Mediation of accumulated knowledge inside IS programs

Abstract

Objectives of the Study:

The purpose of this study is to build a model of how knowledge can be transferred within IS programs. More specifically, it seeks to identify how knowledge accumulated in an IS project can be mediated to another project in the same program.

Academic background and methodology:

The study builds upon theories from the fields of organizational learning and organizational knowledge creation. In order to study the phenomenon in preferred depth, the research was executed as a single-case study via triangulation. The study analyzes the learning and knowledge transfer between two consecutive projects from a case company's master data management program. In addition to the ways the organization pursued knowledge transfer, the study seeks to identify how the accumulated knowledge in the prior project is observable in the subsequent one. Being a case study, the theory formulation was done simultaneously with the observations. The model utilized in the study was built upon the 4Is framework by Zollo and Winter (2002).

Findings and conclusions:

The study results in a framework describing unidirectional inter-project knowledge mediation in programs. It consists of two projects, both having separate individual and group level learning stocks and a shared organizational level learning stock. While the individual level is capable of harnessing and transferring only tacit and the organizational level only explicit knowledge, the group learning stock is able to mediate both and serves as a platform for knowledge conversion (tacit to explicit or vice versa). The study states that in addition to the current trend of studying explicit knowledge codification, research on organizational knowledge transfer should acknowledge the existence of two other knowledge mediation methods: reflection and allocation. The study identified all the theorized streams for knowledge transfer with the case company - except for the mediation of purely tacit knowledge on group level.