Organisational memory and innovation across projects: integrated service provision in engineering design firms

This paper provides an exploration of the dynamics of organisational remembering in firms operating through projects. The paper focuses in particular on the deliberate use of experience accumulated in the past in order to sustain innovation in the provision of services. It relies on the notions of boundary objects and brokers to empirically explore how a common memory crossing occupational and organisational boundaries is built. In so doing, it highlights how a boundary object as memory device in a project environment operates at different levels, i.e. personal, project-specific, organisational-specific and occupational specific, and how it takes different formats to perform its roles at each level. Finally, the paper highlights the role of specific communities, beyond that of specific individuals, as boundary brokers. Acknowledgements: I wish to thank Ed Steinmueller, David Gann, Andrea Prencipe, Joe Tidd, Ghassan Aouad and Jennifer Whyte for insightful comments on a previous version of this paper. Financial support from the EPSRC and the Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research (MIUR) is gratefully acknowledged. Organisational memory and innovation across projects