Thinning Knowledge: An Interpretive Field Study of Knowledge-Sharing Practices of Firms in Three Multinational Contexts
Knowledge is often tacit and "sticky", i.e. highly context-specific and therefore costly to transfer to a different setting. This paper examines the methods used by firms to facilitate cross-site knowledge sharing by "thinning" knowledge, that is, by stripping knowledge of its co...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Others |
| Language: | en |
| Published: |
Sage
2010
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://epub.wu.ac.at/3860/1/KM_JOMI7_main_text.pdf http://epub.wu.ac.at/3860/2/KM_JOMI7_Tables_and_Figures.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1056492610370366 |
| Summary: | Knowledge is often tacit and "sticky", i.e. highly context-specific and therefore costly to transfer to a different setting. This paper examines the methods used by firms to facilitate cross-site knowledge sharing by "thinning" knowledge, that is, by stripping knowledge of its contextual richness. An interview-based study of cross-site knowledge sharing in three industries (consulting, industrial materials, and high-tech products) indicated that highly developed knowledge-sharing systems do not necessarily involve extensive codification and recombination of personalized knowledge. Many multinational firms evidently conceive their knowledge-sharing systems with more modest objectives in mind than any large-scale "learning spirals" featuring iterative conversion of personalized knowledge into codified knowledge and vice-versa. A typology of knowledge-thinning systems was derived by interpreting the field study results from the perspective of knowledge-thinning methods used in earlier eras of history. The typology encompasses topographical, statistical and diagrammatic knowledge-thinning systems. (authors' abstract) |
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