Reinterpreting Knowledge Management for Projects

This is an exploratory study aimed at addressing the epistemological basis of Knowledge Management, and its suitability to address work-based issues specifically related to Knowledge Management within Project Environments. These issues include repetition of mistakes, and a lack of timely information availability and skill possession. Following an extensive literature review of current and historic Knowledge Management, Business and Philosophical literature (in particular the work of Martin Heidegger and Michael Polanyi), an epistemological approach was generated that opposes the popular ‘objective’ view of knowledge implicit in common Knowledge Management literature, reinterpreting it in terms of Heidegerrian Understanding and Interpretation. Focus groups were then used to gather thematic data to generate evidence of the suitability of this approach, and to assess any implications arising from this new epistemological stance. The results showed support for the rejection of an objective view of knowledge, and that this rejection of certainty allows the various influences on how we justify and produce ‘knowledge’. The study concludes that the true dynamic and personal nature of knowledge means it cannot be managed, and that the production and dissemination of information should be assessed in terms of requirements of efficiency vs. sufficiency, and any assumptions made regarding method, and the origin of the information.