Knowledge Sharing: What Works and What Doesn’t Work: A Critical Systems Thinking Perspective

This paper examines a range of knowledge sharing (KS) activities in a large-scale longitudinal change project over 5 years. The KS activities were part of a broader project which aimed to introduce best practice knowledge management at a large public sector organisation. This paper describes an action research (AR) learning journey in three AR cycles: (1) research and development, (2) implementation, and (3) management action. The analysis adopts a systems thinking approach examining the learning journey from the perspective of its multiple participants. The results show that introducing best practice KS to an organization must address blockages in the learning flows caused by fragmentation within the community of action research.