Global Teams Using Local Knowledge: A Case Study in Latin American Regional Development

Purpose: This paper aims to outline the central notions of the regional development paradigm, and seeks to identify its convergence with Human Capital processes and the mechanisms involved in capturing and re-using knowledge across a range of business units based in different regions of Mexico. It primarily focuses on the roles played by people, culture, team building and organization that create knowledge management practices and informal networks. This involves testing and refining a conceptual model and research instruments developed in an initial scoping study that looks at diverse dimensions of Human Capital. Scope: It will focus on an integrated perspective of knowledge (intangible) capitals that are leveraged different business units, the generation and capture of learning within the project team, and inward/outward knowledge transfer to and from other groups. The paper will attempt to describe how the project develops a propositional framework and survey instrument for the further exploration and analysis of KM in relation to capturing learning across projects. Method: The paper is the first of three case studies of KM practices that stem from a survey of attitudes across the collaborating organisations, which are drawn from different sectors and involves the application of the conceptual framework and survey instrument developed in the scoping study. In addition, a number of projects are selected from across the range of organisations and sectors they represent for detailed and in-depth case study analysis. The study will involve qualitative research within a sample of process innovation project teams drawn from two different organizations to provide intra-firm and cross-sector comparisons. This will investigate the process of organizational learning and the interactions between key elements outlined above. This will be complemented by a quantitative, survey-based study of a much larger sample of project teams, which will aim to identify critical relationships between these key elements and consequent implications for the effectiveness of KM practices.