Team-Based Knowledge
Integration
Cecilia Enberg
Department of Management and Engineering
ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WERE
COMMUNITIES…
• Community (gemeinschaft) as opposed to association
(gesellschaft).
• Characterised by enduring social relations of intimacy and
solidarity and care for each other and trusted each other.
• Affect-laden relations among a group of individuals.
• Requires a commitment to a set of shared values, norms and
meanings, shared history and identity – a shared culture.
2
AND PEOPLE WERE SOCIALISED IN A
COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
• A social structure characterised by dense relations of mutuality.
• A shared cognitive structure characterised by a shared repertoire
which includes routines, words, tools, ways of doing things,
stories, gestures, symbols, genres, actions, concepts… and
probably a lot more.
• For such social and cognitive structures to form individuals have
to perform together in the CmP for an extended period of time.
• Presupposes face-to-face interaction and communication.
• Is the concept of community of practice relevant to understand
organisations of today?
3
THAT WAS BEFORE SOCIETY BECAME
PROJECTIFIED AND FIRMS BECAME
PROJECT-BASED
• Projects abound in organisations today
 project-based organisations.
 projectification of society (Ekstedt et al., 1999).
• Projects teams and project tasks are temporary and directed
toward transition.
• Task/goal orientation rather than social or emotional ties are
favoured.
• People have to act based on swift trust as traditional sources of
trust do not prevail in projectified contexts.
4
NOW, PEOPLE HAVE TO COLLABORATE ACROSS
COMMUNITIES IN WHAT CAN BE DESCRIBED AS
COLLECTIVITIES OF PRACTICE…
• Interdisciplinary (heterogeneous) – different knowledge,
experience, background etc.
• Coordination withouth a strong, shared task-relevant knowledge.
• Undeveloped group – but with an ability to act with a developed
mind
5
KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITIES AND
KNOWLEDGE COLLECTIVITIES
The knowledge community
The knowledge collectivity
General type of knowledge base
Decentered knowledge
Distributed knowledge
Type of memory
Blackboard memory
Network memory
Main repository
Knowledge-as-practice,
communcal acitivity
Individual knowledge and
competence
Integration principle
Knowledge base similarity
Well-connectedness of ind.
Way of learning
Socialisation
Problem-solving
Operating basis
Dispositional knowledge
Articulate knowledge
The knowledge worker
Enculturated
Free agent
Type of knowledge dev.
Paradigm-driven
Goal-directed trial-and-error
Epistemological maxim
We know more than we can tell.
We tell more than we can know.
The individual members
6
COLLABORATING IN COLLECTIVITIES OF PRACTICE
IS DIFFICULT BECAUSE…
• Different specialists, who represent different communities of
practices if you want, are involved.
• Distributed knowledge - the knowledge needed is dispersed
throughout the organisation
“The organizational problem that firms face is the utilization of
knowledge which is not, and cannot be, known by a single
agent. Even more importantly, no single agent can fully
specify in advance what kind of practical knowledge is going
to be relevant, when and where. Firms, therefore, are
distributed knowledge systems in a strong sense: they are
decentered systems, lacking an overseeing mind”.
(Tsoukas, 1996:11)
7
COLLABORATING IN COLLECTIVITIES
OF PRACTICE IS DIFFICULT BECAUSE…
Knowledge is specialised and differentiated
8
•
Differentiation – differences in cognitive orientation and
differences in attitude and behaviour. (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967)
•
Thought worlds – different funds of knowledge and different
systems of meaning. (Dougherty, 1992)
•
Different cognitive representations and different mental models.
(von Meier, 1999)
SO IN PRACTICE, THAT MEANS THAT
COMMUNICATION IMPASSES ARE CREATED
• I didn’t know that, but now I realise/understand what you mean
(funds of knowledge).
• I hear what you say but I don’t understand what you mean
(systems of meanings).
• I understand what you say but I don’t agree (different goals,
competing interests, conflicting values).
9
SUMMARISING; WHY DID WE END UP
WITH THIS SWING?
10
KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION YOU SAID – WHAT’S
THAT? - WELL, IT DEPENDS ON WHO YOU ASK..
Let’s see what Okhuysen and Eisenhardt (2002) suggest.
Knowledge integration as an outcome;
”…consisting of both the shared knowledge of individuals and the
combined knowledge that emerges from their interactions” (371).
Knowledge integration as a process;
”…involves the actions of groups members by which they share their
individual knowledge within the group and combine it to create
new knowledge” (371).
11
KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION YOU SAID – WHAT’S
THAT? - WELL, IT DEPENDS ON WHO YOU ASK..
Okhuysen and Eisenhardt (2002:384) further suggest;
”…knowledge integration is not simply a matter of assembling discrete
pieces of knowledge, like Lego blocks, as the knowledge as
resource view implies. Rather, knowledge integration depends on
how members know and integrate their individually held knowledge
(…) in other word, the same knowledge can be known in multiple
ways”.
12
KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION YOU SAID – WHAT’S
THAT? - WELL, IT DEPENDS ON WHO YOU ASK..
Enberg (2007:10) would rather suggest that;
”Knowledge integration is the processes of goal-oriented interrelating
with the purpose of benefiting from knowledge complementarities
existing between individuals with differentiated knowledge bases”
The primary outcome of this knowledge integration process is the
new product etc. that was to be developed as part of the project (or
research, change).
Knowledge integration is both and outcome and a process – but
different perspectives open up for different ways of managing the
process of knowledge integration.
13
KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION CAN BE ENABLED IN
DIFFERENT WAYS / BY THE USE OF DIFFERENT
MECHANISMS
Some favor the cross-learning approach and suggest that specialists
have to intensively learn from each other to integrate knowledge.
This occurs through;
 close interaction
 frequent communication
Others (e.g. Enberg) suggest that cross-learning is not needed and
then you can rely on impersonal and standardised mechanisms such
as;
 modularisation
 transactive memory systems
 mechanisms which are not communication and interaction
intensive.
14
DIFFERENT CONTINGENCIES CREATE
DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES
• Degree of knowledge differentiation; low – high
• Task frequency; low – high
• Task heterogeneity; low – high
• Complexity (causal ambiguity); low – high
• Uncertainty; low – high
How do stacker and turbine development respectively score
on the above contingencies? (you will get the answer for
stacker development, the turbine case you have to solve
by yourself ).
15
KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION IN
THE STACKER CASE
Did not rely on;
• Clearly specified goal
• Shared knowledge
• Network memory
Rather it was described as;
• Individual to its character
• Routine
• The stacker (more generally the artefact) was important
16
KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION IN
THE STACKER CASE
Feedback
reporting
Meetings
Consensus
reaching/problem
solving
17
Contribution
Individual
work
Routine
work
Representation
ONE ITERATIVE MODEL OF KNOWLEDGE
INTEGRATION – OR MANY?
INTERACTING
Collective
processes
18
ACTING
Artefacts
Individual
work
CAN WE TALK
ABOUT TEAMWORK
IN THE STACKER
CASE?
19
WHAT IS A TEAM?
• A social system of three or more people working together in an
organizational context who perceive themselves, and are
perceived by others, as members of this social system.
• Does this mean that they are teamworking?
• Teamwork quality (TWQ) construct to measure the quality of
interactions within the team and to suggest that TWQ is positively
related to the success of innovative projects where success is
measured as regards ”team performance” and ”personal success”.
20
THE TWQ CONSTRUCT
COMMUNICATION - The possibility for all members to communicate with all
other members.
COORDINATION - The need to agree on work schedules, budgets,
deliverables etc.
BALANCE OF MEMBER CONTRIBUTIONS - All members can bring in
their views/ideas, unrestrained by hierarchy.
MUTUAL SUPPORT - The existence of cooperative frames of mind and
mutual respect.
EFFORT - Everyone knowing and accepting the work norms concerning
sufficient effort.
COHESION - Team members’ sense of togetherness, beloning, and desire
to remain on the team.
21
OK, SO DID THE TQW EXPLAIN
VARIANCES IN SUCCESS?
It depends on who you ask.
 Team members – 41% of the variance in performance explained
by TWQ.
 Team leaders – 11% of the variance in performance explained by
TWQ.
 Managers – 7% of the variance in performance explained by TWQ.
22
www.liu.se