New product development both demands and creates new knowledge. The challenge facing knowledge management is how to ensure the knowledge created in one development is recognised and stored, and then transferred and shared to become available for future projects to capitalise on.

Using data from 12 large US, European and Japanese enterprises that regularly undertake multiple parallel product development projects that are global in scale and highly knowledge-intensive, this article reports on three different structures for the way in which knowledge management is organised. Each is analysed for clarity of mission, how well it supports knowledge transfer and sharing, what tensions might attend its use and which job rotation styles it fosters.

It seems that each has its benefits and problems, but the author posits some kind of hybrid ‘ideal’ structure – which might leverage the positives and neutralise the negatives – as a worthwhile ambition for managers and academics alike.
 
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