Technological innovation projects: proposal for an integrative model between project management and knowledge management in a customer-supplier perspective

Abstract

In face of strong competition, companies in Brazil have increased their financial investments in automation, offering new products and services and reducing operating costs. These companies are focusing their efforts on core competencies and, therefore, they often lack the internal expertise to implement new projects, especially those that bring technological innovation. For this reason, we use the processes of outsourcing or subcontracting to help implement such projects. The unit of analysis in this study is the project and the object of the study to analyze the process of knowledge transfer from a provider to a customer during the duration of the project, which involves new technologies. The main motivation of this work is to address the acquisition and retention of new knowledge related to projects designed for business customers. We have developed a study of three cases of multiple financial firms that buy new technologies and two suppliers of information technology. As a practical result, a management model of knowledge transfer and retention of knowledge in client companies is proposed and incorporated into project management.