What is Work Practices

The rapid innovation rate of industrial equipment, coupled with diversity of industrial processes and application areas, has introduced new constraints for management and workers in industrial settings. As a result, it is difficult to present a generic framework for knowledge management (KM) support in industrial environments. In this contribution, the authors briefly discuss KM in customer based organizations and highlight, in some detail, the factors that make Information Technology (IT) support particularly specific for KM in industrial settings. In order to design IT tools for effective knowledge sharing, there is a need for researchers to go beyond the theoretical frameworks and concepts. This requires a deep look at the knowledge sharing practices embedded in the work settings. It is suggested that there is a need for more empirical work in industrial settings to have a practice based analysis. The chapter also reviews the literature and provides guidelines for future research in the domain of technology support for KM in industrial settings.