TOWARDS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN SPORTS
EVENT MANAGEMENT
Context Analysis of Malaysian Biannual Games with CommonKADS
Azizul Rahman Abdul Ghaffar, Ghassan Beydoun, Jun Shen and Will Tibben
School of Information Systems and Technology, Faculty of Informatics, University of Wollongong
Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
Keywords: Context Analysis, Knowledge Analysis, CommonKADS, Sports Event Management.
Abstract: Context Analysis (CA) is typically used as an early phase preceding the development of a knowledge-based
systems in order to indicate how the system should interact with its environment and the various
stakeholders. We undertake a detailed context analysis of business processes of the Malaysian Games (MG)
to highlight blind spots of the process and enable the identification of an initial sports event knowledge
management (KM) framework. Firstly, our CommonKADS driven analysis highlights how we can improve
the business process and enable the organization to develop, distribute and apply its knowledge resources
effectively. Secondly, the paper highlights specific features about the domain of sports events management
and accordingly presents a set of recommendations to extend the CA of CommonKADS to improve its
applicability to Sports Events Management in general.
1 INTRODUCTION
Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experiences,
values, contextual information and expert insight that
provides a framework for evaluating and
incorporating new experiences and information
(Davenport and Prusak, 2000). It originates and is
applied in the minds of knowers. In organizations, it
often becomes embedded not only in documents or
repositories but also in organizational routines,
processes, practices and norms (Davenport and
Prusak, 2000). KM is the systematic and explicit
management of knowledge related activities,
practices, programs and policies within the
organization to effectively apply an organization’s
knowledge and to facilitate the creation of new
knowledge to achieve and maintain a competitive
advantage (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). In this paper,
we investigate how knowledge management (KM)
can improve organizing sports events using the bi-
annual Malaysian Games (MG) event as a case study.
Organizing this large sports event is knowledge
intensive. As many practices and features can be used
again in future events, an effective KM strategy
promises significant efficiencies.
The MG event is also a fluid domain where
location and stakeholders change on a two-yearly
basis. The classic problem of ‘knowledge walkout’ is
an inherent characteristic of these KM problems. The
significance of this study relates to sport assuming
increasing importance in modern and developing
economies. Sports events management is a multi-
million dollar industry that is growing rapidly. The
industry now is important on a global scale –
economically, socially, politically and technologi-
cally. It is widely accepted that the introduction of a
knowledge-based system requires change
management strategies and additional staff training
(Bouarfa, 2008; Swart et al., 2003). This paper
applies the context analysis phase of the
CommonKADS methodology (Schreiber et al., 2000)
to the organization that is responsible for the MG and
provides a roadmap to implement a set of KM
policies to improve the current state of affairs and
minimize the impact of ‘knowledge walkout’. Case
study conducted shows how knowledge management
is used in sports event management and at the same
time reflect the relationship between the domains
involved. It will enable the development of sports
event management through appropriate strategies.
377
Rahman Abdul Ghaffar A., Beydoun G., Shen J. and Tibben W..
TOWARDS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN SPORTS EVENT MANAGEMENT - Context Analysis of Malaysian Biannual Games with CommonKADS.
DOI: 10.5220/0003497003770383
In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Software and Database Technologies (ICSOFT-2011), pages 377-383
ISBN: 978-989-8425-77-5
Copyright
c
2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
2 KM OPPORTUNITIES IN
EXISITING PRACTICES
The MG is owned and co-organized by the National
Sports Council of Malaysia (NSCM); see Figure 1.
The NSCM employs a set of policies to implement
guidelines to ensure consistency between events and
the quality of management. The NSCM aims to
provide each of the 14 states of Malaysia the
opportunity to host the event. Since it was initiated in
1986, the MG has been held every two years by a
different state. The Malaysian Games (MG) can be
seen as a smaller scale of a rotating Olympics and the
KM constraints will clearly be less than in the
management of bigger scale rotating events such as
the Olympics.
Figure 1: MG Organizing Structure.
The structure in Figure 1 shows the hierarchy of the
MG in which there are elements of KM that need to
be addressed. CommonKADS has been used as tools
in the MG analysis to identify the problems in the
MG. KM based observation indicate tacit knowledge
in this area. Tacit knowledge is derived from personal
experience; it is subjective and difficult to formalize
(Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Therefore, tacit
knowledge is often learned via shared and
collaborative experiences requiring participation and
‘doing’. This section describes problems of
knowledge loss and contextual problem factors
impacting the effective organization of the bi-annual
MG in greater detail. We have identified four
problems:
2.1 Duties and Responsibilities are not
Sustained (P1)
Due to the change of host for every MG, nearly 80
percent of staff are new and there is no continuity
with previous work. They need to undergo training
by the NSCM before performing their duties in their
respective departments. The remaining percent of
staff, who monitor the operations of each department,
are officers of the NSCM.
2.2 NSCM IT Unit has Overreliance on
Outsourcing (P2)
The development of computer systems is a priority
for the MG as it is for most large sports events. The
NSCM IT unit has management capabilities but does
not have enough manpower to develop the systems.
The IT management practice is to engage private
companies which require time and additional
expertise to become familiar with the existing
processes, regulations and requirements of each sport
played. The NCSM currently views IT management
as a transient role carried out only during the games.
The experience of other major sporting events such
as the Sydney Olympics suggests this is an area of
considerable potential improvement (Halbwirth and
Toohey, 2001).
2.3 Problems related to Ownership of
Games Management Systems (P3)
In the MG, the games management system is the core
knowledge source to update users with the latest
games news, contingent information, and information
on medal tally and record breaking. The hosting state
chooses a system based on its own specifications and
provisions by the federal government. When the
games has been completed, the system becomes
essentially state-owned and can not be used by
others. The use of the system is not sustained as the
host state will not be organizing the next MG and the
sports management system is only used in the two
weeks of the current organization. The question as to
who will be responsible for maintaining the system is
always contentious. In addition, the cost of the
development of the system increases in every
subsequent event because of repeated system
development, changes in host committee and IT
companies to develop the systems.
2.4 Overarching Contextual Factor in
MG Organization is Lack of KM
Awareness and Practices (P4)
Knowledge is an important aspect in sports event
management. As an example, during the Olympic
Games in Sydney 2000, Beijing 2008 and Athens
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2004, the organizers have formed a special
committees to manage and store knowledge as a
valuable asset for future references. The Sydney
Olympic Games in 2000 set up a Post Games Report
project for a period of two years. This produced an
additional percent increase in data over the year 2000
(Halbwirth and Toohey, 2001). In the MG case, there
are no initiatives to encourage those involved to
transfer or explicitly codify their knowledge. The
officers and staff involved have to learn in an
informal way based on the experience of seniors.
Effective management is an important part of
successful sporting events at all levels – elite,
professional and amateur. This in turn assists sporting
organizations to adapt and thrive in an environment
of rapid and pervasive economic, social and
technological change. Investigating the potential
impact of any KM-motivated proposal on an
organization is critical for the successful deployment
of the future system. Figure 2 shows the relationship
between the sub-committees in terms of functions
and knowledge flow and the level of knowledge
identified during the analysis.
Figure 2: MG Sub Committees (by functions/level).
For this study, sub-committees of the MG were
divided into three levels according to the task
hierarchy of the MG and the possible strength of KM
in its operations. High Level – Level 1 refers to the
sub-committee which has the highest level of
importance for the management of the MG.
3 CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS
Contextual analysis has been defined as the analysis
of the social, organizational and physical
environment in which a system will be used (Preece
et al., 2002) while Bouarfa (2008) defines context as
user, task and physical and social environment.
Context analysis is typically used in application
development projects to indicate how the system
should interact with its environment. Context models
describe information and control flow between a
system and its environment. According to Aguila et
al. (2001), there are many modeling frameworks; the
most representative are CommonKADS, MIKE and
PROTÉGÉ-II. Each one of them has its own
modelling approach. CommonKADS is prominent
for having defined the structure of the Knowledge
Model (or Expertise Model), MIKE puts emphasis on
formal and executable specification of the expertise
model, as the result of the knowledge acquisition
phase, and PROTÉGÉ exploits the notion of
ontology. CommonKADS methodology is a standard
in Europe and covers all knowledge based systems
(KBS) development processs. CommonKADS
provides a complete methodology for the
development of a knowledge-based system
describing principles, techniques, modelling
languages and document structures to assist the
construction of a knowledge based systems (KBS).
The CommonKADS offers a detailed sets of
models to guide an in-depth analysis. The analysis
focuses on the business processes of the organization
and traces the use of knowledge in the working
processes (Schreiber et al. 2000). CommonKADS
methodologies comprises of three phases needed in
developing a knowledge based systems (Schreiber
et.al., 2000), they are: contextual analysis, conceptual
analysis and design. Contextual Analysis in
CommonKADS aims to understand the social and
physical contexts of organizations to determine their
vulnerabilities and potentials by tracking the flow of
data through an application, using cross-module,
cross-language, semantic and data flow analysis to
deliver the most complete understanding of the KM
risk.
The CommonKADS organization model supports
identification of promising areas for knowledge
based systems in organization and detection on how
the KBS might affect the organization (Post et.al,
TOWARDS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN SPORTS EVENT MANAGEMENT
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379
Table 1: Identifying knowledge-oriented problems and organizational aspects that relate to KM initiatives.
CommonKADS Problems and Opportunities Worksheet OM-1
Problems
Identified problems and opportunities in the MG are as follows:
Duties and responsibilities are not sustained (P1)
NSCM IT Unit overreliance on outsourcing (P2)
Problems related to ownership of Games Management Systems (P3)
An overarching contextual factor in MG organization is the lack of KM Awareness and Practices (P4)
Organizational context
Mission, vision, goals of the organization:
Enhance athletes’ participation and their records in a key sport at states and districts level.
Enhancement of credibility of coaches, technical officers and sports administrators involved.
Increase knowledge in managing the new and existing sports facilities in the hosting states.
Simplify the management process for athletes representing the country in future.
Enhance national integration of Malaysian society through sports awareness and involvement.
Important external factors the organization has to deal with:
Facilities and Services: Building new facilities and services to host the MG are generally seen as long-term legacies, and the
organizers have to justify their investment by looking to their usage beyond the end of the event for the use of the community.
Social Regeneration: The benefits to the hosting state can create a new focus for social activities, community involvement,
and local economic benefits.
Political Development: The improved profile of the organizer as a result of staging a successful major sports event is
considered of value for hosting state.
Cultural Development: Major sports events can offer wider programs that are of cultural and social longer term benefit. This
will be difficult to measure but its importance should not be overlooked.
Environmental Development incorporating green policies
Economic Development to ensure all facilities in the long term create activities for income.
Event Tourism beyond MG execution.
Strategies of organization: To achieve goals including policy and guidelines that need to be updated:
Proper resourcing of initiatives aimed at breaking the normal culture: To ensure that the key knowledge-sharing and learning
processes are implemented and adequately resourced.
Updating of job descriptions: To include learning and knowledge-sharing objectives, activities and evaluation system will
specify measures of innovation, learning and knowledge-sharing achievements.
Updating of human resource processes to provide for adequate incentives: To make contribution to knowledge-sharing and
learning an integral part of them. Reform of a new working culture is a must.
Developing KM skills and competencies: To provide training to ensure that staff are familiar with knowledge-sharing and
learning processes and tools, and with the appropriate behaviours and attitudes.
Implementing a space for knowledge sharing and learning: To create a rotational program among staff to further their
creativity and skills; to improve communication of the MG business and expand the staff field immersion program as a means
to improving learning and knowledge-sharing.
Its value chain and the major value driver: KM can be employed to some degree in every value-creating activity, so
changes can influence competitive advantages by changing the activities themselves or by discovering new configurations of the
value chain. This applies to both primary and support activities such as operations which range from process, event and sports
facilities handling to maintenance, testing and knowledge systems.
Potential Solutions
Organizations need more permanent staff, standards, management practices and work procedures.
- Use of systematic workflows and explicit procedures to reduce errors to avoid repetitions of tasks.
- Use of a corporate memory as a basis for viable KM initiatives, e.g. knowledge compilation to support
design, layout and safer products for sports facilities.
- Systematized staff training, planning, organizing evaluation and creating systems for human performance
evaluation.
- Planning for competency and standardization and benchmarking.
Organizers should reduce the sub-committees to reduce delays and to improve accountability.
To enable technology transfer, all parties involved in IT should be working with IT NSCM Unit. The National Sports
Council’s IT unit should have more permanent officers and staff to enable them to plan, and take on the challenge of
introducing KM initiatives.
To create a repository of so called ‘structured knowledge’: NSCM should serve as a central database of sports knowledge to
share with involved parties and to meets user needs.
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Table 2: CommonKADS description of the MG organizational aspects that relate to KM initiatives organizational aspects
that relate to KM initiatives.
Variant Aspects Worksheet OM-2
Structure
The MG Organizing Committee is headed by the Chief Minister of an organizing state. The Committee consists
of the Executive Council and representatives from the state. The Malaysian Games Sub-committee comprising
21 sub-committees set up to operate the MG during this event. Each committee will be chaired by the
representative of the state with their own specific tasks. The National Sports Council Task Force consists of
officers from various backgrounds such as finance, IT, sports management and engineering. The formation of the
group is normally within six month to a year before the games. The states team consists of staff from various
departments of the state. The MG analysis will involve six major sub-committees as follows;
Finance, Sponsorship, Promotion and Publicity
Facilities Management
Equipment and Competition Facilities
Infrastructure
ICT and Contingent Information
Competition, Technical and Venue
Process
The value of sports event organizing is increasingly measured by the way it creates, uses and reuses knowledge
to add value to services and processes, and to improve relationships with users. The organization can use KM to
provide accountability of information and help in decision making processes, together with compliance with
standards by organizing all sources of knowledge available in the MG.
People
In the MG management, there are many different people playing many different organizational roles, requiring
very different levels of expertise. Given the brief for the project (OM1), only a very limited area has been taken
into account, mostly the high level committee that is directly involved in some way in the decision-making
process. People will have their roles based on their expertise. Their functions are carried out by full-time staff,
staff on a contract basis or volunteers. They will report to the head of the sub-committee with a specific job
specification for the duration of the games.
Resources
The development of KM initiatives for organizing the MG will involve capital, human resources, costs and
physical resources. These may cover different types, such as:
Information systems and computing resources which provide data capture and storage facilities
Facilities, equipment and venues
Social, interpersonal, and other (non-knowledge) skills and competencies
Technology, patents, broadcast rights in various media outlets
Organizing Budget (providing a forecast of revenues and allocation usage of the games)
Knowledge
Knowledge is a resource exploited in a business process. Sports knowledge, expertise and skills are among the
aspects to be considered. As the MG try to improve the quality of management, it was a straightforward step to
investigate in more detail on knowledge used in variety of ways that can improve the overall performance of the
organization. In addition, as KM initiatives need to be more effective, management should consider knowledge
assets and task-significant perspectives within the sports event management environment.
Culture
In MG, it is customary to rotate events to vary cultural contexts. This necessitates the need to take a cultural
perspective on the knowledge involved and the concomitant business processes. This view proposes that all
tangible benefits such as stadium, transport infrastructure and tourist facilities, and intangible benefits, such as
sports history making, are accumulated cultural capital.
1997). For the MG case, the research has been done
on six sub-committees (High Level- Level 1 in
Figure 2) using the CommonKADS Organizational
Model 1 (OM1) – Organizational Model (OM4).
Tables 1 – has been used to identify the main
problems in the MG organization that requires the
use of KM in the future in strengthening this
organization. The focus is on problems,
organizational context and the problems solution.
Tables 2 - has been used in identifying areas of the
organization associated with the KM initiatives
focuses on organizational structure, organizational
process, people and resources. Tables 3 - has been
used to assess and demonstrate the process of
covering their daily duties in the organization and
the KM-related characteristics. Tables 4 - has been
used to demonstrate knowledge of identified
component in the organization and specifically
relevant to the study. Details of the use of this table
is described as follows;
4 DISCUSSION
Through this case study has revealed some things
that give contribution to the development of
knowledge management in sports event
management. Whatever the effects occur and have
TOWARDS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN SPORTS EVENT MANAGEMENT
- Context Analysis of Malaysian Biannual Games with CommonKADS
381
Table 3: CommonKADS description of the process in terms of the tasks and their main characteristics.
OM 3 CommonKADS Process Breakdown Worksheet (OM-3)
Task Agent Where? Knowledge Aset Knowledge Intensive? Significance
1
Finance Accountant
Finance, Sponsorship,
Promotion and Publicity
Tacit skills, Qualification Yes 5
2
Sponsorship
Sponsorship
Manager
Finance, Sponsorship,
Promotion and Publicity
Tacit skills,Finance
procedure
Yes 4
3
Promotion
Marketing
Manager
Finance, Sponsorship,
Promotion and Publicity
Tacit skills, procedure
Sports Act 1971
Yes 4
*(Only some are shown – 3 out of 13)
Table 4: CommonKADS description of the knowledge component of the MG organizational model knowledge component
of the MG organizational model.
Organization Model CommonKADS Knowledge Assets Worksheet OM-4
Knowledge Asset Agent Task Right Form?
Right
Place?
Right
Time?
Right
Quality?
Tacit skills, qualification,
finance procedure
Accountant
Finance
management
Yes/new
concept
Yes/priority Yes
No/depends
on report
Tacit skills, finance
procedure
Sponsorship
Manager
Sponsorship
management
Yes/new
concept
Yes/priority Yes
No/depends
on report
Tacit skills, finance
procedure, Sports Act 1971
Marketing
Manager
Promotion program
Yes/new
concept
Yes/priority Yes
No/depends
on report
Tacit skills, finance
procedure, Sports Act 1971
Publicity
Manager
Publicity program
Yes/new
concept
Yes/priority Yes
No/depends
on report
*(Only a subset is shown- for lack of space)
become the norm in managing knowledge have also
been identified and the basis for a decision making
process. It shows the situation relating to knowledge
management as well as further consideration for the
organization. It provides the identification of
problems and providing measures to resolve
problems. We have identified a comprehensive
business process and daily operations of the
organization and its relationship with the use of
knowledge management. Analysis relating to KM
and the MG has never been done before, and we
think the use of a reference method to enhance the
ability of the organization is required.
5 CONCLUSIONS
The MG is a unique case and the model will only be
made based on the actual situation in this
organization which will be translated into the
analysis. CommonKADS through specific templates
is able to produce long and inconsistent
documentation. Using tables of all documentation
makes it difficult and we think the use oftechniques
such as modelling of the process and content of the
organization far more appropriate and effective. The
use of CommonKADS in this analysis can not meet
the requirements in the field of sports management
in full. Therefore, the sports event management
needs its own KM framework that is most accurate
and appropriate and is certainly to extend what had
previously been done by CommonKADS.
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