Integrating flexibility in a knowledge management system for construction projects

Knowledge often gets missing in the complex facility development process. With many scholars unable to standardize the development process nor able to provide any solutions for better organizational design to fit the operating environment, it looks like this knowledge-loss phenomenon is set to stay in the construction industry. At the frontier of knowledge management research. Nissen argues for the need to consider knowledge flows as an alternative view in designing an organization. We highlight three new insights on knowledge flows in an affordable housing project that impact a project team's organizational performance. First, the environmental characteristics of the facility development life cycle are contributing to the knowledge loss phenomenon. Second, discontinuous memberships in the project team aggravate this phenomenon. Third, any knowledge management system for facility development needs to consider knowledge types (i.e., tacit versus explicit) since they exhibit different knowledge flow behaviors during information retrieval and allocation. We conclude with a discussion on cross-domain issues for future research towards developing a flexible knowledge management system for the construction industry.