Transferring, Translating, and Transforming: An Integrative Framework for Managing Knowledge Across Boundaries

Abstract

The paper examines managing knowledge across boundaries in settings where innovation is desired. Innovation is a useful context because it allows us to explore the negative consequences of the path-dependent nature of knowledge. A framework is developed that describes three progressively complex boundaries—syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic—and three progressively complex processes—transfer, translation, and transformation. The framework is used to specify the practical and political mismatches that occur when innovation is desired and how this relates to the common knowledge that actors use to share and assess each other's domain-specific knowledge. The development and use of a collaborative engineering tool in the early stages of a vehicle's development is presented to illustrate the conceptual and prescriptive value of the framework. The implication of this framework on key topics in the organization theory and strategy literatures is then discussed.