Managerial practices driving knowledge creation, learning and transfer in translational research: an exploratory case study

Abstract

Despite its growing popularity in the biomedical literature, the particular phenomenon of translational research management has not been addressed from an organizational and strategic perspective yet. Our study aims to fill this gap by identifying a set of managerial practices that could influence how knowledge is created, amplified and transferred from biomedical research both to clinical practice and the productive sector. As a result of the theoretical review, we have proposed a preliminary model to guide our empirical work. We have developed an exploratory case study to gather organisational information from an outstanding translational research center. The results obtained from the analysis have allowed us to build an induced model of managerial practices that both affect the creation, integration and transfer of knowledge in the translational research organization studied, as well as derives a set of research propositions. Finally, we present the main academic and managerial implications of the work, together with its limitations and related future research lines.

When and how knowledge sharing benefits team creativity: The importance of cognitive team diversity

“…Socialization capabilities, which refer to understanding rules for appropriate action, can create new architectural knowledge through cultural institutions, such as norms and values. Furthermore, according to componential theory of creativity (Amabile, 1996), exploring new architectural knowledge can prompt team members to develop creative and novel ideas, thereby facilitating team creativity (Mcadam, 2004; Cremades, Balbastre-Benavent, & Sanandres Dominguez, 2015). Söderlund and Bredin’s (2011) study also suggested that knowledge integration is the primary source of promoting team effectiveness in terms of creativity.…”

From innovation-as-usual towards unusual innovation: using nature as an inspiration

“…Embracing biomimetics and translational research as important and highly relevant research fields in business studies has yet to materialize on a larger scale. In spite of the widespread scientific recognition of translational research (Wehling, 2005), only a few empirical studies have been identified in the management literature (Cremades et al, 2015). This lack of interest in management and business studies, as documented in this study, is even more pronounced with regard to biomimetics.…”

“…Additional scholars have examined key determinants generally involved in the knowledge translation process. Cremades et al (2015), for example, found in their study that the translation process involves three generic elements: knowledge creation, organizational learning and knowledge transfer (p. 366). First, they emphasized the importance of the spiralling and interactive nature of the relationship between tacit and explicit knowledge.…”

“…An extensive review of such publications from 1995 to 2011 identified about 18,000 papers published in scholarly journals (57%) and conference proceedings (43%). Although biomimetics has adopted expressions from the corporate vocabulary, such as 'cost performance' and 'deliverables' (e.g., Fisch, 2017, p. 804), the field of business studies has paid surprisingly little attention to biomimetics (Ulhøi 2015) or to translational research (Cremades, Balbastre-Benavent, & Domínguez, 2015)-particularly taking recently published market expectations into consideration. Between 2005 and 2008, the market for products and construction projects that applied biomimetic solutions was estimated to be above USD 1.5 billion.…”

Scientific Culture, Power and Sustainability in Environmental Intervention Schemes

“…Overcoming these challenges means bringing together the cultures of the two paradigms by means of translational knowledge [23], a concept which refers to the need to create effective communication between areas of knowledge or practice currently distanced from each other. This distance is reflected in a lack of communication and mutual understanding resulting in the loss of opportunities on both sides [24].…”