Abstract:
Successful knowledge-intensive firms (KIFs) gain competitive advantage from
the human and social capital which make up their unique trading assets
(Alvesson, 2001; Frenkel et al, 1999; Lei et al, 1999; Newell et al, 2001; Purvis et al,
2001; Starbuck, 1992). Human capital includes individual tacit and explicit knowledge
(Nelson and Winter, 1982) brought into the organisation through its knowledge
workers, while social capital refers to knowledge that is embedded within the
organisational relationships and routines. These forms of capital therefore comprise the
knowledge and skills of individual employees and the relationships between these
employees. Consequently, sharing knowledge between client projects, for example,
becomes critical to the performance of the KIF.
There are, however, obstacles to sharing and growing knowledge which is typically
distributed throughout the organisation and embedded within its routines (Tsoukas,
1996). This article focuses on the management of what we refer to as the tension
between the integration and distribution of knowledge. In particular, it asks how the
management of HRM can contribute to overcoming the barriers to sharing knowledge
in KIFs. In doing so it adds to the growing research into the HR practices of these
organisations (Mehta, 2001; Robertson and O’Malley Hammersley, 2000; Schubert and
Ginsburg, 2000; Weigand et al, 2000).
