Knowledge Management And Project-Based Knowledge: A Model And Preliminary Empirical Results

Author: Blaize Horner Reich (SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY), Andrew Gemino (SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY), Chris Sauer (OXFORD UNIVERSITY)

Track 30 - Project Organizing General Track (3)

This paper draws upon a wide range of literatures to develop and test a model of knowledge management in IT-enabled business projects. We conceptualize knowledge management as a three dimensional concept comprising knowledge stock, enabling environment and knowledge practices. We suggest that knowledge management enables the creation and alignment of three types of project-based knowledge that are critical to achieving desired business outcomes: technical design knowledge, organizational change knowledge and business value knowledge. We then test this model with survey data from 199 IT project managers from around the world. The results statistically support the model’s conceptualisation of the key constructs and show that knowledge management within IT projects contributes to the creation and alignment of the important project-based knowledges. This study contributes to research into IT projects by 1) integrating the wide variety of knowledge management literature into a single managerially-useful construct, 2) developing a model which connects knowledge management, through knowledge practices to the realization of business value in IT projects, and 3) demonstrating the validity of the model, its constructs and measures. The model, when further developed, has the potential to guide project managers, client managers, and project sponsors towards the achievement of business value.

Keywords: Knowledge, Project, Value