Developing a knowledge management approach to support managing credit risk in Jordanian banks

It is becoming increasing clear that; in banks; the sharing of knowledge amongst the senior executives has not been as effective as it should have been. The lack of knowledge amongst senior executives about the level of risks taken in sub-prime lending, the resulting "toxic assets‟ and the global nature of the instruments used to spread risks is said to be the main contributing reason for the current worldwide crisis in banks. Banks in Jordan, the focus of this study, are not immune from the exposure to the risks. The banking sector in Jordan is the most important in the Jordanian national economy and has effectively contributed to improving economic development through its important role in mobilising savings and channelling them into different fields of investment. Therefore, the overall aim of this research is to propose that developing a knowledge management (KM) approach to support managing credit risk will help banks in general, and Jordanian banks in particular, in improving the process of managing credit risk. To reach the aim, several objectives have been constructed: 1. Reviewing current status of KM and its relationship with CRM 2. Developing a scale to measure KM behaviour and practices 3. Determining current KM status in Jordanian banks 4. Building a CR decision support system using internal implicit knowledge to reduce the rate of defaults. As a result of this research, a KM approach has been developed to support managing credit risk. The approach contains the following steps: identify, measure, analyse, improve, and evaluate. Using the new KM approach, the main conclusion of this research suggest that considering credit risk management and KM together gives a much stronger basis for banks to manage credit risk.