Knowledge management and higher education: present state and future trends

Knowledge management in higher education institutions in Mauritius

“…Secondly, the study confirmed that all institutions in the sample are involved in all three of knowledge creation and acquisition, knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer, and that participants were able to discuss the processes involved in knowledge creation and acquisition, sharing and transfer. Even though previous studies on knowledge management in higher education agree that HEIs are knowledge creating institutions, they perceive only 'research', 'scientific discovery', 'scientific socialization' and 'acquisition of knowledge' from external sources as knowledge creation roles of HEIs (Serban and Luan, 2002;Alexandropoulou et al, 2009;Ramachandran et al, 2009;Sohail and Daud, 2009;Adhikari, 2010;Siadat et al, 2012). However, this study discovered additional facets of knowledge creation in HEIs.…”

“…Knowledge creation in HEIs, as perceived by heads of institutions and senior academics in Mauritius, includes activities such as: teaching and learning (developing curriculum and course materials and preparing lectures); consultancies with public and private bodies; organisational documentation produced at the institutional level (academic policies, processes and procedures, manuals and handbooks, student charters, various reports and documents, and notes of meetings). Arguably, the reason for other studies not having identified these processes is that previous studies on KM in HEIs were either conceptual (Alexandropoulou et al, 2009;Adhikari, 2010) or quantitative surveys with academics (Ramachandran et al, 2009) and did not capture the views of senior management through an inductive approach. Another reason could be that the HEIs in Mauritius, both public and private, are mainly teaching institutions, with the exception of a few public institutions who are geared towards research and are aiming to become research-led institutions.…”

“…Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have been involved in knowledge management since they were established centuries ago, and the three missions of modern universities globally, research, education, and service to society, are closely linked with knowledge creation, knowledge dissemination and knowledge transfer, respectively (Rowley, 2000;Alexandropoulou et al, 2009;Ramachandran et al, 2009;Fullwood et al, 2013). The arrival of the knowledge economy has brought HEIs centre stage and in a global competitive environment, it is becoming very important for them to manage their knowledge processes within the context of a deliberate knowledge management strategy.…”

“…Knowledge Creation (KC) is the development of new knowledge and know-how and the formation of new ideas through interactions between explicit and tacit knowledge in individual human minds (Nonaka, 1994). According to Alexandropoulou et al (2009) knowledge creation corresponds with the research mission of the universities with its aim of expanding the boundaries of human knowledge and promoting creativity through the production of doctoral researchers and codified knowledge. Similarly, Dorri and Talebnejod (2008), as cited in Siadat et al (2012), consider knowledge creation as one of the most important missions of universities today, the need for which can be assessed from the external dimension (response to the needs of society) and internal dimension (improvement in the quality of education, promotion of the place of university, and increase in income).…”

“…Knowledge Transfer (KT), which is considered as the 'third mission' of higher education activity, along with research and teaching, involves the transfer of knowledge to non-academic partners, such as, industry, public sector and the general public, and service to society by job creation through spin-off companies (Alexandropoulou et al, 2009). Universities, worldwide are responding to this new and emerging needs of society and of the economy, by focusing on knowledge transfer and skills development (Bano and Taylor, 2014).…”