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.