Att uppmuntra kunskapsdelning : En fallstudie om styrparametrars påverkan på kunskapsdelning inom en konsultkoncern

Sammanfattning: Knowledge management has become increasingly important in organizations and how knowledge can be developed, shared and maintained has been researched more in recent years. The question of whether knowledge is seen as a competitive advantage has gained a great deal of focus in organizations instead of reviewing knowledge management. There are earlier studies that investigate the structure and organizational culture's impact on knowledge sharing in an organization but do not say how the factors affect knowledge sharing. The report examines how organizational structure and culture, as well as other management control parameters in a corporate group can affect the work with knowledge sharing, in which the observational data focus on interviews with employees of the company our case study focuses on. There is an ongoing implementation of a new knowledge sharing group at the company, which is used as a basis for this survey. A method is developed from Klein and Myers seven principles for interpretivism in case studies and Eisenhardt’s principles for theory building. A literature study based on Malmi and Brown's MCS factors investigates which parameters that could affect knowledge sharing in our case. The categories culture management, planning, cybernetic management, reward and compensation, and administrative management were factors considered relevant for our question formulation and are used as the basis for our interview formulation, as well as the literature used in our analysis. Our investigation model is used as a basis for a total of 22 interviews with employees within three different affiliate companies within the case company in which the knowledge sharing group covers. The study has four different questionnaires depending on the interviewee's position on the company and if they were involved in the new knowledge sharing group. The interviews include questions about the attitude and possibility of knowledge sharing at the case company and how the case company manages knowledge sharing. The answers where then analyzed based on the literature study and compared to what the staff of the different affiliate companies said and to what their position on the companies where. Based on this, a result is made. The study results show that an organization where members are at different geographical locations means that the natural contact between members is missing and that makes the exchange of knowledge more difficult. Communication within organizations is also affected by the geographical spread and can affect the amount of collaborations, where lack of communication within the organization leads to fewer collaborations, and thus lesser knowledge exchange. In addition to this, the organizational structure is affected by the degree of decentralization within organizations by influencing how decision-making is taken in the organization and who are able to influence decisions. The results also show that in a culture of cooperation, where culture is open and organizers help each other, it is easier to encourage knowledge sharing. Furthermore, it shows that cultural management in the form of clans and symbols can affect knowledge sharing by creating an open and familiar culture that encourages knowledge sharing. In order to encourage knowledge sharing in an organization with rewards or compensations, they need to be based on a measurement system that in some way is linked to the knowledge sharing. We see that personal motivation, which is not linked to measurement systems or rewards and compensation, can also affect how willing members of the organization are to share knowledge. Finally, knowledge sharing within groups can be locked in the existing patterns if there are strict rules on how to organize knowledge sharing groups, while no rules can make them unfocused and ineffective. We believe our results of the study coincides with the literature used.