Knowledge Retention of Contingent Workforce in Project Based Organizations

Abstract

Human Beings possess knowledge, and that knowledge is subdivided into two categories i.e. tacit and explicit knowledge. The tacit knowledge resides in the minds of individuals whereas the explicit knowledge is documented and is stored in the data bases and easily accessible to employees working in the organization. Now in this competitive environment, the organizations are working day and night to maintain their competitive edge in the marketplace and that competitive edge is maintained mainly through its employees. Since 1991, the opening up of economy and the privatization drive as well as the globalization has impacted the nature of job in a way that the trend has largely shifted from permanent employment to the contractual workforce employment as well. The employee’s tacit knowledge is very crucial to the organization especially when it comes to the contractual employees working in a large number and a greater frequency in the project-based organizations. This knowledge that resides in the minds of the individual employees can be a barrier to the organization once it is not retained by the organization ultimately leading to the knowledge and competency loss. If the organizations have not yet developed the knowledge retention mechanisms, then they are at the edge of severe knowledge loss leading the organizations to stay less competitive. Amid the Pandemic situation (COVID), the companies have suffered a lot from loss of knowledge retention of their key contractors and permanent employees and had to face significant financial losses leading to layoffs, retirements and salary cuts. This study following an inductive approach is aimed at examining the knowledge loss due to the contractual workforce in the Project Based Firms of IT Industry in Pakistan. This study is exploratory in nature as it is answering the research questions while measuring them to multiple levels of depth and interaction and will not be providing a conclusive statement. The data will be collected with the help of semi-structured interviews from Knowledge Workers of IT sector in Rawalpindi and Islamabad and Thematic analysis will be done with the help of Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software, called as ATLAS.ti 46 (version 7.1.6). Since this research is exploratory in nature as it is answering the research questions while measuring them to multiple levels of depth and interaction and will not be providing a conclusive statement. The findings of this study are in line with the past studies on knowledge loss where the organizations face quite a lot of challenges in the retention of knowledge because of multiple reasons. Thus, the main challenge for the IT industry in Pakistan is to devise strategies that ensure maximum knowledge retention and promote the culture of knowledge sharing in the company so that the contractual workers are not reluctant to share knowledge and the knowledge retention process is at ease and streamlined. If we consider from a theoretical view point, then this study contributes greatly to providing the latest insights into the practices prevailing in the IT industry in Pakistan regarding dealing with the issue of knowledge loss and strategies adopted to ensure knowledge retention. These insights hold much importance in reference to the further studies to be conducted in this area. From a practical point of view, the current study highlights the significance of paying emphasis on the importance of retaining knowledge of contingent workforce in the IT industry of Pakistan because of greater influx of the contingent workforce and the transient nature of projects. Aiming directly to the industries, this study gives a wakeup call to focus on devising tools to retain knowledge of contingent workforce to avoid loss of major knowledge capital and maximize in house knowledge retention. The employment of efficient and effective knowledge retention strategies will ultimately lead the IT sector in Pakistan to build many competencies in-house, survive the turbulent situations without the fear of dependency and cost constraints. It will ultimately lead the organizations to save up on long-term costs. The trend for employing knowledge retention strategies in IT industry of Pakistan exists. However, the difference just lies in the types of strategies being used and how much budget the companies are allocating to cater the issue of knowledge loss owing to their awareness and seriousness to this issue.