Risk management of knowledge loss in nuclear industry organisations

Abstract

Maintaining nuclear competencies in the nuclear industry and nuclear regulatory authorities will be one of the most critical challenges in the near future. As many nuclear experts around the world are approaching retirement, the potential exists for the loss of a substantial amount of critical nuclear knowledge and corporate memory. The loss of such employees, many of whom literally designed, constructed and now operate existing nuclear power plants, poses a clear internal threat to the continued operations of these facilities. In addition, the loss of this knowledge and expertise could impact future plans for the construction of new, advanced nuclear units. This paper provides practical guidance on knowledge loss risk management. The guidance is based upon the actual experiences of IAEA member states' operating organisations and is intended to increase awareness of the need to develop an integrated and strategic approach to capture critical knowledge before it is lost. The specific objectives of the paper are to enable nuclear organisations to: (1) conduct knowledge loss risk assessments to identify specific knowledge loss threats, (2) evaluate the consequences of the loss of

Protecting organizational knowledge: a structured literature review

“…4.2.1.1 Conceptual papers. Amongst a total of 18 papers, eight propose frameworks for risk management or knowledge protection (Trkman and DeSouza, 2012;Boyles et al, 2009;Teece, 1986;Snyder and Crescenzi, 2009;Jennex and Durcikova, 2013;Aljafari and Sarnikar, 2009;Baughn et al, 1997;Randeree, 2006); eight make propositions or recommendations on knowledge protection issues for researchers or practitioners (Upadhyaya et al, 2011;Bertino et al, 2006;Liebeskind, 1996Liebeskind, , 1997DeSouza, 2006;Encaoua et al, 2006;Bloodgood and Salisbury, 2001;Lucas, 2010); and two propose research models, one on securing KM strategy (Urcuyo and Kunnathur, 2002) and the other on success and failure factors (Neville et al, 2003).…”

“…through employee retention, and (3) the reduction of undesired knowledge spill-overs and leakages. On this level, the literature discusses knowledge risk mitigation frameworks identifying knowledge risk categories and proposing mitigation approaches (Trkman and Desouza, 2012, Aljafari and Sarnikar, 2009, Boyles et al, 2009) especially arising from the use of social media (Väyrynen et al, 2013), or present protection frameworks that help firms to develop mechanisms and policies to protect knowledge (Randeree, 2006). Further, propositions for employing different types of knowledge structures to balance sharing and protecting (Lucas, 2010) The next level refers to what knowledge organizations should protect.…”

“…Papers dealing with this topic focus on the risk of knowledge loss caused by employees leaving the organization and discuss preventive measures or frameworks. Knowledge loss, complementary to knowledge spillover, is mostly investigated from a human resource perspective (Jennex and Durcikova, 2013;Boyles et al, 2009).…”

Locusts and People: Integrating the Social Sciences in Sustainable Locust Management

“…A temporal misfit can be defined as a case in which an institution is formed too early or too late to cause desired ecosystem effects, or if conflicting time frames exist between policy-makers and those of the environment. In the literature, such temporal governance challenges can be found for a diversity of risks and disasters, ranging from epidemics [94] and wildfires [95] to nuclear risk [96]. As illustrated for governing epidemics [94], the dominance of an outbreak narrative can have drawbacks such as marginalizing narratives that emphasize long-term structural, land use, and environmental changes, and local knowledge.…”

Modelagem sociotécnica de uma organização nuclear: estudo de caso aplicado ao laboratório Nacional de Metrologia das Radiações Ionizantes

“…O problema atinge setores importantes da economia americana, com proporções de crise, como as indústrias de petróleo, gás e nuclear para citar algumas (Parise et al, 2006;Boyles et al, 2009;Jennex & Durcikova, 2013 Davenport, 2003;Parise et al, 2006;Vilet J., 2012;Jennex, 2014 No serviço público, no Brasil, embora a mobilidade do servidor seja menor do que aquela observada no setor privado, ela também ocorre, especialmente com seus profissionais mais jovens. A diferença é que, se no mundo privado as pessoas esperam propostas mais atraentes, no mundo público os "concurseiros", pessoas que estão continuamente estudando e prestando concurso para órgãos públicos, deixam seus locais de trabalho na medida em que são aprovados nas provas que podem colocá-los em carreiras mais promissoras (Manso, 2012).…”