R&D knowledge management in a telecommunications consortium: An actor-network perspective

This paper is concerned with the R&D knowledge management in a consortium. It presents an ethnographic study on Mobiconomy group, a consortium designing mobile services. We first demonstrate that the actor-network theory can be linked with theory of organisational knowledge creation, and thus apply it to examining the knowledge creation in Mobiconomy as a 'black-boxing' process. This paper discloses the improvisatory characteristics of knowledge creation process in a consortium, The author argues that a consortium should have a pre-project phase when a common vocabulary is developed and an integrator is introduced. The experience of our case consortium - that the white book has emerged as a tool of R&D knowledge management - can be drawn upon by other consortia. Implications for understanding the future trend of the mobile commerce market have been given. Copyright © 2006 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.