Effects of Information & Communication Technologies on Knowledge Transfer: An Employee Perspective

Abstract

In recent years there has been a major direction in treating knowledge as an organizational benefit. Literature suggests that if properly managed, knowledge can be meaningful to develop organizational strength and innovation. Researchers and practitioners have identified knowledge transfer within an organization as an important process. They suggest that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) play a central role in an organizations knowledge transfer. However, there is a certain risk associated with giving knowledge transfer (KT) a strictly technological approach, as it is not the IT solutions that create value, it is still the users. We therefore wanted to understand how different ICT affect the communication of knowledge from an employee‟s perspective. To elaborate this issue we conducted several qualitative interviews within a knowledge intensive company. We found that perceived attractiveness of ICT in supporting knowledge transfer depends not only on characteristics of ICT but to a great deal on the type of knowledge that is to be transferred as well as job and task specifics.