Knowledge Management and Decision Making in Hellenic Primary Schools
Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is twofold: on one hand it aims to present the current situation regarding knowledge management practices during decision making processes in the daily function of the public primary schools in the city of Athens, in Hellas. Additionally this thesis aims at discovering the perception of the educational and administrative personnel of the schools regarding the use of Information & Communication Technologies. The present study engages in a qualitative research through an interpretivistic approach. Interpretivism is employed in an attempt to better understand the reasoning behind the choices made by the schools’ Directors, Assistant Directors and Teachers. Semi-structured interviews, stories / narratives, an observation and documentation are the data collection methods while a qualitative data analysis was used in order to produce the final results. The research showed a ‘fault’ from contradictory and/or overlapping legislative directions towards the investigated roles (school Directors, Assistant Directors and Teachers), a high level of tacit knowledge residing in the minds of the school personnel, lack of knowledge regarding knowledge management, decision making theories and techniques and a fairly good but at times distrusting relationship with technology. The thesis suggestion is the use of ICTs for the promotion of communication and exchange of views with the creation of a web application as a meeting junction of all primary schools for the sharing of knowledge leading to the effective decision making by the schools’ directors, assistant directors and teachers.
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