Bureaucracy or Lost Knowledge

Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It

Author: James Q Wilson

Bureaucracy is the classic study of the way American government agencies work and how they can be made to work better. Examining a wide range of bureaucracies, including the Army, the FBI, the FCC, and the Social Security Administration, James Q. Wilson provides the first comprehensive, in-depth analysis of what government agencies do, why they function as they do, and how they might become more responsible and effective. With a new introduction by the author.

Tom Peters

Wilson is a remarkably clear thinker. It is unlikely that anyone in the foreseeable future will master so much research about so many agencies at government level.

Martha Derthick

The synthesis is shrewd and creative. The prose is uncommonly swift. The fresh insights are abundant and compelling.

Aaron Wildavsky

Immediately takes its place as the indispensable one-volume guide to American national administration.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Wilson is our Weber and this is his summa ...a sprightly, irreverent, and profoundly serious inquiry as to how you make a nation work.

R. Cort Kirkwood

A gold mine of interesting, even unique observations about bureaucratic government on all levels.

What People Are Saying

Tom Peters
"Wilson is a remarkably clear thinker. It is unlikely that anyone in the foreseeable future will master so much research about so many agencies at government level."

Daniel Patrick Moynihan
"Wilson is our Weber and this is his summa ...a sprightly, irreverent, and profoundly serious inquiry as to how you make a nation work."

Martha Derthick
"The synthesis is shrewd and creative. The prose is uncommonly swift. The fresh insights are abundant and compelling."

Aaron Wildavsky
"Immediately takes its place as the indispensable one-volume guide to American national administration."

R. Cort Kirkwood
"A gold mine of interesting, even unique observations about bureaucratic government on all levels."

Book review: Governing by Network or Value Stream Management

Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce

Author: David DeLong

Executives today recognize that their firms face a wave of retirements over the next decade as the baby boomers hit retirement age. At the other end of the talent pipeline, the younger workforce is developing a different set of values and expectations, which creates new recruiting and employee retention issues. The evolution from an older, traditional, highly-experienced workforce to a younger, more mobile, employee base poses significant challenges, particularly when considered in the context of the long-term orientation towards downsizing and cost cutting. This is a solution-oriented book to address one of the most pressing management problems of the coming years: How do organizations transfer the critical expertise and experience of their employees before that knowledge walks out the door? It begins by outlining the broad issues and providing tools for developing a knowledge-retention strategy and function. It then goes on to outline best practices for retain ing knowledge, including knowledge transfer practices, using technology to enable knowledge retention, retaining older workers and retirees, and outsourcing lost capabilities.

Library Journal

As long-term members of the workforce retire, what happens to their knowledge and skills? DeLong (Executive Support Systems: The Emergence of Top Management Computer Use), a research fellow at the MIT AgeLab and adjunct professor at Babson College, studies the effects of lost knowledge. The issues he addresses here include why organizations should care about the threat of lost knowledge, the different ways that knowledge disappears, and the effect of lost knowledge on performance. Most important, it considers how organizations can retain more critical knowledge in the face of major turnover, owing not only to an aging workforce but to increased attrition among mid-career employees. Solutions to the problem presented here include storytelling, mentoring, interviews/videotaping, and training. DeLong makes his points by drawing on case studies, e.g., owing to early retirement, NASA engineers lost knowledge on how to land on the moon. Extensive chapter notes list sources for further reading. An important, timely book; highly recommended for academic libraries.-Lucy Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NY Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Table of Contents:

1	The landscape of lost knowledge	11
2	Diagnosing the strategic impacts of lost knowledge	26
3	A strategic framework for action	43
4	Developing an HR infrastructure for knowledge retention	57
5	Improving the transfer of explicit knowledge	81
6	Transferring implicit and tacit knowledge	101
7	Applying IT to capture, store, and share intellectual capital	119
8	After t he knowledge is gone	143
9	Stemming the flow of lost knowledge : stories of early adopters	163
10	Launching knowledge retention initiatives : principles for action	171
11	Overcoming organizational barriers to knowledge retention	189
12	Creating the future : thinking strategically about knowledge retention	217