The project investigates information and communication technologies (ICT) as devices for the sharing and development of new knowledge and organizational competences. To this end it studies different domains of learning (individual, organizational, inter-organizational) which interweave with various technological forms and types of knowledge and learning. The project is one of the Progetti di Ricerca di Interesse Nazionale funded by the Ministry of Universities in 2004 and, besides the Trento unit (which coordinates the project) it comprises the units at Milan (Giampietro Gobo), Rome (Luciano Benadusi and Annamaria Ajello), Naples (Roberto Serpieri) and the Computer Science Department of the University of Trento (Vincenzo d’Andrea).

The project examines how ICT activate (and/or create) distributed knowledge systems in different organizational contexts and dynamics. It uses a theoretical scheme which views knowledge and learning as social processes which extend from the individual to the institutional level and vice versa, amid constant micro and macro dialogue. The programme has three objectives: (i) to study how ICT support the individual learning of new competences and the sharing of knowledge; (ii) to investigate the role of ICT in the development and sharing of new knowledge, competences and forms of work in technologically-mediated organizational communities and contexts; (iii) to analyse how this development and sharing of knowledge, competences and forms of work give rise to interorganizational learning networks taking the form of social-technical systems where ICT are not only instruments but also devices for information governance and/or management.

The research is mainly qualitative. The Trento unit is examining interorganizational learning situated in technological networks. The context for the empirical research is the biotechnology sector, given that this affords excellent opportunities to observe the intermingling and interaction of scientific, professional and technological expertise and a wide variety of organizational actors and practices.
During the 1980s it became evident that the complex body of knowledge and practices connected with biotechnological research (theoretical and applied research, clinical tests, production, distribution and marketing, as well as regulatory processes) could not easily be comprised into a single organizational system. This induced biotechnology companies to fund scientific and academic research through the creation of laboratories and research centres.

In Italy, an interesting example of biotechnologies organization is provided by the BioTekNet, the Centro Regionale di Competenza in Biotecnologie Industriali of the Campania region. The purpose of the Centre is to furnish industry with an integrated network of scientific, technological, practical and economic-managerial competences in order to ensure the efficient integration of different knowledges and expertises. Collaborating with the Centre are ten departments of three universities, two CNR research institutes, two hospital research centres, and two science and technology parks. The organization of technical-scientific skills is based on a matrix model in which the partners, independently of geographical and institutional constraints, reorganize their competences into an organic knowledge chains: the Thematic Departments, which comprise twenty-two Operational Units, and an Infrastructures Department with three Integrated Laboratories.
The BioTekNet is therefore the central node of a web of knowledges and organizational practices, the common denominator of which is a strong technological orientation: that is, they are mediated by diverse technologies and at the same time directed towards the learning of new forms of action, work and technological coordination. The BioTekNet is thus an interesting attempt to stabilize and organizationally institutionalize a learning network within which the new technologies (and knowledge connected with them) occupy a prime position.

The project is both descriptive/interpretative and applied in its purpose, given that that it proposes knowledge management systems suited to non-traditional work settings in which knowledge and technologies are the main resources. The focus is on problem-solving procedures and the social interactions through which a situation is defined as ‘problematic’. Organizational problems are conceived as impetus factors which generate new knowledge, create a collective actor, and identify new organizational strategies. Used for analysis (consistently with the project’s theoretical background) are qualitative methods (mainly ethnographic observation and semi-structured interviews with key informants), the purpose being to identify the knowledge and practices used in the communities studied.

Researchers: Silvia Gherardi (coordinator), Attila Bruni (referent), Rino Fasol, Manuela Perrotta
Period:2004-2006
Funding: Miur