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234 MANAGING KNOWLEDGE WORK AND INNOVATION

particular knowledge processes where they specifically play a major enabling role.
The section concludes by summarizing the most important aspects of the enabling
context which support particular knowledge work processes.

Creating knowledge
Creating knowledge requires the application of tacit and explicit knowledge via
experimentation, discussion and so on in teams and projects in order to generate
new knowledge. It is in this way that completely new and novel products, pro-
cesses and services are invented. The discussion in Chapter 9 around the Medico
case highlighted that some innovations will be perceived as radical and highly
disruptive (to existing practice) by potential users and it may be difficult for the
innovating firm to diffuse their new product or service. The emphasis here is on
perceptions of what the new product or service has to offer to potential users.
Once particular products and services have become embedded over time, it can
be difficult for new innovations to diffuse, as users become resistant to change.
This highlights just how uncertain the innovation process can be. Nevertheless
creating knowledge is a fundamental starting point in the innovation process.
It was highlighted in Chapter 2 that different types of knowledge workers,
for example scientists, engineers, lawyers, advertising creatives, rely on tacit and
explicit knowledge to varying degrees in their work and thus place more or less
reliance on codified knowledge and codification during the process of knowledge
creation. Regardless of the emphasis placed on codified knowledge, knowledge
creation is primarily reliant on the application of workers skills, intellectual ability
and expertise in team and projects settings. Therefore developing and support-
ing workers engaged in the kind of complex knowledge-intensive work requires
a particular management approach and form of control. Chapter 2 emphasized
this point and explained that knowledge workers operate most effectively when
they are given the opportunity to largely self-organize and self-manage their
work as individual’s or in teams. Management therefore have to find approaches
to organizing that they believe will deal with the tension that exists between
the autonomy demanded by knowledge workers and organizational efficiency in
order to satisfy themselves that they have provided a context in which knowledge
workers will be motivated to work hard in the interests of the firm.
Significant managerial effort needs to be placed therefore on developing an
enabling context for this particular type of highly knowledge-intensive work,
one that will promote (in relative terms) efficiency (often when outcomes are
highly uncertain) and simultaneously provide a significant degree of autonomy
or knowledge worker discretion. The importance of a culture that promotes
a strongly shared sense of identity grounded in elitism was highlighted as a
key enabler, in combination with cultural conditions that recognize and cel-
ebrate diversity. A number of ways that this can be achieved are highlighted
in Alvesson and Robertson’s (2006) work which considered the way in which
four very different types of consulting firm managed to create a shared identity
grounded in elitism. As was highlighted in Chapters 2 and 6, the characteristic

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