Knowledge Management Audit in a Higher Educational Institution: A Case Study

In the paper, we discuss the available research in the field of knowledge management (KM) from the specific perspective of higher educational (HE) institutions, as organisations comprised of experts. Based on the literature review, we develop a KM audit instrument and apply it to a specific HE institution in order to assess the status of its KM processes. From our study, we can conclude that even if an institution is 'academic' in nature and apparently successful, this fact does not necessarily mean that KM processes are institutionalised within the organisation. From this point of view, a HE institution is likely to be subject to the same limitations as any other organisation in the knowledge business. Our paper further gives recommendations to managers of HE institutions on how to assess the effectiveness of KM in their organisations as well as providing information for other researchers who want to conduct a KM audit in similar organisations. Copyright (C) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.