Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

Alexander K. K<strong>of</strong>inas and Abdallah Al-Shawakbeh
Stage <strong>of</strong> Development Political
manoeuvring
# <strong>of</strong> Employees Budget
Foundation (1995-7) Independence
from Research
Areas and CIS
10 -->20 From RAs
Growth (1997-9) Alignment with CIS 20 -->30 Resources from RAs
and CIS
Expansion (1999-2003) Formalisation and 30 --> 100 Independent Budget
growth <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Bx
from <strong>the</strong> higher
management
Absorption (2004-5) Annexation <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> 100 --> 600 Part <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> CIS and
Bx by CIS
budgt owned by CIS
4. Conclusion
What becomes clear from <strong>the</strong> findings <strong>of</strong> this case study is that <strong>the</strong> new knowledge generated from
<strong>the</strong> Human Genome Project seems to require a unique combination <strong>of</strong> IT and Bio-science skills.
PharmaCo struggled to find <strong>the</strong> right kind <strong>of</strong> people that actually combined <strong>the</strong> two. Clearly <strong>the</strong> Bioscientists
did not have <strong>the</strong> IT skills while <strong>the</strong> IT specialists did not understand <strong>the</strong> domain. The
organisation gap in skills was filled in an entrepreneurial fashion by a group <strong>of</strong> people who seem to
have had <strong>the</strong> combination <strong>of</strong> skills required. What makes this fascinating is <strong>the</strong> mythology created
around this newly formed group. And while it is true that <strong>the</strong>y did have a unique culture <strong>the</strong>y became
an orphan group as on <strong>the</strong> one hand <strong>the</strong> Scientists saw <strong>the</strong>m as representatives <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> IS discipline
and <strong>the</strong> CIS specialists saw <strong>the</strong>m as scientists. Being essentially inter-disciplinary <strong>the</strong>y were in a
precarious position.
This case study indicates that in times <strong>of</strong> high turbulence and uncertainty an adaptive organisation will
form new organisational structures to accommodate for <strong>the</strong> absorption <strong>of</strong> new knowledge. These
organisational structures seem to operate in <strong>the</strong> periphery <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> organisation and seem politically
vulnerable. The ease with which <strong>the</strong>y were eventually absorbed by CIS demonstrates <strong>the</strong> weak
position <strong>the</strong>y always held in PharmaCo.
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