Date of Award

3-23-2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Systems Engineering and Management

First Advisor

Alan R. Heminger, PhD

Abstract

There is no measure for the loss of corporate memory. Organizations build a reservoir of knowledge in its employees, and this knowledge becomes a critical ingredient in an organization’s ability to carry out its mission. Knowledgeable people are extremely valuable and once they leave, their organizationally-applied knowledge leaves with them. This study introduces specific knowledge attributes that significantly impact effective tacit and explicit knowledge transfer and retention. Under this construct the proposed investigation explores a government program office to see if replacing experienced government employees with outsourced personnel impacts corporate knowledge retention. The study concludes that a loss of corporate knowledge can occur within U.S. government procurement program offices when government personnel are replaced with contractors who do not transfer their knowledge. When the organization does not have a useful knowledge management system outsourced employees have a lack of trust in the system, a lack of transferred knowledge can be expected. For this reason, contractors use other means to store and transfer their knowledge in systems not available or accessible to the organization.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GSS-ENV-09-M01

DTIC Accession Number

ADA499477

Comments

Typographic error on cover page title.

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