Drivers, Benefits and Challenges of Knowledge Management: A Case Study of Public Sector Accounting Organisation

This paper explores the role of knowledge management (KM) and knowledge workers in the public sector organisation in the broader perspective towards achieving the Electronic Government orientation in Malaysia. The future implementation of KM in the public sector organisations should leverage and articulate the experiences, ideas and expertise of an organisation's knowledge workers for the embedded organisational knowledge. A survey questionnaire was used to collect data from all public sector accountants working in the accounting specialist department of the Federal Government in Malaysia. This selected knowledge intensive accounting organisation has a large pool of public sector accountants and the core competencies of the organisation are to provide timely accounting information and quality accounting services to all agencies of the Federal Government. Public sector accountants are responsible for the strategic policies and operational management in various departments of this case study organisation. The responses from the questionnaires are aimed to provide answers to the critical factors of KM implementation strategy in terms of organisational readiness in knowledge and technology resources together with the perceived benefits and challenges in using KM as a strategic management tool to improve internal operational efficiency.