The Temporal and Processual Dimensions of Practice for Enhancing Knowledge Exchange

This paper examines time and process issues that can contribute to knowledge exchange practices within network or case based research. We firstly address both the problems of time and network boundaries in network analysis and propose introducing organisational routines as a way to appreciate how actors perceive temporal structures in a dynamic environment. A dialogical analysis of data, looking at real others, imaginal others and artifacts, revealing different temporal structures in routines, is proposed as the substantive core of knowledge exchange practices. Case data from a University-Industry inter-organisational context is discussed to illustrate these negotiated temporal structures. We argue that knowledge exchange practices should consider the problem of time and might be conceptualised as a problem relating to multi-levelled analyses. It is through a multi-levelled analysis that we find different temporal structures and thus different ways of temporal organising in a dynamic environment. We conclude that multiple levels of analysis in network research provide a more comprehensive picture of the network from a process based knowledge exchange perspective