Questioning Knowledge Transfer And Learning Processes Across R&D Project Teams

This paper addresses popular notions of the generation and sharing of knowledge in organisations commonly described as knowledge transfer. We question the appropriateness of the notion of transfer of knowledge for increasing our understanding of knowledge creation and learning processes in R&D organisations. We suggest that this notion of "transfer", limits our understanding of the important interactive processes used to generate knowledge and to enhance the spread of knowledge. Findings from interviews with senior research scientists challenge the notion of knowledge transfer and instead provide support for the notion of knowledge as constructed meaning in an arena with multiple players and social interactions

Knowledge management and organizational learning: Strategies and practices for innovation

In a globalised competitive world, organisations are looking for ways to gain or maintain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Of the important challenges facing firms and organizations three are of prime importance: (1) for organizations to know what they know and maximise the transfer of this knowledge throughout their organisation; (2) finding ways of working which assist in maintaining their competitive advantage and finding new ways of gaining competitive advantage often through innovation, and (3) continuously learning through the exploitation of existing resources and capabilities and the exploration of new resources and capabilities to improve their performance. These challenges are interrelated. This paper investigates some of the extensive literature on innovation and knowledge management and suggests propositions for future research

Software knowledge management using wikis : a needs and features analysis

Estágio realizado na StrongstepDocumento confidencial. Não pode ser disponibilizado para consultaTese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 201

weSPOT: A personal and social approach to inquiry-based learning

weSPOT is a new European initiative proposing a novel approach for personal and social inquiry-based learning in secondary and higher education. weSPOT aims at enabling students to create their mash-ups out of cloud based tools and services in order to perform scientific investigations. Students will also be able to share their inquiry accomplishments in social networks and receive feedback from the learning environment and their peers. This paper presents the research framework of the weSPOT project, as well as the initial inquiry-based learning scenarios that will be piloted by the project in real-life educational settings

Managing Knowledge in a Distributed Decision Making Context

This paper considers the role of electronic communication in the creation and distribution of knowledge, and in particular, the creation and sharing of personalised knowledge. Personalised knowledge or "intellectual capital" is perhaps a least understood but most important asset of modern organisations. This paper reveals the creation and sharing of personalised knowledge in a network organisation. The network organisation investigated in this paper relies on electronic communication in a distributed decision making context to leverage the skills and intellect of its key professionals. This paper investigates electronic group meetings that take place on this electronic social space to analyse key processes of knowledge creation. Implications for managing distributed personalised knowledge are discussed and conclusions drawn with respect to the key decision support systems functionalities required for managing knowledge in situations where decision making is distributed and takes place on an electronic social space.Personalised Knowledge;c entrality;communication infrastructure;distributed decision support;electronic social space;prestige

Knowledge processes in virtual teams:consolidating the evidence

This article takes stock of the current state of research on knowledge processes in virtual teams (VTs) and consolidates the extent research findings. Virtual teams, on the one hand, constitute important organisational entities that facilitate the integration of diverse and distributed knowledge resources. On the other hand, collaborating in a virtual environment creates particular challenges for the knowledge processes. The article seeks to consolidate the diverse evidence on knowledge processes in VTs with a specific focus on identifying the factors that influence the effectiveness of these knowledge processes. The article draws on the four basic knowledge processes outlined by Alavi and Leidner (2001) (i.e. creation, transferring, storage/retrieval and application) to frame the investigation and discuss the extent research. The consolidation of the existing research findings allows us to recognise the gaps in the understanding of knowledge processes in VTs and identify the important avenues for future research