Benchmarking the role‐modification process for successful knowledge transfer

The ultimate objective of knowledge management is to effectively maintain and transfer the necessary knowledge to the operation's staff. The conventional knowledge‐management methods may only be suitable for the larger‐sized enterprise, but, for the small and medium‐sized companies, it is difficult to spare dedicated resources (people, time, and money) to manage the knowledge‐accumulation and dissemination‐activities. The work presented in this paper proposes a method to overcome some of these difficulties. A role‐modification approach is used to stimulate an autonomously conducted knowledge transfer. New knowledge is developed and managed by the person who successfully takes up a new role in work team. To achieve role modification, ordinary staff‐training methods may not be effective. Psychotherapists already have a set of role‐ modification practices to assist people having role problems. Benchmarking is a suitable methodology to apply to these practices. The authors assisted an engineering‐and‐design company in adopting this psychotherapists’ practice and applied it to a work‐team environment. One of their team members was induced to undergo a role modification and an autonomous knowledge‐ transfer experience.