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The purpose of the paper is to explore the potential of autopoiesis theory to open up new ways to understand knowledge production in business organizations.

Initially essential theoretical information is presented, by reviewing the concept of knowledge‐based competitive advantages in business organizations, and describing the notions of autopoiesis as a basis for the understanding of knowledge production in organizations, and micro‐macro problem within the companies' structure and production. After that follows the main content of the paper, namely descriptions of processes influencing knowledge production in business organizations.

Knowledge is embedded in social practices and a local setting and it is very much tacit in nature providing then a basis for creating a sustainable competitive advantage for business organizations. A business organization's memory and production are mutual media for one another in autopoietic recursive processes.

Finding a viable perspective and approach with which business organizations can understand how their knowledge production takes place is an important issue. It is claimed in this paper that the idea of autopoiesis can potentially provide a new understanding for business organizations' knowledge production.

The purpose of this paper is to explore what the role of individuals' observations is in the implementation of technically complex projects.

Initially essential theoretical information is presented, by reviewing the concepts of systemic view and autopoiesis. Then the notion of communication is described focusing on Niklas Luhmann's theory on communication in social autopoietic systems. After that follows an illustration of the concept of technical complexity in projects. Next notions of problem and problem solving are highlighted. Then follows the main content of this paper; namely descriptions of the concepts of observation and distinction making focusing particularly on the Spencer Brown's ideas of these concepts. And finally, the paper deals with the notion of importance of shared understanding.

The project team members act under the limitations of their subjective observations. However, individuals' observations play an important role in the implementation of technically complex projects.

Literature dealing with systems – projects in this case – has largely ignored the problem of the observer simply discussing the characteristics of different types of systems as if they were observer‐independent. Obviously, there seems to be a need to shed new light on the issues: observer and observation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the systems integrator type project‐based companies integrate knowledge of different sub‐systems.

Initially, essential theoretical information is presented by reviewing the concept of systemic view. After that follows illustrations of the concepts of knowledge and knowledge integration. Then, the implications for project‐based companies acting as systems integrators through knowledge integration are discussed through the concepts of interaction, interface element, absorptive capacity, and motivation to transfer knowledge. The paper ends with a section on conclusions.

The main finding is: the existence of systems integrator type project‐based company can only be understood through systemic view, i.e. through relationships between parts and wholes.

Finding a viable perspective and approach, with which project‐based companies acting as systems integrators can ensure that knowledge integration takes place efficiently, is a very important issue. Therefore, it is suggested that the systemic view provides a basic approach through which understanding of project‐based companies' knowledge integration may be advanced.

This paper seeks to present a comprehensive overview of the supply chain as an autopoietic system. The new autopoietic approach suggests a transition from traditional cognitivist epistemology to the theory of learning as a creational matter, and this type of thinking can potentially shed light on the role of knowledge creation as a part of supply chain management.

The paper is structured as follows: the first section describes the theoretical background of the concept of knowledge management in the supply chain. After that, the paper examines the general systems theory and the role of an autopoietic system within it. Then the paper addresses autopoietic epistemology. In particular, the notions of knowledge, learning, and knowledge flows are described so that the focus is on the context of the supply chain and supply chain management at operational level.

The supplier's, customer's, and firm's own organization and parts of the organization have autonomy system memories, which ultimately formulate how the intended development ideas are in fact realized and how they are adopted by the organization. Supply chain managers should take into account the fact that the routines and norms of the node are part of the system that are not controlled from outside. Instead, the system can modify its objectives internally as part of its autonomous operation, which should be taken into consideration in the knowledge sharing process.

The description of a supply chain as an autopoietic knowledge system is a new way to examine knowledge sharing in a supply chain.

In order that knowledge distribution in companies can be efficient and effective, it should take place without boundaries. However, this is not often the reality. People tend to build up their own boundaries, often creating overly technical terminology so that others cannot participate in what they do. In other words, identity hinges on difference. Establishing these identities weakens the existence of real innovative companies and reinforces barriers within and between organisations. The ability of companies to transcend these barriers is partly based on the recognition of boundary objects. This means that the better the companies understand the nature of the existing boundary objects, the better they can take actions that will help to overcome existing barriers. Therefore the goal of the paper is to highlight boundary objects that co‐ordinate knowledge sharing within and between firms' innovation processes.

There are many different types of boundary objects. The conceptual paper especially addresses the question of what kind of role metaphoric boundary objects play in the knowledge sharing within and between firms' innovation processes. The study is conducted with the help of a literature survey.

The results of the study suggest that metaphoric boundary objects may play a significant role as a co‐ordinating mechanism in the knowledge sharing of companies' innovation processes.

The relevance of metaphoric boundary objects resides in the fact that with them companies can create the necessary shared understanding behind the framing and resolution of the emerging problem in innovation activities.

Project team members frequently need to learn things already known in other projects, i.e. they need to acquire and assimilate organisational memory. The literature mentions numerous different types of repositories which form an organisational memory, and where organisational knowledge is maintained and into which newly‐acquired knowledge is deposited for later use by other people and teams. However, only seldom does the literature mention individuals' personal notes as a repository of knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to deal with the question of what is the role of individuals' personal notes in remembering in a project work context.

The conceptual part of the paper deals with the concepts of knowledge, organisational memory, knowledge sharing and motivation to share knowledge. The special focus in this connection is on the external memory aids and individuals' personal notes. Owing to the need to attain a better understanding of the role of individuals' personal notes in a project work context, results of an empirical study conducted in several Finnish project‐based companies are described in detail.

The results of the study suggest that the project team members' personal notes may play a very important role on the individual level and a rather important role on the team level of project work.

Personal notes making and utilisation of these notes as an external memory aid represents a challenge that many project‐based organisations are only now beginning to acknowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the significance of formal training in project‐based companies.

First the discussion deals with the concepts of learning, the learning environment, and the motivation to learn in a way in which special focus is on the project team members' motivation to learn. The hypothesis, “People working for project‐based companies are not interested in formal training” is tested by an empirical study, which was conducted on ten Finnish marine and offshore industry companies. Altogether, 54 project team members and project managers attended the multiple‐case study.

According to the results of the study, formal training is not seen as a necessity among the people working for project‐based companies. This seems to mean that nowadays formal training does not play a significant role in the development of project‐based companies. Further, the people do not necessarily have time to reflect because they are being bombarded by urgent problems and pressing deadlines. A lack of time and a feeling of heavy work load seem to be a normal practise.

Based upon the paper's findings, further research is suggested that would be focussed first on designing integrated learning environments in project‐based companies' processes, and/or second on the training methods utilized, interaction between trainers and project people, and relevancy and efficiency of formal training offered by training organizations to the project‐based companies.

The purpose of this paper is to describe project‐based companies' knowledge production and memory development with the help of autopoietic epistemology.

The discussion first defines the concept of a project‐based company. Then the discussion deals with the two epistemological assumptions, namely cognitivist and autopoietic epistemological assumptions. After that there follows an illustration of the concept of organisational memory. The main content of this article follows – namely the study on the autopoietic knowledge production and organisational memory development in the context of project‐based companies.

Knowledge production in a project‐based company means that an individual team member, a project team and a project‐based company itself produce knowledge consistent with currently shared knowledge. That is, a project‐based company's accumulation of organisational memory at various organisational levels is an expression of change in knowledge that always maintains compatibility between the autopoietic system (i.e. team member, project team or project‐based company) and its environment.

The current theories about knowledge production and organisational memory development in project‐based companies are largely based on the idea of codability and transferability of knowledge between the people and across the borders. This type of thinking is based on the traditional cognitivist epistemology that means that knowledge represents external reality. The new autopoietic approach suggests transition from these theories to the theory of knowledge production as a creational matter, which type of thinking can potentially provide a new explanation for project‐based company's organisational memory.

According to the traditional “stable‐process” problem, the project‐based company's memory and project implementation cannot interact. They remain conceptually distinctly different entities, the differences stemming from epistemologically different theoretical projects. However, the idea of recursivity within autopoiesis theory and autopoietic epistemology might enable an approach to this problem by bridging the gap. A recursive view of the project‐based company assumes that the memory of the company and the project implementation processes within the company exist at different levels of analysis. They remain analytically distinct from each other, yet they interact in such a way that they are both modified through interaction. Therefore, this paper aims to show that, with the help of a recursive view, it can shed new light on the problem of knowledge production in project‐based companies.

Knowledge production in project‐based companies is conceptualized with the help of autopoiesis theory and autopoietic epistemology, in that the focus is on the recursivity.

The idea of recursivity seems to represent explanatory potential by bringing new light to relationships between the project‐based company's memory and project implementations.

Current theories about knowledge production in project‐based companies are largely based on the idea of transferability of knowledge between people and across borders. These theories are challenged by the implications of autopoiesis theory and autopoietic epistemology, which suggest transition from these theories to the theory of knowledge production as a creational matter. That is, autopoietic epistemology and the recursive view within it provide a lens through which individuals may advance their understanding of the dynamics of project‐based companies' knowledge production.

This article introduces a model with the help of which the management of businesses can evaluate what kind of a role tacit knowledge plays in their organizations. At the beginning of the article basic elements from which an individual’s competence is derived are described. After that the structure of the model is discussed. Four different systems, namely memory, communication, motivational, and situational systems, which all include numerous factors that affect tacit knowledge utilization in organizations are illustrated. The article ends with the introduction of the model and a brief speculation about its application possibilities in different work units.