Knowledge Management - Book Report/Review Example

Dulaimi studied four specific cases of international joint ventures construction projects to investigate the social and technical aspects of dissemination and exchange of knowledge in a clearly defined area between two or three groups of organizational entities belonging to two three different nations with different cultural habits and practices. Having adapted a model to do so (Pan and Scarborough's model to analyze Knowledge Sharing in international Joint Ventures ), he then tried to clarify the relationship between the technical and organizational aspects of knowledge sharing.

He chose a number of local Singaporean, Japanese firms and a German firm to examine the qualitative aspects of knowledge sharing in these international joint ventures. The present critique will examine if the author's purpose, hypothesis, and major conclusions relate well to the goal of the case study or not. First of all, focusing on how knowledge is shared in international construction joint ventures involving organizations from different countries from a socio-technical perspective is a highly relevant subject in today's context.

'In an era of rapid global market expansion, continuous innovations in information and communication technologies, intensified competition and the great digital divide, the capability to secure timely access to actionable knowledge, i.e., the ability to create, organize, leverage and protect intellectual and capital resources and to achieve value creation outputs represents a core competency of policy makers, government officials, business leaders and managers'.

(Menkhoff - Introduction P 1) The present critic expected a few more words from this very competent researcher as to how knowledge management and sharing could be improved upon in international construction joint ventures in Singapore, if not across the globe, taking into consideration the characteristics of the Asian and European cultures and their impact on knowledge sharing across cultural boundaries. 'Siemens wants its employees to share their knowledge with colleagues in other business units and countries.

So it rewards them with what it calls 'ShareNet shares. ShareNet is the company's knowledge-sharing network. This links sales personnel around the world 24 hours a day, enabling over 6,000 information and communications technology specialists, in more than 40 countries, to provide immediate help for each other and to provide customers with instant access to Siemens' global know-how. And it's not just those who contribute their ideas who receive rewards; those who receive the ideas- the 're-users' of knowledge- are also rewarded.

' (Kevin Barham in December 2001 Ashridge Virtual Learning Resource Center. P-1) Dulaimi could have incorporated a separate questionnaire for the JV