Gatekeepers in the Innovation Process

In ECIS Galway in June 2008 Eoin Whelan and I will have a following session:

"Knowledge Diffusion in R&D Groups: The Impact of Internet Technologies"

Abstract:

Knowledge flows are the lifeblood of any R&D organisation. These firms are increasingly
discovering that the knowledge they require is often located beyond their boundaries. In this paper, we investigate how R&D groups acquire and diffuse external knowledge and the role Internet technologies play in this process.

The focus of our study is on the technological gatekeeper. Previous studies have found that gatekeepers are key nodes in the innovation process. These sporadic individuals have the skills to identify useful knowledge outside the firm and disseminate this among their local colleagues.

However, much of the seminal gatekeeper research has been conducted over two decades ago. In the time since, there have been huge advances in ICT and especially Internet technologies. These technologies have dramatically altered how knowledge workers source and share their information. Our objective is to advance the gatekeeper theory into an era where the knowledge worker is saturated with information. Using case study methods, we examine knowledge flows in the R&D group of an Irish medical devices firm.

Our results indicate that due to advances in Internet technology, the traditional gatekeeper no longer exists to any great extent. Instead, the modern R&D lab acquires and diffuses external knowledge through a combination of a ‘web gatekeeper’ and a
‘knowledge transformer.’

You are welcome to participate the session or comment the topic beforehand !

Comments

[Carolina]

Hi !

Interesting, and it seems I have several convergence interest points with you, nevertheless I am in my learning process and I am slow. In case you have some minutes I got some questions:

What do you mean with external knowledge?
Until now, it is of my understanding that the information is external to me, but once it pass through an understanding process inside myself, just then I can say I gain knowledge. Perhaps the information given is a result of the knowledge of someone else. Then if you refer as "external knowledge" to the information that is spread out through the internet is clear for me, otherwise I am a bit lost on this.

You have no idea how much I agree with the sentence "an era where the knowledge worker is saturated with information", I get saturated myself constantly. The speed of the information creation is WAY to fast for me or I am TOO slow. And up today I think it is not only due to the ICT tools, also the HUGE amount of humans. We are, without a doubt a bigger population that some centuries ago. Each head is a whole world, and it has a possibility to express nowadays. Then the amount is huge in a fast speed expression. Puff!

I have never had read about the "gatekeeper theory" but I wonder who should be at charge of regulate the flow of information? or if it is a join work or different parties, or actually it is a skill to be developed. In the earlier times a man should learn to listen the nature in order to survive. Actually there is a lot of information in a nature, that you can perceived with your ears, skin, eyes, etc. But a person should know which one is the important one and when s/he needs what. Perhaps it is just babble and talking loudly. And I would like to know what is that "knowledge transformer" ?

From a complete other knowledge topic: what is your opinion about the SECI model ?

Now, being honest, I am hitting in this post, because actually I have a question for you (but didn't know where to post it). The title of your blog is "Beyond Creativity", then my naive question is: (perhaps I need to read more, but right now I am struggling with time constrains and if you highlight me what to read will be useful :) ) can we say that creativity is an attitude or is an skill or it is both? I am spinning right now with this one.....

[Carolina]

actually, what is creativity? could be as well a type of intelligence?

[Carolina]

hehehe! and I realized my question should had fit better in the previous post!, sorry!
but my head is stock on the question, which means I do put attention in other matters.

[Mikko Ahonen]

Quick answers:

1. External knowledge meant for me and Eoin (Whelan) knowledge outside corporate boundaries. Like in the Internet or at the customers.

I will send you Carolina the actual conference paper.

2. About information overflow:

Butler Group has an interesting report called " Enterprise Search and Retrieval". http://www.butlergroup.com/research/reportHomepages/Enterprise%20Search%20and%20Retrieval/ESR_contents.pdf

One of the main finding was:

"Ineffective search and discovery strategies are hampering business competitiveness, impairing service delivery and putting companies in risk".

+

"The typical information worker now spends up to one-quarter of his or her day searching for the right information to complete a given task"

OK, I am researcher. My work is to search and in the university we don't calculate hours spent searching ;-) But I can always make my searches better , collaborative and improve my time management skills.

3. About my blog's name. I am amused that Beyond Creativity has so many dimensions nowadays :-) I can come back to these dimensions in my coming posts.

4. What creativity is about?

Creativity is the ability to produce work that is both novel (i.e. original, unexpected) and appropriate (i.e. useful, adaptive concerning task constraints) (Sternberg and Lubart, 1999).

Mmmmm, it is not that simple. Remember: Creativity itself can refer to person, process, product or environment response (Rhodes, 1961).

I feel that we need all those dimension of Rhodes to foster creativity.
(What an inadequate answer)

If you Carolina or someone else are seeking the explanation of creativity as part of intelligence, please, look at work of Robert Sternberg "Intelligence applied" and Margaret Boden's work. Plus a book called "Stimulating Creativity" by Morris Stein. You will find different answers, once again :-)

[Carolina]

Thank you for the replay. I will process it (but I need time for it ;) )
have a good day!

[Sam Kondo Steffensen]

Would love to pick your brains on how we introduce simple on-line innovation process models into the flat-world minded MillionBrains` (www.millionbrains.com) concept, in connection with its global beta launch in mid-April and talent tests in China.

Cheers,
Sam
sks@millionbrains.com
skype: samkondo