We conducted an empirical, fine-grained investigation of the impact that three main elements of organizational culture-artifacts, norms, and shared beliefs-have on the transfer of knowledge across projects in a project-based organization. Within a single case study research design, we collected and analyzed rich and detailed information from documentation, archival data, and in-depth semistructured interviews with very experienced project managers of a Chinese construction firm. Our findings advance extant research on professional cultures and subcultures by showing how cultural elements at the corporate level interplay with the culture of lower organizational levels to influence individual choices on (1) which types of knowledge are most important to transfer, and (2) the extent to which it is acceptable to share or hoard knowledge. Our study also contributes to the literature on the legitimacy of knowledge by showing how organizational culture influences people's perceptions of "knowledge authority" and shapes their preferences for specific knowledge transfer mechanisms.
We studied the interplay between open and closed innovation at Crossrail, Europe's largest civil engineering project, aiming to build a suburban railway system in London. Our findings suggest that open and closed innovation can be combined by creating an appropriate communication and exchange environment, whose elements include organizational arrangements (e.g., team organization, and task assignment) and methods and rules of communication. We also find that innovation in megaprojects can be successfully driven when the contractors are encouraged to search for and implement incremental solutions to minor problems, not just radical and strategically relevant innovations.
Knowledge reuse is crucial to organizational life and growth. As organizations strive to transfer and reuse knowledge across time and space, they have to deal with two opposing forces: while the advantages of replication push for reproducing exactly tangible and intangible assets, capabilities and resources that embed organizational knowledge, exogenous changes impose forms of adaptation of those assets, capabilities and resources to changing external conditions. This qualitative study analyzes two large firms that have been dealing with replication and adaptation for decades relatively to the provision of ICT products and services. The research relied on qualitative data collected and analyzed reiteratively through constant comparison methods at multiple levels (firm, unit, product, and project) over a time span of three years (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010). Findings show that both firms treat replication and adaptation as mutually reinforcing and complementary rather than opposed and contradictory. To do so, they build and maintain complex systems of interdependent knowledge assets that are replicated and adapted selectively, depending on the characteristics of the underlying knowledge. The new concept of ?adaptive replication? is then introduced to explain the close interplay between replication and adaptation of knowledge.Jelcodes:O32,-1 ADAPTIVE REPLICATION:
KNOWLEDGE REUSE IN FAST-PACED INDUSTRIES
ABSTRACTKnowledge reuse is crucial to organizational life and growth. As organizations strive to transfer and reuse knowledge across time and space, they have to deal with two opposing forces: while the advantages of replication push for reproducing exactly tangible and intangible assets, capabilities and resources that embed organizational knowledge, exogenous changes impose forms of adaptation of those assets, capabilities and resources to changing external conditions. This qualitative study analyzes two large firms that have been dealing with replication and adaptation for decades relatively to the provision of ICT products and services. The research relied on qualitative data collected and analyzed reiteratively through constant comparison methods at multiple levels (firm, unit, product, and project) over a time span of three years (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010). Findings show that both firms treat replication and adaptation as mutually reinforcing and complementary rather than opposed and contradictory.To do so, they build and maintain complex systems of interdependent knowledge assets that are replicated and adapted selectively, depending on the characteristics of the underlying knowledge. The new concept of 'adaptive replication' is then introduced to explain the close interplay between replication and adaptation of knowledge.
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