An Exploratory Study of Intergenerational Knowledge Transfer

Within the past decades Knowledge Management (KM) practices have changed and evolved in organizations. Since the early 90s companies have realized that knowledge represents a major factor of competitive advantage and sustainability in the market place. In order to compete in a fast changing economic environment, companies had to rethink how to do business, to focus on their core competencies, and on attracting and retaining knowledge, considered as a new form of organizational capital. KM has become a discipline in itself, heavily supported by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). KM policies and practices have been implemented through Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) aiming at capturing, stocking, retrieving and disseminating information within the organizations. In the past few years, a new concept of KM has emerged: due to the expansion of the internet and what is now termed Web 2.0 technologies, a more human-centered approach is increasingly implemented, based on human interactions and collaboration, interpersonal and virtual relationship, social and professional networking.