Abstract   The purpose of this study was to explore how knowledge and management of knowledge is experienced and perceived at a consultancy firm and derive from the experiences of the participants when portraying the phenomenon of knowledge in such a setting. Aspects covered in this research are individual and collective knowledge, the complexity of project-based organisations and the different ways of perceiving knowledge (structural and practice). All of these aspects were accounted for in order to gain a deeper understanding of the experiences of the consultants, the knowledge environment at a consultancy firm, and how knowledge can be managed in such a setting.   The research was inspired by my personal/professional experience of knowledge at a consultancy firm where I, prior to this research, was given the task of re-designing the content management system. In the initial planning phase I recognised a need to find out more about the way the consultants were working, how they used knowledge and how they perceived the knowledge had been managed.   Qualitative data was collected through individual and group interviews and the philosophical tradition of phenomenology was derived from.   The findings from the interviews showed three main themes of how knowledge was perceived; 1) ways of working (differing experiences depending on the context of internal or external work or individual or group project assignments), 2) the knowledge culture and 3) the process and structure of knowledge management at the firm.   Based on the findings it is concluded that regardless of practice based knowledge sharing the project-based setting of consultancies requires more, it requires some documentation in order to enable collective knowledge through embedded artefacts. It can also be concluded that the lack of structure or processes contributes to further complexity which would suggest that implementing structure through for example a process oriented approach would ease the process of knowledge management and improve the perception of knowledge at the consultancy firm.

Abstract Knowledge have gradually replaced the asset to become the most important resource of the organization , people are more and more concerned about how company do the knowledge selection , creation, storage and application in the recently 20 years. There are many researches to discuss about how organization manage its knowledge creation , but there are rare essays to discuss the process of knowledge creation. Nonaka had provided knowledge spiral model to explain how organization create knowledge, he predicted organization create knowledge through the SECI process ¡Vassociation , extermination, combination ,internalization, but he has never mentioned about the process of how individual create knowledge. This article offer ¡§From individual to organization knowledge creation integration modal ¡§ which based on the viewpoint of information flow in knowledge creation process to discuss the affecting factors of knowledge creation. We analog the cognition development theory of Piaget and combined the SECI organization knowledge conversion of Nonaka to develop individual knowledge creation modal. From this modal , we predict the new thinking comes from the process which individual try to eliminate the information gap between the outside information and inside knowledge base through the dialectical process of assimilation and accommodation. When individual offer the new idea t to the other guy of the task force, it become the new outside information of the people to do the next dialectical process , and at that time the creation type will transfer from individual to organization . We consider organization knowledge creation is the information transforming process among the individuals in the group , the new knowledge is created in the dialectical process that go through antithetical concepts such as individual ¡V organization , tacit - explicit . From this integration model, we predict the affecting factors of knowledge creation which includes the selection of creator and the fitness of organization management. Finally, we try to find the fitness factors arrangement of the knowledge creation management through the resource construction model to construct the innovation ability as organization .resource , which will let the creative activity continuous running. We interview the china steel knowledge creation activities, and use the modal what we develop to explain these cases , we also try to find the common factors of these successful activities and to find the process and the source of innovation and give some suggestion to these activities. It shows china steel cases own the most part of factors which a successful innovation need , but if these innovation activities want to last forever to become organization resource , they need to transfer the firm¡¦s frame of mind from individual achievement requirement to enterprise value emphasis.

Individers specifika, inneboende kunskap har kommit att bli ett allt viktigare redskap för att generera konkurrensfördelar i dagens föränderliga samhälle. Det ställer därmed krav på ledningen att kunna hantera organisationens komplexa tillgång och främja kunskapsöverföring mellan organisationsmedlemmarna genom tillämpliga processer. Lyckas detta, bevaras kunskapen inom organisationen. Syftet med studien är att skapa en ökad förståelse för ledningsdrivna processer och aktiviteter som avser att omvandla individbaserad kunskap till organisatorisk kunskap.  Studien belyser ett antal olika kunskapsöverföringsprocesser som nyttjas av organisationer i praktiken. Face-to-face metoder har visat sig föredras vid överföring av kunskap särskilt den tysta kunskapen, medan de tekniska/virtuella verktygen anses vara till fördel vid informationsspridning. En central slutsats för studien är att en verbal tvåvägskommunikation, såsom fysiska möten och telefonkommunikation, är mest tillämplig vid förmedling av den tysta kunskapen. Ytterligare ett centralt bidrag är att den individbaserade kunskapens betydelse för organisationen inte är branschspecifik utan värdesätts och uppmärksammas likvärdigt mellan de studerade företagsledarna. Tidigare studier har dock fokuserat på kunskapsintensiva organisationer.

This study investigated the relationship between individual knowledge transfer methods, self-study and work experience and behaviour patterns, facilitation, conduct and ability in the development of SMEs. This study further sought to find out if gender had an effect on the behaviour patterns. The study is empirical and cross sectional in nature. A questionnaire was used to collect data from 200 employees of selected SMEs in Durban-South Africa. Findings show that there is a positive, significant relationship between the knowledge transfer method self-study and behavioural aspects, facilitation, conduct and ability. In addition, this study found that work experience had an insignificant correlation with facilitation, conduct and ability. Finally, the study found that there are no gender differences in terms of facilitation, conduct and ability. It is recommended that all the stakeholders in the SME sector continuously analyse the internal organisational environment to ensure that knowledge resources are effectively used for productive employees’ behaviour. / Business Management / M. Tech. (Business Administration)

This study investigated the relationship between individual knowledge transfer methods, self-study and work experience and behaviour patterns, facilitation, conduct and ability in the development of SMEs. This study further sought to find out if gender had an effect on the behaviour patterns. The study is empirical and cross sectional in nature. A questionnaire was used to collect data from 200 employees of selected SMEs in Durban-South Africa. Findings show that there is a positive, significant relationship between the knowledge transfer method self-study and behavioural aspects, facilitation, conduct and ability. In addition, this study found that work experience had an insignificant correlation with facilitation, conduct and ability. Finally, the study found that there are no gender differences in terms of facilitation, conduct and ability. It is recommended that all the stakeholders in the SME sector continuously analyse the internal organisational environment to ensure that knowledge resources are effectively used for productive employees’ behaviour. / Business Management / M. Tech. (Business Administration)