The purpose of this paper is to investigate how knowledge is managed and shared within product development in an enterprise collaboration context in the aerospace manufacturing industry.

This paper is based on a qualitative survey that was sent to seven companies in the European aerospace manufacturing industry, focusing on how they perceive knowledge sharing, and on common problems and challenges with knowledge sharing.

Lack of trust and fear of losing competitive advantage is identified as a problem area. Further, information and communication technology is seen as an important enabler. In this area it is found that it is important to develop strategies for knowledge sharing in collaboration with business developers, engineering, and IT architects from various organizations in the extended enterprise.