Learning, Teamwork and Appropriability: Managing Technological Change in the Department of Social Security

Drawing on an extensive case study, we argue that management has to actively manage information flows, both within the organization and between the organization and its environment. Three tasks of knowledge management are, in our view, important in building technological capability: appropriation, teamworking and learning. ‘Appropriation’ includes the retention and effective utilization of internal knowledge. ‘Teamworking’ refers to the integration of diverse knowledge bases. ‘Learning’ embraces the acquisition and exploitation of externally held knowledge