Surviving the Transience of Knowledge: Small High-Technology Businesses Parting Ways with Their Knowledge Workers

Abstract Knowledge-intensive businesses in the fast-moving high technology sector are highly dependent upon the creation and transfer of knowledge among skilled employees. Ironically, this critical feature of organizational success resides with employees who tend to be somewhat transient, given the high demand for their knowledge and their own autonomy, creativity, and entrepreneurial preferences. This poses a challenge for all knowledge-intensive organizations but especially for small, young companies evolving from an entrepreneurial stage into one more formally managed. In a multi-organization study, two young, high-technology organizations revealed themselves as particularly adept at coping with such challenges. This paper describes how these two organizations attended to maintaining environments that fostered the creation and transfer of knowledge, encouraged knowledge-workers to stay, and managed the departure of those who left.