Translating customer needs into project decisions: identifying knowledge brokers in project networks

摘要

It has been long since Francis Bacon called knowledge power, Contemporary scientists indisputably regard knowledge as a key strategic organizational asset where access to the right knowledge is real power. Organizational research has repeatedly found that to remain successful, organizations must efficiently and effectively create, identify, capture, and disseminate knowledge held in their routines, processes, databases, and people and then strategically leverage this knowledge (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). However, these processes rely on social relationships within organizations - relationships being channels through which knowledge is processed and furthered. It is, therefore, important that the nature of knowledge networks and characteristics of disseminators (knowledge brokers) are understood well by managers.