The purpose of this paper is to explore organizational memory (OM) in three public agencies in a developing country context. Research suggests that knowledge management (KM) can build a nation’s intellectual capital and improve the effectiveness of public sector management. Therefore, how knowledge is preserved is important.
The study targeted three large public institutions in Ghana. The study used a survey of 756 individuals in managerial and operational level positions in institutions to test the hypotheses in the study.
The findings confirm that knowledge management capability (KMC) has a positive and significant impact on OM. Knowledge acquisition and retention capabilities, in particular, are critical variables in building OM.
The research relied on self-reports and so one cannot completely rule out social desirability and consistency biases. Using cross-sectional data also makes it difficult to make inferences about the causality.
Public agencies desirous of building their OM will need to build critical KMC and infrastructure.
This paper links KMC to OM in public institutions in an emerging country context.
