Integrating Knowledge Management and Governance for Innovation Outcomes: A New Framework for Managing Innovation in a Project Environment

Abstract

Organisational competitive advantage is highly dependent on the ability to innovate and knowledge is a key component of innovation. Our understanding of knowledge processes and mechanisms is an emerging field of study and consequently, an understanding of how micro-level, knowledge governance mechanisms can assist in managing knowledge for innovation has received limited attention in the literature. Projects have additional difficulty being innovative due to their temporality and focus on their immediate performance rather than on building capability. This qualitative case study research explores the role of knowledge governance in contributing to better management of knowledge in the context of an innovation project in a government-owned, water utility in Queensland, Australia. This research contributes to the existing literature by bringing together insights from knowledge management, knowledge governance and innovation frameworks which culminated in a new knowledge-based innovation framework. The research further demonstrates how two knowledge governance mechanisms—trust and energy—influence the innovation process to make innovative outcomes more effective through the creation and transfer of new knowledge from projects to the organisation.