Expertise Sharing in a Heterogeneous Organizational Environment

The term knowledge management (KM) has lost most of its magic during the past few years: While knowledge has been identified as an important resource and key factor for productivity gains and innovation in organizations, there seems to be no generally applicable (and easy) way to utilize this resource. In this paper we present results of a field study that was conducted within a major European industrial association. The study focused on knowledge intense processes among the association and its member companies which were supposed to be improved by KM strategies and systems. The organizational setting appears to be unique in different ways: A grown and highly decentralized organizational structure, goods that exclusively consist of human and social capital and a distinct mutual unawareness of competencies and responsibilities within the organization define our field of application.