Pitfalls in Effective Knowledge Management: Insights from an International Information Technology Organization

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Koivisto, Kalle, Taipalus, Toni
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Koivisto, Kalle
Taipalus, Toni
author_facet Koivisto, Kalle
Taipalus, Toni
contents Knowledge is considered an essential resource for organizations. For organizations to benefit from their possessed knowledge, knowledge needs to be managed effectively. Despite knowledge sharing and management being viewed as important by practitioners, organizations fail to benefit from their knowledge, leading to issues in cooperation and the loss of valuable knowledge with departing employees. This study aims to identify hindering factors that prevent individuals from effectively sharing and managing knowledge and understand how to eliminate these factors. Empirical data were collected through semi-structured group interviews from 50 individuals working in an international large IT organization. This study confirms the existence of a gap between the perceived importance of knowledge management and how little this importance is reflected in practice. Several hindering factors were identified, grouped into personal social topics, organizational social topics, technical topics, environmental topics, and interrelated social and technical topics. The presented recommendations for mitigating these hindering factors are focused on improving employees' actions, such as offering training and guidelines to follow. The findings of this study have implications for organizations in knowledge-intensive fields, as they can use this knowledge to create knowledge sharing and management strategies to improve their overall performance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2304_07737
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Pitfalls in Effective Knowledge Management: Insights from an International Information Technology Organization
Koivisto, Kalle
Taipalus, Toni
Computers and Society
K.4.2; K.4.3
Knowledge is considered an essential resource for organizations. For organizations to benefit from their possessed knowledge, knowledge needs to be managed effectively. Despite knowledge sharing and management being viewed as important by practitioners, organizations fail to benefit from their knowledge, leading to issues in cooperation and the loss of valuable knowledge with departing employees. This study aims to identify hindering factors that prevent individuals from effectively sharing and managing knowledge and understand how to eliminate these factors. Empirical data were collected through semi-structured group interviews from 50 individuals working in an international large IT organization. This study confirms the existence of a gap between the perceived importance of knowledge management and how little this importance is reflected in practice. Several hindering factors were identified, grouped into personal social topics, organizational social topics, technical topics, environmental topics, and interrelated social and technical topics. The presented recommendations for mitigating these hindering factors are focused on improving employees' actions, such as offering training and guidelines to follow. The findings of this study have implications for organizations in knowledge-intensive fields, as they can use this knowledge to create knowledge sharing and management strategies to improve their overall performance.
title Pitfalls in Effective Knowledge Management: Insights from an International Information Technology Organization
topic Computers and Society
K.4.2; K.4.3
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.07737