Knowledge Creation Spaces: The Power of Project Teams

This paper examines how and why project teams may be conceived as highly creative and generative knowledge creation spaces as opposed to traditionally and primarily being conceived as only temporal task focused entities where knowledge is simply exchanged. In this qualitative analysis which draws on situated learning theory, project teams offer significant and yet generally underexploited personal knowledge growth opportunities for participants. The arguments presented in this paper also support a notion that project teams can serve as important action locations for organizations seeking to unlock employee learning potential and harness their creativity, and thereby contribute to the development of a learning culture. Through its challenge to conventional perspectives about project teams and their limitations, this paper provides a conceptual grounding from which to pragmatically and productively approach an important and most often neglected project phenomenon of social learning.