Practice What You Learn:

A case study on how client projects can be evaluated for reuse

within a consulting firm’s internal environment

Master thesis

Student: Sarah Anina Bleiker Student number: 11084596 Institution: University of Amsterdam - Faculty of Economics and Business Program: MSc. in Business Administration - Entrepreneurship and Innovation Supervisor: Prof. dr. P.J. van Baalen Version: Final version Date: 22.06.2016

Statement of originality

This document is written by Student Sarah Anina Bleiker who declares to take full

responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources

other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of

completion of the work, not for the contents.

Abstract

Purpose – This study investigates how knowledge management related client projects can be

evaluated for reuse within a consulting firm’s internal environment and what factors hinder the

evaluation and sharing of insights from client projects for a consulting firm’s internal purpose.

Design/ methodology/ approach – This research presents a qualitative case study based on ten

in-depth interviews with representatives from different client projects of a global consulting

company.

Findings – By building on a well-established framework that focuses on motivation,

opportunity and ability, the findings indicate that reusable insights from client projects can be

identified, yet further investigation is needed to profoundly understand these project learnings.

Additionally, the findings reveal several barriers to the establishment of an environment for

appropriate project evaluation and sharing opportunities for such insights.

Research limitations/ implications – The findings of this research cannot be generalized or

systematically transferred to another context, since the case study is specific to one consultancy.

Practical implications – The proposed framework of this study can support project managers

to evaluate insights from knowledge management projects for internal reuse. Furthermore, this

process can be enhanced by overcoming the major factors that hinder the evaluation and the

sharing of these learnings.

Originality/ value – This research presents an approach to learning from client projects and

develops a framework that could support evaluation for reuse within a consultancy.

Furthermore, it sheds light on challenges that can come along with such an evaluation.

Key words – Knowledge management, consulting industry, project evaluation

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Accenture for the collaboration, and especially Christoph Zrubek as well

as Roberto Colacino for their commitment and effort to support me during the research process.

In this regard, I would also like to thank all the participants who made time for the interviews

and provided stimulating input. Furthermore, I would like to thank Prof. dr. Peter J. van Baalen

for his supervision and his valuable guidance at every stage of the research and writing process

of my master thesis. Last but not least, I am very thankful for my friends and reviewers

Annelouc Best and Jan Pieter Snoeij who provided feedback on revisions to my writing.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction..................................................................................................................11.1 Context description..............................................................................................................11.2 Problem statement................................................................................................................21.3 Relevance of this study.........................................................................................................21.4 Outline..................................................................................................................................3

2. A review of relevant literature......................................................................................42.1 Organizational knowledge....................................................................................................42.2 Knowledge management......................................................................................................6

2.2.1 Knowledge management in the consulting industry.........................................................62.2.2 Project learnings and evaluation........................................................................................8

2.3 Knowledge management strategies......................................................................................92.3.1 Codification strategy.........................................................................................................102.3.2 Personalization strategy....................................................................................................11

2.4 Knowledge management enablers......................................................................................112.4.1 Motivation..........................................................................................................................132.4.2 Opportunity........................................................................................................................142.4.3 Ability.................................................................................................................................15

3. Conceptual framework and research questions..........................................................183.1 Conceptual framework.......................................................................................................183.2 Research questions.............................................................................................................23

4. Methodology................................................................................................................244.1 Sample................................................................................................................................24

4.1.1 The company......................................................................................................................244.1.2 The projects........................................................................................................................25

4.2 Data collection and analysis...............................................................................................304.2.1 Interview: an explanation of the content.........................................................................304.2.2 Data analysis......................................................................................................................32

5. Findings.......................................................................................................................345.1 Research question 1: Evaluation framework.....................................................................34

5.1.1 Evaluation per project.......................................................................................................375.1.2 Synthesis of the project evaluations.................................................................................43

5.2 Research question 2: Challenges for evaluating and sharing project learnings.................475.2.1 Overview of major challenges...........................................................................................475.2.2 Synthesis of the emerging challenges...............................................................................50

6. Discussion....................................................................................................................536.1 Implications for the evaluation framework........................................................................536.2 Theoretical implications.....................................................................................................576.3 Practical implications.........................................................................................................596.4 Research limitations and future research..........................................................................60

7. Conclusion...................................................................................................................62

References.......................................................................................................................63

Appendix.........................................................................................................................66Appendix I: Interview questions..............................................................................................66Appendix II: Initial NVivo coding list......................................................................................68

List of tables and figures

Table 1. Overview conceptual framework .............................................................................. 22Table 2. Overview projects ..................................................................................................... 28Table 3. Attributes categorized in motivation, opportunity and ability .................................. 35Table 4. Overview project evaluation ..................................................................................... 43Table 5. Major challenges for evaluating and sharing project learnings ................................ 47

Figure 1. Illustration of the evaluation framework ................................................................. 22Figure 2. Extended evaluation framework .............................................................................. 56

1

1. Introduction

This research study focuses on the reuse of organizational knowledge in the consulting

industry. In particular, the evaluation of the potential for the internal reuse of projects in the

field of knowledge management is examined. This chapter therefore first provides background

information about the emergence of organizational knowledge and its significance in the

consulting industry. The problem statement as well as the relevance of this study are presented

subsequently. Finally, the structure of this thesis is outlined.

1.1 Context description

Organizational knowledge is a well-established theme in the business world. While

knowledge has traditionally been one of the major success factors that needed to be transferred

from one generation to the next in order to keep the family business running, it has remained a

crucial competitive advantage for today’s organizations (Hansen, Nohria & Tierney, 1999).

Additionally, the emphasis of economic organization has shifted extensively over past decades,

from assets consisting of natural goods to intellectual capital. Simultaneously, the evolution of

information technology simplified complex knowledge management practices in various

industries (Hansen et al., 1999). The importance of effective knowledge management is

especially applicable to the project-based consulting industry, since knowledge is seen as the

predominant output and major value that consulting firms deliver (Sarvary, 1999). One of the

major challenges in project-based environments is to integrate knowledge created during the

implementation phase in an appropriate way in order to make it reusable (Kasvi, Vartiainen &

Hailikari, 2003; Williams, 2007). In fact, this process requires a consistent project evaluation

as well as distribution of relevant knowledge so that the organization is able to acquire

information and determine its potential for reuse - to become a learning organization (Kasvi et

al., 2003).

2

1.2 Problem statement

Based on the context described above it becomes apparent that effective knowledge

management is perceived as crucial for consulting firms. Even though they aim to not reinvent

the wheel by creating something that already exists, research on the internal reuse for consulting

firms themselves is sparse. Clearly, not every project learning is reusable to the same extent for

other projects with a similar purpose or for internal purposes within a consultancy (Kasvi et al.,

2003). Nevertheless, as knowledge management is at the core of every consulting firm (Sarvary,

1999), especially insights from projects that focused on knowledge management and were

implemented at a client could provide significant learnings. This could be valuable for internal

knowledge management practices of a consultancy. Therefore, the purpose of this study is:

(i.) to develop a framework supporting a consulting firm to evaluate the reusability of knowledge management related client projects for internal purposes,

and;

(ii.) to explore what factors might hinder the evaluation and sharing of insights from such projects learnings for a consulting firm’s internal purpose.

1.3 Relevance of this study

By conducting a case study analysis with the global consulting company Accenture, this

study is relevant for two primary reasons. On one hand, the objective is to provide theoretical

implications on the established evaluation framework. On the other hand, the study aims to

specify practical recommendations on the internal reuse potential of evaluated projects as well

as to gain deeper insights on possible challenges when considering evaluation and sharing of

project learnings for internal reuse.

Another goal of this study is motivated by the fact that prior literature and research was

so far not sufficiently focusing on this specific matter, which could be particularly relevant for

the practice. Moreover, there is little evidence stemming from previous research on the internal

3

reuse of client projects in the consulting context. This study hence contributes to research in the

field of project knowledge management in the consulting industry.

1.4 Outline

The remainder of the study proceeds as follows: the next section reviews relevant

academic literature about organizational knowledge and the management thereof, especially in

the consulting industry. Subsequently, current research on project learning and evaluation,

knowledge management enablers and knowledge management strategies are presented. This

review provides the foundation for the conceptual framework and the research questions that

are derived in chapter three. Following this, the method section provides an overview of the

chosen sample as well as the research procedure. The research findings are presented

subsequently in the next chapter. Chapter six provides a discussion about the results where

theoretical as well as practical implications and research limitations are presented. The final

chapter summarizes the major findings, outlines the contribution and concludes.

4

2. A review of relevant literature

This chapter first critically analyses an extract on available academic literature about

organizational knowledge. The management of organizational knowledge, particularly in a

project-based consulting context, is discussed subsequently. Further in this context, literature

on evaluation and likewise on learnings from projects is examined. Beyond this, current

research on knowledge management enablers that could support an evaluation of such projects

is reviewed. Lastly, two different knowledge management strategies are introduced.

2.1 Organizational knowledge

Organizational knowledge is an exceptional asset that is unique for each firm, as it is

built upon aggregation of learnings and experiences throughout all units and individuals

(Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002; Sarvary, 1999). Alavi and Leidner (2001, p.109) define individual

knowledge as “information possessed in the mind of individuals: it is personalized information

related to facts, procedures, concepts, interpretations, ideas, observations and judgments.”

Organizational knowledge, however, comes from different sources such as work

documentation, databases, projects and individual experiences of employees (Kim, Suh &

Hwang, 2003). Such knowledge is partly intangible and therefore difficult to imitate by others,

which makes it an important competitive advantage (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002; Faniel &

Majchrzak, 2007; Kim et al., 2003; Mas Machuca & Martínez Costa, 2012; Szulanski, 1996).

Any firm that derives its competitive advantage from said sources should therefore leverage

knowledge internally as greatly as possible (Mas Machuca & Martínez Costa, 2012). Similarly,

Williams (2007) emphasizes the importance of practicing knowledge that a company possesses,

since such knowledge otherwise becomes negligible. Thus, it is critical for organizations to be

able to not only absorb, but likewise reuse relevant knowledge.

The aim of knowledge reuse is to leverage knowledge that is already existing within an

organization. Reusable knowledge can include tacit as wells as explicit elements (Siemsen,

5

Roth & Balasubramanian, 2008). However, as the major components of organizational

knowledge seem to have a more tacit character, it is important to observe, question and interact

with the knowledge source, the relevant employee or team respectively, in order to reuse tacit

knowledge elements more effectively (Williams, 2007). Given this perspective, research by

Majchrzak, Cooper and Neece (2004) similarly suggests to pay more attention to opportunity

recognizers that encourage reuse of available knowledge within an organization. The findings

of Williams (2007), together with the suggestion of Majchrzak et al. (2004), provide an

important implication that knowledge sources could further be seen as opportunity recognizers,

whenever knowledge sources use their insights as an initiative for reuse.

According to Szulanski and Winter (2002), there is hardly a large company that does

not need to make use of their existing best practices. However, although some research showed

that knowledge can be reused as a source for exact replication of a previous solution (Szulanski

1996; Szulanski & Winter, 2002), other research demonstrated that new combinations and

adaptation of existing knowledge could facilitate problem solving in similar situations and even

promote a firm’s innovativeness (Faniel & Majchrzak, 2007; Hislop, 2003; Majchrzak et al.,

2004). Hence, the integration of knowledge plays an important role for the innovativeness of

an organization (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Hislop, 2003). While some literature mainly

focused on product innovations (Kasvi et al., 2003; Szulanski & Winter, 2002), Bresnen,

Edelman, Newell, Scarbrough and Swan (2003) investigated the innovation of processes and

further pointed out that knowledge in this context is more of a tacit nature. This indicates an

increased complexity when evaluating processes and services for reuse, since the end solution

is often not a simple tangible product, and as tacit knowledge is difficult to communicate

(Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002).

On a related note, Williams (2007) argues that knowledge is more likely to be replicated

or copied precisely when it is ambiguous and discrete, and more likely to be adapted when

knowledge is context dependent. For effective knowledge transfer and reuse eventually, firms

6

need to understand interdependencies between information and the context it was created in, to

be able to adapt relevant knowledge that is valuable to a new situation (Williams, 2007).

Furthermore, when it is not clear what knowledge components caused a specific outcome, then

this knowledge requires effort to be replicated precisely so that none of the knowledge elements

that might be fundamental for a specific practice will be lost (Williams, 2007). As these

knowledge characteristics vary, firms therefore need to understand how to manage it accurately.

2.2 Knowledge management

The way knowledge is managed within an organization is essential for the occurrence

of reuse (Hislop, 2003; Sarvary, 1999). In this context, Sarvary (1999) views management of

knowledge as a process where an organization learns by gathering new information, then

integrates and modifies it into business relevant knowledge and eventually makes it available

throughout the organization. However, there are often distinct knowledge bases distributed

across an organization, depending on the units’ specialization and practices (Hislop, 2003). For

example, complications regarding the integration of knowledge across an organization such as

distinct characteristics of knowledge, different knowledge sources as well as diverse knowledge

sharing mechanisms have been found (Hislop, 2003). Hence, integration of various knowledge

bases is needed whenever cross functional interaction within the organization is desired (Hislop,

2003). Additionally, because knowledge mainly originates from individuals’ skills and

experiences, organizations need to find a way to make such information visible to others and

support the utilization of existing knowledge in an efficient manner (Yeh, Lai, & Ho, 2006).

2.2.1 Knowledge management in the consulting industry

Knowledge, or the intellectual capital of an organization, is a crucial factor for success

(Sarvary, 1999). This is in particular accurate for project-based environments such as in the

consulting industry, which is the focus of this research. Consultancies were early to recognize

knowledge as their core strength and therefore have invested heavily in the management of

7

knowledge along with evolving technologies (Hansen et al., 1999). The consulting industry is

highly knowledge dependent as employees not only create new knowledge, but even aim to

apply gained experience in a new context (Mas Machuca & Martínez Costa, 2012). Indeed,

knowledge is asserted to be the main output consulting companies are generating and is thus

playing a vital part of every new business solution or service developed (Sarvary, 1999).

Sarvary (1999) furthermore states that knowledge in consulting firms is often managed

differently than in other companies, as a significant part of knowledge is acquired through client

projects. Comparable to the fact that clients expect a broad knowledge base from consulting

companies, consultancies acquire relevant knowledge by recognizing client projects that could

be also valuable for internal purposes. A better understanding of the assembled knowledge,

however, can be gained through comprehensive evaluation and synthesis of it, as in that way

the often perceived complexity of such knowledge emerging from projects can be reduced

(Sarvary, 1999).

An example that reveals complexity to knowledge management in project environments

is the research of Kasvi et al. (2003). According to their research, knowledge is highly

dispersed, as project teams are composed differently for each project and will often be

interchanged into a new constellation after the completion of a project (Kasvi et al., 2003).

Kasvi et al. (2003) additionally utter the fact that team members could even change during the

project and the project manager thus appears as the most reliable knowledge source of a project.

The emerging knowledge, also seen as the memory of a project, is therefore difficult to retain.

They further found that, when it comes to project evaluation and reporting, besides the missing

resources, there happen to be a general inefficiency in performing this task which often leads

to a disorderly and incomplete knowledge accumulation (Kasvi et al., 2003). Again, knowledge

has to be managed properly in order to continuously learn from project experiences and apply

it to new context. However, Kasvi et al. (2003) state that there is no single solution on how to

best manage knowledge, as it may differ from organization to organization, or even from

8

business unit to business unit. Nevertheless, research found that learning from a project

demands suitable work practices, such as evaluation of projects and capture of project learnings,

that are embedded in an organization and encourage employees to share their knowledge with

others (Kasvi et al., 2003; Williams, 2003).

2.2.2 Project learnings and evaluation

Most organizations are not sufficiently leveraging the insights and learnings from

projects they implemented, particularly also insights related to explanations for success or

failure (Williams, 2003). Given this fact, causes of specific outcomes in a project are not always

apparent and could thus impede recognition of key lessons learned (Cooper, Lyneis, & Bryant,

2002; Szulanski 1996; Williams, 2003; 2007). In this context, Cooper et al. (2002) revealed in

their research the difficulty of knowing what factors influence a performance of a project. As

they focused on lessons learned, they particularly looked at what can be learned from good

projects. Contradictory to other research (e.g. Bresnen et al., 2003), Cooper et al. (2002)

concluded that not every project is as distinct as perceived and that most of the time it is

attainable to find similarities to previously implemented projects in new situations. In harmony

with other research however (Szulanski 1996; Williams, 2003), Cooper et al. (2002) also

supported the finding that not knowing or not being able to identify the causes of a project

success prevent employees from learning. For that reason, they suggest that organizations

should encourage project members to evaluate the true causes of the performance, as well to

analyze commonalities for reuse in similar situations. In their research, project managers were

even considering several ‘what if’ situations for possible future initiatives in their evaluation

process (Cooper et al., 2002). These findings imply that in order to learn from a project, it is

crucial to understand what ultimately caused the achieved outcome in a project and to consider

situations where the project learnings could be valuable.

9

Williams (2003) identified the absence of standardized method for a project review

process as an additional complication for knowledge reuse. Also, the complexity and diversity

of projects further complicate a consistent post-evaluation. According to Williams (2003), the

main goal of a review is to get better insights about what factors lead to a successful

implementation, and their cause. Contrasting to Szulanski and Winter (2002), Williams (2003)

emphasized that projects should not be exactly replicated, they should rather provide insights

about certain aspects of the project and the effects they may have during a reuse process. This

shows the importance of getting an in-depth understanding about the initial knowledge when

considering these learnings for another, however similar, purpose.

2.3 Knowledge management strategies

There are two main strategies for managing knowledge within an organization defined

in this literature review. One strategy is focusing on extensive databases where employees can

store their knowledge and make it accessible to everyone within the organization, the so called

codification strategy (Hansen et al., 1999). The other strategy is focusing on extensive

interactions and communications between employees with the result that knowledge can be

directly exchanged from one employee to another, the so called personalization strategy

(Hansen et al., 1999). Which knowledge management strategy an organization is choosing

depends on several factors, such as for example how a company works with their clients and

what product or service they are offering. Although Hansen et al. (1999) focused on consulting

companies in their research, they state that these knowledge management strategies can also be

found in other large organizations from various industries. They additionally argue that every

firm that is relying strongly upon knowledge should employ such a strategy (Hansen et al.,

1999). Also, most firms are not using one strategy exclusively, they rather use aspects of both

strategies while one strategy is being pursued extensively and while the other strategy is mainly

seen as a supportive function (Hansen et al., 1999). According to Hansen et al. (1999),

10

companies that try achieve a balance between both strategies risk losing productivity and could

therefore weaken their business. Furthermore, these knowledge management strategies involve

distinct incentive approaches on how to motivate employees to actively participate in the

provided knowledge environment. While with the codification strategy the goal would be to

motivate people to contribute their knowledge to the database as precise as possible, with the

personalization strategy, organizations need to encourage people to share knowledge directly

and collaborate with the original knowledge source (Hansen et al., 1999). In line with research

of Cabrera and Cabrera (2002), this implies that not only the availability of technological

knowledge capturing or collaboration tools are precondition for successful knowledge sharing

and reuse, social aspects are playing a critical role as well. The two strategies are presented in

the following subchapters.

2.3.1 Codification strategy

Codified knowledge means the source of the knowledge extracts information and stores

it in a database where employees of a firm can access and reuse it for other purposes (Hansen

et al., 1999). With this more technology based approach, knowledge is not restricted anymore

to a specific person, instead it is stored centrally in order to provide information to anyone that

is looking for it. According to Hansen et al. (1999), this strategy thus puts the focus away from

the original knowledge source and provides the stored information in a straightforward way, so

that anyone can use it independently and multiple times to generate economies of scale for

reuse. In this way, information can for example be reused as building blocks in order to apply

existing knowledge as a foundation and eventually speed up the process of similar projects with

using new knowledge to build upon this basis (Hansen et al., 1999). In this context, time and

thus costs for communication between employees in order to obtain relevant knowledge can be

reduced, but the information provided and knowledge shared is less customized. According to

11

Argote, McEvily and Reagans (2003), codified knowledge that comes along with common rules

and routines on how to embed knowledge in a repository system can foster knowledge reuse.

2.3.2 Personalization strategy

In some organizations it is of high importance that a person looking for specific

knowledge can easily be connected with the person who developed it and hence holds this

specific knowledge (Hansen et al., 1999). Here, the communication plays a vital role as this is

the way knowledge will be exchanged - directly from one person to another. Hansen et al.

(1999) hereby urge the importance of providing employees with relevant contact details so that

knowledge can be shared and reused, through a direct dialogue and not via documents. A

substantial task of an organization following a personalization strategy is thus to establish

extensive people networks that allows employees to connect with each other. Even in firms that

are pursuing a personalization strategy, some knowledge might be stored in documents.

However, the reason for knowledge documentation is mainly that employees are able to quickly

verify if this person owning the document is the right person to contact in order to receive more

information about a certain topic (Hansen et al., 1999). With this rather people focused

approach, knowledge that has a more tacit character can be also be shared although it is likely

to be time consuming (Hansen et al., 1999).

2.4 Knowledge management enablers

There has been extensive research across various disciplines on how to manage

knowledge, and learn within an organization respectively (Argote et al., 2003; Hansen et al.,

1999; Yeh et al., 2006). Argote et al. (2003) found that the strength of knowledge management

in an organization is dependent on certain knowledge characteristics and on the individual or

group it is originating. These factors are influencing the intensity of knowledge flow, meaning

the extent to which knowledge is assembled, shared and eventually reused (Argote et al., 2003).

Similarly, Szulanski (1996) remarked on the difficulty of transferring knowledge if its cause is

12

not apparent. Argote et al. (2003) however claimed that there are numerous components that

help to clarify the causes of successful, or indeed also ineffective, knowledge management and

learning within an organization.

For knowledge sharing to occur, individuals not only need to have the opportunity to do

so within the organization (Majchrzak et al., 2004), moreover they need to be able to absorb

significant knowledge in the first place (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990; Szulanski, 1996) as well as

have some incentives to share this knowledge with others (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002; Siemsen

et al., 2008). Siemsen et al. (2008) explored in this context the link between the eminent

motivation–opportunity–ability framework, or in short the MOA framework, and the

knowledge sharing behavior of employees in an organization. In particular, motivational

aspects hereby included individual incentives to participate in the knowledge sharing process,

opportunity embodied the organizational circumstantial aspects such as time that empower

sharing activities, and ability represented the competence of an individual to absorb, evaluate

and share knowledge that is relevant (Siemsen et al., 2008).

On a similar note, Argote et al. (2003) also highlighted the three components

motivation, opportunity and ability in the knowledge management context. This framework has

formerly helped to explain causes of individual work performance (Blumberg & Pringle, 1982),

and was further applied for many other research purposes. Argote et al. (2003) argued that the

way knowledge is managed influences not only the ability and motivation of the employees at

a firm, it also provides them with the opportunity to share knowledge and learn. Furthermore,

and besides the knowledge management service or tool a company is providing to its

employees, there are also social aspects that affect organizational learning. For example, social

relationships between employees can support individuals’ incentives for contributing their

knowledge or a supportive organizational culture can provide the opportunity to share their

knowledge, collaborate and learn from others (Argote et al., 2003). In the following, the three

elements motivation, opportunity and ability are discussed in more detail.

13

2.4.1 Motivation

According to previous research, knowledge sharing incentives are based on various

motivational aspects (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002; Wasko & Faraj, 2005). For example, Cabrera

and Cabrera (2002) found that individuals mainly share their knowledge and give advice to

others because they want to add value to the community they are working in. In their paper,

they discussed the common dilemma that appears when sharing individual knowledge with

others in an organization, as it is always associated with costs, most notably time (Cabrera &

Cabrera, 2002). In addition, they highlighted three organizational activities that could foster

knowledge sharing processes with the first one being increased acknowledgment for individuals

that share, the second one showing proof to employees of an increased efficiency through

sharing and that shared knowledge is valuable to others, and the last one being the social aspect

of belonging to a group and thus feeling responsible for them. Possible explanations for the lack

of knowledge sharing such as the unawareness of its advantages or the extra effort required in

order to share have further been found (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002).

Other research found that employees are contributing when it will strengthen their

reputation within an organization, but even so when they realize they can really help others or

are experienced in sharing knowledge (Wasko & Faraj, 2005). Unlike Wasko and Faraj (2005)

who discovered that employees have also individual incentives to contribute their knowledge,

and even though when employees are conscious about the reality that reciprocity is generally

absent, Cabrera and Cabrera (2002) detected reciprocal aspects such as individuals that share

because they gathered relevant knowledge from others before. Yet, other research mentioned

the missing incentives to contribute knowledge when it is not clear if, who and how this shared

knowledge will be reused (Sarvary, 1999).

Clearly, individual incentives influence the degree to which employees are motivated

to share knowledge (Siemsen et al., 2008). Whereas Siemsen et al. (2008) considered

motivation as an important driver for sharing behavior, Szulanski (1996) debated the influence

14

of motivational aspects regarding knowledge sharing. Nevertheless, Siemsen et al. (2008)

argued that the absence of motivation could hinder individuals to initially share their

knowledge, which is the outset of a successful knowledge reuse. Hence, in order to have

motivated employees that are actively participating in the knowledge management process,

organizations need to establish appropriate incentives and rewards, may they be monetary or

social (Argote et al., 2003). Again, social aspects can be of great importance for individual’s

motivation as for instance cooperative norms (Argote et al., 2003). This shows that some

employees are willing to show extra effort and share their expertise with others in order to be

recognized within the organization or their personal network. Motivation consequently consists

of distinct attributes, ranging from individual incentives to incentives schemes provided by an

organization.

2.4.2 Opportunity

In order to have knowledge management working properly, organizations need to

support their employees in absorbing, sharing and reusing knowledge. Hence, they need to

establish an appropriate organizational culture to do so (Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Sarvary, 1999;

Yeh et al., 2006). Increasingly, literature discussed social aspects regarding incentives for

knowledge sharing along with the dispersion among specific project teams and individuals

(Bresnen et al., 2003; Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002). Bresnen et al. (2003) looked at knowledge

related social as well as behavioral practices in project environments and found that a shared

knowledge management system within an organization is not sufficient for transfer and reuse

to be successful. Indeed, they argued that social aspects like a shared understanding of

knowledge sharing practices as well as a similar mindset are of great importance for knowledge

exploitation (Bresnen et al., 2003). This implies that individual motivation to share with others

is one aspect of knowledge sharing behavior, however, the organization needs to support this

15

behavior by establishing an appropriate environment with sharing opportunities (Siemsen et al.,

2008).

Another factor that provides opportunities to learn is observation, which happens mainly

informal through individual’s own network and allows them to apply it to another task (Argote

et al., 2003). From this view, it has been identified by Manz and Sims (1981) that learning

processes take place every day in organizations and impact people’s work behavior, although

often unconsciously. More specific, modeling or the notion of vicarious learning refers to

gaining knowledge through observation of someone else’s behavior without any direct

interaction (Manz & Sims, 1981). Behavior that led to success gives incentives to not only the

employees that directly experiences this success, but also other employees that observe this

favorable outcome (Manz & Sims, 1981).

On a similar note, Argote et al. (2003) see opportunity as most valuable when individual

ability and motivation are existent. Strong relationships within the organization additionally

help to reduce distance between employees, this can be through physical means such as

reducing geographical distance or building extensive communication possibilities across the

firm as well as through psychological means such as establishing common understandings

about specific topics (Argote et al., 2003). In general, less distance hence implies better

opportunities to learn from one another

2.4.3 Ability

Ability is another component that is important for successful knowledge management.

Ability is related to individual’s experience as through experience employees learn how to

benefit from knowledge in a certain field of expertise, when knowledge has previously been

absorbed in this field (Argote et al., 2003). Individuals hereby combine new information with

information they knew before (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990). Ability can further be supported by

the actual knowledge management solution, for example by providing simple rules on how to

16

store knowledge in a database or by using similar jargon for communication (Argote et al.,

2003). Ability therefore represents the competence to absorb, evaluate and share relevant

knowledge with others (Siemsen et al., 2008). Cohen and Levinthal (1990, p.128) define

absorptive capacity as “the ability of a firm to recognize the value of new, external information,

assimilate it, and apply it to commercial ends”. Absorptive capability enables individuals to see

relations between new and existing information and thus build up new connections (Cohen &

Levinthal, 1990).

For project-based organizations, Bresnen et al. (2003) claimed that it is notably difficult

to capture valuable knowledge in an adequate way as each project is distinct and related to a

concrete situation with specific tasks and objectives. Moreover, they mentioned that knowledge

about a particular project is deeply embedded in individuals that implemented it and therefore

acquired that expertise, making it challenging to capture knowledge appropriately (Bresnen et

al., 2003). The research of Bresnen et al. (2003) proposed to aim attention at the social, tacit

and context dependent elements, and at the solution with its explicit and tangible elements when

absorbing knowledge from projects. Further in this context, Daghfous (2004) mentioned

acquisition, assimilation, transformation, and exploitation as the four essential steps for

effective absorptive capacity which eventually allow firms to gain relevant knowledge and

develop enhanced competences. Daghfous (2004) pointed out that organizational

responsiveness, meaning the ability of reacting to newly associated information, is a crucial

factor that affects the absorptive capacity of a firm. Furthermore, Cohen and Levinthal (1990)

found that organizations need to be able to not only accelerate, but also make use of these novel

knowledge linkages by optimizing current practices, and eventually foster firm’s

innovativeness. This implies that for effective knowledge reuse to happen, employees within

an organization need to be aware of the benefits of absorbing and using information gathered

through projects, which could eventually facilitate innovation processes. Accordingly, Cohen

17

and Levinthal (1990) revealed that absorption should become part of routine activities to

continuously learn and thus broaden the knowledge base with related information.

In addition to incentivizing employees to become knowledge management influencer,

they also need to get sufficient training and tools for collaborating as well as sharing knowledge

amongst each other (Siemsen et al., 2008; Yeh et al., 2006). Yeh et al. (2006) further found that

besides establishing a supportive culture within an organization, IT plays an important

complementary role in enabling knowledge management, as it simplifies the flow of knowledge

and information. Training can thus help employees to learn how to make use of knowledge the

organization acquired as well as help them to increase the ability to share the knowledge they

gathered (Siemsen et al., 2008). As Siemsen et al. (2008) mentioned, this can be IT related or

more behavior related, meaning that training can also be about the way how people collaborate

and share knowledge with each other, which eventually improves their ability to share.

On an aggregated level, motivation, opportunity and ability represent crucial

components “that help explain how and why certain contextual properties affect knowledge

management outcomes” (Argote et al., 2003, p.580). A theme that emerged from their research

is the similarities, and differences respectively, between the context in which knowledge

originates and the context in which knowledge could be reused (Argote et al., 2003). Argote et

al. (2003) found that it is also important to embed knowledge within the organization in an

appropriate way that it will not get lost and that it can easily be reused, may this be a repository

for documents or relevant contact details of knowledge sources. Hereby, the strong connection

between information technology and the right knowledge management strategy should be

highlighted as a more structured knowledge diffusion within a company can be obtained, if

applied together (Yeh et al., 2006).

18

3. Conceptual framework and research questions

The extensive literature discussed in chapter two suggests various components that

influence the outcome of a knowledge management project as well as factors that determine the

reuse potential of such a project in a similar context. Yet, examinations on how learnings of

such projects can be evaluated for internal knowledge management purposes in the consulting

environment are scarce. This chapter thereby provides a conceptual framework based on the

emergent themes from the literature review that could support the evaluation of knowledge

management projects for internal reuse in consulting firms. Accordingly, the questions this

research addresses are stated.

3.1 Conceptual framework

As can be derived from literature, organizational knowledge is only valuable if it can be

reused (Williams, 2007). Therefore, and in project-based environments especially, knowledge

has to be managed properly in order to reduce complexity and simplify reuse (Cooper et al.,

2002; Kasvi et al., 2003). Furthermore, previous research suggested to view the original

knowledge sources as opportunity recognizers that consider new situations in which

accumulated learnings and experiences could be valuable (Cooper et al., 2002; Majchrzak et

al., 2004). Thus, a framework is created for the knowledge sources to support them in making

an initial assessment about the reuse potential of the project learnings within the consulting

firm. The knowledge sources are represented by the project leaders in this research, providing

the input for the actual evaluation based on the designed framework.

Knowledge emerging from client projects can be highly context dependent and more of

a tacit nature, which makes it difficult to understand what eventually caused a specific outcome

(Williams, 2003; 2007). Among others, there are three major components that enable

knowledge management and help to demonstrate possible reasons behind knowledge

management success or failure as well as help to identify contextual attributes: motivation,

19

opportunity and ability (Argote et al., 2003). The three components play an important role in

this research and build the basis for the framework. Yet, dependent on which knowledge

management strategy a company or a project is focusing on, the importance of each of the three

components may differ. The two major strategies in the context of knowledge management are

on the one hand a codification strategy that is predominantly aiming attention at the retention

of valuable organizational knowledge and is thus more technology orientated, and on the other

hand a personalization strategy that is more people oriented by focusing on connecting people

to collaborate directly with each other in order to commute relevant knowledge (Hansen et al.,

1999). Projects evaluated in the framework of this research are therefore additionally

categorized into these strategies.

Synthesizing these findings from previous research, a preliminary conceptual

framework is designed as a guide through the evaluation of knowledge management related

projects for internal reuse in a consultancy. The conceptual framework consists of three

elements: motivation, opportunity and ability, and is orientated after previous research of

Siemsen et al. (2008) regarding how these elements drive knowledge sharing. Whereas many

attributes describe these knowledge management influencers, the present research delimits for

each of the three elements on a specific attribute which seems most appropriate, considering

the fact that information about the client project and the client’s employees are gathered through

a project manager’s perspective from the consulting side. In the subsequent paragraphs, each

variable of the motivation, opportunity and ability construct is presented and compared to the

variables defined in the research of Siemsen et al. (2008).

While motivation in the research of Siemsen et al. (2008) was reflected through an

employee’s inner willingness to share knowledge, this research merely focuses on employee

incentives and rewards provided by an organization or a project team (Argote et al., 2003),

disregarding other specific intrinsic motivations employees might have. According to Argote

et al. (2003, p.575), such “rewards and incentives are important components of the knowledge

20

management process.” Rewards can hereby be either social such as acknowledgment for

knowledge sharing and collaboration, or economic such as monetary remuneration (Argote et

al., 2003). The reason behind this decision is because the knowledge source evaluating the

project is sparsely able to judge on individual incentives client employees might had, however

an evaluation of what incentives were given and how employees reacted on the project is more

conceivable.

By conceiving opportunity as an ambiguous construct, Siemsen et al. (2008) designated

time availability as a representative for opportunity among other environmental mechanisms

that enable or hinder an individual to share knowledge. Opportunity in this research is primarily

reflected through aspects of experienced organizational culture (Argote et al., 2003; Yeh et al.,

2006), since again this seems most assessable through a project leader’s cognition. Hereby,

organizational culture contains a different view than time availability by including aspects of

mutual trust and common understanding among employees as well as environmental

circumstances like established work conditions for knowledge sharing and collaboration (Yeh

et al., 2006). Additionally, organizational distance, either psychologically or physically, is also

important, meaning that the lower the distance the greater the opportunity for employees to

share and collaborate with each other (Argote et al., 2003). This implies that if an organization

is seen to be more supportive and collaborative, the mentioned circumstantial aspects are

existent.

Ability in the study of Siemsen et al. (2008) was characterized by the individual’s skill

to share knowledge. This individual ability to share can be improved by providing certain

training procedures (Argote et al., 2003; Siemsen et al., 2008; Yeh et al., 2006). Hence, the

third main component in the evaluation framework mainly contains aspects of training. Training

reflects the way employees have to learn how to collaborate with each other in order to

exchange knowledge or how to use a new solution that simplifies collaboration, knowledge

sharing and retention. On a further note, the way and intensity of training needed can also give

21

insights about the initial ability of the employees, hereby more training would imply less

experience and thus lower individual ability to share and collaborate (Cohen & Levinthal,

1990). Other factors that increase ability can also be independent form people’s individual

skills, as for example technology or clear guidelines on how to share knowledge can simplify

such knowledge exchange processes (Argote et al., 2003).

In the framework of Siemsen et al. (2008), the factor of the three variables motivation,

opportunity and ability that has the lowest performance is the one that determines the intensity

of knowledge sharing activities. By this means, if managers want to improve knowledge

sharing, they should try to advance the weakest variable among the three, the so called

‘bottleneck’ (Siemsen et al., 2008). Referring to that, in the framework of this research the

aspects of the motivation, opportunity and ability variables where the client, based on the

project insights, seems more advanced than the consultancy, or in other words where the

consultancy appears to have a lower performance, are the ones that could provide valuable

learnings for the consultancy and therefore have a certain reuse potential. As Williams (2003)

stated, such projects are rarely suitable for exact replication in another context. Rather, specific

aspects from the project may provide insightful learnings for internal reuse (Williams, 2003).

Eventually, the three components motivation, opportunity and ability, should enable project

managers to perform an adequate evaluation of what aspects from a project could be valuable

for internal reuse within the consultancy - by comparing these contextual attributes between the

client and the consultancy. While the project manager provides input for these similarities and

differences, the actual evaluation about the reuse potential and the conceivably reusable insights

is based on the framework. Table 1 displays the developed framework for this research as well

as the framework of Siemsen et al. (2008) after which it is formed, followed by an illustration

of the evaluation framework, the comparison between the client and the consultancy

respectively, in figure 1.

22

Table 1. Overview conceptual framework

Framework MOA* from Siemsen et al. (2008) MOA for this research study

Description The constraining factor, or the so called ‘bottleneck’, among the MOA variables determines the degree of knowledge sharing that occurs and focuses on how knowledge sharing among employees can be improved.

The factors among the MOA variables where the client based on the project insights is more advanced, in direct comparison with the consultancy, identify valuable learnings and help to determine the internal reusability.

Motivation Motivation to share Incentives and rewards

Opportunity Time availability Organizational culture

Ability Ability to share Training *MOA= motivation, opportunity, ability

Figure 1. Illustration of the evaluation framework

Consequently, this research focuses predominantly on project evaluation for reuse

within a consultancy, meaning that the knowledge contribution is not just an accumulation of

relevant project insights. Moreover, it will be an initial assessment of the internal reusability.

Similar to research of Siemsen et al. (2008), this study will primarily consider the view of the

knowledge source, while elements from a potential knowledge recipient’s angle will not

specifically be addressed.

23

3.2 Research questions

Making use of the of the created conceptual framework that is based on the literature

discussed in the second chapter, this model will assist in answering the first research question:

Q1. How can knowledge management related client projects be evaluated for reuse within a consulting firm’s internal environment?

The second research question is linked to the first one by going one step further in order to

explore on the possible challenges such a project evaluation and consequently the sharing of

these specific learnings might have. The question is as follows:

Q2. What factors hinder the evaluation and sharing of insights from client projects for a consulting firm’s internal purpose?

In the following chapter, the research methodology, the chosen sample as well as an overview

of the data collection and the analysis process are presented.

24

4. Methodology

A qualitative embedded single case study approach is used to gain a profound

understanding of how insights of knowledge management projects can be evaluated for internal

purposes in a consulting firm, as well as what factors hinder such an evaluation and the sharing

of these insights. Such a study consists of a single case such as one chosen organization, and

several subunits such as selected projects within an organization (Yin, 2009). Embedded case

study design therefore allows for an analysis beyond one unit (Yin, 2009). Similar to the

research of Majchrzak et al. (2004), the subcases are selected from the same organization

despite including a variety of different projects. This method was further chosen for its ability

to identify the how and reason why behind a “contemporary phenomenon within a real-life

context” (Yin, 2009, p.2). The conceptual framework developed in chapter three hereby helped

to build a research scheme and structure the data accordingly (Yin, 2009). This chapter provides

first an overview of the chosen sample. The data collection process as well as the analysis

methods used are demonstrated subsequently.

4.1 Sample

In this subchapter, the chosen consultancy as well as the selected projects are introduced

to provide an overview of the single case along with the embedded subcases.

4.1.1 The company

As for this study the focus was on knowledge management in the consulting industry,

and in particular on insights of knowledge sharing and collaboration projects, the consulting

firm Accenture served well as a representative case. A representative or typical case captures

circumstances that are common in the investigated context (Yin, 2009). Accenture is a global

professional services company that provides a broad range of services and solutions in strategy,

consulting, digital, technology and operations. This specific consultancy was chosen based on

25

previous personal work experience at this firm. In order to conduct the case study research with

Accenture, collaboration with a company internal gatekeeper as well as the provision of an

employee account, for research purposes only, guaranteed access to internal databases with

project credentials and contact details of potential interviewees. Having an internal account was

hereby critical for the trust of the research participants. A nondisclosure agreement was signed

as this research involved confidential information from Accenture’s clients. Accordingly, client

data were anonymized and the client projects were merely categorized into their related

industry.

4.1.2 The projects

A total of ten recent projects were selected within Accenture. All projects focused on

social collaboration and knowledge sharing solutions or, in short, knowledge management

topics. The selection of these projects was initiated through a snowball sampling principle,

starting with one relevant project identified via the company’s internal gatekeeper. Snowball

sampling is applicable when it is challenging to identify relevant elements of a defined scope

(Saunders & Lewis, 2012). Accordingly, further projects were identified through the

gatekeeper’s network. Added to this, the internal database was used to identify other relevant

projects that were implemented by people beyond the gatekeeper’s personal network. This

purposive sampling method allowed to find additional projects for this research (Saunders &

Lewis, 2012), after suitable projects of the gatekeeper’s network were exhausted. Because the

focus on knowledge management practices required very specific projects, snowball and

purposive sampling together therefore granted sufficient representative samples (Saunders &

Lewis, 2012). After the potential projects were found, a preliminary call with the responsible

manager of the project helped to determine if the project was suitable for the in-depth analysis.

Additionally, more general information about the project was gathered through an internal

26

database, which was then corroborated by the project lead. The actual selection was based on

the following criteria;

the project needed to focus on knowledge sharing or social collaboration practices, the manager

needed to have a leading role in the project, and the project was initiated out of Europe as well

as that the client company’s headquarter needed to be based in Europe. The reasoning behind

the first criteria is apparent, however, the second criteria was chosen for the fact that team

members such as such as for example consultants or IT implementers often change during a

project, depending on the project stage, and members with an overall leading role within a

project therefore seemed to be the most reliable source. This preference is in line with previous

research (e.g. Kasvi et al., 2003). Finally, even though the projects could have had a global

reach, as the projects were based in Europe it narrowed down the focus of the project selection,

and thus aided to control for regional differences in organizational culture within Accenture.

The resulting sample consisted of ten projects, representing a wide variety of industries

such as Banking, Telecommunications, Industrial, Natural Resources, Consumer Goods and

Energy1. This variety reveals that many firms across industries have recognized the importance

of having a good knowledge sharing or collaboration practice in place. This has also been found

in earlier research (Hansen et al., 1999; Yeh et al., 2006). Half of the projects had an enterprise-

wide reach, while three out of the ten projects were pilots, meaning a project carried out as a

trial, of which two had a unit-wide reach and one a country-wide reach. One project reached

the three main countries the client company was operating in and one other project focused on

a global initiative, however within a specific unit. The sizes of the client companies differ,

however all of the organizations are operating in multiple countries and can consequently be

seen as multinational corporations.

1 Categorization is based on the industry classification of Accenture (Accenture, 2016).

27

As mentioned in chapter three, these projects were not only categorized in their relevant

industry, the intent was also to classify them into the corresponding knowledge management

strategy based on the initial situation, project goals and end-solutions. However, a clear

distinction between the two previously explained knowledge management strategies,

codification and personalization, was hard to derive. The underlying reason for this complexity

was that in most of the cases aspects of both strategies were found. This is nonetheless in line

with the view of Hansen et al. (1990) who stated that although most organizations apply one

strategy dominantly, there are often elements of both strategies visible. Some projects were

certainly more focused on connecting people with each other so that they can collaborate and

directly exchange their knowledge from one person to another, while other projects targeted

more on aspects that enhance a firm’s knowledge repository. Therefore, an assessment whether

a project relied more on technology or more on people was made. Half of the projects contained

both aspects of technology and people, while only one project did not have any technology

involved. The subsequent table 2 provides an overview of the selected projects.

28

Table 2. Overview projects

Project Client Company Industry

Client Company Size*

Reach and Target Audience

Initial Situation (IS) and Solution (S) Technology focus vs. People focus

Project A Banking 60’000 Enterprise-wide for everybody

IS: Outdated existing technology, decreasing quality of search results

S: Replace with new search application, improve relevant search results and make it easier to find and share their search results between each other

Technology

Project B Banking 150’000 Countries-wide for line managers

IS: Company fragmented into many small regions S: Find a unified strategy between the main countries, increase collaboration and connect people with their knowledge across these countries

People

Project C Banking 90’000 Enterprise-wide, first for technology services and then for the other units as well

IS: Outdated tools, collaboration not possible S: Connect people with new collaboration tools to make knowledge sharing more social

Technology & People

Project D Consumer Goods 85’000 Unit-wide for the marketing department

IS: Knowhow not shared, limited collaboration across global markets S: Connect people and increase collaboration through a unified share point accessible across markets

Technology

Project E Energy 60’000 Unit-wide pilot for the department that was introducing social collaboration

IS: Outdated internal communication and tools S: Connect people with new social collaboration tool to aggregate the social component, and to make it part of the organizational culture culture

Technology & People

* measured in approx. number of employees

29

Table 2 continued. Overview projects

Project Client Company Industry

Client Company Size*

Reach and Target Audience

Initial Situation (IS) and Solution (S) Technology focus vs. People focus

Project F Energy 60’000 Country-wide pilot for the customers service

IS: Slow and old knowledge management system, tools not used or accepted S: Better support and increased performance with a new knowledge management system, make tool more user friendly

Technology

Project G Industrial 375’000 Unit-wide pilot for the customer service

IS: Separated systems, difficult to find information and work efficiently S: Integrate existing knowledge into one new integrated search application to speed up the process and facilitate the search of relevant documents

Technology

Project H Natural Resources 25’000 Enterprise-wide for everybody

IS: Outdated technological environment S: Take advantage of the new technology by understanding the tools but also new ways of working to improve collaboration and knowledge sharing

Technology & People

Project I Telecommunications 100’000 Enterprise-wide for everybody

IS: Collaboration only locally, several collaboration tools already in place S: Get employees to use these existing tools, help them to understand the tools as well the notion of collaboration

Technology & People

Project J Telecommunications 60’000 Enterprise-wide for everybody

IS: Separated and outdated collaboration systems in place S: Connect people with a new integrated collaboration tool for more efficient collaboration and simplify the way employees share information

Technology & People

* measured in approx. number of employee

30

4.2 Data collection and analysis

To gather cross-sectional data, a total of ten semi structured in-depth interviews have

been conducted with the managers that had a leading role in the selected projects. A semi

structured interview type allows to vary the order of the questions and hence allows to better

react upon responses of the interviewees, as long as relevant topics are covered (Saunders &

Lewis, 2012). The interviews were conducted in English, since this is the main language

Accenture employees use to communicate with each other, and via Skype which was mainly

due to geographical constraints. The interviews lasted between thirty to forty-five minutes and

an estimate of the duration was communicated upfront. The data from the interviews have been

enriched with additional background information such as for example relevant project

documentation that was accessed through a company internal database or directly provided by

the interviewees.

4.2.1 Interview: an explanation of the content

The semi structured in-depth interviews consisted of three parts with a total of thirteen

open-end questions and was sent upfront to the interviewees. In this way, they knew what to

expect during the actual interview. Where necessary, more questions were asked mainly for

probing, specifying, structuring or interpreting (Saunders & Lewis, 2012). This was based upon

interviewees’ responses.

In the first part, project managers were asked general questions about the client and the

implemented project as well as about the success factors. This allowed for a better

understanding about the project as a whole and further to corroborate project information that

was collected upfront via an internal database of Accenture. Success cannot be defined on a

general level, moreover it is based on an individual’s cognition and is thus highly distinct

(Cooke-Davies, 2002). Being aware of that debate, this question about the success factors was

31

seen as a truly open question to lead over to a more structured analysis of causal key

components that could help define certain project outcomes in more detail.

In analogy with the established framework, the second part investigated on the three

knowledge management enabler components: motivation, opportunity and ability. For the

motivation component, the focus was on incentives and rewards that were either initiated

through the project, or through the client company in general. The opportunity aspect mainly

targeted the organizational culture of the client company that was experienced during this

project. The ability component especially focused on how to use the new project solution, if

training was needed respectively. Further in this part, a comparison was made with the

consultancy Accenture along the three knowledge management enabler components to gain

insights about the similarities and differences between those two contexts. This part hence

provided input for the evaluation of the projects for internal reuse.

In the third part of the questions, the focus shifted from the project implemented at client

side to Accenture, as the interviewees were asked about what insights from the discussed project

could be valuable for internal use. This question emerged out of the discussion about the three

components: motivation, opportunity, ability. However, the interviewees were not limited to

respond within that framework, it was again a more open framed question to consider a ‘what

if’-situation for internal use, similar to the research of Cooper et al. (2002). The project leaders

were further asked about if and why or why not these insights have been used internally already,

as well as about the challenges they see when they consider evaluating and sharing project

insights for internal use. Consequently, while the second part of the interview focused on the

first research question regarding the evaluation framework, the third part provided more

insights for the second research question regarding the factors that might hinder employees to

evaluate and share their insights. An overview of the specific questions can be found in

appendix I.

32

4.2.2 Data analysis

To achieve the subsequently presented results, and oriented after Miles and Huberman

(1984), series of actions were applied in parallel during the analysis such as data reduction, data

display as well as conclusion drawing and verification to assess the patterns that emerge from

the data.

The conducted interviews were recorded with permission and subsequently transcribed

in order to be used for the actual data analysis. The gathered data were methodically analyzed

and coded to classify emerging themes and patterns. For this part of the research the qualitative

data analysis computer software NVivo 10 from QSR International was used to obtain a

coherent overview of the data. An overview of the initial categorization in NVivo can be found

in appendix II. However, this software was merely used as an assistance for a more structured

data analysis. Data from the second part of the interview were coded into the predefined

categories based on the conceptual framework such as motivation, opportunity and ability.

Other categories were created based on other parts of the interview. Coding was then carried

out incrementally and in a repetitive way to comprehend the different levels of abstraction (Yin,

2009). For example, analytical coding was used at a later stage which allowed to compose more

abstract categories that went beyond exact word bits from the interviews (Yin, 2009).

To answer the first research question, and after initial coding in NVivo, a world table

was created to display the data from the individual projects based on the framework consisting

of the three knowledge management enabler components motivation, opportunity and ability.

This word table helped to organize the data in an appropriate way to establish a storyline, as it

is suggested by literature on qualitative research (Miles & Huberman, 1984; Yin, 2009). For

this analysis, each project was treated as a separate embedded case. Hence, this part was

structured based on the three components to make an evaluation for each project for internal

reuse by directly comparing these characteristics from the client project to the internal ones

from Accenture. While the interviewees provided information about the similarities and

33

differences of the motivation, opportunity and ability components, the actual evaluation about

the reuse possibility and the conceivably reusable insights were based on the framework. In a

further step, it allowed to assess the overall patterns that emerge from the individual

comparisons and evaluations by drawing cross-case conclusions (Yin, 2009), which provided

implications for the evaluation framework.

For the analysis of the second research question, both first-order and second-order data

were included (Pratt, 2009). While, first-order data included mainly codes and interview

extracts such as text passages, second-order data consisted of more abstract themes developed

from linkages of the first-order data. These themes were then compared and discussed with

existing literature to make implications for the theory as well as the practice. The findings and

analyses regarding the two proposed research questions are presented in the next chapter,

followed by a thorough discussion of these findings in chapter six.

34

5. Findings

The findings are organized as follows. The first section outlines the results from the

application of the evaluation framework. Hence, it presents case-by-case the findings regarding

the project insights, and accordingly regarding the internal reuse potential for the consultancy.

This evaluation builds the basis for the next step, a cross-case synthesis of the project

evaluations according to the key elements: motivation, opportunity and ability. This section

thus focuses on the the first research question. Section 5.2 addresses the findings of the second

research question by first displaying the challenges that the evaluation and consequently the

sharing of project insights might face. Following this, these findings are examined in contrast

to existing literature.

5.1 Research question 1: Evaluation framework

The first research question aimed to develop a framework supporting a consulting firm

to evaluate the internal reusability of client projects with focus on knowledge management.

Therefore, a preliminary framework based on theoretical concepts was created which was

further used as guidance for the interviews in order to compare attributes of the three elements

motivation, opportunity and ability from the client, from the selected project respectively, to

the attributes regarding these elements of Accenture. The subsequent table 3 provides an

overview of these attributes, observed by the project manager of each project. Following this

overview, the attributes from each project in direct comparison with Accenture are evaluated

on the basis of the created framework, meaning that the variables among motivation,

opportunity and ability where the client appears more advanced than the consultancy, are the

ones that could provide valuable learnings for the consultancy and therefore have a certain reuse

potential.

35

Table 3. Attributes categorized in motivation, opportunity and ability

Project

CLIENT PROJECT ACCENTURE

Motivation Opportunity Ability Motivation Opportunity Ability

A No incentives given/ Gamification elements considered/ No choice, old solution was replaced

Culture dependent on IT versus business background, digital affinity/ Supportive in terms of need for change, some people reluctant to change

Several training materials/ Support offered when needed

Incentives through gamification/ Engagement in social feedback loop

Culture dependent on IT versus business background, digital affinity/ Eager to change

Trainings via various channels/ Trainings more repetitive

B Top-down incentives

Separated into countries/ Not aware about relevance of collaboration

Training in terms of raising awareness about collaboration benefits

Motivate by behavior

Knowledge global accessible/ Knowledge sharing and collaboration culturally embedded

Awareness of collaboration benefits existent, people reach out to each other

C Solution simplifies way of working/ Incentives through gamification/ Top-down incentives

Authoritative culture/ Protective culture regarding knowledge/ Opportunity given via a new social collaboration tool

Training for different audiences/ Training on how to apply technology/ Organized training and communication

Less top-down incentives

Knowledge sharing and collaboration culturally embedded/ Opportunity to collaborate not supported via the right technology

Technologically complex landscape to share and collaborate/ Difficult to train collaboration, cultural change/ Communication not as good

D No incentives besides during introduction of the tool/ Possibility to become an expert in a certain field of knowledge, recognition for sharing

Collaborative and supportive culture

Structured guidelines on how to share knowledge via a database/ Not much training needed as it was intuitively clear

Recognition for sharing knowledge

Collaborative culture, good in exchanging knowledge from person to person

Various trainings available if needed/ Less structured in sharing knowledge via database

E No choice, new solution essential to access information/ Top-down incentives

Different attitudes regarding change/ Traditional culture, in the beginning of being more collaborative

Lead by example/ Guidelines and common terms provided

Freedom to choose how to collaborate

Knowledge sharing and collaboration culturally embedded

Various trainings available if needed

36

Table 3 continued. Attributes categorized in motivation, opportunity and ability

Project

CLIENT PROJECT ACCENTURE

Motivation Opportunity Ability Motivation Opportunity Ability

F Showed the value to the employees/ Rewards available

Supportive in terms of need for change/ Separated into pillars/ In the beginning of being more collaborative

Train-the-trainer principle, onsite training for the power users

Focus on user experience, show the value to the employees/ Rewards available

Collaborative culture with accessible experts

Various (online) trainings available if needed/ Transparent in terms of change

G Solution simplifies way of working/ Recognition for sharing knowledge

Traditional culture, separated into pillars/ Difficult to collaborate/ Supportive in terms of need for change

Not much training needed as it was intuitively clear

Recognition for sharing knowledge

Integrated units facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing

More complex to find knowledge, not as intuitive

H Recognition for sharing knowledge, transparency/ Incentives through gamification

No sharing culture established/ Difficult to collaborate, individual recognition not possible

Training needed, from traditional classroom to virtual learning

Incentives through gamification

Knowledge sharing and collaboration culturally embedded

More virtual than classroom trainings, high expectation level regarding ability

I First no incentives, then incentives through gamification

Different cultures present, company history (downsizing), knowledge as powerful asset

Several training materials, communication plan/ Structured approach on how to use the new solution, to change people’s behavior

Motivate by behavior/ Incentives through gamification/ Solutions simplify way of working

Knowledge sharing and collaboration culturally embedded/ People very accessible throughout the company

Change management not as good, missing structure and communication

J Solution simplifies way of working/ No choice, old solution was replaced

Supportive and collaborative culture

Several training materials/ Guidelines/ Open communication

Incentives through gamification

People accessible/ Knowledge sharing and collaboration culturally embedded

Various trainings available if needed/ Less open communication

37

5.1.1 Evaluation per project

This subchapter provides an analysis for each project based on the evaluation

framework to determine the factors among the motivation, opportunity and ability elements

where the client is more advanced than Accenture. Hereby, valuable insights are identified and

the internal reuse potential is assessed accordingly.

Project A. In this case, Accenture appeared a step ahead in terms of how they incentivize

their employees to share knowledge. While the client only considered implementing additional

features to motivate employees to collaborate more with each other, such gamification2

elements are existent at Accenture to share knowledge amongst each other and thus to

proactively engage in the social feedback loop. In terms of organizational culture, and as this

was a rather technology driven solution, a similarity that could be observed was that in both

firms the technological versus business back ground seems to influence the digital readiness for

social collaboration and knowledge sharing tools. As this project manager explained:

I would say it was quite a cultural mix at the client side and it depends on the digital affinity of people and on the technology versus business background that people come from […] People working in the technology department of Accenture are also much more likely to engage in new tools, new technologies, new ways of sharing and storing information.

Additionally, whereas Accenture was observed to be more eager to change, the project leader

explained the situation at client side as follows:

They were more supportive regarding fixing something that is more or less broken - but obviously not everyone. You will never make everybody happy.

In terms of enabling the client employees, several trainings were offered. Such training is

provided in a more reiterative fashion at Accenture, making employees more ably to share

knowledge. Yet, based on these insights, this project is less likely to be reused internally as

Accenture overall appear more mature.

2 “Gamification is a new approach promising to increase the perceived enjoyment of using information systems and by this, increasing its adoption and actual use” (Schacht, Morana & Mädche, 2014, p.2).

38

Project B. Collaboration at the client side needed to be pushed top-down, while

collaboration at Accenture is rather motivated than pushed through active collaboration

activities from the top management, as the project manager explained:

The incentives came top-down where the top managers said ‘ok, we need to have this top-down strategy’…there were no rewards or anything […] I can only say that from an Accenture perspective we motivate by behavior, like as we expect it de facto.

In terms of establishing a collaborative culture, the client was largely separated in different

country silos, whereas knowledge at Accenture is more globally accessible and collaboration is

seen as more natural. Furthermore, whereas in this case, the awareness about the benefits of

collaboration among employees still needed to be established, it is widely present at Accenture.

This comparison leads to the decision that internal reusability is relatively low.

Project C. This case is unique in the sense that the result differs when comparing the

client project with Accenture at the time the project was implemented or when comparing it

with Accenture today, as this case had actually been reused for internal purposes, which

contributed to the way Accenture is collaborating and sharing knowledge today. The following

analysis, however, is compared to Accenture at the time the project was implemented.

In order to increase collaboration, gamification elements were integrated in the solution

as well as collaboration was driven top-down, hence was made compulsory. Both, the

gamification elements and the compulsory elements were not existent at Accenture to

incentivize its employees. Such gamification elements were providing incentives to employees

for example by recognizing each other’s work, and as stated by the project lead:

Then when the gamification element came in, we used different levels of motivation…being on that collaboration system meant that you could use these tools and you motivate people to comment on it and to try to use those various things that could be motivational and that have not to do with collaboration but actually with doing their jobs.

While due to this project the client had this technology to collaborate better, the organizational

culture was still very authoritative and knowledge was seen as a powerful individual asset that

should not be shared. The opposite was the case at Accenture, where a collaborative culture is

39

rooted in the organization. In terms of enabling client employees, specific training sessions and

a clear communication plan on how to apply technology were needed. This was observed to be

less good at Accenture:

I mean we have workshops as well but you have to know that this session is happening…it is less communicated, also regarding change.

Based on these insights, especially the way the client motivated its employees could be valuable

for Accenture as well as the way the client was enabled to use the new social collaboration tool.

Project D. Both, at Accenture and at the client side, employees get acknowledgements

when sharing knowledge and also in terms of organizational culture they appear to be very

similar as in either of the companies a supportive and collaborative environment was

ascertained. The ability to share and collaborate, however, differs inasmuch as the client had

clearly structured guidelines available for how to share information via a database which,

according to the project manager, was perceived to be less structured at Accenture:

In my opinion we just have quite a few outlets where we share information, there are a variety of platforms…when it comes to transporting and conveying the message into our electronic tools and conveying them from there to others, there we are not as good.

Hence, this aspect of the project could be a valuable learning for internal improvement.

Project E. This pilot project, or the use of this collaboration tool respectively, was

motivated top-down so the employees had not much other choice, as mentioned by the project

manager:

Another thing we found useful is to motivate people by offering exclusive information, so you needed to actually use the new collaboration tool to actually have access to this information.

At Accenture, the way how employees collaborate with each other is left relatively open to

them, as this collaborative culture is well entrenched compared to this client, where employees

were still in the very beginning of discovering such a collaborative culture. In a similar manner,

training is available to Accenture employees if they require it compared to the client where,

according to the project manager, more guidance was needed:

40

…the client’s employees of course needed guidance and common terms, also for the team leads on how to use it […] What is very specific to Accenture is that there is a whole universe of web based trainings that you can do on demand when you have the time for it or in between, so there is an extremely high offer.

Based on these comparisons, this project is less likely to provide valuable learnings to

Accenture’s internal improvement.

Project F. This pilot project for a new knowledge management system involved the

affected unit into the development process to increase the acceptance rate for the new tool. Both

at Accenture and at the client, showing the value and benefits of a new solution to the employees

seems to be important to motivate them to use it. The organizational culture at Accenture is

very collaborative while the client was still separated into pillars and thus first needed to start

establishing such a sharing culture. The manager of this project emphasized:

Our client [and most of all our clients] was at the very beginning. The clients are often in silos and we need to help them to lift these collaborative culture and to use technologies they sometimes have in place or sometimes don’t have in place […] At Accenture, we live from the knowledge of our people…we have good collaboration but on the other hand we also of have loads of experts that are accessible and that is in my view the big advantage over other companies.

In terms of ability, Accenture appeared to be more transparent in terms of communicating

change in this comparison:

[The topic here with all these so called change management activities is that] compared to this client, we do it from the beginning on at Accenture and we are more transparent…

Also, compared to the on-demand online training at the consultancy, the client seemed to be

more in need of having specific onsite trainings. Therefore, it appears that overall Accenture is

a step ahead although some similarities were detected.

Project G. Finding existing knowledge easier was the aim of this more technology-

based project. At client side, and after the implementation of the new solution, employees could

be recognized for sharing their knowledge, which is similar to Accenture where this is likewise

possible. But, as in the majority of the previously discussed projects, the client culture was not

41

very collaborative and yet separated into pillars, when Accenture is already more unified in

terms of sharing and collaborating across the whole organization:

They had a highly traditional approach, all the information regarding each division was separated into pillars and was completely separated to all the other information […] I think it is better integrated at Accenture than on the client side.

As this project focused on a new search solution, not much training was needed at client side.

Finding relevant knowledge was seen as more complex at Accenture, which was pointed out

by the project manager in this way:

At Accenture it is a bit harder to find the things because the search is not as good as in my understanding it could be.

Hence, insights regarding the intuitiveness of the implemented solution might be valuable for

internal improvements at Accenture.

Project H. For this comparison between Accenture and the client, they seem to be quite

similar in the way they motivate their employees, as both are using gamification elements to

engage in more collaboration and knowledge sharing activities. Regarding the organizational

culture, the company did not share much information or collaborate extensively. This

collaborative culture is present at Accenture for a longer time and employees are used to reach

out to their colleagues. Also, although the client moved from traditional trainings in classroom

over to more virtual trainings on how to collaborate and use new collaboration and knowledge

sharing tools, the virtual trainings are more established at Accenture. The project manager

hereby elucidated:

Well, the tradition at the client had been that they had trainings in classrooms, so we slowly moved throughout the program from the traditional capability building methods to towards more modern standards […] At Accenture we would never have classroom trainings, for example, you just get a new operation system and you start working…so the expectation level is that everybody picks up those things quickly.

Consequently, insights from this project seem to be of minor value for Accenture’s internal use.

Project I. In the process of this project, gamification elements have found to be a useful

trigger to motivate employees to share knowledge and collaborate more. These elements can

42

likewise be found at Accenture, where in addition to that the top management motivate their

teams to actively collaborate by being an active contributor to the knowledge sharing process

themselves. A rather large difference can be observed in the organizational culture. At the client

it was more a knowledge-is-power attitude whereas at Accenture the opposite, a sharing-is-

caring attitude is the case. As this project involved a lot of change management activities, the

approach used at client side was very well structured with good communication. This structured

approach and clear communication regarding change management activities has been seen as a

missing bit at Accenture. The project manager explained:

What we did at client side was providing a structure and a methodology on how to do it. It is about changing people’s behavior and this is really difficult and takes time […] I think we are not very good at change management ourselves, we are not as structured and as good in communicating change.

This therefore leads to the result that this project could provide useful insights about how they

did these change management activities at client side.

Project J. A new integrated collaboration solution was the outcome of this project.

While at client side the employees were given not much other choice but to use the new solution,

the employees at Accenture get incentivized through gamification elements. Furthermore, both

firms are having a very collaborative culture in place. Also, while various training needed to be

performed to support employees in using the new integrated collaboration solution, training at

Accenture is left open to use on one’s own choice. However, the project manager experienced

the way change is communicated as more open and transparent at client side than at Accenture:

They were very open on the communication side, so no secrets in the company […] Of course, at Accenture we are also getting communication when a new system is coming but sometimes it happens at Accenture that it is just coming…

Again, this could be a valuable learning for internal communication activities.

The following table 4 provides an overview of the evaluation for each project, based on

the direct comparison between Accenture and the project at client side. Whereas the letter ‘A’

means that Accenture is seen as more advanced than the client, the client project respectively,

43

the letter ‘C’ represents the opposite. The latter indicates that aspects regarding this element are

better performed at client side, meaning that it could be a valuable insight for internal reuse at

the consultancy. The expression ‘similar’ is evident. Based on the case-by-case assessment, a

cross-case synthesis is made in the following subchapter.

Table 4. Overview project evaluation

Projects

CLIENT PROJECT (C) vs. ACCENTURE (A)

Motivation Opportunity Ability

Project A A similar A

Project B A A A

Project C C A C

Project D similar similar C

Project E A A A

Project F similar A A

Project G similar A C

Project H similar A A

Project I similar A C

Project J A similar C

5.1.2 Synthesis of the project evaluations

Comparing the client projects to the way Accenture manages knowledge and

collaborates internally, similarities as well as differences have been identified. Looking at table

4, barely half of the projects appeared to have some insights that could be valuable internally

at Accenture, while the other half seemed rather unlikely to be reused. Furthermore, the reusable

learnings from the projects that focused more on technology, such as projects D and G,

consisted of aspects regarding the implemented tool or the technique to apply such a

technology. Interestingly, the reusable insights from the ones that focused on both technology

and people, such as projects C, I and J, involved rather learnings regarding the communication

44

and technique to make people understand a change towards increased collaboration.

Consequently, the valuable insights seem to be most associated with ability aspects, whereas

insights about the organizational culture at client side count for little. Regarding the way

employees get incentivized, the client and Accenture seem to use a rather similar approach,

hence valuable insights for internal use are sparse. In the following subsections, the three

elements motivation, opportunity and ability are discussed along with the emerging themes and

valuable insights.

Motivation. Argote et al. (2003, p.575) highlights that “rewards and incentives are

important components of the knowledge management process”, whereas “social rewards can

be just as important as monetary rewards.” Therefore, this research primarily focused on these

motivational elements. Throughout the project cases, most clients were incentivized to

collaborate as well as to share knowledge and, therefore, to use the new solution which was

either a new technological solution, a new way of working or even a mixture of both aspects.

For some solutions that rely on technology, such as for example projects A, C, H and I,

gamification elements were often implemented, or at least considered at client side. This is an

important motivating factor at Accenture as well, where employees get not just rewarded for

their contributions with certain points or badges, moreover, this playful approach is used to

motivate employees to participate (Schacht et al., 2014). In the knowledge management

context, Schacht et al. (2014) emphasized that gamification is a promising way to provide

enhanced gratification when using a knowledge management system, which eventually lead to

increased use. Except for the comparison of project C to Accenture, where the project was

implemented less recently than the other projects and therefore gamification elements were not

existent yet at the consultancy, the way how clients were incentivized seem to be rather similar.

This is also true in terms of being recognized for sharing knowledge with others in an

organization, like it was implemented in the projects D, G and H. This is existent at Accenture

45

as well. Being acknowledged for sharing knowledge with others can increase an employee’s

motivation to contribute their insights (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002), and implies a more social

reward (Argote et al., 2003). At all, the similarities of the motivational elements of the

consultancy and the client after implementation of the highlighted projects provide barely any

insights that could be valuable for internal reuse.

Opportunity. In order to provide employees with the opportunity to share knowledge

and collaborate, it is important to have an appropriate organizational culture. Organizational

culture is about shared values and the way how people do and understand certain things, or as

in this context, share knowledge and collaborate with each other. Hereby, circumstantial aspects

play an important role as well (Yeh et al., 2006). In the evaluation, some client companies were

perceived as fairly traditional by being separated into independent pillars or by having a rather

protective mindset regarding individual knowledge that kept them from sharing and

collaborating. Reducing such distance in both geographical and psychological means within an

organization is important for organizations to build strong relationships among the employees,

and thus establish a collaborative culture (Argote et al., 2003). Accenture seemed in the

majority of the comparisons to be a forerunner in having a well-established collaborative and

supportive culture, thus leaving fewer room for improvement regarding this component.

Additionally, as this cultural element is of a more tacit nature, it is complex to grasp (Cabrera

& Cabrera, 2002; Williams, 2007). This implies that, even though if there would have been

cases where the client company had been observed as being more collaborative, it would be

difficult to comprehend what attributes led to the perceived organizational culture, as these are

highly context dependent (Siemsen et al., 2008).

Ability. To improve employees’ ability to share knowledge and collaborate,

organizations need to invest in certain training procedures (Siemsen et al., 2008; Yeh et al.,

2006). Hereby, training can be technology related, or people related where it is more focused

46

on the way how people act and understand the process of knowledge sharing and collaboration

(Siemsen et al., 2008). In this regard, the way the client employees have been enabled to apply

the new solution seem to provide the most valuable insights from the evaluation of the projects.

From the projects that appear to have certain internal reusability, two aspects emerged. One is

more focused on a technological ability regarding simplified knowledge management systems.

Hereby, the insights of the projects D and G in particular demonstrated a more intuitive and

simplistic way to find relevant knowledge in a knowledge management system as well as the

competence to know how to contribute and share knowledge with a clear structure to such a

system. Argote et al. (2003) also referred to the importance of embedding knowledge in an

appropriate way by using a common scheme, which ultimately improves the quality of

knowledge retention and reuse. The other valuable insight contains learnings about the ability

of communicating a change regarding collaboration and knowledge sharing within an

organization. On this subject, the insights of project C, I and J especially revealed a more

transparent and structured communication. Interestingly, the opposite was observed at project

F. However, this was explained by the project manager as this client communicated change,

and in particular the new solution, at a rather late stage. Williams (2007) hereby stated that an

early understanding and communication about what such a change implies enables employees

to better adapt to a new situation. This implies that especially training regarding the way how

people carry out and understand the process of knowledge sharing and collaboration, seem to

provide insights that could be valuable internally.

Before engaging further in these three components and what these findings imply for

the evaluation framework, the next chapter first examines on the findings regarding the

challenges for evaluating and sharing project learning in order to examine on the second

research question.

47

5.2 Research question 2: Challenges for evaluating and sharing project learnings

The second research question sought to explore what factors could hinder the evaluation

and sharing of insights from client projects for a consulting firm’s internal purposes. Hereby,

the interviewees were probed for possible challenges they see when considering to share

gathered project insights internally. Although this topic has been discussed with the project

managers from the different client projects, the level of analysis hereby is the consulting firm,

or in particular Accenture.

5.2.1 Overview of major challenges

Three major patterns emerged from the responses and had been mentioned in several

in-depth interviews. These main hindering factors for evaluating and sharing project insights

are summarized in table 5 and presented thereafter.

Table 5. Major challenges for evaluating and sharing project learnings

Challenges Description

Reuse objective Unclear who will reuse the project insights and why these learnings could be valuable to others

Sharing structure Missing structure for sharing knowledge

Personal effort Too much personal effort and missing benefits for employees

Reuse objective. One theme that emerged as a factor that could hinder the evaluation

and sharing of the project insights is that the reuse is unclear, meaning that it is not evident why

these learnings could be valuable to others within the organization. This topic is illustrated by

the following statements:

[…] the mindset that why would people want to know this, why would they be interested in this… (Project Manager I)

[…] so if you have specific information, you have to know that maybe another department want this information as well. (Project Manager G)

48

Also, as it is not apparent who will eventually reuse the gathered learnings from a project, this

implies another challenge:

I would not know who is interested in this, who would care for it and who should know it. So to me it would be difficult to match those insights with people or potential internal projects that need my insights. (Project Manager A)

Consequently, a clear reuse objective seems to be important to the employees to understand the

reason behind a project evaluation process. Furthermore, not only the reuse objective but also

the knowledge about who will reuse the evaluated knowledge appears to be substantial to the

employees that they share their knowledge.

Sharing structure. The lack of a coherent structure when sharing knowledge was

further mentioned as a factor that could prevent people from evaluating and sharing project

knowledge more efficiently. As there is a lot of knowledge existent in a consultancy,

structuring these assets in the right way implies a challenge. This is illustrated in the

following interview extract:

We have a lot of information there and it is really difficult to structure information that we have and it is also when we upload material, at least I am not sure of what tags to use…taxonomy is a challenge. (Project Manager I)

Another confrontation that has been mentioned in this context is the so called tacit aspect of

knowledge, making it difficult to structure, and to share eventually:

So one of the key things is how we do things…a lot of the ability, as you would call is ‘force multiply’, was how I worked and that is a really tough one to codify. (Project Manager B)

While these two aspects of a missing structure are mainly addressing knowledge sharing via a

knowledge management system, one project manager even saw difficulties in sharing

knowledge directly, however via digital communication tools, when no structure in this process

is existent:

I believe the ease of communication leads to overload in quantity…we inflate the frequency of our digital contacts through various communication channels but we are relatively poor in making these conversations and communications really valuable in the sense that it has a very high quality and a clear structure that you can get a lot out of it… (Project Manager D)

49

For that reason, a missing sharing structure, may this be via a database or directly between

people, seems to influence employee’s ability to share their gained insights in an appropriate

manner.

Personal effort. This theme has been referred to in most of the discussions from the

in-depth interviews. In this regard, personal effort was seen as a major factor that hinder

people to evaluate and share knowledge internally. Hereby, the lack of time to execute this

evaluation and sharing process was the major topic that was brought up by the project

managers:

[The thing is that] I would love to have the time to be able to put things together… (Project Manager C) You really have to take your time to provide extensive feedback. (Project Manager F)

[…] to bring out the essence of a project is time consuming…I believe the missing bit is our ability and our willingness to invest time in converting materials to make knowledge available on our intranet, instead of keeping it for us…and we are just being turned around more quickly from topic to topic. (Project Manager D)

Another factor that arose in this context was that a clear personal benefit need to be present,

which was indicated by these examples:

For me, what is the benefit of sharing and documenting the knowledge I created with everybody else in my organization apart from me spending another three or four hours of my time uploading, commenting, tagging my content - what would be the benefit for me? (Project Manager A)

I don’t get a raise when I publish a lot, not even is it directly performance relevant. (Project Manager D)

Having sufficient time appears important for employees to have the opportunity to evaluate

their insights from the projects, and share them internally. Additionally, the personal benefits

of doing so must be perceptible, and undoubtedly outperform the efforts that come along with

these tasks.

50

The examples illustrate factors that could hinder employees to evaluate and share

knowledge from projects. The three challenges are examined together with with existing

literature in the next subchapter.

5.2.2 Synthesis of the emerging challenges

A missing reuse objective, absence of a clear sharing structure and excessive personal

effort were the three emerging factors that could hinder employees to evaluate and share

knowledge from projects. These topics are addressed and compared to previous findings from

other research subsequently.

Reuse objective. A first finding reveals the missing reuse objective as a hindering factor

for evaluating and sharing insights from projects, in particular when it is unclear who will reuse

gathered project knowledge and why this knowledge could be valuable to others. Previous

research also refers to the missing incentives to contribute knowledge when it is not clear if,

who and how this shared knowledge will be reused (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002; Sarvary, 1999).

Majchrzak et al. (2004) discussed the importance of identifying people who could reuse the

gained project knowledge - so called reusers. However, without providing suggestions on how

to determine these reusers. In this regard, Sarvary (1999) explained that such knowledge is of

great relevance for the simple reason that the knowledge contributors could eventually profit

from an internal reuse, or internal improvements accordingly, that were based on their shared

insights. Although, it does not explain who will be the reuser, or in other words the knowledge

recipient, it helps to explain who will benefit from the reuse eventually. The challenge regarding

the value of the insights is further mentioned by Faniel and Majchrzak (2007), stating that an

inconsistency between employee’s perception of the same insights implies complexity in

determining the relevance of the process. This indicates that there need to be also a shared

understanding of what is valuable to the consulting company, and why it is worth to distribute

such learnings, to motivate employees to evaluate and share knowledge in the first place.

51

Sharing structure. A second factor that emerges is the lack of a coherent structure when

evaluating and sharing knowledge. This challenge is likewise revealed by Williams (2003),

stating that no standard analyzing methods for projects along with a missing structure on how

to distribute those project insights hinder effective learning. Moreover, other research stated

that although knowledge is clearly created in projects, the appropriate way to share it throughout

the organization is often not obvious, hence remains unsystematic (Kasvi et al., 2003). The

issue about how to achieve a more organized way of sharing and managing knowledge to ensure

high quality of the internal knowledge has further been addressed by other research (Sarvary,

1999; Van Krogh, 2012). In this context, Sarvary (1999) emphasized on the increased quality

of shared assets when there is a structural approach in synthesizing knowledge as well as in

integrating it into the organization. Another difficulty that has been identified regarding the

missing structure on how to share and evaluate knowledge, however, is the knowledge

characteristic, meaning that it is sometimes challenging to conceptualize, hence hard to

communicate. Cabrera and Cabrera (2002) underlined this difficulty by indicating the

complexity of making tacit knowledge such as practical know-how more tangible.

Nevertheless, training employees on how to share knowledge by providing a clear structure and

using a common terminology to communicate could improve people’s ability on this issue

(Argote et al., 2003; Siemsen et al., 2008), and therefore help to enhance knowledge sharing

and evaluation of project insights.

Personal effort. Another emerging theme is that employees see too much personal effort

and missing benefits when they consider to evaluate and share knowledge internally. This

confrontation has also been debated in previous literature (e.g. Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002), as

often the benefits of sharing knowledge are not apparent to the employees as well as the task of

doing so is a lot of times not yet integrated in their daily work agenda. While the value of such

a sharing effort seems evident for an organization as a whole, Cabrera and Cabrera (2002)

52

pointed out that more often than not are the individual costs of evaluating and sharing learnings

offsetting the individual benefits of the employees that attempt to do so. Hence, it is

recommended to actively exhibit the increased efficiency that can be achieved through

knowledge sharing (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002). The lack of sufficient incentives as well as the

low priority of such a topic has further been mentioned by the interviewees which is in line with

research of Szulanski (1996), who identified these hindering factors as a reason why people do

not share their knowledge as much as they should. Additionally, another aspect of personal

effort highlights the insufficient time availability, a factor that is well known from previous

research (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002; Kasvi et al. 2003; Riege, 2005; Siemsen et al., 2008;

Williams, 2003). An explanation for this shortage in the project environment is that after a

project is completed, employees almost immediately switch to a new project which eventually

impair their motivation to work on something that is already in the past (Williams, 2003).

Hence, Williams (2003) proposed to include such a learning process during the implementation

of a project instead of gathering lessons learned of something that is already in the past. This

indicates however, that specific time slots need to be made available to the employees already

during the project, as it otherwise limits them to do it in an elaborate way. Implications of both

the findings on emerging challenges and the findings of the evaluation framework are discussed

in the next chapter.

53

6. Discussion

This study aimed to develop a framework supporting a consulting firm to evaluate the

reusability of knowledge management related client projects for internal purposes, and to

explore what factors might hinder the evaluation and sharing of insights from such project

learnings for a consulting firm’s internal purpose. The findings of this research revealed some

interesting insights regarding the way client projects could be evaluated for internal reuse, and

the challenges that need to be considered when trying to make employees evaluating these

projects and sharing their learnings internally. Hereby, implications for the evaluation

framework, theoretical contributions and practical recommendations are highlighted. The

chapter ends with the acknowledgment of several research limitations along with directions for

future research.

6.1 Implications for the evaluation framework

This subsection debates possible relations regarding the three variables motivation,

opportunity and ability based on the research findings and discusses the evaluation framework’s

validity.

Little previous research pointed out that the three variables motivation, opportunity and

ability are in some way related (Blumberg & Pringle, 1982; Siemsen et al., 2008). For example,

the work performance theory of Blumberg and Pringle (1982) conjectures a moderate

complementarity, seeing action as a multiplicative function of the three variables. Furthermore,

Siemsen et al. (2008) suggest to address these variables in a coordinated manner by stating that

knowledge sharing is dependent on the constraining factor among motivation, opportunity and

ability. Hence, the authors view these three variables as distinct but interrelated, making it

demanding to theoretically found these causal relations (Siemsen et al., 2008). On a related

note, Bhatt (2001) examines on the interaction between technologies, techniques and people

regarding effective knowledge management and claims that an organization can only gain a

54

competitive advantage when combining aspects from all of the three elements. This further

implies that both aspects of social systems and of technologies are of great importance in

knowledge management (Bhatt, 2001).

Given these associations from previous literature, the question remains how the

motivation, opportunity and ability variables of this research’s evaluation framework for

knowledge management relevant projects relate to each other. Motivation in this research

primarily represents incentives and rewards provided to the employees by an organization or a

project, opportunity mainly reflects the perceived organizational culture, and ability constitutes

in particular training aspects provided by a project or an organization. The assumption was that

the client projects could be evaluated for internal reuse based on these elements, meaning that

relevant insights can be detected and an initial assessment of the internal reuse potential of these

learnings could be made. The evaluation of the projects revealed that the most valuable

learnings emanated in connection with ability, whereas opportunity and motivation barely

unveiled relevant insights. This can be due to the nature that the consultancy was generally

more advanced than its clients in terms of having a well-established collaborative culture as

well as good incentive schemes in place. However, based on these findings, it appears

precarious to try to solve the puzzle of the interrelation between these three variables defined

for the evaluation framework. For example, a more collaborative organizational culture does

not directly imply less incentives and rewards, nor does it necessarily indicate that less training

is needed. Similarly does the amount or way of training not seem to be related with the amount

or way of incentivizing and rewarding. An underlying explanation for this incoherence could

be that the three constructs from the established evaluation framework are representing aspects

that are related to the organization rather than to the individuals within the organization, making

the three variables more exogenous. This is divergent from previous research, where indeed

opportunity had been seen as a more extrinsic component, the motivation and ability

components though had been mostly associated with people’s individual attributes (Blumberg

55

& Pringle, 1982; Siemsen et al., 2008). For the evaluation framework it implies that reusable

insights may be still identified. Yet, for effective and appropriate reuse to happen, these

individual attributes need to be considered as well.

Especially regarding motivation has the focus in this research been taken away from

employees’ intrinsic incentives. A number of literature sees people’s individual motivation as

one of the most important factors for knowledge sharing and collaboration to appear (e.g.

Hughes, 2007; Reinholt, Pedersen & Foss, 2011; Siemsen et al., 2008). Reinholt et al. (2011)

argued that autonomous motivation is having a greater positive effect on behavior than

controlled incentives. This suggests that in order to understand how insights from motivational

elements at client side worked, both the intrinsic and extrinsic aspects should be considered.

Furthermore, and although ability seem to provide most valuable insights in the way it has been

applied in this research, an extension hereof can be made as well. While training gave insights

on how the employees were enabled to use a new solution or new way of working, the individual

ability of collaborating and sharing knowledge as well as the personal technological affinity

was omitted. Previous research hereby mentioned that missing individual absorptive capacity

hinders employees to gather and use relevant knowledge (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990; Szulanski,

1996), while other research pointed out that individual skills about technological aspects can

furthermore influence the knowledge management outcome (Yeh et al., 2006). This indicates

that to comprehend aspects of training and how they could be valuable to the consultancy,

knowledge about the people’s individual ability is substantial. Continuing on this discussion,

in terms of opportunity, organizational culture helped to understand the general attitude towards

knowledge sharing and collaboration. Again, opportunity contains more than this aspect.

Siemsen et al. (2008) emphasized that organizations need to support collaborative behavior

with adequate opportunities to share knowledge, and Yeh et al. (2006) moreover found that in

addition to a supportive culture, IT plays an important complementary role to facilitate such

collaborative behavior. While these are all more exogenous factors, Argote et al. (2003) even

56

highlighted some individual attributes in the context of opportunity, such as for example

personal networks and relationships within an organization, suggesting to include also an

individual perspective.

Consequently, a distinction between the attributes emerging from people’s individual

motivation, opportunity and ability and the more organization related attributes, such as the

technique and technology applied, can be made. Technique can hereby be seen as the way of

interactions within an organization and how knowledge or information is understood (Bhatt,

2001). Conferring the distinction between organizational and individual characteristics with the

framework introduced in this research, it implies that the established evaluation framework

focused merely on some particular aspects that can be seen as part of a larger, more extensive

framework as illustrated in figure 2 below. The framework applied in this research herewith is

mainly reflected through the organizational components, highlighted in dashed shape outline.

Figure 2. Extended evaluation framework

Considering the literature discussed previously (Hughes, 2007; Reinholt et al., 2011;

Siemsen et al. 2008; Yeh et al., 2006), the organizational elements, or in other words the more

Individual components

Motivation•Intrinsic willingness

Opportunity•Personal networks and relationships

Ability•Individual skills

Organizational components

Motivation•Incentives and rewards

Opportunity•Organizational culture and technology

Ability•Training

57

extrinsic factors, seem to have a rather supportive role that can enhance knowledge

management activities, especially if the individual attributes are existent. Most notably,

intrinsic motivation appears to be a necessity and therefore the foundation for every knowledge

management related activity (Hughes, 2007; Reinholt et al., 2011), while external rewards and

incentives can only add additional motivational attributes that could support an employee’s

individual willingness. However, while individual ability to some extent is innate (Argote et

al., 2003), training can aid people to better execute knowledge sharing and collaboration

activities. Hence, initial individual ability seems certainly advantageous, yet not a necessity.

Analogous reasoning can be applied for the opportunity aspect. In this regard, existing literature

even state that opportunity, both individual and organizational, can only be adequately

exploited when individual motivation along with individual ability are present (Argote et al.,

2003; Reinholt et al., 2011).

Therefore, whereas on an individual level motivation appears to be the essence for

driving any knowledge management related project or activity, hence highlighted divergent

from the other components in figure 2, personal ability and individual opportunity appear

especially valuable when this motivational component is existing. In addition to that, these

individual attributes can be supported by the exogenous aspects on an aggregated,

organizational triggered level.

6.2 Theoretical implications

Based on the investigation in existing literature and the findings from the study with

professionals, several implications for the evaluation framework as well as for the concomitant

challenges regarding such an evaluation and the sharing of project insights can be made.

A consistent method for analyzing projects was emphasized by Williams (2003), as such

review processes are often absent, hence complicating the reuse of knowledge emerging from

projects. The development of the evaluation framework was therefore an attempt to provide a

58

consistent project review assessing the internal reuse potential and identifying valuable insights.

The findings demonstrate that based on such an evaluation, an initial assessment about reusable

learnings that could provide value to internal knowledge management practices could be made.

Yet, due to the chosen organizational attributes for this framework, the findings diverge from

previous research. In particular, whereas Siemsen et al. (2008) specifically for the motivation

and ability variables focused more on the individual attributes, this research mainly examined

on the more exogenous attributes. Further investigation is therefore needed in terms of how

these more extrinsic attributes are connected to the intrinsic attributes of the individuals to fully

understand the contextual setting and hence determine the applicability of such project insights

to the consultancy more thoroughly.

The findings regarding the factors that could hinder the evaluation and sharing of

insights from client projects for a consulting firm’s internal purpose highlighted especially three

challenges. When in fact too much personal effort such as time investment was the most

remarkable factor emerging from the findings, this challenge is well-discussed in various

literature (e.g. Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002; Kasvi et al. 2003; Riege, 2005; Siemsen et al., 2008;

Williams, 2003). Hence, this finding corroborates prior research. The absence of a clear sharing

structure was another emerging challenge. In particular, this factor comprises the technique or

the ‘how’ of sharing knowledge, which combines aspects of both technology and people

enablement to increase quality of sharing. A missing reuse objective represented a third major

finding in this regard, targeting the issue that it is not clear who would be interested in, and

eventually reuse the evaluated insights. Hence, the question remains how to determine possible

reusers. Riege (2005) reviewed and listed three-dozen knowledge sharing barriers from recently

published works, however, only the finding regarding too much personal effort was presented.

This implies that the latter two findings are not yet extensively discussed in the literature,

leaving room for further investigation on these topics.

59

6.3 Practical implications

The research findings also revealed some implications for the practice, which are

presented subsequently.

The findings of the project evaluations show that based on the investigation in the three

variables motivation, opportunity and ability, valuable insights can be detected. The framework

reveals that in order to continuously improve knowledge management practices within a

consultancy, the evaluation of such client projects can provide valuable inputs. Based on the

assessments made with the evaluation framework, particularly project learnings regarding the

ability of communicating a change within an organization, the way to find relevant knowledge

in a knowledge management system, as well as regarding the competence to know how to

contribute and share knowledge with a clear structure appeared to have a reuse potential within

Accenture. These findings however demand further investigation, as the previous discussion in

subchapter 6.3 revealed, since it is important to also understand employees’ individual ability

to share knowledge and collaborate with each other, hence look beyond the aggregated

organizational level to truly understand the contextual attributes and how it could be

appropriated for Accenture internally.

Moreover, unlike common knowledge reuse where reuse merely takes place when a

person, a reuser respectively, identifies a performance gap based on defined task objectives and

therefore is looking for integration of organizational knowledge (Majchrzak et al., 2004;

Szulanski, 2000), this research further suggests to switch this perspective and see the original

knowledge sources as opportunity recognizers for internal reuse. For practice this means that

instead of only providing project insights when an internal reuser contacts the original

knowledge source from a specific project, the knowledge source should instead be more

actively involved in such a reuse process by evaluating the projects for internal reuse and by

identifying the potential internal reusers. This will be an ongoing process, as more client

projects with focus on knowledge management emerge. For Accenture specifically this implies

60

that project managers should evaluate such client projects in order to identify valuable insights

for internal reuse, which then could be shared internally with the right people.

The findings about the challenges for the evaluation and sharing of insights from client

projects suggest that there are certain factors that need to be conquered. For Accenture in

particular, a recommendation would be to enable employees to identify potential reusers by

knowing what is valuable to whom within the organization. Having a clear objective in mind

when sharing project learnings could therefore increase an employee’s willingness to share. By

using a common technique as well as aiming for a collective understanding on how to share

knowledge and communicate with each other, and by including such an evaluation and

therefore learning process within employee’s daily project work, which is further suggested by

Williams (2003), perceived extra effort could be reduced and quality of sharing could be

enhanced.

6.4 Research limitations and future research

Although this research offered valuable insights, several limitations and shortcomings

need to be acknowledged. This subchapter therefore stresses the major limitations along with

suggestions for future research. First of all, since this study used a qualitative research approach by conducting in-depth

interviews, the findings were highly dependent on the interviewees’ cognition (Miles &

Huberman, 1984). This approach makes it difficult for consultancies to evaluate knowledge

management related client projects objectively and systematically. Particularly in terms of the

project evaluation, the data for the three variables motivation, opportunity and ability were

predominantly based on the input from the project managers, eliminating perceptions that other

project members from the consultancy might have about the same situation. Even though Kasvi

et al. (2003) underlined that project managers appear to be the most reliable knowledge source

of a project, the outcome of such a project evaluation may differ when assessing the same

61

project based on another team members’ perception about the client and the consultancy.

Further research should thus enhance reliability by including more than one knowledge source

per project.

On a second note, the case study was merely conducted within one specific consultancy.

Hence, generalization of the findings for other consultancies is limited (Yin, 2009). Future

research should therefore aim to conduct studies in different consultancies and with more

projects per case in order to achieve a more general understanding about how client projects

can be evaluated for internal reuse. However, as consultancies might have a very distinct

strategic focus regarding knowledge management projects (Hansen et al., 1999),

generalizability may be impractical. By contrast, the exploration on what factors hinder

evaluation and contribution of these project learnings solely represents a snapshot of the notion

from few individuals. Here, due to its large scale, a quantitative approach would be useful to

confirm the challenges found in this study as well as to get a broader view of other possible

hindering factors.

Another limitation of this research is that the measures of the evaluation framework, in

particular the provided incentives, the organizational culture and the provided trainings are only

a proxy for the three variables motivation, opportunity and ability. Similar to the limitation

mentioned by Siemsen et al. (2008), and as pointed out in subchapter 6.1 to discuss specific

implications for the evaluation framework, there might be other attributes related to the three

variables that need to be considered as well. This should be kept in mind for future research.

An additional interesting path for future research may be to include not only the

evaluation of such projects for reuse in the scope, but moreover to examine also on the actual

reuse of these evaluated projects. Hence, although this study created some interesting insights

regarding internal reusability of client projects in the consulting context, by going one step

further, more investigation is needed about what such a project evaluation promises and how

effective reuse will look like.

62

7. Conclusion

Knowledge is a core asset of every consulting firm, therefore it needs to be managed

properly. In order to learn from new knowledge that has been acquired, a consistent evaluation

is essential. This study therefore aimed to create a framework supporting a consulting firm to

evaluate the reusability of knowledge management related client projects for internal purposes,

and to explore what factors might hinder the evaluation and sharing of insights from such

projects learnings. By conducting a case study analysis with Accenture, this research offered a

fresh vision to the usefulness and limits of such a project evaluation and therefore contributed

from both research and managerial perspective to the field of project knowledge management

in the consulting industry. The findings and discussion reveal that in order to not only identify

but moreover understand the learnings from such projects, both individual and organizational

attributes need to be considered. Yet, this demands further investigation in future research.

Moreover, the discovered challenges imply that there are some barriers to overcome in order to

establish an environment for appropriate project evaluation and sharing opportunities for these

insights, to ultimately learn from projects and reuse them for internal practices. As a final point,

it is not by all means about practicing what you preach - but about practicing what you learn.

63

References

Accenture. (2016). Industry Services Overview. Retrieved on 25.04.2016 from:

https://www.accenture.com/nl-en/industries-index.

Alavi, M., & Leidner, D. E. (2001). Review: Knowledge management and knowledge

management systems: Conceptual foundations and research issues. MIS quarterly,

107-136.

Argote, L., McEvily, B., & Reagans, R. (2003). Managing knowledge in organizations: An

integrative framework and review of emerging themes. Management science, 49(4),

571-582.

Bhatt, G. D. (2001). Knowledge management in organizations: examining the interaction

between technologies, techniques, and people. Journal of Knowledge Management,

5(1), 68-75.

Blumberg, M., & Pringle, C. D. (1982). The missing opportunity in organizational research:

Some implications for a theory of work performance. Academy of management Review,

7(4), 560-569.

Bresnen, M., Edelman, L., Newell, S., Scarbrough, H., & Swan, J. (2003). Social practices and

the management of knowledge in project environments. International journal of project

management, 21(3), 157-166.

Cabrera, A., & Cabrera, E. F. (2002). Knowledge-sharing dilemmas. Organization studies,

23(5), 87-710.

Cohen, W. M., & Levinthal, D. A. (1990). Absorptive capacity: A new perspective on learning

and innovation. Administrative science quarterly, 128-152.

Cooper, K. G., Lyneis, J. M., & Bryant, B. J. (2002). Learning to learn, from past to future.

International journal of project management, 20(3), 213-219.

Daghfous, A. (2004). Absorptive capacity and the implementation of knowledge-intensive best

practices. SAM Advanced Management Journal, 69(2), 21-27.

64

Faniel, I. M., & Majchrzak, A. (2007). Innovating by accessing knowledge across departments.

Decision Support Systems, 43(4), 1684-1691.

Hansen, M. T., Nohria, N., & Tierney, T. (1999). What's your strategy for managing

knowledge. Harvard Business Review, 77(2), 106–116.

Hislop, D. (2003). Knowledge integration processes and the appropriation of innovations.

European Journal of Innovation Management, 6(3), 159-172.

Kasvi, J. J., Vartiainen, M., & Hailikari, M. (2003). Managing knowledge and knowledge

competences in projects and project organisations. International Journal of Project

Management, 21(8), 571-582.

Kim, S., Suh, E., & Hwang, H. (2003). Building the knowledge map: an industrial case study.

Journal of knowledge management, 7(2), 34-45.

Majchrzak, A., Cooper, L. P., & Neece, O. E. (2004). Knowledge reuse for innovation.

Management science, 50(2), 174-188.

Manz, C. C., & Sims, H. P. (1981). Vicarious learning: The influence of modeling on

organizational behavior. Academy of Management Review, 6(1), 105-113.

Mas Machuca, M., & Martínez Costa, C. (2012). A study of knowledge culture in the consulting

industry. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 112(1), 24-41.

Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1984). Drawing valid meaning from qualitative data:

Toward a shared craft. Educational researcher, 13(5), 20-30.

Pratt, M. G. (2009). From the editors: For the lack of a boilerplate: Tips on writing up (and

reviewing) qualitative research. Academy of Management Journal, 52(5), 856-862.

Reinholt, M. I. A., Pedersen, T., & Foss, N. J. (2011). Why a central network position isn't

enough: The role of motivation and ability for knowledge sharing in employee

networks. Academy of Management Journal, 54(6), 1277-1297.

Riege, A. (2005). Three-dozen knowledge-sharing barriers managers must consider. Journal of

knowledge management, 9(3), 18-35.

65

Saunders, M. & Lewis, P. (2012). Doing research in business and management: An essential

guide to planning your project. Harlow, UK: Financial Times Prentice Hall.

Sarvary, M. (1999). Knowledge management and competition in the consulting industry.

California Business Review, 41(2), 95-107.

Schacht, S., Morana, S., & Mädche, A. (2014). The project world-Gamification in project

knowledge management: Proceedings of the European Conference on Information

Systems (ECIS), Tel Aviv, June 9-11. Israel: AIS Electronic Library

Siemsen, E., Roth, A. V., & Balasubramanian, S. (2008). How motivation, opportunity, and

ability drive knowledge sharing: The constraining-factor model. Journal of Operations

Management, 26(3), 426-445.

Szulanski, G. (1996). Exploring internal stickiness: Impediments to the transfer of best practice

within the firm. Strategic management journal, 17(S2), 27-43.

Szulanski, G., & Winter, S. (2002). Getting it right the second time. Harvard business review,

80(1), 62-9.

Von Krogh, G. (2012). How does social software change knowledge management? Toward a

strategic research agenda. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 21(2), 154-

164.

Wasko, M. M., & Faraj, S. (2005). Why should I share? Examining social capital and

knowledge contribution in electronic networks of practice. MIS quarterly, 35-57.

Williams, T. (2003). Learning from projects. Journal of the Operational Research Society,

54(5), 443-451.

Williams, C. (2007). Transfer in context: Replication and adaptation in knowledge transfer

relationships. Strategic Management Journal, 28(9), 867-889.

Yeh, Y. J., Lai, S. Q., & Ho, C. T. (2006). Knowledge management enablers: a case study.

Industrial Management & Data Systems, 106(6), 793-810.

Yin, R. K. (2009). Case study research: Design and methods. Los Angeles, Cal.: Sage.

66

Appendix

Appendix I: Interview questions

Part I - General questions about the project

1. What was the trigger or the underlying need for this project?

2. What was the primary goal that this project aimed to achieve?

a. What were the objectives? b. Who was the targeted audience?

3. What was the current practice the client company used to enable knowledge sharing and collaboration before the project was implemented? How did it look like?

a. How was knowledge stored and shared before? b. To what extent were social collaboration networks already in place?

4. What factors do you think helped the project succeed in terms of increased collaboration or knowledge sharing among employees?

Part II - Questions about the project based on opportunity-motivation-ability

Opportunity:

5. What organizational culture did you experience on the client side? (supportive for learning, for sharing and collaborating etc.)

6. What similarities and differences do you see between the way the client manages knowledge after the implementation of the project and the way Accenture manages knowledge?

Motivation: 7. What incentives and rewards were given to the employees that they collaborate and share

knowledge, and therefore use this new solution?

8. What similarities and differences do you see between the way the client motivates its employees after the implementation of the project and the way Accenture motivates its employees to share their knowledge and collaborate with each other?

Ability: 9. To what extent did the employees have to be trained in order to be able to use the new

solution effectively?

10. What similarities and differences do you see between the way the client enables knowledge sharing and collaboration after the implementation of the project and the way Accenture enables knowledge sharing and collaboration?

67

Part III - Questions about internal reuse and challenges

11. Considering these insights you gathered from implementing this project for the client, what learnings could be valuable for internal knowledge management purposes within Accenture?

12. Have these insights already been implemented internally?

a. If no, what is the underlying reason why these insights were not used yet? b. If yes, how and in what context have these insights be reused internally?

13. What challenges would you expect when you would like to evaluate and share your valuable insights from the project within Accenture?

68

Appendix II: Initial NVivo coding list