In PBO they consist in “formal and informal mechanisms for sharing, integrating, interpreting and applying know-what, know-how, and know-why embedded in individuals and groups that will aid in the performance of project tasks” ( Boh 2007 ). It can be follow a codification perspective, by codifying and storing knowledge in databases and documents, which allows many people to retrieve codified knowledge without having to contact the person who originally developed it (Hansen, Nohria, & Tierney 1999 AU58: The in-text citation "Hansen, Nohria, & Tierney 1999" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ). The alternative is a personalization approach, where knowledge is closely attached to the person who developed it and is shared mainly through direct person-to-person contacts ( Boh 2007) .
Published in Chapter:
From Project's Information Management to Project-Based Organizational Learning: The Role of Knowledge Sharing
Maria Almeida (University of Porto, Portugal) and António Lucas Soares (University of Porto, Portugal)
Copyright: © 2015
|Pages: 22
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-7536-0.ch011
Abstract
Project-based organizations have characteristics that raise additional barriers to information management, knowledge sharing, and to organizational learning. The main causes of this are inadequate information architectures and governance, poor collaborative culture, and lack of organization-wide information management strategies. This chapter presents a comprehensive basis to understand the information and knowledge-sharing practices in PBO, as well as the methods and tools that information professionals and project managers should have in mind when performing their tasks. For that, literatures are reviewed focusing on the explanation of the processes of knowledge creation and sharing leading to organizational learning. The main conclusion is that a knowledge-sharing strategy in a PBO should include a set of mechanisms that address a customized mix of the codification and personalization dimensions and that strategies for collaborative information management should be used as enablers for embedding knowledge sharing within the organizational practices and culture.