Knowledge Transfer: Can KM Make it Happen?

Today’s knowledge managers face considerable pressure to mobilize knowledge to contribute to business value at many different levels in organizations (i.e., strategic, procedural and tactical) and to do this cost effectively. With such an enterprise focus it is no wonder that most organizations have turned to technology and large-scale initiatives to facilitate knowledge transfer. Yet organizations are made up of individuals who have very different approaches to how they acquire, use and share knowledge, even within a team or business unit. As one CKO wrote: “Knowledge cultures vary not only between organizations but person-by-person within organizations. Monolithic ‘one size fits all ’ knowledge solutions usually turn out to fit no one. You need to provide a variety of … knowledge mechanisms to meet the diverse knowledge needs of your people. ” (Smith & McKeen 2001). In fact, studies repeatedly show that most knowledge transfer takes place informally between individuals (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2000). There are a wide variety of social, organizational, managerial and technological factors which (ideally) must all intersect to create a zone within which knowledge transfer i