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Knowledge strategies in the Tasmanian legal profession

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posted on 2023-05-27, 07:40 authored by Campton, J
This thesis examined approaches used by three large Tasmanian legal firms to manage knowledge as a strategic asset. Adopting an interpretivist philosophy with the accompanying qualitative methodology, the study consisted of an in depth investigation of literature, followed by nine semi-structured interviews, general conversation and observation within three large Tasmanian legal firms. The nine interviews were a priori coded. The findings from the investigation supported the existence of two knowledge strategies as indicated in the literature. The first is a codification strategy where explicit knowledge is placed on a computerised Knowledge Management System (KMS). The second is a personalisation strategy where knowledge workers convert tacit knowledge in networks referred to as 'miniecologies' (Sveiby, 1997) or 'Communities of Practice (CoPs)' (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). The results of this research indicated that large Tasmanian law firms prefer a personalisation strategy, which appears to be contrary to the literature from America and Europe where law firms are adopting codification strategies. Consequentially this research challenges large Tasmanian law firms not to merely select the dominant knowledge strategy presented in American and European literature, but rather to carefully select the most appropriate strategy for their organisational requirements.

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