Innovation, Knowledge and Power in

Organizations

This book examines discourses of knowledge and innovation in post-industrial

societies and knowledge-based organizations. The author investigates the value
of knowledge and the question of innovation management in a fully commercial
environment for a technology company.
In contrast with most of the mainstream approaches to knowledge and
innovation management this volume chooses as its starting point a critical exam-
ination of these assumptions before proceeding with further suggestions on how
to manage knowledge. Using brand new empirical research, the author argues
for the significance of addressing the political games and power struggles
enacted in managing innovation processes, which result from the opportunity
certain groups seek to acquire or extend their control over valuable resources.
Again, in contrast to mainstream approaches that reduce power to the ability of
individuals to negotiate in order to promote their ideas, the analysis adopts an
extended view on power, and seeks to reveal the ambiguities and challenges of
innovation management.
This work will be of most interest to researchers and students of knowledge
and innovation management, namely postgraduates and second degree students,
as well as managers in knowledge-based organizations.

Theodora Asimakou has a PhD in Management from Manchester Business

School. She has research and consulting experience in academic and commercial
projects in large organizations in Greece and UK. She is currently employed as a
lecturer at 1st College, Athens, Greece.
Routledge studies in global competition
Edited by John Cantwell
University of Reading, UK
and
David Mowery
University of California, Berkeley, USA
1 Japanese Firms in Europe
Edited by Frédérique Sachwald
2 Technological Innovation,
Multinational Corporations and
New International
Competitiveness
The case of intermediate countries
Edited by José Molero
3 Global Competition and the
Labour Market
Nigel Driffield
4 The Source of Capital Goods
Innovation
The role of user firms in Japan
and Korea
Kong-Rae Lee
5 Climates of Global Competition
Maria Bengtsson
6 Multinational Enterprises and
Technological Spillovers
Tommaso Perez
7 Governance of International
Strategic Alliances
Technology and transaction costs
Joanne E. Oxley
8 Strategy in Emerging Markets
Telecommunications
establishments in Europe
Anders Pehrsson
9 Going Multinational
The Korean experience of direct
investment
Edited by Frédérique Sachwald
10 Multinational Firms and
Impacts on Employment, Trade
and Technology
New perspectives for a new
century
Edited by Robert E. Lipsey and
Jean-Louis Mucchielli
11 Multinational Firms
The global–local dilemma
Edited by John H. Dunning and
Jean-Louis Mucchielli
12 MIT and the Rise of
Entrepreneurial Science
Henry Etzkowitz
13 Technological Resources and the
Logic of Corporate
Diversification
Brian Silverman
14 The Economics of Innovation,
New Technologies and
Structural Change
Cristiano Antonelli
15 European Union Direct
Investment in China
Characteristics, challenges and
perspectives
Daniel Van Den Bulcke,
Haiyan Zhang and
Maria do Céu Esteves
16 Biotechnology in Comparative
Perspective
Edited by Gerhard Fuchs
17 Technological Change and
Economic Performance
Albert L. Link and
Donald S. Siegel
18 Multinational Corporations and
European Regional Systems of
Innovation
John Cantwell and
Simona Iammarino
19 Knowledge and Innovation in
Regional Industry
An entrepreneurial coalition
Roel Rutten
20 Local Industrial Clusters
Existence, emergence and
evolution
Thomas Brenner
21 The Emerging Industrial
Structure of the Wider Europe
Edited by Francis McGowen,
Slavo Radosevic and
Nick Von Tunzelmann
22 Entrepreneurship
A new perspective
Thomas Grebel
23 Evaluating Public Research
Institutions
The U.S. Advanced Technology
Program’s Intramural Research
Initiative
Albert N. Link and John T. Scott
24 Location and Competition
Edited by Steven Brakman and
Harry Garretsen
25 Entrepreneurship and Dynamics
in the Knowledge Economy
Edited by Charlie Karlsson,
Börje Johansson and
Roger R. Stough
26 Evolution and Design of
Institutions
Edited by Christian Schubert and
Georg von Wangenheim
27 The Changing Economic
Geography of Globalization
Reinventing space
Edited by Giovanna Vertova
28 Economics of the Firm
Analysis, evolution and history
Edited by Michael Dietrich
29 Innovation, Technology and
Hypercompetition
Hans Gottinger
30 Mergers and Acquisitions in
Asia
A global perspective
Roger Y.W. Tang and
Ali M. Metwalli
31 Competitiveness of New
Industries
Institutional framework and
learning in information technology
in Japan, the U.S and Germany
Edited Cornelia Storz and
Andreas Moerke
32 Entry and Post-Entry
Performance of Newborn Firms
Marco Vivarelli
33 Changes in Regional Firm
Founding Activities
A theoretical explanation and
empirical evidence
Dirk Fornahl
34 Risk Appraisal and Venture
Capital in High Technology
New Ventures
Gavin C. Reid and Julia A. Smith
35 Competing for Knowledge
Creating, connecting and growing
Robert Huggins and Hiro Izushi
36 Corporate Governance, Finance
and the Technological
Advantage of Nations
Andrew Tylecote and
Francesca Visintin
37 Dynamic Capabilities Between
Firm Organisation and Local
Systems of Production
Edited by Riccardo Leoncini and
Sandro Montresor
38 Localised Technological Change
Towards the economics of
complexity
Cristiano Antonelli
39 Knowledge Economies
Innovation, organization and
location
Wilfred Dolfsma
40 Governance and Innovation
Maria Brouwer
41 Public Policy for Regional
Development
Edited by Jorge Martinez-Vazquez
and François Vaillancourt
42 Evolutionary Economic
Geography
Location of production and the
European Union
Miroslav Jovanovic
43 Broadband Economics
Lessons from Japan
Takanori Ida
44 Targeting Regional Economic
Development
Edited by Stephan J. Goetz,
Steven C. Deller and
Thomas R. Harris
45 Innovation, Knowledge and
Power in Organizations
Theodora Asimakou
Innovation, Knowledge and
Power in Organizations

Theodora Asimakou
First published 2009
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 2009 Theodora Asimakou
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-88348-9 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-415-42666-9 (hbk)

ISBN10: 0-203-88348-9 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-42666-4 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-88348-8 (ebk)
Contents

List of illustrations viii

1 Introduction: a story of studying technological innovation 1

PART I
Theoretical 19

2 The value of knowledge in post-industrial societies 21

3 Knowledge and innovation in organizations 45

PART II
Empirical 77

4 Commercialization and knowledge production:

Hydro-Carbon Solutions 79
5 The construction of ‘commercial innovation’ 110
6 The politics of innovation: Technology Group A 124
7 Innovation management in a commercial environment:
Technology Group B 145
8 Conclusion: the commercial condition of knowledge 165

Appendix: sources of information 183

Notes 185
Bibliography 188
Index 196
Illustrations

Figures
3.1 Organizations and types of knowledge 50
3.2 Model of organizational knowledge creation 51
3.3 Model of organizational interpretation modes 55

Tables
8.1 The sovereignty of economic rationale 166
8.2 Strategies of invasion and resistance 168
8.3 Re-articulation of the research language game 173
8.4 Competing discourses of innovation 177
A.1 Distribution of interviews 184
1 Introduction
A story of studying technological
innovation

Introduction
It may be stating the obvious to say that knowledge is the key resource in
today’s post-industrial society; a powerful discourse has been construed in the
latest years, which relates the sustainability and the success of businesses to
their capacity to compete on the edge of new and rare knowledge, either in the
form of new products and services, or businesses, etc. This discourse has a great
impact on the structural properties of society and organizations; the latter,
following the prescriptions of knowledge rhetoric, have joined the pursuit of
identifying their knowledge capital and supporting the processes of new know-
ledge generation and innovation, which are expected ultimately to return the
competitive advantage. Hence, a new type of organization has emerged: the
knowledge-based organization; its main feature is that the production processes
are not defined by capital or labour, but knowledge. Knowledge becomes the
input and the output of the production process, and its quest intensifies.
Clearly, the new discourse on the value of knowledge and innovation has
created the need for understanding and managing the related processes; the field
of knowledge and innovation management has been approached and studied
from many different disciplines and perspectives (Economics, Finance, Organi-
zation Behaviour, Information Science), which predominantly conclude the
studies by developing technologies and tools to support these processes. Innova-
tion is framed within these approaches in terms of a ‘hardcore’ technical lan-
guage, which asserts the ‘performativity’, the ‘cost’ and the ‘economic benefits’
of investing in innovations. Others take a more critical stance and suggest trying
and understanding the properties of the phenomenon before we reach the stage
for recommendations. A phenomenon that gains increasingly great force and,
considering the structural transformations it has caused, has already proved that
it is not another ‘management fashion’, needs be studied carefully and from
multiple standpoints.
This second stream in studying innovation has formed conceptually this piece
of research. The project takes a step back and studies the nature of discourse on
knowledge and innovation, and its consequences for knowledge-based organi-
zations. In particular, it questions whether innovation, defined not as product
2 Introduction
development, for this type of innovation cannot secure the sustainability of the
business in the future, but as long-term and uncertain programmes, can be sup-
ported in a fully commercial environment, and, if yes, what strategies and
processes are enacted to conciliate the inconsistencies that exist in the funda-
mental assumptions of these discourses. The argument is that knowledge and
innovation have been first articulated within a different language game, there-
fore their translation into the language game of cost-control and profitability
would meet resistance and lead to the reordering of power relations, and ulti-
mately to the redefinition of the rules of either (or both) language game. In other
words, the study adds the power factor to the analysis of innovation, a factor that
mainstream approaches frequently either neglect or take a limited view on
power, which reduces politics to the power of negotiation and the social net-
works of individuals.
The empirical part of the study was conducted in a technology-based organi-
zation (which I call Hydro-Carbon Solutions), because the most appropriate site
to conduct the research would be an organization where knowledge is the main
resource for the business operations, and where the creation of new knowledge
would be a primary concern for the organization. The rationale behind this is
that in such an organization I would be able to study (a) at the macro level, the
grand discourse on innovation, i.e. the discourse that allegedly guides organi-
zational actions, and (b) at the same time, at the organizational level, the dis-
courses on innovation that each organization constructs, according to its own
history and understanding of what they should do, and other conflicting dis-
courses that could possibly impede innovation to become the ‘one’ accepted
reality. The interesting feature with these companies is that they employ a large
number of ‘hard’ scientists, most of them being qualified researchers at a PhD
level, who often have worked (or some of them currently have) a position in the
academia, and now they are employed in an organization with commercial ends.
I thought that this point would throw light on the question of knowledge from
various aspects, since it would enable me to study the re-articulations within the
dominant innovation discourse, as it converges to embracing a commercial ratio-
nale, and the collision between competing discourses on innovation that emerge
at the limits of the commercial discourse, as well as the effects on knowledge
subjects and structures – i.e. the scientists, the innovation processes, etc.
Having adopted a critical position to the study of organization, the objective
of the book is not to nullify rationalistic approaches on the grounds of being
inadequate to study innovation; on the contrary, it asserts the opening up of the
debate, for knowledge and innovation are multidimensional phenomena and
need be studied from multiple perspectives; by challenging the established frame
of thinking regarding management and organizational phenomena the book
aspires to provoke debate and new ways of tackling management issues related
to knowledge and innovation. The contribution of the book is that, by applying
critical discourse analysis, i.e. an off-the-mainstream methodology for organi-
zational studies, in the study of knowledge processes, it gains insights into the
changing nature of knowledge and innovation, investigates the consequent
 Introduction 3
reordering of the power relations and theorizes the consequences for the know-
ledge subjects and structures; in other words, the book suggests the analysis of
power in the study of innovation processes by listening to the voices of various
partakers.

Discourse and organizational studies

Discourse theory has been developed as a response to amend the perceived
weaknesses of conventional qualitative research.1 It rejects realism, suggesting
instead a social constructionist view of the world, formulated by Wittgenstein’s
writings on language and Marxist concepts on politics and ideology; at the same
time, it does not reject the interpretative models of social research, as inspired
by Weber and others. Grounded in a post-structuralist epistemology and its
critique on language, discourse theory opened up new ways of thinking about
the relationship between structure and agency, identities and social actions, the
interweaving of meanings and practices, and the nature of social and historical
change.
For discourse theory all objects and actions are meaningful, and this meaning
is conferred by historical specific systems of rules. Following Foucault, the
meaning depends on the orders of discourse that constitute its identity and
significance (Foucault, 1971, 1972); that I perceive a tree as decoration, or as
first resource for economic expansion, or as an obstacle, depends upon the dis-
course – aesthetics, economic rationality or personal interest – from within I
operate.
Howarth and Stavrakakis (2000: 3–4) describe the nature of discourse as
follows:

we take discourse or discourses to refer to systems of meaningful practices

that form the identities of subjects and objects. At this lower level of
abstraction, discourses are concrete systems of social relations and practices
that are intrinsically political, as their formation is an act of radical institu-
tion, which involves the construction of antagonisms and the drawing of
political frontiers between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. In addition, therefore,
they always involve the exercise of power, as their constitution involves the
exclusion of certain possibilities and a consequent structuring of the rela-
tions between different social agents. Moreover, discourses are contingent
and historical constructions, which are always vulnerable to those political
forces excluded in their production, as well as the dislocatory effects of
events beyond their control.

This description encapsulates traces of the approaches (structuralism, Fou-

cauldian, etc.) that have contributed in shaping the shared understanding of dis-
course in social interactions. Indeed, the study of discourse is being conducted
from different perspectives (interpretative, critical, post-structuralist) and
one can notice some variations as to what is treated as ‘discourse’. Structural
4 Introduction
linguistics defines discourse as ‘language above the sentence or the clause’,
whereas functional approaches define discourse as ‘language in use’ (Schiffrin,
1994). Foucault, on the other hand, having adopted a more abstract approach to
discourse analysis, treats discourse as a set of statements that formulate objects
and subjects.2
Despite these differences, there are some fundamental assumptions about lan-
guage that various approaches to the study of discourse treat as common ground
(Potter and Wetherell, 1987: 35):

• language is used for a variety of functions and its use has a variety of
consequences
• language is both constructed and constructive
• the same phenomenon can be described in a number of ways
• there will, therefore, be considerable variations in accounts
• there is, as yet, no foolproof way to deal with this variation and to shift
accounts which are ‘literal’ or ‘accurate’ from those which are rhetorical
or merely misguided thereby escaping the problems variation raises for
researchers with a ‘realistic’ model of language
• the constructive and flexible ways in which language is used should
themselves become a central topic of study.

Discourse analysis draws attention to three key aspects of language: contra-

diction, construction and practice (Parker and BDN, 1999). ‘Contradiction’
searches for different meanings that are at work in the text; contradictions
between different significations and contradictions between different versions of
the world. This does not mean that consistencies cannot be a topic of study; pat-
terns and repetitions are interesting as well, but they do not take upon the role of
‘normal’ uncritically. ‘Construction’ refers to the examination of how meanings
have been socially constructed in a way to make sense as normal or natural to
the reader. Last, ‘practice’ questions what these contradictory systems of mean-
ings are doing; how they naturalize the people’s understanding of what ‘normal’
and ‘natural’ is, and the consequences of this naturalization on how people
understand the world and act. Issues of power and ideology may be called into
play, as discourse is investigated in terms of its political function.
The linguistic turn towards the study of discourse in social sciences has
intrigued the attention of much research in organization studies. Consequent of the
vague understanding and agreement as to what ‘discourse’ refers to, the research
that has been conducted from this approach, covers various areas and aspects of
the organizational life. Keenoy et al. (1997), attempting to conceptualize the
related work done on the field, distinguish two main streams: the first one is
between authors that see discourse analysis as a methodological device for making
linguistic sense of organizations and organizational phenomena; these authors
focus on the study of social text, which includes the study of talk and written text
in its social action contexts and highlights the ‘talked’ and ‘textual’ nature of
everyday interaction in organization (Alvesson and Karreman, 2000).
 Introduction 5
The second, in contrast, sees the study of discourse as a means for revealing
the ambiguities of social construction and the indeterminacy of organizational
experiences. From this viewpoint, social reality is discursively constructed and
maintained, and analysis focuses on its determination through historically situ-
ated discursive moves. This approach introduces and studies the social and polit-
ical dimensions of language, in addition to the discursive, compared to the more
narrow-focused textual approaches. These latter studies have been greatly
formed in the ground of a Foucauldian approach to the study of discourse
(Alvesson and Karreman, 2000).

Methodology – critical discourse analysis

The research adopts a language-centred view on studying innovation. From this
perspective, discourse, i.e. a web of relations among elements, which provides
the conditions of emergence of any meaningful object, rather than action or
meaning, is the object of study. Following Van Leewen (in Wodak and Meyer,
2001) I looked at discourse both as a social practice and as a form of knowledge
that shapes realities; I examined innovation, as articulated by various groups and
within different webs of relationships, and then contrasted it with the normative
discourse of innovation, as found in the academic literature, which supposedly
shapes organizational actions. The assumptions behind this approach is that dis-
course is a mode of action, in other words, a way of people interacting with each
other and the world, as well as a mode of representation – a representation not of
the world, but of the humans’ perceptions of the world.
‘Social practice’ implies that language is neither a social product nor an entity
independent of the society. Language is a part of the societal whole. There is a
dialectical interaction between discourse and social structures – similar to the rela-
tionship between social practices and social structures; discourse is construed by
the social structure, interest groups, institutions, etc., in other words, the social
orders that shape orders of discourse. Discourse is not only shaped but also impacts
and shapes social structure and orders, giving the world meaning. Actual/local dis-
course is determined by socially constituted orders of discourse, and sets of conven-
tions associated with social institutions (Fairclough, 1989). I should note here that
this point recognizes a degree of freedom to individuals to choose from existing
discourses, according to the specific situation and their objectives each time.
Fairclough (1992) distinguishes three aspects of the constructive effects of
discourse: (a) discourse constructs ‘social identities’ and the self; (b) discourse
constructs social relationships among people and (c) discourse contributes to the
construction of knowledge and beliefs. These three functions of discourse form
the keystone of the analytical framework. From the nature and functions of dis-
course, it follows that not only a change in social orders is represented in a
change of discourse, but also a change in discourse transforms identities, rela-
tionships and systems of knowledge.
Change occurs when the contested discourse – as any discourse – reaches its
limits when it encounters events that cannot be explained within the current
6 Introduction
discursive system, and hence is being redefined by re-articulating the relations
among its elements. Laclau and Mouffe (2001) call this failure of discourse to
domesticate new events ‘dislocation’, and assert that it leads to a partial break-
down of the symbolic order. The limits of a discourse change, as it now may
include new elements, lose others and rearrange their web of relations. In this
process, new meanings and practices emerge, while the identities and relations
of the subjects participating in this struggle are being redefined (Torfing, 2005).
Discourses are not produced in a vacuum within organizations, but draw from
other extra-organizational more stable discursive orders. Critical discourse
analysis allows the study of more stable discourses in a Foucauldian sense
together with the study of language in use; in other words, it allows the study of
discourse both at the micro and the macro level, and addresses issues of conflict
and power, which are fundamental concepts to interpret the findings of the
present research, which studies how the dominant view is being contested by
various groups that conflict over defining what innovation is. During the data
collection stage, many different discourses on innovation emerged that would be
linked to different actions, or sometimes the same statements would be used to
do different things. Critical discourse analysis provided the appropriate interpre-
tative framework to make sense of these findings.
On this point my analysis deviated from the approach standard critical dis-
course analysis takes on treating meaning and cognition; even though I recog-
nize the power of discourse in shaping subjectivity and meanings, I bracketed
off cognitive elements (ideas, stable meanings, etc.) and emotions. Discourses
construct versions of the world, and their mere existence does things (Potter and
Wetherell, 1987). Instead of searching for the ‘real’ meaning of the texts, I adopt
a phenomenological stance, which ‘brackets’ truth-value and allows the multivo-
cal study of discourses on innovation within the organization; meaning is treated
as locally constructed and transient, rather than stable and fixed. I keep the main
focus on discourses (the innovation discourses), the social processes of their pro-
duction, their relation with other discourses and the consequent implications for
the organization (the actions taken and structures adopted). The study does not
assume the interlocutors’ one fixed identity that is revealed via discourse analy-
sis, but a ‘temporary’ identity, shaped along with the text from within it emerges
(formal documents, interview, etc.) and determined by the purpose and the
context of its construction, as well as participants’ subjectivity.

Research design and methods

The empirical research, which was part of my doctoral studies, is an ethno-
graphic study that materialized between April 2002 and October 2003 in the
research laboratories of an energy company in the UK, which I will name
Hydro-Carbon Solutions. I intensively study two Business Groups, to which I
will refer as Technology Group A and B. The parent company had decided to
give R&D research a ‘commercial twist’, and it pushed the technical laboratories
to come up with more ‘commercial ideas’ and also to compete in order to prove
 Introduction 7
their commercial value to the company. The signed agreement with the company
allowed me access in the field for one year starting in June 2002; informally I
had access much earlier to company’s documents and I had started browsing
their websites since April 2002, and I kept contact with the Business Groups and
was updating my information until I finalized my project. Thus, I had the
opportunity to observe and interact with the company for more than one year,
and to study discourses and changes from a longer-term perspective.
I applied a range of qualitative techniques to gather information; due to the
language focus of the research, I looked for texts from a range of different
sources (see Appendix), which could provide insights into formal and informal,
dominant and weaker discourses. The main technique I used – ‘main’ in the
sense that I used it to generate the largest bulk of information – was the indi-
vidual interview; I also used participant observation, informal conversations,
and study of desk data, such as organizational documents, newsletters, e-mails,
internet and intranet websites. These techniques were employed in parallel
throughout the time of data collection, in order to support and elucidate issues
that were emerging while being in the field.

Documentary data
Most qualitative studies treat documents as secondary information, which is
studied to cross-check and validate other information gathered from interviews
or observations (Atkinson and Coffey, 1997). These studies use documents as a
source of historical and descriptive information. However, having adopted here
a discursive approach, I felt that treating documents as a secondary source
misses out a lot of information that can only be generated by analysing docu-
ments as primary data in their own right; textual practices are a vital way in
which organizations constitute their reality, and the study of the rules of their
production is equally essential to the study of their content. Hence, a study of the
processes of production and circulation gives distinct insights into the organi-
zational realities.
I treated documentary data as the source of ‘formal’ organizational discourse,
which I analysed following the same methodology as the information gathered
from interviews. Consistent with the phenomenological stance I have adopted,
the truth-value of the material was irrelevant, since what I was searching was
precisely the differences between the viewpoints and the different discourses
from where these texts were drawn.
The research started by gathering information regarding the history and strat-
egy of the company, in order to familiarize myself with the organizations; a
large part of the information was found on the internet, annual reports and
organizational charts. The intranet and internet sites had great interest for the
purpose of the study, which gave me the opportunity to observe not only the
‘discourse’ in terms of language, but also how different Business Groups were
constructing and changing their website according to the changes the organi-
zations were going through and considered important.
8 Introduction
Observations in the field
Unlike normative methodologies, which request the researcher’s detachment
from the field, in order to ensure the objectivity of the findings, qualitative
research benefits from the possibility that its epistemological ground gives the
researcher to enter the field and interact personally with the people on site, and
hence to gain insights into their daily lives first hand by observing them and the
accounts people construct as they interact (Burgess, 1984). The kind of informa-
tion recorded this way is valuable and unique, for it involves people talking and
acting naturally, hence the opportunity to observe and understand the import-
ance and the applications of the rules that regulate their daily life, i.e. observing
people following and breaking the rules, and reasoning about their actions.
The observations were recorded in my field diary during the occurrence of
events (e.g. meetings) or after them (e.g. informal conversations). This method
allowed the interpretation of data to address eventually not only what is said or
done, but also the context and the way the accounts and the observations
were made.
Employees at the technology site – from the security people to the senior
managers – were strikingly friendly and ready for chatting. People working for
the company moved frequently from one site to another, and also there were
many students that came in and did short projects; hence my presence was not
unusual – and especially for those who had an interest in innovation manage-
ment my presence was welcome. Throughout these occasions, I was aiming ini-
tially to familiarize myself with the environment, understand the unwritten rules
according to which the Business Groups work and observe naturally occurring
discourse and actions. I found particularly interesting and mind-orienting the
gossips, or rather the exchange of information and observations about ‘trivial’
things of everyday life and the past days, that people naturally mentioned, while
having a coffee – or when bored.

Individual interviews
The main method I used for data generation was the in-depth interview; it is a –
relatively – quick way to generate information about the themes under study,
and it gives the opportunity to observe discourses as they are being produced.
My aim was not to learn what knowledge and innovation are, but when, how and
why the discourse on innovation and the adopted practices emerged, and the dif-
ferent meanings ‘innovation’ has acquired through its use. Compatible with the
epistemological assumptions of the study, the truth-value of what is being said
was irrelevant for the purpose of the study, and hence this stance was best
reflected on the ‘active’ approach to interviewing (Silverman, 2001).
The ‘active’ approach to interviewing assumes that the interview even though
it has its own objectives and rules on how to proceed, ultimately is another
speech event, and being a speech event it shapes the content of what is said;3 the
interviewer and the interviewee interact and construct together meanings while
 Introduction 9
the interview develops. For the active interview there is no ‘single’ meaning to
extract during the interview; however, this is not to mean that meanings are
absolutely unique for the situation from within which they are constructed and
have no significance outside the situation: meanings are not built from scratch,
rather the interviewee interprets what is asked and also the situation, and
responds according to the knowledge resources they have about the content of
the question, and about the situation (Holstein and Gubrium, 1997). The active
interview gives the possibility to explore what the research topic is about, and
also how knowledge about the topic is narratively constructed (Holstein and
Gubrium, 1995). In other words, active interviews give insights into the research
question, but also elucidate the subject’s interpretative actions. Acknowledging
the situational character of the meaning-making process, the validity of answers
derives not from their correspondence to an external reality, but from their
ability to convey situation experienced realities in terms that are locally
comprehensible (Holstein and Gubrium, 1997).
The investigation started with interviewing members of the Innovation Team
at Technology Group A, who were in charge of managing the Ideas Machine, in
order to get an understanding of what the innovation mechanism was. Most of
the interviews I conducted were semi-structured, i.e. I had an agenda of themes I
wanted to study,4 but the questions were open to the interviewees to answer
them as they thought it would be most relevant and insightful to the topics under
investigation. The unstructured interviews were used as exploratory tools in
areas that might have an impact on the topic under study. This flexible structure
enabled me to include in the interview schedule and explore new questions that
emerged while being in the field (Holstein and Gubrium, 1995; Mishler, 1986),
and based on this schedule and findings I conducted the unstructured follow-up
interviews at the end of the study.
During the time of my fieldwork, I conducted in total 41 in-depth interviews
from which 30 were semi-structured and 11 unstructured with individuals from
three Business Groups of Hydro-Carbon Solutions. I selected the interviewees in
terms of their academic and professional qualifications and years employed at
the company. I was searching for differences in the discourses of managers,
senior scientists, newly recruited employees and other groups who were empow-
ered by the commercialization turn or the innovation discourse. The semi-
structured interviews lasted a minimum of one hour, they were tape-recorded,
and run cutting across the sampled groups, in order to eliminate the impact of
the participants’ perceptions on shaping my understanding and take sides. All
interviews were attentively transcribed before the analysis.

Interpretation of field data

In qualitative research, data interpretation starts simultaneously with data gener-
ation (Burgess, 1984). While I was in the field, I was keeping notes of each
event I was participating and observing (interviews, conversations, meetings,
etc.), and at the end of each day I was writing in a diary a summary of the day
10 Introduction
and of the progress of the research. The result was that I was able to build an
understanding of the site, the people and the relationships, as emerged by cross-
checking and linking the notes; the method allowed me to observe my own posi-
tion towards the site and my progress of understanding the research. By reading
these data while I was doing the fieldwork, I was able to generate themes for
further investigation and a preliminary interpretation of the findings at each
stage. These interpretations while in the field acted as milestones in developing
the research further.
The second stage of interpretation took place at the end of the fieldwork; at
this stage, I reread all the data I had collected, all my field notes, diary and pre-
liminary analysis, and reconceptualized the themes through the lenses that my
methodological framework suggested, searching for sensible relationships and
explanations, and connecting issues between them and with the theoretical
framework. Committed to my discursive approach I searched in the texts for:

• strategies of dominance, neutralization and resistance,

• conflicting discourses and contradicting elements,
• dislocating events,
• rhetorics and grand narratives.

Reflexive research and evaluation criteria

It is relevant at this point to include a final note, regarding the criteria against
which a study that departs from a positivist epistemology should be evaluated. It
is particularly relevant to the present study, which endorses a critical theory
perspective to the analysis of organizational life.
Despite the long debate upon the differences between quantitative and
qualitative research in social studies, and even though qualitative research has
proved its value and adequacy in exploring aspects of social life in a different
light, still it has to defend itself on the ground of criteria suitable for deductive
research, i.e. validity and reliability (Gill and Johnson, 2002). These criteria are
difficult to be met because of the fundamental differences between the two tradi-
tions in terms of their philosophical assumptions and historical development.
The first stream of responses to this limitation from the qualitative front was to
try to develop further and refine the methodologies and techniques to be used, in
order to meet the established criteria (Gill and Johnson, 2002; Silverman, 1997).
This tactic has resulted undoubtedly in more sophisticated qualitative method-
ologies and techniques, as well as in deeper insights into their value and into the
process of researching. However, the case remains that qualitative research is
fundamentally different from quantitative, and even when it manages to satisfy
these criteria, it lacks criteria to assess its value on its own ground – criteria that
would address the peculiarities and objectives of qualitative research.
A second stream of responses addressed the limitations and inherent weak-
nesses of quantitative research in studying humans and social phenomena,
emphasizing at the same time the adequacy of qualitative research to overcome
 Introduction 11
these limitations. The contributions of post-modernism and critical theory,
together with the momentum that the linguistic turn has acquired recently, have
added a great deal in developing sound arguments for this debate. First, the corner-
stone of quantitative tradition, the ‘objectivity’ of the research findings has been
doubted, as it has been ascertained that objectivity is a chimera: research is not
value free, it will always be constructed via the researcher’s presuppositions and
understanding; ironically, the less ‘objective’ research is precisely quantitative
research, since by principle it pre-constructs a version of the world, which then
sets out to measure without questioning the subjectivity of these claims (Deetz,
1996). From this point onwards, phenomenology has suggested that truth-value is
irrelevant for the purpose of a study, as the principle of symmetry expects the out-
comes of interpretation to stand on their own, regardless of truth or falsehood of
data (Potter, 1996). Foucault went further in arguing for a bracketing of both truth-
value and meaning of the phenomenon under study, which indicates towards a
restriction of research to the observable aspect of social phenomena and the con-
tingencies for and consequences of their existence, avoiding like that the limita-
tions of the subjective interpretations and cognitivism. Post-modernism, on the
other hand, has argued for the existence of multiple meanings and the importance
to acknowledge weak and absent voices in the interpretation of the findings.
Finally, discourse studies embedding elements of the previous views have concep-
tualized the above debate as indeed a power/knowledge issue, where voices from
different paradigms struggle to ascertain their existence, suggesting versions of the
world; this means that no view is right or wrong, but rather equally important.
All the previous remarks have led to reconsidering the purpose and value of
science; for if we want to suggest new criteria – and thus to avoid relativistic
claims – then these have to be compatible with the nature of knowledge. The cri-
terion of internal validity, which seeks to ascertain causal relationships between
phenomena, falls short, because simply research from a critical and discursive
point of view does not embrace any sort of causality, but rather the contingency
and the unique nature of social life. The same argument can be addressed
towards the replicability of research; research from this standpoint sets out to
study irregularities rather than normal and repetitive cases. Researchers from
these schools of thought claim that there is as much to learn from the different
and the small as from the big and normal (Silverman, 1997; Alvesson and
Sköldberg, 2000).
Various criteria have been suggested from this ‘reflexive’5 perspective for
evaluating qualitative research (Marshall and Rossman, 1995; Potter and
Wetherell, 1987). Researchers in general agree on the importance of usefulness
of new knowledge, the voicing of multiple perspectives and credibility. The cri-
terion of usefulness refers to the ability of new knowledge to guide action and to
have a practical technological value (Lyotard, 1984); new knowledge is assessed
based on its social relevance. Even though this criterion seems reasonable, if we
look behind it, then we see the danger that the close linkage between knowledge
and society gives the control of the processes of knowledge creation to the hands
of the dominant group, which will use it to serve their own – economical or
12 Introduction
ideological, etc. – interests, and will turn knowledge itself into a commercial
product. The second criterion asserts the empowering of weak and absent voices
and is driven by the ideal of democracy. Social reality is socially constructed
and research should aim to bring into play alternative versions of it. In a first
glance, this view neglects that researchers are actively involved in the construc-
tions of these alternative versions, since they can never get rid of their own pre-
suppositions, while they are voicing the ‘weak’ alternatives. An alternative to
this idea of democracy is Deetz’s (1992) claim that good research should break
through fixed forms of subjectivity via constructing new discourses. Alvesson
and Sköldberg (2000) challenge this extreme linguistic reduction for it loses
sight of the material dimension of social life and hence lacks direction; to put
simply, what is the point of breaking through and opening up new discourses if
there is no linkage with the practicalities of the material world?
Credibility is an adaptation of the criterion of validity; it asks what the
significance of a piece of research is, and whether the researcher has demonstra-
ted adequately the coherence of the thesis. Credibility is certainly important for
assessing research; however, it is not a straightforward matter: credibility as cri-
terion needs further elaboration before it is applied, especially in the relationship
it assumes between theory and empirical data, and the role of language in signi-
fying social realities. The linguistic turn in social science has demonstrated
clearly that there is no neutral language and furthermore, language cannot mirror
an external objective world, but ideas and perceptions of this world. However,
Alvesson and Sköldberg (2000) warn us that accepting that language cannot
mirror the world should not lead us to a complete abandonment of any empirical
material from our research; on the opposite, our view on the empirical material
can inspire ideas and theories, illustrate and clarify arguments and, especially in
the case of building theory, provide rigour and credibility. Data do not speak for
themselves, and cannot prove anything, however ‘empirical material should be
seen as an argument in efforts to make a case for a particular way of understand-
ing social reality, in the context of a never-ending debate’ (ibid.: 276). Hence,
they reframe the features of good research following the lines of the previous
arguments, highlighting the importance of:

• empirical arguments and coherent theoretical reasoning,

• open attitude to the interpretative dimension of social phenomena,
• critical reflection on the political and ideological context of research,
• awareness of the ambiguity of language and its limited capacity to convey
‘objective’ knowledge and the role of the author in this issue,
• theory development based on these issues, which is hopefully ‘rich in
points’, i.e. goes beyond the empirical material, challenges established ways
of thinking and achieves an epistemological break with common-sense
knowledge.

To these criteria, I shall add the power of new knowledge to changing the exist-
ing organizational order, and rearranging power relations, by questioning neu-
 Introduction 13
tralized webs of discourses. I invite this piece of research to be assessed against
this epistemology of praxis.

The structure of the book

I split the book into two parts: the theoretical, where I investigate the grand nar-
ratives of knowledge and innovation, as constructed via the academic literature,
and the empirical, where I investigate these concepts in light of empirical data.
In the first part I review the literature on the changing status of knowledge in
the post-capitalist societies, and the impact of this new discourse upon the
organizations – the newly emerged ‘knowledge-based’ organizations. I also
discuss the literature on analysing knowledge and innovation in organizations,
and suggest that since knowledge is inextricably interwoven with power, the
analysis of knowledge and innovation in organizations would not be complete
unless it addressed the power effects and changing order. Then, in the empirical
part, I discuss the case of a technology knowledge-based company, ‘Hydro-
Carbon Solutions’, and its trajectory through the commercialization discourse.
Here, I examine how the latter has impacted on their understanding of innova-
tion and the related practices implemented to support the need for new know-
ledge, like the new discourse prescribes. The research studied the discourses in
two Technology Groups, which fell under the new Hydro-Carbon Solutions
umbrella. The analysis addresses issues of politics and power related to innova-
tion, conceiving power not merely as a negotiating variable, like the mainstream
analysis of innovation recognizes, but as a force of creating the dominant under-
standing of what innovation is, what is not and what the necessary actions are to
be taken, in order to comply with the new and naturalized definition of innova-
tion. Ultimately, the question I set out to answer is whether the commercial dis-
course leaves space for technological innovation, and, if affirmative, what is the
web of relations that innovation confers when articulated within the commercial
discourse, what strategies are employed in the struggle over its articulation, and
what the consequences are for an organization.
The book develops over eight chapters; the first one is this introduction
chapter, where I explain the rationale for undertaking this project; the research is
located in the broader debate regarding knowledge and innovation, and I present
the main arguments and methodology. Given that the project has adopted a
language-centred view on the study of organizations, I start by explaining the
necessity for this linguistic turn in social sciences, and expose the fundamental
assumptions as well as different approaches to it. I next discuss my methodo-
logical framework, which conceives discourse as a means for revealing ambigui-
ties of social construction and the indeterminacy of organizational experiences.
Here I explain further the assumptions of critical discourse analysis, and how I
used it for the purposes of this study. I chose to study the conflict between dis-
courses and the power struggle between groups that are affected by the commer-
cial innovation discourse. The research has been framed on the assumptions of
critical discourse analysis, which enables the study of both grand and local
14 Introduction
discourses and the power struggles within the same framework. Then I move on
to present my research design, i.e. an ethnography of the R&D laboratories of an
oil company, and the methods for data collection. I conclude this chapter by dis-
cussing the challenges that a qualitative piece of research faces when needs be
evaluated on the grounds of the quantitative criteria.
Having adopted a critical approach to the study of knowledge and innovation
management, the research naturally questions first how these discourses emerge
and whether knowledge can indeed be managed, before we are in position to
suggest how it can be managed. Chapter 2 asserts that since knowledge and
power are the two sides of a coin, then a change in the language game of know-
ledge implies a change in the established power relations that produce and
sustain it. I commence the chapter by examining the nature of knowledge and
the differences between scientific and narrative knowledge that form two distinct
language games. I discuss the structure and rules of the research game, which is
one that finds legitimization for the knowledge it produces within the boundaries
of its community. Once the disciplinary power of the scientific community is
accepted, I move on to identifying the emergence of the discourse on knowledge
and innovation rooted in the disciplines that produced it, and the force of this
discourse in changing the nature of ‘knowledge’ to ‘commercial knowledge’.
This transformation has led to a series of changes in the societal structure, and
the roles and identities of the actors who partake in the production of know-
ledge, be it knowledge-based companies, universities, researchers, etc. Most
importantly, the financial jargon becomes the natural language of science – the
one that all scientists have now to speak, in order to be in a position to particip-
ate in the language game. I conclude the chapter with a critical discussion of the
rhetoric of commercial knowledge, which I claim constructs an image of a
society where everybody benefits from and is happy to trust and share informa-
tion in the new order.
In the third chapter, I focus the discussion about knowledge and innovation
down to the organization level. Here I examine how different disciplines have
conceptualized knowledge and management, and the various tools and tech-
niques they suggest in order to control knowledge. After introducing the argu-
ments against the manageability of knowledge, I bring the discussion to the area
of innovation management. Here, I examine the main discourses, and the ways
each one constructs innovation and innovation management, the main concepts
and themes they suggest, and their assumptions and limitations. Having estab-
lished that knowledge is always interconnected with power, and that innovation
is a knowledge phenomenon, I then reiterate here my analytical framework, as
one that adds the power dimension to the analysis of innovation, conceptualizing
power relations through the lenses of discursive formations. Finally, I question
the field of knowledge management, the practices it develops and the impact it
has on organizations. Nonetheless, attributing to the knowledge management
field the power of producing totalizing discourses that form managers’ frames of
logic, managerial decisions and actions, does not do justice to the individual
subjectivity and does not explain different courses of action and change. There-
 Introduction 15
fore, I conclude the chapter by discussing why managers follow the ‘hype’ – and
in the present case, the hype of ‘innovation management’. I discuss the view that
managers are individuals with multiple identities and interests; in fulfilling their
tasks they have the opportunity each time to choose from a range of co-existing
and competing discourses.
Having demonstrated conceptually the force of discourses in influencing
structures, practices and identities, Chapter 4 introduces the site of empirical
study, a technology knowledge-based company, Hydro-Carbon Solutions, and
its trajectory towards commercialization. The study explores the formal dis-
course of commercialization that has given the two Business Units under study
their new structure and identity. Here I identify the discursive strategies
employed to neutralize the force of the change, which was presented as ‘good’
and ‘unavoidable’. The commercialization discourse has usurped values of the
previously dominant scientific culture; however these values took a new
meaning in the new commercial environment. I examine the changes the com-
mercial turn brought in the two groups of focus, Technology Groups A and B,
and the consequences it had on the identity of the organization – which used to
be a ‘scientific site’ – and its members, as well as the changes in the work
design. My argument is that the articulation of knowledge within a commercial
discourse brings changes in the research language game, which ultimately affect
the knowledge production structures. The question that I pose here is what kind
of knowledge can actually be produced within a commercial discourse, and what
is the value of it. The analysis focuses on ‘buzzwords’ of the commercial dis-
course, and questions their meaning and implications. I conclude this chapter
with a discussion of the implications of commercialization for the research site.
In this commercial now site a new discourse emerges, the commercial
innovation discourse, and gains the attention of the business and of certain
groups and individuals, since it promises benefits for all partakers. As a con-
sequence of the much promising rhetoric, certain moves have been made
towards supporting the innovation process from many levels of the wider
organization. Chapter 5 presents and discusses Eureka, a higher-level innovation
machine, which was developed in order to give strategic direction to the R&D
activities of Hydro-Carbon Solutions. Here I examine the formal organizational
discourse and practices of innovation, and the relationship between ‘commer-
cialization’ and ‘innovation’. I examine closer the structure of this successful
innovation machine, which was developed on the assumptions of ‘rational plan-
ning’; I discuss its aims and objectives, as well as the challenges it faces in
engaging the scientific population. Throughout this chapter I focus on the lan-
guage that ties together innovation with business profits, i.e. I analyse the con-
struction of the commercial innovation discourse. The question I pose here is
what the consequences of innovation are once articulated within the commercial
discourse, and who the most appropriate actor is to confer it. I conclude the
chapter with a discussion of a fundamental assumption of this discourse: the col-
laboration or, as it emerges from the findings, the challenge of collaboration
between business and scientists.
16 Introduction
Eureka has not been the only innovation mechanism that tried to capture the
scientists’ attention and time. Chapter 6 presents the Ideas Machine, a local
innovation initiative, which was developed by Technology Group A, and
intended to serve its local innovation needs. The Ideas Machine was created on
the principles of innovation as culture, and set out to bring a cultural change in
the group. I argue that the rhetoric of cultural changes used values of a demo-
cratic discourse, and proclaimed that innovating should not be a privilege of the
scientific elite, as it had been the case in the past. Behind this rhetoric, what the
Business Group was actually trying to achieve, was to make full use of all
knowledge resources they had, even when those did not comply with the scient-
ific articulation of innovation, since a commercial organization has multiple
knowledge needs of many kinds. My analysis focuses on the obstacles that it
met in engaging the scientists, and in particular it reveals the political games
enacted at multiple levels, which emerged with the implementation of this local
mechanism in a technology-based firm with a strong scientific background, and
hindered the actualization of innovation. I conclude this chapter by discussing
the politics of innovation management.
The Ideas Machine was also implemented at Technology Group B, as I
discuss in Chapter 7. In this Business Group, we have the opportunity to observe
both innovation mechanisms, i.e. Ideas Machine and Eureka, how they were
implemented and the problems they encountered, which largely stemmed out of
the different understanding and expectations they had from an innovation
system. This group did not want to break the scientific elite but, quite the oppos-
ite, to support them in generating technical ideas. I argue here that the Ideas
Machine was stripped away by its cultural change rhetoric; hence it passed
unnoticed. Most importantly, here by focusing on Eureka, I examine closely the
scientists’ resistance to the rhetoric of commercial innovation, which collides
with the scientific articulation of innovation. The question of knowledge legit-
imization and governance is raised clearly by the scientists, who doubted the
adequacy of the business to decide upon technological innovation. I conclude
this chapter by discussing the challenges that the management of technological
innovation encounters in a fully commercial environment, and I track these chal-
lenges back to their structural properties and assumptions, which I argue are
fundamentally incompatible.
Finally, in Chapter 8, I discuss the key findings of the empirical part in light
of the conceptual framework I have suggested, and form a clear answer to how
technological innovation, defined as long-term and uncertain programmes, can
be adequately supported in a fully commercial environment, and what the
implications are for our understanding of knowledge and for organizations. I
start by unravelling the construction of commercial innovation in order to
support technological innovation in a commercial environment, and the resis-
tance it has met. I move on to exposing the new pragmatics of commercial
knowledge, as they emerge, by examining the transformation that occurred in
the scientific language game. I argue that the desired innovation that the dis-
course on commercial knowledge promotes, is articulated within the scientific
 Introduction 17
language game, for only hard to imitate knowledge can return the promised
competitive advantage. However, this kind of knowledge and the related innova-
tion processes cannot be supported within a short-term thinking environment
and the language game of economic rationality, for their assumptions and the
consequent processes that define the two discourses are not compatible. The
chapter concludes by questioning the structures and processes that are developed
to support innovation in a commercial environment. I stress that from the
moment knowledge legitimization leaves the boundaries of the scientific
community, there is a pressing need to devise appropriate mechanisms to govern
the production of knowledge.
Part I

Theoretical
2 The value of knowledge in post-
industrial societies

In this chapter, I examine the discourses on the value of knowledge in post-

industrial, knowledge-based societies; in particular I examine the origins of
the dominant discourse that gave scientific knowledge a central position in
our understanding of today’s society and economy (Lyotard, 1984; Foucault,
1980; Drucker, 1993), and which turned it into a commodity, the concepts it
has suggested, the new order of knowledge production and consumption it has
created (Gibbons et al., 1994) and the practices that the organizations have
consequently adopted. Finally, I critically discuss the ‘rationality’ of these
practices. After having explored the evolution of knowledge discourse, and
how knowledge is always wedded with power, then my argument is that the
new discourse on commercial knowledge enacts a network of power relations
that need be further and thoroughly studied. In other words, I suggest
that knowledge management is essentially a political question, which has
implications on the organizational structures, but also on the pragmatics of
knowledge.

The nature of knowledge

There is something odd when thinking and talking of knowledge: we cannot
think of any civilization that has developed without being able to demonstrate a
sound body of knowledge, without admiring knowledge artifacts; nevertheless,
only today western(-ized) societies call themselves ‘knowledge-based’ societies,
emphasizing in this way the central position knowledge has occupied in under-
standing economical, social and cultural phenomena and furthermore in perceiv-
ing ourselves as members or as (unfortunate?) non-members of knowledge-
based societies. The suggestion that all societies are built on knowledge begs the
question of what kind of knowledge is being worshipped as the knowledge
today. To answer this, we have to appeal to philosophy, for it is the discipline
that primarily contemplates with the subject matter, ‘what is knowledge?’ and as
many scholars ask ‘what is not knowledge?’
22 Theoretical
The structure of knowledge
Philosophy traditionally distinguishes three types of knowledge: ‘knowing how’,
which refers to the skills one develops and it is most of the times tacit; proposi-
tional knowledge or ‘knowing that’, which refers to information, as it is decon-
textualized, and has been the main object of philosophical thinking; and
‘knowing things’, which is knowledge of acquaintance. These two last forms of
knowledge are more explicit, in the sense that they can be described verbally
(Ryle, 1949; Polanyi, 1967). The distinction between tacit and explicit know-
ledge has become the core debate across disciplines (Information Science, Com-
munication Studies, Cultural Studies, etc.), which fight over the correct
framework of what knowledge is and how it can be supported in practice (with
computers or human networks); therefore the topic is relevant to discuss here.
This distinction concerning the structure of knowledge was suggested by
Polanyi (1967), who argued that knowledge has two dimensions, i.e. the tacit
and the explicit, and the difference between the two lies in the ability to articu-
late what we know: the explicit dimension refers to knowledge that can be ver-
bally articulated and hence represented semantically – or symbolically.
However, Polanyi continues that people know more than they can tell: know-
ledge has a dimension that cannot become explicit. This tacit dimension refers to
skills and competences individuals have, which allow them to perform certain
acts, however they are not conscious of how they do it. Once people concentrate
on how they do it, then the act is difficult to be performed successfully. The tacit
dimension brings about individual action that the individual cannot explain, and
rests on the individual’s competences. Polanyi calls it ‘personal knowledge’ for
it cannot be disembodied, i.e. separated from the actor’s body. For Polanyi, thus,
knowledge comprises these two dimensions, which cannot replace each other –
tacit cannot become explicit and vice versa – but they complement each other.
Following Polanyi, Collins (1993) talked about the embrained, the embodied
and the codified (in symbols) types of knowledge. Embrained (cognitive) and
embodied (competences) knowledge lies in the individual, whereas codified
knowledge is impersonal and lies in the physical environment. Another site of
knowledge is society; by this is meant the cultural knowledge that dictates rules
on how to perform successfully, or rather in a socially accepted manner, certain
actions. Collins illustrates this position by adopting a Wittgensteinian argument
on the socially constructed nature of language (Wittgenstein, 1958), and gives
the classic example of natural language: the right way to speak is not determined
by each individual, but it is a prerogative of the social group, which ultimately
defines what is acceptable and what is not. One can argue that encoded know-
ledge is part of the encultured knowledge of a community; however, the distinc-
tion here is made on that encoded knowledge has been ‘extracted’ from the
community or individuals and placed in the physical environment (stored in an
object, e.g. book, floppy disks, etc.). Furthermore, from a constructivist
perspective all knowledge (tacit and explicit, scientific and common sense) is
rooted in society and culture, for there is no knowledge if there is no communal
 Knowledge in post-industrial societies 23
agreement that it is so; this point takes the discussion to where we draw the line
between knowledge and non-knowledge.

Legitimization as a language game

So far, I have talked about what is considered to be knowledge. What I will
discuss now is what knowledge is not; in other words, what are the criteria that
qualify an assertion or an act as knowledge? how can we possibly distinguish
between knowledge and belief? how can we tell the master of an art from the
amateur? In the case of skills and competences, in a first glance things are in
some sense easier: we judge the statements not by their truth-value, but by the
success of conducting the specific action. Criteria are established by the
community (or rather the experts) from within which competences are to be
evaluated, and these criteria vary dependent on the purpose of the act each time.
So, for example, if the objective is a piece of art, then aesthetic criteria are
applied, evaluations as just or unjust call for ethical or juridical criteria, good
and bad manners appeal to cultural and unwritten rules, etc.
When we talk about cognitive knowledge, even though it is verbally articu-
lated, it becomes difficult to distinguish between (scientific) knowledge, beliefs
and stories, for they are all expressed as narration and this is the only evidence
we have. Philosophy of Science has always tried to establish the criteria to eval-
uate ‘knowledge’. This discourse on the legitimacy of knowledge has incremen-
tally created the perception that only ‘scientific’ knowledge can be regarded as
knowledge; ‘scientific’ also implies abstract, cognitive and decontextualized
knowledge, of which the production follows a rigorous methodology and the
results meet certain criteria. The field of knowledge legitimization is highly con-
tested since each paradigm suggests its own criteria of evaluation, and these cri-
teria follow from the paradigm’s assumptions and methodologies; hence, a
detailed review is beyond the purpose of this book. It suffices only to consider
the science of nineteenth century, which insisted on the verification of the find-
ings, the science of twentieth century, which insisted on the falsification, and
ultimately Feyerabend’s ‘anything goes’ view and the relativistic truth claims of
post-modernism (Chalmers, 1982). If even scientific assertions rely on the
community in order to gain their status as knowledge, then the question of legit-
imization appears less an epistemological question and more a question of ethics
and politics as Lyotard (1984) suggests, for it raises two questions: ‘who decides
what knowledge is, and who knows what is to be decided’ (p. 9).

The pragmatics of narrative knowledge

As thorough and sophisticated as the criteria to distinguish ‘knowledge’ from
mere stories and beliefs may be, they do not provide a convincing reason as to
why scientific knowledge should have the privilege of calling its assertions
‘knowledge’, over other forms of knowledge (e.g. embodied and encultured). If
the problem of distinguishing between scientific (verified and approved)
24 Theoretical
knowledge and other assertions lies on their narrative form, then it is relevant to
look briefly at Lyotard’s discussion on the differences in nature between narrat-
ive and scientific knowledge, as he exposed them in the Postmodern Condition:
A Report on Knowledge (1984).
Lyotard distinguishes five key characteristics of the folk stories told in a
society – of which, I believe, the wisdom is beyond question.

• First, they shape common perceptions and feelings of beauty, justice,

morality and higher ideals – they construct a shared system of values and
competences.
• Second, they allow a great flexibility of language games that can be enacted
(assertions, ironies, interrogations, wishes, etc.); they are all considered
equally valuable, and interestingly co-exist, even if they suggest conflicting
instances or realities.
• Third, each narration contains the rules of its transmission – instead of the
rules being prescribed by an external structure – acquired by its narrative
form, which enclose the definition of the roles of the narrator and the lis-
tener, together with the prescription of how things should be done. Narra-
tives are sites of multiple competences (know-how, know how to tell the
story, know how to listen). After the story is told, anyone who heard it has
the ‘right’ to become a narrator – to pass it on; its status as narrator will not
be in doubt.
• Fourth, interestingly and against all expectations, the relationship between
traditional knowledge and time: narratives rely on the meter and rhyme,
rather than on the accent of each performance and the accuracy of past
events; they are not the outcome of accumulative knowledge and their role
is not to remind a community of its past. Instead, they have a Lethean func-
tion, by providing at the moment of reciting a social bond for the commun-
ity – instead of a bond with the past. The referent of the story may appear
like belonging to the past, but it is always being enacted in the present,
through the act of narration – whether the referent existed indeed in the past
as such – and similar questions of accuracy are irrelevant for the time the
story is told.
• Finally, the creation and transmission of traditional knowledge does not
separate the narrators from the rest of the society and then to question the
authority of performing this role; the legitimization of a narrative is
endemic to its form and comes immediately from the act of reciting.

The pragmatics of scientific knowledge

On the other hand, legitimization of scientific knowledge has to be constructed
by an external to the statement structure, which questions each time both the
validity of the statement and the speaker’s identity and competences. The scient-
ific language game plays with different rules, which are much more rigid and
narrow, and determines different roles to the participants. Lyotard develops his
 Knowledge in post-industrial societies 25
argument by distinguishing between ‘research’ and ‘teaching’, as two distinct
language games, since the participants take different roles in each. To start with
the ‘research game’, each statement seeks approval via its correspondence to
truth, and it is the speaker’s task first to provide the proofs for it and second to
be able to refute contradictory statements. The listener on the other side is sup-
posed to have already similar competences to the speaker, as, since the moment
one gives the agreement to the statement, one has to be able to perform the
double task, i.e. provide proofs and be able to refute contradictory statements. In
other words, in the research game speaker and listener are equal.
Regarding the referent and its correspondence to truth things turn problem-
atic: the truth-value of a scientific statement can only be supported by providing
a second statement of the same order; the question is what proves that my proof-
statement is true – maybe with a third statement of the same order? Attempting
to resolve this, ‘verification’ and ‘falsification’ were grounded in two rules: the
first is in a sense rhetorical and states that if I can produce a proof, I am allowed
to claim its truth-value; the second appeals to metaphysics and asserts that the
same referent cannot produce a plurality or contradictory proofs. The acceptance
of these two rules allows a horizon of consensus in the scientific community; it
is assumed, not that every consensus is a sign of truth but, that the truth of a
statement necessarily draws consensus. The research game relies on the consen-
sus among equal participants; non-consensus over a statement puts at stake not
only the statement but also the speaker’s competences; hence the need for creat-
ing equals and consensus. The pragmatics of developing equals are different; the
teaching language game relies on didactics rather than dialectics: the speaker’s
competences are not in doubt, hence one is qualified to teach; the learner is
assumed not to have research competences, but to be competent to learn; the
truth-value of the statement is not in doubt, and hence is transmitted as ‘true’
knowledge. Once the student is approved as competent, then one is accepted as
equal in the research language game.
In sum, Lyotard, comparing the pragmatics of narrative and of scientific
knowledge, distinguishes the following properties of the scientific language
game: first, the only language game accepted is denotation, whereas all others
are excluded. Interrogative and prescriptive statements are allowed only as
turning points in the line of argumentation, which has to conclude with a denota-
tive statement. In this game, the scientist is one who is competent to produce
true statements about an accessible referent. Consequently, science becomes a
distinct language game in the society, one that does not contribute directly in
creating and sustaining the social bond among individuals; this happens indi-
rectly, as science in modern societies becomes a profession and creates institu-
tions, which are governed by qualified partners (the professional class). Hence,
the relation between knowledge and society becomes one of mutual exteriority,
i.e. precious scientific knowledge is not publicly shared but is governed by a
professional class, which excludes non-members.
Within the boundaries of the scientific language game, the listener is not
expected to have particular competences to accomplish the role of listener; the
26 Theoretical
referent of the assertion is not expected to have particular qualities to act as ref-
erent, surprisingly enough, not even in the case of human sciences: the referent
does not need know how to act according to what the statement prescribes! In
terms of validity, as discussed, the statement does not gain validity by the act of
being reported, neither does it secure by the same act its future recitation; accu-
mulated knowledge can be refuted by a new statement, if the latter can provide
proofs of its true-value. Consequently, the scientific language game implies a
diachronic temporality, which means a memory and a project: each new state-
ment can only be produced on the basis of what has been said so far (the existing
body of knowledge) either by suggesting new insights into the subject or by
refuting previous statements. Thus, the accent of each performance takes prece-
dence over the meter and rhyme, which implies the polemical function of each
performance. In the case of the scientific language game, past and memory hold
a vital position; the aim is scientific development and progress, and it is
achieved by remembering the past – what has been said so far.
Through this short discussion about the properties of narrative and scientific
knowledge, we observe that apart of differences in terms of their pragmatics, the
two have some similarities as well. Both require a mixture of know-what (to talk
about the referent) and know-how (the individual competences and the cultural
rules to go about it). Both are language games with specific rules, which deter-
mine the participants’ identities, frames of thinking and actions, and develop
with statements that act as moves prescribed from the rules of each game. The
fact that scientific knowledge enjoys a higher status in western societies can only
be explained in terms of historical contingencies, for scientific knowledge does
not qualify by nature and in principle as superior to narrative knowledge. By
this, I do not mean to doubt the value of scientific knowledge, but rather the
opposite, to move from this fruitless contestation, since narrative and scientific
knowledge are two distinct language games that cannot be compared in terms of
value, as there are no criteria for this. Furthermore, the significance of cultural
knowledge has started being re-established in the organizational world. The
moves in each game are assessed with internal criteria formed by the dominant
discourses, which ultimately construct a communal perception of what a ‘good’
move is or is not. Once this is accepted, we can see clearly that the rules of the
scientific language are not given by a superior external order but are socially
constructed. Furthermore, as mentioned above, it is a language game that puts in
question the status of its participants, and non-participants as well. In other
words, the scientific language game is essentially socio-political; there are ques-
tions of power and governance that affect not only the participants, but also the
society at large, and deserve further consideration.

Power and power relations

Mainstream theories have traditionally viewed power as a ‘thing’ always associ-
ated with resource dependency. From this perspective, power has been concep-
tualized as ‘reward power’, ‘coercion power’, ‘legitimate power’, ‘expert power’
 Knowledge in post-industrial societies 27
and ‘referent power’ (French and Raven, 1959; Piven and Cloward, 2005). From
a critical theory perspective, power does not escape the resource dependency,
since again it is being defined within the framework of economic domination,
which determines the division of labour – here the ownership of the means of
production plays a crucial role (Clegg, 1989a; Piven and Cloward, 2005). The
problem with these views, Clegg continues, is that they create a tautological
explanation, according to which the cause of power is resource dependence and
its exercise results to resource dependence. In other words, cause and con-
sequence are identical. At the same time, these views are concerned with the
structures that generate power, and overlook its mechanisms; i.e. they create an
understanding of power as a ‘thing’ instead of a property of relations that define
and allow its exercise (Foucault, 1980; Clegg, 1989b). The authors suggest that
it is the mechanisms of power, instead of the structures, that should be the focus
of studies, because power does not exist in its own right, but always in relations.
Hence the question should move beyond the traditional ‘where power lies’ to
‘how power is exercised’, because it is there where it becomes evident.
Foucault defines power as ‘relations, a more or less organized, coordinated
cluster of relations’ (1980: 199, in Hodgson 2000). For Foucault ‘power is
everywhere’ and imbues all relations; this does not mean that all relations are
necessarily oppressive, but rather that all relations, even those that are experi-
enced as liberated, are in fact saturated with power relations, and hence they all
offer a field for contestation and resistance. Adopting this wider view on power
allows its conceptualization not only as a negative force, which constrains and
oppresses people, but also as a positive force that motivates people to act – and
action here can be understood so much as compliance to rules and orders, as
much as resistance.
Hence, four aspects of power emerge (Hodgson, 2000): (a) power is produc-
tive; against the mainstream conception of power as a negative force, which
constrains action and obliges people to do things against their will or against
their consciousness, power creates rules, structures, knowledge and discourses;
ultimately through power action and change are enabled, (b) power is polyva-
lent; it emerges in all interpersonal and intergroup relations, and there are as
many forms of power as many relations exist; every individual and group
becomes subject and the same time exercises power towards others, (c) power is
capillary; it does not emanate from a sovereign authority (be it state, church,
etc.), but it develops locally in the specific nature of the local relations; this is an
important point in theorizing power, because it leads the studies not to examin-
ing the macro-strategies of power, but the specific, local tactics that develop, (d)
and finally, power lacks a coordinating strategist; since it has a polyvalent and
capillary nature, it is difficult to attribute the development of its technologies to
a single individual, group or even class – as the Marxist tradition argues, since
people know what they do, and most often why, but they cannot know the
breadth of effects their actions may have.
With this move Foucault breaks with the concept of ideology, a well-
established notion among critical theorists, and suggests the notion of discourse
28 Theoretical
instead, to explain local power phenomena and fragmented ideologies. As
expected, this position has been the subject of great criticisms; the critiques
claim that one cannot explain discourses, and economic and political relation-
ships at a macro level without considering the ideological aspect of these rela-
tionships. Here, I agree with Clegg’s view (Clegg, 1989b) that we cannot
explain, for example, the dominant neo-liberal discourse, without reference to
ideological issues. However, Foucault was concerned with the study of local,
micro-histories and specific forms of power and at this level the analysis can be
completed without such reference (ibid.).

Antagonisms and resistance

Before I continue with explaining the concept of resistance for Foucault, I
should briefly explain the associated concept of antagonisms. Laclau and
Mouffe (2001) explain social antagonisms, as the limits of objectivity. The tradi-
tional views to antagonisms as real opposition of relations (A – B) or contra-
diction (A – not-A) did not achieve to explain what actually makes an
antagonistic relation, and what type of relations it presupposes; it soon becomes
evident that not all ‘A – B’ relations or ‘A – not-A’ are in principle antagonistic,
yet they may become, and the answer should not be sought in the conditions that
will allow it, but in A and B or not-A. The problem with the traditional views to
antagonisms is that they assume complete and fixed identities. In contrast, it is
suggested the partial fixation of identities, where A cannot become fully A
because of B (or non-A). It is the Other that prevents A to become totally itself,
and their actual relation negates the full potential of its being. Hence, in an
organized system, antagonisms emerge in the failure of relational differences,
i.e. in the limits of objectivity.
Returning to Foucault, ‘resistance’ has been an object of severe criticism
against his writings – especially the determination of structures on shaping indi-
viduals and the omnipresence of power; this last point, i.e. that power is every-
where, has been criticized for it leaves no space for individuals to resist, hence
there is no explanation for change. However, power entails resistance, and resis-
tance is contained by power – it is not an external, independent force. Foucault
goes on to define it as ‘dispersed, polyvalent, situationally contingent and stems
from a number of sources’ (Hodgson, 2000: 52) – Hodgson notices that the
similarities between power and resistance are striking, as if they are the same
phenomenon. By defining resistance as dispersed and polyvalent, Foucault
opposes the traditional view of two forces colliding against each other, and iden-
tifies multiple forces and interest groups, which may participate in the same
local power struggle. With this argument he adopts an anarchistic view to
power, which undermines not only those who have the power, but also those
who aim to seize it – and this group is not necessarily identified with the
oppressed; thus the only true potential for resistance comes from individual, iso-
lated struggles, and not through organized group actions.
 Knowledge in post-industrial societies 29
Discourse and power/knowledge
Foucault does not provide a clear definition of discourse, rather he expands the
existing understandings of what discourse is, suggesting additional meanings.
He describes discourse as: ‘sometimes . . . the general domain of all statements,
sometimes an individualized group of statements, and sometimes as a regulated
practice that accounts for a number of statements’ (Foucault, 1972: 8). There are
certain criteria that shape the nature of discourses: (a) what individualizes a dis-
course is not the unity of its object, but a set of rules of formation for all its
objects, all its operations, all its theoretical options; (b) a set of criteria of trans-
formation; these are a set of conditions that must have been fulfilled at a precise
moment in time, for a discourse (its objects, operations and theoretical options)
to form; (c) finally, criteria of correlation; these are a set of relations among dis-
courses that distinguish a particular discursive formation as autonomous (Fou-
cault, in Burchell et al., 1984). These criteria make it possible to understand
knowledge (or what is considered to be the ‘truth’) of a period/society not as the
sum of its knowledge as continuity, as macro-historic accounts do, but as the
divergences, the differences and the oppositions between discourses.
Discourses signify different systems of knowledge – or rather, of what is con-
sidered the truth – that happen to dominate in particular eras. This shift of focus
towards discontinuity implies a suspension of causality, and an emphasis on cor-
relations between intradiscursive, interdisursive and extradiscursive elements
that allow the emergence of an order of discourse. In other words, emphasis is
placed on the contingencies, the faults and errors that gave birth to those things
that we value today as important (Foucault, 1977a).
For Foucault, knowledge and power cannot be studied separately, as power is
a precondition of knowledge – or according to Deetz (1992) ‘power in know-
ledge’ instead of ‘power of knowledge’. Power/knowledge in modern societies
provides a way to manage populations; however, its success lies in that its
machinery is not evident, but subtle and implied (Foucault, 1980). Normaliza-
tion is one way power is deployed. Normalization is the process through which a
particular discourse establishes the norm of what is accepted as good and what is
not; it is the process through which individuals and groups of people are distin-
guished and characterized not simply according to an ethical judgment as
good/bad, normal/abnormal, it provides the measure against which all indi-
viduals and groups, good and bad, normal and abnormal are assessed. Normal-
ization is the process via which dominant discourses set the norms of how
‘reality’ should be read and understood, and towards which direction actions
should be taken (Carabine, 2001).
Clearly for Foucault (1980), knowledge has always been associated with the
quest for truth – the Will to Truth – and truth is not outside power or lacking
power; truth is not an ideal outside this world but a thing of this world and it is
produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint and eventually induces
regular effects of power. In any society, there are manifold relations of power
that can only be established and enacted by virtue of discourses of truth; and
30 Theoretical
truth can only be spoken through power. People must ‘speak the truth’ and
power recompenses them by institutionalizing, professionalizing and rewarding
its pursuit.

Each society has its own regime of truth, its ‘general politics’ of truth: that
is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the
mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false
statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and pro-
cedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who
are charged by saying what counts as true.
(Foucault, 1980: 131)

These regimes of truth have a normalizing effect on phenomena and practices,

making some of them appearing good, truthful, respectful, whereas others are
considered harmful, wrong, shameful, etc. For Foucault, truth is always interwo-
ven in a circular relation with systems of power that produce it and sustain it,
and with effects of power, which it induces, and which extend it. Hence, truth
and power – rather than science and ideology – should be the focus for under-
standing the conditions for the emergence and the nature of any society.
I shall repeat here that for Foucault power is not a ‘something’ that lies in
individuals (e.g. sovereign power) or institutions (e.g. juridical power). Power
lies everywhere in all relations and employs subtle mechanisms that discipline
not only minds (as the ideological conceptions of power suggest), but also
bodies and time as well. It is not seen only as a negative thing that forces people
to do things against their consciousness, but as positive concept (a productive
force), precisely because of its subtle mechanisms that construct practices, rou-
tines and identities (Clegg, 1989b). It is disciplinary power, which lies outside
any type of sovereign power and law, and it is legitimated by the will to truth.
In sum, both Foucault and Lyotard have talked about the institutionalization
and professionalization of the ‘truth pursuit’ in capitalist and post-capitalist soci-
eties, as being central in understanding what knowledge is, and further the rela-
tions of knowledge production, the practices shaped and the consequences they
bear for the organizations and society. Next, I will discuss the status, the
changes and the implications of the institutionalization of scientific knowledge
in post-industrial societies.

Knowledge in the post-industrial age

Knowledge has recently attracted great interest from academics, practitioners
and politicians. Some like viewing it as the key resource in a post-capitalist
economy (Drucker, 1993; Boisot, 1998; Blair, 1998), the ground indeed where
the post-capitalist economy is based, which redefines economic relations and
polity. Other theorists (Fuller, 1995; Graham and Rooney, 2001) argue that post-
industrial societies are not built on the values of knowledge, but rather the
opposite, knowledge societies are now being imbued with technocratic values,
 Knowledge in post-industrial societies 31
underscoring with this argument the wedding between knowledge and techno-
logy, which intensifies in the new discursive order.
Nevertheless, a number of changes indicate the emergence of the phenome-
non and the severity of the consequences it bears. These changes are observed at
the social, economic and technological sphere and they are supported by the
scientific discourses of the related disciplines. New concepts, such as ‘informa-
tion society’ and ‘knowledge-based economy’, ‘knowledge worker’ etc., have
been introduced into the language. The introduction of these new terms signifies
the beginning of this new era, where knowledge gains a new role and a new
status (Lyotard, 1984), as it is being established after all this intensive and con-
tested talk, the keystone of society.
The question that arises is how new is the phenomenon and why now. Know-
ledge has traditionally been highly valued at least among societies that
developed considerable civilization and foremost among the western societies,
where knowledge is allegedly the cornerstone of further social and economic
development. Especially cognitive knowledge has always enjoyed a high status
among societies of western civilization – the beginning of this grand narrative
can probably be traced back in the ancient Greek civilization and the teaching of
Plato, an era that acts as the cognitive basis of western civilization. However,
even among western societies, knowledge has been the object of different narra-
tives, which construe its nature each time.
Clearly, knowledge changes nature and role each time according to the spe-
cific societal context (structure, values) where the grand narrative develops
(Lyotard, 1984). So, for example, in the nineteenth century in Western Europe,
we encounter two distinct narratives on knowledge: the French grand narrative
set knowledge to be the means for emancipation and liberty – knowledge was a
social good, to which all humans have a right. The popularization of knowledge
and the massification of education were addressed towards the politics of
primary education – higher education was a far-reaching ideal. This discourse is
considered to have been led by the desire and the need to create professionals
and administrators that would reassure the stability of the state, which receives
now its legitimacy not by itself (like in the case of monarchy), but from people.
In this narrative, we can identify discursive elements that justify the control of
education by the state, in the name of Progress and Freedom, together with ele-
ments that justify the importance of administrative and managerial positions for
the progress of a civic and free society. In Germany, on the other hand, the
grand narrative set knowledge to be the ultimate purpose – science for Science.
Describing the nature of Science as speculative, this narrative was grounded in
philosophy, and inhered in the intellectual tradition of the German nation. One
could argue that this narrative expressed the suspicion of the German intellectu-
als towards nationalism, positivism and utilitarianism that governed science at
that time (Lyotard, 1984). Nevertheless, these examples demonstrate that the
role attributed to knowledge each time is part of a complex network of political
and economic relationships. Thus, it is fair to ask which elements of the post-
industrial societies attribute knowledge its new status or, in other words, what
32 Theoretical
the dominant discourse is that has positioned knowledge in the centre of eco-
nomic activities.

The evolution of knowledge discourse

It is easy to tell an ‘obvious’ story about the evolution of the industrial society:
industrial societies, which were based on technological evolution and massifica-
tion of production, for reasons analysed extensively by Marx and his followers
had to change; however, communism failed as the ideal alternative to ruthless
capitalism, and Marx was proved wrong. Capitalism – incidentally supported by
the French narrative of ‘knowledge to the people’ and the codification of cogni-
tive knowledge into the first Encyclopédie – was transformed to post-capitalism,
where knowledge, not capital, is the key resource (Drucker, 1993). I am not
going to debate here whether Marx was actually right or wrong and whether the
nullification of his writings is a valid move to understand post-capitalist soci-
eties – a move about which I have great reservations, in terms of our ability to
study post-capitalist societies without reference to Marx (cf. Jessop, 2000). I will
suggest, however, that the previous narrative – which represents the mainstream
thinking among business circles and academia – is a classic example of what
discourse and disciplinary power stands for, that is, this kind of discourse that
emerges from a social scientific discipline forms truth objects and future direc-
tions. It is precisely the disciplinary power of scientific discourse – an invention
of the new middle class in the industrial societies – that shapes ‘post-capitalist’
societies (cf. Foucault, 1977b, 1980).1
Capitalist societies were developed around the notions of ‘hard science’ and
‘technological progress’, and set out to develop technologies, which would
increase the economic performativity, the efficiency and the output, and at the
same time would minimize (or as called later, ‘optimize’) the use of resources
(labour, capital, raw materials and time). The history of science and technology
can demonstrate great achievements in terms of amazing machines that were
invented at that time, and were introduced in the workplace, so that the massifi-
cation of goods production was enabled. At the same time, ‘scientific manage-
ment’ dealt with the second question of minimizing wastes, and invented the
measurement and control of resources, time and bodies. ‘Rationality’ of decision
making and ‘functionality’ became a fundamental working assumption of Man-
agement Science at that time – assumptions so powerful that still guide the
dominant mode of doing management research – which represented the work
organization as a coherent whole that can and should be controlled by the
unquestioned authority of managers and with technological devices, in order to
overcome deviant behaviour and achieve optimum performance. The influence
of engineering and natural sciences on this mode of thinking is evident, in that
they represent social organization as a ‘closed system’ and individuals as con-
trollable elements. Nevertheless, this ‘rational and progressive’ scientific dis-
course matched the ethical and the political rules on the ground of which
capitalism was built: in this language game ‘progress’ does not mean cultural or
 Knowledge in post-industrial societies 33
intellectual progress, but primarily and strictly ‘economic progress’ that is sup-
ported by ‘technological progress’; these concepts become the ultimate objective
that should be pursued at practically any cost. Capitalism (the society of eco-
nomic wealth), Science and Technology wedded together in a powerful dis-
course, of which the effects lay a firm social, economic and political structure
for today’s post-capitalist society.
The passage from capitalist to post-capitalist society was accomplished by
means of a change in the value and status of knowledge. Knowledge has always
been important, especially in the major innovation changes, but the novel element
is the application of knowledge in developing the forces of production (Jessop,
2000), which attributes it a commercial and economic character (Rooney and
McKenna, 2005; Rooney, 2004; Graham and Rooney, 2001). Graham and
Rooney (2001) bring empirical evidence of this commercialization of knowledge;
by means of discourse analysis they examine the language of knowledge-related
public policy documents from local, state, national and supranational legislature
throughout the industrialized world, and conclude that this commodity-based
conceptualization of knowledge is essentially anti-intellectual and technocratic,
which is at odds with the very nature of knowledge.
It is clear that, capitalist society identifies an economic and political utility for
knowledge, and hence the discourse on ‘progress and performativity’ is
expanded and a new discursive order around ‘knowledge’ is being constructed.
It is precisely the economic advantages and its political utility that made scient-
ific knowledge dominate over narrative. Particularly during the past 50 years,
first western societies and progressively the entire world witnessed rapid techno-
logical changes, which were supported by some old and new disciplines (such as
Informatics, etc.) that share the same values of the economic rationale of
progress that guided capitalism so far. The invasion of computers in all levels of
secular life has fuelled (or coincided with) a number of changes that are cur-
rently taking place. For the ‘hegemony of computers’ – as Lyotard (1984)
describes it – comes with a certain logic and a certain set of rules that prescribe
what is ‘valid’, ‘good’ and ‘useful’ and what is not. Going back to the discussion
about the nature of knowledge, computers operate with encoded and abstract
‘knowledge’, and hence this decontextualized form of knowledge – which falls
in the same genre as information – draws a sharp line between its counterpart
(tacit knowledge) and takes precedence for a while over skills and competences.
Knowledge, now more than ever means ‘cognitive’, ‘scientific’ and ‘abstract’
knowledge that is encoded and easy to transfer. This narrow view has recently
led scholars to challenge the need for opening up the concept (Rooney, 2004).
Foucault (1980: 131–132) identifies five important traits that characterize the
‘political economy’ of knowledge in post-industrial era – where ‘knowledge’
means the ‘will to truth’, as already explained.

‘Truth’ is centred on the form of scientific discourse and the institutions

which produce it; it is subject to constant economic and political incitement
(the demand for truth, as much for economic production as for political
34 Theoretical
power); it is the object, under diverse forms, of immense diffusion and the
consumption (circulating through the apparatuses of education and informa-
tion whose extent is relatively broad in the social body, not withstanding
certain strict limitations); it is produced and transmitted under the control,
dominant if not exclusive, of a few great political and economic apparatuses
(university, army, writing, media); lastly, it is the issue of a whole political
debate and social confrontation (‘ideological’ struggles).

This passage outlines the new status of knowledge as contested discourse in a

political arena, where interest groups collide over its articulation. The commer-
cial significance of knowledge redefines its nature and the production processes,
while at the same time the question of ‘legitimization’ and ‘governance’
becomes more and more crucial, since ‘ethics’ and ‘metaphysics’ do not provide
a satisfying framework for reasoning when they have to compete with material-
istic economic and political interests. From this point on, we should expect
certain changes that this new discourse triggers in regulating economic and
political relationships among the actors in this network: among countries, social
groups and organizations, as well as intraorganizationally, as the employers and
employees acquire new identities. The professionalization of science together
with the new role research institutions are called in to play in the new game
connect tightly the production of knowledge with the production of commercial
goods, and the competitive advantage of organizations that embrace this move is
currently probably the ‘hottest’ topic of debate and research for both academia
and R&D companies that now acquire a commercial identity.

The rhetoric of ‘commercial knowledge’

As Drucker puts it in the first page of his book Post-Capitalist Society (1993:
17) in celebration of the new era ‘[k]nowledge has always been a private good.
Almost overnight it became a public good.’ This statement ties nicely with the
grand narrative of ‘knowledge to the people’ and constructs the ideal of a
responsible, emancipated and informed individual, who knows – knows what
right and what wrong is. It is ironic how a discourse on knowledge and emanci-
pation disciplines people.
As I discussed, historically, knowledge has always been highly accredited in
western societies. The economic expansion and the political interests of these
societies have given people free access to higher educational institutions, regard-
less of their social and economic background. Nowadays, more and more people
have the opportunity to study sciences. This opportunity, combined with the
grand narrative of the emancipatory power of knowledge (Lyotard, 1984), drove
more people to choose a career of intellectual over manual labour – i.e. they
chose occupations that traditionally enjoy high prestige and approval by the
wider society. Besides, an educated workforce is more receptive to technological
changes and the discourse of progress and wealth, since the members are edu-
cated with the same values that shape the future direction of the economy. As an
 Knowledge in post-industrial societies 35
effect of the dominant narrative, the citizens of the post-industrial society have
reached a higher educational level, which grants them the valuable and highly
respected cognitive skills and specialized knowledge that constitute the key
resources of the post-industrial organization.
As the ‘hegemony of computers’ expands, the story of knowledge is started
being built incrementally on the concept of information. Technological evolu-
tion has played a catalytic role in forming the new society. The birth and expan-
sion of the World Wide Web has given access to uncountable stocks of
information spread around the world and about the world, and facilitated the
communication among individuals across the globe. This easy access to sources
of information, but also the information and communication systems that are
built, led to the mass production of data and to even more easily accessible
information. Some theorists have doubted whether this mass production and
availability of information can support individuals in making sense of the world
(e.g. Weick, 1985), a comment that reflected early the contemporary practition-
ers’ everyday experience. Information establishes its key role in the new society,
but it would not have happened alone; the development of this social trans-
formation can be traced in the discourse of new disciplines (Informatics,
Decision-Support Science, Communication Science, etc.). Human communica-
tion is important and the new technological devices bring people together allow-
ing them to communicate any time and in any form. The traditional images of
‘talk’, ‘write’ and ‘message’ and the semiotics have undergone radical trans-
formation. Old practices (letters, phone-calls, face-to-face communication) are
being abandoned in the name of ‘technologies’, which are promoted as ‘time
efficient’ and ‘economical’ (here, traces of the discourse on ‘capitalist ration-
ality’ as described above are evident). Information is available everywhere and
most of the times for free. Information becomes people’s prerogative: they can
know, they can be aware of facts and evidence, and they can make informed
choices.
The discourse on the responsible citizen of the world, active member of a
society or simply a mature consumer – the last category is more interesting, in
the first place, for the business world – has been of great interest for Marketing
Science. The transformation of the naïve consumer to the informed and experi-
enced customer – ‘customer’ is another key concept in describing today’s eco-
nomic relations and business direction – has guided the firms to coming up with
more sophisticated products, or more sophisticated ways to sell products. Dis-
tinct knowledge, hard to imitate knowledge allegedly returns a competitive
advantage to organizations – on this point, Management Science takes over, and
studies innovation and knowledge management techniques (Sveiby, 1997;
Boisot, 1998). The pursuit of new knowledge becomes a discourse that engages
and disciplines not only people but organizations as well.
Drucker (1993) successfully reminds us that money knows no fatherland –
nor does information. The state failed in drawing boundaries and controlling
business activities, capitalism crossed the national boundaries and the firms
expanded the operations across the globe. Markets – both product and labour
36 Theoretical
markets – are open to the global firms who reap knowledge and expertise from
developed countries and cheap labour from poor countries, in the name of
wealth and profits for all. The rhetoric wants globalization to be a win-win situ-
ation, where firms provide rich markets with quality products, which are manu-
factured in developing countries, and poor people have the opportunity to win at
least the basics to survive. Some argue that in these ‘sweatshops’ one encounters
the exploitation of labour the same as in Marx’s era, i.e. that post-capitalism has
exported its working class beyond the national boundaries, whereas others prefer
the view that there is no unskilled labour class any longer in global post-
capitalism, as the labour force now is educated – the ‘knowledge worker’.
Globalization would not have been actualized without the changes that took
place in the economic and political stage, or without the possibility of freely
floating information and communication. The need for communication and
coordination of actions and operations around the globe is on the top of the
Organization and Information Studies agenda. The impact of globalization is not
evident only in the organizations’ environment, but also in the organizational
structure and the work organization. Contemporary firms are not located physi-
cally in one place, neither necessarily within the boundaries of one premise. Fur-
thermore, there is no need for the ‘knowledge worker’ to be physically present
in an office. Since the operations of the business have crossed the national
boundaries and have expanded in the global markets, the ‘knowledge workers’
need be ‘virtually’ present, to follow and participate in many operations – some-
times simultaneously – in different parts of the world, as members of ‘virtual
groups’. Information and communication systems are developed to support and
to enable these needs. Hence, a new ‘flat’ organizational structure, the ‘bound-
aryless’ or ‘virtual’ organization is actualized and seems to give the knowledge
worker a great degree of flexibility and freedom; hierarchical relationships are
more informal and the line manager – who might even be in another country –
does not necessarily follow all the moves of the subordinates (Drucker, 1993).

A new discursive and social order: the new production of

knowledge
All these technological, demographical and economic changes have transformed
the nature of knowledge, which is worshipped by society and the business
world; knowledge has gained a great commercial significance. It is now the ‘raw
material’ for competitive products, and an output as well, a commodity in itself
with great commercial value. Indeed it has become the object of trade between
organizations (e.g. consultancies and R&D laboratories) and the object of
exchange in the labour market (knowledge workers sell their cognitive abilities
and knowledge). Knowledge is a valuable commodity that can be traded –
accessed, transferred and stored – in other words, it can or at least should be
controlled as all other resources, on the grounds of ‘economic rationality’ and
‘performativity’. The technological evolution supports this rhetoric; the ongoing
research and development of a more sophisticated software and database for
 Knowledge in post-industrial societies 37
supporting the sharing and storing of knowledge is based on and recursively
reinforces the image of knowledge as ‘object’ that can be codified in a computer
language (Lyotard, 1984).
This new discursive order, which defines knowledge as a valuable object, has
consequently transformed the structure and the processes of its production,
sharing and consumption. The new discursive order is supported by a new insti-
tutional infrastructure and technologies, which allow the intensification of
research; the more organizations are disciplined by the discourse of commercial
knowledge, the more they realize the pressures for generating new knowledge.
Consequently, the role of knowledge production institutions, whereas tradition-
ally has been undertaken by universities and the state, now has started being
shared with private research laboratories. Big corporations, realizing the great
economic benefits commercial knowledge can return, are getting actively
involved in the knowledge production, by founding and funding research centres
and corporate universities, and by creating alliances with academia and other
research institutions (Gibbons et al., 1994; Morgan et al., 2004; Whitley, 2006).

Discourse effects on structures

Research structures
Gibbons et al. (1994) in their book the New Production of Knowledge have iden-
tified and examined in sufficient detail a number of changes that this new mode
of knowledge production bears for science, research and education. Now, almost
15 years later, this book has proven to be one of the most influential books in
studying the new organization of research, as it pointed early to some of the
areas that would undergo substantial transformation. Gibbons et al. suggest that
the commercialization of knowledge transforms the structure and processes of
knowledge production from Mode A to Mode B, implying that the latter has
been shaped from the disciplinary matrix of the former and will exist alongside
it. ‘Mode A’ describes the traditional approach, which has drawn a sharp line
between fundamental and applied research. This has created an operational dis-
tinction between the theoretical (scientific) core and the applications of it from
disciplines such as engineering or management sciences.
‘Mode B’ is fundamentally transdisciplinary; it is characterized by a constant
flow back and forth between fundamental and applied, between science and
technology, between research and society. Hayek (1945) very early noticed,
talking in ‘rational’ and ‘economic’ terms about the use of knowledge in society:
‘it is a problem of utilization of knowledge not given to its totality’ (p. 520),
indicating by this to the socially distributed character of knowledge, which starts
now being addressed. The proliferation of sites that undertake research outside
disciplinary structures and institutions, which are recognized now as competent
actors in the research network, opens up many possibilities for interconnections
and interactions. The pursuit of commercial knowledge is a language game that
displaces research from the disciplinary ‘Ivory Tower’ and from being the
38 Theoretical
privilege of an ‘elitist’ class, and grounds it in society. However, it would be
naïve to expect that now there is no privileged class and anyone can benefit
equally from the game. The fact that academic researchers’ status transforms can
only mean that the power structures have changed and another group – the
corporate world, as I explain below – struggles for the privilege of the gover-
nance of truth.

Communication
Transdisciplinary research depends heavily on the density of communication;
communication between actors from different interest groups and paradigms,
which will lead to further knowledge growth and social distribution, i.e. between
scientists and society, between scientific practitioners and ultimately between
social and natural world. Gibbons et al. (1994) envisioned cooperation across
the different actors working on a common theoretical understanding and
accompanied by a mutual interpenetration of disciplinary epistemologies. The
transdisciplinary character of the produced knowledge turns it highly contextual-
ized, strongly oriented and driven by a problem-solving model of research; it
consists of a continuous linking and relinking of clusters of knowledge configu-
rations, which are brought together temporarily in a specific context application.
Communication attracts particular attention in this new language game and
becomes a new, contested by many disciplines, buzzword; I say contested
because it stimulated much research and solutions on how it can be supported
(Hinds and Kiesler, 1995; Boland and Tenkasi, 1995; Tenkasi and Boland,
1996), together with a turn towards discussing the significance of narrative
knowledge for organizations.

Knowledge legitimization
The change in the mode of knowledge production, which translates into the dis-
closure of the boundaries of the research communities, has inevitably influenced
the way new knowledge is evaluated and legitimized. The production of com-
mercial knowledge has become a larger process that integrates the stages of dis-
covery, application and use, and in which many interest groups participate.
Hence, the traditional criteria of correspondence to truth applied strictly by the
scientific community and the approval of the proposed ‘statement’ by the peer
colleagues, who are equal in terms of training and competences, cannot apply.
The new mode of knowledge production shifts the criteria that were applied so
far, in order to reflect the interests of ‘all’ the stakeholders – society, industry,
knowledge communities. The criteria now have to reflect the economic value of
the produced knowledge, and its applied use in the society. The economic and
political interests that are now explicit in the commercial nature of knowledge
call for thorough control and assessment of the economic value of the ‘product’
throughout the process of knowledge creation – from the stage of the research
proposal to the ‘end product’, i.e. the ‘innovation’ that will be marketed.
 Knowledge in post-industrial societies 39
The research and teaching language game
There is an evident change in the language of the research game, as now the
‘economic’ language becomes dominant and the one that everyone has to be
able to speak. Scientists so far were accused of speaking an incomprehensible to
the outsiders jargon that made their work difficult and inaccessible to the non-
experts. Now, they have to translate their ideas in a ‘clear’ and ‘precise’ lan-
guage and explain the benefits of their proposals ‘in numbers’, in order to secure
the necessary funding from the relevant bodies or customers. Financial jargon
has been established as the natural language of science, and it is expected that all
members of the scientific community should be competent enough to speak it.
The question of legitimization of knowledge becomes explicitly political. The
question of who legitimizes knowledge and what legitimizes this decision is
central, as mode B lacks the appropriate structure, and hence provides an unset-
tled site of contestation (Gibbons et al., 1994; Jones, 2000).
The changes in the research language game would not leave unaffected the
teaching language game either; the massification of education together with the
commercialization of knowledge have led to the development of new disci-
plines, the transformation of the nature of relationship between teacher and
learner and have imposed new rules. The sovereignty of science and arts dis-
solves, as new disciplines such as engineering sciences, information science,
management studies and increasingly environmental sciences, attract the interest
of young students, who are motivated by the commercial value of these studies.
Education acquires a dominant professional character and emphasizes the con-
tinuous training throughout professional life. Consequently, an increasing pro-
portion of the practitioners nowadays have an understanding of the academic
‘form of life’ from personal experience, and this somehow demystifies the acad-
emic Ivory Tower and transforms the relationship between researchers and prac-
titioners in the new mode of professional alliances that is being shaped. Higher
education starts losing its high status as it becomes accessible to a broader range
of people, reaching from upper, to middle and working class. However, post-
graduate studies retain their elitist nature, as they are addressed to a specific
‘market’: whereas higher education becomes the prerogative (in theory) of
everyone, postgraduate studies are a commodity for those that can pay the (not
negligible) fees. This turns the relationship between learner and teacher to one
of customer–supplier; the student pays the fees and expects ‘knowledge’ (or at
least a certificate for it) in return (Prichard, 2000).
Furthermore, the nature of the teaching language game changes: I discussed
above how teaching serves the research game by creating equals. However, in
the new order where knowledge has a high commercial exchange value, few stu-
dents are willing to stay in the research community, when they can ‘sell’ early
and at good price their knowledge to the corporate world. Universities cannot
compete in salaries with the private sector, hence they are bound to accept and
train more people than they traditionally did. The commercialization of know-
ledge could not but affect the structure of the knowledge industry as well;
40 Theoretical
universities are seen as cost centres, and they compete for securing money from
the government, research councils and increasingly the private sector. This is
translated to commercial research programmes with specific problem solving
character, and raises questions about the legitimization of knowledge, as univer-
sities increasingly have to adapt in the new order by abandoning most of moral
and cultural claims transcending the accumulation of intellectual and profes-
sional expertise (Gibbons et al., 1994).

Discourse effects on subjects

The intellectual and research community

The scientist traditionally was perceived as the intellectual, who occupied his2
time with questions of ‘truth and justice for all’. As Foucault (1980) describes
him: a ‘universal intellectual’, who, through his moral, theoretical and political
choices, was entitled to theorize about the world, by representing without par-
taking in it. He was representing the universal consciousness, the free subject,
and he was counter-posed to the ‘specific intellectual’, or rather the ‘intellectu-
ally competent’ worker, in the service of the state or the capital. The institution-
alization of research after the Second World War and the dependence of
academia on the state have transformed the ‘free subject’ to a ‘specific intellec-
tual’, who works in a specific sector. The intellectual was brought probably
closer to the conditions of the world about which he was theorizing. Still, scient-
ific communities were elitist circles with established rules of operation and
rituals of initiation, and enjoyed a high status in society.
The new order of knowledge production has shaken the status and the values
of the research community, which now enlarges and includes researchers and
partners from the corporate world. The ‘specific intellectual’ becomes a ‘know-
ledge worker’ with a specific area to research and a specific programme to work
on. A good ‘knowledge worker’ is one that adapts and learns fast the new lan-
guage and rules of knowledge production and is capable to raise funds from
research councils and corporations. Gibbons et al. (1994) argue that this does
not mean that research has lost its elitist character, but rather that the community
has expanded the boundaries; however, as I discussed above, the fact that more
people today outside the scientific communities have an understanding of the
rules of the research game, the economic dependence of the research institutes
upon the corporate world and the formation of research programmes by big cor-
porations, together with a change of the scientific ethos, do not support this
view. Quite the opposite, alliances between corporations and academia are being
received with suspicion by the public that refuses to accept without questioning
the economic motives of research findings produced via these structures. Scient-
ific discourse is still tightly connected with truth, however its governance is
increasingly being displaced from the scientific community to the big corpora-
tions; the new discursive order requires the collaboration of the two for sustain-
ing itself at this stage.
 Knowledge in post-industrial societies 41
The state
In this newly construed network of power relations, the role of the state cannot
be overlooked, for many expect it to control the development for the public
interest, whereas others already celebrate, maybe prematurely, its impotence to
interfere in the game. Thinking about the role of the state in this power game is
not simple, for the state is not one supra-power. Foucault (1982) explains the
idea of ‘pastoral power’, which is developed in the Christian world. Pastoral
power promises salvation and preaches sacrifice of the self for the public good
and for each individual separately. On the basis of this odd duality – securing
the public interest and the interest of each individual separately and simultan-
eously with the same mechanisms – the state was developed as an institution of
pastoral power that promises ‘salvation’ – health, wealth, education, security –
in this life, and the agents of the pastoral power are multiple – police, education
system, health system. Whence, it is not difficult to understand first the influence
of the state upon the public, and second to conceive the scientific disciplines as
agents of its pastoral power. In the new discourse, knowledge as commodity is
defined as the primary resource for wealth and a major stake for competition
over its control. Going against the rules of the game as they have been
developed so far, to impose control over the transactions of knowledge transfer
would violate the principle of the ‘communication transparency’ (Lyotard,
1984), which constitutes indispensable assumption of the new discourse – the
soundness of which is debatable, as I argue next. Consequently, the state – and
its agents – does not stay out of this game, but rather it tries to enter actively, for
it identifies its economic and political interests with the control of commercial
knowledge and the process of its production, even if this means new forms of
collaboration with the corporate world. The fact that the state encourages univer-
sities to seek funding from the private sector is explained as a strategic action of
reinforcing the collaborative link between the two.

The knowledge-based firm

Finally, the discourse on knowledge has created a new subject, the ‘knowledge
intensive firm’ (KIF), and has prescribed a new set of rules and practices that
regulate its behaviour. The term ‘knowledge intensive firm’ was coined by Star-
buck (1992) and signifies ‘[o]rganizations whose competitive advantage is
lodged more critically in forms of knowledge than in forms of capital and
labour’ (Jacques, 2000: 203). Starbuck (1992) describes in detail the character-
istics of these firms, and hence the newly construed subject of ‘knowledge dis-
course’ is distinguished from firms that are not knowledge intensive, because
they do not fulfil the criteria. Hence, the rules and practices that are being
developed are addressed to a clearly defined subject, and firms that are not
‘knowledge intensive’ are excluded from these practices and the promised bene-
fits. This taxonomy through the many distinctions it makes, draws a very clear
line between information and knowledge: it argues that knowledge is a stock of
42 Theoretical
expertise and not flow of information; it is strictly esoteric and not widely
shared; however it acknowledges that it does not necessarily lie on individuals,
but also on the firm’s capital, routines and cultures.
Following the discourse for cost-efficiency and ‘flexible’ structure, which
allegedly enables organizations to adapt in the fast moving global environment,
many knowledge intensive firms have undergone major restructuring in the last
years; R&D is an expensive activity and in general the first to stop when organi-
zations proceed to cost-cuttings. In the 1990s many firms, in attempting to be
more ‘commercial’ and ‘cost-efficient’, have shut down their research depart-
ments. On the other hand, besides the high costs of developing the increasingly
sophisticated products that the markets expect, organizations realize that know-
ledge is socially distributed, and no firm is able and can afford to have all the
knowledge that the development of new technologies requires. Firms, by identi-
fying themselves as knowledge intensive and realizing the benefits of investing
in knowledge for gaining a competitive advantage, seek the knowledge and
expertise they need to develop innovations in collaborations with other firms,
government laboratories and university research centres. Gibbons et al. (1994)
suggest that one reason for the high cost of developing new knowledge in-house
is that firms are unsure about the particular knowledge they need in order to gen-
erate a technology – and hence it would take long to develop it – and second that
even if they identify it, it might be difficult to get access to it – it might have
been developed already and be protected as ‘Intellectual Property’, etc. The need
for accessing knowledge and expertise in short time and reconfiguring it in novel
ways is such that new specialized firms (R&D consultancies) have emerged, of
which the function is precisely to mediate and facilitate this process.
Alliances among knowledge actors are increasing. Notably, the rhetoric of the
strategic alliances wants collaboration to be associated with a healthy competi-
tion among organizations (Gibbons et al., 1994) – despite how paradoxical this
may sound. The competitive advantage for a knowledge intensive firm can only
be secured by making strategic choices in developing a network of collabora-
tion. Strategic alliances are associated with the expansion of the learning
network of the firm, with reducing research costs and developing distinct know-
ledge and expertise – and some limitations, such as free-rides, unpredictable
partner behaviour, reduced revenues, etc. However, the benefits for the firm
from collaborating with universities, government laboratories and other know-
ledge intensive firms are identified with the survival and growth of the organi-
zation (Oliver, 2001).

Discussion
So far, I presented the rhetoric of the commercialization of knowledge and the
effects the new discursive formation had on the social structure. However, some
theorists doubt that the world is as rosy as the new discourse suggests: a world
with free floating information and knowledge for everybody, where people
become more and more educated, technologies more and more sophisticated,
 Knowledge in post-industrial societies 43
and firms more and more socially responsible; in other words a world where
knowledge reigns and forms the social and economic structure. On the contrary,
many theorists have pointed out the commonalities between the knowledge-
based society and the industrial societies, and the inequalities that are repro-
duced in the new order – inequalities that stem from the discourse itself and the
practices it develops, and affect not only groups within the same organization,
but relationships between organizations and institutions, and between countries
as well. Alvesson (1993) reminds us that ‘objective’ changes do not stand in a
one-to-one relationship to words, concepts and proposed images; furthermore it
is not self-evident that we actually need and why we need these concepts and
technologies that the new discourse suggests. It is then crucial to question the
implications of the discourse on commercial knowledge.
The rhetoric of the commercial value of knowledge represents a world of
justice, where everybody can have access to knowledge – which is now the
determinant factor of economic success. Furthermore, it represents a world
where every individual is responsible for supporting the free sharing of know-
ledge, in order to be able to reap the fruits it promises (Blair, 1998). However,
it is questionable whether everybody and all countries can have their slice
from this valuable resource – which, in reality, requires a distinct infrastruc-
ture of technological devices, and skills and education; in other words an
expensive infrastructure, which is more commonly encountered in the
developed world. The question is who can have access and will control the
governance of knowledge in the new society. Thinking globally – as the glob-
alized times prescribe – a concern has been expressed that such an intensive
investment in the knowledge production in the developed countries will result
in the widening of the gap between them and the developing world (Lyotard,
1984; Jessop, 2000).
The discourse on knowledge has brought forth many new occupations – such
as management consultants, information technologists, computer engineers, etc.
– which share the same title of ‘knowledge workers’ with traditional scientific
professions, such as physics, chemists, biologists, etc. The distinction between
professionals and non-professionals had been drawn based on strictly defined
criteria (such as systematic, scientific-based theory, long formal education, an
ethical code, etc.), and had yielded an elitist character to professions that
enjoyed high respect and status. Now, the distinction between professions and
occupations becomes vague, since these criteria do not apply strictly any more,
and all these new and old professions fall under the same label of ‘knowledge
work’ (Alvesson, 1993). The power relations between groups are being renegoti-
ated and redefined in the new knowledge discourse, and the power of ‘speaking
the truth’ is now being ‘shared’ among ‘knowledge workers’ – scientists, com-
puter experts and consultants. I have already discussed how the criteria of ‘truth’
have already changed, as each paradigm suggests its own; however, there is a
tendency that they all meet under the grand discourse of performativity and
progress. As I pointed out, the question of legitimization of truth and its power
effects becomes more important than ever.
44 Theoretical
The new discourse pays attention and promotes a very restricted and
‘focused’ notion of knowledge: it represents it as an ‘object’ that can be trans-
ferred, stored and measured, in other words, an object that can be controlled for
the – economic – benefit of the organization. This discourse is being supported
by newly created disciplines that have developed the techniques and technolo-
gies to achieve the desired control. ‘Continuous Learning’, ‘Knowledge
Sharing’ and ‘Innovation’ become top imperatives in the corporate agenda, and
‘gurus’ in the related fields develop the appropriate solutions – courses, soft-
ware, techniques – to support organizations in meeting the newly defined needs.
These practices aim to discipline, first, organizations as to how they perceive
their identity and what the ‘right’ thing to do is – and if the solution does not
work, an ‘expert’ will be called in to find what the organization is doing ‘wrong’
in the pursuit of knowledge – and, second, the ‘knowledge workers’ in each
organization, who now have to ‘know’, ‘learn’ and ‘share’ their knowledge and
ideas. The power of the new discursive formations aims to control both minds
and bodies of the ‘knowledge workers’ (Prichard, 2000) – in other words, it
aims to achieve what had always been on the top of the Tayloristic agenda (cf.
de Vos et al., 2002). Critical theorists suggest that there are issues of subjectivity
and control as they are now taking shape by the new discursive formations and
its technologies that need to be addressed (Prichard et al., 2000).
Furthermore, these technologies are based on the notions of ‘trust’ and ‘com-
municative transparency’; fundamentally, the whole discourse on the commer-
cialization of knowledge assumes a free and unhindered exchange of
information and knowledge, which can only be achieved through ‘knowledge
networks’ (alliances) of communication (Adler, 2001; Panteli and Sockalingam,
2002). The rhetoric of knowledge wants everybody – initially within the bound-
aries of these alliances, and later on, as the alliances multiply, it becomes a gen-
eralized phenomenon – to share knowledge for the higher ideal of economic and
social wealth. It is questionable, however, why in an economy where knowledge
is the key resource someone would share valuable knowledge. Knowledge
means economic and political power, and this idealistic view of harmony and
collaboration that the knowledge discourse promotes has overlooked this vari-
able when conceptualizing its assumptions.
Admittedly artfully, the new discourse has succeeded in re-articulating its
elements and promoting concepts that traditionally have been considered oppos-
ite and contradictory; through re-articulation the new knowledge discourse aims
to neutralize frictions created from previous discourses, demonstrating a coher-
ent and logical new order. Hence, notions such as trust and conflict, collabora-
tion and competition (Gibbons et al., 1994; Panteli and Sockalingam, 2002),
which so far were considered inconciliable, all gain a positive functional place
in the new formations, and not only co-exist, but one becomes the presupposi-
tion of the other – the functional counterpart – and they work harmonically
towards the objectives of the new knowledge order.
3 Knowledge and innovation in
organizations

Knowledge is fiercely argued to be very important for the sustainability of any

business. What is striking though, is that knowledge and innovation have been
approached theoretically, and treated in practice as two separated phenomena.
Only recently theorists began to argue that the two phenomena have their roots
in similar processes, and that the two bodies of literature have much to share to
broaden our understanding. In this chapter, I track these common elements
between the two literatures, and discuss the discourses on the value of know-
ledge for the ‘knowledge organization’. I then examine the technologies that are
subsequently developed within these discourses and promise to ‘support’ those
organizations that wish to get actively engaged in creating or ‘discovering’ and
sharing precious knowledge. I review in more detail different approaches to
innovation and conclude with the view that innovation discourse is essentially
political, since at its core lies knowledge. My main argument is that the existing
mainstream approaches, which suggest the technical or cultural management of
innovation, neglect the power struggles enacted in the organization, struggles
that result from the stakeholders’ personal and group interests from defining
what ‘innovation’ is, what is accepted as ‘good’ and what is rejected; hence
innovation analysis should address issues of power. I conclude with an evalu-
ation of the knowledge management discourse, which I conceptualize as a hard
scientific formation, and a short discussion about the role of managers as polit-
ical actors who have an interest in complying with the knowledge management
discourse.

Knowledge in organizations
Organizations have always tried to make the most out of the intellectual
resources and skills they possess. The need to manage these intangible assets is
not new, neither the simple ‘statement’ that the competitive advantage of a firm
lies on these skills and expertise, as many popular theorists assert (Drucker,
1993; Boisot, 1998). However, ‘Knowledge Organization’, ‘Knowledge Man-
agement’ and ‘Innovation’ are the latest buzzwords of organizational theorists
and practitioners. One might wonder then, what has driven suddenly the
organizational world to start talking about the significance of knowledge in
46 Theoretical
organizations. Cynics prefer to see it as another passing ‘fad’, another way for
consultancies, IT companies and managers to ‘wrap’ and sell old practices and
tools under new names. In other words, they prefer to see it as a surface change
that hides nothing new underneath. Others (Hull, 2000) claim that the develop-
ment of academic programmes, the increasing volume of research on these
topics and the emergence of research centres that study these phenomena, indi-
cate that it is not a merely passing fad, but a transformative move that reflects
trends in the structure of society. New technologies, such as new pieces of soft-
ware, new organizational structures (boundaryless and flexible organizations), as
well as the new notion of ‘knowledge worker’, have been deployed around the
new discourse of knowledge, and their impact underscores the significance of
the new formations. We could argue then, that the realization of the need to
support knowledge is indeed as old as the firms, but the intensity of the evolve-
ment of these phenomena justifies the distinct name (Knowledge and Innovation
Management) and the money invested in research to understand them and in
technologies to support it.
All these structural transformations reflect the momentum the discourse on
the significance of knowledge for business sustainability has gained. ‘Know-
ledge’ is widely acknowledged both by academics and practitioners as the new
source of wealth for organizations, the intellectual capital that increases eco-
nomic value, as well as future prosperity in an ever-changing environment
(Sveiby, 1997; Boisot, 1998).
Initially research adopted a very specific view of knowledge – i.e. codified
knowledge, which can be stored and shared as object. The majority of studies
focused on knowledge in knowledge intensive firms (Starbuck, 1992), where
knowledge work and expertise were investigated. This approach neglected the
ability and need of other organizations to create, store and diffuse knowledge
within their groups of practice (Brown and Duguid, 2001). The constrains of this
formation breaks Orr’s (1990) ethnographic work on Xerox technicians, which
showed paradigmatically that knowledge is a vital question for all businesses,
and they can all benefit when paying attention to any type of knowledge they
may have, and to the various ways communities use to share it.
What is important to note here is that organizations, living the pressures to be
competitive as the knowledge discourse prescribes, jumped into this game unre-
flectively, by adopting the latest knowledge management tools and practices,
without taking the time to think of their specific knowledge needs. Nowadays
we experience the opposite phenomenon compared to how it started: knowledge
comes to mean almost everything and all companies like to see themselves as
knowledge intensive. It is then worth having a closer look to this field.
When we talk about knowledge phenomena in organizations, we are referring
to three main processes: knowledge creation, sharing and storing. Knowledge
storing is concerned with the codification of knowledge, and has been domin-
ated by technological solutions. Knowledge sharing (or most commonly, learn-
ing) steps in two fields: whilst it is being supported by ICT, the role of people in
sharing knowledge is now being widely acknowledged. Knowledge creation
 Knowledge and innovation in organizations 47
looks at the process of knowledge generation and innovation. What is striking is
that even though the fields of knowledge and innovation management are essen-
tially studying similar phenomena (i.e. knowledge processes), the two bodies of
literature have only recently started communicating, recognizing, at least, that
the insights of the other may be useful (Plessis, 2007; Chatzkel, 2007). Here, I
explore concepts of knowledge sharing and creation in organizations, since they
are directly related with innovation management.

The field of knowledge management

In order to be in a position to understand the field of knowledge management, it
is important to understand ‘who says what’, and what the implications are.
The phenomenon of knowledge in organization has led to the emergence of
conceptual and empirical approaches that seek to meet the need to control it – to
‘manage’ it. Sørensen and Kakihara (2001) distinguish four main discourses that
shape the thinking and practices of knowledge management. The discourses are
distinct in terms of the views they adopt on knowledge and they are described
as: (a) knowledge as object, (b) knowledge as process, (c) knowledge as rela-
tionship and (d) knowledge as interpretation. The authors argue that, in spite of
the epistemological differences, the four discourses have led to common organi-
zational practices.
The first discourse treats knowledge as object, i.e. an entity that exists inde-
pendently and in humans’ mind-embrained knowledge, that can be easily
managed. From this perspective, knowledge is a representation of a ‘real’, pre-
given world, the outcome of humans’ cognitive ability to process information.
Knowledge is another ‘asset’ – such as money, land and labour that each organi-
zation possesses – objectified and transferable within and among organizations
(Boisot, 1998; Sveiby, 1997). The aim of knowledge management is to ‘dis-
cover’ and ‘transfer’ this knowledge to storing databases. The discourse of
‘objectified’ knowledge is an offspring of the established positivist discourse
that dominates management studies and has shaped the thinking and the related
research. This paradigm has been, until recently, the dominant one in the field of
knowledge management and has informed a very ‘rigid’ and de-contextualized
image of knowledge, which led the practitioners to see knowledge management
as an ‘improved’ version of technology management.
This rational–cognitivist view reflects the managerial assumptions – which
are based on ‘rationality’ – about the nature of the organizations and the tasks
they are expected to accomplish. However, empirical work conducted from dif-
ferent perspectives (Zuboff, 1988; Weick, 1988) has shown the inadequacy of
‘rationality’ in analysing interaction between humans and machinery, as well as
human communication and improvization processes. In response to this posi-
tivist view, other discourses have emerged that tried to open up the concept of
knowledge in organizations, adopting wider approaches that tried to include dif-
ferent images of knowledge and knowing (Blackler, 1995) in understanding the
phenomenon. The second discourse on knowledge is based on a socially
48 Theoretical
constructed view of the world (Tsoukas, 2001; Boland and Tenkasi, 1995;
Blackler, 1993). From this perspective, the world as we ‘live’ in it is an organ-
ized abstraction of a ‘brute’ reality of sense experience (Chia, 1997). ‘Reality’ is
constructed through the process of ascribing meaning to phenomena and these
meanings are attributed according to the system of codification – i.e. language –
that has structured the thinking of each community. The discourse on knowledge
as interpretation focuses on the humans’ mutual interpretative acts, which are
shaped by, and simultaneously constitute, knowledge within a community. This
discourse recognizes that knowledge depends on the ‘point of view’ of indi-
viduals and the interpretative actions and linguistic behaviour of the members of
each community (Tsoukas, 1996). ‘Knowledge as interpretation’ raised aware-
ness of the importance of communication, and the role of language and the vari-
eties of ways in which people talk; these are seen as vehicles of knowledge and
catalysts in the process of knowing.
The discourse on knowledge as process is based on the ontology of ‘becom-
ing’ (Bergson, 1913) and has been mainly framed in the field of organizational
learning (Senge et al., 1999). From this perspective, the world is not static but
rather in continuous transformation. Seeing the world as ‘outcome’ and
unchangeable facilitates its conceptualization, which relies on static categories
that the language provides; however it only allows the understanding of the phe-
nomena as ‘snapshots’ of an ever-changing ‘reality’ (Chia, 1997). The discourse
of process views knowledge as a complex of processes that humans apply to
make sense of the world and reality (Weick, 1995). From this respect, knowing
– rather than knowledge – is part of humans’ actions and interactions (Cook and
Brown, 1999). ‘Knowing’ bridges the beliefs individuals have with the ‘truth’ of
the external world viewed as a whole. This discourse has started moving the
focus of the debate about knowledge management from the technologies to the
centrality of humans in these processes, and has become the most influential dis-
course among those who want to avoid the static, cause–effect view of know-
ledge as ‘object’, which, it is argued, cannot capture the complexity of
knowledge phenomena.
The last discourse conceives knowledge as relationship. According to this
view, knowledge is always relational to the surrounding world; knowledge is a
result of human mental acts, be it individual, group or social acts, and those acts
depend on the socio-cultural surrounding. These human mental and linguistic
acts continuously shape the world of experience and can induce new contextual
drifts to the world (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). This discourse is similar to the
interpretative one, however it emphasizes the context and network of relations
that allow the creation of knowledge. From this respect, knowledge is an ‘inter-
connected web of relationships’, in which human interpretative acts ceaselessly
shape and maintain intentionally and unintentionally the relational setting of the
web and the contextual disposition of social reality. Knowledge is always per-
ceived as relational to a web of other ‘knowledges’. In knowledge management,
this discourse has drawn attention to the web in which people and organizations
are related to and ‘do the knowing’ with. Issues of intranet, internet and organi-
 Knowledge and innovation in organizations 49
zational structures are central to these approaches to knowledge in organi-
zations; for them the question of knowledge is not deployed around what know-
ledge an organization has, but what the set of relationships is that the
organization is connected with. This discourse has started recently gaining force,
since it aspires to answer questions regarding knowledge phenomena – notably,
knowledge sharing and innovation – in a globalized world (Richtnér and
Rognes, 2008; Mohannak, 2007).

Images of knowledge and organizations

By expanding Collins’ (1993) classification of images of knowledge (i.e.
embrained, embodied, encultured, embedded), Blackler (1995) identifies four
types of organizations, and links them with these.

• Knowledge-routinized organizations, which are dependent on knowledge

embedded in technologies, rules and procedures; they are typically capital,
technology or labour intensive, they rely on a hierarchical division of labour
and control, and they have low skill requirements (e.g. ‘machine bureau-
cracy’, such as traditional factory). Key issues: organizational competen-
cies, corporate strategies, development of computer integrated work
systems.
• Communication-intensive organizations, which emphasize encultured
knowledge and collective understanding; in these organizations communi-
cation and collaboration are key processes, empowerment is achieved
through integration, and expertise is pervasive (e.g. ‘ad hocracy’ and
‘innovation mediated production’). Key issues: ‘knowledge creation’, dia-
logue, sense-making processes, development of computer supported cooper-
ative work (CSCW) systems.
• Expert-dependent organizations, which emphasize the embodied compe-
tences of key members; in these organizations the performance of specialist
experts is crucial, status and power are derived from professional reputation
and training and qualifications are central (e.g. ‘professional bureaucracy’
such as hospitals). Key issues: nature and development of individual com-
petencies.
• Symbolic-analyst-dependent organizations, which emphasize the embrained
skills of key members; these organizations engage with entrepreneurial
problem solving, status and power are derived from creative achievements
and symbolic manipulation is a key skill (e.g. ‘knowledge intensive firms’,
such as software consultancies). Key issues: developing systems analysts,
organization of knowledge intensive firms, information support and expert
systems designs.

Figure 3.1 illustrates the relationship between individual/community and the

kind of problems they are predominantly expected to solve. Blackler argued that
the interest of organizations increasingly move towards learning new ways of
50 Theoretical

Emphasis on Knowledge-routinized Communication-intensive

collective organizations organizations
endeavour (embedded) (encultured)

Emphasis on Expert-dependent Symbolic-analyst-

key individuals’ organizations dependent organizations
contributions (embodied) (embrained)

Focus on familiar Focus on unfamiliar

problems problems

Figure 3.1 Organizations and types of knowledge (source: Blackler, 1995).

dealing with the unfamiliar (be it at the individual, or the community level),
because in this space organizations have the opportunity to innovate, or even
enact a new reality (Daft and Weick, 1984).1
By expanding the notion of knowledge, more paradigms started participating
in the debate, and this has led to a re-evaluation of what type of ‘knowledge’
returns a competitive advantage to organizations and how. The argument is that
the competitive advantage lies in a difficult to imitate type of knowledge, and
this cannot be its explicit form – i.e. information. Thus, great importance starts
being given to the tacit dimension and the role of communities and communica-
tion processes. These new concepts in the discourse of knowledge in post-
industrial societies, are expected not only to deliver hard to imitate knowledge,
but also strategically to lead organizations to live with or absorb environmental
uncertainties (Blackler, 2000; Weick, 1985). Here, I suggest, lies a misunder-
standing observed in practice: by opening up the concept of knowledge, more
organizations can see some interest in the suggested practices. Yet, even though
all companies should learn ways to deal with the uncertain, not all companies
need to be constantly radically innovative. Hence for most companies their inter-
est should move from new knowledge to new ways of knowing and acting.

From knowledge to knowing

Nonaka’s model (Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995) has proved prob-
ably the most influential model in shaping academics’ and practitioners’ under-
standing of knowledge creation in organizations. Nonaka was concerned with
the management of the processes of innovation; his model incorporates elements
of various discourses on knowledge management, i.e. the ongoing character, the
recognition of the importance of communication and the technological solutions.
Knowledge creation is represented as a dialogue between the tacit and the
explicit knowledge that individuals in an organization possess; this knowledge is
transferred from the individual to the group level, and then to the organizational
while individuals and groups or ‘communities of interaction’ span within the
 Knowledge and innovation in organizations 51

Tacit Explicit
to

Tacit
Socialization Externalization
from

Explicit Internalization Combination

Figure 3.2 Model of organizational knowledge creation (source: Nonaka, 1994).

organization. This interaction among organizational members challenges exist-

ing knowledge and fosters the creation of new.
The model presents four modes of knowledge creation.

a From tacit knowledge to tacit, called socialization. It refers to the creation

of tacit knowledge through shared experience, during the everyday inter-
action of individuals, even without the use of language (by imitation, learn-
ing by doing, on the job training, etc.).
b From explicit knowledge to explicit, called combination. This mode consid-
ers the role of social processes, as individuals exchange information during
meetings, conversation, etc.
c From tacit knowledge to explicit, called externalization. In this type of con-
version of knowledge Nonaka recognized the crucial role of the metaphors
and analogies during the communicative interaction.
d From explicit knowledge to tacit, called internalization. Internalization is
described as the process that resembles the traditional notion of ‘learning’.

Nonaka maintained that all four practices exist in dynamic interaction in

‘knowledge creating’ companies.
Communication is important for sharing experience and creating knowledge.
The view holds that knowledge management is feasible via managing the com-
munication process among individuals. Knowledge creation and sharing are
represented as an upward spiral process built on the interaction between indi-
viduals’ tacit and explicit knowledge, which tends to get bigger as more indi-
viduals participate in it. This approach appears to be the most influential model
of knowledge creation in organization. The simplicity of the linearity it deploys
to explain knowledge creation and sharing has led to the flourishing of mecha-
nistic approaches proposed by consultancies and IT companies, of which the dis-
course and technologies shape the image of knowledge management and the
actual practices in organizations.
Apart from the radical and very significant suggestion to conceive knowledge
as an ongoing process, Nonaka insisted that knowledge is an entity – hence it
can be captured and managed – which, despite its social character, is formed in
individuals’ minds, conceptually distinct from the material technologies around
52 Theoretical
which organizations are structured, as well as distinct from the process of learn-
ing (Blackler, 1995). Furthermore, this approach and the related technological
practices it supports ignore the complex nature of knowledge, which affects the
sharing process for two reasons (Turati, 1999): first, people know more than
they can tell (Polanyi, 1967) and second, it is difficult to recognize what one
knows, unless one makes it explicit through language or actions. The complexity
of the nature of knowledge springs out of the assumption that all knowledge is,
partially, tacit and depends on contextual elements. Moreover, this position
bears as an epistemological cornerstone the distinction between tacit and explicit
knowledge. Tsoukas (1996) following Polanyi insists that since tacit and explicit
are complementary dimensions of knowledge, and hence mutually constituted,
they should not be viewed as two different types of knowledge. Explicit know-
ledge is always grounded in tacit knowledge and thus they should be considered
as inseparably related. A third limitation of the model is the assumption that
people are willing to share openly their knowledge for the benefit of the organi-
zation. But in a society where knowledge turns to be the core resource for the
well-being of the organization, knowledge and expertise equal power more than
ever. Informal structures within organizations are reformed based on the power
held by the ‘knowledge workers’ (Foucault, 1980). The current debate on know-
ledge reinforces and legitimizes these power relations. Hence, it is difficult to
see how people will accept unconditionally to share the most precious resource
they hold (Prichard et al., 2000).

Bridging the epistemologies of knowledge and knowing

Despite the breadth of different images of knowledge these approaches adopt,
which admittedly embrace its complex character, the findings are still compart-
mentalized and static, for the analysis does not address the interrelationships
between them.2
Blackler (1993: 864) summarizes the work done on understanding knowledge
in organizations from different perspectives; knowledge has been described as:
socially constructed (Berger and Luckmann, 1966), often tacit (Polanyi, 1967), a
function of the play of other meanings (Derrida, 1978), enacted (Weick, 1979),
distributed (Hutchins, 1983), situated (Suchman, 1987), material, as well as
mental and social (Latour, 1987), resilient, but provisional and developing
(Unger, 1987), public and rhetorical (Vattimo, 1988), and acquired through par-
ticipation within communities of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991).
All these definitions have a common ground, namely they suggest an expan-
sion of the dominant rational–cognitive understanding of knowledge, by empha-
sizing the complexity of tacit skills and practice, as well as the significance of
social processes, cultural categories and language in ‘creating’ knowledge. The
narrow understanding of scientific–abstract knowledge expands and breaks the
conventional distinction between people and technologies (Blackler, 1995), and
the narrative and tacit dimension of knowledge is gaining attention, together
with the contextual factors (structures, culture), which support knowledge
 Knowledge and innovation in organizations 53
processes (Detlor et al., 2006). Still, what we need is a unifying view to explain
knowledge and knowing, since evidence show they are interwoven phenomena.
Cook and Brown (1999) provide a useful account for developing a unifying
theory of organizational knowledge, which suggests the epistemological bridg-
ing of ‘knowledge’ and ‘knowing’. Their thesis does not consider ‘knowing’ to
be more appropriate than ‘knowledge’ to describe the creation of knowledge, but
rather, following the steps of Polanyi, who views the tacit and explicit dimen-
sions of knowledge inseparable, they consider the two concepts as complement-
ary. Cook and Brown suggest that knowledge is a tool of knowing, whereas
knowing is an aspect of our interaction with the social and physical world and
that the interplay between them can generate new knowledge and new ways of
knowing, which is essential for innovation in organizations.
Cook and Brown maintain the four dimensions of knowledge – tacit and
explicit knowledge created and possessed at an individual or group level.
However, they examine knowledge both as possession and as practice. The
notion of knowledge as possession derives from conventional approaches that
view knowledge (what is known) as ‘object’, as something that the individuals
possess. Cook and Brown call this approach epistemology of possession. In this
epistemology, explicit knowledge is favoured to tacit, and individual human
mind to the group. Following the Cartesian tradition, western culture tends to
consider that all knowledge and learning lie in individuals’ heads. This position
neglects the ability of groups and thus organizations to learn, and the knowledge
that is embodied in humans and embedded in organizational practices and struc-
tures.
By presenting the limitations of the traditional way of thinking about know-
ledge, Cook and Brown do not suggest that the group should be favoured in
preference to the individual, nor tacit knowledge in preference to explicit.
Rather they suggest the epistemology of practice in order to give new insights
into understanding better the process of creating and acquiring knowledge. The
epistemology of practice refers to the process of knowing. The typologies of
knowledge cannot capture and describe the distinct knowledge that lies on the
basis of an act – of a practice, e.g. the act of riding a bike does an epistemic
work on its own. The argument lies on the assertion that each human group has
not only its own set body of knowledge but also distinct ways of knowing. Prac-
tice implies not only doing, i.e. a behaviour, but rather a behaviour imbued with
meanings. Practice is thus an action informed by meanings drawn from a
particular group context.
Two elements are distinct in Cook and Brown’s notion of knowing: first, the
concept of productive inquiry that gives the motive to start the process. It is
called ‘inquiry’, implying that the action has the sense of a query, like a problem
or a question; it is called ‘productive’ because its aim is to find a solution or an
answer. The second element is the interaction with the social and physical
world. We act within this world and our actions either give shape in the physical
world or affect the social. Hence, knowing, since it is about our actions, lies on
this interaction. While knowledge is about possession, i.e. what we have in our
54 Theoretical
heads about these worlds, knowing is about relation, i.e. the interaction between
the knower and the world.
By bridging the two epistemologies, Cook and Brown add a dynamic aspect
to understanding the relationship between knowledge and knowing. By identify-
ing the concept of knowing in all actions of individuals and groups, knowing
brings into play the four forms of knowledge, and knowledge becomes the tool
in the interaction with the world, giving it shape and meaning. In the organi-
zational world it suggests a different perspective in assessing the role of what is
known (both as knowledge and knowing) in an organization’s ability to learn, to
maintain quality, to develop competencies, to innovate, etc. Knowledge is not
the product but an input of the organization’s activities to produce goods and
services. These activities require from the organization to be innovative, and this
is translated into paying attention not only to what the organization possesses
but also to how it practises it.

Knowledge phenomena: learning, knowledge, innovation

‘Learning’ and ‘knowledge’ are two processes, which, even though closely con-
nected, the literature traditionally has tended to treat them as separate phenom-
ena, and were addressed through different epistemologies aiming to answer
different questions. By paying attention to both ‘knowledge’ and ‘knowing’, as
Cook and Brown suggest, the two phenomena (learning and knowledge) find a
unified base to theorize knowledge phenomena (learning, sharing and innovat-
ing) in organizations.
Daft and Weick (1984) see the process of interpretation as fundamental to
knowledge processes. They suggest that conventional approaches treat learning
as a de-contextualized process, which separates knowledge from its environment
and practice. If knowledge is abstracted from practice, then it cannot be well
understood, engendered (through learning) and enhanced (through innovation).
The model they suggest conceives the environment as containing a great degree
of uncertainty, and hence, the organizational members must search for informa-
tion and interpret it in order to make sense and proceed with decisions and
actions. In that process, each organization develops its own distinct ways of
knowing the environment.
From this perspective, organizational learning can be seen as the mechanism
to acquire knowledge from the environment. The process of interpretation can
be thought of as a process of giving meanings to data that the organization
scans, and of developing the conceptual schemes of the organization. This is a
threefold process consisting of the scanning stage, when the organization scans
information from the environment, the interpretation stage, when the organi-
zation makes sense of it, and the learning stage, when action is taken. Organi-
zational learning can also be thought of as a process of enacting the
environment, wherein the organization operates. According to the interpretations
given, the organization constructs a way of ‘seeing’ and understanding the
world, constructs a perspective from within it interprets and interacts with the
 Knowledge and innovation in organizations 55
world, which is shared among the members. Daft and Weick argue that these
interpretations may shape the environment more than the environment shapes
the interpretations. They suggest a model of organizational interpretation
modes, where they identify four different types of organizations, according to
the degree of intrusiveness and the assumptions they hold about the environ-
ment. Along with this model, the organization behaves according to the distinct
ways it interprets the world.
The model is based on two key dimensions: (a) the managers’ beliefs about
the analysability of the external environment and (b) the degree to which the
organization intrudes into the environment in order to understand it. The first
assumption in the first dimension is that the managers believe that there exists a
right answer – a correct interpretation – before they start thinking about a
problem. They tend to interpret current information according to their previous
experiences. Consequently, there will be a homogeneity in their actions, which
will be undermined when the environment turns to be subjective, difficult to
penetrate and unanalysable. The ‘organizational intrusiveness’ is referring to the
extent to which an organization actively searches the environment for informa-
tion and answers, and is engaged in ‘trial and error’ acts by allocating more
resources in exploring the environment. A possible explanation for this behavi-
our is that these organizations perceive the environment as hostile and threaten-
ing and allocate more resources in the interpretation processes.
The model presents four types of organizations, classified according to the
previous types of behaviour:

• the conditioned viewing, which perceives the environment as analysable,

believing that the answer is out there and accepting passively the informa-
tion given from the external environment;
• the discovering, which perceives the environment as analysable, but is com-
mitted to active search for the right answer;

Undirected viewing Enacting

Constrained interpretations. Experimentation, testing,
Unanalysable Non-routine, informal data. coercion, invent environment.
Hunch, rumour, chance, Learn by doing.
opportunities

Assumptions Conditioned viewing Discovering

about the Interprets within traditional Formal search. Questioning,
environment boundaries. Passive surveys, data gathering. Active
detection. Routine formal detection.
Analysable data.

Passive Active
Organizational intrusiveness

Figure 3.3 Model of organizational interpretation modes (source: Daft and Weick,
1984).
56 Theoretical
• the undirected viewing, which perceives the environment as unanalysable,
but is not engaged in a structured processes of interpretation;
• the enacting, which perceives the environment as unanalysable and is
engaged actively in processes of interpretation, ignoring precedent, rules
and traditional expectations; this organization gathers information by trying
out behaviours and seeing what happens. This is the most interesting type of
organization, since it imposes its interpretations on to the environment and
shapes it more than it lets itself be shaped by this. For this distinct ability
they have to shape the environment, these organizations are identified with
innovative organizations, which are in a position to suggest and enact
radical ideas.

From a similar perspective, Lave and Wenger (1991) argue that learning in an
organization, conceived as the transmission and acquisition of knowledge, is sit-
uated in the everyday interaction and communication of the individuals. This
position detaches learning from the constraints of training programmes and
classrooms and identifies it in all actions that take place in an organization as
potential resources of learning. It recognizes the active aspects of learning as
process, while individuals negotiate meanings of words and situations as they
interact. In other words, it sees learning as embedded in discursive patterns.
From this perspective, learning is not the transmission of knowledge from one
head to another, but rather lies in the process of participation between them.
Thus, instead of asking what cognitive processes and conceptual structures are
involved in it, the question should be what kind of social engagement provides
the context for learning to occur.
For Lave and Wenger, understanding and learning are defined by the context
of action: the agent, the activity and the world. This approach emphasizes the
role of discourse in this process, as it is not seen as the means to talk about the
world, but rather as a way of acting within it. People constitute their identities
and a representation of a world – a perspective of seeing the world – as they
interact and communicate. What one knows is associated with whom one does
the knowing with – thus learning is dependent heavily on the identity of the
community. Learning is not a fragmented phenomenon but a relational one, as it
is also dependent on the current engagement and dilemmas of the specific situ-
ation. The model of learning they suggest with the concept of legitimate periph-
eral participation (LPP) provides a framework of understanding learning as
socially constructed process. From this perspective, to learn means to become an
‘insider’ and learners do not receive or construct abstract knowledge, but rather
they learn to function in a community, to become a practitioner. Furthermore,
the LPP model identifies the learners with the workers, recognizing by this the
learning process as part of the everyday life of a ‘community of practice’.
Brown and Duguid (1991) bridge the sense-making process with learning and
innovation. Their analysis is based on three exceptional works: Orr’s ethno-
graphic work with Xerox’s reps, Lave and Wenger’s model of learning as
legitimate and peripheral participation (LPP) and Daft and Weick’s model of
 Knowledge and innovation in organizations 57
organizational interpretation modes. Brown and Duguid claim that canonical
practices, well-defined processes and training programmes blind the organi-
zation and impede innovation. By following strictly determined ways of acting
and thus thinking and behaving, the organization constrains the non-canonical,
actual practices that are a source of learning and innovation. Drawing from Daft
and Weick’s work, they point out that, like story-telling, enacting is a process of
interpretative sense making and controlled change. The process involves an
organization re-imagining its environment and re-perceiving itself in it. This
process can be a source of learning and innovation that would return a competit-
ive advantage to the organization.
Orr’s (1990) ethnographic study at Xerox is a classic work that features the
‘war stories’ that the maintenance engineers told each other. From this work, the
different functions that discourse – in this case stories – serves emerge:

• an informational function, preserving and circulating essential news about

particular problems;
• an educational function, as the story-sharing teaches the technicians about
particular faults on the machines and helps them to develop diagnostic and
trouble-shooting skills;
• the technicians establish their identity within the community of Xerox tech-
nicians; the newcomers, by participating in the story-telling process, estab-
lish their identity as professionals and contribute to the collective wisdom of
the group.

Boland and Tenkasi (1995) acknowledge the importance of communication in

the process of knowledge sharing within communities of knowing, by offering
two models of perspective making and perspective taking (the process of com-
munication), the conduit model and the language games model, suggesting that
they have a complementary function. The conduit model portrays communica-
tion as a message sending and receiving process through a transmission channel.
‘Language games’ is a model based on Wittgenstein’s notion of the role of lan-
guage in forms of life. This model considers conversations and activities as lan-
guage games, in which people create the meanings of words and forms of speech
and continuously evolve ways of talking and acting together.
Building on Bruner’s work, Boland and Tenkasi recognize two modes of
cognition: the information processing (or paradigmatic) mode and the narrat-
ive mode. The paradigmatic mode emphasizes the rational analysis of data in a
mental problem and the deductive process of the argument construction.
Beyond this conscious process of sense making, humans narrativize almost
continuously their experience, as they recognize unusual or unexpected events
and construct stories to make sense out of them.3 This narrative capability is a
cognitive process through which humans construct and represent the cultural
world and a sense of self. Boland and Tenkasi suggest that the conduit model
of communication and the paradigmatic mode of cognition are valuable in
designing communication systems, whereas the notion of language games and
58 Theoretical
the narrative mode give insights into the creation and sharing of knowledge
within a community.
Perspective making and perspective taking throw light on to the socially con-
structed nature of the organizational knowledge. Weick (1995) argues that
whereas sense making occurs in an individual level, perspective making occurs
in a group level and is a social process. By perspective making is meant the
‘knowing’ process, the way according to which the community interprets the
world and constructs new knowledge, whereas perspective taking is the process
of sharing the perspective with new members and the way according to which
knowledge passes among individuals. In organizations where knowledge is con-
sidered to be a key resource, perspective taking is considered a process through
which knowledge is appreciated and utilized. The organizational knowledge
base emerges from the exchange, evaluation and integration of knowledge
among its members; knowledge emerges from their interaction and not from
their isolated behaviour. Drawing from a Kuhnian approach, which conceives
knowledge as articulated and validated within the boundaries of a paradigm,
organizational knowledge is created, defined and accepted as such by the
particular perspective of each distinct community of knowing.
The contribution of Boland and Tenkasi’s work is that having recognized the
importance of the conduit model of communication in organizations, they argue
that language games are equally important. The problem of knowledge integra-
tion in an organization is not only a problem of simply combining, sharing or
making data commonly available. It is also a problem of making the perspective
of a community visible and accessible to others. On this point lies the import-
ance of studying the discursive interactions among individuals.

Communication and communities in the knowing processes

The importance of communication within communities of knowing is acknow-
ledged widely by theorists and practitioners (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Boland
and Tenkasi, 1995; Snowden, 1998). However, the main tendency, springing
from the mechanistic approach, is to treat communication as a three-stage
process: the transmitter encodes the message, transmits it through the selected
channel of communication and the receiver decodes it. The technological
devices that aim to enable communication among people and groups are based
on this linear model – the conduit model as explained by Boland and Tenkasi
(1995), who also suggested that attention should be drawn to ‘language games’,
for it is precisely the encultured knowledge that communication and information
systems cannot capture.
Understanding and learning are defined by the context of action: the agent,
the activity and the world. Discourse in this process is not the means to talk
about the world, but rather a way of acting within it. People constitute their iden-
tities and a representation of a world – a perspective of seeing the world – as
they interact and communicate. What one knows is associated to whom one
‘does the knowing with’ – thus learning is dependent heavily on the identity of
 Knowledge and innovation in organizations 59
the community. From this perspective, to learn means to become an ‘insider’
and learners do not receive or construct abstract knowledge, but rather they learn
to function in a community, to become a practitioner.
The identity of the community is not constituted merely by the common aim
towards which the members are working, but fundamentally by the history, the
established processes under which it works and its culture. Being an insider means
participating in the knowing processes. These processes are founded on the trust
that the community identity aspires to the members (Park, 2006; Usoro et al.,
2007). However, trust is a psychological state, not behaviour (O’Donnell et al.,
2000), and it is questionable whether it can be imposed on the individuals; it rather
develops through time as individuals gain their identity as insiders. Yet, its import-
ance for knowledge exchange is beyond doubt. Communities and e-communities
that are built to accomplish a certain task and then dissolve, ‘communities’ that
lack history and steady members, also lack a steady identity. Members may
exchange information, but a great part of knowledge the members carry remains
tacit. What I question here is not the significance of trust, but whether it is realistic
to expect it forcefully within temporary professional relationships.

‘Knowing’ and further research

Blackler (1995), drawing on work done from the community perspective, i.e.
work that emphasizes ‘knowledge’ as collective, situated and developed through
people’s construction of shared experiences and through their perceptions of
their activities, suggests ‘activity theory’ as an insightful approach in analysing
knowing processes in organizations. ‘Activity theory’, developed by Engestrom
(1987), takes as a unit of analysis the socially distributed activity system, and
analyses the complex relations between agents, the community of which they are
members and the conceptions they have of their activities. These relations are
mediated by other factors, i.e. language and technologies used by the people in
the system, implicit and explicit rules that link them to their broader communit-
ies and the role of system and division of labour adopted by the community.
Engestrom’s analysis suggests that incoherencies and contradictions are inherent
in any system, and they are potential agents of change; organizations are not
stable and rational, as conventional approaches suggest, but rather ‘experienced’
as such, partly because of the common imagery of the organization as ‘rational
machinery’, and partly because of people’s ability to learn to work together, for
this gives a sense of stability.
Adopting an activity theory perspective, Blackler (1995) suggests an analysis
of knowledge as active process, as ‘knowing’, and distinguishes the following
aspects, which need further research.

• Knowing as mediated is reflected into the dynamics of activity systems and

the ways they change; research in this area needs to study how structural
and technological changes transform the contexts of action – and make the
system larger and more complex.
60 Theoretical
• Knowing as situated emphasizes the significance of people’s interpretations
of the contexts within which they act, and the key role of ‘communities of
practice’ in the acquisition and development of skills. However, little is
known about the ways in which people’s understanding of their activities is
changing as a result of the developing complexity of the contexts within
which people are working
• Knowing as provisional emphasizes the idea that knowing is temporary and
constantly developing, as inevitable tensions emerging within the systems
of knowing and doing; these consequent changes may or may not be
planned, and may or may not be understood by people. Blackler suggests
that from alerting people about the tensions – that otherwise could be
ignored or tolerated – a process of dialogue, experimentation or collective
learning may be enacted.
• Knowing as pragmatic reflects the fundamental assumption of activity
theory that action is driven by the conception people have of the object of
their activities; further research is needed precisely on how the conception
people hold of their activities change as systems become more complex and
expand, what the consequence of these changes are for the individuals and
how the probably inefficient traditional ways of organizing can be supported
by developing communal narratives.
• Knowing as contested praxis reflects the structures of power and emerging con-
flicts between groups, as the discourse on ‘knowledge’ transforms the social
order and forms new roles and identities; this area – the power/knowledge
theme – is less addressed from current research in activity systems.

From knowledge to innovation

After the Second World War, robust technological progress and economic
growth drove economists to study the relationship between investments in
science and technology, and economic growth. However this approach was
insufficient to answer how technological progress affects exactly the economic
system, because it could not answer why some firms were performing better
than others; to answer that, there needed to study the internal characteristics of
the innovation process, and how it is related to individuals, management and the
wider socio-economic environment. Hence, new approaches placed emphasis on
the firm and in particular on the related managerial activities. Progressively,
innovation management is seen as the core of the knowledge firm’s strategy
(Trott, 1998; Tidd et al., 2001; Bessant and Tidd, 2007). What is striking in this
debate is the lack of communication between knowledge and innovation theo-
rists, as if the two are distinct phenomena. Indeed, innovation theorists only
recently started using concepts of the knowledge literature – finally realizing
that innovation is about knowledge generation and sharing.
However, what is meant by innovation, is blurred. Fonseca (2002) summariz-
ing the work done in the field, distinguishes the following views: a key feature
of certain organizations – called ‘innovativeness’; an economic process of
 Knowledge and innovation in organizations 61
applying and spreading scientific advances – ‘technology-push’ innovation; a
marketing process addressing unspecified needs – ‘market-pull’ innovation; a
strategic dimension of competition in high technology industries; a routine func-
tion of the organizations; a cause of economic development through cumulative
(self-reinforcing) complex interactions; a determinant of industrial structures
and barriers to entrance. The field of studying innovation is indeed multidisci-
plined (economics, finance, organizational behaviour, etc.), studied by many dif-
ferent epistemic traditions (Slappendel, 1996),4 and hence characterized by high
inconsistency5 in terms of assumptions and findings. At least some agreement
appears at the element of novelty that innovation supposedly has – or a ‘per-
ceived’ novelty, as some theorists suggest (Zaltman et al., 1973; Van de Ven
and Andrew, 1986; Van de Ven et al., 1988).
Regardless of the definition and the theme each approach adopts, the key
drive of the mainstream research so far relates to how manageable the innova-
tion process is. On the other hand, alternative approaches doubt precisely that
this key assumption is a valid starting point for studying innovation processes; in
other words, they doubt whether the question of how to control and manage
innovation is suitable for understanding the phenomenon. Here, I discuss two
dominant conventional approaches to innovation management at the organi-
zational level, i.e. innovation management as a rational planning activity, and as
a cultural issue, which I believe embrace the aforementioned approaches to
analysing innovation in organizations. Then I examine two alternative
approaches, which I believe, offer a bridge between the knowledge and innova-
tion literatures; these approaches conceive innovation as social construction of
meanings, and as a political game (Fonseca, 2002; Frost and Egri, 1991).

Conventional approaches to innovation management

By reviewing key articles of popular managerial press (e.g. McKinsey Quarterly,
Harvard Business Review), one observes that the debate tends to deploy around
some core questions and themes. Innovation is either an administrative question
or a technical problem, a social or a political matter; the story of innovation is
always constructed via success stories of single individuals – bold entrepreneurs
or mad inventors – that dare to persist and go against the stream. It seems that
stories with a central hero, who works against the tide and succeeds, are easier to
spread and become popular – they are easier to remember in terms of plot –
compared to stories with many persons acting and not drawing a clear line
whether a person is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘successful’ or ‘opportunist’, and hence a
‘moral conclusion’ cannot be drawn. However, innovation is never one man’s
ideas; ideas are socially constructed and redefined over a long period of time.
These success stories might be easier to remember, but they tell a ‘one-sided’
story about how innovation emerges.
The size of the organization is an issue, as well: small size firms and limited
resources are supposed to boost innovation, as they make people bold with
experimenting – the loss is not that big in case of failure – and there are not
62 Theoretical
many hierarchical levels involved that might kill the new idea. Big companies
are successful innovators as well, as long as they apply flexible structures and
processes of networks that support these features that characterize small com-
panies (Brown et al., 2002; Quinn, 1985).
The role of technology is highly debatable too, as to whether it can secure a
competitive advantage; technology deterministic views bring many examples of
companies that have invested in pioneering technologies and conquered the
market (McFarlan and Nolan, 2003); technology, they believe, will improve the
flexibility of collaborative networks, since companies can communicate more
information using internet technologies, and this will loosen up tightly coupled
processes. Opponents counterpose that technologies, nowadays, have become
available and affordable to everyone, and they doubt how they can be the core of
distinct knowledge (Carr, 2003); for them, fostering and capturing distinct
knowledge is not a technology project.
A main shortcoming of the dominant discourses is that they label innovation
successful only when profit is being made after the new product is launched in the
market. If the innovation will not return value to the firm, then it has not been suc-
cessful – it is probably considered a lesson to learn. In other words, the base to
understand or the criteria applied for evaluating the innovative process are eco-
nomic and drawn from the discourse of ‘economic rationality’. Consequently, the
dominant understanding of innovation is limited to developments that return profit.
This dominant discourse leaves out of the ‘innovation language game’ – and hence
common understanding – first, ideas that were traditionally researched in the
scientific language game, i.e. long-term and uncertain regarding the specific results
and their commercial chances, which nevertheless are the ones that generate hard
to imitate knowledge and products and, second, smaller ideas, which might not
generate revenue, but still they are developed through and are part of the organi-
zational everyday life, and their existence is crucial in sustaining or transforming
the current organizational order.

Innovation as rational planning

We could distinguish two main streams in theorizing innovation (Bessant and
Tidd, 2007; Fonseca, 2002): the first conceives innovation as a rational planning
process, whereas the second conceives it as a social and political issue. The first
strand, as developed from neoclassic and evolutionary economics, holds that
innovation is a prime strategic goal of organizations to be realized through
particular organizational functions. Influential authors of this discourse
(Drucker, 1985; Tidd et al., 2001), suggest that innovation is an entrepreneur-
ship function, essential for the survival of small and bigger organizations. The
objective of innovation activities is the development of new products, which
result from conscious and purposeful search. The environment is recognized as
turbulent, fast changing and unpredictable; hence, the role and activities of R&D
departments are closely associated with departments of which the role is to scan
the market for needs and new product opportunities. The rational planning of
 Knowledge and innovation in organizations 63
innovation process suggests models that tend to split the process in controllable
and measurable distinct stages, which involve the evaluation of ideas, the match-
ing of an idea to the market conditions, the elaboration and the development of
the idea into material reality, the technical tests and validation of trials, and final
stage is the launching of the product. At the end of each stage, the idea is evalu-
ated against the market and the profits, that it is expected to return in defined
(predominantly short-term) time, and the compatibility of the idea with the stra-
tegic route of the organization. All these matters are supposed to be arranged
and designed in advance, and incorporated in a business plan.
Fonseca (2002) notices that defining sequential models of the innovation
process in this way displays systems thinking, and calls for cybernetics systems
to use in the control of innovation process. Innovation is conceived as unfolding
what has been enfolded in the design of the system from within it emerges. The
difficulty with this approach is that it excludes any possibility of novelty, since
the cause of innovation formation is the system itself. Moving from the macro
level of the market to the micro intraorganizational level, this approach appeals
to the rational, autonomous individual, who chooses the innovation. Here, for
Fonseca, it lies the paradox of this approach in that

by proposing that autonomous individuals choose innovation, in effect

putting intention into the system, but also parts of the system, which unfolds
what has been put into it: an individual is said to be free to choose but also
subject to the operation of the system.
(p. 20)

This approach does not address the paradox, but tries to downplay it by suggest-
ing a ‘both . . . and’ explanation; furthermore, neither formative nor rationalist
teleology have provided a satisfactorily account on how innovation emerges,
other than attribute it to the individual’s rational choice.

Innovation as culture
The second discourse on innovation that emerged in the literature and influences
organizational practices, has a different starting point. Having accepted that the
rational planning account suggested by economists is insufficient to explain
innovation processes, for it can only study correlations between investments in
R&D and profits, this discourse adopts an idiosyncratic agency approach in
studying innovation, and is deployed around the significance of scientific know-
ledge for innovating – and hence related theories and practices allocate a distinct
and central role to research institutes and R&D laboratories. For example,
Gibbons and Johnston (1974) mentioned four types of benefits that might flow
from scientific research: benefits of trained manpower, cultural benefits, the
direct benefits of applied research where the application of the research is known
and the benefits resulting from the subsequent application of fundamental ideas
discovered through curiosity-oriented research.
64 Theoretical
The discourse has developed from the human relations school and emphas-
izes the significance of values and culture in making innovation blossom. The
analysis of innovation from this perspective takes into account how cultural
variables, biased decision-making strategies and managerial procedures mediate
the processes of creating and sharing knowledge within and across institutions.
This approach attributes a central role to the management of an innovative
culture, and hence to the charismatic leaders that will design and manage this
culture of shared beliefs and values, from within which innovative ideas will
emerge.
Kanter (1988) describes in a nutshell the views of this approach on innova-
tion; she suggests that innovation – whether technological, administrative,
processes or systems – has the following characteristics:

• the innovation process is uncertain; the source of innovation or the occur-

rence of opportunity to innovate, as well as the outcome may be unpre-
dictable, and hence its forecast difficult;
• the innovation process is knowledge intensive; the innovation process gen-
erates new knowledge intensively relying on individual human intelligence
and creativity, and involving ‘interactive learning’ (Quinn, 1985);
• the innovation process is controversial; innovations always involve
competition with alternative course of action – or even poses a threat to
vested interests;
• the innovation process crosses boundaries; an innovation process is rarely
contained solely within one unit, as organizations interact with the environ-
ment and form networks of collaboration. It is claimed that the best ideas
are interdisciplinary or interfunctional in origin.

This description defines innovation as uncertain, fragile, political and imperialistic,

and suggests that it should flourish where conditions allow flexibility, quick action
and intensive care, coalition formation and connectedness. In other words, it deter-
mines not only the features of innovation – and the way theorists and practitioners
should think about it – but goes further to suggesting adequate structure, culture
and possible actions. As a response to the rationalist planning approach, ‘innova-
tion as culture’ acknowledges the ambiguity and uncertainty of the process, and
hence the impossibility to try and control the process itself, for at its heart it is
political and dependent on its social context. Research from this perspective brings
evidence of innovations that were either silenced because the inventor had not the
appropriate network to support it, or successful precisely because the idea was
supported by the ‘right’ person in the ‘right’ position.
Kanter (1988) goes on to describe the four stages of the innovation process,
as identified through empirical studies, which again are much different from the
models of the rational approach: (a) idea generation and activation, where indi-
viduals such as ‘entrepreneurs’ and ‘innovators’ are seen as driving forces; (b)
coalition building and acquisition of power, which is essential to move ideas
into reality; (c) idea realization and innovation production, where ideas are
 Knowledge and innovation in organizations 65
turned into a model; and (d) transfer or diffusion of the spreading model, which
is actually the commercialization stage of innovation. These stages again
emphasize the unpredictability of innovation, the centrality of the innovation
heroes (individuals) in the process, as well as the clash between creativity and
control in attempts to design the process rationally.
Even though this approach rejects the possibility of controlling directly the
innovation process, it supports the view that innovation can be influenced,
shaped and supported indirectly by designing and controlling the ‘right’ environ-
ment, which will ultimately lead to the desired performance and outcomes. In
other words, this view does not suspend the drive to control innovation, but by
acknowledging the political aspect of social life, it suggests an indirect way to
achieve it. However, the approach bears the limitations that the literature on
culture management has identified, i.e. whether there is one corporate culture,
and whether culture can be managed (Smircich, 1983; Meek, 1988); in addition
as Brown and Duguid (2001) note, it makes no sense to talk about a shared
culture that supports the innovation process, as the organization is open and
people interact with individuals and other organizations beyond the boundaries
of their own. Furthermore, the question of power from this perspective is
addressed as merely a means of negotiation, not as the force that creates new
order and rules. Consequently, many aspects of power relations in organizations
are left unanswered.
For Fonseca (2002), both discourses conceive the innovation process (from
origin, formation, cause and evolution of ideas) in terms of constructs outside
the ordinary experience of interaction between people in local situations, and
imply that the emergence of novelty is an extraordinary experience, connected
with very particular instances or factors that cause it. Both mainstream
approaches conceive innovation process as a ‘both . . . and . . .’ scheme. So,
innovation is the outcome both of:

• the mind of the autonomous individual, who is understood either as a ratio-

nal, calculating scientist that is planning the ‘discovery’ of the innovations
that exist outside the system; or understood as an intuitive, political and
heroic entrepreneur that fights against conformity. Both approaches focus
on the individual and the existence of already defined innovations awaiting
to be discovered.

And

• a system understood either as a self-regulating control system, according to

the rational school, or as cultural, vision-driven system, according to the
entrepreneurial school.

‘Both . . . and . . .’ means that innovation is understood in terms both of the

autonomous individual that designs the system and the system/organization in
which the individual is part (Bessant and Tidd, 2007; Slappendel, 1996).
66 Theoretical
Either conceived as a ‘rational’ scientific process, or a ‘soft’ intuitive human
process, both approaches give a linear, cause and effect explanation to creativity
and innovation, which fails to capture its complex nature, and creates the belief and
objective that innovation can be managed, if all factors (individuals and contexts)
are controlled. The paradox that both approaches recognize and try to overcome is
that, in the race of gaining the competitive advantage, the orderly and predictable
decisions, on which the business rests, rely on and have to support the unpre-
dictable process of innovation (Drucker, 1985). Belief in the rational ‘choice’
creates a second paradox, since it describes a situation where all organizations –
having the same information – are seeking the same innovations. Organizations are
seen as designs of individuals, and individuals are at the same time parts of the
organization, hence their actions are controlled by the organization, and at the same
time outside of it, hence they can rationally design and control the system. From
this respect, innovation is described as a rational process, emerging via a designed
model and evaluated by its outcomes. Knowledge in this process is treated as
‘object’ resulting from individuals’ cognitive abilities. Research and theories from
these paradigms aim to control and manage the unpredictable character of innova-
tion, whereas it is precisely the assumed rationality and power of management that
should be questioned and investigated. Fonseca (2002) argues that firms in their
attempts to create stability either by technologies or new structures, etc., they
create more and more complexity, and suggests complexity theory to understand
the situated, non-linear, dialectic interaction among people that generates novelty –
to a similar conclusion came Blackler (1995) when he was reviewing the wider
field of knowledge management, and suggested for this purpose activity theory.

Alternative approaches to innovation management

‘We have moved from an economy based on the transformation of energy and
matter to an economy of knowledge creation’ (Fonseca, 2002: 6). The traditional
mechanistic concepts that measure and calculate the natural world, are proved
insufficient to study complex relationships, human experiences and cultural
issues, which are the substance of knowledge. The process of knowledge cre-
ation and sharing needs new approaches and methodologies, which would give
up the illusion of rationality and control and study the emergence and con-
sequences of knowledge phenomena as part of the life-world.
In response to this call, I distinguish two approaches: the first suggests the
study of innovation as the creation of new meanings, in a continuous process
and naturally, as people try to make sense of the environment, to communicate
and to take actions; the second suggests the analysis of innovation as a game of
power and politics. This second approach, combined with ideas from activity
theory and a Foucauldian concept of knowledge/power forms the analytical
framework of this research.
 Knowledge and innovation in organizations 67
Innovation as the social construction of meanings
Fonseca (2002) conceives the process of innovation as creation of new mean-
ings; innovation from this respect has already emerged via people’s discursive
interactions in social institutions, which is a stage prior to the rational models of
innovation management. Then what these models provide is a common basis for
conversations, when people talk about innovation processes; however, the
models themselves do not bring order and controllability, as they are expected
to. Organizations are in continuous flux and transformation; stability is created
temporarily as temporarily some meanings are agreed and accepted over others
– but this stability is illusive, since meanings continuously change via discursive
interactions. According to this view, innovation is not the final product, but an
ongoing process where meanings are created every single moment and that
makes the organization dynamic and innovative. The evaluation in this case
would be the successful response of the organization to the environmental
challenges.
Fonseca sets out to explain how innovation emerges, emphasizing the conver-
sational nature of innovation; through everyday discursive interaction, misun-
derstandings and frustration stirs the settled order of an organization. As
mentioned, an organization is not a ‘tool’ that individuals design and use, but
rather a system of patterns that emerge through interaction and they become
‘habits’. In other words, organizations are temporary patterns that people have
adopted as ‘good enough’. The members of the community perceive these pat-
terns as things that have always existed, and they are represented in their verbal
interaction. As people interact verbally, miscommunication and persistence in
making sense and in overcoming the uncertainty and the subsequent anxiety will
create new meanings – these new meanings will be actualized as innovations.
What makes people insist on talking, despite the misunderstandings and the frus-
tration, is precisely the willingness to make sense, the curiosity to understand
each other and the trust in each other and their relationship. Fonseca stresses the
dialectic nature of innovation, beyond inspired visions and rational plans of indi-
viduals, and systems of control and cultural systems. Issues of language and
power are inherent in this ‘organized system’; language represents the accepted
order, thus a shift in language would mean a shift in the organization. Power
relations are balanced in the settled system; the emergence of new meaning (and
subsequently a new pattern of talk) will disturb the power relations that have
legitimated the existing order.
Fonseca concludes that the emergence of new meaning cannot be located at a
point in time or space; it can neither be attributed to one particular person –
despite the stories that the organization will create around the contribution of
one ‘heroic’ person (organization and in general modern cultures like to mythol-
ogize individuals, and take examples from their deeds). Ideas do not occur as a
direct result from the purposeful search over a perceived problem (innovation is
not a problem-solving activity); ideas do not result from sequential processes
laid out in advance by the legitimate control systems of the organization, nor
68 Theoretical
presented themselves as already stabilized meanings, but rather they are
acquired incrementally meaning through conversations. From this perspective,
innovation is the actualization of new meaning, as the latter emerges through the
conversations that result from understanding, but also from misunderstandings.
Fonseca holds that finally through misunderstandings a new meaning emerges,
and the new meaning will become innovation; whence, innovation, the creation
and materialization of ideas is not an individual and political process, but rather
a social process that sets up in all instances of human discursive interaction.
Addressing the question of innovation as construction of meanings reflects
the latest development of the related debate on the nature of knowledge and
social phenomena, as it is presented in the beginning of the chapter, and offers
indeed insights into the nature of innovation, for it focuses on and questions the
nature of innovation – not on management neither on the culture, as the previ-
ously presented approaches do. However, all the approaches so far assume and
intentionally aim to create consensus among people in organizations; the great-
est part of the debate about knowledge phenomena has invested great hopes in
the trust between people and between people and organizations. The question of
power is addressed as a variable that can be manipulated, in other words, it takes
a very limited definition of what power and politics are, and how they impact on
the emergence of new knowledge and innovation processes.

Innovation as power game

It is a common criticism that conventional approaches apply quantifiable meas-
ures to assess the utility of an innovation. These approaches identify variables
for the generation of numerous contingency models of innovation; however they
have been criticized for their conceptual and methodological limitations, since
quantifiable measures neglect the dynamic aspects of innovation, which are
better studied by conceptualizing it as a process shaped by the interaction
between humans and the world. I argued in Chapter 2 that the creation of know-
ledge is not a moral superior activity, but what is accepted as knowledge is
socially constructed; furthermore, who decides what knowledge is and what is
not is a key question in theorizing knowledge. These two aspects of knowledge
creation suggest that innovation process should be studied not only in technical
terms, but essentially as political process, for this analysis would highlight
aspects of innovation process that have been neglected so far.
Frost and Egri (1991) suggest a framework to analyse innovation as political
process, where the establishment or not (acceptance or rejection) of a product or
social/administrative practice is the outcome of a power game, and not of its
value in terms of utility or profitability etc. – criteria that are formed within the
current dominant discursive order and agreed as the basis for evaluating ideas.
The authors provide numerous examples of cases where a superior in utility idea
was lost because it did not have the necessary network to support it. In analysing
these cases, they combine in the analytic framework of power in organizations
the literature of organizational change, since innovation is about bringing in
 Knowledge and innovation in organizations 69
something new, and most of the times discarding the old, in other words,
innovation is always associated with changing the order of things – innovation
process is a contested process of change. Ultimately, what is understood by
‘innovation’ is the result of a complex interplay of power and politics at many
levels – individual, intraorganizational, interorganizational and societal.
For Frost and Egri, power is not simply the ability of someone to manipulate
and control the behaviour and actions of others, but they employ a wider notion,
according to which power forms the surface and the deep structure of the organi-
zational life. At the surface level, power and politics shape the everyday life, the
contests and struggles for collaborations; here, power manifests itself in attempts
of individuals and groups to exploit the rules and take control of the current
order for their own benefit, and in the expenses of another group. At the deep-
structure level, power operates in subtle and hard to detect ways; it springs from
already contested and agreed order, which now is accepted as natural and
neutral. This ‘deep-structure’ power shapes and influences – but not necessarily
determines – the choices and actions individuals take. This position recognizes a
degree of freedom to an autonomous individual, who can act freely at the
surface level and challenge the established order and ultimately the deep struc-
ture. In other words, there is an interactive relationship between surface and
deep structure, and political action. Following this argument, organizational
politics involve opportunities (current and embedded) to act, orientation (will
and skill) and intention (goals). Hence, the role of human agents as surface
actors and as intermediaries between the deep and surface structures impacts on
the innovation process.
The proposed analytical framework here, i.e. viewing innovation as polit-
ical game and analysing issues of power and order, can be addressed not only
to examine and question the actions of the organizations, but to the con-
structed dominant view of what innovation is – the technical view that links
tightly innovation and progress, which creates the image that innovation and
change are always good. The political analysis of knowledge creation
addresses the question of what is defined as ‘good’ and what is rejected as
‘bad’, who decides and who benefits from these decisions, what supports and
what stops change, and what the implications of innovation are; this analysis
addresses the technical, social, political and ethical aspects of individual,
organizational, and social action. Furthermore, this framework can give
enriched insights into these issues, if combined with a discourse analytical
approach; such an analytical framework would conceptualize power relations
through the lenses of discursive formations. From this perspective, the dis-
course of innovation is examined as ‘hard’ scientific formation that expands
its influence in taking control over social and natural world; a classic example
of the field is the ‘green’ discourse on technology and innovation, an area that
has attracted great research interest (Frost and Egri, 1991; Steward and
Conway, 1998; Asimakou and Joshi, 2003), since it provides the arena where
multiple compatible and conflicting discourses meet and shape actions with
severe social and environmental consequences.
70 Theoretical
Discussion

Evaluating the knowledge management discourse

All these discursive and structural transformations have impacted on the kind of
knowledge that is sought and valued from the society and the business world;
knowledge has acquired a great commercial importance, it is construed as the
basis of competitive products, but also a commodity in itself, as it becomes the
object of trade among organizations (e.g. the consultancies and the R&D depart-
ments ‘sell’ knowledge) and also the object of exchange in the labour market
(knowledge workers sell their cognitive abilities and knowledge). Knowledge is
seen increasingly as ‘object’ that can be traded – assessed, transferred and
stored. The technological evolution supports this narrative; the ongoing research
and development of more sophisticated software and databases for supporting
the sharing and storing of knowledge is based on and recursively reinforces the
image of knowledge as ‘object’ that can be codified in a computer language
(Lyotard, 1984). The standardized practices that this discourse has created, such
as databases, innovation mechanisms, learning practices, are intended to capture
and control commercial knowledge.
The practices that have been developed to support the organizational needs
for knowledge management have been framed within the dominant ‘rationalis-
tic’ discourse of technological progress, which has been proved inadequate to
study the nature of knowledge and to address issues of its social and political
dimensions. Empirical findings from academic and consultancy research report
the failure of knowledge management in practice. KPMG’s (2000) report on
knowledge management showed early that the actual implementation of know-
ledge management practices had been problematic. Companies, even though
they recognize the importance of such practices and dedicate considerable
resources in the implementation of related systems and practices, face dif-
ficulties in integrating the systems into day-to-day working routines. KPMG
reports as possible causes the failure of organizations to communicate ‘right’ the
use and the benefits from the implemented system, the lack of training and the
lack of time spent over the use of the system. Essentially, the report implicitly
indicates that even though the dominant model incorporates elements of the four
discourses, the dominant discourse on knowledge management is performance
driven. The existing different approaches offer alternative epistemological views
to knowledge, but there appears the necessity for a unified understanding of the
phenomenon at micro but also macro level – i.e. the necessity to address the
interdependences between agency, structures, institutions/organizations and
society (Hull, 2000).
Most research work on knowledge phenomena in organizations responds to the
challenge, which, briefly, states that the existing knowledge cannot be known in its
totality by a single mind, but is dispersed in individuals, routines and activities,
and distributed, in the sense that is inherently indeterminate: nobody knows in
advance what knowledge is or need to be, hence firms face radical uncertainty
 Knowledge and innovation in organizations 71
(Tsoukas, 1996; Hayek, 1945). The decrease of this uncertainty becomes the
objective of mainstream approaches, which are still preoccupied with the develop-
ment of best practices prescriptively, and neglect the necessity to think of the
emergent consequences of these practices on the work design and society.
De Vos et al. (2002) analyse the dominant views on ‘knowledge manage-
ment’, and argue that ‘knowledge management’ and the Tayloristic model of
theorizing organizations are based on similar assumptions: (a) organizations as
reified and without conflict, (b) depend on transparency, (c) recourse to codifica-
tion – they instrumentalize their projects, (d) both set managerial goals, which
involve the reduction of uncertainties, and this, in turn, influences the power
relations in a given organization. They conclude that there are issues of conflict
and resistance that are left aside in theorizing the knowledge management phe-
nomenon, which are highlighted once it is viewed as a transformation of the
Tayloristic mode of organizing.
In specific, the rhetoric and assumptions of knowledge management have
been subjected to critical scrutinization; ‘knowledge management’ within a
performance discourse is promoting an ideal world where knowledge will flow
unimpeded, and to this end advocates the significance of trust between people
and between organizations. Adler (2001) goes as far as to identify a new kind of
trust – ‘reflective’ trust – which will be the base of collaborations, in the know-
ledge economy.6 Having acknowledged the political nature of knowledge and
the relation between knowledge and power, it is difficult to see how people
would accept sharing freely their highly valued knowledge, and how trust will
develop. In addition, by recognizing the political and social dimension of know-
ledge, alternative research has questioned the new order that knowledge dis-
course has formed and the power relations deployed around the new formation.
In the ideal world of free knowledge for all, it is questioned who controls the
processes of knowledge creation and who benefits from the new knowledge. The
role of experts – academics, consultants, knowledge workers – in forming these
processes, as well as the power that they might gain in a knowledge economy
needs be further studied.
The role of technologies that this discourse constructs, has been criticized
regarding the social implications they bear, as critical theorists argue that they
are not as innocent as the rhetoric of technological progress suggests. The tech-
nologies that are developed and put in place, such as accounting of Intellectual
Capital, Intellectual Property regulations, Innovation Mechanisms and know-
ledge databases, etc., aim apparently to standardize these practices and develop
consensus and homogeneous behaviour. Essentially however they aim precisely
to control knowledge via controlling its sites: bodies and minds, structures and
culture (Yakhlef and Salzer-Morling, 2000). It is a question of further research
regarding the degree that this ‘body and mind’ control succeeds, together with
issues of conflict and resistance.
72 Theoretical
Managers and knowledge discourses
McKinley (2001) suggests that the debate surrounding knowledge management
is dominated by ‘uncritical prescription and critical abstraction’; ‘knowledge
management’, seen as technologies and practices, has not yet become a
power/knowledge regime comparable in scope or depth to Taylorism. However,
he continues, it cannot be dismissed as a passing fad, for it highlights structural
tendencies in controlling employee knowledge and creativity. To avoid the
technological determinism that an interpretation of a Foucauldian approach in
analysing the power/knowledge relations and the technological regimes that
form bodies and souls, it is necessary to study the permanence of the new struc-
tures and practices within the organizations, as well as the impact they have on
individuals; hence it is necessary to examine cases of conflict and resistance
against the discourse of ‘knowledge management’.7 The question that arises,
then, is why managers follow the knowledge management ‘hype’. This question
has been examined from the ‘fashion-setters’ perspective; most of the research
done in this area assumes that managers are passive followers of the experts’ –
be it ‘gurus’, consultants, academics, etc. – discourse. It would be worth,
however, questioning the other side of the phenomenon, i.e. the role of managers
in the development of this ‘hype’.
I have argued that the popular knowledge management discourse has been
deployed around the dominant ‘hard’ scientific discourse of management
studies; this discourse has constructed the ‘reality’ of an organizational world,
where firms are ‘rational’ organizations that strive towards ‘excellence’,
‘progress’ and ‘improved performance’. The role of managers in organizations
describes them as the ‘rational’ agents that adopt ‘scientific’ designed proce-
dures for sense making and decision making in order to achieve the organi-
zational strategic objectives. Successful and innovative organization is one that
continuously scans the environment searching for information, in attempting to
take control over the former. Following this mode of thinking, knowledge man-
agement propagates rational, well-thought decisions, based on ‘proven’ best
practices. However, this image of the organizational world has been criticized
for it assumes an ordered environment that can be measured and understood by
‘rational’ means. In other words, it downplays the inherent ambiguity of sense
making in a turbulent and fast changing environment, and the complexity of the
decision-making processes.
Organizations do not stand alone as independent entities in the world; they
are units of a wider system, and their actions and decisions are affected by the
actions and reactions of other institutions, organizations and social phenomena
at the macro level (competitors, globalization, law system, sources of informa-
tion and knowledge, academia, etc.), as well as at the micro level, by percep-
tions, conflicts, etc. within the organization. Consequently, their actions are
formed to a great degree by external – i.e. social tendencies – and internal
factors – i.e. the organizational dynamics. From this perspective, ‘rationality’ is
a construct; one of the ways in which organizations try to make sense, bring
 Knowledge and innovation in organizations 73
stability and move forward in an ambiguous and unstable ‘reality’. Accepting
‘rationality’ not as truth but as discursive construct that shapes frames of logic,
subjects and actions, and furthermore accepting that there are multiple actors
and discourses that contest each other, indicates that the reason why managers
follow the suggested new practices is not simply because these are ‘rational’ and
guarantee improved performance, but rather that there are issues of personal
interests for each actor involved.
However, explanations as to why managers follow the hype so far has alloc-
ated them a passive role; these accounts give a deterministic explanation to man-
agement knowledge, and assume that managers simply and passively follow
what the fashion-setters (management gurus, popular press) suggest (Scarbrough
and Swan, 2001). From this respect, accounts of ‘fashion management’ focus
mostly on the diffusion process and on the actions of suppliers (i.e. fashion
setters) in the development and communication of new concepts. Here emerges
the paradox, since this approach is incompatible with the view that managers
and organizations are ‘rational’ actors – and not ‘rationality’ followers: if man-
agers (as representatives of the organizations) actively and consciously seek
information and knowledge from the environment in order to take decisions and
proceed to actions, why then do they follow dominant trends, with no guarantee
for their effectiveness?
Abrahamson (1996) highlights that it is a cultural phenomenon shaped by the
norms of rationality and progress. As argued above, western culture and the
business world are based on these two values; however, normative influences
alone are not sufficient to explain the trend, hence he goes on to examine a
number of socio-psychological factors (such as frustration, boredom and striving
for novelty, and striving for status differentiation) and techno-economic forces
(such as economic, political, organizational) that impact on forming the phe-
nomenon. Techno-economic forces indicate that the robust techno-economic
progress forms a demand for more sophisticated technologies and practices in
order to respond to the newly formed needs and accommodate new techno-
logical possibilities. It is also suggested that macro-economic fluctuations
impact on the need for different and more sophisticated tools and practices, in
terms of either technologies and investments in capital – in times of economic
ebbs – or personnel practices – in times of economic contraction. Consequently,
all these forces open gaps between organizations’ actual and desired perform-
ance. Psychological explanations suggest that the phenomenon is dominant
because it fulfils a need developed in a collectivity of managers; managers seek
these ‘fashions’ in order to fulfil their need for individuality and novelty, on the
one hand, and conformity and traditionalism, on the other. Another stream of
explanations suggests that in times of despair and frustration across individuals
in a collectivity, constraints and coherence in terms of behaviour are loosened
up and individuals seek to reveal their sources of frustration even via unrealistic
hopes.
Traditional managerial roles have been defined by the dominant managerial
discourse as ‘rational’; stakeholders expect from managers to act in ‘rational’
74 Theoretical
ways, in order to improve the organizational efficiency and achieve strategic
roles. In order for a manager to be perceived as innovative and progressive – as
the managerial role prescribes – one has to follow the trends that promise busi-
ness excellence. This however implies that managers seek knowledge not
because they aim at the optimum decision, but because they intend to construct
and maintain the image of a successful and efficient manager. To be an ‘efficient
manager’ depends not only on the application of formal and accredited know-
ledge, but also on personal and social wisdom of which informal knowledge
plays a part. Hence, the essence of the managerial actions belongs to the realm
of politics and tactics, where managers gain consent through socially legitimated
courses of action, rather than self-fulfilling, instrumental economic rationality
(Mazza and Alvarez, 2000). This leads managers to seek guidelines for actions
in the social structure, which provides different types of knowledge (both formal
and informal) and legitimacy to their actions.
The assumption that managers simply follow the prescription of the
communities in which they participate (be it ‘experts’, stakeholders, managerial
communities) tells a one-sided story about the emergence of these fashions, and
ultimately about managers’ expectations from them. Watson (1994) takes a
more subject-oriented perspective and argues that ‘flavours of the month’ play a
role in the double-control problem faced by all managers; the problem of man-
aging their personal identities, careers and understandings, while at the same
time contributing to the overall control of the organization in which they are
managers; hence, there arises the paradoxical phenomenon, managers being crit-
ical of the ‘fads’ and still follow them. The paradox can only be explained once
we suspend the assumed managers’ ‘rationality’ and acknowledge that managers
have to pursue the strategic objectives of the organization, but at the same time
they are individuals with their own system of values and interests, which are
often incompatible with the organization’s; yet, both drives are reflected in the
choices they make. This view opens up the possibility to understand managers
as political actors, who need to balance social pressures and their own interests.
Jackson (1996), in exploring the impact of ‘management gurus’ upon man-
agers, bases his analysis on Gergen’s conception of ‘saturated self’. He suggests
that as the ‘technologies of social saturation’ – such as automobiles, telephone,
electronic mail, popular magazines, television, etc. – develop and expand,
people are exposed to much information, opinions, values and life styles that
would not be possible before; in other words the networks, in which each indi-
vidual participates, expand and become more complex, and consequently people
– and in this case managers – become more and more aware of the multiple
possibilities of what they could be and how they could act. Managers increas-
ingly realize the relativistic and local value of their system of beliefs and values
that guided their actions so far, and start reconsidering the core belief of ‘one
right way’ of doing things. Consequently, they search out answers and altern-
ative ways of actions in formal and informal sources of knowledge.
The political view on managerial role approaches the phenomenon as
process, in which ‘suppliers’, ‘consumers’ and society are actively engaged;
 Knowledge and innovation in organizations 75
hence, the reconfiguration of the very concepts that are implemented is sug-
gested (Scarbrough and Swan, 2001). According to this view, managers do not
simply absorb accidentally encountered information, but rather they actively
search it in the literature, periodicals, mass media and their interaction with
experts in the field and ‘tailor’ the suggested practices to match the specific
organizational needs in a way that serves their own career and personal interests.
In this political race, as mentioned, managers rely both on formal and informal
knowledge; as I have discussed, networks between firms, experts and academia
expand, as managers feel they need to expand the sources of valuable informa-
tion and knowledge. Alvarez and Mazza (2002) present empirical evidence
about managers’ expectations from this active search for knowledge (e.g. to get
help with professional practices, gain academic knowledge, etc.), and observe
that managers more and more tie themselves with professional groups and con-
struct an image of themselves as members of a profession. On the other hand,
these newly set links between managers, consultants and academia unavoidably
transform the way each group perceives its identity and its role in the network,
and the influence it has on shaping others.
Part II

Empirical
4 Commercialization and
knowledge production
Hydro-Carbon Solutions

In this chapter, I discuss the case of a technology knowledge-based company,

Hydro-Carbon Solutions UK, its relation with the parent company Oil Co. and
its trajectory through the commercialization discourse; in specific I examine how
the latter has impacted on their understanding of innovation, and the subsequent
related actions they undertook to support the need for new knowledge, like the
commercial discourse prescribes. The research studied the discourses in two
Business Groups of Oil Products, which I call Technology Group A and B, and
fell under the new Hydro-Carbon Solutions umbrella. Technology Group A con-
centrated on the development of new fuels, whereas Technology Group B oper-
ated in the area of lubrication.
The chapter analyses the formal commercial discourse that Oil Co., i.e. the
parent company, constructed, and the consequences this discourse had for the
Business Groups on the way they perceived their identity and activities, and on
their culture. My argument here is that the articulation of knowledge within a
commercial discourse brings changes in the research language game, which ulti-
mately affect the knowledge production structures. The question that I pose here
is what kind of knowledge can actually be produced within a commercial dis-
course, and what its value is. The discussion focuses on the strategies of the
formal discourse employed to naturalize the new order and neutralize its effects,
and on competing groups that struggle to keep or gain power in the new, unset-
tled commercial order.

The era of commercialization

Oil Co. was a multinational oil and energy company. It employed more than
100,000 people and was active in more than 130 countries in the world. Until
1998, Oil Co. Research UK had been its Research and Development (R&D)
Laboratories; they conducted research and supplied Oil Co. with innovations
and product technology. In 1998, Oil Co. went through a radical change in strat-
egy that led to major restructuring of the operating companies and affected the
focus, the object of activity and ultimately the identity of Thornton Research
Laboratories – the UK Oil Co. laboratories site – which was now renamed
‘Innovation Park’, in order to signal the commercial turn. In effect, Oil Co.
80 Empirical
instead of entering a merger and shutting down the research laboratories, as
most of its competitors did at that time, decided to support them and created
technical consultancies, which could now sell their services to Oil Co. and non-
Oil Co. customers; hence Hydro-Carbon Solutions was born. In other words,
Hydro-Carbon Solutions, where this piece of research was conducted, was the
commercialized R&D labs of the Oil Co., and its purpose was R&D and tech-
nical services.
The change was definitely radical, but not sudden; the talk about the necessity
to go commercial, as well as about other minor changes to support it, had
already emerged much earlier, preparing the – structural and emotional – ground
for the radical transformation. The reason for this change is explained with refer-
ence to the powerful trends of globalization, which set knowledge as a key
resource, and the pressures the latter created in the external environment, both
the market and the competitors. However, the official documents, which com-
municated the objectives and the process of change, made no reference to com-
petitors’ actions; the reason and route of change was constructed around the
needs and demands of the ‘customer’: the customer became the new driving
force of all Oil Co. decisions and actions from that point onwards.
In the Newsletter of Oil Products – Research and Technical Services,
which was first edited in August 1996, the need and the objectives for this
change were clearly stated by the Head of R&D in Thornton Labs (October
1996, no. 2) as:

When we see the continuing pace of change in Chemicals, when we read of

the proposed [. . .] merger, we can be sure that the pace of change will not
lessen. We can be sure that whatever organizational form we have today, it
will have to change and evolve to meet customer needs in the future. We
can be sure that however we worked in the past, it will need to be different
in the future as our customers change.
(emphasis added)

‘Change’ in this quote is represented as inevitable and driven by external forces

– i.e. the changes in the customer profiles: customer is being placed at the heart
of the changes and this reality is being presented as the only way to lead the
company to the future. The current organizational form and work practices are
being abolished without precise description (whatever . . . however) and reason
as inappropriate. Nothing of what Oil Co. had been doing so far was good
enough to serve the Customer.
‘Customer’ becomes the key word behind Oil Co. changes: it is encountered
in all justifications and explanations for the transformations. For example, in the
Newsletter (December 1996) the necessity for change is constructed as a
response to customers’ feedback:

According to its customers, RTS [Research and Technical Services] has

considerable more potential than is currently being used. The average ‘satis-
 Commercialization and knowledge production 81
factory’ score awarded to RTS by the Operating Companies, could easily be
turned into ‘excellent’. There are no doubts about the quality of RTS work,
which many customers rate as good, compared to other suppliers. What
must be changed is the way in which RTS cooperates with its customers.
They want RTS to develop closer contacts, intimate involvement, apprecia-
tion of financial and economic implications, understanding of local con-
ditions and sharing of responsibility in implementing integral solutions.

This excerpt ascertains that the distance from point = ‘good’, which was
achieved by the RTS doubtless quality of work, to point = ‘excellent’ could only
be reached by bringing RTS closer to the customer; the customer-focus language
introduces the key words and establishes the rules of the new commercial game:
closer contacts, financial and economic implications, local conditions, sharing
responsibility for the implementation of solutions. The commercial language
signalled a change in the established power relations in the research side of the
business, where the customer now would indicate the nature of the research that
should be conducted, and hence the Operating Units started acquiring a signific-
ant position in the new organization, for they laid in the interface with the cus-
tomer. The ‘financial and economic implications’ of each project becomes a
considerable variable for funding research, the ‘local conditions’ open up new
possibilities for business in a global environment – as the globalized times and,
whence, Oil Co.’s commercial route prescribed – and the ‘sharing of respons-
ibility’ suggests a new work design and teamwork concept. The ‘vision’ is cap-
tured in an Oil Products Manager’s words: Oil Co. Research should become a
‘one-stop centre for fit-for-purpose solutions’. The value of RTS was not, at
least explicitly, doubted; however, the aims of Oil Co. are clear here, to keep the
knowledge resources they had, and make them work for the market rather than
for the scientific ideal of knowledge.
The, at that time, CMD Chairman’s view on innovation was clear (the
Newsletter, October 1996):

What must be achieved, however, is for the period between what RTS does
and putting it into practice to be made as short as possible. Endless polish-
ing can delay the process. Just pass them on what you’ve done and tell them
to try it out.

This statement sets clear short-term objectives for innovation, and at the same
time it implies the dissatisfaction of the ‘slow pace’ of research so far, which
does not support the new ‘aggressive’ and market-oriented focus that the busi-
ness decided to adopt. The Chairman continues:

I want to dispel from people’s minds the idea that we can manage without
technology and that we haven’t got any funds to spare for innovation.
That’s a fairy tale! But here too we have to count the pennies and make sure
we get value for money.
82 Empirical
The statement also addresses the reactions of scientists at that time, i.e. their
concern that in the new organization there was no place for technological
research and innovation. The consequences of the short-term objectives for the
organization and research are explored later; at this point, the statement begs the
questions (a) why a rich company like Oil Co. had to ‘count the pennies’ in
regards to innovation, especially when the research structures until that time had
served them satisfactorily and (b) what the implications of this tight financial
control over innovation would be. The rationality of cost-efficiency is not suffi-
cient to explain this argument, which had indeed unexpected consequences.
The Head of R&D at Thornton Labs continues:

We have a choice. We can look back with regret. Or we can look forward
for opportunities and seize as many as we possibly can. We will do this by
seeking out and building on success in solving our customers’ problems
with the most appropriate technologies we can deliver – and in a competit-
ive world that’s often the best.

‘Change’ is articulated within the same web of relations with ‘progress’ and
‘prosperity’; hence, resistance is rendered pointless and unacceptable. The
offered choice was not really a choice, but a rhetorical device used to describe
any resistance to the forthcoming change as futile and ‘pathetic’, and to encour-
age employees to embrace change as positive, and as the only accepted attitude
that would turn the organization successful in a competitive world. It also estab-
lishes a clear and direct link between solving customer’s problems and organi-
zational success – hence the strategic framework, from within which the
expected technologies and innovations should be developed, was set: ‘problem
solving for customers’.
The analysis here points out a war language, employed together with a
number of rhetorical devices, as strategy for invading the established scientific
order, and changing it. It becomes explicit in the formal talk, that Oil Co.
entered the commercial game determined to make commercial and profitable
use of all the ‘knowledge assets’ that existed across the organization; from this
radical strategic turn, the most valuable asset, its experts could not remain
unaffected. The turn translated into a reconceptualization of the customer
needs, which opened up opportunities for growth and development for the new
Hydro-Carbon Solutions, and the search for a new commercial role and iden-
tity for the technical experts, who until then had been peacefully conducting
‘interesting’ instead of ‘marketable’, technological, instead of commercial,
research. So, for Oil Co. it was a question of re-inventing itself and the busi-
ness, in order to stay competitive – and ultimately to aim to take the lead in the
energy market.
In October 2002, a senior scientist from Technology Group A, with 16 years
of work experience on site, reflects back to the time of transformations, and in
his talk the formal arguments and rationale for this commercial move emerge
still vivid:
 Commercialization and knowledge production 83
and since about six years ago . . . I’ve never actually heard us being
described as a research organization the past six years, we’re being
described much more as a technical support organization . . . there was a big
change within the oil industry in general, ehmm, whereby there were a lot
of mergers, . . . ehmm . . . now, when all those mergers occurred they were
always getting rid of the laboratories, . . . now, Oil Co. was different from
most other oil companies, because we didn’t enter a merger and yet we still
have this fairly expensive laboratory, so we took this alternative route,
which is we amalgamated all our technical areas, where that be for product
laboratory here or our refinery and manufacturing people in the Hague, and
we put them under the title ‘Hydro-Carbon Solutions’ and as I said instead
of getting rid of jobs in the technical area, what we said was that those tech-
nical people can sell services to non-Oil Co. companies . . . so in order to
keep our own R&D efforts well funded and have a reasonably large pool of
technical people, we could, if you like, subsidize that route, being allowed
to sell technology to non-Oil Co. areas.
(emphasis added)

It is interesting to hear how the scientists embraced the need for this commercial
change, because instead of losing their jobs, as it happened in other oil laborato-
ries, they had the opportunity to keep working in the prestigious and expensive
site. However, what they could not accept was why ‘commerciality’ brought the
end of technological innovation: why they were not a research organization any
longer, but a technical support consultancy. Against all expectations that the dis-
course on commercial knowledge might have raised, knowledge, expertise and
innovation were not treated as precious resources, and did not acquire a high
status in the commercial order. And here is the beginning of my investigation in
discourses: could it be that the commercial discourse supports innovation only in
talk and not in practice? And if this is the case, then what are the implications
for our understanding of innovation and knowledge?

The current structure

Oil Co. was a group of numerous companies, which operated in 140 countries
and territories around the world, and mainly engaged in the following activities:
exploration and production, gas and power, oil products, chemicals, renewables
and other activities.
Hydro-Carbon Solutions provided Oil Co. and non-Oil Co. customers with
research & development and technical services, and consisted of six main busi-
ness portfolios; the Business Groups engaged with technical and recently with
commercial aspects of the business activities. Both Technology Groups A and B
fell under the ‘Oil Markets and Technology Resources’: Technology Group A
worked in the area of fuels and Group B in the area of lubrication. However, the
exact structure of Hydro-Carbon Solutions was a mystery for all employees
and visitors, since it kept on transforming; new alliances, which were taking
84 Empirical
advantage of the globalized nature of activities, allowed the space for experi-
mentation, whilst they attributed distinct identities to the Business Groups. In
the year I spent on site, the organizational chart changed at least three times.
Hydro-Carbon Solutions was determined to try out all possible combinations
and business concepts before it settled with the most flexible and profit-making
structure.
Hydro-Carbon Solutions’ activity changed into ‘research and development’
in the broadly defined ‘energy area’, instead of ‘oil-based products’, and they
actively started seeking business opportunities, which would keep themselves
and the parental Oil Co. competitive in the future not necessarily as an oil
company, but, having broadly defined the area of activities, in the energy
market. From this radical change into Oil Co.’s identity and business interests,
we should expect that the support of innovative ideas and research would be on
top of the business agenda; and indeed, innovation was recognized as the driving
force into the future, or at least so emerged in the formal documents and talks.
However, some senior scientists expressed some reservations regarding the
nature of innovation that was supported in the new order. The powerful com-
mercialization discourse for making use and profit from all assets, combined
with the ‘market driven’ vision, changed the relationship between parental Oil
Co. and Hydro-Carbon Solutions: instead of the Technical Groups serving
exclusively the parental Oil Co. Petroleum Company, now the rhetoric placed
the focus on the customer, who might or might not be Oil Co. Each Business
Group became now responsible for its financial achievements, and they were
drawing their own policies and strategies, since now parental Oil Co. funded
their activities only on a customer-based relationship. This transformation
changed the rules of the game: it made the Business Groups reconsider their
identity and position towards Oil Co. Now the Business Groups had to go out
and actively expand their businesses (which now included products and ser-
vices) in order to satisfy customers in a competitive environment. Without
having the secure funding from the parental company, being commercial
became for the Business Groups a question of survival. A Knowledge Cre-
ation Manager in Hydro-Carbon Solutions comments for the Newsletter in
March 2000:

I quite agree with his [Hydro-Carbon Solutions President at that time]

comment that you have to close down your Business Group if it’s not per-
forming well. We now have about 40 BGs [Business Groups], which is
really quite a lot. A process of natural selection would be healthy. When
you sow seeds in your garden, you have to pull out plants that aren’t thriv-
ing to make room for the ones that are. To a certain extent the same applies
to us.

The competition between the Groups is introduced here wrapped in a metaphor

borrowed from the natural world; following on the analogue, its legitimization is
gained by appeal to the laws of natural evolution – which are well accepted as
 Commercialization and knowledge production 85
the ultimate truth, and hence are unquestioned outside the scientific community.
The strongest would survive and take the space of the weaker one – one of
course could question why the laws of the natural world should hold for humans,
as well. Nonetheless, this resulted in a radical change to the nature of relations
between the Business Groups that used to work together, and the rules of know-
ledge sharing – since now knowledge became ‘the object of trade’, and hence
could not be freely available.
In 2001, in a further step to optimize the benefits of a flexible and customer-
focused structure, Hydro-Carbon Solutions was redesigned in ‘Market Sector
structure & associated Business Network’. The new structure was promoted as
best practice, because it created a ‘wider technical, commercial and business
support community in Hydro-Carbon Solutions’. The Vice-President of Market-
ing Development and General Manager of the Innovation Park, at that time,
identified the objective of the change in turning Hydro-Carbon Solutions to
playing as ‘one big orchestra, instead of separate bands’, the Vice-President of
Marketing and Sales stated ‘the name of the game is focus, focus, focus’ and the
Vice-President of Engineering and Process Technology framed the new ratio-
nale ‘the question is no longer: why are you going to do this, but how does it fit
in the Strategic Marketing Framework [SMF]’. It is clear that the arguments of
‘autonomy’, ‘independence’, on which the rationale for Hydro-Carbon Solutions
had been constructed, had created individual(istic) technical consultancies,
which were striving for business survival. Nevertheless, two years later a
Technology Manager from the Technology Group B, with 32 years in Oil Co.,
commented ‘Hydro-Carbon Solutions is an enigma, doesn’t really exist, almost
everything we do is for the Group [Oil Co.], and that’s how it should be.’ The
SMF still had not managed to break down the (actual or experienced) depen-
dence of the Business Groups upon the parental company.
Concisely, the new model was based on forming Sector Business Teams,
which would represent all business units that played a major role in that particu-
lar Market Sector. Consequently, the dependence of the business groups’
decisions and actions upon the market increased and, given the new customer-
focus culture, it allocated a central role to the Market Sector. The power rela-
tions were changing, whilst the rhetoric that wanted the Business Groups
‘autonomous’ to take decisions for their business activities and their survival
soon lost its gloss; under the new structure the business groups got even tighter
controlled, not by the customer, but by the Market Sector that gathered all rele-
vant information. We could suspect now that this change, which implied a trans-
formation in the established power relations, would not go uncontested by the
business groups.

Technology Group A in transition

Technology Group A consisted of 114 employees in four locations across the
globe; approximately 70 worked at the Innovation Park, UK, where the main
Research and Development (R&D) work was conducted, whereas the rest of the
86 Empirical
sites were operating as customer centres. Technology Group A quickly adapted
and followed admittedly successfully the changes that the turn towards the com-
mercialization of knowledge imposed. ‘Successfully’, in this case, is defined by
the rules of the new commercial game: Technology Group A entered actively in
the market and secured customers, projects and resources that guaranteed its sur-
vival in the short run. In times when memories of the downsizing that followed
the commercial turn and restructuring were still fresh, and when further down-
sizing was about to be announced, Technology Group A felt very confident for
its position in the Oil Co. picture.
Furthermore, the financial and business success was such that Group A acted
as exemplar or rather benchmark for the rest of the groups at the Innovation
Park, who tended to compare their practices with it. It is interesting to note here,
that during the fieldwork, the staff of Technology Group A never compared their
activities and practices with other groups at the Innovation Park, but with Busi-
ness Groups across the globe; this implies how they were proud of their culture
and business achievements, which distinguished them now from their ex-
Thornton colleagues.
Technology Group A seemed to have early learnt the rules of the commercial
game and actually used them efficiently for its economic benefit. In its discourse
commercialization was constructed as a question, not of ‘progress’ or, in a
milder language, sustainability, but of ‘survival’. In this new world of words, the
Business Group had to go out and get customers, or it would vanish. With this
aggressive and menacing representation of reality, the only option for the people
of Technology Group A was to embrace and believe in this change.

there’s been a change in the past four years, towards, eh, as we became
more commercial, we moved from working only for traditionally Oil Co.
customers and the emphasis changed on third parties utilities and the real-
ization that it’s been that to survive we have to grow our own different
revenue streams.
(emphasis added, young scientist with four years in Hydro-Carbon)

Five years after the transformation, and the people of Group A had no doubts
about the importance of the change; effectively, commercialization was con-
structed as the only way to go, and it was accepted by the staff as such. The
following senior scientist with 31 years at the company reflects back on the reac-
tions of people at the time of change; his talk explains the concerns about the
new task that scientists had now to undertake and especially his frustration for
turning from a scientist, in its traditional sense, to salesman:

I: I think actually that there was a great will to respond to it positively, when
you hear about a big change like that, people could . . . be antagonistic to
change, but in general it was not an antagonistic change to that . . . change of
culture, there was a number of people – I suppose I was on of those – who
were slightly more sceptical of the new direction, it was a new commercial
 Commercialization and knowledge production 87
direction, as I explained to you, we used to do things just for Oil Co. and
then we have to think of how we can sell things to anybody we know.
R: And why were you sceptical about it? What didn’t you like?
I: Why didn’t I like it? Because that was not what I was trained for, it was not
what I was used to do, and I suppose I am getting too old to change . . . yeah,
but most people responded better than I did.

Technology Group B in transition

Technology Group B consisted, at the time of the fieldwork, of 230 employees
in five locations: the majority worked at the Innovation Park (80 people) and
USA (100). Technology Groups A and B shared much of the recent history, and
the structural and cultural changes that followed the commercialization turn.
However there were some differences as well, as to the way the two groups
responded to the call of commerciality, which stemmed from their particular
understanding of the new order and the way they perceived themselves and the
possibilities to act in it.
Similarly to Group A, the employees did not doubt in principle the need to be
commercial; being commercial was understood as a route to job security, since
the business would not be dependent on the needs for innovation of a single cus-
tomer. Commercialization was largely accepted as the rational and ‘intelligent’
way of surviving in a fast moving environment, which would allow the organi-
zation to make full use of its intellectual assets. The acceptance of the new com-
mercial rationale for running the business is evident in the talk of the following
Technology Manager with 32 years in Oil Co.:

I think people, people saw, I certainly saw it was the right way to go ini-
tially . . . because at that time when you move into products and product
divisions you take the stance that you are viewed by assigning how much
time you spend on a particular project, that’s fine, if I’m assigned 100 per
cent of my time on a specific project you might as well pay someone with
far less qualifications than what I have, because then you are dictating what
they should do; I mean you should only ever dictate 80 per cent of a true
scientist’s time because then that leaves 20 per cent to think, and that’s
really what you are paid to do, it’s to think . . . that’s only my own personal
view, and I’m sure it’s completely out of the standard modern management
literature.

Nevertheless, the reality here was that the people who were in charge to drive
the new organization to new business challenges were not as effective as in
Technology Group A. A ‘cynical’ senior scientist with 20 years in Oil Co. com-
ments:

one of the disappointment for me, there was a mixed reaction to that initi-
ative, some people here said that it was a good idea, it obviously makes
88 Empirical
sense, others said ‘we are Oil Co. Lubrication Development, our customer
is Oil Co., I think of my self as a Oil Co. person, it is easier to get money
from Oil Co., I am not too bothered about trying to get money from exter-
nal companies’, and these were even people in saying what we call
technology manager positions, fairly influential people, they said ‘if it
comes up we are going to take it, but I am not gonna go out, I am not
gonna make an effort’, so that was part of our failure, I think, it was a
mixed reaction.

This interviewee, throughout the interview, expressed serious reservations as to

the consequences the commercialization turn had for the Business Group and the
new status of research and science in the new order. Commercialization opened
up opportunities for new research and businesses, however an historical coincid-
ence, i.e. in this particular time some of the people in key positions lacked the
essential entrepreneurial skills, stopped the business drive. As a result of a less
aggressive activity, when compared with Technology Group A regarding the
‘going out and get customers’ imperative, Group B was still going through a
time of radical transition in terms of organizational structure (i.e. the creation of
Global Lubricants) and jobs (the threat of downsizing was very real), which
increased the budget pressures and the levels of anxiety. A member of the team
that was set up to bring about the structural change identified the reasons for the
restructuring with the low business performance of the Technology Group: ‘old
defined strategy, poor execution, not enough customer focus, not enough
emphasis on operation excellence and structural cost reduction, so it is a rather
sick business’. The objectives of the restructuring were to give the business the
essential for any commercial organization customer focus and a dynamic busi-
ness direction, which the Technology Group so far had failed to reach under the
current structure.

Consequences of the commercialization discourse

As expected, the force of the commercialization discourse and the consequent
structural changes could not but affect the structure, culture and identity of the
Business Units, as well as the employees’ identity. Even though the groups
experienced some of the transformations in a similar way, however, the routes of
development for each group were different.

New activity: ‘research and development and technical services’

well, that’s [i.e. the name of their activities] ‘research and development and
technical services’ well, we do, we do ‘Development and Technical Ser-
vices’ we don’t do research; research is when you investigate something for
the purpose because it might be interesting; development is when you are
doing something because it is interesting, or you hope to get a product out
of it; technical services is to maintain the quality of the product, so, clearly . . .
 Commercialization and knowledge production 89
we are not going to be too fussy, we don’t quite do research, it is a very
much less payment out of it than it used to be.
(emphasis added)

A senior scientist with 31 years in Oil Co. gave above a clear description of the
nature of the current activities they were undertaking. Research is bitterly recog-
nized as an expensive activity that does not match with the commercial direction
– an expensive activity that does not immediately return the money from the
investment. The new Business Groups were not parts of a Research Centre, in
the form that Oil Co. Research UK used to be. The turn towards commercializa-
tion changed the nature of the activities from long-term research programmes to
short-term development projects with clear commercial objectives, as the formal
commercialization discourse directed them. The fundamental difference, as per-
ceived by the senior scientist, was that ‘Development clearly focuses on devel-
oping a better product rather than on understanding the theory that supports it.’
In other words, development, as the main activity of the new Business Groups,
was in agreement and served the purposes of the commercial turn Oil Co. was
taking.
Beyond the first reaction that ‘old people don’t like changes’, we should pay
attention to the objection the scientist raised: it is true that senior scientists were
not entirely happy with the commercial turn, but not only because they did not
want or they could not change. Senior scientists had accepted the necessity for
commercialization and the benefits of it. Their objections, however, were con-
centrated around the notion of ‘research’ and the impact of commercialization
upon it, and upon their role as scientists. The main concern of the older scientists
was that they could not see where research fitted in the new commercial direc-
tion – unless ‘research’ was re-articulated within the new web of relations,
which imposed the commercialization discourse.

New object of activity

Technology Group A: ‘Specific fuels instead of a Mars bar’

A change in consumers’ profile and the perception of their own needs turned
fuels to a commodity:

you get at the stage where people are going to the Oil Co. petrol station to
buy a Mars bar and say ‘I will fill it while I am there’, rather than ‘I am
going to fill my car and I will buy a Mars bar while I am there.

This means that Technology Group A had to reconceptualize what their main
object of activity was – because ‘you don’t make money out of commodities’.
The new object of activity for the group had to be ‘special fuels’ instead of
‘cheap fuels’; hence they chose to use their expertise to differentiate substan-
tially from other competitors’ products. The members of Technology Group A
90 Empirical
commonly agreed that ‘specific knowledge’ rather than ‘fuels’ was their main
commercial product, and also their key resource. This had clearly an impact on
people’s understanding of the nature of knowledge, but also on the practices
built around to support its creation, and also to protect it from leaking outside
the company’s boundaries. The development of specific fuels needed the use of
scientific expertise and knowledge: the rhetoric gave scientists the grounds to
‘remind’ the commercial organization about the value of research skills in the
new order, and to use further the arguments for claiming their ‘right’ to longer-
term research, which so far had been excluded from the intensive commercial-
ization and formal discourse.

Technology Group B: ‘Lubrication instead of lubricants’

On the other hand, Technology Group B had a different story to tell. A technolo-
gist with 17 years in Oil Co. comments:

well, I think with lubricants they may be trying to move away from the
traditional business of supplying products, supplying oil and grease to
people, and looking more into supplying services, sort of the marketing
phrase we have is selling LUBRICATION, not lubricants, in other words . . .
helping a customer problems solve, perhaps using lubricants that can
improve the efficiency of what somebody is doing.

Technology Group B was changing the way it perceived its object of activity
too, and this made them reconsider the nature of their business and how to
expand into other areas; defining the object of activity as ‘lubrication’ sig-
nalled the importance of intellectual capital in the new order and the opera-
tions are oriented towards services rather than research, as it had been the case
so far. From this respect, the discourses of both Technology Groups were
similar, and both constructed to serve the commercial turn and the customer-
focus orientation.
However, together with the new ‘marketing’ driven view of their activities,
the old view that articulated the object of activity as the formulation of lubri-
cants was still active and dominant; this old view constructed the nature of the
business as a specification-driven activity, of which the customer is not the end
user (the car driver), as it is largely the case for fuel products, but the engine
manufacturers, who set the specifications and the characteristics of the new
lubricants, in order to be compatible with the requirements of the new engines.
From this perspective, and in spite of the large number of products available
(approximately 5,000 varieties of lubricants as opposed to three to four main
fuels), which would lead one to think that the object of activity itself allows infi-
nite product innovation, the possibilities for innovations were limited by the
dependence of the product upon the customer: simply, a lubricant is useless
without the appropriate engine. The following excerpt comes from the interview
with the Innovation Manager:
 Commercialization and knowledge production 91
what we do mainly here is to come up with the recipes of the lubricants,
because lubricants business is a specification-driven business, the people
who make the engines will decide what performance lubricants should
have and they . . . they tell us to make sure that lubricants pass a series of
tests for them to approve it, so a company like Ford for example, there will
be a number of tests they will say lubricants have to pass in order for them
to approve one of our oils, and all the major car and track manufacturers
have these specifications that lubricant has to meet, but because their
engine are always changing, their specifications change quite frequently,
probably every two or three years, so for many of our oils we have to keep
updating the recipe to meet the specifications, which is quite a different
situation to fuels.

It is interesting to compare these two last excerpts: on the one hand the technolo-
gist lines up with the commercial discourse and the business opportunities that it
opens, on the other hand the Innovation Manager provides an account of a
mature business, and constrained by the external environment business, where
possibilities for innovating and expanding in new areas are limited by the same
nature of the activities. A possible explanation for these conflicting views would
be that the Innovation Manager had not ‘seen’ the possibilities that the ‘new’
object of activity offered yet, and the account he provided drew from the way
the business was driven so far. I would suggest then, that what we observe here
is a clash of discourses, from where scientists could choose their arguments each
time, without being clear yet what the dominant perspective was, and hence
what the legitimated way of seeing things and acting were.

New identity and the argument of autonomy

All the structural and cultural changes could not but affect the identity of the
new Business Groups, which now gained an independent and distinct identity,
cut-off from the overshadowing and paternalistic identity of Oil Co.:

well, we’ve gone from a research and development organization, we only

had one customer, that was Oil Co., and it did us all work, and basically at
cost, in the past five years we transformed ourselves in a fully commercial
organization, where Oil Co. now is still an important customer, but it is not
our only customer, so we, [Technology Group A] gets of a third of its
revenue, from, a bit more than that, yeah, maybe 40 per cent of its revenue
from Oil Co., sorry from Oil Co.’s fuels global business, but the rest of its
revenue comes from other Oil Co. customers and other non-Oil Co. cus-
tomers, so we have a completely different customer base, and we are a
much more commercial org . . . we are a commercial organization, and, we
. . . I think we now have an organization, which is based globally, so we
have resources here in the UK, in Hamburg, resources in Singapore,
resources in Houston . . . so again, that’s . . . we’ve gone from a UK based
92 Empirical
research and development department to a global consultancy based busi-
ness.
(emphasis added, Resource Manager in Technology Group A)

Hydro-Carbon Solutions was not Oil Co.’s research laboratory any more; its
business units had their own customers and offered a variety of products and
technical services. Oil Co. remained the main customer and hence kept to a great
degree its power on determining the activities and shaping the perception of the
needs of the Business Group.

Hydro-Carbon Solutions does the most of its work for Oil Co., so a lot of
the things that Oil Co. needs, we need therefore in order to help, but there
are some things that we need, which we do not intend to do for Oil Co., and
therefore we need more knowledge for that sort of things, on the business of
understanding outside customers’ knowledge and that sort of things and
developing technologies which are outside the periphery of interest of Oil
Co., even though I would say we are not terribly successful in doing that.

The senior scientist from Technology Group A here, implied the change in this
relationship of dependence, and the problems with living independently, as the
Business Groups now had to undertake new commercial functions.
Some older scientists with critical views were more precise in terms of the
degree of freedom that they could now enjoy; independence and autonomy are
scrutinized here and rejected as fads:

I know I am not independent [laughs], because if, if larger Oil Co. says to
my management that we should do something then my management says
even if it believes it is wrong, it comes down to the Group as Oil Co. views,
how can you be independent.
(technology manager in Technology Group B)

However, a new value emerged – a value that had not been a feature of the rela-
tionship with the parental company before; and this is ‘trust’ built in profes-
sional relationships:

ehmm, certainly more responsible, I don’t know about more autonomous,

because we still have to work with people in the centre, and there is still a
lot of . . . we must tell the same story that people are telling in London and
we do make visits joint together or we work in teams together with the
people in London, but we are certainly trusted more to either set up meet-
ings directly with customers and ourselves or people attend these meetings
and be equal partners with the people in London.

And later the same scientist from Technology Group A described this relation-
ship of ‘control’ rather than ‘independence’ as:
 Commercialization and knowledge production 93
because we have a problem here with the fact that [Hydro-Carbon] Solu-
tions wants to become almost truly independent and sell its technical con-
sultancy to people other than Oil Co., but it hasn’t been given the right
framework to do that, it is still, although we would like to be fully commer-
cial, Oil Co. controls us and says ‘oh, no, you can’t have these customers
and you can’t have these customers, you can’t sell these products’ and it’s
like the business can’t really operate like that.

Nevertheless, the changes in the relationship with the parental company gave the
Business Groups a degree of independence, and the possibility for each of those
to create a micro-world within Oil Co. cosmos, with its own values and beliefs,
and with a distinct identity and culture, of which they take pride. The parental
company was now almost unanimously described by the interviewees as ‘old
fashioned’, ‘conservative’, ‘slow in decision making’, ‘risk-averse’ and certainly
‘non-innovative’, and generally was used as scapegoat for most types of prob-
lems the Business Groups faced; the Oil Co. culture was contrasted with the new
identity and culture that the new Business Groups developed, which was
claimed to be informal, friendly and ‘innovative’, and of which the greatest asset
was ‘people, people make the Oil Co. Group what it is’.

New commercial culture

Traditionally, Oil Co. Research UK had been staffed by scientists of high
academic calibre, recruited for their scientific qualifications, mostly from the
universities of Oxbridge; the site was called ‘Cambridge of the North’. It
used to have a very strong academic culture, sometimes described as
‘cliquey’ or even snobbish from the ‘outsiders’ – e.g. engineers, lab techni-
cians, administration staff, etc. Hence, Thornton Labs had the reputation of
an ‘Ivory Tower’ or as some other interviewees described, it used to work as
a university, conducting ‘blue-sky research’, i.e. research without necessarily
direct commercial interest and profit return in the short run, for the sake of
developing new theories and ‘see where they fit in the picture’. The senior
scientist from Technology Group A with 23 years at Oil Co., in the following
quote again demonstrates the differences between concepts of ‘research’ in
the old days and in the new organizational order. It is important to note that
this scientist again did not doubt the significance and necessity for the com-
mercial turn, but the nature of the research, since research in the older days is
not suspended as useless and irrelevant, only that its applications were not
evident immediately.

when I first started here, we used to do a lot . . . what you could call, well it
is long-term, well it is long-term research, research that you couldn’t
necessarily see an application for it, at least immediate . . ., I mean it is much
more academic type of approach, we used to ask questions with scientific
interest like WHY this happens, we don’t ask that question now, we usually
94 Empirical
. . . you see something that is interesting and we try to exploit that, whereas
before we used to ask questions.
(emphasis added)

Clearly, those people who were excluded back then from the privilege of doing
scientific research, and the benefits that this returned, had different views on the
culture back then, and the new commercial culture; an engineer with one-and-a-
half years in Technology Group A comments:

I think currently it is changing very much, and I think that the original Oil
Co. culture was very much, here in Thornton, was very much . . . a very
secluded culture, it was a research organization here and people felt very
separated from the rest of the world, and they felt very much that they were
doing these projects that were for their own good and their own interest
pretty much, but there was very little view of the world around of what the
research project was actually aiming at, what would be done with it, how
we would ever make money out of it, we were just given a budget, we were
a cost centre, and we would get on with it, we would finish as much of the
budget as possible because if you wouldn’t, then next year you would get
less, but this is really changing in the past five years in becoming a commer-
cial organization, where now we need to prove our existence, we actually
need to go out and find customers for our projects, for our knowledge, for
our products, and, that has meant also that the whole attitude here on site
has to change, and significantly is changing, people see a lot more now, that
it is not . . . just the project or the product that it is important, but it is also
important to have a customer for it and making it useful.
(emphasis added)

This scientific ethos of the community, characterized by curiosity and analytic

thinking, however essential in all types of research, could not fully support the turn
towards commercialization, which necessitated new values and a new mode of
thinking. Technical skills, teamwork and the informal/collaborative culture were
still essential parts of the new culture, but the commercial turn needed to change the
priorities and the focus of the activities; in other words, it commenced a new ‘lan-
guage game’: new words were introduced and gained importance in the everyday
talk, whereas others were used to make clear the distinction between past times and
now. Where ‘science’ had been the end of research, now was replaced by ‘cus-
tomer’ and ‘delivery-time scheme’. The traditional way of doing research had been
characterized as ‘blue-sky research’ and it did not seem to fit in the new culture,
which was driven by the new values of ‘profit’ and ‘cost-efficiency’.
A Resource Manager of the Technology Group A, with 12 years in Oil Co.
comments on the current culture:

the culture is one I think of . . . commitment to delivery, and there is a good,

in my opinion, good team working culture, so people try to be cooperative
 Commercialization and knowledge production 95
and help each other, ehmm, . . . I think there is a culture of delivery results,
results matter and we have a quite good culture in terms of having processes
and procedures ehhh, so we try to manage things, rather than doing things
chaotically, so planning . . . planning is a very important activity and . . . I
would like to think of it as well as quite an open and honest culture, so that
the . . . I certainly feel that the managers don’t dictate to the staff what it has
to be done, where they’re there to try to coach and advise and facilitate,
rather than instruct . . . ehm, I think as well . . . certainly my staff are very
good at telling me what I am doing wrong, which is a good thing . . . that is
locally within the Business Group, I think the culture is . . . I think this is a
fair description of the culture, I think we also have a quite good record now
of being innovative, in the way we are doing things, I wouldn’t say that we
are brilliant, but we certainly have improved over the last few years.
(emphasis added)

And he adds:

I guess I didn’t mention customers, we are very customer focused in our

culture . . . and . . . so . . . the work we do . . . we try and get very clear in our
minds what the customer requirements are . . . and we . . . we deliver against
them, so you know, in that sense we, probably having the customer focus is,
I would like to think, is very important for the whole organization, it is cer-
tainly important within [Technology Group A] . . . so we, as well as getting
customer requirements clear and deliver to those, we spend a lot of time,
once we finish a piece of work, going back to the customer, saying ‘well,
were you satisfied with that work, how can we ever improve what we did
for you’ all this sort of things.
(emphasis added)

This quote, even though it could be contested by many members of the Techno-
logy Group, as to the meaning of this cultural image that it promotes, it clearly
draws from the commercial discourse that drives the Business Groups actions: the
Resource Manager was conscious and clear about the new directions the organi-
zation had to drive to, and he promoted this image when asked by the ‘intruder’.
The excerpt is loaded with the new values that recently emerged and changed the
way things were done: ‘teamwork’, ‘delivery results’, ‘planning’, ‘innovation’,
‘flat, non-hierarchical relationships’ and ‘continuous improvement’ were the new
key-words that shaped the dominant frame of logic. A contested area, i.e. ‘manage
instead of doing things chaotically’, was criticized by engineers as a remainder of
the old scientific culture, and by scientists as a borrowed value of the old-
fashioned Oil Co. culture, and in both cases it was identified with an obstruction to
‘progress’, as articulated within the commercial discourse. What is striking is that,
in the discourse of the Resource Manager (and in common with the rest of the
management team) there were no cues of values from the previous scientific
culture; it seems, then, that the new management of the Business Group was very
96 Empirical
clear as to what the commercial identity meant and what they tried to achieve. The
role of innovation was mentioned, indicating that it found its position in the man-
agerial talk, and hence, in some sense, in Technology Group A life.
The following young scientist and team leader with seven years in Oil Co.
explains further the consequences of commercialization upon research and the
significance of innovation in the commercial culture. Innovation is described as
the part of the past that the Business Group should have kept, and which the
commercialization turn vanished – to realize only recently again its importance
and to make a conscious turn to support it. Furthermore, some negative aspects
of commercialization are mentioned, as they affected everyday life: the intensive
pace of ‘going commercial’ also meant a nearly obsession with ‘justifying’ –
‘justifying what we do, justifying what we spend’ – and ‘ranking’. Everything
was measured – expenses, activities and people – and translated into numbers –
the commercial language. However, this was considered normal in the new
order, and its negative implications were neutralized by the rationale of commer-
ciality – for the new Business Groups, this is how commercial organizations act.

and from the minute I joined over three to four years after that all these
[structures of fundamental research] have vanished, and we have started to
look back to that, the innovation side of what we do is starting to take us
back to developing new ideas, but for a while we have been very focused on
delivering and it’s the ‘going commercial’, it’s the ‘justifying what we do,
justifying what we spend’, you know everything we do has a customer now,
and we have to get them to score what we do and they rank us, we get cus-
tomer satisfaction feedback, we’re very much a service provider now, as
opposed to this kind of ‘Ivory Tower’ research institute.
(emphasis added)

New work design and ‘teamwork’

At the Innovation Park, the work had always been organized as ‘teamwork’;
good research is in principle a team-based activity. Scientists used to work in
one or two projects, and each project employed up to 15 people (scientists and
lab technicians); a senior scientist was responsible for up to five technicians, and
there was one manager responsible for the whole project. By the nature of the
work, scientists and lab technicians had to interact personally and face-to-face
on a daily basis, since they were working in the same physical space, and their
work was closely interdependent. Even though the culture had always been
informal, the hierarchical relationships were clearly structured, as prescribed by
the rules of the scientific language game.

Technology Group A
At Technology Group A, this work design had been described as highly individ-
ualized (‘individual silos’) and a new form was introduced in order to reinforce
 Commercialization and knowledge production 97
teamwork and the benefits from it. A Resource Manager, with 24 years in Oil
Co. explains below the perceived ‘problem’ of the traditional ‘teamwork’:

in the past there was a lot more, eh, of what was called ‘individual silos’,
silos of one or two or three people that worked on a narrow area and they
only worked on these areas, we, we made a deliberate policy, about four
years ago to break the wall of these individual silos . . . we also eh changed
from, effectively everybody had their own projects, we changed into a small
number of project leaders managing very big projects, which meant that
people work on lots of different things, rather than always just working on
one area, so it was a deliberate transition to increase flexibility . . . and to get
involved with awkward people [laughs], well I don’t know.
(emphasis added)

The rationale finds legitimization in the commercial discourse, where the value
of ‘flexibility’ drives the actions. The problem is not that the previous way of
working did not qualify as ‘teamwork’, but rather that ‘that’ teamwork was not
flexible and cost-efficient.
To achieve the optimum use of the knowledge and skills in relation to
time, the Technology Group was structured in a rather flexible form, follow-
ing a matrix structure. The work was organized in project teams that run
simultaneously; each project employed a number of scientists and techni-
cians, and was coordinated by the project leader. Each employee was
involved in two to three projects at the same time and one could be project
leader in one project and team member in another. This implies that the roles
of superior/subordinate were not fixed and did not bear any power outside the
project. In addition, given that not all the staff were located at the Innovation
Park – there were also sites at Hamburg, Singapore and Houston – the
members of a project did not necessarily meet in person to complete the
tasks; the work was designed in loosely dependent parts, which allowed each
member to complete their part in predetermined time, without being con-
strained by the other members’ work completion. The employees’ skills and
knowledge were organized in skill pools, from where they were retrieved
according to the needs of each project.
However, older scientists were not convinced by the rhetoric of the re-
articulated ‘teamwork’. A senior scientist with 16 years in Oil Co. comments:

well, the management here always tell us that we work much better in teams
now, but I am not sure if I believe that, because I’ve always worked in a
team, since 15 years ago, the structure of the team has probably changed a
lot ehmm.

And he continues, by expressing his concerns drawing from a scientific dis-

course about commitment to ‘research’ rather than commitment to ‘customer
deliverables’:
98 Empirical
it may be less rewarding for some of the scientists here [pointing to the
drawing of new work design on a paper], because they see themselves as
working on five different projects and perhaps are not committed . . . here
[pointing to the old work design] you felt ‘I’m just committed to one
project, now I’ll give my best’, how do they decide how to prioritize and
choose which is the best project to put all effort into.

Further restructuring and stretching of the concept of ‘teamwork’ resulted in

restructuring what a team included. As explained above, the Business Groups
were now structured around the Market Sector, and they were supposed to work
together on identifying and satisfying customer needs; at the same time the
Market Sector acquired increasingly more authority and power from being at the
interface with customers. There started emerging a competing relationship,
where the two groups struggled over ultimately controlling the business. As the
Innovation Manager commented, ‘before the Business Groups did their own
business; now they are not Business Groups, they are Delivery Groups [laughs]’.
The new structure and the concept of teamwork had some inherent flows, as they
assumed the consensus of all parts to run the business, disregarding their own
group interests. Whatever the case might be, ‘commitment’ and ‘teamwork’ are
two key concepts of the new order, and hence are worth further reflection.1

Technology Group B
For Technology Group B things were slightly different; the business was organ-
ized in two main divisions, the industrial and the automotive lubricants. Each
division was supervised by a resource manager, and was split in further product
areas (industrial, hydraulics, greases, etc.), in which a technology manager was
responsible for the technological side and innovation needs of the area, and was
working closely with the marketing people in London. Whereas in Technology
Group A, a senior scientist was in charge of a specific project and could be
involved in many different projects, in Technology Group B the structure was
more rigid and hierarchical. The teams were in principle ‘fixed’ and staffed with
five to six members – hence a person worked only for the Hydraulic team or the
Grease team, etc – however, scientists could be called in to participate in joined
projects with different business units of Hydro-Carbon Solutions.
Here, the old practice of ‘teamwork’ was encountered – the one that was
criticized as working in ‘individual silos’. People still used to interact with
their close colleagues and maybe with their peers over lunch. Nevertheless,
again there was a difference between the teamwork in the group now and back
in Thornton days: the projects had become highly specialized, customer ori-
ented and needed to be delivered in tight deadlines. Consequently, employees
did not feel like they had the time to spare on discussing theories and
exchanging views in abstraction. Since everybody worked in short time limits,
the relationships between colleagues transformed into ‘customer-based’
relationships:
 Commercialization and knowledge production 99
so the opportunity for cooperative type of activities is limited in a sense, in
other words, if you want help for something is difficult to find somebody
that has the right skill or has the time to spare or . . . there are barriers to
overcome in order to get the help you might wish for, so you tend to do
much more yourself . . . the move towards Electronic Information Systems
has tended to make things worse in some sense, now everybody has to do
everything themselves.

Some of the barriers this scientist refers to could be overcome when provided an
activity number: people were willing to help as long as they could justify the
time spent on ‘helping’ others. However, a strongly expressed concern was the
fragmentation of activities after the commercialization turn, which resulted in
the creation of individual entities. An engineer with ten years in Oil Co.
explains:

nowadays it appears to be much more a collection of people who rent the

space on the site, so, it was Thornton Research Centre and is now changed
to [Innovation Park], that says it all actually, so the degree of collaboration
between the entities on this site, ehm, is not as great as it could be, it
appears to be less than what it was, but actually my perception is that a lot
of changes on the site may never be any better than it is now, certainly
[Technology Groups A, B, C] tend to exist within their own worlds, and
they tend not to, at a working level, to exchange information, that they
could do, there is certainly more space for exchanging information that we,
that is, that we actually use at the moment.

Each Business Group had constructed its own micro-world in the Innovation
Park; the urge for business survival in the new commercial game, which
imposed new rules based on ‘time delivery’ and ‘performance measurables’,
changed the formal and informal relationships between the ex-colleagues of
Thornton. It was certainly my feeling as an outsider that there was no interaction
between the two Business Groups I was studying, and furthermore, I could
notice an almost competitive relationship, where the successful Technology
Group A was hiding their ‘recipe of success’ from other groups, by not disclos-
ing information beyond the boundaries of their group. Information is believed to
be power especially in a commercial organization, thus this has created rigid
barriers across the groups and changed the principle of free-floating knowledge,
which is the keystone of the scientific language game. On the other hand,
Technology Group B that needed this information due to its difficult business
position at that time, felt excluded by their successful colleagues, who now were
running a different business. In a few words, relationships between Business
Groups were reduced to formal ‘customer-based’ relationships directed by the
needs of projects and justified by activity numbers.
100 Empirical
Changes in the innovation park population and ‘knowledge
management’

A restructuring of the knowledge base

At this point of transition from the old ‘academic’ to the new ‘commercial’
culture many of the senior scientists decided to leave the company, refusing to
comply and follow the rules of the commercial order.

R: [laugh] Are there many people like you here?

I: Ehm . . . that depends what you mean like me, is that a common view?
R: I mean sceptical like you.
I: Yes . . . it’s largely an age thing I think, the older people are a lot more scepti-
cal.
R: So are there many people of your generation here?
I: No, because you see five years ago, almost all the people, very large number
of the older people left early, they took an early retirement . . . so I guess we
have . . . normal age retirement is 60 and I guess that in our department we
have two people that are 55, I think, and we probably have two around 50
and that’s about it, so we don’t have many old people.
R: And I guess you chose to stay here because you were enjoying.
I: Yes . . . but that doesn’t stop me from being cynical.

This scientist, who had 31 years on site, could afford to be cynical and resist in
his way to the commercial discourse, because he happened to be a world expert
in his field. Nevertheless, the attention attracts the argument ‘old people are
sceptical’, ‘old people don’t like changes’. The argument seems to have arisen
and be used widely during the time of transformations: ‘going commercial’ was
tightly linked to progress and business sustainability, and the necessity for this
change was supported by the formal discourse as the only way to go, i.e. as the
natural route to follow. Resistance was constructed in the formal discourse as a
fruitless and pointless behaviour that would impede the promising – economic –
progress. As expected then, the senior scientists’ objections were anticipated and
criticized before they arose; the argument ‘too old to change’ had been widely
used to explain the senior scientists’ cynical attitude. In fact, it was expected that
the older scientists would resist, because the new order would mainly affect the
way they were working so far, and most importantly, their status and power.
Their attitude thus, is not fully captured by the psychological explanation of ‘too
old to change’, but better explained when a political standpoint is adopted.
However, the commercial discourse managed to neutralize their criticisms, by
turning them ‘graphic figures’ of the site, and hence presenting no threat for the
new order any longer. Actually, they had become a part of it, acquiring a func-
tional place, since any democratic move needs those, who would criticize it; sci-
entists were welcome to stay or leave if they did not like it.
From one side the replacement of older staff with young people facilitated the
 Commercialization and knowledge production 101
process of change. Since the new scientists had not memories and experiences of
the previous scientific culture, they could adopt the new discourse and adapt in
the organizational order easily; ultimately a ‘smoother’ and more coherent, and
thus controllable, workforce was built. However, old scientists left taking with
them scientific skills, experience and knowledge. A young scientist and labora-
tory team leader comments:

this is a big worry for me [laughs], because I don’t think we are, and it is
really unfortunate, because they have developed the knowledge for over 20
years, how do you pass that on in one year, you just can’t, and to be fair, all
of us the young graduates, we all learn as much as we can from the people,
who have the experience, but because we are in this fast moving culture and
there is a lot of pressure on us, there is a timeline we have to deliver to our
customers all the time, there isn’t really the time to do this background
reading to get the knowledge; . . . but at the same time if I have a question if
I go and ask any of the experienced scientists they will always, always help,
and I think we’ve moved to a culture that we work a lot like that, so, I’m not
gonna develop the knowledge in the next ten minutes, but I know who to go
and ask; the worry then is, like you say, if these people retire, what it actu-
ally happens, and I guess we just have to beg them to come back as the con-
sultants do if we need them to . . . but I mean the knowledge is slowly
dripping down, it is not that it will be the end of the world, but there are
some things like, a lot of people have spent their time getting this
experience.
(emphasis added)

In this excerpt, the commercial culture is represented as an obstruction to know-

ledge creation and sharing: the fast pace of changing and the new values of
‘delivery’ and ‘customer focus’ did not allow for substantial learning and train-
ing, at least as the latter occur in the ‘scientific game’. However, two new solu-
tions were identified: the first was to ask the old scientists, who had left, to come
back as consultants; this means that they would do only research, and would not
have to ‘go out and find customers’. The second is a striking observation I made
during my fieldwork: people avoided to hear, know or remember anything
beyond what they needed to fulfil their current tasks; in case they needed an
extra piece of information, then they knew whom to ask. People were increas-
ingly relying on codified and stored knowledge in external structures, rather than
being interesting to internalize all the valuable knowledge for future use or for
personal development. However, the young scientist was very confident for the
knowledge that Oil Co. still had, and the way things were progressing, as she
concluded that ‘it is not the end of the world’. Here, she continues:

I mean the other problem is that we have a much fast turnaround of young
graduates, so a lot of people come in, spend a few years with the [Technology
Group A], but now Hydro-Carbon Solutions offers attractive opportunities
102 Empirical
over in Sales or Marketing, so not all the technical staff that we start to train
actually stay, I mean . . . since I came here, pretty much everybody that’s
come after me has moved on.

Oil Co. was committed to supporting the continuous development of the staff,
and indeed provided a great variety of training classes whenever there was a
request. It also offered an ‘open-resource’ career development scheme, by which
the staff could pursue their own career objectives and apply for any job within
Oil Co., where they thought it would be more suitable for them. Consequently,
dripping of knowledge was not only due to senior scientists leaving the
company, but also to young recruiters leaving their technical positions for other
more prestigious ones, which promised better career opportunities and rewards.
This means that sales and marketing roles were acquiring greater importance –
and power – in the new global organization, where scientific expertise was not
appreciated as much as it used to be in the past.

The technologies of knowledge management

This leak of knowledge signalled the necessity for documenting and filing all
knowledge and information; new archival processes and databases were put in
place, and the scientific staff were now expected to write detailed reports, store
them in electronic databases and share them at least with colleagues from the
same skill pool across Hydro-Carbon Solutions. This last practice replaced the
face-to-face sharing of knowledge among the colleagues in the older days. A
bureaucratic culture with heavy administrative work and many forms to fill in
emerged, in order to keep control over and coordinate all the activities and
knowledge spread around and across the Oil Co. world; the administration staff
started acquiring more importance and power, as they were gaining a central
role in the new order. This bureaucratic aspect of the commercialization in a
global environment was not particularly well accepted by the scientific staff: the
girls from the administration unit complained about the attitude of some older,
cynical scientists towards them, and the latter believed that ‘the Group is now
run by the admin. girls’. For the scientists these new procedures were rather time
consuming and unnecessary, since they were sure that in reality nobody really
checked their content, and they hardly made use of the stored information. These
knowledge technologies then, were perceived solely as tools of controlling and
enacting the new commercial order, rather than tools to support substantially the
new activities.

New skills
Oil Co. always believed in recruiting individuals with a variety of knowledge
and skills. However, it had always faced the problem of recruiting new
employees with high scientific competences, due to shortage in the labour
market. In this acknowledged problem, i.e. to attract people with the required
 Commercialization and knowledge production 103
technical knowledge, the multiplicity of skills that were considered necessary to
support the new commercial culture was now added. This means that over the
necessary scientific rigour, analytic thinking and intellectual capacity, now com-
munication and presentation abilities, and managerial skills gained importance.

ahm, god . . . well, research skills are where you . . . research skills have to be
where you inquire, always sceptical about or even inquiring about how
something works, why something is, whether it is true or not, whether you
can prove that it is true or not and how it fits in into the general picture,
that’s what research is; now, when you talk about development skills, you
don’t need to know all of that, you just need to know what it is that you can
do to achieve the . . . the important skill is to make sure you achieve the
goals that you set yourself; so development is much more goal oriented than
research is; research is not the same that . . . you are trying to do something
in research, but the only thing that matters in development is getting to the
end whereas in research you can learn a lot of things while you are going
along the way.
(emphasis added, senior scientist, 31 years at Technology Group A)

Here, research is constructed as in principle a sceptical and ever-critical activity,

and effectively, these are the essential scientific skills – here ‘science’ is defined
within a positivist discourse, which is not surprising given the speaker’s ‘hard’
scientific identity. The activity of development is described as one that does not
necessitate scientific skills – as defined above – since importance is given on the
ability to deliver, to reach your goals. ‘Development skills’ are constructed as
belonging to a different language game, the modern, commercial discourse,
where individuals are target oriented and driven by the goals they set them-
selves. Ultimately, ‘learning’ for this scientist is actualized only in the research
language game.

it is probably, I am sure it has changed the way that we recruit and interview
people . . . as I said 15 years ago we would have recruited someone perhaps
directly from a PhD or a post-doc, we might have not been over-concerned
about how well he would interact with the customer . . . I get the impression
now that people’s presentation skills, presenting their research or their tech-
nical know-how is much better, but I think . . . it is a bit harsh for me to
judge that, because that’s something it happens in the society in general,
when you look at the youngsters coming from schools and they are much
better in presenting than when I came from school . . . so we are probably
looking . . . we’ve always looked for a mix of skills, but I think some of the
emphasis has probably changed, now.
(emphasis added)

This scientist elaborates further the skills that gain importance in a new commer-
cial order; presentation skills are highly valued in the business world and the
104 Empirical
new recruits are valued for their abilities to present and promote their work –
and themselves.

the training is generally on the job, certainly in terms of science spending in

UP you tend to get along and you learn very quickly; clearly they are giving
us a number of more targeted courses in terms of marketing and commercial
awareness.

The final excerpt illustrates the priorities of Hydro-Carbon Solutions in terms of

the expected skills: as far as the ongoing development of scientific skills and
training was concerned, this relied upon the individuals to decide what they
needed, find the courses and participate; however, regarding marketing and com-
mercial awareness, the training was already decided by the management, and the
scientists had to follow it.

The knowledge worker

The new commercial order changed not only the skills, but also the tasks that the
employees had to perform; the senior scientist in the following excerpt describes
these changes:

urgh . . . the marketing people in London, when this was a research lab, they
were not real marketing people, they were technical marketing people, they
had a big technical component to their job, we had, what I think a very
ridiculous situation is that, they didn’t trust the technical people to go out to
meet the customers or to make visits, and what you would have found is
that the people on site were writing briefing documents and papers, they
would pass them on to people in London, who then perhaps re-edit them
and then the people in London would make the visits . . . the change here
that’s happened now, is that the people on site now are trusted [laugh], the
people in London have much less of a technical role, they are doing real
marketing now, rather than technical marketing and as a consequence a lot
of the visits to customers and the report, we write the report and it goes
straight to the customer, it is not re-editing by anyone else in London, so
there’s been a certain amount of streamlining, ’cause I think there was a lot
of duplication of efforts, the people in London doing the same jobs as the
people in [the Innovation Park], so I certainly with my job I travel much
more than I would have done six years ago.

From one side, this change enriched scientists’ jobs, and as mentioned before,
the scientists felt ‘trusted’ by their ‘partners’ in other parts of Oil Co. to do their
jobs. ‘Trusting’ relationships are important for the new Oil Co. identity, where
the umbilical cord with the parental company was cut; the new structure had a
flatter and informal hierarchy – let us not forget that rigid, hierarchical structures
have been criticized by academia for being inflexible and costly. Control was
 Commercialization and knowledge production 105
not exercised any longer directly via the line manager, since the new flexible
structure was built on ‘equal’ relationships of partnership and teamwork, and
employed a new discourse to replace the rigid mechanism of direct control by
the subtle mechanism of control via ‘coordination’ within the team and via
‘trust’. Furthermore, the scientists acquired an ‘expanded’ identity, which admit-
tedly not all of them enjoyed and appreciated. A young scientist from Techno-
logy Group A, with four years on site comments:

I think it [the commercial turn] put more pressure on people . . . pressure to

deliver within fairly short time, ehh, and perhaps as well . . . eh, we have to
try and cross every resource rather than being traditional scientists I think
now we have to become salesmen and I think that put some pressure and we
have to do more of the things that we wouldn’t have done in the past.
(emphasis added)

And a senior scientist from Technology Group B, with 20 years in Oil Co.:

I would also say there was a loss of morale, because some of my colleagues
say ‘I am paid a senior’s salary just for doing a clerical job’ I receive a task
from London, they look in the next generation of leading oils, I pick up the
phone and I talk to Lube-Resolve, I know something about the base oils we
have, I give Lube to resolve the job, they do the job, [laugh] I approve the
job, where is my role as a scientist, as a formulator? I state that very
crudely, but I think that’s the attitude some people have here.
(emphasis added)

The commercial turn did not affect only the structure and identity of the Busi-
ness Group, but of its employees as well; the scientists, who were recruited
before the commercial turn for their high scientific skills and competencies, now
found themselves having to perform tasks, which were incompatible with their
scientific identity. I have to stress, that ‘this clash of identities’ was experienced
only by the scientists who started working in the place before the commercial-
ization: as I discussed above, Hydro-Carbon Solutions changed the emphasis
given on the young recruits’ profile, and credit was now given to people with
good commercial (i.e. communication and presentation) skills.
On the other side, lab technicians, who so far had been ‘restricted’ to per-
forming testings for the scientists, saw now the opportunity to undertake
extended responsibilities, as they get more involved in activities beyond the lab-
oratories and even they got to manage small projects – whereas in the past, man-
aging projects had been a scientists’ prerogative.

when I first started on the site I was very much like a laboratory technician,
now I have my own small projects, if you like, to manage in my own right,
and generally the people, my colleagues find that we do less actual lab work
and more managing projects, reporting and so on, things have changed in
106 Empirical
that respect, and, very much, ehm everybody now has sort of a client/cus-
tomer relationships with everybody they do work for.
(emphasis added)

Hydro-Carbon Solutions stretched the concept of ‘knowledge worker’, to

include not only scientists but lab technicians, as well. Consequently, the firm’s
‘knowledge capital’ increased, since more people were now included in the defi-
nition of the ‘expert’, and also more people were utilized in the short-term pro-
jects, which were now the object of the new activities. Furthermore, under their
new identity the empowered lab technicians saw the opportunity to participate
more actively in the Group’s activities, claiming that they had accumulated the
necessary knowledge and experience throughout the years; here, lab technicians
were offering a convenient alternative, by intentionally referring to the know-
ledge and experience that the Business Groups were afraid of losing, when the
old scientists left the company.
The assistant scientist from Technology Group A, with 18 years in Oil Co.,
constructed in her story a different version of the workplace than the one pre-
sented so far, wherein assistants’ voices were still oppressed. In her version,
knowledge equals to experience – not necessarily associated with scientific
skills. The concept of knowledge expands to include not only scientific know-
ledge, but all experiences from the past, together with the important commercial
knowledge that was now valued.

because I don’t think they use people to their full potential; they don’t
realize that in the past many of us have worked in projects, like 10–15 years
ago, I know, I can quote examples, I know Jeff can quote examples of work
we’ve done in the last 15–20 years which are now almost, the wheel turned
and are being done again, and we are involved in projects very similar to
them, and we are not being fully utilized, we are not given the opportunity
to . . . have an input to say well hang on we did that before and that didn’t
work and it’s not . . . everybody thinks it’s new and it is not . . . we’ve been . .
. a lot of us have been here a lot of time and they should use us a bit more.
(emphasis added)

Discussion
So far I discussed the nature of the commercial turn and the expectations of Oil
Co.’s decision to transform its R&D laboratories into ‘fully commercial’ Tech-
nical Consultancies. These have been represented in the formal Oil Co. dis-
course, as found in the newsletters published at that time. The Oil Co.
commercial discourse invaded the scientific site, and changed radically not only
the way it was managed, but also the culture, rules and identity of the place. Oil
Co.’s commercial turn followed the rationale and steps of a commercial
knowledge-based organization, i.e. they realized the commercial value of the
knowledge and expertise they had, and went on to exploit it commercially, by
 Commercialization and knowledge production 107
supporting this turn with flexible structure, teamwork, autonomy and equal rela-
tionships built on trust, i.e. the technologies that the academic literature pre-
scribes.
The commercial turn caused radical changes on site, which still had not
settled six years later, when I conducted the fieldwork. Consequently, it changed
the power relations, which were already established in the existing scientific
order, and left room for negotiations and struggles of power over the new valu-
able resources in the commercial order. The question that emerges is what is
accepted as a valuable resource now? In the previous order, it was clear that the
site was driven by scientific values, hence knowledge, expertise and research
had a central role and status. However, in a commercial culture, even though it
is supposed to be built around the notion of knowledge, core values appear to be
predominantly the values of a commercial rather than scientific environment.
The new commercial structure, with the intensive customer focus empowered
the Market Sector, which operated in the interface with the customer, for now
the Market Sector was increasingly deciding on the direction of the business.
This domination emerged subtly in practice, whereas in theory it was still hidden
behind the concepts of ‘teamwork’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘partnership’, which
were deployed around and supported the commercial discourse. It is worth
noting here that ‘teamwork’, ‘collaboration’, etc. are values accepted and sup-
ported highly in the previous scientific order; in other words, the new discourse
expanded its web of relations by using well-accepted values of the previous dis-
course. However, by linking ‘teamwork’ and ‘collaboration’ with ‘flexibility’
and ‘autonomy’ the traditional values change their meaning, and hence their
effects. Nevertheless, by usurping ‘values’ of the scientific rhetoric the commer-
cialization discourse neutralized the force of the changes.
In specific, through the review of formal documents certain discursive strat-
egies emerged, employed to support the changes and minimize resistance: the
commercial turn was constructed as the only way to go, and resistance was illog-
ical – at least beyond commercial rationality – and futile. The changes that it
caused were accepted as the natural order, because ‘the organization is commer-
cial now’, and this is how things are in commercial organizations. Furthermore,
being convinced for the importance of commerciality, nobody really doubted its
implications, which were accepted and soon neutralized.
On the other hand, fundamental concepts of the scientific game, which char-
acterized the previous order, i.e. ‘research’, ‘scientist’ and ‘knowledge’ had
undergone a re-articulation, whereas they still enjoyed central attention in the
commercial order. Knowledge has been recognized by both academia and prac-
titioners as the vital resource, which should be protected and supported. First, by
turning knowledge to a commercial object its nature changes: whereas ‘narrat-
ive’ and ‘scientific’ knowledge increase through sharing, commercial knowledge
decreases, and hence has to be protected and carefully used. ‘Knowledge’
sharing was encouraged within the boundaries of each Business Group, but
being commercial – as opposed to a ‘university site’ as it used to be – confer-
ences were not a place for Oil Co. scientists to share their knowledge any longer,
108 Empirical
but where they made commercial contacts. Furthermore, the production of ‘com-
mercial’ knowledge needs different skills – since scientific skills are not suffi-
cient. Commercial skills included ‘presentation’ and ‘communication’ skills, in
other words, skills that could secure customers and funding for the Business
Unit.
Research changed nature and objectives. Now, by ‘research’ is meant short-
term projects with clear commercial applications and business profits. Senior
scientists insisted on drawing a line between ‘research’, as articulated in a
scientific game, and ‘development’, which is what was meant by ‘research’ now.
However, this distinction served only the senior scientists; the commercial lan-
guage simply distinguished between long-term and short-term research, and fur-
thermore long-term research was not welcome unconditionally any more.
Finally, the role of the scientist was transformed as well, to the scientists’
frustration, as they had enjoyed so far the benefit of doing well-paid research of
an academic nature. Scientists now had a range of administrative tasks, when at
the same time they had to develop their commercial skills – and ‘go out and find
customers’. At the same time, laboratory technicians now acquired the ‘privil-
ege’ of managing small projects. This means that in the commercial order,
where commercial replaces scientific knowledge, ‘knowledge worker’ is not the
scientist, for the skills and training it requires are different from the ones the
scientific game requires, and furthermore the kind of ‘knowledge’ they use or
produce is of a different nature. ‘Knowledge worker’ is a broader concept, based
on different skills, knowledge and training – now work experience is much
valued with or without scientific training – and the outcome of the ‘research’ is
not assessed and approved by a specific scientific community, in terms of its
scientific contribution – the knowledge worker does not belong in a specific
scientific community – but by the business, in terms of the profit made. The
question of governance of the production of ‘commercial’ knowledge at the
organizational level is tackled in Chapter 7; however, its significance for the
society is crucial and its implications deserve further research.
It is true that the ‘secluded scientific culture’ of Thornton cracked by the
commercial turn, and gave more people the possibility to participate in activities
that in the past had been a scientists’ privilege: it gave more people the possibil-
ity to use their knowledge and experiences, and reach higher pay rates. Together
with the flatter and flexible structure they implemented, it could be argued that
commercialization led to a more open and democratized site, where the scientific
elite lost its status and privileges, and more people could allegedly equally enjoy
the fruits of hard work. Democratization is indeed one side of the story, where
now the voices of the weaker groups are heard by the managers. On the other
hand, the aim was not democratization, but exploitation of all types of know-
ledge resources and competences under Hydro-Carbon Solutions’ umbrella, in
order to increase their knowledge capital and profits. All employees were invited
to participate in training programmes, and contribute their ideas to the Group,
because the Group needed them for survival – as the formal discourse
prescribes.
 Commercialization and knowledge production 109
Nevertheless, despite the discursive strategies and practices employed for this
transformation, furthermore, despite the positive consequences that might have
resulted, inevitably such a big change would not have gone through uncontested.
The scientists felt early the changes in the rules of the game, and most of them
decided not to comply by leaving the site – and take with them precious scient-
ific knowledge, which at that time might not have felt like a big loss, but now
the Business Groups reconsidered. Those who remained, enjoyed the privilege
of criticizing and not participating in a process that did not match with their
scientific identity. Others applied more political ways for regaining the power
loss they suffered after the radical commercialization: the Business Groups soon
realized the significance of scientific knowledge, and scientists used the need for
research in order to regain their status.
5 The construction of ‘commercial
innovation’

In this chapter, I explore the formal organization discourse on innovation, and

the relationship between ‘commerciality’ and ‘innovation’. I examine closer the
structure of the most popular ‘innovation machine’, i.e. Eureka, an innovation
mechanism that reflects clearly the discourse ‘innovation as rational planning’,
the assumptions and expectations from it, and from the scientific population,
who are supposed to engage with it. Ultimately, I look at the language used,
which ties together innovation with ‘business profits’ and its implications. The
formal – i.e. the organizational – view on innovation is presented, via the talk of
the Research and Innovation Group, which was in charge to promote innovation
at the Oil Products Business, and their explanation of the problems encountered
in managing innovation. I take this to be the ‘formal’ view on innovation, since,
like the innovation managers stressed during the interviews, the top level
avoided expressing an opinion, and delegated the full responsibility of innova-
tion to this group.
The analysis addresses issues of politics and power related to innovation,
not merely as negotiating variables, as mainstream analysis of innovation sug-
gests, but as a force of creating the dominant understanding of what innova-
tion is, what is not and what the necessary actions are, in order to comply with
the new and naturalized articulation of innovation. Ultimately, the questions I
pose are, how innovation is articulated within the commercial discourse, what
struggles are enacted for its control and what the consequences are for the
organization.

The revival of innovation

A resource manager in Technology Group A (with 24 years in Oil Co.) com-
ments:

I guess historically there was more, an emphasis on knowledge creation,

because we used to have, eh, proportions of budgets set aside to do blue-sky
types of research knowledge, we then moved more to a, eh, product devel-
opment, product application, and it’s only recently that we started to look
again at . . . new knowledge generation.
 Construction of ‘commercial innovation’ 111
The intensive pace of becoming commercial, the new language it introduced – a
language of ‘customer focus’, ‘cost efficiency’, ‘time delivery’, etc., which
derived from an economic discourse – together with the clear distinction
between the past and new times, resulted in the end of long-term scientific pro-
jects, which were judged inadequate and inappropriate for the commercial order.
The projects became short term, and the funding for ‘blue-sky’ research with
unspecified utility stopped. At the same time, the Business Groups were concen-
trating on learning to operate within the boundaries of the new acquired identity,
in other words to work as Business Units, and thus new knowledge and innova-
tion were bracketed off, and for a while were considered a ‘thing’ of the past.
The following rich account of a technology manager in Technology Group B
gives insights into the ‘hard managerial rationality’ and the way it affected pro-
gressively the process of new knowledge generation:

We cut innovation from the bottom of R&D budget every year, because
what you would do is put forward all the ideas that you had and then they
would rank them, their use in the business, of course you would get a busi-
ness analyst or a financial accountant say, well we can’t support this busi-
ness case because it’s, it’s, it’s woolly . . . so it’s a diffused idea, we don’t
know how much it’s worth, we probably won’t do it, so we cut innovation
off the bottom of R&D budgeting, and we did that successfully from ’90 . . .
probably from ’98 onward, that we cut innovation off the bottom, and that
was the problem, the people that actually decided how to spend the money,
they were all short-term business people, there was nobody with a, should
we say, helicopter overview of what the business might need.

However, the intensive focus on the ‘time and delivery’ language and the sub-
sequent short-term research projects had not contributed much in the body of Oil
Co. knowledge, and the business groups realized that they had already used the
ideas they had and they needed to ‘restock the shelves with ideas’. At that time,
the knowledge discourse had already gained significant momentum in the new
‘knowledge-based’ society; the creation of new knowledge and innovation
became important not only for Oil Co. and its competitors, but also for their cus-
tomers, who also needed new ideas to remain competitive.
This turn towards supporting innovation would not have been successful
without the appropriate discourse that had created a new understanding of what
the business was and what the employees were expected to do. The following
quote comes from a scientist of the Technology Group B, with six years in Oil
Co., and it is a classic example of how discourses operate in this sense; here the
employee analyses the formal organizational talk:

I:The Oil Products Business about six years ago, when I joined Oil Co. was
always described as a mature business, that’s the word that was always
used: ‘a mature business’.
R: The oil business?
112 Empirical
I: The oil business is a mature business, and to some extent that was the ratio-
nalization before, like three years ago, we moved to doing short-term pro-
jects, ‘why is there any point in doing long-term projects in a mature
business?, everybody knows what everybody knows, and there are no new
things to find out’ was part of the logic, well in the intervening three years
things changed dramatically, probably we all realized we didn’t know what
we needed to know, that it was not a very mature business and there are
loads of things to find out.
(emphasis added)

Oil Co. has traditionally been a ‘knowledge-based’ company, given the number
and the qualifications of its experts; however, it was not perceived as particu-
larly innovative. Blue-sky research had been conducted without specific expec-
tations for immediately producing products and satisfying customer needs. The
oil business in general was described as a mature business, with limited needs
and possibilities for new products, and many oil companies saw no reason to
keep their R&D departments. However, the revival of the knowledge discourse
together with changes in the external environment, e.g. the green discourse,
technological advances in alternative energies, etc., opened up opportunities for
the viability of the business in the future; these opportunities were not conceiv-
able through the lenses of ‘the mature oil company’ identity. Therefore, it made
business sense for Oil Co. to seize the opportunities of the knowledge discourse
and become an innovative company.

I think there is also a recognition that, if we just do technical services we

only provide what we already know, we don’t provide new products or new
knowledge, then it will come a time when we will have nothing more to
give, and then we will have to invest both for Hydro-Carbon Solutions and
for Oil Co. in general in . . . having a careful look in our intellectual property
. . . and I think the key aspiration is that whatever the way that transportation
develops that Oil Co. will be in a position, both in terms of the patents it has
and the expertise and knowledge to be there beforehand . . . and, you can see
that things are changing, a lot of our activities now is on bio-fuels . . . and
the challenge of sustainability . . . it is a challenge on the way we do busi-
ness, and I guess it susses out to know that we are the people who will be
required to meet that challenge on the behalf of Oil Co.
(senior scientist from Technology Group A)

Clearly, Oil Co. did not want to consider itself an oil company any longer, but
an energy company; this change in perspective encouraged its employees to use
their scientific knowledge and expand into the broader area of energy. Hence,
scientific knowledge, long-term projects together with the discourse on know-
ledge regained attention. Whereas so far the commercial discourse had indicted
research for being an ‘unsuccessful’ activity of the past and stopped its funding,
now research became again ‘the flavour of the month’; however the conditions
 Construction of ‘commercial innovation’ 113
for its conduct were up for negotiations, since no part (scientists, Market Sector,
Oil Co. Group) were willing to give up the struggle for its control. The realiza-
tion of the significance of innovation and a conscious turn to support it started
approximately three years before my fieldwork. A number of funnels and
funding started appearing at all levels and units at Oil Co. and Hydro-Carbon
Solutions, aiming to support new ideas and generate innovations. Each funnel
was designed to support different types of ideas, and thus it offered a different
articulation of ‘innovation’, and of what ‘valuable ideas’ were. Various funnels
appeared, with the intention to support short- or long-term, commercial or tech-
nical, groundbreaking or simple ideas.
Consistent with the new commercial culture and practices, idea proposals
submitted to any innovation funnel had to present a business case, i.e. the
researcher had to provide a clear estimation, explanation and justification of the
required funding, the application of the idea, the timeline and the expected
profits for the business. Nevertheless, these innovation mechanisms were
working independently and in fragmentation, and so it rested upon each scientist
to reach for them and suggest a research idea; if the idea was rejected by one
funnel, then the scientist had to start the process again from the beginning, by
identifying a more appropriate funnel revising the business case to reflect the
specific interest of the funnel, and proceeding with the presentation of the pro-
posal, etc. Each group conceived innovation in a different way, according to the
distinct identity, the object of its activity, the needs and objectives it pursued; we
can suspect already that the fragmentation of the funnels, the different under-
standings of innovation and the politics behind the promotion of innovative
ideas, would create a terrain for competing discourses and actions within Hydro-
Carbon Solutions. The consequences of this richness of co-existing articulations
of innovation and subsequent practices is presented in the next chapter; here I
shall discuss the formal innovation discourse.

Research and Innovation Group: Eureka

[S]o most people think Innovation is Technology, but one of the things we
have persistently tried to impress on people over time is that innovation is
not about technology per se, innovation is about exploiting opportunities for
change.
(Eureka Manager)

Amongst the many mechanisms that emerged to support innovation, the most
important, at least for the scientists at the Innovation Park, was ‘Eureka’,
which was managed by the Research and Innovation Group, a team of five
members: one in Houston, two at the Innovation Park and two in Amsterdam.
Eureka was a higher-level innovation machine; it was first implemented in the
Exploration and Production Business to support innovation and essentially
long-term projects, and then a similar mechanism was introduced in the Oil
Products Business.
114 Empirical
Eureka was an innovation funnel: it appeared as a website linked to a data-
base, where scientists could log on, have a look at other ideas and submit their
own. The Eureka team reviewed the ideas, and if one was assessed as worth
exploring, then the person who submitted it had to prepare a business case and
make a short presentation in front of the Innovation Panel, which consisted of
senior managers of Hydro-Carbon Solutions and people from the business. If
the Panel was convinced about the value of the idea for the business, then an
initial amount of money was granted to start the scouting stage of the project;
the progress of the project was assessed at the end of each stage and, if the
results until that stage were satisfactory and could still demonstrate significant
financial returns to the business, then more funding was granted, and the
project passed on through the ‘gate’ to the next stage. The assumptions of the
‘rational planning’ discourse on innovation are evident in the approach taken
here; the process tried to control the uncertainty of the environment, by maxi-
mizing the control over the process of developing innovations from the early
stage of ideas generation until the launching of the innovation in the market,
and by putting the scientists and the business to work together. The literature
identifies this model of innovation mostly with short-term projects, for the
simple reason that it is difficult to plan in thorough financial and technical
details a project that would last more than five years. However, Eureka was a
process that aimed to support long-term projects; the stretching of the model to
long-term innovation was not perceived as shortcoming by the Eureka team but
as strength – it is the ‘Eureka method’. Below, a member of the team suggests
a strengthening of the model based on a rational problem-solving view of
innovation, where the market sector would expose problems, and the scientists
would seek solutions:

we are in the process of, what we’re trying to do is to give people shots
about what we are trying to do . . . and set specific challenges to meet;
because I think that unless you feel passion about innovation . . . there’s a
saying about necessity being the mother of invention, you need to expose
people to problems and then let them find how to work out, how they might
be solved from their knowledge and skills and competences, what I know of
might be useful to solving this problem, and that’s what we are trying to do.

A member of the Research and Innovation Group at the Innovation Park with 20
years in Oil Co. gives the following account about the need that Eureka intended
to fulfil:

the backlash of that . . . the pendulum, sorry, swung completely and then
people thought, well, what about our longer term, what about our longer
term, effectively, where are we going to be in the future, and how are we
going to nurture ideas, which then will take longer to come through and
longer to develop; and that’s when you swung back to having a Eureka-
style process; so it all started in EP [Exploration and Production], the EP
 Construction of ‘commercial innovation’ 115
slashed its R&D budgets and got rid of huge trunches of long-term research,
and when they got rid of it . . . they sack a lot of people, and when they got
rid of them, then they realized that actually those people were providing a
function, and at the end . . . the problem was not that you had those people,
the problem was that you didn’t tie them properly into the business, they
were not properly integrated into the business; and it’s always been that
problem that R&D has historically let the business down . . . in some areas,
but the business has let R&D down, by not saying what it wants; so what
emerged, the consensus that emerged from that rather painful process is that
what you need is an R&D process which ties the business in with the inno-
vators, with the research innovators, and that’s what the Eureka process is
supposed to enable, it’s supposed to be a mechanism for enabling you to do
risky, non-core, long-term things, BUT keeping the business properly
engaged.
(emphasis added)

The account gives insights into the relationship between the business and the
R&D department: the end of innovation made the business people realize that
scientists were not ‘mad’ researchers, who were wasting the business money for
science. On the contrary, they were actually providing a function; therefore, they
could play a vital role in the new commercial organization, as long as they
amended the relationship between the two parts, which so far had been proved
dysfunctional. The problem is that innovation, at least as scientists understood it,
and commercialization did not seem to work together; however, the business
(the ‘people’ as neutrally and all inclusively was described by the interviewee)
saw an opportunity for profits from their knowledge resources, and attempted to
bring commercialization and innovation together. The ‘solution’ was presented
as ‘consensus’ between the business and innovators, and part of it was a process,
which tied the two together; according to this solution, now scientists had to
innovate strictly according to what the business needed – the problem then
would become for the business to realize what they needed.
Before I explain how this becomes, in theory at least, feasible with the
Eureka framework, it is important to note the harmonic representation of the
solution as ‘consensus’: ‘consensus’ remained a chimera throughout my field-
work, since the scientists were never convinced to embrace fully this articulation
of innovation, and thus the suggested actions. A fuels scientist with eight years
in Oil Co. confides:

I think the danger is that we’re being conditioned to think of innovation just
as a business thing, but there are a lot of kinds; SAFE innovation that you
are allowed to be creative, to think about ways where they can have a big
impact on the bottom-line, and those are, if you like, good ideas that have a
low risk capacity; coming up with technical ideas . . . I don’t know if that’s
happening here . . . that’s where the guilty pleasure of innovation is.
(emphasis added)
116 Empirical
The excerpt demonstrates how experienced scientists refused to accept the
business-oriented definition of innovation, which fundamentally expected low
risk and safe innovation with applied results. ‘Real’ innovation is described as a
‘guilty pleasure’, which emphasizes that it was a ‘forbidden’ activity in the new
commercial order – an activity that many scientists were missing. This account
also calls into play another variable, which characterized the nature of innova-
tion in Oil Co.: pursued innovation had to be ‘safe’ and low risk; the risk-
averted commercial culture that was built excluded in practice blue-sky and
uncertain regarding results innovation. Nonetheless, the Eureka approach chose
to overlook this fundamental feature of innovation, i.e. uncertainty.
Eureka was an initiative of the CMDs of Oil Co. for supporting long-term,
non-core ideas that did not fit in any other innovation channel. CMDs saw an
opportunity to invest in long-term projects that would turn the business
competitive and viable in the future, probably by exploiting non-core ideas – i.e.
ideas that were not relevant at the present to the businesses – by giving business
focus to the scientists’ technological ideas. A member of the Research and
Innovation Group explains:

the role of Eureka is to find and nurture and support in their early stages
ideas, which don’t comfortably fit into the existing businesses; so what you
could say is that there are two types of innovation: it’s in the box and out of
the box, it’s core and non-core; so we are looking for those non-core ideas,
which would otherwise be difficult to support, that’s essentially our role, but
because it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish core from non-core, it might
be almost non-core, there is actually a grey shading between the black of the
core and the white of the non-core, so people come to us with ideas which
are clearly core, and we might even support them at early stages, but they
wouldn’t come through our mechanism for significant funding, we are
likely to support them at an early stage.
(emphasis added)

And further on he elaborates the difference between core and non-core projects:

core is ‘delivering value in short term at low risk’, and there are other
issues, which are involved around that, such as: is it part of our brand, does
it deliver on our brand, is it product or service which is what Oil Co. does,
but we’ll take this for start; so we say non-core is delivering value at any
time scale at high risks, in an area which is not currently part of the core
proposition of the business.
(emphasis added)

For the interviewee it was very clear that there are strictly two types of innova-
tion: core and non-core. All ideas fall somewhere between the edges of this con-
tinuum, and the funnel was ready and open to support any idea that would
expand outside Oil Co.’s current business. From the way he represents Eureka,
 Construction of ‘commercial innovation’ 117
one is led to believe that there can be no valuable idea remained unexploited or
at least untried: his account promotes a process that seeks ‘non-core and high-
risk ideas’, which means ‘not relevant at the current businesses, but which may
open business opportunities in the future’. The first objection is that this defini-
tion of innovation distinguishes ideas strictly by reference to the business imme-
diate or longer-term relevance – technical ideas, which still match the definition
of non-core and high risk, are excluded. The advantage of the Eureka method, as
perceived by the team, was precisely the requirement of a business case, which
should support the research proposal. A member of the Research and Innovation
Group explains the requirements and benefits:

what will be the size of the prizes, how it fits into the business, what’s its
place in the value-chain; if you’re clear about that up-front, then you have a
much stronger case, and it also obliges you to engage with the business,
right from the beginning in order to determine how you are going to make
use of, before you do any of the toys for the boys sort of stuff.

However, this created a considerable degree of dissatisfaction among the scien-

tists, who did not feel comfortable with the tight financial planning and control
imposed by the process that progressively achieved to neutralize subtly the call
for high-risk ideas.

how can they ask you to give a very rigid time scale at the beginning, about
where you will be in four years time, how much time it will take, how much
money it will cost you, which kind of involvement you’ll take on board as
you go on, etc. etc., and that’s what they want you to do, at the early stage
they want you to present Net Present Values for five, six, seven years, and
that is very hard for the programme, and that puts off many colleagues,
‘hang on, I am a mechanical engineer’, or ‘I am a chemist’, or whatever, ‘I
am a lab technician’, or . . . ‘I have a pretty good knowledge of the job I am
supposed to do, but I am not very strong in finance’, that’s some of the com-
plaints I’ve heard.

It was very clear to all, that the process would not support any technical or other
longer-term ideas, unless the scientist could demonstrate clearly how and when
they would deliver value to the business. The excerpt above scrutinizes and
argues against the logic behind the main advantage of the Eureka method, and
overall of the commercial discourse: the process tried to tie together the business
with innovation in a single discourse, however in practice it encountered great
resistance both by scientists who did not accept the suggested articulation of
innovation and its tight financial control, and by the business people, who had
no interest nor understanding in the ‘scientific’ articulation of it.
A member of the Eureka team discusses the problem of the gap between
long-term and short-term projects from a business perspective and suggests
solutions:
118 Empirical
yeah, and then we’ve got you know, down here [points on to a piece of
paper] we’ve got next year’s new programmes or whatever; and the gap is
here, it’s in the middle, because these projects that are in the long term
never ever become short term for some reason [laughs] because they are
done by long-term researchers, the guys whose drivers are . . . social or
scientific or whatever and haven’t really got much incentives to get the idea,
and these people don’t even look off their desks, so the gap is sitting here in
some sort of three plus year horizon, and again what we are trying to do, in
order to change this, is to actively manage this chunk, so that it later drags
ideas from year to year, and drags experience from here.

The problem was constructed, not simply as a lack of communication between

the business and scientists, but fundamentally as an incompatibility of drivers,
interests and objectives between the groups that were called in to participate.
However, the suggested solution did not address this political issue, but treated
ideas and experience as distinct entities that could be managed independently of
the individuals that generated them and would actually work on them.
Another consequence of the all open and embracing discourse deployed
around the concept of Eureka was that it led many scientists to see in this
process an opportunity to do some ‘interesting’ – or non-core – research, like
they used to before the commercial turn – in other words to pursue long-term
technical ideas. However, this led to a generation of ideas that were more ‘non-
core and high-risk’ than Eureka was prepared to support. A member of the
Eureka Team with 21 years at Oil Co. talks about this problem, which was
created by a ‘misunderstanding’ of what a ‘relevant’ non-core idea would be for
Oil Co. business:

the numbers are OK . . . there is a reasonably good number of ideas coming

in, but again a lot of them are completely irrelevant, and lots of them just
keep on coming back at the time, and a lot of them are quite small.

And later:

for example, a very large percentage of ideas coming in are for bits and
pieces of hardware, things you attach on cars, or screen-washing devices,
and that sort of things, there is no way that we will implement those as part
of the Oil Co. Business . . . and we shouldn’t waste our time even thinking
about these things [laughs], if it was a different business, and it is a good
idea and exciting, then we would take it forward.

Not surprisingly, the scientists, who saw their ideas being rejected over and
over, even though they were ‘non-core and high-risk’, became frustrated by the
undefined and unrefined expectations of the process, which was now perceived
as ‘a bit of a lottery: you put in a proposal, keep your fingers crossed, and hope
you will have the OK to go ahead’. Still, Eureka was not abandoned, but a new
 Construction of ‘commercial innovation’ 119
image emerged among its users: it started being treated as an available pot of
money that could sustain some jobs in the Business Group for a while. The issue
remained that the Eureka money was an attractive pot for the Business Groups,
which now under the new commercial identity had to find means to survive and
prove their value to the Group. Hence, a struggle for the Business Groups started
over getting funding, or in some cases as the following excerpts imply, a
struggle over getting control of the available funds. The Eureka manager intro-
duces this concern:

ehm, Eureka always sits – it’s always seen to sit peripheral to the main busi-
ness, there is a tendency for businesses to think they could do it themselves
and . . . at some levels of the organization, people would rather see the
money, which Eureka has, which Technology Vision has, they would rather
see it absorbed by the business.

And also:

now, the reason why we are here, is because if you allow all the R&D
funding to go through the businesses, through the global hydro-carbon busi-
ness or whoever, then there is a tendency for it to get driven to the short
term, so we are here to provide an alternative to short-term time zone; now,
short term does not necessarily means, it means core, everything is driven to
the core, because of the short-term objectives, so we are here to provide an
alternative to that.
(emphasis added)

The commercial turn was pushing the businesses to prove constantly their value
and improving their financial performance, and consequently core-projects
became their main priority. The business wanted to fund innovative ideas for
change, but it is difficult for one to see how this individualistic, survival-oriented
approach to run the businesses would let innovation penetrate into the Business
Groups, unless the older scientists saw some interest in it – and as I said, tem-
porarily the mechanism was fed with ideas by certain scientists, who wanted to
do research projects like in the old days. Furthermore, this struggle addresses
clearly the issue of governance of the innovative process – which is related to
the question of governance of knowledge: in other words who decides the cri-
teria of what is a good and what is a bad idea, and who knows what it is to be
decided. In other words, the Business Groups doubted the adequacy of the
Innovation Panel to decide what a good idea is and tried to get control of the
resources.
I said in the beginning that Eureka was a ‘solution’ to conciliate the business
interests with the research staff capabilities – a combination that was impossible
in the previous order, where scientists were left to pursue their own research
projects without being controlled. The findings so far demonstrated that there
were more group interests, to be served by the ‘innovation game’, beyond the
120 Empirical
roughly defined ‘business’ and ‘scientists’ camps; groups, which had not been
included in designing the ‘solution’ to the problem, now contested the rules of
the innovation game. Nevertheless, in the story of this Eureka manager, the
‘business’ was pictured as engaged and supportive to the innovation move, and
the problem of the innovation not working properly at Hydro-Carbon Solutions
was simply identified with different objectives and mentalities:

er, people don’t like . . . people that do long-term R&D don’t like working
with the business, and people in the business don’t like working with people
who do long-term R&D, because they have other objectives; now, our role
is to force them to do that, some like that, some people don’t, but those
people they like our system, our system goes down well, urgh, but the
overall process is not always perceived as positively as it should, because it
requires people to work with the business and requires the business to work
with the originators.

This account recognizes the politics behind innovation, as different groups have
different objectives to serve, however it does not give sufficient insights into the
nature of the problem, i.e. the creation of an innovation concept and process that
would involve both the business and the scientists. The other member from the
Innovation Group I interviewed had serious reservations about the feasibility of
this, and below he represents a ‘reality’ where the Research and Innovation
Group solely had the responsibility to make innovation work at Hydro-Carbon
Solutions, without the active involvement of the top managers at any stage:

I: At the very top – this is a problem, but I am not sure we can solve this
problem, probably it’s just the way we run the organization – at the top the
senior people, the MDs, for example, say – they have said on the record –
that we don’t generate ideas, what we do is accept or reject ideas, and they
are recorded saying that all strategy is communism [laughs], now . . . that’s
what they decided, now unfortunately that’s cascading down to the level of
OP and the OP executive committee for Oil Products essentially says the
same thing, ‘we don’t really understand the whole term, we think it is
important, please tell us what you do’, it’s a complete eradication of senior
management responsibility, so how do you then match up the ideas to the
business, it’s really, really hard, we have a process going on at the moment,
the technology strategy exercise, where we’re trying to get the business to . . .
respond, so we’re doing it by making suggestions, it’s easier buying into
suggestions rather than . . . and they don’t, I mean they are horribly, horribly
short-term thinking.
R: In the Business Units or Oil Co.?
I: At all levels within the business, i.e. outside Hydro-Carbon Solutions, even
within Hydro-Carbon Solutions, that’s the response, everyone is very, very
short-term thinking, and limited . . . ‘X’, one of the OP executive committee
members, said that they only think that the long-term innovation is safe in
 Construction of ‘commercial innovation’ 121
the business, because it’s sort of very enormous, so they don’t have very
many people in the business for long-term mandates, basically the long-
term mandate stays with OG – that’s Hydro-Carbon Solutions; but that is
good in a sense that someone is responsible for it, but bad in the sense that
we still have this barrier between the implementing businesses and the
people who generate the ideas.
(emphasis added)

This account reveals the ‘rhetoric and reality’ of innovation in a commercial

organization; aligning with the knowledge discourse that was gaining momen-
tum, Oil Co. was convinced that innovation should be supported but, as the
interviewee describes it, the management avoided any responsibility. Innovation
was good to be supported as long as someone else was dealing with it, because
people had already schedules that were too busy. I encountered the same attitude
in other interviews with other managers and scientists, too: it is interesting how
this ‘eradication of responsibility’ had crossed the boundaries of the manage-
ment group and imbued staff at all levels. The management of Oil Co. was
described as extremely short-term thinking, and this was represented as a barrier
to long-term, strategic innovation, even when the responsibility for it had passed
on to another Unit. Eureka was an attempt to cross this barrier and make the
business and the inventors communicate, but it is difficult to see so far how a
mere mechanism, which was perceived by the staff either as an opportunity for
blue-sky research or as a pot of money to support their jobs, and by the manage-
ment as their fulfilment of their duties towards innovation, could bring the con-
ciliation between the two parties.

Conclusion
The story so far narrated the revival of innovation at Oil Co.; the turn towards com-
mercialization kept the Business Groups busy with getting used to their new iden-
tity, and with learning the rules of the commercial game until innovation faded
away. The emergence of the knowledge discourse reminded Oil Co. that its busi-
ness was fundamentally a ‘knowledge-based firm’, i.e. they needed new know-
ledge in order to stay in the business: knowledge was their key resource and their
output. Innovation returned at Oil Co., however, this time the scientific culture was
not the dominant any longer: it had been increasingly replaced with a commercial
way of thinking and acting. I argued here that this turn towards innovation was a
necessary move for Oil Co., since the oil business had reached a dead end; the
dominant perception was that the oil industry is a mature industry, hence there was
not much to offer in terms of new ideas. Furthermore, increasingly external pres-
sures, which attacked the oil business as a whole, due to its environmental impact,
and the demand for alternative sources of energy made Oil Co. realize that unless
they re-invented their identity soon, they would be out of the picture.
The question for Oil Co. was not to find the knowledge resources – they
already had a pool of world experts working for them; the question was rather
122 Empirical
how to develop and agree on a strategy for innovation, and then implement it. In
other words, how they could coordinate their actions – and interests. The
problem, as presented by both managers and scientists, was that ‘real’ innova-
tion, i.e. research ideas that would allow Oil Co. to transform its identity and
object of activity, is a long-term, expensive and uncertain process, whereas the
business way of thinking was risk-averted and focused on the short term, which
is easily measured and assessed in economic terms.
Eureka was developed in the principles of the ‘innovation as rational plan-
ning’ discourse, which, in order to control the financial risks, asserts the evalu-
ation of an idea in terms of its financial benefits, in a defined timeline.
Ultimately, what the Eureka managers attempted to do was to merge the com-
mercial ‘rationality’ of the business with the scientists’ creativity in one dis-
course and one process. The problem between the two was constructed as one of
‘miscommunication’ and ‘different mindsets’, and Eureka was promoted as the
solution for overcoming the cultural hurdles, by forcing both sides to participate
and collaborate for the good of innovation and the sustainability of the business.
Through my analysis I suggested that viewing the problem as ‘miscommunica-
tion’ and ‘different mindsets’ is a dangerous redundancy; the root of the problem
is that scientists and the business people operate within two different discourses,
they perceive the world differently, and hence act upon different assumptions
and beliefs. The scientists were trained to have a technological understanding of
research and innovation, whereas, the business people preferred not to have an
understanding at all – and passed the responsibility down to the next level. This
problem did not only perpetuate the incommensurability between the two
worlds, but also did not effectively allow the development of a strategy for
innovation, which all levels would abide.
Nonetheless, the conceptual framework of Eureka exhibited another import-
ant shortcoming: the method set out to bring together the business people and
the scientists and forced them to work together but in practice, the evaluation
criteria required the translation of the technical ideas into an economic language,
which was the language that the business people talked, and most importantly
they would ultimately decide in which idea to invest. It is clear that the scientific
interests and understanding of the ideas generators were not represented in the
decision-making process, since they were expected to ‘justify’ their ideas on a
rigid financial ground, which excludes the scientific value of the idea. On the
other hand, the people, who were in charge of making decisions, were coming
from a different language game; still their role was to assess technical ideas. The
question that arises from the dissatisfaction of scientists and of the people who
managed the innovation process was clearly the political issue of ‘who decides
what a good idea is, and who knows what a good idea is’. In other words, who is
the most appropriate actor to say what innovation should be in a commercial
environment. In the current process and under these rules, it is not difficult to see
how ‘innovation’ turns into ‘business-as-usual’.
In sum, the story so far has pointed towards two main issues that predomi-
nantly concern the people in charge of long-term innovation at Hydro-Carbon
 Construction of ‘commercial innovation’ 123
Solutions; the first question that sharply arises is the political question of ‘who
decides what is a good idea, who sets the criteria and who or what legitimizes
this decision’; in other words, whose interests will innovation ultimately serve?
The account so far emphasizes the significance of governance of the knowledge
processes – which seems that it is not only a philosophical and sociological
concern, but also Oil Co.’s reality, and one of the main concerns of the Research
and Innovation Group. The second issue that follows from the first is the ques-
tion of responsibility for innovation: how the definition of and the criteria for
innovation can be set by a group of people (management) that tries to avoid the
responsibility for it. The paradox begs the question: what this avoidance of
responsibility means for innovation, and if and how ultimately the short-term
commercial objectives can be served by the same process that supports long-
term ideas. A member of the Eureka team comments on the support of Innova-
tion by the management: ‘in its heart, everyone believes in innovation, and
everyone does . . . but believing in something and making it happen are two dif-
ferent things; . . . and why Eureka is supported, it’s sort of . . . it looks sexy I
suppose’.
 =
6 The politics of innovation
Technology Group A

In this chapter, I examine the ‘ideas machine’, an innovation mechanism

developed by Technology Group A to support its own need for innovation and
future sustainability. I show how this system, which reflected the principles of the
‘innovation as culture’ approach, met obstacles in engaging the scientists popu-
lation, and how politics at many levels, were enacted and hindered the process. I
claim that the all-embracing and open rhetoric of this approach, borrows values
of a democratization discourse; however, what it is actually trying to do, is to
break down the scientific elite, and make full use of knowledge resources, which
do not need be highly scientific for the wide purposes of a commercial organi-
zation. I argue that the discourse on innovation gave the opportunity to some
groups and individuals to use it for their own benefit, turning it into a ‘controlled’
area, for the career benefit strictly of those who were willing to participate. At the
same time it failed to engage the scientists, who refused to embrace this articula-
tion of innovation. By discussing the different understandings of innovation, I
elucidate further the nature and politics of innovation in a commercial order,
where time was a precious and limited resource, and where the management was
happy that ‘innovation is someone else’s responsibility’ – an attitude that seemed
to share the top levels of Oil Co., as well.

Technology Group A and the ideas machine

because if you don’t innovate you die . . . urgh, let’s put it this way, if we
don’t innovate, if we don’t come up with new fuels, the business will go to
commodity-fuels, if they go to commodity-fuels, they don’t need us; the
only reason why they need us is because we can come up with new fuels.

The innovation manager at Technology Group A stated clearly the importance

of creating new knowledge and innovation for the Business Group; he sharply
described innovation as a question of survival. To tell the story from the begin-
ning, Technology Group A, first probably among the Business Groups at the
Innovation Park felt that the turn towards commercialization had created a non-
innovative, delivery-focused culture that did not allow space or time for generat-
ing or, to be more accurate, progressing new ideas. The Business Group saw the
 The politics of innovation 125
= ideas they had ‘in stock’ – since the times they were doing research as an R&D
department – decreasing substantially, and felt that there was ‘a piece of
experience they were losing’ in the new commercial order; hence the manage-
ment decided to support the Business Group and its customers with new know-
ledge. Soon, they realized that what was missing was an innovation system,
which would support with processes and tools all the stages of innovation, from
the ideas generation to the intellectual property protection, and most importantly
the commercialization of the final product. One of the resource managers states
clearly the importance of linking innovation with the market, in a pure rational
language of profits:

I: Well . . . ultimately it’s about how providing technological solutions that their
customers will buy, obviously, and again innovation is really about taking
ideas – preferably from a customer or a market and developing these ideas
into products and services that you can sell that to the customer and make
money from it.
R: Are these objectives met?.
I: Eh . . . I think increasingly so, yeah, I think the key thing is that we are not just
. . . coming up with technology-based ideas with no location to the market-
place, you need to have this addition to the marketplace, to . . . understand
what the customer need is, if there is no customer need, then you stop the
innovation, there is no point in doing it, cause you can’t . . . commercialize
it.

The conceptual framework

[B]ut you have to be very clear about what innovation is, to me innovation
covers the whole spectrum of things, it is business processes, it is working
processes and it is also ideas generation for revenues, so I think you have a
really big spectrum and I think what you need to be quite careful in your
project [my research], is to make sure that that’s covered, because just
because you don’t have lots of big ideas that generate lots of revenue, it
doesn’t mean that you don’t have innovation, you know, if you can start off
by finding ways to make the life easier you are still being innovative, to me
it is a big spectrum, to me that’s essential, a quite big spectrum; so yes, to
ideas and big projects that work really well, but also the underground
should work well as well.
(emphasis added)

Technology Group A followed the innovation as culture approach, which

acknowledges the uncertain character and uncontrollability of innovation, and
the system in place aimed to create the ‘right’ environment, from within the
‘right’ innovation eventually would emerge. It is impressive the extent that this
frame of logic had penetrated the thinking, the talk and subsequent actions of the
staff, especially those who were actively involved in the initial move to support
126 Empirical
innovation; the system they implemented reflected precisely the assumptions =
and principles of this approach.
In contrast to most approaches that try to support innovation mechanically by
introducing a new tool or technique, and ‘forcing’ or simply ‘expecting’ the
employees to use it (e.g. the Eureka method, explained in the previous chapter),
the Technology Group A attempted to trigger a cultural change; they made clear
that innovation should not be part of the routine, of the tasks that had to be
accomplished, and they aimed to develop a culture, wherein innovation would
be what people naturally did; in other words, innovation would be the way of
living. The following senior scientist had participated in the first team, which
was set up to be responsible for the revival of innovation in the Business Group,
and explains the rationale behind it.

I think it had been a general discussion that what was needed was not how
to make people innovative, you know ‘it is your job to come up with new
ideas, so get on and do it’, but the idea was that we would try and change
the culture, so everybody saw that there was a need to innovate within their
own job/

The desired innovative culture aimed to change both the new delivery-focused
culture that made people think only of the short-term objectives of their work, but
at the same time it intended to avoid the older scientific culture, where a group of
people were responsible for innovation and the rest of the staff was dealing with
the everyday mundane work, because that culture could act as a hurdle in the new
concept of innovation – innovation as an embracing culture – that they were
trying to build. The senior scientist explains further the issue: ‘in a sense it
implies . . . it suggests that there is only a group of people that can do innovation
and the rest of people who work here can’t do research and shouldn’t do innova-
tion, or it’s not their job.’ The new innovative culture aimed to crack not only the
short-term, delivery-focused commercial culture, but also the scientific elitist
culture of Thornton. The previous account presented the question of innovation
as an issue of democratization of the workplace; nobody should be excluded from
the innovation game, because they were all equally competent to come up with
small ideas, which could eventually grow bigger. Beyond the rhetoric of
democratization, this open and all-encompassing view of innovation had another
more practical objective. A member of the initial innovation move comments:

the whole point with innovation is that you’ve got a funnel, where you have,
at the front of the funnel you have to generate lots of ideas, because at the
end of the funnel you will only ever have a few that you can actually com-
mercialize, and, and we felt that we didn’t have a big enough effort in terms
of generating new ideas.

The more ideas were gathered in the beginning of the funnel, the more chances
there were to come up with a marketable idea at the end. Ultimately, the
 The politics of innovation 127
= message that they were trying to impress on people was that innovation should
not be a responsibility of a certain group, but a way of working for the whole of
the Business Group. ‘Innovation would be evident at all levels (i.e. business,
administrative, operational, etc), and not constrained only at the advancement of
technical knowledge’. The envisioned system was aspired to grow organically
and expand beyond the boundaries of Technology Group A, to involve other
Business Units, Market Units, and customers, where via communicative interac-
tions more ideas would emerge. The conceptual framework matched the pre-
scriptions of the relevant literature on this point as well. However in practice the
Business Group kept the system strictly within its boundaries; ideas worth com-
mercializing were far too precious to share with other Business Groups, with
which they had now a competitive relationship, since only the most ‘valuable’
would stay in the Oil Co. picture. So, even though in principle the innovation
system anticipated communicative interactions with other actors in the network,
the benefits of these interactions were reaped strictly by Technology Group A,
since it had the appropriate mechanism to progress them.
Technology Group A was creating a new secluded culture, where the domin-
ant value was not scientific knowledge, but business performance: the new
innovation game was open for everybody within the Technology Group, because
everybody could and should participate in improving the performance of the
Business Group. However, it excluded all non-members of the group, and hence
the valuable ‘knowledge’ of how to succeed as a commercial Business Unit
stayed safe within the organizational boundaries.

The system
The innovation system at Technology Group A evolved through time and exper-
imentation. Fundamentally, it was a combination of techniques for ideas genera-
tion (Ideas Chats, funding for inspirational conferences, etc.) based on the
assumption of the social and communicative nature of innovation, and a funnel,
which appeared as a website, i.e. the Ideas Machine, for collecting and progress-
ing ideas to the appropriate route, whether this involved immediate action inter-
nally by the Business Group, or forwarding them to an external innovation
funnel (mostly to Eureka) or, if the idea was more relevant to another business
unit, communicating it accordingly. As mentioned, the system intended to
support small, incremental changes that had the potential to grow big; the people
who looked after the system persistently broadcasted that there were no ‘good’
or ‘bad’ ideas, only ‘small’ and ‘big’ – and any small idea could eventually
grow big. The treat for ‘taking the time’ to submit an idea – regardless of the
nature of the idea – was a voucher for a coffee and a muffin, and seasonal prize
draw! Technology Group A tried, this way, to emphasize that there was no dif-
ference between ideas and all ideas were equally good and welcome.
Nevertheless, the most significant part of the system was not the ‘Ideas
Machine’, of which the Innovation People were taking pride, but the people
behind the stage, who supported it. The initiative was started by the management
128 Empirical
and the drive of few scientists, who believed in the importance of innovating – =
and researching again. However, this first wave had not gone very far, because
no one had the time to drive it – no one was willing to take this ‘responsibility’.
Then, the position of the Innovation Manager was created and he, in his turn, put
together an Innovation Team, of which the main task was to run Ideas Chats and
assist people with issues around innovation funding, channels, etc. Innovation
needed an hero – as the literature prescribes – someone to believe in the import-
ance of innovation, with a vision, and with understanding of the political back-
stage of innovation, the rules, the key-actors and the innovation channels at Oil
Co. – let us not forget that the ultimate objective of innovation was to get money
from Oil Co. to fund the research projects – and, finally, one who would be
determined to go against the current and defend the higher ideal of innovation.
This role found its ideal performer – I will call him ‘Z’; Z was a scientist with a
‘charismatic personality’, as he was described by the supporters of the innova-
tion initiative at the Technology Group, to the extent that one would believe
‘Innovation = Z’. Here Z is presented through the words of another key member
of the innovation move:

obviously you need the right person, because there are other people that do
innovation on site, but they are not the same as ‘Z’ [I laugh], you’ll know
what I mean when you meet him; and it was important, because you often
meet . . . you’ll see some other people of the team and every each of us is a
bit . . . [makes a gesture and we laugh], right? you know what I mean . . .
that’s what you find, and you say how I can get along with these . . . and
then you actually meet people . . . and I think when you meet people that
have or haven’t put ideas in the ideas machine, you might find it explicitly,
that’s the most interesting thing to me . . . it is a personality thing, I mean
you can have an idea and you can have the machine, but if you don’t have a
driver personality, you can just sit there and nobody will do anything about
it.
(emphasis added)

Some interesting issues emerge in this extract: the success of the innovation initi-
ative is treated as a ‘fact’. As a ‘fact’ is also treated the main success factor, i.e. the
personality of first the Innovation Manager, and then the rest of the Team. Innova-
tion is presented not as a socially constructed process, but an individual’s charac-
teristic – ‘a personality thing’. This view is at odds with the wider and
all-embracing view of innovation the group was promoting, i.e. that everybody is
capable of innovating. Here we encounter a first instance of politics in innovation
management: it is true that Technology Group A had a very good record of inno-
vations, for which they had secured funding from various innovation channels, and
for which they took pride. As Z underscored during our interview:

yeah, there have been trivial ideas, nothing very big, but, you’ve just missed
[the Eureka manager], he showed me a graph of the idea into the Oil Prod-
 The politics of innovation 129
= ucts Eureka, and he said ‘oh, we can tell whether you are pulled off from
innovation, because the graph of ideas drops off dramatically’, so all the
ideas in the Business comes from Technology Group A.

Securing funding for ideas was a key criterion for the success of the innova-
tion initiative for the Business Units. Taking innovation as core value (and that
was the assumption on the basis of which the interviews were conducted, i.e.
we all agreed that innovation was ‘good’ and should be supported), then the
people that had proofs for their innovativeness, either by putting ideas in the
Ideas Machine or by getting a project into Eureka, were taking up the role of
the ‘good guy’, of the person who was doing the ‘right thing’. This created a
new ‘subgroup’ in the organization, the ‘innovation supporters’, who were dif-
ferent from the rest, as the previous excerpt described, because they were
innovative, they had this gift of personality. Their personality made Techno-
logy Group A distinct among the rest of the Business Groups at the Innovation
Park and successful in terms of innovations and financial performance. In
simple words, the new innovation game had opened up opportunities for
emerging ‘stars’ in the Oil Co. sky.
Being determined to trigger a cultural change – a rebel move against both the
serious delivery-focused and the previous scientific culture – the Innovation
Team took the approach that innovation practices should act against hierarchy:
they should not be imposed from above (i.e. by the management) and be formal-
ized and bureaucratized, but rather be promoted by colleagues as a ‘fun’ activity,
so that it would grow organically with the participation of all the staff. In the
words of an Innovation Team key member:

when you’ve been here 18 years – as long as I have – you get a lot of things
that are forced on you by management on Safety, Quality . . . you have to do
these things, but they become . . . hmmm [both laugh, she makes a gesture of
being fed up] – I can’t describe that in words – another initiative, and we
didn’t want innovation to be like that, we wanted people to think it’s not
that management imposed it; so let’s make it fun, that’s the whole thing.
(emphasis added)

The commercial turn had created a stressed culture: people were taking their
new roles very seriously and were trying to learn and perform according to the
new rules. The commercial order had brought with it a great deal of paperwork
and procedures that made people frustrated. The innovation initiative should
emerge as an innovation in itself, it should be different and make a statement on
its own right; it should be a step out of the everyday boring things, and hence
attract the interest of people. The Team used humour, and their enthusiasm and
confidence for the value of what they were doing in all occasions: from the
initial presentation of the system to the Business Group (where little trolls were
used to exemplify the idea of innovation system) to the posters in the corridors
and the website of the Ideas Machine. The objective was to make innovation
130 Empirical
approachable to everybody, and especially young people, who were closer to the =
Innovation Team members circle, embraced indeed the move.

I don’t know if you’ve seen some of the posters, they always make you
smile and you think, well, you know, someone has put a bit of time and
effort into just thinking about that, so other than the usual boring old
posters, you got these little cartoons, have you seen the one sitting on the
toilet, thinking?

However, some senior scientists did not appreciate this approach, which they
felt it was ‘silly really’ or at least trivial. The following excerpt is part of an
interview with a senior scientist, who had been throughout the interview very
enthusiastic with the issue of innovation and research at the Innovation Park;
until we turned the discussion to the Ideas Machine, on which he obviously did
not want to comment. Senior scientists could not see the ‘fun’ aspect of innova-
tion, which for them was a much more serious question, and they refused to
embrace the specific mechanism.

R: Have you seen the Ideas Machine website?

I: Urgh, yes.
R: Where they use humour?
I: Yes.
R: And the Little People?
I: Yes.
R: It is a fun website.
I: Yes.
R: What do you think about this?
I: Well, it so be, I would be pleased if it encouraged people to have ideas, [low
voice] but it does not really.

It is important to stress, that their objection was not addressed against the all
inclusive principle of ‘innovation at all levels’ (i.e. administration, operational,
business, technical, etc.), nor the cultural change, but precisely against the trivi-
alization of the concept through the way it was promoted, the ‘razzmatazz’
about the innovation initiative at the Technology Group. Severe reservations
were also expressed as to who controlled the mechanism, and for whose benefit,
implying, this way, the publicity and the power some people gained from the
new innovation game.
Nevertheless, the Innovation People repeatedly said that the innovation move
was very successful within the Technology Group. It is worth mentioning, here,
a minor criticism regarding the materialization of the conceptual framework into
process: even though by introducing these tools and techniques they aimed to a
cultural change, the criteria to assess the success of the innovation initiative
were not the number of people participating in the practices, or the quality of
ideas generated, or a change in attitude towards innovation or anything else, but
 The politics of innovation 131
= purely the funding secured from Oil Co. for the ideas that started in the Ideas
Machine and were forwarded to other mechanisms, e.g. Eureka. A key member
of the innovation initiative in the beginning of our interview expressed her
queries regarding the Ideas Machine, while she was explaining the wider attitude
of the Business Group towards, if not innovation, at least the system:

I think the way you structured it [my research proposal] is very good, and I
think the actions at the end are very good, because I think this will throw
out some of the anomalies we found; because in some of the discussions we
had, is that people use the Machine and then they use it lots of times; to get
people to use it is very difficult; we know that all those people have ideas,
but why they don’t like it? do they think it is very trivial, do they just think
that . . . or they don’t want to end up with more work . . . I don’t know what it
is, but I think it’s interesting to ask people who HAVE contributed and then
those who haven’t, I think would be quite interesting; because if the stimu-
lus is reward, then we have to figure what rewards, if it’s not reward, then
what is it that bothers them; another thing as well is that, I am an assistant,
apart of Rob who is our Innovation Manager none of the managers or
senior personnel have put in any ideas, so none of the Resource Managers,
and none of the . . . Business Group Manager or any of those has put any
ideas in . . . and I think that’s unusual in itself; I think they should be
included in your group of people that haven’t put ideas in, not just on the
job ground.
(emphasis added)

This account captures many issues that emerged during my fieldwork. First, the
shared assumption among the people, who were involved in innovation, was that
‘people have ideas’. The creativity and the capability of people to have ideas were
never an issue: people have ideas – small or bigger ones – naturally as they are
involved in various projects. The problem was that these ideas were never gath-
ered in one place, and most of the times remained in a piece of paper, or in
people’s heads, who never took the time to forward them to the appropriate person
or channel – ‘people aren’t short of coming up with ideas, they just don’t have the
time to implement, to do anything about them’. The implemented system was set
up to promote the attitude that ‘it is good to have ideas, and it is good to do some
little research regarding those’ rather than purely to stimulate ideas to people.
However, whereas all agreed that innovation is ‘good’ and the system is
‘good’ too, the management and senior scientists did not seem actively involved
in it, and were leaving the initiative entirely to the assistants, students and
administration staff. This was frustrating and against the initial expectations,
because even though the rhetoric of innovation at the Technology Group
emphasized the cultural change, fundamentally they pursued ideas worth com-
mercializing. This effect was unexpected for the Innovation People, who found
it ‘unusual in itself’. Hence, the question that arises is how people perceived the
Ideas Machine and, more importantly, the concept of innovation.
132 Empirical
Voices from staff and management =
Interestingly, the rhetoric of cultural change, which had driven the ideal of
innovation, in trying to make it part of the ‘natural order’ of the Technology
Group, soon faded out. At the time of the fieldwork only those, who had partici-
pated in the initial innovation move a couple of years ago, still remembered it.
The commercial discourse had overshadowed the principles of innovation, and
consequently, the newly recruited young scientists could now only see the finan-
cial benefits from the implemented innovation system. For them, innovation in a
commercial environment made perfect business sense, and they could perceive
no inherent contradictions in the attempts to support it. The following pre-
student, who used to work with the Technology Group for about one year,
explains the attempt to support innovation at the Group in the rational language
of profits. It is interesting how he constructs the answer as a win–win situation,
by making direct reference to the individuals’ personal interests in and gains
from participating in the game.

what do they expect; business opportunities basically, I believe that the

innovation tools are there to sound out that there are new ways, new
avenues and basically new ways of bringing in revenue . . . I mean, I
suppose a part of it would be to help the employees, if you have employees
thinking outside of the box sort to speak, thinking in different areas on their
own, it’s gonna broaden their own expertise as well, they’re gonna be
involved in more diverse projects, they’re gonna think more . . . so it’s
gonna help the employees as well.
(emphasis added)

The innovation system at the Technology Group was simply a local funnel to
collect all ideas, filter the interesting ones and promote them to the appropriate
channel, from which they would secure money; surprisingly, this view was
shared among the new members of the Innovation Team as well, who during
our interviews made no reference to the vision of cultural change. However,
this is not to say that the innovation system had faded out; some people had
embraced it, used it and praised its significance for the Business Group. Espe-
cially the significance of the Ideas Machine was promoted as its key tool.
Among its most widely cited advantages were its locality, and the easiness of
using the website, which facilitated the deposit of little ideas. The all-
embracing rhetoric was successful in involving in the innovation game the
groups that were excluded so far. The following lab technician, who used to
use the Ideas Machine extensively, and he had actually seen some of his ideas
turned into small projects, comments:

it’s great for me that I have little ideas in my head that they may be utter
nonsense for now but they might have some use later on or whatever, I’ve
got somewhere that I can type it all in and then forget about it for a while, it
 The politics of innovation 133
= is not annoying anymore, because I’ve registered it and someone else can
pick up on it if he wants to, it’s a way to offload it, does that make sense?

Or as a pre-student involved in the management of the innovation system com-

ments:

I’ve never thought that my ideas are also important, so I think it helped me
to express my own ideas more articulated and also to have a bit more confi-
dence to myself, but I can’t speak about the rest of the Business Group.

The open and all-inclusive discourse on innovation resulted in attracting the

attention and the ideas of those groups who had been excluded from the
research game before, and indeed at an increase – at least in the beginning – in
the number of submitted ideas, of which the fluctuation followed the
announcement of seasonal prizes. The following Innovation Team member
comments on the quality of ideas in the Machine. Having lots of ‘crap’ ideas
was considered natural and necessary to get a brilliant idea; the process of
ideas generation via the Machine was still believed to be one where many little
and irrelevant ideas could be combined and one brilliant would come out.
However, the reality of the Machine was somehow different, since nobody
(neither user nor Innovation Team member) really took the time to read
through and get inspiration from all these ideas. It emerges that the problem of
quality of ideas is common, when an all-embracing rhetoric is employed to
popularize the funnel:

oh, you can’t expect anything from people, I think the wonderful thing is
that you are not constrained and you can put there basically a bit of rubbish
and nothing happens, nobody laughs and ‘OK, well, listen, we shouldn’t
consider it further, but well, it is a valid thinking’, and let’s face it . . . a lot
of ideas put in the ideas machine is rubbish . . . but some are brilliant, and
this is the whole idea of the thing; it’s like a brainstorming thing: for any
single good brainstorming session unit, you’ve talked A LOT of crap; so the
same thing, of course this is a lot of work for the people working in the
ideas machine, but it is the only way.
(emphasis added, Innovation Team member)

The scientists’ voices

More revealing and complex responses regarding innovation and the Ideas
Machine came from the experienced scientists, whose views varied. As I men-
tioned, not all scientists embraced the innovation system at its present form;
however, there were a few, who saw some positive aspects of it, regardless of
whether they used it or not! The following scientist, who had a good record of
innovative ideas into Eureka, interprets the existence of the Ideas Machine as a
symbol of the innovation turn against the delivery-focused culture:
134 Empirical
I think a lot of people here are quite creative scientists, and they don’t =
necessarily want to be constrained by . . . they want to have a little bit of flexi-
bility in what they do and to pursue things that they are interested in and they
think they are important; but there is also pressures, since the transition to a
commercial organization, to account your time in a very repulsive fashion, . . .
so there’s . . . although people want to be able to pursue interesting and inno-
vative ideas, the pressures to account for it their time tend to prevent people
from it, thinking that they can’t do that; now I think that the important thing
about the Machine, is that it encourages people to pursue their ideas, and even
the people that don’t use the Machine per se, it still gives the signal that this
is a good thing to do, it is good to be creative, it’s good to be innovative, and I
think that almost regardless the way the Machine operates, that fact is that
there IS a machine, there IS an innovation initiative, I think it sends the kind
of signals to everyone else, that this is a good thing to do, this is not a waste
of time, we shouldn’t feel guilty about planning to be creative.
(emphasis added)

The account reveals a few more interesting things: first, innovation and research
were believed to be a scientist’s task, instead of anyone’s job, which had been
nearly forbidden in the commercial order; for him, the ideas machine signalled
the importance to do research, as they used to in the old days. Second, it intro-
duces the time dimension of the new order as a hurdle to innovation. The new
commercial organization required people to account for each hour of their
working time; this new practice, together with the reality of having to learn and
perform new tasks, which were fundamentally different from their training as
scientists, and the short-term objectives of the main research they were under-
taking now, made them feel the pressures of the new work order, and stopped
thinking or being willing to pursue ‘innovative’ projects.
The following scientist shared this view, i.e. he assumed that research and
innovation were a scientist’s task, but he disagreed that the ‘symbolic aspect’ of
the system was sufficient to drive innovation. He went on to suggest a formal
structure for incorporating time for innovation into a scientist’s work time. As
logical as this suggestion may sound – and this view was shared among many
scientists – it remained an idea in the Ideas Machine: what was essentially sug-
gested was to give back the scientists the exclusivity for doing research.
However, the suggestion clashed with the new open and democratized environ-
ment that the commercial order was creating, and the ground where the innova-
tion system was built, i.e. an open innovation game for everybody, because it
would create a knowledge elite among the staff. Furthermore, this suggestion
clashed with the rationale of commercialization, which aimed to use every single
resource, and predominantly knowledge resources, to serve the commercial and
short-term objectives. Clearly, then, even though a balance between the two cul-
tures was proposed (commercial and innovative) by dividing the time and creat-
ing a dual working structure, this could have not been accepted at that stage of
intensive commercialization.
 The politics of innovation 135
= I mean, I have to say I am a bit of a cynic about it, because I believe that
unless you physically have the time to put into that innovation . . . I think, I
myself don’t have time to put through any innovation ideas . . . I suggested
that if scientists [interruption from a colleague] I was saying that I was a
cynic and . . . my view is that for the project leaders or some of the scien-
tists there is a limit to how much of their time they can spend on innova-
tion and I have an Ideas Chat, for as part of the Ideas Machine I think
about three months ago and I made the suggestion that each scientist
should perhaps be resourced to only do a 90 per cent of Oil Co. work and
thus have 10 per cent free and they . . . in other words allocate quite a large
chunk of a scientist’s time in order to do innovation, because just by
having someone called ‘Innovation Manager’ and having an Ideas
Machine, I don’t think we necessarily drive Innovation forward, but this is
my view and if the management hear me speaking like this I’ll be in
trouble [laughs].
(emphasis added)

Time in relation to innovation and research was experienced in many different

ways. The following young scientist acknowledges the time pressures as an obs-
tacle to getting involved in innovation; however, he is happy not to have the
burden of the ownership of ideas:

so if I’ve put an idea in the Innovation Funnel, I’ve got to find the time to
work on it, write the proposal and do the documents on it, and likewise with
N’s money [other innovation funds], you know, if I say I want to do this, I
take ownership of it, whereas with the Ideas Machine, you put an idea in,
and it is in someone else’s area all together, so you just sit back and have
your free cup of coffee.

And further on he elaborates on the time pressures, as he experienced it:

the big problem I think we have is time pressures on our resources, as I say
everything has changed the past two years and we have become more com-
mercial, people now have less time urgh, I find myself occupied eight hours
or even ten hours per day, therefore I guess there are things that are more
critical to my learning and personal development, as I said I am taking on
aviation this year, therefore my course this year will be focused on aviation
courses and they are very specific on what I am trying to do on a day-to-day
basis; I am trying to find the time to say OK I’ll take another week off to go
on a fuel conference it will be nice, but it will be one more week out of the
office and when I’ll come back I will try to catch up with the work at the
best, so . . . it’s difficult . . . it is more about prioritizing I think, that’s the
problem we have with innovation, it’d be nice to do rather than a real part
of your day-to-day job, perhaps.
(emphasis added)
136 Empirical
The argument ‘no time’ was probably the most popular justification for not =
engaging with the innovation initiatives, even when the interviewees were
acknowledging the significance of innovation for the survival of the Business
Group as a commercial organization. The question is not whether people really
had less time now, or they experienced the new order as time constraining and
controlling. The argument ‘no time’, which was used predominantly by young
scientists, was treated as a valid and accepted reason in the new commercial
reality. The previous account talked about ‘prioritizing’ and ‘personal develop-
ment’: by turning the R&D labs into a commercial organization, with so many
career opportunities for its employees especially in market-related positions, the
scientists were taking charge of their own professional development. Given
these conditions, if innovation did not fit in their career plans, it would be diffi-
cult indeed to see why one would engage valuable time with it, instead of going
on with their daily work. The following senior scientist suggests another dimen-
sion of why people were avoiding getting involved in innovative projects. He
introduces the ‘risk-avoidance’ variable, which was used as a key argument
against Oil Co. as well, when its attitude towards innovation was discussed. It
appears that the current commercial and stressed culture had a low tolerance
towards unfruitful experiments and wasted resources, which is against the nature
of the desired innovation:

I: But in fact, the management now do see it . . . have seen as their role to
encourage people to be innovative, so if people are innovative and has actu-
ally led to something, it is difficult for the management to say ‘but you
haven’t met your other targets’, but of course the majority of innovative
ideas don’t want to do that, so people take the less risky . . . you see it is
very risky thing to do that, to spend time on something that might not
happen, whereas they fail to do the things that would happen if they were
taking the time on them . . . it is a matter of how much risk individuals are
prepared to take.
R: Should or shouldn’t people take risk nowadays?
I: Well, different individuals are prepared to risk different amounts, and this
depends on where they are in their career as well, actually . . . if you are
early in your career you don’t necessarily want to take risks, that can make
you be seen as an unproductive person, and then your career would not
develop, and you get in my age where it doesn’t really matter.
(emphasis added)

However, the previous argument has a reverse side as well: the revival of
innovation opened up career opportunities for some people, who were happy to
engage in the innovation game, and used it for their future career development –
and hence created the arena to play the politics of innovation. Innovation dis-
course created champions in the field, who knew the rules of the innovation
game and they were interested in playing and winning. In other words, they per-
ceived the turn towards innovation as compatible with their personal interests as
 The politics of innovation 137
= researchers and employees at Oil Co. These people were the ones, whose ideas
were promoted in other innovation funnels and they were getting funding for
conducting the projects. In contrast with the literature on innovation, which
identifies certain personal characteristics as features of innovative personalities,
the investigation had not encountered this kind of distinct individuals, but only
experienced scientists, who were interested in working in innovative projects
and, by taking advantage of the rhetoric of innovation, set first the rules of the
game, which now they almost exclusively were playing. This certainly created
some dissatisfaction among their experienced research colleagues, who, in their
turn, refused to participate in the local innovation game. The following two
excerpts come from two senior scientists, who more or less categorically distin-
guished innovation from the innovation game enacted at Technology Group A,
and they explained the possibility of following other routes for progressing their
innovative ideas. However, I should stress here that these were senior scientists
who had been working at the Innovation Park for many years, hence they knew
the existing structures and processes, and also the politics behind; they knew
how to move between these structures and promote existing ideas on their own –
in their cases they felt confident for the quality of their ideas and their career
development was not in question.

because I’ve been putting ideas in other places, the mainstream work I do is
on innovative ideas for things, so all the ideas that I get in that, which are
connected with those things I put into my mainstream work, I’ve put other
ideas into Eureka, which is the higher level, and as I said some of them are
quite successful, and others of the ideas have gone directly into the kind of
work we do here, into the programmes that are going on; I haven’t found it
necessary to put it through that formal structure.
(emphasis added)

I . . . perhaps had a concern with some things going into the ideas machine
didn’t have any depth, and we all . . . we all on our jobs in some way or
another innovate, but we don’t actually recognize this as innovation, and
you know, some guy might be working very hard on a research project and
be really doing a lot of very impressing innovation, but he doesn’t sell
himself to the management team or I don’t know and says ‘this is innova-
tion’, he just says ‘well, this is part of my job’ and he just does it, and
another guy might not be working so hard, he might be coming up with a
very simple, not very clever idea, and he might say ‘this is innovation’ and
then just sell it.
(emphasis added)

The last scientist explicitly referred to the momentum the innovation discourse
had gained within Oil Co., and the way people were taking advantage of it, in
order to promote themselves. The account implied that ‘innovation’ had turned
into a ‘buzzword’, i.e. an empty signifier (a vaguely defined and all-inclusive
138 Empirical
concept), which gave various groups, but also individuals, the opportunity to =
manipulate it according to their interests. Beyond these power games enacted at
the deep structure of the organization, the same scientist referred to politics at
the surface level, by expressing his concerns regarding the (lack of) evaluation
criteria, and the way the ideas were assessed:

I: I think . . . I have a slight worry about how those ideas are assessed, because . .
. what’s happened with some ideas, some of the ideas . . . the person assess-
ing them thought that ‘oh, they are in my . . . in X’s area’, and so he sent
these six titles from the web and said ‘X, you should be looking at these’
and I said, I just sent back an e-mail saying ‘no’, so from that point of view,
if all those 300 hundred ideas are just . . . not being pushed forward the right
way, perhaps I would have a worry about it, well of course some of the
ideas have been pushed forward from the Ideas Machine . . . but . . . I cer-
tainly, I’ve probably submitted 12 ideas into it . . . in the first quarter of this
year, and I haven’t submitted any for the past six months.
R: Why?
I: I guess I don’t have the time.
(emphasis added)

This account emphasizes the problem of ideas being lost after entering the Ideas
Machine, simply because there was no ‘strategic framework’, as one of the
resource managers pointed out, to assess and push the ideas forward. At that
time, the ideas relied upon the Innovation Manager’s judgment and the experts’
interest in spending some time and helping the process. It also indicates another
problem that the Innovation Team had to face soon after: the Ideas Machine
started to resemble a black hole, where ideas were gathered but not much was
coming out – or rather only certain individuals’ ideas were coming out; little by
little the newness of the Machine started losing its gloss. In the excerpt above
the scientist used the well-known argument ‘I don’t have the time’ to point out
his frustration from the way the process had developed – ‘no time’ was a justifi-
cation widely accepted and unquestionable, for it drew legitimization from the
new ‘commercial reality’ and shared experience.

The management’s voice

The attitude of the management towards innovation had been interpreted vari-
ously: some interviewees claimed that managers had always been supportive,
whereas others said that they were indifferent. To do justice to the managers of
the Business Group, the turn towards innovation started from them: they had
first realized that the Technology Group had become too delivery focused and
the ideas coming from the R&D programmes were not sufficient to sustain the
(Oil Co.) Business, and hence their business in the future. Innovation was recog-
nized in the scorecards of the Business Group as a legitimate activity, on which
time and money should be invested. At the same time, a Resource Manager initi-
 The politics of innovation 139
= ated the first workshop on Innovation – where the principles of the innovation
model were agreed. Later on, the position of the Innovation Manager was
created, and the system was implemented. Innovation time, i.e. time spent on
thinking about ideas and conducting short experiments and research projects,
was now recognized as an activity that could be included in the Personal
Performance Contract, where employees set their targets for the year, and at the
end of the year their performance was assessed against this. In other words, the
management had acknowledged innovation as an important activity that had to
be supported, and where they should invest time and money.
On the other hand, the conceptual framework of the system prescribed that the
management should be supportive, but not actively involved in pushing innovation
practices down to people. The innovation system was suggested, rather than
imposed, by colleagues, rather than management, and intended to grow organically
as a cultural change. In other words, the management was in principle excluded
from the ‘management’ of the innovation move. However, when the expected cul-
tural change did not seem to happen, the staff expressed their expectations for the
management to get actively involved in it: it turned out that apart from the Innova-
tion Manager, (who was exceptionally resourceful in coming up with a great
number of good ideas and feeding them into the Ideas Machine and from there to
Eureka) no others from the managerial team seemed to partake actively in innova-
tion. The management, from its side, was happy that innovation found a champion
and a structure to support it, and they kept on getting on with their own tasks and
targets, like the rest of the staff at the Business Group did. The following comment,
coming from a Resource Manager, shows how managers were no different from the
rest of the staff regarding their attitudes towards innovation; in other words,
‘innovation is good as long as someone else is dealing with it’:

I am more than happy if somebody else . . . I’ve put one [idea] on ‘scientists
are us’ and somebody else is doing it, and I am delighted that they are doing
it, because I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have the energy to carry it forward.

Nevertheless, the management’s role in supporting the innovation move was not
as passive as the previous accounts presented it; the management felt the need
for innovation and supported it by providing processes and funds. The issue was
that, at a higher level, the strategy of Hydro-Carbon Solutions was still driven by
the dominant commercial rationale of cost-efficiency, which had severe con-
sequences on innovation, because it created a different understanding about the
move. This commercial rationality cascaded down and impacted on the innova-
tion processes of the Technology Group. The following account gives the con-
tinuation of the story of innovation, as the Innovation Manager narrated it during
our last interview; the account taps on some serious issues that impact on the
development and success of innovation processes:

IM: What happened next, eh, I was called off . . . out of innovation to do com-
mercial work, and only this last week I’ve come back . . . so for nine or ten
140 Empirical
months nothing happened; and on top of that we were told not to do . . . =
actually not to get more money . . . funding, because we were revenue rich
and resource short, so nothing has happened . . . AT ALL.
R: Alright, let me understand this . . . [he is getting himself a cup of coffee].
IM: So we were so successful the first half of the year.
R: For all the ideas you had.
IM: Yes, we got so much money, that we absorbed all the extra resource that
were available in the Business Group, and then there was no extra resource
available, and so they said ‘stop going after more money’ and then they said
‘go and work for getting this commercial customer’, which I spent nine
months doing, and just heard today that we got it, so great.
R: Congratulations.
IM: thank you, so now I am back on my old job, and I’ve been told yesterday
that we need more innovation money, so I should start everything again.
R: So . . . [laugh confused].
IM: That’s the Oil Co. way [laughs].
R: Alright, it seems that the Oil Co. way thinks that innovation is a button that
now I push and people are innovative.
IM: [interrupts] That you push on and off.
(emphasis added)

The Innovation Manager pointed out some of the controversies in understanding

innovation and acting upon it; first, the cultural change that Technology Group
A attempted to bring did not go further than a change in the everyday talk;
people recognized that innovation was important, but it had failed to become a
part of everybody’s job – like the rhetoric was promoting. Innovation became
the Innovation Manager’s game, which he certainly enjoyed playing, even on his
own; while he was away, things had stopped, and now that he was back, he
would start things over again. The view of ‘innovation as culture’ clashes with
the commercial rationale, which drove the decisions and actions of both Hydro-
Carbon Solutions and Oil Co. I have explained elsewhere how the move Hydro-
Carbon Solutions to become independent, i.e. to have other customers beyond
Oil Co., met practical difficulties, which were greatly due to the objects of activ-
ity of each Business Group, i.e. fuels, lubricants etc. As a result, Oil Co. could
not but remain the main customer of Hydro-Carbon Solutions, and the sponsor
of R&D activities. It needs to be stressed that this commercial rationality con-
ceives innovation in pure economic terms and suggests a very mechanistic way
of managing the process. Ultimately, innovation processes were perceived as a
machine that the management could switch on and off, according to their current
needs. Even if Technology Group A was heading towards a cultural change, at
the end it would be Oil Co. rationality that would overtake, as more influential –
for organizations do not exist in a vacuum, and their culture is shaped through
interactions with other organizations in the network. From this story, it appears
that there was an incompatibility among understandings of innovation: the man-
agement of the Business Group perceived innovation processes as a mechanism
 The politics of innovation 141
= for getting money in the group in the short term. This understanding is quite at
odds with the rhetoric of the business future sustainability. The following
excerpt, coming from a senior scientist, illustrates these issues:

I suppose it is a bit complicated, he [the Innovation Manager] could prob-

ably get . . . even if the people are overworked, he could probably get people
to run the Ideas Machine and start putting up applications in to get this
money, but at the same time M. [the Business Group Manager] has imposed
another set of rules, again imposed by the higher people to say ‘you must
run your department cost-effectively and we are not going to allow you to
recruit more people’, so there is a disconnect, there is not a proper strategy
for linking innovation . . . well if you think that an important component, it’s
absolutely not the only component, but I would say an important component
of innovation is the Eureka programme, that’s not particularly well integ-
rated into the site: if the site is told ‘it’s all under threat and we must keep
numbers down’, so the policy is not well thought through, if you say yes,
we have all this money and CMDs say they will give you the money and R.
[a Eureka manager] says ‘they can have as much money as they like’,
there’s no point in having all that money, if at the same time the same . . .
there’s always this perception I have from Oil Co. and a lot of other com-
panies think that research is a . . . the cost on their bottom line, rather than
it’s actually bringing money in, because it produces costs and – you know
more about this than myself, through being in a Business School – but there
are different ways of drawing up a company’s accounts, you can put the
research on one line and make it look like a terrible cost that you have to try
and reduce, and you can write it on another line and actually say that it has
actually a value.
(emphasis added)

There are certain similarities between the two accounts, as they both point out
the same issues, i.e. the cost-efficiency rationale coming from Oil Co. and the
discontinuity between commercial order and innovation. Both accounts indicate
the problem of resourcing the projects: the economic rationality allowed some
money for innovative ideas, but in order to turn these ideas into projects scien-
tists are needed. However, the principle of cost-efficiency prescribes to run the
business with the least people possible; hence, no new recruitment could easily
occur – whilst, people were fully utilized in the current short term projects, from
which the business used to make money in the short term. Ideas might be sug-
gested to overcome these specific problems each time, however, the problem at
its core was simply that innovation, even though recognized as important, had
not become yet a priority. More importantly, the rationale of cost-efficiency that
imbued managerial thinking, personal interests and decisions cannot support the
long-term and high-risk projects that were expected. The Innovation Manager
gives a political explanation of the dominant short-term thinking of Oil Co.
people, by describing managers as political actors who follow the dominant
142 Empirical
secured cost-efficiency rationality prescribed by their roles: ‘and the people in =
the business are on two to three years contracts, they don’t want something that
will pay back in five years, they want it here.’

Conclusion
Technology Group A early realized the benefits from investing in innovation –
benefits that were expressed in terms of the business current prosperity and
future survival. The implemented innovation system was based on the assump-
tions of the ‘innovation as culture’ approach, i.e. that innovation is uncontrol-
lable and can only be influenced by providing the ‘right’ environment. The
formal discourse proclaimed that innovation exists in small everyday things,
and did not distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ideas, but only between
‘small’ and ‘big’, hence it invited everybody to participate in the game with any
kind of ideas. The rhetoric envisioned a cultural change, against the secluded
and elitist scientific culture, which fostered blue-sky research, and also against
the commercial delivery-focused culture, which focused only on product devel-
opment. The rhetoric pictured an open culture, which would enable everybody
(from students and administration staff to lab technicians, managers and scien-
tists), to contribute longer-term, innovative research ideas in the innovation
process – in other words, ideas that would secure the sustainability of the busi-
ness in the future, the kind of ideas that were missing at that stage. I argued that
innovation was wrapped in a veil of a democratization rhetoric, since it pro-
claimed the right to innovate for everybody; behind the rhetoric, what the man-
agement intended to achieve was to make full use of all knowledge resources,
not only strictly the scientific qualifications, such as narrative knowledge and
other skills or experiences.
I also claimed that the role of management was very important in construct-
ing the innovation move; however, they again were trapped in the commercial
rationale, and could not actively spend time in ‘spreading the word’ of innova-
tion. I suggested that the ‘eradication of responsibility’ for innovation was
shared across the management at all levels of Hydro-Carbon Solutions and Oil
Co., which indicates a dominant and accepted way of thinking and acting. The
management was very happy that innovation had found itself a volunteer – the
innovation hero – so that they could continue with their managerial ‘commer-
cial’ tasks. The Innovation Manager, who took the responsibility to drive
innovation at the Business Group, had a clear vision of what they should be
doing, and had successfully achieved to secure funding for research projects,
building the image of the most innovative Business Group at the Innovation
Park. Beyond the ‘rationalistic’ understanding of innovation management here,
which assesses how many ideas have been produced and how much money
secured, the innovation move had a political aspect as well, which is evident in
the transformation of power relations and personal or group interests. As know-
ledge and innovation discourses were gaining momentum, the innovation game
opened up opportunities for differentiation at the individual and group level. The
 The politics of innovation 143
= Innovation Manager became the only authorized person to decide over what is
‘innovation’ and what is not; being the Innovation Manager of the Business
Group, and at the interface regarding innovation of Hydro-Carbon Solutions
with Oil Co., he had the legitimated authority to ‘judge’ what innovation is
according to the needs of their sponsors. This led to the emergence of ‘innova-
tion stars’, i.e. people, who were acknowledged to be creative, and given that the
parental company was still considered non-innovative and short-term thinking,
their innovative achievements were wrapped in an epic veil – which could also
be used in the Personal Performance Contract as proof of their distinct abilities.
The prestigious innovation language game, once established as the only right
way to innovate, and as a rebel move against the new dominant commercial
culture, excluded those who did not participate in the processes that the Innova-
tion Manager controlled; the innovation game became his ‘controlled area’, and
those who did not support his system were left out. Resistance emerged from
certain senior scientists, who, knowing the structures of innovation, took the
responsibility for pushing their ideas to the appropriate route bypassing the con-
trolled area of the Innovation Manager. The rest of the group members were
happy that innovation found its Hero – hence it was someone else’s respons-
ibility – and they continued with delivering on time their commercial tasks, with
which they identified their personal career development. Nevertheless, the
Innovation Manager did achieve to create a dynamic image regarding the inno-
vative performance of the group, and this image created a new secluded culture:
innovation discourse and practices created a local symbolic order, which unified
all the members of the group, whilst distinguished them from the rest of the
Business Groups, which were not so successful in these terms.
The Ideas Machine tried to show both the business and the scientists that it
was good to do long-term research and that there were benefits for both sides
from innovation. The concept aimed to trigger a cultural change: it propagated
the significance of small incremental changes even in mundane things, which
could potentially lead to groundbreaking innovative projects. The system was
compatible with the commercial environment, as it showed consideration for the
time pressures of employees, and asked only for small ideas. At the same time it
was taking away the burden of ownership of ideas from the generators, by
giving them the choice either to continue with their commercial projects or to
pursue their ideas. However, the Ideas Machine failed to engage the senior sci-
entists, for their definition of innovation was more austere, since it was driving
from the scientific language game, and furthermore, they felt the loss of power
with the suggested discourse.
What is more, the cultural change remained a utopia since it did not have an
impact on the rigid properties of the commercial structure. Quite the opposite,
the commercial culture, by changing the concept of time on site from long to
short term, gave the employees the legitimated excuse ‘no time’ for not partici-
pating in the innovation processes. Cultural change is grounded on the implicit
assumption that the ‘change leader’ has overall control over the environment
they set out to change, and these laboratory environments are hardly found in the
144 Empirical
social world. Organizations and groups are parts of wider social networks and =
influenced by external uncontrollable factors and internal forces. To put it
simply, the sensible innovation discourse and its practices were not enough to
convince people to join in, at a moment when everybody was engaged in the
overwhelming commercial game, and furthermore, when new recruits increas-
ingly stopped believing in the value of scientific research for a commercial
organization.
7 Innovation management in a
commercial environment
Technology Group B

In this chapter, I present the attempts of Technology Group B to comply with

the prescriptions of the innovation discourse. Technology Group B, which oper-
ated in the lubrication business, borrowed the Ideas Machine from Group A;
however, their culture, expectations, understandings and interests were very dif-
ferent from the first group, hence they ended up developing a different innova-
tion system. Nevertheless, this group too struggled to engage the scientists in the
innovation game, even though here the politics at the individual and group level
were not so upfront. The question that emerges from the examination of empiri-
cal material is how to support innovation in a commercial environment, since
the two are based on fundamentally different and opposing assumptions.

The Ideas Machine and Eureka

The innovation story at Technology Group B started one-and-a-half years after
Group A. From one side the success of Technology Group A in terms of innova-
tion, and at the same time the Eureka team, who were trying to get people
involved in the process, made Group B consider the benefits from the innovation
game: an Innovation Manager was appointed, and he, in his turn, tried with the
help of the Eureka people and the Innovation Manager from Technology Group
A, to spark an interest among the staff. First, a day off was organized, where the
most creative scientists were invited; the purpose of the day was to generate
ideas, which were inserted later in Technology Group B’s Ideas Machine.
Technology Group A had already been recognized as the most innovative
Business Unit in Hydro-Carbon Solutions, having to display a considerable
number of projects funded by higher-level innovation funnels; that was trans-
lated into considerable amounts of money brought into the Business Group. The
success was attributed to the Ideas Machine, which was considered the key tool
of their innovation system. Hence, Technology Group B – and later on other
Business Groups – saw the financial benefits from having a local structure to
support innovative ideas, and so borrowed the Ideas Machine. In the beginning,
the Innovation Manager proposed the two Business Groups to have a shared
database, since by exchanging viewpoints more ideas for projects would be
stimulated. The Innovation Manager describes:
146 Empirical
well Technology Group A didn’t want to . . . we did discuss with the
Technology Group A whether we should have a single Ideas Machine,
which would cover [both Business Groups], but their Machine is not . . .
people can’t see it outside their Business Group, if you are not in their
Department you can’t see their Pipeline, and so they decided that they
didn’t want to have a joint Ideas Machine, which is why we’ve just made a
copy . . . but as I say [our] Ideas Machine is visible to anyone inside the
Hydro-Carbon Solutions.

The people who drove innovation at Technology Group A had seen in it an

opportunity to create a distinct culture that would lead them to business success
in a highly competitive commercial environment. Innovation was perceived to
be the competitive advantage of the Business Group, and logically it follows that
the Innovation Manager would not like to share the business success with others.
Hence, Technology Group B took the Ideas Machine and adapted it to their spe-
cific needs and understanding of innovation. In effect, during the fieldwork, this
Business Group was facing some financial problems, which made the announce-
ment of further downsizing an actual threat; later on further restructuring was
announced, and took place in January 2004. There was much hope invested in
this change, that it would strengthen the commercial direction and the market
position of the lubrication business. The Innovation Manager expresses here his
anticipation that this would give focus to the research processes of the business,
bringing innovation closer to their customer needs, when at the same time the
control would pass from the Operating Units to the business.

[T]he [new organization] is going to run as a separate business and the

decision on what is selling and what is not selling and things like that will
be made centrally rather than through the operating units, but that’s going
to have quite a big impact on research and development as well, because if
the whole business is changing, the way we work with them, we’ll work
close to the business, is also changing, so we are going through a sort of
transition phase at the moment and it’s [the new organization], is supposed
to be up and running by January 1st 2004, but it is going to be quite a big
change.
(emphasis added)

Meanwhile, the funds for innovation appeared to be a good source for revitaliz-
ing financially the group. The senior managers realized this opportunity, and
started pushing the staff to participate in the processes with ideas. The Innova-
tion Manager describes the innovation turn at Technology Group B in purely
economic terms, beyond the language of culture change and creativity, which
was driving Group A:

and the reason why Group B set up an Innovation Manager’s job was that
there were announcements of sources of income for innovative projects, so
 Commercial innovation management 147
things like Eureka and Investments R&D they didn’t use to exist until two
or three years ago, but now they exist, it’s like an extra source of money for
us.
(emphasis added)

The conceptual framework

[B]asically the system is the same, basically the main difference really is
that . . . we don’t encourage people to put in ideas on improvements within
the department, in their Ideas Pipeline there are many ideas about how the
department can run more efficiently; and we have a separate quality
improvement process within our Technology Group, so we try to restrict
our Ideas Pipeline on technical ideas for lubricants.
(emphasis added)

The Innovation Manager explained above the conceptual framework of the

system; he described it as being the same with the one at Technology Group A,
because they both had an Ideas Machine and a position of Innovation Manager
to support it. The innovation system consisted of a single tool, i.e. the database
(or a funnel), where ideas were collected and from there would be forwarded to
other higher-level funnels. The cultural change that the Technology Group A
tried to trigger by introducing the Ideas Machine was not part of his understand-
ing of innovation – it seems that, when Group A passed on the Ideas Machine
software, they did not attach the discourse from within its symbolic use for cul-
tural change would emerge. Instead of the all-embracing rhetoric of Group A,
which invited all types of ideas into the Machine, Group B restricted the Ideas
Machine to technical ideas, excluding this way the staff whose jobs were not
directly related to research. In other words, the cracking of the scientific elite
was not an issue for this group. In contrast, their Ideas Machine was open for
everybody from Hydro-Carbon Solutions to browse in the ideas, which reflects
that, as opposed to Group A, they had not entered competitively into the innova-
tion game; they saw themselves as part of the Hydro-Carbon Solutions scientific
community rather than as an independent Business Group, and they would like
still to consider their ex-colleagues as co-researchers, instead of business part-
ners. In other words, even though the commercial order had changed the rules of
research to an undisclosed activity, the people at Technology Group B had not
given up their understanding of research formed by the scientific discourse.
Nonetheless, there was another substantial difference between the two
Groups; Group A had set aside a part of their budget to support small ideas and
experiments, whereas Group B’s efforts for innovation aimed purely to secure
external funding. In other words, its management saw the importance of sup-
porting innovation purely as a way to bring money in, without being willing to
invest a part of their resources in the process; furthermore, in contrast with
Group A, innovation time was not formally recognized in the scorecards as a
legitimated activity:
148 Empirical
we are supporting it, the main reason we try to support it is to get more
money in, we are not in the same position as Technology Group A, because
they have their own money within the Business Group, which they can
support innovation, we don’t have that here.
(Innovation Manager)

Consequently, the use of the Ideas Machine was reduced to a tool for collecting
ideas, and could only provide support for the ideas generation stage, and then
connected ideas with the appropriate funnel – predominantly Eureka. The mech-
anistic rationale of the innovation system here was stripped away of any stra-
tegic objectives that various approaches to innovation assert; the Machine
worked as a database for collecting ideas and producing proposals, and the
reason for adopting it was to ensure that little ideas, the kind that scientists natu-
rally have, were not getting lost, since ‘even a small idea can trigger a bigger
project’.

[B]ut they’re always gonna be some ideas that sort of . . . sit in the Ideas
Machine . . . and they don’t . . . actually get followed up on, but it is import-
ant to keep them there because some read that idea and that might trigger
another idea. I think it is quite important not to throw away the ideas, in the
past we didn’t have such an Ideas Machine, so people had some good ideas,
and the ideas got lost when the people left or the ideas got stuck in the
reports which was archived . . . when we set this Ideas Machine up.
(Innovation Manager)

The system
The system consisted of the Innovation Manager, without any Innovation Team
or assistant, but with focal points, who were responsible to promote innovation
in other sites of the Technology Group. The Ideas Machine looked slightly dif-
ferent to its visitors: the comic element was missing from the website (there
were no Little People characters on the web pages), no funny posters, or vouch-
ers for coffee and prize draws, like there were in Group A. Below, the Innova-
tion Manager justifies his choice to avoid the ‘fun’ element – or, for others, the
trivialization – of the Machine:

when I looked in the Ideas Machine it seemed that some people put lots of
ideas in to get lots of free cups of coffee, so you see the ideas that we seek
for getting revenue in, we . . . none of these ideas would be suitable, so we
decided not to encourage those ideas.

The system relied more on the Innovation Manager’s activities, who was trying
to motivate people to send ideas in the Machine, either by talking with them per-
sonally or by sending them e-mails with updates regarding the latest innovation
achievements. However, the problem of engaging people in the use of the
 Commercial innovation management 149
innovation tool was equally difficult as it was in Technology Group A. The
Innovation Manager addresses this issue, and suggests some sort of prizes to
motivate people to participate. Oddly enough, the ‘time-pressures’ issue was
absent from his talk throughout the interview.

I think I am inclined to implement a sort of prize system, now it does say

you may win a prize, but I haven’t sorted it out yet, but as I said, the fact
that most of our staff is not here, I felt it was not appropriate to offer them
free cups of coffee, I thought it wouldn’t do it . . . so that bit . . . I think we
will start getting more ideas coming in once we offer them prizes.

In practice, the Innovation Manager tried to engage people in contributing ideas

in the Machine. Once an idea was submitted, then he would meet and discuss it
with the generator, and together they would put together a proposal and send it
to the appropriate funnel. The ideas were not forwarded to other ‘experts’ for
reviewing it and maybe materializing it; the question of ownership of ideas had
not been an issue here, at least at that stage, since the assumption was that the
people who were submitting ideas were personally interested in working on
them. The old value of scientific curiosity was still the main drive for the ‘know-
ledge workers’ to bracket off their commercial tasks for a while and undertake
research.

[B]ut the other reason that people would put ideas in is that, if they have a
good idea for a project and for example goes through to Eureka, they would
perhaps work on that project, so if they think they have a good idea a really
good and it looks convincing, we put it to Eureka and then can actually
work on their project and have a saying on what they do, and a few people
have realized, there is a few people who have put pots of ideas in, but there
is still quite a few people who haven’t been really involved, so they prob-
ably need a kind of a push.

The Innovation Manager had ascribed to himself the role of Innovation Assistant
instead of Innovation Hero, and most people recognized that he was really sup-
portive in guiding them through putting together a proposal, and in doing an
‘advertising job’. Nevertheless, the process was not free from ‘surface politics’.
Even though in principle anyone could put an idea directly to a funnel, the prac-
tice had introduced some restrictions; in order to reassure that the proposal
would be successful, a committee would meet to discuss whether the proposal
should be pushed forward or not. A scientist with seven months at Technology
Group B, who was actively involved in the innovation game and had been
working close to the Innovation Manager comments:

I: I think they are a constant group of people . . . one of them are from Market-
ing, one of them I think he is . . . I am not sure what he is right now, but he
has a fuels background, and one of the problems is that he doesn’t often
150 Empirical
understand the ideas from lubricants, therefore he throws them back, he
can’t understand the idea, he can’t see why this could be useful, and [the
Innovation Manager] keeps on telling . . . tells me to push them back in, to
look at them again, think of them in more detail, write a better description,
and he can probably advise me on the best way to write a description.
R: Is in this discussion, whether the idea will be pushed forward or not, is the
person that has the idea participating?
I: I don’t think so, it is completely . . . not an anonymous group, but it’s a group
that meets behind the doors and, two of them are commercial, which I think
it is fair enough, they say to understand the idea, but I think it is a bit like
politics on the way, so that depends on who is supporting you, you can put
down, say the marketing person, if you can put down the name of one of the
people that works for him, for example the grease product manager, if you
can say that the grease product manager supports this idea, then you will
have no problem to get passed the marketing person, because it’s one of his
people who says it’s a good idea, so it is a bit like lobbying and politics, if
you want to get something passed you have to go and talk with the right
person and get him to support you and then at the end you will have your
idea through . . . so in a sense it’s already become corrupted [laughs].
(emphasis added)

Trust between partners and alliances is a shared assumption among discourses

on knowledge generation; however, here trust emerges as an illusive ideal, since
when groups from different language games and interests need to collaborate,
naturally, communication breaks down and mistrust arises. The question is not
whether politics had really been an issue in judging the value of an idea, but the
shared suspicion both towards all panels at all levels who evaluated the ideas, as
to their adequacy and knowledge to take the decision, and towards the trans-
parency of the process.
The evidence from Technology Group B indicates that there was no system
that in itself could manage innovation, only the activities of the Innovation
Manager who, responding to the pressures from the top management for taking
advantage of the available funding for innovation, tried to involve the scientists.
The Ideas Machine was reduced to a database for recording ideas, of little use
and value; the account below highlights the centrality of Eureka as the main
innovation system. The Innovation Manager asserts this view and places the
Ideas Machine at the periphery of the system – the Innovation Manager argues
for the need to link mechanically the two pipelines; however, he did not explain
why the scientists should report all the ideas for proposals to the Innovation
Manager, and what the real value of keeping a record of all the ideas be, other
than adding to the paperwork.

[T]he thing with the Eureka ideas database is that it is not linked to the
Ideas Machine neither of Technology Group A nor B, so it is possible
someone to put an idea into Eureka without putting it in the Ideas Machine,
 Commercial innovation management 151
so I try to keep an eye in both databases to see . . . I try to copy the ideas
from Eureka and put it in the Ideas Machine, because we try to keep a log
off of all the ideas, so this is sort of manual intervention, it’s not automated
[laughs], it’s a bit of disconnect, because suddenly anyone can decide to put
an idea in Eureka without telling anybody . . . even though they are not sup-
posed to do so, sort of ‘let me know before you put anything in Eureka’,
they can still do it independently.
(emphasis added)

I next discuss the scientists’ and technologists’ views regarding the system and
regarding innovation. However, before we condemn the ‘system’ here as unsuc-
cessful, due to the lack of an Innovation Hero and appropriate ‘culture’, or of a
‘rational process’, I need to stress that, Technology Group B was considered to
be the second most innovative Unit of Hydro-Carbon Solutions, with a good
record of projects in Eureka. This observation suggests that the force of the
innovation discourse is more powerful in constructing a convincing reality,
rather than the actual tools and processes that are promoted by the main
approaches to innovation management.

The scientists’ voices

Due to the strictly technical nature of the expected ideas at Technology Group
B, the investigation here explored only the scientists’ and technologists’ (i.e. the
people, who would use the system) viewpoints. Compared to Group A, where
most of the interviewees were relying on the Innovation Manager to sort out the
innovation needs of the Business Group, here the interviewees were feeling
strongly about innovation, and they had strong personal views about what
innovation would be and how it should be supported. These views most of the
times were addressed as criticism to the current innovation system and the
broader Oil Co. structure and culture.
Partly because of the politics and mistrust on the way the ideas were assessed
‘behind closed doors’, partly because of the Innovation Manager’s low profile, the
ideas machine did not achieve to attract much attention from the staff, who most of
them had not heard about it. Even those, who were in close contact with the Innova-
tion Manager and were aware of the existence of the Machine, tended to consider it
a trivial tool in managing innovation, when there were more important issues
lacking. Most of the interviewees argued for the pressing need of a clear conceptual
framework, which would set the objectives of a coordinated effort, and would
address substantial issues that might impede the innovation process. The following
senior scientist was insisting on this point throughout the interview. Ultimately,
similarly to another senior scientist from Group A, he distanced himself from the
Ideas Machine, which he considered ‘silly’ – even without the comic characters!

[I]t is possibly worth to have it as a component, but I think we really ought

as a company to do more strategic thinking, saying: ‘what are the problems
152 Empirical
we could tackle, what’s the major problem we could sensibly tackle, what
are the problems in those areas’ . . . let’s expose problems, let’s really
systematically expose people to problems, because when people are exposed
to problems then you might get some ideas that could address those prob-
lems. I have great reservations about what I see with the Ideas Machine. I
haven’t used it. I spend most of my time on a project which I got, an
innovation project which I got from the Innovation Panel in London last
[Eureka], I saw the opportunity and I got the money, and it’s started with
money before there’s an Innovation Machine. I doubt very much if I will
ever use the Innovation Machine, it looks very silly to me.
(emphasis added)

This account made reference to the dominant view among the research staff as
to the innovation model they should follow now that they operated as a commer-
cial organization, i.e. ‘expose people to problems systematically and let them
find solutions’. Obviously, this model was quite at odds with the one implied by
the Ideas Machine, which supported small ideas and advocated the ‘anything
goes and something good might come out of it’, and about which quite a few
scientists from both Business Groups had expressed serious reservations. The
following excerpt, coming from an engineer with ten years at Oil Co., exhibits
elements of the particular culture of Technology Group B:

we are taking those things serious once they’re planned, so money process
for Oil Co. sponsorship, money process for working together with non-Oil
Co. customers, those things are taken very serious by everybody, but for the
moment the innovation side of things is somewhat frivolous almost, in that,
it is not formal, it is an informal system, it’s a website you put ideas in
when you have them, which is great, I’m not saying, because to innovate
you probably need to capture the creative ideas, not constrain them, but I
think what this might have done is actually it might have said, ‘actually this
is not quite important, it is not a part of the formal planning, and you don’t
need actually to do that, this is an option, it doesn’t go to your profile,
because it is not formalized’, so what is missing, I think, the technology
teams, within themselves to, because this is how we are structured, in
technology teams essentially, to be thinking about what is the future and
how do we get support for R&D.
(emphasis added)

And below, a young researcher with six years at Oil Co. provides a scientific
understanding of innovation, which fundamentally clashes with the all-
embracing rhetoric of ‘little ideas’. Thus, it is no surprise that the scientists of
both Business Groups did not accept cordially the Ideas Machine.

OK . . . well my perception of innovation is that we submit something radic-

ally different, and we submit a project that can go from the start to the end;
 Commercial innovation management 153
well people’s area of expertise is clearly lubrication, where I work, so I would
expect to be around lubrication, but if you propose a small change to me, that
makes one of our projects slightly better, then to me that’s not innovation.
Innovation is if we can do something completely different, and actually change
a whole product family, change the way lubricant is perceived, change the way
our customers the way customers use lubricants ... or change the manufactur-
ing process, that is you know, the biggest, totally different ideas.

Most of the scientists stressed the lack of the conceptual framework, since they
did not feel that the support from the Innovation Manager was enough to revive
innovation. Through their accounts they emphasized the need for formal guid-
ance and structure, since so far innovation was relying on each scientist’s under-
standing and willingness to work on innovative projects, and on the technology
managers’ personal interest and support:

we’ve never discussed it between different teams, so I think because we

have never discussed it, each one tends to bring their own. It’s never dis-
cussed as a Department ‘what is Innovation, what are we going to do about
it, how much time we are going to spend on it, what is the procedure’, I
mean Eureka as such has been mentioned and promoted etc. but I don’t
think that within the Technology Group there is a shared vision.

It is true that most of the interviewees suggested their own definition of innova-
tion; the issue that they were addressing was fundamentally how innovation could
be supported in a commercial environment. The views differed widely, and argu-
ments were ranging from supporting the need for fundamental research, because it
would be the way of building the core knowledge for product development, to
bracketing off fundamental and long-term research as expensive and time consum-
ing in a commercial environment, and networking instead with universities, which
could provide in low cost the essential knowledge. Nevertheless, there was
common agreement that innovation is not a product development, because this
relies on short-term projects and focuses on products and specific needs. Innova-
tion should emerge as an idea out of the box, and this would require long-term
research, and with uncertain results. The following technologist, with 17 years in
Oil Co., gives an account of various types of innovation, included the business’
understanding of it, which was product focused; he acknowledges the uncertain
and uncontrollable character of innovation, and he construes science as essentially
a creative activity. This last issue, i.e. that science is fundamentally creative and
returns value in terms of innovation, prevailed in scientists’ talk, who had always
tried in every occasion, and now through the innovation revival, to prove the value
of their scientific work to the business.

R: Yes, but before we talk about Eureka, let me understand what innovation is
for you . . . because while you were talking about innovation you mentioned
that it takes more than three years to show.
154 Empirical
I: To show returns on what you are doing urgh, I think innovation can be a
number of things, it could be coming up with some improved process,
improved technique, an improved product, that’s probably what the Busi-
ness see as innovation. I think it can also come through better understand-
ing of the science and the technology, I think sometimes innovation comes
through serendipity, you look at something and then somebody else can say
well, that could be used for the benefit elsewhere in the organization. I think
innovation is creative and I think that’s often forgotten, a lot of science is
routine and so on, but I do think that science is also a creative subject, built
in thinking what you are doing, sort of while doing the work, and also when
you write it up, you present it, you explain it, I think that’s creative as well,
and certainly they are aspects that are coming in Innovation.
(emphasis added)

The Eureka process

Technology Group B concentrated on putting proposals in the Eureka funnel,
which they considered the main funnel to support innovative projects, since its
rhetoric and objectives matched with their own understanding of innovation; I
remind that Eureka set out to support long-term and high-risk research.
However, the rhetoric did not meet the practice, and the actual process of select-
ing projects had let many scientists down, when they started realizing that what
was defined as ‘high-risk’ projects by the Eureka team, was not exactly what the
scientists perceived real ‘innovation’ to be. A scientist, who had only recently
joined the Group, but already had experience in managing innovation processes
from his previous job, comments:

I thought the Eureka would be for that, but a lot of the Eureka ideas are
fairly normal, they don’t seem particularly radical at all, so I have the
impression now, within this group anyway, within the company, Eureka is
really a way of getting funding for the more long-term ideas, which Oil Co.
don’t want particularly to fund themselves, the Oil Co. Business I mean, the
sales related business, so I have to alter my impression of Eureka [laughs].

The main advantages of the Eureka method, i.e. the requirement of presenting a
detailed business case, and the close control and assessment of the project in
each stage through the funnel, had not been received as logical by the scientists
who were called in to participate, and who now identified severe conceptual
flaws in the process. The following technology manager gives a sharp account of
the controversies in the process, and reveals the politics in terms of conflicting
interests and incommensurability between the groups involved in the assessment
of innovative projects. The account highlights a common concern among the sci-
entists, i.e. that innovation was only supported in talk and not in practice,
because the practicalities of the new process in reality created more problems to
the commercial organization. It emerges that the rhetoric of innovation had not
 Commercial innovation management 155
achieved yet to change the traditional view that innovation was a cost that had to
be controlled and eliminated.

PS: [The Innovation Manager] tries to encourage people to have brainstorming

meetings, add things in the pipeline that might be interesting and then he
works them up to the business cases, because that’s the first down side with
an idea: you have to make a business case, you have to go out and find, you
see, before you even start it, before you EVEN START you have to have a
business case . . . isn’t it just a sad way to do anything? I mean you can’t
even have an inkling of an idea, you don’t even know whether it’s going to
work or not, because it has to have a business case, and then it is reviewed
by the people in the business, . . . and what’s more they are people in the
supply chain of the product, and people in the supply chain are just transac-
tors, they have no interest in anything innovative whatsoever, imagine that
innovation just adds to their problems, because at the end of the day innova-
tion means usually single solution, point solution, and they have to go and
negotiate a price with somebody for a single point solution. They would
pretty much like to have a commodity so they can play people off against
each other, because they’re so bloody thick that they can’t see how to
handle a single point of negotiation . . . supply chain . . . they are from Oil
Co. from all around, from the operational units . . . these are the cost-cutters,
innovation they say is expensive, even when [we talk together].
R: [laugh] And they say it at the same time that they try to support innovation.
PS: Even now, yes, this is what’s wrong, yes, but it’s they way they are trying,
they pay lip service to innovation, they support it by saying you have to
have a business case, that’s not innovation, this is commercial business,
that’s exploitation, not innovation.
(emphasis added)

Nevertheless, Eureka was strongly associated with the innovation turn, and
slowly found its place in the everyday talk, even as a joke at this early stage, at
least for those who had an interest in innovation, or whose work was on an
innovation project. The following engineer was brought into Technology Group
B from Oil Co. Operational Units one year ago, in order to give a commercial
flair into the Business Group. Given his commercial background, it is no sur-
prise that the advantages he saw from innovation were translated purely in short-
term survival via funding opportunities. In his account, another hurdle to
innovation is identified, i.e. the time–delivery culture and the workload that
takes priority over innovation in a commercial environment:

no, no . . . well we talk about it over lunch, if someone of us has a new idea,
we say ‘oh, put in Eureka, that’s a good idea, put it in Eureka’, but priority
is working on the programmes, we have deliverables. Eureka is an innova-
tion programme that takes lots of your time. If people are tied up with time
because they have to deliver their product developments or reports or
156 Empirical
whatever, they will leave Eureka aside, so I don’t think it’s prioritized the
way it should be; it could become way more important because Eureka
gives you the opportunity to fund your team, you get funding for a Eureka
proposal and that of course is a good teaser to more or less promote people,
to stimulate people to put more ideas into Eureka. So I think the amount of
ideas put into Eureka is growing and growing rapidly, ehm, but then again
it’s not a priority, priorities are the deliverables, your work, product devel-
opment etc. etc.
(emphasis added)

Innovation and commercialization

So far, the dominant understanding among scientists described innovation as
uncontrollable, uncertain, highly risky and one that necessitates a long-term
horizon to actualize. Even though in talk, commercialization set out to support
innovative projects, it turned out that the very nature of the commercial environ-
ment clashed with the nature of innovation and reduced it to a rigid articulation
of ‘exploitable innovation’, which emerged from the researcher’s free time and
personal interest. The following passages elucidate the contradiction that was
encountered in applying the theory of innovation management in practice, as
voiced by the ‘users’ of the system, i.e. the researchers.

I think it is a challenge for organizations. I think with the commercialization

you have to have control, you have to have control on budgets, deliverables,
eh, if you work for a customer you obviously don’t want to over-deliver
what you said, you don’t want to under-deliver, you want to get it just about
right and so on, and of course in that sort of controlled environment espe-
cially in a cost-conscious as we are now, it’s very difficult to happen it is
very difficult to have the space to people to innovate and be creative.
(technologist with 17 years in Oil Co., emphasis added)

The account constructs ‘control’ over ‘budgets’ and ‘deliverables’ as the natural
order in a commercial organization. Interestingly, however, it makes a distinc-
tion between ‘controlled’ and ‘cost-conscious’ environment, leaving some room
for doubts as to whether all these new financial control mechanisms and
processes were the only way to manage. The following passage coming from the
interview with an engineer in the post of customer focal point of the Business
Group, who had spent ten years at Oil Co., gives further insights into the nature
of control that was being developed; he describes softer ways of assessing the
activities of the Business Group instead of the ‘hard core’ and financially ratio-
nal measurables of commercialization, which resulted in the suffocation of
innovation:

so I think that bit was always there, but the measurables were much more in
terms of whether the customer was satisfied than in terms of how we had
 Commercial innovation management 157
made a margin calculated in particular financial system that we have today
and we made a margin on that activity, or have we, we planned to spend a
certain amount of money, and we actually spent less, or more of what we
planned to spend, so people spend a lot more time now focusing on, and I
call it financially possibly sensitive measurables rather than real planning.
They are related to money, that is, we measure the activities, we put
immense effort measuring the activities, so we have measures of efforts, we
express that in terms of money and we spend a lot of time nowadays on
perhaps we are making the margins or not of that activity, possibly more
time than it’s healthy, someone could argue, we might have lost this balance
between technology and commercial side.
(emphasis added)

Similar to Technology Group A, the research staff in Group B felt overloaded by

the bureaucratic procedures and control processes that were considered extreme,
sometimes unnecessary, and definitely time consuming. Furthermore, the ‘time
delivery’ scheme, which made the Business Groups take pride in their customer-
focused services, was presented as the greatest enemy of innovation time. The
following passage, from the interview with a young scientist with six years in
Group B, presents the rationale of commercialization and the clash with innova-
tion as a cultural issue:

there’s a penalty for delivering late, that’s why it’s called ‘time and deliv-
ery’, so you’ve got to get it on time, when you said that you’d do it, and
you’ve actually got to deliver it. You can’t say ‘I haven’t quite finished’ it is
not acceptable, so that’s a constraint, so, yeah, the penalty of not meeting it,
is you get less funding for that project, or in principle the project is stopped
. . . so, so, I mean, that’s good, it’s a rigorous practice, why not? It is fair the
people to know when it is going to finish, it is fair you’re asked about the
chances of success and I think it is a natural result of that, that your sponsor,
anyone’s to sponsor, and he wants to pin down those ten things to work,
doesn’t he? That’s the normal business, but you have to ask, if people work
in that mindset in the majority of time, are they likely to propose terribly
innovative projects? It seems unlikely to me, yeah? That’s a cultural thing.
(emphasis added)

‘Time’ was a great concern in the new commercial order. From one side the sci-
entists were used to work on long-term projects with flexible deadlines and
without strictly defined deliverables, whereas now commercialization changed
not only the time horizon of work from long to short term, but also devised a
system to measure time and translate it into cost; each activity had a special
number, by which the staff had to account for the time spent on it. As the
following interviewee points out ‘there are no time-free activity numbers’,
which means that there was no number for justifying the time spent in thinking
about an idea. Once Eureka approved the idea, then an activity number was
158 Empirical
given; however, the time spent in translating the idea into a proposal could not
be justified, and thus had to be in the scientist’s own free time and will. Never-
theless, this illuminates the rhetoric of ‘little ideas and anything goes’ that the
Ideas Machine propagated, and the Innovation Managers’ interest in this system
– which unfortunately conflicted with the scientists’ understanding of innova-
tion:

there are no time-free activity numbers. You can’t just call a time and write
an activity number, you have to give an explanation . . . so that’s probably
the biggest block for innovation, the time to sit and think about; now, the
time to sit and think about is dictated by where you are writing your time.
(scientist with six years in Oil Co., emphasis added)

Together with the short-term working horizon that commerciality had created,
which translated into short-term projects and thinking, and clashed with the
long-term nature of innovation, its second feature, i.e. high-risk, was constrained
by low-tolerance of failure, in other words risk-aversion, and was justified as a
way to protect the financial investment.

[O]ur research and development is done on the assumption that you will
achieve at least 80 per cent, and that’s a hot concept, because . . . it is a new
concept as well. It didn’t use to be like that, but you could have your
research in 50–50 failure rate, if you are really doing research. My
experience from the university research is half of the things shouldn’t work,
here it’s 80 per cent should work and 20 per cent shouldn’t work, tough,
yeah, so you probably in terms of like daily, with the majority of the pro-
jects people are working on, there has to be a fair chance of succeeding, so
is it innovative? No, so it might lead on to the question of what you’re
saying, what are the systemic problems with innovation on this site, if you
are expecting, if people have history or expecting the projects to be 80 per
cent successful, how likely is that a true innovative project is going to be 80
per cent successful, so we have a management culture imposed that says
you’ll do things that are 80 cent successful because that allows us to build
the customer.
(emphasis added)

Most of the interviewees involved in innovation from all levels and positions –
scientists, managers and even the Eureka team – acknowledged in their inter-
views the short-term and risk-averted culture of the corporation. Another
problem, where all these views met, was the problem of resourcing the projects,
since ‘nobody here is employed with any slack in their time’. The following
scientist comments on this issue, which ultimately questions whether commer-
cial work and innovation can be undertaken at the same time by the same pool
of people, i.e. whether innovation and commercial work can be supported in a
single structure. The question of resourcing was a simplification of the core
 Commercial innovation management 159
problem of managing innovation, which translates into: (a) managing the pool of
ideas in the website; (b) managing the scientific time and (c) managing the spon-
sors’ interests.

[I]t will probably take dedicated people whose jobs will be to take projects
from start to finish, there is a man-power factor, yeah? So if something illu-
minative comes up, I am interested to see how these people will staff that
project, yes, basically, it has to do . . . it’s my experience really, recruiting
someone here is a fairly difficult task. There is quite a lot in the recruiting
process, and typically you take a PhD scientist, and even then for a PhD
scientist, it takes three years to really understand the lubricants business
should we say, or the chemistry of lubrication, so a person is probably
useful after the third year. So how do you manage to have a pool of people
that you can actually get to work on projects, unless you have a continuous
improvement project, and at the moment we are probably on the stage of
having major projects, so we haven’t yet got that pool of people. I don’t
know . . . we are talking about a technical project that needs someone with
the knowledge of the subject to do, and I don’t think these people are avail-
able on time; so the real challenge with innovation is how to manage the
skill pool you need. These people don’t have to be innovative themselves,
but they need to be able to carry on a project.
(emphasis added)

Even though the issue of resourcing projects was acknowledged by scientists,

the Business Groups’ management and innovation managers, a key member of
Eureka expressed a more cynical view; he didn’t believe that ‘time’, ‘resourc-
ing’, and ‘rewards’ were the most significant hurdles for not having good ideas,
and instead implied that scientists were simply not particularly creative – a view
which reflected the business’ ‘older’ view regarding the R&D department:

we can manage it [the project] yeah, we do, I do that in [the other innova-
tion funnel]. It is not a particularly detailed engagement, but there is some
engagement, and we can suggest that they should work with other groups,
yes, of course; but as I said, that’s not been a problem so far. The resourcing
issue has been a problem, and the project idea, the project ideas have been a
particular problem, I think that it is fair to say, if you get good ideas we
could support them and the reason for that it isn’t that there are lots and lots
good ideas out there but people don’t have the time to work on them, it’s
because they don’t have good ideas, it’s the other way round; if you have an
idea and you want to do it, we can get you the money, we can provide the
money, even if we spend all the budgets. If it is a very good idea we can
provide the money, if you need millions, essentially there is no constraints,
Oil Co. is a rich company. If you need resources to develop good ideas, you
can get them; when people say ‘I’m not putting ideas in, because I am not
being rewarded’, that is not in my experience true; I think people don’t put
160 Empirical
ideas in, because they are very busy, and that’s certainly true, but I don’t
think that’s resulting in the body of ideas being low, I don’t think that’s the
constraint. We would like better ideas, but I don’t think it’s because people
are too busy.
(emphasis added)

The question of rewards had been addressed by the Innovation Managers, but it
was not a common concern among scientists, who still felt that their work and
skills were not appreciated enough by the business, despite the vivid innovation
talk. The following technologist highlights precisely this shared feeling among
researchers, who were driven by scientific curiosity and interest in simply doing
research:

I think for a while when commercialization started it got neglected, for

obvious reasons . . . people were focusing on different things, but I think it is
back with a higher profile now, and people are encouraged to do it . . . I
think it needs more encouragement in terms of if people are innovative it
should be recognized, not necessarily financially, not like a prize for the
best ideas, but in the culture. I think we have to work on that, because I
think that’s where most of the people get the buzz from, you know doing
good scientific and technical work and that being recognized. I think that’s
as important as the financial remuneration, I think it is not valued enough in
the organization.
(emphasis added)

In Chapter 4, I argued that the commercial turn had changed the necessary skills
sought from the newly recruited staff, by giving emphasis to social competences
over scientific qualifications; this had as a consequence caused the erosion of
‘scientific ethos’, and according to some senior scientists, had also an impact on
the ability and the willingness of people to be creative and interested in trying
out new and uncertain research ideas. Much of these arguments appealed for
legitimization to the discourse around the Innovation Hero, where innovation
becomes the higher task of certain exceptional individuals, who are not like ‘the
rest’. Yet, there was indeed a change in the recruitment criteria, and the new
culture and structure had limited the eagerness of people to take ‘risky’ initi-
atives; to put simply, as a senior scientist noted, commercialization had created a
‘civil service culture’. The following technology manager points out a serious
issue for innovation, i.e. the avoidance of responsibility, which the innovation
funnels set out to address by disengaging the idea generators from the respons-
ibility to undertake the project:

R: At least, if you don’t get any kind of rewards, money or something, because
of your idea, do people look more prestigious, is it good for their status in
the Innovation Park if they have a good idea?
I: No.
 Commercial innovation management 161
R: So what is really important, who is considered to be a good employee here, if
not a creative one?
I: A good employee is probably someone who just says ‘yes’, who follows the
management lines and works seven days a week.
R: Yeah?
I: I would say so, it is very little about what you return, or what you bring to the
job or what you do . . . we have a culture of . . . eh, mainstream that tells it
all, that’s it, we run into a culture where we don’t want to account for
responsibility, only ‘yes-men’, which is not very good for innovation.
(emphasis added)

Politics and the innovation game

In contrast to Technology Group A where innovation had stopped due to the
absence of its Hero, the end of my fieldwork found Group B going through
more transformations that influenced their innovation processes. The Business
Group continued its efforts to get projects funded by Eureka; however, some
‘inexplicable’ rejections of ideas had frustrated the few scientists who had
believed in the innovation move, and invested their time in developing pro-
posals. Whatever the reasons for rejecting the ideas might have been, the fact
remains that people had worked on these proposals in their own free time and
will to do research, and it was no surprise the degree of the dissatisfaction that
‘unreasonable’ rejections had caused. The following passage comes from an
engineer brought in recently from an Operation Unit, in order to give a ‘com-
mercial touch’ to innovative ideas; nonetheless, even him, he found it difficult
to understand what kind of innovation was expected by Hydro-Carbon Solu-
tions. The difference between ‘us and them’, the ‘business and the scientists’ is
clear here as well, and furthermore the scientific conviction that their definition
of innovation is the ‘right’ one:

maybe you’ll get a different answer if you talk to someone from the man-
agement, but in our team I think it’s the contrary, we are very frustrated
by the fact that a biodegradable, our best environmental, one of our
environmental friendly products didn’t make it to Eureka. OK we have the
energy efficiency funded, so unless . . . our environmentally friendly
product sits in the back, absolutely against the philosophy of innovation,
and we spent a hell of a lot of time trying to get into it, because it could
work, so the frustration as a result of that I think justifies that we have left
behind innovation. If we come up with an idea now, I think we would be
very, very reluctant to propose it to Eureka, even more to customer
organization who don’t know about innovation, awful in terms of innova-
tion, so . . . and probably I will not have any idea for the next year, when
all the deliverables will start to pop up, which is a shame really, but I will
see what happens.
(emphasis added)
162 Empirical
It would be easy to say that if one idea did not fit in the definition of innovation
of one funnel, then it could be forwarded to another more appropriate one;
however, definitions, regardless of how clearly expressed, are made out of words
that are interpreted each time they are uttered, depending on the actors’ particu-
lar interests and understandings. In practice, ideas may be killed because they fit
in more than one funnel, and ultimately none, since no group sees some imme-
diate benefit from funding it. It does not come as a revelation the fact that the
openness of Eureka rhetoric and the extreme willingness to fund interesting pro-
jects at any stage meets its limits in practice; the same interviewee explained:

well, it was not really innovative they [Eureka] said, it had to be funded,
they said, it had to be funded by the marketing group responsible for these
fluids, and the marketing group said ‘no, this is about environment, it’s
about hard science, we are not going to fund that’; but the marketing group
in the new organization will be the ONLY group responsible for funding.
So you see where I am coming from, and I don’t blame marketing. They
consider and they are judged upon their internal investment and the margins
they make their products. If I were them I wouldn’t fund an out of the box
idea. That’s common sense, and that’s gonna be the case next year, but that
was not the reason, according to Eureka it was not so much to do with
innovation as such, it was a product development, but the people who were
supposed to fund the product development, they said that ‘it has nothing to
do with our core business, as such, we like your idea, but present it to us
once it’s finished, but until that time, try to get your money from some-
where else’.

The passage made reference to the forthcoming commercial transformation. In

Chapter 5, I discussed the intentions of some Business Groups to take control
over the money of Eureka, which is meant for high-risk projects, and invest it in
product development, where they could see their business financial interests.
Now, with the new organizational structure, the Business Group would take
overall control of all innovation programmes and decide what would be worth
funding, and where to allocate its resources, according to their understanding of
innovation needs. This would have the following consequences on innovation:
first, Eureka would be disconnected from the new organization, hence non-core
projects would be excluded; and second, the projects would be assessed purely
on the basis of a rigid economic language and approved by the commercial line
manager, whose aim was clearly product development.

[T]he way I see it is that because now in 2004 the commercial manager will
be responsible for the budget. Again it comes down to an investment, to
pay-back times, etc. so even in the very beginning of an idea you have to
start to defend, or perhaps to justify or explain the benefits from this and in
the beginning, you know, it is the most weird, we have to invest an amount
of money, before we even know if we will get there in the end. So I see it as
 Commercial innovation management 163
a major change, it’s no longer ‘XY’, who has to decide or to justify a spe-
cific programme, it’s gonna be a commercial line manager.
(emphasis added)

The question that arises is not whether it is right or wrong for the Business
Groups to decide by themselves where to invest money and time, and whether
this is good or bad for innovation. Given the recent history of commercialization
in the corporation, the loss of innovations and the realization of the significance
to invest in longer-term uncertain projects, the question rather becomes why the
pendulum went back and more intensive commercialization was decided. It is
clear that the struggle over controlling financial resources takes priority over any
other rationality, and the evidence so far indicates that the rhetoric of innovation
cannot compete with this rationality, and thus, in practice remains a cost to be
eliminated and the first activity to stop, as it has been the case so far.

Conclusion
In this chapter I presented the implementation of the Ideas Machine in Techno-
logy Group B, and the attempts of this group to comply with the prescriptions
and reap the benefits of the discourse on innovation. The Innovation Manager of
Technology Group B borrowed the Ideas Machine – stripped away the ‘cultural
change’ rhetoric – and adapted it to his understanding of how an innovation
system should be, which recursively constructed his role as Innovation Manager.
Being less political or ambitious regarding his career development via innova-
tion, he acquired the role of the Innovation Assistant, who would be there to
advise the ideas generators about how to promote successfully their ideas in the
appropriate innovation funnel. The Ideas Machine lost its role as a symbol of the
new innovative era, and was reduced to an electronic log of ideas. The scientists
recognized Eureka as the main innovation funnel for the Business Group,
because that funnel was created in principle to develop the kind of projects that
matched with the scientists’ understanding of ‘real’ innovation, i.e. uncertain,
with high-risk and developed in a long time horizon – the kind of innovation that
had stopped together with the R&D function of the site, during the commercial-
ization process.
Eureka was developed on the principles of the ‘innovation as rational plan-
ning’ approach, which, in order to control the financial risks, asserts the evalu-
ation of an idea in terms of its financial benefits, in a defined timeline. There
emerged the incompatibility between the two: the presented evidence indicated
that the technologies of commercial rationality, i.e. the rules and procedures,
which were developed to control a commercial environment, are not adequate to
support long-term and risky innovation. Commerciality sets out to create a con-
trolled environment with clearly defined and therefore short-term objectives,
which are translated into numbers, the language that all ‘rational’ managers
should speak. This rationality creates an environment, where short-term thinking
and actions predominate, and plans for immediate profits are always preferred
164 Empirical
and promoted at the expense of the uncertain longer ones. In this environment,
long-term and risky innovation cannot thrive, for its nature is fundamentally dif-
ferent.
Innovation did not encounter difficulties only because of the properties of the
commerciality, but also because of people’s experiences and understandings of
the requirements of commercialization. Structures and rules can be bent, and
exist as rigid entities only when people perceive them as such; in other words,
people (both managers and staff) understood commercialization as a stressful
and tightly controlled process, where short-term commercial deliverables should
always take priority over longer-term projects. They went on to enact this
reality, without seeing, at least at that early stage while the rules of the commer-
cial game were being discovered, the alternative worlds. As one of the Eureka
members commented ‘yeah, you change reference indicators, you change
organizational structure, what is not changing is the world . . . the world people
invented . . . the shared.’
Nevertheless, both the Ideas Machine and Eureka tried to change this
invented world; they tried to show both the business and scientists that it is good
to do long-term research and that there were benefits for both sides from innova-
tion. Eureka was developed on a scientific articulation of innovation, hence
senior researchers with an interest in science saw in it the opportunity to work
on some interesting projects again. However, like the Ideas Machine, Eureka
failed, too, to provide a good enough motive for people to engage into the
innovation game, other than the individuals’ scientific interest. The ‘rationally
planned’ process of Eureka was enacted once the generator submitted an idea,
and did not address the issue of rewards – neither financial nor moral. It did not
include in the process design the earlier stage of incentivizing that is especially
significant in a financially driven environment, which is characterized by an
increasingly individualized workforce and where the ‘scientific ethos’ and
values do not provide a system of reference for the majority of employees any
longer.
Nevertheless, this should not lead one to think that innovation cannot exist in
a commercial environment, only that there are issues that are not addressed
either with the cultural or with the rational planning model. The difficulties that
the management of long-term and uncertain innovation in a commercial environ-
ment encountered, were rooted indeed in the incommensurability of their
assumptions, and at a first glance it may suggest that the commercial and inno-
vative processes cannot run in parallel. Essentially, it appears there is a need for
a dual structure, which would split the time and tasks of scientists into inno-
vative and commercial, and hence, innovation would find its place indepen-
dently from the commercial business, but still in a commercial environment.
8 Conclusion
The commercial condition of
knowledge

In the empirical chapters, I discussed the transformation of Oil Co. traditional

R&D laboratories into a commercial environment and the implications that this
move had on the site and employees’ identities, but more importantly on
people’s understanding of innovation. I presented evidence of changes in the
power relations that were being redefined in the new organizational order, where
the commercialization discourse and values overrode the previously dominant
scientific language game, resulting in a ‘commercial innovation’ discourse. In
this chapter, I elaborate further the findings of the empirical chapters, in the light
of the theoretical framework of power and innovation, and their significance for
organizations and for innovation. In particular, I discuss further the suggestion
that commercialism changed basic concepts of the traditional scientific language
game, i.e. knowledge, research and scientist; I explore in more detail the new
innovation language game, and discuss the implications it has on our under-
standing of knowledge and innovation, and the actions it shapes.

The rise of commercialization

In Chapter 2 I discussed the nature of knowledge, and the conditions and
processes that attributed knowledge a commercial value in post-industrial soci-
eties. There, I have claimed that the wedding of scientific knowledge with an
economic discourse, and the naturalization of the authority of managers to
decide on the elements that are wedded to the expanded economic discourse
have attributed all elements (included scientific progress), an economic charac-
ter. It is important to underscore this point: the economic discourse meets its
limits when embracing progress – for this move it needs elements of the scient-
ific discourse, which traditionally has been identified with progress – hence it re-
articulates its elements to include values of science in its web of relations. The
two, as I noted then, intermesh in a powerful discourse, where scientific progress
equals strictly economic progress – leaving abstract and cultural knowledge
beyond the common understanding.
In the empirical chapters we actually observe this wedding – i.e. the disloca-
tion of economic discourse and re-articulation of scientific elements – at the
organizational level this time, and in specific, while it invades a traditionally
166 Conclusion
scientific site. The data in Chapter 4 presented the dislocation of an economic
discourse, i.e. its failure to sustain the business of a technology-based company,
and the necessity to embrace innovation. I remind here, that until the mid 1990s
oil companies had considered R&D an expensive and redundant activity with no
strategic importance, and most of them had shut down their laboratories or at
least cut-down the funds for research activities. Nonetheless, the revival of
innovation discourse, which attributed knowledge a strategic importance for
business growth, has turned the R&D labs (and by this I refer to the knowledge
pool and skills) into a precious asset that could be further exploited commer-
cially. The revival of innovation has opened up new commercial opportunities
for oil companies, as much in terms of customers, as in terms of re-inventing
their identity from an (unpopular) Oil Company with no sustainable future, to a
much promising Energy Company, with many opportunities for growth. Table

Table 8.1 The sovereignty of economic rationale

Scientific discursive Commercial discursive

order order

Relation with the No autonomy; lose control Take decisions that the business
parent company approve; feel ‘trusted’ by the
business
Activity of Research and development Research and development and
Technology Groups technical services
Innovation Technology-driven Market-driven
Identity of business Oil company Energy company
Identity of R&D labs; research Global-based consultancy;
research site organization technical support organization
Structure and Clear hierarchy; work is Blurred hierarchy; virtual teams;
work design interdependent; members independent individual work;
share the same physical space customer-based relationships;
‘flexibility’; accountability for
time
Core skills Scientific rigour; analytic Communication and presentation
thinking; intellectual capacity abilities; managerial skills;
ability to deliver on time
The knowledge Scientists Extended intellectual assets:
worker scientists; lab technicians;
managers
Time horizon Long term Short term
Means Loosely defined programmes Control: measures and
deliverables
Results New knowledge; Cost control; growth
discontinuous innovations
 Conclusion 167
8.1 presents a number of changes, as identified during my fieldwork at Hydro-
Carbon Solutions.
The invasion of commercialism into the scientific site becomes possible via
the re-articulation of its web of relations, and a number of structural and cultural
changes. The latest management trends advocate the importance of flexibility,
teamwork, trust, collaboration and even conflict (Gibbons et al., 1994; Oliver,
2001; Adler, 2001), which supposedly would support organizational knowledge
and innovation. Here we observe that the scientific order is structure-wise
defined by a rigid organizational hierarchy, where relations among staff, depart-
ments and units are relations of high interdependency. This well-structured
environment allows the scientists to cope with the uncertainty that characterizes
long-term scientific projects. However, this environment in a business language
is translated into a lack of measurable processes and immediate results. Prob-
ably, the most problematic concept of the scientific order for commerciality is
the concept of time, which is perceived as a loosely defined long-term horizon,
and thus reinforces the impossibility of controlling, measuring and ultimately
delivering to customers. Clearly, the scientific discursive order is imbued with
the values of knowledge, which set the ground for radical technological innova-
tion; however, these practices hold ‘uncertainty’ as a core assumption. In con-
trast, the commerciality discourse lacks any substantial reference to core
scientific elements, at least to those which directly collide with ‘control’ and
‘cost-efficiency’. Interestingly, commerciality, due to its focus on control and
measurable results is being perceived as a ‘fair’ and ‘safe’ environment – despite
its war language!
A number of discursive and actual strategies have been employed to this end,
i.e. to merge the two discourses in one ‘commercial innovation’ discourse,
which would engage both the business and scientists, and naturalize the com-
mercial order. Table 8.2 picks out these invading strategies, as well as the strat-
egies of resistance that were employed as response, since such radical changes
would not go through uncontested.

Discursive strategies for change

The ‘invasion’ of commercialism could not have been actualized, but by appeal
to a set of discursive weapons for ‘conquering’ the research site. Consistent with
the business language of war games,1 the formal organization discourse repre-
sents the turn to commercialization as a question of survival, and as the only
viable option. The change is represented as imposed upon the business by a
highly competitive external environment, leaving no other option, nor room for
discussions and negotiations, since as stated, the business follows the demands
of the external environment. This discursive strategy, i.e. the construction of
commercialization as the only logical way, is supported by a set of rhetorical
devices, which identify change with progress, and hence no new member of the
organization would like to be stigmatized as conservative and slow-moving;
people that do not take quick decisions nor adapt fast in changes cannot support
Table 8.2 Strategies of invasion and resistance

Strategies of Examples Strategies of resistance Examples

commercialization

War language Sustainability = survival Mockery of new articulations and practices ‘this is silly really’
Appeal to scientific authority ‘it is somehow corrupted
already’
Reveal politics
Rhetorical devices to Change = progress and prosperity Acknowledge necessity for commerciality ‘we also saw it was the only
naturalize change way to go’
‘A process of natural selection
would be healthy’
Use of values of the Teamwork, collaboration, partnership Question contested concepts; defend older ‘I am not sure this is
scientific discourse articulations teamwork’

Use arguments of the new commercial order ‘no time’

Preemptive attack to ‘too old to change’ Cynically accept attack ‘I guess I am too old to
resistance change’
Replace old scientists Old scientists leave the site
with new staff
Commercial career Not participate in the new innovation
opportunities for language game
scientists
 Conclusion 169
a dynamic organization in a fast-moving and unpredictable commercial environ-
ment. Hence, ‘commercialization is the only way to go’. This language move
has been successful, since no scientist doubted the necessity for change. What is
surprising though, is the logical contradiction, in that the use of a war language,
which is in principle loaded with uncertainty, achieves to link commerciality
with job security!
Innovation starts acquiring a place in this commercial discourse; however it
does not escape the war language: ‘either you innovate or you die’; innovation
again, similarly to commercialization is represented as the only way to go, and
as a question of survival. Hence, the new discursive hybrid of ‘commercial
innovation’ starts developing, which allegedly places innovation at the centre of
practices. Furthermore, the new commercial discourse re-articulates its web of
relations, by including a set of values and practices dominant in the scientific
order, e.g. ‘teamwork’, ‘collaboration’. However, their significance now
changes; as discussed, ‘teamwork’ now means involvement in more and bigger
projects, where the face-to-face interaction and the degree of dependence of the
various parts of the work is reduced, as opposed to the highly interdependent
and interpersonal nature of work in the scientific culture. Nevertheless, by
including ‘elements’ of the scientific discourse, commercialization discourse
neutralized the force of changes.
Finally, in any war game, strategists should be able to anticipate the enemies’
moves; here, the response of those who would not eagerly comply with the
changes, has been predicted and attacked. Change is constructed as synonymous to
progress and prosperity; those who fail to see benefits of this are conservative and
‘too old to change’. Much popular literature on change management has con-
tributed to naturalize the rationality of this argument, since the fear of change and
the age factor have widely been identified with the most common hurdles to
change management, offering this way a ‘convenient truth’. Certainly age and fear
of change may be factors of resistance; however, this view denies the intellectual
capacity of actors to judge for themselves the benefits of a change, and decide on
their personal interests. In other words it ignores the political dimension of change.

New structure and practices

Apart from the discursive strategies employed to support the new commercial
‘reality’, a number of structural changes were initiated as part of the same trans-
formational move. The commercial discourse has drawn the attention to key
managerial concepts of control (i.e. measuring, filing and justifying activities)
and flexibility, which are indeed very powerful. Their domination has triggered
a series of changes, such as the redesigning of teamwork, which had unantici-
pated consequences upon collaboration and knowledge sharing; collegial rela-
tionships have now turned into customer relationships, and knowledge sharing is
progressively dominated by electronic filing. These effects actually mean that
knowledge processes are losing their discursive dimension; hence knowledge is
limited to only what can be codified and measured.
170 Conclusion
In a research structure, work relationships are formally defined and most
often represented as a rigid hierarchy; interpersonal interactions are formed on
the basis of whether one is an ‘equal’ (a scientist), or an ‘outsider’ (assistant,
administrative staff, etc.). As expected, the scientists’ community lies in the
middle and enjoys a high status; relationships among ‘equals’ can be informal,
and based on collaboration. Other groups are determined by reference to the
relations with the scientific group, and hence their position in the structure and
their status is strictly determined. On the other hand, commerciality pursues the
ideal of a flat and hence more flexible structure (the two are always wedded
together). However, the flexible structure combined with the ‘globalized activ-
ities’ and the need for control does not necessarily create intensive face-to-face
interactions. My fieldwork suggests that the pursuit of control can instead create
a thorough bureaucratic mechanism for reporting, justifying and storing
information, which contradicts flexibility. The consequences – for the scientists’
dissatisfaction – are: (a) the increasing paperwork, which becomes a part of the
scientist’s daily tasks, (b) the empowerment of the administration unit, since
administration becomes a key activity and (c) the weakening of the personal
interactions for routine tasks, as most of the communication now takes place via
formal procedures and e-mails. The weakening of personal interactions, together
with the transformation of teamwork design, eliminates the opportunities for
developing informal relations within and across the business units, and corrupts
the essence of collaboration and, ultimately, knowledge creation and sharing.
Commerciality adopts two more practices, which act as strategies of dominat-
ing the site, and have similar negative consequences for the knowledge base of a
research site: (a) the exit of old scientists and (b) new career opportunities
opened to all the staff members. The first one was a strategic move, intended to
minimize the resistance of the old scientists, who were feeling the loss of their
privileges in the new order; scientists who did not want to comply with the new
commercial direction had the opportunity to get an early retirement and leave
the site. Those who stay, tacitly agree to play along the commercial game. The
second practice is not intentional; however, it results in the corrosion of the
scientific population. All members of the corporation can pursue their own
career objectives, and apply for jobs that they found interesting, even in different
fields. Young scientists, after experiencing the loss of their scientific status, have
the opportunity to apply for more prestigious positions in marketing and sales.
However, this practice affects the knowledge base, and makes very hard the
planning of skill needs, as much as the investment in training new recruits.

Time
The rationale of commerciality imposes its own concept of time in the new
order: in a research site, projects are developed slowly and deadlines are hardly
a factor to be seriously concerned; research is by nature highly uncertain and
unpredictable regarding results, hence projects roll from one year to the next,
without this affecting the relationship between scientists and sponsors. The
 Conclusion 171
funding for the projects is secured regardless of the research outcomes, and sci-
entists can decide upon the time they need to spend on a project, without having
to justify this decision to the business. The new commercial environment brings
a radical change in that respect. Time is not an inexhaustible resource any more,
neither a necessary dimension for a piece of research to show results. Time does
not work on scientists’ side any longer and does not unfold together with the
development of projects; on the opposite, time counts-down for the research
staff, who now have to compete against it to meet the deliverables and the dead-
lines imposed by their customers, who expect the results of the projects in a
defined time.
The time perspective changes from long to short term and time is split in
short periods, which can be more easily controlled and managed.2 Time becomes
a valuable resource closely associated with the costs and profits of each Business
Group – a resource that cannot be wasted and against which all activities are
measured being given the relevant ‘activity number’. The consequence of this
change in time perspective for the organization is that it creates a ‘stressed’
culture, where increasingly people are willing to do only what is directly rele-
vant to their projects or at most what they can justify with an activity number.
This affects the professional interactions and knowledge-sharing between scien-
tists, who now are eagerly assisting colleagues only when they can justify their
time spent on it, turning in this way professional relationships to ‘customer-
based’ relationships. This change has more severe implications for innovation,
since the short-term time perception on site leads to treating with suspicion ideas
and projects that require a longer time horizon.

Strategies of resistance
No change, especially such a radical change, which affects the order of a site,
would occur uncontested. While the commercial innovation discourse was
invading the research site, the scientists felt that they were losing their status and
privileges they had (in particular, the most important privilege, i.e. to do blue-
sky research), and hence fought back. However, it needs be clear that not all sci-
entists joined the ‘resistance’: some were too afraid to react, some identified
their career ambitions with the current development. Some – especially senior
scientists, which were considered world experts in their fields – felt that their
careers were already well established, hence they could resist changes.
A range of discursive and actual strategies is employed to this end. First, the
necessity of commercialization is not doubted: it is clear that struggles will not
take place in the field of commerciality, since here scientists would soon be left
short of arguments; their intention is not to tell the business how to manage a
commercial organization, but how to manage innovation, because this is the sci-
entists’ field. Innovation is a concept overdetermined by scientists, lab assistants
and managers, who all from their side put fiercely forward a different meaning
of it. Consequently, it soon becomes a contested by many discourses concept,
i.e. an empty signifier that means at the same time too many things, but nothing
172 Conclusion
specific. In other words ‘innovation’ provides the arena where various interest
groups would collide in order to determine what it really means, and hence the
appropriate actions they should undertake to support it. Scientists set out to
impose their own understanding, because this would determine the actual direc-
tion a ‘research-based commercial organization’ should take. The discursive
strategies they use include a range of direct attacks to the new articulations and
practices: mockery and jokes, which play a symbolic unifying role for scientists,
and also more constructively questioning of the new articulations and practices,
by exposing their inadequacy and shortcomings. Scientists appeal to their exper-
tise and authority in the research language game for legitimizing their direct dis-
cursive attacks. However, the most unexpected and admittedly efficient strategy
is the use of arguments, which derive from the commercial discourse, and in
practice they collide with the pursuit of new ideas and innovation. The argument
‘no time’ has been discussed in Chapter 6, where I showed how scientists
abstained from the new innovation language game, by just doing their everyday
job! Finally, a last strategy employed by old scientists is their complete negation
of the new commercial order, exhibited through leaving the site.
Despite the gaining momentum of innovation discourse, the fact that leading
world experts have left the organization or snub the new innovation language
game did not seem to concern seriously the Business Groups. ‘Innovation’ was
at the time of my fieldwork still a blurred concept and a contested by different
interest groups discourse, hence the significance of this loss had not been real-
ized and assessed yet.

The pragmatics of commercial knowledge

In Chapter 4, I presented the transformation in the scientific language game, as
put forward by the commercialization process. I claimed that innovation has
become an empty signifier, i.e. a vaguely defined element, which means nothing
in particular. The commercial discourse attempted to unify all staff members of
the research site around this nodal point, and to achieve their support; innovation
has been historically accepted in such a site, hence, commerciality should fairly
easily dominate, once included innovation in its web of relations. Nevertheless,
once innovation is being articulated in a commercial web of relations, then its
meaning changes, as well as the practices it supports and the identities of those
involved in the research activities. Table 8.3 presents the main changes that
occur in the scientific language game, when knowledge is being articulated
within a commercial discourse.
In Chapter 2, I discussed the transformations that the commercialization of
knowledge produces upon structures, processes and subjects. I claimed that by
turning knowledge into a commodity, i.e. an object that can be traded, its nature
changes, as well as the infrastructures that support its production and legitimiza-
tion (Gibbons et al., 1994; Lyotard, 1984). Table 8.3 elucidates further the argu-
ments raised back then, by throwing light into the specific changes that occur in
the nature of knowledge once it turns into a commercial object.
 Conclusion 173
Table 8.3 Re-articulation of the research language game

Scientific research Commercial research

language game language game

Knowledge Ideal; increases through sharing Commodity; loses its value

through sharing
Innovation Long term, technological Short-term applications; simple
little ideas
Research An open and collaborative activity An undisclosed and controlled
activity
R&D activities Research aiming to new knowledge Development aiming to
application of what is already
known
Time Inexhaustible resource; long Scarce resource; tightly
time horizon controlled and measured
Scientist Researcher Project manager; sales person
Research skills Scientific rigour; analytic thinking Communication and
presentation skills

In the scientific language game, knowledge is an ideal, the end of research

activities. A peculiar feature of knowledge articulated within the scientific lan-
guage game is that it is a valuable resource that increases through use and
sharing – this is in itself exceptional for an object, i.e. a material resource. Based
on this key feature, a number of practices have been developed (publications,
conferences, ICT tools, etc.), which would ensure the unimpeded knowledge
sharing. The significance of communication and collaboration found well their
place within this discourse. However, once knowledge becomes a commercial
object, i.e. an object with a price and a buyer, then its value decreases through
sharing – hence it needs be protected. To this end, corporations adopt an aggres-
sive attitude towards the protection of innovations, which is reflected on the
‘intellectual property’ policies they implement.
More importantly, the rules of knowledge sharing are changing; whereas in a
scientific site knowledge is freely shared among research groups and with the
wider scientific community, commercial knowledge is being constrained within
the boundaries of each research group, and by the requirements of each cus-
tomer. There emerges the paradox, where the knowledge generator does not own
and cannot use this knowledge further, since knowledge is a commercial object
that has been bought by a customer. Knowledge sharing is strongly encouraged
and to some extent required by the corporation; however, due to the increasing
importance of ‘time’, which turns into a valuable resource, face-to-face know-
ledge sharing is regulated by ‘activity numbers’, which turn the existing colle-
gial relationships to customer-based relationships. Knowledge management
technologies come to replace face-to-face communication with electronic filing
174 Conclusion
and distribution of reports. The practice of electronic reports, which are selec-
tively distributed, gradually comes to replace the production of scientific papers.
For a commercial research site – as opposed to a ‘university site’ – conferences
are not the place where scientists share their knowledge any longer, but the
‘marketplace’, where they make commercial contacts.
In the commercial language game R&D activities change nature and objectives.
In a scientific research site, research aims to the production of new knowledge,
and innovation means long-term and technological programmes; in other words,
the weight is on research and the science behind it. Research is conducted with
unspecified ends and uncertain business applications. Scientists enjoy the privilege
to engage in research of an academic nature, without tight control from the busi-
ness. However, the loose connection between research of this type and business
interests had been criticized for the small number of commercial innovations that
it produces, and hence this research structure had to change. In a commercial site
the weight is on development3 rather than research; development does not mean
applied research, since the element of new knowledge is minimized and replaced
with the application of what is already known. Innovation in this context means
short-term applications, and simple little ideas, of which the production costs and
market value can be measured. The consequence of this transformation is that the
pace of knowledge production, together with the number of radical innovations
(the kind of innovation that would give the competitive advantage to the organi-
zation) decreases. Long-term research does not comfortably fit in the new research
structure, and even though its necessity is acknowledged, its problematic nature in
terms of controlling and measuring deliverables creates a grey zone, into which
business people do not want to go. This grey zone of innovation starts attracting
the attention of various groups, which see the opportunity for group and personal
gains from controlling it.
The scientist’s role is transformed in the commercial order, to the scientists’
frustration. In the scientific research language game, scientists enjoy the privil-
ege of conducting blue-sky research without being subject to tight control from
the business side. Innovation has been articulated within a language game that
the business people did not understand and hence could not control. In Chapter
2, I discussed the question of the research community losing its elitist status, and
hence scientists turn into ‘knowledge workers’, once the boundaries of the
research community are disclosed after collaborating with the business world,
and the corporations increasingly decide upon the direction of research. Here I
shall add that the scientists’ identity changes not only because scientists lose
their autonomy to decide upon what valuable knowledge is, but also because the
nature of research tasks changes as well. Since the research process does not aim
to new knowledge, but to the application of what is already known, then a
scientist does not need to do research any longer, but to apply what is known to
new application; hence, a scientist becomes a project manager, with a range of
administrative tasks, or sales people who ‘go out to find customers’ capitalizing
on their scientific expertise. As expected, the production of commercial know-
ledge needs a set of different skills, since scientific rigour and analytic thinking
 Conclusion 175
add no value any longer. The commercial knowledge requires ‘presentation’ and
‘communication’ skills, i.e. skills that can secure new customers and funding
from the business.
At the same time, the boundaries of the ‘research’ community open up to
include lab technicians as well; since the complexity of research projects in the
commercial research language game decreases (as the aim of the activities is
development rather than research), lab technicians now have the opportunity to run
their own small projects. The disclosure of the boundaries can be interpreted as a
move towards democratization; the secluded scientific community, which has the
prerogative to decide upon knowledge breaks down, and more occupational
groups, which in the past have been engaged in the periphery of research without
having the academic qualifications to assert membership in the research commun-
ity, now acquire the identity of knowledge worker. From this perspective, it could
be argued that the commercial site is a democratized site, since elite groups break
down, and more people have the opportunity to undertake better-rewarded activ-
ities. On the other hand, there is no evidence to suggest that democratization has
been in the corporate agenda, but rather the increase of the knowledge resources
and capital. Once the elite group of scientists gets eroded, then another group
appears, which acquires its power; this group is not the lab technicians, but the
market sector, which increasingly participates in the legitimization of knowledge.
Finally, the transformation of the rules of the scientific language game, and in
particular the expansion of its boundaries, to include those who have an under-
standing of science without having the academic qualifications, raises the question
of legitimization of knowledge. I discussed in Chapter 2, how in the traditional
scientific language game, the truth-value of a scientific statement is established by
the agreement of the scientific community. Science has been a self-regulated lan-
guage game, wherein those who produce knowledge are responsible for the legit-
imization of their claims, which actually occurs via the production of a second
statement of the same order. However, in the commercial innovation language
game, the truth-value is not the most important criterion for legitimizing know-
ledge, but rather the correspondence to the market needs, i.e. its commercial value.
The scientists, who generate the idea, cannot establish the commercial value of
knowledge; this is undertaken by the market sector, which operates in the interface
with the customers. This means that the legitimization of commercial knowledge
leaves the boundaries of the scientific community and appeals to an external
mechanism of regulation. However, the market community is increasingly treated
with mistrust by the wider society, in terms of the genuineness of the intentions
and the practices they apply. The commercial value by no means represents the
social value of knowledge, and the interests of the stakeholders.

Power and politics in innovation management

I claimed in Chapter 4 that the grand discourse on knowledge has changed the
route of commercialization for oil companies and their understanding of innova-
tion and innovation needs. Societal pressures from customers, competitors,
176 Conclusion
governments, NGOs, social groups and local communities for socially and envi-
ronmentally responsible behaviour, together with the fact that oil is a scarce
resource, point out the need for distinct innovative and sustainable solutions.
The re-articulation of energy needs by various stakeholders led to a reconceptu-
alization of the role oil companies – and in specific their R&D infrastructures –
could play in this new discourse: they see the opportunity to transform from a
twilight Oil Company with limited possibilities for innovation, to an innovative
Energy Company, which needs groundbreaking research programmes to develop
in the new field of operations. This identity transformation promises the sustain-
ability of the company in the future, since opportunities for expanding in new
business areas emerge. Innovation, not as short-term product development,
determined within a rigid commercial discourse, but as long-term and uncertain
research projects, regains attention and ‘energy’ companies set out to support it
by devising a number of innovation funnels and funds.
The acquisition of the new identity could have not been accomplished, had
the discourse of commerciality not re-articulated innovation as a ‘strategic com-
petence’ in its web of relations. This is the moment of ‘dislocation’, i.e. when
‘commerciality’ cannot domesticate ‘innovation’ as prescribed by stakeholders,
and breaks down. At this moment, innovation becomes an empty signifier, i.e. a
vague concept with no specific meaning, articulated by many discourses, and
provides the arena for contestation by antagonistic groups. Chapter 6 demonstra-
ted how scientists, business people, managers and lab technicians seize the
opportunity to articulate what innovation means – and hence shape the relevant
practices. Table 8.4 presents four discourses on innovation in a technology
company, as identified during the fieldwork at Oil Co.
In Chapter 3, I discussed the theoretical background of the first discourse on
‘innovation as rational planning’ (Drucker, 1985; Trott, 1998). There I claimed
that it has been developed on the grounds of a pure economic rationale and from
this perspective innovation is a cost that has to be controlled. The risk-averted
nature of this rationale does not support long-term projects, and it is appropriate
only for short projects, new product development and knowledge applications.
The failure of the business discourse to meet the requirements for innovation as
prescribed by the new company identity soon becomes evident: the business
rationale can suggest managerial tools for integrating innovation in its strategy,
such as innovation in scorecards, in Personal Performance Contracts, etc., and
set up Innovation Panels, where members of the business and the market sector
participate to assess the commercial potential of ideas. These tools and practices
have a symbolic role in that they link innovation with the business, turning it
visible as much to the staff, as to the external environment. In other words, they
make a statement of the strategic importance of innovation, and attempt to create
an order where research activities meet. Furthermore, they aim to the standard-
ization of practices and, progressively of homogenization of behaviour, by
achieving consensus over practices, which are perceived as part of the natural
order. However, this discourse can provide no conceptual framework for it,
and hence cannot drive research activities forward. Lastly, it results to the
Table 8.4 Competing discourses of innovation
Innovation as rational
planning1
Type Commercializable ideas
Objectives Improved and/or new products
Assumptions Innovation process as a thing
to use when needed;
innovation as a cost
Key concepts ‘Safe’ risk
Rhetoric Commercial innovation as
competitive advantage
Practices and tools Funds, Innovation
Management Groups,
innovation in scorecards and
in Personal Performance
Contract
Responsibility Scientists
Unanticipated Eradication of managerial
consequences responsibility; lack of
strategic framework
Note
1 Evidence for this discourse has been gathered through the examination of organizational documents, which exhibit the company’s arguments, and the interviewees’
counterarguments. Nonetheless, I stress the need for a more thorough understanding of the discourse by talking directly with the business people.
Long-term commercial
innovation
Small technological ideas
New products
Innovation as measurable
economic element;
innovation as a cost
Collaboration between
business and scientists
Innovation strategic
framework; problem
solving for customers
Funds, funnel, panel,
business case, database,
networks and alliances
Business, market sector
and scientists
Collision of mindsets; lack
of shared understanding
Innovation as culture
Small, technological,
administrative, operational,
etc. ideas
Improved business
performance
Innovativeness as a
personality trait;
innovation as an asset
Cultural change
All-embracing; big and
small ideas (instead of
good and bad)
Funds, conferences,
database, Innovation
Hero and Team,
Innovation Chats
All staff
A sense of democratization
of workplace
Scientific technological
innovation
Radical technological ideas
Contribution to knowledge;
groundbreaking innovations
Innovation as a scientific
community trait; innovation as
an asset
Uncertainty; knowledge
sharing between scientists
Curiosity oriented; Blue-sky
research
Funds, conferences,
collaborations, publications
Scientists
A secluded culture –’Ivory
Tower’
178 Conclusion
eradication of responsibility from the business side, where innovation is
someone else’s job. In order to fill in the gap that the absence of the senior man-
agement involvement in the innovation processes creates, Innovation Manage-
ment Groups are set up to monitor the system. I discussed above how the
‘commercial innovation’ emerges, when the business rationale fails to explain
innovation phenomena and support actions.
The ‘commercial technological innovation’ discourse is grounded too on the
assumptions of ‘rational planning’, and attempts to wed commercialism and
technological innovation in a single discourse; in other words it attempts to keep
in-line with the managerialist/economic rationale, while supporting long-term
technological projects. It is constructed in order to overcome the ‘perceived
weaknesses’ of the short-term commercial innovation discourse, which fails to
engage the scientists, by creating a shared discursive order. This discourse is
intended to give research a strategic focus, and pursues the collaboration of the
two sides (i.e. business/market and scientists), hence progressively they accept it
as the natural order.
Nonetheless, the risk-averted nature of the economic rationale is evident here
as well, and, even though the objective is to support technological ideas, only
‘safe’ ideas that can demonstrate economic returns, can really be produced. This
discourse achieves to break the short-term time horizon, but not the risk-
aversion attitude. Hence, the outcomes of this innovation process are small
technological innovations, which can be measured and controlled throughout.
As the relevant literature prescribes, the tools and practices aim to control the
innovation process, by splitting it into measurable stages, which are assessed by
a panel. It is worth questioning then the concept of ‘collaboration’ it uses, and
the role of the two parties in it: from one side the scientists are supposed to
suggest technological ideas, following the standards set by the business side, and
on the other the business assesses these ideas for their economic (not their
technological) value. In other words, the scientists have to learn and speak the
economic language and translate their ideas into it, whereas the panel makes a
decision on the grounds of how well they play the economic language game.
This type of collaboration soon becomes an arena for contestation, since in prin-
ciple it is asymmetrical: it expects the one side to adapt according to rules set by
the other, especially in a language game, where traditionally science – not com-
mercialism – has been the hegemonic discourse. The process is subject to criti-
cism regarding its transparency, since the rules according to which ideas are
evaluated are not ‘clear’ to the scientists, for they are developed within another
language. Scientists have the right to choose not to participate in the process,
since their interests are not represented in it. It is raised then the question of who
should govern the process, since this group ultimately decides about the value of
knowledge that is produced.
The third discourse offers a very broad conceptualization of innovation, since
it includes everything (small and big ideas, administrative, operational, techno-
logical, etc.). It develops on the rationale of ‘innovation as culture’ (Kanter,
1988; Quinn, 1985), which argues for an organic view of innovation manage-
 Conclusion 179
ment: innovative ideas will flourish, when the environment allows it. It assumes
that innovation cannot be managed directly, like the innovation as rational plan-
ning assumes, but it can be supported by the ‘right’ stimulating environment.
The tools and practices that are used aim to support the communication among
individuals, and acknowledge the central role of narrative knowledge in the
innovation process. The rhetoric insists that there are no right and wrong ideas,
only big and small, and hence, innovation is everybody’s responsibility, and not
only the scientists’. In other words, it opens up the concept of innovation, which
has been articulated within a scientific discourse, and returns it to all the staff.
The objective of this all-embracing discourse is not only to result in more
competitive products, but foremost to enhance overall business performance,
making each department contribute with ideas.
The politics in this discourse are inherent, because individual competences
are part of its core assumptions. It assumes that innovation depends on person-
ality traits, and that innovation management needs a ‘hero’ to support the
process. I should underscore that innovativeness here is not associated with the
ability of people to generate ideas, but with their political skills, i.e. their ability
to distinguish good ideas, and pull the strings to support their materialization. In
other words, it anticipates a specific influential role for certain individuals, who
are perceived as having the gift of innovativeness. As expected, these indi-
viduals enjoy a higher status in this order, which is not necessarily well per-
ceived by those, who disagree with this view on innovation. However, this
all-embracing discourse on innovation resulted in attributing a sense of
‘democratization’ in the workplace, since the hegemonic scientific discourse,
which had determined the operations of a research site so far breaks down, and
innovation becomes a task for all the staff.
Finally, the last discourse on scientific technological innovation is built on
the grounds of knowledge, and pursues groundbreaking innovations and expan-
sion of the body of knowledge. Innovativeness here is associated with the intel-
lectual abilities and analytical skills of each scientist, but also with the scientific
community as well, since it recognizes that no one can generate ideas in a
vacuum. Hence, collaboration and knowledge sharing is part of the order, and
the tools and practices in place aim to encourage them. Nonetheless, collabora-
tion and sharing of knowledge is encouraged only ‘among equals’, i.e. scientists
who participate in this language game, and they are responsible by training for
innovation. In other words, it creates a small academic world within the bigger
corporate world; a small, secluded culture, which traditionally has been gov-
erned by values much different from the ones of the business, i.e. by scientific
values.
Science has been the hegemonic discourse in research sites, before the ‘inva-
sion’ of commercialism. It had created an elite group, i.e. scientists with high
academic qualifications, while it excluded those who did not qualify to particip-
ate in the research language game, and who were allocated support activities.
When the powerful commercialism invades the research site, and it is powerful,
because economic rationale is accepted as the adequate order to run a business
180 Conclusion
(and expands into other parts of life), the hegemony of scientists is attacked. A
pure scientific discourse cannot meet the requirements of the market, which are
widely accepted as primary imperatives. Nonetheless, the commercial discourse
fails to accommodate and explain technological phenomena and innovation.
Hence, the commercial innovation emerges, as a response to this failure, i.e. a
discourse that tries to merge the two, by keeping the economic rationale and
usurping the rhetoric of science.
The theory of social antagonisms argues that when a hegemonic discourse is
dislocated, the excluded groups are unified around a ‘nodal point’, despite their
political differences. The transformation of R&D laboratories into commercial
organizations, essentially implies the collision of the two discourses: the scient-
ific and the commercial. Innovation becomes a nodal point, and unifies all
‘excluded’ groups against the scientific hegemony. At the same time, during this
collision many discourses emerge, which provide alternative conceptualizations
of innovation in a commercial organization. The question that they all try to
answer is ‘how to manage innovation’. Nonetheless, what they actually do, is
that they provide the employees with sets of arguments and perspectives that
they can use, until one becomes the hegemonic one. Meanwhile, employees can
use arguments that derive legitimization from either discourse, in order to serve
their own personal or group interests.

Commercial innovation: a powerful discourse?

The discussion so far suggested that the scientific ethos of the research commun-
ity, characterized by intellectual curiosity and analytical thinking, which
traditionally guided science, does not comfortably fit in the commercial order,
for the two are grounded on different values and construct contradicting ratio-
nalities. The emergence of the discourse on commercial innovation tried to wed
the two into one unifying order; nonetheless it has not achieved yet to address all
the challenges that this merger creates, and more importantly to explain satisfac-
torily all the events that are now observed. The technologies that the commercial
rationale suggests, its rules and procedures, are based on the assumption of cost
control and risk aversion, which are fundamentally in opposition with the long-
term and uncertain character of technological innovation. In this environment,
short-term and safe innovations will always be preferred over the radical and
risky ideas. It would also be a mistake to think that this can be resolved by trans-
lating long-term programmes into the economic language, since the value of
uncertain technological results cannot simply be pinned down with an economic
value.
Nonetheless, the evidence presented the scientists’ efforts to speak the eco-
nomic language. This resulted in the attribution of a dual identity – a manager
and a scientist – which also requires a different set of skills in order for one to
perform well, i.e. a combination of scientific rigour and managerial abilities.
This necessary duality is not perceived yet as a necessity, but as a choice. Those
who can excel in science stay in research roles, where they have the opportunity
 Conclusion 181
to work on projects, whereas those who have the commercial and managerial
skills move to other positions, which promise well-paid career development.
Two critical questions emerge here: first, whether this mix of skills is serving in
principle the purposes of innovation, and second, whether this is feasible in
practice, and if yes how it can best be supported. I shall argue here against its
necessity, on the grounds of the benefits expertise returns, as much for the indi-
vidual, i.e. in terms of job satisfaction, as for the organization in terms of the
quality of work that is being produced. The evidence suggests that this duality
may result to a leak of knowledge, since more and more trained scientists pursue
a commercial job, with better remunerations. Some may consider this practice a
channel to transfer knowledge and create progressively a shared understanding
and language. However, activity theory (Engestrom, 1987; Blackler, 1993,
1995) suggests that people’s understanding is developed by their object of activ-
ity. Hence, scientists in commercial positions will soon start to think and act like
their new tasks prescribe.
A second, and more severe duality is encountered in the organization of
tasks: in a commercial environment, activities are organized with no slack in
time, whereas time has to be accounted for, with reference to the activities where
it is spent. On the other hand, innovation needs time, not only for the material-
ization of an idea, but even before that, for the generation of it. In other words,
innovation needs a slack in time. The contradiction between the commercial and
scientific environment is obvious. Innovation cannot thrive in a commercial
environment, where time accountability and control dictates the prioritization of
activities, and essentially the work design. In this environment, commercial
activities, due to their short-term nature will always be a priority, and radical
innovation will be a secondary activity, and will rely on scientists’ personal
interests and free time. The inclusion of innovation in the Personal Performance
Contract, and the innovation funds is not a sufficient incentive to engage scien-
tists. The actualization of commercial innovation necessitates a work design,
which would allow scientists the time to think about science. In other words, it
appears the necessity for a double structure, which would split the time and tasks
of scientists into innovative and commercial, and hence, innovation would find
its place independently from the commercial business, but still in a commercial
environment.
Finally, I pointed out throughout the discussion of theories and practices of
innovation management, the importance ‘commercial innovation’ attributes in
the collaboration between the business and scientists. Essentially ‘collaboration’
in all stages of an innovation process aims to bring the scientists closer to the
market needs, and establish a commercial value for the new ideas. I have
explained how this model expects the scientists to learn the economic language
– and not the other way round. The decision for the progression of the idea
through the innovation funnel is left on an Innovation Panel, which is competent
to assess the commercial value of an idea, without understanding the techno-
logical implications of it. The problem that this model presents us with, is that
the legitimization of the value of an idea leaves the boundaries of the scientific
182 Conclusion
community, as well as the decision of what kind of knowledge we need to
produce. These decisions are taken up by the business side, and do not necessar-
ily represent the social interests and needs – and certainly not the interests of
science. From an organizational perspective, this model may lead to knowledge
holes, when science in the field would have progressed enough, however, the
corporate scientists did not have the opportunity to keep up-to-date and con-
tribute in the process. It is essential, then, for the benefit of the organization, to
open up the decision-making process and involve the scientists in it, in order to
balance the commercial and technological interests of innovation management.
In Chapter 2, I discussed the Mode B production of knowledge (Gibbons et
al., 1994), which asserts the transdisciplinary character and collaborative nature
that science acquires today. A network of multiple actors (universities, corpora-
tions, private and public R&D laboratories, the state, etc.) is partaking in the
production of knowledge, which moves back and forth between fundamental
and applied research. The purpose of these alliances is the optimum use of
knowledge resources and research infrastructures, in order to serve the society.
This model poses the question: who should be charged with the responsibility
for the governance of truth, i.e. who is to decide what knowledge should be pro-
duced?
An overview of the alliances that are created highlights the increasingly influ-
ential role corporations play in Mode B, because of the abundant funds they can
contribute. However, my discussion of their role indicates that their empower-
ment may put at stake the epistemological status of knowledge and the social
interests it serves. It becomes a pressing need, then, that after these changes in
the scientific language game, we need to redefine the role of each participant
organization, and establish an independent governance mechanism to secure the
transparent and ethical conduct of science.
Appendix
Sources of information

Documentary data
In this study, I used the following sources of documentary data:

• Oil Co. and Hydro-Carbon Solutions’ websites in intranet and internet;

• the Company’s Newsletter;
• annual reports;
• e-mail communication (messages exchanged regarding the Ideas Machine,
and also information regarding everyday life, events and important notices
to the employees of the groups under study);
• presentations on the innovation system and the Ideas Machine (for internal
purposes and for clients);
• previous research and reports on the Ideas Machine and on work-life
balance.

The reports from previous research conducted by students were examined only
in terms of the historical information they were providing; even though the
reports were approved by Hydro-Carbon Solutions, the authors (who I met per-
sonally in both cases) insisted that the reports were representing their own view-
points regarding the company, and by no means a formal position.

Participant observation
While in the field, I had the opportunity to observe the following events:

• Technology Group A Group monthly meeting;

• Ideas Machine monthly review;
• ‘Innovation Workshop Presentation’ for clients;
• many hours of informal conversations with various employees over cups of
coffees and lunches;
• many weeks spent with the secretaries of the Technology Group A and
Technology Group B in the administration unit, where I was given a desk.
184 Appendix
Semi-structured and unstructured interviews
Throughout the year of data generation, I conducted in total 41 in-depth inter-
views from which 30 were semi-structured with individuals from three groups of
Hydro-Carbon Solutions, i.e. 18 interviews from the Technology Group A, ten
interviews from the Technology Group B and two from the Research and
Innovation Group, who were actually the people that ran the higher innovation
mechanism Eureka. The first four interviews conducted in Technology Group A
were used as a pilot study to refine the interview schedule. In addition to the
semi-structured interviews, I conducted 11 unstructured interviews: five inter-
views in the beginning of the data-generation stage with members of Techno-
logy Group A Group that I interviewed again later, and also with one individual
from the Human Resources and one from the Information Storing Department.
These interviews lasted about one hour each, and the purpose was to start devel-
oping an understanding of the mechanisms that support knowledge sharing and
storing, the related policies and the wider Oil Co. culture. The last six interviews
(four in Technology Group A and two in Technology Group B) were conducted
at the final stage as follow-up, to update my information before I concluded offi-
cially the project.
In sum, the representatives of the following groups, who were formally inter-
viewed:

• two members of the Research and Innovation Group;

• two Resource Managers (from Technology Group A) and the two Innova-
tion Managers (from Technology Group A and Technology Group B);
• six current Innovation Team members (from Technology Group A);
• nine PhD scientists from Technology Group A and five from Technology
Group B;
• others (engineers, scientists, lab technicians): five from Technology Group
A and four from Technology Group B;
• two pre-students (one being Innovation Team member, both from Techno-
logy Group A).

Table A.1 Distribution of interviews

Business Business Other

Group A Group B

Semi-structured 22 12 2 (Innovation Management Group)

Pilot 4
Unstructured 3 2 (Human Resources and Information
Follow-up 4 2 Storing Depts)
Notes

1 A story of studying technological innovation

1 Broadly speaking, hermeneutics assume a unified, transparent meaning of the whole,
which imbues and transcends each of its parts, and which they try to reveal. Thus, by
understanding the parts the researcher reaches an understanding of the whole; hence
the text is seen as a ‘system’, i.e. a unified whole. However, these assumptions lead to
a coherent and consensual view of the world, which cannot allow an understanding of
ambiguous meanings and of conflicting and discontinuous interpretations. Further-
more, the same hermeneutics circle expresses harmony and wholeness, which consists
by parts and understandings; the question that arises is what lies in the centre of the
circle – is this ‘circle’ not constructed by the researcher’s understanding and, hence,
does this not give a privileged standpoint to the researcher’s voice?
2 Methodologically, Foucault’s view on discourse involves the analysis of assumptions,
scientific claims and categorizations, and modes of thinking and reasoning. Discourse
itself operates like a framework of logic and reasoning. His work consists in two parts:
the ‘archaeological’ and the ‘genealogical’, which complement each other; the archae-
ological studies are concerned with the study of discourse, as constitutive of society, in
multiple dimensions: discourse constitutes objects of knowledge, social subjects and
forms of ‘self’, social relationships and conceptual frameworks (Foucault, 1972). Fur-
thermore, even though the focus of the study is on the micro level, discursive practices
are not studied merely ‘locally’, at the institution level, but the analysis assumes inter-
dependence between these discourses, as ‘texts’ draw upon and transform other
contemporary and historically prior ‘texts’; in other words, Foucault recognizes the
intertextual and interdiscursive character of discursive formations, and also the impact
of non-discursive elements (e.g. appropriation, interests, desires, etc.) in this process
(Fairclough, 1992).
3 The traditional approach to interviews assumes that the interviewee is a ‘vessel of
knowledge’, and the interviewer can ‘extract’ the information that is needed, if the
‘right’ questions are asked in the ‘right’ way. This assumes the existence of objective
information held by the ‘passive’ interviewee, and attributes the interviewer the
responsibility and power to control the interview process. Hence, ‘right’ and objective
information is acquired, if the interviewer manages to ask the ‘right’ questions in a
neutral way. The interview process is seen as the ‘pipeline’ to transfer knowledge from
the interviewee’s head to the interviewer (Holstein and Gubrium, 1997). However, the
view neglects that interviewees are never passive subjects, but they actively interpret
(and sometimes misinterpret) the questions and the situation, and hence the interview
and the meanings are constructed in turns, based on what has been said so far.
4 The interviews were constructed around three themes: the nature of discourse on innova-
tion, where various formulations of the concept were sought, as well as how these con-
ceptions fit in people’s understanding of the Innovation System; the expectations and
186 Notes
aspirations from the Innovation System was the second theme and it sought to reveal
the specific needs for knowledge creation and sharing of each organization; and ulti-
mately, it was sought how the Innovation System was actually used – what the applied
practices associated with the innovation system were, in other words the actions taken.
These themes were explored at three levels, trying to capture a macro but also a
micro image of Innovation: the organizational level, where the formal position was
being sought; the group level, where the focus closed up to the R&D department,
expecting to reveal competing understandings of knowledge; and the individual level,
where the respondent’s views were expressed, bracketing the social dynamics to the
degree that I described previously. The aim was to come closer to the interviewee’s
voice and listen to her/him not merely as a member of the organization nor the member
of a particular group, but as the individual that carries experiences beyond the work-
place, as well.
The study explored the language in use in a particular context, i.e. knowledge-based
organization, and hence the questions of the interview schedule were built in the lines
of the ethnographic interview (Spradley, 1979; Marshall and Rossman, 1995). The
interview schedule used descriptive questions, in order to grasp the particular language
in use, structural questions, which revealed the basic units in that cultural knowledge
and contrast questions, which provided the meanings of various terms in the particular
‘language’.
5 ‘Reflexive’ here signifies the critical and post-modern views on research, which
acknowledge the limitations that subjectivity of research participants (both researcher
and researched) and the context of research impose on the interpretation, and attempt
to include some of these aspects on the process of interpreting (cf. Alvesson and
Sköldberg, 2000).

2 The value of knowledge in post-industrial societies

1 It is important to note, however, that the agents of the effects of disciplinary power
cannot be attributed to the middle class (for that would represent it as a new sovereign
power), but have to be sought for each phenomenon under study in the immediate
network of the power relations, before a generalization to broader economic and polit-
ical interests is attempted.
2 Here, I am referring to the scientist as a male subject for two reasons: first, during these
early days science was a male dominated field; and second, Foucault himself refers to
the ‘universal intellectual’ as a male scientist.

3 Knowledge and innovation in organizations

1 Still, computer science plays a dominant role in supporting all organizations’ know-
ledge needs, imposing this way a particular understanding of what knowledge – one
which pretty much resembles information – and hence knowledge management is. In
Chapter 2, I comment on the influence of information technologies in shaping the
dominant discourse on knowledge management and the related practices that have ulti-
mately impacted upon organizational structures, activities, as well as upon the indi-
vidual (knowledge worker) and society.
2 Sociology of science, post-modernism, as well as work done from ethnomethodologi-
cal and symbolic interactionist perspectives have challenged the abstract, cognitive and
de-contextualized view on knowledge and have suggested the close tie between know-
ledge and context – be it culture, structure, etc.
3 See also Weick, 1995.
4 Slappendel (1996) offers an epistemological conceptualization of the aforementioned
approaches: (i) an individualist approach, which assumes that individuals are a cause
of innovation – this approach connects innovation with entrepreneurship; (ii) a struc-
 Notes 187
turalist approach, which assumes innovation is determined by structural characteristics;
(iii) an interactive approach, which is the most recent take, and conceives innovation as
an interplay between structures and individuals’ actions. This last one attempts to
integrate elements of the two, in a dynamic conceptualization of the phenomena under
study.
5 Wolfe (1994) suggests that the inconsistency arises because researchers study different
things conceived under the same name, and in order to clarify the field, he suggests
three main themes that current research investigates: (a) the diffusion of innovation,
which studies the patterns of diffusion of innovation over time and/or space through a
population of potential adopter organization; (b) the organizational innovativeness,
which studies the determinants of innovativeness and (c) processes theory, which
studies the processes of innovation within organizations.
6 See the responses of C. Heckser, C.U. Stephens and A. Kiesler in the same issue of
Organization Science.
7 To do justice to theorists, who take a critical stance towards knowledge management, it
should be noted that, as it is evident from the discussion so far, there is a difference
between the grand discourse on knowledge, which reflects permanent structural
changes in the society, and the discourse on ‘knowledge management’, which has
shaped possibly temporary practices within organizations. ‘Knowledge management’
practices may be a ‘fad’, suggested by the ‘experts’ – consultants and academics – but
they reflect tendencies of the structural transformations at the social level.

4 Commercialization and knowledge production: Hydro-Carbon

Solutions
1 A good discussion on how trust, teamwork and collaboration are used as devices of
control is found in McKinley and Starkey (1998) – see for example, chapters by
McKinley and Taylor, by Deetz and by Findlay and Newton.

8 The commercial condition of knowledge

1 Many theorists (e.g. Johnson et al., 2007) have noticed that business language is
notably dominated by a war terminology, e.g. strategy, tactics, etc., and represents the
activity of ‘doing business’ as a war game, which consequently builds an aggressive
way of seeing and acting.
2 For the changing concepts of time and their effects on the organization, see Hassard
(ed.) (1990), especially the chapters by Thrift and by Nyland.
3 The fact that nowadays we talk more about research, when the concept of development
vanishes, does not mean that we produce more knowledge than in the past. Rather it
means that we do more development, which we call research, because it sounds
prestigious.
Bibliography

Abrahamson, E. (1996) ‘Management Fashion’, Academy of Management Review, vol.

21(1): 254–285.
Adler, P. (2001) ‘Market, Hierarchy, and Trust: The Knowledge Economy and the Future
of Capitalism’, Organization Science, vol. 12(2): 215–233.
Alvarez, J.L. and Mazza, C. (2002) ‘Breaking the Waves of Scepticism and Eagerness:
the Paradoxes of Knowledge-Seeking Managers’ paper presented at OKLC, the Third
European Conference on Organizational Knowledge, Learning, and Capabilities, 4–6
April, Athens, Greece.
Alvesson, M. (1993) ‘Organizations as Rhetoric: Knowledge-intensive Firms and the
Struggle with Ambiguity’, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 30(6): 997–1016.
Alvesson, M. (1999) ‘Beyond Neo-Positivists, Romantics and Localists – A Reflexive
Approach to Interviews in Organization Research’, Working Paper series, Lund Insti-
tute of Economic Research – School of Economics and Management.
Alvesson, M. and Karreman, D. (2000) ‘Varieties of Discourse: On the Study of Organi-
zations through Discourse Analysis’, Human Relations, vol. 53(9): 1125–1149.
Alvesson, M. and Sköldberg, K. (2000) Reflexive Methodology – New Vistas for Qualitat-
ive Research, London: Sage.
Alvesson, M. and Willmott, H. (eds) (1992) Critical Management Studies, London: Sage.
Asimakou, T. and Joshi, S. (2003) ‘The Political Game of Sustainability: Discourse and
Practice’ paper presented at the Hamburg Conference Does Discourse Matter? Power,
Discourse and Institutions in the Sustainability Transition, 11–13 July, Hauss Rissen,
Hamburg, Germany. Online, available at: www.agchange.de/html/paperroom.html
(accessed December 2004).
Atkinson, P. and Coffey, A. (1997) ‘Analysing Documentary Realities’, in Silverman, D.
(ed.) Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice, London: Sage, pp. 45–62.
Barthes, R. (1972) Mythologies, New York: Hill and Wang.
Berger, P.L. and Luckmann, T. (1966) The Social Construction of Reality, New York:
Doubleday.
Bergson, H. (1913) An Introduction to Metaphysics, London: Macmillan.
Bessant, J. and Tidd, J. (2007) Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Chichester: Wiley and
Sons.
Blackler, F. (1993) ‘Knowledge and the Theory of Organizations: Organizations as
Activity Systems and the Reframing of Management’, Journal of Management Studies,
30(6): 863–884.
Blackler, F. (1995) ‘Knowledge, Knowledge Work and Organizations: An Overview and
Interpretation’, Organisational Studies, vol. 16(6): 1021–1046.
 Bibliography 189
Blackler, F. (2000) ‘Collective Wisdom’, People Management, vol. 22(13): 61.
Blair, T. (1998) ‘Foreword’ in Building the Knowledge Driven Economy, London:
Department of Trade and Industry.
Bogdan, R. and Taylor, S. (1975) Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods: A Phe-
nomenological Approach to Social Sciences, New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Boisot, M. (1998) Knowledge Assets: Securing Competitive Advantage in the Information
Economy, New York: Oxford University Press.
Boland, R.J. and Tenkasi, R.V. (1995) ‘Perspective-making and Perspective-taking in
Communities of Knowing’, Organization Science, vol. 6(4): 350–372.
Broad, W. and Wade, N. (1985) Betrayers of Truth: Fraud and Deceit in Science,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brown, J.S. and Duguid, P. (1991) ‘Organizational Learning and Communities of Prac-
tice: Towards a Unifying View of Working, Learning and Innovation’, Organization
Science, vol. 2(1): 40–57.
Brown, J.S. and Duguid, P. (2001) ‘Knowledge and Organization: a Social-Practice
Perspective’, Organization Science, vol. 12(2): 198–213.
Brown, J.S., Durchslag, S. and Hagel, J. (2002) ‘Loosening Up: How Process Networks
Unlock the Power of Specialization’, McKinsey Quarterly, vol. 2. Online, available at:
www.mckinseyquarterly.com (accessed September 2008).
Burchell, G., Gordon, C. and Miller, P. (eds) (1984) The Foucault Effect: Studies in Gov-
ernmentality, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Burgess, R.G. (1984) In the Field: An Introduction to Field Research, London: George
Allen & Unwin.
Burrell, G. and Morgan, G. (1979) Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis,
London: Heinemann.
Carabine, J. (2001) ‘Unmarried Motherhood 1830–1990: A Genealogical Analysis’, in
Wetherell, M., Taylor, S. and Yates, S. (eds) Discourse as Data: A Guide for Analysis,
London: Open University and Sage Publication, pp. 267–310.
Carr, N. (2003) ‘Why IT Doesn’t Matter’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 81(5). Online,
available at: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=3520&t=innovation (accessed Sep-
tember 2008).
Chalmers, A.F. (1982) What is this Thing called Science?, 2nd edn, Buckingham: Open
University Press.
Chatzkel, J. (2007) ‘Conference Report 2006 KMWorld Conference Review’, Journal of
Knowledge Management, vol. 11(4): 159–166.
Chia, R. (1997) ‘Thirty Years On: From the Organizational Structures to the Organization
of Thought’, Organization Studies, vol. 18(4): 685–707.
Clegg, S. (1989a) ‘Radical Revisions: Power, Discipline and Organizations’, Organi-
zation Studies, vol. 10(1): 97–115.
Clegg, S. (1989b) Frameworks of Power, London: Sage.
Collins, H.M. (1993) ‘The Structure of Knowledge’, Social Research, vol. 60(1): 95–116.
Cook, S.D.N. and Brown, J.S. (1999) ‘Bridging Epistemologies: The Generative Dance
Between Organizational Knowledge and Organizational Knowing’, Organization
Science, vol. 10(4): 381–400.
Cooper, R. (1990) ‘Organization/Disorganization’, in Hassard, J. and Pym, D. (eds) The
Theory and Philosophy of Organizations: Critical Issues and New Perspectives,
London: Routledge, pp. 167–197.
Daft, R. and Weick, K. (1984) ‘Toward a Model of Organizations as Interpretation
Systems’, Academy of Management Review, vol. 9(2): 284–295.
190 Bibliography
De Saussure, F. (1959) Course in General Linguistics, New York: McGraw Hill.
De Vos, A., Lobet-Maris, C., Rousseau, A. and Wallemacq, A. (2002) ‘Knowledge in
Question: From Taylorism to Knowledge Management’ paper presented at OKLC, the
Third European Conference on Organizational Knowledge, Learning, and
Capabilities, 4–6 April, Athens, Greece.
Deetz, S. (1992) Democracy in an Age of Corporate Colonization: Developments in
Communication and the Politics of Everyday Life, Albany, NY: State University of
New York Press.
Deetz, S. (1996) ‘Describing Differences in Approaches to Organization Science:
Rethinking Burrell and Morgan and their Legacy’, Organization Science, vol. 7(2):
191–207.
Derrida, J. (1977) ‘Signature, Event, and Context’, Glyph, vol. 1: 172–197.
Derrida, J. (1978) Writing and Difference, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Detlor, B., Ruhi, U., Turel, O., Bergeron, P., Choo, C.H., Heaton, L. and Paquette, S.
(2006) ‘The Effect of Knowledge Management Context on Knowledge Management
Practices: An Empirical Investigation’, Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management,
vol. 4(2). Online, available at: www.ejkm.com/volume-4/i2/v4-i2-art4.htm (accessed
September 2008).
Drucker, P. (1985) Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles, New
York: HarperCollins.
Drucker, P.F. (1993) Post-Capitalist Society, London: Butterworth-Heineman.
Engestrom, Y. (1987) Learning by Expanding: Activity Theoretical Approach to
Developmental Research, Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit.
Fairclough, N. (1989) Language and Power, London: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Fonseca, J. (2002) Complexity and Innovation in Organizations, London: Routledge.
Foucault, M. (1971) ‘Orders of Discourse’, Social Science Information, vol. 10(2): 7–33.
Foucault, M. (1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge, London: Tavistock.
Foucault, M. (1977a) Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Inter-
views, Oxford: Blackwell.
Foucault, M. (1977b) Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison, Har-
mondsworth: Penguin.
Foucault, M. (1980) Power/Knowledge, Selected Interviews and Other Writings
1972–1977, Brighton: Harvester Press.
Foucault, M. (1982) ‘The Subject and Power’, Critical Inquiry, vol. 8(4): 777–795.
French, J.R.P. and Raven, B. (1959) ‘The Bases of Social Power’, in Cartwright, D. (ed.)
Studies in Social Power, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, pp. 150–167.
Frost, P. and Egri, C. (1991) ‘The Political Process of Innovation’, Research in Organi-
zational Behaviour, vol. 13: 229–295.
Fuller, S. (1995) ‘Is there a Life for Sociological Theory after the Sociology of Scientific
Knowledge?’, Journal of the British Sociological Association, vol. 29(1): 159–166.
Garfinkel, H. (1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Gibbons, M. and Johnston, R. (1974) ‘The Roles of Science in Technological Innova-
tion’, Research Policy, vol. 3(3): 220–242.
Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowothy, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P. and Trow, M. (1994)
The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in
Contemporary Societies, London: Sage.
Giddens, A. (1979) Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradic-
tions in Society, London: MacMillan.
 Bibliography 191
Gill, J. and Johnson, P. (2002) Research Methods for Managers, 3rd edn, London: PCP.
Graham, P. and Rooney, D. (2001) ‘A Sociolinguistic Approach to Applied Epis-
temology: Examining Technocratic Values in Global ‘Knowledge’ Policy’, Social
Epistemology, vol. 15(3): 155–169.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1985) An Introduction to Functional Grammar, London: Edward Arnold.
Hamel, G. and Prahalad, C.K. (1989) ‘Strategic Intent’, Harvard Business Review,
May–June: 63–76.
Hassard, J. (ed.) (1990) The Sociology of Time, London: MacMillan Press.
Hayek, F.A. (1945) ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society’, American Economic Review,
vol. 35(4): 519–530.
Heller, F. (ed.) (1986) The Use and Abuse of Social Science, London: Sage.
Heritage, J. (1984) Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hinds, P. and Kiesler, S. (1995) ‘Communication across Boundaries: Work, Structure,
and Use of Communication Technologies in a Large Organization’, Organization
Science, vol. 6(4): 373–393.
Hodgson, D. (2000) Discourse, Discipline and the Subject, Aldershot: Ashgate.
Holstein, J. and Gubrium, J. (1995) The Active Interview, London: Sage.
Holstein, J. and Gubrium, J. (1997) ‘Active Interviewing’, in Silverman, D. (ed.)
Qualitative Research Theory, Method and Practice, London: Sage, pp. 113–129.
Howarth, D. and Stavrakakis, Y. (eds) (2000) Discourse Theory and Political Analysis:
Identities, Hegemonies and Social Change, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Hull, R. (2000) ‘Knowledge Management and the Conduct of Expert Labour’, in
Prichard, C., Hull, R., Chumer, M. and Willmott, H. (eds) Managing Knowledge: Crit-
ical Investigations of Work and Learning, London: Macmillan Press, pp. 49–68.
Husserl, E. (1970) Logical Investigations, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Hutchins, E. (1983) ‘Understanding Micronesian Navigation’, in Gentner, D. and
Stevens, A. (eds) Mental Models, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 191–225.
Jackson, B.G. (1996) ‘Re-engineering the Sense of Self: The Manager and the Manage-
ment Guru’, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 33(5): 571–590.
Jacques, R. (2000) ‘Conclusion: Theorising Knowledge as Work: The Need for a “Know-
ledge Theory of Value” ’, in Prichard, C., Hull, R., Chumer, M. and Willmott, H. (eds)
Managing Knowledge: Critical Investigations of Work and Learning, London:
Macmillan Press, pp. 199–215.
Jessop, B. (2000) ‘The State and the Contradictions of the Knowledge-Driven Economy’,
in Bryson J., Peter, D., Henry, N. and Pollard, J. (eds), Knowledge, Space, Economy,
London: Routledge, pp. 63–78
Johnson, G., Scholes, K. and Whittington, R. (2007) Exploring Corporate Strategy, 8th
edn, Harlow: Prentice-Hall.
Jones, D. (2000) ‘Knowledge Workers “R” Us: Academics, Practitioners, and Specific
Intellectuals’, in Prichard, C., Hull, R., Chumer, M. and Willmott, H. (eds) Managing
Knowledge: Critical Investigations of Work and Learning, London: Macmillan Press,
pp. 158–175.
Kanter, R.M. (1988) ‘When a Thousand Flowers Bloom: Structural, Collective and
Social Conditions for Innovation in Organization’, Research in Organizational Behavi-
our, vol. 10: 169–211.
Keenoy, T., Oswick, C. and Grant, D. (1997) ‘Organizational Discourses: Text and
Context’, Organization, vol. 4(2): 147–157.
KPMG (2000) ‘Knowledge Management Research Report 2000’. Online, available at:
www.kpmg.co.uk (accessed March 2001).
192 Bibliography
Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C. (2001) Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical
Democratic Politics, 2nd edn, London: Verso.
Latour, B. (1987) Science in Action, Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lyotard, J-F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
McFarlan, W. and Nolan, R. (2003) ‘Why IT Does Matter’, Harvard Business Review,
August. Online, available at: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/pubitem.jhtml?id=3637&t=innova-
tion (accessed September 2008).
McKinley, A. (2001) ‘The Limits of Knowledge Management’ paper presented at the
International Conference Managing Knowledge: Conversations and Critiques, 10–11
April, Leicester University, UK.
McKinley, A. and Starkey, K. (eds) (1998) Foucault, Management and Organization
Theory, London: Sage.
Marshall, C. and Rossman, G. (1995) Designing Qualitative Research, 2nd edn, London:
Sage.
Mazza, C. and Alvarez, J.L. (2000) ‘Haute Couture and Prêt-á-Porter: The Popular Press
and the Diffusion of Management Practices’, Organization Studies, vol. 21(3):
567–588.
Meek, L. (1988) ‘Organizational Culture: Origins and Weaknesses’, Organization
Studies, vol. 9(4): 453–473.
Miller, A. (1998) Philosophy of Language, London: UCL Press.
Mishler, E.G. (1986) Research Interviewing: Context and Narrative, London: Harvard
University Press.
Mohannak, K. (2007) ‘Innovation Networks and Capability Building in the Australian
High-technology SMEs’, European Journal of Innovation Management, vol. 10(2):
236–251.
Morgan, G., Whitley, R. and Moen, E. (2004) Changing Capitalisms? Internationalisa-
tion, Institutional Change and Systems of Economic Organisation, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Moustakas, C. (1994) Phenomenological Research Methods, London: Sage.
Nonaka, I. (1994) ‘A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation’, Organi-
sation Science, vol. 5(1): 14–36.
Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. (1995) The Knowledge Creating Company: How the Japan-
ese Companies create the Dynamics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
O’Donnell, D., O’Regan, P., Coates, B., Turner, T. and McCurtain, S. (2000) ‘Critical
Appraisal Norms in Intellectual Capital Creation: A Habermasian Perspective’ paper
presented at the Organizational Discourse Conference, 24–26 July, University of
London, UK.
Oliver, A. (2001) ‘Strategic Alliances and the Learning Life-Cycle of Biotechnology
Firms’, Organization Studies, vol. 22(3): 467–489.
Orr, J. (1990) ‘Sharing Knowledge, Celebrating Identity: War Stories and Community
Memory in a Service Culture’, in Middleton, D. and Edwards, D. (eds) Collective
Remembering, London: Sage, pp. 168–189.
Panteli, N. and Sockalingam, S. (2002) ‘Trust and Conflict within Knowledge-Intensive
Environments: the Case of Virtual Inter-Organizational Arrangements’ paper presented
at the Third European Conference on Organizational Knowledge, Learning and Cap-
abilities, 5–6 April, Athens, Greece.
 Bibliography 193
Park, J.H. (2006) ‘The Role of Trust on Knowledge Creation in a Virtual Organization: A
Social Capital Perspective’, Journal of Knowledge Management Practice, vol. 7(4).
Online, available at: www.tlainc.com/jkmp.htm (accessed September 2008).
Parker, I. and the Bolton Discourse Network (1999) Critical Textwork: An Introduction
to Varieties of Discourse and Analysis, Buckingham: Open University Press.
Piven, F.F. and Cloward, R.A. (2005) ‘Rule Making, Rule Breaking, and Power’, in
Janoski, T., Alford, R., Hicks, A. and Schwartz, M. (eds) The Handbook of Political
Sociology: States, Civil Societies and Globalization, New York: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 33–53.
Plessis, M. du (2007) ‘The Role of Knowledge Management in Innovation’, Journal of
Knowledge Management, vol. 11(4): 20–29.
Polanyi, M. (1967) The Tacit Dimension, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Potter, J. (1996) Representing Reality: Discourse, Rhetoric, and Social Construction,
London: Sage Publications.
Potter, J. and Wetherell, M. (1987) Discourse and Social Psychology: Beyond Attitudes
and Behaviour, London: Sage.
Prichard, C. (2000) ‘Know, Learn and Share! The Knowledge Phenomena and the Con-
struction of a Consumptive-Communicative Body’, in Prichard, C., Hull, R., Chumer,
M. and Willmott, H. (eds) Managing Knowledge: Critical Investigations of Work and
Learning, London: Macmillan Press, pp. 176–198.
Prichard, C., Hull, R., Chumer, M. and Willmott, H. (eds) (2000) Managing Knowledge:
Critical Investigations of Work and Learning, London: Macmillan Press.
Quinn, J.B. (1985) ‘Managing Innovation: Controlled Chaos’, Harvard Business Review,
May–June: 73–84.
Richtnér, A. and Rognes, J. (2008) ‘Organizing R&D in a Global Environment: Increas-
ing Dispersed Co-operation Versus Continuous Centralization’, European Journal of
Innovation Management, vol. 11(1): 125–141.
Rooney, D. (2004) ‘Knowledge, Economy, Technology and Society: The Politics of Dis-
course’, Telematics and Informatics, 22(4): 405–422.
Rooney, D. and McKenna, B. (2005) ‘Should the Knowledge-based Economy be a
Savant or a Sage? Wisdom and Socially Intelligent Innovation’, Prometheus, vol.
23(3): 307–323.
Ryle, G. (1949) The Concept of Mind, New York: Hutchinson’s University Library.
Scarbrough, H. and Swan, J. (2001) ‘Explaining the Diffusion of Knowledge Manage-
ment: The Role of Fashion’, British Journal of Management, vol. 12(1): 3–12.
Schiffrin, D. (1994) Approaches to Discourse, Oxford: Blackwell.
Schutz, A. (1967) The Phenomenology of the Social World, Evanston, IL: Northwestern
University Press.
Senge, P., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R., Roth, G. and Smith, B. (1999) The Dance of
Change: The Challenge of Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organisations, London:
Nicholas Breadley.
Silverman, D. (ed.) (1997) Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice, London:
Sage.
Silverman, D. (2001) Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods for Analysing Talk, Text
and Interaction, 2nd edn, London: Sage.
Slappendel, C. (1996) ‘Perspectives on Innovation in Organizations’, Organization
Studies, vol. 17(1): 107–129.
Smircich, L. (1983) ‘Concepts of Culture and Organizational Analysis’, Administrative
Science Quarterly, 28(3): 339–358.
194 Bibliography
Snowden, J. (1998) ‘A Framework for Creating a Sustainable Programme’, in Rock, S.
(ed.) Knowledge Management: Real Business Guide, London: Caspian Publishing and
IBM UK Ltd, pp. 7–17.
Solomon, R. (1989) From Hegel to Existentialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sørensen, C. and Kakihara, M. (2001) ‘Knowledge Discourses and Interaction Techno-
logy’ paper presented at the International Conference on Managing Knowledge on
Conversation and Critiques 10th–11 April, University of Leicester Management
Centre, UK.
Spradley, J. (1979) The Ethnographic Interview, London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Starbuck, W.H. (1992) ‘Learning by Knowledge-intensive Firms’, Journal of Manage-
ment Studies, vol. 29(6): 713–740.
Steward, F. and Conway, S. (1998) ‘Situating Discourse in Environmental Innovation
Networks’, Organization, vol. 5(4): 479–502.
Suchman, L. (1987) Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Com-
munication, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sveiby, K.E. (1997) The New Organisational Wealth: Managing and Measuring
Knowledge-based Assets, San Francisco: Berret Koehler Inc.
Tenkasi, R.V. and Boland, R.J. (1996) ‘Exploring Knowledge Diversity in Knowledge
Intensive Firms’, Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 9(1): 79–91.
Tidd, J., Bessant, J. and Pavitt, K. (2001) Managing Innovation: Integrating Techno-
logical, Market and Organisational Change, 2nd edn, Chichester: Wiley and Sons.
Torfing, J. (2005) ‘The Linguistic Turn: Foucault, Laclau, Mouffe, and Zizek’, in
Janoski, T., Alford, R., Hicks, A., and Schwartz, M. (eds) The Handbook of Political
Sociology: States, Civil Societies, and Globalization, New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, pp. 153–171.
Trott, P. (1998) Innovation Management and New Products Development, Harlow: FT
Prentice Hall (Pearson Education Limited).
Tsoukas, H. (1996) ‘The Firm as a Distributed Knowledge System: A Constructionist
Approach’, Strategic Management Journal, 17(Winter Special Issue): 11–25.
Tsoukas, H. (2001) ‘Where does new Knowledge come from?’ keynote addressed at the
International Conference Managing Knowledge on Conversations and Critiques,
10–11 April, Leicester University, UK.
Turati, C. (1999) ‘Beyond Myths and Serendipity: Knowledge as an Organizational Affair’
paper presented at 15th EGOS Colloquium, 4–6 July, University of Warwick, UK.
Unger, R. (1987) False Necessity: Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of
Radical Democracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Usoro, A., Sharratt, M., Tsui, E. and Shekhar, S. (2007) ‘Trust as an Antecedent to
Knowledge Sharing in Virtual Communities of Practice’, Knowledge Management
Research and Practice, vol. 5(3): 199–212.
Van de Ven and Andrew, H. (1986) ‘Central problems in the management of innovation’,
Management Science, 32(5): 590–607.
Van de Ven, Andrew, H. and Everett, R. (1988) ‘Innovation and Organizations: Critical
Perspectives’, Communication Research, 15(5): 632–651.
Vattimo, G. (1988) The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Post-modern
Culture, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Watson, T. (1994) ‘Management “Flavours of the Month”: Their Role in Managers’
Lives’, International Journal of Human Resource Management, vol. 5(4): 893–909.
Weick, K. (1979) The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2nd edn, London: Addison
Wesley.
 Bibliography 195
Weick, K. (1985) ‘Cosmos vs. Chaos: Sense and Nonsense in Electronic Contexts’,
Organizational Dynamics, vol. 14(2): 50–64.
Weick, K. (1988) ‘Enacted Sensemaking in Crisis Situation’, Journal of Management
Studies, vol. 25(4): 305–318.
Weick, K. (1995) Sense-making in Organizations, London: Sage.
Wetherell, M., Taylor, S. and Yates, S. (2001) Discourse as Data: A Guide for Analysis,
London: Open University and Sage.
Whitley, R. (2006) ‘Understanding Differences: Searching for the Social Processes that
Construct and Reproduce Variety in the Science and Economic Organization’, Organi-
zation Studies, vol. 27(8): 1153–1177.
Wittgenstein, L. (1958) Philosophical Investigations, 2nd edn, Oxford: Blackwell.
Wodak, R. and Meyer, M. (eds) (2001) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, London:
Sage.
Wolfe, R. (1994) ‘Organizational Innovation: Review, Critique, and Suggested Research
Directions’, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 31: 405–432.
Wright, von H. (1971) Explanation and Understanding, London: Routledge.
Yakhlef, A. and Salzer-Morling, M. (2000) ‘Intellectual Capital: Managing by Numbers’,
in Prichard, C., Hull, R., Chumer, M. and Willmott, H. (eds) Managing Knowledge:
Critical Investigations of Work and Learning, London: Macmillan Press, pp. 20–36.
Zaltman, G., Duncan, R. and Holbek, J. (1973) Innovations and Organizations, New
York: Wiley.
Zuboff, S. (1988) In the Age of the Smart Machine: the Future of Work and Power,
London: Heineman.
Index
Abrahamson, E. 73
activity theory 59–60
Adler, P. 71
alliances 42
Alvarez, J.L. 75
Alvesson, M. 12, 43
antagonisms 28
BGs see Business Groups
Blackler, F. 49, 52, 59–60, 66
Boland, R.J. 57–8
Brown, J.S. 53–4, 56–7, 65
bureaucracy 102, 157, 170
Business Groups (BGs): background 6–7;
commercial culture 93–6; identity of
84–5, 91–2; see also Technology Group
A; Technology Group B
capitalist societies 32–3
career opportunities 136–7
change: discursive strategies 167–9;
resistance to 100; structural 169–70
Clegg, S. 27
codified knowledge 22, 46
cognitive knowledge 23, 31
Collins, H.M. 22, 49
combination: Nonaka’s model 51
commercial culture 93–6
commercial innovation 167, 169, 180–2
commercial knowledge 34–6, 37–8, 172–5
commercial technological innovation
177–8
commercialization: and Business Groups
163; impact on research 88–9; and
innovation 156–61; of knowledge 36–7,
39–40, 42–3; rise of 165–72; and
Technology Group A 86; and
Technology Group B 87
communication 38, 58–60
communication-intensive organizations
49–50
communism 32
communities and communication 58–9
competitive advantage 50
computers hegemony of 33, 35
conduit model 57, 58
construction as aspect of language 4
contradiction as aspect of language 4
Cook, S.D.N. 53–4
core innovation 116–17
corporate universities 37
critical discourse analysis 5–6
cultural knowledge 22, 49
culture: innovation as 63–6, 177, 178–9
customers of Oil Co. 80–1
Daft, R. 54–6
De Vos, A. 44, 71
Deetz, S. 12, 29
democratization 108, 126, 142, 175, 179
discourse effects: on structures 37–40; on
subjects 40–2
discourse theory 3–5
discourses: economic 165–6; and Foucault
29–30; of innovation 1–2
dislocation 6
documentary data 7
Drucker, P. 35
Duguid, P. 56–7, 65
economic discourse, scientific knowledge
and 165–6
economic language 39–40
economic progress 33
education 39
Egri, C. 68–9
embedded knowledge 49
embodied knowledge 22, 49

embrained knowledge 22, 49
encultured knowledge 22, 49
Engestrom, Y. 59
epistemology of possession 53
epistemology of practice 53
Eureka 110, 113–21, 122, 150–1, 154–6,
161–4
evaluation criteria 11–13
expert-dependent organizations 49–50
explicit knowledge 22, 52, 53
exploitable innovation 156
externalization: Nonaka’s model 51
Fairclough, N. 5
fashion management 73–4
folk stories: characteristics of 24
Fonseca, J. 60–1, 63, 65, 66, 67
Foucault, M. 3, 4, 11, 27–30, 33–4, 40, 41
French narrative on knowledge 31
Frost, P. 68–9
German narrative on knowledge 31
Gibbons, M. 37, 38, 40, 42, 63
globalization 35–6, 43, 80
Graham, P. 33
Hayek, F.A. 37
hermeneutics 185n1
higher education 39
Hodgson, D. 28
Howarth, D. 3
Hydro-Carbon Solutions: establishment
80; structure 83–8
Ideas Machine 124–35, 138, 143, 145–54
identity: of Business Groups 84–5, 91–2;
of communities 59
images of knowledge 49
inequalities 43
information 35
information processing mode 57–8
innovation: commercial technological 178;
as culture 63–6, 177, 178–9; definitions
60–1; managers and 138–42; as power
game 68–9; as rational planning 62–3,
65–6, 176–8; revival of 110–13, 166–7;
as social construction of meanings 66–8
innovation management 61–9, 175–80,
181–2
Innovation Managers 139–43, 145–51, 179
innovation process 64–5, 67
internalization: Nonaka’s model 51
interpretation, process of 54–6
interviews 8–9
Index 197
Jackson, B.G. 74
Johnston, R. 63
Kakihara, M. 47
Kanter, R.M. 64
Keenoy, T. 4
KIFs see knowledge-intensive firms
knowing: as contested praxis 60;
knowledge and 53–4; as mediated 59; as
pragmatic 60; as provisional 60; as
situated 60
knowledge: definitions 52; as
interpretation 47–8; and knowing 53–4;
legitimacy of 23; legitimization of 38;
nature of 21–30; new production 36–42,
182; as object 47, 53, 70, 172–3; in
organizations 45–54; as process 48; as
relationship 48–9; scientific 23, 173;
structure of 22–3
Knowledge and Innovation Management
46
knowledge-based societies 21
knowledge creation 46–7, 50–1
knowledge discourse, evolution of 32–4
knowledge-intensive firms (KIFs) 41–2
knowledge management 45–6, 47–9, 102
knowledge management discourse:
evaluation 70–1; and managers 72–5
knowledge management technologies
173–4
knowledge phenomena 46–7, 70–1
knowledge production 36–42, 182
knowledge-routinized organizations 49–50
knowledge sharing 46, 101–2, 169, 173–4,
179
knowledge storing 46
knowledge workers 43, 44, 104–6, 108,
174
KPMG report 70
Laclau, E. 6, 28
language-centred view: of discourse
analysis 5
language games model 57–8
language of research game 39–40
Lave, J. 56
learning 54, 56
legitimacy: of knowledge 23–6
legitimate peripheral participation (LPP)
56
legitimization: of knowledge 38, 175
LPP see legitimate peripheral participation
lubricants 90–1
Lyotard, J.-F. 23, 24–5, 33
198 Index
McKinley, A. 72 reflexive research 10–13
managers: and innovation 138–43, 145–51, research: commercialization 174–5; impact
179; knowledge management discourse of commercialization 88–9; nature of
and 72–5 93–4, 108; qualitative 10; quantitative
Marketing Science 35 10–11; reflexive 10–13
Marxist concepts 3, 32 Research and Innovation Group 113–21
Mazza, C. 75 Research and Technical Services (RTS):
methodology 5–10 Oil Co. 80–1
Mode A: knowledge production 37 research centres 37
Mode B: knowledge production 37–8, 182 research design 6–9
Mouffe, C. 6, 28 research language game 39–40, 173
research structures 37–8
narrative language 23–6 resistance 28, 170, 171–2
narrative mode 57–8 risk aversion 115–16, 122, 136, 158, 160,
New Production of Knowledge 37 178
Nonaka, I. 50–1 Rooney, D. 33
Nonaka’s model 50–2 RTS see Research and Technical Services
non-core innovation 116–17
normalization 29 scientific knowledge: and economic
discourse 165–6; and narrative 23–6
Oil Co.: commercialization era 79–83; scientific language game 24–6, 62, 99,
current structure 83–8 143, 175
oil companies: identity transformation 84, scientific technological innovation 177,
112, 121–2, 166, 176 179–80
organizational interpretation modes 55–6 scientists: and Ideas Machine 133–8;
organizational learning 54–6 identity change 174–5; loss of 172; role
organizations: knowledge in 45–54; and of 108; traditional view of 40
types of knowledge 49–50 skills requirement 102–4, 170
Orr, J. 46, 57 Sköldberg, K. 12
social practice 5
paradigmatic mode 57 socialization: Nonaka’s model 51
pastoral power 41 Sørensen, C. 47
perspective making 58 state, the: role of 41
perspective taking 58 Stavrakakis, Y. 3
Polanyi, M. 22 strategies: of invasion and resistance 168;
post-capitalist societies 32–4 of resistance 171–2
post-industrial age and knowledge 30–6 structures: discourse effect on 37–40; of
post-modernism 11 knowledge 22–3
Potter, J. 4 symbolic-analyst-dependent organizations
power 68–9, 175–80; pastoral 41 49–50
power games 137–8
power relations 26–8, 29–30, 43, 52, 107 tacit knowledge 22, 52, 53
practice as aspect of language 4 teaching language game 39–40
process of interpretation 54–6 teamwork 96–9, 169
productive inquiry 53 technological progress 33, 70
professionalism 43 technology and innovation 62
Technology Group A: background 6–7;
qualitative research 10 Ideas Machine 124–35; management’s
quantitative research 10–11 voice 138–42; scientists’ voices 132–8;
special fuels 89–90; structure 83; in
rational–cognitivist view 47 transition 85–7; work design 96–8
rational planning: innovation as 62–3 Technology Group B: background 6–7;
rationality 72–3 commercialization 156–61; Eureka
recruitment 102–4, 159 150–1, 154–6, 161–4; Ideas Machine
 Index 199
145–54; lubrication 90–1; structure 83; war language games 82, 167, 169
in transition 87–8; work design 98–9 Watson, T. 74
Tenkasi, R.V. 57–8 Weber, M. 3
time constraints 134–6, 157–8, 170–1, 181 Weick, K. 54–6, 58
trust 44, 59, 71, 150 Wenger, E. 56
truth 29–30, 33–4 Wetherell, M. 4
Tsoukas, H. 52 Wittgenstein, L. 3
work design 96–9
universal intellectual 40 work relationships 170
universities 39–40
‘virtual’ organizations 36 Xerox 46; ethnographic study 57