Coordination Problems in Knowledge Transfer

A Case Study of Inter-Organizational Projects

Néstor A. Nova and Rafael A. Gonzalez

Department of Systems Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogota, Colombia

Keywords: Coordination, Knowledge Transfer, Knowledge Management, Information Processing, Case Study.

Abstract: When multiple organizations are involved in a heritage management project, the coordination of actions is

complex and can affect the knowledge transfer process. This paper contributes a systematic and empirical

study of the dynamics of coordination activities inside a knowledge transfer process in heritage management

activities. Using the information-processing view of coordination, we explore the following question: what

kinds of coordination issues affect effective coordination of knowledge transfer in inter-organizational

projects? The discussion is supported by a case study in the architectural heritage domain. We reveal that

there are many coordination issues that affect the mutual understanding between actors, limiting information

exchange and knowledge transfer. These issues uncover a gap between the conception and use of ICTs that

support coordination, and a lack of understanding about how ICT usage affects the knowledge transfer

process. Thus, a socio-material perspective about relationship between people and coordination technologies

could improve knowledge transfer performance.

1 INTRODUCTION

A fundamental goal in knowledge management (KM)

is to share knowledge between actors (people,

departments, organizations). Accordingly, one of the

key factors behind successful management of inter-

organizational knowledge transfer projects is

effective coordination between different actors and

activities involved.

In this paper, knowledge refers to information

possessed in the mind of individuals: it is

personalized information related to facts, procedures,

concepts, interpretations, ideas, observations, and

judgments (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). However, this

individual perspective may take into account a social

perspective that conceives knowledge as a collective

construction grounded on mutual understanding

between individuals, based on the sharing and

transfer process, and supported by technology. In this

sense, knowledge is constituted and reconstituted

through practice, which makes it highly situated,

contextualized and volatile (Orlikowski, 2002). This

indicates that the way knowledge is applied in

practice is what should determine how to manage it.

According to Alavi and Leidner (2001) KM is defined

as a dynamic and continuous set of processes and

practices embedded in individuals, as well as in

groups and infrastructure.

Knowledge management is not strictly limited

within organizational boundaries, but its scope

includes knowledge transfer between organizations,

which adds more complexity to it (Reich, Gemino and

Sauer, 2014). Knowledge transfer has become a

useful organizational strategy within inter-

organizational projects for value creation or

sustainable competitive advantage; however, this

kind of strategy is extremely difficult to manage, and

its failure rate is high (Fang, Yang and Hsu, 2013).

Coordination issues may explain such difficulties and

failures.

This study explores the relationship between

coordination and knowledge transfer from an

information-processing (IP) view, which defines

coordination as the act of managing interdepen-

dencies between activities (Malone and Crowston,

1990). The connection between IP and coordination

is based on the understanding that as the amount of

uncertainty increases, organizations adopt

coordination mechanisms which allow them to handle

more information effectively (Galbraith, 1974). As

such, coordination mechanisms are usually

considered in terms of their information processing

properties. An organization can thus either reduce the

amount of information that is processed or increase

its capacity to handle more information. Thus, the

challenge for organizational design is to devise the fit

Nova, N. and Gonzalez, R.

Coordination Problems in Knowledge Transfer: A Case Study of Inter-Organizational Projects.

DOI: 10.5220/0006053200600069

In Proceedings of the 8th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (IC3K 2016) - Volume 3: KMIS, pages 60-69

ISBN: 978-989-758-203-5

between the information processing needs and

capabilities in order to obtain optimal performance.

To do so, the key is to identify the dependencies and

coordination mechanisms that can unlock such

redesign (Malone and Crowston, 1994; Malone et al.,

1999).

Knowledge transfer in an organization is strongly

influenced by how dependencies are managed. Thus,

coordination practices support interactions and

relationships between actors enabling their common

understanding. Relations enhance information

processing capacity, which enables knowledge

transfer through these relationships (Van Wijk,

Jansen and Lyles, 2008). In this sense, relations can

allow access to information, but knowledge cannot be

transferred if the receiver is unable to process the

information it receives, due to bounded rationality.

Bounded rationality means that individual or group

rationality depict the limited access to information

and the limited computational capacities of the unit.

In brief, above it has been argued that the I-P view of

coordination, is based on organizational design and

bounded rationality. It has also been claimed that this

view is favorable for studies of coordination in

knowledge transfer.

In this paper, a qualitative in-depth case study

(Yin, 2009) was carried out, aimed at identifying and

exploring such coordination issues in practice. The

case study corresponds to Iberoamerican Historical

Heritage Network – RedPHI, which is constituted by

seven universities specialized in material

architectural heritage management. The study

explores a multinational project focused on

specialized knowledge transfer and exchange among

universities to enrich expert’s knowledge and support

decision-making in public and private institutions

which are interested in getting involved in activities

including rehabilitation, conservation or protection of

historical heritage. RedPHI is an academic,

international and collaborative network based on

projects that imply multidisciplinary work of diverse

experts, who can be distributed across different

geographical locations and time zones and whose

work is mediated by ICT.

Data on RedPHI projects was collected and

analyzed in order to identify the set of

interdependencies between activities connected to

architectural heritage knowledge transfer. A deeper

exploration through interviews with key RedPHI

members enabled identifying and mapping the

available coordination mechanisms to manage each

interdependency.

The purpose of the case study was not only to

identify the match between interdependencies and

coordination mechanisms, but also to determine the

usage level and the selection criteria for the

coordination mechanisms to manage each

interdependency with the intent to interpret those

findings. Specifically, this paper identifies empirical

coordination issues within inter-organizational

knowledge transfer projects. Based on previous

studies, this paper was guided by the following

research question: what kinds of coordination issues

affect effective coordination of the knowledge

transfer in inter-organizational projects?

Coordination issues are not associated to the

mechanism per se, but to the coordination logic

applied to select it within the available portfolio,

according to characteristic of each interdependency

as well as situated and contextualized factors. This

paper reveals new insights about how coordination

actions can be understood in alternative ways to

match mechanisms with interdependencies, focusing

on how people conceive and use ICT tools for

coordination practices, and how these practices can

alter the knowledge transfer process in inter-

organizational projects.

The rest of the paper is structured as follows.

Section two describes related research, section three

presents the research method, and section four

outlines the findings. Section five contains discussion

and finally section six present conclusions,

limitations and future research.

2 RELATED RESEARCH

Inter-organizational knowledge transfer means the

process through which organizational actors – teams,

units, or organizations – exchange, apply and are

influenced by the experience and knowledge of others

(Argote and Ingram, 2000). The extent of such

influence depends on mutual understanding between

actors, which is promoted by personal contact,

intensive socialization and strategies for overcoming

psychological barriers related to willingness to share

knowledge. This means that the knowledge transfer

process is associated with the ability to address some

questions, such as ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘who’, and ‘how’

the knowledge would be transferred and how the

transfer process must be coordinated so that the

organization creates value.

When multiple organizations are involved in a

KM transfer project, complexity increases and the

difficulty in coordinating activities grows. Relatively

little research has examined specifically the

challenges of coordination in an inter-organizational

context, specifically when this coordination may

Coordination Problems in Knowledge Transfer: A Case Study of Inter-Organizational Projects

involve multiple heterogeneous actors from distinct

disciplines, organizations, work methodologies,

geographic locations and across time zones

(Cummings et al., 2013).

In the information-processing (IP) view,

coordination is the act of managing inter-

dependencies between activities performed to

achieve a goal (Malone and Crowston, 1990). All

coordination processes include actors performing

interdependent activities. Interdependencies refer to

goal-relevant relationships between activities; if there

is no dependence, there is nothing to coordinate.

Interdependencies generate incremental IP needs, but

when interdependency is higher, a coordination

mechanism can facilitate or affect the IP capability of

the organization.

Coordination provides various benefits to KM,

for example, integrating the embedded knowledge

between individuals (Grant, 1996), facilitating the

knowledge transfer (Malone and Crowston, 1994),

reducing uncertainty and complexity in knowledge

activities, generating cohesiveness and synergies for

the efficient execution of tasks, increasing interactive

behaviors, improving the exchange of information,

reducing complexity in routine communication tasks,

and optimizing decision-making, among others.

From the IP view, interdependencies are

classified as resource flow, fit and sharing (Malone et

al., 1999). Flow dependencies occur when an activity

produces a resource that is used by other activity, fit

dependencies arise when multiple activities produce

a single resource and sharing dependencies occur

when multiple activities use the same resource. From

this point of view, the type of interdependence within

a task determines the mode of coordination deployed

(Grant, 1996).

In the IP view, coordination mechanisms can be

classified as: standards, mediation and mutual

adjustment (Galbraith, 1974; Thompson, 1967;

March and Simon, 1958). Standard-based

mechanisms are considered an a priori specification

of codified guidelines, action programs and specific

goals (March and Simon, 1958; Thompson, 1967)

where the verbal communication and the interaction

among actors are not necessary (Galbraith, 1974).

Mediation-based mechanisms involve a third actor

typically located at a higher level that act as mediator

between two organizational units (González, 2010).

Mutual adjustment mechanisms are based on the

expected reciprocal communica-tion between actors

(Thompson, 1967). Unlike standards-based

mechanisms, communication and interaction is

achieved through personal channels between peers,

superior officer, or groups in both scheduled and

unscheduled meetings (Van de Ven, Delbecq and

Koenig Jr, 1976). The choice of mechanisms from

each category needs to match information processing

needs, and therefore coordination requirements

depend on factors such as complexity, uncertainty

and ambiguity.

Existing research on coordination has covered the

use and impact of individual coordination

mechanisms (Dietrich, 2007). The utilization of

distinct coordination mechanisms is explained

through task complexity, task uncertainty (Galbraith,

1974) and ambiguity (Simonin, 1999). Complexity

means the number of interrelated elements or sub-

systems within the systems and the interdependency

between them (Thompson, 1967). As such, some

coordination mechanism have been used to deal with

complexity, i.e. informal and formal coordination,

direct communitarian interaction and IT tools as

personalized databases, search tools, specialized

software systems, social networking, among others.

Uncertainty is the difference between the amount

of information required to perform the task and the

amount of information already possessed by the

organization (Galbraith, 1974). In order to deal with

task uncertainly some coordination mechanisms have

been applied, i.e. labor division as role assignment,

division of labor, ground rules and routines and

communication as phone, email, conferencing and

liaison person, coordinator, schedule, group meeting

and steering group, among others. Ambiguity refers

to lack of understanding between actors during

knowledge transfer (Simonin, 1999) which has been

managed through labor division and task assignment

as coordination mechanisms.

Existing research on coordination has revealed a

large number of coordination mechanisms through

which coordination actions take place in international

R&D projects (Reger, 1999) and outsourced software

development projects (Sabherwal, 2003). In these two

examples, sixty coordination mechanisms were

identified from literature reviews. In addition, most of

the current studies on coordination in KM fail to

provide a realistic picture on actual coordination

behavior, because their aim is focused on identifying

interdependencies and coordination mechanisms in

theory and then to validate these through empirical

work. Therefore, the aim of our study is to respond to

this lack of empirical and inductive knowledge about

coordination in practice and to provide new

information about knowledge transfer inter-

dependencies in the context of inter-organizational

knowledge transfer projects.

KMIS 2016 - 8th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing

3 RESEARCH METHOD

A case study was selected as the research method in

this study. The focus of the case study was

exploratory but with future intervention prospect that

goes beyond empirical validation of existing theory

(Yin, 2009) and development of new theory from

empirical data (Eisenhardt, 1989). The case study is

aimed at identifying empirical coordination problems

in KM projects that are subsequently transformed into

design requirements, which, together with coordina-

tion theory and complementary theories, become

inputs for the future artifact design that could solve

those coordination problems identified in practice.

In this case study, the research question is

exploratory in nature and requires the researcher to

acquire in-depth contextual understanding, in order to

provide an answer for the question. In addition, this

study focuses on a contemporary phenomenon, and

the researcher has had no control over the behavioral

events of the study. According to Yin (2009), this

conditions argue for the use of case study research.

Several reasons explain this choice (Eisenhardt, 1989;

Yin, 2009).

First, because this study is aimed at supporting the

findings on interdependencies and coordination

mechanisms on actual patterns of behavior. Second,

the phenomenon was not understood sufficiently

enough to employ a survey study. The case study

strategy enabled the incremental understanding on the

coordination phenomenon during the study. In additi-

on, the case study method was seen as an appropriate

strategy to study complex phenomenon in which there

are more variables of interest than data points.

Additionally, case study strategy has been

specifically set to identify coordination mechanisms

portfolios in KM (Dietrich, 2007). Thus, the case

study was considered as the appropriate strategy for

the purposes of this study as well. The focus of

examination in this study, coordination in inter-

organizational knowledge transfer projects, fulfills

the above mentioned criteria and characteristics of

case study research.

The case study corresponds to the Iberoamerican

Historical Heritage Network – RedPHI, which was

constituted in 2011 by seven universities working in

material architectural heritage management. The

network involves highly tacit knowledge of experts

from diverse disciplines with diverse understanding

and experience levels converging in developing

highly complex tasks. RedPHI projects are supported

by a knowledge management system which has been

developed through collaborative work of software

engineers and heritage experts from each university.

In this case study, the unit of analysis corresponds

to heritage management projects including

consultancy, research and professional services. Data

collection was done from 2014 to 2015 in two

different moments with different outcomes. The first

moment was aimed at exploring KM particularities in

RedPHI, and it included a case study protocol to

ensure outcome reliability. KM capabilities theory

(Gold, Malhotra and Segars, 2001; Choi and Lee,

2003) was used to guide case exploration and to

ensure external validity, as well as including multiple

and triangulated sources of evidence (Eisenhardt,

1989) including informal meetings, semi-structured

interviews and documents to get construct validity.

Data collected is related to creation and operation

of RedPHI projects developed inside the case study

and individual experiences of heritage experts. All

data collected was saved in a data base to ensure

traceability of findings. Data analysis was carried out

through structural codification process (Miles and

Huberman, 1994), this process was tested in quality

and functionality until reaching 90% of recode

consistencies. Codes were structured and defined

according KM capabilities theory (Gold, Malhotra

and Segars, 2001; Choi and Lee, 2003) and they were

adjusted as the coding process progressed. Coding

process were stopped when categories reached

saturation. Case study analysis included pattern-

matching logic (Yin, 2009).

As a result of the first moment, a set of

interdependencies regarding to material archite-ctural

heritage management were identified in the RedPHI

project. This showed opportunities to explore in-

depth coordination activities behavior, specifically

about the role of coordination in RedPHI projects,

thus a second moment started. A new literature

review was needed to gain understanding about

coordination theory and its application within inter-

organizational KM projects. With this theoretical

focus, a set of four interviews (90 minutes each one,

with semi-structured questions) was used to identify

the coordination mechanisms portfolio to manage

each interdependency identified in the first moment.

Later, a matrix of relationships between interdepen-

dencies and mechanisms was built.

As a result of second moment, selection criteria

for coordination mechanisms in RedPHI were

identified. This allowed going beyond the simple

relationship between mechanisms and inter-

dependencies, as it was possible to explore in-depth

the arguments underlying the decisions of

coordination in the case study, which in turn,

uncovered several coordination problems.

Coordination Problems in Knowledge Transfer: A Case Study of Inter-Organizational Projects

4 FINDINGS

In this section, the outcomes of the first moment in

the case study are presented. Relationships between

interdependencies and coordination mechanisms

were identified, a matrix of those matching is

depicted in Table 1. Two flow interdependencies

were identified in the case study, one corresponds to

the level of formalization of work (f1), which refers

to the set of rules and procedures that have been

established or followed to manage information and

validate the results of previous activities; accordingly,

as formalization increases, the project is better

equipped to deal with previously identified

interdependencies, but at the same time it adds

complexity in deal with the information processing

needs of the rules and procedures themselves. The

other interdependency is related to the task

assessment (f2) and it refers to activities and project

outcomes that should be evaluated periodically to

determine information quality and quantity before

processing it, which is aimed at avoiding uncertainty

and ambiguity during subsequent activities.

In addition, eight fit dependencies were identified

in the study case. On the one hand, there are

ontological and epistemological differences (a1)

among actors, with respect to some specific concepts

that can change completely during the project course,

mainly because experts have different conceptual

perspectives based on different references and

experience levels, but in some cases those differences

also emerge when disciplinary areas and schools of

thought are different. It is problematic because task

ambiguity increases as more conceptual perspectives

are involved in a project.

There are also many working methods (a2)

depending on the different disciplines, experiences

and IP skills of the experts and institutions in which

they work, which is embodied in different

interpretation approaches but also increases activity

complexity. Additionally, tasks in RedPHI projects

are highly complex because they often include

multiple organizations, departments, groups and

individuals (a3) each of these with different

specialties and different approaches, but with the

challenge of integrating their knowledge into a single

final product.

Complexity increases even more when heritage

management projects involve not only the work of

architects and experts in the patrimonial scope, but

also from other disciplines (a4), such as civil

engineers, electrical engineers, anthropologists,

social workers, or lawyers, introducing ambiguity

that can affect the knowledge integration in the final

product. In addition, some projects involve experts or

technical teams which are distributed across

geographic locations and across time zones (a5) and

include asynchronous activities and communication

complexity. Some projects are more complex because

they require the participation of different types of

organizations (a6) which are not academic

institutions, for example institutes of cultural

heritage, culture ministries, local government, private

owners, among others, which handle specialized

information and have various functions and interests.

Furthermore, another fit interdependency is

centralization in decision-making (a7) that refers to

the extent to which the right to make decisions and

evaluate activities is concentrated in the project

leader; however, some projects include decentrali-

zation of decision-making as a consequence of the

distribution of authority among team members

depending their experience. Often, lack of

participation in the decision-making process can

affect common understanding among experts, this

ambiguity may cause a reduction in the knowledge

transfer and production of creative solutions. Finally,

relationships based on hierarchy, leadership, culture

and trust (a8) determine the agility of information

exchange, and the expert’s willingness to share their

knowledge during the different project phases, but

also it is able to increase project complexity due to

those factors depending on human psychology.

Finally, four sharing resources interdependen-

cies were found in the case study. Some projects can

include information or activities developed by non-

Spanish speaking actors, thus avoiding task

ambiguity, translation support and skills for foreign

languages (s1) are required.

Also when the project information comes from

different information systems, and these in turn are

operated by different institutions which increase task

complexity so that information systems need to be

interoperable (s2) to enable information exchange

and data sharing. In this sense, often information

systems are highly situated in its organizational

context (s3) and usually analysis of the same

information is made by different stakeholders, which

leads to different interpretations which in turn

produces task ambiguity when all interpretations have

to be integrated in a final product. In other cases,

adaptability of the information systems (s4) is

complex, therefore generic functional specifications

must be used by the experts for adapting generic

information to carry out specialized tasks. A large

portfolio of coordination mechanisms is used to

manage all the interdependencies identified in the

case study. To manage flow interdependencies,

KMIS 2016 - 8th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing

Table 1: Interdependencies and coordination mechanisms in the case study.

f1 f2 a1 a2 a3 a4 a5 a6 a7 a8 s1 s2 s3 s4

STANDARD

Policies

3,P,

3 3 2

Work documents 2 2 2 1

Work programs / Plan 3 2

MEDIATION

Coordination committees 1 2,P P 1 2 1

Technical Informs / Report 1 2

Programmed / Projects

evaluation

1 2 3 3 F 1

Hierarchies 3,P 2

Authority 1 3 1 1 1,P 1 2 2 1

Experts community 3 2 2 2

Labor division by discipline 1 1 2 1

Project web site 2 F F

Web page 1

Blog 2

Web services (translator) 2,F

Web services (GIS) 2

Software (office suite) 2 2

Web search system 3,F 2

Knowledge portal F

Cloud computing 2,P 1 3

MUTUAL ADJUSTMENT

Experts mobility 3

Common values / norms 3

Job rotation 3 3

Education / personnel

development

3 F F 1

Discussion / debate P 2 1 2

Seminars / workshop F F

Face-to-face meetings 1 1 1 2 2 1

Wikis P

Instant messaging 1 1

e-mail 2 3 1 2 1 1

Phone call 1

Video Conference 3 1,F 1

standards-based mechanisms such as policies,

working documents, work plans and work programs

are used. Also, some mediation-based mechanisms

such as technical reports and informs, work

subgroups divided by aspect, expert communities,

authority levels, project websites and coordination

committees are applied. In addition, mutual

adjustment mechanisms include job rotation,

education and personal development, face-to-face

meetings and email.

With regards to fit interdependencies, findings

include standards-based mechanisms, such as

manuals, working documents or policies. Also

involves mediation-based mechanisms involve

hierarchies, authority levels, program and project

evaluation, search systems, blogs, communities of

experts or cloud computing. In addition, mutual

adjustment mechanisms identified include norms and

values, face meetings, discussion and debate, wikis,

email, instant messaging, video conferencing and

mobile telephony.

Sharing interdependencies involve only one

standard-based mechanism, namely working

documents, while mediation-based mechanisms used

are expert communities, online translation services,

geographic information system, office suites, systems

consulting and cloud computing, among others.

Finally, mutual adjustment mechanisms used to

manage interdependencies are email, education and

personal development, and discussion and debate.

The purpose of the case study was not only to

identify coordination mechanisms used to manage

each interdependency, but also determine the extent

to which a mechanism is chosen within the portfolio

Coordination Problems in Knowledge Transfer: A Case Study of Inter-Organizational Projects

and with what selection criteria. The match between

coordination mechanisms and interdependencies is

depicted in Table 1, including a ranking of use of the

mechanism in the interdependence in which it is

applied. This rank is represented on a scale from 1

(frequently used) to 3 (rarely used). Additionally, the

letter "P" indicates that the mechanism was used in

the past, and the letter "F" indicates that the

mechanism may be used in the future, as intended by

the interviewees. These two labels are useful to

analyze the possible evolution of coordination

mechanisms, but this is out of the scope of this

research paper.

Choosing coordination mechanisms for

interdependency management depends largely on

project specifications, number of actors, type of

contract (agreement, formal contract), type of

contracting institution (public, private, university),

type of project (consulting, research), among other

factors. Also, matching mechanisms to interdepen-

dencies rests on variables associated to information

and knowledge characteristics, i.e. information

quantity, nature of the information (public, private),

characteristics of information (size, order), or

information type (documents, drawings, multimedia).

Finally, the use of ICT tools for coordination

depends on factors such as the complexity of the

technological tools, actor’s knowledge about the tool,

actor’s skills for using tools, project resources to

acquire specialized knowledge about a particular tool,

as well as the language between actors and the trust

they have in the use of technological tools.

5 DISCUSSION

Different coordination issues were identified in the

case study regarding the role of coordination in

knowledge transfer. Coordination complexity

increases as project tasks are managed through labor

division and knowledge specialization. In some cases,

task complexity is high when conceptual differences

between architects arise, but it is even higher when

the project requires other disciplines, such as civil and

electric engineering, social work, anthropology, or

law. In some cases, a project manager chooses

coordination mechanisms to integrate specialized

knowledge focusing on information quality and

quantity to satisfy project requirements. Moreover,

selection of coordination mechanisms is an entirely

non-rational process guided by team member’s

experience. Often, prior use of coordination

mechanisms is the main argument for selection, and

thus situational factors in a new project are omitted

and do not change the coordination mechanism

entirely decisions.

Some coordination mechanism are preferred for

most of the interdependencies i.e. face-to-face

meetings, which is not a problem per se because

mechanisms can be ubiquitous, but not all

mechanisms are cognitively feasible or applicable in

all problems. For instance, face-to-face meetings are

obviously problematic when staff is not on location

or when many people are involved in the meeting,

then actors turn to face meetings with small groups,

but this hinders knowledge transfer between all

stakeholders.

In this sense, when ontological differences

emerge during the project, face-to-face meetings are

the first coordination mechanism used, if consensus

is not achieved, labor division is applied, but if the

conceptual differences persist the project manager

determines unilaterally the ontological principles.

Even though thesaurus and glossaries could enable a

common understanding, they are rarely used because

interpretation, exploration and added value are

limited according to interviewees. From this point of

view, testing the power of different coordination

mechanisms in a project is difficult and could risk

task performance.

Often actors will use the same coordination

mechanisms regardless of task changes during the

course of a project. The set is only modified due to

client requirements, such as permissions, file formats

and formal contracts. Dynamic selection of

mechanisms was not found inside or between projects

so that task complexity is managed with a static set of

mechanisms. This behavior increases task

uncertainty, because information-processing (IP)

needs are not supported. In addition, combination and

permutation of coordination mechanisms available is

not considered a way to reduce task complexity,

uncertainty or ambiguity; this shows a rigid decision-

making structure in project coordination.

Furthermore, the cost of coordination

mechanisms is one of the most important factors to

decide how to coordinate knowledge transfer in the

heritage domain, but to select the least costly

mechanism could affect the IP capabilities of the

project team. For example, most of the RedPHI

interdependencies could be managed more efficiently

through ICT mechanisms, but heritage experts are

adverse to technology-based coordination because it

is considered unsteady and their use is assumed to

require special skills that not all stakeholders have,

which implies more cost beforehand in terms of the

time and money required for learning and the

interference it has with day-to-day practices.

KMIS 2016 - 8th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing

Moreover, understandings and using (or enacting)

a particular tool is often ineffective and contextual.

For instance, for RedPHI a wiki was developed as a

collaborative working environment but only the

designer knew how it worked and the mechanism was

transformed into a document repository alone. In

addition, if a coordination mechanism is not correctly

configured and maintained it can affect the

effectiveness of knowledge transfer, i.e. a technical

committee is preferred for solving technical concerns

or conceptual divergences; however, in some cases

not all stakeholders participate on the discussion

increasing further ambiguity.

Familiarity, availability, confidence, experience,

natural and routine use, upgrade facilities are criteria

for selecting a set of ICT that supports coordination

activities. However, the portfolio of ICT is so

extensive that each actor uses different technologies,

in different ways, at different times and with different

people. This observation shows that selecting tools is

highly situated and contextualized and can alter the

mutual understanding between actors, limiting the

information exchange and the creation and transfer of

knowledge. Limitations occur due to people with

established norms of use, types of computer-mediated

interactions that work for them, and familiar patterns

of communication.

To deal with the divergence in ICT usage, actors

look for a common denominator of tools, or force

actors to learn a new technology or new actors must

adjust to the structural properties of ICTs that preexist

in the project. Nevertheless, the common denomina-

tor can be reduced in excess and eventually become

insufficient to transfer the amount of knowledge and

information that the project requires. In addition,

actors minimize information exchange to avoid

learning new tools, due to resource availability.

The problems exposed in the last paragraphs,

uncover a gap between the conception and use of

ICTs that support coordination, and a lack of

understanding about how this gap affects the

knowledge transfer process. This issue exceeds the

scope of the mainstream IP view of coordination,

because coordination problems in knowledge transfer

are not a matter of information quantity or IP

capacity, but a relationship between people and

coordination technologies. This point at overcoming

techno-centric view of coordination, which has been

widely studied, and suggests a socio-material perspe-

ctive as alternative to improve knowledge transfer.

The socio-material perspective of KM recognizes

that knowledge is not attributable to a single

component, such as a specific technology or infrastru-

cture, but the constitutive entanglement of the social

and the material in everyday life (Orlikowski, 2007;

Orlikowski and Scott, 2008). According to

Orlikowski (2007) entanglement indicates that the

relationship between people and technology is not

reciprocal but inextricable related — there is no social

that is not also material, and no material that is not

also social.

In this sense, humans are constituted through

relations of materiality (bodies, objects, technology),

which in turn are produced through human practices

(Orlikowski, 2007). Such relationships can represent

a high-level understanding of knowledge transfer,

where the ontological separation between source-

receiver and technology is surpassed by a relational

ontology that dissolves analytical boundaries

between technologies and humans because it

considers them as inherently inseparable. According

to Orlikowski (2007), socio-material practices act as

mediators of work, but also set up organizational

realities that require further exploration.

6 CONCLUSIONS

Coordination in heritage domain knowledge transfer

is a complex task and, at the same time, is under-

researched. As coordination practices improve, it is to

be expected that this may result in more effective are

expected to increase architectonic heritage conserva-

tion. This study aimed at identifying empirical

coordination issues within inter-organizational

knowledge transfer projects in the architectonic

heritage domain. The research question was

addressed through an exploratory case study with an

interpretative approach. Interdependencies and

coordination mechanisms were identified with an

inductive perspective following the information-

processing (IP) view and some coordination issues

were revealed. Those issues are not associated to the

mechanisms per se, but with the situated and

contextualized selection of coordination technologies

within a large portfolio. Accordingly, the relationship

between people and technology determines the

coordination characteristics for knowledge transfer.

Our findings are based on one case study and,

therefore, by definition, only meet to a limited extent

the criterion of generalizability. Further research

needs to be conducted in other domains. In particular,

our findings reveal a need to rethink the implications

of coordination in inter-organizational knowledge

transfer projects. Specifically, the case study

exploration was made following the IP view of

coordination; however, findings suggest that

coordination issues could be addressed through a

Coordination Problems in Knowledge Transfer: A Case Study of Inter-Organizational Projects

socio-material perspective. Our initial definition,

drawn from the literature, presented KM as “a

dynamic and continuous set of processes and

practices embedded in individuals, as well as in

groups and infrastructure” (Alavi and Leidner, 2001).

However, as our study has shown, attention to the

detail of coordination practices suggests that this

definition may conceal a multitude of socio-material

views that can extend understanding about how

coordination can support knowledge transfer,

enhancing heritage management projects. Further

research exploring such socio-material views may

better address the interplay between coordination and

knowledge transfer process.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank RedPHI members at

Javeriana University in Bogotá - Colombia for

collaborating in this project.

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