R&D knowledge management in a telecommunications consortium: an actor-network perspective

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the R&D knowledge management in a consortium. It presents an ethnographic study on Mobiconomy group, a consortium designing mobile services. We first demonstrate that the actor–network theory can be linked with theory of organisational knowledge creation, and thus apply it to examining the knowledge creation in Mobiconomy as a 'black-boxing' process. This paper discloses the improvisatory characteristics of knowledge creation process in a consortium. The author argues that a consortium should have a pre-project phase when a common vocabulary is developed and an integrator is introduced. The experience of our case consortium – that the white book has emerged as a tool of R&D knowledge management – can be drawn upon by other consortia. Implications for understanding the future trend of the mobile commerce market have been given.