Developing Knowledge Management and Knowledge Support at an Airline Operations Control Centre

Abstract

In today’s world many functions depend on accessing the right knowledge and information at the right time. This is reality in both people’s private lives and work lives, but the handling of information and knowledge at workplaces has often not kept up. The huge amount of information, and the rapidly changing situations require resilience, but also new more efficient ways to handle information and knowledge so that it is efficiently shared and easily available. Technology has an important role in this, but it cannot solve the problems alone. Information and knowledge management needs to be considered more comprehensively to be able to gather, analyze, store, and share information, ideas, experience, and know-how to enable efficient high-quality performance.

This qualitative case study takes a look at these most critical points of knowledge management and knowledge support at an Airline Operations Control Centre, with the aim to improve knowledge management and knowledge support so that it would effectively support the employees in their everyday work. This study concentrates especially on the availability, findability, and sharing of knowledge, as those are considered the most challenging aspects at the target organization.

The theory used in this study addresses the general concept of knowledge management and clarifies the main aspects of both knowledge management and knowledge support, while also explaining how these concepts can be implemented in practice. The research data is collected by the means of document analysis, focus group discussion and interviewing. Methodological triangulation has been used to get a more comprehensive view of the studied subject, to provide confirmation of the findings, and to increase the credibility of the study.

The findings of this study reveal the underlying reasons that are causing the knowledge management and knowledge support issues at the target organization. The findings imply that there is a comprehensive amount of knowledge management and knowledge support tools available, but as they are not targeted, and as the work processes, task, and the related knowledge and communication needs are not clearly defined, the tools are often providing unstructured and inconsistent support. Furthermore, the findings reveal that undefined general knowledge management processes, seem to hinder sharing, capturing, and processing of knowledge. The findings additionally provide some insight to possible cultural problems that imply knowledge is not given the appreciation and consideration it would be worth of. Concrete development ideas include clear process- and task descriptions, new tools with better usability and different actions that promote and bolster the knowledge culture and enhance the importance of knowledge. In general, the findings give a good base for applicable conclusions regarding the most critical points that the development of knowledge management and support should begin with.