Organizing for knowledge creation in a strategic interorganizational innovation project

• Published in: International journal of project management Vol. 40; no. 4; pp. 398 - 410
• Main Authors: Nisula, Anna-Maija, Blomqvist, Kirsimarja, Bergman, Jukka-Pekka, Yrjölä, Seppo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.05.2022
• Subjects: Innovation; Interorganizational; Knowledge creation; Managing strategic project; Organizing; Managing strategic project; Innovation; Knowledge creation; Organizing; Interorganizational
• ISSN: 0263-7863; 1873-4634
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijproman.2022.03.011

•Projects are vehicles to address complexities of strategic collaborations.•Knowledge creation is in the central core of organizing innovation projects.•Iterative process fosters project adaptation with its environment.•Self-organizing and dynamic participation increase actor's engagement. A fundamental challenge for interorganizational innovation projects is employing diverse actors’ knowledge, expertise and perspectives for situation-specific demands of complex innovation. Innovation advancement is dependent on the degree to which knowledge is used and synthesized to address emerging and situation-specific demands of innovation. The goal of this study is to shed light on organizing for joint knowledge creation in a strategic interorganizational innovation project. Based on an inductive analysis of interview data from one strategic interorganizational innovation project, we identified the iterative process, self-organizing working groups and dynamic participation as practices through which the actors involved arranged and enacted their joint efforts, namely, knowledge creation and progress of innovation. This study contributes to research on managing strategic interorganizational projects by suggesting that organizing, which involves structural and informal organizing practices, supports managing strategic interorganizational projects where the diverse actors’ knowledge integration is at the core of the innovation project's goals.