Chapter 7 Integrating Multiple Voices: Working with Collusion in Multiparty Collaborations

The idea that relational processes are central to knowledge creation and knowledge sharing is an idea in good currency ( Bouwen & Taillieu, 2004 ; Brown & Duguid, 1996 ; Wenger, 1998 ). Rather than considering knowledge as a commodity that can be transferred from one mind to another, when knowledge is viewed as a relational practice, it resides in social interactions and is actualized in common practices that evolve within a particular community of practice ( Sternberg & Horvath, 1999 ; Van Looy, Debackere, & Bouwen, 2000 ). Thus, knowledge is both embedded and emergent — subject to change as participants in a community interact with one another. To understand what is known, it becomes necessary to study how members of an organizational community interact and how their knowledge shifts over time.