Knowledge creation and interaction in an R&D project: the case of the energy weather forecast

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JD-09-2018-0141
Pages145-172
Published date05 September 2019
Date05 September 2019
AuthorAnna Reetta Suorsa,Rauli Svento,Anders V. Lindfors,Maija-Leena Huotari
Subject MatterLibrary & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet
Knowledge creation and interaction
in an R&D project: the case of the
energy weather forecast
Anna Reetta Suorsa
Department of Information Studies, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
Rauli Svento
Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
Anders V. Lindfors
Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland, and
Maija-Leena Huotari
Faculty of Humanities, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
Abstract
Purpose The purposeof this paper is to examine knowledge-creatinginteractionin developing an innovation
in a multidisciplinary research community with hermeneutic phenomenology, to understand how previous
experiences andfuture prospects shape the processand to examine the circumstances, whichsupport or limit
knowledge creation.
Design/methodology/approach The approach of this study is phenomenological and the empirical case
study has been conducted using ethnography. The data consist of field notes, videos, interviews and
documents of a BCDC energy consortium, developing energy weather forecast (EWF) in a new type of
research environment.
Findings The results indicate that the role of actual interactive events was crucial in the development of
EWF. Hermeneutic approach illustrated that the roots of that event were in the past experiences of the
participants and the circumstances, which promoted the development of the innovation, but the
acknowledgment of the future prospects was crucial in finalizing the process. The role of a leader organizing
the interaction and collaborative work was also substantial.
Practical implications The results of this study could be used to plan and organize knowledge creation
processes in organizations, especially in universities and research communities, striving to create
multidisciplinary research environments and practices.
Originality/value This study proposes a new approach based on hermeneutic phenomenology to examine
it in a unified way, by focusing on the key aspects of elements affecting knowledge-creating interaction.
Keywords Interaction, Knowledge processes, Knowledge creation, Hermeneutics, Knowledge management,
Phenomenology
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
In the past 20 years, the phenomenon of knowledge creation has become a major issue in the
field of knowledge management (KM). Organizations need to constantly create new
products and services and develop their own processes to survive in the changing
environment. (Choo, 2016) In addition, there are complex global and national problems,
which require knowledge creation in multidisciplinary research communities, in
collaboration with private and third sector organizations, and decision makers. Thus, the
potential of universities and research consortia in the research and development (R&D)
work has been emphasized. (Migdadi, 2009; Hong et al., 2010.) The research on knowledge
creation underlines the significance of interaction and collaboration in the creating process
(Nonaka, 1994; Tsoukas, 2009). However, as sizes of research communities increase and Journal of Documentation
Vol. 76 No. 1, 2020
pp. 145-172
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-09-2018-0141
Received 5 September 2018
Revised 31 May 2019
Accepted 2 June 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
This study has been funded by the Strategic Research Council, Finland, Project No. 292854.
145
Knowledge
creation and
interaction
participants are from various scientific disciplines, collaboration is challenging. In addition,
the multidisciplinary research work is often conducted in multi-organizational
environments, where people do not have possibilities to face-to-face interaction. Hence,
the need for KM is clear, as knowledge creation processes need to be organized and
managed to enable productive interaction (Auernhammer and Hall, 2014).
This study focuses on knowledge-creating interaction leading to an innovation in a
research community. The empirical study was conducted ethnographically in the
multidisciplinary and multi-organizational research community BCDC energy, which aims
at developing new solutions to smart energy markets related to production and use of
renewable energy resources in Finland. Succeeding in this requires both flexibility and
openness to different viewpoints and abilities to strategically manage the interactive
process. Thus, it is essential to understand how the knowledge-creating process evolves
from the first ideas to the implementation phase, where innovations are developed (see e.g.
Popadiuk and Choo, 2006). Our case study focuses on the first innovation of the BCDC
energy, namely, the energy weather forecast (EWF), which gives 24 h forecasts of wind and
solar production for 200 locations in Finland. This innovation was a result of combining
scientific research work to the strive to increase the societal impact of research by
developing an application aimed for the wider public.
A vast amount of studies have been conducted to understand various, often quite
contradictory factors in organizational context, human relations and human beingsown
behavior influencing the process of knowledge creation (Auernhammer and Hall, 2014;
Suorsa, 2015). However, there is a need to develop theoretical conceptualizations, which
allow examining basic factors of knowledge creation through a unified framework (see
Jashapara, 2004, 2005). Moreover, such longitudinal empirical studies are rare that focus on
explicating and examining interaction in longer knowledge creation processes leading to the
development of an innovation. In this study, we aim at fulfilling these research gaps by
introducing a theoretically consistent conception of the premises of knowledge-creating
interaction and using it to examine the process of knowledge creation in an empirical setting
(c.f. Ragsdell, 2009). Our way to conceptualize and scrutinize knowledge creation is based on
the phenomenological conceptions of human beings and interaction, which are based on the
idea of human beings being inseparably connected to their environment (Heidegger, 1985;
Gadamer, 1999a, b). Our focus is on examining the dynamics of past and future,
goal-centeredness and openness to new ideas and dealing with similarities and differences
in the knowledge creation process. These are based on a hermeneutic phenomenological
understanding of the key factors in knowledge-creating interaction (Heidegger, 1985;
Gadamer, 1999a, b; see also Suorsa and Huotari, 2014; Suorsa, 2015). This research setting
allows examination of quite opposite requirements for knowledge-creating interaction
simultaneously, without losing insight into the complexity of the phenomenon.
The research questions are:
RQ1. How can the processof knowledge creationbe conceptualized and examinedwith the
hermeneutic phenomenological understanding of interaction and human beings?
RQ2. How are the dimensions of (a) temporality, that is, the past, present and future of
human beings; (b) similarities and differences present in the experiences of the
human beings and in the circumstances; and (c) goal-centeredness and openness
of the process and interaction, influencing the process of creating knowledge for
the EWF?
Phenomenology has been used in the field of Library and Information Studies (LIS) by some
scholars both as a way to understand the premises of the discipline and as a way to
introduce methods for examining phenomena related to information and knowledge
(e.g. Cornelius, 1996; Budd, 2001, 2005; Wilson, 2002a; Dalbello, 2005a, b; Savolainen, 2007,
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