Knowledge management practices in project-based organisations

The paper aims to describe the difficulties in knowledge sharing in project management and suggest solutions to these difficulties. Following a review of knowledge sharing in the literature, workshops are conducted with expert project management practitioners in 2006; in addition, a questionnaire survey of the participants of the workshops is conducted. The study finds that Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) had different knowledge-sharing arrangements from those of Multinational Corporations (MNCs). The work of SMEs was more likely to be based on company-level knowledge sharing and the commitment of employees to projects was less marked. SMEs did not use formal project management systems to manage their projects; rather, they relied on the knowledge of individuals. In all of the companies studied, the most important challenges were cultural – how managers enable learning and how people can learn from mistakes most effectively. The structural factors in Knowledge Management (KM) were also of importance. The study is highly context-oriented and local. There is a need for in-depth interviews regarding the conditions of knowledge sharing in project business. The study makes a contribution to a better understanding of the knowledge-sharing conditions in project business in SMEs and MNCs.