Practice-Based Knowledge Integration

Abstract

For organisations, the tension between integration and specialisation has become a key issue as the knowledge of work is becoming increasingly fragmented through specialisation (Becker, 2002; Grant, 1996; Kogut & Zander, 1992). Specialisation, as knowing more about less, distributes the overall accomplishment of work on several entities (Aanestad, Mørk, Grisot, Hanseth, & Syvertsen, 2003; Becker; Berg, 1997; Hutchins, 1995) with the consequent need for the integration of different competencies and types of expertise. Becker (p. 3) provides the following definition of knowledge integration: