Teamworking and Knowledge Management: A Review of Converging Themes.

Abstract

The teamworking and knowledge management fields are increasingly converging. Teamworking is turned to with a growing disillusion with knowledge management approaches that are seen as excessively ‘hard’, ‘objectified’, or ‘information technology dominated’. This paper is a critical review, the purpose of which is to survey the literature across several fields that provide insights into teamworking aspects of knowledge management, and the reverse. This approach is chosen as disciplines tend to sustain presumptions and preoccupations that may be contradicted by other fields, as is shown. In particular, the review challenges what is referred to as the ‘organizational behaviour textbook theory of teamworking’ and refers to research and theory from several disciplines that qualify what is still an influential orthodoxy. The paper attempts to draw together some principles from current themes such as collective mind, modularity, cross-functional teams and communities of practice.