The Australian and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) has released a research brief on the reason Government Agencies suffer from organisational memory loss and how to reduce it.
The research was conducted by Alistair Stark of the University of Queensland and found that organisational memory loss impacted negatively on the performance of Government Agencies.
According to ANZSOG, the loss of corporate memory can lead to weaknesses in policy, service delivery and the “craft of the Public Servant”.
“By understanding its causes, public sector organisations can reduce memory loss,” ANZSOG said.
In his article, Dr Stark discusses organisational memory loss in Government Agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom and outlines four reasons for institutional amnesia, i.e.: Organisational churn, absorptive capacity, strategic forgetting and historical storytelling.
His research involved an analysis of four case studies: A response to the 2007 summer floods in England; the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission on the 2011 Christchurch earthquake; the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission on the Black Saturday bushfires of 2009; and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Royal Commission convened to examine the Ontario public health system’s response to SARS.
“The case research was accompanied by 100 interviews with Ministers, policy officials, and public sector leaders involved in the cases,” ANZSOG said.
Dr Stark’s 16-page article Explaining institutional amnesia in government can be accessed at this PS News link.
