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In today’s competitive global environment, the effective growth of any business is connected with an individuals’ ability to capture, share and use knowledge. The main element of an organization's knowledge management story is allowing different ways to link the three critical elements: individuals, technology, and processes, in such a manner that will enhance learning throughout the organization by introducing a knowledge management culture (Yousuf, 2014). A study conducted by Shrafat (2018) indicated that knowledge management capabilities, organizational learning capabilities, knowledge sharing, and Information Technology (IT) capabilities were significant factors that influence the adoption of KMS.
Governments in developed countries — especially members of the OECD — have initiated various measures since the early 2000s to promote the use of knowledge in their organizations (Biygautane and Al-Yahya, 2010). KMS are highly used in UAE public and private sectors through workflow systems and technologies. For example, in the public sector, the Federal Authority for Government Human Resources (FAHR) uses the Bayanati system, which helps manage human resources and provide general and reliable human resources data for all ministries and federal entities. The Government Policies Platform was introduced in 2015 by His Highness Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE vice president, prime minister and ruler of Dubai, in order to achieve a complete smart transformation of all UAE institutions and facilities and to create a knowledge-based economy. FAHR has also introduced the Ma'arif Initiative as one of the foreign sources of knowledge, focused on the fruitful collaboration between federal entities and the private sector.
According to Sabri (2014), knowledge is one of the most valuable assets that help to achieve a competitive advantage in any organization, and it includes all important knowledge and possessed skills stored in employees’ minds. However, it is important to distinguish between data, information and knowledge. Data are raw materials, such as facts, numbers or pictures. Information is data that has been manipulated or data that has meaning in context. Bejenaru (2019) believes that knowledge occurs as a result of intellectual activity and defined it as information interpreted to understand better the phenomena that take place around us. It is important to note that the three concepts are related to each other, but each one has its meaning and use, and knowledge is the most advanced term among the three.
In our knowledge-based economy and fast-changing world, technical skills and the ability to capture and use the available knowledge in an organization are very important factors for competitive advantage (Huang and Lai, 2014). The implementation of KMS is essential for organizations to integrate, manage, identify and share departmental information assets (Hellström et al., 2015).
It is important to note that not all knowledge management practices involve the implementation of IT. However, many organizations rely on IT to implement KMS, and IT projects could be costly for organizations, especially, if they are implemented comprehensively and properly. Having a KMS in an organization may increase the organization's success in gaining competitive advantage, but the organization will not attain the complete benefit of a KMS unless employees are willing to use and share their information through the system. The project will be considered as a failure if the organization’s employees resist sharing knowledge through the implemented KMS (Wang et al., 2014).
Knowledge either implicit or explicit is typically used by individuals and groups to accomplish organizational goals (Ibidunni et al., 2018). KMS help users to share both their tacit and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is the hidden knowledge held by human beings based on a person’s insights, emotions, intuition, observations, experiences, and internalised information. This type of knowledge is valuable for organizations and it should be communicated between employees, through sharing and storing. The tacit knowledge of employees who leave the organization must be kept inside the organization. Explicit knowledge is the knowledge expressed and recorded as words and numbers, which is easy to communicate and distribute. It is also important to share this type of knowledge between employees to improve organizations’ performance and productivity. KMS play an important role in organizing and distributing the “corporate memory” as well as making it accessible to employees who require it. Some recent studies on KMS have focused on IT related topics, as current studies have recognised that KMS are socio-technical systems with both social and technical components among different organizational levels (Hwang et al., 2018).