Magiswary Dorasamy

Knowledge management systems in support of disasters management: A two decade review

Abstract Humans are increasingly being challenged with numerous forms of man-made and natural emergency situations. Emergencies cannot be prevented, but they can be better managed. The successful management of emergency situations requires proper planning, guided response, and well-coordinated efforts across the emergency management life cycle. Literature suggests that emergency management efforts benefit from well-integrated knowledge-based emergency management information systems (EMIS). This study presents a systematic review of papers pertaining to the application of knowledge-driven systems in support of emergency management that have been published in the last two decades. Our review presents two major findings. First, only limited work has been done in three EMIS-knowledge management system (KMS) subdomains: (i) definition, (ii) use, and (iii) methods. Second, only limited research has been done in embedding roles in KM systems. We highlight role alignment to the 12 fundamental roles, as called for by Turoff et al. (2004), in the context of creating dynamic systems in aid of emergency management efforts. We believe that these two findings warrant the attention of the research community.

Knowledge Management Systems for emergency managers: Malaysian perspective

Recent disasters in Malaysia which was composed of major floods and landslides events proved that despite past experiences and strong disaster management mechanism, life and property losses is still unavoidable. Our proposition is the disaster planning and response efforts need a more prudent solution in order to reduce life and property losses. This paper attempts to answer how emergency managers and responders can benefit from an information and communication technology (ICT) in the form of a Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) implementation to support their planning and response efforts, hence reduce the losses. The paper examines recent literatures in the context of KMS for disasters. The findings of this paper are twofold. First, it points out the role and possible usage of KMS to improve the effectiveness of planning and response efforts for emergency managers and secondly, the important factors to consider in developing an effective KMS for disaster. The knowledge gained from this studies should help emergency managers learn from past disasters that already been so costly to society.

Developing a work-life balance model towards improving job satisfaction among medical doctors across different generations

HR practitioners consider employee work life balance (WLB) is important in fostering employee engagement and job satisfaction. It the dividing line between work-life and personal-life where a separation is formed between an individual’s career, business, profession, and every other domain that adds up to the individual’s total life. WLB is achieving the desired combination of participation in both work and other segments of life. This combination does not stay stagnant but changes as an individual has changes in commitments and responsibilities. In today’s economic setting, WLB is an important workplace trait and is growing progressively significant to maintain a healthy and inspired work force. However, for doctors who work around the clock in deed of saving human lives compromises their personal obligations. Research indicates that doctors workload is too heavy and as result it leads to [poor WLB and reduce job and life satisfaction. Given this, the purpose of this study is to investigate comprehensively how doctors belonging to different generations perceive their WLB and associate it with their levels of job satisfaction. A total of 158 completed questionnaires were collected using simple random sampling methodology from practicing doctors both is public and private sectors. Results of descriptive and inferential analysis revealed that majority of the doctors are not enjoying a balance work-life integration given their work commitments especially managing employers and patients expectations. The result also indicate that doctors born prior to 1980’s who have been in the field longer perceive better work life balance that led to a higher job satisfaction. Number of factors was found as stumbling block to foster better WLB and employee engagement such as organizational culture, leadership, family and individual factors. Management should embrace a vision for the hospitals that supports flexibility as doctors finds time to be the most expensive commodity. Greater WLB can be accomplished with right support system ranging from the tools used to work right up to the organizational leadership and culture. The leaders of the business should hold strongly to “walk the talks” culture where they themselves practice WLB and encourages it. Organizations need to own and grab attention of doctors of both generations in delivering and promoting WLB. Leveraging the family friendly WLB programs develops engagement and employees are productive, happier and motivated. Managerial implications for human resource practice and future research directions are provided.

Investigating perceived ICT usefulness for disaster readiness: A prelimenary analysis

Recent disasters proved that despite past experiences and strong disaster management mechanism in disaster-prone countries, life and property losses are still inevitable. Our proposition that is disaster preparedness efforts need more prudent solution in order to reduce life and property losses. This paper investigates the perception of community on the role of ICT towards improving the disaster readiness and hence, reduces the losses incurred. The paper examines recent literatures in the context of ICT for disasters. The findings of this paper are twofold. First, it points out the role and possible usage of ICT to improve the effectiveness of disaster awareness and secondly, it unveils the perception of vulnerable community towards ICT usage for effective disaster readiness. The knowledge gained from this study is crucial for disaster management.

Knowledge management systems for emergency management: a situational approach

Research on the role and relevance of knowledge management systems in support of emergency management continues to grow. Knowledge management (KM) literature aptly suggests that KM systems have the ability to support emergency management. Well-designed and implemented KM systems offer more accurate information/knowledge representation relevant to communication and coordination efforts required for emergency management. Nevertheless, a consolidated framework that can be used to guide successful implementation of KM systems in a given situation does not exist. This paper aims to address this gap in literature. We present a conceptual framework for use by future researchers who intend to examine KM success factors in emergency situations. This paper contributes to the KM-emergency management literature by applying the KM success model to emergency management.

Information Technology Disaster Recovery process improvement in organization

Noteworthy research gap are being perceived on Knowledge Management (KM) in the outlook of Disaster Recovery (DR) in Information Technology (IT) organizations. Preliminary interviews with the organization implied that the organization facing two main challenges in the context of DR, namely (i) DR information hosted in various knowledge repositories, and (ii) lesson learn capturing is being done after the DR test completion and unavailability of centralized lesson learn or best practice document for quick reference. We found that organization can benefit from the inclusion of KM concept within the process improvement to support its Disaster Recovery activities. This research is an action research to improve DR process in a multinational company in Malaysia. Mixed method approach will be used as to obtain some variation in data collection which will lead to greater validity. Our aim is to fill the theoretical gap in KM for DR in IT organizations. This paper presents the result of the first stage in canonical action research which is Problem Diagnosis. The proposition of this research is that an improvised process can successfully support disaster recovery activities in IT organizations.

Civic networks, technological and institutional support to build effective disaster preparedness model

Despite comprehensive disaster management mechanisms, civic networks, technological and institutional impact on Malaysians affected by disasters remain little understood. This study has empirically responded to recent calls for civic networks in mediating disaster preparedness and its two other critical factors: technological support and institutional support. Lack of civic network imperatives (trust, norm and network) are found to impact disaster preparedness. Our findings revealed that civic network and institutional support are important to build an effective disaster preparedness model.

Antecedents of Knowledge Quality-A Conceptual Study among Malaysian SMEs

It has been an issue for all companies to obtain high quality products and services as it increases their efficiency as well as the effectiveness. By emergence of information systems (IS) the concept of quality were expanded to data and information and by virtue of this, knowledge quality as an obscure concept emerged. This research proposes to examine the essential antecedents (requirements) of knowledge quality which are functional diversity, absorptive capacity, and knowledge networks apart from investigating whether there is any relationship between knowledge quality and innovation in Malaysian Small and Medium Sized Enterprises. This study is expected to benefit the Malaysian industries economically by establishing the fact that innovation leads to success.

Disaster preparedness: an investigation on motivation and barriers.

This article presents a preliminary investigation on the motivations for and the barriers that hinder preparedness toward disasters in a community. Survey questionnaires were distributed to local individuals in the nine districts of Selangor state in Malaysia. A total of 402 usable questionnaires were analyzed. The initial findings revealed that community members are motivated for disaster preparedness mainly for family safety reason. However, generally they do not know how to be prepared. This article concludes by highlighting the importance of knowledge and information in community preparedness. This research is limited to one state in Malaysia. However, the chosen state has a large effect on the Malaysian gross domestic product; hence, lack of preparedness poses a critical risk to its large population. This study on motivation and barriers for disaster preparedness is intended to increase the effectiveness of community readiness as a whole toward major disasters such as landslide and flood. The result of this study is valuable to the scientific community within the disaster management domain, the government agencies for policy and strategy formulations, and the local community to preempt, deal with, and ultimately survive disasters. This research aims to ensure that the community is continuously prepared and able to meet the evolving needs of the individual citizen as the nation strives toward promoting a knowledgeable society.

Knowledge Evolution System for Dynamic Emergency Planning and Response

The knowledge requirements of managing emergencies are inherently dynamic and evolving in nature. Existing KM systems in the context of emergency management are essentially static. This paper suggests the use of multi-agent systems for implementation of a more reliable and dynamic emergency planning and response system that can support the evolutionary nature of knowledge in emergencies. To validate this approach and to provide proof-of-concept, several tools have been used in this paper such as Jena and Protg. We demonstrate how multi-agents are implemented for knowledge evolution and change management using the JADE platform.