S. Ogundipe
Interfirm Problem Representation: Developing Shared Understanding within Inter-Organizational Networks
Ogundipe, S.; Peters, L.D.; Tóth, Z.
Abstract
Actors in business networks often struggle to integrate their resources and bridge knowledge boundaries, which makes shared understanding difficult to establish and sustain. We develop the concept of interfirm problem representation (IFPR) to illustrate how networks of multidisciplinary teams create shared understanding and establish collective decisions in their day-to-day negotiations and joint problem-solving. IFPR is defined as an arrangement of localized artefacts or boundary objects that are jointly created by team members, and continuously adapted to facilitate mutual agreement and shared understanding in their daily conversations. We draw evidence from the UK construction industry to illustrate how team members from different organizations and knowledge domains manage their resource dependencies by creating IFPR as a common frame of reference to guide the implementation of their shared goals. Our data collection activities involve the observation of 3 different construction project teams over a period of 11 months. During the period, a total of 43 project team meetings were attended and 32 face-to-face interviews conducted across the 3 project teams. Findings from this study advance the discussion on subjective cognition and inter-subjective representations in networks by illustrating how diverse cognitive views and knowledge boundaries of network actors are synergized through an objectified system of representation. This enables us to offer important theoretical implications related to prior research on knowledge sharing and shared cognition. Our discussion highlights how actors, engaging in a shared activity that is extended over a period of time, collectively navigate different social contingencies while utilizing IFPR as a socio-historical artefact. IFPR enables network actors to critically review past mistakes to achieve improved collaborative outcomes.
Citation
Ogundipe, S., Peters, L., & Tóth, Z. (2022). Interfirm Problem Representation: Developing Shared Understanding within Inter-Organizational Networks. Industrial Marketing Management, 100, 76-87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2021.11.004
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Nov 12, 2021 |
Online Publication Date | Nov 20, 2021 |
Publication Date | 2022-01 |
Deposit Date | Nov 19, 2021 |
Publicly Available Date | Nov 21, 2023 |
Journal | Industrial Marketing Management |
Print ISSN | 0019-8501 |
Electronic ISSN | 1873-2062 |
Publisher | Elsevier |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 100 |
Pages | 76-87 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2021.11.004 |
Public URL | https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1221456 |
Files
Accepted Journal Article
(626 Kb)
PDF
Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Copyright Statement
© 2021 This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
You might also like
Elite Luxury Experiences: Customer and Managerial Perspectives
(2022)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2025
Advanced Search