A synthesized classification system for best practices
| Published date | 06 May 2014 |
| Date | 06 May 2014 |
| Pages | 249-266 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/VINE-03-2013-0012 |
| Author | Meshari Alwazae,Harald Kjellin,Erik Perjons |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Knowledge management,Knowledge management systems |
A synthesized classication
system for best practices
Meshari Alwazae, Harald Kjellin and Erik Perjons
Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University,
Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract
Purpose – The aim of the study is to propose a classication system for best practices (BPs). The
system is intended for organizations that are interested in indexing, storing and retrieving large
quantities of BPs.
Design/methodology/approach – An extensive literature survey to identify relevant articles by
searching e-resource databases, including international journals and conferences related to the use of
BP was conducted. A content analysis was conducted on selected articles to identify how BPs can be
indexed.
Findings – The authors are concerned with identifying what BP frameworks exist in literature and
how BPs can be classied based on the features of these BP frameworks. Subsequently, they reviewed
the identied frameworks within the literature and built a BP classication system. This classication
system consists of a number of features, referred to as variables, where each variable is associated with
a set of possible values.
Originality/value – The proposed BP classication system is intended to provide a guideline for
recognizing general characteristics for all BPs in any domain or organization to aid stakeholders in
classifying BPs.
Keywords Knowledge management, Best practice, Classication system
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The use of best practice (BP) to transfer knowledge has been a popular topic for the past
two decades, working as a management tool for attaining or exceeding performance
goals. A signicant percentage of literature regards BP as a key to unlocking the secrets
of global competition and moving organizations toward high performance (Whittle
et al., 1992;Szulanski, 1996;O’Dell and Grayson, 1998;Davies and Kochhar, 2002;
Watson, 2007). Despite the merits of BP being generally agreed upon, the scope, context
and denition of BP are more varied.
In literature, BP is related to different scopes and contexts and is therefore subject to
a variety of circumstantial denitions. For example, Graupner et al. (2009) dene BP as:
[…] the most efcient (least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way of accomplishing
a task, based on repeatable procedures that have proven themselves over time for large
numbers of people.
On the other hand, Szulanski (1996) focuses on presenting BP as an ideal example of how
best to execute a particular task. He explained the importance of viewing BP not as laws
dictating how things should be done, but rather as an ideal example showing how to do
it (Szulanski, 1996). Jarrar and Zairi (2000) fashioned their denition and adopted the
Chevron approach by dividing BP into three levels: a good idea, a good practice and a
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Best practices
249
Received 12 March 2013
Revised 9 November 2013
Accepted 20 November 2013
VINE: The journal of information
and knowledge management systems
Vol. 44 No. 2, 2014
pp. 249-266
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0305-5728
DOI 10.1108/VINE-03-2013-0012
proven BP. Turban et al. (2011) identify BP as activities that are used by most effective
organizations to manage and operate various functions. These denitions not only focus
on more than just the content of BP but also implicitly guarantee that implementing BP
will lead to performance improvement.
After analyzing many authors’ denitions of how BPs are utilized, we found that
most denitions can vary signicantly among researchers, suggesting that they had
differing conceptual and semantic understandings of BPs. On the other hand, when
studying these denitions of BP, we also found that some practitioners and researchers
use similar views of BP. We found, for instance, that most of them seem to agree that a
BP is associated with either a competitive or a collaborative perspective. Competitive
means that the BP is focused on making a product, a service or a practice more
competitive or successful, while collaborative means that the BP is focusing on
collaborative knowledge sharing for creativity and ingenuity/innovativeness. When
investigating if a BP is well suited as an exemplar for solving a problem, these various
perspectives can be used to understand if the BP is relevant or not for the situational
problem.
The aim of the study is to propose a classication system for BPs by conducting a
structured literature review to collect the essential features of BPs. The focus of the
literature study has been on BP frameworks. A BP framework is a collection of BPs for
a certain purpose or perspective in which the framework can be seen as a specic library
for expert knowledge in a domain. Similar to having a specialized library for expert
problem-solving knowledge in a specic domain, you can also have a formalized
framework as a system of BPs for solving certain types of problems. The research
problem addressed is presented in the next section.
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the research problem and
Section 3 provides the research approach. Section 4 discusses the variables of the
synthesized classication system for best practices, while Section 5 presents the
values of the synthesized classication system for best practices. In Section 6, we
present a demonstration for the classication systems, and Section 7 contains a
discussion and the conclusion. Section 8 presents contribution and suggests
directions for future research.
2. Research problem
Classication is the act of grouping similar objects together to organize information
to make quick decisions (Verity, 2004). A growing number of researchers and
practitioners are realizing the value of classication within knowledge management
(KM) to improve access to information, leverage current content to generate new
services and facilitate business (Graef, 2001;Kaiser et al., 2008;Barnett et al., 2009;
Wagner et al., 2006). Such classication systems will especially support the storage
and retrieval of knowledge by comprising the necessary formalization of categories
to account for and standardize normative practices. The classication system,
moreover, enables people to nd just the right knowledge without needing to browse
through repositories of stored knowledge. One advantage of classication systems
includes their ability to organize complex practices in an appropriate manner,
serving to help the management of BPs and organizing performance measurements
(Wagner et al., 2006). Researchers have found that deploying a classication
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