Abstract

Based on a multi-case study from a pragmatic perspective to knowledge adaption, this research plans to analyse the processes of knowledge codification, transfer and integration in the context of IT outsourcing. It plans to address the following research question: how do IT service vendors successfully adapt their knowledge to new businesses. We plan to collect data from vendors both in China and New Zealand. Our findings will uncover the mechanisms and rationales underlying the processes of IT service vendors’ knowledge adaption. Our contributions may be threefold. First, from the pragmatic perspective to knowledge adaption, we develop a new theory to address the conflicts about whether existing knowledge in organizations can improve performance of new businesses. Second, we contribute to the literature of organizational learning, especially to studies on learning in communities of practice. We plan to provide new a theoretical lens to explaining how organizations can adapt different knowledge to new businesses by using appropriate boundary objects, and to uncover what specific conditions can make such knowledge adaption successful. Lastly, this study plans to shed new light on how IT service vendors adapt to turbulent markets.

Download

Share

COinS