Page 223 -

212 MANAGING KNOWLEDGE WORK AND INNOVATION

Figure 9.6 Example boundary object

• they could ‘move’ between being fl uid and being frozen. For example, design
sketches in pencil could easily be ‘frozen’ as design plans but could also be
changed (the pencil could be erased).
• they were ‘parsimonious’ – in other words, not so complex that they defied
any interpretation.
• they were always partially incomplete, so that they permitted different inter-
pretations to come to light.

Investment in practice
We saw above how power and politics comes to bear on managing knowledge
for innovation. As we saw in Chapter 1, practices (like diagnostic practices) also
become institutionalized – different groups, including managers, profession-
als, scientists and technicians develop distinctive perspectives, or worldviews,
which become invested over time in their practices and shape their interactions
with other groups (Carlile, 2002). The notion of ‘field of practice’ reminds us
that wider systems of power reinforce separations of practice (e.g. the power of
surgeons who have authority). Innovators, therefore, need to work with these
structures (e.g. the development of professional standards) not against them.
This helps to explain why innovation, in particular, can be so challenging.
Innovation, by definition, requires departures from, or breaks with, previously

6/5/09 7:20:36 AM
9780230_522015_10_cha09.indd 212 6/5/09 7:20:36 AM
9780230_522015_10_cha09.indd 212