Limits of IT-driven knowledge management initiatives for interactive innovation processes: towards a community-based approach

This paper begins with a critical review of the literature on Knowledge Management (KM), arguing that its focus on IT-based tools limits its potential for encouraging the knowledge sharing that is crucial to interactive innovation processes. Interactive innovation processes depend on the integration of knowledge across disparate social communities and require the exploration (creation) of knowledge, rather than simply the improved exploration of knowledge. Knowledge exploration depends on shared understanding, which is difficult where those involved are from different cultural and disciplinary bad grounds. In these situations, knowledge has to be continuously negotiated through interactive social networking processes. These processes are under-emphasised in most of the KM literature. Two cases of interactive innovation processes are presented. The contrast between these two cases leads to the development of two alternative approaches to KM: the community approach emphasises dialogue occurring through networks (which may be IT-enabled) while the cognitive approach emphasises linear information flows. It is argued that, at least in terms of encouraging interactive innovation processes, the community model is superior.