Daniel Pérez González

Interactions and Effects of CRM 2.0 in Public Administration: Issues of Interest to IT Professionals

This article analyzes how CRM are affected from technological and social changes that involves the new paradigm of knowledge sharing and collaborative Web 2.0, giving rise to what is defined as CRM 2.0, and how the public administration-institutions that despite economic and social importance have been little studied in relation to the incorporation of technologies-can take advantage of these technologies. This requires provide knowledge to public administrations about the benefits they can get and which difficulties may be encountered in these projects. In this sense, from an exploratory research through the application of a Delphi to senior managers of public administrations, the authors have identified as positive effects of implementing CRM projects with Web 2.0; improved productivity, increased citizen satisfaction, and better integration of the information and as main barriers highlight the measurement of the ROI, security and organizational issues. Questions of interest are to be considered by IT professionals who have to develop these initiatives in the future.

Assessment of Operational Experience as Strategy for Knowledge Acquisition and Learning in Organizations

In the current economic environment characterized by increasing competition and the pursuit of excellence, companies need to increase the efficiency of their production processes and management. In this sense, the policy of continuous improvement in organizations must be based on knowledge acquisition according to the experience of the company in the development of their activities and learning through the analysis of the operational experience. In recent literature several authors have found evidence of how the communications about observations, experiences and incidents are an important requisite for learning (Edmondson 1996; Van Dyck et al., 2005; Solana and Perez, 2011). Even incidents without severe consequences also have considerable learning potential (Homsma et al., 2009). Researchers have recognized the significance of organizational learning and its related concepts like the process of improving actions through better knowledge and understanding (Fiol and Lyles, 1985); the collective ability of a group to continuously expand its capacity to create the future in terms of personal mastery, shared vision, systems thinking, and team learning (Senge, 1990), identifying four necessary components: knowledge acquisition, information distribution, information interpretation and organizational memory (Huber, 1991); a structured and systematic method applied by an organization to motivate employees to learn (Dodgson, 1993). A gradual learning process by which staff learns through experiences and cooperate with other colleagues (Marchand et al., 2000). The analysis of operating experience in organizations, whether it is a requirement that comes from external bodies, as if it is a policy promoted internally to the organization, is a relevant strategy of acquiring knowledge and learning for companies (Perez and Solana, 2011). This strategy has proven effective in industries such as nuclear, to maintain a high level of efficiency and contribute to the improvement of processes and activities in such organizations, being able to apply this methodology in other companies and activity sectors. The implementation of organizational learning programs requires that the managerial attention should create opportunities for the work staff to engage in communication about incidents in order to allow for the development of shared knowledge about error incidents. Opportunities for employees to interact and discuss incidents openly may promote organizational learning (Homsma et al., 2009).