Knowledge is Power -or- Tacit Knowledge Management

Today we are living in a knowledge-society where knowledge sharing is of utmost importance for companies in order to keep their competitiveness. Therefore, it is a much debated issue - in both the academic and the corporate world - in what way one should handle the knowledge which continuously is created within companies. The aim of this study is to describe how practitioners share tacit knowledge within a large knowledge company. By that we aim to get an answer to how the chosen theoretical models regarding tacit knowledge relate to the empirical world. In this study we will focus on tacit knowledge in contrast to explicit one. Further we will not study knowledge sharing between organisations but concentrate on this process within them. We chose to approach the purpose of this study in a qualitative way by conducting interviews within a large knowledge-firm. The company was Systems Integration within the Ericsson-group where we held interviews with four persons familiar with knowledge. Furthermore, we have perceived that theories concerning the knowledge-sharing process are relatively fragmented. Therefore, we have built a model which links the different theories together in order to give a better overview of the whole process. Having conducted the study, we found that the case company to some extent handlesknowledge in line with the theories chosen. Furthermore, we came to the conclusion that some modifications in the model are necessary in order to achieve a successful knowledge-sharing process