Implementation of Knowledge Management into Organizational Routines

In today’s knowledge oriented economy, the ability of an organisation to engage its employees to create, capture, share and apply their knowledge determines its prosperity. The research presented in this thesis focused on a case study of a multinational automobile supplier challenged with incorporating knowledge management into its organisational routines. The research implements Feldman and Pentland’s concept in which a routine has two sides. The ostensive side of a routine represents the structural artefacts that sets a frame for action while the performative side represents the final actions carried out by the employees that use the routine.

The implementation of knowledge management into organisational routines is challenging and best planned and managed as a change process. However mechanisms and factors that drive change in organisational routines are not well understood. This gap results in a lack of implementation frameworks supporting practitioners during the implementation of knowledge management into organisational routines.

This thesis reports on the implementation of knowledge management into three organisational routines. Observations and interviews were used to identify mechanisms and factors that drove changes in routines. The core contribution of the research is an framework supporting practitioners to implement knowledge management into organisational routines. This framework is based on new knowledge about change in routines. The concept of routines provides a new perspective on the implementation of knowledge management at the operational level. This perspective complements previous frameworks that aim for organisation-wide implementation. The theory of organisational routines recognises the importance of stakeholders, the organisation and the business environment in which the stakeholders operate. Ttwo stakeholder were found to be especially important. Middle management played an important role as they helped to link knowledge management, which was to be implemented, to the ostensive and performative sides of the organisational routines. Knowledge management facilitators were critical because they improved the abilities of the stakeholders leading the implementation of knowledge management into the routines by providing subject matter knowledge on knowledge management, its implementation and changing organisational routines.