Inter-Organizational Communities of Practice with Horizontal Relationships: Knowledge Sharing, Adoption and Transfer
(2019) ISPIM Innovation Conference – Celebrating Innovation: 500 Years Since daVinci — Location: Florence
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- Abstract
- Prior research has established that communities of practice are a valuable source for knowledge transfer and innovation. Nowadays, firms more than ever need to acquire external knowledge to maintain their competitive advantage, leading to the development of inter-organizational communities of practice. In this article, we will try to answer the following research questions: How is knowledge shared between the members of IOCOPs? How is an IOCOP stimulating knowledge adoption? And how is the knowledge transferred? Using in-depth interviews with 51 managers in a Belgian IOCOP with horizontal relationships, we present an empirical case study. Our findings show that knowledge sharing is related to both individual level as well as firm level knowledge. We stressed the importance of a community coordinator for knowledge adoption and found that although knowledge transfer does not always happen, it usually happens informally, possibly leading to indirect improvements in firm’s innovation capabilities.
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De Kort, C., & de Viron, F. (2019). Inter-Organizational Communities of Practice with Horizontal Relationships: Knowledge Sharing, Adoption and Transfer. ISPIM Innovation Conference – Celebrating Innovation: 500 Years Since daVinci, Florence. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/93624