Knowledge sharing in project-based organizations: Overcoming the informational limbo

Project-based organizations (PBO) are nowadays widespread in almost all the activity sectors. This type of organizations poses complex problems for information and knowledge management due to the fragmentation and lack of uniformity of organizational structures, processes, practices, and technologies. The ineffectiveness of knowledge sharing over time, between project teams, is perhaps the most prominent issue that PBO must deal with. This strongly affects organizational learning, which seems to under-deliver value to PBO. Therefore, relevant knowledge is trapped in an "informational limbo" out of reach, not being capitalized for the organization. This is particularly true in research and development (R&D) institutions, where knowledge sharing can be hindered by conceptual misunderstandings resulting from different disciplines, cultures and ways of working of project participants. This paper addresses such issues by analyzing, in a comprehensive way, how information and knowledge management can better suit project team's needs and at the same time improve organizational learning. An ethnographic study, based on immersed participant observation, is performed at a Portuguese R&D Institute, in order to understand the link between the way information is managed in a project and how people interact and learn by sharing knowledge between projects. Results provide a set of enterprise information management (EIM) recommendations. Findings also suggest that a PBO-wide EIM strategy, balancing knowledge codification and personalization mechanisms, is a feasible solution to overcome the problems of knowledge sharing in PBO. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.