Jonas Roth

Enabling knowledge creation: learning from an R&D organization

The ability to create knowledge and diffuse it throughout an organization is today recognized as a major strategic capability for gaining competitive advantage. Scholars and managers have shown an increasing interest in understanding and managing organizational knowledge. Despite this, there are few examples in the literature that bridge the gap between knowledge and knowledge application. This article develops a knowledge management initiative which facilitates knowledge creation and sharing beyond project boundaries, based on exploratory research at pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. The results indicate that, by allowing the emergence of knowledge facilitators, practical knowledge for action is produced and shared. The article explores the dynamic and relational nature of knowledge when managing knowledge, it then develops actionable tools for lateral knowledge creation and knowledge transfer, and concludes with implications for managers using the tools.

Dynamic Learning Capability and Actionable Knowledge Creation: Clinical R&D in a Pharmaceutical Company.

This article explores the use of organizational learning mechanisms to create actionable knowledge in a pharmaceutical company. An action research based approach was used to explore the nature and issues associated with fostering the dynamic learning capability within the firm. The results indicate that dynamic learning capability is embedded and influenced by company culture, existing skills and competence, organizational structure, incentives for learning, capacity for continuous change and leadership. It is argued that enabling actionable knowledge creation is a fragile process that has to be managed with care, and is far more complex than the literature suggests.

Care of the other: knowledge-creation through care in professional teams

This paper presents a study in a major pharmaceutical company of how team-based, knowledge-intensive work is positively affected by what we refer to as care. Organization theory directs much effort toward understanding how values, norms and cultures are shared, how they construct meaning and make sense within an organization. In addition, the ability to share experiences and know-how is a crucial activity in organizations. This paper presents a framework for knowledge-creation in a relational, sensemaking perspective where the notion of care, the ability to establish interpersonal, sensemaking mechanisms, is the underlying key factor behind knowledge-creation in team-based organizations.

Insider action research Facing the challenges of new capability development within a biopharma company

Insider action research is viewed as a means and an end in the development of new organizational capabilities. Building on the literature that is based in the fields of business strategy, insider action research, learning mechanisms and organization development, we develop a model of new organizational capabilities development. Three longitudinal action research projects within AstraZeneca are described and examined using the model. Many of the challenges faced by the insider action researcher, such as linking IAR project to business strategy, pre-understanding, acting in a political landscape, managing multiple roles, designing and managing a variety of learning mechanisms, and the ongoing need to maintain balance between opposing forces are identified and discussed. Directions for future research and recommendations for insider action researchers are presented.

Heedful interrelating, knowledge sharing, and new drug development

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to report a study of knowledge sharing practices in the clinical research organization in a major pharmaceutical company. While knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer is often conceived of in terms of codification and storage in databases accessed through information technology, there is less experience in industry from working with knowledge sharing in face‐to‐face communication settings.Design/methodology/approach – A collaborative research methodology including academic researchers, consultants and company representatives was used to examine and develop a knowledge‐sharing model. Interview and participative observations were used as data collection methods.Findings – The study suggests that the use of so‐called knowledge facilitators, organizing and leading knowledge sharing seminars among clinical research teams, needs to develop the capacity to interrelate heedfully, that is, the dispositions to act with attentiveness, alertness, and care, to fully explore the ...

Garbage-Can Decision Making and the Accommodation of Uncertainty in New Drug Development Work

Innovation processes are sometimes described as a series of sequential activities, smoothly transforming into one another. However, in real-life settings, innovation work is characterized by uncertainty, risk taking, politics and time pressure, and consequently much decision making in innovation work deviates from such rationalist models. Instead, decisions are made in the form of garbage-can decision making, demonstrating a variety of non-linear elements. Such characteristics are especially pronounced in industries based on science-based innovation, operating under genuine uncertainty. This article reports a study of the clinical trial work in a major multinational pharmaceutical company and suggests that decision making includes at least four coping strategies for dealing with non-linear and migrating decision-making processes.

Expert or speaking‐partner? Shifting roles and identities in consulting work

Purpose: Identities are central to the regulation and control of knowledge-intensive work. Rather than being managed on the basis of technocratic or bureaucratic control, knowledge intensive firms are employing knowledge workers who enact and internalize identities and roles that guide everyday behaviour in organizations. However, the concept of identity is relational and contingent on local conditions and interactions in everyday practices, different identities may be complementary or even contradictory. The paper aims to show that consultants are altering between being experts and speaking-partners, two identities that in many ways are complementary but also mutually reinforcing. Design/methodology/approach: This is a case study of a Swedish management consulting firm, Johnson Consulting. Findings: The challenge for consultants is to be capable of effortlessly transgressing the line of demarcation between the two identities - expert and speaking-partner - and their accompanying practices for the benefit of the client. Skilled consultants are trained at moving back and forth between these positions while less experienced consultants may find it intimidating to lose their position as expert. Practical implications: The paper concludes that knowledge-intensive firms such as management consulting firms should articulate and elaborate on the various identities mobilized in everyday work when encountering clients. Originality/value: The paper uses the literature on identities in knowledge-intensive firms and an empirical study of management consultants to show that knowledge-intensive work is always operating on the level of identities and self-images. Understanding knowledge intensive firms thus demands an understanding of how co-workers perceive their own role.

Who will lead the physicians unwilling to lead? Institutional logics and double-bind situations in health care leadership

Purpose – Health care organizations are increasingly demanded to balance the institutional logic of “medical professionalism” and “business-like health care,” that is, to both recognize physicians’ professional expertise while locating it in a wider social, economic, and political organizational setting. The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications from this shift in terms of leadership work in health care organizations. Design/methodology/approach – Case study methodology including interviews with 15 residents in Swedish health care organizations. Findings – A study of the willingness of residents to take on leadership positions show that leadership roles are treated as what is potentially hindering the acquisition of the know-how, skills, and expertise demanded to excel in the clinical work. Consequently, taking on leadership positions in the future was relatively unattractive for the residents. In order to overcome such perceived conflict between professional skill development and leadershi...