The knowledge advantage: Tracing and testing the impact of knowledge characteristics and relationship ties on project performance.

摘要

This study considers how knowledge is integrated from different sources—some internal and some external of the firm—to generate new knowledge and thus impact project performance. Prior studies in knowledge theory research typically focus on knowledge sourcing, knowledge integration, internal knowledge transfer, or external knowledge transfer. This study takes an integrative approach, combining these perspectives and testing for differences between external and internal sources. Additionally, this study tests the mainly Pacific-American school of thought that it is tacit knowledge that offers the main source of competitive advantage, versus the mainly European school of thought that it is not tacit knowledge—easily lost through employee turnover and job switching—but it is the explicit knowledge that has been codified, which builds the foundation for firm competitiveness. Data were collected via personal interviews based on a structured survey of project managers in a knowledge-intensive firm. The results show that project performance was positively related to the frequency and closeness of source, and difficulty of the “knowledge element” described in the survey. In this study, the source and the level of tacitness of the knowledge element were found to be unimportant. One implication is that strong ties to a knowledge element source are important for project success, but distinctions between internal and external sources, and degree of codification, are not. This study also implies that in this day and age of knowledge management and chief knowledge officers, important knowledge may already have been codified inside the firm, thus alleviating the past focus on transfer of tacit knowledge.