Mobilizing Knowledge in the UK Public Sector: Current Issues and Discourse

Abstract

Knowledge management supports the key goals of an organization. For government this is creating public value, through trust, outcomes, service quality and cost effectiveness. These are vital matters for the UK government, and the need to mobilize knowledge is essential in delivering them. Knowledge management has tended to be about corporate knowledge inside an organization. This is important for government, not least in joining up its many parts to deliver more effective services and outcomes to citizens. However, citizens also have knowledge that can help deliver public value. How citizens and government share knowledge forms a second exploration. Citizens are also concerned about the use made by the state of personal data and knowledge about them; this forms the third strand. The issues that arise are mapped as ethical tensions onto Nonaka’s SECI model, providing both a framework for exploring ethics and for examining the space for organizational innovation.