Knowledge integration processes and the appropriation of innovations

This paper examines the appropriation of innovations in a number of qualitative case studies through the theoretical lens of the activity based perspective on knowledge. Because knowledge is deeply embedded within its context of use, and the practices through which it is utilized, the knowledge base of most organizations is highly distributed. This means that innovation processes which are multi‐site, or cross functional in scale, are likely to involve the integration, and reconfiguration of diverse bodies of internal, organizational knowledge. This suggests that one of the dominant themes in the contemporary innovation literature, which emphasizes the extent to which they involve the integration of internal and external knowledge, requires to be re‐evaluated to take greater account of equally important processes of internal knowledge integration. Further, the embeddedness of knowledge in practice, means that the blending together of such diverse bodies’ knowledge is likely to involve processes of intensive social interaction.