Fostering the reuse of knowledge in project based organizations

Fostering the reuse of knowledge in project based organizations

Anninos, P.

Verbraeck, A. (mentor)
Lukosch, S. (mentor)
Groenleer, M. (mentor)
Pegels, V. (mentor)
Buttler, T. (mentor)

Technology, Policy and Management

Systems Engineering

Management of Technology

2012-08-20

In the contemporary business world, more and more organizations especially in the engineering domain structure their working processes around projects. These organizations are called project-based-organizations (PBOs) and have established distinct work processes to successfully execute the projects that they undertake. The working processes in the early phases of a project are quite important in adding value to the project, and are called Front End Development (FED) of projects. Knowledge Management is a practice that adds value in FED of projects, since knowledge is an important resource that provides PBOs with competitive advantage to survive in harsh competition. A knowledge management strategy to achieve learning across projects, is codification; converting tacit knowledge from people’s minds, to explicit knowledge in documents. In a strife to increase value in their projects, PBOs are looking for ways to improve reuse of explicit knowledge in the FED of their projects: a practical problem. From a scientific point of view, a clear scientific mapping of the factors that support or hinder explicit knowledge reuse in the FED of projects, and what such a mapping entails for a strategy to foster reuse of explicit knowledge in PBOs in the engineering domain is not present yet. Therefore the main research question for this research is: What factors support or hinder explicit knowledge reuse in the front end development of projects, and how can project based organizations in the engineering domain exploit them aiming to improve value in projects during their front end development? The selected approach in this research for improving reuse of explicit knowledge, is the identification and categorization of the factors that support or hinder reuse of explicit knowledge, and their respective exploitation. The design science research framework is used to guide this research approach: exploration of the environment, development & evaluation of the designed artifact, and contribution to the knowledge base. The environment of the present research is the Technology department of Heerema Marine Contractors. To manage the research process, the principles of process management are adopted; create an open and safe decision making process during the research.

knowledge reuse
knowledge management
project based organizations
Front End Development of projects
Heerema Marine Contractors

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:bf12bb63-9b88-4f8d-b971-af34b62b6015

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2012 Anninos, P.