knowledge transfer

In a production network, teams or companies exchange information and products to create value. The competitive advantage of the team / company relies on that of the network. This paper addresses knowledge management in a production network especially the promotion of knowledge sharing and transfer. This is a substantial issue when, for example, a company comes to leave the network voluntarily or disappears because of natural or man-made catastrophes. In this case, the question remains whether the substituting company can acquire the tacit knowledge needed to fulfil its mission. Consequently, the operation of the network is also an acute issue. The paper proposes a methodology based on organisational and interorganisational learning and develops a learning laboratory that facilitates knowledge sharing and transfer. This lab supports, (a) knowledge sharing through the mental map’s knowledge elicitation of every company’s leader, and (b) knowledge transfer via dedicated learning-based ...

Knowledge transfer is critical for the success of R&D projects in terms of supply, usage and multiplication of knowledge within and between projects. However, possibilities to opti-mise knowledge transfer do hardly exist since the application of structured methods appears to be hard to realise because of criteria specific for R&D projects like creativity, incertitude and little structuring. In the following, a concept is introduced that establishes transparency according to knowledge transfer in R&D projects and creates a basis to use potentials for optimising knowledge transfer by specific application of knowledge management methods.

A growing number of companies is focussing on their core competencies which leads to an increasing disintegration of existing value chains. Thus competition takes place not only between companies but also between networks of companies. Within global supply networks companies are intensifying their cooperation with suppliers and customers which creates expanded demand for knowledge exchange among the participating business partners. The management of knowledge as a re-source has to be considered as one of the most important success factors and competitive advantage in an intensified complex and dynamic environment.