This article explores the complexities of establishing knowledge-sharing practices between organizations through a case study of the creation of a database for energy efficiency measures relevant to the shipping sector. As researchers and policy-makers tend to point towards knowledge sharing and collaboration as means towards a more energy-efficient society, there is a need to better understand the knowledge sharing practices in such initiatives. The study is based upon extensive fieldwork where the first author was recruited to a collaborative network on energy efficiency in the shipping sector, to aid in the development of the collaboration while carrying out participatory-observational research in an ethnographic tradition. The study highlights the need to maintain realistic expectations for new knowledge-sharing collaborations, and the necessity to allow such arrangements to develop over time.
As achieving environmental sustainability is a complex problem, it is often recognized that no organization can accomplish this systemic change by itself; thus, multi-actor collaboration is needed. Regarding the specific issue of increased energy efficiency, previous research has highlighted the need for collaboration and knowledge exchange among actors. However, insights from literature suggest that despite all the good intentions, establishing multi-actor collaboration can be both complicated and difficult to achieve in practice. In this paper, an in-depth qualitative, ethnographic-inspired study of an emerging collaboration aiming for increased energy efficiency within the shipping industry is used as a foundation to better understand the practices and challenges involved in the organizing of multiactor collaboration. The findings reveal how the interrelating of collaboration practices and experienced challenges influenced the development of the collaboration. The paper contributes to the current discussion on how to organize for sustainable development. Also, practitioners managing and participating in multi-actor collaborations addressing complex societal issues can benefit from the findings.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.