Tolerated organizational forgetting in the U.S. Air Force: a case study analysis of knowledge loss among government civilian employees

Abstract

Organizations do not learn well. As a result, they lose valuable knowledge. When knowledge is lost in organizations, workers are forced to spend as much as 25% of their workday looking for information to do their jobs, contributing to workplace frustration, anxiety, and personnel retention challenges (Businesswire, 2022). Numerous studies on knowledge management, organizational memory, and organizational forgetting have expanded organizations' view of knowledge as a valuable organizational resource. The problem of interest in this dissertation is that while prescriptive measures to retain organizational knowledge exist, organizations continue to lose valuable knowledge. Such knowledge loss in the government contributes to performance inefficiencies, unnecessary costs to U.S. taxpayers, and the potential inability of military forces to meet national security requirements. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the contextual issues that influence how and why forgetting is tolerated within strategic-level organizations of the Air Force as experienced by the civilian workforce. The research questions that guided this study are as follows: Why do Air Force organizations tolerate forgetting despite policy directives and available prescriptive remedies? How do Air Force organizations prioritize knowledge loss in their learning and knowledge management activities? and How are organizational processes, systems, and culture managed to address knowledge loss? The study expands the existing models of organizational forgetting that focus on intentional and unintentional knowledge loss to include forgetting that is neither of these but is tolerated by organizations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 26 mid- to senior-level Air Force civilian employees representing eight strategic-level organizations. Four themes were identified as contributing to tolerated organizational forgetting. First, motivation and values within the organization often relegate knowledge management efforts to other tasks. Second, a culture of acceptance and lack of accountability habituate organizations to knowledge loss. Third, organizational focus on near-term objectives creates strategic blindness. Lastly, undocumented business processes contribute to a loss of governance and ad hoc practices. These findings provide practical considerations to address tolerated forgetting in organizations and provide new avenues for refining organizational forgetting theory.