Knowledge Management in Knowledge Intensive Firms – Case Gofore Account Owner’s Booklet

Abstract

This master’s thesis covers the process of creating an account owner’s booklet for the case company Gofore Oyj. This booklet works as an artefact for knowledge-transfer within the case company. The research is focused around knowledge-management in knowledge intensive firms, where the case company operates as an example of an IT-consulting based professional services firm. The case company has experienced very quick growth in the years leading up to this research and has thus found itself facing difficulties in efficient knowledge-management.

The study is conducted qualitatively with the Action Design Research (ADR) method, which is used to study the work of account owners within the case company. This method analyses and structures the way in which the account owner’s booklet is created and researched. This artefact is then used to examine the knowledge-transfer and knowledge-management within the case company. Due to the iterative nature of the ADR method, the ability to change the scope of the research accordingly with the findings during the project was crucial to successfully carrying out the research.

This research argues that the case company should adopt a mainly codified knowledge-management strategy. Conducting this type of research is an efficient way to involve many parties from the organization to participate in this type of research, which leads to buy-in from relevant parties. The end artefact of the study is used to document and further develop the work of account owners within the company.