Knowledge Creation in Temporary Organizations

Abstract

This chapter studies knowledge creation in temporary organizations (TOs) to address the relationship between TOs and their permanent environment. Knowledge creation is a process of interaction in an organizational context that must combine hierarchy/control and flexibility/autonomy elements. Based on a case study of twelve inter-organizational TOs, this chapter nuances the decoupling between TOs and their permanent environment as follows. TOs are managed independently but TO knowledge creation depends on continuous inputs from the permanent environment. TOs depend on informal hierarchy/control elements in the permanent environment. TO knowledge creation depends on both the willingness of TO members to create knowledge and the extent that the permanent environment enables them to create knowledge.