Knowledge Management in construction: Towards developing a framework for managing the intellectual capital in a project-based environment

i
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN CONSTRUCTION:
TOWARDS DEVELOPING A FRAMEWORK FOR MANAGING
THE INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL IN A PROJECT- BASED
ENVIRONMENT
A CASE STUDY OF THE AMA GROUP
ADNAN HUSSAIN AL-ALAWI
MSc DISSERTATION
2008
Dissertation submitted to the Bradford University School of Management in partial
fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Human resource
Management

ii
STATEMENT OF AUTHENTICITY
I have read the University Regulations relating to plagiarism and certify that this
project is all my own work and does not contain any unacknowledged work from
any other sources
Signed ______________________________
Date 8th September 2008
WORD COUNT: 21,779

iii
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN CONSTRUCTION:
TOWARDS DEVELOPING A FRAMEWORK FOR MANAGING
THE INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL IN A PROJECT- BASED
ENVIRONMENT
A CASE STUDY OF THE AMA GROUP
By
ADNAN HUSSAIN AL-ALAWI
2008
Dissertation submitted to the Bradford University School of Management in partial
fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Human resource
Management

iv
Dedication
This thesis is dedicated to my father, who taught me the meaning of hard work. My
love and appreciation are also given to my mother for her blessings and incessant
prayers that have, over the years, helped to carry me through difficult times and
assisted me to face some tough challenges. Also, this thesis would not have been
done without the support of my family members and my benevolent sponsor.

v
Acknowledgement
First and foremost, I would like to begin by acknowledging my supervisor Dr. Nancy
Harding for supervising and helping me to put this work all together. Thank you for
your tremendous efforts, dedication, encouragement, and guidance. Your supervision
and unwavering trust gave me the confidence and will to pursue my work in full
capacity and dedication. Also, I would like to thank all my colleagues in the
Bradford School of Management, where we engaged in useful discussions and a
constant exchange of knowledge. Finally and mostly, I would like to thank my
parents, for their love and support. Without their support this dissertation would not
have been completed.

vi
Keywords: Intellectual capital, Knowledge Management, Construction,
Organisational knowledge base, Case study research
Abstract
Stimulated by a rapidly changing environment, organisations have begun to adopt
strategies to manage knowledge systematically so that they derive the best out of
their resources to gain a competitive advantage over competition. Still, knowledge
management is a new concept in the construction industry and practitioners in this
industry sometimes consider the systematic Knowledge Management as hype or a
buzzword.
This research identifies the systematic Knowledge Management concepts, tools, and
supporting strategies and technologies, and establishes channels that connect these
concepts with practice in the construction industry. Accordingly, the author develops
a framework that links the Intellectual capital model with Knowledge Management
processes in the construction industry while taking into consideration the
characteristics of the construction industry and the project-based environment. The
research discusses specific tools of Knowledge Management that are relevant to this
industry and the way to ensure a sustainable process of Knowledge Management.
This paper aims to find out whether knowledge-based and knowledge-creation
activities could exist in the construction industry without having a formal Knowledge
Management system. Therefore, this research explores construction core and
supportive activities and whether these involve knowledge-based and knowledge
creating activities in the AMA group, an organisation that did not adopt Knowledge
Management as a strategy. Having such processes without being espoused and
acknowledged as knowledge processes suggests that knowledge management and its
processes stem from the core business practices. If the knowledge processes do exist,
does the company need a strategy to manage the organisational body of knowledge?

vii
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 ................................................................................................................ 1
INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 1
1.1- Study Background ................................................................................................ 2
1.3- Problem Statement................................................................................................ 2
1.4- Scope of the study................................................................................................. 3
1.6- Aim and Objectives .............................................................................................. 3
1.5- Dissertation Structure ........................................................................................... 4
CHAPTER 2 ................................................................................................................ 7
LITERATURE REVIEW............................................................................................. 7
Chapter objectives:....................................................................................................... 7
2.1- Introduction........................................................................................................... 8
2.2- What is Knowledge?............................................................................................. 8
2.2.1 Dimensions of knowledge......................................................................... 10
2.2.2 Knowledge in the new paradigm: the knowledge economy. .................... 12
2.2.3 Knowledge-based industries and knowledge intensive industries............ 14
2.3- Knowledge Management: managing the intellectual capital.............................. 14
2.3.1 The Intellectual capital.............................................................................. 14
2.3.2 Knowledge Management .......................................................................... 16
2.3.3 Knowledge Management drivers .............................................................. 18
2.4 Knowledge Management components................................................................. 23
2.4.1 People........................................................................................................ 24
2.4.1.1 The organisational learning and culture....................................... 26
2.4.1.2 People in construction.................................................................. 30
2.4.2 Process ...................................................................................................... 31
2.4.2.1 Knowledge Management processes ............................................. 31
2.4.2.2 Business excellence in the process............................................... 34
2.4.2.3 Processes in construction ............................................................. 38
2.4.3 Technology................................................................................................ 39
2.5- Knowledge management in construction............................................................ 41
2.5.1 Construction as a knowledge-based industry............................................ 42

viii
2.5.2 Construction as a project-based industry .................................................. 43
2.6- Developing the framework ................................................................................. 45
CHAPTER 3 .............................................................................................................. 48
DATA, METHODS AND RESEARCH DESIGN.................................................... 48
3.1- Research Methodology ....................................................................................... 48
3.2- Choice of research methods................................................................................ 50
3.3- Research Philosophy........................................................................................... 50
3.4- Research Approach............................................................................................. 51
3.5- Research strategy................................................................................................ 53
3.5.1 Data Collection instruments in the case study .......................................... 54
3.5.2 The case study........................................................................................... 55
3.6- Time Horizon...................................................................................................... 56
3.7- Data collection methods...................................................................................... 57
3.7.1 Population and the sample ........................................................................ 57
3.7.2 Spatial and temporal characteristics.......................................................... 57
3.7.3 Data analysis techniques ........................................................................... 58
3.8- Limitations and ethical considerations of the Research...................................... 58
3.8.1 Limitation of the research ......................................................................... 58
3.8.1.1 Cultural Limitations ..................................................................... 58
3.8.1.2 Research sample limitations......................................................... 58
3.8.2 Ethical considerations ............................................................................... 59
3.8.2.1 Confidentiality.............................................................................. 59
3.8.2.2 Participation freedom................................................................... 59
3.8.2.3 Informed consent for research...................................................... 59
3.8.2.4 Submitting of the dissertation ...................................................... 59
3.9- Chapter Summary ............................................................................................... 59
FINDINGS AND DISSCUSSION............................................................................. 60
4.1- Introduction......................................................................................................... 61
4.2- Case Study findings ............................................................................................ 61
4.2.1 Qualitative data findings and discussion................................................... 61
4.2.1.1 Knowledge Management understanding...................................... 62
4.2.1.2 Knowledge management as a source of competitive advantage.. 62

ix
4.2.1.3 The appreciation of the intellectual capital .................................. 63
4.2.1.4 Critical knowledge ....................................................................... 64
4.2.1.5 Technology as an enabler of knowledge Management................ 65
4.2.1.6 The knowledge sharing culture.................................................... 67
4.2.1.7 Organisational learning and knowledge creation......................... 68
4.2.1.8 Knowledge attrition...................................................................... 71
4.2.2 Quantitative data findings and discussion................................................. 71
4.2.2.1 The accessibility to knowledge and knowledge sharing............... 73
4.2.2.2 Knowledge sharing barriers, encouragement and lessons learned.74
4.3- Knowledge management lifecycle...................................................................... 74
4.3.1 Identification of knowledge ...................................................................... 75
4.3.2 Acquisition of knowledge ......................................................................... 75
4.3.3 Creation of knowledge .............................................................................. 75
4.3.4 Sharing / Distribution of Knowledge ........................................................ 75
4.3.5 Application of knowledge......................................................................... 75
4.3.6 Preservation of knowledge........................................................................ 76
4.3.7 Remarks on the knowledge-life cycle in the AMA group ........................ 76
4.4- Knowledge management enablers ...................................................................... 77
4.4.1 Leadership................................................................................................. 77
4.4.2 Policy and strategy.................................................................................... 78
4.4.3 People........................................................................................................ 78
4.4.5 Partnership and resource ........................................................................... 78
4.4.6 Processes ................................................................................................... 78
4.5- The resultant framework and chapter summary ................................................. 79
CHAPTER 5 .............................................................................................................. 81
CONCLUSIONS........................................................................................................ 81
5.1- Conclusions......................................................................................................... 82
5.2- Recommendations............................................................................................... 83
5.2.1 Adopting a knowledge management strategy ........................................... 83
5.2.2 IT related issues......................................................................................... 84
5.2.3 Adopting the EFQM model....................................................................... 85
5.2.4 The understanding and the support of the project-based environment. .... 85

x
5.3- Limitations and further Research........................................................................ 85
REFERENCES........................................................................................................... 87
APPENDIX A............................................................................................................ 95
APPENDIX B .......................................................................................................... 108
APPENDIX C .......................................................................................................... 111
APPENDIX E .......................................................................................................... 114

xi
List of Tables
Table 1: Chapters structure .......................................................................................... 5
Table 2: Knowledge Management drivers................................................................. 19
Table 3:The principles of the EFQM model .............................................................. 36
Table 4: EFQM model enablers and results............................................................... 37
Table 5: Different types of support for knowledge management .............................. 40
Table 6: Deductive and Inductive Research............................................................... 52
Table 7: AMA Business units and activities.............................................................. 55

xii
List of graphs
Figure 1 The road map ................................................................................................. 6
Figure 2: Chain of knowledge flow ............................................................................. 9
Figure 3: The Intellectual capital ............................................................................... 15
Figure 4: Linking the intellectual capital model with Knowledge Management....... 22
Figure 5: Knowledge Management components........................................................ 24
Figure 6: The Knowledge Management life-cycle..................................................... 32
Figure 7: Main processes of knowledge preservation................................................ 34
Figure 8: Relationship between project and organisation.......................................... 43
Figure 9: Cross-transfer between projects.................................................................. 44
Figure 10: The project-based knowledge audit framework ....................................... 46
Figure 11: The research methodology framework..................................................... 49
Figure 12: The Research Process Onion .................................................................... 50
Figure 13: Survey response breakdown..................................................................... 72
Figure 14: Knowledge shared in the AMA group...................................................... 73
Figure 15: Knowledge issues ..................................................................................... 74
Figure 16 The resultant framework............................................................................ 80

1
CHAPTER1
INTRODUCTION
Chapter objectives:
- To provide a brief introduction and background about topic
- To define the problem and the scope of the research
- To cast light on the rationale for this study
- To identify the aims and objectives
- To outline the dissertation structure

2
1.1- Study Background
The appreciation of knowledge is not exactly a new phenomenon. The pursuit of it has
stretched over the known history of mankind, the great figures of history, and the
present knowledge in question and its significance in our lives. From the Greek
philosopher Plato (1953) and his masterpiece the Phaedo to the Japanese management
Guru Nokana and his book, the knowledge-creating company (Nokana & Takeuchi,
1995 ). Nevertheless, it‘s undeniable that the way individuals and organisations think
about knowledge has changed dramatically and thus organisations have begun to adopt
new strategies for managing knowledge in a systematic and persistent manner. This is
stimulated by a rapidly changing environment and the complexities of today‘s world.
Companies want to derive the best out of the resources and capabilities available to gain
a competitive advantage over competition and companies in the construction industry
are no exception. Construction companies take on contracts that are complex in nature
and largely dependent upon sharing the technical knowledge and expertise that lie
within the employees‘ knowledge base. This knowledge has to be harnessed and
managed so that it contributes to the fulfilment of the company‘s corporate objectives.
1.3- Problem Statement
A key issue for construction companies is exploiting the knowledge created by day-to-
day operations (Walker et al. 2005). Construction companies, particularly the larger
ones have a massive amount of collective knowledge, but usually do not know what
they know (Burk, 1999). A challenge of managing employees is luring people to share
knowledge and all that is worth sharing.
For many companies, particularly those in the construction industry, systematic
Knowledge Management is a new concept. According to Kazi (2005), many consider
Knowledge Management as hype and a way for consultants to make more money. The
effectiveness of Knowledge Management is difficult to measure as it does not
numerically add to the bottom-line. Many researchers have explored Knowledge
Management in general and Knowledge Management in construction in specific, but no
one questioned its relevance to the construction industry. In other words, what seems to
be missing in the literature is the significance and importance of Knowledge
Management tools, techniques, and strategies within the context of the construction

3
industry as a project-based industry and to ascertain how it can sustain competitive
advantage. Another major question is whether construction companies need to adopt
new ways of managing knowledge?
1.4- Scope of the study.
The research will examine Knowledge Management in construction through a case
study research that took place in Ahmed Mansoor Al A‘ali Group of Companies (The
AMA Group) which is the largest contracting and construction group in the Kingdom of
Bahrain. The study will take into consideration the differences in the values, culture,
and characteristics of construction. This will contribute to the overall understanding of
Knowledge Management in construction.
1.6- Aim and Objectives
The aim of this study is to explore Knowledge Management in this entity and how their
practices relate to those of Knowledge Management, and then compare them to the
framework that will be developed in the literature review. This research considers the
characteristics of construction as being a project-based industry. The contribution to the
theory and the practice will be an identification of the systematic Knowledge
Management concepts, tools, and supporting techniques and technologies in the
literature and how they relate to the practices in a project-based construction company
that did not adopt Knowledge Management as a deliberate strategy. In other words, this
research questions whether knowledge-based and knowledge creation activities could
exist without having a formal Knowledge Management system.
The results of this research will be used to explore the methods of any Knowledge
Management process discovered. If the knowledge-based practices are not found, this
research will suggest methods and strategies for the implementation and development of
these practices, and the rationale for managing those activities systematically.
This research will also explore construction core and supportive activities and whether
these are knowledge-based knowledge creating activities even without being espoused
and labelled as Knowledge Management. This will arguably fill the gap between theory

4
and practice, and will contribute to further development and be a starting point for
academics and practitioners for further development.
The literature review will involve developing a framework in a way that it can be
practically evaluated in the construction industry as the framework assimilates the
characteristic of the sector.
For this to be fulfilled the following will be done:
 To present a comprehensive literature review on the Knowledge Management
practices and application and in construction.
 To discuss how Knowledge Management relates to the construction industry.
 To develop a framework based on the literature and to compare between theory
and practice.
 To conduct a case study in Ahmed Mansoor Al A‘ali Group of Companies (The
AMA Group) to explore and evaluate the effectiveness of knowledge-based
practices in the real world.
As the aims and objectives of the research are identified, a guideline of the research
paper will be dealt with next.
1.5- Dissertation Structure
The following Table 1 outlines the objectives and what is to be done in each chapter.
The structure of this dissertation is illustrated in Figure 1.

5
Table 1: Chapters structure
Table 1 Chapters structure
Chapter number Chapter’s title and outline
Chapter 2 Literature review
Chapter objectives:
- To develop a holistic framework for Knowledge Management in construction as a
project-based industry is developed to be tested in the AMA group of companies
- To discuss the Intellectual capital model and link this model to Knowledge Management
- To explore the Knowledge Management component
- To examine Knowledge Management in construction
- To examine ways of ensuring the sustainability of the knowledge processes
Chapter 3 Data, methods and research design
Chapter objectives:
-To outline the research methodology using the research onion
-To explain the case study approach and the issues concerning its use
-To identify the possible research limitations from different perspectives
- To discuss the research ethics and limitations.
Chapter 4 Findings and discussion
Chapter objectives:
-To present the case study findings
-To present qualitative data findings and discussion
- To present quantitative data findings and discussion
- To discuss the Knowledge Management practices in the AMA group
- To assess the Knowledge processes sustainability
Chapter 5 Conclusions
Chapter objectives:
- To summarize and conclude
- To present the relevant recommendations
- To discuss the limitations and the further research

6
Figure 1 The road map
Source: Al-Alawi (2008)

7
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Chapter objectives:
- To develop a holistic framework for Knowledge Management in construction as a project-
based industry is developed to be tested in the AMA group of companies
- To discuss the Intellectual capital model and link this model to Knowledge Management
- To explore the Knowledge Management component
- To examine Knowledge Management in construction
- To examine ways of ensuring the sustainability of the knowledge processes

8
2.1- Introduction
In this section, I will present a thorough Literature review of Knowledge Management
and Knowledge Management practices in construction to provide an up-to-date account
of the issue especially because systematic Knowledge Management is a relatively new
topic that is developing and changing rapidly. Many models, views, and theories are
constantly presented in this matter by academics and management gurus. According to
Schwartz (2006), there are over 15 peer-reviewed research journals that focus primarly
on Knowledge Management, producing over 500 articles per annum. Besides annual
confrences such as KMEurope that cover everything from the practical aspects to the
argument visualization. Burden‘s (2000) Knowledge Management bibliography cited
over 900 books and 8,000 articles. On 25th
June when I searched the Google search
engine for the phrase ―Knowledge Management‖, I got a stunning result of 17,500,000
hits.
This shows the amount of research and concern on this issue. There are other reasons
for conducting a Literature Review, such as seeing what other more experienced
researchers have used and how they constructed their research projects, and to learn
about their methodological approach (Cano, 2005).
After introducing Knowledge Management, the roadmap shown in figure 1 will be
followed by a 360° framework of Knowledge Management practices in construction as
a project-based industry and will be compared with Knowledge Management in an
organisation that does not adopt a Knowledge Management strategy.
2.2- What is Knowledge?
Prior to addressing Knowledge Management, it is perhaps sensible to define knowledge
and highlight its significance to organisations and to touch upon the need for systematic
Knowledge Management in the form of a deliberate knowledge strategy to manage the
body of knowledge. Knowledge is defined in various ways: (I): ―Information and skills
acquired through experience or education‖, (II): ―Awareness or familiarity gained by
experience‖, and (III): ―what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and
information‖. (Oxford Concise English Electronic Dictionary, 2004). Acquiring

9
Knowledge has always been important to both individuals and companies. Its economic
value has been discussed for decades. Marshall (1890, p.115) stated:
Capital consists in a great part of knowledge and organisation and of this some part is private
property and other part is not. Knowledge is our most powerful engine of production; it enables
us to subdue Nature and force her to satisfy our wants.
In the literature, the terms ―knowledge‖ and ―information‖ are sometimes used
interchangeably. However, various definitions propose that knowledge is different from
information. Identifying the difference will be beneficial since an Information System is
simply an enabler in a Knowledge System, and Knowledge Management could not exist
without an Information system (Call, 2005). Information is a processed data while
knowledge is described as a dynamic human process of ―justifying personal belief
toward the truth‖ (Nokana and Takeuchi, 1995, p.58).
The difference between knowledge and information is illustrated in the chain of the
knowledge flow (Kakabadse et al., 2003). This chain has five stages: (I) Data (II)
Information (III) Realization/Knowledge (IV) Action/reflection (V) Wisdom (See
Figure 2).
Figure 2: Chain of knowledge flow
Source: Adapted from Kakabadse et al.(2003)
Data Information
Realization
(knowledge)
Action/reflection Wisdom

10
Data are facts out of context and thus not meaningful (Zack, 1999), while information is
the outcome of putting data into a meaningful context (Zack, 1999). To obtain
information, the value of it have to be assessed; both of theoretical and practical
knowledge have to be acquired (Kakabadse et al., 2001) According to Kakabadse
(2001) This implies the operation of discipline or action and thus realization/knowledge
can be seen as information put to productive use. According to Murray (2002),
knowledge results in informed actions and these actions produce the required results
(Murray, 2002).
It is of necessity to view knowledge according to its final usage or upon the context of
its usage. This emphasizes the fact that knowledge is a component of a task performing
system that ensures task completion and repeating the task in the future. The lack of
such a component simply means failure, and if such lack is sustainted, means that the
system has come to an end (Carrillo et al., 2000). Knowledge has value when it enters
the system validated and used productively. Ultimately, action and reflection upon
knowledge are what enables one to reach wisdom.
According to Carrillo et al. (2000), the identification of the type of knowledge to be
managed is closely associated with ―the meaning of knowledge‖ and the understanding
of the nature of these types will contribute to our understanding of the concept for
academics and practitioners.
Knowledge Management literature dealt with issues such as explicit and tacit
knowledge (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995) - to be in discussed in the next section - and
the organisation of knowledge (Tsoukas, 1996). This represents an area for deliberate
intervention in managing knowledge (Townley, 1993).
2.2.1 Dimensions of knowledge.
Knowledge is complex in nature and multidimensional. There are many types of
knowledge and different explanations for it. For the scope limitation and nature of the
research; Nokana and Takeuchi‘s (1995) classification of knowledge in the context of
organisations will be used. Nokana and Takeuchi (1995) distinguished and classified
knowledge into explicit and tacit. ―The former can be easily codified, recorded and
stored. It is consciously held and controlled by the individuals‖ (Al-Alawi, 2007, p.2).

11
Nokana (1997) defines explicit knowledge as ―objective and rational knowledge that
can be expressed in words, sentences, numbers and formulas. It includes theoretical
approaches, problem solving, manual and databases‖.
The latter is subconscious, difficult to be codified and compromised: ―the experience
and ability to use knowledge effectively and wisely. It is the ‗subjective and experience-
based knowledge that cannot be expressed in words‖ (Al-Alawi, 2007). Tacit
knowledge is more complex and thus difficult to be articulated. According to Rumizen
and Rumizen (2002), it is the Knowledge that we do not know that we know. ―It
includes know-how, rules of thumb, experience, insight, and intuition. It is hard to
express, process, capture, or transmit in any systematic or logical manner‖ (Rumizen
and Rumizen, 200, P. 8)
In the context of organisations, tacit knowledge is the aggregate mindset. This aggregate
mindset of principles, rules, values, and ways of doing ‗business‘ works as a filter that
affects the decision-making and the organisational behaviour and eventually
accumulates to form the organisational culture (Stewart, 2001).
Some theorists believe that there is a halfway between these two dimensions of
knowledge which is implicit knowledge. It is the subset tacit knowledge that is
transformed into explicit knowledge. (Kothuri, 2002)
The tacit dimension of knowledge is frequently the most valuable. This is because it is
difficult to duplicate and requires interaction and informal learning processes.
Communities of practice (CoP) are in the best position to codify knowledge, as they can
combine its tacit and explicit aspects (Wenger et al., 2002).
Another interesting classification is classifying knowledge into individual and
organisational knowledge. On the one hand, there is the individual knowledge that is
partly tacit and partly explicit. On the other, there is the organisational knowledge
which is the collective knowledge that the members of the organisation own (Liebowitz,
1999). A good analogy is a basket ball team that is more successful and effective than
another whose players are better as individuals but egotistic. The team that is able to
collaborate and take advantage of the set of the skills and tactics available

12
(organisational knowledge) will be able to vanquish the other team even if its members
are better as individuals. The message is fairly simple. Individual knowledge if
managed effectively will constitute be a better fabric of organisational knowledge even
if the overall individual knowledge is limited.
2.2.2 Knowledge in the new paradigm: the knowledge economy.
In the industrial age, the main focus of companies was expansion and to increase
efficiency through the process. This very principle is reflected in the products at that
time. Traditionally, companies worked without reluctance ―to stamp out variability in
the products they make, to avoid risk, to be reliable, predictable and scalable. They
invested in infrastructure and policy manuals to reduce variability and increase
efficiency‖ (Godin, 2002, P. 23). A famous quote by Henry Ford (1922, P.72) can
provide a good briefing of the situation at the time: ―Any customer can have a car
painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black‖.
The portrait of this age is completely different. Many colours and tastes are there. The
nature of demand and the markets that satisfy it by the technology available are
changing fast. In such circumstances organisations cannot afford to work with old ways
and be predictable since ―what worked in stable times is precisely what will lead to a
company‘s demise when things are changing‖ (Godin, 2002, P. 23).
In an environment that is characterised with shortened business cycles and ever-
changing technology the intellectual capital framework is considered to be the primary
value-creation dynamics of the firm. The focus on the intellectual has dubbed our times
(Saint-Onge, 1996).
Many aspects have changed in the new economy. The intellectual capital has replaced
the factors of land and raw material as the most critical factors of production. Soft assets
such as skills, expertise, patents and copyrights have become extraordinarily valued.
What has changed is the paradigm in which the modern organisations operate where
knowledge is the most valuable asset. It is the so called ‗knowledge economy‘ which is
interconnected, complex, and changing persistently. According to Dahlman and

13
Andersson (2000), the knowledge economy makes efficient use of knowledge and this
includes tapping foreign knowledge and also creating knowledge for its specific needs.
It is an economy in which organisations function in the marketspace rather than the
marketplace. The marketspace is a networked complex environment in which
knowledge workers take on complex knowledge-related activities (Drucker, 1992).
Passerini (2007, P.115) states that sustaining competitive advantage in the knowledge
economy must thrive from: ―the creative, innovative, and sophisticated use of
knowledge and intellectual assets as strategic factors that enable dealing with the
challenges of pervasive globalization‖. In the knowledge economy there exist industries
that can be arguably classified into two categories: the knowledge-based industries and
the knowledge-intensive industries. This will be discussed thoroughly in section 2.2.3.
In the knowledge economy, the data seized by organisations must be exploited through
creating new ways to channel data into information. That information can become the
knowledge that grants wisdom (Alberthal, 1995). It is also characterised as being highly
competitive, and competitors aim to deliver quality products and services that are cost
effective. In such a market, the measure of success is continuous innovation and
industry benchmarking. (Koulopoulos and Frappaolo, 2000).
While innovation and creativity are integral factors for sustaining competitive
advantage, some predict that their role will be even more critical as these two aspects
will become the sole sustainable source of competitive advantage and the only way to
create value in organisations (Gratton, 2000).
The basis for innovation and creativity is the organisational knowledge base. It is where
the aggregate knowledge is leveraged. An excellent knowledge base enables ―the
knowledge-rich, knowledge managing company to move on to a new level of quality,
creativity or efficiency‖ (Davenport and Prusak, 2000, p.17). This has to do with the
ability to capture knowledge, which translates into continuing organisational
innovations and creativity. This, in turn, is accomplished by the internal organisational
resources, since ―the most valuable competitive intelligence and knowledge come
overwhelmingly from within one's own organisation and from one's own people‖
(Boshyk, 2000, P. 52). Therefore, being successful in managing the organisation‘s

14
knowledge means having a fundamental source of success and sustaining competitive
advantage. Authors such as Koulopoulos and Frappaolo (2000) went even further to
claim that Knowledge Management has become an entry requirement rather than a
differentiator.
2.2.3 Knowledge-based industries and knowledge intensive industries.
The Industrial use of knowledge is variable. This is largely dependent upon the nature
of the industry itself. In most industries, knowledge is used as a facilitator to reengineer,
and optimise business processes.
In this case, the knowledge of the knowledge-based industries is very important for the
survival of the industry, but it is rather a means rather than an end. On the other hand, to
knowledge-intensive industries, knowledge is the core of all activities. For some
industries, it is the only commodity. This is clearly manifested in the cases of
management consultancies and law firms. According to Apostolou and Mentzas (1999),
the key assets in knowledge-intensive companies are the corporate knowledge obtained
from client‘s assignments and the ability to exploit and translate tacit knowledge into
explicit knowledge accessible to employees.
2.3- Knowledge Management: managing the intellectual capital
In his section the concept of the intellectual capital will be discussed and how this
relates to Knowledge Management.
2.3.1 The Intellectual capital
Before tackling Knowledge Management, I will shed some light on the concept of the
Intellectual capital and its relation to Knowledge Management. Knowledge
Management is different from the intellectual capital, although some aspects do overlap.
Some intellectual capital such as the Logo is not knowledge and some knowledge has
no economic value and therefore is not intellectual capital. The intellectual capital is the
―sum and synergy of an organisation‘s knowledge, relationships, experience,
discoveries, processes, innovations, market presence and influence on the community‖
(Cronje, 2003, P. 17). In the old times, the focus was on managing the tangible assets

15
of the company. In the new paradigm (as discussed in section 2.2.1), organisations
started to realise that intangible assets are of more significance. As a result,
organisations changed their view fundamentally towards the management of assets
(Sveiby et al., 2002).
Stewart (2001) believes that the organisation‘s total market value consists of tangible
and intangible assets. The intangible assets are the organisation‘s intellectual capital or
knowledge assets that encompass talents, skills, know-how, know-what, and
relationships – and machines and networks that embody them – that can be used to
create wealth (Stewart, 2001).
Stewart (2001) classifies the intellectual capital into three main categories: Human
capital: the talents/mindsets, skills, and knowledge of employees on providing
customer solutions.
 Structural/organisational capital: the knowledge artefacts or capabilities
of the organisation to meet market requirements, This include patents, licences, and
business processes.
 Customer capital: the extent and intensity of relationships with customers and
Suppliers (Stewart, 2001, P. 11)
Figure 3: The Intellectual capital
Source: Compiled from Stewart (2001) and Bhatt (2008)
Organisational
Capital
Financial Capital
Intellectcual
capital
Human capital
Culture Talents & skills Stakeholder
relationship
Structural
capital
Routine &
Practice
Patents &
licenses
Customer capital
Relationship
with customer

16
The efficient management of the intellectual capital is very critical for future
organisations as it enhances the potential to raise the levels of productivity, quality, and
innovation through changing the way things are done in organisations (Cronje, 2003).
The Three aspects of the intellectual capital influence one other and function as a
system, and hence cannot be managed separately (Saint-Onge, 1996).
Intellectual capital comprises more than mere knowledge, it is an overarching term for
the knowledge in organisation and also the efficiency of managing this knowledge. The
research will focus on the human capital and the organisational capital and handle the
customer capital in brief as this involves diversified issues that go beyond the research
objectives and involves other disciplines such as Supply Chain Management. After
defining what is meant by the intellectual capital, now Knowledge Management will be
explored as a mechanism for the management of the organisation‘s intellectual assets.
2.3.2 Knowledge Management
There is no doubt that knowledge was indeed managed before the concept of
Knowledge Management came to the surface. This means that we have to realise that
―the processes that create and apply knowledge in organisations are by no means always
labelled ‗Knowledge Management‘ and the unlabelled Knowledge Management
processes have a rather longer history (Quintas, 2005, P.10). Nokana and Takeuchi‘s
contribution in the famous book The Knowledge-Creating Company (1995) involved
case studies of Honda, Matsushita and other Japanese firms were not companies that
had a designated strategy of Knowledge Management, but rather actual knowledge
processes that are intiuitve. According to Quintas (2005), Knowledge Management
processes have been discovered rather than invented. These proclaims do not prove that
Knowledge Management is neccesarily relevant and valid in the consturction industry
which has diffrent characteritics such as being a project-based industry and the fact that
it is sometimes regarded as a product provider rather than a service provider and viewed
as a low knowledge industry. Seemingly, no strategies have been delivered yet to show
the way knowledge and its knowledge processes fit in the construction industry as a
project-based industry.

17
There is no unanimous definition to Knowledge Management and this can be attributed
to the complexities and volume of issues that surround the topic and thus several
definitions will be presented with comments. According to Marr et al., (2003)
Knowledge Management can be defined as ―the collective phrase for a group of
processes and practices used by organisations to increase their value by improving the
effectiveness of the generation and application of their intellectual capital‖. This
definition focuses on the link between Knowledge Management and the intellectual
capital. According to Boisot (1995), Knowledge Management processes are ‗meta-
processes‘ that cannot be observed like the ‗physical processes‘ and differ as the ways
and means of recording, creating, and transmitting knowledge mostly differ. This
definition implies that no two Knowledge Management implementations will bring the
same consequences and results since socio-cultural contexts differ. Another interesting
definition is provided by Cross (1998, P. 11):
―Knowledge Management is the discipline of creating a thriving work and learning
environment that fosters the continuous creation, aggregation, use, and re-use of both
organisational and personal knowledge in the pursuit of new business value‖. This
definition is action-oriented. There is no emphasis on the Intellectual capital or
Knowledge assets. It rather focuses on the creation of knowledge and the issues that
involve this process and also the organisational learning which will be discussed in
further details.
Knowledge Management is more than mere process of Information Management that
strictly involve capturing, storing, and disseminating rigid data and information.
Knowledge Management initiatives goes beyond data and Information Management.
Knowledge Management aims to transform the processed data (Information) to
knowledge, and transform tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. Others view
Knowledge Management as a conscious and deliberate strategy to disseminate and share
knowledge effectively with the right people at the right time and put information into
action for the purpose of improving organisational performance (O‘Dell and Jackson,
1998). This collection of processes of disseminating and utilising knowledge is to fulfil
organisational objectives (Murray and Myers, 1997).

18
From the definitions and the standpoints above, we can say that there are different
schools, perceptions and philosophies in Knowledge Management. Some view human-
beings as the central factor while others focus on the mechanical process of managing
knowledge. This is probably a result of the overlap and multi-layered relationship with
the other disciplines. Kakabadse et al. (2003) revealed that there were a number of
disciplines that affected the field of Knowledge Management thinking and praxis. They
include: ―philosophy, in defining knowledge; cognitive science (in understanding
knowledge workers); social science (understanding motivation, people, interactions,
culture, environment); management science (optimizing operations and integrating them
within the enterprise); information science (building knowledge-related capabilities);
knowledge engineering (eliciting and codifying knowledge); artificial intelligence
(automating routine and knowledge-intensive work) and economics (determining
priorities)‖ Kakabadse et al., 2003, P. 79) This may explain the host of working
definitions of Knowledge Management. Notwithstanding, most of the definitions in the
literature encompass some or all of the three components: business processes,
knowledge repositories, individual behaviour and information technologies
(Eschenfelder et al., 1998). These four elements allow the organisation to systematically
acquire, store, access, and re-use knowledge (Eschenfelder et al., 1998). A common
theme in all of the working definitions of knowledge Management is that it provides ―a
framework that builds on past experiences and creates new mechanisms for exchanging
and creating knowledge‖. (Lytras et al., 2002)
2.3.3 Knowledge Management drivers
Knowledge has been a source of competitive advantage for decades in the rapidly
changing environment, new technologies, and the complex knowledge-related activities
the symbolic analysts or knowledge workers take on formed a new breed of
organisations that are characterised by the growing role of intangible assets on the
expense of the tangible one. In the long run, though, the ‗Soft‘ and the ‗Hard‘ intangible
assets may fail, and hence companies have to develop their portfolio of intellectual
capital through effective and systematic knowledge-based collaboration to innovate and
differentiate their products and services. This is especially important in today‘s world as

19
―what was originally an innovative technology application soon became a basic
expectation in the consumer market‖ (Tiwana, 2002, P. 29).
The systematic management of knowledge ―stems from the need to control the inflow
and the outflow of information and knowledge between the organisation and the
environment on the one hand, and the dissemination and harnessing of knowledge
within the realm of the organisation on the other. Hence, the emergence should be
considered as a necessity rather than a fad‖ (Al-Alawi, 2007, p.4).
In a contribution of Tiwana (2002, p.29), the drivers of Knowledge Management can be
grouped into 6 broad themes (see table 2)
Table 2: Knowledge Management drivers
Table 1 Knowledge Management drivers
Type of Driver Description
Knowledge-Centric Drivers 1. The failure of companies to know what they already know.
2. The emergent need for smart knowledge distribution.
3. Knowledge velocity and sluggishness.
4. The problem of knowledge walkouts and high dependence on tacit
knowledge.
5. The need to deal with knowledge-hoarding propensity among
employees.
6. A need for systemic unlearning.
Technology drivers 7. The death of technology as a viable long-term differentiator.
8. Compression of product and process life cycles.
9. The need for a perfect link between knowledge, business strategy, and
information technology.
Organisational structure-based
drivers
10. Functional convergence.
11. The emergence of project-centric organisational structures.
12. Challenges brought about by deregulation.
13. The inability of companies to keep pace with competitive changes due
to globalization.
14. Convergence of products and services.
Personnel drivers 15. Widespread functional convergence.
16. The need to support effective cross-functional collaboration.
17. Team mobility and fluidity.
18. The need to deal with complex corporate expectations.

20
Process focused drivers 19. The need to avoid repeated and often-expensive mistakes.
20. The need to avoid unnecessary reinvention.
21. The need for accurate predictive anticipation.
22. The emerging need for competitive responsiveness.
Economic drivers 23. The potential for creating extraordinary leverage through knowledge;
the attractive economics of increasing returns.
24. The quest for a silver bullet for product and service differentiation.
Source: Tiwana (2002, p.29)
As one can notice, many of these drivers are especially relevant to the construction
industry as a project-based industry that needs support from cross-functional
collaboration, besides the need for ―team mobility and fluidity‖ and to avoid the
regimentation of the wheel. These issues will be discussed further in section 2.5
To some companies, Knowledge is a product (Havens and Knapp, 1999), for the reason
that it is considered to be an organisational commodity that should be protected against
external leakage (Earl and Scott, 1999). For others, knowledge is a strategic resource
that facilitates the creation of innovative products and services and thus delivers
competitive edge (Plessis, 2005). Knowledge is indeed a sustainable source of
competitive advantage in a globalised knowledge economy characterised by
inconsistency and uncertaintly, in which knowledge enble the organisation to solve
problems and seize opportunities (Earl and Scott, 1999). ‗‗Competitive success will be
based on how strategically intellectual capital is managed—from capturing, coding,
disseminating information, to acquiring new competencies through training and
development, to re-engineering business processes‘‘ (Bontis, 1996). Knowledge
Management secures the availability of the strategic knowledge that is required for
enriched day-to-day decision-making. In a project-based industry like construction
collaborative decision-making is an integral element to execute and manage large
projects. Collaboration is becoming more widespread due to the onset of the Internet
and its tools and platforms that facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration across
geographically disparate places (Mudge, 1999) Knowledge Management also ensures
―the retention and structuring of the knowledge shared in these collaborative forums that

21
can be used as input to further knowledge creation within these and other forums
(Plessis, 2004, p.79).
From a Customer Management standpoint, knowledge management represents the
infrastructure to create, share, and leverage knowledge on customers in a centralised
location. This provides a unified view of the customer in all the divisions, functions and
geographic location in the business. The Knowledge management system (KMS) can
provide the access to real-time knowledge on customers, thus providing the staff with
up-to-date records of knowledge. This in turn leads to a better understanding of the
relations with customers and their needs which ultimately leads to more effective
Customer Relationship Management (Plessis, 2005).
While information technology is an enabler to managing knowledge, it is per se one
extra reason for the need of managing knowledge as having such systems means having
more data, information and knowledge to be controlled and harnessed. The dramatic
advancements in the information and communication technology (ICT) and the way of
working, have made Knowledge Management an area of great importance (Mudge,
1999). Knowledge Management enables organisations to effectively retrieve of
knowledge and also, provide a ―structure to the Knowledge base in order to facilitate
more efficient organisation and retrieval of knowledge and information‖ (Plessis, 2005,
p.199).
One challenge that organisations face is the retaining of employees. When employees
leave, they take their know-how with them and this leads to knowledge attrition in the
organisation (Hargadon and Sutton, 2000). Plessis (2005, p.200) states that
organisations are changing their strategy towards this problem through Knowledge
Management programmes rather than ―persuading employees to remain in the
organisation‖. Another challenge is knowledge hoarding that may take place within the
―functional silos‖ or where competition exists between employees. Knowledge
Management can contribute to vanquishing these barriers and establishing common
knowledge-sharing platform and support the process effectively through reward.
Operational inefficiencies such as the inefficient retrieval and re-use of knowledge
contribute to magnifying costs (time wasted and opportunities missed), and thus reduces
revenue. Cost saving is achieved through eliminating the duplication of work caused by

22
the ignorance of what knowledge already exists. Reusing knowledge over and over is of
great value to organisations as through time knowledge will be impeded in the
organisational structure (Plessis, 2005) .
It could be said that Knowledge Management is a multifaceted issue that needs to be
fostered by various functions in the organisation. Although reward, employee retention,
and creating a knowledge sharing culture are mainly HR functions, while Customer
Relationship Management is a separate issue, this does not mean that these aspects are
not Knowledge Management issues. Ideally, Knowledge Management is a strategy,
which means it could be a bundle of solutions in a complex working environment, and
thus, solutions will mostly be cross-functional.
This section discussed the Intellectual capital model and how it relates to knowledge
management. The intellectual capital framework is the cornerstone of the framework under
development. In the light of what is being presented, the intellectual capital has three main
segments, namely, Human, Structural and Customer capitals. The Human capital is about
managing people‘s learning and culture. While the other two are about managing the
process (see figure 4). Technology represents an enabler to managing processes and people.
Figure 4: Linking the intellectual capital model with Knowledge Management
Source: (Al-Alawi 2008)
To obtain a better understanding, and for the purpose of building the framework; two
perspectives must be investigated and reviewed, namely, the components of knowledge

23
management (people, process and technology) and the characteristics of the project-
based industry, particularly, construction.
2.4- Knowledge Management components
Research indicates that since the emergence of the Knowledge Management concept in
the early 1990s, many of the Knowledge Management initiatives ―have failed to achieve
their full potential. Users and analysts are beginning to blame the limited success on
overemphasis on technology‖ (Nakra, 2000, P. 53)‖. The emphasis on technology is
manifested in limiting the role of people and process in the equation. Technology was in
a sense an end rather than a means. Information and knowledge is to empower people
and no to be preserved in large knowledge repositories. Capturing and creating new
knowledge are processes intended to be utilized, used and re-used by people via a
quality process. The role of technology, in simple terms, is an enabler and a platform to
managing knowledge as knowledge resides in people not technology. As a matter of
fact, the most important theme around effective knowledge management is considering
the human element as organisational assets.
There is a need for linking knowledgeable people with the other workers for knowledge
sharing and this is done through the process and the technology that facilitates and
smoothens the process. The former, must be designed and structured in a way that
enables effective collaboration, i.e., a structure that allows knowledge transfer. The
later, namely, technology should be a reliable infrastructure that promotes knowledge
sharing and provides accessibility to explicit and implicit knowledge. Effective
Knowledge Management cannot be achieved without bearing in mind this triad.
Overlooking any element of the three will most probably create a lopsided situation. In
this way, these three elements will be deconstructed and discussed to have better
understanding of the concepts and issues surrounding these areas.
Next, the roles of People or Knowledge workers will be presented and also the role of
process and the supportive role of technology (See figure 4), and how these aspects
affect each other and how they are affected by the organisational structure, leadership
and reward system. Also, how these aspects relate to construction will be addressed.

24
Figure 5: Knowledge Management components
2.4.1 People
In the realm of the Knowledge economy, ―employees and managers who contribute
significantly to the intellectual capital of the company are called knowledge workers‖
(Bergeron, 2003, P. 58). A knowledge worker can be defined as: ―an employee who is
able to find, understand and use knowledge in the organisation on his or her own. A
knowledge worker who takes the responsibility for his or her own learning is qualified
to explore relevant scientific information from corporate as well as national and
international sources. A knowledge worker is able to use such information in daily
knowledge work to solve problems for customers‖ (Gottschalk, 2005, p.27). A
knowledge worker could be a doctor in a hospital, a lawyer in a firm, an advisor in a
consultancy, an engineer in a construction company, or simply a technician or an IT
specialist.
People
Knowledge workers and
knowledge work,
Organisational learning ,
organisational culture,
knowledge sharing ,
communities of practice,
attitudes
Technology
Intanets, social
networks, data
reposotories, Data
mining and analysis,
decisions support
systems
Process
Knowledge
lifecycle,Business
excellence,
Workflow , AAR

25
Knowledgeability is not about possessing information, but is more about the ability to
utilize and frame the information according to the context of experience and expertise
knowledgeable people have. This may lead to the creation of new information that
increases the potential; the thing which will enable further interaction with expertise and
experience (Grover and Davenport, 2001).
There is a difference between procedural work and knowledge work. All work is a mix
of the two aspects. The distinctions made by Shum (1998) are:
i. ―Knowledge workers are changed by the information in their environment, and
they in turn seek to change others through information‖.
ii. ―Communication networks are highly variable‖, according to Gottschalk (2005),
in knowledge work there are different patterns and mediums. Teams form and
disband according to the project status and needs. Knowledge is embedded in
documents and emails. On the other hand, the procedural work tends to be more
static and the responsibilities and relationships are well-defined; and so is the
flow of information (Gottschalk, 2005).‖
iii. ―Diversity and ad-hoc behaviour patterns are common in knowledge work‖.
Information is reused and passed on in ―opportunistic ways, dependent on the
changing contexts and interleaving of the worker‘s activities. In contrast, the
consistency of method and output is important in procedural work‖ (Shum,
1998, cited in Gottschalk, 2005, P. 28).
This distinction is important in the sense that not all work in any organisation is
knowledge work. This implies using different strategies to manage the knowledge
available according to the nature of the work being done. Although procedural work is
not knowledge work, this does not mean that there is no knowledge generated in the
process. Procedures can be designed so that they increase the flow of knowledge in the
organisations, for instance, through documentation. In this sense, even procedural work
is a knowledge work. This will be discussed more in the framework development.

26
Whether or not the organisation is a knowledge-based one, Knowledge workers usually
add value to the organisation through contributing to the Intellectual capital by problem
solving activities, innovation, disseminating information or reporting best practices
(Bergeron, 2003). In both cases, the knowledge worker is either the source or conduit of
knowledge (Bergeron, 2003). Gottschalk, (2005, P. 29) states:
―Collaborative work will increase as a percentage of people‘s expected output, steadily
encroaching on the individuals‘ time to work quietly on their own projects. Vacations and
shorter work weeks may make work schedules more tolerable, but the actions that will best
prevent burnout are the redesign of work, the redefinition of metrics for collaborative
assignments, the sharing of work with appropriate support staff and the installation of
appropriate software tools for meeting and working collaboratively‖.
Knowledge workers affect the process of knowledge-creation. The most two aspects that
affect the process are the organisational learning and culture. These will be discussed next.
2.4.1.1 The organisational learning and culture
The organisational culture or the corporate culture is defined as ―the specific collection
of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organisation and that
control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the
organisation. Organisational values are beliefs and ideas about the kinds of goals the
members of an organisation should pursue and the ideas about the appropriate kinds or
standards of behaviour the organisational members should take on to achieve these
goals. From organisational values develop organisational norms, guidelines, or
expectations that prescribe appropriate kinds of behaviour by employees in particular
situations and control the behaviour of the organisational members towards one
another‖ (Devis, 2007). Organisational culture plays a crucial role in establishing
effective knowledge management intiatives.
It is evident that the formal structure of the majority of companies‘ formal structures
inhibit Knowledge Management (De Long and Seeman, 2000). The structure that
supports knowledge sharing is penetratable and permeable, and thus promotes the flow
of knowledge from most employees regardless of their job role and function and other
boundries. Another concept related to the organisational structure and Knowledge

27
Management is the organisational learning. It is considered to be ― a structural
management initiative to support learning within and by the organisation‖, Whereas
Organisational learning (OL) ―learning is seen as the process through which an
organisation (re)constructs knowledge‖ (Huysman & De Wit, 2003, P. 47)
Bewilderment is found in the literature between the terms ―learning organisation‖ and
―organisational learning‖ and the terms are usually used interchangeably (Denton,
1998).
Organisational learning (OL) is percieved as an institutionalizing process by which
individual knowledge becomes organisational knowledge. Institutionalization is a
process ―which translates an organisation's code of conduct, mission, policies, vision,
and strategic plans into action guidelines applicable to the daily activities of its officers
and other employees. It aims at integrating fundamental values and objectives into the
organisation's culture and structure‖ (The University of Utah, 2000). In this process, the
individual or the local knowledge transmutes into collective knowledge.
On the other hand, a learning organisation (LO) is an entitiy in which people
consistently enhace their capacity to produce the desired results. It is where new broad
patterns of thinking are nourished and where people continually learn how to learn
together. It is where aspirations are set free (Senge, 1990). Although this depiction
seems to be platonic and idealistic, it is in fact evident that establishing the suitable
structure that has a proper reward sytem and an atmosphere of openess will promote and
support these activities.Thus, organisational learning is ―the distinctive organisational
behaviour that is practised in a learning organisation‖. (Denton, 1998, P. 3)
Learning exists in organisations in variations of scope and forms. Under the banner of
―learning organisation‖, one often finds the concept of the single-loop and the double-
loop learning. Argyris (1999) explains the difference through an interesting and rather
awkward analogy:
―A thermostat that automatically turns on the heat whenever the temperature in the room drops
below 68 degrees is a good example of single-loop learning. A thermostat that could ask, ‗Why
am I set at 68 degrees?‘ and then explore whether or not some other temperature might more

28
economically achieve the goal of hearing the room would be engaging in double- loop learning‖
(Argyris, 1999, P. 127)
Single-loop learning is considered as a part of a process in which individuals implement
to execute duties successfully in the real world (Argyris, 1991). People encounter
different situations in the course of day-to-day activities and refer the internally kept
rules and procedures in response. Single-loop learning is the basic type of learning that
happens within a set of recognized and unrecognized constraints in which the
organisation shows suppositions regarding the environment and itself (Prahalad and
Bettis, 1986).
While Double-loop learning, On the other hand, is when the organisation is in need for
new approaches of conduct, based on comprehending the systems and relationships that
connect critical and judgmental issues. In the example of the thermostat, the double-
loop reaction was to first take into account the value of the preordained single-loop
reaction and to consider whether or not a substitute might deliver better results. Slater
and Narver (1995) believe that double-loop learning is very likely to initiate competitive
advantage. This is not necessarily agreeable among other researchers.
Argyris (1999) states that double-loop learning takes place when deficiency is
discovered and corrected in the organisation. This includes the adjustment of the
organisation‘s underlying norms, policies and objectives. The organisational culture that
allows norms and policies to be questioned is needed and not only so, but also, the
organisation should be willing and supportive for the process of change (Call, 2005).
This allows every employee in the organisation to benchmark and bring his experiences,
expertise and best practices he/she learned to the organisation. Other influential aspects
are trust, confidence and the willingness to contribute. Thus, learning from employees
who are dynamically engaged in the organisational activities which will efficiently
capture knowledge (Hoof and Ridder, 2004). Moreover, such engagement and
commitement support establishing a dynamic adhocracy that fosters local
responsiveness (Sharkie, 2003). Argyris (1999) observed in a research that double-loop
learning is likely to happen in organisations that have an atmosphere of open
communication and a culture of experimentation and a structure of decentralized
authority.

29
In contrast, the research by Argyris (1999) showed that many of the organisations
surveyed resisted double-loop learning and the reasons are control over risk taking
which is a very important aspect, fear of failure and resistance to change. These aspects
inhibit and withhold the organisation‘s capacity to practice double-loop learning.
The learning process should include all the organisational members if learning is to
promote cultural and structural change. Hatch (1995, cited in James and Jay, 2007, p.
676-677) observed that ―as double-loop learning diffuses, the organisational stability is
replaced by chaos and new organisational orders emerge from the internal dynamics of
the organisation rather than at the behest of top management‖. In this sense, double-loop
learning can be regarded an initiative that is consistent with the postmodernist notion of
deconstructing hierarchy and eliminating bureaucracy (Bokeno, 2003).
Yet, some researchers noted that double-loop learning could cause more organisational
errors when members of the organisation are of limited knowledge and skills, and in this
case, double-loop learning could be harmful. What is more is that it may obstruct the
adoption of new thoughts (Blackman et al., 2004).
In response, some provoke the concept of ―triple-loop‖ learning as a method to deal
with the cognitive limitations and demerits of double-loop learning. According to (Bess
et al., 2007) triple-loop learning is the development of the organisational structure for
the learning.
This structure should link all the business units together and promote ―collective
mindfulness‖ in the direction of how the member and the organisation and their
predecessors have promoted or obstructed learning (Romme and van Witteloosruijn,
1999). In this way, the third loop promotes meta-cognitive perception in regard to
organisational learning (OL). Namely, learning about how the organisation learns the
thing which enables the member of the organisation to deal with cognitive complexity
and ensure that they will not spend more time thinking on the expense of taking action.
(Bess et al., 2007). After exploring people‘s role in Knowledge Management in general,
now this issue will be examined specifically from the construction industry point of
view.

30
2.4.1.2 People in construction
The construction sector is characterised by the wealth of experiential knowledge and
senior staff regularly leave or retire, mostly taking tacit knowledge. Organisations must
determine how to deal with this problem and retain knowledge within the organisation.
What complicates the issue is the fact that 80% of the functional knowledge is tacit
(Sheehan et al., 2005).
According to Marshall and Sapsed (2000), senior engineers own knowledge that is
gained through experience and many of those engineers see ‗knowledge is power‘ and
they are approaching retirement.
According to Sheehan et al. (2005), an effective approach is developing a form of
mentor/apprentice relationship that is essential to transfer craft side knowledge of
construction. This type of local transfer of knowledge between project teams, across
organisations is possible but more challenging (Sheehan et al., 2005). Big construction
companies face difficulties to ‗know what they know‘ and ‗know who knew‘ and in
response, Arup construction company developed a web-based knowledge sharing tool
that allows the company to locate those with the required expertise throughout 7,000
employees within seconds. All individuals can easily share their expertise with the rest
(Sheehan et al., 2005). Obviously, this does not exist in a vacuum. As discussed earlier,
other issues such as culture, organisational structure, and reward play a major role.
Within Arup, where there is an organic organisational structure that allows individuals
to put forward information and easily share expertise and interests with minimal
boundaries and censorship. Culture could be a serious barrier to the creation of
knowledge-creating companies (Sheehan et al., 2005).
Arup adopted a policy of supporting knowledge sharing in free time and innovative
projects. Another option is performance coaching to help in cultivating the knowledge
behaviours needed. Organisations should consider cultural and change philosophy and
performance appraisal once the required behaviour is defined and when Knowledge
Management is considered as a factor in the appraisal (Sheehan et al., 2005).

31
2.4.2 Process
Sharing, archiving, and reusing knowledge is practiced in the majority of organisations.
Leaving these activities unmanaged decrease the probability they will happen at least in
a regular manner. Conversely, executing a formal Knowledge Management plan with a
definite set of practices and parameters based on best practices will manifest better
results. According to (Bergeron, 2003), as in any other initiative in any other
organisation, a Knowledge Management program must be aligned with the business key
processes and strategies. For example, if IT specialists are instructed to document each
troubleshooting and use the system procedures, and for doing so, they will be rewarded
strictly on the progress, and failing to do so will deprive them from the rewards. This,
however, will be likely less effective as employees may strive to document unneeded
things just for the purpose of harvesting the prospective benefits as in the case of one
company where the employees were asked to document the remarks of the encounters
with customers, and over time, the employees learned to record the ‗right remarks‘ to
get the rewards (Grugulis, 2007). Nonetheless, having a Knowledge Management
initiative that is designed and orchestrated on the basis of business excellence, for
instance, in which the Knowledge-based processes are more of core activities. Then the
company can benefit from the synergies between the two functions more effectively.
Understanding the process of managing knowledge requires the understanding the
Knowledge life cycle process and its implications.
2.4.2.1 Knowledge Management processes
To describe Knowledge Management processes, the Probst et al. (2003) approach as
cited in Neumann (2005) will be used in this section. Understanding the cycle will
support the understanding of knowledge processes in the organisation.
Figure 5 depicts the six elements of the Knowledge Management life-cycle as described
by Probst et al. (2003). It includes: the identification, acquisition, creation, sharing,
application, and preservation of knowledge.

32
Figure 6: The Knowledge Management life-cycle
Adapted from: Probst et al. (2003)
i. Identification of knowledge
In most corporations, employees are not cognizant of existing knowledge whether
explicit (e.g. databases) or tacit (e.g. colleagues expertise). This gap may lead to poor
decision making and a waste of resources for not utilizing the resource available to the
optimum. Transparency has to be adopted and implemented by identifying the internal
and external knowledge resources . It is also vital to identify the knowledge gap through
an assessment of the knowledge available in the company and gaps identification can be
more difficult than knowledge identification, as most people are hesitant or unwilling to
confess their lack of knowledge.
ii. Acquisition of knowledge
Developing and creating knowledge is costly. Generally, the acquisition of existing
knowledge is less expensive than the creation of new knowledge. Knowledge can also
be sought outside the bounds of the organisation That is external knowledge.
Knowledge can be acquired through customers, competitors, suppliers and even
academic and professional institutions (universities and business consultancies).

33
iii. Creation of knowledge
Knowledge creation is an ultimate source of competitive advantage. Creativity is a
spontaneous activity that cannot be mechanically ordered and managed while an
organisation can adopt strategies to influence and increase the levels of creativity, such
as providing the environmental conditions, support and motivation. The key factors of
knowledge creation are transparency, interaction, communication, and integration.
iv. Sharing / distribution of knowledge
Knowledge sharing and distribution are vital processes as they can leverage the other
processes. Explicit knowledge can be distributed via paper or electronic documents. An
important issue is the access of information and who is authorized to access it.
Unprotected critical information can cause the loss of competitive advantage and can
have serious outcomes.
Information repositories can have plenty of information but not that which the
management need. In a push strategy, knowledge content is pushed top down through
defined channels. Content and the recipients are fundamental for the functionality of the
strategy. In a pull-strategy the knowledge and information can be found in the intranets
but not automatically deployed so to speak. Tacit knowledge distribution is not as easy
as there is a social aspect of it. In a research by Werr and Sternberg (2003), this is
illustrated well. All the consulting companies studied had databases of past projects and
things done. But they found out that this only provides a common language that sets the
ground for communication. Mostly, the contact with the individuals who documented
the experience generates the most valuable information. Communities of practice who
are employees who grant the social conduits are helpful methods.
v. Application of knowledge
It is not of sanity to absolutely assume that if knowledge is available, it will be used by
the members of the organisation; even if the knowledge is tailored and catered to the
organisation and the trained prospective users. It is difficult to persuade people to forgo
their old knowledge and adopt the new knowledge (Neumann, 2005). People are
naturally resistant to change. Here, the role leaders is the key to lure their employees to
apply the knowledge that is beneficial to both the employees and organisation.

34
vi. Preservation of knowledge
The preservation of knowledge has to be a specific management action. Figure 7
presents the need to store and update useful knowledge and to forgo obsolete
knowledge.
Figure 7: Main processes of knowledge preservation
Source: Neumann (2005)
According to Neumann (2005), Explicit knowledge can be preserved by standardizing
procedures in a way that preserves knowledge with the aid of information technology.
While tacit Knowledge requires a strong culture that is very important for the
preservation of knowledge. Besides, reports of the personal contact of individuals that
ensure the transfer of tacit knowledge are a critical factor.
These processes variably occur in organisations. Provided that these processes occurred
a few times in a lifetime, it is rather inaccurate to classify the organisation as a
knowledge-creating one. Therefore, consistency has to be ensured.
2.4.2.2 Business excellence in the process
Quality control is a key managerial issue in Knowledge Management and this includes
the extent to which quality standards are recognized and followed and also, the process
stability of each stage of the knowledge management process. Management can control
Selection Store Actualize

35
the process by assigning specialists who are in charge of the Knowledge Management
process (Bergeron, 2003)
According to Bergeron (2003), standards ensure the control and flow of information and
are considered as an extension of the Knowledge Management process because of the
fact that they encapsulate rules and heuristics and, this is in its own right well-founded
knowledge. Furthermore, standards represent best practices that pave the way for
Knowledge Management effectiveness. Moreover, standards provide the foundation for
optimized Knowledge Management through benchmarking (Bergeron, 2003). On this
basis, a quality standard must be taken into account when planning, executing,
measuring and assessing the Knowledge Management activities. ISO 9000/2000 could
be a good tool for documenting procedures and forming standardized operations.
Nevertheless, the potential of the ISO standard is very limited and does not cover the
range of issues required for managing knowledge and certainly does not provide a 360°
view of the dimensions and perspectives required for effective sustainable processes.
The EFQM enablers will be used to identify whether the knowledge-based practices
subject to question are constant or they are simply random acts that happen variably.
Martıin-Castilla and Rodriguez-Ruiz (2008) revealed that the excellence models are
related to the Intellectual capital model. Also, the EFQM model can be considered as a
tool for the governance of knowledge. Thus, herein I will present the EFQM quality
model which will be used as the diagnostic perspective of the developed framework to
ensure consistency and quality. The EFQM model is based on these principles. These
are listed in table 2

36
Table 3:The principles of the EFQM model
Table 2 The principles of the EFQM model
Attribute Description
Results orientation Organisational actions have to be oriented to the needs of stakeholders
(employees, customers, allies, society and those who have economical or
non economical interests in the organisation). It is necessary to reach a
balance between different interests.
Customer focus The customer is the judge of product quality. The organisation should focus
on satisfying customers' current and future expectations.
Leadership and constancy of
purpose
The management team has to be involved in the development of a culture of
excellence. It is necessary to have an entrepreneurial view of the
organisation's future.
Management by processes and
facts
The excellent organisation manages activities as processes. Owners are
specifically identified and defined. Activities concerning process
improvement are carried out following a quality management system.
People development and
involvement
People are the most valuable asset in organisations. Corporations have to
pay increasing attention to shared values, promoting an environment of
confidence, responsibility assumption and personal development.
Learning, innovation and
continuous improvement
Correct management of knowledge, experiences, creativity and innovation is
necessary for the development of a continuous improvement culture.
Partnership development The search for excellence involves mutually beneficial collaboration and
cooperative relations. This sort of relationship is based on confidence.
Knowledge socialization is essential for creating value in customer service.
Corporate social responsibility Ethical principles should inspire organisational behaviour. Ambitious
continuous improvement objectives will exceed the limited objectives of
compulsory norms.
Source: Adapted from Martin-Castilla and Rodriguez-Ruiz (2008, p.137)
The EFQM Excellence Model is a framework that is based on nine criteria. These are
divided into two categories: ‗Enablers‘ and ‗Results‘. The former category has five
criteria and covers the process, while the latter has four criteria and covers the results
caused by the enablers, i.e., what the organisation achieves (Bhatt, 2008).

37
The Model‘s boxes represent the standard against which to assess the progress towards
excellence. For the purpose of developing a high level of preciseness, a criterion has a
number of sub-criteria. The criteria present the questions that should be considered (See
table 3).
Table 4: EFQM model enablers and results
Table 3 EFQM model Enablers and results
ENABLERS - how we do things RESULTS - what we target, measure and achieve
LEADERSHIP - How leaders develop and facilitate the
achievement of the mission and vision, develop values
required for long term success and implement these via
appropriate actions and behaviours, and are personally
involved in ensuring that the organisation's
management system is developed and implemented.
CUSTOMER RESULTS - What the organisation
is achieving in relation to its external customers.
POLICY & STRATEGY - How the organisation
implements its mission and vision via a clear
stakeholder focused strategy, supported by relevant
policies, plans, objectives, targets and processes.
PEOPLE RESULTS - What the organisation is
achieving in relation to its people
PEOPLE - How the organisation manages, develops
and releases the knowledge and full potential of its
people at an individual, team-based and organisation-
wide level, and plans these activities in order to support
its policy and strategy and the effective operation of its
processes.
SOCIETY RESULTS - What the organisation is
achieving in relation to local and international
society as appropriate.
PARNERSHIPS & RESOURCES -How the
organisation plans and manages its external
partnerships and internal resources in order to support
its policy and strategy and the effective operation of its
processes.
KEY PERFORMANCE RESULTS - What the
organisation is achieving in relation to its planned
performance.
PROCESSES - How the organisation designs, manages
and improves its processes in order to support its policy
and strategy and fully satisfy, and generate increasing
value for, its customers and other stakeholders.
Taken from Bhatt (2008)

38
According to Martin-Castilla and Rodriguez-Ruiz (2008), the EFQM model offers a
number of tools for knowledge governance. In describing the knowledge life-cycle, it
has been noticed that there is an overlap between some of the ‗enablers‘ and aspect that
must be taken into consideration during the life-cycle, such as leadership. This model
will be partially used in the framework for identifying the enablers, whether these
ensure the sustainability and the consistency and how these affect the processes
positively or negatively.
2.4.2.3 Processes in construction
Embedding Knowledge Management practices into the business processes promotes
knowledge transfer, project review, organisational learning and the creation of a
permanent source of best practices will reduce the reinvention of the wheel (Sheehan et
al., 2005). Employees at Arup share best practices through their feedback note system,
while at EC Harris, the Knowledge officer works on high-quality knowledge bundles
related to construction issues to improve effectiveness. Reviews are effective approach
to mobilize knowledge across projects and thus, many organisations succeeded in
establishing a link between learning and knowledge transfer and one way is to pause
and reflect on the efficiency of the current approaches and consider the the potential of
the alternative approaches (Sheehan et al., 2005). Projects in construction are inherently
complex and reflecting on those projects fortifies the competencies and the advantages
the company has. Project learning is a complementary factor to a comprehensive
Knowledge Management strategy. Methods such as learning histories and after-action
reviews are applied, facilitating lessons learned and providing successful dissemination
of knowledge that can be used in future projects (Sheehan et al., 2005). (706) The after
action review, a method developed by the US Army, is a discussion of an event which
enable participants to learn the reasons for success or failure while learning histories, a
method by the MIT, is a method in which project experiences are documented,
analysed, and involved in a series of interviews supplemented by the project records for
capturing project knowledge. According to Sheehan et al. (2005), these ‗soft‘ methods
should be integrated with the project process, since project teams disperse after projects
and this, combined with time limitation and lack of incentive, lessens the probability for
reflection and learning. This highlights the significance of establishing a strategy for
Knowledge Management. Communities of practice are an alternative, less structured,

39
and semi-informal approach for learning and reviewing lessons learned that could thrive
in adhocracies where employees are empowered, and suffer in bureaucracies were
communities are perceived less important than project teams (Coakes and Clarke,
2006).
2.4.3 Technology
The technology-based perspective of Knowledge Management is concerned with
implementing information technology and how to systematize, store and distribute
information to knowledge workers (Gottschalk, 2005).
According to Sheehan et al. (2005) the Knowledge Management technologies relevant to
the construction industry can be divided into four main categories:
i. People-supporting. For example, profiling, mapping of skills and corporate
yellow pages applications.
ii. Projects-supporting collaborative working, document management reviews and
archiving.
iii. Organisations-supporting cross-project and interdivisional working,
communities of practice and idea generation.
iv. Industries-supporting extranet communities that unite disciplines across
organisational boundaries (Sheehan et al.,2005).
The backbone of almost any Knowledge Management technology efforts are intranets
with the selected components according to the requirements from the areas above
(Sheehan et al., 2005).
Knowledge Management can exist without information technology (Call, 2005).
Nevertheless, the use of information technology is a key element in today‘s
organisations as the advances in information technology increased the possibility and
the prospects for a better dissemination of information and knowledge (Gottschalk,
2005). According to Gottschalk (2005), Information technology has increased social
and technical connectivity in organisations, and thus, knowledge sharing.

40
For the Information technology to be effective as an enabler for Knowledge
Management, the information technology strategy must be ‗enterprise-wide.‘ (Malhotra,
2005). A key factor in developing the system is connectivity and integration in every
part of the organisation rather than each division in separate, and pursuing its own
agenda. According to the network model, we will be having small networks linked with
other networks. It is also important to identify whether the information technology
infrastructure is sufficient to foster knowledge-based practices (Lin and Tseng, 2005).
The software used in Knowledge Management can be classified into two main categories:
Artificial intelligence (AI) software and the conventional software. Both of these play a
role in supporting Knowledge Management (Edwards et al., 2005). Table 5 demonstrate
the common form of both categories.
Table 5: Different types of support for knowledge management
Table 5 Different types of support for knowledge management
AI-based Conventional
Case-based reasoning
Data mining
Expert systems
Genetic algorithms
Intelligent agents
Knowledge-based systems
Multi-agent systems
Neural networks
‗‗Push‘‘ technology
Bulletin boards
Computer-supported co-operative work
Databases
Data warehousing
Decision support systems
Discussion forums
Document management
Electronic publishing
E-mail
Executive information systems
Groupware
Information retrieval
Intranets
Multimedia/hypermedia
Natural language processing
People finder/‗‗Yellow Pages‘‘
Search engines
Workﬂow management
Source: Taken from: Edwards et al. (2005)

41
One important tool is online communities which makes it possible to bring those who
need the knowledge and the ones who own it together electronically regardless of
location (Kakabadse et al., 2003). This relationship between experts increases productivity,
innovation, collaboration and adhocracy. This improves the accessibility and retrieval of
knowledge and information, and consolidate control; factors that are essential for a reliable
Knowledge Management system.
This section explored the role of people, processes and technology in Knowledge
Management. The management of people is affected by the organisational culture and
the characteristics of knowledge working. Technology plays a role as an enabler and its
tools were discussed. Knowledge Management processes and the sustainability of these
practices were also investigated. These three components link the Intellectual capital
with the construction project learning and its supporting activities and the way these
activities create knowledge and contribute to the organisational knowledge base.
Projects are the core activities of the construction industry, and therefore, the
characteristics as a project-based industry and construction as a knowledge-based
industry will be discussed next.
2.5- Knowledge management in construction
The construction industry has been reluctant to adopt new management concepts and
initiatives, including Knowledge Management. This could be attributed to the
vagueness and misrepresentation that surround the concept (Kazi, 2005). Kazi (2005)
claims that when Knowledge management is well presented in a coherent and
understandable form, enthusiasm and willingness to adopting Knowledge Management
is observed. This reluctance can be attributed to the rapid advancement in the field of
Knowledge Management and the way many researchers link it to artificial intelligence
and quantum physics; areas which seem to be in fact too advanced or irrelevant to the
construction industry. Another misconception is considering the construction industry
as an industry that is not based on knowledge and disregarding the idea that knowledge
should be managed in such an industry. For that reason, the next section will discuss
construction as a knowledge-based industry and how knowledge could be managed in
an environment based on projects.

42
2.5.1 Construction as a knowledge-based industry
The nature of the construction markets has changed in terms of the demands for
projects. Add to that the complexities of projects; the multi-disciplined collaboration
that these projects require and the advancement in construction technologies are factors
that lead the construction industry to become a knowledge-based industry. ―A case is
made for the need to value knowledge workers in the construction industry as these
people who provide important skills and knowledge in the provision of services for the
industry in what is a knowledge economy ‖ (Egbu et al. , 2005, P. 2)
This is particularly true in the Kingdom of Bahrain, as there are intensive International
and local investments that are estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, a
number that is expected to rise in the next few years. According to a recent article by
Wanger (2008), Bahrain‘s government is developing strategic plans for maintaining an
infrastructure that is moving forward with property development. This will certainly
lead investments in a sophisticated infrastructure and increased competition. In addition,
the construction industry in Bahrain is a major sector for the delivery of government
programmes including infrastructure, hospitals, schools and housing.
A research by Windrum et al. (1997) indicates that that architecture, design, quantity
surveying, and other construction activities are knowledge-intensive activities. Since
knowledge-intensive work is characterised by the intensive use of tacit knowledge.
Expert knowledge and technical know-how are the products of the knowledge-intensive
sectors, aspects that the construction activities rely upon. According to Egbu and
Robinson (2005), Examples of tacit knowledge include:
―Estimating and tendering skills acquired over time through the hands-on experience of
preparing bids, understanding the construction process, interaction with
clients/customers, and project team members in the construction supply chain, as well
as understanding of the tender markets. This type of Knowledge is experiential,
judgmental, context specific and therefore difficult to codify and share‖. On the other
hand ―Explicit knowledge is stored as written documents or procedure. Therefore, this
is easier to share. Examples of explicit knowledge in construction include designed
codes of practice, performance specifications, drawings in a paper based or electronic

43
format, and construction techniques. Materials testing procedures, design sketches and
images, 3-D model and textbooks‖ (Egbu and Robinson, 2005, P. 34).
2.5.2 Construction as a project-based industry
Projects are the core activities of the construction industry and the nature and
requirements of the projects mean that project teams will often disperse by the end of
the project and thus, teams have to re-invent the wheel (Palmer and Platt, 2005). This is
epecially relevant and significant to a project-based industry like construction (Kazi,
2005).
The nature and the context of the projects affect the way knowledge is managed within
and between projects and provides the basis for knowledge transfer between the project
and the parent organisation, or across projects and parent organisations (Kamara et al.,
2005). These interactions are depicted in figures 8 and 9. Figure 8 shows a situation
where oraginastion occurs only once and is not repeated, such as the installation of a
new ICT system. The organisational knowledge base is used to implement the project
and afterwards the project is fed back to the organisational knowledge base (or is lost).
Figure 9 exhibits a parent organisation with various projects. In this case, supposedly, a
cyclical transfer of knowledge between project and the organisational knowledge base
(Kamara et al., 2005).
Figure 8: Relationship between project and organisation
Source: Kamara et al. (2005)
Knowledge
from
organisation
inputs into the
project
One-off
Project
Learning from
project filter
back into
parent
organisations

44
OKB= Organisational knowledge base
Figure 9: Cross-transfer between projects
Source: Kamara et al. (2005)
The cross-project Knowledge Management is a subset of Knowledge Management
practices that facilitate the transfer of knowledge between different projects using
different strategies depending on the context and the nature of the project. In some
cases, the strategies used occur by default. In other words, no deliberate strategy has
been undertaken to manage knowledge. Several studies in Knowledge Management
suggest that cross-project Knowledge Management is not formally implemented and
despite the dearth of formal strategies, Knowledge is transferred through several means
such as recruitment, training, mentoring, databases and intranets. According to Kamara
et al. (2005), for Knowledge Management to be successful at cross-projects, companies
should recognize high-grade knowledge and maintaining it as explicit as possible.
Experience is the intellectual capital of organisations and individuals, and this
experience should be handled properly, and in this way, project teams will not have to
repeat past mistakes (Stewart, 1997).
In the literature, the following gaps were found:
 Evidence can be found in the literature that companies informally practise
Knowledge Management. This is clear in Nokana and Takeuchi‘s (1995)
contribution. Nevertheless, the area is not yet fully explored and up-to-date
account is provided.
 As highlighted before, there is no framework for Knowledge Management in
construction that takes into consideration the characteristics of the industry.
OKB Project 1 OKB OKB Project n OKB

45
 There are dozens of models and tools that can be used, but these are often not
linked together, which may lead to ineffective Knowledge Management
practices because of the lack of the ‗big picture‘.
2.6- Developing the framework
In this chapter, what is meant by knowledge and its dimensions has been presented.
Nokana and Takeuchi‘s (1995 ) classification of tacit and explicit knowledge has been
linked to the classification of knowledge in organisations (the individual knowledge as
opposed to organisational knowledge). Afterwards, A brief history of how the view of
knowledge has changed and that organisations now view knowledge as a capital that
needs to be managed and that the intellectual capital is becoming of more value. Then
the need for knowledge Management and its drivers that stem from the challenges in a
knowledge ecomony were discussed. After defining knowledge and exploring its
different approaches. Afterwards, the Knowledge Management components, namely,
people, processes, and technology have been presented. The way to managing people
and their learning and how culture affects the process. Also, the concept of the learning
organisation and it, being as institutionalising process that transforms individual
knowledge to organisational knowledge. The single, double, and third-loop learning
concepts have been discussed, and it has been concluded that the organisational
structure has to be developed in a way that links all the business units together and
promote collective mindfulness and learning about how organisations learn. The
knowledge and knowledge management life-cycle were presented, and also, the
rationale thesis process should be consistent. To identify whether the processes are
consistent or not, the EFQM model, particularly the enablers side was selected for
measurement.
Then, the supportive role of technology, the options available, and the relevancy of
these technologies to construction were addressed. The final section was about
Knowledge Management in construction as a knowledge-based industry and project-
based industry and the way the nature of projects affect the flow of knowledge. The
literature review aimed to develop a 360 º framework of Knowledge Management in
construction as a project-based industry. See figure 10

46
Figure 10: The project-based knowledge audit framework
The framework has 6 main categories as follows:
 The intellectual capital: human, structural, and customer capital.
 Technology aspects: technology in use and types of technology.
 People aspects: people learning and knowledge sharing culture.
 Process aspects: Organisational learning in supporting activities and learning in
core activities.
 Identifying the knowledge management processes (KM life-cycle):
Identification, acquisition, creation, sharing, application and preservation of
knowledge.

47
 The consistency and sustainability of Knowledge Management: the EFQM
model enablers.
This framework is virtually a synopsis of what has been reviewed, as well as a practical
model that can be tested against the practice. It represents an up-to-date account of
Knowledge Management practices linked to a project based environment. This model
connects the intellectual capital model with Knowledge Management component:
people, processes, and technology. Then, it depicts the way people add knowledge and
learn from projects. In addition, it shows the supportive processes that enable the
execution of projects. The construction industry is a project-based industry and thus,
project is the core activity in the sector. The nature of the project organisation has
implications on Knowledge Management across the lifecycle (Kamara et al., 2005).
Learning should take place in projects as well as the supporting activities. Eventually,
learning in the supporting activities contributes the execution of projects.
At the end of the project the knowledge gained is transferred to the organisational
knowledge base. In any company some forms of Knowledge Management may exist.
But this does not necessarily mean that we have a Knowledge Management life-cycle
that ensures the sustainability of knowledge on the long-run. Therefore this model
suggests reviewing the cycle to make sure that knowledge is preserved in the
organisational knowledge base. If the organisation is learning from its projects, this will
eventually contribute to the overall Intellectual capital. Knowledge-based activities are
processes. Having the knowledge Management life-cycle means that individual
knowledge has been transformed to organisational knowledge.
If these processes occur randomly in the sense that these activities may or may not
happen; it will be blunt to name those activities as Knowledge management activities or
even informal knowledge Management. Therefore, this model suggest using the EFQM
model (enablers side) as way to assess whether these activities are sustainable and stem
from a strategy and policy made by leaders of the organisation or not. Add to this the
interface between the intellectual capital model and the EFQM model; aspects that will
be discussed further in later chapters.

48
CHAPTER3
DATA, METHODS AND RESEARCH DESIGN
Chapter objectives:
-To outline the research methodology using the research onion
-To explain the case study approach and the issues concerning its use
-To identify the possible research limitations from different perspectives
- To discuss the research ethics and limitations.
3.1- Research Methodology
The focus of this study is to explore the Knowledge Management practices in the AMA
group and the way they relate to Knowledge Management practices and then compare
them with the framework that has been developed. The primary objective is studied via
examining the developed framework against a case study. This case study was
approached by qualitative and quantitative means. To validate the results, the
triangulation or cross-examination approach is used. Since this approach involves more
than one method and ―can cut across the qualitative-quantitative divide‖ (Olsen, 2004).

49
The methodology followed is partially based on Saunders et al. (2003) process (See
Figure 10)
Figure 11: The research methodology framework
Source: Adapted from Saunders et al. (2000)
Recreated and modified by Al-Alawi 2008
The first two stages of this framework, namely, the critical overview of the literature
and reviewing research objectives are fulfilled. Next, the Research Process Onion along
with the case study approach will be discussed. Section 3.5 describes the case study
Critical overview of the literature and
Reviewing Research Objectives
Research Design
-Research Philosophy, approach and strategy
Data Collection Design.
- Sampling. Secondary Data
- Primary Data by Case Study and in- depth interviews
Case study method
Qualititative data
Interviews, structured and semi structured
Population
employees at senior and middle levels
Quantitative data
Questionnaire
Poplulation
employees at senior, middle and at the
operational level
Data Collection and Preparation
Research
Reporting

50
approach as proposed by Yin (1994), and ultimately, the research ethics and prospective
limitations will be addressed.
3.2- Choice of research methods.
The decision of the overall methodology and strategy is mainly based on the Research
Process Onion put forward by Saunders et al. (2003). The onion represents a rational
progression from the outside towards the centre. Starting from the outside and
afterwards peeling away each layer to defining data collection methods. These phases
are depicted in figure 12.
Figure 12: The Research Process Onion
Adapted from Saunders et al. (2003)
Recreated by Al-Alawi 2008
3.3- Research Philosophy
The first layer is the research philosophy that determines the research approach that is
the second layer. Determining the previous two will formulate the research strategy and
then comes the stage of identifying time horizons, while the centre is about choosing
data collection methods.
Data collection:
Sampling
Secondary data
Interviews
Time Horizons:
Cross sectional ,longitude
Research Startegies
Case study,Grounded
Theory etc.
ResearchApproaches:Deductive
and Inductive
Research Philosophy
Positivism, realism, interpretism

51
The research philosophy is phenomenology. According to Saunders et al. (2003)
Phenomenology seeks the reality behind the situation and supports the study of direct
experience (Remenyi et al., 1998). That is why Phenomenology has been chosen for
this study, because informal Knowledge Management practices are difficult to be
identified. In many organisations, what is considered as a daily routine and a common
business process could be classified as a Knowledge Management process. There is this
tendency - when theory and praxis are compared - that the labels found in the literature
are not those in the practice, while the practices are identical. The reason for this is
another issue that is beyond the scope of this research.
Phenomenology does not see the world as a single objective reality, but rather as many
individual realities that interact in subtle ways. The nature of these interactions is
influenced by the subjective consciousness of the participants and in this case the
researcher himself is considered to be subjective and thus each case is considered
unique. Phenomenology is a better choice as it will allow a deeper understanding of a
complex social process such as Knowledge Management.
3.4- Research Approach
Before choosing the strategy, the research approach is to be selected. There are two
approaches which are the deductive and the inductive. Table 6 lists the main differences
between the two approaches .The inductive is the best choice for the research answers,
due to the fact that the inductive approach can be aligned to the research strategy where
researchers gather quantitative and qualitative data with a predefined descriptive or
theoretical framework (Saunders et al., 2003).The research objectives and problem
require the understanding of Knowledge Management in construction and
recommendations for further research and practical methods of implementation and
improvement. In the inductive approach, data is collected and then the theory is
developed on the basis of analysis and reasoning.

52
Table 6: Deductive and Inductive Research
Table 6 Deductive and Inductive Research
Deduction Induction
�Scientific principles
�Moving from theory to data
�Need to explain causal relationships between
variables
�Collection of quantitative data
�Application of controls to ensure validity of data
�Operationalisation of concepts to ensure clarity of
definition
�Highly structured approach
�Researcher independence of what is being
researched
�Necessity to select samples of sufficient size in order
to generalize conclusions
�Gaining an understanding of the
meanings humans attach to events
�Close understanding of the research
context
�Collection of qualitative data
�More flexible structure to permit changes
of research emphasis as the research
progresses
�Realization that the researcher is part of
the research process
�Less concern with the need to generalize
Taken from: Saunders et al. (2003, P. 89)
In the deductive approach, theories are developed and tested rigorously. This is a
dominant approach in the natural sciences where phenomena are anticipated, predicted,
and controlled through laws (Saunders et al., 2003). The deductive approach seeks to
investigate the causality between variables, and thus, develop a hypothesis to be tested.
This research will not involve any theory testing or hypothesis development, and
therefore; the deductive approach is not suitable for the research.
On the other hand, the inductive approach utilizes the existing knowledge for further
research. The advocates of this approach criticise the deductive approach for
disregarding alternative explanations of phenomena (Remenyi et al., 2000). The
inductive approach conveys a better understanding and broader appreciation of the
elements of the subject matter such as the human element and the context of the
research along with a flexible structure that allows changes of methods of research.
Also, it allows formulating best practices and then recommends those practices to the
company subject of research. These recommendations will be beneficial to the practice
as the company will gain insights of the internal perspective based on established
theories.
As a research strategy, the case study strategy will be used and its usage will be
discussed in details in the next section.

53
3.5- Research strategy
The case study approach has been selected for this study. A case study can be defined as
a strategy for executing research that includes an empirical investigation of an existing
phenomenon that takes place in real life using evidence (Saunders et al., 2003). ―Case
research lies somewhere in the twilight zone between exploratory and testing research‖
(Hillebrand et al., 2001, P. 653). This strategy is particularly useful in this research as it
has the elements of both, and also, since case study research contributes to the
understanding of the context of an issue under investigation. Remenyi et al. (2002)
states that the case studies enable the researcher to take on exploration of the attributes
of a real-life situation.
Case studies are not meant to be representative of the entire population. While
researchers using case studies can represent dimensions of theory based on selected
cases using case studies, in statistical study researchers seek to generalise the results on
the basis a representative sampling of the population (Garson, 2002).
According Feagin et al. (1990), case studies pursue a holistic understanding of cultural
systems of action. These are interconnected activities that function simultaneously. Case
study can be considered as is methodical way in which actions are examined thoroughly
in which data and information are collected from various resources. Case studies may
combine both quantitative and qualitative data. ―The case study is a research approach,
situated between concrete data taking techniques and methodological paradigms‖
Donovan and Taylor, 2007, P.4 ).
Case studies draw on multiple source of evidence and used to verify a theory or to
reveal unusual cases (Yin, 1994). In this case study, the ―snapshot‖ approach (Jensen
and Rodgers, 2001) is adopted. The snapshot approach is an objective single case study
that captures one point of time and thus the details are highly validated but not reliable
on the long-run. The triangulation method will be used for further validation of the
findings. This is particularly vital in the single case (Garson, 2002)

54
3.5.1 Data Collection instruments in the case study
The case study method requires a multi-method design where key theories and concepts
are traced using multiple methods. The methods may include structured and
unstructured interviews, focus groups and surveys and so forth. Investigating the
proposition through several methods increases the validity and reliability of the results
(Garson, 2002). Hence, in this research in-depth interviews and questionnaires are used.
Interviews are critical sources of case study information particularly in exploring
complex issues and phenomena. Mainly, structured semi-structured and unstructured
interviews were used generating rich qualitative and quantitative data. Most of the
interviewees were involved a predetermined set of identical qualitative questions to
make sure that the main issues are covered See Appendix A. For validating and
supporting the results, on the one hand, and to explore set areas is more structured. On
the other hand, the author took on a quantitative survey adapted from the OSP (2008).
The case study protocol is not only about data collection instruments. It also comprises
systematic processes that should be recognised before the data collection phase. Yin
(1994) considers the protocol as an integral part and decisive factor in determining the
reliability of the case study strategy. According to Yin (1994), a typical protocol would
consider the following:
 An overview of the case study project (objectives, issues, topics being
investigated)
 Field procedures (credentials and access to sites, sources of information)
 Case study questions (specific questions that the investigator must keep in mind
during data collection)
 A guide for case study report (outline, format for the narrative) (Yin, 1994, P.
64).
This research follows the protocol proposed by Yin (1994) in the sense that the case
study method and critical review of the literature had been done. Also, a plan was made
beforehand to facilitate carrying out the field research and the questions asked were
derived and inspired from the literature. Also the author had prior permission to conduct
the case study.

55
3.5.2 The case study
Ahmed Mansoor Al A‘ali Group of Companies (The AMA Group) is the largest
contracting and construction group in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The company‘s main
business units and subsidiaries can be found in table 6.
Table 7: AMA Business units and activities
Table 6 AMA Business units & activities
Division Subdivisions and services
Industrial Projects & Infrastructure -Structural & Mechanical Division (SMD)
-Hydrocarbon Services Division
PCD
Heavy Construction Division -Civil Works
-Earthworks
-Buildings & Housing
-Roads & Bridges
Manufacturing & Processing -Al A‘ali Reinforcement: Rebars and Wiremesh
Construction Equipment Middle East Transport
-Agencies
-Used Equipments Trading Division
Real Estate Development AMA Properties
Human Resources -Administration Department
Subsidiaries Subdivisions and services
Comsip Al-A‘ali
Eastern Asphalt and mixed concrete
company
-Asphalt
-Ready-mix
-Precast
Solios Services Al-A‘ali
BPL Al-A'Ali Contracting Ltd. -Piling
-contractors
-Excavation
-works
The group has branches in Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab emirates. The services
provided by the company are diverse and include construction and contracting, real
estate development, manufacturing and processing of building materials, industrial

56
infrastructure, construction equipment, and heavy commercial vehicles (AMA group,
2006). Still, the main activity of the company is construction projects that the parent
company and its subsidiaries execute. Complex projects that worth hundreds of millions
of dollars take place locally and globally. The company is expanding very fast. When
the proposal for this dissertation was written on 25th
April the statistics available
indicated the company employed about 5,000 employees, while the recent statistics
show that the company employs over 9,000 e. The company has already established a
leading position locally, and the vision now is to expand internationally and become the
leading integrated construction group in the Arab Gulf Countries (Alaali, 2006). Yet,
the company is challenged by the global construction companies entering the local and
regional markets where construction projects worth more than US$ 2 trillion are
announced or under construction (Reuters, 2008). Managing knowledge in an entity that
employs over 9,000 people and working with the subsidiaries and partners to fulfil
complex multidisciplinary and multilayered constructions projects that are largely
dependent on sharing the technical and field expertise and experience is quite a
challenging task, and improving the intellectual assets at this stage is far more important
than any other activity as the company is already well-established in terms of the
physical capital and infrastructure and there is little to improve there. The aim of the
study is to explore the Knowledge Management practices in this entity and how they
relate to Knowledge Management practices, and then compared with the framework
developed.
3.6- Time Horizon
According to the research onion, in the time horizon, there are two methods: cross-
sectional study and longitudinal study. The research is a snapshot of a particular point of
time. This is also called a cross-sectional study, whereas longitudinal studies stretch
upon a certain period of time (Daymon and Holloway, 2002). The snapshot approach
measures the variable within a narrow time span. Due to the time limitation, the cross-
sectional approach was adopted.

57
3.7- Data collection methods
3.7.1 Population and the sample
The research involves interviews and questionnaires. See appendices B and C,
respectively. Firstly, HR managers were interviewed as they are commonly responsible
for managing knowledge in organisations. This is to identify the other staff to be
included in the research. This is technically called snowballing sampling. Quota
sampling was also used to make sure that all the related core and supporting functions
of construction are covered and to ensure a representative sample to be collected.
The focus is on senior to middle management with the assumption that they are the most
capable and information-rich individuals and are aware of the value of knowledge on all
levels. Eventually those interviewed were 12 in total.
The technique of the interview used is the focus interview (Yin, 2003), where the
interview encompasses a set of open-ended questions that generate rich qualitative data.
Choosing interviews to be semi-structured is to allow informal interaction.
The company has many divisions, and for the purpose of cultivating a representative
population, the quota sampling has been selected to fill specific sub-groups that
represent all departments and supporting activities. The quota sampling is similar to
stratified sampling, but quota sampling is chosen as being non-random.
The aim of the quantitative survey is partially to verify the results of the qualitative
interviews and also to reveal results about areas that require the representation of the
working force in the company. The survey includes closed-ended questions and the
targeted population are 63. The number of surveys returned is 41, a 65% response rate.
3.7.2 Spatial and temporal characteristics
This case study takes place in the AMA group headquarters and in projects sites
duringthe period from 20th
June to 15th
August 2008. Interviews lasted from 45-90
minutes.

58
3.7.3 Data analysis techniques
For qualitative data, the grounded theory method is used. For coding, the selective
coding will be the choice. This will be discussed further in the next chapter. The data
used are mainly qualitative. Quantitative data is used to obtain statistical data. Sampling
is done via dividing the number of responses for each category, by the total number of
responses. This is taken from the Pareto approach where percentages of representation
demonstrate each category clearly.
3.8- Limitations and ethical considerations of the Research
This section describes the possible limitations related to the research methodology and
also the ethical considerations of the research.
3.8.1 Limitation of the research
3.8.1.1 Cultural Limitations
The case study takes place in the kingdom of Bahrain. The circumstances there may
differ from other countries. As discussed in earlier chapters, culture is crucial factor in
facilitating or inhibiting knowledge practices. What applies to this company may not
necessarily apply to another in the UK, for instance. Culture is a variable element here,
and thus, while the methodology is valid, the findings should not be generalised to other
companies, unless we regarded that company had a similar organisational culture.
3.8.1.2 Research sample limitations
According to the framework developed, including partner/customer and the business
partners point of view would have made this a more comprehensive study. Partners and
customers standpoints can be important, especially when the customers/ partners are
active factors of the construction project. The customers/partners viewpoints were
dismissed as they may clash with research ethics, and also, as exploring this overlaps
with other disciplines that are complex and require a comprehensive investigation that is
beyond the research objectives.

59
3.8.2 Ethical considerations
In designing the research methodology, various ethical issues have been taken into
consideration.
3.8.2.1 Confidentiality
The data will be reported randomly and will not reveal the individual names or
positions, and the data are presented without any indication.
3.8.2.2 Participation freedom
The interviews had an informal sense and the participants expressed their opinions with
no restraints or leading questions asked.
3.8.2.3 Informed consent for research
The participants faced no pressures concerning participating in the research. All the
interviewees received a full revelation of the study, aims and potential benefits.
3.8.2.4 Submitting of the dissertation
One aim of the research is to be beneficial in both theory and practice. One factor that
facilitated the access is that the research will be beneficial for both parties. In a win-win
situation, the company will receive the dissertation and the framework developed, and
any inquiries regarding using the framework or knowledge management will be
answered.
3.9- Chapter Summary
This chapter aimed to provide the structure of the research methodology mainly using
Saunders, et al. (2003) Research Process Onion and a fairly detailed description of case
study research in accordance with the doctrines of Yin (1994). The case study represents
a critical part of the research methodology. Following the research onion provided a
systematic and comprehensive view that included all the research components, research
philosophy, research approaches, research strategies, time horizons, and data collection
instrument, as well as the justification for the reasons behind selecting one method or
strategy over the other, and a full description of the case study that took place in the
AMA group, and also the limitations and the ethical consideration.

60
CHAPTER4
FINDINGS AND DISSCUSSION
Chapter objectives:
-To present the case study findings
- To present qualitative data findings and discussion
- To present quantitative data findings and discussion
- To discuss the Knowledge Management practices in the AMA group
- To assess the Knowledge processes sustainability

61
4.1- Introduction
In chapter 3, the research methodology was presented, including a briefing about the
case study that was administered in the AMA construction group in an effort to present
the research method used to fulfil the primary and secondary objectives of this
dissertation. In this chapter, the findings of the case study are presented. One aim of the
dissertation is to test and contrast theory with practice and see whether the concepts of
systematic Knowledge Management are practiced in a construction company that did
not adopt Knowledge Management as a deliberate strategy, and if this is the case, to
what extent the theoretical concepts are practiced without being explicitly espoused and
labelled as knowledge management. Mainly qualitative data is used and supported by
quantitative data which is technically called triangulation.
4.2- Case Study findings
As a reminder of the research objectives, this research questions whether knowledge-
based and knowledge creation activities could exist without having a formal Knowledge
Management system. The results of this research will be used to explore the methods of
any knowledge management process discovered. If the knowledge-based practices are
not found, this research will suggest methods and strategies for implementation and the
development of these practices, and also, the rationale for managing those activities
systematically. This section is divided into two parts, namely: qualitative data findings
and discussion, and then quantitative data findings and discussion.
4.2.1 Qualitative data findings and discussion
A large amount of data was generated in the case study which made it difficult to find
basic patterns in the data and hence, the author considered the grounded theory method
as the approach for analysis and a method of channelling raw data into meaningful main
categories using selective coding. The framework seems to be specific and have definite
categories. Nevertheless, these categories are complex and multilayered. Using
qualitative data and the grounded theory as a method of analysis is believed to be the
most efficient way in this very case. Another reason is that many of individuals who
have been interviewed have no sufficient understanding of the concept of knowledge
management, and thus, what has been stated by interviewees is often interpreted and
matched with terminology that is found in the literature.

62
The data is coded with a number of coding steps. A number of coding techniques are
available (See Appendix E for more details). These are the open, axial, and selective
coding. Selective coding is an advisable option in this case as it involves choosing
central themes and relating the other themes to central ones (Strauss and Corbin, 1990).
Due to the nature of this coding, along with the finding there will be a discussion. The
main categories were selected as follows:
 Knowledge Management understanding
 Knowledge management as a source of competitive advantage and its
importance in construction
 The appreciation of the intellectual capital: human, structural, and customer
capitals.
 Critical knowledge
 Technology as an enabler of Knowledge Management
 The knowledge sharing culture
 Organisational learning and knowledge creation in core and supporting
activities.
 Knowledge attrition
4.2.1.1 Knowledge Management understanding
Formal Knowledge Management is a relatively new concept and this is especially very
true in the construction sector in Bahrain. The vast majority of those interviewed had no
proper understanding of the concepts and many had not heard of it before. Few
understood its significance in the field and that it could play a very important role in the
success of the company. It can be argued that if formal Knowledge Management is to be
adopted, the concept has to be defined from the construction industry point of view, to
be adopted as a philosophy and to be implemented as a strategy. It should be placed into
a context that is understood by the practitioners of this particular field.
4.2.1.2 Knowledge management as a source of competitive advantage.
The significance of knowledge management is understood by most respondents. The
respondents regarded the concept as a way for better performance and innovation,

63
boosting production, the Knowledgeability advantage over competition, and the fact
that the best practices suggest going in this direction. There was an understanding of the
importance of Knowledge Management and its contribution in gaining competitive
advantage. When asked about the most profitable and practical starting points for
mobilising knowledge, respondents stated that the focus should be on the corporate
culture, transferring the experience to fresh bloods, and reengineering the corporate
structure. One respondent stressed on the point that while knowledge management is
important in the construction industry, it is still not a critical factor when compared to
other sectors, such as business consultancies. This is probably due to the fact that the
respondent views the construction industry as being a knowledge-based industry rather
than a knowledge intensive industry. While in fact Egbu et al., (2005) states that the
construction industry is becoming a knowledge-intensive industry. This statement
cannot be generalised as the construction projects may differ from one projects to
another. However, it is worthwhile to mention that the projects taking place in Bahrain
and the Arabian Gulf countries (where the AMA is competing) are complex and
sometimes unique in terms of the structure and complexity and these projects are even
becoming more complicated. A prominent example in Bahrain is building BWTC, a
twin skyscrapers with wind turbines. This project is considered to be the first of its kind
in the world.
Overall, the responses show that Knowledge Management is regarded as an important
factor in delivering competitive advantage. While there is variation in viewpoint
regarding the extent to which Knowledge Management is important to the construction
industry.
4.2.1.3 The appreciation of the intellectual capital
The respondents stated that there was no clear view of the key knowledge assets. But
generally, the human capital is highly appreciated and training is tailored and provided
according to the market demands and the aspirations of the employees. It has been
noticed that although that organisational culture as a concept is highly appreciated, but
little is done to fortify it. One participant declared that a vision and a new mindset were
needed. According to the respondent, this is to be created by training, accessibility to
knowledge, empowerment, and rewarding performance.

64
Another participant said that himself and his subordinates meet frequently share
knowledge and discuss issues openly with minimal boundaries. The author noticed that
in that department, the atmosphere of openness was manifested in the layout of the
office where you cannot differentiate the manager from the subordinates. This is
positive in the sense such an environment promotes openness and better control at the
same time. It is hard to say that this is the case in all departments. In other departments,
some respondents revealed that was not easy to meet their superiors to discuss work-
related issues.
The organisational capital is also important. The company achieved the ISO quality and
environmental certifications: ISO 9001:2000, ISO 14001, as well as HACCP hygiene
accreditation, ASME, and the NBBI certification. The ISO standard ensures quality
through documenting and standardizing business processes.
The customer capital is manifested in the intensity of relationships with customers
(Stewart, 2001). The relationship with clients is strong and the relationship stretches to
informal business meetings by the company‘s senior staff to measure customers‘
satisfaction.
4.2.1.4 Critical knowledge
Knowledge about the core businesses processes and activities is regarded as critical
knowledge that needs to be preserved and developed regularly and the quality of the
process has to be maintained, and also, finding new methods and techniques that
facilitate construction projects. Engineering expert knowledge, competencies and
procedural aspects about how the projects are coordinated and managed across the
company‘s divisions and subsidiaries.
The AMA group has been striving for years to preserve its core strengths through
adopting quality measures that ensure the core knowledge about business processes to
be preserved such as the ISO 9001:2000. Although the ISO as a quality measure is
considered to be a fairly basic methodology, it could be invaluable source of
information for newcomers. This, nevertheless, is only explicit knowledge captured and
recorded in documents. There is also the expertise and the experience stored in the
heads of the experts which are mainly tacit knowledge that is difficult to be transferred.

65
The nature of the industry defines the critical knowledge. This definition is ideally
based on the business needs and circumstances. In the construction industry, the core
activities involve project and the activities that surround projects. Therefore, this
research attempts to link Knowledge Management with the project-based aspects of the
industry.
4.2.1.5 Technology as an enabler of knowledge Management
The respondents stated that technology is the basis for taking on knowledge
management practices, and without it, managing knowledge will be very difficult. The
technology used in The AMA group include data repositories, Aconex system
(document management), ADS system (purchasing management), email system and the
corporate website. At the time the research was conducted, the company was developing
an IT infrastructure that links all the company‘s divisions, facilities, and even temporary
project sites centrally and wirelessly. An intranet and DMS system is also in the
development phase. As discussed earlier, technology is simply an enabler to Knowledge
Management and having an information system does not mean that the company has a
knowledge system. The data repository is limited to one department which is the
tendering department. It is used for quantity surveying and this database includes details
related to the previous projects done by the company with the specific conditions that
these projects went through. This is a documentation of past experience and converting
tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. The tendering department is very important to
any construction company as it determines whether the project should be taken or not.
As discussed earlier, the Knowledge Management technologies relevant to the
construction industry are people-supporting, projects-supporting, organisations-
supporting and industries-supporting (Sheehan et al., 2005). According to this
classification, the AMA group has two types of technologies, namely, projects-
supporting and organisations-supporting.
Projects-supporting technologies help with document management, archiving and
collaborative working which eventually contribute to the transfer of knowledge. The
document management system, such as Aconex, is a web collaboration system and

66
online document management system that facilitate the management of information for
construction projects. This system is not optimally utilised as one respondent revealed.
The system is inconsistently used.
Organisations-supporting technology is manifested in the tendering database which
facilitates cross-project working. Important tools that support the interdivisional
working and communities of practice are not available. Allegedly, there will be tools
that support the inter-organisation collaboration, such as Intranets and DMS that will to
be installed soon, but these tools will work well if these are considered as important
facilitating tools for knowledge sharing as well as for maintaining and building
networks for those who have common interest (Hayes, 2001). Swan and Newell (2000)
indicate that individuals have social and economic motives that are affected by social
networks that he/she belong to and this tenet could be arguably generalised to the virtual
social networks. Effective collaboration cannot exist without the social and economic
perspectives. The use of technology is in this case is highly recommended since it
increases the social and the technical connectivity in organisations and thus, knowledge
sharing (Gottschalk, 2005).
As discussed in earlier chapters, any Knowledge Management program must be aligned
with the business key processes and strategies (Bergeron, 2003). Reward is an important
factor but reward alone is not enough and the example brought by Grugulis (2007)
about documings the ‗right remark‘ to get the rewards is a primary example. Embeding
the knowledge processes into the organisational structure and considering knowledge
processes as core activities is probably the answer. Embedding the knowledge processes
into the organisational structure should invole building and maintaining networks for
knowledge sharing for those who have common interest (such project teams and
engineers) using Web-based technologies.
People-supporting technologies are not available in the AMA group. These are
important for allocating expertise locally. Some companies do not know what they
know. This is particularly true when the company is as large as the AMA group. The
corporate yellow pages, for instance, can be used to find the appropriate individuals in
the group and utilize the available knowledge locally. Also, no Industries-supporting
technologies were found. Tools such as extranets can facilitate procurement of material

67
and also uniting disciplines across organisational boundaries which will eventually
facilitate a decentralised operations and a centralised control.
The participants believe that the most practical and profitable starting point for
mobilising knowledge is Information technology as being the infrastructure for
knowledge management. Indeed, interviewees revealed that the available information
systems are simply data warehouses and that there is no centralised information system
that connects all the divisions. It is also important to highlight information that
technological facilities differ from one division to another.
It is important to highlight that at the time this field research was conducted; the
company was investing in an information infrastructure with over one million dollar.
This immense investment in information systems will lead to promising results if the
system is properly utilised. When new technologies are successfully adopted, they soon
become embedded within organisational routines and practices and in turn become a
part of the organisational culture (Swan and Newell, 2000).
The interest in technology in the AMA group stems from the organisation‘s core
activities and from the need for managing knowledge and knowledge governance. The
role of technology does not seem to limit the role of people and processes. This is
probably due to limited use of technology in the first place.
4.2.1.6 The knowledge sharing culture
When the respondents were asked about whether the AMA culture encouraged the
exchange of knowledge and learning from activities or projects, it was stated that that
differed from one department to another. The head of the department/project plays a
major role in the equation. One respondent suggested that there were sub-cultures in this
sense. He highlighted that in one manufacturing facility, people thought that the way to
retain power in the division was through knowledge hoarding. The respondent also
stated that any role of culture in knowledge sharing was very important and not having
the appropriate culture means that any Knowledge Management initiative of this kind
will fail. According to the respondent, the pursuit for creating knowledge sharing
culture in the AMA involved training, disclosing new opportunities, employers

68
branding, and benchmarking. Add to that the plans of providing a better access to
knowledge and founding a system of incentives and reward. Not having a reward
system had lead to employees resisting sharing knowledge. Technology can support
sharing and organising knowledge but these ―must work in tandem with a culture of
openness, co-operation and shared purposes. People issues are often more difficult to
deal with than IT, but without behaviour change the full benefits of Knowledge
management cannot be realized‖. (Palmer and Platt, 2005, P. 11)
Thus, the author concludes deficiencies may occur in knowledge sharing processes.
This has three reasons. Firstly, people-related issues, such as knowledge hoarding, and
secondly, the lack of an inconsistent policy throughout the group divisions, and
ultimately, the insufficient resources such as the environment and the technology that
facilitate knowledge sharing.
4.2.1.7 Organisational learning and knowledge creation
The AMA is trying to improve the performance and value it derives from mobilising the
existing knowledge by business performance reviews. Reviewing the progress can
contribute to identifying the current position and determining the next step. Any plan
needs to be revisited, updated, and matched with the Knowledge Management strategy
and these developments must be addressed regularly.
The AMA group utilizes simple tools such as memos to encourage employees to
support certain individuals. New ideas evolve through new managerial initiatives that
aim to develop the organisation or to deal with the emerging challenges. Joint venture,
site visits, and fresh bloods joining the company and their expertise, training and
seminars are factors that contribute to organisational learning. Sustaining and ensuring
knowledge growth is done via headhunting and retaining the best and searching for new
ways to manage knowledge. One project manager stated that adopting new ideas solely
depends on the project manager himself.
Within the AMA group, there are examples of partnership-working that deliberately
draw on diverse knowledge. A prime example is construction projects where the
tendering, procurement, manufacturing and customer relations function, on the one

69
hand, and project teams on the other hand, work and collaborate and exchange expertise
where necessary to execute construction projects. In most projects, different divisions
work together to plan, coordinate and share knowledge to execute projects. Also in
training, training coordinators from different divisions of the company meet to
exchange knowledge about what areas to improve and what training is needed.
The informal mechanisms to gather and mobilise tacit knowledge are the ISO standard,
induction, meetings, job-specific training and mentorship. In projects, the methods are
storytelling and project reviews, close supervisions and guidance. The author
experienced Storytelling in the organisation. Nevertheless, this is not adopted as a
policy. In fact, one of the respondents stated that there is no storytelling in the
organisation while at the same interview he told the interviewer stories about the
previous successes and how the company learned from previous projects. This takes us
back to point where there is this tendency that the labels found in the literature are not
those in the practice while the practices are identical and not only labels are different
but sometime they does not make sense to practitioners. One story that involves project
learning was about lessons learned in the airport project where the lesson learned in the
project lead to a takeover of a computerised factory. Another story that gave the
researcher an overview of cultural values is how the founder, who is the chairman of the
group, established the company 50 years ago and the success stories and the milestone
and how the son (the vice-chairman) carried on his father‘s vision, values and, long-
term objectives.
Storytelling, mentorship, apprenticeship, craftsmanship are informal learning processes
that contribute to transferring mainly tacit and also explicit knowledge. The tacit
dimension of knowledge is frequently the most valuable. This is because it difficult to
be duplicated (Wenger et al., 2002). In the case of airport project, experience is
converted into usable knowledge and competitive advantage and the way things done in
the past were questioned. This can be considered as a form of double-loop learning. In
this case, the reaction was first take into account the values of the preordained single-
loop and then a substitute was considered; the step which delivered better results.
There is a relationship between learning and informal knowledge exchange. One way in
which knowledge is passed from the experienced to fresh bloods is storytelling.

70
Storytelling is a way of delivering meaning in a simplified format and ―an art of
weaving, of constructing, the product of intimate knowledge. It is a delicate process, a
process that can easily break down, failing to live up to its promise. Disintegrating into
mere text‖ and that is why ―good storytellers and raconteurs have commanded power
and esteem. Storytelling is valuable especially when working solutions are spread
among employees. This technique is not as simple as it sounds nor it is complicated. It
is a skill that can be polished through learning and practice (Barabas, 1990, P. 61).
Project reports are done before, during and after projects. Before the project, there are
coordination meetings in which the project team discuss exchange and share knowledge
about the project, during the project there are progress reports, and after the project
there is the quality report which is very important in terms of project learning. It
involves implicit questioning and handles quality issues such as delays.
Although there are forms of informal learning, no social events or support for the
communities of practice (CoP) were found. CoP need the proper environment that is
well-equipped for learning, and also, decision making and change should be aligned
with promoting such communities. Strategies should combine explicit with tacit
knowledge in which IT tools usually play a limited role. Knowledge Management in
this case is based on social aspects such as relationships based on trust and respect
(Swan and Newell, 2000). The communities of practice model can be found anywhere
at the office, home, and social activities organised by the organisation. The members of
the community of practice (CoP) are bound by common goals and values they obtain
through learning and problem solving (Wanger, 2000).
ISO is generally an important tool for maintaining and transferring knowledge in
projects. Project managers keep an ISO file with the required procedures and
correspondence. While the ISO standard is an excellent way to transfer implicit and
explicit knowledge, following the procedures is still considered as single-loop learning
and this is a basic type of learning that happens within a set of recognized constraints
(Argyris, 1991). Single-loop learning occurs when people encounter different situations

71
in the course of day-to-day activities and they refer to the internally kept rules and
procedures in response.
Third loop in triple-loop learning can be considered as the most advanced and beneficial
method of learning and its doctrines are close to what is considered as Knowledge
Management strategy as it involves developing organisational infrastructure for the
purpose of managing knowledge (Romme and van Witteloosruijn, 1999). This
infrastructure should link all the business units together and assess how the member, the
organisation and their predecessors have promoted or obstructed learning. Third-loop
learning does not seem to exist in the AMA group. Rather, there are forms of single-
loop and to some extent, double-loop learning.
4.2.1.8 Knowledge attrition
Some respondents revealed Brain Drain is not an issue to worry about since many of the
employees are pleased with the compensation and benefit system and many of them
work for long years and many retire in the company. On the other hand, other
respondents expressed their concern that many employees left the company while the
company was in need for their knowledge and expertise. The rate of turnover is
acceptable but the turnover rate is rising as revealed by some respondents. For this
issue, Gartner advice corporation to learn to manage for shorter tenure as in the
knowledge economy this will be the norm (Gartner, 2001). Sheehan et al., (2005) states
that the Construction sector is characterised by the wealth of experiential knowledge
and senior staff regularly leave or retire and mostly taking tacit knowledge with them
and the fact that 80% of functional knowledge is tacit. Shorter employee retention and
the fact that most of functional knowledge is tacit cast light on the rationale for the need
a strategic knowledge management effort so that knowledge is preserved even if the
expert leave the company .
4.2.2 Quantitative data findings and discussion
A quantitative survey was conducted in parallel with the qualitative study. The
qualitative study per se covers all the research questions and objectives. The aim of the
quantitative survey is to support and fortify the study with the representative population

72
and questions that ideally need statistical answers. The total targeted employees were
63. The completed and returned are 41. Figure 13 is an analysis of the survey response.
Figure 13: Survey response breakdown
The completed surveys were delivered and received within few days. Four employees
were not reachable. Eleven of them were busy. Therefore, the response rate for this
study is about 63%. The questionnaire survey has two parts. The first part deals with the
accessibility to knowledge, while the second part deals with several important issues
already been discussed in the qualitative study. The aim of the first part is to show
whether the informal management of the body of knowledge (i.e. the AMA group case)
provide employees with good accessibility to knowledge and information about
customers, competitors, future plans/initiatives, business processes and functions,
training and development, and team and individual successes. The second part deals
with the, lessons learned, the speed of knowledge exchange, the barriers of mobilising
knowledge, and encouraging the knowledge sharing.
The responses were converted into associated percentages. This is done via dividing the
number of responses for each category, by the total number of responses. This is taken
from the Pareto approach where percentages representations demonstrate each category
clearly.
63%
6%
17%
14%
Survey response breakdown
Returned survey On vacation Extremely busy Not completed

73
4.2.2.1 The accessibility to knowledge and knowledge sharing.
Figure 14 shows to what extent knowledge is shared in the AMA group. This evaluation
assists in determining to what extent knowledge processes are global and
comprehensive in the group. In some areas such as information about training and
development, team and individual successes, knowledge about the use of technology
shared is relatively high. Nevertheless, information about business functions,
competitors, customer satisfactions and most importantly management initiatives is
knowledge that is scarcely shared.
Figure 14: Knowledge shared in the AMA group
The results above indicate that there is an inconsistency in the availability of knowledge
in certain areas in the company and this questions the capacity of an informal
Knowledge Management to provide employees with the needed knowledge. This may
result in lost opportunities and management plans failure. For example, if a company is
planning to implement a new management initiative. In the process of planning, the
business analysts and strategists need a clear and comprehensive and exact knowledge
about the business function and business processes. If such knowledge is not clearly
stated and defined the planning process will be difficult and this also will be the case for
the implementation plan. If employees are not aware about the new initiatives and plans,
this means that there is no internal communication to facilitate the change process and
this will probably lead to employees resisting change. All in all, this highlights the fact
that there is room for improvement in this domain and the prospects of different view to

74
the way knowledge is managed and whether there is a need to formalise knowledge
processes.
4.2.2.2 Knowledge sharing barriers, encouragement and lessons learned.
Figure 15 shows the results of part 2 of the questionnaire. The results show reasonable
results regarding issues such as levels of openness and the encouragement of knowledge
sharing. These aspects are important in establishing an atmosphere in which knowledge
is smoothly shared. The qualitative research shows that some divisions in the group
create and have informal ways for managing knowledge and reviewing the lessons
learned. Herein, a large portion of the population disagree with the statement that the
company regularly spends time reviewing lessons learned. Another important issue is
related to the barriers to knowledge sharing. Most respondents disagree (37%) and
strongly disagree (17%) with the statement that information is passed around the
organisation without barriers.
Figure 15: Knowledge issues
4.3 Knowledge management lifecycle
After identifying the results and the discussion, the findings will be assessed and
matched (if found) with the Knowledge Management life cycle.

75
4.3.1 Identification of knowledge
As presented earlier, the AMA group do invest and appreciate knowledge. What has
been noticed is that the key knowledge assets are not identified which may lead to
improper exploitation of the available resources.
4.3.2 Acquisition of knowledge
The AMA group mostly seek knowledge from the organisation itself which is less
expensive than acquiring or creating new knowledge. Also, the AMA seeks knowledge
from outside the bounds of the organisation. According to Neumann (2005) Knowledge
can be acquired through customers, competitors, suppliers and even academic and
professional institutions. The AMA group have sponsorship programs. Those sponsored
graduates partially amend the knowledge gaps. The AMA consistently sponsors,
recruits, and supports the best for higher education and training.
4.3.3 Creation of knowledge
Knowledge creation is a spontaneous activity that cannot be mechanically ordered. But
organisations may adopt strategies to influence and increase the levels of creativity and
this includes environmental conditions, support and motivation (Neumann, 2005). At
the time the research was conducted there were no applied strategies but rather plans to
implement strategies to facilitate the creation of knowledge.
4.3.4 Sharing / Distribution of Knowledge
The sharing and the distribution of knowledge are crucial processes. In the case of the
AMA group, explicit knowledge is distributed through a good documentation system
and supportive technologies in some departments. As discussed earlier, storytelling,
apprenticeship, and craftsmanship are informal learning processes that contribute in
transferring mainly tacit and also explicit knowledge. These are practices that take place
in AMA group but in a rather inconsistent manner.
4.3.5 Application of knowledge
In some divisions, the knowledge stored is used and developed consistently.
Nevertheless, this is not the case in all the departments. Here, the role of leadership and

76
policy is the key to encouraging and luring their employees to apply knowledge. In the
AMA, there is an inconsistent commitment to create an atmosphere in which knowledge
can be applied.
4.3.6 Preservation of knowledge
The preservation of knowledge is a specific management action (Neumann, 2005). It
aims at updating the useful knowledge and forgoing the obsolete. It is difficult to say
that the AMA group preserve knowledge due to the fact that there is no clearly defined
knowledge strategy in the first place, and secondly, while considering the fact that
explicit knowledge is preserved to some extent through standardizing procedures, there
are specific management action for maintaining a strong culture that is required for the
preservation of knowledge.
4.3.7 Remarks on the knowledge-life cycle in the AMA group
While the vast majority of the respondents did not claim that they were practicing any
form of Knowledge Management, the author concludes after this exploration that there
are in fact limited and inconsistent knowledge processes that take place in the AMA
group. These processes will be further assessed against the EFQM enablers in the next
section to identify what areas to improve.
The differences in opinion were beneficial to the subject of research. This difference is
probably due to the different cultures and awareness across the organisation. Many
respondents were not aware with the managerial initiatives and change programs, i.e.
establishing a new Information system and this example shows the gap and the lack of
communication in the workplace.
When the cycle and knowledge practices in the AMA group were compared, the results
showed that there were knowledge practices to some extent in an organisation that does
not practise Knowledge Management as a deliberate strategy. These practices were
difficult to identify and are considered common business processes. This raises the issue
that having processes that have different labels and probably different purposes such as
the ISO for quality assurance and project reviews involve knowledge generation and

77
creation. This also shows that Knowledge Management stems from the core business
practices of the construction industry.
The findings show there are forms of knowledge processes that exist in AMA. These
cannot be yet described as firm knowledge processes. To measure the consistency, The
EFQM model (enablers‘ side) will be used and will be discussed in the light of the
above findings.
4.4- Knowledge management enablers
According to the EFQM, the enablers are leadership, policy, strategy, people,
partnership and resources and the process. These will be discussed in relation to the
findings and discussion above to assess to what extent the practice is likely to be
consistent.
4.4.1 Leadership
Leadership is a very important factor since the company draws on the its founder and
owner and currently his son‘s vision. Some respondents revealed that leadership
continuously encourage and give explicit instructions for the other leaders to share
knowledge with their subordinates and leadership is involved in formulating the
organisational strategy and vision towards the future.
These messages are delivered through constant meetings. It seems that there is a vision
and openness that could foster knowledge sharing. The respondents showed positive
view about this concept. One respondent revealed that he does not hesitate about
sharing knowledge with his subordinates and he also encourages them to do the same as
this lead to higher levels of independency and mutual success in several large projects.
An issue that may threaten the consistency of the leadership programs is to what extent
other leaders, namely senior, middle and even line managers in the organisation
empower employees. When the employees were asked about to what extent their
managers share knowledge with them. 29% disagreed and 15% strongly disagreed with
the statement. While 37% agreed and the rest 15% strongly agreed. This may affect the
consistency of any knowledge process. It is important to assert that Knowledge-creation

78
need leadership commitment to create an environment in which people can learn and
create knowledge.
4.4.2 Policy and strategy
The AMA group can be considered as an investor in people. Training and development
are always an option and employees have sufficient knowledge about training programs.
People are regarded as important assets and this is apparent in the investments in
training and education of the current and the prospective employees. In regard to
knowledge processes, people are not yet rewarded for performance. Nevertheless, plans
are on the way to create such schemes. The AMA does not have a clear strategy to
manage the stakeholders‘ knowledge in the company and this may affect the
consistency of the knowledge processes.
4.4.3 People
People were viewed as influential enablers if a Knowledge Management initiative is to
be successful. Generally, there was an agreement that information technology was less
important. According to the EFQM model people as enablers is about ―how the
organisation manages, develops and releases the knowledge and full potential of its
people at an individual, team-based and organisation-wide level, and plan these
activities in order to support its policy and strategy and the effective operation of its
processes‖ (Dale, 2003).
4.4.5 Partnership and resource
The AMA group as declared by the respondents is planning to manage its internal
resources. Yet, these plans are not yet implemented and thus there is no firm support to
the organisational policy and strategy.
4.4.6 Processes
Business processes are mainly standardised to ensure the quality of the output. This is
essentially done to ensure that the company is meeting the customer-oriented vision.

79
This essentially can be found in adopting quality standards, project reviews and
schemes of craftsmanship and mentorship. The business processes at times seem to
letdown the policies that leadership adopt. This probably is attributed to the
organisational structure and the lack of consistent communication.
4.5- The resultant framework and chapter summary
Figure 16 shows the results of assessing the AMA group knowledge practices against
the developed framework in the literature review. The findings and the discussion
suggest that knowledge processes could exist in an organisation that did not adopt
knowledge management as a deliberate strategy. On the other hand, the discussion
shows that these knowledge processes are inconsistent and occur variably according to
the culture and circumstances. It is also revealed that organisations can alter culture
through adopting new strategies successfully. Strategies that can be utilized to create
knowledge-creating culture in all divisions as needed.
As revealed, Knowledge management process stem from the core business practices.
These processes are crucial to gaining a competitive edge over the rival and thus, there
is a need to manage these processes deliberately and not to keep them unmanaged and
take chances. Knowledge processes do exist in construction. In the next chapter, some
methods and strategies for implementation and development of these practices will be
suggested.

80
Figure 16 The resultant framework
Source :Al-Alawi (2008)

81
CHAPTER5
CONCLUSIONS
Chapter objectives:
- To summarize and conclude
- To present the relevant recommendations
- To discuss the limitations and the further research

82
5.1- Conclusions
This research identifies the systematic Knowledge management concepts, tools, and
supporting strategies and technology in the literature and establishes channels that
connect these concepts with the practice in a construction company that did not adopt
knowledge management as a deliberate strategy. This research explored construction
core and supportive activities and whether these involve knowledge-based and
knowledge creating activities even without being espoused and labelled as Knowledge
Management processes. In other words, the research questioned whether knowledge
processes could exist without having a formal Knowledge Management system. The
findings and the discussion suggest that knowledge processes could exist in an
organisation that did not adopt knowledge management as a deliberate strategy. This is
being proved by means of assessing the findings against the developed framework. This
arguably proves (particularly for practitioners) that Knowledge Management doctrines
stem from the business core activities and also, this contributes in amending the gap
between the theories.
Having Knowledge Management without a deliberate strategy can be explained as being
a result of intuitive entrepreneurial sense for managing the business core activities
without losing the necessary knowledge that is needed for operation and gaining a
competitive edge over the competition.
Knowledge processes do exist in the AMA group. Nevertheless, the Knowledge
Management life-cycle in the company is incomplete. When these processes were
assessed against the EFQM enablers, these processes proved to be lopsided towards
inconsistency. If a company leaves these activities unmanaged, this will decrease the
probability they will happen at least in a regular manner. Conversely, executing a
formal Knowledge Management plan with a definite set of practices and parameters
based on best practice will manifest better results.
Leaving knowledge unmanaged may work in the old times and as highlighted by Godin
(2002) and what worked in stable times is what will cause the organisation demise if
things are changing. The changes in the nature of the construction industry in a
knowledge and globalised economy is obvious and characterised with shortened

83
business cycles and ever-changing technology and the focus and increasing value of the
intellectual capital.
Leaving these processes unmanaged is not the ideal way to harness the available
resources and therefore it is recommended that the company should adopt a deliberate
strategy for managing knowledge as there are still shortcomings and several areas to
improve. Having proved that knowledge management practices are practised in the real
world without the banner of knowledge Management, this should encourage companies
to adopt deliberate strategies to managing it since it is not an alien concept any more.
This attempt to link the theory with the practice is crucial since professionals adopt
concepts from the literature if these concepts make business sense and relate to their real
world reality.
Yes, conditions have changed now and companies struggle in the global market space
and stakeholders and the community‘ expectations are high (employees satisfaction,
quality issues, corporate social responsibility) Knowledge Management as a hybrid
discipline could be the answer for many of these questions if properly applied.
This research will suggest some methods and strategies for the implementation and
development of these practices to ensure that they are consistent. These
recommendations and can be used to systemise and develop knowledge processes.
5.2- Recommendations
In the light of the findings, recommendations will be suggested to the AMA group of
companies. These recommendations are based on the findings from a corporation
located in the kingdom of Bahrain. Nevertheless, this recommendation may be relevant
to any construction company in Bahrain or in an international context as the conditions
could be similar to those of the company subject of research.
5.2.1 Adopting a knowledge management strategy
The AMA group should take on a clearly defined strategy for managing its intellectual
assets and the author suggests that the group should establish a committee or a team that
is hierarchically under the Human Resource Management department. Assigning this
directly to the HRM department is perceived to be the best choice since Knowledge

84
Management should not be technology-focused but rather people-focused initiative.
Assigning this task to the IT department will probably obstruct the process rather than
facilitating it as IT specialists are only experts in dealing with the required technology
that facilitates Knowledge Management processes. A tool, such as Aconex is available
for employees in the AMA but as the findings suggest, the system is rarely. The HRM
department can design Job descriptions or Job profiles in a way that requires employees
to regularly and consistently document knowledge. Knowledge management processes
can be imbedded in the organisational structure, and thus knowledge-creation will be a
common business process. It is also of great importance that employees should be
rewarded for performance and particularly for knowledge sharing and creation. The
preservation of knowledge, which is one of the most important phases of the KM life-
cycle, cannot be achieved without a clearly defined strategy. Explicit knowledge can be
preserved through investing in software packages that facilitate Knowledge
Management supported by a plan for reengineering the organisational structure (e.g
reward system and Job Design) to ensure that valuable knowledge is documented. The
AMA group should consider culture and change philosophy and performance appraisal
once the required behaviours are defined and when Knowledge processes are considered
as factors in the performance appraisal. For the tacit knowledge the, AMA group should
maintain a strong culture by supporting communities of practice and supporting social
productivity and events for the employees to develop an atmosphere that can foster
knowledge processes.
5.2.2 IT related issues
For further support for the corporate culture, it is advised that the company should
provide people-supporting technologies such organisational Yellow Pages, software
which lists the names and the contact of all of the employees with their areas of
expertise and a search function that helps identify the relevant knowledge required. As
discussed before, contact is a very important aspect, as it involves personal interaction
and facilitates the transfer of tacit knowledge, and at the same time, this eliminates
cultural barriers and contributes to establishing transparency and constant interaction
between the stakeholders which will eventually promote a unified open culture instead
of fragmented closed sub-cultures. Also, Organisations-supporting technologies are
required to support interdivisional working which is key to integrating the business
units to enable Third-loop learning. When these technologies are adopted successfully

85
they soon become embedded within organizational routines and practices and in turn
become a part of the organizational culture (Swan and Newell, 2000).
5.2.3 Adopting the EFQM model
Adopting the EFQM model will be beneficial in many areas. It is one of most advanced
and comprehensive business excellence models. Besides being a quality measure,
adopting the EFQM model is perceived as an excellent enabler to knowledge
management and knowledge governance and is also linked to the Intellectual Capital
model.
5.2.4 The understanding and the support of the project-based environment.
The project-based environment needs to be understood by the people responsible for
managing knowledge. Project managers are very busy individuals. Therefore, the
company should give all the support to the project teams who need to accomplish their
projects and review the lesson learned and project learning.
5.3- Limitations and further Research.
A methodological limitation in this research is using cross-sectional instead of
longitudinal research. Longitudinal research would have provided a better
understanding of the knowledge-creating processes through a long period of time. This
method was discarded in the research mainly because of time limitation.
Evidence can be found in the literature that companies informally practice Knowledge
Management. This is clear in Nokana and Takeuchi‘s (1995) contribution. This research
proved that knowledge-creation can exist in the construction industry and in a company
that did not adopt Knowledge Management as a business strategy for managing the
body of knowledge. It has been dicussed that these practices stem from the core
business functions. The auther suggest that managing knowledge is a must in the
knowledge ecomony. That is, generally, no comapny can be successful without being a
knowledge-creating company. Knowledge is power, and without it, no organisation can

86
have competitve advantage over competition. Further research needs to take place in
leading companies in diffrent domains to determine wither this assumption is valid.
As stated earlier, there is no framework for Knowledge Management in construction
that takes into consideration the characteristics of the industry as being a knowledge-
based industry. While the framework presented is a good starting point, it still needs
further development and testing in other construction companies.
There are dozens of models and tools for Knowledge Management that can be used, but
these are often not linked together. Provided that these models are linked together, they
still lack a consideration of the context in which these models to be applied. The author
noticed that many models are ‗one-fits-all‘. What is needed is to link these models while
considering the characteristics of the industry in which they are applied. In other words,
these models should be tailored and catered specifically to the context. The author
believes this is a fertile area for further research.

87
REFERENCES
Alaali. (2006) Vision. [online] Available at:
http://www.alaaligroup.com/aboutus_vision.html [Accessed 4 May 2008]
Al-Alawi, A. (2007). Knowledge Management Implications. Bradford: Bradford School
of Management.
Alberthal, L. (1995). Remarks to the Financial Executives Institute. Dallas.
AMA group. (2006) About Us. [online] Available at:
http://www.alaaligroup.com/aboutus_group.html [Accessed 5 May 2008]
Apostolou, D., and Mentzas, G. (1999). ―Managing Corporate Knowledge: A
Comparative Analysis of Experiences in Consulting Firms. Knowledge and Process
Management, Vol. 6, No. 3 , pp.129-138.
Argyris, C. (1999). On organizational learning (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Argyris, C. (1991). Teaching smart people how to learn. Harvard Business Review
Vol.69 No.3 , pp.99-109.
Barabas, C. (1990). Technical Writing in a Corporate Culture. Norwood: Ablex.
Bergeron, B. (2003). Essentials of Knowledge Management . Wiley.
Bess, J., Dee, J. and Johnstone, D. (2007). Understanding College and University
Organization: Theories for Effective Policy and Practice. Herndon: Stylus Publishing.
Bhatt, D. (2008). EFQM Excellence Model and Knowledge Management Implications.
[online] Available at: eknowledge center: http://www.eknowledgecenter.com [Accessed
5 July 2008]
Blackman, D., Connelly, J. and Henderson, S. (2004). Does double loop Learning create
reliable knowledge? Learning organization Vol.2 No.1 , pp.11-27.
Boisot, M. (1995). Explorations in Information Space. London: International Thompson
Business.
Bokeno, R. (2003). Introduction: appraisals of organizational learning as emancipatory
change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol.16, No. 6 , pp.603-618.
Bontis, N. (1996). There is a price on your head: managing intellectual capital
strategically. Business Quarterly Vol.60 No.4 , pp. 40-47.
Boshyk, Y. (2000). Beyond knowledge management: How organisations mobilize
experience. In Marchand, D and Davenport, T , Mastering information management.
London: Prentice Hall.

88
Burden, P. (2000) Knowledge Management: The bibliography. [online] Available at:
Dominican University: http://domin.dom.edu/faculty/SRIKANT/lis88001/kmbib.html
[Accessed 2 July 2008]
Burk, M. (1999). Knowledge Management: Everyone Benefits by Sharing Information.
Public Roads US Department of Transpotation, Vol. 63, No.3 , pp.1-6.
Call, D. (2005). Knowledge Management - not rocket science. Journal of Knowledge
Management. Vol.9 No.2 , pp.19-30.
Cano, V. (2005). The Importance of Literature Reviews . [online] Available at: UK-
student: http://www.uk-student.net/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=40
[Accessed 25 May 2008]
Carayannis, E. (1999). Knowledge transfer and technological hyper-learning in five
industries. Technovation Vol. 19 No.3 , pp.141-161.
Carrillo, P., Anumba, C., and Kamara, J. (2000). Knowledge Management strategy for
construction: Key IT and contextual issues [online] Available at: Construction
Informatics Digital Library: http://itc.scix.net/data/works/att/w78-2000-155.content.pdf
[Accessed 19 August 2008]
Coakes, E., and Clarke, S. (2006). Encyclopedia of Communities of Practice in
Information And Knowledge Management. London : Idea Group Publishing.
Cronje, G. (2003). New challenges for management. Management Today Vol.19 No.2 ,
pp. 14-18.
Cross, R. (1998). Managing for knowledge: managing for growth. Knowledge
Management Vol.1 No.3 , 9-13.
Dahlman, C., & Andersson, T. (2000). Korea and the Knowledge-based Economy.
Washington, DC: Making the Transition, World Bank Institute and OECD Publishers.
Dale, B. (2003). Managing quality. Blackwell Publishing.
Davenport, T., and Prusak, L. (2000). Working knowledge: How organizations manage
what they know. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Daymon, C., and Holloway, I. (2002). Qualitative Research Methods in Public
Relations and Marketing Communications. Routledge.
De Long, D., and Seeman, P. (2000). Confronting conceptual confusion and conflict in
knowledge management. Organizational Dynamics Vol. 29 No.1 , pp.33-44.
Denton, J. (1998). Organisational Learning and Effectiveness. London: Routledge.

89
Devis, L. (2007) Organizational Culture And Its Importance [online] Available at:
http://www.isnare.com/?aid=115330&ca=Business+Management [Accessed 15 May
2008].
Donovan, K., & Taylor, P. (2007). Questionnaire Design: an example from exploring
retention issues [online]. Available at: The Higher education academy:
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/events/Collated_abstracts.doc
[Accessed 18 May 2008].
Drucker, P. (1992). The Age of Discontinuity: Guidelines to Our Changing Society.
New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.
Earl, M. J., and Scott, I. A. (1999). What is a chief knowledge officer? Sloan
Management Review Vol.40 No.2 , [Online].Available:
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb [accessed 1 August 2008]
Edvinsson, L., and Malone, M. (1997). Intellectual Capital: Realizing Your Company’s
True Value by Finding its Hidden Brainpower. New York: Harper Business.
Edwards, J., Shaw, D., and Collier, P. (2005). Knowledge management systems: finding
a way with technology. Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol.9 No.1. pp. 113-125.
Egbu, C., and Robinson, H. (2005). Construction as a knowledge-Based Industry. In
Anumba, C. Egbu,C and Carrillo, P. Knowledge Management in Construction. pp. 31-
49. padstow: Blackwell.
Egbu, C., Anumba, C., and Carrilo, P. (2005). Knowledge Management in construction.
Padstow: Blackwell.
Eschenfelder, E., Heckman, R., and Sawyer, S. (1998). The distribution of computing:
the knowledge markets of distributed technical support specialists Vol. 11 No. 2.
Information Technology and People , pp.84-103.
Feagin, J., Orum, A., and Sjoberg, G. (1991). A case for case study. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press.
Ford, H. (1922). MY life and Work.
Garson, D. (2002). Case Studies. [online] Available at:
http://www2.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/pa765/cases.htm [Accessed 20 June 2008]
Gartner Group. (2001) The disruptive impact of knowledge work: Retention. [online]
Avaliable at: Gartner: www.gartner.com [Accessed 5 August 2008]
Godin, S. (2002). Survival is not enough. Zooming, evolution and the future of
yourcompany. New York: The Free Press.

90
Gottschalk, P (2005). Strategic Knowledge Management Technology. London : Idea
Group Publishing.
Gratton, L. (2000). Living Strategy: Putting People at the Heart of Corporate Purpose.
Dorchester: Peason Education Limited.
Grover, V., and Davenport, T. (2001). General perspectives on knowledge management:
Fostering a research agenda. . Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol.18
No.1 , pp. 5-21.
Grugulis, I. (2007). Skillls, Training and Human Resource Developement: A critical
Text. New York: Plgrave Macmillan.
Hargadon, A., and Sutton, R. I. (2000). Building an innovation factory. Harvard
Business Review Vol.78 No.3 , pp.157-166.
Havens, C., and Knapp, E. (1999). Easing into knowledge management, Strategy
Leadership Vol.27 No.2., pp.4-10.
Hayes, N. (2001). Boundless and bounded interactions in the knowledge work process:
the role of group ware technologies. Information and Organisation Vol. 11 No. 2 ,
pp.79-101.
Hoof, B., and Ridder, J. A. (2004). Knowledge sharing in Context: the influence of
organisational Commitment. Communication climate and CMC use in knowledge
sharing. Journal of Knowledge Management Vol.8 No.6 , pp.117-130.
James, L., and Jay, R. (2007). Understanding College and University Organization:
Theories for Effective Policy and Practice. Stylus Publishing.
Jensen, J. L., and Rodgers, R. (2001). Cumulating the intellectual gold of case study
research. Public Administration Review, Vol. 61, No. 2 , pp.236-246.
Kakabadse, N., Kakabadse, A., and Kouzmin, A. (2003). Reviewing the knowledge
management literature: towards a taxonomy. Journal of Knowledge Management,Vol.7
No,4 , pp.75-91.
Kakabadse, N., Kouzmin, A., & Kakabadse, A. (2001). From tacit knowledge to
knowledge management: leveraging invisible assets. Knowledge and Process
Management, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 237-54.
Kamara, J., Anumba, C., & Carrillo, P. (2005). cross-Project Knowledge Management.
In
Egbu,C. Anumba, C., and Carrilo P., Knowledge Management in construction (pp. 103-
119). Padstow: Blachwell.
Kazi, A. (2005). Knowledge Management in the Construction Industry: A Socio-
Technical Perspective. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing.

91
Kothuri, S. (2002) Knowledge in Organizations. [online] Avaliable at:
http://gseweb.harvard.edu/~t656_web/Spring_2002_students/kothuri_smita_knowledge
_in_orgs.htm#_edn3 [Accessed 6 May 2008]
Koulopoulos, T., & Frappaolo, C. (2000). Smart things to know about knowledge
management. Oxford: Capstone Publishing.
Liebowitz, J. (1999). Knowledge Management Handbook. RC Press.
Lin, C., and Tseng, S. (2005). The implementation gaps for the knowledge management
system. Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 105 No.2 , pp.208 – 222.
Lytras, M., Pouloudi, A., Poulymenakou, & A. (2002). Knowledge management
convergence – expanding learning. Journal of Knowledge Management,Vol.6, No.1 :
pp. 40-51
Malhotra, Y. (2005). Integrating knowledge management technologies in organizational
business process: getting real time enterprises to deliver real business performance .
Journal of Knowledge Management Vol.2 No.1 , pp.7 – 28.
Marr, B., Gupta, O., Gupta, S., and Roos, G. (2003). Intellectual capital and knowledge
management effectiveness. Journal of Management Decision, Vol.41 No.8. pp.771-781.
Marshall, A. (1890). Principles of Economics . London: London: Macmillan and Co.
Martin-Castilla, J., and Rodriguez-Ruiz, O. (2008). EFQM model: knowledge
governance and competitive advantage. Journal of Intellectual Capital Vol. 9 No. 1 ,
pp.133-156.
Mudge, A. (1999) Knowledge management: do we know what we know? [online]
Avaliable at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4422/is_5_16/ai_54577309
[Accessed 3 May 2008]
Murray, P. (2002). How smarter companies get results from KM. In D. In Marchand, D.
Davenport,T., and Dickson, Y. (Mastering information management. London: Prentice
Hall.
Murray, P., and Myers, A. (1997). The facts about knowledge. Information Strategy,
Vol. 2 No. 7 , pp.29-33.
Nakra, P. (2000). Knowledge management: The magic is in the culture! Competitive
Intelligence Review. Journal of Knowledge Management and Insight, Vol.11 No.2 ,
pp.53-59.
Neumann, F. (2005). Practised Knowledge Management and its Importance A Practical
Proposal for the Company Eckart on how to Improve their Knowledge Management.
NIMBAS Graduate School of Management.

92
Nonaka, I (1997) Organizational Knowledge Creation [online] Available at:
www.knowledge-nurture.com/downloads/NONAKA.pdf [Accessed 9 May 2008]
Nokana, I., and Takeuchi, H. (1995 ). The Knowledge-Creating Company. New York:
Oxford University Press.
O‘Dell, C., and Jackson, C. (1998). If Only we Know What Know: The Transfer of
Internal Knowledge and Best Practice. Free Press: New York.
Olsen, W. (2004). Triangulation in Social Research: Qualitative and Quantitative
Methods Can Really Be Mixed [online] Avaliable at:
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:Tn0SJWMN1pEJ:www.ccsr.ac.uk/methods/festi
val2004/programme/Sat/pm/MSTheatre/documents/Olsen_000.doc+triangulation+resea
rch+methods&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=uk&client=firefox-a [Accessed 25 August
2008]
OSP. (2008. KnowledgeManagementQuestionnaire. Avaliable at: Office of State
Personnel: http://www.performancesolutions.nc.gov/[Accessed 28 April 2008]
Oxford Concise English Electronic Dictionary. (2004). knowledge. Oxford.
Palmer, J., and Platt, S. (2005). Business case for knowledge management. London:
CIRIA.
Passerini, K. (2007). Knowledge-driven development indicators: still an eclectic
panorama. Journal of knowledge management , 115.
Plato, trans. by Gowler, H.N (1953). Phaedo. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Plessis, M. (2004). Knowledge management in eBusiness and customer relationship
management: South African case study ﬁndings. International Journal of Information
Management Vol.24, pp.73-86.
Plessis, M. (2005). Drivers of knowledge management in the corporate environment.
International Journal of Information Management Vol.25 No.3 , pp.192-202.
Prahalad, C., and Bettis, R. (1986). The dominant logic: a new link between diversity
and performance. Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 7 No.6 , pp.485-506.
Probst, G., Raub, S., & Romhardt, K. (2003). Wissen managen . Wiesbaden: Gabler.
Quintas, P. (2005). The Nature and the Dimensions of Knowledge Management. In
Anumba, C., Egbu, C., and Carrillo, P (. Carrillo, Knowledge Management in
Construction (pp. 10-30). padstow: Blackwell Publishing.

93
Remenyi, D., Williams, B., Money, A., & Swartz, E. (2002). Doing Research in
Business and Management, An Introduction to Process and Method. London: SAGE
Publication.
Reuters. (2008) Gulf Arab projects cross $2 trillion in value -MEED. [online] Avaliable
at: Reuters UK: http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKL3064569620080330
[Accessed 23 August 2008]
Romme, A. G., and van Witteloostuijn, A. (1999). Circular organizing and triple loop
learning. Journal of Orginiszational change Management Vol.12 No.5 , pp.439-453.
Rumizen, M., (2001). The Complete Idiot's Guide to Knowledge Management. Alpha
Books.
Saint-Onge, H. (1996) Strategic Capabilities: Shaping Human Resource Management
within the Knowledge-Driven Enterprise. [online] Avaliable at:
http://www.providersedge.com/docs/km_articles/Shaping_HR_Mgmt_Within_KDriven
_Enterprise.pdf [Accessed 5 July 2008]
Saunders, M., Lewis, P., and Thornhill, A. (2003). Research Methods for Business
Students. FT Prentice Hall.
Schwartz, D. (2006). Encyclopedia of Knowledge Management. Melbourne: Idea
Group.
Senge, P. (1990). The Fifth Discipline, the Art and Practice of the Learning
Organisation. London: Random House.
Sharkie, R. (2003). Knowledge creation an its place in the development of sustainable
competitive advantage. Journal of Knowledge Management Vol. 7 No.1 , 20-31.
Sheehan, T., Poole, D., Lyttle, I., and Egbu, C. (2005). Strategies and Business Case for
Knowledge Management. In Egbu, C., Anumba, C., and Carrilo, P, Knowledge
Management in Construction (pp. 50-64). Padsto: Blackwell.
Shum, S. (1998). Negotiating the construction of organisational memories. In U.
Borghoff, U.W and Pareschi, R., (. Pareschi, Information Technology for Knowledge
Management (pp. 55-77). Germany: Springer Verlag.
Stewart, T. (1997). Intellectual capital. New York: Doubleday.
Stewart, T. (2001). The wealth of knowledge. London: Nicholas Brealey.
Strauss, A., and Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory
procedures and techniques. Newbury Park: Sage.
Sveiby, K., Linard, K., and Dvorsky, L. (2002). Building a Knowledge-Based Strategy.
A system dynamics model for allocating value adding capacity. [online] Avaliable at:

94
Sveiby knowledge associates:
http://www.sveiby.com/Portals/0/articles/sdmodelkstrategy.pdf [Accessed 28 July 2008]
Swan, J., and Newell, S. (2000). Linking knowledge management and innovation.
Proceedings of the 8th European Conference on Information Systems (pp. 591-598).
Vienna : Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration.
The University of Utah. (2000) Organizational Structure And Control Systems. [online]
Avaliable at: BNET: http://jobfunctions.bnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=79296 [Accessed
5 April 29 2008]
Tiwana, A. (2002). The Knowledge Management Toolkit . Prentice Hall PTR.
Townley, B. (1993). Foucault, power/knowledge, and its relevance for human resource
management. Academy of Management Review, Vol. 18 No.3, pp.518-45.
Tsoukas, H. (1996). The firm as a distributed knowledge system: a constructionist
approach. Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 17 No. 1 , 11-25.
Wagner, E. (2000) Communities of practice: the structure of knowledge stewarding. In
C. Despres, & D. (. Chauvel, The Present and the Promise of Knowledge Management
(pp. 205-24). Boston: Butterworth-Heinemam.
Walker, D., Maqsood, T., & Finegan, A. (2005). The Culture of Knowledge
Advanatage: A Holistic Strategy Approach to the Knowldege Management,. In A. edt.
Kazi, Knowledge Management in Construction Industry (pp. 225-250). Idea Group.
Wanger, R. (2008) Bahrain looks to be role model in development. [online] Avaliable
at: Arabian Business: http://www.arabianbusiness.com/525749-bahrain-looks-to-be-
role-model-in-development [Accessed 17 July 2008]
Wenger, E., McDermott, R., and Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of
practice. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Werr, R., and Stjenberg, T. (2003). Exploring management consulting firms as
knowledge systems. Organization studies Vo.24 No.6 , pp.881-908.
Windrum, P., Flangan, K., & Tomlinson, M. (1997). Recent Patterns of service
innovation in the UK. Manchester: Report for TSER project 'SI4s', Policy research in
Engineering.
Yin, R. (1994). Case study research: Design and methods (2nd ed.). Beverly Hills: Sage
Publishing.
Zack, M. (1999). Managing codified knowledge. Sloan Management Review, Vol. 40
No.4 , 45-58.

96
Knowledge Management
in the construction
industry
A case study of the AMA group
MSc dissertation Proposal
4/25/2008

97
1. BACKGROUND
Ahmed Mansoor Al A’ali Group of Companies (The AMA Group) is the largest
contracting and construction group in the Kingdom of Bahrain. It is characterised by
the diversified and integrated activities that consist Construction and contracting, Real
estate development, Manufacturing and processing of building materials, Industrial
infrastructure and Construction equipment and heavy commercial vehicles. (A.M.A
group, 2006). Having a premier position in all of the businesses constituents the vision
now is to expand internationally and becoming the leading integrated construction
group in the GCC. (Alaali, 2006) A crucial factor that will support the expansion and
the success in the new arena is managing the knowledge in an entity that employs over
5000 people and that provides multidisciplinary, multilayered business services. These
complex contracts are largely dependent upon sharing knowledge and the technical
expertise that lies within its employees’ knowledge base. Strategically speaking, and
for the purpose of harnessing the knowledge and aligning its competitive edge with
the corporate objectives fulfilment of the AMA group I will conduct a case study
research about the effectiveness of knowledge management and knowledge sharing
system in the AMA group.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
“Knowledge is power” (Cameron, 2000) and its importance is growing in the
knowledge economy and it is becoming the key asset in organizations. Also, Knowledge
has always been classified as key determining factor of performance. (Campbell, 1990).
When it comes to defining resources of a company, Grant (2002) claims that
knowledge is perceived to be the most important productive resource of a company
and that the value of people and machines “lies primarily in the fact that they embody
knowledge”.
Knowledge management is the management initiative that is concerned with
managing knowledge and is defined as the “Management of the stocks of knowledge

98
and information that compose the collective assets of an organization in order to
deliver value to that organization” (Clegg, 2005). While O’Dell (2002) describe it as
“Systematic approaches to help information and knowledge emerge and flow to the
right people, at the right time to create value”. Firms need to disseminate and harness
knowledge, as well as, controlling the inflow and the outflow of knowledge between
the Internal environment and the external one. Wiig (1997) states that the way for
organization to maintain or improve competitive advantage via knowledge is to
maintain a “a balanced intellectual capital portfolio”. While Prusak (2002) states that
an organization in a whole is a “coordinated collection of capabilities” that is bounded
by its present perceptive skills and knowledge is the “building block” of these
capabilities. Drucker (1998) states that knowledge has become a key and a central
resource in organizations and he claims that most employees will be what are called
knowledge workers. Drucker argues that the knowledge workers in today’s
organizations are executives either by “virtue of their position or knowledge” They are
responsible to for “a contribution that materially affects the capacity of the
organization to perform and to obtain results”. Drucker also considers knowledge
management as an essential competitive advantage for companies. (Drucker, 1998)
Davenport and Prusak (1998) state that knowledge-Creating activities include:
“Comparison: how does information about this situation compare to other situations
known?
Consequences: what implications does the information have for decision and actions?
Connections: how does this bit of knowledge relate to others?
Conversation: what do other people think about this information?”
One may argue, however, for the need of knowledge of knowledge management and
to what extent it enhances the effectiveness and efficiency. In the literature
knowledge management is widely considered as a tool that improves the business
processes. Hay (2002) describes knowledge management as: “the practice of
harnessing and exploiting intellectual capital to gain competitive advantage and
customer commitment through efficiency, innovation and faster and more effective
decision-making”.

99
OECD ( 2004) have found evidence that organizations are incrementally paying
attention to their knowledge management systems to esure that they are using
knowledge productively to improve learning and enhance performance. Firms have
always managed knowledge in one way or the other but “the need for knowledge
management as a systematic corporate strategy is becoming far more urgent” (OECD,
2004).
Knowledge management is simply collecting and disseminating knowledge. Knowledge
management mainly involves transforming the tacit form of knowledge, which includes
“cognitive skills such as beliefs, images, intuition and mental models as well as
technical skills such as craft and know-how” (Nonaka, 1997), to the explicit form of
knowledge which is ‘objective and rational knowledge that can be expressed in words,
sentences, numbers and formulas. It includes theoretical approaches, problem solving,
manual and databases (Nonaka, 1995). Tacit knowledge is difficult to disseminate
while explicit Knowledge is easier to disseminate (Rajan et al., 1999).
2.2KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN CONSTRUCTION
Kazi (2005) states that the construction industry has been reluctant to adopt new
management initiatives. This includes knowledge management and this is a result of
the misrepresentation or the vagueness that surrounds this issue. However, he
elaborates, when Knowledge management is presented in an understandable form he
observes willingness and enthusiasm about what it can be achieved through
knowledge Management.
Both forms of knowledge (tacit and explicit) are important in the construction industry.
But in the construction industry particularly tacit knowledge is the most important
one. One that is that difficult to be codified and written on papers and transferred
from and among colleagues via direct face-to-face interaction.(Kazi et al., 1999)
There is a common agreement that knowledge management is the ‘body is of
knowledge that deals with the management of both personal and organisational

100
knowledge’. (Davenport and Prusak, 1998). Kazi (2005) states that around this
understanding, many mechanisms have been presented as frameworks and outlines of
how knowledge is managed. He further elaborate, business processes and culture
differ in organizations, and thus, there is no golden method of the way to manage
knowledge. The most influential factor is the culture when designing an effective
knowledge management strategy (Kazi, 2005).
2.3WHY KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN CONSTRUCTION
Teams in projects are often disassembled when they are done with the assigned
projects and thus, people had to “re-invent the wheel” (Palmer & Platt, 2005). This is
even more significant in project-based businesses like construction (Kazi, 2005).
Experience is the intellectual capital of organziations and individuals and there this
experience should be handled properly ,and in this way, teams will not have to repeat
past mistakes (Stewart, 1997). Valuable experience is prone to loss if it is not shared
properly the thing which has been restraining advances in the construction sector
(Kazi, 2005). Theses are even more important to the AMA group as it is competing
internationally.
3. PROBLEM DEFINITION AND CONTRIBUTION
3.1PROBLEM AND CONTRIBUTION
In many firms, and particularly in the construction sector, knowledge management
efficiency is difficult to be measured and its effectiveness is difficult to be noticed and
few organizations do appreciate its role as it does not numerically add to the bottom-
line. There is little research done about this issue and there is none when it comes to
the construction sector in the kingdom of Bahrain. Taking into consideration the
differences in culture, values and the environment this will contribute to the overall
understanding of knowledge management in the construction industry.

101
3.2OBJECTIVES
The aim of this study is to contribute to the encouragement of the adaptation of
knowledge management systems that include both of knowledge management
strategies: codification and personalization. For measuring the knowledge
management system in the AMA group the following will be done:
 To present a literature review on the current knowledge management systems
in construction sector.
 To evaluate the effectiveness of the AMA knowledge management systems
 To develop a framework for selecting and developing a knowledge
management strategy
3.3RESEARCH QUESTIONS
In order to achieve the intended aims of this study the following three questions will
be addressed:
 What is the knowledge management system in the AMA and to what extent it
is effective.
 Does the company need a new approach to managing knowledge
 Do the knowledge management practices in the AMA promote knowledge
sharing effectively and organizational learning?
4. METHODOLGY
4.1 LIMITATIONS
One of the disadvantages of conducting a case study limited to one company is that in
this case it does not represent the construction sector. The group is gigantic and the
results of the research can be of high validity and beneficial. Nevertheless, the
outcomes cannot be generalized and applied to all construction companies. The
reasons for this are the different national and organizational cultures.

102
Another limitation is the fact that knowledge management processes are not clearly
defined. There is no formal focus on the process but rather practiced and evolved
processes that stretched upon approximately 60 years. On those bases, the research
will tend to be more phenomenological. The data will be gathered in an endeavor to
present the structure of Knowledge Management in the A.M.A group.
4.2RESEARCH STRATEGY
According to Hillebrand et al. (2001), “Case research lies somewhere in the twilight
zone between exploratory and testing research”. Exploratory research is the best
choice for my research as it provides the ground for identifying of the use and the
effectiveness of Knowledge management systems in AMA. Case research will be
particularly beneficial for research in knowledge management systems and it will help
in gathering information of high quality about the realities and practices in the real
world.
The qualitative research In which I concentrate on the preciseness and the quality of
data gathered so that I can extract high quality results. This will involve unstructured,
semi-structured questionnaire, in depth personal interviews, aimed to comprehend
the experience of knowledge management and sharing in AMA. I decided to use 3-4
questionnaires that will be distributed in different departments according to speciality.
Each will contain no more than 20 questions that will contain few open questions to
ensure a good response rate.
My approach will also involve an analysis of Knowledge management concept with an
examination of the AMA knowledge system to specify suitable metrics that I can use to
study the effectiveness and the efficiency of it. This will involve inspecting the way
knowledge is organized stored and retrieved within the AMA group.

103
4.3PRIMARY DATA
As mentioned above, the research will involve interviews and questionnaires. Those
will be held in the headquarters of the AMA group. Firstly, The HR senior staff will be
interviewed as they are naturally responsible for managing knowledge in
organizations. Among those is the HR director. This decision is based upon the need to
identify the other staff to be included in the advanced stages of the research or what is
technically called snowballing sampling. The interviews will be semi-structured so that
the important questions are answered, and in other instances, unstructured as it allow
free discussion and informal interaction with no constraints. Moreover, I have a
personal experience with some of the HR staff and I recognize their expertise in the
field the unstructured questioned in this case will grant a more fruitful outcome. The
vast majority blue-collar will be excluded as mostly being passive processors of the
knowledge-related activities and the other reason for the exclusion is due to time
constraints. I will also use the AMA employee survey. After the interviews and when
the important figures are identified, a focus a group will be constituted for further and
deeper understanding of the knowledge-related activities. The questionnaire will
include open-ended questions and will be distributed initially to 30-40 staff of a variety
of disciplines and backgrounds. The anticipated response rate is about 60%.
4.4SECONDARY DATA
The secondary data will be drawn from reports, journal articles (particularly the
Journal of Knowledge management), books, the corporate website and Surveys.
Moreover, the internal documents will be used (if possible). The core secondary data
will be obtained from the Bradford school of Management library, Bahrain University
library. I will also seek advice from the academic researchers about the additional
material I need.

104
5. PROJECT PLAN
6. OUTLINE STRUCTURE OF THE DISSERTATION

105
References:
Cameron, P. 2000. Managing the Wealth. CMA Management, 46-49.
6 . OUTLINE STRUCTURE OF DISSERTATION
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 The Statement of the Problem
1.2 The Objectives
Chapter 2 Review of the Related Literature
Chapter 3 Methods Used
3.1 The Study Design
3.2 Pilot Study
3.3 Population and the Sample
3.4 Method of Data Collection
3.5 Profile of the Population
Chapter 4 Findings
4.1 Relationship to literature
4.2 Relationship to theory
4.3 Relationship to practice
Chapter 5 Discussion
Chapter 6 Recommendation
Chapter 7 References
Chapter 8 Appendices

106
Campbell, J.P. 1990. Modeling the Performance Prediction Problem in Industrial and
Organizational Psychology. Edited by M. D. Dunnette and L. M. Hough. 2 ed. Vol. 1,
Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting
Psychologists Press.
Clegg, S., Kornberger, M. and Tyrone, P. (2005) Managing and Organisations London:
Sage
Davenport, T.H, & Prusak, L. (1998). Working Knowledge:How Organizations Manage
What They Know. Boston: Harvard Business School Press,.
Drucker P.,(1998), Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management (HBR Series).
USA: Harvard Business School Publishing.
Grant R.,(2002), Contemporary Strategy Analysis (4
th
Edition).UK: Blackwell Publishing
Hillebrand, B., Robert A. W. and Wim G. (2001), Theory-Testing Using Case Studies A
Comment on Johnston, Leach, and Liu, Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 30,
Issue 8, pp. 651-657.
Kazi, A. (2005). Knowledge Management in the Construction Industry: A Socio-Technical
Perspective. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing.
Nonaka, I. (1997). Organizational Knowledge Creation. Retrieved Dec 2, 2007, from
knowledge-nurture.com: www.knowledgenurture.com/downloads/NONAKA.pdf
Nonaka, I., Takeuchi, H. (1995), The Knowledge-Creating Company, Oxford University
Press, New York, NY, .
O’Dell, C. (2002). Perspectives on Knowledge Management. APQC Conference.
OECD. (2004, July ). Retrieved April 8, 2008, from Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development : www.oecd.org/dataoecd/53/40/33641372.pdf
Palmer, J., & Platt, S. (2005). Business case for knowledge management. London: CIRIA

107
Prusak, L. (2002, Nov 4). Where did Knowledge Management come from? Retrieved
Dec 7, 2007, from www.research.ibm.com:
http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/404/prusak.html
Kazi, A.S., Hannus, M., & Charoenngam, C. (1999). An exploration of knowledge
management for construction. In M. Hannus, M. Salonen, & A.S. Kazi (Eds.), Concurrent
engineering in construction, challenges for the new millennium. Espoo: CIB Publication
236.
Rajan, A, Lank, E. and Chapple, K., (1999) Good Practices In Knowledge Creation And
Exchange, Focus/ London Training And Enterprise Council, London.
Stewart, T.A. (1997). Intellectual capital: The new wealth of organisations. New York:
Currency/Doubleday.
Wiig, K. (1997). Knowledge Management:An Introduction and Perspective. The Journal
of Knowledge Management , 6-14.

109
Interview questions
Does the company have a Knowledge Management System?
How do employees find information/knowledge?
In your opinion what is the critical knowledge to your organisation?
Where is information/knowledge stored? Who has access to it?
How is information/knowledge used in the company?
What kind of IT systems exist in the AMA group?
How do new ideas evolve?
How does the management assure business growth and development?
Does the company motivate employees to create new knowledge? Does the company
appreciate and exploit knowledge from the employee?
Is there a reward system that support the knowledge sharing culture
Does the company undertake any research about the customer, such as surveys, aimed
at identifying client needs?
Who is responsible for managing knowledge in the company
Has any part of the organisation articulated how to improve AMA performance and
value will derive from mobilising existing knowledge?
Do any of the AMA leaders reinforce the importance of creating, capturing, sharing and
reusing what the AMA knows?
Within the AMA are there examples of matrix or partnership working that deliberately
draw on diverse knowledge?
Do job descriptions and performance assessment processes acknowledge the importance
of growing, sharing, and re-using knowledge?
Are staff coached and trained in information and knowledge skills?
Does the AMA culture encourage the exchange of knowledge and learning from
activities, projects?
Does the AMA have any roles dedicated to acquiring, mobilising and co-ordinating
knowledge?
Does the AMA have a clear view of its key knowledge assets?
Has the AMA implemented systematic processes for gathering, organising and
indexing, and making accessible and using its key knowledge assets –content and
people

110
Has the AMA employed any informal mechanisms to gather and mobilise its tacit
knowledge – after action reviews, communities, storytelling, master classes, networking
events and so on?
Does the AMA convert its working experience into improved processes and services
systematically?
Does the AMA have a firm information management strategy?
Do tools exist in the AMA that have further potential for knowledge organisation and
access?
where are the most profitable and practical starting points for mobilising knowledge
Are there any existing opportunities that you could target?
-How would you describe the importance of a formal knowledge management system?
-How a formal knowledge management system will contribute to effectiveness of
knowledge management in the AMA Company?
Does the company need a new approach to managing knowledge
How would you evaluate the role of culture in promoting knowledge management?
How do you promote knowledge sharing culture within the organisation?
What is the relation between effective knowledge management and gaining competitive
advantage?
Do you agree with the statement managing knowledge adds to the bottom line?
Explain?
Commentators say that KM offers a major competitive advantage to construction
companies if employed effectively. Evaluate the statement.
How would you evaluate the importance of information system in managing knowledge
How would you evaluate the role of the enabler of Knowledge Management.

112
Department:
Knowledge
Shared
ToaGreatExtent
ToSomeExtent
NotShared
DDoonn‘‘ttKKnnooww
IKnowWheretoAccess
thisInformation
Information about key customers
Information about customer satisfaction
Information about competitors
Information about future plans
Information about senior management decisions
Information about the use of technology
Information about processes
Information about new initiatives
Information about other business functions
Information about training and
development opportunities
Information about team and individual successes
To What Extent
Do You Agree?
Very
Strongly
Agree
Disagree
Disagree
Strongly
Don’t
Know
Information is passed around the organization
without barriers

113
We regularly spend time reviewing
lessons learned
The speed of knowledge exchange is
good
My manager openly shares knowledge
with me
I am encouraged to openly share my knowledge
Aim: To review the extent to which knowledge is shared within the organization and assess
whether knowledge information is easily accessed.

115
Grounded Theory
The phrase "grounded theory" refers to theory that is developed inductively from a corpus of
data. If done well, this means that the resulting theory at least fits one dataset perfectly. This
contrasts with theory derived deductively from grand theory, without the help of data, and
which could therefore turn out to fit no data at all.
Grounded theory takes a case rather than variable perspective, although the distinction is
nearly impossible to draw. This means in part that the researcher takes different cases to be
wholes, in which the variables interact as a unit to produce certain outcomes. A case-oriented
perspective tends to assume that variables interact in complex ways, and is suspicious of
simple additive models, such as ANOVA with main effects only.
Part and parcel of the case-orientation is a comparative orientation. Cases similar on many
variables but with different outcomes are compared to see where the key causal differences
may lie. This is based on John Stuart Mills' (1843, A system of logic: Ratiocinative and
Inductive) method of differences -- essentially the use of (natural) experimental design.
Similarly, cases that have the same outcome are examined to see which conditions they all
have in common, thereby revealing necessary causes.
The grounded theory approach, particularly the way Strauss develops it, consists of a set of
steps whose careful execution is thought to "guarantee" a good theory as the outcome. Strauss
would say that the quality of a theory can be evaluated by the process by which a theory is
constructed. (This contrasts with the scientific perspective that how you generate a theory,
whether through dreams, analogies or dumb luck, is irrelevant: the quality of a theory is
determined by its ability to explain new data.)
Although not part of the grounded theory rhetoric, it is apparent that grounded theorists are
concerned with or largely influenced by emic understandings of the world: they use
categories drawn from respondents themselves and tend to focus on making implicit belief
systems explicit.
Methods
The basic idea of the grounded theory approach is to read (and re-read) a textual database
(such as a corpus of field notes) and "discover" or label variables (called categories, concepts
and properties) and their interrelationships. The ability to perceive variables and relationships
is termed "theoretical sensitivity" and is affected by a number of things including one's
reading of the literature and one's use of techniques designed to enhance sensitivity.
Of course, the data do not have to be literally textual -- they could be observations of
behavior, such as interactions and events in a restaurant. Often they are in the form of field
notes, which are like diary entries.

116
Element Description
Phenomenon
This is what in schema theory might be called the name of the
schema or frame. It is the concept that holds the bits together.
In grounded theory it is sometimes the outcome of interest, or
it can be the subject.
Causal
conditions
These are the events or variables that lead to the occurrence or
development of the phenomenon. It is a set of causes and their
properties.
Context
Hard to distinguish from the causal conditions. It is the
specific locations (values) of background variables. A set of
conditions influencing the action/strategy. Researchers often
make a quaint distinction between active variables (causes)
and background variables (context). It has more to do with
Open Coding
Open coding is the part of the analysis concerned with identifying, naming, categorizing and
describing phenomena found in the text. Essentially, each line, sentence, paragraph etc. is
read in search of the answer to the repeated question "what is this about? What is being
referenced here?"
These labels refer to things like hospitals, information gathering, friendship, social loss, etc.
They are the nouns and verbs of a conceptual world. Part of the analytic process is to identify
the more general categories that these things are instances of, such as institutions, work
activities, social relations, social outcomes, etc.
We also seek out the adjectives and adverbs --- the properties of these categories. For
example, about a friendship we might ask about its duration, and its closeness, and its
importance to each party. Whether these properties or dimensions come from the data itself,
from respondents, or from the mind of the researcher depends on the goals of the research.
It is important to have fairly abstract categories in addition to very concrete ones, as the
abstract ones help to generate general theory.
The process of naming or labelling things, categories, and properties is known as coding.
Coding can be done very formally and systematically or quite informally. In grounded theory,
it is normally done quite informally. For example, if after coding much text, some new
categories are invented, grounded theorists do not normally go back to the earlier text to code
for that category. However, maintaining an inventory of codes with their descriptions (i.e.,
creating a codebook) is useful, along with pointers to text that contain them. In addition, as
codes are developed, it is useful to write memos known as code notes that discuss the codes.
These memos become fodder for later development into reports.
Axial Coding
Axial coding is the process of relating codes (categories and properties) to each other, via a
combination of inductive and deductive thinking. To simplify this process, rather than look
for any and all kind of relations, grounded theorists emphasize causal relationships, and fit
things into a basic frame of generic relationships. The frame consists of the following
elements:

117
what the researcher finds interesting (causes) and less
interesting (context) than with distinctions out in nature.
Intervening
conditions
Similar to context. If we like, we can identify context with
moderating variables and intervening conditions with
mediating variables. But it is not clear that grounded theorists
cleanly distinguish between these two.
Action
strategies
The purposeful, goal-oriented activities that agents perform in
response to the phenomenon and intervening conditions.
Consequences
These are the consequences of the action strategies, intended
and unintended.
(Source: http://www.analytictech.com/mb870/introtoGT.htm) Accessed on 23 August
2008
It should be noted again that a fallacy of some grounded theory work is that they take the
respondent's understanding of what causes what as truth. That is, they see the informant as an
insider expert, and the model they create is really the informant's folk model.
Selective Coding
Selective coding is the process of choosing one category to be the core category, and relating
all other categories to that category. The essential idea is to develop a single storyline around
which all everything else is draped. There is a belief that such a core concept always exists.
I believe grounded theory draws from literary analysis, and one can see it here. The advice
for building theory parallels advice for writing a story. Selective coding is about finding the
driver that impels the story forward.

Knowledge Management in construction: Towards developing a framework for managing the intellectual capital in a project-based environment

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked (16)

Similar to Knowledge Management in construction: Towards developing a framework for managing the intellectual capital in a project-based environment (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Knowledge Management in construction: Towards developing a framework for managing the intellectual capital in a project-based environment