Purposeful combination : management of knowledge integration in the development of self-driving cars

This book offers new insights into the process by which individuals in a firm combine their knowledge to create new products and services. Typically, previous research have attempted to explain the management of knowledge integration through the perspective of how various problem characteristics make a problem more or less difficult to solve. In contrast, this study explores the strategic dimension of knowledge integration as a process of a purposeful combination of knowledge.

The study was undertaken with a case study research design, in which the single case (“Omega”) was a joint venture between two participants in the automotive industry. The purpose of Omega was to develop and commercialize active safety technology for advanced driver assistance systems (‘ADAS‘) and autonomous driving (‘AD‘), colloquially referred to as ‘self-driving cars.’ Through the analysis of the empirical material, a new mode of explanation emerged in which a firm’s objectives and the circumstances for achieving these objectives are at the core of the management of knowledge integration.