Knowledge Management has evolved over time into the domain of Information Technology (IT), where codification, storage and retrieval of explicit knowledge is believed to lead to a competitive advantage for an organisation. More recently, knowledge management literature has suggested that knowledge is socially constructed and inseparable from the communities of practice in which it is held. This dissertation examines the interpersonal process by which payload knowledge (a concept that emerged from the research data as comprising that specific distillation of knowledge, both tacit and explicit, required to resolve an applied problem in context) is exchanged in a consulting firm�s communities of practice. Through a qualitative case study design involving sixteen in-depth interviews with consultants from a medium sized consulting firm, the nature of the interpersonal knowledge exchange process was illuminated. In this study, two inter-related research questions were addressed: What is the interpersonal process by which knowledge is exchanged between consultants? And, Why do consultants prefer to participate in the interpersonal knowledge exchange process in preference to using stored explicit knowledge ? This detailed examination of consultants as knowledge workers, resulted in the proposal of a process based model of interpersonal knowledge exchange. Utilising the concept of payload knowledge, the interpersonal knowledge exchange process is shown to be predicable in terms of passing through eight identifiable stages, yet unpredictable in terms of knowing how each community interaction will lead to payload knowledge. Within this process, the sourcing, handover, distillation and implementation of payload knowledge are seen as an artistic endeavour, characterised by social community based exchanges that �hop� the consultants toward their specific contextual need. Key advantages of this interpersonal process are the decontextualisation and recontextualisation processes carried out at both the request negotiation stage and the knowledge handover stage. This process uses the community�s shared language, mental models, social etiquette and cultural norms to compress and funnel the meaning of the payload knowledge into a form that can be transferred meaningfully to a requesting consultant. Through participating in the interpersonal knowledge exchange process, consultants save time, and are provided with an opportunity to confirm their personal knowledge as up-to-date and relevant to the specific context. By using the interpersonal process, consultants conform with and confirm the community�s social etiquette, which dictates its preference for the identified exchange mechanism. The interpersonal process allows them to practice and learn the consulting community�s professional artistry and, in consequence, to enjoy the exchange experience, and to have fun. This dissertation contributes to making one aspect of the interpersonal knowledge exchange process explicit. The process, by its very nature however, appears to remain tacitly understood by those within the consulting community of practice. Through understanding the process and the reasons that consultants prefer to engage in interpersonal knowledge exchange processes, it is anticipated that managers will be better able to produce a knowledge-based sustainable competitive advantage for their firms.

Pour répondre à une demande de plus en plus exigeante en termes de personnalisation, de délai et de coût, la Chaîne Logistique a pour objectif d’être intégrée et agile. Pour cela la Chaîne Logistique se doit de gérer des flux d’information structurés et non structurés au travers de Systèmes d’Information. Contrairement aux premiers, les flux d’information non structurés sont difficilement intégrables car ils échappent à toutes logiques normatives. Ils se développent en situation de travail effective, au travers d’échanges interpersonnels, favorisant le développement de connaissances. Cependant de récents travaux en Système de Gestion des Connaissances et traitant de la connaissance dans la Chaîne Logistique positionnent les connaissances issues de ces flux d’information non structurés comme une ressource clé pour le développement de l’agilité des organisations. Ce travail propose de comprendre comment la mise en place d’un ERP (Système d’Information de gestion, couramment utilisé pour gérer la Chaîne Logistique) associée à une démarche de gestion des connaissances peut permette l’intégration des flux d’information structurés et non structurés dans une Chaîne Logistique intra-organisationnelle. Il s’appuie pour cela sur une recherche-intervention réalisée au sein de la Chaîne Logistique de Bonfiglioli Transmissions, sur une période de trois ans. Ce travail souligne, d’une part, l'intérêt d'associer Système d'Information de Gestion et Système de Gestion des Connaissances pour intégrer les flux d'information structurés et non structurés de la chaîne logistique et améliorer son efficacité. Il met ensuite en avant le rôle d’un management orienté relations et connaissances dans la mise en place d’un Système de Gestion des Connaissances recherchant la production de connaissances pour l’amélioration de l'efficacité de la Chaîne Logistique. Enfin, il met en avant qu’un manque de reconnaissance par l’organisation, du mode de fonctionnement centré connaissance naissant de la démarche, conduit à la destruction du réseau d’échange des connaissances et à une déstabilisation de l'organisation. L’analyse de nos résultats terrains au travers de la Théorie de l’Acteur-Réseau permet de confirmer l’importance des dimensions relationnelles, cognitives, et structurelles du capital social organisationnel dans la mise en place d’une démarche de Gestion des Connaissances pour la Chaîne Logistique intra-organisationnelle. Ce travail conclut qu’une démarche de Gestion des Connaissances pour la Chaîne Logistique intra-organisationnelle devrait passer par une articulation cohérente des trois dimensions du capital social par l’organisation. / To reply to increasingly demanding market needs in terms of customizing, lead-times and costs, Supply Chain aims to be integrated and agile. For that, a Supply Chain must manage structured and unstructured information flows via Information Systems. Contrary to the first ones, unstructured information flows are difficult to integrate because they escape all normative logic. They grow in real-life work situations through interpersonal exchanges that encourage the development of knowledge. Nevertheless recent works in Knowledge Management 2.0 and dealing with knowledge in a Supply Chain highlight this knowledge coming from unstructured information flows as a key resource for organizational agility. This work proposes to understand how an ERP implementation (Management Information System, usually used in Supply Chain Management) associated with a knowledge management approach can contribute to the integration of structured and unstructured information flows within an intra-organizational Supply Chain. It takes as its base a research-action made within the Supply Chain of the Bonfiglioli Transmissions firm, over a period of 3 years. This work underlines, on one hand, the role of a relations and knowledge orientated management in the building of a Knowledge Management System aiming to develop knowledge for improved performance. On the other hand, it highlights that a lack of recognition and appropriation by the organization, of the Knowledge Management System dedicated to the Supply Chain, leads to the destruction of the knowledge-exchange network and a destabilization of the organization. The analysis of our ground-work results through the Actor-Network Theory corroborates the importance of the relational, cognitive and structural dimensions of a social organizational capital in a Knowledge Management System. The conclusion of this work is that a sustainable Knowledge Management System must pass by a coherent articulation, by the organization, of the three dimensions of the social capital.