Evaluating Knowledge Management Processes: Ministry of Interior, Oman

This report provides a comprehensive evaluation of knowledge management within the Ministry of Interior, Government of Oman. It examines the significance of knowledge acquisition and application, particularly in the context of a government organization responsible for maintaining internal peace. The study identifies challenges related to knowledge management, including the maintenance of a large knowledge framework, alignment with market changes, and cost control. It reviews the Ministry's strategies, such as e-learning and training programs, and emphasizes the importance of effective knowledge management for organizational performance and sustainable development. The report also includes a literature review discussing the importance of knowledge management for government bodies, the challenges faced, and the need for effective acquisition and application of knowledge within the organization. The report concludes with recommendations for improving knowledge management practices within the Ministry of Interior.

Running head: KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Identification of the challenges........................................................................................................3
Literature review: Organizational information................................................................................5
Comparison of application tools for Knowledge Management400.................................................9
Application of Knowledge management aspects to Case..............................................................10
Implications and Recommendations..............................................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
The study is focused towards the comprehensive evaluation of the various factors that
guide knowledge management in various organizational environments. The study takes into
essential consideration a given government organization and analyses the knowledge
management processes that are implemented within the given organization. The case study that is
being considered for the study is the Ministry of Interior, Government of Oman. Ministry of
Interior is the department of Government of Oman responsible of ensuring internal peace within
the country (Moi.gov.om, 2019). The Ministry of Interior is responsible for maintaining internal
peace in Oman and as a result has to coordinate with the local government bodies in order to gain
knowledge about local conditions of different regions. This means that the Ministry of Interior
has to acquire, management and implement an immense body of knowledge acquired from these
local government bodies. Hence, the major aspect of knowledge management that would be
considered for the report is knowledge acquisition and application. Understanding the case study
of the The Ministry of Interior would help to form an essential understanding of knowledge
management processes that are implemented across various organizations. The aim is to provide
a critical appraisal of the chosen organization and the situational factors that can determine the
effectiveness of the knowledge management processes that are implemented in the organization.
The objectives are to measure the effectiveness of the Knowledge Management process that is
implemented in the given organization. Additionally, the greater significance of KM towards the
improvement of organizational performance is focused. The implications of effective knowledge
management on the smooth functioning of businesses are focused in the study. Knowledge
management functions of organizations refer to the various ways in which knowledge is
gathered, shared, utilized and stored. Knowledge management is important for a government

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body in the rapidly developing scenarios that are present. It has thus become very important
presently that the organizations give more preference to gathering, understanding and sharing
essential knowledge. KM has become very important in view of the fact that it is being utilized
effectively by many organizations to improve their developmental prospects. Moreover, in view
of the chosen aspect of KM it becomes much important to effectively analyze its significance
towards organizational progress. it can well be said that acquisition and application of knowledge
is important to create an effective environment for organizational growth. Only effective
acquisition and application of knowledge can help organizations to move towards sustainable
development.
Identification of the challenges
Knowledge management is an important function of any given organization. Without
proper knowledge of the product, customer base, market and technological development,
organizations can fail to function properly. Hence, KM has always been an important factor to
focus on for organizations. In the present times knowledge management has become far more
important as organizational environment tend to change rapidly. KM in the present times is
focused towards greater improvement of the operational value of the organizations. It is
important that all information and resources that are present within any given organization are
properly handled or coordinated towards being optimally utilized. Some of the significant
challenges arise from the readiness of the organization to implement effective knowledge
management, utility value of the knowledge that is being gathered and the extent to which
knowledge can be effectively implemented across the organizational framework.
An important aspect connected with knowledge management is systems thinking. It is a
holistic approach that is concerned with understanding the operational systems and their

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performances over a significant duration of time.The systems process depends on reinforcement
and balance. Without proper reinforcement in the organizational systems process from time to
time, the entire process can collapse. This results from the lack of balance that can emerge from
the non-maintenance of the systems. Knowledge management is required greatly to reinforce the
systems process and implement the changes that are required form time to time. This is the
functional element of knowledge management that is mostly affected by various significant
challenges.
The organization being considered is the Ministry of Interior, Government of Oman. The
issues that are being focused on are mainly concerning acquisition of knowledge and its effective
implementation. The structural factors related to the Ministry of Interior need to be discussed for
better analysis of the highlighted aspect of KM. The Ministry of Interior (MOI) is responsible for
making strategies policies for internal administration of Oman. The main working partner of the
Ministry of Interior would as a result be the local government bodies. All these functional
divisions of the local government units of the organization require effective knowledge
management for maintaining their functional efficiency (Moi.gov.om, 2019)). Since employees
need to keep on learning about the organization and its working environments, there is a
framework that has been established for the effective acquisition and application of knowledge.
Some of the important techniques that are utilized to enhance knowledge of the employees are e-
learning, live video meeting, podcasts training and traditional classroom training.
One of the significant challenges that can be identified with regards to the knowledge
management functions of the organization is the maintenance of the large knowledge
management framework. Another significant challenge that can be identified is the alignment of
the existing knowledge management framework with the ever changing market of the Oman,

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which is subject to rapid changes. Hence, for MOI it becomes much important to keep track of
the recent developments in the technological field. Subsequently, it becomes more important that
the latest research and development oriented information are optimally applied within the
organization. The training functions of the employees require them to constantly upgrade their
learning depending on their tenurity or job roles. Employees across different levels are constantly
trained on the knowledge processes of the organization. However, the challenge arises from the
fact that with the passing of time old knowledge is replaced by new knowledge in the IT field.
Alignment of the organizational KM faces the challenge of duplication of effort.Moreover, the
costs for maintaining such KM setups across the various organizations are rapidly increasing.
Controlling the cist factors associated with the acquisition and implementation of knowledge
becomes much important challenges in view of how important KM actually is for strategically
important government departments like MOI.
Literature review: Organizational information
The Ministry of Interior is the government department which deals taking important
decisions regarding stability of Oman. It develops policies and strategies to make facilities like
citizenship rights and electoral rights, to ensure that citizens of Oman can lead legitimate
standard lives. The union government body in order to manage the immense body of interior
affairs of Oman related knowledge uses computer software, consumer electronics, personal
computers and different kinds of other related services accordingly. MOI has been one of the
most influential and important among all the union government departments of Oman. There are
a large number of different products that have been created by the government organization.
Some of the major services of the government body have been the game changers of the

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economy of Oman. Apart from its success in the software field, the government body has also
been able to enjoy success from its range of developmental schemes.
The organization consists of standardized professions, or the so called roles which are
same worldwide. Examples of some of the work roles includes the likes of the Solution Sales
Specialist, Partner project advisors as well as the managers of the product. The MOI state that
during the time of the evaluation of the potential employee, the candidate must first be evaluated
as whether or not the candidate has the capability to be a potential employee. The management
of the company has a number of policies that states that during the evaluation of the candidate,
the candidate must be evaluated on the basis of a long term career in the company and secondly
in accordance with the profession of the company. The management of the company has also
fixed a proper and effective development plan for the employees which is one of the major
strategies of the business organization. The development plan includes the knowledge that the
employee will gather from his stay in the company and also the application or implementation of
that knowledge in a proper and effective manner within the company. During the particular year,
the employees are tested for the performance appraisal.
The learning process in the MOI is highly effective as because the employees of the MOI
are highly capable and are able to meet up with different kinds of challenges professionally. The
learning or knowledge management process in the company can be divided into three different
processes and dimensions accordingly. This includes the likes of;
1. Courses and training are specialized for the work role. These are different kinds of
training which includes the likes of the online courses/e-learning, but can also be
different kinds of the external courses and the conferences.

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2. Face to face learning on the job. This includes the likes of the learning by means of
experience, interaction with the colleagues, lunch presentations for the supervisors
3. The third and final dimension includes learning by seeking information when needed.
Share point libraries with different types of product presentations as well as blogs.
All role guides contain a number of different courses that are required for the employee in a
specific profession. Apart from this, there are a number of different types of the courses that can
be implemented in this particular profession. The employees can learn these courses either
practically while doing tasks of the company or by training. The training are provided by the
upper management of the company which includes the likes of the managers and the supervisors.
The training plan is one of the most important elements of the business as it helps the employees
to gather the extra knowledge that helps them to take the next step forward. The management of
the company has outlined a proper and effective knowledge management strategy that is
generally followed by the employees of the business. According to the management of the
company, each and every worker is a knowledge worker, who has the capability to ensure the
success of the business. The knowledge according to the management of the company can ensure
the success of the company by means of enabling the application and implementation of the new
technology that helps to ease the solutions of the business in a proper manner. The management
of the company y has applied the digital dashboard that is important for the organization to
ensure the success of the business. The presence of a high individual knowledge has lost its
significance in the modern, globalized and competitive business market. The company needs an
overall knowledge growth of the employees to counter different kind of challenges in a
combined and efficient manner. The presence of such a process helps to gather corporate IQ-

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intelligence, knowledge and business expertise. This helps the organization to share information
widely and enable the different kind of the staff members to build on each other’s ideas.
Apart from this, the productivity of the team also helps the end users, with IT control,
creation of an online area where the team members can share and collaborate the different kinds
of the business documents, view the team calendars and also analyze the contacts and business
data. Such types of knowledge management software are used to provide a number of system for
the companies to transform information from the various sources. These sources are vast in
nature and includes the likes of the different kinds of the web, back-office applications and
databases into client applications for making the business decisions. The implementation and
application of the knowledge management program thus ensures the increase in the productivity
of the business and also the professional development of the business.
Comparison of application tools for Knowledge Management400
The management of the the MOI has implemented both the Customer Relationship
Management system as well as the Learning Management System in the organization to ensure
the success of the business. A learning Management System is said to be a tool that is used to
deliver mainly online instructional and course material and is able to track as well as report the
progress of the employee. On the other hand, the Customer Relationship Management System is
a system that is used to track the progress of the company in terms of satisfying the customers of
the business. The CMS as well as the LMS are both capable of facilitating a mix of the real time
and prerecorded training management system. This helps the employees to gin a clear and easy
understanding of the total subject in a proper and efficient manner. There are different types of
benefits for the CRM and the LMS. The benefits of CRM includes the likes of the;

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1. CRM enables the company to streamline the communications across the whole of the
employee lifecycle. This will help to save the organization to save on time consuming of
the administrative tasks and the contribution of the organization and the streamline of the
organizational approach
2. Inbuilt reporting generally refers to the people who are able to track the progress of the
organization in an easy manner and make informed changes to the strategy of the
business organization
3. CRM also enables the company to get the feedback from the customer response and
accordingly fix the strategies of the business sin the future by ensuring the fulfillment of
the needs and wants of the customers of the business
4. Freeing up time spent on administration allows it be spent on creating great content, and
implementing meaningful communications like personalised, automated email marketing
campaigns at different stages of the admissions process.
5. CRM also refers to the creation of a proper and effective business management strategy
that can be helpful for the success of the organization in a proper and effective manner.
The learning management system is somewhat different from that of the CRM. The learning
management system includes more of an internal perspective. Some of the characteristics of
Learning Management System are as follows;
1. The companies can reduce or mitigate the costs by the integration of the learning
elements to the courses and like CRM can gain a comprehensive insight of the
organization in a proper manner.

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Application of Knowledge management aspects to Case
The case being considered is the large KM framework that has to be maintained by the
MOI that can potentially give rise of a large number of challenges. The concepts of Knowledge
Management can be applied in this case to improve the potential of the organization to address
the significant challenges that have been identified. Acquisition and application of knowledge
becomes an important challenge in light of the frameworks that are present in the Norwegian unit
of the MOI for knowledge acquisition and implementation. Acquisition and application are very
important aspects of knowledge management for an organization like the MOI. The 2000 courses
that are offered becomes a strong knowledge base in terms of knowledge management tool.
However, as the problem that was identified was in regards to the application of recent
knowledge development within the organization, there can be some issues in regards the
knowledge base that is created. Here, it should be pointed out that a much better knowledge
acquisition and application system has to be utilized effectively.
The current situation at the MOI in terms of knowledge management is effective.
However, it needs to be optimized to create a smoother flow of information across the
organization. Every permanent employee of the organization gets an opportunity to only visit one
conference in a year where the recent information developed in regards to his/her professional or
departmental are discussed. This is not at par with the effective acquisition and application of
knowledge. The proper acquisition of knowledge requires the implementation of better
knowledge acquiring technologies. These technologies need to be aligned with the existing
courses that are offered by the organization. Additionally, there is the requirement of
implementation of the same within the larger part of the workforce of the organization. Systems
thinking comes into play at this time as the application of knowledge needs to be optimized in

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accordance of the changing nature of information that needs to be incorporated within the
learning frameworks. An effective way to gather information and apply the same is to utilize
special knowledge management teams that can gather important information and apply the same
towards improving the knowledge learning framework. The people need to be made more
focused and innovative. Corporate IT organizations cannot be effectively managed without
proper innovativeness. Hence, it is important to create a process through which the knowledge
gathered can be updated periodically. Employees need more exposure to the constant changes
that are taking place in the organizational environment.
Implications and Recommendations
The implications that can be gathered from close evaluation of the issues is that
knowledge management in the MOI needs to be further optimized in order to better apply the
knowledge that has been gathered. The organization pays more importance to available stored
knowledge. Hence, there is a significant requirement for balancing the potential of the newly
acquired knowledge and enhancing the applicability of the knowledge that is already available.
The application of knowledge is important and a better framework is required to implement the
gathered knowledge.
Firstly, there is a strong requirement for implementing an effective process of gathering
information. This would require all the teams to be given responsibilities to keep them updated
about the information that is most relevant to their functional area.
Secondly, it becomes important that more conferences are held by the organization. This
would increase the exposure of the employees towards the most recent knowledge developments.