{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,16]],"date-time":"2026-02-16T15:44:01Z","timestamp":1771256641700,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":38,"publisher":"Emerald","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,8,4]],"date-time":"2020-08-04T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1596499200000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/site-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["JD"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2020,8,4]]},"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Purpose<\/jats:title><jats:p>This paper aims to explore the coexistence of formal, informal and personal knowledge management (KM) practices as they support employees' everyday work in organizations.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Design\/methodology\/approach<\/jats:title><jats:p>Qualitative study involving 12 in-depth interviews and 30 hours of observations in a small, quickly growing, knowledge-intensive company.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Findings<\/jats:title><jats:p>Formal, informal and personal KM practices were all found to be relevant and interconnected in supporting everyday work in the organization. This suggests a shift from understanding KM as an organizational approach to ecology, shaped by multiple actors and concerns and extending over the formal\/informal as well as organizational\/personal divides. Interrelationships between formal, informal and personal KM practices took various forms. Among each of these KM categories were practices that contributed in a unique way, without having a functional parallel in other categories. Some KM practices had a strong functional overlap and were competing. Moreover, some formal, informal and personal KM practices formed complementary relationships.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Research limitations\/implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>Findings are based on fieldwork in only one organization.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Practical implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>Organizations would benefit from the formal, informal and personal KM practices being complementarily connected. As these connections are sustained by employees in everyday work, effective management of KM ecology needs a collective and distributed effort.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title><jats:p>This paper is one of the very few empirical accounts that problematizes the coexistence of formal, informal and personal KM practices and suggests a practice-ecology perspective through which their interrelationships could be studied.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/jd-03-2020-0043","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,8,4]],"date-time":"2020-08-04T09:28:11Z","timestamp":1596533291000},"page":"163-180","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":10,"title":["Practice ecology of knowledge management\u2014connecting the formal, informal and personal"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"77","author":[{"given":"Aare","family":"V\u00e4rk","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Anne","family":"Reino","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"issue":"7","key":"key2020122407170864600_ref001","first-page":"994","article-title":"Odd couple: making sense of the curious concept of knowledge management","volume":"38","year":"2001","journal-title":"Journal of Management Studies"},{"issue":"5","key":"key2020122407170864600_ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1306","DOI":"10.1287\/orsc.2013.0882","article-title":"The semiformal organization","volume":"25","year":"2014","journal-title":"Organization Science"},{"issue":"5","key":"key2020122407170864600_ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"687","DOI":"10.1177\/0170840602235001","article-title":"Knowledge-sharing dilemmas","volume":"23","year":"2002","journal-title":"Organization Studies"},{"issue":"5","key":"key2020122407170864600_ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"829","DOI":"10.1108\/13673271211262835","article-title":"Knowledge management: a personal knowledge network perspective","volume":"16","year":"2012","journal-title":"Journal of Knowledge Management"},{"issue":"5","key":"key2020122407170864600_ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"927","DOI":"10.1108\/JD-03-2018-0044","article-title":"Somatic and cultural knowledge: drivers of a habitus-driven model of tacit knowledge acquisition","volume":"75","year":"2019","journal-title":"Journal of Documentation"},{"issue":"3","key":"key2020122407170864600_ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"175","DOI":"10.1002\/kpm.380","article-title":"From skills and competencies to outcome-based collaborative work: tracking a decade's development of personal knowledge management (PKM) models","volume":"18","year":"2011","journal-title":"Knowledge and Process Management"},{"issue":"5","key":"key2020122407170864600_ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"789","DOI":"10.1108\/13673271211262817","article-title":"The management of knowledge resources in SMEs: an Australian case study","volume":"16","year":"2012","journal-title":"Journal of Knowledge Management"},{"issue":"4","key":"key2020122407170864600_ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"637","DOI":"10.1108\/13673271211246194","article-title":"Knowledge management and succession planning in SMEs","volume":"16","year":"2012","journal-title":"Journal of Knowledge Management"},{"issue":"2","key":"key2020122407170864600_ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"281","DOI":"10.1086\/231209","article-title":"Manifesto for a relational sociology","volume":"103","year":"1997","journal-title":"American Journal of Sociology"},{"key":"key2020122407170864600_ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gherardi, S. and Miele, F. 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