Knowledge Retention in Practice : How organizations avoid knowledge loss through proactive and reactive knowledge retention processes

Sammanfattning: This thesis's purpose was to gain a deeper understanding of how organizations create knowledge retention (KR), both proactively (day-to-day basis) and reactively (when an employee decides to resign), to avoid knowledge loss. A qualitative multiple case study was conducted through semi-structured interviews, with eight respondents from eight different organizations. An analytical model based on Levy’s (2011) KR framework and Nonaka and Takeuchi's (1995) knowledge spiral model was developed as a tool to understand the KR process in practice. The study found that all studied organizations worked proactively to retain knowledge, either structured or unstructured. The respondents with a structured, proactive KR process did not apply a reactive KR process, showing that they are more prepared for handling potential knowledge loss when employees resign. The respondents that did not apply a structured, proactive KR process applied a reactive knowledge retention process, where the main explanation for this was lack of time or unawareness of the process. Furthermore, no clear groups emerged in the empirical material as the companies faced different challenges at each stage of the analytical model. Lastly, the study concludes that these findings could be particularly relevant for organizations seeking to conduct KR processes to avoid losing valuable knowledge.