Knowledge management and hybridity of institutional logics in public sector

Abstract

This article analyses national policies, strategies, and programmes formulating knowledge management as a factor of national-level competitiveness. The article analyses a project, which aims to develop a service operator responsible for collecting and co-ordinating well-being data on the Finnish population. We present an in-depth analysis of an almost ten-year period in Finland, which is one of the leading societies in terms of public sector efficiency and governance. The article calls for a major shift in perspective and shows how hybridity of institutional logics significantly guides the perception of knowledge management, the measures taken and the development and selection of concrete methods and tools in knowledge management. We see the essence of public sector knowledge management in a combination of national-level knowledge governance and processes, where public institutions, private organisations and third-sector actors create, store and utilise a shared information base to convert knowledge into action in their everyday operations.