The effects of eliminating knowledge sharing barriers in the construction projects on the firm's performance: A case study

In the construction industry where technology and construction management systems have been improving so fast, companies need to use the knowledge management system to gain a place in the market and provide them with a competitive advantage. While the outcome was valuable and important before, now the lessons learnt during the outcome process are as important as the outcome itself. In other words, companies have started to take into consideration the importance of this information. In this sense, improvements in the knowledge management system shed new light on the companies and the industry as a whole. The construction industry has been using the knowledge management system less than other industries because of its fragmental and dispersed structure. To be able to manage the information, it is required to be classified, stored, applied, tested, shared and valued first. The information should be usable for future projects in order to achieve the knowledge management system's objective. As we see during the knowledge management period, sharing the knowledge is a part of the knowledge management process. If the acquired information were not shared by the right people at the company, obtaining the information has no meaning at all. The broad subject of this study is to investigate how the knowledge management subtopic of knowledge sharing affects the project's progress, its enterprise's performance and the project as a whole, along with the project process subtopic of the construction process. This study examines to what extent knowledge sharing is being used in modern construction sites, with a detailed example from the application area and applying literature review. The research method used in the thesis study is qualitative research method. Within the study, there has been consultations with a manager, architects and engineers at just one construction site of the enterprise, and research on how knowledge sharing effects both the production process and the enterprise performance. The first section of the thesis analyses the problems which gave rise to the writing of the thesis on this topic. The background of the thesis describes previous studies, and also explains how it could improve understanding in these areas because of the lack of examples in the construction industry. The method section analyses which approaches have used during the writing of the thesis. The second section focuses on knowledge, data and information concepts via literature review, and explicit and tacit notions have been discussed on the classification of the knowledge. After mentioning briefly the history of the use of knowledge in the construction industry, the study goes on to explain knowledge management within the industry. The knowledge management process has been examined from the acquisition of the knowledge, to the evaluation of the knowledge management process itself. The third section handles the subject of knowledge sharing in the construction industry. Following the general information on knowledge sharing, the study describes the application of knowledge sharing, the project process and the benefits of knowledge sharing for the enterprise's performance. The reasons that often block knowledge sharing have been analyzed down to the smallest detail, and these reasons are the source of the forth section for the study. A restoration site of an enterprise has been picked to investigate the effects of knowledge sharing on the enterprise's performance during the application process of the project. This enterprise, with which face-to-face interviews have been made within the scope of the thesis, is a main contractor company with nearly 30 years of experience proving itself in restoration works across Turkey. There were interviews with three architects who are also project managers and seven engineers-architect who works in construction site and also design office, ten participants in total, that were working on the restoration site which has been in operation for about four years. The reason why face-to-face interviews are preferred is to allow attendees to share their experiences during those interviews. Restoration projects are more complicated than other construction projects and the construction process is longer. The main purpose of the restoration project is to retain and share the information about the old structure. In other words sharing knowledge in restoration projects is more important than other projects. The first reason for the selection of the restoration project is that the project reveals the importance of knowledge sharing better. The second reason is that I have been working for a subcontractor company in this project for three years so I can contribute my own observations and experiences to this thesis. During the face-to-face interviews, personal questions including participant's age, gender, education status and work experience (total work experience and also work experience at this company) were asked in order to understand them better. In the subsequent sections, questions were asked about how to obtain the information, how to store the information and how to then share the information. The participants were also asked to share their own experiences. In the last section of the questions, the reasons for obstructing the sharing of knowledge were divided into three groups and directed towards participants. The obstacles stem from individual and organizational problems, as well as technological reasons While the impact of knowledge sharing on the project implementation process and the enterprise's performance was investigated, the abstraction of information was taken into consideration. The knowledge is not a concept that is easy to measure. In the thesis, the effects of knowledge on the performance are evaluated as intellectual capital and hand held non-retentive achievements. Financial measurement and a balanced scorecard are excluded from the thesis. In the fifth section of the thesis, the conclusion of the thesis is formed with the evaluation of the interview results considering the literature review. After interview results were evaluated, it was determined whether knowledge sharing was carried out during the application phase of the project. As the enterprise's employees have been working on site, their ideas about general management approach have emerged as well. The results are examined in two sections: positive / developable situations and negative / avoidable situations. The site workers attach an importance to knowledge sharing and by doing so they open the way for more a planned and programmed progress of the project construction process. The enterprise's database allows storage of the knowledge and its use in the future projects. Knowledge sharing encourages teamwork, so that the employees are able to act jointly in line with common goals. Mutual trust among employees in the work environment makes knowledge sharing easy. The specificity of business units at the head office reduces internal competition and increases the sharing of knowledge. Applying knowledge sharing effectively within the enterprise increases the competition with other enterprises. The company has accelerated their efforts to improve their knowledge management systems. This is beneficial for the enterprise's future. When access to the database is more flexible, then knowledge sharing is easier. The knowledge management program used in the enterprise needs to be used in more areas. The training that will be given to the employees in the use of this program will prevent the occurrence of knowledge pollution. The increase in weekly meetings, where enterprise employees and enterprise management can talk, is important for employee motivation and knowledge sharing. It is necessary to encourage communication between the employees of the company so that up-to-date conversations held in the field do not lead to disagreements later on. As a result, the enterprise's employees and managers are aware of the importance of sharing the knowledge during the application process of the project. With the enterprise's more effective use of information management systems, there can be knowledge sharing among all the sites and the sharing of this knowledge can become a culture of the enterprise. Knowledge sharing during the application process has a positive impact on the project construction process and the enterprise's overall performance. With the joint efforts of the enterprise management and the employees, knowledge sharing in the construction industry will continue to develop, thus further yielding better results.