Knowledge management in contractors: Developing communities of practice to support the re-use of knowledge

The management of knowledge is currently assigned outmost importance in future competitive strategies for the construction sector. At least in Denmark handling of the knowledge component is seen as central in interpretation of the sectors future. This is even seen as a national task also encompassing knowledge producing institutions like the technical universities. The focus in this paper will however be on how knowledge management and knowledge production function in everyday processes of a contracting firm. Knowledge Management is a contested and emergent term. Both in academia and amongst consultants and practitioners multiple definitions flourish. The definition used here draws on learning organization approaches, there distinguish between the learning and the management of learning. In this case the distinction is between knowledge processes and knowledge management. Knowledge Management is therefore defined as management activities that frame and guide knowledge processes in an organization. The paper draws on a socio political and cultural understanding. Especially the concept of community of practice (c-o-p) is mobilized here (Wenger 1998). It is argued that multiple communities of practices might be in play in contractors engineering processes. The context is seen as an complex interplay between multiple communities. Case material from an ongoing study of the knowledge processes in a contractor shows how knowledge resides and exists in a number of forms in such companies. The knowledge production travels through several organizational cultures and takes the form of political processes of negotiating knowledge claims. Knowledge management strategies often encompasses a strong IT-component, but the c-o-p approach sees aspects like organization, culture, training and office design as more viable. The approach is that joining information technology with the human resource oriented tools is but a necessary precondition for success in KM-efforts. Moreover the relative overemphasis on “circumstantial” frames for knowledge production and too little focus on dynamics in knowledge producing processes has to be corrected. In contrast soft tools used directly in the processes of the customer oriented projects is probably going to be central for the contractor.