The Dynamics of Knowledge in Systems Development Practice

This research investigates the complex dynamics between knowledge creation and sharing in systems development. Quantitative and qualitative data from a project are interpreted drawing upon concepts from knowledge management and organizational learning. The research shows that the applied systems development techniques rely on simplified notions of knowledge creation and sharing that do not take into account the dynamic relationships between the two, and neglect the factors that facilitate or inhibits them. These findings suggest a number of lessons on how to balance knowledge creation and sharing in systems development and they suggest that we need to critically rethink contemporary systems development techniques.