Organizational learning and knowledge management—insights from industrial managers

Abstract

There is an increasing recognition that the competitive advantage of firms depends on their ability to create, transfer, utilize, develop and protect the Organizational knowledge assets. Therefore, the projects context should be wisely used for properly foster the learning collection through the lessons learned gathered during project life cycle. However, organizations do not seem to learn from their mistakes, rarely exploring the reasons for their projects’ success or failure, and very rarely applying those lessons learned to the business management. In fact, there is little or no point in learning unless management adapts its behavior accordingly. Usually top management does not give sufficient resources for activities such as reflecting and learning. This research is focused on assessing the organizational environment in order to properly explore the factors and dependencies amongst the social demographic variables. The questions addressed intent to highlight the key determinants that might foresee a proper learning and knowledge management environment.