Although the concept of knowledge work has been around for fifty years and many interventions have been made in order to support this type of work, information is scarce on the effects of such interventions. This paper presents the results of a multiple-case study consisting of seven cases related to six European organisations and one network of organisations on the topics performance, measures and plans concerning knowledge maturing. The paper lays out the design of the empirical study, the methods used, the results we gained and the interpretation that we performed on the basis of the results. We collected a number of reasons why organisations deem themselves as outperforming others with respect to knowledge maturing, measures that have proven successful when being employed in a certain constellation or are planned by the organisations. Out of those, we were able to elicit levers and clearly describe the effects those levers are per-ceived to create with respect to general handling of knowledge and their effects on knowledge maturing.
In team collaboration we deal with collaboration among team members that may either belong to the same enterprise (intra-enterprise collaboration) or among team members belonging to different companies (e.g., in research projects). Social media provide an efficient and accessible means of encouraging and
supporting team members working together on shared objects, i.e., performing collaborative tasks within these teams. Due to ease of use and access, especially small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may profit a lot from social media in team collaboration. Based on a number of case studies on the application of social media in SMEs, we analyze the adoption and implementation, the motivation of team members and their benefit, and success factors of the utilization of social media for team collaboration. To provide a set of case studies that allow for detailed comparison and in-depth analysis of multiple case studies, a standardized case study structure is introduced.
This article aims at providing better understanding of the applicability of Semantic Web tools and technologies in practice. It introduces a case study of the use of semantic technologies for extraction, integration and meaningful search and retrieval of expertise data, as an example of the new approaches to data integration and information management. In particular, the paper discusses the process of building expert profiles in a form of ontology database by integrating competences from structured and unstructured sources. The results of the case study show that emerging Semantic Web technologies such as the OWL 2, SPARQL, SPIN rule language, and public vocabularies such as FOAF, DOAC, bibTeX, Dublin Core and other can be used for building individual and enterprise competence models. The proposed approach extends the functionalities of existing enterprise information systems and offers possibilities for development of future Internet services. This allows organizations to express their core competences and talents in a standardized, machine processable and understandable format, and hence facilitates their integration in the European Research Area and beyond.
Based on many analyses at enterprises over the past years we see that the economy nowadays asks for efficient and sustainable solutions in knowledge management (KM). Thus, we propose to follow the principle of value orientation also in managing knowledge regarding that there are different types of business processes with different demand for KM. To confirm this fact and to deduce adequate procedures, we conducted a case study at a logistics service provider introducing the innovative method of knowledge-based value stream mapping.
Service oriented architectures (SOAs) are a new paradigm in IT-management. This paper presents an SOA-implementation in the intranet portal of a 520-employee research institute, which was launched to accompany parallel knowledge-management (KM) activities. Furthermore it explains the benefits of an SOA-based IT-landscape for KM-activities.
Although co-located project teams from within one organisation can have difficulties to work together effectively and efficiently, the challenges are significantly increased in a team that consists of people from different organisations that work from different physical locations. In this paper we share our experiences of introducing new software tools (a project wiki and Skype) to support distributed project work and describe good practices, tips and tricks for the use of the new tools, also in relation to the existing toolset.
Besides typical challenges related to knowledge management (KM), EADS Military Aircraft is facing some specific challenges resulting from the company’s history as well as from its position in the military environment. This descriptive case study reports on the specific challenges and state-of-the-art of KM within a military company and presents some KM initiatives related to these challenges. Furthermore, challenges are related to corresponding concepts and criteria for selecting specific methodologies to tackle upcoming challenges. Finally, the authors are concluding this paper with several key success factors for KM within this environment and give an overview of the next steps.
The term knowledge management (KM) has lost most of its magic during the past few years: While knowledge has been identified as an important resource and key factor for productivity gains and innovation in organizations, there seems to be no generally applicable way to utilize this resource. One central problem is that knowledge – in contrast to information – must be seen as an internal resource that is often implicit and bound to human actors. This makes it hard to identify, localize and evaluate knowledge, and even harder to share or transfer it. Another problem is the question of willingness: Are actors in organizations willing to share their knowledge? And why should they? In this paper we present results of a field study that was conducted within a major national industrial association. The study focused on knowledge intense processes among the association and its member companies.
Knowledge management solutions relying on central repositories sometimes have not met expectations, since users often create knowledge ad-hoc using their individual vocabulary and using their own decentral IT infrastructure (e.g., their laptop). To improve knowledge management for such decentralized and individualized knowledge work, it is necessary to, first, provide a corresponding IT infrastructure and to, second, deal with the harmonization of different vocabularies/ ontologies. In this paper, we briefly sketch the technical peer-to-peer platform that we have built, but then we focus on the harmonization of the participating ontologies. Thereby, the objective of this harmonization is to avoid the worst incongruencies by having users share a core ontology that they can expand for local use at their will and individual needs. The task that then needs to be solved is one of distributed, loosely-controlled and evolving engineering of ontologies. In this paper we present a corresponding process template and a case study.
We have developed a concept for a Skills Management instrument and have introduced it in a pilot area within a large engineering company. The instrument was designed to serve a broad range of purposes, including support for Human Resource development planning, expert search and strategic planning. As implementation and maintenance on a larger scale would have produced considerable effort, the instrument was reduced and focused on one particular goal, namely a more effective employment of development measures. We discuss some conjectures of why designing Skills Management as an “all-purpose” tool might be an unrealistic endeavor.
Case Studies into the CoP Theory-Practice Gap
Communities of Practice (CoPs) are among the most promising concepts to promote the genesis, evolution and exchange of knowledge in organisations. However, there is a gap between CoP theories and their implementation in companies. Our case studies of four attempts to introduce CoP-related structures show that the different management principles lying behind can systematically be analysed in at least two dimensions, technology “vs.” the social and exchange “vs.” production. We argue that the choice is not contingent, but that an emphasis on the social and the creative production of new knowledge leads to more productive structures in the area and in the sense of knowledge intensive services.