Knowledge sharing mechanisms and techniques in project teams: Literature review, classification, and current trends

Abstract

Knowledge management is the process of capturing, sharing, developing, and using the knowledge efficiently. Knowledge sharing as one of the important parts of the knowledge management system means that an individual, team, and the organization share the knowledge with other members in the form of activities through the various ways. On the other hand, a project team is a team whose members usually belongs to different departments and are assigned to join the same project. In a project team, knowledge sharing is very important because it provides a link between the member and the project team by sharing knowledge to reduce cost and increase the performance. However, despite the importance of the knowledge sharing mechanisms and techniques in the project teams, to the best of our knowledge, the comprehensive and systematic research and study about the antecedents and backgrounds of knowledge sharing mechanisms between project teams is rare. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to provide the comprehensive and detailed review of the state-of-the-art knowledge sharing mechanisms in the project team as well as directions for future research. Also, this paper presents a systematic literature review (SLR) on the knowledge sharing mechanisms in project teams up to the end of 2015. We identified 71 papers, which are reduced to 28 primary studies through our paper selection process. By providing the state-of-the-art information and the challenges issues, this survey will directly support academics, researchers and practicing professionals in their understanding of developments in knowledge sharing mechanisms and techniques in project teams.