The influence of NWOW principles on Knowledge sharing

Abstract

This thesis report is about the intersection between the New Way of Working (NWOW) and knowledge sharing. Both subjects are well documented in scientific literature, however crossover literature is hard to find and lacking in quality. NWOW contains a list of principles on how to work in order to improve employee satisfaction and increased employee effectiveness. Knowledge sharing is the science of how knowledge is shared in corporate environments, be it SME or large corporations. Companies are discovering that knowledge is their most valuable asset, but how do you make sure that knowledge is shared, or how do you prevent knowledge from leaving your company? This thesis report starts with an introduction into the subject and the research questions that I will try to answer, secondly I will discuss the way I performed this research, from a literature review to a multiple case study research design in order to gain solid data to form a conclusion. Then the literature review on the topics of NWOW and knowledge sharing will be divulged, followed by 4 expert interviews to bridge the knowledge gaps that exist due to the low amount of scientific publications on the crossover between knowledge sharing and NWOW. Case studies will be introduced, including the 5 case study companies, PostNL, Sogeti, EY, Comp. X and KPMG. I will discuss the company and department structures, and their current knowledge sharing infrastructure, what are their possibilities to share knowledge. Then the results of the multiple case study research will be presented, in which we see the results of the NWOW monitor combined with the different knowledge types that are shared. These results lead to an analysis, what can the data tell us, how can we interpret it, and what are the variables that are of influence? Finally I will give some conclusions on the research questions, but also some general conclusions that can be made about knowledge, knowledge sharing and NWOW implementation levels. Finally I will propose a discussion on the validity and integrity of this thesis and a short section on the future work that can be performed, based on the data that was acquired.