Examining the Implications of Knowledge Boundaries for a Large-Scale Agile Transformation Initiative of a Manufacturing Company

Abstract

To stay competitive in today’s environment, characterized by changing customer requirements, digitalization, new technologies, etc., companies must deliver fast and continuous innovation. Manufacturing companies have therefore started to launch large-scale agile transformation initiatives. A specificity of manufacturing companies is their need for deeply specialized organizational units. Knowledge boundaries resulting from knowledge specialization tend to impact transformation initiatives. Therefore, this work examines the implications of knowledge boundaries between organizational units for a large-scale agile transformation initiative of a manufacturing company. The findings show that these knowledge boundaries imply a need for knowledge integration based on flexibility and dynamism as key aspects. A conceptual model that illustrates these aspects during the initial phase of implementation of these transformation initiatives is presented.