1. Masters Thesis Defense
Assessment of Knowledge Management Practices;
The Case of Ethiopian Defense Forces
Presenter; Abayneh Lishan
Supervisor; Zerihun Duressa (PhD)
June 2020
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Ethiopian Civil Service University
2. PRESENTATION OUTLINE
1. Introduction
Background and Statement of the problem
Objective of the study
Research Questions
2. Review of related literature
3. Research Design and Methodology
Research Design
Research approach
Population of the study
Types and Source of Data
Method of data Collection
4. Major Findings
Conclusions
Recommendations
3. INTRODUCTION
Knowledge management is…the process of controlling or directing the
creation, identification, organization, storage, dissemination, and
manitenance of knowledge in order to support strategic goals. Haney, D.
(2006), pp.620.
In the context of today’s military modernization and organizational change
efforts, the present is set off from the past by the current heavy reliance on
knowledge resources and organizational learning (Proctor, Michael D. and
Gobbler, Justin C., 1998)
Knowledge Management usage within a military environment requires
knowledge processes that are tough and reliable within operational
contexts and the knowledge creation and conversion processes that must
match the tempo of the military operations at all hierarchies.
4. Con….
The above definitions state that Knowledge Management is about the
processes and techniques used to rapidly transfer experience and provide a
common understanding to execute missions as effectively and efficiently
as required.
The main limitation of the knowledge management function in Ethiopian
Defense Forces include changes of different regimes under which the
Army has gone.
In Ethiopian history the emperor Army was the first well-structured
defense organization characterized by:
The development of military sciences and arts;
5. Con…….
The establishment of Naval Academy at Massawa to train officers
and troops by Norwegians assistance
The introduction of Peacekeeping missions in South Korea and
Congo that contributed a lot to develop the modern military concept
acquisition of new rifles, tanks, Armored Personnel Carriers (APC)
Installation of ammunitions factory in the country
In February 1974, popular revolution avoided senior and general officers from
the army. Also, the famous Harar Academy was dissolved as a result of
political decision by the Derg regime.
Due to the abovementioned significant challenges, the practices of knowledge
management could not transfer and passed down the next generation of the
EDF.
6. Con…..
Furthermore, the regime which came to power in 1974 enforced the
restructure of EDF as follows:
Military Science and Art,
All foreign military experts were forced to leave the country
The regime turned his face to the former Soviet Union to reshape the
doctrine of the military
All western military equipment have gradually been substituted by
Soviet systems.
New Military industries created by the USSR
New military experts from Soviet Union were placed to EDF in
advisory and training roles
7. Con….
The Derg regime was involuntary to preserve the previous military legacy
in general.
Rather, the government started repositioning the military from scratch in a
new political psychology.
The new set up arrangement of the military include:
Military Science and Art
Most of the old regime Army officers were demobilized.
The new Defense-wide military doctrine was prepared
Trainings was conducting based on it.
8. Con……
In order to defend foreign aggression, operational and tactical level field
manuals were prepared and disseminated to the training centers.
Light infantry training centers also reconstructed and fully engaged.
Peacekeeping missions being conducted successfully on the continent and
still ongoing .
Technological, Military light industry reviewed and endorsed,
Naval force is on restructuring again.
9. Con……
Finally, the 30 years of army knowledge management practices were
forgotten immediately after the regime change.
No registered documents found in a written form.
During the Derg regime, a number of military Science and Art manuals
were in utilization, No single document transferred to the current Army.
Regarding qualified military personnel retention, nothing expressed in the
army rules and regulations manual in three consecutive regimes.
10. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The Ethiopian army has gone through major change under different
regimes
The army’s concept of operations was shaped by the doctrines and
strategies of its foreign sponsors.
Imperial army and military regime was influenced by the doctrine and
strategy of western armies and soviet senior military advisors,
The EPRDF army was an insurgent army that developed its own set of
military and military political institutions, military doctrine and its own
concept of military science and art of war
Practically, the Ethiopian Defense Forces have performed a number of
tasks successfully and efficiently,
11. Ethiopian Defense Forces, like any military organization, massive and
critical knowledge gain through experiences, practices and trainings are
imbedded within the success of mission. This knowledge must be
identified, captured, shared, and used. Like other militaries country,
Ethiopian Defense Force records and the initial assessment carried out by
the researcher discovered that these efforts are very limited and
knowledge management practice research on Ethiopian Defense Forces
is almost none.
Based on the researcher’s observation.
Ethiopian Defense Forces is still lack of knowledge management
practices and uses. On the other hand, knowledge management in the
EDFs are available and fixed in the form of doctrine ,policies, operation,
training manual, information system and databases.
12. Con----
Unfortunately, those elements of Knowledge Management were an
existence in storage and not managed systematically.
The lack of Knowledge Management practices and uses in the Ethiopian
Defense Forces was observed as.
lack of Knowledge management policy ,
lack of awareness, and less commitment of leadership.
For this reason knowledge management practices in EDFs are often not
structured, managed and not documented properly. Therefore ,depending
on above finding and fact this research tries to investigate the practices of
knowledge management in context of Ethiopian Defense Force.
13. Objective of the study
General Objective
To investigate knowledge management practices in Ethiopian Defense Forces
with respect to the organization‘s knowledge management policy and
strategy, to determine the level and forwards recommendation.
Specific Objective
To assess the status of Knowledge management practice in Ethiopian Defense
Forces.
To investigate supporting structures that are designed to help knowledge
management practices at Ethiopian Defense Forces.
To assess the challenge of knowledge management practices in Ethiopian
Defense Forces
14. Research Questions
1) What is the Current status of Knowledge management practice in Ethiopian
Defense Forces.?
2) To what extent do knowledge management practices, structured and designed in
Ethiopian Defense Forces?
3) What are the major challenges hindering knowledge management practices in
Ethiopian Defense Forces?
Significance of the study
EDF would benefit in addressing the problems related to knowledge management
practices.
Contribute to create awareness among the EDFs leadership to review its systems and
fix problems on the knowledge management practice.
This paper could be also used as an initiation for those who are interested to conduct
a detailed and comprehensive study on such similar subject matters..
15. Scope of the Study
This paper can be regarded as the first attempt to explore the existing
knowledge management practices and contribute for organizational
success.
To simplify the study situation will be used specifically in Ethiopia Defense
Forces on four selected departments.
Limitation of the study
lack of related local literature on knowledge management practices.
particularly in Ethiopian Defense forces.
During the interview, the commander did not permit to sound recording.
The outbreak of COVID-19 was also another challenge during activities in
an effort of conducting the research.
16. 2. Review of related literature
Concept of knowledge management
Importance of knowledge management
Knowledge Management Practices
Dimensions of knowledge management
Organizational development and knowledge management
Types of knowledge
Knowledge management systems and approaches
Knowledge management in military organization
Experience of knowledge management in Defense Departments globally
Organizational Challenges of Knowledge Management
Practices and Challenges of Knowledge Management in Ethiopian Defense
Forces
Conceptual framework of the study
17. Knowledge management
The concept of finding ,gathering ,assessing ,organizing, and sharing
information or knowledge.
Importance of knowledge management
The purpose of knowledge management is to increase an organizational
performance to gain a competitive advantage. Several benefits
including better decision making, better customer handling, faster
response to key business issues, improved employee skills, and
increased profits. (KMPG Consulting., 2000)
Knowledge Management Practices
Practices refer to the way ideas are translated into action in the process
of realize job functions.
18. Knowledge management practices include the understanding of knowledge
management: knowledge generation, knowledge acquisition, knowledge
organization, knowledge storage, transfer, knowledge sharing, and knowledge
retention (Nonaka, & Takeuchi,, 1995)
Dimensions of knowledge management
Defines knowledge as taking five distinct forms:
Embodied knowledge ,
Embedded knowledge ,
Embroiled knowledge,
Encultured knowledge , and Encoded knowledge.
Embodied knowledge; is action oriented and likely to be only partly
explicit and it depends on people’s physical presence (Wilkinson, A.,
Townsend, K., & Suder, G. , 2015)
19. Embedded knowledge is a “knowledge that resides in systematic
routines and procedures” (Blackler, 1995, p. 1026).
Embroiled knowledge is abstract knowledge dependent on conceptual
and cognitive skills and often equated with scientific knowledge
(Blackler, 1995).
Encultured knowledge is related to the creation of shared understanding
and embedded in cultural systems (Wilkinson, A., Townsend, K., &
Suder, G. , 2015).
Encoded knowledge is „recorded in signs and symbols and requires
interpretation‟ (Blackler, 1995, p. 1026)
20. Organizational development and knowledge management
The words organization development refers to something about
organizations and developing them.
“Organizations are social systems possessing characteristics
Development is the act, process, result, or state of being developed.
Organization development is anything done to “better” an organization.
Knowledge management is composed of various processes to include:
‘‘generating new knowledge; accessing knowledge from external sources;
representing knowledge in documents and databases;
21. Explicit knowledge Tacit knowledge
Knowledge that can be codified and
transmitted in a systematic and formal
language, documents, databases,
Informal and uncodified
Values, perspectives & culture
Knowledge in head.
Two types of knowledge
Knowledge management systems and approaches
define KMSs as “Information Technology based systems developed to
support and enhance the organizational processes of knowledge creation,
storage/retrieval, transfer, and application”. (Alavi M. a., (2001)
22. Organizational Challenges of Knowledge Management
Knowledge management in organizations, there are various challenges
ranging from individual, organizational and technological.
Individual level, some challenges or barriers according to Riege (2005)
lack of time to share knowledge,
lack of trust in people,
lack of social network,
lack of trust in knowledge source accuracy and cultural differences.
Challenges at organizational level
lack of leadership and managerial direction,
lack of transparent rewards and recognition system,
23. Practices and Challenges of Knowledge Management in Ethiopian
Defense Forces
Challenges of Knowledge Management in Ethiopian Defense Forces
Creating a culture of flexibility and collaboration
Security:
Measuring knowledge
Identifying an expert:
Document storage and management:
Disseminating knowledge throughout an organization
24. 3. Research Design and Methodology
Research Design
The research design for this study would be descriptive.Becouse the
researcher to gain more information about the knowledge management
practices in Ethiopian Defense Forces.
Research Approach
Mixed Both Qualitative and Quantitative. The researcher use mixed method
b/c Data resource may not be enough in knowledge management practice in
Ethiopian Defense Forces.
Population of the study
The target population of this study would be Military personnel.
From Thirty-five departments selected four (4) departments.
The total populations of the study would be 324 military personnel; 258
males and 66 females.
25. Sampling Techniques (method)
The researcher used probability sampling method / stratified random sampling
Ethiopian Defense force used as strata. because the studies focus on 4 main
Department that have heterogeneous character on there goals.
Sample Size
To determine the sample size of the study, the researcher used (Kothari, 2004)
formula.
n= the sample size N =study popn
e= the level of precision
Z=standard variation at given confidence level
Pq= standard deviation of population
1=designates the probability of the event occurring
N=324, e=2%/0.02,z=2.005,the standard error at 98% confidence level, standard
deviation of population pq. p= 0.02 and q=1-0.02=0.98/98%
26. Types and Source of Data
Data types
Quantitative
Questionnaire form
Qualitative
Interview form
Data source.
Primary data collected from currently
working on selected department
Secondary data ;collected from many
source like mission completion report
manual and policy document.
Method of data collection
To get specify information concerning Knowledge management practices in
Ethiopian Defense Forces the researcher prepared three types of data
collection instruments and used. Those are
Questionnaire, Interview and Document reviews.
27. Methods of Data Analysis
Quantitative data
Compile the data on an excel spreadsheet and SPSS
Interpret the data on answering each question
Draw conclusions
Qualitative Data
Constant comparative methods
Use critical thinking to synthesize the data
Examine the interviews for the department leader insights
Utilize the data from the interviews to corroborate with the findings with
other data sources.
28. Reliability and Validity of the Instrument
Pilot study
Tested the reliability using the Cronbach’s Alpha reliability test in SPSS
application.
Taken about 20 respondents for the pilot study to test the reliability.
Cronbach alpha analysis shows about 0.788
29. MAJOR FINDINGS
Ethiopian Defense Force has no written policy documents that guide
knowledge management, sharing and retention of knowledge.
68.6% of the total respondents agree Ethiopian Defense Force has no
knowledge management department.
69.4% of respondents explained that Ethiopian Defense Force has no
formal knowledge management policy.
Ethiopian Defense forces follow a traditional hierarchical structure,
due to its unique organizational culture.
Ethiopian Defense forces does not properly utilize information
communication technology to support knowledge sharing among its
military personnel.
30. Ethiopian Defense Force has lack of system and policy that support
knowledge sharing ,lack of reward and recognition package.
CONCLUSION
Ethiopian Defense Force has must establish importance of knowledge
management policy in the organization’s
Ethiopian Defense force has lack of written knowledge retention
policy.
Lack of knowledge sharing policy and system that support .
Lack of role models on sharing experiences and knowledge in
Ethiopian Defense Force.
Lack of leader commitment to developing effective knowledge sharing
practices in Ethiopian Defense Forces.
31. Ethiopian Defense Forces use different methods to manage and share
knowledge one of the best methods used After Action Review.
Recommendation
The Ethiopian Defense Forces need to establish a clear policy and
procedure, including strategy and a specific department to guide
knowledge management.
Ethiopian Defense Forces need to develop and implement a well focused
and wide range of training and learning programs to its military personnel
at all level in the hierarchy of the organization.
Ethiopian Defense Forces need to create a positive organizational culture
to enable individuals and groups openly share and manage knowledge
