Knowledge management in research groups of excellence at the University of Antioquia

Abstract

This work derives from a question that often arises in the course of a research project which, if a known fact, can be useful in meeting the objectives of the project. The hypothesis that if research groups could incorporate the metadiscourses of knowledge management into the research project, the research process could be improved, better enabling the researchers to comply with the indicators established by Colciencias within the standards of production and quality. Therefore, the objective of this study centers on research groups in which the group investigates how knowledge is generate, utilized, transformed, and transferred both within the groups themselves and beyond. This characteristic confers on them an importance relevant to the generation of value and enrolls them in the logic of the so-called "knowledge economy." Therefore, the principal activities are based on the production of intangible resources associated with knowledge. To further advance along these lines of study, the work proceeded with a complex focus, with the design of some instruments appropriate to research-action, as in the case of triangulation. Finally, a series of results, both quantitative and qualitative, was obtained that could confirm the hypothesis, that is, that research groups pass through four stages in the creation knowledge: socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization. The results make it possible to affirm, among other things, that there are many possibilities for knowledge management in research groups, but there is a shortage of tools that work specifically with a subject of research that not only focuses on the results but enables the researchers to capitalize on the knowledge generated in the same process.