Abstract
Knowledge co-creation at the boundaries of communities of practice (CoPs) can lead to heightened tensions and power struggles. This study examines how power struggles among CoPs can begin to structure knowledge creation processes. Drawing on a qualitative case study of a new medical research project, the study shows how power and knowledge negotiations became manifested through conflicting discursive positioning and coercive power affecting knowledge co-creation efforts. One CoP adopted an authoritative leader role, prioritized their own problem definition and knowledge creation process, and engaged in the peripheralization of other CoPs. The power and discursive moves prevented the development of shared problems and interconnected practices contributing to epistemological suspicion among the participating CoPs. The study offers new insights to research on power dynamics in situated learning and knowing by problematizing the relationship between localized practices and emerging interconnected practices, by shedding light on how discursive positioning and coercive power operate together, and by developing peripheralization and epistemological suspicion as potential explanations for how and why knowledge workers struggle to act on opportunities for knowledge co-creation.
Highlights
The communities of practice (CoPs) literature has advanced research on organizational learning, knowing, and innovating and the role of CoPs in these processes (Brown and Duguid, 1991; Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998)
From the perspective of discursive positioning and coercive power, the analysis shows how power and knowledge are performed in a collectivity of practice and how these political moves affect knowledge co-creation
While conflicting discursive positionings alone can hamper knowledge sharing and creation (Heizmann, 2011), the findings suggest that critical discursive positioning combined with coercive power can make these mechanisms obstructive for knowledge co-creation
Summary
The communities of practice (CoPs) literature has advanced research on organizational learning, knowing, and innovating and the role of CoPs in these processes (Brown and Duguid, 1991; Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). Research is increasingly showing that knowledge co-creation among CoPs with varied skills, identities, and statuses intensify boundaries and accentuate power tensions (e.g. Contu, 2014; Gherardi and Nicolini, 2002a; Heizmann, 2011; Mørk et al, 2010; Wenger and Snyder, 2000). In medical research directed at interactions across disciplines and increased innovation, CoPs must disentangle their localized practices to create opportunities for interconnected practices (e.g. Mørk et al, 2006; Swan et al, 2002). Given the presence of multidisciplinary ways of working, knowledge specialization, and the promotion of innovations across organizational sectors, understanding how such power struggles shape knowledge co-creation is of great importance to researchers and practitioners in the fields of management and organization (e.g. Engstrand and Enberg, 2020; Mørk et al, 2008; Oborn and Dawson, 2010)
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