What knowledge management for mobile workers?

Abstract

In today's global economy, many economic activities in and among firms are based on the contribution of workers that are mobile or work most of their time in geographically dispersed locations. In such environments, tools supporting Knowledge Management (KM) are essential, not only because of the advantage for business performance, but also because of their potential benefit in terms of people satisfaction and well being. Building on from the results of a 3-year field research survey in Italy, this paper explores: (i) the emerging approaches that companies use to manage knowledge in such dispersed environments; and (ii) their relations with Dispersed Workers (DW) Profiles (types and activities).Leveraging on people's knowledge and creativity is a must in today's competitive business environment. The intensification of competition, however, forces companies to adopt new organizational models that seriously challenge traditional approaches to managing knowledge. Hence, this paper answers the need of empirically grounded research to draw implications of the systems supporting Knowledge Management (KM) within such new organizational models.When analyzed in terms of how people are integrated and related to the rest of the organization, many companies are characterized by two trends:Mobility and distribution of workforce: Nowadays, the concept itself of the workplace is changing.People spend an increasing amount of their working time outside the physical boundaries of their company, often in mobility and interacting with customers or people from partner organizations (Laubacher and Malone, 2003). Also when working inside the company, people often change positions and work in multi-disciplinary virtual teams. As a consequence, individuals have fewer and fewer opportunities for face-toface interaction with their colleagues and can barely rely on their own experience.Turnover and loose contractual links: The provisional nature of employment, loose forms of contractual links to the company and high level of turnover (Drucker, 2002), while in many cases considered competitive needs, can make people's time with organizations temporary and partial, thus creating barriers to the sharing of knowledge and expertise among individuals.These two factors converge to 'dispersed work,' an operational definition introduced here. Dispersed work is work that is performed by different people in dynamic and changing situations where

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