Collaboration, Communication, and Control: The Effects of ICT-Enabled Innovation Projects on Informal Organizational Structures

This paper examines knowledge sharing in ICT-enabled innovation projects in bureaucratic settings. The fact that individuals from different organizational units work on a common task creates a network that coexists with the functional subdivision of tasks and traditionally rigid hierarchical reporting structures within an organization. Based on empirical data from four project workgroups in Switzerland and the United States, I propose a theoretical model for knowledge sharing in ICT-enabled innovation projects. The model ties together processes and content of knowledge sharing through two task dimensions, each of them subdivided into two phases: (1) Conception and implementation of the project, and (2) Exploration and exploitation of knowledge. I show that the implementation of ICT-enabled innovation projects requires a balanced mix of exploration and exploitation of knowledge, where exploration through sparse networks is more important in the conceptual phase, and exploitation in tightly-bound groups becomes more fruitful in the implementation phase.