Purpose

This paper aims to explore the coexistence of formal, informal and personal knowledge management (KM) practices as they support employees' everyday work in organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

Qualitative study involving 12 in-depth interviews and 30 hours of observations in a small, quickly growing, knowledge-intensive company.

Findings

Formal, informal and personal KM practices were all found to be relevant and interconnected in supporting everyday work in the organization. This suggests a shift from understanding KM as an organizational approach to ecology, shaped by multiple actors and concerns and extending over the formal/informal as well as organizational/personal divides. Interrelationships between formal, informal and personal KM practices took various forms. Among each of these KM categories were practices that contributed in a unique way, without having a functional parallel in other categories. Some KM practices had a strong functional overlap and were competing. Moreover, some formal, informal and personal KM practices formed complementary relationships.

Research limitations/implications

Findings are based on fieldwork in only one organization.

Practical implications

Organizations would benefit from the formal, informal and personal KM practices being complementarily connected. As these connections are sustained by employees in everyday work, effective management of KM ecology needs a collective and distributed effort.

Originality/value

This paper is one of the very few empirical accounts that problematizes the coexistence of formal, informal and personal KM practices and suggests a practice-ecology perspective through which their interrelationships could be studied.

中文翻译：

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实践知识管理的生态系统，将正式，非正式和个人联系起来

目的

本文旨在探讨正式，非正式和个人知识管理（KM）做法的共存，因为它们支持员工在组织中的日常工作。

设计/方法/方法

定性研究涉及在一家快速成长的知识密集型小型公司中进行的12次深入访谈和30小时观察。

发现

人们发现，正式，非正式和个人的KM实践在支持组织的日常工作中都是相关且相互联系的。这表明，人们将知识管理作为一种组织方法从生态学转变为生态学，这是由多个行为者和关注者共同决定的，并扩展到形式/非正式以及组织/个人的鸿沟。正式，非正式和个人知识管理实践之间的相互关系采取了多种形式。这些知识管理类别中的每一个都是以独特方式做出贡献的实践，而在其他类别中却没有功能并行。一些知识管理实践在功能上有很强的重叠性，并且相互竞争。此外，一些正式，非正式和个人的KM实践形成了互补的关系。

研究局限/意义

结果仅基于一个组织的实地调查。

实际影响

组织将受益于正式，非正式和个人知识管理实践之间的互补联系。由于员工在日常工作中保持着这些联系，因此有效管理KM生态需要集体和分散的努力。

创意/价值

本文是对正式，非正式和个人KM实践的共存提出问题的极少数实证研究之一，并提出了可以从中研究其相互关系的实践生态学观点。