Managing Knowledge during Internationalization: The Case of Ntex

Abstract

The view of knowledge as a strategically important asset for organizations is nowadays widespread and and the choice about how to manage this asset internally has gained increasing attention. Existing literature indicates that internal management of knowledge differs in Small- and Medium-sized companies (SMEs) and Multinational companies (MNCs). However, companies that do not belong to either of these two categories have not yet received enough attention in research. At this stage, they begin to face pressure on changing the way they manage knowledge internally in order to adapt their organisational structure to the business capacity and the quality and volume of their operations. As a result, a case study has been conducted on the Swedish-based firm Ntex AB, to investigate what characterizes internal knowledge management in an organization at this stage of development and the relative challenges and implications for their processes. The results indicate that a hybrid version of knowledge management is utilized that is characterized by predominantly informal practices in combination with fewer formal practices regarding explicit knowledge. The main challenge identified was the task of pinpointing and deciding what path to take in order for their internal knowledge management to develop jointly with the evolution of their business.