Innovation and Communities of practice

8/4/2019 Innovation and Communities of practice

1/25

INNOVATION IN THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRY:

THE ROLE OF COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

Nicolas Rolland

Director Social Prospective, Danone

Affiliated Professor, Grenoble School of Management

France

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces the concept of knowledge networks to explain how firms sustain the

development of innovations. The core premise of this concept is that knowledge networks are

conceptualized in the firm as communities of practice, but it cannot be considered as a

homogeneous concept that lead to a specific type of innovation. More specifically, this article takes

up the challenge of analysing how different types of communities of practice influence the

development of different types of innovations. Resulting from a study of 124 communities over the

last 3 years and based on 93 innovations developments in 7 firms of the aerospace industry, this

research demonstrates that companies wanting to develop radical change need to focus their

attention on both unrelated knowledge and open communities, while the development of

incremental innovation is deeply related to centralized communities.

KEY WORDS

Communities of Practice, Innovation, Knowledge Networks

1


2/25

Innovation in the Aerospace Industry: the role of Communities of Practice

Why are knowledge management strategies crucial for the management of innovations and

why should the innovation process be considered in terms of knowledge creation, have been

treated extensively by many scholars over this last decade (Nonaka, 1994; Henderson and Clark,

1991; Prahalad and Hamel, 1991, Hansen, 2002) but have left us with an incomplete understanding

as regards communities of practice.

The concept of communities of practice is in vogue in the field of management and can be

considered as a specific type of knowledge network but also as the modern strategy for knowledge

management (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Brown and Duguid, 2000). Nevertheless, the way this

particular approach of knowledge networks is linked with innovation is still misunderstood.

In order to address issues in the field of Management Studies, this paper takes up the

challenge of analysing how different types of communities of practice are related to and influence

different types of innovation.

A knowledge-based theory suggests that the boundaries and the structures of governance

are determined by the value to be derived from the deployment of its knowledge. Thus, this

paradigm focuses on mechanisms and contexts through which knowledge coordination and

knowledge integration are achieved. This theory is supported by the Following this approach, the

ability of the firm to continually configure and integrate knowledge through networks into value-

creating strategies or products is a vital condition for the development of the organization (Grant,

1996, Spender, 1996). In this new context, value creation through profitable growth results primarily

from knowledge creation or innovations. Understanding the link between knowledge networks and

knowledge creation becomes a dilemma for the Management Theory.

2


3/25

1- INNOVATION AND COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE IN THE LITERATURE

1.1 Innovation

We understand innovation in terms of product or process and we begin to construct its definition

with the distinction between incremental and radical innovation (Nelson and Winter, 1982; Dewar

and Dutton, 1986).

Incremental innovation introduces minor changes to the existing product or process and

reinforces the dominant design exploited by the company. Radical innovation generates change in

the set of principles involved in the process and implies new ways of thinking (Senge, 1990).

Radical innovation refers to a deep and a wide change:

- A deep change implies that many different levels inside or outside the firm are

influenced by this innovation. Inside the firm, its influences many hierarchical

levels in the same business unit. Outside the firm, it influences different

companies downstream or upstream in the same supply chain.

- A wide innovation is when different business units, divisions, functions or markets

are influenced by this new model inside the firm. Outside the firm, this change

introduces new applications for the product or process.

This classical distinction between radical and incremental innovation can be enriched with the

model developed by Henderson and Clark (1990) which demonstrates the inadequacy of

distinguishing merely between radical and incremental innovation. Following this model, innovation

is conceived in terms of component and architectural change which is essentially dependant to

knowledge involved in components or in the product and process architecture.

-

Component knowledge is knowledge about each of the core design concepts and the

ways they are implemented in a particular component. A component is a part of a

product, embedded in an activity.

3


4/25

- Architectural knowledge is a structural capital, and concerns the ways in which the

components are linked together to form a coherent whole. For the authors, an

architectural innovation often implies a radical change.

This research views innovation as a continuum confronting 2 dimensions: radical & architectural

with incremental & component. The distinction between radical and incremental is particularly

relevant for process innovation while architectural and component apply to product innovation.

Following the work of Nonaka (1994) innovation process is conceived as a knowledge creation

process. As a result, firms should support activities that enhance knowledge creation at the

organizational level. This means, the key for organizational efficiency is to achieve knowledge

integration from individual to a coherent whole. This integration needs cooperation and depends on

coordination between individuals and knowledge they detained. Over the last decade, organization

theorists and sociologists define organization as a set of networks and have viewed organizations

knowledge networks and especially Communities of Practice as ways to support the knowledge

creation process (Nohria and Eccles, 1992 ; Nohria and Ghoshal, 1997; Hansen, 2002).

1.2 Communities of practice

Originally, the notion of Communities of Practice (CoPs) was used to explain the practice based

theory of learning and the theory of situated learning (Brown and al., 1989; Lave and Wenger,

1990). Following Brown and Duguid (1991) learning is defined as the bridges between working and

innovating. Learning enhances organizational performance when it takes place through working

practices and when the acquisition of knowledge is a social process where individuals learn from

each other, based on the same practice. This type of learning is supported by CoPs which are

groups of agents who experience a common occupational history, who frequently interact, who

share knowledge and who face similar problems within and among organizations. They are

organizational forms that encourage individuals to create, refine, share and use knowledge

effectively (Brown and Duguid, 2001). CoPs help to develop the appropriate relationships and

context that allow knowledge to flow between those who have knowledge and those who require it.

4


5/25

CoPs are social structures whose shared practices, identity and common engagement serve as a

living curriculum for the apprentice (Wenger 1998; 1999). Some authors complete this concept with

the notion of work, and define communities of practice as collections of individuals (informal

groups), bounded by informal relationships, who share similar work roles and a common

professional context (Lesser and Prusak, 1999). This means that individuals or groups interact on a

regular basis around work-related issues and challenges. We argue that this notion of practice

should not be limited to the work dimension but can be extended to a corporate or to a joint

enterprise context. That is Ouchis description of the clan networks in present-day enterprises,

where members operate on an informal basis of shared information and personal trust (Ouchi,

1980). A common ground for all the authors is that CoPs differ from teams or groups that are task-

oriented. CoPs must have a clear identity to really be effective. They give individuals an opportunity

to associate themselves with others who share the same interests or the same functions across the

value chain, or have similar work-related interests. Collective action and social knowledge claims

are legitimized in terms of community identity. With co-specialized knowledge and collective

expertise, the community can solve business problems and build personal knowledge in the same

time. Indeed, CoPs help retain critical expertise and can improve an organizations responsiveness

by enabling the rapid location of knowledge across the organization. Another benefit of these types

of knowledge networks is that they contribute to building a sense of trust, a common language and

the mutual commitment, which are essentials to the knowledge sharing process (Wenger and

Snyder, 2000).

1.3 Innovation and CoPs: the links

Innovation is conceptualized as a process of change and it is refereed as a learning process

(Senge, 1990; Argyris, 1994). Since learning is defined as a knowledge creation process (Nonaka,

1994) we can characterize innovation as a knowledge creation process. In the same time the

literature explains that innovation can be nurtured by knowledge networks (Hansen, 2002).

Knowledge networks facilitate learning and provide an environment for innovation. They foster

5


6/25

innovation, mainly in terms of enhancing cross-synergies between business units and in reducing

the product time to market (Kostova, 1999; Winter and Szulanski, 2001).

In other words, we suppose that, in transferring good practices and in answering specific issues,

participants of social networks based on knowledge sharing create actively new products or new

processes moreover than project teams.

Some authors attempt to distinguish CoPs from other concepts such as projects and then propose

dimensions that can be used to discriminate different types of CoPs. These dimensions can be

classified as (1) governance, (2) structure, (3) content, (4) motivation and (5) emergence of the

CoPs:

2 Governance: Open versus Closed (Wenger et. al, 2002)

This is the dimension which discriminate the communities regarding to their governance. Open

communities are formed through unrestricted participation on a volunteer basis. They are self-

organized communities developed under self-management. Potential members may need

cooptation but these differ from closed communities where membership is pre-designated and not

open to external individuals. Knowledge generated within these closed communities does not

transpire outside. We argue that the type of governance should influence learning and therefore

innovation.

3 Structure : Local versus Distributed (Mc Dermott, 1999; Wenger et. al, 2002 )

This dimension explains differences between CoPs in terms of structure. Local communities are

located in a circumscribed location and involved people working in the same place whereas

distributed communities includes cross boundaries issues such as inter-countries, inter-activities, or

also inter-unit. Local communities are composed of. This dimension is important since social

network theory emphasizes the importance of strong links as a feature of efficient networks. Strong

links are based on the frequency of physical meeting, therefore, if the CoP is distributed, it will be

more difficult for members to meet on regular basis.

6


7/25

4 Content : Related-knowledge versus Unrelated-knowledge (Hansen, 2002)

This dimension explains a difference in terms of content. To be efficient, CoPs require members to

speak the same language. This notion of common language appears as a key dimension for

organizational learning (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). If the firm has developed coherent networks

where there is similarity in the knowledge content among parts of the network, this refers to related

knowledge networks (Hansen, 2002) If the firm has developed networks with incoherent relation in

terms of knowledge: unrelated knowledge networks. Unrelated knowledge networks concern

projects that require different knowledge (in nature and in action) to be pursued successfully.

Unrelated knowledge networks are structures emergent from individual interactions that can cause

complexity in the firm.

5 Motivation: Knowledge Coordination versus Knowledge Capitalization Intent

One of the dimensions that can discriminate CoP is why they are developed. Usually the literature

describes two main motivations: coordination and capitalization. Coordination communities are

communities based on the principle of optimizing the use of knowledge inside the company. Usually

they are developed for sharing good practices. Capitalization refers to the capacity to identify and to

classify knowledge within the company, in order to disseminate it more efficiently. They are

developed for knowledge saving.

6 Emergence : Self-Emerging versus Management initiated (Wenger, 1998)

Emergent CoPs are historically self-dependant and have emerged without any will from the head of

the company. Sponsored CoPs are initiated, chartered, and supported by management. Both add

value to a company by sharing lessons learned, acting as distribution points for best and emerging

practices, providing forums in which issues and problems can be raised and resolved and, in

general, by promoting joint learning. One of the main differences is that sponsored CoPs are

expected to produce measurable results that benefit the company. They are provided with

resources and have formal roles and responsibilities. Even so, they are much more self-governing

and wide-ranging than the typical cross-functional project team.

7


8/25

The conceptual framework developed for the empirical phase is the following:

Table I The research framework

2- RESEARCH METHOD

In order to clearly understand the process of innovation and its linkages with the community of

practice concept, we chose a qualitative research method based on the work of Eisenhardt (1989)

Miles and Huberman (1984) and Yin (1984). We carried out this research within seven firms

belonging to the aerospace industry. We chose this industry because as in many other industries

the development of innovation is a key success factor for sustaining a competitive advantage and

also because these companies need to encourage knowledge management in order to capitalize on

knowledge development or to save knowledge as well as to coordinate and continuously integrate

new knowledge. We focused our investigation on the innovation event and we repeat in every

company the same research method process, in following this scheme:

8


9/25

- As these companies cultivate a strong knowledge management activity, they all

initiate a department an office for coordinating and supporting the initiatives in KM.

The person in charge of this department is the Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO).

-

Firstly, we meet the CKO who helped us to identify all the different CoPs that the

office has previously listed in the company. All these identified-CoPs have a leader a

facilitator who acts as a mediator between the CoP and the CKO. The leaders role is

to support a smart and useful exchange of good practices between members of their

community.

The interview process was in three stages:

-(1) When the CoPs were identified, we conducted a first interview of the CKO

about each community in order to understand the way each community is running and

what their structure is. During this phase, we also tried to understand the nature of the

links between all these communities and the CKO office.

- (2) We conduct structured interviews with the leader of each community. These

interviews deal with the history, the management as well as the characteristics of the

CoP. With characteristics, we essentially mean the number of participants, their position

(hierarchical level, company business unit and department) in the company (or

outside), their main task job, as well as how long do they participate to the CoP. The

purpose at that stage was to classify each CoP in the theoretical framework previously

developed.

- (3) We interviewed the leader a second time as well as two participants of each

community in order to identify the different innovations in which the community was

involved or what innovations were leveraged and sustained by the community. We

defined all these different innovations using the different dimensions included in the

conceptual framework.

9


10/25

During the interview process we gather data about the structure, about the organization and

management as well as about the ambition of each CoP. The treatment of these data allowed us to

classify each of the CoPs interviewed regarding to the different dimensions described previously in

the theoretical framework.

We identified 196 CoPs in these 7 firms and we observed 124 of them over a 3 years period. We

conducted 317 interviews. These knowledge networks were at the origin of 93 innovations that we

analysed more closely through multiple case studies. Our data gathering activity reached a point of

scientific saturation(Miles & Huberman, 1984) with observations from 93 innovation processes, at

which point the same or similar elements were extracted from each field site. Innovations produced

both process and product innovation. Data were collected using the triangulation technique, through

interviews, studies of internal and external documents, and sometimes by participating observation.

Data were collected through matrices of dimensions, and analysed according to an open coding

technique (Miles & Huberman, 1984; Langley, 1999). Dimensions described in the matrices are

based on the research framework.

For the open coding technique, data are first broken down by taking apart an observation, a

sentence, a paragraph and giving each separate idea or event a name. Data is then regrouped into

categories that pull together groups of ideas and events that become subcategories. These

categories and subcategories are related to the different dimensions and variables described

previously in the theoretical framework. This step aims to identify the characteristics of the different

types of CoPs present within the company and the types of innovation are sustained by the

company. The next step is the axial coding which aims to identify main categories and to make

connexions between these and their subcategories. The purpose of this step is to understand the

relation between the different types of knowledge networks and the different types of innovation. We

tried to identify the most representative characteristic of each community and to link the innovation

with this main characteristic (in Appendix A, B and C all the characteristics are integrated in tables).

10


11/25

3- RESULTS

This research reveals that innovation is given leverage by communities which are a relevant model

for the enhancement of innovation in a company evolving in the aerospace industry. In some cases,

the innovation developed by CoPs represents more than 33% of the total developed within the

company. That means the innovation strategy of some of these companies is actively supported

with informal networks.

The following table describe the number of innovations observed in each category.

Product Innovation & Process Innovation

Component and Incremental Radical and Architectural

42 51

Component Incremental Architectural Radical24 18 19 32

Table II: Types of innovations observed

To better understand what type of CoPs influences the innovation process, we analyse the results

using the dichotomy between new product development and new process development.

3-1 Product Innovation

The different product innovations observed are synthesised in the following table:

Product Innovation

Component Innovation Architectural Innovation

Knowledge coordination 0 9

Knowledge capitalization 12 0

Related-knowledge 9 0

Unrelated-knowledge 0 8

Open Community 0 0

Closed Community 0 0

Local Network 0 0

Distributed Network 0 0

Emergent Community 2 2

Management Initiated 1 0

Total 24 19

Table III Product innovation

The main results are schematized as follow:

11


12/25


13/25

creation of a new component involved in the suspension of the landing train is the result of a

knowledge sharing experience within a community of specialists in this domain. They all have an

experience and a background in this technology and they were looking for a domain of application

for this component. Members, across units, do not discuss the rest of the product but only the

evolution of the specific component and how it can perform better.

Capitalization communities also lead to component innovation. In these communities each

member accesses resources that he / she could not develop alone. The main purpose is to save

knowledge related to a specific situation and to access knowledge in relation to this specific

situation or with a specific topic, a brand or a specific technology. Capitalization concerns

accumulating knowledge in a learning sense about a specific interest. People interacting in

these CoPs share best practices with a technical context without really trying to understand the

architecture of the product. At A, they sustain CoPs for reusing improved shared experiences. Most

of their innovations initiated from CoPs are component innovations. In increasing the value of each

knowledge of component with the help of a capitalisation strategy, members of the A1 Community

are tacitly encouraged to use this component knowledge in their innovations and then sustain

component innovation. According to the leader of this community, 78% of their innovations are

component.

On the other side, the research maintains that architectural innovation is mostly driven by

unrelated knowledge. People in unrelated knowledge networks do not depend on the same

business unit, do not specialize on the same component or do not necessarily speak the same

language. This type of community allows cross synergies between specialty and component

knowledge. Participants try to better understand how components are linked and how they interact.

They do not spend too much time on the specificity of a component, but much more on how it

should be better related to another component and what is the most efficient internal map of each

product. At B, the development of the X system for engines propulsion that will considerably change

the way satellite engines and aircrafts will be propelled is the result of an un-related knowledge

network. People from different business units and different technological activities share knowledge

on the same interest in the same network.

13


14/25

Coordination communities also lead to architectural innovation. Mainly because they aim at

better use knowledge present in the knowledge-base or in the company. They try to link specialists

in different activities or to establish relationships between different projects or units. Focusing on

actionable knowledge and on tacit managerial knowledge, they avoid learning difficulties between

individuals who do not speak the same language and thus increase the number of architectural

innovations. At E, the purpose of CoPs is to create cross synergies between business units. They

define KM as a process that aims to continuously enhance efficiency of business processes

through an improved use of knowledge by people in action. This credo supports coordination CoPs

and most of their innovations coming from knowledge networks are architectural. The landing train

community which involves different business units and different country managers has created a

new product based on new way of organizing component in the XXX landing train.

Theses findings lead to the following propositions:

Proposition 1: the structure and the governance of the community are not

related to the process of product innovation.

Proposition 2: the content of the CoPs influences the product innovation. The

less knowledge between the members is related, the more the innovation is

architectural.

Proposition 3: the intent of the development of the CoPs influences the

product innovation. The more the CoPs are created to facilitate the better use

of knowledge inside the organization, the more the CoPs lead to architectural

innovation.

3-2 Process Innovation

Process InnovationIncremental Innovation Radical Innovation

Open Community 0 8


Centralized Network 3 2




Coordination Intent 1 2

14


15/25

Capitalization Intent 1 0

Related-knowledge Network 1 0

Unrelated-knowledge Network 0 1

Total 18 32

Table IV- Process Innovation

The main results are schematized as follow:

Figure 2 Process Innovation

In terms of process innovation, we clearly observed that incremental innovation is driven by closed,

local and management initiated communities.

Closed communities focus on how the process can evolve rather than how components

evolve, but since they are isolated from the rest of the firm, their impact on organizational change

could not be conceived as a deep and a wide change. Firms used closed communities as project

development with no end-terms, and top management often takes in consideration knowledge

developed through these communities to answer specific questions but we never observed radical

innovation descending from this type of community. At E a community belonging to the corporate

finance team located in the South America headquarters has developed a new process for

consolidating accounts in the different business units in a short period of time after the closing date.

As they are not members of the Group Headquarters and as they are located in a specific area,

15


16/25

they could not share their experience with the other regional headquarters. Their innovation is still

isolated and so has lead to an incremental change.

Management initiated communities are also closed to project management in some ways

and mainly because someone decides when the community begins and what are the deliverables of

this community. According to all the CKO interviewed, if they are not business driven they often

disappear. This type of community is often over the control of the top management and could not

generate a revolution in the way of doing things. This is why innovation is mostly incremental in this

type of community. What we observed is the fact that participants do not want to upset the direction

of the company in generating knowledge that modify the way of thinking. They focus their action in

improving existing things without renewing things.

Centralized communities lead to incremental innovation because they are not wide and

mainly focus on local problems. Sometimes they imply radical innovations when they concern a

local but central activity they can be deep - or when the problem is transversal.

Radical innovation is driven by open, self-organized and distributed communities. Open

communities are wide and when they deal with wide problem they often lead to radical innovation.

The emergence of innovation and new processes is driven by the heterogeneity of people and from

divergences in the points of view. It is often difficult for closed communities to deal with this issue as

it is proper to open communities to be shaped by different natures of people. In fact, this type of

community is based on the order by chaos managerial principle, which means when an innovation

appears; it has more influence on the whole. When the Fcommunity at D has developed a new way

of understanding customers which led to a spectacular increase of sales, the D Company decided

to create a new process for becoming a customer centric organization with the principles developed

by the F community. The change was quick and radical. It introduced new beliefs and ways of

thinking for the whole organization.

While open communities can be management initiated, self-organized communities are free

to create, decide or modify the component as well as the architecture of a product. They develop

mainly radical innovation due to their ability to change architectural knowledge. In these

communities external environments cannot influence systems because anything that influences the

16


17/25

system is a part of it. Indeed, at T, members of this type of community try to better understand and

change the way components are linked before changing the component in itself. With this approach,

the consequences are often more important in terms of structures and concepts than with other

types of communities.

Distributed communities often lead to radical innovation because participants are present in

different places of the organization and when they adopt new knowledge its implementation will

have more impact on the organization. At the same time, this is a radical innovation because it is

deep and wide. This radical innovation is often cross-frontiers and new processes are adopted by

different levels and divisions of the organization. This type of community is the best adapted for

networked organization which develop specific knowledge within different parts of the network. The

development of the new commercial aircraft at B illustrates this position. The development of this

innovation is the result of a new process created by a community that shares knowledge on the

way things should be done in the B Company. This community thought in 2000 that thinking about

the new aircraft only in terms of market expectation was not enough. The members developed a

new way of thinking product development which include new dimensions such as solutions for

new customers (DHL, UPS,) or Internet development or enhancing competitive intelligence in the

different phases of the value chain. This new way was described in a process that lead to the

development of the new aircraft. This type of community can be the origin of a radical process

development.

These findings lead to the following propositions:

Proposition 4: the governance of the CoPs influences the process innovation.

The less the CoPs are open, the more they lead to incremental innovations.

Proposition 5: the kind of emergence influences the process innovation. The

more the CoPs are self-emergent, the more they create radical innovations.

Proposition 6: the structure of the CoPs influences the process innovation.

The more the community is distributed, the more it develops radical

innovations.

17


18/25

CONCLUSION

This study has provided evidence of different types of CoPs and of linkages between CoPs

influence and the innovation process. What make this research unique is the established link that it

defines between the different types of communities and the different types of innovation. If a

company tries to develop a specific innovation, it must focus on a specific community. Organization

theory has already explained the role of learning for this type of knowledge network and it is now

possible to describe its implications in terms of organization for innovation process. This study

emphasizes the different roles of knowledge networks in the innovation process and the way to use

them in order to provide leverage for incremental or radical change. At the same time the study

highlights that innovation is closely related to the way that knowledge is created and coordinated in

the product development process

Theoretically, it is interesting to notice that the way knowledge is coordinated influences the way

knowledge in integrated in a coherent whole (new product or new process).

The main limit of this research is that it is limited to a specific industry and further researches can

extend this research to others industries.

The last figure (Figure 3) synthesizes the links of influence between the kinds of communities and

the types of innovation.

18


19/25

Figure 3 Impact of different kind of CoPs on innovation

19


20/25

APPENDIX A

Product Innovation & Process Innovation

Component and

Incremental

Radical and Architectural

Communityofpractice

Open vs. Closed 53 (57%) 40 (43%)

Local vs. Distributed 41 (43%) 52 (57%)

Coordination vs. Capitalization 55 (60%) 38 (40%)

Related vs. Unrelated-knowledge

47 (50%) 46 (50%)

Self-Emerging vs. ManagementInitiated

50 (53%) 43 (47%)

Table V Innovations observed

20


21/25

APPENDIX B

Product Innovation

Component Innovation Architectural Innovation

Knowledge coordination Intent 0 29Knowledge capitalization Intent 50 0



Open Community 2 3


Local Network 4 0



Management Innitiated 3 0

Table VI Product Innovations

21


22/25

APPENDIX C

Process Innovation

Incremental Innovation Radical Innovation

Open Community 87 1


Centralized Network 59 30Distributed Network 39 51



Knowledge coordination Intent 1 8

Knowledge capitalization Intent 1



Table VII Process Innovations

22


23/25

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Argote L, and Ingram P. 2000. Knowledge Transfer: A Basis for Competitive Advantage inFirms. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 82(1): 150-169

Argyris C. (1993) Actionable Knowledge. Changing the status Quo San Francisco:

Jossey-Bass.

Brown, J.S., A. Collins, and Duguid, P. (1989), Situated Cognition and the Culture ofLearning, Education Researcher, vol. 18, n1, pp. 32 42.

Brown, J.S., and Duguid, P. (1991) Organizational learning and communities-of-practice:toward a unified view of working, learning and innovation. Organization Science, Vol. 2,n1, pp. 40 - 57.

Brown, J.S., and Duguid, P. (2000). The social life of information. Boston: HarvardBusiness School Press.

Brown, J.S., and Duguid, P. (2001). Knowledge and organization: a social-practice,Organization Science, Vol 12, n2, pp. 198 - 213.

Cohen W.M. and Levinthal D.A. (1990) Absorptive Capacity: A New Perspective onLearning and Innovation Administrative Science Quarterly, vol 35, pp 128-152.

Darr E, Argote L, and Epple D. 1995. The acquisition, transfer and depreciation ofknowledge in service organizations: Productivity in franchises. Management Science 41:1750-1762

Dewar, R. D. and J. E. Dutton (1986). The Adoption of Radical and IncrementalInnovations: An Empirical Analysis. Management Science, 32, pp. 1422-1433

Eisenhardt K. M. (1989) Building Theories from Case Study Research Academy ofManagement Review, vol 14, pp 532-550.

Grant R.M. (1996) Prospering in Dynamically-competitive Environments: OrganizationalCapability as Knowledge Integration Organization Science, March-April, vol 7, n4, pp375-387.

Gupta AK, and Govindarajan V. 1986. Resource sharing among SBUs: Strategicantecedents and administrative implications. Academy of Management Journal 29(4): 695-714

Hansen M.T. (2002) Knowledge Networks: Explaining effective knowledge sharing inMultiunit companies Organizational Science, May-June, vol. 13, n3, pp 232-248.

Hansen M.T., Nohria N. and Tierney T (1999) Whats your strategy for managingknowledge? Harvard Business Review, March-April, pp 106-116.

Henderson R.M. and Clark K.B. (1990) Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of

Existing Product Technologies and The Failure of Established Firms AdministrativeScience Quarterly, vol 35, pp 9-30.

Kostova T. 1999. Transnational Transfer of Strategic Organizational Practices: Acontextual perspective. Academy of Management Review 24(2): 308-324

Kostova T, and Roth K. 2002. Adoption of an organizational practice by subsidiaries ofmultinational corporations: institutional and relational effects. Academy of ManagementJournal 45(1): 215-233

23


24/25

Lave, J., and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation:Cambridge University Press.

Lesser, E., and Everest, K. (2001), Using Communities of Practice to manage IntellectualCapital, Ivey Business Journal, March/April

Lesser, E. and Prusak L., (1999) Communities of practices, social capital andorganizational knowledge Working Paper - Institute for Knowledge Management

Mc Dermott, R. 1999 Learning across teams: How to build communities of practice.Knowledge Management Review. 8:32-36 May/June

McDermott, R.; Snyder, W.; Wenger, E. (2002). - Cultivating Communities of Practice: AGuide to Managing Knowledge, Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston.

Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1984). Qualitative data analysis: A sourcebook of

new methods . Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

Miles R.E., Snow C.C. and Miles G. (2000) TheFuture.org Long Range Planning, vol

33, pp 300-321.Nohria N. and Ghoshal S. (1997) The Differentiated Network San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 253p.

Nonaka I. (1991) The Knowledge Creating Company Harvard Business Review, vol69, n 6, pp 96-104.

Nonaka I. (1994) A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation Organization Science, Vol 5, n1, pp 14-37.

Nonaka I. and Takeuchi H. (1995) The Knowledge-Creating Company New York:Oxford University Press Inc., 284p.

Ouchi W.G. (1980) Markets, Bureaucracies and Clans Administrative Science

Quarterly, vol 25, pp 129-141.

Prahalad C.K. and Hamel G. (1990) The Core Competence of the Corporation Harvard Business Review, May-June, vol 68, n3, pp 79-91.

Rolland N. (2004) Knowledge management impacts on the decision-making process Journal of Knowledge Management Vol 8, n1

Rumlet R.P. (1984) Towards a Strategic Theory of the Firm In LAMB R.B., CompetitiveStrategic Management, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Senge P.M. (1990) The Fifth Discipline. The Art and Practice of the LearningOrganization London: Century Business, 424p.

Spender J.C. (1996) Making Knowledge The Basis of a Dynamic Theory of the Firm Strategic Management Journal, vol 17, pp 45-62.

Spender J.C. (2002) Knowledge Management, Uncertainty and an emergent Theory ofthe Firm in Choo and Bontis, The Strategic Management of Intellectual Capital andOrganizational Knowledge Oxford University Press, NY 748 p.

Strauss A. and Corbin J. (1990) Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded TheoryProcedures and Techniques London: SAGE Publications.

24


25/25

Wenger, E. (1998), Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity, CambridgeUniversity Press

Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization,7(2), pp. 225-246.

Wenger, E. Mc Dermott, R. and W.M. Snyder. (2002), Cultivating Communities of Practice,

Harvard Business School Press, 284p.

Wenger, E. and Snyder, W. (2000). Communities of practice: the organizational frontier,Harvard Business Review, January-February, pp. 139-145

Winter, S. G., G. Szulanski. 2001. Replication as strategy. Organization Sciences, 12730743.

Yin, R. (1984), Case Study Research, Beverly Hills, CA. Sage Publications

Yin R. 2003. Case study research: design and methods. Thousand Oaks: Sage

Documents

Innovation and Communities of practice