Andrew Finegan

Extending the “knowledge advantage”: creating learning chains

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a synergy between the approaches of knowledge management in a learning organisation and supply chain management so that learning chains can be created in order to unleash innovation and creativity by managing knowledge in supply chains.Design/methodology/approach – Through extensive literature review, commonalities between knowledge management and supply chain management were elicited. Knowledge Advantage framework, which was developed as a part of CRC for Construction Innovation Australia, research project “Delivering improved knowledge management and ICT diffusion in Australian construction industry”, has been proposed to extend across the supply chain in order to develop learning chains.Findings – The paper provides a conceptual grounding for future research in the area of knowledge management and supply chain management and suggests that, as unit of competition changes from organisation vs organisation to chain vs chain under supply chain management, l...

Facilitating knowledge pull to deliver innovation through knowledge management: A case study

Purpose – This paper aims to discuss how knowledge‐pull from external knowledge sources could systemise knowledge exchange as a knowledge management (KM) initiative and to argue how it could contribute to successful application of innovative techniques.Design/methodology/approach – Soft System Methodology (SSM) used to carry out a case study on a specific innovation diffusion initiative within an organisation.Findings – Construction organisations need to actively participate in knowledge activities possibly organised through universities or other research bodies. This interaction bridges the gap between research and its practical implementation. Much useful academic research goes unnoticed because of a lack of interest by construction organisations in attending knowledge events such as conferences, symposiums or run joint research programs with the academia.Research limitations/implications – Study recommendations have specific relevance to the organisation under study rather than being more widely genera...

Applying project histories and project learning through knowledge management in an Australian construction company

Purpose – With the advent of information and communication technologies (ICT), some organisations have endeavoured to develop and maintain systems commonly known as project histories. This paper aims to provide a framework to the construction organisations in order to improve the learning from projects through the development and use of project histories.Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides an interpretative investigation of the issues concerning project histories for one leading construction company in Australia. A systems approach (soft system methodology (SSM)) is used in this study as a tool to comprehend the underlying processes and to highlight the related issues.Findings – The research has shown that project histories are poorly designed, implemented, managed and applied in the organisation studied. This paper argues that reason for this deficiency is the lack of support from senior management, and proper integration of project histories into a companys overall strategy and vision. As...

Biases and heuristics in judgment and decision making: The dark side of tacit knowledge

The crux of knowledge management theory is to devise different strategies to capture the tacit knowledge of the people in the organization, to make it explicit and to share it throughout the organization. This paper draws from the literature in cognitive psychology and highlights the limitation of the human mind by observing that knowledge is lost out of memory over time. Judgment and gut feelings are usually associated with different forms of biases and heuristics that may influence decision making negatively by altering the context in which the knowledge has been constructed. The paper argues that the timing and context in which tacit knowledge has been shaped is of immense importance when attempting to capture it. It is suggested that, while striving to capture the tacit knowledge of the individuals, it is important to make sure that it is not under the influence of any bias and its context is accurately perceived and preserved. Biased and incomplete knowledge may do more harm than good and should be avoided.