Knowledge For Life

Sammanfattning: Researchers have foreseen HIV/AIDS to be one of the biggest threats to the general business climate and profitability of companies in Africa. The virus thus affects individual workers, companies as well as the labor market as a whole. This makes the workplace, management, employees and trade union representatives essential players in preventing the virus from spreading further. Because of the importance of information, education and knowledge regarding HIV/AIDS, and in addition, the lack of previous research applying general knowledge management principles on wellness, this thesis takes on a Knowledge Management perspective. The thesis more specifically studies peer-to-peer approaches reflecting a theoretical process view and top-down approaches reflecting a theoretical element view when transferring HIV/AIDS related knowledge. Using a qualitative research approach, we analyzed three case companies in Johannesburg, South Africa through a triangulation method including interviews, statistics and corporate documents. Based on the insights of the analysis, we found indications that the two approaches and reflecting theoretical views on Knowledge Management has to be applied in unison and furthermore that the specific company context is a crucial denominator in the success of the knowledge transfer process. This thesis contributes to theory by providing a description of how the HIV/AIDS related knowledge is shared, stored and used within and beyond the borders of the three case companies. In addition, it provides a description of how the company specific contexts affect the perceived intermediate outcome and performance of the knowledge transfer approaches and reflecting theoretical views. Finally, this thesis increases the understanding of how the knowledge transfer, given the specific company contexts, can be improved and further holds essential implications for theory and management practice.