KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN NON-GOVERNMENTAL

ORGANISATIONS

A Partnership for the Future

José Braga de Vasconcelos, Paulo Castro Seixas, Paulo Gens Lemos

University Fernando Pessoa, Porto, Portugal

Chris Kimble

Department of Computer Science, University of York, York, UK

Keywords: Knowledge Management, Communities of Practice, Non-Governmental Organisations, Civil Society

Organisations, Information Society, Humanitarian Aid, Social Development.

Abstract: This paper explores Knowledge Management (KM) practices f

or use with portal technologies in Non-

Governmental Organizations (NGOs). The aim is to help NGOs become true Civil Society Organizations

(CSOs). In order to deal with more donors (at the top) and more beneficiaries (at the bottom), NGOs

working in Humanitarian Aid and Social Development increasingly need systems to manage the creation,

accessing and deployment information: within the NGOs themselves, between different NGOs that work

together and, ultimately, between NGOs and Society as a whole. Put simply, NGOs are organizations that

need an effective KM solution to tackle the problems that arise from both their local-global nature and from

the difficulties of effective communication between and within NGOs and Civil Society. To address these

problems, the underlying objectives, entities, activities, workflow and processes of the NGO will be

considered from a KM framework. This paper presents the needs of a responsible, cooperative and

participative NGO from a KM perspective, in order to promote the growth of Communities of Practice in

local as well as in global network.

1 INTRODUCTION

Knowledge in an organization is the collection of

expertise, experience and information that

individuals and workgroups use during the execution

of their tasks. It is produced and stored by

individual minds, or implicitly encoded and

documented in organizational processes, services

and systems. Non-Governmental Organizations

(NGOs) dealing with Humanitarian Aid and Social

Development face a paradox concerning the

production of knowledge: interventions require

particular, even specialized expertise, and, at the

same time, must be a participative undertaking in

which each and every individual, group and

organization must be involved, regardless of its own

particular skills. This technical paradox could be

seen as an ideological one, where NGOs are viewed

either “as voices of global civil society and

democratic change”, or as agencies for carrying out

“political agendas of foreign interests” (Tvedt, 2002:

363). This technical/ideological paradox reveals the

problem of the participative-democratic versus

specialized-directive approach to development.

Nevertheless, more and more one cannot ignore the

important role of the development NGOs in shaping

national and global civil societies.

The purpose of the applied research we present here

is to

pursue for a stronger network between NGOs

and Civil Society in order to turn them into Civil

Society Organizations (CSOs) in which a global

network of citizens and institutions can interact and

intervene in a local and global – a so-called glocal –

way.

Supported by a University-NGOs network and built

n existing NGOs workflows, this applied research

aims to promote the application of KM practices

across individuals, groups, institutions and

Braga de Vasconcelos J., Castro Seixas P., Gens Lemos P. and Kimble C. (2005).

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS - A Partnership for the Future.

In Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, pages 17-26

DOI: 10.5220/0002537900170026

 SciTePress

communities in order to bridge citizens and

development through a proper web tool KM for

development turning NGOs into CSOs. For this

purpose, a web prototype system (section 4) is being

developed in order to enhance knowledge sharing

and reusing mechanisms for a selected set of NGOs,

and their related networks, based in Portugal and

Brazil.

The following section presents the main mission and

objectives of a NGO, the third section introduces the

KM research area and our KM approach in NGOs

and the fourth section analyses KM shortfalls and

related problems within and between NGOs.

Finally, the fifth section presents a web-based KM

prototype for the management of NGOs activities,

concluding this paper with some final remarks and

future directions for this research field.

2 HUMANITARIAN AID AND

NON-GOVERNMENTAL

ORGANISATIONS

In the history of humanitarian aid and social

development, “aid to others” and “bilateral aid”

were the predecessors of present partnerships or

affiliations and even of development cooperation.

At the beginning of 21

century, we must try to

reflect on what humanitarian and emergency aid as

well as social development means based on the

rejection of all and any naïveté regarding goodwill,

altruism and solidarity of western white man. We

must also reject the manipulation that hinders aid to

the "Other" and aid among one’s own from

becoming an extreme anthropological element, in

other words, from becoming a part of the

foundations of human sociability (Seixas, 2003).

It has become necessary to assume a global culture

based on assumption of the right of all to have

rights, so that the aid for others may be replaced by a

binding contract of multilateral cooperation based on

the certainty that the defence of the rights of any

person in any part of the world is the defence of the

rights of all human beings (Seixas, 2003).

Bearing this in mind Knowledge Management (KM)

through information society could represent a

partnership for the future in order to promote a

glocal counter-hegemonic continuous intervention.

Although local, regional and world (as well as the

several thematic) Forums have created a strong

reflexive and intervention tool either in counter-

hegemonic “cosmopolitism”, either towards a

“common heritage for humanity” (Santos, 2000) this

revolution should make his way within and between

organizations in a local-global continuum.

Aid and development workers of NGOs build up a

invaluable stock of local knowledge as are in

permanent contact with local needs and aims,

assessing them and building on them in their day-to-

day interventions. However, this priceless

knowledge is often sidetracked and misplaced in the

complexity of the communication hierarchy,

forgotten over the length of field missions, dispersed

due to the high level of turn-over associated with

many NGOs or, as Winograd and Flores (1986) put

it, simply ‘lost in the unfathomable depths of

obviousness’.

The recent incentive, even obligation, for local

partnerships in development cooperation and for

consortiums of NGOs is, obviously, a way of

enhancing and promoting either a local knowledge

network or an international knowledge network to

improve development practices. However, local

partnerships are often just a presence and

international consortiums are simply ways of getting

more money without creating this desired exchange

of knowledge. Thus, development urgently needs a

civic infrastructure (from village to global scale) in

which “glocal” knowledge exchange promotes a

continuous sustained appropriation and use of

knowledge in a more democratic way.

The proposal that we present here sustains that KM

and NGOs through the Information Society and

could constitute a very relevant civic tool that would

give back development to citizens, grass roots

organizations and local communities without losing

the training and specialization which are required in

professionalized development work. Information

Society should be extensible in a planetary way

enhancing shared knowledge and practices

concerning concrete local development projects in

which local and international NGOs, as well as other

organizations, are involved. This local web turns

global as the information flows through

organizational hierarchies, bridging up the problems

as they are accessed not only by development

workers but also, in a more relevant way, by local

citizens and grass roots organizations. KM through

the Information Society in partnership with NGOs

may therefore enhance a web for development and

turning therefore, NGOs into CSOs.

3 THE KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT APPROACH:

From NGO to CSOs

The KM approach views knowledge as the key asset

of an organization and systematically develops

activities to manage it efficiently. The main

objectives of Knowledge Management are to

ICEIS 2005 - ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

promote knowledge growth, knowledge

communication and knowledge preservation (Steels

1993). KM is a topic of great interest in the

management and organizational sciences and it is

argued that KM should be appropriately supported

by enterprise information infrastructures (Wiig

1993, Davenport & Prusak 2000).

3.1 Knowledge Management Systems

In many organisations, the knowledge used to solve

problems, to direct actions and to make decisions,

together with any lessons learnt, are lost in the

'noise' of a turbulent business environment

(Vasconcelos et al, 2003). In addition, knowledge

may be geographically distributed and stored in a

variety of different representations, e.g. tacit

knowledge in people minds and structured

information in databases. To be successful a KM

initiative must address both the 'hard' knowledge in

databases and the 'soft' knowledge in people's minds

(Hildreth and Kimble, 2000). A Knowledge

Management System (KMS) addresses these

problems by providing a mechanism to capture,

retain and distribute knowledge assets within and

between organizational agents (e.g., employees and

information systems). KMS generally deal with

several phases of the KM life cycle (Abecker et al

1998): identification, acquisition, development,

dissemination, use and preservation of knowledge.

This KM life cycle will be applied in this research

work regarding with the NGO’s mission and

objectives.

Individuals and workgroups are the prime location

where the knowledge assets of an organization are

located. KMS can easily deal with, for example,

explicit (encoded) representations of organizational

structures, and process descriptions, however this

research work offers a KM approach to tackle

specific problems concerning the activities of NGOs.

This will involve the integration of another approach

to KM: Communities of Practice (CoPs)

3.2 Communities of Practice

Communities of Practice are often described as an

approach to KM that creates the proper environment

for groups to come together to exchange existing

knowledge and create new knowledge. These

groups have similar goals and a shared

understanding of their activities (Brown and Gray

1998, Greer et al. 2001); this often leads to CoPs

becoming the basis for so-called "Knowledge

Networks" (Hildreth and Kimble, 2004).

The term Community of Practice (CoP) was coined

in 1991 when Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (Lave

and Wenger, 1991). Lave and Wenger saw the

acquisition of knowledge as a social process in

which people participated in communal learning at

different levels depending on their authority in a

group, i.e. whether they were a newcomer to the

group or had been an active participant for some

time. The linking of CoPs to KM came in 1998,

when Wenger (1998) published the results of a study

of a large insurance company. According to Wenger

(2002), CoPs are groups of people who share

common problems and interests, and their

knowledge and expertise in specific areas is shared

by interacting on an ongoing basis. Over time, the

main objective is the dynamic creation of a common

body of knowledge, practices and approaches.

These informal networks can act in several ways,

such as resolving conflicting goals or disseminating

best practices across communities.

The development of Internet-based networking

technologies, which can provide a convenient single

platform for groups or networks of groups to form

within larger organizations, have led to a

proliferation of various forms of virtual groups and

communities. Subsequently, there has been much

discussion about virtual CoPs (Kimble et al, 2001).

These virtual CoPs depend on a common

communication platform, and an organization to

support this by providing both the communications

infrastructure and the means to easily find and join

the CoP (Lock Lee and Neff, 2004). This concept of

a CoP is applied in the web based prototype system

presented in the following section.

3.3 Knowledge Management

Shortfalls

The underlying objective of this research is to

develop mechanisms to minimize KM problems that

happen across NGOs. Both academic and corporate

KM literature has identified a set of KM deficits that

happen at the organizational and corporate level; this

literature can also be adapted and applied to NGOs.

Macintosh’s (1997) work on knowledge asset

management identified a set of organizational

impediments to more productivity and performance

in knowledge-based companies were:

“Highly paid workers spend much of their time

looking for needed information”.

“Essential know-how is available only in the heads

of few employees”.

“Valuable information is buried in piles of

documents and data”.

“Costly errors are repeated due to disregard of

previous experiences”.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS - A Partnership for the Future

“Delays and suboptimal product quality result from

insufficient flow of information”.

Based in these statements, Dieng et al. (1998)

elicited possible motivations to build a KMS based

on Organizational Memories.

• To avoid the loss of corporate expertise when a

specialist leave the company;

• To explore and reuse the experience acquired in

past projects in order to avoid the repetition of

previous mistakes;

• To improve the information circulation and

communication across the company;

• To integrate the know-how from different

sources in the company;

• To ultimately to improve the process of

individual and organizational learning.

In what concerns NGOs, big business NGOs (so-

called “BINGOs”) already dealt with the “KM for

development” problem and created their own

internal devices to respond to those problems.

Nevertheless, great number of small and medium

size NGOs deal with constant constraints that are

presented in detail below. Our KM tool addresses,

in particular, these issues.

3.4 KM Constraints in NGOs

Contextual Global and National information

NGOs, either international or national, frequently

become involved in missions without a deep

background knowledge of the global/national/local

problem and without skilled personal or proper

accessible methodologies.

Some specific problems are absence of just in time

access to:

a) Specific information concerning the countries

where NGOs will (or already have) a mission;

b) Skilled specialized personal in a particular

country or linguistic grouping;

c) Manuals, checklists and other sources of

managing knowledge needed to enhance the

efficacy of project elaboration, formulation and

implementation.

Field-mission information

NGOs projects and missions are often “go and run

away” missions, that depend too much on the

personalities that are send to the field, with scarce

time too much focused on bureaucratic/operational

work and with difficult beginnings and final periods

to each of the mission field-workers. Great lost of

knowledge and capital is the usual balance.

Some specific problems are:

a) Personalization of the information resulting in

non accounted overheads moreover when field-

missions are 6 to 10 months length;

b) Loss of non bureaucratic/operational

information (social and cultural) which isn’t

refereed in standard reports;

c) Loss of information in mission team turnover.

Communication between the field mission and

the main office

NGOs have a multi-level Knowledge Management

which goes, in the field, from the Project manager to

the Program manager / Country manager and in the

main office, from the Project Director and Finances

Director to the Direction Board. Through this

several local, national and international steps, too

much information is lost.

Some specific problems are that there might be

a) A strict hierarchical top to bottom decision-

making, which works against a more

participative approach to decision making built

through local knowledge;

b) The autonomy of field missions, which could

lead, sometimes, to an information crisis in the

management of the project or even an crisis in

the NGO it self;

c) An absence of a communication platform

accessible by levels of responsibilities for a just

in time proper information flow and information

Communication between NGOs

To often several NGOs, work in the same country,

or even in the same region, without knowing about

each other organizational purposes, projects and

activities.

Some specific problems are an absence of access to:

a) A map of previous NGO interventions, if

possible through purpose and projects;

b) Simple and direct access to communication

forums or to create one which could invite and

congregate NGOs professionals through

purpose, project or activities a Community of

Practice in the and in each field;

c) Best practices databases of projects selected by

NGOs Direction Boards in order to have an

identification card of each NGO as well as to

publicise a problem-solving database for

development.

ICEIS 2005 - ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Communication between NGOs and the

beneficiaries

NGOs relations with beneficiaries of the projects are

not so easy and well done as they should be and

frequently a project is elaborated and formulated

without sufficient participative enrolment by the

community of beneficiaries. In addition, in the

implementation phase, authorities are often more

aware of the project purposes and activities than the

ones the project will direct supposedly benefit.

Interface between NGOs and beneficiaries should be

done probably moreover in a face-to-face basis,

nevertheless, Knowledge Management through web

interface tools could be an asset because besides and

beyond information concerning the project,

beneficiaries should have a continuous possibility of

taking positions in relation to it.

Some specific problems:

a) Inadequate, un-participative analysis of the

needs felt by a particular population in which a

NGO pinpoint an intervention;

b) Inadequate, un-participative representation of

the beneficiary community in the formulation

and implementation of the project

c) Required of a development concept as a citizen

tool (an interactive day-to-day activity) through

which everyone could have a word and

participate in action.

Communication between NGOs and the donors

Although institutional donors usually have their own

ways of controlling the uses of applied funds and the

impacts of the projects, the non-organized social

responsibility response of civil society through

NGOs is much less informed in what concerns either

the concrete development projects supported, or

their real impact in the field. NGOs are usually

much more concerned with reports to institutions

like World Bank or EU Offices than with Civil

Society donors.

Some specific problems:

a) Absence of a communication toll through which

donors have direct link with the project in the

field and with its impacts;

b) High levels of turn over in NGOs,

personalization of the information in the field,

as well as problems with storage of information

often lead to difficulties either in internal

supervision, either in external auditing by

sponsors and donors;

c) Information coming from the field mission

concerning the project is, to many times, sent

only the country, mission or project manager

without any kind of feed-back by the population

who were impacted by the project.

Communication between NGOs and Civil Society

Each individual and each organization should, must

and could be an active development actor and agent

if only could have the proper knowledge capital

(understood as social, symbolic and, therefore,

economic capital) to make a difference. This utopia

could be built through a good communication

network between Development NGOs and Civil

Society in order to turn themselves into CSOs, Civil

Society Organizations. Therefore, we believe, KM

through information society could be the tool to turn

NGOs into CSOs, being this purpose the engine of

the present project.

Some specific problems:

a) Absence of a KMS to enrol individuals and

organizations in order to a participative effort

toward development, both in a local and in a

global sense. Such a systems should deploy of

information concerning 1) basic continuously

renewed geo-strategic and anthropological

situation of countries in risk; 2) basic training

towards citizen and organizational intervention;

3) intervention protocols and counselling; 4)

cultural online counselling and 5) psychological

support.

b) Absence of a development best practices

database that could be used as an intervention

guide not only to NGO experts but also to any

citizen enrolled in a local development process

or with global development concerns. This

guide could enhance not only the analysis,

discussion and choosing of alternative

development paths but also could be a way of a

more adequate impact analysis of development

projects by comparing the achieved goals in

similar projects.

c) Absence of a Community of Practice of

Knowledge Network that could cut across

NGOs competence and competition but also that

could bridge NGOs, donors and beneficiaries in

a more coherent and focused way.

4 GLOCAL COLLABORATION

TOOL

A practical result of this research work is a web-

based KM tool (or KM portal) that is currently under

development. This web tool is being developed to

act as a KM portal for individuals, organizations and

more specifically, for NGOs. This Glocal

Collaboration Tool aims to promote the

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS - A Partnership for the Future

democratization across different and heterogeneous

communities.

Bearing in mind the several NGO constraints

presented and the difference between “soft

knowledge” or “tacit knowledge” and “hard

knowledge” or “explicit knowledge” (Hildreth and

Kimble, 2001), the first one more centred in the

knower and interactivity through “conversation”; the

second one more centred in the storage of

knowledge. Table 1 presents the portal

functionalities as problem-solving devices to the

constraints referred in the previous point.

“Conversations” in CoPs are the most important

device because of the multiple contexts (personal,

social and cultural) that its interactivity includes.

The goal of the research and development of our tool

is to create a KM system based on “conversation

analysis” which could help different users and

preserve the context in which the knowledge is

created. CoPs can be seen as a glocal simulacrum of

such places as corridors or water coolers where

knowledge is exchanged in informal conversations.

In many organisations, these conversations have

been replaced by mobile phone calls in which the

decisions of formal meetings are planned for and

prepared. The goal is to try to capture some

information about both these calls and their context.

4.1 Application Functionalities and

Knowledge Resources

The web Portal application (figure 1) has a specific

registration area (for individuals and organizations)

in order to access to other areas, both general and

with specific interactive tools, such as a best-

practices database (DB), collaborative tools (forums)

and knowledge (and glocal) libraries. Other

functionalities include personalisation mechanisms

based on the registration profile of each

individual/organization, and keyword-based and

advanced search mechanisms.

Table 1: Problem-solution analysis

NGO constrains Portal functionalities:

Tacit knowledge

Portal functionalities:

Explicit knowledge

Contextual global and national information 1. Intranet CoPs by project and

thematic

2. Extranet CoPs by project and

thematic

1. Lay-out plan with NGOs

missions

2.Library

3. Best Practices

Field mission information 1. Intranet CoPs by project and

thematic

2. Extranet CoPs by project and

thematic

1.Library

Communication between field mission and main

office

1. Intranet CoPs by project and

thematic

2. Extranet CoPs by project and

thematic

1. Lay-out plan with NGOs

missions,

2. Library

3. Projects showcase

Communication between NGOs and the

beneficiaries

1. Extranet CoPs by project and

thematic

1. Lay-out plan with NGOs

missions,

2. Library

3. Projects showcase

4. Best Practices

Communication between NGOs and the donors 1. Extranet CoPs by project and

thematic

1. Lay-out plan with NGOs

missions,

2. Library

3. Projects showcase

4. Best Practices

Communication between NGOs and Civil

Society

1. Extranet CoPs by project and

thematic

1. Lay-out plan with NGOs

missions,

2. Library

3. Projects showcase

4. Best Practices

ICEIS 2005 - ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Figure 1: Web Collaboration Tool

4.2 Best-Practices Database

Based on the following attributes (table 1) and

related registration area (figure 3), we are defining a

best-practices database in order to reuse this

information for future Civil Society Organizations

(such as a NGO) projects. The idea is the definition

of a common, shared web space where CSOs,

individuals and citizens representing different

communities could upload their experiences, and

related project’s best practices in a structured

manner. The best practice DB includes specific

classification techniques based on the proposed

taxonomy (figure 2) for development areas.

Figure 2: Best practices taxonomy.

Using the proposed collaboration tool, this

taxonomy will have dynamic expansion based on the

experiences of each CSO, and the inputs (and related

uploads), which they include in the web platform.

Trough this expansion and depending on particular

requests (local knowledge), beyond the Internet

platform, we will build specific Intranets to provide

context-based data access for a better decision

making in each CSO and related responsibility level.

These attributes are used to create a database set of

CSOs including their project experiences and best

practices. To create the initial profile, an individual

or organization will register (figure 3) to create a

personal (or organization) account that makes

available the remaining functionalities.

Results

 General guides to run effectively CSOs

- Protocols, Manuals, Standards

- FAQs, Project rules, Proposals

 Best practices by world regions

- Continents

-Countries

- National regions

 Best practices by CSO

Best Practices by thematic area

 Conflict management and negotiation

 Healthcare

-Emergency

- Rehabilitation and development

- Public health and sanitation

-Nutrition

 Economics

- Emergency

- Rehabilitation and development

 Social and Cultural

-Emergency

- Rehabilitation and development

Classification

mechanisms

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS - A Partnership for the Future

Table 2: Data attributes for the best practices registration

Attribute Meaning

Internal code (year/project) Application use for future data manipulation

Project title Short project designation

Start date Project start date

Closing date Estimated closing date

Activity area Short description of the underlying activities

Applicant(s) The registered NGO, individual or organization

Project cost An estimation of the project cost (if applicable)

Objectives Overall objective and specific objectives

Principal local partners The main project stakeholders

Target groups Target communities, citizens, individuals

Expected results Quantitative results; Qualitative results

Activities Project timeline (different project stages)

Figure 3: Collaboration tool: registration area

4.3 Application

rchitecture

A multi-tier architecture environment provides data

for clients and serves as an interface between clients

and database servers (figure 5). This architecture

enables the use of an application server to validate

the credentials of a client, such as a Web browser, to

connect to a database server, and to perform the web

requested operations.

ure

mes the identity of the client

when it is performing operations on the database

server for that client. The Application Server for the

proposed Web-KM system is based on the Microsoft

(MS) .NET Framework with ASP.NET. The .NET

Framework is used for building and running all

Architecture

This prototype is based on a multi-tier a

that allows a web-enabled personal computer (client)

to interact with an application server connected to

the Internet (figure 4). This web infrastructure is

crucial considering the purpose of this solution

which means that clients are supposed to be any

computers connected to the Internet anywhere near

the area of intervention of the ONG.

Figure 4: Web-enabled architect

Application Server

The application server provides access to the data

for the client. It serves as an interface between the

client and one or more database servers, which

provides an additional level of security. The

application server assu

ICEIS 2005 - ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

kinds of software, including Web-based

applications. This software platform uses

components that facilitate integration by sharin

data and functionality over a network through

standard, platform-independent protocols

ASP.NET presents a fully object-orien

architecture that promotes the development of well

structured and easy to maintain.

ted

r creating a strong

ommunications platform of dynamic network

pplications. Organizations of all sizes use IIS to

host a r on

their intranets.

Database Server

ation to be displayed on the client,

whereas an application server operation can be a

request for a connection to the database server. Our

system uses the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 for the

necessary database management system services.

This data y used by

government l to medium

sized data

Client

In e client could be an

In a technological viewpoint, a

uest for an operation to be

llaborative services across different

gions and communities.

as individual CSO

Intranets) is also a key success factor for an effective

maintenance of this KM system.

In order to enhance all these developments, the

Glocal Collaboration Tool has to be tested in real

organizational and communities’ environments.

Access expectancy towards resources of this kind of

base server is commonl

s and businesses for smal

bases.

a social viewpoint, th

Figure 5: Multi-tier architecture and services

Web Server

Our system uses the MS Internet Information Server

(IIS) as the Web Server for the Glocal Collaboration

Tool. This Internet Information Service provides

integrated, reliable, scalable, secure and manageable

Web server capabilities over an intranet, the Internet

or an extranet. IIS is a tool fo

nd manage Web pages on the Internet o

A database server (engine) provides the data

requested by an application server on behalf of a

client. The database server does all of the remaining

query processing. The database server can audit

operations performed by the application server on

behalf of individual clients as well as operations

performed by the application server on its own

behalf. For example, a client operation can be a

request for inform

Individual or a CSO.

client initiates a req

Database engine

Application server

- Business rules

User interface

performed on the database server. The client can be

a Web browser or other end-user process. In a

multi-tier architecture, the client connects to the

database server through one or more application

servers. The client tier consists of a typical web-

enabled personal computer browser. Applications

are accessible by users running a browser on any

operating system. The Glocal Collaboration Tool is

being developed to be used as a KM web-based

application that could run anywhere in order to make

it available to any CSO/Individual with a basic fixed

or mobile Internet access. Therefore, this research

project and the proposed KM tool also intend to

promote the democratization of the Information

Society. This could be achieved by providing and

disseminating context-based CSOs information

resources and co

world re

5 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE

WORK

At medium-term, the practical result of the proposed

KM portal should enhance knowledge sharing and

reuse tasks between and within CSOs and

individuals. The idea is to apply and promote

collaborative tasks, knowledge (glocal) libraries and

the dissemination of CSOs best practices across

different communities. Personalisation is a crucial

factor to improve KM practices. In this context, this

research work and the related Glocal Collaboration

Tool needs to investigate more personalisation

mechanisms to incorporate into the KM tool. These

mechanisms should provide and distribute

contextual information based on the specific profile

(roles and responsibilities) of each registered

organization. The collection and classification of

heterogeneous information resources into well-

structured CSO web pages (acting

Web server

Client

CSO/Individual

Web browser

Database engine

Application server

- Business rules

User interface

Web server

Client

CSO/Individual

Web browser

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS - A Partnership for the Future

tool will be our first challenge. Nevertheless, w

believe strong partnerships with boards of NGO

st be build i

mu n order to have a commitment of

change in the NGO internal information and

nagement and Business Model

Innovation, Idea Group Publishing. Hershey

220 - 234.

E., 1991. Situated learning.

Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge:

in Hildreth,

P. and Kimble, C. (2004) "Knowledge Networks:

Innovation through Communities of Practice", Idea

Ma t,

Pea s, and Civil Society,

San

Sei ergency and Humanitarian Aid.

Sei e Intervenção

e al

Sys

Tve

nal Social

Vas nd Rocha, Á., 2003.

n, Massachusetts.

Identity. CUP.

ion: a new foundation for design

communication structure. Relations between

organizational intranets and extranets will also take

some time and be the source of some problems. The

effectiveness of Communities of Practices, from a

local project level to a global development area

strategy level, however is the deepest challenge, as

this calls for an organizational transformation of

NGOs into more Glocal CSOs. Pilot project,

focused in the beginning on the lusophone world,

will entail Portuguese and Brazilian NGOs and

within a year we are hopping to have several NGOs

involved turning this Collaboration Tool in a non-

stop glocal project in the construction of a new

Glocal Civil Society.

REFERENCES

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ICEIS 2005 - ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS