Proceedings of IRIS 23. Laboratorium for Interaction Technology, University of Trollhättan Uddevalla, 2000.L. Svensson, U. Snis, C. Sørensen, H. Fägerlind, T. Lindroth, M. Magnusson, C. Östlund (eds.)The Creative Intranet: Factors forCorporate Knowledge CreationDick [email protected] Volvo Information Technology, Department 9734 HD3N,SE-40508 Göteborg, Sweden, phone: +46 31 765 7037Knowledge Management Group, Viktoria Institute, Göteborg University,P. O. Box 620, SE-40530 Göteborg, Sweden, phone: +46 31 773 5566AbstractIntranet tools for knowledge management are becoming increasingly popular.In this paper, it is argued that intranets are indeed particularly suitable forsupporting and facilitating corporate creativity and the knowledge creationprocess. Building on existing literature, I explain the mechanisms involved increativity and present a theoretical framework for future research. I finallyshow how the nature of an intranet facilitates matches most of the identifiedfactors. An important factor that seems to fall outside the scope of IT is that ofincentive and motivation.Keywords: organisational knowledge creation, corporate creativity, intranet tools1. Organisational knowledge creationIn their often-referenced work on innovation and knowledge creation, Nonaka and Takeuchi(1995) posit that organisational knowledge is created through a continuous and dynamic inter-personal interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge. Individual knowledge isorganisationally amplified and elevated to higher ontological levels through a process referred toas the “knowledge spiral”. This spiral involves activities such as sharing of experiences,explicating models and metaphors, exchanging and combining explicit knowledge, andembodying by learning-by-doing (pp. 62-73). All these activities are social to their nature andperformed by groups of people tied together by a shared set of practices. These communities ofpractice thus enable knowledge creation by sharing and cross-pollinating tacit and explicitknowledge across organisational levels (Choo 1998).The knowledge conversions taking place in the knowledge spiral require support formany different modes of communication. Though much of it must be based on physical face-to-face interactions, it has been concluded that information technology (IT) may be used tofacilitate some events, especially those that involve exchanging and combining explicitknowledge (Nonaka & Konno 1998). Contemporary research has however shown that acorporate intranet can be an important tool for many various sorts of Knowledge Management(KM) efforts, facilitating activities such as tacit knowledge sharing, “smart” information retrieval,community building, awareness, and large group brainstorming (Stenmark 1999a, 1999b,2000a, 2000b, 2000c). The theoretical basis for empirically informed work such as thosereferred to above has however been fragmented and unclear and no coherent structure onwhich to build future research has yet been presented. My intention in this article is to suggestsuch a structure.2. Research approachIn this argumentative paper, I base my discussion mainly on the work of Robinson and Stern. Intheir work on corporate creativity they have investigated hundreds of creative acts from aroundthe world and suggested six elements to be essential for creativity (Robinson and Stern 1997).Their list offers a very useful start point for studies of organisational creativity. However, being areflective practitioner with insights in both the corporate world and that of academia, I havesome problems with the elements suggested by the two authors. Reading also the work of otherscholars and adding my own experiences from more than 13 years in industry, I find that I mustmodify and add to the list provided by Robinson and Stern. One objective for this paper is thusto introduce and argue in favour of the eight success factors for corporate creativity that I havesynthesised.Being an IT professional, I have an addition objective for this article. Not only do Iwant to identify and understand the factors that best stimulate corporate creativity – I also wantto investigate how information technology can facilitate creativity by supporting the eight successfactors. Here I find Bawden’s 1986 article on whether information systems can contribute toknowledge generation very insightful. Of my years in industry, I have spent the last 6 yearsworking with intranets technology, and I have witnessed the change in perspective that theadvent of the World-Wide Web (the web) has brought about. I cannot help but noticing howwell the web fits Bawden’s description of technology as enabler. The many intranet-based KM-tools available on the market are not anchored in any theory. In this paper I therefore alsooutline the characteristics of the web and argue that a corporate intranet is particularly wellequipped to support most of the identified factors.I hope that the framework that the eight success factors and the intranet characteristicstogether constitute will further both practitioners’ and researchers’ understanding of KM-toolsfor knowledge creation and their relation to intranets, and serve a useful base for futureresearch.3. Key factors for creativityOne very distinctive aspect of true creativity is that it tends to show up where it is leastexpected. Sure, you may have creative meetings or brainstorming sessions where you sit downand produce innovative decisions or new solutions to known problems, but these areexploitations of familiar concepts – you start with a given problem. Even when given “creativity-boosting” methods such as brainstorming, lateral thinking, and guided visualisation, it is (closeto) impossible to come up with a truly new and creative idea out of sheer will-power. On theother hand, how often do we not get great ideas while doing the dishes, taking a walk in thepark, or while playing golf?Creativity incorporates a large element of surprise and most creative acts are totallyunplanned. Kanter (1988) states that the opportunity to innovate and the source of innovationare uncertain and unpredictable. It is therefore impossible to known in advance who will beinvolved in a creative act, what the act will be, when it will take place, or how it will occur.This principle is fundamental to creativity and not being able to appreciate it may result inunnecessary limitations to corporate creativity. Robinson & Stern (1997) refer to the