An emergent perspective on shared understanding in knowledge-based organizations

Organizations have always been preoccupied with search of different mechanisms to effectively allocate their resources. Coordination theory has provided a variety of mechanisms to show organizational leaders how it can be done. Still, many mechanisms are strongly attached to the basic assumption of an organization with defined borders and hierarchical structure. In the times when borders of an organization become blurring and organizational members start building their networks outside organizations, the existing coordination mechanisms need to be revised. We review the main concepts of different economic theories to emphasize that one of coordination mechanisms that is shared understanding need to be re-conceptualized. By conducting multiple case studies in knowledge-based organizations, we conclude that shared understanding creation is no longer attached to organization only, but is partly created by professional communities and industry. Still organizations provide a certain infrastructure and coordination for shared understanding creation but with different mechanisms.