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118 MANAGING KNOWLEDGE WORK AND INNOVATION

from the knowledge derived from a particular project. In this way, instead of tak-
ing a collaborative, more trust-based, approach that might maximize the chance
of success in future development, firms adopt a ‘black boxing’ strategy focused
on securing a good return on the investments already made. We see this issue very
clearly in the two cases at the end of this chapter.
The issue of the value of knowledge derived from IP protection is closely
related to inter-organizational power dynamics. Hardy and Phillips (1998)
identify three important aspects of inter-organizational power dynamics: formal
authority, critical resources and discursive legitimacy. Formal authority refers to
the recognized, legitimate right to make a decision. In a complex project con-
text, however, such power is often ambiguous – it can rest with one particular
project or be distributed across projects and/or shift over time. This can create
problems for knowledge sharing across projects.
In the case of critical resources, if one project relies on another for such
resources as information, money, equipment, the dependent project is at a power
disadvantage, as depicted by resource dependency theory (Pfeffer and Salancik,
1978). Thus, by having power based on resources (including knowledge), one
organization can exercise power over its partner by controlling resources. This
can create problems for knowledge sharing as the more powerful partner proj-
ect may be able to withhold resources from the less powerful partner project,
if this is in its interests. Thus, although complementarities between knowledge
resources may bring partners together, ultimately the effort placed on knowl-
edge integration may be restricted by these power-dependency relationships.
In this way, aligning interests and, more importantly, sustaining alignment of
interests when the inevitable twists and turns of fortune occur become crucial
but also very difficult to achieve.
Finally, discursive legitimacy arises from the ability of one interest group
to legitimize their demands and ‘de-legitimize’ the demands of others by the
management of meaning (Pettigrew, 1973). For instance, having a scientific
reputation may afford one project team more influence over decisions than
its resource-rich partner. In this way, knowledge integration in complex
project contexts should be seen as involving a range of actors negotiating and
bargaining between different perspectives and identities within shifting relations
and domains of power. This is likely to mean that in many cases knowledge
from the interdependent projects will not be effectively integrated because
interdependencies between projects will be managed sequentially or in a pooled
fashion, without the level of reciprocity that is required. This is illustrated in the
case at the end of this chapter.

>> CONCLUSION

Exploiting knowledge that is created within a particular project – so that it can be
reused in other contexts or integrated with knowledge created in other projects –
is not easy. In this chapter we have examined a number of reasons for this. One
particular problem occurs because of the nested nature of the learning within

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