Strategy Indicators and Performance Measurement as Part of University Knowledge Management System

Universities play a crucial part in maintaining, creating and sharing knowledge in different ways for the society. Nowadays the amount and complexity of information required from different stakeholder groups for universities is increasing. In this context universities should be leaders in managing the knowledge within the institution. One way of doing that is to align the universities strategic priorities with the demands of the society, industry and government. In this research paper the authors are focusing on understanding what is Knowledge Management (KM) in the university perspective, how it can be integrated in the university development strategies and how KM elements are structured and measured beyond universities. The purpose of this research paper is to find out how KM elements can be integrated into university strategic management systems. The authors have conducted a literature review on KM, by analysing different definitions formulated by researchers. The definitions have been analysed in the context of university's role as a contributor to creating and sharing knowledge. The authors have analysed the main outcomes from integrating KM elements into university strategic management. In addition, the authors have contributed to this research by analysing strategic management trends of universities in Latvia and how they integrate KM elements, by analysing their institutional strategies. The research includes universities in Latvia, at the European level only the requirements of the EUA were analysed and at the global level the requirements of THE World Rankings, QS World Rankings and U-Multirank were taken into account. This limitation was based on the availability of the necessary information and the scope of the study. Another limitation regarding the research is that only university strategic performance indicators were selected for in-depth analysis in this paper. The research includes the analysis of previously defined KM definitions by researchers, compiles the main positive outcomes from KM integration in university strategies and gives insights to the analysis of performance based indicator groups at the national, European and global levels. While identifying how KM elements are integrated the research also provides more insight into higher education strategic performance measurement systems.