Assessment Of Knowledge Management Practices In Project-Oriented Business

Int. J. Project Organisation and Management, Vol. 5, No. 3, 2013 279
Copyright © 2013 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Assessment of knowledge management practices in
project-oriented business
Mian M. Ajmal*
College of Business Administration,
Abu Dhabi University,
P.O. Box 59911, Abu Dhabi, UAE
E-mail: Mian.Ajmal@adu.ac.ae
*Corresponding author
Maqsood Ahmad Sandhu
Department of Business Administration,
Faculty of Business and Economics,
UAE University,
P.O. Box 15551, Al-Ain, UAE
E-mail: maqsoods@uaeu.ac.ae
Fauzia Jabeen
College of Business Administration,
Abu Dhabi University,
P.O. Box 59911, Abu Dhabi, UAE
E-mail: fauzia.jabeen@adu.ac.ae
Abstract: The rationale of this paper is to illustrate how the management of
knowledge in temporary organisations is being carried out in many industries.
It aims to examine knowledge management (KM) practices in and between
projects. Online survey was conducted to collect the data from project
managers and assistant mangers in Finland. It is found out that majority of
project managers have intermediate level of intimacy with knowledge
management and mostly project completion reports are consulted for capturing
information. For information dissemination, lectures/seminars are organised. It
is also stressed by the respondents that humans (employees) have more
importance than other technologies for successful KM. Further, research should
include large-scale surveys to systematically analyse the successful project KM
practices in different types of projects, organisations, and industries located in
other cultural areas could help extracting possible effects caused by cultural or
societal influences on KM practices in projects. It is proposed that project
managers should put more emphasis to synchronise KM practices with
common and widely accepted realities about project KM programmes. It
portraits the real picture of KM practices of project-based organisations.
Keywords: knowledge management; KM; project-oriented business;
information management.

280 M.M. Ajmal et al.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Ajmal, M.M.,
Sandhu, M.A. and Jabeen, F. (2013) ‘Assessment of knowledge management
practices in project-oriented business’, Int. J. Project Organisation and
Management, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp.279–292.
Biographical notes: Mian M. Ajmal is currently working as an Assistant
Professor at Abu Dhabi University, Abu Dhabi, UAE. He holds DSc
(Economics and Business Administration) and MBA degrees. He has been
involved in several research projects in the last few years. His research interests
pertain to knowledge, project and supply chain management, entrepreneurship,
internationalisation of firms along with organisational behaviour and culture.
He has been publishing his research articles in several journals like Project
Management Journal, Knowledge Management Journal, Business Process
Management Journal, International Journal of Performance and Productivity
Management, International Journal of Innovation and Learning and The TQM
Journal.
Maqsood Sandhu is an Associate Professor at Oulu Business School,
University of Oulu, Finland. Currently, he is working at the Department of
Management, College of Business and Economics, United Arab Emirates
University, Al Ain. He obtained his PhD from Swedish School of Economics
and Business Administration in Management. He has been working for over
five years in project-based industry. He is the author or co-author of about
20 international journal articles and book chapters. He has presented over
50 papers and published about 40 articles in international conferences. He is
interested in doing research in the areas of project management, knowledge
management and entrepreneurship. He is also the Head of Innovation labs at
Emirates Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Fauzia Jabeen is working as an Assistant Professor of Management at
Abu Dhabi University. She is involved in research projects with Abu Dhabi
Accountability Authority (ADAA) in UAE and her research has been published
in international journals. Her areas of research interests include women
entrepreneurship and SMEs, assessment centres, knowledge management,
strategic management and corporate social responsibility.
1 Introduction
In present decade, more firms are organising their business in terms of projects; indeed,
project-based business has become an accepted business strategy among the range of
potential business practices available to firms. On the other hand, knowledge is a
significant asset for firms in the time of global competition. Organisations are becoming
more knowledge intensive and they are hiring minds more than hands. Since knowledge
is now universally recognised as a critical competitive asset, and interest in knowledge
management (KM) has increased in most companies. The value of knowledge
and its management are vital to establishing shared understanding. Members in
multi-disciplinary multi-national projects often need to have shared understanding in
order to achieve their objectives. But, there are intrinsic challenges in establishing mutual
understanding in multi-disciplinary multi-national projects (Fox, 2009).
Although the benefits of KM have long been recognised in project-oriented
businesses, but the effectiveness of KM varies considerably among these organisations.

Assessment of knowledge management practices in project-oriented business 281
Due to their temporary and unique nature, projects are different from standard
organisational processes. They are characterised by discontinuous personal gatherings
and job contents, a lack of organisational routines, a short-term orientation and a
cross-disciplinary integration of internal and external experts (Prencipe and Tell, 2001;
Schindler and Eppler, 2003). So, the ability to manage what project-oriented companies
know is often constrained by their capabilities with respect to creating, valuing,
absorbing, and sharing knowledge. KM in project-oriented businesses is also a complex
task. This is because project teams often consist of people with diverse skills working
together for a limited period of time; indeed, a project team often includes members who
have never worked together previously and do not expect to work together again. In these
circumstances, effective KM is complex, but essential.
However, a commitment to effective KM in the context of a project-oriented business
strategy is emerging as a potent means of establishing and sustaining a competitive
advantage. Yet, KM is often considered a sub-optimal task within these organisations
because knowledge is created in one project, and then subsequently misplaced because
project-based companies often lack of organisational mechanisms for the knowledge
acquired in one project to be transferred and used by other projects (Ajmal and Koskinen,
2008). Projects almost invariably involve a variety of diversely skilled people who come
together for a specific period of time to accomplish certain unique, unpredictable, and
complex objectives. These distinctive characteristics indicate that project-based firms
require a particular approach to KM and learning activities that differs significantly
from general KM practices. The composite and unpredictable environment of projects
generates serious challenges for project managers and project-based organisations
(Hanisch et al., 2009). Knowledge represents one of the key project capabilities that
enable projects and project-based organisations to deal with these challenges. Knowledge
transfer across projects moves knowledge from project sources to project recipients with
the objective of improving performance and capabilities but most of the times they are
not so efficient in their KM practices. Therefore, this paper aims to portrait the real
picture of KM practices in temporary organisations by presenting the results of a survey
study of Finish project-based companies. It explores the ways in which these companies
handle their knowledge and examines various sources that are used for KM practices in
such companies.
The paper in following sections will first introduce the concept of KM practices with
their objectives and their success criteria. It will further describe more specifically the
nature of KM practices in project-based environments by discussing knowledge
activity in different project stages and its existing challenges. Then, it explains the
methodological considerations along with the results of the study. Finally, it winds up the
discussion of the results with conclusion section.
2 Theoretical background
2.1 KM practices
The emergence of project-based organisations and the resulting questioning of company
structure focused on centres of competence necessitate a new portrayal of organisational
knowledge (Bourgeon and Devinney, 2010). Many organisations are taking great interest
in KM and many are launching KM practices. Consistently, KM has been presented as a

compelling strategy for organisations to improve their business processes and gain
competitiveness (Chua and Lam, 2005) because KM supports innovation by helping
organisations achieve more productively. It also promotes and regulates the cycle of
external innovation adoption and its diffusion and improved performance results
(Maqsood and Finegan, 2009). Furthermore, the outcome of implementing KM has been
reported to be remarkably successful either in terms of financial savings, revenues
generated or the level of user acceptance. According to Yeh et al. (2006), in the process
of carrying out KM, enterprises have to face the varying conditions of corporate culture,
workflow processes and the integration of group members’ knowledge. They also need
strong support from top management because it is possible that during the process
they will encounter resistance from employees. However, before the launch of KM
practices all the employees of company or in case of projects, project members should
be known about the objectives and results of KM practices in their companies and
projects.
2.2 Objectives of KM practices
According to Wiig (1997), there are two types of KM objectives the organisations can
pursue:
1 to make the enterprise act as intelligently as possible to secure its viability and
overall success
2 to otherwise realise the best value of its knowledge assets.
Most of organisations effectively build, transform, organise, deploy and use knowledge
assets to accomplish these goals. In simple words, the overall rationale of KM is to
maximise the organisation’s effectiveness and profits from its knowledge possessions and
to renovate them persistently. From a managerial perspective KM is to understand, focus
on, and manage systematic, explicit, and deliberate knowledge building, renewal, and
application. There are four areas of emphasis for systematic KM (Wiig, 1997):
1 top-down monitoring and facilitation of knowledge-related activities
2 creation and maintenance of the knowledge infrastructure
3 renewing, organising, and transforming knowledge assets
4 leveraging (using) knowledge assets to realise their value.
2.3 Successful KM practices
Davenport et al. (1998) agreed on several indicators of successful KM practices; which
are highlighted in Table 1.
It is not compulsory that companies can see these all indicators at the same time or in
the same sequence. These can vary according to the project company environment and
there are also different time spans, in which these indicators can be observed.

Table 1 Indicators of successful KM practices
Indicators Justification
Resources growth Growth in the resources attached to the project, including people and
budget.
Knowledge content
development
Development in the dimensions of knowledge content and usage
(that is, the number of documents or accesses for repositories or
participants for discussion-oriented projects).
Project survival The likelihood that the project would survive without the support of a
particular individual or two, that is, the project is an organisational
strategy, not an individual effort.
Financial return Evidence of financial return either for the KM activity itself or for the
larger organisation.
2.4 KM in projects
Knowledge can be defined as the set of skills, experiences, information and capabilities
individuals apply to solve problems (Baker et al. 1997). Knowledge can be categorised
into:
1 tacit knowledge
2 explicit knowledge (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995).
Explicit knowledge is documented, public, structured, externalised, and conscious; it has
a fixed content that can be captured and shared through information technology (IT). In
contrast, tacit knowledge resides in the perceptions and behaviour of human beings
(Duffy, 2000); it evolves from people’s interactions and requires skill and practice.
According to Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), it is often difficult to express tacit knowledge
directly in words; in these cases, the only means of presenting tacit knowledge is through
metaphors, drawings, and various forms of expression that do not involve the formal use
of language. Tacit knowledge thus refers to feelings, intuitions, and insights (Guth,
1996); it is personal, undocumented, context-sensitive, dynamically created and derived,
internalised, and experience-based (Duffy, 2000). Alavi and Leidner (1999) define KM
as a systemic and organisationally specified process for acquiring, organising and
communicating knowledge of employees so that others may make use of it to be more
efficient and productive. In wide terms, project organisations are economic firms that put
in order their activities around several comparatively isolated projects that can be treated
as separate organisational entities. These projects are temporary coordination systems in
which diversely skilled specialists work together to accomplish complex and innovative
tasks in a predetermined period of time (Grabher, 2002). Key characteristics of such kind
of organisations are; the significant interdependence of different kinds of knowledge and
skills, the complexity and unpredictability of many tasks and problems, and the
time-delimited nature of project goals and employment.
Project KM is KM in project situations and thus the link between the principles of
KM and project management (Hanisch et al., 2009). On a further broad stage, not only
knowledge within projects is part of project KM but also knowledge between different
projects and knowledge concerning projects. Knowledge within projects is directly linked
to the project management method and the communication practices in projects. Both are
strongly reliant on the project manager and the individual project management style.

Knowledge about projects denotes an impression of the project setting (the projects being
conducted or having been conducted) in an organisation. The knowledge transfer from
and between projects can be referred to as expert knowledge, methodological knowledge,
procedural knowledge, and experience knowledge. Knowledge from and between
projects contributes to the organisational knowledge base (Hanisch et al., 2009).
The appropriate activity of knowledge in projects differs along the stages of the
project life-cycle (Schindler and Eppler, 2003). Knowledge from subsequent projects,
information about the buying team, and knowledge about technology and markets are
examples of knowledge practice that are of particular importance for the early phases of
the project. Knowledge about existing (technical) solutions, experience from scheduling,
and the application of tools might be more interesting at the stage of implementation. By
analysing the linkage of knowledge types and project stages, it can be observed that
during project planning/initiation stage mostly explicit knowledge is required that can be
found from knowledge data bases or previous project completion reports. While, during
project execution stage both tacit as well as explicit knowledge is needed but along with
the use of previous knowledge there are great possibilities to create and share new tacit
and explicit knowledge at this stage, since all project experts are present and active at this
stage. Then, during project closing stage, explicit knowledge can be saved and transferred
through different knowledge data bases and lesson learnt soft wares but the tacit
knowledge created during the whole project is mostly difficult to save or share because
the project members who really posses this precious kind of knowledge are dispersed to
other projects. So, this is crucial project stage that should be given enough importance for
tacit knowledge accumulation (see Figure 1).
Figure 1 Types and activity of knowledge during different project stages
Project planning
o Previous lesson learnt
o Customer, technical
and acquisition
knowledge
o Evaluation of new
project on the bases of
lessons learnt
(feasibility, risk, mode
of implementation)
o Possible synergies
with parallel projects
Project execution
o Application of
knowledge for planning
and budgeting, proposal
preparation (pricing),
teambuilding (by
identifying knowledge
bearers)
o Resort to best-practice
documents
o Experts identification for
appropriate tasks
o Use of PM methods
(tools)
Project closing
o Archiving of lessons
learnt for future projects
o Conducing of
post-project interviews
o Analysis of new gained
knowledge
o Inclusion of new
knowledge in data bases
for future use
o Personal transfer of
experience to other
projects
o Mostly explicit knowledge is
exploited
o Lessons learnt data bases
are consulted
o Less opportunity to create
new knowledge
o Both explicit and tacit
knowledge is exploited
o Tacit knowledge of expert can
be utilized
o More opportunities for new
knowledge creation and
sharing
o Mostly explicit knowledge is
saved for future exploitation
o But tacit knowledge that
remains in experts minds, is
dispersed and rarely saved
o Crucial stage for knowledge
storing for further utilisation
Source: Hanisch et al. (2009)

However, the identification of critical knowledge and ability to exploit it is a challenge
for every project organisation (Kasiv et al., 2003). Without a certain knowledge system
and supporting culture during a project’s life cycle, knowledge assets can misplaced once
a project is completed (Ajmal et al., 2010). This results in organisational knowledge
destruction and loss of organisational learning (Kotnour, 2000). A knowledge-centred
culture is essential for effective KM practices (Migdadi, 2009). Projects always need to
maintain high performance, and to achieve sustained improvement in performance, for
the success of the project and the organisation (Davidson and Rowe, 2009). In
comparison with organisations which are supported by structure and routines to suck up
knowledge, projects do not have any supportive natural transfer mechanism and also do
not have any organisational memory because they are temporary in nature (Ajmal and
Koskinen, 2008). Planned management efforts and incentives are fundamental to the
creation, capture and transfer of knowledge in projects. It is advocated that project
managers should harmonise knowledge-sharing practices with organisational cultures in
order for the practices to be supported and protected (Ajmal et al., 2009). For example,
lessons learned have to be socialised consciously among individuals before they leave the
project. Lack of KM will make projects incapable to add any enhancement to
organisational business processes.
According to Schindler and Eppler (2003), the particular challenges of KM in
projects are caused by the inbuilt project characteristics. Projects are unique and
temporary undertakings with changing work force. Moreover, projects are often
short-term-oriented and integrating internal and external experts and knowledge. Project
participants have to adapt quickly to new conditions and contents of work. The
temporality and uniqueness is a major obstacle for organisational learning. This is
particularly true for projects which therefore lack an organisational memory, routines and
other mechanisms of organisational learning (Meyerson et al., 1996; Brusoni et al.,
1998). Project-based companies need to understand that they function as, and within,
living, ongoing processes that require inputs, outputs, and feedback (Koskinen, 2011).
From these conditions, the importance of a process of securing project knowledge for the
overall organisation seems obvious.
Until now, literature has identified the issues of KM in project environments but does
not portrait general practices of how knowledge is being managed in project-based firms
and organisations (Hall and Sapsed, 2005). Previous empirical study focuses on various
cases (Huang and Newell, 2003; Sense and Antoni, 2003) and on sole project types
(Fong, 2003) or industries (Bresnen et al., 2005). But there is no such study that has
provided common findings about the organisation, instruments, and methods of project
KM. Consequently, this paper is going to shed light on KM practices of project-based
organisation by exposing project managers’ intimacy with KM, method or tools of KM
which are being used by them, sources for knowledge determinations, systems for
information dissemination, etc.
3 Research methodology
The research sample comprised of project managers and project assistant managers level
persons working on different kinds of projects in large, medium and small Finish
project-based organisations. The survey questionnaire was electronically sent to 400
project managers and project assistant managers, randomly chosen from the list published

by the Finish Project Management Association in its website. A description explaining
the study objectives was also included in the questionnaire first page. Moreover, three
follow-up e-mails were sent approximately one, two and three weeks after the first
e-mail. A total of 41 questionnaires were answered with a response rate of almost 11%.
To be familiar with the KM practices respondents were asked several questions like
their familiarity/experience with KM, which method/tool they use for knowledge
determination, what kind of system they are currently using for capturing and
disseminating information. What is their most prominent source of information? What is
role of IT in KM as compare to humans? They were provided with different answer
options for each question to choose among these. In order to avoid a possible industry
bias, in the empirical study organisations from different industries were considered.
Furthermore, the sample comprises different projects.
4 Results and discussions
4.1 Results
Figure 2 show that most of project managers have intermediate level of
familiarity/expertise with KM. Some have responded their expertise in KM is at
introductory stage. Anyhow, there are few who have acknowledged that their KM
expertise is of advance level.
Figure 2 Familiarity with KM (see online version for colours)
Respondents experience/familiarity with KM
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Introductory Intermediate Advance
Ex pe rie nce /fa m ilia rity le ve l
R
e
s
p
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d
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n
t
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Figure 3 Emphasis of KM in projects (see online version for colours)
What should be the primary emphasis of KM program in projects
0
5
10
15
20
25
KM
Strategies
KM
Technologies
KM
Tools
and
M
ethods
KM
M
etrics
Supply
side
KM
D
em
and
side
KM
KM
value
Propositions
and
R
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I
Schem
es
Theoretical
foundations

Regarding the question of KM emphasis in project the mostly respondents agreed that
KM strategies should be emphasised. The others said that KM tools and methods should
be the point of emphasis for successful KM programme. However, there is variation in
the selection of the options, for details please see Figure 3.
It was observed form the results that in studied project-based companies mostly
SWOT method is applied for knowledge determination. Then the second common
method for this purpose is surveys and interviews. However, expert panel, expert essays,
think tank, benchmarking are also used but Delphi method is only method that is not
being used by a single company (see Figure 4).
Figure 4 Method/tool for knowledge determination (see online version for colours)
Which methods/tools you use for knowledge determinations
0
5
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15
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As shown in Figure 5 that mostly information is captured from project completion reports
but other than this lesson learnt data base are also consulted.
Figure 5 System for capturing information (see online version for colours)
System for capturing information & experiences
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
Shared files W ork manuals Documented
procedures
Project
completion
reports
A lessons
learnt
database
Internet
Capturing system s
R
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p
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Project representatives were also asked that how they disseminate information earlier
captured from different sources. The answer is that mostly lectures/seminars are
organised to disseminate it. Some other sources are also utilised like internet, learning
centres, informal forums but they also exposed that they have never gone for
training/fairs for information dissemination (see Figure 6).

Figure 6 System for information dissemination (see online version for colours)
Systems for disseminating information
0
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8
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12
14
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Almost two-third of all respondents answered that always their information source is
people of own department. Very less number of respondents said that they collect
information from people outside their own organisation or documents (Figure 7 for
details).
Figure 7 The most common source of information (see online version for colours)
Information source
0
5
10
15
20
25
D
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Figure 8 Role of IT in KM (see online version for colours)
Role of Information Technology in KM is important
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Strongly disagree Disagree Not sure Agree Strongly agree

Figure 9 Humans’ Importance in KM (see online version for colours)
Human (employees) are essence of KM
19,4
19,6
19,8
20
20,2
20,4
20,6
20,8
21
21,2
Strongly disagree Disagree Not sure Agree Strongly agree
Regarding the question about the role of IT and importance of humans in other words
employees for successful KM practices, there was varied opinion from the respondents
for role of IT but for the humans’ importance they were strongly agreed (see Figures 8
and 9).
The results show that companies and experts in project management are aware of the
problem of PKM throughout industry lines, enterprise sizes, and project types. The
potential of project KM is especially high for companies with high project- and
knowledge-intensity as can be found in the plant construction sector, construction and
consultancy services. For instance, one of the interview partners estimated the potential
cost savings by excellent PKM in the plant construction sector at 3% to 5% of total
project volume.
4.2 Discussion
As we observed from the above results that a concrete and systematic approach towards
KM practices in projects is pretty exceptional. Some organisations apply an expert-panel
method and some use SWOT analysis for knowledge determination. In the same way,
there were also variations in the opinions about project KM programme emphasis. So, it
would be more efficient way if there is standardised and systematic approach towards
project KM at least within the same industry because it would help project members to
fully understand and use that approach of managing knowledge. Otherwise, with the
existing diverse approaches may make them confused since they are to frequently move
from one project to another project. However theoretically, different approaches for
incorporating project KM in the overall different industries can be found. This is due to
the two-fold nature of projects within the managerial setting.
Furthermore, almost similar range of answers was seen concerning the system for
capturing information like project completion reports and lesson learnt database. So,
project managers should always integrate these sources with project stages. Project
completion reports which is one of the most highly exploited instruments of project KM,
is only in some cases integrated in compulsory project management standards. It is
widespread in project environments that due to time pressure, new projects or higher
priorities in operational business areas, avert from compiling project completion reports
properly or conducting lessons learned workshops or meetings. Also, the level of

expertise with KM of project mangers should be of advance level if they are to launch
successful KM initiatives in their projects. If their own expertise with KM will be of
introductory level than how they will get the KM initiative implemented in their projects.
Their expertise with KM can be advances with formal training sessions.
Considerable divergence is also found in the sources of information dissemination
among all the project companies. But, mostly lectures/seminars along with learning
centre and informal forums are the major sources for information dissemination. In this
regard, one important point needs to be considered by the project managers that always
state-of-the-art and relevant information should be disseminated through these channels
otherwise project members can be fed up with already matured and irrelevant
information. Then, these sources also can be modernised with the help of latest IT to
make the members more interested in knowledge activities.
Concerning the role of IT, several respondents agreed that the support by IT tools has
proven to be a necessary but not sufficient factor for the quality of project KM. This
outcome is in harmony with the vast majority of respondents considering the emphasis of
knowledge transfer on people/implicit knowledge. So, that is why, the main focus has to
be on the people (project members) and their approval of the tools to be used.
5 Conclusions and future work
The management of knowledge is regarded as a main source of competitive advantage for
organisations. The study tries to examine KM practices in and between projects. This
paper demonstrates the real picture of project KM. The results are based on a survey
study of project-based companies in different industries. The study provided the evidence
that how knowledge is being managed in project-oriented businesses. However, the
results are based on a sample of Finish project-based companies with bit less response
rate. So, potential cultural or community effects on project KM must be taken into
consideration when generalising the results.
Finally, there is of course a great need for more studies in the field to generate more
individual studies that in turn can be used in analysis of a series of case studies. In this
way, a body of knowledge can be built that increases both academic and practitioners’
general understanding of the impact of KM practices in project-based companies. Further
empirical research in the field of project KM is needed in order to establish and assess
managerial interdependencies and unconventional approaches to successful project KM.
Specifically, an extensive survey would be needed to scrutinise the determinants of
efficient and broadly established approaches of project KM. The vital goals of this survey
must be the basis of a solid perceptive for sustaining decisions concerning perfection in
the KM practices for specific types of projects in diverse industries.
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