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Culture is often seen as the key inhibitor of effective knowledge sharing. A study of companies where sharing knowledge is built into the culture found that they did not change their culture to match their knowledge management initiatives. They adapted their approach to knowledge management to fit their culture. They did this by: linking sharing knowledge to solving practical business problems; tying sharing knowledge to a pre‐existing core value; introducing knowledge management in a way that matches the organization’s style; building on existing networks people use in their daily work; and encouraging peers and supervisors to exert pressure to share.

This paper seeks to develop understanding of how competent practitioners develop into experts through learning expert thinking processes and how knowledge management initiatives can be used to structure this development.

A literature review‐derived research model underpinned the semi‐structured interviews with 21 acknowledged experts from a wide variety of disciplines and sectors. A qualitative exploratory research design was used to study how the experts go about developing other professionals in the field through showing them how they learn themselves and making visible their own thinking processes. The implications for KM programs were developed in conjunction with KM practitioners.

The experts used various methods to make their thinking visible through demonstration of practice and direction of structured learning activities. KM's contribution to this form of expertise development lies in structuring approaches to making work in progress more visible (through technology and process) and through introducing a coaching framework that enables and supports reflection on practice.

The specific context of expertise development that has been studied is those situations where generalized principles and explicit knowledge cannot be readily captured in artifacts. Further research is needed to show how this can be combined with other approaches to developing and retaining expertise. Confirmatory research is also needed to refine and further validate the proposed recommendations for KM practice.

The paper prepares the ground for integrating an important aspect of expertise development within KM programs.

The paper extends KM's contribution to expertise retention and development to include structured support for the development of expert thinking processes.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the annual KMWorld Conference that took place October 31 through November 2, 2006 in San Jose, California.

The paper examines the conference presentations that indicated that knowledge management may be at the end of one era and at the beginning of its next stage.

Conference presentations pointed to three themes affecting KM. The first theme was that new elements are being associated with KM, specifically innovation. The second theme was that emerging technologies have become great levelers and social network enablers for members of organizations. The third theme was that KM theory and practice were in the process of transformation. This last theme has the sub‐themes: KM would become more socio‐technocratic; it would devolve from large‐scale enterprise‐wide initiatives to specific project‐oriented initiatives; or the view that KM could not fulfill its promise and that the real work at hand was in the areas of sense making and related approaches which more effectively resolve otherwise complex and otherwise irresolvable dilemmas faced by organizations. Despite these varying perspectives, a recurring message was that the principles, the value and values of KM have been absorbed into overall organizational management schemes.

The outcome appears to be that KM is evolving into a more boundaryless, continuously reframing discipline. KM's opportunities lie in exploring these new perspectives and technologies to best redefine how knowledge management can create the most value in organizations and their social networks.

The Braintrust 2003 Conference gave ground to the sense that the knowledge movement is struggling to gain new levels of maturity. Sessions explored the business implications of knowledge, focusing on the use of knowledge in workflow, in mergers and acquisitions, and in recognizing the need to go to the periphery to grasp trends and emerging ideas. It is significant that knowledge management, change management and business management began to be woven together in these presentations. The presentations at Braintrust delineated that the challenge to KM practitioners is first, to be better and more related to business needs while second, staying continually sensitive to changes that may potentially sweep their organizations, leading to fundamental shifts in how the organization and its supporting knowledge effort need to relate to the world.

This chapter discusses the relevance of a community of practice (CoP) for a reflexive gender equality policy and reflects on the different approaches taken within TARGET. It is based on the literature on CoPs and structural change as well as on experiences in transferring this approach to the context of implementing gender equality plans (GEPs) within different types of research organisations. While the notion of the CoP was coined in the 1990s, literature on gender and such communities remained scarce until a recent wealth of research looked at the role played by inter-institutional CoPs in advancing structural change in research organisations. In this chapter, we examine whether and how an institutional CoP approach has been a useful vehicle for gender equality plan development and how the different configurations of internal and external stakeholders within the CoPs have impacted GEP implementation.

Gender competence as part of engineering education can better prepare men and women to work on sustainable solutions that benefit entire societies. This chapter describes the framework and lessons learned of a community of practice (CoP) for gender equality facilitated by the Mediterranean Engineering Schools Network. Faculty and students from Mediterranean European, North African and Middle Eastern countries came together in this CoP, which was supported by the TARGET project, to develop a practical plan using a reflexive approach. The transfer of knowledge between generations is achieved by using participatory learning processes, facilitating mindful awareness, widening experiences, deepening understandings and building a gender-sensitive mindset. Students embarked on the journey to become change agents. The process led to the consolidation of gender equality knowledge, competence building and the development of change agents for gender equality. This CoP can inspire other institutions to undertake a participatory path towards gender equality – at local, regional, or global level.

This paper aims to examine the formal and informal workplace learning of professional chefs. In particular, it considers chefs’ learning strategies and outcomes as well as the barriers to and facilitators of their workplace learning.

The methodology is based on in-depth, face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with 12 executive chefs from a variety of restaurant types. Chefs were asked questions that focused on how they learned, the learning outcomes that they experienced and factors that inhibited or facilitated their learning.

Findings suggest that the strategies, outcomes, barriers and facilitators experienced by professional chefs are similar in many respects to those of other occupational/professional groups. However, there were some important differences that highlight the context of chefs’ workplace learning.

The sample, which is relatively small and local, focuses on one city in Canada, and it is limited in its generalizability. Future research should include a national survey of professional chefs.

Using a qualitative approach, this in-depth study adds to the literature on workplace learning, strategies, outcomes, barriers, facilitators and context factors by addressing a relatively understudied profession.

The purpose of this paper is to show that lesson study by including elements from music and music education can sustainably expand and improve the dialogical space for teaching and learning in higher education, especially for primary and secondary teacher education students.

For the first time under the topic “Lesson Study: Music in Dialogue,” corresponding study programs were prepared at the University College of Teacher Education, Lower Austria. The data material from which answers to research questions can be generated are the “Didactic Design Pattern” and classical research lesson planning, observation and discussion instruments. Moreover, discussion protocols of the reflection meetings offered insights the participants gained through sharing their experience of a series of lesson study cycles including focussed collaboration between mentors, teachers, teacher education students and primary school pupils.

Within the lesson study groups, the space for cooperation and dialogue widened considerably and the interest in the work and expertise of each other increased. Based on the principles of a “community of practice,” this study shows the positive effects of professional collaboration on primary and secondary teacher education students and a lasting impact on their pupils’ learning. Thereby, the dialogical principle was found to play a central and important role. In connection with music- and art-related processes, previous limitations in teaching and learning with music can be exceeded for pupils, teacher education students and teachers.

This study, therefore, provides new insights into questions of organization and implementation, as well as scientific and didactic support in professional learning communities.

So far, there has been little practitioner research through lesson study in the field of music education. In particular, lesson study enhancing the cooperation between music education and other subject areas through dialogical-integrative work has brought about knowledge and insights of great importance for the further development of an appropriate didactic approach in dialogic music education.

To identify and critically assess the most recurrent themes in the ongoing debate on knowledge work.

A representative selection of studies published since 1962 is reviewed. The review focuses on the theoretical strengths and limitations of the concept of knowledge work.

The review indicates that definitions of knowledge work abound. Although knowledge work has attracted scholarly minds for several decades and the number of publications in this area has rapidly increased in recent years, it has proved hard to come by a clear and concise definition of this term. However, certain themes, such as a high level of education and skills and the use of information technology as an integral part of the informational labour process, have become increasingly common to both the empirical and the theoretical literature.

The paper helps pave the way for more detailed research by providing an ideal‐typical profile of informational labour.

The purpose of this paper to examine the impact of shop floor (SF) culture (organizational culture (OC) perceived by workers) and SF subcultures assessed by the competing values framework (CVF) on the perceived use of lean production (LP) practices.

The authors analyse questionnaires completed by workers at the single case company undergoing a commonplace lean transformation. The survey items cover both LP items and CVF statements. The propositions are analysed applying cluster analysis and regression.

At the case company, the multidimensionality of SF culture only partially exists, and the perceived use of LP practices shows little connection to OC. The considerable differences between SF culture and SF subcultures on the one hand and among SF subcultures on the other hand indicate the existence of a special multidimensional SF culture. Altogether, SF culture’s impact on LP is weak.

Managers should rethink the usual lean implementation pathways and understand how values pervade SF culture and how culture types impact the perceived use of LP practices at the SF. Managers could face a trade-off: smoother lean transition by engaging in SF subculture-specific transitions and reinforcing it or by developing a homogenous lean SF culture.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical attempt to understand the impact of SF culture on the perceived use of LP practices by adopting a validated OC measurement tool. Furthermore, the study provides insight into workers’ subcultures.