The process of capturing, organizing, and utilizing the knowledge of an organization is a challenge to the culture. It requires a shift in attitude, mindset, values, and priorities.

Performance Culture
In a performance culture employees do the best they can given the tasks of the day. The expectation is that they produce, but there is little documentation on how they work. There is no expectation that understandings and skills to be captured and shared. Infact, task knowledge may be hoarded.

Procedural Culture
In a procedural culture there is documentation on how to do key tasks and employees are expected to follow certain protocols. In return, employees expect to be told what to do and how to do it. If they are uncertain, they assume that they can ask a peer or supervisor for direction. They consider documentation their “right”, and they assume it would be at the daily task level.

Knowledge Culture
In a knowledge culture it is expected that the work of the staff will result in work products as well as their knowledge and understading about work processes, about more tacit skills, and about a broader concept for the work. It is assumed that this knowledge would be articulated and shared. The work is not complete until the knowledge to do it better next time is captured and shared.
If staff are unsure about what to do, they not only seek a procedural solution, they also reflect on the uncertainty and wonder about where the available knowledge is deficient and they voice their ideas about what would be needed to fill in the gaps.
Experts are expected to not just respond to specific questions of the daily tasks, but also listen to the trends of those questions and help to construct new tools to improve performance in future. They are expected to leave as much as their expertise behind before they leave.
This kind of culture requires new understanding about work contracts, different performance management strategies, and defined processes for capture, access, and update of knowledge.

Source: Jerry Talley and Laleh Shahidi