Integration of customer knowledge in an information systems project: influence of the project knowledge environment

Abstract

Many authors in IS project management field have examined knowledge managementwithin IS projects : issues such as knowledge transfer or capitalization from one project toanother one (Morley 2002, Ko et al., 2005, Haines et Goodhue, 2003)), or like knowledgemanagement specificities within a project (Newell et al., 2004, Slaughter et Kirsch, 2006,Jewels et Ford, 2006), have been raised. Focusing on knowledge management in the pro-ject, we intend to characterize knowledge integration capacity through the analysis of themeans implemented to develop this capacity (boundary objects, Star, Griesemer, 1989, andboundary actors).More specifically, we try to understand how the “knowledge management environment”(that we defined as the combination of project specificities, nature of customer knowledgeand degree of complexity of the knowledge integration process) has an influence on theknowledge integration capacity developed by actors.Through the case study method, three IS projects are examined and provide the followingresults : the degree of complexity of the integration process has an influence on the degreeof formalization of the boundary objects, and on the use of designated” boundary objectsor of “boundary objects in-practice”. Moreover, integration of informal knowledge mobili-ze boundary actors. Finally, two different integration capacity structures are presented.This research highlights the key role of the customer on the knowledge integration capaci-ty. From a managerial perspective, a strong and operational participation of the customerseems to be necessary to enhance a strong integration capacity of customer knowledge