Doctor of Philosophy / An organisation’s knowledge base is a valuable asset that serves as a source of sustainable competitive advantage for the firm. Organisations have become increasingly reliant on the application of knowledge work and the contributions of professionals to the creation of valued organisational knowledge. Implicitly, the literature has assumed permanency in the employment relationship between professionals and organisations and focused on issues such as organisational identification and commitment, and extra-role behaviours of professionals as impacting on their knowledge sharing behaviours. However, the nature of professional or expert employment has become more transient. There has been a marked increase in the use of professionals in contractual roles where the association with the organisation is often temporary and contingent. But the organisational implications of such practices remain largely unexplored. In particular, there is a dearth of research examining the impact of contract professionals on knowledge flows within the firm and on their motivations to participate in knowledge sharing within organisations. This dissertation addresses this gap in the literature. This study examines the knowledge sharing practices of contract professionals in contemporary organisations. Conceptualising knowledge as socially situated and constructed, this qualitative study examines professionals employed as contractors in two large organisations: a large bank and an insurance company; and, based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with contractors and managers, considers why and how professionals engaged as contractors choose to share what they know with the contracting organisation. Engaging with research literatures from knowledge management, professional identity, newer career forms, and psychological contracts, the study generates a typology of contract professionals that suggest distinct knowledge sharing orientations. The study constructs three categories of contractors: Free Agents, Specialists and Consultants, identifies factors that influence and inhibit the knowledge sharing motivations of these categories of contractors and provides recommendations for a more holistic knowledge management strategy for organisations utilising contract professionals. The findings from this doctoral research show how identity work can have practical implications for knowledge management. For example, by exploring the dynamics of professional identity and image construction, the research shows how identity and image influences both the contractor’s knowledge sharing behaviours and the organisation’s knowledge management strategies. Exploring new areas of professional contingent work, this research aims to make a significant contribution to the understanding of knowledge sharing, professional identity and the management of contract professionals within organisations.

<p>Information technology (IT) is considered as a driving force in the development of organizations but earlier research has shown that technology is not enough to build, improve and increase organizational capabilities and performances. This means that organizational learning (OL) is an effective theory to capture and nourish knowledge in order to create knowledge driven competitive advantage. IT, however, plays a major role to create and share new knowledge to promote organizational learning. In today’s competitive environment it is an urgent requirement that organizations must develop and utilize IT based applications or systems to create a learning environment so that both employees and organizations can learn in an innovative ways, but the question remains how IT impacts OL in such a way that organizations can improve performances and capabilities complying with organization’s strategic goals.</p><p>This thesis deals with the use of IT in organizational learning at both levels; 1) learning at individual level to know that how individuals learn in an organization and how IT support learning at this stage and 2) learning at organizational level that focuses on how an organization learns and how IT affects it. The purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between IT and OL and describe the role of IT in promoting OL through the study of two selected companies, Accenture and ABB, employing the OL concept. To achieve the purpose of this study a qualitative approach has been used as it provides a thorough understanding about the role of IT in OL.</p><p>The analysis presents a thorough insight of organizational learning dividing it into learning at individual level which is based on the Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995)’s SECI model for knowledge conversion and learning at organizational level using the Huber (1991)’s learning processes to develop as well as facilitate the organizational learning. The role of IT is analyzed through the knowledge management strategies from Hansen et al. (1999).</p><p>The results show that information technology has an impact over organizational learning as IT facilitates OL at both the individual level and the organizational level in creating knowledge which ultimately enables organizations to improve capabilities and enhance performances to cope with change. Companies are using various IT application or tools to promote OL either through knowledge depository database, online training, staff rotation planning or various IT based communication channels. The use of knowledge management strategy and the role of IT on OL coincide with the strategic objective set by the company. Companies also use different combinations between tacit and explicit knowledge in respond to the strategic goal. Both tacit and explicit knowledge are always used in all companies but the mixture produces different results. It is the management that has to determine the right combination between them to create the maximum impact on OL. IT can be a tool help managing tacit and explicit knowledge but people are more important in the process of knowledge creation as it is individuals who possess the critical minds led to learning. It is important to realize a fact that organization will never learn if its people do not learn.</p><p>The work is of great interest to the parties involved in organizational learning using information technology.</p>

<p>Intranets can streamline workflow processes, improve communication and add value to the employees of an organization. Companies that don’t take advantage of the potential in their intranet is a common phenomenon. In connection with a migration project dealing with a switch of content management system it turned out that SAS Technical Services lacked clear objectives and strategies for the use of their intranet. Thereby they didn’t make the most of the possibilities an intranet brings.</p><p>The work with this thesis began with collecting the experiences the company could take with them from the migration project. This was followed by a mapping over the use of the intranet and the employees’ attitudes towards it. Furthermore it was examined what benefit the intranet generated and how it could be increased. Tools used for this work were interviews and surveys among others.</p><p>The results show that there are several areas where there is room for</p><p>improvement. Areas that are primarily covered are organizational change, information management, usability, competition and knowledge management. The results are made concrete in objectives with strategies how to reach these.</p> / <p>Intranät kan effektivisera arbetsprocesser, förbättra kommunikation och ge mervärde till medarbetarna i en organisation. Att företag inte utnyttjar potentialen i sitt intranät är ett vanligt förekommande fenomen. I samband med ett migreringsprojekt med byte av publiceringssystem för intranätet upptäcktes det att SAS Technical Services saknade tydliga målsättningar och strategier för bruket av sitt intranät. Därmed tog de inte vara på de möjligheter som ett intranät medför.</p><p>Arbetet med denna uppsats inleddes med att sammanställa de erfarenheter företaget kunde tillgodoräkna sig från genomförandet av migreringsprojektet. Därefter inleddes en kartläggning över användandet av intranätet och medarbetarnas attityder till det. Vidare undersöktes nyttan som intranätet genererade och hur denna kunde ökas. Som verktyg i undersökningen användes bland annat intervju och enkät.</p><p>Resultaten visar att det finns utrymme för förbättring inom flera områden. Främst är det ämnen som organisationsförändring, informationshantering, användbarhet, konkurrens och knowledge management som berörs. Resultaten konkretiseras i målsättningar och strategier för att nå dessa.</p>

<p>This thesis deals with knowledge management at companies in the Falun-Borlänge region. The purpose is to create better understanding of which path companies have chosen and why, respectively. A qualitative survey seeks to discover if companies have chosen IT track or people track. This is a practical and useful model for an evaluative study. In the same context, a number of important models for evaluating knowledge management are presented.</p><p>The result shows that the companies provide a multitude of training within several frameworks. Education is mostly provided in a traditional manner but there are many examples of interactive state-of-the-art training. Furthermore, most of the companies primarily focus upon people and processes, but some focus at technical facilities as well. In some cases are the technical frameworks used for support of core processes.</p>

<p>There is a common agreement in literature that a company can create a sustainable competitive advantage by mastering knowledge and knowledge transfer. This requires to forward knowledge to other units at the correct time and in the right way.</p><p>The purpose of this research study is to explain in the first step general theoretical considerations related to the concept of knowledge, knowledge management as well as knowledge transfer. In a second step these concepts are illustrated with the help of four points of impact.</p><p>Some important aspects are discussed. First, the individual in the process of knowledge transfer is regarded: its behaviors, its interactions with its professional environment. Second, key tools are extended and finally the factors which influenced the process are presented.</p><p>Out of this a model is developed in an approach divided into three parts: the individual, social/collective and company perspective. This model also includes a process of knowledge transfer, the knowledge sharing achievement through a description of the main tools and actions which create a dynamic between the actors. In the last part we focus on a technical solution which can help companies to implement a knowledge transfer dynamic.</p>

<p>Organizations know-how and experience are great sources of valuable knowledge. Theabstract characteristics of knowledge help organizations to build core competencies, howeverit is often not sufficiently exploited. The importance of knowledge to the overall organizationis also seen in projects which are considered as temporary organizations. If knowledge isproperly managed organizations may benefit in terms of decreasing repeated mistakes andcreating new opportunities. However, new types of organizing in projects together with anincreasing trend of geographical dispersion of workers increase the complexity of sharing andmanaging knowledge. Therefore, the focus of this study is to identify the processes and toolsthat facilitate knowledge management in the challenging environment of projects.The theoretical framework of this study presents the characteristics of knowledge and theimplications of the new forms of organizing in terms of the complexities of managingknowledge in this context. The study also approaches the specific characteristics of projectsand the challenges of knowledge management. The requirements for managing knowledgesuccessfully and knowledge management processes suggested by the authors in the field arealso highlighted. Additionally, the researchers present a conceptual model for knowledgemanagement in projects derived from the theoretical background which serves as a startingpoint for the empirical research.This is a qualitative study that follows an Interpretivist research philosophy with a mixture ofdeductive and inductive approach. This is a case study of Dell Computers that was developedthrough semi-structured interviews with project managers from the project managementoffice (PMO) of the Business Operations department dedicated to large enterprises and publicsector in the EMEA region. The data collected was analyzed using a qualitative approach ofdata display and analysis.The findings of the study validated the basic elements of the conceptual model for knowledgemanagement in project environments previously suggested by the researchers. However theyalso suggested that the early conceptual model did not illustrate the complexity of knowledgemanagement in projects in real life. The main findings are concerned with the different levelsin which knowledge may be managed in project environments, the close relationship amongstthe enablers and the ownership of knowledge management processes. In order to addressthose findings a new conceptual model derived from the theoretical background and theempirical research is developed.</p>

<p>The management consultancy profession has shifted from being a deeply academically rootedprofession to a profession where the connection to academic institutions is more indistinct.Where the knowledge within management consultancy firms comes from is more and moreunclear. The gap between management practice and academic research is sometimesdescribed as unbridgeable for several reasons. Our purpose of this study is to see howimportant academic research and theory is to management consultancy firms’ knowledge baseand what impact obstacles and outer pressure can have on this.As our theory base for this study we have the “Three Basic Elements of theKnowledge System and their Interrelations” model by Werr and Stjernberg (2003). We haveredefined and also added some elements to this model and thereby designed our own model“The Knowledge Base System in an Institutionalized Environment” which functions as aground for our analysis.We have performed this study by using the quantitative method ofquestionnaires where we have used two types of questionnaire, one for the companies and onefor the consultants. The conclusions that we can draw is that academic research and theory isvery important to management consultancy firms’ knowledge bases. However, the consultantssay they have greater usage of their experiences in their daily work, even though they useacademic research and theory as a mean to communicate with each other within theconsultancy firm. A conclusion of this is that experience and academic research and theorymight not be in conflict but have different functions and complement each other.</p>

Data quality issues have taken on increasing importance in recent years. In our research, we have discovered that many “data quality” problems are actually “data misinterpretation” problems – that is, problems with data semantics. In this paper, we first illustrate some examples of these problems and then introduce a particular semantic problem that we call “corporate householding.” We stress the importance of “context” to get the appropriate answer for each task. Then we propose an approach to handle these tasks using extensions to the COntext INterchange (COIN) technology for knowledge storage and knowledge processing. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

Avhandlingen adresserar en väsentlig aspekt på ledning och organisering av företag - att utnyttja kunskap effektivt. Mer specifikt fokuseras faktorer som påverkar överföring av kunskap mellan projekt i produktutvecklingsmiljöer. Medarbetarnas motivation, inställning och arbetssituation; utformningen av organisationen; ansvarsfördelning; planering, uppföljning och efterfrågan av aktiviteter; organisationskulturen; målsättningar; samt språkliga och kulturella skillnader är några av de områden som behandlas i avhandlingen eftersom de påverkar huruvida kunskap överförs mellan produktutvecklingsprojekt. Studien visar att kunskapsöverföring mellan produktutvecklingsprojekt är en komplex och flerdimensionell problematik. Problematiken är komplex eftersom den består av ett stort antal olikartade hindrande faktorer samt flerdimensionell eftersom dessa faktorer breder ut sig över ett flertal samt dessutom vitt skilda områden. Vetskapen om vilka faktorer som påverkar kunskapsöverföringsprocessen är en förutsättning för att framgångsrikt initiera och genomföra aktiviteter för effektivt kunskapsutnyttjande. I en strävan att skapa förutsättningar för såväl utveckling som exploatering av kunskap kan de resultat som presenteras i avhandlingen användas för att bygga, underhålla samt stimulera användandet av kunskapsbroar. Arbetar Ni med ledning och organisering av företag skulle jag särskilt vilja rekommendera läsning av avhandlingen eftersom kunskap är och kommer att vara en av Era allra mest kritiska resurser för framgång. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2001

One form of knowledge that has been proven to be important for companies’ perfor-mance during the recent financial crisis is the understanding of the financial data and information.The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how three Swedish companies – Sto Scandi-navia AB, Swedbank and Axfood SSC – communicate internal financial information to their middle managers. As well as how the companies use knowledge management to leverage their financial communication internally.The study presents an integrated framework of information management and knowledge management based on the works of the leading and often quoted re-searchers in those fields.This study uses 12 semi structured interviews to gather qualitative data about how nine middle managers and three top managers view the communication of financial in-formation at their companies. The interviews were complimented with closed question surveys handed to the nine middle managers.Our analysis concludes that the three companies differ significantly in their approach to communicating financial information. Swedbank uses a wide range of financial in-formation in their daily operations. Further, they have an organized and structured ap-proach to communicating and managing their financial information.Sto and Axfood (SSC) do not use financial information to the same extent in their oper-ations. Additionally they communicate the information in an informal and unstruc-tured way. Although using a less structured approach, the managers at Axfood were more satisfied with how the company uses financial information then the other com-panies. This could be due to the lesser importance given to financial information at SSC compared to Swedbank.We found Sto to be at the verging point from turning from a small company to large company and thus needs to review their current strategy, which has previously been based on the ability of the managers to receive information through informal paths.