Knowledge Management in the Swedish Armed Forces - focusing on international missions

The paper is based on a master thesis in Industrial Management and Engineering written by two students of the Royal Institute of Technology. The master thesis aims at suggesting improvements in Knowledge Management in the international missions of the Swedish Armed Forces. The study has been conducted in an adductive manner with continuous leaps between theory and empirics. The conclusions are based on a large number of conversations, interviews, reports as well as studies of relevant literature. The paper includes a brief background of previous efforts and their results, definitions and explanations of the terminology used, comparisons to relevant research, theories put in new context, description of the Lessons Learned-process as suggested by FOI and suggestions to further improvements. The analysis makes use of a self developed framework assuming that effective work with knowledge requires contribution of four cornerstones; Organization, IT, Communication and Culture & Environment. The "ideal" Lesson Learned-process described in this paper is seen by the authors as logical and adequate on an overriding level but has to be supported by the earlier mentioned cornerstones. The authors see Culture & Environment and Organization as the areas that least support KM and therefore have the greatest potential for improvement.