Abstract

Relevance is useful and actionable knowledge in situ. It is a result and condition of ‘knowledge exchanges’ between practitioner and scientific communities taking place in heterogeneous knowledge networks. Whereas IS research has traditionally emphasized a selection perspective in disputes around relevance preferring scholarly community’s viewpoint over the other, this paper articulates a networking perspective which analyzes enablers, competencies and barriers for useful knowledge flow across communities. After introducing main types of knowledge that flow in the knowledge system we apply the concept of absorptive capacity to analyze the outcomes and processes of knowledge exchanges and map how each type of knowledge is sought and absorbed by one community from another by leveraging specific knowledge networks including the focal one. Given little empirical research about a) how IT managers and other high level IT professionals (consultants, etc) source and exchange different forms of knowledge in their practice, and b) the properties of this knowledge such as its volatility, accuracy, validity demands, forms of sourcing, genre or presentation, we outline a field study on salient knowing and knowledge practices among high achievement IT individuals with significant careers. Preliminary findings are reported.

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