Title: Capturing tacit knowledge in New Product Development: a study of Post-Project Reviews

Authors: Keith Goffin, Ursula Koners

Addresses: Cranfield School of Management, UK. ' Cranfield School of Management, UK

Abstract: Organisations need to learn from new product development projects. This paper describes a detailed study of how post-project reviews can generate and disseminate knowledge within an R&D environment. Tacit knowledge is generally acknowledged to be a challenging topic to research and so case studies were conducted using multiple sources of data. The research identifies the main factors that influence the generation of tacit knowledge at post-project reviews, such as the atmosphere and the discussion methods chosen. Although the study is exploratory, the results have implications for managers that want to positively influence the generation and dissemination of knowledge in R&D.

Keywords: NPD; new product development; tacit knowledge; learning; PPRs; post-project reviews; R&D; research and development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTIP.2008.020096

International Journal of Technology Intelligence and Planning, 2008 Vol.4 No.3, pp.234 - 256

Published online: 26 Aug 2008 *

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