Corporate memory dynamics in project-based organizations (PBOs): multiple case study in Brazilian engineering design firms and a framework proposal
Why this work is in the frame
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Bibliographic record
Abstract
Purpose This study aims to investigate how the processes of memory acquisition, retention, retrieval and application occur in project-based organizations (PBOs). In this kind of organization, the nature of corporate memory is influenced by the transience, uniqueness and independence of the project portfolio. Such understanding may help practitioners to mitigate the effects of project transience and promote knowledge sharing among project teams. Design/methodology/approach An empirical and qualitative study was carried out through a multiple case study approach conducted in three Brazilian Engineering Design Firms, which are organized by projects. Document analysis, direct observation and semi-structured interviews with engineers, project managers and executives were conducted. Findings The memory acquisition process takes place in five forms which have different sources and destinations when comparing PBOs with traditional organizational settings. Memory retention in PBOs crosses organizational boundaries and establishes a knowledge network of former employees and third parties. The PBOs project memory can be divided into volatile and perennial memory, where the former can be lost throughout project execution and the latter is internalized, becoming an inseparable part of the corporate memory. Memory retrieval in PBOs is also distinct since it has particular mechanisms depending on whether the knowledge is technical or administrative. Originality/value The research investigates the corporate memory processes within the volatile context of PBOs in a Latin-American developing country whose culture favors tacit knowledge exchange. The paper proposes a framework that unveils different patterns of knowledge acquisition, temporary and perennial retention structures, intensive usage of external knowledge in memory retrieval and particular memory applications in PBOs. The framework may guide scholars, project managers, engineers and practitioners in navigating through the uniqueness of organizational learning flows and structures in PBOs.
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Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it