Background: In nowadays economy, the only certainty is that knowledge is source of lasting competitive advantage. The increasing global competitive business environment triggers firms to establish inter-firm cooperation with cross-border partners possessing complementary assets. However, knowledge management is a difficult concept to put in practice. Knowledge integration is a complex process hindered by several sets of complications specific to knowledge and relations between partners. In addition, the cultural dimension seems to influence knowledge integration across borders. Cultural differences between partner-firms may have a considerable impact on the transfer and integration of knowledge. Aim: Researchers have mainly focused on seeking out the outcome of developing knowledge integration, such as innovation or product development. However, the importance of contextual factors, such as culture, and their potential implications on knowledge integration across borders remain unexplored. The contribution of this study addresses the impact of culture on knowledge integration across borders. In addition, the model developed along this study provides a ground for future research. As a spin-off, the motive of this theoretical research is to raise awareness of cultural factors in cross-border cooperation. Methodology: This thesis is based on a qualitative case study method that intends to build theory through iteration by analyzing literature and empirics following an inductive reasoning, in the specific context of Sino-Swedish cooperation. The research design builds upon the collection of primary data through interviews within the case company. Data analysis utilizes the open coding system; findings are presented through direct quotations, tables and models. Results: The results show that knowledge integration – its nature and coordination within and between firms – is influenced by cultural factors. The study finds that the cultural dimension can affect the efficiency of knowledge integration. Although literature is aware of culture, specific cultural factors still impact on organizations involved in cross-border cooperation at different levels. This creates cultural distance between partner-firms, and provokes major implications on group work, which in turn can potentially affect cooperation performance.

Information system development (ISD) has long been treated as the process that system developers craft an artifact to support business operation based on their special expertise. However, a significant portion of projects still have failed because the developed outcome cannot fit users¡¦ needs. An emerging internal service concept indicates that, by treating ISD as one type of service, the requirement definition can be viewed as a knowledge integration process in which users and developers integrate their own knowledge to develop the new knowledge to counter problems faced by business. By incorporating this concept into research design and taking intellectual capital perspective into account, this study proposed a model to examine the antecedents and consequences of knowledge integration between users and developers. An empirical survey methodology is applied and we use PLS to test the research model. The results showed that user-IS developer knowledge integration can benefit project performance, and human capital, relational capital and structural capital increase the effectiveness of knowledge integration, indicating the important mediating role of knowledge integration. Furthermore, the result also found that the relational capital plays a moderating role between human capital and knowledge integration. In sum, differing form prior research that focused on separate and different perspective on user-IS developer knowledge integration, this study proposed a comprehensive model to explore the antecedents of knowledge integration. The implications toward academic and practitioner are also provided.

Natural and man-made disasters have gained attention at all levels of policy-making in recent years. Emergency management tasks are inherently complex and unpredictable, and often require coordination among multiple organizations across different levels and locations. Effectively managing various knowledge areas and the organizations involved has become a critical emergency management success factor. However, there is a general lack of understanding about how to describe and assess the complex nature of emergency management tasks and how knowledge integration can help managers improve emergency management task performance. The purpose of this exploratory research was first, to understand how emergency management operations are impacted by tasks that are complex and inter-organizational and second, to investigate how knowledge integration as a particular knowledge management strategy can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the emergency tasks. Three types of specific knowledge were considered: context-specific, technology-specific, and context-and-technology-specific. The research setting was the Miami-Dade Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and the study was based on the survey responses from the participants in past EOC activations related to their emergency tasks and knowledge areas. The data included task attributes related to complexity, knowledge area, knowledge integration, specificity of knowledge, and task performance. The data was analyzed using multiple linear regressions and path analyses, to (1) examine the relationships between task complexity, knowledge integration, and performance, (2) the moderating effects of each type of specific knowledge on the relationship between task complexity and performance, and (3) the mediating role of knowledge integration. As per theory-based propositions, the results indicated that overall component complexity and interactive complexity tend to have a negative effect on task performance. But surprisingly, procedural rigidity tended to have a positive effect on performance in emergency management tasks. Also as per our expectation, knowledge integration had a positive relationship with task performance. Interestingly, the moderating effects of each type of specific knowledge on the relationship between task complexity and performance were varied and the extent of mediation of knowledge integration depended on the dimension of task complexity.

The importance of knowledge management has been on the spotlight for many years. Many researches related to the knowledge management are focused on the issues of knowledge sharing and knowledge creation, but only few are directly linked to the knowledge integration process. In this thesis, we will exam the AnTec operation to discover the benefits and incentives of knowledge integration process to it's software development. This study will also explore how the company can establish goal, make decision, confirm the knowledge requirements,and obtain knowledge externally and internally by utilizing the knowledge integration process. Performance of the software development can be dramatically improved from the knowledge integration elements of "direction", "sequencing", "routines", and "group problem soling and decision making" in a virtual team. The finding of the study has suggested: (1) The knowledge integration process requires efficient communication among system analyses, department managers, and the end users. IT manager should be responsible for the quality of all questions proposed. (2) Fully utilize the knowledge integration structure and properly extract know-hows from different areas to proceed the software development in the virtual team are essential to the success of the knowledge integration process. (3) This study will be govern into two models - "Knowledge Sharing Process and Structure" and "Virtual Team Operation" models and can be reviewed by AnTec for further reference. Keywords : Virtual Team, Knowledge Integration, Project Management

Knowledge is increasingly seen as the organization’s most important asset. The knowledge-based view dictates that by understanding the importance of knowledge as a competitive advantage, and leveraging it, organizations can compete in a differentiated and sustainably advantageous way. In project-based organizations where individuals with different specialized knowledge meet and create new knowledge together, this might be seen as especially valuable. Despite having a big impact on both the academic and managerial world, organizations seem struggle when actually faced with the practical implications of integrating knowledge in the firms.This problem has been highlighted both in research, as well as in an empirical pre-study. Understanding where this problem stems from is an important step in finding a way to solve it. Following the idea that the use of incentive systems has long been an effective way of steering behavior in organizational members, we wonder what the role of incentive systems is in the context of knowledge integration in project-based organizations.   Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate and analyze if missing or deficient incentive systems is the reason why project-based organizations struggle with knowledge integration.

No description available.

<p> </p><p>Knowledge is considered nowadays as the main source of competitive advantage and, therefore, its appropriate application has been gaining great attention. The present study focuses on the use of integrative mechanisms in consulting firms as part of the knowledge application process during the action-planning stage of projects. Concepts such as knowledge, types of knowledge and Knowledge Management processes are clarified and then developed in a consulting firm context, in order to identify the advantages and disadvantages that this type of project-based organisations has due to the important role that knowledge plays in the consulting process. Furthermore, two main paradigms of Knowledge Management in consulting firms are developed based on a synthesis of the relevant literature. Next, different views of Knowledge Integration are exposed and the four mechanisms for Knowledge Integration proposed by Grant are assigned to each paradigm. These paradigms are used as theoretical base for the research and as selection criteria of two representative consulting firms, which constitute the unit of analysis of a qualitative study, which aims to rank the importance of the above mentioned Knowledge Integration mechanisms in the action-planning stage of the consulting project life-cycle.</p><p> </p><p>The research approach is deductive and subjective in terms of ontology. Critical realism more closely represents the study in terms of epistemology and the main sample characteristics are non-probabilistic, purposive and heterogeneous. The data are collected through surveys and semi-structured interviews and are analysed following a commonly accepted qualitative data analysis method.</p><p> </p><p>The study results regard the ranking of the four integrative mechanisms in terms of their usefulness during the action-planning stage of consulting projects. The results cannot be generalised due to the sample characteristics but they qualitatively reflect the importance of mechanisms for integration of knowledge in these two firms during this particular stage. By doing so, the study implies that, although the two consulting firms represent different paradigms of Knowledge Management, they have a similar predisposition to give priority to a certain Knowledge Integration mechanism against another.</p>

Knowledge is considered nowadays as the main source of competitive advantage and, therefore, its appropriate application has been gaining great attention. The present study focuses on the use of integrative mechanisms in consulting firms as part of the knowledge application process during the action-planning stage of projects. Concepts such as knowledge, types of knowledge and Knowledge Management processes are clarified and then developed in a consulting firm context, in order to identify the advantages and disadvantages that this type of project-based organisations has due to the important role that knowledge plays in the consulting process. Furthermore, two main paradigms of Knowledge Management in consulting firms are developed based on a synthesis of the relevant literature. Next, different views of Knowledge Integration are exposed and the four mechanisms for Knowledge Integration proposed by Grant are assigned to each paradigm. These paradigms are used as theoretical base for the research and as selection criteria of two representative consulting firms, which constitute the unit of analysis of a qualitative study, which aims to rank the importance of the above mentioned Knowledge Integration mechanisms in the action-planning stage of the consulting project life-cycle.   The research approach is deductive and subjective in terms of ontology. Critical realism more closely represents the study in terms of epistemology and the main sample characteristics are non-probabilistic, purposive and heterogeneous. The data are collected through surveys and semi-structured interviews and are analysed following a commonly accepted qualitative data analysis method.   The study results regard the ranking of the four integrative mechanisms in terms of their usefulness during the action-planning stage of consulting projects. The results cannot be generalised due to the sample characteristics but they qualitatively reflect the importance of mechanisms for integration of knowledge in these two firms during this particular stage. By doing so, the study implies that, although the two consulting firms represent different paradigms of Knowledge Management, they have a similar predisposition to give priority to a certain Knowledge Integration mechanism against another.

Background - The demand for management consultants in projects has been growing. However, many projects fail to integrate knowledge due to communication issues. Management consultants therefore need to be able to communicate and integrate knowledge in projects. Informal communication is very important and can be used to integrate knowledge efficiently in projects. Thesis aim - The aim of the thesis is therefore to enlighten how informal communication affects the integration of management consultants’ knowledge in projects. Methodology - This is a qualitative cross-sectional study, where primary data was collected through semi-structured interviews with twelve management consultants from nine different companies. Findings - Informal communication affects management consultants’ knowledge integration in projects in several ways. Most commonly by creating trust and strong relations, which enhances the knowledge integration in projects. However, unfavorable unstructured communication can lead to uncontrolled knowledge that threatens the knowledge integration. Therefore, informal communication needs to be balanced, used in the right way and used in combination with formal communication to be as efficient as possible for knowledge integration in projects.

¡@¡@In the dynamic knowledge-oriented age, organizations need continuously develop existing capabilities and new capabilities to adapt changeable environment and maintain their competitive competence. Not trying to make all staff learn all things, organizations need knowledge integration to coordinate knowledge held in different individuals. Specified knowledge in separate individuals could be integrated into organizational capabilities, the basis of competitive competence, through designing of appropriate organizational structure, authority, communication, decisions making and mechanism. ¡@¡@Because of the business environment full of Internet and Web, IT capability has become a critical factor in building potential competitive competence. ¡@¡@In the view of Knowledge-Based Theory of Firm and Hyper-Text Organization, this research emphasizes the coordination of organizational structure and knowledge management. Applying organizational structure and different integration mechanisms collected from related literature, exam the relation between the factors of knowledge integration and core capability of MIS department. Try to achieve efficient knowledge creation, utility and transfer through the discussion. ¡@¡@An empirical survey methodology is applied to test the research model and hypotheses proposed in this study. Six out of seven hypotheses are validated in our research model with Path Analysis. The research result reveals that knowledge integration has significant impact on MIS department capability. Organizational structure design, including business structure design, project structure design and knowledge codification, has critical contribution to knowledge integration.