Abstract
This paper examines how and why project teams may be conceived as highly creative and generative knowledge creation spaces – as opposed to traditionally and primarily being conceived as only temporal task focused entities where knowledge is simply exchanged. In this qualitative analysis which draws on situated learning theory, project teams offer significant and yet generally underexploited personal knowledge growth opportunities for participants. The arguments presented in this paper also support a notion that project teams can serve as important action locations for organizations seeking to unlock employee learning potential and harness their creativity, and thereby contribute to the development of a learning culture. Through its challenge to conventional perspectives about project teams and their limitations, this paper provides a conceptual grounding from which to pragmatically and productively approach an important and most often neglected project phenomenon of social learning.
Keywords
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Boud, D., Garrick, J.: Understandings of workplace learning. In: Boud, D., Garrick, J. (eds.) Understanding Learning at Work, pp. 1–12. Routledge, Great Britain (1999)
Hedberg, B.: How Organizations learn and unlearn. In: Nystrom, P.C., Starbuck, W.H. (eds.) Handbook of Organizational Design: Adapting Organizations to Their Environments, vol. 1, pp. 3–27. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1981)
Kezsbom, D., Edward, K.: The New Dynamic Project Management: Winning Through the Competitive Advantage, 2nd edn. John Wiley and Sons Inc., USA (2001)
Leonard-Barton, D.: The factory as a learning laboratory. Sloan Management Review, Fall, 23–38 (1992)
Leonard-Barton, D.: Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation. Harvard Business School Press, USA (1995)
Antoni, M., Sense, A.J.: Learning within and across projects: A comparison of frames. Journal of Work, Human Environment and Nordic Ergonomics 2, 84–93 (2001)
Ayas, K., Zeniuk, N.: Project based learning: Building communities of reflective practitioners. Management Learning 32(1), 61–76 (2001)
Lundin, R.A., Hartman, F.: Pervasiveness of projects in business. In: Lundin, R.A., Hartman, F. (eds.) Projects as Business Constituents and Guiding Motives, pp. 1–10. Kluwer Academic Publishers, USA (2000)
Sense, A.J.: Cultivating Learning Within Projects. Palgrave Macmillan, England (2007a)
Lundin, R.A., Midler, C.: Evolution of project as empirical trend and theoretical focus. In: Lundin, R.A., Midler, C. (eds.) Projects as Arenas for Renewal and Learning Processes, pp. 1–9. Kluwer Academic Publishers, USA (1998)
Smith, B., Dodds, B.: Developing Managers Through Project Based Learning. Gower Publishing Limited, England (1997)
Arthur, M.B., DeFillippi, R.J., Jones, C.: Project based learning as the interplay of career and company non-financial capital. Management Learning 32(1), 99–117 (2001)
Morris, P.W.G.: Managing project management knowledge for organizational effectiveness. In: Proceedings of PMI® Research Conference, Seattle, USA, July 2002, pp. 77–87 (2002)
Sense, A.J.: Re-characterizing projects and project teams through a social learning lens. In: European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) conference, Amsterdam, Netherlands (July 2008)
Frame, J.D.: The New Project Management: Tools for an Age of Rapid Change, Corporate Reengineering, and Other Business Realities. Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco (1994)
Block, R.: The Politics of Projects. Yourdon Press, New York (1983)
Cleland, D.I.: Project Management: Strategic Design and Implementation, 3rd edn. McGraw-Hill Companies Inc., USA (1999)
Turner, J.R.: The Handbook of Project-based Management, 2nd edn. McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, UK (1999)
Senge, P.M., Scharmer, O.: Community action research: Learning as a community of practitioners, consultants and researchers. In: Reason, P., Bradbury, H. (eds.) Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice, pp. 238–249. Sage Publications Ltd., London (2001)
Brown, J.S., Duguid, P.: Organizational learning and communities of practice: Towards a unified view of working learning and innovation. Organization Science 2(1), 40–57 (1991)
Lave, J., Wenger, E.: Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1991)
Saint-Onge, H., Wallace, D.: Leveraging Communities of Practice for Strategic Advantage. Butterworth-Heinemann, Amsterdam (2002)
Wenger, E.: Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge University Press, USA (1998)
Wenger, E., McDermott, R., Snyder, W.M.: Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Harvard Business School Press, USA (2002)
Wenger, E., Snyder, W.: Communities of practice: The organizational frontier. Harvard Business Review, 139–145 (January-February 2000)
Park, P.: People, knowledge, and change in participatory research. Management Learning 32(2), 141–157 (1999)
Cook, S.D.N., Yanow, D.: Culture and organizational learning. Journal of Management Inquiry 2(4), 373–390 (1993)
Dixon, N.: The Organizational Learning Cycle: How We Can Learn Collectively, 2nd edn. Gower, England (1999)
Gherardi, S.: Learning as problem-driven or learning in the face of mystery?*”. Organization Studies 20(1), 101–124 (1999)
Gherardi, S., Nicolini, D.: To transfer is to transform: The circulation of safety knowledge. Organization 7(2), 329–348 (2000)
Hildreth, P., Kimble, C., Wright, P.: Communities of practice in the distributed international environment. Journal of Knowledge Management 4(1), 27–38 (2000)
Brown, J.S., Duguid, P.: The Social Life of Information. Harvard Business School Press, Boston (2000)
Nonaka, I., Takeuchi, H.: The Knowledge Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation. Oxford University Press, USA (1995)
Weick, K.E.: Sensemaking in Organizations. Sage Publications Inc., USA (1995)
Billett, S.: Guided learning at work. Journal of Workplace Learning: Employee Counselling Today 12(7), 272–285 (2000)
Marsick, V.J.: New paradigms for learning in the workplace. In: Marsick, V. (ed.) Learning in the Workplace, pp. 11–30. Croom Helm, USA (1987)
Solomon, N.: Culture and difference in workplace learning. In: Boud, D., Garrick, J. (eds.) Understanding Learning at Work, pp. 119–131. Routledge, Great Britain (1999)
Greenwood, J.: Action research and action researchers: Some introductory considerations. Contemporary Nurse 3(2), 84–92 (1994)
Shani, A.B., Docherty, P.: Learning by Design: Building Sustainable Organizations. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Oxford (2003)
Nonaka, I., Konno, N.: The concept of ‘Ba’: Building a foundation for knowledge creation. California Management Review 40(3), 40–54 (1998)
Kolb, D.A., Kolb, A.Y.: Learning styles and learning spaces: Enhancing experiential learning in higher education. Academy of Management Learning and Education 4(2), 193–212 (2005)
Coopey, J., Burgoyne, J.: Politics and organizational learning. Journal of Management Studies 37(6), 869–885 (2000)
Kolb, D.A., Baker, A.C., Jensen, P.J.: Conversation as experiential learning. In: Baker, A.C., Jensen, P.J., Kolb, D.A. (eds.) Conversational Learning: An Experiential Approach to Knowledge Creation, pp. 51–66. Quorum books, USA (2002)
Phillips, A.: Creating space in the learning company. In: Burgoyne, J., Pedler, M., Boydell, T. (eds.) Towards the Learning Company: Concepts and Practices, pp. 98–109. McGraw-Hill Book Company Europe, Great Britain (1994)
Sense, A.J.: Learning generators: Project teams re-conceptualized. Project Management Journal 34(3), 4–12 (2003)
Wenger, E.: Communities of practice and social learning systems. In: Nicolini, D., Gherardi, S., Yanow, D. (eds.) Knowing in Organizations: A Practice-based Approach, pp. 76–99. M.E. Sharpe Inc., USA (2003)
Solomon, N., Boud, D., Rooney, D.: The in-between: Exposing everyday learning at work. International Journal of Lifelong Education 25(1), 3–13 (2006)
Billett, S.: Workplace participatory practices: Conceptualising workplaces as learning environments. Journal of Workplace Learning 16(6), 312–324 (2004)
Davenport, T.H., Prusak, L.: Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know. Harvard Business School Press, USA (1998)
Seibert, K.W., Daudelin, M.W.: The Role of Reflection in Managerial Learning: Theory, Research, and Practice. Quorum Books, USA (1999)
Baker, A.C.: Receptive spaces for conversational learning. In: Baker, A.C., Jensen, P.J., Kolb, D.A. (eds.) Conversational Learning: An Experiential Approach to Knowledge Creation, pp. 101–123. Quorum books, USA (2002)
Gray, C.F., Larson, E.W.: Project Management: The Managerial Process, 2nd edn. Irwin/McGraw-Hill, Boston (2003)
Fulop, L., Rifkin, W.D.: Representing fear in learning in organizations. Management Learning 28(1), 45–63 (1997)
Rifkin, W., Fulop, L.: A review and case study on learning organizations. The Learning Organization 4(4), 135–148 (1997)
Coopey, J.: Learning to trust and trusting to learn: A role for radical theatre. Management Learning 29(3), 365–382 (1998)
Boxall, P., Purcell, J.: Strategy and Human Resource Management, 2nd edn. Palgrave Macmillan, China (2008)
Björkegren, C.: Learning for the Next Project: Bearers and Barriers in Knowledge Transfer within an Organization, Licentiate thesis No. 32 from the International Graduate School of Management and Industrial Engineering. Institute of Technology, Linköpings Universitet, Linköping, Sweden (1999)
Sense, A.J.: Structuring the project environment for learning. International Journal of Project Management, Special issue on the European Academy of Management (EURAM 2006) Conference 25(4), 405–412 (2007b)
Koskinen, K.U.: Boundary brokering as a promoting factor in competence sharing in a project work context. International Journal of Project Organisation and Management 1(1), 119–132 (2008)
Eskerod, P., Skiver, H.J.: Organizational culture restraining in-house knowledge transfer between project managers – A case study. Project Management Journal 38(1), 110–122 (2007)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Sense, A.J. (2009). Knowledge Creation Spaces: The Power of Project Teams. In: Karagiannis, D., Jin, Z. (eds) Knowledge Science, Engineering and Management. KSEM 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 5914. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-10488-6_34
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-10488-6_34
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-10487-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-10488-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)