Science-based innovation: the blind spot of knowledge management theory

This paper argues that knowledge management theory needs to explore the literature on how science-based work is organized, managed, and monitored. To date, there has only been modest interest in examining how laboratory sciences operate in their day-to-day activities. As a consequence, the knowledge management literature fails to some extent to acknowledge the underlying practices and activities determining the performance of a great number of companies in industries such as biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. The paper suggests that science-based innovation is entangled with a number of different but mutually dependent resources: for example, ideologies, machinery, conceptual schemes, laboratory practices and political skills, with narrative capabilities being integrated into a semi-unified process thus enabling new knowledge to be constituted. Taking this view, science-based innovation is a particular social practice that needs to be more carefully examined by knowledge management writers.