policies; 2] information and communication technology; and 3] KM finance. The second part of the questionnaire which was completed by all offices, contained questions about three further components: 1] organizational arrangements; 2] staff development and mobility and 3] organizational culture. In total 314 questionnaires were completed and specific comparisons and correlations were statistically analysed using ANOVA, t and Pearson's Correlation Co-efficients. Findings show different focus points in different ministries and sectors and significant relations between supportive organizational culture around KM and the level of infrastructures organizations are provided with. Problems were identified with regard to the management of organizational knowledge. Detailed discussion of the quantitative findings and analysis together along with the proposed user centric KM deployment architecture are reported in this paper.