000 02136nam a2200193 4500
999 _c509464
_d509464
008 190509b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
100 _aLifshitz-Assaf, Hila
_95306
245 _aDismantling Knowledge Boundaries at NASA: The Critical Role of Professional Identity in Open Innovation
260 _c2018
300 _ap.746-782.
520 _aUsing a longitudinal in-depth field study at NASA, I investigate how the open, or peer-production, innovation model affects R&D professionals, their work, and the locus of innovation. R&D professionals are known for keeping their knowledge work within clearly defined boundaries, protecting it from individuals outside those boundaries, and rejecting meritorious innovation that is created outside disciplinary boundaries. The open innovation model challenges these boundaries and opens the knowledge work to be conducted by anyone who chooses to contribute. At NASA, the open model led to a scientific breakthrough at unprecedented speed using unusually limited resources; yet it challenged not only the knowledge-work boundaries but also the professional identity of the R&D professionals. This led to divergent reactions from R&D professionals, as adopting the open model required them to go through a multifaceted transformation. Only R&D professionals who underwent identity refocusing work dismantled their boundaries, truly adopting the knowledge from outside and sharing their internal knowledge. Others who did not go through that identity work failed to incorporate the solutions the open model produced. Adopting open innovation without a change in R&D professionals’ identity resulted in no real change in the R&D process. This paper reveals how such processes unfold and illustrates the critical role of professional identity work in changing knowledge-work boundaries and shifting the locus of innovation. - Reproduced.
650 _aOrganisations
_95307
650 _aKnowledge management
_95308
650 _aProfessional identity
_95309
650 _aNASA
_95310
773 _aAdministrative Science Quarterly
906 _aScientific innovations
942 _2ddc
_cAR