Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 2 ABSRJ 4 (2): 113 ISSN 1855-931X CREATING BEST PRACTICES IN SAUDI ARABIA Meshari M. S. Alwazae Depar men of Compu er and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University t t t t t t t Stockholm, Sweden meshari@dsv.su.se Harald Kjellin Depar men of Compu er and System Sciences, S ockholm University Stockholm, Sweden hk@dsv.su.se Abstract This paper investigates identification of best practices (BPs) in Saudi Arabia. We adopted an established theoretical framework as a basis for developing questions and conducting the study. Interviews were held with selected informants at a number of large organizations. The analysis of interview results showed that organizations are not acquainted with the formal BP framework. They linked identification of BP to documented practices, to communities of knowledge, or to specific publications. However, Saudi Arabia's attempts at sharing BPs can be viewed as a positive step forward. We suggested that a BP team is needed to obtain some direction toward evaluating and sharing BP. Our study revealed the need for having a clear working template for creation and documentation procedures of BP. Also, we suggested that a contribution from an online network of BPs is a recommended, and most useful, approach for supporting the collaboration between business enterprises in terms of sharing BP. Keywords: Information System, Knowledge Management; Knowledge Creation; Best Practices; Saudi Arabia JEL Classification: D83, D80, L25 I. INTRODUCTION Much work has been done on information system (IS) strategy since its inception in Kriebel (1968) and McFarlan (1971). Various approaches and models include strategic data planning, long-range planning; business-driven approaches, business process analysis and the proactive use of information technology (IT) for competitive advantage (e.g., Porter & Millar, Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 2 1985; Hammer, 1990). Recently, e-business and knowledge management (KM) have been considered in isolation from IS strategy and organizational learning (Swan et al, 1999) which hinders the achievement of the performance goals of an organization (Larsen, 2000). To address that problem, organizations have begun to re-examine and reorganize their structures, business processes, culture, and information technologies from a knowledge perspective by implementing KM (Prusak & Matson, 2006), and expect to gain the ability to manage their knowledge more efficiently and achieve superior performance. In agreement with Baker and McKenzie (2008), we believe that the primary differences between countries are based upon organizations’ structural bases. Despite the increased awareness of interest in KM in SA, the context is surrounded by a wide range of incoherent views and perceptions. To the best of our knowledge there are few empirical studies that investigate the current state of best practice (BP) in a variety of public and private organizations, which intend to implement BPs in Saudi Arabia (SA). In many organizations it is still unclear how the organization initiates and implements KM projects and exactly how sharing BPs can contribute to business growth and development. The current need for a well-defined view of the subject and the lack of available empirical experiences of how it should be done have motivated us to conduct this study of KM-related issues in SA (Al- Shammari, 2008; Bontis, 2002; Hutchings & Weir, 2006). The main objective of this study is to carry out an investigation of the state of creating BP and the industrial perceptions on KM among government and non-government organizations in SA. The purpose of this paper is therefore to identify BPs for developing organizational KM capability in organizations in SA. Particularly, the focus of this study is to investigate how BP can be organized and indexed in order to be easily applicable in the culture of SA. The structure of the rest of the paper is as follows. Section II provides a brief literature review and Section III reveals the theoretical model and research question. Section IV explains the research design and Section V presents the results. The findings of the study are explained in Section VI and the discussion is given in Section VII, followed by conclusion in Section VIII. II. LITERATURE REVIEW Identifying and sharing BPs can affect a company’s performance in a number of ways such as return on investment, the value added per employee and customer satisfaction (Goodman & Goldman, 2007; Harrington, 2004; Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006; Gold et al, 2001). Therefore, many decisions about BPs are strategic and require substantial resources to improve a firm’s performance (Schendel & Hitt, 2007). Hence, the identification stage of BP is an essential process for gaining competitive and collaborative advantages. Smith et al (2010) observed that when there is a supportive culture, an adaptive foundation prior to implantation and social networking between managers to evaluate risk, the benefits of BP could be felt. Holton (2004) and Short (2006) suggested that there is a need for reliable research to ensure that BPs cover both practical and theoretically aspects. This has encouraged us to look at BP from a creative perspective. Barrett and Stanley (1999) argued that there are several situations when the implementation of BP fails to produce a satisfactory result for some of the parties involved. This failure can be regarded as the result of concentration on providing a competitive edge and ignoring the issues of why and how the practices are successfully implemented. During the implementation of BPs, it is not sufficient to focus on the emulation of the success of key ABSRJ 4 (2): 114 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 2 players. BPs should also be implemented to suit the environment in which the firm is operating (Davies & Kochhar, 2000). The successes of the USA and Japan are commonly cited as leading examples in terms of the adoption of BPs to achieve manufacturing performance. In particular, much interest has been paid to the role of Japanese plants operating overseas in diffusing manufacturing BPs associated with world-class performance (Voss & Blackmon, 1996). Japanese practices therefore serve as BP models for local firms and as a means of emulating success to aid the successful transfer of practices (Davies & Kochhar, 2000). We argue that the manner in which BP is adopted can provide examples of the diffusion of BP approaches in other sectors and countries. Based on a comprehensive literature review, a set of models and frameworks that can be used for identification and usage of BPs are identified and analyzed to enable selection of the most suitable assessment model. Shull and Turner’s Handling Process model (2005) is based on a deep study of all previous efforts at identifying BPs. The approach has been applied in the context of the US Department of Defense’s BPs Clearinghouse (Dangle et al, 2005). This approach provides analyses of several BPs that range from theoretical practices to practices for which experimental data are not readily available. It provides a BP repository in an initial phase and then the approach undergoes evaluation before being opened up to the user community. Also, the approach analyzes lessons learned and then reports on them in the near future. III. THEORETICAL MODEL AND RESEARCH QUESTION We have used prominent literature to investigate the processes used to identify BPs. To conduct this study, we first examined how companies, institutions and governmental organizations identify their BPs in SA. To that end, we used the handling process for BP developed by Shull and Turner (2005). The model was chosen because it reveals in clear steps how to identify, qualify, analyze, validate and disseminate BPs. This model distills information about the practices into a particular form that is easy to work with and understand. Our study is supported by the adopted theoretical framework presented above which puts emphasis on the identification process of BP inside organizations. The five phases in the model show that the resulting guidelines are a relevant methodology that can be used to understand KM practices. An integrated framework reveals different components in each phase. Shull and Turner (2005) identified five primary phases of the BP handling process. For each phase a set of components are identified to show how each phase can be operated. We employed content analysis to examine the model and define components for each phase. These components are based on the description found in Shull and Turner’s paper and served as the basis for developing the semi-structured interview questions used in this study. The identified phases and their corresponding components are presented in Table 1. ABSRJ 4 (2): 115 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 2 Table 1: Creating a process for best practice (Shull & Tuner, 2005) Phases of each process Components of each of the phases described in the left-hand column Identification 1- Collect ideas from users: Collect ideas, experiences and suggestions about important content that is currently missing. 2- Review potential candidates: Review the practices, which are collected from users, to select potential ideas, experiences and/or suggestions. 3- Categorize: Group similar potential candidates to classify the suggestions and group ideas. 4- Consolidate: Combine the more relevant practices. 5- Prioritize: Rank the practice according to the need to be developed. Quantification & Qualification 6- Investigate practices: The highest priority practice is investigated to develop a set of representative evidence sources. 7- Literature search for new results: Collect evidence for the practice from the literature. 8- Interview practitioners for new results: Collect evidence for the practice from interviews with practitioners. Characterization 9- Check for agreement: The summarizer, an expert in the practice area, decides whether all of the evidence sources accord with the agreement. 10- Summarize: Create a summary of what is known about the practice to describe the expected result based on the collected evidence. Validation 11- Panel review: A panel of experts on the topic reviews the collection of evidence sources and their summary. 12- Use special criteria: Each member of the panel uses a specific set of perspective-based focus questions to review different aspects of the material. 13- Sufficiency of validity: Reviewing result in sufficient quality for the practice. Packaging & Dissemination 14- Publish BP: The validated BP is published within the company. 15- Develop guidance: Develop simplified implementation guidance. 16- Connect users with information: Information about the BP may be communicated to potential users via a wide range of media and creating and designing communities of practice or meeting places. As discussed earlier, in this study we focus on the experiences and general practical practices among Saudi companies, institutions and government organizations. The framework for creating BPs derived from the literature provides this study with references that are used in interpreting collected data about how the BPs can be used. Our research question is therefore an investigation of the extent to which SA's BPs satisfy the quality criteria of the Shull and Turner model. IV. RESEARCH DESIGN To investigate the identification and usage process of BPs across organization, institutions and the private sector in SA, we used content analysis procedures to explore participant responses. We decided to guide our proposed categorization using a priori variables based on the adopted framework for this study. Myers advocates that content analysis should be used to complement previous quantitative research results to investigate new facets of the studied phenomenon (Insch et al, 1997). This allowed us to study the characteristics of ABSRJ 4 (2): 116 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 2 communication and make inferences about the consequences of practices (Bryman & Cramer, 2001). Furthermore, we acquired data from the interviewed managers, as recommended in “content analysis” (Neuendorf 2002), by using a list of specific follow-up questions concerning: 1) who were responsible for designing the descriptions of BPs, 2) for who was the stored BPs intended, 3) why was the process designed in this specific way, 4) what were the expected effects of this design, and 5) to what extent did it have the desired effects. The content analysis also included direct participant observation, observing other institutions during visits, and attending several key meetings. Also, during our research we were allowed access to a number of documents, which were also interpreted from the perspective of content analysis as described above. We regard the philosophical perspective adopted in this study as interpretative rather than critical: that is, we aim to understand the current situation instead of analyzing abilities. We also acknowledge that such a perspective impacts on both the way in which research is conducted and our research findings (Howcroft & Trauth, 2008). The interview questions were inspired by Shull and Turner (2005), and were formulated in order to explore the identification of BP in regard to organizations’ structural variables and core management practices. Another aim of the interviews was to test the relevance of the BP phases, which were presented above in Table 1, by studying to what extent they can be applied to different organizations. The semi-structured questions concerned familiarity with the five phases of handling BPs, which are identification, quantification & qualification, characterization, validation and dissemination, and also management of practices in the participants' organizations. These questions allowed participants to add qualitative information that could indicate the identification and usage of BP. The purpose with the interviews were to make the informants to provide relevant information about the use of BP and from these answers we intended to find indications of possible applications systems, for handling the administration of BPs, that could be designed to support managers. The interview started with general questions regarding the methods that were used to share knowledge, the problem solving techniques and the approaches for using BPs in the organization. Our interview questions were posed in semi-structured interviews based on the theoretical foundation extracted from from our literature study. The phases of handling BPs and their components served as a basis for formulating questions: i.e., one question was formulated for each component of each phase that were described in Table 2. This allowed us to add important insights that arose during conversation (Insch et al, 1997). Then, participiants were asked to evaluate how the organization creates BPs by using a Likert scale with values ranging from 5 to 0. For each of the 16 components for creating BPs, we formulated a scalar question. The general purpose of asking the scalar questions was to arrive at some evidence concerning the quality of the companies working methods for acquiring data when designing descriptions of BPs. Please find the result of these 16 questions further on in the result section. We examined the managers’ evaluation and incomplete answers by cross- referencing their responses with their answers during the interview. The intention behind the questions was obviously to find out how BPs were created and used in SA. Each interview lasted between 60 to 90 minutes and was recorded and transcribed later. Interviews were conducted over a six months period. Seventeen major SA government, semi-government and non-government organizations were investigated in order to gain an overview of the diversity across the three sectors. The ABSRJ 4 (2): 117 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 2 central criteria for selecting the organizations for the studies were to find the organizations that already used BPs to some extent. Government organizations, also called the public sector, are fully funded by the government and administratively controlled by the Minister, whereas semi-government organizations, or simply institutions, are financed by the government but administratively controlled by independent stakeholders. In our selection of organizations we focused on organizations, which already have IT infrastructure that supports the use of BPs. The public sector includes the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Health was chosen because recently it announced a plan for upgrading its IT infrastructure to enhance its performance. Investments in information technology are increasingly important for the Ministry of Health, and success will depend on the organization’s ability to integrate information technologies in most routines. This makes the Ministry of Health a good candidate for our study because findings pertaining to this organization can contribute to the upgrading plan that is presently being designed by the Ministry. The institutions include the King Fahad Medical City and the King Saud Medical City. By focusing on and reviewing some of these health institutions as well as the Ministry of Health, we can claim that any KM issues regarding sharing BPs in these examples are a reflection of the whole healthcare sector. The non-government organizations, or simply the private sector, include two banks and three telecom service providers. The Saudi Telecom Company (STC), Zain and Mobily are the only three-telecom service providers in SA with a total customer base of more than 15 million. Also, the telecom market in SA is regarded as the fastest developing market and one of the most important markets for handling information and knowledge. By covering this market, we can claim that all KM issues regarding BP that other markets face can be covered. The participants (in total 17) are purpusly selected and the interviewed subjects held different positions, i.e. they either held the job title of CIO (65%) or IT manager (35%). These participants belonged to the government organizations, institutions, and private sector mentioned above and they should be IT managers. The interviews were aimed at providing an overview of each organization’s mechanism to identify BPs. The participants received the questions at least one week prior to the interview to enhance an understanding of the questions and they all allowed the meetings to be recorded. V. RESULTS In this section the results for the major Saudi institutions and government where BPs were collected are discussed. In the first column of Table 2 we present all components that were used to ask questions with scalar answers concerning to which extent the company had reached satisfactory results from implementing the approach described in the component. In the second column we present the evaluation assessment scale average of each component for the public sector that includes six Ministries. The assessment scale average from six institutions is presented in the third column. The fourth column presents the scale average of the private sector (five companies). Based on the answers of the interviews and their evaluation assesment, the values of the variables were calculated on a scale from zero to five. A value of zero indicates that the variable is not supported by the organization, whereas a value of five indicates that the variable is fully supported in the organization. When it was obvious that they had implemented the process that the variable describes, we scored the value as five and if it was not implemented we scored the value as zero. The mean values of each sector (government, semi-government and private) are presented below in Table 2. ABSRJ 4 (2): 118 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 2 Table 2: Public, institutional and private scale average regarding the adopted framework To what extend did your organization? Public Institutions Private 1- Collect ideas from users 0.83 1.5 2.33 2- Review potential candidates of descriptions 0.33 1 1.08 3- Categorize ideas from similar candidates 0 0.42 0.92 4- Consolidate: Combine the more relevant practices 0 0 0.08 5- Prioritize: Rank the practice according to the need to be developed 0.08 0 0.08 6- Investigate practice: To develop a set of representative evidence sources 0.33 0.5 0.83 7- Literature search for new result: Collect evidence for the practice from the literature 0.08 0.17 0.17 8- Interview with practitioners for new result: Collect evidence for the practice from interviews with practioners 0.92 0.75 1.58 9- Check for agreement with an expert of the area 0.17 0.17 0.5 10- Summarization: Create a summary of what is known about the practice 0.92 1 1.5 11- el of experts to review the quality of 0.58 0.5 0.67 Use a pan the BP’s 12- ns to review special 0.08 0.17 0.17 Using focus questio aspects of quality 13- lt in 0.08 0.17 0.17 Sufficient validity: Reviewing resu sufficient quality for the practice 14- validated BP 1.42 1.58 1.92 Publish best practice: check if the is published within the company 15- simplified 0.25 0.33 0.42 Develop guidance: Develop implementation guidance 16- Connect users with the descriptions of BPs 0 0 0 From Table 2, we note that organizations documented their BPs in the summarization component. The component did not last long, however, as it was not based on previous components. This indicates that reading the description does not provide employees with the accurate information they need and presents the expected result. We found that the BPs are often documented in an informal manner, i.e., a format procedure for defining and collecting BP is not defined. Also, the descriptions of BPs are shared via a web-based forum or shared folder or document with employees and these practices have only circumstantial justification ABSRJ 4 (2): 119 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 2 specially in private sectors. The average scale for developing guidance for the published BP al within the organization or firm, owever. This makes the practices difficult to explore and it makes it difficult for practitio e is low in all sectors. We note that none of the public sectors, institutions and private sectors use any kind of media to communicate with users about information regarding published practice. The packaging and dissemination phases of the practices are considered as relevant and are consulted only by practitioners in their day-to-day activities. They are developed autonomously and maintained voluntarily by an individu h ners to find relevant descriptions of BPs. Figure 1: The average scale for public sectors, institutions and private sectors Figure 1 shows that most values are very low. The private sector are keen to collect ideas, experiences and practice as the discovered average was 2.33 and it was also found that these organizations make little effort to review these practices, with an average of 1.08. The effort made by private sectors to collect evidence for new ideas or practices can be seen as a rise in the chart above. From the figure it can be observed that the average values of components related to the initial components (collect ideas from users and review potential candidates) are high, but these values decrease as we proceed to the next five components (categorize, consolidate, prioritize, investigate practices and search the literature for new results) until the component which describes how they interview practitioners is reached: i.e., there is an increase to 1.58 in the average value of the component interview with practitioners for new results. The values of the next five components (check for agreement, summarization, panel review, using special criteria, sufficient validity) are not very until till publishing BPs, whose average values are 1.92. The values of all components are very low for public sector organizations, as they need to focus on all components and follow clear steps until they publish BPs; they show an average value of 1.42. ABSRJ 4 (2): 120 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 2 VI. FINDINGS Our study reveals a better use of technology in organizations compared with what was reported some years ago by Al- Shammari (2008). The interviews provided general information regarding the structure and general procedures of each organization. When we ask participiants how do they view their organizations approach to using BP, they had some concerns about how the BP should be abstracted in order to be of general use. They also had some concerns about how the BPs should be implemented in the workflow of the organization. BP creation and distribution through the organization might success but it needs support from higher management. We noted that there was generally no well-structured mechanism for creating BP in the organizations where we interviewed managers. Some organizations are adopting an existing framework to create and share BP such as Microsoft Operation Framework and Microsoft Solutions Framework. However, these frameworks are not commonly used and are not well understood by employees, as they need to be educated in how to use the frameworks, while other employees, who even if they are using the framework, do not follow the work and procedures on how the framework should be used. The organizations are trying to broadcast their best knowledge to transfer it to other people and organizations. This can facilitate moving the organizations from being reactive to proactive in order to solve the problem before the user noticed it. We explicitly asked to what extent there were any formalized routines for creating BP and we found that they did not exist. In five organizations the design of BP was considered as a voluntary work, which was not formalized. Our interpretation of the results of the interviews showed that CIOs and managers were not well acquainted with the use of a formal BP framework when they wanted to create BP inside their organizations. Many of them related the identification of BP to documented practices, to communities of knowledge, or to specific publications. Of interest was our observation that the managers considered the priority of the BP framework to be improving internal practices. Surprisingly all the managers and CIOs (in total 17) stated that their organizations lacked such a framework to create BP and stated the importance of having BP in their organizations. The characterization and validation phases were not conducted, as they should be. Thus we could not test how it was done and hence these interviews did not last for long. It was common to see BPs that were considered as valid for a certain limited time before they disappeared. Therefore it appears that organizations are not linking the creation of a BP framework with a coherent organizational learning scheme. In the findings we noted that there is no formal framework adopted in the organizations that we studied. Identifying BPs in some private, institutional and public sectors can be viewed as a representation of recommended way of accomplishing tasks. This increased the concern to establish awareness of dissemination of BPs. We noticed that participants viewed some practices as BPs just because they progressed over time and then became accepted as BP. When companies have well-identified practices, there will be a positive impact on their operations. When low collected ideas rates exist, especially in the private sector, it means that these ideas will disappear and therefore be dismissed. According to our results the levels of identifying BPs were marginally higher in the private sector than in the institutions and in the public organizations. A majority of private sector organizations collected ideas from their employees. We found that some firms in private sectors that they were explicitly concerned to help employees to learn how to apply the BPs. Private sectors have a distinctive way of sharing their BP. The Saudi Telecom Company for instance studied the ABSRJ 4 (2): 121 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 2 initial impact and applied the result to formulate and identify their BPs for fourth-generation mobile technology where high-speed Internet is available via smart phones. This is because fourth-generation technology is new to the market and there are no documented BPs corresponding to the adaptation and use of this technology. They were more concerned with adopting the creation process of BPs, especially the identification phase, but they seemed to be misguided about the quantification qualification and on the characterization phase. They did not follow the structured sequence of events in the identification components as recommended. The investigation reveals that participants appear to have a better conceptual grasp of BPs than of the more abstract concept of knowledge and information. Currently, most organizations have yet to formulate or adopt a formal agenda for identifying BPs. The three most important factors that facilitate identification of BP are: having a BP team to supervise sharing BPs, a mechanism to identify BP, and the right organizational culture. For instance, one of the telecom companies, who have subsidiaries in Bahrain, Kuwait and Egypt, faces some issues related to cultural differences when implementing BPs from the subsidiaries. The cause of the cultural difference was that some employees from these subsidiaries came to Saudi with BPs that had been designed in another cultural context. They worked well when they were applied in the subsidiaries but they did not work well in Saudi Arabia because of the culture environment and different markets needs and demands. Also, we noted increased interest and support on the part of CIOs and top management that could be an ideal foundation for sharing BP. From our analysis we found that organizations have yet to fully appreciate the point of sharing BPs and still lack a focused strategic vision and plan for doing so. Hence, there is no framework for sharing the BPs. We found that five organizations articulated the importance of having a BP team to help employees develop and exercise BPs during their work. We also found two companies who positioned a BP team either as an independent functional unit or located it within their IT department. A BP team's activity has significant effects in terms of encouraging employees to share BP. Managers should pay particular attention to the identification phase to ensure that experience is captured in a feedback loop to help avoid similar mistakes in future decisions. In addition, the identification stage of BP in an organization was found to have a significant and positive effect on BP team activity. Our findings suggest, however, that the role of a BP team can be increased when the BP identification phase matures. Of course, as an organization moves to a more mature process of identifying BP, the focus may need to shift from a centralized knowledge repository consisting of mostly internal knowledge to a more flexible organizational structure that is designed for creating and sharing knowledge both inside and outside the organization. The assistance or service of a BP team should be continuously provided for connecting BP initiatives to business processes (Lee & Kim, 2001). VII. DISCUSSION The study reveals that the Saudi organizations did not follow an accurate strategy to identify BP especially after collecting ideas. When the identification phase is violated, risk and cost can increase failure of effort besides failing to identify the appropriate practice. The identification phase of practices must be followed as a sequence of events. If there is a social context, it will be easy to facilitate these components of the identification phase, i.e., (1) Collection, (2) Reviewing, (3) Categorizing, (4) Consolidating and (5) Prioritizing. This leads us to argue for the need to develop an online model for sharing BP. Such a model ABSRJ 4 (2): 122 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 2 could, for instance, be designed to present successful business processes, which could then even be transferred from one business entity to another. Quantification & qualification and characterization phases are important not only for organizational learning and collaborative work but also for competitive advantage and for employee motivation. In all organizations that were studied there was a neutral or positive perception regarding the need for interviewing practitioners in order to find new results and summaries of practices. The idea of publishing BP in organizations was rated higher by the interview subjects than were other components, because both CIOs and managers indicated that they wanted to share information in order to generate organizational improvements. One participant stated, “In our organization we are aware of the problems related to loosing an expert and thus. We always prefer to have every BP written in the form of an advice so the BPs can be used as reference for other employees.” A final component concerned with connecting users with information by having them participate in meetings and informal gatherings is ignored by SA organizations, which further hinders the collection and usage of BPs. This indicates that a structured approach for sharing BPs in private sectors, institutions and public sectors is not adopted, i.e., the phases of the organization do not support knowledge sharing. It could be argued that collaboration environments such as forums (which allow informal, non-structured interaction and knowledge sharing between employees) may provide a practical option for BP processes. Overall results indicate low levels of interest in investing more in the creation process of descriptions of BP in SA organizations. The study is conducted in organizations from only one country, which reduces the generalizability of the results obtained. The study also shows that the creation process of BP in Saudi organizations is not followed in a structured manner; this is inferred from the lower values in the graph, and also reduces the representativeness of practices. Thus, our study shows that the creation process of BPs in the region is sparse. BPs in the organizations studied should not be underestimated although directors and managers are not always aware that they are managing them. The research revealed that the BPs in SA were not measured with an additive model based on the tested components. Although composite measure methods have been widely used in KM literature (e.g., Matzkin, 2008; Salojärvi et al, 2005), Saudi organizations are not aware of them yet. VIII. CONCLUSION The primary goal of creating BPs is to support organizational competitive and collaborative perspectives. This has made researchers view BPs as the encapsulation of experience (Goodman & Goldman, 2007). Presently some of the preliminary efforts to share BPs in SA can be viewed as a positive step forward, but SA still has some way to go. We suggest that the use of information technologies could offer effective solutions to current difficulties in structuring and contextualizing the sharing of BP content, and also in facilitating the conversion of knowledge from tacit to explicit forms. To meet the challenge of identifying BP in SA, an organization should be able to assess its preconditions for successful BP initiatives and their impacts on KM performance (Gold et al, 2001). The paper also shows that a BP team can obtain some direction toward evaluating and sharing BP. If developing a BP system is a necessary condition, organizing and operating an active BP team may be deemed as a sufficient condition for a successful BP effort. Nevertheless there is a strong need for top management support in identifying the existence of a BP. We conclude that if organizational members are not motivated to share their ABSRJ 4 (2): 123 Advances in Business-Related Scientific Research Journal (ABSRJ) Volume 4 (2013), Number 2 t t knowledge, a BP initiative is doomed. A conscientious BP team, which seeks to help, share and not dictate to organizational members in terms of sharing knowledge critical to their problem-solving, seems essential for obtaining organizational members’ satisfaction with the BP initiative. The result of this work is an overview of how institutions and the public and private sectors perform in terms of creating and managing their BPs. It shows that despite their active interest in managing organizational knowledge, most organizations in the region of SA do not yet understand the challenges involved in identifying and managing BP initiatives. This paper depicts an actual situation in most organizations where the process of creating BPs is not well formalized, resulting in complications and misunderstanding of the chosen practices. In the findings we noticed that no formal framework was adopted in any of the organizations in our case studies. To enhance innovation within Saudi organizations, they first need to adopt a clear mechanism or framework to create BPs. This will serve to increase communication and collaboration. Our study revealed the need for having a clear working template for documentation procedures of BPs. This can be regarded as a road map, a user guide, and an operation guide that can serve to decrease the common mistakes associated with designing BPs without considering all quality aspects in the design process. Based on years of experience and discussions with domain experts, we recommend a BP team to be aware of the quality aspects of BPs that we have described in this paper. REFERENCES Al-Shammari, M. 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