Understanding knowledge awareness in organizations

Abstract

Through an in-depth case study in an European telecom company, we identified three distinct and necessary types of awareness which precede knowledge transfer. These are: awareness of a??whata?? knowledge exists, awareness of a??wherea?? to get the knowledge from, and awareness of a??whya?? the knowledge is needed. Examining the knowledge sharing mechanisms used in the case studies, we propose that different knowledge sharing mechanisms generate different type of awareness. A balance of such sharing mechanisms in firms is required in order to foster knowledge awareness, a pre-requisite to efficient bottom-up knowledge sharing.