Knowledge Management Pattern for Project-Based Organizations in Energy Industry: A Grounded Theory Study

Knowledge management (KM) has been considered as an importantcompetitive advantage for all kinds of organizations, includingenergy sector. Executing research and development (R&D) projectsof energy industry (RDEI) will create, share, and reuse a hugeamount of knowledge, and few organizations know how to manageit effectively. Thus, finding a customized KM pattern which matchesspecific factors of the RDEI is a major concern of managers. Thispaper aims to present a customized KM pattern for the R&Dprojects of the studied sector considering project-based organizationcharacteristics by using grounded theory. Needed information isgathered by semi-structured interviews with experts. By using open,axial, and selective coding, the components of the final model andtheir relations are found. The results showed 48 open codes, 15main concept, and 5 secondary concepts which are all formed in“causal situations”, “intervention situations”, “strategies”, “pivotphenomena” and “effects”.