Vectors
Intentional/Unintentional
Suppliers
Intentional
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Positive

Learning about opportunities in
emerging markets through
outsourcing to other countries

Intentionally
collaborate/outsource with
partners who have
complementary
skills/competencies

Do not subcontract anything
that bears critical knowledge
(core competence viewpoint)

Outsource repetitive and
standardized components

Market intelligence (learning
from information provided by
suppliers into market
intelligence)

Intentionally create a strategic
alliance/partnership with the
supply chain
Negative

Subcontract elements to suppliers
who can imitate your business model

Market intelligence (divulging too
much information from your
company for the suppliers to imitate
your business model)

‘Need to know’ basis for suppliers

Bidding process
Page 1 of 18
Vectors
Intentional/Unintentional
Suppliers
(Continued)
Intentional (Continued)
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Positive

Intentionally putting knowledge
in the public domain (e.g.
through networks)

‘Need to know’ basis for
suppliers

Negative

Subcontract elements to suppliers
who can imitate your business model

Market intelligence (divulging too
much information from your
company for the suppliers to imitate
your business model)
Empowering the suppliers to
own the problem

‘Need to know’ basis for suppliers

Bidding process

Bidding process

Full traceability
Page 2 of 18
Vectors
Intentional/Unintentional
Positive
Negative
Suppliers
(Continued)
Unintentional
 Opportunities in emerging
markets through outsourcing
to other countries
 If outsourcing is primarily driven by
resource availability, as opposed to
strategic decision
 Market intelligence
 Suppliers leaving (e.g. through
bankruptcy)
 Supply chain clustering
 Bidding process
 Unintentionally putting knowledge in
the public domain (e.g. through
networs)
 Knowledge leakage through change of
ownership of supplier (especially if it
becomes owned by a competitor)
 Bidding process
 Cultural differences that impede
communication between your
company and the supply chain
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Page 3 of 18
Vectors
Intentional/Unintentional
Customers
Intentional
Positive
Negative
 Crafting business propositions
with customers
 Customers leaving for a competitor
(or just leaving the sector)
 Market intelligence from
customers
 Customers acting as a conduit of
knowledge between competitors
 Learning from customers
 Sample contracts and nondisclosure agreements
 Customer Relationship
Management system
 Repeat business (repetitive
process and re-use of leaked
knowledge)
 Inquiry process to translate the
clients’ requirements
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Page 4 of 18
Vectors
Intentional/Unintentional
Positive
Negative
Customers
(Continued)
Unintentional
 Learning from customers
 Too many middle men between
customer and the service provider
(Chinese whispers)
 Cultural differences that impede
communication between your
company and customers
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Page 5 of 18
Vectors
Competitors
Intentional/Unintentional
Intentional
Unintentional
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Positive
Negative

Intentionally split waste material
so that this does not get picked
up by other companies and
replicated

Clustering of competitors

Strategic misinformation to
competitors

Market intelligence (learning
from other companies)

‘Give and take’ attitude towards
other companies

‘Give and take’ attitude towards
other companies

Outright theft

Market intelligence (other companies
learning from you)

Unintentional leakage of knowledge
to competitors through suppliers and
customers (e.g. in the bidding
process)
Page 6 of 18
Vectors
Intentional/Unintentional
People
Intentional
Positive
 Training and development
(attending external courses; or
bringing back training ideas
from outside)
 Involvement and participation
strategies to make people feel
they own the direction of the
company strategy – knowledge
sharing and culture
Negative
 Holidays and maternity leave –
people outflow (temporary)
 Temporary workers – People inflow
and outflow
 Knowledge Transfer
Partnerships with Universities
and involvement in courses to
build up future capacity
 Gain people from competitors
or other organizations – people
inflow
 Intentional development of
multi-disciplinary team (or
multi-skill team) to ensure
learning between
disciplines/professions/other
skills sets
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Page 7 of 18
Vectors
Intentional/Unintentional
People (Continued) Unintentional
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Positive
Negative
 Experts leaving the organization
(particularly if the critical
knowledge is held in a key
individual) – People outflow
 Sickness – people outflow
Page 8 of 18
Vectors
Intentional/Unintentional
Internal/ external Intentional
Unintentional
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Positive

Adequacy of diffusing
knowledge from external source
to different parts of the
organisation

Intentional top-down
communication of
organisational strategy
Negative

Dependency on electronic systems
(in particular when systems fail
completely and knowledge is lost
completely)

Use of electronic systems

Lack of managing employees’
knowledge or inadequacy of
‘knowledge manager’
Page 9 of 18
Vectors
Intentional/Unintentional
IPRs/Trust
Intentional
Positive
 Lack of assessing nature of
knowledge formally (choice to
protect knowledge based on
gut feeling) –could be positive
and negative (unknown)
Negative
 Lack of assessing nature of
knowledge formally (choice to
protect knowledge based on gut
feeling) –could be positive and
negative (unknown)
 Published papers and specialist
materials
Unintentional
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
 Published papers and specialist
materials
Page 10 of 18
Appendix A: Preventive measures against negative knowledge leakage



















Succession planning/handover planning
Quality management system
Capture knowledge before people retire
Standardisation of practices
Project team organisations
Traceability of suppliers
Hard copies documentation of drawings
Putting knowledge capture procedures in place
No external access to system – no CD Drive
Library of past projects
Legal firewall from commercial activities
Emails
Minutes
Knowledge-based engineering systems (KBE)
3-tier computer system ( 1 on lab; 1 copy tad stream copy and 1 copy hard copy)
Collaborative teams reduce company cost of research and development
Protection via patents, copyright (legal stuff)
Patent critical knowledge
Making sure IPR ownership is agreed with customer
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Page 11 of 18
Appendix B: Deeper explanation of codes
Suppliers
1. Intentionally learn about opportunities in emerging market
2. Intentionally collaborate/outsource with partners who have complementary
skills/competencies
a. Suppliers only collaborate with complementary but not competitive
disciplines
b. Suppliers have complementary skills – compliance (Poland, China, Egypt);
outsource not because of cost advantage but to ensure equally high valueadded
c. Unintentionally if resourcing is the key driver for outsourcing
3. Do not subcontract anything that bears critical knowledge (core competence
viewpoint)
a. Do not subcontract anything critical
b. Do not outsource to UK contractors for fear of competition
4. Outsource repetitive and standardized components
a. Off the shelf versus bespoke
b. Outsourcing production information that is repetitive and standardized
components to India
5. Market intelligence (learning from information provided by suppliers into market
intelligence)
a. Not releasing information because they want to remain commercial
b. Suppliers using intelligence to enhance standing with other clients
c. Market intelligence (institutional)
6. Intentionally create a strategic alliance/partnership with the supply chain
a. Changing culture from arms’ length to partnership
b. Outsourcing as more of a partnership (or strategic alliance)
7. Suppliers leaving (e.g. through bankruptcy)
a. Suppliers leaving, going bankrupt
b. Viability of suppliers
8. Supply chain clustering
a. Knowledge leakage within and across suppliers, major suppliers already in
partnership
9. Intentionally putting knowledge in the public domain (e.g. through networks)
10. ‘Need to know’ basis for suppliers
a. Giving too much information to suppliers (too many changes)
b. ‘Need to know’ basis
c. Intentionally withholding knowledge
11. Empowering the suppliers to own the problem
12. Knowledge leakage through change of ownership of supplier (especially if it
becomes owned by a competitor)
13. Bidding process
a. Bidding process
b. Supplier driven innovation (new blueberries)
14. Full traceability
15. Cultural differences that impede communication between your company and the
supply chain
a. Personality clash
b. Language barriers
c. Miscommunication or discontinuity
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Page 12 of 18
Customers
1. Crafting business propositions with customers
a. Educate client and manage their expectations
b. Shaping of briefs to the mutual satisfaction
2. Customers leaving for a competitor (or just leaving the sector)
a. Biggest risk is customers walking away due to non-aligning of thinking
b. Surgeon to bankrupt (unable to buy)
3. Too many middle men between customer and the service provider (Chinese
whispers)
4. Market intelligence from customers
5. Learning from customers
a. Intensive information sharing from customers (technical, product and
scientific) – ‘need to know’ basis
b. Learning from customers at the beginning; not as much as time goes on as
expertise grows
c. Learning from clients on their business
d. Learning from customers on procedural knowledge
6. Sample contracts and non-disclosure agreements
7. Customer Relationship Management system (CRM)
8. Repeat business (repetitive process and re-use of leaked knowledge)
9. Customers acting as a conduit of knowledge between competitors
a. Customers act as a conduit of knowledge between competitors (bidding
process)
b. Development work where product is not commissioned but does get made
by other suppliers (i.e. competitors)
c. Withholding information from customers to maintain competitiveness
10. Inquiry process to translate the clients’ requirements
11. Cultural differences that impede communication between your company and
customers
a. Misinterpretation of customer requirements, cultural and language differences
b. Customers in Europe and the US – cultural difference
Competitors
1. ‘Give and take’ attitude towards other companies
2. Intentionally split waste material so that this does not get picked up by other
companies and replicated
3. Clustering of competitors
a. Leaking to agree strategy, direction, standards to an extent (contextual;
perhaps very relevant to oligopolistic situations)
b. Partnering into clusters – free-riders
4. Strategic misinformation to competitors
5. Market intelligence (learning from other companies)
6. Unintentional leakage of knowledge to competitors through suppliers and
customers (e.g. in the bidding process)
a. Knowledge lost through joint suppliers
b. Suppliers sharing knowledge with direct competitor
c. Supplier may leak information to competitor
d. Client may leak information to competitor
e. Leakage through suppliers in bidding process
7. Outright theft
a. Outright theft
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Page 13 of 18
b. Hacking into computer systems
People
1. Experts leaving the organization (particularly if the critical knowledge is held in a
key individual) – People outflow
a. Dependency on past experience hampered by outflow of people
b. Loss of experts to maintain old technical systems
c. CEO leaving
d. Know-how may be leaked to another organization
e. Loss of people know-ho
f. Loss of 33 years experience through retirement
g. External contractors (IT consultant0 leaving knowledge hole where people
are paid to fill
h. Lose people to competitors and other organizations who take knowledge
with them and leak knowledge to others
i. People leaving employment through retirement
j. Personnel leaving for competitors
k. Key personnel with unique knowledge that cannot be turned to
organizational knowledge
l. Loss of employees’ contacts (via which they can access additional knowledge)
m. Dependency on key employees
n. Criticality dependent on who leaves
o. Dependency on individual’s contacts
2. Gain people from competitors or other organizations – people inflow
a. Recruitment from customers
b. Recruitment from competitors, suppliers and customers for their knowledge
assets
c. Gain people from competitors and other organisations with know-how
d. Inflow of knowledge employees coming in from direct competitor
e. New people from competitors, suppliers and customers
3. Holidays and maternity leave – people outflow (temporary)
a. Holidays
b. Maternity and failure to capture knowledge in time lead to reinvention of the
wheel
4. Sickness – people outflow
a. Unexpected nature
5. Training and development (attending external courses; or bringing back training
ideas from outside)
a. Apprentices – taking people’s place
b. Training courses from external and training and development
6. Involvement and participation strategies to make people feel they own the
direction of the company strategy – knowledge sharing mechanisms and culture
a. Involvement and participation strategies let people own the company
b. Resistance to new knowledge (culture)
c. Not wanting to share knowledge (culture indispensability)
d. Sharing knowledge – good finishing product
e. Cultural difference in working practices
f. Human difficulties getting people to input into knowledge databases and to
use them
g. Hindrance of old employees not keeping up to date
h. Separate business units need constant realigning
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Page 14 of 18
i. Trust when people leave to build networks
j. Social interactions
7. Temporary workers – People inflow and outflow
a. Access to computer systems by temporary workers
b. IT consultants
c. IT consultants (subcontractors and temporary staff)
8. Knowledge Transfer Partnerships with Universities and involvement in academic
courses to build up future capacity
a. Leaking knowledge to academia to foster new talent of employee inflow
b. Work with research and development (universities’ know-how)
9. Intentional development of multi-disciplinary team (or multi-skill team) to ensure
learning between disciplines/professions/other skills sets
Internal/External
1. Lack of managing employees’ knowledge or inadequacy of ‘knowledge manager’
2. Adequacy of diffusing knowledge from external source to different parts of the
organisation
3. Intentional top-down communication of organisational strategy
4. Dependency on electronic systems (in particular when systems fail completely
and knowledge is lost completely)
5. Use of electronic systems
a. Lack of mining through employees’ computer systems
b. Personal choice of what to back up
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Page 15 of 18
Appendix D: Trust
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Broken trust by making employee redundant
deal with suppliers for many years based on trust without legal bindings
former employee – outsourcing to India
Trust of temporary workers
Suppliers selected through trust
Developing long term relationships with suppliers so they won’t pay you against
the competitor
7. With customers/suppliers to share problems without them going elsewhere
8. Trust of long-term employees
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Page 16 of 18
Appendix E: Interesting issues
1. Difficulty finding apprentices – cultural change, no longer see it as glamourous
2. Time span of usefulness of knowledge (project time spans) – shelf life of
knowledge
3. Criticality of knowledge determined through gut feeling
4. Overflow of too much knowledge
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Page 17 of 18
Appendix F: Issues not emerging from interviews but evident in literature
1. Guest engineers
2. Co-location and co-temporality
3. Move to emerging markets – produce competitor by teaching them competences
Initial categories and coding from scoping interviews
Knowledge Leakage Project
Page 18 of 18