Modern knowledge-based organizations face continuous challenges to remain competitive. These challenges today are driven by globalization, the possibilities of the internet and the increasing need for more sustainable products and services. These developments are creating a complexity of interdependent information flows which can be opportunities and/or threats to the organization.

If in such an environment organzations need to perform tasks that are high in complexity and have many interdependent subtasks, project teams are an appropriate way to organize. This will lead to an increase of performance and a reduction of risk. One of the critical elements to achieve these results is knowledge sharing between team members.

In the upcoming September 2016 issue of the journal Computers in Human Behavior, there is an overview of the scientific literature about the topic of kwowledge sharing in project teams.

The  main findings in my opinion are that:

• Better knowledge sharing leads to better project results in terms of higher performance and lower risk;
• Knowledge sharing in teams can increase employee’s productivity and performance as it maximizes their strengths and minimizes their weakness;
• Knowledge sharing among customers, suppliers and business partners greatly facilitate the process of improving the quality of customer service, reducing production cycles and increasing the cooperation;
• Knowledge sharing plays also a critical role in promoting innovation, developing organizational agility and generating overall organizational value.

To facilitate the process of knowledge sharing it is necessary to create teams that have complementary skills and enough diversity. It is important to be aware of traditional thoughts and opinions that can prevent the knowledge sharing in project teams. In modern knowledge-based organizations team members need to be aware of their strengths and weakenesses and create the circumstances to help one another that allows everyone to go beyond his or her limitations.

Norbert Bol

Literature

Navimipour, N. J., & Charband, Y. (2016). Knowledge sharing mechanisms and techniques in project teams: Literature review, classification, and current trends. Computers in Human Behavior, 62, 730-742.