Harvesting and Managing Knowledge in Construction

A successful construction business is a knowledge business. And knowledge must be managed effectively to be used efficiently, especially in a complex project-oriented business such as construction, where skills acquired and lessons learned on one project need to be applied to the next.

A holistic approach to knowledge management (KM) is taken in this book to incorporate all of the relevant themes, tackling technological, socio-cultural and organizational issues, with the creation of value as a focus throughout. Information is drawn from a broad range of sources to explain core theories and provide guidance on practical application. Topics covered include:

• changing business relationships in a knowledge economy
• knowledge creation processes and theories
• data, text and knowledge mining techniques
• the learning construction organization
• future technology for knowledge management.

Written by the authors of the first EU-funded KM research project in the field of construction, this textbook is uniquely well-researched, and is the perfect introduction to KM for students across the built environment. It is also a crucial guide to the topic for practitioners.