Knowledge management practices of the purchasing department of a federal university

Abstract

The present research aims to identify knowledge management practices found in the Purchasing Department - PD of a Brazilian Federal University to perceive the results that such practices bring to the department and identify absent practices that can be adopted by the PD. Thus, it was possible to carry out a documentary analysis, observation and semi-structured interview of twelve members available at the PD. It is a research of applied nature, descriptive and with a qualitative approach. Knowledge management has been gaining importance in the organizations, and knowledge is pointed out as a valuable factor in today's success. It was possible to identify the following practices through research results: Coaching, Corporate Education, Workflow Systems, GED, Process Mapping, Lessons Learned, Best Practices, Corporate Portal, Organizational Learning, Mentoring, Normalization and Standardization. On the other hand, the absent practices in the PD are Practice Communities, Benchmarking, Organizational Memory, Competence Management, Competitive Intelligence, Knowledge Mapping and Customer Relationship. Therefore, it is proposed a model of practices implementation that can be adopted by the PD to provide improvements in the organizational performance.