Exploring Knowledge Implementation in Project Teams - Insights from a Qualitative Case Study in a High-Tech Industry MNC

Abstract

Existing literature underscores the significance of knowledge management (KM) in organisations for enhancing performance and gaining competitive advantages. Despite scholars acknowledging that knowledge implementation activities realise the value of KM, little is known of how these activities can be affected through organisational structures. With an increasing amount of assessing knowledge-related activities in project teams, the need for uncovering the relationship between project teams and knowledge implementation should no longer be neglected. Yet, there is limited research on how project teams affect knowledge implementation. By conducting a qualitative case study within a high-tech industry MNC, this study illuminates knowledge implementation within project teams and uncovers how this organisational structure affects knowledge implementation activities. This study identified 15 determinants of how project teams affect knowledge implementation, sorted in three groups: individual, team, and socialisation determinants. The analysis of these findings showed that a holistic assessment of these groups is necessary to understand the interplay between project team context and knowledge implementation. In line with existing KM theory, this study found that knowledge implementation is directly affected by determinants that reside within the individual. This study identified intrinsic motivation, time allocation, prioritisation and the ability to align new knowledge with existing operations as directly affecting knowledge implementation. This study develops existing literature by finding that synergies within teams and between teams affect these individual determinants, therefore having indirect effects on knowledge implementation. This implies that managers need to account for the influence of project teams, if KM strategies are expected to increase performance.