Knowledge management is an organizational process of creating a
centralized knowledge source that enables acquiring, assimilating,
distributing, integrating, sharing, retrieving and reuse of internal and
external, explicit and tacit knowledge to promote innovation in the organization.
Higher education institutions are not an exception and must be at the center of
knowledge management practices as they are the major producers of a country’s
workforce. The knowledge from individuals, systems and collaborations with
other institutions can only be properly appreciated by way of having a
well-executed knowledge management system in place. Whilst knowledge management
is seen to be a very important practice to have in a higher education
institution, in Zambia, knowledge management systems do not seem to be given
the deserved importance and consideration by higher education institutions. The
primary aim of this study is to propose a model that would assist with the
knowledge management implementation process in higher education institutions in
Zambia. Four higher education institutions were purposively selected to give an
overview of the status of KM practice, namely: the
University of Zambia, Mulungushi University, Chalimbana University and the
National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA). This study adopted a mixed
method approach, that is, qualitative and quantitative research design for
analyzing research questions and for effective interpretation of data from the
questionnaire. Both online and hardcopy questionnaires were distributed among
the respondents. IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS) version
20 was used to analyze the data. For data analysis, descriptive statistics and
inferential statistical tests (Pearson Chi-square) were used. The results
revealed that the majority of the respondents have a good level of knowledge
management awareness; however, it is not commonly practiced in the
institutions. These institutions do not have knowledge management policies or
strategies in place and there is no presence of a KM department. If there is
one, probably on paper but not established nor practiced. The study proposed a
model that would guide the adoption process of knowledge management practices
in higher education institutions in Zambia, by highlighting some critical
success factors from the four categories of CSF as proposed by the Heisig
(2009)
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