| dc.description.abstract | It is increasingly realized that development interventions are usually taking place in highly complex environments. Where this is the case, knowledge could be pivotal for more effective development interventions. The right kind of knowledge management might help development organizations to better coordinate their endeavors and improve the effectiveness of their interventions in the face of complex challenges. But knowledge management for development (KM4D) is still relatively novel in development studies and practice.
So far, most KM4D approaches have embraced knowledge as a kind of transferrable object, and have been explicitly or implicitly based on the assumption that it is simply lacking in some locations, particularly in ‘developing countries’. This has led to a wave of tool- and technology focused knowledge programs. More recently however, the field of KM4D has shifted towards a more social constructivist perspective on knowledge. This implies that good knowledge management should rather be concerned with the social contexts within which knowledge is applied, obtained, shared, generated, and ultimately converted into actual development policy. But much remains to be known about the implications of this for adequate knowledge management. This thesis provides empirical evidence of how the knowledge inputs for a certain type of development interventions have been managed by the involved actors. The objective has been to contribute to an understanding of how the management of knowledge inputs affects the effectiveness of development interventions and how it could be adjusted to attain better impacts.
The development practice that was looked at during a five-month qualitative field research consists of a range of capacity-building measures intended to support a specific brand of tourism entrepreneurship in Costa Rica: ‘Turismo Rural Comunitario’ is a type of community-based ecotourism in rural areas. It represents a key component of the country’s sustainable tourism development agenda and is intended to simultaneously achieve poverty alleviation in rural areas and to gain the support of local communities for environmental conservation.
The approach of the research has been to trace and analyze the management of the knowledge inputs for these capacity-building interventions from both of the broader KM4D perspectives, the more conventional one that is technology-oriented, and the more recent one that looks at the social dimensions of knowledge management. It is found that even though these perspectives are conceptually irreconcilable, their sequential application for an analysis of KM4D in practice is promising. The two perspectives draw attention to different knowledge management aspects and shortcomings and serve to derive different policy recommendations that can be complementary. By providing policy recommendations for knowledge management adjustments, this work is also intended as a practical contribution to Costa Rica’s sustainable tourism development. | |
