THE ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC SECTOR: NEW DIGITAL PERSPECTIVES

The article reviews the role of knowledge management in public administration. It is well known that public authorities should have knowledge of concerns, desires and aspirations of people they serve. While knowledge is a new imperative in public domain, knowledge management plays several roles and each of them serves specific constituencies and implemented differently. This article argues that knowledge people possess must be used by all political actors in order to improve public policy, since literature suggests that a large group of ordinary people is assumedly smarter than a single expert, however opportunities to gauge or generate all people's opinions are complex. In the era of the Internet, public administration is now overwhelmed by e-mails from citizens, for example. Therefore authorities have to either dedicate more staff for dealing with that challenge or set up a new online way to bridge connection with people. A proposed solution is e-petitions. Presently, this online way is getting popular across the world and people with different beliefs, education, backgrounds actively promote e-petitions. It is argued that e-petitions have little policy impact though. The possibility to project people's concerns through this platform has not widely examined yet, especially in local government, therefore, the article is intended to suggest targets for future study in-depth examination of e-petition.