Exercis 5

February 13, “ Safety-Knowledge Management in American Construction Organizations” The of the chosen article is “ Safety-Knowledge Management in American Construction Organizations” from the Journal of Management in Engineering. Its author is Matthew R. Hallowell, Director of the Colorado Construction Safety Laboratory and Professor of Construction Engineering and Management and Environmental and Occupational Safety at the University of Colorado. The article aims to examine how construction organizations employ safety-knowledge management strategies. The main findings are that construction organizations acquire safety knowledge from internal and external sources, and that many have ineffective knowledge storage and transfer systems.
I selected this article because I am interested in how engineering and similar professions apply knowledge management practices in their particular professions. It appealed to me because it shows knowledge management strategies in real applications. Reading about managing knowledge can be quite vague, even when tools and guidelines are provided in books. Hallowell helps me understand how the theory of knowledge management is applied in construction organizations. In particular, I learned from this article that organizations that proactively manage knowledge about safety have better safety levels than those that do not. Furthermore, these organizations combine hard and soft approaches to collecting and managing knowledge, such as using data-entry systems for gathering reactions to safety situations and conducting interviews with workers. The article emphasized that the best source of knowledge is the people who are involved in the processes being analyzed and improved, and that an effective strategy of managing knowledge is designing systems, policies, and practices that efficiently and effectively capture, store, and share knowledge to users and decision-makers.
Work Cited
Hallowell, Matthew R. “ Safety-Knowledge Management in American Construction Organizations.” Journal of Management in Engineering 28. 2 (2012): 203-211. Print.