Antecedents to knowledge loss in an organisational environment

Abstract

Knowledge loss and organisational forgetting refer to situations where valuable knowledge and know-how deteriorate or disappears from the organisational environment. This leads to weakened competitive advantage. The purpose of the research is to identify antecedents that lead to knowledge loss, through aspects that hinder tacit knowledge transfer, acquisition, creation, and retention.

The research was conducted as a literature review and a qualitative, descriptive case analysis. The goal of the literature review is to recognise common themes from prior research. The materials chosen for the review are peer-reviewed, scientific journal articles that have been published after 2010. The case analysis was conducted to demonstrate the identified antecedents in a factual setting.

The findings highlight three major categories of antecedents to knowledge loss: interpersonal, organisational, and technological. The categories are not strict, and many of the identified antecedents belong in several categories, and some do not strictly belong in any of them. The antecedents consist of collaboration, communication, trust, motivation, organisational culture and structure, knowledge management and management involvement, awareness, resources, technology, and regulations. The findings of the case analysis showcased similar results, and the same categories could be identified.

The study contributes to theoretical knowledgebase by refining and expanding on existing lit erature and summarising insights that may be used as a basis for future research. The results provide a categorisation of tacit knowledge loss antecedents. The findings provide insight that have practical implications. They can be used in evaluating knowledge loss risk, and in development of knowledge management strategies.