Abstract:

This research targets to examine how participants from organizations in UAE acquire, share and utilize knowledge. The study duplicates the study of CIMA (2006). An experiment is run and 26 participants from different industries (municipality, hotel, insurance, retail, education, travel and food). Participants were given case studies, one represents a routine accounting decision in planning and a strategic decision. The intension was to explore what is knowledge relate to each decision, how acquired, processed and used. The findings show that participants do not differentiate between information and knowledge and all organizations have effective methods of acquiring knowledge in databases, files and other documents and different information are kept and used for the different decisions. Knowledge for routine decisions are processed via computerized programs but participants could not explain how they process knowledge in their minds and how they utilize in the different situations. The study revealed that there are differences in knowledge and its management according to industry, managerial level and type of decision and there were reflections of the UAE’s business environment with its mutli-culture and having specific strategies that encourage tourism industry and tightly regulate insurance.