Knowledge Management in Agencies: What It Contributes to Quality – Dr. Florian Bresler

Where knowledge management sits in the model

The model groups three traits under resource integration: smooth internal knowledge management, electronic systems in the supply chain and the involvement of clients in the agency's process. The literature gives knowledge great weight, because for agencies information is the raw material and physical assets hardly matter. In the preliminary study, executives rated knowledge management 1.83 out of 3, above the overall mean of 1.70.

Knowledge management was measured through the clients' judgment, not through an examination of the processes inside the agency. No data from the agencies themselves are available. The rating therefore shows how well knowledge management came across from the outside, not how it is organized on the inside.

Rated highly, barely explanatory

Clients rated knowledge management 3.75 out of 5, better than all other enabler statements. The structural equation model, however, tests whether a judgment is related to communication quality as estimated from all answers. For resource integration this was not the case: the path was −0.04 (p = 0.67), none of the three indicators was significant, and the factor dropped out of the model.

The other traits confirm the picture: electronic supply chain management reached 3.63 and was likewise not significant (estimate −0.03, p = 0.76); for knowledge management the estimate was 0.01 (p = 0.87). These are unstandardized estimates of the initial model.

A good rating therefore does not mean that the factor explains how clients experience quality. The same shows in client integration: executives considered it the most relevant in the preliminary study at 2.00, while clients rated it lowest at 3.45.

How the study interprets the finding

The dissertation concludes that clients see an agency rather as a personal partner. Their trust, it holds, goes to a specific head of agency, less to the network behind it. For practice it derives that the interplay inside the agency counts for more than a dense net of suppliers and partners. The survey did not measure this interpretation.

In the model, knowledge acts above all through the learning loop: insights from earlier projects flow back to the enablers. The study proposes regular sessions for this, dealing with the wishes of customers and the concepts of competitors.

Informal before formal

For the exchange of knowledge, too, the study relies on literature: in a large survey of more than 900 organizations, decentralized, informal processes promoted the exchange of knowledge and creativity. The dissertation concludes that transparency in agencies arises more from informal exchange than from quality routines. This was not measured. As a task it names strengthening informal leadership practices and meeting new ideas openly.

What agencies can take from this

The following points are a transfer of the findings, not results of the study:

• Tie knowledge to people and conversations, not only to systems and archives.
• Discuss insights from completed projects in regular sessions in which the agency head also listens.
• Involve clients at the point where they experience involvement as weakest.

The findings come from the judgments of clients from the customer circles of two agency networks. Cross-relationships between the enablers are not modeled; part of what knowledge management achieves may be contained in the leadership factor.