Knowledge Management for Enhancing School Strategic Planning Capacity: Examining the SECI Knowledge Creation Model in School Context

This project applies the subject of knowledge management (KM) to the study of school management. KM is related to strategy management that makes use of information and knowledge as organizational resources for improving management processes including formulating, implementing, monitoring and evaluating strategic plans and thus enhancing organizational performance. KM aims to support organizations in the creation of a capable structure and mechanism that acquires, applies, shares, retains and even creates knowledge. KM can be used not only for problem solving and decision making but also for crafting strategies. Institutionalizing a knowledge management mechanism in schools may support schools to enhance the strategic planning capacity so as to cope with the rapid change generated form the complex and challenging policy environment. The project seeks to identify the critical success factors that facilitate the institutionalization of the Nonaka’s (1994) SECI knowledge creation mechanism within schools. It will examine whether institutionalizing the mechanism in schools could enhance their strategic planning capacities. Education quality assurance policy and the high speed of knowledge expansion knowledge has impacted on and created challenges for school management. The nature of school management becomes more challenging, complex, analytic and data driven. Developing an innovative management approach to support schools to leverage knowledge from the existing organizational information and data resources to plan for improvement will provide practical help to school leaders and also contribute to the existing school management theories. Experimental research design with a mixed-method approach will be adopted as the research strategy. A quantitative questionnaire survey and qualitative interviews will be conducted to collect data. Multilevel structural equation model will be applied to examine the predictive effects of the mechanism on strategic planning capacity and to identify the school level and teacher level contextual factors for institutionalizing the SECI mechanism. Effective KM practices and the corresponding contextual factors will be identified through analysing the interview scripts. Significant outcomes are expected from this study. First, the results will provide insights in applying theories of KM for streamlining strategic management in school context. Second, contextual factors for institutionalizing the SECI mechanism in schools will be identified. This will response to the international study of the culture and context dependent issue for Nonaka’s SECI model (Glisby & Holden 2003; Hong 2012). Third, the study will identify effective management practices to school leaders for crafting strategies.

Funding Source: RGC - General Research Fund (GRF)