1. ¹Department of Business Studies, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
2. ²Department of Informatics, Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping, Sweden
3. ³Department of Informatics and Institute of Economic Research, School of Economics and Management, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Correspondence: Sven A. Carlsson, Department of Informatics and Institute of Economic Research, School of Economics and Management, Lund University, Lund SE-223 63, Sweden. Tel: +46 46 222 8026; E-mail: sven.carlsson@ics.lu.se

Received 6 November 2007; Accepted 14 August 2008.

Abstract

Knowledge integration is a critical topic in current knowledge management research and practice. Research on this topic focuses primarily on how knowledge is integrated within a work setting. A less researched area is knowledge integration between different work groups. The purpose is hence to describe and analyze how knowledge is integrated between different work groups. We present two intensive case studies – one permanent and one temporary (project) work settings – which were studied using a practice-based perspective. A main result of the study is that knowledge integration in the two cases was more complicated than the literature suggests. Both differences and similarities were found between the two cases. Differences were seen in the use of boundary spanning activities and boundary objects, whereas similarities were found in the organizational structures and mechanisms, that is, purposes, rules, and infrastructures, which facilitated the integration of knowledge and/or functioned as obstacles and impediments.