Innovation in the Hybrid Zone: Knowledge Transfer and Adaptive Boundary-Spanning Collaboration

This study examines how adaptive cross-community cooperation can applied to eliminating defects under circumstances of causal ambiguity. Based on a troubleshooting case involving semiconductor engineers, the study looks at how members of different communities engage in adaptive boundary-spanning cooperation in work contexts characterized by innovation, flexibility, extemporaneous relationships, and mutual adjustment. It was found that, in the process of adaptive cooperation, members' engagement in profiling practice, probing practice, and pooling practice from their respective professional angles promoted rapid and continuous progress. Unlike existing cross-community cooperation models with clear-cut boundaries, we propose a new model of cooperation spanning situated boundaries, After discussing a real semiconductor case and investigating how engineers function in a work context characterized by innovation, flexibility, speed, emergence, and logical deduction, this study proposes some practical and theoretical implications of the use communities of practice and knowledge management systems by organizations.