Boundaries in a Knowledge Network: Meta-Organizational Design and Knowledge Collaboration

• In Event: The Transformative Effects of Communication at Boundaries

Abstract

In our highly connected knowledge society individuals and organizations increasingly form meta-organizations, or “networks of firms or individuals not bound by authority based on employment relationships but characterized by a system-level goal” (Gulati, Puranam & Tushman, 2012). Our study focuses on one such meta-organization, a ‘network of excellence’ aimed at facilitating and stimulating knowledge collaboration between various research and commercial organizations in a new and multi-disciplinary domain. Through an in-depth case study we show how the chosen design principles of this meta-organization (e.g. membership permeability, sources of authority and task divisions) induced a number of boundaries (e.g. epistemological, identity and administrative boundaries). The subsequent interactions on these boundaries often had paradoxical consequences for knowledge collaboration. Our findings thus show how knowledge collaboration in meta-organizations highly depends on the underlying design principles because these inform both the boundaries that emerge as well as the interactions taking place on these boundaries.

Authors

• Marlous Agterberg, VU U - Amsterdam

• Bart J. van den Hooff, VU University Amsterdam