CHAPTER 2

Existing KM Research

2.1 What Is KM Research?

KM research is defined here as studies that explore practices, motivations, success factors, challenges, and benefits related to knowledge creation, capture, sharing, delivery, transfer, and application. KM research involves a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods, including interviews, case studies, surveys, artifact reviews, and direct observation. Some research is intended to create descriptive models or frameworks to facilitate an understanding of KM practices, influences, and impacts. Other research builds on this understanding to provide guidance to organizations wishing to pursue or advance KM implementation. KM is an active area of research—over 20 academic journals are devoted to KM-related topics, and thousands of KM-related articles are published each year.

2.2 KM Foundation Studies

While the foundations of the current KM field can be traced to the 1960s (including early works authored by management expert Peter Drucker), several works on KM in the 1990s are now considered foundational to the field. These include:

• The Fifth Discipline (1990) by Peter Senge, which covers the concept of the learning organization and discusses how to foster a learning culture;
• The Knowledge Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation (1995) by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, which distinguishes tacit and explicit knowledge and introduces the SECI (Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalization) model for understanding knowledge transfer processes;
• Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations (1997) by Thomas Stewart, which discusses value creation from intangible knowledge assets, including human capital, structural capital, and customer capital; and
• Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know (1998) by Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak, which discusses KM within organizations, emphasizing that knowledge is a strategic asset; the interplays among information, knowledge, and technology; and the role of culture in creating an environment conducive to knowledge sharing.

2.3 General KM Research Themes

The literature review conducted for this project included over 40 selected general KM resources, most of which provided reviews and syntheses of other primary research efforts. This review identified several common themes:

• The broad, fragmented, and interdisciplinary nature of KM, which leads to challenges in understanding and communicating what KM is.
• The importance of tailoring KM to an organization’s specific goals and culture—no single “one size fits all” solution exists.
• The importance of integrating KM within an organization’s existing practices.
• The importance of addressing the people and social aspects of KM—and avoiding overemphasis on the technology and information management aspects of KM.
• The need to better understand how to facilitate knowledge reuse—emphasizing how knowledge is actually applied as opposed to shared or delivered.
• The need to better assess KM’s impact on practice, including its role in fostering creativity and innovation and in decision making and organizational value creation.
• The need to better understand public-sector applications of organizational learning.
• The need for research on KM and current issues of concern, such as resilience.
• The need to better define how KM complements or supports AI.

2.4 Prior and Current Research on KM in Transportation

Completed Research

The literature review identified over 50 reports and articles related to KM in transportation agencies. The majority of this research has been applied research—emphasizing providing guidance to transportation agencies to help them understand what KM is and how to use it effectively to address challenges and improve performance. This applied research has covered the following topic areas:

• KM Basics – Definition, Elements, and Principles
• KM Implementation – Within Transportation Agencies
• KM Implementation – Across Transportation Agencies
• KM Value/Metrics for Transportation Agencies
• KM Techniques for Knowledge Capture, Sharing, and Transfer
• Domain-Specific KM Applications (e.g., capturing knowledge from pavement engineers)
• KM/Learning Culture in Transportation Agencies
• Transportation Knowledge Organization and Representation
• Transportation Data and Information Management
• Strategic Transportation Workforce Development/Training/Succession Management

Over 20 TRB Cooperative Research Program (CRP) products related to KM were reviewed. The primary emphasis of CRP KM research has been providing guidance on implementing KM within transportation agencies. General KM guides for state DOTs (Spy Pond Partners, LLC 2015), transit agencies (Cronin et al. 2017), and airports (Harrison and Preston 2023) have been developed. In addition, a synthesis project was conducted in 2007 (Ward 2007), and a domestic scan was conducted in 2014 to document the state of the practice of KM (Halikowski et al. 2014). Other CRP projects have focused on workforce management topics (Committee on Future Surface Transportation Agency Human Resource Needs: Strategies for Recruiting, Training, and Retaining Personnel 2003; Cronin et al. 2011; Puentes et al. 2019; Spy Pond Partners, LLC 2020), data and information management within transportation agencies (Cambridge Systematics; Inc. 2013; Harrison et al. 2016; Spy Pond Partners, LLC, and KAPS Group 2017; Gharaibeh et al. 2017; Applied Engineering Management Corporation and toXcel, LLC 2018; Hodge and Bedford 2018; Spy Pond Partners, LLC, and Iknow, LLC 2020; Ramon et al. 2023), and information and knowledge sharing across the transportation community (Committee for a Future Strategy for Transportation Information Management 2006; Spy Pond Partners, LLC, et al. 2009). Several past

projects have provided some coverage of KM value/metrics (Halikowski et al. 2014; Spy Pond Partners, LLC 2015; Cronin et al. 2017) and learning culture as part of a broader scope (Ward 2007; Cronin et al. 2011; Spy Pond Partners, LLC 2015; Cronin et al. 2017; Harrison and Preston 2023).

In addition to the CRP research, state DOTs and university partners have produced agency-specific KM investigations, guidance, and pilots for California [California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) 2017)], Georgia (Frost 2016), Michigan (Aktan and Attanayake 2019), Minnesota (MnDOT 2020), North Carolina (Henard 2020; Banerjee et al. 2021), Texas (Krugler et al. 2005), Vermont (McRae et al. 2018), Washington State (Harrison and Oman 2018), and Wisconsin (Wittwer and Adams 2011).

Active Research

Active CRP projects (as of July 2024) related to KM include:

• NCHRP Project 23-17, “Assessing and Measuring the Business Value of Knowledge Management,”
• NCHRP 20-24(141), “Advancing the Art and Science of Decision-Making,”
• NCHRP 23-27, “Strategies for Developing and Using Data Ontologies for Data-Driven Decision-Making,”
• NCHRP 20-102(20), “Preparing the Transportation Workforce for the Deployment of Emerging Technology,”
• NCHRP 23-30, “Strategies to Improve Application of Research Results in the Research Life Cycle,”
• NCHRP 20-44(45), “Supporting State DOT Adoption of Knowledge Management Practices,”
• NCHRP 23-31A, “Strategies to Foster the Implementation of Knowledge Management,” and
• NCHRP 23-36, “Development of a Knowledge Capture Toolkit for State DOTs” (Pending).