Knowledge and Innovation: The quest for a innovative edge in the public sector

Reinventing the public administration has become the key motive to achieve in order to cope with the pressure to innovate that the government is facing. The last decade, the role of the public sector has been largely debate and today the government is exp ected to not only provide better services to the citizens, but also to guarantee social cohesion, to improve the transparency and accountability and to use / apply efficiently the information and communication technology. In other term, public sectors nee d to move toward an innovative e-government. Today, it is well acknowledged that knowledge and its management are the drivers fostering innovation in the public sectors. There are many KM initiatives but the common challenge resides in achieving a synergy by integrating people, processes and technology. The pre-study project aims to establish knowledge on what Åmot commune need to pursue in order to improve the business processes and their adminstratives routines leading to provision for innovative servi ces to the citizens and the companies. In order to achieve the objective, we intend to investigate how ICT is used in performing daily task by the civil servants, and to determine the type of knowledge processes improving the business processes. The ado pted methodologies is as follow: A web-survey will be developed by the college university in collaboration with the Åmot commune. Several interviews with top management of several communes will be conducted. Based on data collection and literature review related to similar experiences in others Norwegian counties or countries, a general KM framework encompassing the socio-technical factors contributing to the improvement of public sector will be defined.