Virtuous Spiral or Vicious Circle? Creating and Distributing Innovative Knowledge within Universities Martin Rehm, Amber Dailey-Hebert, Katerina Bohle Carbonell & Karen D. Könings 20th International EDiNEB Conference, Milton Keynes (UK), June 2013

universities are challenged to tackle interconnected, ill-defined problems in need of innovative solutions

vs. Top-Down ApproachBottom-Up Approach

make use of faculty’s tacit knowledge composed of their on-the-job experiences (e.g. Gherardi & Nicolini, 2000) transforming individuals’ tacit knowledge into new explicit knowledge  contribute to the process of (innovative) knowledge creation within organizations.

Tacit  Explicit Knowledge Social Interaction & Innovative Knowledge Communities (IKC)

Main Research Question

How do educational innovators collaborate and spread their newly gained knowledge throughout an organization in “bottom-up” initiatives?

Research Model

Setting Maastricht University – 3-year project: “Learning and Working” all faculties new target groups innovative learning approaches

Instruments Social Network Analysis – In- & Out-Degree Ties The amount of connections sent / received Knowledge Sharing Attitudes – Individuals’ knowledge sharing intentions (IKSI) (Bock, Zmund, Kim, & Lee, 2005)

Social Network Analysis

all ties among members

only “frequent” out-degree connections

Knowledge Sharing Attitudes

QuestionMSD My knowledge sharing does … strengthen the ties between existing members in the organization and myself get me well-acquainted with new members in the organization expand the scope of my association with other members in the organization draw smooth cooperation from outstanding members in the future create strong relationships with members who have common interests in the organization […] My knowledge sharing with other organizational members is … good harmful an enjoyable experience valuable to me a wise move […] I always provide my manuals, methodologies and models for members of my organization I intend to share my experience or know-how from work with other organizational members more frequently in the future Note: Group A; N = 10 (50%); Likert scale 1 (strong disagreement) – 5 (strong agreement)

Conclusion a first preliminary idea of how educational innovators collaborate and spread their newly gained knowledge throughout an organization in “bottom-up” initiatives

Outlook expand the scope to include a broader group of individuals from within an entire organization  Groups B & C cross comparison of initiatives – Park University 2-year project  innovate faculty development