The Evolution of Business Knowledge (EBK)

research programme

Harry Scarbrough

Programme Directorh.scarbrough@warwick.ac.uk

www.ebkresearch.org

EBK in context

What’s new ?

Knowledge has always been an important element of production:

‘Capital consists in a great part of knowledge and organization ....

Knowledge is our most powerful engine of production.’

Alfred Marshall 1890

• Management has long grappled with the problems of the division of knowledge:

‘managers assume ...the burden of gathering together all of the traditional knowledge ... possessed by the workmen and then of classifying, tabulating, and reducing this knowledge to rules, laws, formulae’

Frederick Taylor 1911

EBK in context

There has long been academic debate about the nature of knowledge:

• Carl Ludovici was appointed to a chair in ‘Knowledge of the World’ in Leipzig in 1733.

• Royal Society was described as a ‘knowledge bank’.

Peter Burke ‘A social history of knowledge’, 2000

EBK in context

‘What characterises the current technological revolution is not the centrality of knowledge and information but the application of such knowledge and information to knowledge generation…For the first time in history, the human mind is a direct productive force, not just a decisive element of a production system.’

(Castells, 1996: 32).

EBK in context

Converging debates

Knowledge Economy

Management tools and practices

Centrality of knowledge to business performance

• knowledge resides in the heads of individuals

• knowledge is objectively defined - concepts and facts

• businesses need to codify capture and transfer explicit knowledge

• critical success factor is technology

• knowledge is constructed by interaction in social networks (e.g. communities of practice, sectoral networks, elites)

• knowledge is created/applied through social communities - ICTs play an enabling role.

• businesses need to encourage knowledge sharing among individuals and groups

• critical success factor is trust

Cognitive model Community model

Views of knowledge

About the EBK programme14 projects contributing to 4 major themes:

• Organizing Knowledge for Innovation• The Impact of Relationships on the Sharing of

Knowledge • Making Knowledge an Asset• Management Knowledge In Action

EBK web-site: www.ebkresearch.org

EBK Research Programme

• Pressures to accelerate innovation processes & recycle knowledge and learning - the intensification of knowledge

• Knowledge is embedded in social contexts and practices

• Importance of management knowledge & practices in embedding/ disembedding knowledge

Evolution of knowledge

Knowledge production

Knowledge transfer

Knowledge utilization

economic pressures

Social and institutional contexts – e.g knowledge accumulation in IT sector vs. education

How do we view business knowledge?

• Spans different knowledge domains:– Scientific and technological knowledge– Organizational knowledge– Financial and market knowledge

• Integration and exploitation of heterogeneous forms of knowledge in business settings

• Evolution of knowledge through selection, management & learning effects

FINANCIAL & MARKET KNOWLEDGE

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

ORGANIZATIONAL KNOWLEDGE

Application of knowledge

Knowledge production

Knowledge production

Knowledge production

Business Schools

Consultants

CSR forums

Senior managers

Professional groups – accountants

Entrepreneurs, owner-managers

Venture Capitalists, fund managers

R&D labs

Univ tech transfer

Tech designers

THE EVOLUTION OF BUSINESS KNOWLEDGE

Emerging findings from the EBK programme

• Study of ‘interactive innovation in the biomedical sector’ (Swan, U. of Warwick ):

• Increasing need to move away from linear innovation process & to integrate knowledge throughout the process – from R&D through to clinicians and patients

• Highlights influence of institutional context between UK & USA; integration of scientific & business knowledge constrained in UK by more inflexible career paths and difficulties of moving between universities and industry

Emerging findings from the EBK programme

• Study of project-based organizing in US & UK movie industries (Lampel, City U.)

• Barrier to success in UK is that film-makers put emphasis on artistic values rather than ‘relational efficiency’ (benefits of collaborating with same people over time) in putting projects together

Emerging findings from the EBK programme

• Study of client-consultant relationships as a medium for knowledge transfer (Sturdy, U. of Warwick)

• Do consultants transfer knowledge to clients?• Focus on project deliverables not knowledge

transfer• Transfer of knowledge involves challenging the

client – not all consultants willing to do this.

Dissemination activities

• Organizational, Knowledge, Learning and Capabilities Conference, OLKC 2006, Warwick 20 March – Sidney Winter, Deborah Dougherty, Yrjö

Engeström

• EBK end of programme conference, October 17th, London

EBK outputs

• 31 EBK Working Papers, e.g. Systematic literature review on ‘Small firms, learning & growth’

• Special issue of Long Range Planning on ‘Managing through projects’

• Special issue of Journal of Management Studies on ‘Management knowledge in action’

• Evolution of Business Knowledge book (Oxford University Press)