KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES IN NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT: TRANSITION OF THE ENERGY SYSTEM

The empirical study this paper is based upon, aimed to identify and describe knowledge management challenges, throughout the new business development process. This paper reports findings from the study, as well as the framework used for analysing the KM challenges, which can be applied to other case studies for comparison.

Six interviews and 2 full-day workshops, gathering the perspectives of 76 people from an energy-utilities company forms the empirical background of the study. Six categories of knowledge management challenges were identified and, within each, central issues were extracted and changes throughout the new business development process investigated.

Significant differences from the early to the late stages of this process were identified, including; shift from personal to codified knowledge transfer and need for supporting integration of knowledge from diverse domains better in the early phases. Furthermore, two new roles of the early phase, besides instigating projects, were found.

This study contributes to the development of support tools for knowledge management in industry and to research with a deeper understanding of the new business development process.