Re‐interpreting Project Knowledge Management: a philosophical review

This is an exploratory study aimed at addressing the epistemological basis of knowledge management, and its suitability to address work-based issues specifically related to knowledge management within project environments. These issues include repetition of mistakes, and a lack of timely information availability and skill possession. Following an extensive literature review of current and historic knowledge management, business and philosophical literature (in particular the work of Martin Heidegger and Michael Polanyi), an
epistemological approach was generated that opposes the popular ‘objective’ view of knowledge implicit in common knowledge management literature, reinterpreting it in terms of Heidegerrian understanding and interpretation. The emergent epistemological view suggests a promising departure from the accepted approaches to managing project knowledge, with the aim of producing practical outcomes by relating knowledge to practice.