The incompatibility of knowledge regimes: consequences of the material world for cross-domain work

Abstract

In this paper, we argue that successful integration of knowledge across work domains in the short-term can mask the generation of long-term consequences. We explore a setting, the introduction of environmental considerations into semiconductor manufacturing, where the eventual adoption of common measurement artifacts and associated practices enabled knowledge integration, but failed to address significant underlying consequences. Drawing from observational, interview, and archival data we develop an understanding of the work practices of the Tech and EnviroTech groups as structured by the material world and broader collective conventions. We introduce the concept of knowledge regime to outline the differences in knowledge across these work domains. More specifically, we find that differences in the causal specificity and developmental time horizon of knowledge and the measurement artifacts that result contribute to the relative power of one knowledge regime over another. Understanding these sources of incompatibility provides insight into the design requirements of information systems as boundary objects for knowledge integration, but also specifies the potential limits to any design effort.

Keywords:

• knowledge integration
• knowledge regimes
• material world
• organizational boundaries

Acknowledgements

We thank Davide Nicolini, Maxine Robertson, Harry Scarbrough, Jacky Swan and other participants in the University of Warwick Business School IKON seminar for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. We also appreciate the guidance of special issue editors Sue Newell and Bob Galliers and three anonymous reviewers in developing this paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jennifer A Howard-Grenville

About the authors

Jennifer A. Howard-Grenville is an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Boston University School of Management. She studies how cultural and institutional processes constrain or advance organizational change, with a focus on changes in corporate environmental practice. She is particularly interested in the microprocesses of organizational and institutional change, including questions of knowledge integration and transformation. Jennifer's work has been published in Organization Science, Academy of Management Executive, Organization & Environment, Law & Social Inquiry, California Management Review, and several edited volumes. She is the co-author of one book, Greening the Industrial Facility, with Thomas Graedel. Jennifer received her Ph.D. in Technology, Management, and Policy at MIT, her MA at Oxford University, and her B.Sc. at Queen's University, Canada.

Paul R Carlile

Paul R. Carlile is an associate professor of management and information systems at the Boston University School of Management. Paul focuses on how knowledge is structured differently by localized practices and given that examines what can be done to effectively manage those differences in knowledge across specialized groups who are dependent on each other. This has led his work to focus on the design of boundary objects as representational artifacts used at the boundaries between different groups. Paul's work has been published in such journals as Administrative Science Quarterly, Information and Society, Management Science and Organization Science, as well as a number of edited volumes. Paul received his Ph.D. in Organization Behavior from the University of Michigan, his MA and BA at Brigham Young University in the U.S.