Factors favoring knowledge management in work teams

Abstract

Knowledge management is an activity that has generated great interest in the business world recently. We conceive this activity as the process through which organizational knowledge is created from the individual knowledge of the members of the firm. A variety of contributions on the topic have indicated that organization in work teams is a suitable structure for putting that process into practice. However, we know that this alone is not sufficient. Therefore, in this study, we deal with the analysis of the conditions or characteristics that the work teams should have in order to be true centers of knowledge management. Based on a review of the literature and on the evidence provided by a quantitative empirical study, we obtain a list of factors favoring the process, in order of relative importance. Moreover, we distinguish between those that more deeply favor the creation of individual knowledge and those most suitable for inducing the transfer and integration of that knowledge.