Knowledge sharing and cultural changes

Looking for some relevant case stories of Knowledge sharing in bigger companies I came across the article  by David J. Skyrme ‘The 3Cs of Knowledge Sharing:Culture, Co-opetition and Commitment’ written in 2002.

Implementing change, particularly cultural and corporate change, is a slow process. David lists some good points barriers to knowledge sharing:
• “Knowledge is power” –
• “not invented here” syndrome –
• Not realizing how useful particular knowledge is to others –
• Lack of trust –
• Lack of time –
Altogether well worth reading the whole article.

Then as is all too often the case I drifted into looking for articles covering KM for SMEs and found Jela Webb’s  article ‘Knowledge management in SMEs – does size matter when it comes to KM? Which, like all Jela’s writing is useful and to the point. I particularly like this

SMEs by their very nature have qualities that are conducive to KM – levels of trust, a culture of innovation, business agility and closeness to their customers. Developing a culture of sharing knowledge and resources is something that SMEs typically do and implementing KM, one could argue, is much easier than in larger enterprises.

Micro-entrepreneurs have an even greater agility and closeness to their clients, but I wonder how many of us are prescient enough to spot change when it is needed?
Well, I had better get back on track and find my good case studies…