Advancing Knowledge Creation in Collaborative R&D: Counterintuitive Dynamics of Individual Strategy

How can knowledge be efficiently exchanged in an inter-organizational R&D collaboration where people have to work towards shared goals and simultaneously safeguard individual interests? In this article we present the results of a longitudinal case study of an inter-organizational innovation team in which new knowledge was developed despite collaborative issues and individual strategic behaviors. Our analysis identified five interrelated practices at the individual level (interpreting, assessing, strategizing, expanding, and tolerating), that are enacted in the ‘trading zone’ (Galison, 1997) facilitating collaboration and knowledge exchange despite their different objectives, interests, and work practices. The study contributes to the trading zone and knowledge exchange literature by showing how highly strategic behavior of individuals can lead to collective knowledge creation. We thereby show how cognitive processes affect shared practices in the trading zone and how the trading zone practices affect the cognitive processes.