KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN
TOURISM DEVELOPMENT
COMPANIES:
A PROJECT ECOLOGY APPROACH
by
Chao Liu
Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
School of Hospitality and Tourism Management
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Supervisors:
Professor Allan M. Williams
Professor Gang Li
©Chao LIU 2013-2017
DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY
This thesis and the work to which it refers are the results of my own efforts. Any ideas,
data, images or text resulting from the work of others (whether published or
unpublished) are fully identified as such within the work and attributed to their
originator in the text, bibliography or in footnotes. This thesis has not been submitted in
whole or in part for any other academic degree or professional qualification. I agree that
the University has the right to submit my work to the plagiarism detection service
TurnitinUK for originality checks. Whether or not drafts have been so-assessed, the
University reserves the right to require an electronic version of the final document (as
submitted) for assessment as above.
Chao LIU, February 2017
SUMMARY
This research seeks to advance the understanding of the role of knowledge
management in the contribution of tourism development companies (TDCs) to the
process of producing tourism development projects (TDPs). The starting point of this
research is the recognition of a major research gap relating to tourism product
development. Within this field, the role of TDCs is rarely researched or even
mentioned in the research literature. Additionally, despite the knowledge-intensive
nature of the tourism product development process and TDCs, limited attention has
been given to the perspective of knowledge management (KM) in tourism
development. KM in this research is viewed as a continuous process which involves
three interrelated dimensions, i.e. knowledge creation (KC), knowledge transfer (KT),
and knowledge retention (KR). Understanding TDCs as typical project-based
organizations, the research adopts a project ecology approach to provide an insightful
understanding of knowledge management in tourism development companies in
China.
From this perspective, the research involves examination of secondary data (e.g.
TDCs` websites) and initial semi-structured interviews with professional participants
in the tourism development industry in order to map the framework of TDC project
ecologies in China. However, the core of the methodology is multiple case studies
conducted in three contrasting TDCs over a period of 10 months. Data were collected
through participant observation and informal interview during the case study process,
focusing on how knowledge is managed within the project ecologies.
This research provides a relatively detailed description about the entities, and their
interrelationships, involved in the project ecology of TDP. Building on the multilevel
nature of project ecology, this research discusses the effects of various factors on KM
at four different contextual levels (i.e. the individual level, the team level, the
organizational level, and the external environment level). Four key findings serve to
synthesize the roles of the factors in the four levels respectively: (1) the diverse and 3
intrinsic effects of individual level factors on the individuals` performance in KM-
related activities; (2) the aligning functions of the team level factors in configuring
individuals` project work and their corresponding KM-related activities; (3) the
organizational level factors which exert relatively more ongoing and sustained
influences on KM activities despite the varied features of the various projects;(4)the
characteristics of the external environment which can also exert latently ongoing, and
sometimes notable influences on the interactions and dynamics of these relevant
entities in terms of their performance in project and KM-related issues.
As well as bringing a new theoretical perspective to knowledge management in
tourism, this research exhibits the ways in which the project ecology of TDPs in
China are different from previous models of project ecologies developed in the
literature. It does represent a substantial analysis of this topic within the field of
tourism. Furthermore, it is intended that the research will also contribute to enhancing
the performance of the case study firms, as well as the TDC sector generally.
4
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Allan M.
Williams and Professor Gang Li, my dear supervisors, for their invaluable advices,
warm encouragements, and kind guidance throughout the research process, without
which this research could not have been completed.
Then, I would like to thank the people facilitated me to obtain the access to the case
companies and allowed me to carry out the research. I sincerely appreciate them for
providing me such invaluable opportunities. I would like to thank to the people who
consented to take part in my research. I appreciate your time and help.
Special thanks to my friends, and colleagues. Especially, I would like to thank my
best friend, Dr. Chris Cao, for sharing the most enjoyable part of my Ph.D life and
your meaningful advices.
Many thanks is also due to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University
of Surrey who have been supportive when I had faced issues during my Ph.D life.
Finally, I truly appreciate my family for their constant encouragement and self-giving
love. I would not have what I have without your numerous supports.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY...........................................................................i
SUMMARY...................................................................................................................ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..........................................................................................iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS...............................................................................................v
LIST OF TABLES.........................................................................................................x
LIST OF FIGURES......................................................................................................xi
Chapter 1 Introduction...............................................................................................1
Chapter 2 Literature Review......................................................................................7
2.1 Tourism Product...........................................................................................7
2.1.1 Definition of Tourism Product...........................................................7
2.1.2 Tourism Product Development and Tourism Planning....................12
2.1.3 Focus on Tourism Attraction Development and Tourism
Development Companies.............................................................................18
2.2 Innovation...................................................................................................27
2.2.1 Introduction......................................................................................27
2.2.2 Definition of Innovation...................................................................29
2.2.3 The Innovation Process and Creativity............................................31
2.2.4 Current Research Gap......................................................................40
2.3 Knowledge Management............................................................................45
2.3.1 Overview of Knowledge and Knowledge Management..................45
2.3.2 The Key Areas of Knowledge Management, and their Relationship
with Tourism................................................................................................576
2.3.3 Knowledge Management Process Models.......................................67
2.3.4 Introducing an Organisational Ecology approach to Researching the
Knowledge Management of TDC................................................................81
2.4 Short Summary of the Chapter of Literature Review.................................95
Chapter 3 Methodology...........................................................................................97
3.1 Introduction................................................................................................97
3.2 Foundation: Research Paradigm.................................................................98
3.2.1 Radical Change or Regulation.......................................................101
3.2.2 Objectivist or subjectivist...............................................................103
3.2.3 Approach adopted: The interpretive paradigm..............................105
3.3 Research Methods.....................................................................................106
3.3.1 Research Design.............................................................................106
3.3.2 Research Strategies........................................................................114
3.3.3 Data Collection Methods................................................................116
3.3.4 Data storage and data analysis.......................................................141
Chapter 4 Project Ecology of Case Studies...........................................................150
4.1 Tourism Development Projects................................................................151
4.1.1 Overview of TDPs in China...........................................................151
4.1.2 TDPs in the case studies.................................................................155
4.2 Mother Firm..............................................................................................167
4.2.1 Overview of tourism and TDCs in China......................................168
4.2.2 The Location of the Firms..............................................................172
4.2.3 The Size and Staffing of Firm........................................................173
4.2.4 The Enterprise Departmentalization (Organizational Structure). . .174
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4.2.5 The Salary and Reward System.....................................................181
4.2.6 Summary........................................................................................184
4.3 Epistemic Communities............................................................................185
4.3.1 Clients............................................................................................185
4.3.2 External Consultant/Specialist.......................................................196
4.3.3 Other Project Companies...............................................................199
4.3.4 Local Community...........................................................................203
4.3.5 Summary........................................................................................206
4.4 Full Project Teams (Core Project Team; Outside Members)...................209
4.4.1 The Form and Configuration of the Project Team.........................209
4.4.2 The Core Teams.............................................................................216
4.4.3 Summary........................................................................................229
4.5 Concluding notes about project ecology...................................................230
Chapter 5 Knowledge Management in the Context of Tourism Development
Project 235
5.1 The Effects of Multi-levels Factors on Knowledge Creation...................237
5.1.1 Individual Level.............................................................................238
5.1.2 Team Level.....................................................................................274
5.1.3 Organizational Level......................................................................303
5.1.4 External Environmental Level.......................................................308
5.1.5 Summary........................................................................................312
5.2 The effects of multi-levels factors on knowledge transfer and retention. 314
5.2.1 Individual Level.............................................................................315
5.2.2 Team/Organizational Levels..........................................................352
8
5.2.3 External Environmental Level.......................................................383
5.2.4 Special Section: Knowledge Retention..........................................386
5.3 Concluding Note: Key Findings...............................................................408
Chapter 6 Conclusion.............................................................................................412
6.1 Achievement of the Aims and Objectives................................................412
6.2 Contribution to Knowledge and Understanding.......................................419
6.3 Managerial Implications...........................................................................432
6.4 Limitation.................................................................................................435
6.5 Suggestions for Future Research..............................................................437
Reference....................................................................................................................441
Appendices.................................................................................................................533
Appendix 1 The Results of Pre-examination of TDCs` Website.......................533
Appendix 2 Basic Information and Notation of Interviewees in the Key
Informants Interviews........................................................................................542
Appendix 3 Interview Schedules (English Version)..........................................545
Appendix 4 Interview Schedule (Chinese Version)...........................................552
Appendix 5 Example of Field Notes..................................................................557
Appendix 6 Initial Codebook and Coding Structure..........................................572
Appendix 7 The Specific Requirements of Tourism Development Plan
(Translation Version).........................................................................................579
Appendix 8 Table of Findings............................................................................581
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1 Traditions of Tourism Planning Approaches.......................................15
Table 2.2 Models of Knowledge Management Processes...................................71
Table 3.1 The characteristics of the interpretive paradigm................................105
Table 3.2 The list of actors in a general project ecology...................................121
Table 3.3 Interview question structure of this research.....................................127
Table 3.4 What to observe during participant observation and recommendations for noting....................................................................................................139
Table 4.1 The TDPs that the researcher participated in the case studies...........162
Table 4.2 The specific standards of the qualification classification in <The Management Method of Qualification Level of Tourism Planning and Design Organizations>...............................................................................171
Table 4.3 Brief summary of the differences among three cases........................184
Table 5.1 Examples of influential factors of four levels in the project ecology towards knowledge creation, knowledge transfer and retention................237
Table 5.2 Extension, Replacement, and Integration Strategies and their definitions...................................................................................................269
Table 5.3 The Big Five traits and the corresponding personality characteristics....................................................................................................................317
Table 5.4 The examples of the influences of emotions on both sides of knowledge transfer.....................................................................................329
Table 5.5 Factors influencing KR-related activities in the case studies............407
Table 6.1 Synoptic comparison of software ecology, the advertising ecology, and the TDP ecology.........................................................................................429
Table 6.2 Several research topics for future research........................................439
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1 The model of knowledge management...............................................79
Figure 3.1 2x2-social paradigms model by Burrell and Morgan (1979)............101
Figure 3.2 The preliminary framework of this research....................................108
Figure 3.3 The overall research design of this study.........................................113
Figure 3.4 Spradley (1980)`s nine observational dimensions............................138
Figure 3.5 The example of the form of field note stored in the software of Microsoft OneNote.....................................................................................143
Figure 3.6 The node tree in the software of Nvivo............................................149
Figure 4.1 Specific construction drawings of handrails in No.5 TDP...............165
Figure 4.2 Previous Organizational structure of Company A before Oct, 2014175
Figure 4.3 New Organizational Structure of Company A after Oct, 2014........176
Figure 4.4 Previous Organizational Structure of Company C before July, 2015....................................................................................................................178
Figure 4.5 New Organizational Structure of Company C after July, 2015........179
Figure 4.6 Organizational Structure of Company B in the middle of 2015.......180
Figure 4.7 How clients and TDCs connect to each other before formally conduct the project...................................................................................................190
Figure 4.8 ‘Egg’ form of project team of TDP..................................................210
Figure 4.9 ‘Round Table’ form of project team of TDP....................................214
Figure 4.10 The framework of general project ecology of TDPs in China........234
Figure 5.1 The KM model and the project ecology framework applied in this research......................................................................................................236
Figure 5.2 4’I’ model for idea generation process in TDP................................264
Figure 5.3 Explanation of the implications and related knowledge foundation within the concept ‘Yun Ding Xian Ju’ based on author’s research..........273
Figure 5.4 Examples of Emojis and their common meaning of emotions.........337
Figure 5.5 Examples of customized Emojis.......................................................338
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Figure 5.6 the example of online storage used in the case companies...............405
Figure 6.1 The integrated framework of TDP ecology in China and the related KM models.................................................................................................413
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Chapter 1 Introduction
This research finds its origins in a major research gap relating to tourism product
development. The product is considered an—perhaps the most—essential factor in
most sectors that are characterized by their products. However, despite the significant
role of the tourism product in tourism development, current tourism product studies
are relatively uneven. Most research focuses on the marketing dimension (e.g.
marketing analysis) rather than the supply dimension, including the tourism product
development process (WTO and ETC, 2011). Within this field, the role of tourism
development companies (TDCs) is to develop tourism products, and especially to
provide the blueprint for designing and planning tourism attractions and destinations;
they are rarely researched or even mentioned in the research literature. Further
evidence of this gap can be found in the tourism innovation literature: although there
is considerable literature on tourism product innovation (Aldebert et al., 2011), there
is only a relatively limited investigation of the product innovation process. This is a
surprising omission because the product can be viewed not only as an outcome, but
also as encompassing the entire backstage process related to this. Therefore, this
thesis aims to advance understanding of the process of tourism product development
through focusing on one of the main actors during the process, i.e. tourism
development companies (TDCs).
After initially considering the literature related to the general innovation process, the
research then focus the initial stage of innovation process, i.e. idea generation process,
or in other words, creativity. In this context, as a successful innovation process cannot
exist without good idea which is the origin of innovation, the significance of creativity
is self-evident. Although researchers have become increasingly interested in
creativity, the field of the creative process remains largely neglected, including that of
1
the tourism product design (development) process, a primary component of the
creativity process in tourism. During the discussion, knowledge is frequently
mentioned as having a self-evidently significant role in the process of creativity and
innovation, and the concept of knowledge management (KM) has been subjected to
rapidly increasing research in the tourism field.
However, once again only limited attention has been paid to the tourism product
development process and to TDCs, despite their knowledge-intensive nature. From
the author`s experience of working in TDCs, there is a need to understand relevant
creativity process and the diverse range of knowledge sources, from both inside and
outside tourism, that are required for effective development of tourism products. In
this context, there is a need to fill an essential gap in the existing understanding of
knowledge management. Likewise, in the field of creativity, it is recognized that the
analysis of tourism attraction development and the related innovation, creativity, and
knowledge process will focus on their ‘carriers’—the actors in the tourism attraction
development.
The social form of the actors in tourism development projects (TDPs for short, which
mainly delivers the planning and design of tourism destinations and attractions) is
characterised as a project-based pattern, and the development of tourism attractions is
usually delivered through the form of projects. Furthermore, although the TDC is the
main concept generator and developer in the tourism attraction development process,
the project-based pattern also covers the actors from various entities rather than those
in the single ‘firm’, as in the firm-centred social form. Therefore, the appropriateness
of applying many of the traditional management theories which have been developed
in relation to entities with non-project contexts to project-based entities is
questionable. It is necessary to specifically and systematically understand the
2
knowledge management practices and strategies of TDCs, and the related project
processes, from a different perspective.
In order to fulfil this gap, the thesis adopts an organizational ecology approach in the
project context, which is specifically termed “project ecology”. This approach covers
a wide range of research themes (including its link with knowledge management),
which possess considerable potential but have been rarely been explored by tourism
scholars. Its definition refers to ‘the interdependencies between projects and the
particular firms, personal relations, localities and corporate networks from which
these projects mobilize essential sources’ (Grabher, 2002a: 246). This essence of PE
(people and their interrelationships) echoes the research angle proposed before; hence
it is considered to be particularly useful for researching the issues in terms of tourism
development project and TDCs.
Overall, there is lack of research on knowledge management in the context of project-
based businesses within the domain of tourism (e.g. TDCs), but this is one of the keys
to open the black box of tourism product development and innovation processes. In
part this is related to the traditional focus on the firm, as a bounded entity, rather than
its situation in a broader project ecology, understood here in terms of the concept of
epistemic communities. Hence, based on the identification of gaps within the current
research field according to the following literature review, and the author`s own
working experience in tourism development companies (TDCs) in China and interest
in tourism product development, the overall research aim of this study is proposed as:
To understand knowledge management in tourism development companies in China
via a project ecology approach
3
The corresponding research objectives are:
To provide a detailed account of the general project ecology of TDCs in China
To understand how knowledge is managed within the project ecology of the
chosen case studies
China was selected as the context for this research for the following reasons: Firstly,
since the late 1970s when China introduced its reform programme and opening-up
policy, the tourism industry has experienced rapid development (Airey and Chong,
2011). According to WTTC (2017), the growth of domestic expenditure on tourism in
China has surpassed 200 billion CNY per annum (equivalent to at a growth rate of at
least 7.9% per annum) during the five years from 2011 to 2017 (1 GBP ≈ 8.77 CNY
in late 2017). This demonstrates the flourishing domestic tourism market in China.
Just as Huang et al. (2011) mentioned, this booming domestic tourism demand to a
large degree drives the development of new tourism products, which has created the
conditions for an increase in the number of TDPs, resulting in a rich context for this
research. Furthermore, selecting China also increases the feasibility of this research.
For instance, it draws on the researcher`s previous working experience in the Chinese
TDCs, mother language, and personal relationships with insiders in the TDC industry
which can facilitate the research process from various perspectives.
In order to achieve the aforementioned research aim and objectives, the overall thesis
has been divided into six chapters:
Chapter 1. Introduction: This chapter presents the introduction to this thesis. The
author reviews the background and the reasons for selecting this research topic, and
4
briefly explains the significance of it. In addition, the research aim, related objectives,
and the general structure of this research are subsequently outlined.
Chapter 2. Literature Review: This chapter provides a series of literature reviews in
terms of the key concepts which are related to this research, which covers tourism
product, tourism innovation, and knowledge management. In each part of the
literature review, the researcher reviews the definition, the relevant characteristics, the
importance, and the gap in the corresponding concepts. Especially, this chapter
discusses the knowledge management model, and the concept of project ecology
which is adopted in this research.
Chapter 3. Methodology: The methodology that is applied in the thesis is present in
this chapter. Initially, this author discusses the research purpose, the type of
investigation, and the interpretive research paradigm adopted in this research. Then,
based on the research paradigm, the later content provides a detailed introduction to
the research strategies and data collection methods used in this study. After that, the
author briefly introduces the corresponding data storage and data analysis aspects.
Chapter 4. Project Ecology of Case Studies: This chapter presents a brief overview
and description of the range of activities and professional portfolios of TDCs, as well
as the components of project ecology in the context of tourism development projects
and their situations in the case studies. This chapter starts with an overview of TDPs
in China and the introduction of the key elements of each TDPs in the case studies.
After that, the author mainly divides the remaining content into three sections: the
mother firm (i.e. the TDC), the epistemic communities (i.e. clients, external
consultants, other project companies, and local communities), and the project team. In
each section, the author introduces the general role and background in terms of
5
tourism development projects, according to the interviews and the informal
conversation with the participants in the case studies. The author also describes the
specific situations in the three case studies on the basis of the field work.
Chapter 5. Knowledge Management in the Context of Tourism Development Project:
This chapter is mainly related to discussing the effects of multi-levels factors on
knowledge management in the context of tourism development projects. By
considering the limitations of the collected research data, as well as the research
purposes, this chapter mainly focuses on project members, the teams, and the TDCs
they belonged to during the field work instead of investigating all the factors in every
entity. The discussion will cover three main components of knowledge management:
knowledge creation, knowledge transfer, and retention. In each part, the author
identifies and discusses the relevant factors in the order of four layers: the individual,
the team/group, the organization, and the external environment. The discussion is
conducted by comparing the research data collected from the field work with a further
exploration of the relevant literature. In the concluding note of this chapter, it
synthesizes the detailed findings identified in this chapter into several key findings.
Chapter 6. Conclusion: The author gives a summary of the research outcomes in
relation to the aims and objectives, including the contributions to existing knowledge
in the relevant fields, and the managerial recommendations. It then discusses the
limitations and proposes future work.
6
Chapter 2 Literature Review
This chapter presents four sections of literature review of this study. Each section of
this chapter starts with the definitions of the corresponding thematic terms, i.e.
tourism product, innovation, creativity, and knowledge management. After that, the
characteristics and the types within the fields of these terms will also be discussed.
Then, the researcher will demonstrate the significance of these terms and identify the
current research gaps within the corresponding areas. It should be noted that, these
sub-chapters exhibit the gradually evolving process of the specific research ideas in
the researcher’s mind during his Ph.D life. At this stage, the discussion in each sub-
chapter is relatively broad and general which mainly provide the theoretical overview
of this research. During the later chapters about the findings of this research, some
more specific literature will be reviewed and referred to during the discussion.
2.1 Tourism Product
2.1.1 Definition of Tourism Product
Like other types of industries, tourism industry is characterised by its product (i.e.
tourism product) and production process (Smith, 1994). The tourism product and the
tourism industry itself demonstrate various specialisms that it is hard to be categorised
(Swarbrooke and Horner, 2001). There is no universally accepted definition of
tourism product. Just as Swarbrooke (2002) states that, the generally used word terms
‘product’ (including ‘tourism product’) is complex concepts in reality which requires
elaborate definition. Furthermore, Williams and Buswell (2003) consider that gaining
a clear understanding of the term ‘product’ in terms of leisure and tourism area is
useful for the studies of tourism product-related topic. Therefore, the author plans to
7
discuss the existing definitions of ‘product’ and introduce the possible definition of
tourism product in this section.
Some scholars (e.g. Lewis and Chambers, 1989; Holloway, 2004) conceptualise
‘product’ from the perspective of marketing research, or in other words, from the
perspective of the product`s basic function. For instance, Smith (1994) states that
product is ‘the conceptual commodity produced by an industry’ (p.582). Furthermore,
one widely accepted definition of ‘product’ developed by Kotler (1994) is as follows.
‘A product is anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use,
or consumption that might satisfy a want or need. It includes physical objects
services, persons, places, organisations and ideas.’ (Cited in Swarbrooke, 2002:40)
Likewise, another product definition proposed by Lewis and Chambers (1989) is that
the ‘product’ is an offering that is designed to satisfy the wants and needs (including
solving the problems of) of the present and potential customers belonged to the target
markets. According to these above marketing-related definitions, it is obvious that the
definitions of product from this perspective all contain such keywords of ‘market’ and
‘needs and wants’ which can be viewed as the target and the ideas (objectives) of
certain product respectively. It is possible to explain the definition of product by this
way: a product is a tool that developed and utilised by a business entity to satisfy the
needs and wants of the customers of its target market.
In the meantime, several scholars (e.g. Lewis and Chambers, 1989) draw their
attention to the general components of ‘product’ and describe that a product is
comprised of both tangible and intangible elements. Smith (1994) also suggest that
‘product’ is a collection comprising physical attributes as well as symbolic features
8
which are proposed to be fulfilling the customers` needs. They also consider that the
elements of a certain ‘product’ should not only contain what is offered but also the
way that it is presented (Williams and Buswell, 2003). Furthermore, as mentioned
before, Kotler (1994) defines the components of a product should include services,
people, places, organisations and ideas.
However, according to Swarbrooke (2002), numbers of well-established and popular
definitions (including some of above, e.g. Kotler, 1994) are primarily built in the
context of manufactured goods. Due to the distinct characteristics of tourism product
and the industry itself (which will be mainly discussed in the next section), it is
evident that the demand of developing a specific definition related to the tourism
product or modifying the general product definition into a tourism context is
reasonably imperative. According to this situation, a range of academics define the
term ‘tourism product’ on the basis of the definitions of ‘product’. The general
definitions of tourism product can also be found from two perspectives, the function
approach (‘what can it do’) and the component approach (‘what does it cover’).
With respect to the function approach, Muresan and Cristescu (2009) provide a
relatively detailed definition of tourism product on the basis of Kotler`s product
definition. They define the tourism product as ‘a combination of material goods and
services offered by the personnel of tourism activities and those activities auxiliary to
it, that underline the value of tourist patrimony elements and tourist infrastructure
taking advantage of the general infrastructure of the country or of a certain area and
institutional framework, resulting in satisfied consumers of tourism’ (p.1). Similar to
the explanation of the definition of product before, the tourism product here is a tool
that was developed and utilised by a tourism-related entity to satisfy the needs and
wants of the customers (i.e. tourists) of its target market. To be more specific, the
9
function of a generic tourism product is ‘the facilitation of travel and activity of
individuals away from their usual home environment’ (Smith, 1994:582-3).
As for the component approach, the scholars usually decompose the total concept of
‘tourism product’ to discover the constitutive elements. For instance, Smith (1994)
illustrate that the tourism product consists of five components, i.e. ‘Physical Plant
(PP), Freedom of Choice (FC), Service (S), Involvement (I) and Hospitality (H)’
(p.587). Furthermore, World Tourism Organisation and European Travel Commission
(WTO and ETC) (2011) generalise the tourism product in two ways. On the one hand,
from a relatively macro perspective, the tourism product can be defined widely as all
elements within the tourism process, such as infrastructure, the service personnel, etc.
On the other hand, from a relatively micro perspective, the tourism product is defined
narrowly as those attractions, activities and facilities which are specifically provided
for the tourists. Likewise, Cooper and Hall (2012) support that the tourism product
can be viewed from a continuum that: ‘a single component; through a composite of
components that are packaged or bundled together; to the total destination product
itself’ (p.27). They also introduce an approach to the tourism product which is to view
the tourism product as a synonymous concept of the tourism destination, which
therefore contains all elements of a destination (e.g. attractions).
The two approaches mentioned here (function and component) are not mutually
exclusive. Firstly, they are both essential fields in terms of the tourism product. On
the one hand, as for the function side, numbers of scholars (e.g. Middleton, 1989)
consider that product is a subset of the total marketing concept. On the other hand, the
components of the tourism product are the supply elements of the total tourism system
from certain component approaches to tourism product (e.g. Sessa, 1983). Therefore,
10
Gunn (1988) stresses the significance of having a precise concept of the components
of the tourism which can result in smooth functioning of tourism system.
Then, researchers usually discuss the tourism product definitions from both
perspectives and develop the final definition as comprising its function side as well as
its components (such as Kotler, 1994). Furthermore, many efforts in terms of the
component approach to the tourism product (e.g. Middleton, 1989; Jefferson and
Lickorish, 1988) have been introduced in the marketing perspectives section of the
article by Smith (1994), which are utilised as a link between marketing research and
product development in the context of tourism product. In addition, the concept of the
components of the tourism product has significant implications for the tourism
marketing research, especially for the managerial challenge about quality
management across these various components (Cooper and Hall, 2012).
To conclude, the current literature is mainly from two perspectives to the
conceptualisation of the tourism product which can be found to have their roots in the
research on the generic product. The marketing (function) perspective definition
emphasises the function of the tourism product, which is a tool that is developed and
utilised by a tourism-related entity to satisfy the needs and wants of the customers (i.e.
tourists) of its target market. In contrast, the component perspective of the definition
explores the concept of what constitutes tourism products. These two perspectives are
symbiotic and are inter-related. By integrating these two perspectives and referring to
the previous definitions, the author proposes that the definition of tourism product
used in this article will be,
‘The tourism product can be viewed as a combination of various tourism supply
elements which develops by the tourism business entities in order to satisfy the needs
and wants of, or solve the problem of, or lead and stimulate the demands of the
11
tourists.’ (Integrated and adapted from Cooper and Hall, 2012; Medlik and Middleton,
1973; Muresan and Cristescu, 2009; Smith, 1994)
2.1.2 Tourism Product Development and Tourism Planning
After discussing the definition of tourism product, the importance of product in the
field of tourism is fairly clear. As Horner and Swarbrooke (2005) state, the product
should be at the core of all business activities (especially marketing) in leisure. Zhang
et al. (2009) underline that providing appropriate products to satisfy customer needs is
of the utmost significance. Chaisawat (2006) also supports that, globalisation and
technology development have led the elaboration of tourism product to a higher place
in the comparative advantages of tourism destinations than natural resources
nowadays.
Furthermore, just as mentioned before, the tourism product is a tool that is developed
and utilised by a tourism-related entity to satisfy the needs and wants of the customers
(i.e. tourists) of its target market. The tourism product is the starting point of the
marketing activities of the majority of tourism businesses, and the characteristics of it
distinguish the tourism industry from the other industries. In other words, without the
tourism product, the tourism market and even the total tourism industry will not exist.
Despite the outstanding importance of tourism product in the process of tourism
development, Smith (1994) argues that most tourism industry studies focus on the
marketing rather than the supply side. WTO and ETC (2011) have also discovered
that there is relatively limited attention drawn by the tourism sectors towards the area
of tourism product development by comparing the huge amount of effort in terms of
market analysis, segmentation and positioning, branding and creative strategies of 12
tourism destinations. Such imbalance has already led to the struggles for destinations
to realise their full potential. Take the example of Thailand’s tourism industry raised
by Chaisawat (2006): although tourist arrivals are increased due to aggressive tourism
promotions and mass marketing, the lack of focus on the creation of value-added
tourism products leads to the revenue per tourist being relatively lower than that of the
surrounding competitors, and Thailand tourism industry has got stuck in this
predicament for years.
According to this situation, some scholars start to realise the significance of the
research issues in terms of the tourism product development. For instance, Cooper et
al. (1993) mention the increasingly significant demand on tourism product suppliers
to develop a deeper understanding of customer benefits as well as the service delivery
itself. Gummesson (1994) also considers the poor tourism product development will
fundamentally lead to the problems within the service delivery process and the
resulting customers` experience. Then, Holloway (2004) develops the concept of the
unique selling proposition, which is ‘the feature or features of a product which are not
to be found in those of its competitors’ (p.130). This feature further emphasises the
need to elaborate tourism product development. Furthermore, Marshall (1998)
considers that the common challenge facing the tourism businesses is to keep one step
ahead of the general public. This argument also implies that the tourism organisations
and destinations should not only develop their products to meet the needs and wants
of the customers, but also create and lead the customers` demand.
The aforementioned significance calls for the necessity of drawing more attention
towards tourism product development. Tourism product development is defined as ‘a
process whereby the assets of a particular destination are moulded to meet the needs
of national and international customers’ (WTO and ETC, 2011:4), which is an integral
13
part ‘of overall tourism development planning’ (p.97). Meanwhile, tourism planning
is the purposive process of preparing a set of interdependent and systematically
related decisions for achieving successful tourism development and management in
the future (integrated from Cullingsworth, 1997; Dror, 1973; Gunn and Var, 2002
Hall, 2008). In light of the connection between tourism product development and
tourism planning, the studies in terms of tourism planning approaches can enlighten
the researches in terms of tourism product development to a certain degree.
Tourism planning was traditionally viewed within the sphere of town planning and
land-use planning (Costa, 2001). Although tourism planning, as an identifiable and
particular field, is relatively recent (Gunn and Var, 2002), it has continuously evolved
for decades so that there exist a series of tourism planning approaches. For instance,
Hall (2008) categorises the traditions of tourism planning into five approaches, i.e.
boosterism, economic, physical/spatial, community, and sustainable tourism (see
Table 2.1). The underlying assumptions of these approaches vary from each other,
and each places a particular emphasis on a certain aspect of tourism development
from different perspectives. For instance, physical/spatial planning aims to provide
the blueprint for the better spatial structure of land usage via planning spatial
components (Hall, 1992). This approach was viewed as a branch of urban
development planning, and its main concerns were on the reduction of the impact on
the physical environment caused by tourists (Costa, 2001). In contrast, the economic
approach gives its primary attention to the positive influences of tourism on the
specific areas, which defines and plans tourism as an industry and a tool to maximise
the economic benefits for the regions.
14
Planning Tradition Underlying Assumptions Examples related to tourism
planning methods/models
Boosterism Tourism should be aggressively developed as it is inherently goodDevelopment defined in business/corporate termsCultural and natural resources should be exploited
PromotionPublic RelationsAdvertising
Economic Tourism is viewed as a tool to achieve certain economic goals, in a way which is similar to other industriesDevelopment defined in economic terms
Benefit-Cost AnalysisProduct-Market MatchingDevelopment Incentives
Physical/spatial Tourism is viewed as a spatial and regional phenomenon which relies on resources and impacts on the environment Development defined in environmental terms
Ecological StudiesRegional PlanningPerceptual Studies
Community Tourism is viewed to be heavily interrelated with the local community and sociocultural environment, which indicates the need for local control and balanced developmentDevelopment defined in sociocultural terms
Community DevelopmentAttitudinal SurveysSocial Impact Assessment
Sustainable Tourism Holistic planning towards tourism, not only integrating with other planning processes, but also including fairness in terms of intra- and inter-generations, inter-nations, etc.Development defined in the integration of economic, environmental and sociocultural values
Political EconomyStakeholder AuditEnvironmental Analysis and Audit
Table 2.1 Traditions of Tourism Planning Approaches (Modified from Hall, 2008:50-
65)
According to the diverse approaches, it can be seen that tourism planning can no
longer be solely understood within the sphere of land-use planning. The approaches
have already developed from unrestrained boosterism, to approaches that emphasise
different dimensions (i.e. economic, environment, and social-community) of tourism,
then to a relatively integrated and sustainable approach. This evolving process leads
to several implications for tourism product development.
15
For instance, it implies that the main concerns towards tourism product development
have moved on from the narrow chase of immediate monetary profits to a wider
concern towards various dimensions of tourism for the sake of achieving
sustainability in the destination. As WTO and ETC (2011) suggest in their handbook
on tourism product development, tourism product should not only be shaped to
contribute economic benefits, but also something that ‘the local population can enjoy
while avoiding the creation of damaging impacts on the area’s natural resources or
society’ (p.78). Even if economic benefits are the priority for some tourism product
suppliers, to have sustainable product can also increase its appeal in certain tourism
markets (Hall, 2008).
Furthermore, due to the aim of achieving sustainability and the understanding of
tourism as a widely interrelated system of various demand and supply systems,
tourism product development should not be viewed as the objective for any single
entity but requires ‘public involvement’ (Gunn and Var, 2002). It calls for the process
of tourism product development to be interactive, cooperative, and steered (Hall,
2008), where various relevant people and parties can be involved and integrated into
the process. The ways in which the interests of these stakeholders can be effectively
coordinated, integrated, and transformed into influences on the final product decisions
are therefore worthy of researching.
Apart from the implications originating from the approaches to tourism planning,
further understanding about the nature of tourism product also leads to the current
developments whereby the tourism product has moved away from an approach based
only on physical planning. It is because the tourism product is no longer understood
as the tangible facilities and settings only, but also incorporates the physical
atmosphere, the activities, and the interaction process among staffs, tourists and local
16
residents as discussed in the last section. Furthermore, while land-use and physical
planning emphasise the scientific and orderly way to dispose of land and resources
(Wang et al., 2013), the fundamental features of tourism planning and tourism product
development are related to creativity and unpredictability. In light of the supply-led
characteristics of the tourism product, due to the distinctiveness of different locations
or cultures wherein tourism is developed, ‘tourism is constantly developing and
offering new products’ (Williams and Buswell, 2003:13). Gunn and Var (2002) also
contend that the very strength of planning tourism is about creativity, which leads to
dramatic changes in the expressions of the tourism product from the past to then. This
fundamental difference between the current ideas about the tourism product
development and its previous understanding under the sphere of land-use planning
leads to the need for new research in terms of figuring out the role of creativity in the
process of tourism product development.
To conclude, according to its significant role in tourism development and the limited
existing research on this, the area of tourism product development possesses high
potential and many opportunities to be explored. Furthermore, on the basis of the
literature review, the author believes that, if the tourism product is viewed as the
starting point of the tourism industry, the product development should be viewed as
an integral part of overall tourism planning. According to this connection between
tourism product development and tourism planning, the studies undertaken in terms of
tourism planning approaches enlighten the researches regarding tourism product
development to a certain degree. Especially, it shows that the current developments in
tourism products have already moved away from an approach based on physical
planning only. These changes draw attention to the need to achieve sustainability in
terms of economic, environmental, and social aspects of the destinations all together,
which require public involvement in the development process. Furthermore, the
components of the tourism product are understood as not only the physical facilities
17
and settings, but also the intangible atmosphere, the activities, and the interaction
processes among staff, tourists and local residents. This understanding further leads to
a focus on different features of tourism product development compared to the
traditional physical planning approach: tourism planning and tourism product
development are fundamentally related to creativity and hard to predict, while land-
use and physical planning emphasise the orderly way to dispose of land and resources.
The aforementioned distinct features of current approaches to tourism product
development require further efforts to investigate these.
2.1.3 Focus on Tourism Attraction Development and Tourism
Development Companies
As one of the component approaches to the tourism product definition shows that, the
tourism product can be viewed from a continuum that: ‘a single component; through a
composite of components that are packaged or bundled together; to the total
destination product itself’ (Cooper and Hall, 2012:27). Likewise, Page (2011)
identifies that tourism product (herein means general tourism) comprises a wide range
of components, e.g. transportation (inter- and intra-destinations), accommodation and
catering, festivals, attractions. Such components are supplied by various
corresponding suppliers, e.g. airlines and airports, car hire companies, hotels,
restaurants, event and exhibition companies, etc. Therefore, it is self-evident that
those single (service) products are generally designed, planned and produced by those
suppliers. What`s mentioned here, tourism attraction is one unique and distinct
component within them. The following content will discuss three statement which
makes tourism attraction unique within all tourism products. Furthermore, the first
statement will primarily demonstrate its significance, while the other two statements
will emphasise its differences with other tourism products, especially in terms of the
18
design and planning factors. In the meantime, a series of research gaps will be
discussed at the end of the latter two sections respectively.
2.1.3.1 Significance of tourism attractions
Tourism attractions (as well as tourism destination) lie in the centre of tourism
system. According to the hierarchical typologies of tourism product (Normann, 2000;
Williams and Buswell, 2003), tourism product can be classified into two categories,
i.e. the core product and the augmented product, according to their role in delivering
the benefit of ‘tourism’ to the customers. This approach is developed on the basis of
Kotler`s theory of three levels of product concept (see in Kotler`s book <Principle Of
Marketing >), which are core product (level one), actual product (level two), and
augmented product (level three). By extending this theory to the field of tourism, the
core products in tourism are facilities and settings in visitor attractions (e.g. rides and
safety in amusement parks), and experience (e.g. relax, escape, excitement), while the
augmented products in tourism refer to catering, retail, additional services (e.g. car
parking), etc. (Swarbrooke, 2002).
In the meantime, the actual product can be normally treated as tourism destination or
tourism attraction per se which is a product that consumers actually buy. Therefore, it
can be easily settled down the core place of tourism attraction in terms of general
tourism system. The existence and development the core product largely influence the
planning and supply of augmented products, as augmented products are built ‘around
the core and actual products by offering consumer services and benefits’ (Kotler,
2004:540). A real case can be found in the case of Waitomo Caves, New Zealand in
which Pavlovich (2003) visually identifies the evolution and transformation of the
local tourism destination network through a series of sketch maps. Therefore, the
19
significance of the development of tourism destinations and attractions is self-evident
as the core of tourism system development.
2.1.3.2 Difference 1
In comparison to the supplier of augmented tourism products, the interrelationships
between the supplier and planner of tourism attractions (as well as tourism
destinations) are more complicated which may lead to several issues related to
knowledge transfer. In the first place, the ownerships and suppliers of tourism
attractions are various in different cases which is not relatively simple and explicit as
the suppliers of other services (e.g. the shareholders in airlines, hotels and
restaurants). For instance of latter, Hilton Hotels are generally known to be owned by
the Hilton Worldwide, and Heathrow Airport is owned and operated by Heathrow
Airport Holdings.
However, with respect to the former, take the example of folk villages, the situation is
much more complicated. On the one side, the ownerships of folk villages can be
various, e.g. governments (especially in the regions with complete public land
ownership), communities of business (see in some cases which invest and develop the
villages into ethnic folk village theme parks), and local residents (e.g. in case of
Goreme of Turkey in the 1980s, the pansiyons are the initial places and attractions for
the visiting backpackers` entertainment which are owned by local village men
(Mottiar and Tucker, 2007).).
On the other side, the ownership of folk villages can be multiple and shared. One
example can be found in the pre-case of Goreme: the situation is more likely to be
broad stakeholder involvement which such ownerships tend to be mixed together.
20
Although the pansiyons still prevail, their ownerships are continually transforming
and the size of product portfolio is increasing. To be more specific, Goreme has
around seventy pansiyons so far, and these pansiyons are operated by different
owners. If treated the group of pansiyons as a core tourism product in this region, the
ownership of this product involves with numbers of entities. Furthermore, the entities
of the ownership of the pansiyons are not limited to the group of the ‘hosts’ within the
pansiyons but also some external entrepreneurs who enter into partnerships in the
pansiyons` businesses, the situation of which presents the social backgrounds of the
ownerships of pansiyons are becoming various. Moreover, the core tourism product
portfolio of Goreme is also enriched, which means pansiyon is not the sole tourism
attraction in the region, but also some camping sites as well as a horse ranch. This
situation also implies the ownerships of tourism attractions in this village are
increasingly multifarious.
Apart from the complicated characteristics of the ownerships and suppliers of tourism
attractions, the various ownerships of tourism attractions also imply the diverse
interrelationships between suppliers and planners. In regard to the context of tourism
attractions, although the situation does exist that some tourism attractions are
developed directly by their owners (i.e. governments, foreign investors, local
entrepreneurs), there are also many examples where tourism attractions and
destination development required the involvement of relevant expertised tourism
development companies (TDCs). These are primarily responsible for generating
creative and appropriate concepts of tourism attractions by synthesising available
relevant knowledge, designing the features which represent such concepts, and
planning the functions of each component of the target attraction, but not for the daily
operation and management of the attractions.
21
Gunn and Var (2002) give a section to briefly introduce different categories of
planners who guide and direct tourism development, including the specific planners
within each category and the contexts within which different categories of planners
occur. Some paragraphs of their discussion did mention a category which is
approximate to the business of TDCs, which is the category of professional
consultants. The role of professional consultants is ‘to provide unbiased information
and plans … range from specific buildable site development to consulting services on
many tourism planning and development topics … no other group can provide
planning assistance as effectively’ (Gunn and Var, 2002: 13). Within this category,
several specific professions have been mentioned and discussed, e.g. building
architects, landscape architects, urban planning, and civil engineers. These
professions can also be found to be employed in TDCs. In addition, that section also
discusses the circumstance that many universities and their constituent researchers are
engaged in tourism planning projects. It echoes with the situation that there are many
TDCs established against the background of the universities. However, despite the
above hints which echo with the situations of several TDCs, Gunn and Var (2002)
have not directly mentioned the existence or the role of TDCs in tourism planning,
although it is exactly the type of business which provides specific consulting advices
for tourism development. Furthermore, by Gunn and Var reviewing the current
literature in terms of tourism planning and development, there is little detailed
discussion about the actual role and functions of these consultancies and consultants
in the process of tourism product development. Hence, it calls for further
investigations to figure out these issues, and TDC can be chosen as an essential point
for initiating research in this field.
Therefore, in order to closely examine new tourism attraction development, it is
necessary to obtain an insightful understanding of tourism development companies
(TDCs). Just as its name implies, the main function of a TDC is to provide
22
consultancy services for developing tourism attractions and destinations, and it is an
emblematic project-based knowledge-intensive form of tourism company. As a result,
the author believes that the nature of the TDC can be deconstructed into two elements,
which are its project-based, and knowledge-intensiveness.
As for the term ‘project-based’, a starting point for understanding this is the work of
Grabher (2002a) on advertising projects which can also be applied in the context of
TDCs: his two key characteristics of projects are temporal collaboration and the
diversity of skills required in accomplishing the project. Gunn and Var (2002) also
support the contention that the main form of consulting services in tourism planning
and development is project-based, and ‘the major change among these specialists is
their collaboration as teams’ (p.14).
In regard to ‘knowledge-intensiveness’, drawing on Miles (2005) and Zeleny (2005),
Tzortzaki and Mihiotis (2012) define knowledge-intensive companies as ‘companies
that employ a relatively high percentage of knowledge workers (knowledge workers
are employees that drive organisational performance and success through the effective
use of the knowledge they possess) … and consider knowledge as being central to
their competitive strategy’ (p.243). By comparing this definition with the two former
concepts, it is obviously that TDC is a representative knowledge-intensive company
which hires creative workers (e.g. the copywriters, the art directors, the architects,
etc.), and produces knowledge (e.g. the blueprint of new attraction development).
As mentioned before, tourism product development can be hardly found as a research
object within the context of tourism and hospitality research. According to the above
characteristics of TDC, some relevant research gaps can be identified which constitute
the research topic of this thesis. Firstly, as the ‘designed’ tourism attraction and
23
destination should appeal to tourists and achieve the optimisation of resources
arrangement, there is a range of knowledge that the project team in charge should
acquire, e.g. customer preference of target market segmentation and (both natural and
socio-cultural) resource assessment report. Therefore, it is necessary to explore a
series of mechanisms for acquiring knowledge from these external knowledge sources
(e.g. customers, government, clients) as well as transferring knowledge from these
raw knowledge blocks to the knowledge workers.
Secondly, the organisational form of project-based company is distinct from that of
general traditional firms that will result in the inappropriate application of knowledge
management theories and practices which are developed from the background of
general firm-centred pattern. This part will be further discussed in the next section.
Thirdly, as TDC is a knowledge-intensive company, knowledge management can be
treated even more significant in it by comparing to other relatively labour-intensive
firms. Therefore, the further exploration about current knowledge management
practices in TDC and the judgement about their roles and effectiveness in terms of its
productivity and innovation are necessary.
2.1.3.3 Difference 2
The patterns of product development are dramatically different between tourism
attractions and in some manufactured products, which can be labelled as project-based
pattern vs. firm-centred pattern. Just as its name implies, firm-centred pattern place
‘firm’ as the basic element and subject of commercial behaviour and performance
(e.g. in the discussion of Maskell (2001)), which includes the practice of product
development discussing in this section. Within this approach, the form of these
suppliers (firms) are viewed as unitary, coherent, bounded entities, in which ‘different
divisions or units are operationally identifiable with coherent boundaries between the
24
firm`s sphere of operation and control and its interfaces with external activities’
(Gann and Salter, 2000: 957).
However, this notion of the firm and the product development pattern does not appear
to fit with the reality when applied TDCs as well as tourism attraction development
process. For instance, the development of tourism attraction is usually proposed as a
form of project, which is more likely to be temporary and unique rather than a kind of
ongoing and repetitive processes (Brusoni et al., 1998). Furthermore, as the preceding
section discusses that, the stakeholders and ownerships of tourism attraction are
various, and the interrelationship between the supplier and the planner are normally
cross-boundary from different entities. Just as Grabher (2002a) introduced, it can be
treated as one kind of practice which is ‘hardly reconcilable with the firm-centred
approach’ (p.246), i.e. project-based pattern. This pattern is generally existing in the
tourism attraction development process, not only in the quintessentially ‘one-off’
project-based business (i.e. TDC), but also involving other relevant agencies (e.g. the
government) when they undertake the responsibilities of visitor attraction
development.
What should be noticed that, the project team (project team herein means the primary
entity undertake the responsibility of product development from the perspective of
project-based pattern) may involve the members from different relevant entities,
which means the boundary of the project team can be cross over the original boundary
of entity. For instance, if government plan to appropriately develop an original
minority ethnic village into a folk village attraction, due to the necessity of broad
skills involvement, the project team members need cover or frequently consult with
experts from various background and different organisations, e.g. relevant ethnic
sociologist, architect, folk artist, tourism professionals, and etc.
25
Therefore, it can be inferred that the organisational ecology of the unities involving
with project team, especially those project-based firms, can be different with that
traditional firm-centred organisational ecology to a great extent. To be more specific,
just as several academics (e.g. Gann and Salter, 2000) present that, project teams are
limitedly tied to the senior management of which firms they belong to. Instead, they
relatively closely work and collaborate in a team with other entities. Grabher (2002a)
state a term for this situation as ‘project ecology’ (this term will also be mentioned in
the knowledge management chapter) which is defined as ‘the interdependencies
between projects and the particular firms, personal relations, localities and corporate
networks from which these projects’ (p.246). It represents a heterarchic form of social
organisation that is relatively temporary, less systemic and less coherent than other
long-term established social organisational forms.
The above evident distinction implies that the appropriateness of applying the
management theories and practices of the entities with a firm-centred pattern to the
project-based entities is questionable, and vice versa. Therefore, it can be inferred
from this situation that the knowledge management theories and practices which
apply to the general management process may not be adequate to the project process.
Therefore, in the later chapter of knowledge management, the researcher will discuss
to adopt a researcher angle which particularly from the perspective of project-based
entities.
To summarise, in this chapter on the tourism product, the thesis initially discusses the
definition of tourism product from the functional approach and the component
approach. A working definition of tourism product has been provided: it is a
combination of various tourism supply elements, developed by the tourism business
26
entities, to satisfy tourists’ needs and wants, to solve their problem, and even
stimulate their demands. Then, the significance and the current omission in terms of
tourism product development is discussed. After that, the author briefly discusses a
concept associated with tourism product development, which is tourism planning. By
reviewing the current tourism planning approaches, it contributes to the understanding
that current developments in tourism products have already moved away from the
approach based on physical planning aspects only to a broader perspective which
should give consideration to various aspects of the tourism destinations as well as
attempt to achieve uniqueness and creativity. After the preceding discussions, several
research gaps in tourism product research are identified. These indicate the need for
attention to be given to the tourism product development process as well as the role of
planners in such processes, especially the consultants, which incorporates the author’s
research interest in terms of tourism attraction development and tourism development
companies.
2.2 Innovation
2.2.1 Introduction
The increasing research on innovation means that its significance is self-evident.
Urabe et al. (1988) state that successful commercialisation and implementation the
innovative ideas can reduce the operation costs and increase the productivity.
Greenhalgh and Rogers (2010) support the notion that investment in innovation will
result in increased value to the firms. Furthermore, Banbury and Mitchell (1995)
demonstrate that innovations (especially product innovation) are essentially important
to business performance. To be more specific, the ability to support innovative
products is critical to maintain or improve a business`s market position and its
27
survival in particular industry. Correspondingly, Cefis and Marsili (2005) argue that
innovation can significantly contribute to the probability of manufacturing firms`
survival.
Apart from such firm-level research, several real cases of national economies also
reflect the increasing realisation of the importance of innovation by the policymakers.
Porter (1990) considers that nations (especially those that are factor disadvantaged)
are ‘often stimulated to find innovative ways of overcoming their comparative
weakness by developing competitive strengths’ (p.83). For instance, the government
of China progressively realises the significance of innovation in national economic
development, and has begun to call for a push for scientific progress in recent years.
A series of efforts can be found, such as setting objectives to construct itself to be an
innovation-oriented country by the year of 2020, and the establishment of China
Committee for Strategic Promotion of Constructing An Innovation-Oriented Country.
The case of China can also be well supported by the model of Crouch and Ritchie
(1999) which treats innovation as one of the key elements of competition in the
national economics competition.
The significance of innovation is not only discussed in the general theoretical and
practical fields (particularly in terms of relatively technology-intensive sectors, e.g.
the IT industry and the manufacturing industry), but also can be found in the service
sector (e.g. the tourism industry), even if the service sector has traditionally been
depicted as technologically backward. Similarly, Gallouj (2002) demonstrate that
‘there are opportunities in the economics of innovation for mutual enrichment
between goods and service’ (p.151). In other words, the inspiration and forms of
innovation activities in both manufacturing industry and service industry can be
drawn on and applied to some extent to each other. Likewise, Hall and Williams
28
(2008) argue that the service industry (here they use tourism industry as an instance)
can be a powerful driver, conveyer and transmitter of innovation.
Furthermore, by investigating the UK tourism industry, Blake et al. (2006) consider
that the level of innovation of certain tourism business is directly related to their
competitiveness in the tourism market. They also demonstrate that innovation
contributes to the increase in firms’ total productivity and the resulting higher
efficiency and welfare outcomes. Likewise, the investigation of Cainelli et al. (2006)
shows that innovation activities positively contribute to the productivity and growth
of the service companies, which are essential to the firms` economic performance.
Several real cases can be found in China. For instance, the tourism authority of China
emphasises the development of tourism innovation and has authorised the
establishment of the first pilot city of national tourism industry innovation
development, i.e. Danyang City in Jiangsu Province. In addition, the current
fashionable concept in the tourism industry of China, which is named ‘smart tourism
(intelligent tourism)’, is based on technological innovation, i.e. the development of
the Cloud Computing, the Internet of Things and the New Medias.
Due to the significance of innovation and its particular relevance in this research, the
author will discuss the topic of innovation in this part of literature review. The
discussion will begin with a brief introduction of the definition of innovation. Then
the author will focus on the innovation process. After that, several factors and issues
during the tourism innovation process will be discussed. In the end, a brief discussion
about the current research gap will be presented.
29
2.2.2 Definition of Innovation
The term ‘innovation’ is increasingly widely used in both theoretical and practical
perspectives of multiple disciplines. Currently there is no generally shared definition
in the literature (Garcia and Calantone, 2002; Gopalakrishnan and Damanpour, 1997;
Sattler, 2011); however, there is a range of attempts to define the term `innovation`
from various sources. From its originated Latin word ‘innovatio’, innovation means
novelty and newness (mentioned by Sattler, 2011). ‘Newness’ is the common
characteristic mentioned in many definitions of innovation. For instance, Zaltman et
al. (1973) define innovation as ‘any idea, practice, or material artefact perceived to be
new by the relevant unit of adoption’ (p. 10). Hauschildt and Salomo (2007) also
remark that innovation has two characteristics about ‘newness’, which are that it is a
‘qualitatively new’ product or process and it is ‘considerably different’ from the
former status (p.7).
Apart from these relatively vague definitions of innovation, amongst which the
common thread is to link innovation with newness, there are also a series of detailed
definitions of innovation provided by numbers of scholars. Kanter (1983) considers
innovation as ‘the generation, acceptance and implementation of new ideas,
processes, products or services’ (p.20). Likewise, Urabe et al. (1988) conceptualise
innovation as ‘the generation of a new idea and its implementation into a new
product, process or service’ (p.3). A similar viewpoint can also be found in Amabile
et al. (1996) and Mulgan and Albury (2003) who define innovation as the successful
implementation of new ideas. These definitions share ‘newness’ as a common theme
in themselves. It should be noted that, if simply use ‘newness’ as the criteria of the
measurement of innovation, there is no agreement on three basic questions in terms of
the nature of newness in those definitions: ‘how new, new to whom, and what is
new?’ (Johannessen et al., 2001). It implies that it is necessary to specify these three
30
questions when applying such criteria to the real world. Furthermore, from the above
comments, innovation should not only be understood in terms of just newness of
something which is a one-time outcome, but should also contain the whole process
related to it, ranging from the idea generation stage to the implementation phase. The
author will then discuss the innovation process in the next section.
2.2.3 The Innovation Process and Creativity
According to the discussion about the definition of innovation, innovation should not
only be understood as a one-time phenomenon, but should also contain the whole
process related to it, ranging from the generation stage to the implementation phase.
Zaltman et al. (1973) also underline that the innovation can be viewed as a process
composed of a series of phases. For instance, Myers and Marquis (1969) introduce
that the innovation process consists of three steps which are idea development,
problem-solving, and implementation. Likewise, Sundho (2006) considers that the
innovation process follows a model involving four phases, which are idea generating,
idea transformation, development, and implementation. There can be seen a range of
similar conception of innovation process with the former; however, most of them can
be found their links with the statement of Knight (1967), which argues that the
innovation process includes two major phases: ‘one is creation of the idea and its
development, while the other one is the introduction and adoption of the idea’ (p.480).
According to the concept of the innovation process, it is evident that the creation of
the idea is crucial, and successful innovation starts with good ideas. This situation
calls for the term, ‘creativity’. There is lack of standard, widely-accepted and clarified
the definition of the term `creativity` (Robinson and Beesley, 2010). In this research,
while innovation is the whole process of implementing new ideas, creativity is its
31
initial stage about the production of new ideas. From this perspective, creativity is
also viewed as a kind of process likewise innovation, and the definition of it adopted
in this research is,
A process about ‘the emergence of new ideas through the original combination of
common understandings, or the transformation of existing concepts through the
reorganisation of existing knowledge networks’ (Beesley and Cooper, 2008:55).
While this definition includes several key events and factors within a creativity
process, it is necessary to further obtain an understanding about the whole creativity
process. As Runco (2004) indicates that, the fundamental structure of models of the
creativity process contains a starting point (e.g. a problem or a target), intermediate
steps and an endpoint (e.g. solutions or innovations). According to this statement, the
author will introduce two primary forms of creativity process as following.
The first form of creativity process is named as the ‘stage models’. As the name
implies, this category of creativity process describes a process with series of stages.
One of the most representative model in this category is proposed by Wallas in the
year of 1926. Wallas (1926) identifies that there might be five stages of the creativity
process, which are preparation, incubation, illumination, evaluation, and elaboration.
The stage of preparation mainly means to prepare to acquire the relevant knowledge
and information about the target problem and clarify the nature and the contents of it.
The stage of incubation is a complex and obscure unconscious mental activity which
occurs after the participants identify the target issues, but the process toward solutions
is not consciously directed. The mind will link the problem to the contents of
memory, knowledge and information through previous mind habits and direct the
thoughts to the solution. However, as the unconscious characteristic of incubation,
32
there is no any creative ideas during this stage until the participants evaluate the
associations of potential ideas.
When certain idea withstands the unconscious evaluation, it will results in a moment
of insight, i.e. the stage of illumination. After that, the stage of evaluation is to
consciously examine (different from the evaluation in the incubation stage which is
unconscious) the insights occurring in the preceding stage, and the elaboration stage
is to enrich the contents of the idea and realise it into practice. It should be noticed
that these five stages are not processing one by one as an assembly line in the
practical situation that they ‘may be repeated in several full or partial cycles before a
creative solution appears’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 2000:339).
The second form of creativity process is labelled as the ‘component models’. It tends
to view the creativity process as a model involving a number of components rather
than as a continuum moving along one phase to the next. For instance, Amabile
(1990) develops a component model of creativity process involving three components
which are intrinsic motivation, domain-specific skills, and creativity relevant
processes. Runco (2004) consider that the component model of creativity process is
more superior to the stage approach as the component models are more likely to admit
the presence of complexity involving both ‘extracognitive factors and higher-order
metacomponents’ (p.334) within the creativity process. Also, the stage model may be
too linear. In practice, the process may be far more ‘messy’, involving going
backwards, and sideways, as well as forwards. An illustration can be found in his
work which is divided into two levels and involving five components which are
motivation, information, problem finding, ideation, and evaluation. Likewise,
Strzalecki (2000) present a general (component) model of creativity involving three
constructs which are ‘(1) flexibility, originality, and fluency of cognitive processes,
33
(2) freedom and originality of personal expression, (3) autonomy of an axiological
system’ (p.241).
Furthermore, on the basis of above paragraph, it to certain extent implies that the
process of creativity often seems to involve solitary efforts rather than group factors.
It can also be found in some literature that, solitary factors (e.g. isolation) were used
to be viewed as the key factors in the creativity process (Ochse, 1990), while the
group factors were even treated to have negative influences on it (Karau and
Williams, 1993; Stasser, 1999). For instance, the individual`s divergent thinking
ability might be limited when previously expressed ideas within the group are very
brilliant.
However, just as some other scholars (e.g. Mumford and Gustafson, 1988; Sternberg
and Lubart, 1999) claim that, the individual factors which are mentioned in the last
paragraph (i.e. personality, intelligence, cognitive skills, etc.) are just the minor part
of the foundation of creative behaviour. Paulus and Nijstad (2003) also support that
‘much creativity involves the combination of contributions from two or more
individuals’ (p.xii). In addition, according to the practical situation within the field of
tourism product design, the style of idea generation is a process involving a
combination of both individual efforts and team collaboration. It to certain degree
echoes with the argument of Hansen and Birkinshaw (2007) that there are three
primary approaches to idea generation within an organisation, which are in-house
(creation within a unit), cross-pollination (collaboration across units), and external
(collaboration with parties outside the firm).
Both the innovation process and creativity calls for the group efforts, and the
aforementioned concept of creativity process further implies the significance of
34
knowledge (e.g. the stage of preparation mainly means to prepare to acquire the
relevant knowledge and information about the target problem and clarify the nature
and the contents of it). From these perspectives, to effectively manage the relevant
knowledge become necessary for successful innovation and creativity, which calls for
a relevant research field, i.e. knowledge management (KM). Liebowitz (2001)
defines knowledge management as ‘the process of creating value from an
organisation`s intangible assets’ (p.2). Here, the ‘organisation`s intangible assets’ can
also be treated as the intellectual capital of the organisation or the organisation`s
knowledge (Ahmed et al., 2002), and the ‘process’ include creating, transferring,
storing knowledge (Argote and Miron-Spektor, 2011)
The importance of knowledge management and its subsets (e.g. knowledge transfer
(KT)) towards innovation and creativity has been recognised and emphasised in many
literatures (e.g. Grant, 1996; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Von Hippel, 1988). For
instance, idea exchange (a kind of knowledge transfer) act as an important part of
group interaction (Antoszkiewicz, 1992; Galegher et al., 1990), which can be an
important method for improving creativity and innovation in the belonging
organisations (Paulus and Yang, 2000). Furthermore, Ahmed et al. (2002) highlight
several benefits of knowledge management and knowledge transfer in terms of
innovation process, such as ‘improved innovation leading to improved products and
services’ and ‘reduced product development time’ which are directly related to the
innovation process of companies, especially in terms of their product innovations.
In addition, in their highly cited work in terms of the core competence of the
corporation, Prahalad and Hamel (1990) consider that the fundamental core
competence of companies is the capacity for collective learning. Furthermore,
Alexander and Childe (2013) explore the role of tacit knowledge in terms of
35
knowledge transfer and innovation process, and demonstrate that knowledge transfer
(especially selection of the appropriate knowledge transfer channel) can effectively
improve the innovation process. Moreover, it can also be found the particular role of
knowledge transfer in the commonly used methodologies of new product
development cited by Martin Jr and Horne (1993), such as customer canvassing which
concerning the use of customer information in the total innovation process (Cooper,
1985; Crawford, 1991).
Furthermore, some literature specifically emphasise the interrelationship between
creativity and knowledge management. For instance, Osterloh and Frey (2000)
support that good knowledge transfer mechanism will facilitate the generation of
creative idea and creativity. To be more specific, Myers and Marquis (1969) consider
that extra-laboratory and extra-organisational communication act significantly during
the idea generation phase, the acquired information through which contributes to new
ideas to technical and marketing problems to a great extent (Utterback, 1971). Their
interrelationship can also be represented in a phenomenon that there are a series of
common preconditions for both of them, e.g. a strong collaborative and co-operative
organisational culture is required by both knowledge transfer (Goh, 2002) and
creative group work (Harvard Business Essentials, 2003). By considering the
interrelationships among innovation, creativity and knowledge management, this
literature review will then discuss some essential factors (having either positive or
negative influences) which are critical to the success of them.
2.2.3.1 Diversity
Being similar with the factors of individual creativity, diversity plays a significant
role in the perspective of group creativity. The diversity characteristic is often
represented in the constitution of the group, i.e. the diverse group members who
36
possess different skills and resources with each other. However, the diversity does not
always act as a positive factor of group creativity. Some scholars (e,g, Austin, 1997;
McLeod and Lobel, 1992) consider that diverse groups are more likely to have better
performance in the creativity process (e.g. higher quality ideas) than those less diverse
groups: the diverse groups ought to have a greater range of viewpoints, categories of
knowledge, skills and resources. In contrast, others (e.g. Jehn et al., 1997; Kramer,
1991) argue that diverse groups do not guarantee to achieve the effective utilisation of
these various knowledge, skills and resources, and even worse, the diversity will
damage the group processes and performance due to the incompatible environment
and the resulting negative affective reactions of group members.
According to this situation, a series of efforts are provided by numbers of scholars in
order to promote the effectiveness and success of the diverse groups. For instance,
Hackman (1990) argues that it is necessary to discuss and explicate group members`
task-relevant knowledge and skills during group formation process in order to develop
appropriate objectives and achieve effective allocation of human resources.
Furthermore, according to the multistage model of group functioning (Arrow et al.,
2000; Marks et al., 2001) which demonstrate certain consistency within each stage of
group process (i.e. from initial formation to final output), Milliken et al. (2003)
expand Hackman`s viewpoint that management interventions are critical for diverse
working group during the initial stages of group design in order to achieve a better
potential repercussions of a group`s lifetime. In addition, several scholars (e.g. Waller,
1999; West, 2000) suggests applying a series of management tactics which have
positive influences on the performance of diverse working group, e.g. timing of
adaptive responses, group self-monitoring and reflexivity process. All above
suggestions can be found profound implications for both general group management
and group idea generation process.
37
2.2.3.2 Dissent
Dissent is normally seen as the different opinions occurring within certain group
which is ‘the assertion by a lower power group that a higher power group has come to
believe that its partial, bounded views of the world are complete and universal’ (Berg,
2011:53). The effects of dissent as well as its homogenous term ‘individualism’ is
critical in the group vitality and emotional environment of group (e.g. Goncalo and
Staw, 2006; Goodboy et al., 2009; Kassing and McDowell, 2008). There is a clear
potential downside to dissent that it might negatively influence morale, overall job
satisfaction, and group identification (Thomas and Au, 2002). In contrast, conformity
has been recognised as a contributor to the development of consistent and reliable
behaviours within the group (Deutsch, 1973; Patanakul and Aronson, 2012).
However, as numbers of scholars (e.g. Berg, 2011; Nemeth, 1985) argue that, dissent
is not simply a disagreement about group tactics or approaches, but can also provide
the corrective feedback which might facilitate a group to adapt and innovate.
To be more specific, although consensus will facilitate group efficiency, it may also
lead to less originality, inflexibility and premature closure and movement which are
negative to the group (creativity) idea generation process (Hackman, 1990). As some
literature (e.g. Nemeth and Kwan, 1987) shows that, consensus thought is more likely
to stimulate conventional thinking. In this context, dissent can be treated as a solution
which can counteract the convergent thinking process and enhance the divergence and
creativity of ideas. Nemeth and Nemeth-Brown (2003) explain the function of dissent
from two perspectives, which are liberator and stimulus to group creativity process.
As for the role of liberator, dissent, especially when the dissenter has an ally, can
substantially decrease conformity (Asch, 1956). In other words, dissent can liberate
the group members from a tendency to conform, and therefore they are able to make
38
accurate judgements and their ideas from their own senses (Allen and Levin, 1969;
Nemeth and Chiles, 1988). With respect to its stimulating function, dissent is able to
stimulate divergent thought of group from multiple perspectives, especially in terms
of information search (Nemeth and Rogers, 1996). In other words, it can stimulate the
more comprehensive detection of solutions through stimulating ‘a reappraisal of the
situation and consideration of more aspects of the situation’ (Nemeth and Nemeth-
Brown, 2003:73). Furthermore, such solutions or ideas are viewed as being much
more original and creative to problems (De Dreu and De Vries, 1993). In addition, De
Dreu (2010) further shows that dissent can stimulate not only the team innovations,
but also overall team effectiveness.
To conclude, according to the above statements, this research believes that dissent is a
necessary and even desirable part of group creativity process. What is mentioned here,
Nemeth and Nemeth-Brown (2003) identify that the appearance of the positive effect
of dissent highly depends on the real intention of the dissent, i.e. genuine or malice.
Therefore, the management of dissent in group process should also be valued in this
research.
2.2.3.3 ‘Fear’ = Less Productivity?
There is a series of arguments (e.g. Diehl and Stroebe, 1991; Larey and Paulus, 1999)
related to the notion that groups are less creative than the sum of its members. For
instance, it can be clearly shown from the last section that convergent thinking,
especially the premature movement to consensus in certain group, will disregard and
suppress the dissenting viewpoints. In addition, the author believes that there is
something other than the contradiction of consensus and dissent that might also
negatively influence the group creativity process, which is ‘fear’.
39
With respect to this ‘fear’ factor, the author refers it to the group members` fear of
evaluation which is normally occurring during group idea generation process. To be
more specific, as Amabile (1998) shows that, people are afraid of the negative
judgement (even punishment for failure) made by other group members. Such fear
will result in less (creative) ideas within the group environment as ‘creative ideas are
often deviant’ (Moscovici, 1976, cited in Goncalo and Staw, 2006:98). Furthermore,
this ‘fear’ situation will also occur when the previously shared ideas in the group are
very brilliant, the term of which Smith (2003) names as the constraining effects of
initial ideas.
There are a number of scholars have made conceptual and empirical researches for the
solution of this symptom of less productivity of group creativity. For instance, some
of them (e.g. Sosik et al., 1998) emphasise the role of transformational leadership in
fostering and stimulating group creativity and intelligence, especially in shaping
group norms and guiding the subordinates` behaviour. Likewise, the scholars in the
context of organisational culture (e.g. Goncalo and Staw, 2006) also argue an
individualistic (organisational) cultural orientation. It views each individual as
independent and unique from other people (Markus and Kitayama, 1994), which can
effectively stimulate group members` creativity behaviour and facilitate the group
creativity process. What`s mentioned here is that, as the norms of individualistic
cultures imply that the group members should be true to themselves (Fiske et al.,
1998), the group members may oppose the whole group behaviours which contradict
their own values. This situation will damage harmony in their relationship to the
group which might result in a vicious circle. Therefore, Smith (2003) suggest a
solution that to combine both the individual and group methods, i.e. ‘having
individuals alternately generating ideas alone and as members of a group’ (p.70).
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2.2.4 Current Research Gap
Although the significance of innovation to tourism development is fairly evident, the
tourism field is still a late starter and in a relatively distinctive role in transferring and
applying the relevant theory, concepts and methodologies which have already attained
the relatively mature stage in other sectors (Hjalager, 2010). For instance, one of the
primary focuses in the overall mainstream innovation research is about the Research
& Development (R&D) intensity in the corresponding industries, enterprises and
research bodies (Smith, 2005); however, in the tourism field, R&D departments are
often scarce are therefore have received limited attention from the academic field.
This phenomenon to a certain degree leads to the situation that tourism innovation
processes are often improvised rather than being well-planned, or in other words,
strategically planned (Brandth et al., 2010; Flikkema et al., 2007).
It hence indicates a major gap in tourism innovation research, especially in terms of
innovation processes. This gap has also been supported by a series of review and
research articles. Hjalager (2010) believes that the understanding about the way
innovation processes take place in tourism-related organisations is still incomplete,
especially in terms of investigating the factors by which the innovation processes are
triggered or influenced. There have been several attempts during the subsequent years
to address these gaps. For instance, in the work of Alegre and Berbegal-Mirabent
(2016), value proposition, market research, stakeholder involvement, social need
pressures, and managerial trust towards employees are identified as significant or
additional influencing factors for the innovation process in hospitality and tourism
social enterprises. Carlisle et al. (2013) and Colarič-Jakše (2015) identify that
collaborative networking among stakeholders is an essential factor for a supportive
environment/culture promoting innovation. Apart from collaboration, Zach and Hill
(2017) further demonstrate that knowledge sharing and spanning boundaries are also
41
significant to support innovation in the tourism destination. Rodriguez-Sanchez et al.
(2017) contribute to a deep understanding of the commonalities in the tourism
innovation phenomenon (e.g. technology, risk management, external knowledge),
through investigating a series of sub-processes within the overall innovation process
and relevant events within the specific context of new start tourism SMEs. Despite
these attempts to contribute to the current understanding tourism innovation process,
there is still a lack of work which comprehensively describes the multi-level factors
which can trigger or influence the innovation process in tourism-related knowledge-
intensive organisations, such as the specific context of this research (i.e. the TDCs).
Furthermore, as mentioned in the last section, innovation should not only be
understood as a one-time phenomenon, but should also be seen as an overall process
ranging from the idea generation stage to the implementation phase. However, in
comparison to the general innovation research, there is still relatively little research
which has focused on innovation processes in the tourism context (Paget et al., 2010).
Other scholars echo that it is necessary to draw attention to tourism innovation
processes, such as the role of customers in these processes (e.g. co-production of
innovation with customers, Shaw et al., 2011) and the service concept development in
the context of new tourism service development (including idea generation and
development, Konu et al., 2010). Moreover, Rodriguez-Sanchez et al. (2017) consider
that the innovation process is heterogeneous and shaped by contingent features, which
hence calls for specific contextual perspectives in the research in this area.
Corresponding with the gap in understanding of tourism product development process
- product innovation is one significant aspect in innovation research (e.g. Sattler,
2011) - the author has identified research about innovation processes in the context of
tourism product development to be a topic that merits significant research attention: it
is necessary to further open the black box of tourism innovation processes, and to
42
investigate the sub-phases in detail (e.g. new idea generation and development) within
specific contexts (e.g. TDCs). In addition, this research views the TDC as the most
significant form of R&D outsourcing for tourism product development, especially
tourism destinations and attractions. Therefore, the investigation of TDCs can to
certain degree contribute to filling some of the gaps about the role and the inherent
process of R&D entities in the field of tourism (product) innovation.
Furthermore, many tourism scholars (e.g. Weidenfeld et al., 2010) have
acknowledged that knowledge management is a vital element in the innovation
process of tourism firms. However, the research gap in terms of the link between
knowledge management and innovation in tourism still remains. For instance, Shaw
and Williams (2009) mention that ‘there is still a need to link innovations and
knowledge transfer much more firmly within tourism research’ (p.25). By linking this
situation with the research gaps mentioned in the earlier discussion of tourism
product, the author proposes to focus on the nature of knowledge management in
terms of tourism product development and innovation processes as well as the
relevant factors. More specifically the research will focus on TDPs as essential agents
in the innovation process, and moreover agents whose contribution is largely
delivered through the form of temporally limited projects involving various forms of
collaboration.
To summarise, in the chapter on tourism innovation, it starts with the significance of
innovation, and then provides the definition of innovation. It considers that innovation
should not be simply understood as an outcome of newness, rather, it involves the
whole related process. Then, the thesis discusses the types and corresponding
typologies of innovation. According to the research interest mentioned in the chapter
on tourism product, the thesis decides to follow the footsteps of the ‘innovation focus’
43
approach within the various typologies of innovation, especially drawing attention to
the dimension of product innovation. According to this focus, the thesis provides the
discussion of product innovation from both the technology perspective and the
customer`s perception perspective.
Furthermore, as the thesis suggests viewing innovation as a process rather than an
outcome, it identifies two particular interrelated factors, i.e. creativity and knowledge
management, which influence the degree of success of innovation process. Lastly, the
current research gap of innovation in the tourism field is briefly introduced, which
further demonstrates the need for investigation of TDCs and tourism product
development process. Furthermore, by considering the research gap in terms of the
linkage between knowledge management and innovation in the tourism field, this
thesis proposes to focus on the nature and the effectiveness of knowledge
management in terms of tourism product innovation processes from the product
developer`s perspective.
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2.3 Knowledge Management
2.3.1 Overview of Knowledge and Knowledge Management
2.3.1.1 What is Knowledge？
Knowledge is a key resource for the modern economy activities (Bell, 1973). It is
clearly shown from last sections that knowledge is frequently mentioned as a self-
evidently significant role in the process of innovation and creativity. Although the
term ‘knowledge’ seems to be a familiar word in our daily life, it is still hard to
conceptualise an accurately definition for this term even if there are various
understandings and discussions revolving around the question ‘ What is Knowledge?’.
One primary reason is that these discussions and definitions are often contradicted
with each other and thus puzzle the audiences` attention.
For instance, as for the interrelationship of the definitions of knowledge and
information, some scholars are more likely to treat information and knowledge as a
same unit or consider them are mutually included each other or advocate not making
clear distinctions between them. For instance, Leonard and Sensiper (1998) define
knowledge as a subset of information which is ‘relevant, actionable, and based at least
partially on experience’ (p.113). However, other scholars (e.g. Wiig, 1993) set clear
boundaries between knowledge and information by arguing that knowledge is
different from information because knowledge involves a wider translating and
understanding process of information which is more than just simply data.
45
Furthermore, similar definition-related debate can also be found in terms of the nature
of knowledge. To be more specific, there are ongoing debates related to the classical
tripartite view of the definition of knowledge as justified true belief (see in Nonaka,
1994). This traditional concept of knowledge is regarded as an incorrect
‘oversimplification of conceptual structures’ (Costa, 2010) which has given rise to a
series of counterexamples, e.g. Gettier`s problem (‘Is Justified True Belief’, Gettier,
1963).and its derivative discussions (e.g. Clark, 1963). Moreover, these
counterexamples have also lead to new difficulties and debates on themselves (e.g.
Saunders and Champawat, 1964).
Just as Fahey and Prusak (1998) advocate that, the excessive efforts of developing
extremely accurate and detailed definition of knowledge will distract the researchers
and practitioners from other more necessary and important tasks. According to the
above context, the author agrees that the overmuch attention on the attempts of an
accurate definition of knowledge may not worth such efforts as knowledge is an
extremely broad concept and each new or old discussion related to it can easily have
its own foothold and evidence. Furthermore, the author also agrees with the statement
of Saunders and Champawat (1964) that ‘it is a mistake to believe that there is some
essence of knowledge, some set of conditions which are individually necessary and
jointly sufficient for knowledge’, and ‘the instances of knowledge share at most a
family resemblance’ (p.9). Therefore, instead of working out an accurate and
universal definition of knowledge, this review suggests utilising a broad definition of
knowledge in this review as: an organised network combining of ideas, rules,
procedures, and information (which is from modifying Marakas (1999)`s definition of
knowledge). It will take a discussion about the types of knowledge in order to further
understand the term ‘knowledge’ according to the existence of various categories and
instances of knowledge.
46
2.3.1.2 Types of Knowledge
It can be inferred from the taxonomy about individual creativity and group creativity,
knowledge can be classified into individual knowledge and group knowledge. In the
traditional sense, the concept of knowledge is intuitively linked to personal character
which is viewed as a kind of individual capability that is essentially related to human
action (Choo, 1998; Leonard and Sensiper, 1998; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995;
Polanyi, 1975). However, ‘a great deal of knowledge is both produced and held
collectively’, e.g. in ‘communities of practice’ which is one of the common features
of organisations (Brown and Duguid, 1998:91). Such knowledge can be expressed as
organisational knowledge. To be more specific, organisational knowledge refers to
knowledge organised in an organisation context. By connecting the perspective of
personal character of knowledge with the perspective of organisation studies,
organisational knowledge is conceptualised as ‘the capability members of an
organisation have developed to draw distinctions in the process of carrying out their
work, in particular concrete contexts, by enacting sets of generalisations
(propositional statements) whose application depends on historically evolved
collective understandings and experiences’ (Tsoukas and Vladimirou, 2001:983).
It is clearly shown from the definition that there can be both public knowledge and
private knowledge existing within the context of organisations which both contribute
to the overall organisational competitiveness (Yang, 2004). Just as Bhatt (2002)
considers that, the representation of individual knowledge are often through personal
creativity and self-expression, while group knowledge is reflected in the
organisation`s products and services. Davenport and Prusak (1998) further expand
that organisational knowledge can not only be found in documents and repositories of
organisation, but also be embedded in ‘organisational routines, process, practices, and
47
norms’ (p.5). Demarest (1997a) also supports that the knowledge which is generated
in organisations can be divided into imperatives, patterns, rules, and scripts.
In addition, Fahey and Prusak (1998) discover that there are two radically different
conceptions of knowledge in the organisation context. This review infers from their
arguments and finds several hints which partly linked the two conceptions to the
characteristics of organisational and individual knowledge from this review`s
perspective. One is the ‘stock’ perspective which is viewed knowledge (organisational
knowledge) as a relatively static form that can be captured, transmitted, and stored in
multiple ways within the organisation, while the other one is the ‘flow’ perspective
which is treated knowledge (individual knowledge) as a relatively dynamic form that
is ‘largely self-generating’ and ‘inseparable from the individuals who develop,
transmit and leverage it’ (p.266).
Furthermore, although the definitions and forms of personal knowledge and
organisational knowledge emphasise on distinct perspective (i.e. individual vs.
collective), the author agrees with Bhatt (2002) that they are interdependent and
interrelated with each other. There are two influential factors primarily determining
such relationships between individual knowledge and organisational knowledge,
which are the nature of tasks (complexity) and the nature of interactions (depended by
organisational culture). The presence of these two factors is on the basis of one
practical situation faced by all organisations that the organisations do not have
complete right on their employee`s individual knowledge, which means the
organisations are continuously facing the risk of the influences caused by the mobility
and idiosyncrasies of the individual knowledge even if they possess the best experts.
Caddy et al. (2001) support that the situation of knowledge lost will occur if
organisations cannot to control the knowledge resources possessed by their employees
48
to the maximum extent. Therefore, the management should value the notion of
knowledge transfer and sharing, and devote to build a collaborative and incentive
organisation culture in order to continuously create and improve organisational
knowledge through the interactions of individual knowledge.
In order to understand the notion of knowledge transfer, it is necessary to introduce
another taxonomy of knowledge, which are explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge
(see Polanyi, 1966; Havens and Knapp, 1999). With respect to explicit knowledge, it
is defined as what can be expressed and transferred in words and numbers as manuals,
patents, documents, reports, databases which be readily codified and shared (Civi,
2000; Goh, 2002). Therefore, sometimes explicit knowledge can be also named as
codified knowledge (see in Hall and Williams, 2008). Furthermore, there can be seen
certain relationship between explicit knowledge and organisational knowledge that
the former amounts for the majority of the latter (Tsoukas and Vladimirou, 2001).
Cooper (2006) also supports that explicit knowledge usually represents the focus of
organisation`s interest and ‘the knowledge capital of an organisation independent of
its workers’ (cited in Weidenfeld et al., 2010:4).
Tacit knowledge is the knowledge which is ‘not yet explicated’ (Spender, 1996:58).
Clinton et al. (2009) further conceptualise it as the kind of knowledge which is
‘resultant from both the cognition of information and the interaction with experience
and encompasses the ability of act’ (cited in Alexander, 2012:24). Moreover, Blackler
(2002) deepen the understanding of the nature of tacit knowledge that he further
identifies four sub-categories of tacit knowledge. Those four types of tacit knowledge
are embrained knowledge, encultured knowledge, embedded knowledge, and
embodied knowledge. It should be noticed that the term ‘embodied knowledge’ here
refers to the knowledge ‘results from experiences of physical presence’ (cited in Hall
49
and Williams, 2008:63), which is different from the ‘embodied knowledge’ mentioned
in Demarest (1997a) referring to the knowledge is ‘made formal, explicit, and
distributable’ (p.378) ), and the emphasis of which are related to cognitive
capabilities, practice experience, social-culture and contextual factors respectively.
While explicit knowledge is more likely to be referred to exactly ‘know-what’, tacit
knowledge is sometimes linked to ‘know-how’ (Alexander and Childe, 2013). In
contrast to explicit knowledge, the form of tacit knowledge is more complex and
obscure, and thus more difficult to formalise and communicate to others. In the
meantime, tacit knowledge is personal (Goh, 2002; this viewpoint can also be treated
as a support for the close link between tacit knowledge and individual knowledge),
and usually held by individuals (e.g. employees and entrepreneurs in organisations,
Cooper, 2006). Therefore, the knowledge transfer from tacit knowledge to tacit
knowledge is usually through socialisation (Weidenfeld et al., 2010), i.e. ‘more
interpersonal means’ (Goh, 2002:27).
Although the definitions and forms of explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge appear
to be different (e.g. see in Spender, 1996), they are essentially complementary. For
instance, Demarest (1997a) identifies that commercial knowledge is generically either
tacit or explicit. Furthermore, Leonard and Sensiper (1998) build on Polanyi (1966) `s
original that ‘knowledge exists on a spectrum’ (p.13), of which one extreme is almost
completely explicit, and the other end is almost completely tacit. Most knowledge
possess both elements and exists within the spectrum. Therefore, not only the same
labelled knowledge can be transferred to each other, the two different types of
knowledge (i.e. explicit vs. tacit) are also mutually transformable to a certain degree
(Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Weidenfeld et al. (2010) conceptualise the transferring
ways of tacit to explicit and explicit to tacit as externalisation and internalisation
50
respectively. For instance, as for the former, the process of creativity can usually be
seen as an example of tacit to explicit knowledge transfer that ‘externalise’ the
creativity idea into practice. With respect to the latter, learning, inferring, grasping
from explicit form materials (e.g. books, reports) is a typical explicit to tacit
knowledge transfer which ‘internalise’ the explicit knowledge on the books to the
tacit knowledge in the audiences` minds.
Besides the above two kinds of taxonomies of knowledge, there is the third taxonomy
of knowledge which is normally to see in the researches of modern business
organisations, which is divided knowledge into external knowledge and internal
knowledge. Numbers of scholars (e.g. Nonaka, 1994; Caloghirou et al., 2004)
consider that interaction is an essential factor for knowledge access, acquisition and
development, and interaction may take place within or outside organisation.
According to this perspective, the third taxonomy is according to the position that the
knowledge exist, i.e. within or outside the boundary of organisation.
With respect to internal knowledge, it refers to the knowledge possessed by members
of the target organisation (Menon and Pfeffer, 2003) which involves both the
mentioned concepts of individual knowledge and organisational knowledge within
that organisation. The accumulation of internal knowledge normally results from
organisational learning (e.g. the knowledge transfer among different units within the
organisation through inter-unit links and network, Galbraith, 1977; Gresov and
Stephens, 1993; Tsai, 2001) and other internal efforts (e.g. R&D, training program,
Caloghirou et al., 2004). As for external knowledge, it refers to the knowledge
possessed by the outsiders (Menon and Pfeffer, 2003). The sources of external
knowledge can be found as ‘licensing, R&D outsourcing, company acquisition, the
hiring of relevant qualified researchers’ (Arora and Gambardella, 1990; Cockburn and
51
Henderson, 1998, Granstrand et al., 1992 cited in Cassiman and Veugelers, 2006: 68)
and inter-firm partnerships and strategic alliances (Heimeriks and Duysters, 2007;
Mowery et al., 1996).
In the context of this taxonomy of knowledge, there are two corresponding
knowledge-driven strategies that represent two significant facets of organisations`
knowledge development and resulting competitive advantages, i.e. develop internal
knowledge or access external knowledge. For instance, DeClercq and Dimov (2008)
propose two knowledge strategies which may influence the organisational advantage,
which are ‘(1) developing knowledge internally through learning and (2) accessing
knowledge externally through inter-firm alliance’ (p.586). To the research question
related the interrelationships between the internal and external knowledge strategies,
there seem to be two distinct perspectives.
On the one hand, Menon and Pfeffer (2003) assume that there is a negative
relationship between the valuation of knowledge from internal and external sources.
They present a range of relevant examples and case studies and discover that numbers
of managers value on the acquisition of external knowledge rather than build
organisational practices for internal knowledge development. On the other hand,
Grant and Baden-Fuller (2004) argue that both internal and external knowledge
strategies are not mutually exclusive. Cassiman and Veugelers (2006) further state
that internal and external knowledge acquisition activities are complementary. For
instance, the organisation choose to increase internal knowledge through
organisational learning may also contribute to its better absorptive capacity to access,
understand, and exploit knowledge (including external knowledge, Spender and
Grant, 1996). From this perspective, DeClercq and Dimov (2008) identify that it is
52
necessary to address the research topic about the joint performance effect of these two
‘complementary’ knowledge strategies.
To conclude, this review introduces three taxonomies of knowledge in this section,
which involves individual vs. organisational knowledge, tacit vs. explicit knowledge,
and internal vs. external knowledge. It is clearly shown from the above discussion that
each type of knowledge interrelates with one another within the same set and also can
be found links between other types of knowledge from other taxonomies. For
instance, tacit knowledge is not only complementary with explicit knowledge, but
also acts as an essential part of the perspective of individual and organisational
knowledge as well as internal and external knowledge. Therefore, the author
considers that the discussion of types of knowledge not only broaden the
understanding of the definition of knowledge, but also demonstrate the complexity
characteristic of knowledge as well as the management of knowledge. In the next
section, this review will further discuss the management of knowledge.
2.3.1.3 What is Knowledge Management
Just as Brown and Duguid (1998) mention that, ‘all firms are in essence knowledge
organisations’ (p.91). It is correspondingly shown from last chapters that, knowledge
acts as an extremely significant role in terms of innovation, creativity, and
organisational advantages. What`s mentioned here, it does not mean that possessing
knowledge is the more knowledge the better. Knowledge can be a liability if it does
not provide the expected consequences for the possessor (organisation), e.g. when it
cannot offer competitive advantages to the business organisations (Bhatt, 2002). One
primary reason is that knowledge is a multi-facet and complex entity according to the
discussion of types of knowledge. Due to the significance and complexity and
knowledge, there is a common challenge facing by all organisations, which is how to
53
manage knowledge effectively (to be more specific, i.e. discover knowledge and make
knowledge cohere, see the citation in Brown and Duguid, 1998).
As would be expected from the ongoing debates in terms of the definition of
knowledge, there can be also found various discussions related to the definitions of
knowledge management (KM) in the relevant literature. It should be noticed that,
numbers of KM definitions tend to view KM from a process perspective. For instance,
Loshin (2001) consider knowledge management as ‘the art or science of collecting
organisational data and, by recognising and understanding relationships and patterns,
turning it into usable, accessible information and valuable knowledge’ (p.56). Von
Krough (1998) treats KM as a process which involves identifying, capturing, and
leveraging the collective knowledge (in the context of certain organisation) to
increase the organisational competitive advantages. It is clearly shown that the above
two cases commonly `refer to the management of collective knowledge (especially
the knowledge acquisition and leveraging) but ignore the individual knowledge within
the organisation.
Furthermore, the von Krough`s definition mentions one more point of KM which is
about identifying the knowledge, and it also clarifies the objective of KM. This brief
comparison does not mean to choose the better definition within the two; however, it
demonstrates that each of them emphasises one or several particular aspects of KM in
organisations respectively rather than giving a full description of KM process. These
seemingly limited-faceted definitions cannot be simply judged their qualities to be
poor, although Hattendorf (2002) believes that one of the most noteworthy problems
in current knowledge management projects is overemphasising the function of certain
single factor which thus dominates other factors within the KM projects. This review
argues the existence of these ‘incomprehensive’ definitions is reasonable, at least in
54
their corresponding specific contexts. This phenomenon can be explained by the
statement of Quintas, et al. (1997) to certain degree that, KM programs and problems
are local and unique to their respective particular contexts and therefore the
corresponding concepts of KM may vary from different situations.
According to the above context, there are two necessary actions needed to be took in
order to obtain a fuller and deeper understanding about the concept of KM in the
context of this research topic, which are (1) setting down a general definition of KM
and (2) obtaining a relatively specific understanding of KM in the context of tourism
industry and TDCs.
With respect to the first action, although this review admits the rationality of the
various focus of the KM definitions, a general definition of KM still assumes to be the
foundation of the following KM-related research in this article, which should contain
the primary purpose or objective of general KM activities and the basic elements of
KM in general context. Both the concept of the purpose (or objective) and the
elements of general KM can facilitate to further clarify the research aim, objective
(which are KM-specific), and corresponding research methodologies. By reviewing a
range of introduction or review articles in terms of knowledge management (e.g.
Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Fahey and Prusak, 1998; Quintas et al., 1997), the author
considers that knowledge management is the continue process of the systematic
underpinning, observation, instrumentation, and optimisation the organisation`s
knowledge assets in order to realise the max value and effectiveness of the
organisation`s knowledge assets or create a shared understanding of the constitution
and connection of the organisation`s external and internal environments to ultimately
support its overall success.
55
Furthermore, this definition implies a series of KM necessary emphasis areas which is
exactly corresponding with the four areas of systematic KM emphasis presented by
Wiig (1997:7-8): monitoring and facilitating knowledge-related activities (governance
functions), establishing and updating knowledge infrastructures (staff functions),
creating and maintaining knowledge assets (operational functions), and effectively
leveraging and utilizing knowledge assets (realizing knowledge value).
In regard to the second action, this review suggests to starting with several examples
of complex, perhaps over-complex KM definition mentioned in the previous
paragraphs, it is evident that both the Loshin`s definition and von Krough`s definition
emphasise on the actions of knowledge collecting, knowledge transfer, and
knowledge goals. Therefore, now it can be more accurate to state that they both
emphasise on the areas of operating knowledge asserts and realising the value of
knowledge, rather than governing knowledge-related activities and knowledge
infrastructures. Furthermore, another instance can be taken as the KM definition
developed by Bhatt (2002) which conceptualised KM as ‘a process of facilitating
knowledge-related activities’ (p.32). This definition evidently demonstrates its focal
point is the first emphasis area rather than the other three areas.
The instances of the preceding paragraph not only further echo with the mentioned
statement that KM programs and problems are local and unique to their respect
contexts and therefore the corresponding characteristics of KM may vary from
different situations. They also imply the precondition of the second action. In order to
develop a relatively specific understanding of KM in the tourism context, it is
necessary to explore the links between the focus areas and elements of KM and the
specific context of tourism industry and TDC. Therefore, this review will conduct the
discussion about the KM research in terms of tourism discipline in the next section.
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2.3.2 The Key Areas of Knowledge Management, and their
Relationship with Tourism
According to the introduction and review of the development of KM by Wiig (1997),
the initial idea of knowledge-focused management can be found hints in the middle of
1970s. Through an almost two decade of exploratory ideas period, the formal starting
point of theoretical development of general KM research is regarded as both
publications of Steels (1993) and Wiig (1993) in the year of 1993. Since then, both
the theoretical development and applied practices of KM have entered in the way of
continuous and high-speed developing in most industries. However, there is an
exception in the tourism and hospitality sector (Yun, 2004). The relatively slow
adoption of KM theories and practices into the tourism and hospitality is ascribed to
the both the general barriers to KM application in all industries and the specific
reasons to the nature of tourism, e.g. costs including time (Cooper, 2006), fragmented
activities (Chan and Chau, 2005), unfamiliar with the concept of KM (Bouncken and
Pyo, 2002) or the complexity of the concept (Yun, 2004), and fragmented and
unsupported networks (Hjalager, 2002).
Despite such situation and reasons subsists, it should be admitted that the significance
of KM in terms of tourism has been recognised by a series of academics and
professionals (e.g. see the interview results in Yang and Wan, 2004, although it is
behind the general business sector (Morey et al., 2000)). There can be found a range
of attempts in tourism knowledge management research. In this section, this review
will discuss these attempts from the perspectives above about the aforementioned four
areas of systematic KM emphasis presented by Wiig (1997).
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2.3.2.1 The Governance Functions
As for the perspective of the governance functions, it mainly involves the researches
and practices that monitoring and facilitating knowledge-related activities from a top-
down angle. For instance, the research in terms of the role of leadership can be treated
as a representative from this perspective. Yang (2004) identifies the facilitator,
mentor, and innovator roles of leadership have strongly positive interrelationships
with the KM effectiveness (especially knowledge sharing).
Moreover, it is evident that this perspective involving the efforts in building a
managerial framework for organisations. Bouncken (2002) introduces an integrated
concept of knowledge management and a knowledge management system (KMS) in
hotel sectors. This KMS is more from the managerial perspective rather than the
technological perspective. This KMS is actually a comprehensive systematic
integration of knowledge management strategies, processes and activities, which
involves knowledge goals and strategies, knowledge identification, acquisition,
accumulation, retrieval, and distribution, and knowledge controlling. It represents a
reprehensive top-down angel to deploy, implement and facilitate knowledge
management practices in hotels.
Likewise, Hattendorf (2002) ‘develops a knowledge supply chain matrix for a
balanced approach to KM’ (Yun, 2004:1064) which combines the core operative
aspects of KM (knowledge generation, storing, transfer/implementation,
measurement) and four generic factors of a general business model (strategy,
structure, process, resources). It is evident that the component of this matrix is similar
with the Bouncken`s KMS, and its top-down monitoring and guidance function in
terms of KM has been proved as through a case study in the airline industry. Other
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examples can also be found in the work of Paraskevas et al. (2013), which develop a
KM framework for the governance of crisis knowledge in tourism.
Furthermore, there can also be seen a range of researches in terms of specific
knowledge-focused strategies. For instance, Batyk and Smoczyński (2010) introduce
a Polish knowledge management project about the creation and operation of tourism
products. Furthermore, Bayraktaroglu and Kutanis (2003) pay particular attention to
the key factors of Turkish tourism sectors toward becoming a learning organisation,
and they summarise a series of steps (strategies) to facilitate the process of becoming
a learning organisation involving relevant organisational culture-specific strategies.
What`s mentioned here, the author believes learning organisational culture can be
treated as a kind of intangible infrastructure for KM which will be introduced in the
next section.
2.3.2.2 The Staff Functions
From this perspective, KM is primarily linked to establishing and maintaining
knowledge infrastructure. The term ‘knowledge infrastructure’ is defined as ‘the set of
all successfully implemented interventions, measures, institutions, and facilities that
represent a supportive environment for’ enabling KM in organisations (Strohmaier
and Tochtermann, 2005:172). According to this definition, it can be inferred that the
form knowledge infrastructure can be both tangible and intangible. As for the tangible
form, for instance, Gronau (2002) develops an IT-based knowledge management
system (different from the kind and function of Bouncken`s KMS) involving ‘layers
of sources, repositories, taxonomy, services, applications and user interfaces’
(Bouncken and Pyo, 2002:4). It can be treated as a kind of ‘facilities’ (by
corresponding to the definition of knowledge infrastructure referred in the last
paragraph) supports KM activities in the organisations of hospitality and tourism
59
industry. Furthermore, there is a range of tangible knowledge repository discussed in
the literature (e.g. Radulescu, 2011), and some instances have been presented, such as
the case of Tourism@ (Aldebert et al., 2011), knowledge and hospitality-related
academic journals (Frechtling, 2004).
With respect to the intangible form of knowledge infrastructure, organisational culture
has been demonstrated as a significant factor in (positively or negatively) constituting
such a supportive environment for KM by numbers of general KM researchers (e.g.
David and Fahey, 2000), which the author believes can be treated as a kind of
intangible infrastructure for KM. The supportive evidence can also be found in the
studies from tourism and hospitality field.
For instance, Yang and Wan (2004) reveal the negative factors which inhibit the
effectiveness of implementing KM in hotels. They suggest the importance of building
a supportive organisational culture (climate) and programs in order to achieve the
success of implementation of operational KM practices (e.g. knowledge sharing, and
knowledge retaining). Likewise, Yang (2004) also suggests developing organisational
learning to trigger individual learning and knowledge capturing within organisations.
Yang (2007) further demonstrates ‘a strong and positive interrelationship between a
collaborative culture and the effectiveness of knowledge sharing’ (p.530). On the
basis of the identification of the role of organisational learning in KM, several
decision support tools (e.g. system dynamic modelling (Schianetz et al., 2007),
Unified Modelling Language diagrams (Mioara et al., 2012)) are introduced to
promoting communications between stakeholders and stimulating organisational
learning.
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Apart from the intra-organisational knowledge infrastructure, the specific
‘collaboration’ and ‘network’ characteristics of tourism industry also imply the
definition of knowledge infrastructure should go beyond the level intra-organisation.
Network is originally an ‘organisational form of economic activities aiming at
achieving competitive advantages’ (Sydow, 1992:79). Several corresponding
examples in tourism and hospitality context can be found in the literature.
For instance, Pechlaner et al. (2002) reveal the significant role of cooperation and
member-specific requirements in cross-border destination management, and they
suggest to establish cross-border knowledge networks in order to achieve international
product development and marketing cooperation. Such network is not only utilised
within the context of cross-border destinations, but also can be found its application
within the context of single destination. For instance, Pavlovich (2003) discover the
self-governing process of SMEs within a tourism destination through a network
approach. It demonstrates the critical contribution of destination network in the
knowledge building and creation, information exchange as well as other foundations
of knowledge-based capabilities for achieving competitive advantages of the SMEs
and the whole destination. Similar perspective focused on the role of network and
collaborative learning can also be found in the articles of Novelli et al., (2006),
Beritelli (2011), and Carlisle et al. (2013).
2.3.2.3 The Operational Functions
The perspective of operational functions represents creating, renewing, building, and
organizing knowledge assets. This perspective is frequently mentioned as the
operational practices towards knowledge assets, e.g. knowledge acquisition, build and
maintain knowledge base, knowledge transfer and transform, etc. It should be noticed
that some knowledge operational activities do not occur without the occurrence of
61
organisations, e.g. knowledge transfer between international tourists and local
residents (Buckley and Ollenburg, 2013). However, due to the research context of this
review, this part of knowledge-related activities will not be discussed. Within the
tourism organisation-related articles, there can be found a series of techniques or
methods are introduced to the operational practices in tourism organisations, such as
Likert-type scales in the design of questionnaire (Ryan and Garland, 1999), sample
surveys (Wober, 2000), expert system and standardised longitudinal data set (Wober,
2000), Rough Sets (Au and Law, 2000), data mining (Cho and Leung, 2002; Pyo et
al., 2002), mental model (cognitive mapping) (Xiang and Formica, 2007), geo-based
technology (Tussyadiah and Zach, 2012), and etc.
Apart from the above techniques and practices which act primarily single function,
there can be revealed a series of tourism studies which introduce or develop a multi-
functional technique or practice, even some of them are ‘seemingly’ less-relevant with
KM practices. For instance, in the research of Morgan (1999), a novel rating system
has been discussed and proposed to be applied towards the beach tourism. This rating
system is ‘seemingly’ a kind of award and quality assurance system. However, it
should be noticed that it also possesses knowledge infrastructure functions which
acquire knowledge (opinion and review of certain beach) from beach-user, transfer
knowledge through a series of measurable aspects of importance, and the results can
be diffused to the potential users (for influencing the tourists` choice) and the
management (for quality-oriented management practices). Likewise, Crouch and
Louviere (2004) apply a logistic choice model to help enhance the understanding of
the determinants of site selection of certain convention. This research also
demonstrates the choice-modeling methods which in essence possesses both
knowledge analysis and knowledge transfer functions is a suitable and rigorous
approach toward the decision support and the choice analysis.
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In addition, the research views from the perspective of the KM operational functions
are not merely in the introduction and development of novel and appropriate
techniques and managerial practices. There are also several tourism and hospitality
studies draw their attention to exploring the less-tangible factors which influence the
KM operational practices. For instance, Weidenfeld et al. (2010) identify that spatial
proximity, product similarity, and market similarity are three factors towards
facilitating knowledge transfer among tourism attractions at local and regional scales.
Furthermore, individual factors (e.g. mental, emotion) has been recognised to be a
representative factor influencing the KM practices. For instance, in the context of
organisational culture and network approach of KM which acknowledge the central
role of social relations in terms of learning, Beesley (2005) attempts to explore the
influence of such collaborative learning process on the final management outcomes,
and the discovers there are five factors (i.e. affect, cognition, social contingencies,
communication, and value) influencing the knowledge acquisition, dissemination and
utilisation. Likewise, Yang (2008) demonstrate the significant influences of individual
attitudes (to learning and sharing) on organisational knowledge sharing. Qu and Lee
(2011) also discover that improving the members` sense of belonging to the online
travel community can encourage the knowledge sharing by the members (i.e.
travellers). Furthermore, Thomas (2012) proves the own ‘meaning’ perspectives play
a significant role in affecting the way that tourism business elites approach their
learning.
Moreover, it should be noticed that the notion of knowledge sources is essential for
the operational aspects of KM, e.g. knowledge acquisition. Take an example of
network approach mentioned above, the stakeholders within the network can be
treated as knowledge sources of each other. For instance, Seppälä-Esser et al. (2009)
63
present that national tourism organisations (NTOs) are an important knowledge
source for tourism SMEs, especially in terms of marketing knowledge. Janta et al.
(2012) identify the knowledge source function of co-workers, co-nationals, and
customers for migrant employers in tourism industry in terms of their language
learning. Furthermore, ‘tourist/visitor/traveller/customer’ is a kind of irreplaceable
stakeholders in tourism activities, and therefore has been recognised as a particular
role as both knowledge sources and knowledge receivers within the tourism KM
context.
On the one hand, as for the role of knowledge sources, the work of Wurzinger and
Johansson (2006) captures the tourists understanding of the ecotourism concept in
order to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing and planning activities
of relevant organisations. According to the knowledge sources role of tourists,
Marrocu and Paci (2011) believe that direct contacts with tourism flows (e.g. online
travel community (Qu and Lee, 2011)) is one efficiency-enhancing knowledge
diffusion channel for collecting relevant information on consumer preference.
Similarly, Qirici (2011) argues consumers profile is an important knowledge source
for tourism planning and development. Furthermore, Maniu and Marin-Pantelescu
(2012) introduce a hotel quality management system, the development of which is on
the basis of the knowledge of tourists` expectations.
On the other hand, as for the role of knowledge receivers, the studies are conducted in
light of the concept that knowledge transfer is dual-way, not only from tourists to
organisations, but also from organisations to tourists. In this context, knowledge
becomes a key factor in consumer behaviour and choice making (Tasci and Gartner,
2007), and tourists are more likely to maximise their knowledge of the destinations
and alternatives in order to avoid risks (Holloway and Robinson, 1995). Thus, there
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can be found a range of relevant studies (e.g. Ho et al., 2012; Palau-Saumell et al.,
2013) in terms of the way tourists search information and the specific impacts of
knowledge on tourists` behaviour.
2.3.2.4 Realise the Value of Knowledge
Just as its name implies, this perspective is concerned with the distributing and
utilizing knowledge asset effectively in order to achieve corresponding objectives.
According to the definitions of KM mentioned in the last section, the realisation of the
value of knowledge is to obtain competitive advantages as well as achieve the overall
success of organisations (industries). Therefore, the author classifies the articles
which are concerned with the role of knowledge in terms certain managerial situation
into this perspective. For instance, Hernández-Maestro et al. (2009) prove the
entrepreneur`s knowledge is an important source of the firm`s competitive
advantages.
Furthermore, Rodrı́guez (2002) demonstrates the particularly significant role of
organisational knowledge (especially those codify, mature and structure knowledge)
in the foreign expansion decision within Spanish hotel sectors. Moreover, Hager and
Sung (2012) mention the significance of organisational learning in terms of strategic
development of cultural tourism. What`s mentioned here, the author agrees the
argument of Fahey and Prusak (1998) that the discussion of knowledge cannot be
isolated with its uses. Therefore, in the author`s understanding, the articles related to
KM in tourism and hospitality context are all directly or indirectly aimed to realise the
value of knowledge. They are all on the basis of the significant value of knowledge in
tourism or try to demonstrate such values.
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2.3.2.5 Brief review of conceptual literature and research gaps:
By reviewing and summarizing the above literature, the author identifies several
primary research gaps which are: (1) from the perspective of KM functions, there are
very few KM-related literature articles in terms of the potential role of KM in the
development of tourism product; (2) from the perspective of knowledge
infrastructure, the discussions about internal knowledge infrastructure within tourism
organisations are still limited, e.g. knowledge base; and (3) from the perspective of
knowledge operational practices, there can be found seldom hints related to the
discussions about the KM-related role of training and education in tourism
organisations, and the internal knowledge source (e.g. employees) is received
imbalanced, less attention by comparing with the external knowledge sources (e.g.
NTOs, universities, tourists).
Apart from the former three points, a more significant gap can be found to echo with
the context of this research. It is that there are neither literatures focused on the TDC,
nor on similar consultancy organisations in the field of tourism and hospitality.
Consultancy organisations play a significant role in the research field of general
knowledge management, as the core of their work content and asset is knowledge
itself (von Nordenflycht, 2010). The competitive advantages of this kind of business
to a large degree depends on their capability to manage knowledge (Robertson et al.,
2003). It is not surprising therefore that some of them were among ‘the first
businesses to make heavy investments in the management of knowledge’ (p.96).
Furthermore, not only is KM important for consultancy organisations themselves, but
also this type of business plays an important role in the knowledge flows of other
businesses and the industries. For instance, Sturdy et al. (2009) summarise two types
of roles of consulting business in the adoption of new knowledge in client
66
organisations, which are innovation and legitimation. The innovator role of consulting
business tends to be as a new knowledge generator and distributor which bring new
expertise to the clients (Thrift, 2005), while its legitimating role is more likely to
legitimate existing knowledge for the client organisations (Saint-Martin, 2004).
Although Sturdy et al. (2009) argue the role of consultancy sometimes is less
polarised than is indicated by these two roles, they do, to a considerable degree,
reflect the various roles of consultancy organisations in the knowledge flows to client
organisations. To sum up, the investigation of such types of business in the research
field of tourism is necessary, due to its both intrinsic and extrinsic features and roles.
To conclude, the author believes a systematic and special understanding of knowledge
management in tourism industry is required, especially in the tourism-related
consultancy companies, e.g. the TDCs which are the focus of this research. In order to
achieve such understanding, a KM model is necessary which should not only cover
the general KM-related issues but also represent its applicability in the research
context of this research.
2.3.3 Knowledge Management Process Models
It can be seen that knowledge management is a continuous process rather than an
independent and isolated event or a simply strategy. From this perspective, the
researcher will adopt the knowledge-related process model to exhibit the author’s
understanding of knowledge management and guide the subsequent discussions about
the empirical evidence in later chapters. Hence, the author will discuss a range of KM
process models and formulate the one which is considered most suitable for this
research context in the next section.
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According to the process-oriented definition of KM adopted in this research, KM can
be deconstructed as a series of complexly interrelated activities. As Zehrer (2011)
states, there are a series of different KM models which identify different knowledge
processes on the basis of different focuses. For instance, the model provided by
Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) focuses on the characteristics of knowledge and the
interchanging processes among them (e.g. explicit and implicit, individuals and
collectives), while Grant (2005) focus more on describing the processes and the
activities that are related to managing knowledge within the given context. The
approach to KM adopted in this study is more relevant to the latter type of KM
models; hence, this study will provide a discussion about the various models of the
latter type and identify the most appropriate to follow in the future chapters.
As presented in Table 2.2, there are literally dozens of research publications providing
various models to describe knowledge management processes and activities in various
contexts. Although these models have different numbers of stages and different
nomenclatures because of having been developed from different contexts, most of
their core themes are related to managing individual/organisational knowledge in
certain types of business or organisations, and hence all share a resemblance.
Following the insights provided by Grant and Baden-Fuller (2004), most processes
and activities mentioned in those models can be categorised into two significant
dimensions of knowledge management, knowledge exploration and knowledge
exploitation (March, 1991).
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Author Content
Grant (2005) Knowledge Creation; Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Integration; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Replication; Knowledge Storage and
Organisation; Knowledge Measurement; Knowledge Identification
Kamara et al. (2002) Knowledge Creation; Knowledge Capture; Knowledge Storage; Knowledge Transfer; Knowledge Reuse
Egbu and Robinson (2005) Knowledge Identification; Knowledge Capture; Knowledge Storage; Knowledge Mapping; Knowledge Dissemination; Knowledge Creation
Schwartz (2006) Knowledge Acquisition (Creation, Discovery, Gathering, Validation); Knowledge Organisation (Modeling, Calibration, Classification,
Integration); Knowledge Distribution (Dissemination, Maintenance, Sharing, Reuse)
Jashapara (2004) Knowledge Discovery; Knowledge Generation; Knowledge Evaluation; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Leveraging
Tiwana (2002) Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Utilisation
Mohamed (2006) Knowledge Discovery and Capturing; Knowledge Organisation and Storage; Knowledge Distribution and Sharing; Knowledge Creation and
Leverage; Knowledge Archiving and Retirement
Davenport and Prusak (1998) Knowledge Generation; Knowledge Codification and Coordination; Knowledge Transfer
Bhatt (2001) Knowledge Creation; Knowledge Validation; Knowledge Presentation; Knowledge Distribution; Knowledge Application
Vorbeck and Finke (2001) Knowledge Creation; Knowledge Store; Knowledge Distribution; Knowledge Utilisation
Baek et al. (1999) Knowledge Creation; Securing/Combing Knowledge; Knowledge Distribution; Retrieving Knowledge
Chen (1998) (External)Knowledge Selection, Knowledge Acquisition, Knowledge Learning; (Internal)Knowledge Creation; Knowledge Dissemination;
Knowledge Construction; Knowledge Storage
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Cong (2008) Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Conversion and Creation; Knowledge Transfer;
Knowledge Accumulation
Yang and Wan (2004) Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Creation or Transfer; Organisational Memory; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Retrieval; Knowledge
Leverage
Zaim (2006); Zaim et al. (2007) Knowledge Generation and Development; Knowledge Codification and Storage; Knowledge Transferring and Sharing; Knowledge Utilisation
Tubigi et al. (2013) Knowledge Creation and Acquisition; Knowledge Modification; Knowledge Archiving; Knowledge Transfer; Knowledge
Translation/Repurposing; Knowledge Access; Knowledge Disposal
Alavi and Leidner (2001) Knowledge Creation; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Distribution
De Jarnett (1996) Knowledge Construction; Knowledge Embodiment; Knowledge Dissemination and Use; Knowledge Retention and Refinement
Demarest (1997b) Discerning Knowledge; Selection Knowledge Container; Knowledge Dissemination; Knowledge Use
Fong and Choi (2009) Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Creation; Knowledge Storage; Knowledge Distribution; Knowledge Use; Knowledge Maintaining
Hedlund (1994) Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Store; Knowledge Transfer; Knowledge Application; Knowledge Protection
Quintas et al. (1997) Knowledge Creating; Knowledge Acquiring; Knowledge Capturing; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Using
Singh and Soltani (2010) Knowledge Creation; Knowledge Use; Knowledge Transfer
Tubigi and Alshawi (2015) Knowledge Creation and Acquisition; Knowledge Modification; Knowledge Archiving; Knowledge Use; Knowledge Transfer; Knowledge
Translation/Repurposing; User Access to Knowledge; Knowledge Disposal
Van Zolingen et al. (2001) Knowledge Acquiring; Knowledge Codifying (Establishing); Knowledge Disseminating; Knowledge Developing; Knowledge Applying
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Tan et al. (2006) Knowledge Capture; Knowledge Representing; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Reuse; Knowledge Maintain
Ale et al. (2014) Knowledge Creation; Knowledge Distribution; Knowledge Representation and Retrieval;
Tserng and Lin (2004) Problem Happening; Knowledge Creation; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Record; Knowledge Storage; Knowledge Reused
Yeh et al. (2012) Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Internalisation; Knowledge Creation
Lee and Lan (2011) Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Conversion; Knowledge Application; Knowledge Protection
Diakoulakis et al. (2004) Knowledge Creation and Combination; Knowledge Retention and Systemisation; Knowledge Sharing and Access; Scanning Internal/ Exploiting
External Environments
Sumet and Suwannapong (2012) Knowledge Identification and Capture; Knowledge Structuring; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Application
Bergeron (2003) Knowledge Creating/Acquisition; Knowledge Modification; Immediate Use; Archiving; Transfer; Translation/Repurposing; User Access;
Disposal
Argote and Miron-Spektor
(2011)
Knowledge Creation; Knowledge Transfer; Knowledge Retention
Table 2.2 Models of Knowledge Management Processes (Source: Author, Integrated from the literature shown in the Tables)
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For instance, the activities in the dimension of knowledge exploration refer to
increasing the knowledge stock of organisations. They cover the following activities
mentioned in the models: knowledge creation (e.g. Argote and Miron-Spektor, 2011;
Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Ale et al., 2014; Grant, 2005; Kamara et al., 2002; Egbu and
Robinson, 2005; Bhatt, 2001; Vorbeck and Finke, 2001; Baek et al., 1999; Chen,
1998; Tubigi et al., 2013; Fong and Choi, 2009; Quintas et al., 1997; Singh and
Soltani, 2010; Tubigi and Alshawi, 2015; Tserng and Lin, 2004; Yeh et al., 2012;
Diakoulakis et al., 2004; Bergeron, 2003); knowledge acquisition (e.g. Grant, 2005;
Tiwana, 2002; Chen, 1998; Tubigi et al., 2013; Fong and Choi, 2009; Hedlund, 1994;
Quintas et al., 1997; Tubigi and Alshawi, 2015; Van Zolingen et al., 2001; Lee and
Lan, 2011; Bergeron, 2003); knowledge capture (e.g. Kamara et al., 2002; Egbu and
Robinson, 2005; Mohamed, 2006; Quintas et al., 1997; Tan et al., 2006; Sumet and
Suwannapong, 2012); knowledge discovery (e.g. Jashapara, 2004; Mohamed, 2006);
and knowledge generation (e.g. Davenport and Prusak, 1998; Jashapara, 2004).
Likewise, the dimension of knowledge exploitation, which means to deploy
existing/available knowledge to create value (Grant and Baden-Fuller, 2004), covers
the remaining activities shown in the KM models (e.g. knowledge transfer, knowledge
sharing, knowledge storage, knowledge reuse, knowledge utilisation, etc). The
specific sources of each activity are shown in Table 2.2.
Furthermore, as the description in the last paragraph shows, the meaning and names
of the terms used in the models overlap with each other to a certain degree. However,
it does not mean that the terms with the same name used in the different models have
exactly the same meanings. Likewise, it also does not mean that the concepts with
different names applied in the different models are entirely distinct. This paper will
take an example of the term ‘knowledge acquisition’ to further explain these two
points.
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In terms of the former viewpoint, Tiwana (2002) defines knowledge acquisition as
one of the three basic KM processes, which is conceptualised as ‘the process of
development and creation of insights, skills and relationships’ (cited in Sohail and
Daud, 2009:129). This definition to a certain degree expounds the nature of
knowledge in the context of organisational knowledge management. In contrast, Lee
and Lan (2011) emphasise more the sources of knowledge, and they consider
knowledge acquisition to be a complex process about capturing knowledge from
external and internal sources. This comparison demonstrates that the same term can
have different definitions and emphases when they are applied in different models and
different contexts.
As for the latter, Mills and Smith (2011) consider that knowledge acquisition is the
capability of an organisation to obtain, recognise and increase its knowledge stock
from ‘whether internal or external’ (Tubigi et al., 2013:4), while Grant (2005)
considers that knowledge creation refers to the process of creating and increasing
knowledge stocks from the inside of an organisation. From this example, it can be
seen that the concept of knowledge acquisition in Mills and Smith’s (2011) work
broadly equates to the definition of knowledge creation defined by Grant (2005),
which therefore to a certain degree demonstrates that concepts with different names
applied in the different models can have overlapping or inclusive interrelationships.
According to the above examples, some commonly-used terms have distinct meanings
and different emphasises (e.g. content of knowledge vs. sources of knowledge). It
reflects that there is a lack of consensus about the exact definitions of terms used in
the field of knowledge management. It can be seen that some commentators (e.g.
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Beesley and Cooper, 2008; Diakoulakis et al., 2004) attempt to provide relatively
unified definitions for the series of knowledge management activities and processes,
which to a certain degree enlightens the construction of the framework adopted in this
research. This research will not attempt to present a new taxonomy or explanation
about the specific knowledge management activities, as this is beyond the scope of
this research. By considering the inseparability and the continuity of knowledge flows
in the organisation (Boiral, 2002; Jasimuddin, 2008), it would be a challenge to
exactly clarify what KM-related activities belong to what category of KM processes,
especially in a relatively unexplored context (e.g. the TDCs). Therefore, rather than
precisely presenting a KM model with clear multiple stages of relevant activities in
the TDC context, this research has decided to utilise several relatively general, but
essential aspects of knowledge management to guide the latter discussions.
Argote and Miron-Spektor (2011) present a theoretical framework for analysis of
organisational learning, which covers three components of knowledge-related
activities (i.e. knowledge creation (KC), knowledge transfer (KT), and knowledge
retention (KR)). This three-component framework brings several inspirations for the
perspective that the author of this research adopts in analysing the various KM-related
activities in Table 2.2. This research believes that the KM-related activities and
processes occurring within TDCs can also be classified into three general categories
titled with the same terms used in Agrote and Miron-Spektor’s framework, although
the nature and definitions of these three terms are to a certain degree different which
will be explained in the following paragraphs.
The first category is Knowledge Creation (KC). According to the introduction to
TDCs in Section 2.1.3.2, knowledge creation is an essential issue for TDCs as their
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core product is to create knowledge related to tourism planning and development
topics (e.g. ideas and plans). Argote and Miron-Spektor (2011) consider that
‘knowledge creation occurs when a unit generates knowledge that is new to it’
(p.1128). By building on this concept and the aforementioned literature which
consists of similar terms, KC in this research is conceptualised as the process to bring
knowledge into existence within the TDC context. It should be noted that the concept
of KC in this research covers all possible sources and patterns, which to a certain
degree differs from the definition of knowledge creation used in the aforementioned
literature due to the specific sources or patterns they identified. From this perspective,
KC in this research echoes with the aforementioned dimension of knowledge
exploration (March, 1991) and the definition of knowledge acquisition mentioned in
Tubigi et al. (2013).
This research focuses more on exploring the general factors influencing the overall
phenomenon when there is new knowledge generation in the TDC context, rather than
structuring the discussion according to the sources and patterns where the new
knowledge origins (such as in Chen (1998), who typically divides the sources into
internal and external in the discussion of knowledge creation and knowledge
acquisition respectively. Instead, this research treats sources and patterns as important
influences which will be discussed along with other factors by referring to the related
activities. KC comprises a series of interconnected activities (e.g. knowledge
development, discovery and capture) related to the entry of new knowledge into a
certain context (Newman and Conrad, 2000). In the latter chapter about KC in TDCs,
this research will hence focus on a series of interconnected activities related to the
generation of new knowledge in the given context, e.g. acquiring and capturing
knowledge, individual and group creativity, developing ideas, and transforming tacit
ideas into explicit sentences and pictures.
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The second category is Knowledge Transfer (KT). There are two distinct kinds of
definitions of knowledge transfer in different research, which can lead to confusion
surrounding this research issue. One kind of definition conceptualises KT as the
transformation of knowledge whereby knowledge is transferred from one situation to
another and hence can be used in the new situation. An example can be seen from
several discussions related to the aforementioned SECI model (Nonaka and Takeuchi,
1995) which is about the conversion of knowledge between implicit and explicit
forms. In some literature (e.g. Liyanage et al., 2009; Schlegelmilch and Chini, 2003),
scholars characterise this model as a knowledge transfer model. However, the original
authors of this model use a different terms to indicate this model as a model of
knowledge creation (Nonaka and Toyama, 2003). The inconsistent terminology
echoes with the aforementioned phenomena that there is a lack of consensus in terms
of several significant common terms within the field of KM. It also to a certain degree
results in confusion when attempting to define KT in its research context.
Instead, this research adopts another kind of definition of KT. It refers to transfer as a
mobility-related definition about moving knowledge from one place to another. For
instance, Carlile and Rebentisch (2003) state that many efforts in the field of
knowledge transfer focus on understanding the movement of knowledge from one
location to another. There are various entities involved in the process of TDP, such as
the different professional roles in the project team, the mother TDC, the partner, and
the client. Therefore, a permanent challenge for the TDC is how to create their
product (i.e. a kind knowledge) through the integration of knowledge from all these
relevant entities. It echoes with the argument of Nonaka and Toyama (2003) that
‘knowledge is created through the synthesis of the contradictions between the
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organisation`s internal resources and the environment’ (p.4). This argument not only
implies the close linkage between KC and KT, but also emphasises the significance of
KT in this research context.
KT in this research hence connotes a situation where there is the conveyance of
knowledge from one unit to another, within the context of the TDP. In this context,
this research will pay more attention to the knowledge flows between individuals. The
individuals are viewed not only as the starting point of knowledge transfer in the
context, but also as the basic elements constituting the larger scale entities (e.g.
project teams, organisations) and the overall project ecology (which will be discussed
in the latter section). Hence, during the later discussion of KT, this research will
mainly refer to some crucial aspects in terms of individual knowledge transfer, such
as communication. Communication is ‘the process by which individuals create and
share information with each another so as to attain mutual understanding (Schuetz,
1964, 1967)’ (Beesley and Cooper, 2008:52). Other aspects related to knowledge
transfer, such as translation, conversion, filtering and rendering (Newman and
Conrad, 2000), will also be discussed together with the factors influencing them.
Once knowledge is created or transferred, it cannot persist over time in that particular
context unless there are concerted efforts to retain it. The retained knowledge can be
influential to the organisation’s performance, and it can also be accessed and reused to
further create value for the organisation (Burmeister and Deller, 2016; Marsh and
Stock, 2003). This leads to the third category of KM in this research which is
Knowledge Retention (KR). Argote and her co-workers consider knowledge retention
is ‘the process that knowledge is retained in the organisation’ (Argote and Miron-
Spektor, 2011:1128)…so that it exhibits some persistence over time’ (Argote et al.,
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2003:572). Van Der Meer and Kautz (2016) complement that knowledge retention is
also about retaining accessibility to the knowledge repository of the organisation or
group. By building on these concepts, this research refers to KR as the processes and
activities influencing persistence/variation and accessibility of the
individual/organisational knowledge stock in the TDC context. As Martins and Meyer
(2012) note, there is little research devoted to the area of knowledge retention ‘with a
focus on individual, team, and organisational behaviour’ (p.78). Being informed by
this research gap, this thesis will hence draw particular attention towards the KR-
related behaviours of the entities within the TDC context, e.g. exit interview,
recording of field work and meetings, and shared knowledge repositories.
According to the above discussion, knowledge creation, knowledge transfer, and
knowledge retention constitute the three key components of the KM model applied in
this research. Their specific definitions and the available examples in this research
context are also presented. It should be re-emphasised that, rather than being
independent of each other, these three components are interrelated as sketched in
Figure 2.1. This research will take some examples of their interrelationships between
each pair of the three components.
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Figure 2.1 The model of knowledge management
As for knowledge creation and knowledge retention, KC can be viewed as
prerequisites for KR: quite simply, knowledge has to appear and increase (knowledge
creation) in order for knowledge to be retained in the context. On the other hand, to
screen and reuse the existing knowledge can stimulate creative cognitive process
which enhances knowledge creation (Majchrzak et al., 2004). The retained knowledge
can be embedded in the individual characteristics and the organisational routines to
influence the patterns and processes of knowledge creation (see in Chou, 2005).
Just like KC, KT is also a prerequisite for KR in that if there is no flow of knowledge,
the knowledge will remain with the retainers (e.g. individuals) rather than be
captured, stored, maintained, and distributed around the repositories in the wider
context (e.g. organisations). In the meantime, KR is influential in terms of boosting
knowledge transfer in the organisations. For instance, a transactive memory system
(TMS) can be applied as an effective mechanism for managing organisational
memory which can enhance and support knowledge transfer (Nevo and Wand, 2005).
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Knowledge Transfer Knowledge Retention
Knowledge Creation
Such a TMS can enable individuals to identify specific knowledge retainers (e.g. the
one who is proficient at certain tasks or tools (Argote and Ingram, 2000) across the
context, which hence supports the subsequent knowledge transfer among them.
The interrelationships between KC and KT are also close. An example can be seen
from the aforementioned SECI model (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). There are four
forms of knowledge conversion in the model, i.e. Socialisation, Externalisation,
Combination and Internalisation. Some of these exhibit the intertwined relationships
between KC and KT. For instance, Externalisation is a process where the sources
attempt to rationalise and articulate their tacit knowledge and share the articulated
knowledge with the receivers. The knowledge sources try to enable the movement of
their tacit knowledge ‘from hidden to the surface’ and to further link ‘with the deeper
domains of social reality’ (Nonaka and Toyama, 2003:5). During the process, new
explicit knowledge is created, and can in turn be shared by others, which can be
viewed as the basis of knowledge transfer. The articulated explicit knowledge can be
further collected and synthesised to become more integrated and systematic explicit
knowledge. Such a process is termed the Combination process, which exhibits another
interrelationship between KT and KC.
To summarise, there can be seen numerous models of knowledge management in the
literature, and these models have different numbers of stages and different
nomenclatures as a result of having been developed from different contexts. Such
miscellaneous nomenclatures can result in confusion if these models are directly
applied to research with other contexts, such as the context of this research. Therefore,
the author attempts to generalise them into a relatively general KM model for this
research. The model covers three essential components of KM, i.e. knowledge
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creation, knowledge transfer, and knowledge retention. Not only are their specific
definitions introduced in the discussion, but also the examples of them in the TDC
context are listed to demonstrate their applicability in this research context.
Furthermore, rather than being independent of each other, these three components
interlink with each other. There are close interrelationships between each pair. This
model provides a relatively efficient framework for the data collection and analysis of
this research, while providing a relatively comprehensive approach to KM-related
issues.
It should be noted that knowledge cannot be processed in a vacuum or just in one’s
mind. In contrast, knowledge is context-specific which implies a physical context
including particular time, space, and interrelationships to be processed (Hayek, 1945
cited in Nonaka and Toyama, 2003). Therefore, after selecting the specific KM model
for this research, it is also necessary to select an effective contextual framework for
systematically and comprehensively understanding knowledge management issues in
the TDC.
2.3.4 Introducing an Organisational Ecology approach to
Researching the Knowledge Management of TDC
By conducting the previous chapters of literature review, the author realises that there
is a gap related to systematically understand knowledge management practices and
strategies of tourism organisations (especially the project-based organisations) in the
discipline of tourism. According to the speeches of Hayek (1967), the current world
should be more properly viewed as a complex ecology rather than a controllable
mechanical object. By extending this statement to the management field, the author
believes that a social-ecology perspective is more appropriate in dealing with the
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current issues of organisations than a bureaucratic viewpoint. In this context, Becker
(2007) states that single ‘best’ area of knowledge management in the organisation
(e.g. the most advance information system application or well-designed human
resource policies) is limited in terms of predicting and ensuring effective knowledge
management, as such ecosystem framework is characterised by the interdependencies
and the overall pattern of systematic components rather than certain individual
element. According to this perspective, apart from the above discussion on the four
key areas of knowledge management, the author would like to introduce the theory of
‘organisational ecology’ to understand knowledge management related practices from
a more holistic perspective.
From its original definition, organisational ecology refers to ‘the organisational field
created by a number of organisations, whose interrelations compose a system at the
level of the field as a whole’ (Trist, 1977:161), rather than simply referring to the
organisation-set of single focal organisation. This term gathers increasing attention
from both academic and practical fields due to the following reasons. Firstly (link to a
wider external environment), relatively closed system thinking (which treated the
focal organisation as a closed system) cannot sufficiently solve the research issues in
the reality that the boundary between organisation and its surrounding environment is
mutually permeable. Secondly (internal differentiation), even if in the same
organisation, different parts and sectors of organisation could have different (internal)
environments that call for new insight in terms of internal organisational
differentiation rather than a relatively simplified viewpoint that treated organisation as
homogeneous structure. Thirdly (the increasing turbulence), the state of organisation
and its sets are not ideally static; on the contrary, the turbulence characteristic of
organisational environments has become increasingly arresting, from both aspects of
scope and speed.
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To be more specific, organisational ecology calls for an emphasis of interface
relations between all components within such ecosystem framework, which is one
basic distinction between the system of organisational ecology (negotiation) and
bureaucratic organisation system (compliance). In other words, organisational ecology
is an expression of system thinking in terms of organisational theory that the
organisational performance (herein refers to knowledge management) cannot be fully
understood by examining any individual element rather than the interdependencies
and the overall pattern between these components (Becker, 2007). For instance, Kelly
and Littman (2002) discover that the continuous creativity of a business consulting
company (named IDEO) results from serious attention on every facet of the
organisational eco-system and dynamic harmony interrelations between these facets.
As a result, the author believes that the perspective of organisational ecology provides
a wider, deeper, and more flexible angle to the reality of the dynamic
interrelationships and the uncertainty and complexity involved in the organisational
domains.
Furthermore, as interrelations can be treated as a core of the concept of organisational
ecology, the introduction of organisational ecology in the field of knowledge
management can also be viewed as an emphasis of the effects of interrelationships
between relevant units on corresponding knowledge management. This emphasis is a
valuable and promising research trend within the field of knowledge management
which can be supported by several relevant review articles, e.g. Argote et al. (2003).
Argote et al. develop a theoretical framework for organizing the research in terms of
knowledge management and organisational learning. According to their review, the
research issue about how properties of relationships between units (can be referred as
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an individual or an organisation) affect knowledge management and organisational
learning has become a more recent trend than the research issue related to how the
properties of independent unit affect knowledge management. In addition, they
support that this perspective is especially critical when the research focuses on the
level of organisation (e.g. TDCs in this research).
It should be noticed that, there is a list of factors which should be taken account
before portraying the framework of organisational ecology for any specific case as
there is rarely a universal solution for all organisations. Becker (2007) presents four
relevant factors as ‘type of industry, stage of organisational development,
organisational size, and job function’ (p.16). These four factors represent a series of
differences in terms of various corresponding sub-factors according to the general
causal relationships between them. For instance, different ‘types of industry’
determines the huge differences in terms of working processes and latent
organisational culture. As evidence, Grabher (2004a) demonstrates the different
characteristics between the project ecologies of software company and advertising
company, especially in terms of learning logics: the former tends to be the cumulative
learning logic which emphasises the benefits of recurring modularised ties, while the
latter is more likely to be the disruptive learning logic which values on originality and
reconfiguring relationships.
Therefore, it is necessary to consider the relevant attributes of the research object (i.e.
TDCs), when the theory of organisational ecology is applying to this research. Firstly,
the factors of ‘organisational development stage’ (herein should also include project
development stage in the project-based organisation, e.g. idea generation stage in this
research) and ‘organisation size’ varies from organisation to organisation. Therefore,
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these indicate can be applied to portray organisational ecology for single organisation
(e.g. in the case study phase) rather than for the whole TDCs.
As for the factor of ‘job functions’, it refers to the role and responsibility of units of
the ecological system. Apart from traditional job functions (e.g. marketing, human
resource and finance), there are different roles of project members within the project-
based organisation. For instance, King (1989) and Grabher (2002a) presents account
management, account planning, and creative as three key units within advertising
projects. Take an example of account management, it is the actor of project team that
is responsible for liaising with the client during the whole stages of the project (Wells
et al., 1998). This actor can be treated as a bridge between clients and project teams:
on the one side, it conveys the preferences, intentions, and criteria of the clients to the
project team; on the other side, it also represents the professional characteristics and
standards of its belonging team from the perspective of clients (Ewing et al., 2001). It
should be noticed that although the job functions different actors are clearly divided,
the job allocation in the real case cannot be such ideally clear. For instance, in the
micro and small companies, there is a range of ‘multiple job holders’ which take
several job functions at the same time due to the limitation of human resource. The
knowledge management practices in such situation would be clearly different from
the situation in larger companies which possesses clear role division to each
employee.
As for ‘type of industry’, apart from the characteristics of tourism product which has
been discussed in the first chapter of literature review, it should be noticed that TDCs
belongs to a kind of project-based organisations (PBOs). PBOs are characteristically
different from traditional firm-centred organisations: while the characteristics of firm-
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centred organisation places ‘firm’ as the basic element of commercial behaviour and
performance (Maskell, 2001), project-based organisation is conceptualised as one
organisation form which ‘involve the creation of temporary systems for the
performance of project tasks’ (Lundin and Soderholm, 1995, cited in Sydow et al.,
2004: 1475). The opposing definition implies that the different organisational eco-
systems of the two organisation forms.
One significant example would be the system boundaries of these two kinds of
organisational ecologies. System boundary is a kind of abstract edge between the
relatively highly relevant components and the less relevant factors of certain system
(Wang, 1994). As for the firm-centred organisation, the boundary of its eco-system is
normally coherent between ‘the firm`s sphere of operation and control and its
interfaces with external activities’ (Gann and Salter, 2000:957). On the contrary, there
is an increasingly recognised opinion (e.g. Ekstedt et al., 1999) that project and
project-based organisation should be investigated together in a mutually embedded
context. Therefore, the eco-system boundary of project-based organisation is more
likely to be flexible and temporary as project is normally a temporary phenomenon. In
the meantime, it means the boundary of project-based organisation is not limited to
organisation itself. Due to the highly customised nature of project and the highly
various and differentiated skills required by project (as shown in the definition of
project-based companies (Koskinen, 2010; Turner and Keegan, 1999)), clients and
participants from multiple organisations are frequently interact and participate in the
project network (Hobday, 1998; Windeler and Sydow, 2001). By considering these
distinctive characteristics of PBOs, it is necessary to provide a PBO-specific
organisational ecology framework for the later discussion.
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2.3.4.1 Project Ecology
Sydow et al. (2004) introduce four levels of contexts of project-based organisation
research. This variety of contexts involves four levels including ‘organisational units,
organisations, interorganisational networks, and organisational fields’ (p.1478). The
level of organisational units equates to the business units involved in organizing a
project, the discussion of which can be similar to the aforementioned factor of ‘job
functions’. The project’s origins in different organisational units can have distinct
requirements in terms of knowledge and other resources. The discussion on the level
of the organisation views the organisation itself as a significant context. It can
distinguish the context of this level according to the different types of organisations.
The types of organisations can be differentiated according to various criteria, such as
their structures (e.g. mechanistic vs. organic organisation (Spencer and Sofer, 1964)
and scales (e.g. large transnational organisation vs. SMEs). The aforementioned
discussion of firm-centred organisations and PBOs is also an example of this level.
The focus of levels of networks and organisational field moves beyond single
organisations to wider contexts, such as inter-organisational cooperation, industries,
and regions. In these levels, the organisation and coordination of projects can be
differed with each other according to various forms in terms of inter-organisational
cooperation and interactions and ‘particular regions or industries’ (Sydow et al.,
2004:1478). Examples can be seen from strategic networks (Jarrillo, 1988) in the
automotive and electronic industry, and project networks (Windeler and Sydow,
2001) in the television industry. Grabher (2004a, 2004b) also provides a discussion
about the opposing project-based learning logics between the software industry in
Munich and advertising industry in London.
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These four levels introduced by Sydow et al. (2004) provide a latent relevant
framework in consideration of how to portray a specific organisational ecology for
certain project-based organisations. It implies that such consideration should coevolve
with projects and project-based organizing, including project units, organisations,
other relevant communities and the complex interactions between them. One
frequently referred example would be the concept of ‘project ecologies’ (see in Gasik,
2011; Morris and Geraldi, 2011; Winch, 2014), which is consists of ‘the
interdependencies between projects and the particular firms, personal relations,
localities and corporate networks from which these projects mobilise essential
sources’ (Grabher, 2002a: 246). In his latter works (e.g. Grabher, 2004a, 2004b)
Grabher provides some hints for investigating KM-related issues through the
framework of project ecologies.
To be more specific, the project ecology introduced by Grabher (2002a) is constituted
of four layers: the core project team, the firm, the epistemic community, and the
personal networks. The layer of core project team corresponds to the aforementioned
organisational unit level, which is the elementary learning arena that the major project
processes evolve around. The members involved in the team contribute with their
specific set of knowledge through different practice logics to the project. Such
professional logics incorporate the following, as a minimum: the service logic which
is related to the aiming of ‘solving client’s intentions, preferences, procedures, and
criteria’ (Grabher, 2002a:248); the business logic/management logic which is about to
get project ‘on track’…within ‘time and budget’ (Grabher, 2004a: 1495); the
professional logic/technical logic which is about to contributing expert knowledge to
the project task in the respective professional styles according the individuals`
different professional backgrounds (see Grabher (2002a) about the scientific logic of
account planning and the art logic of creatives).
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During the project process, these logics are embodied in the practices of relevant
specific professional roles and occupations in the team (see Grabher, 2004b: 108), and
balanced with each other through interactions. The interactions among these practice
logics along with the team composition and the corresponding professional roles
influence the delivery of project as well as the KM-related processes in the team. For
instance, the composition of the project team within the context of the London
advertising industry is more likely to vary from time to time in order to trigger
creative inspiration, while the team composition within the context of the Munich
software industry is more likely to be stable over time in order to achieve stronger
collaboration and better capability in terms of joint problem solving.
Then, the layer of the firm echoes with the aforementioned level of organisations.
Although the role of the organisation is diluted in the context of project-based
activities (see in DeFillippi and Arthur, 1998), the organisation is still important to
provide essential resources and infrastructure to support the creation of new
knowledge and accumulating project capabilities (Gold et al., 2001; Scarbrough et al.,
2004). According to Grabher (2004b), such resources and infrastructure can be both
explicit (e.g. manuals) and implicit (e.g. culture). Furthermore, the particular attention
in the level of the organisations also moves beyond the management of a single
project to a set of project portfolios, so as to capture, reuse, and sediment knowledge
from previous projects to subsequent related projects and even the general business
routines and practices. Different industries differentiate their patterns in term of these
aspects. Just like the example shown in Grabher (2004a), while the software ecology
in Munich benefits from applying modules to reuse and sediment knowledge from
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previous projects, the advertising ecology in London limits their scope of applying
modules to a minimum degree in order to achieve originality.
During the project process, the actual knowledge flow extends beyond the single firm
level. It hence calls for the third layer ‘the epistemic community’ which consists of
‘all project participants who contribute to the production of knowledge to accomplish
the specific task, even if only temporarily and partially’ (Grabher, 2004a: 1493). Such
contextual form is also called a project network (Hellgren and Stjernberg, 1995).
According to the definition, the epistemic community not only involves the core
actors participating in the project (e.g. the core team, and the firm), but also includes
other project stakeholders (Floricel and Miller, 2001). As introduced by Grabher
(2002a), such stakeholders include clients, suppliers, and corporate groups, and each
of these plays an essential role in terms of knowledge production and knowledge
practices. Due to their various involvement degree in the project and their diverse
characteristics, this layer becomes dynamic and challenging to manage, especially
when ‘each have their own (and obviously controversial) objectives, interests and
expectations from the project, as based on each actor’s different business objectives in
their permanent businesses’ (Artto and Kujala, 2008: 472). It hence calls for attention
to be given to stakeholders management (e.g. Aaltonen and Sivonen, 2009; Bonke and
Winch, 2002) and the management of relationships between these various project-
relevant parties (Winch, 2006).
Apart from the first three layers which are the manifest pattern of project-based
organisational networks, the presentation of ‘personal networks’ emphasises their
latent influences on the project background (Wittel, 2001) and individual project
members (Starkey et al., 2000). These latent networks are also essential knowledge
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sources for the individual project members which can be activated to solve project-
specific issues (Grabher, 2004a). In addition, interpersonal trust (Cook and Wall,
1980) has been demonstrated as an essential factor for the effectiveness of knowledge
management and self-managed team performance (Politis, 2003). To be more
specific, the main capital of knowledge workers is their knowledge and ideas
(especially in creative industries such as design); therefore, interpersonal trust is
central part of a design team`s knowledge sharing (Zaglago et al., 2013) and the
resulting team performance (Chen et al., 2010): they need to trust the people they
work with. Especially, the author believes this layer is valuable to the context of this
study as ‘interpersonal relationship (guanxi) is one of the major dynamics of Chinese
society’ (Luo, 2007:1).
As shown from the above discussion, project ecology is a framework which can
portray the contextual understanding of projects and project-based learning through
four constitutive layers, i.e. the core team, the firm, the epistemic community, and the
personal networks. To a certain degree, this implies a multilevel perspective which is
‘to identify principles that enable a more integrated understanding of phenomena that
across levels in organisations’ (Kozlowski and Klein, 2000:3). However, this research
proposes that there are two more levels that can be further integrated into Grabher’s
project ecology to provide a relatively more comprehensive framework for the
research in this thesis.
The first proposed level is the individual level. Individuals are the basic entities
driving the project work, and the higher levels of entities (e.g. team, organisation)
actually emerge through the interaction and dynamics of the individuals. In Grabher’s
framework, he provides some hints about the roles of the characteristics of individuals
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in the project context, such as the aforementioned expertise and practice logics.
However, by drawing on the literature in the field of KM, this thesis aims to provide
an expanded explanation of the role of individuals.
For instance, Nonaka et al. (2000) consider that knowledge is created through the
social interactions amongst individuals or between individuals and their wider social
contexts (e.g. organisations). Argote (2011) supports the idea that the individuals are
‘the mechanisms through which organisational learning generally occurs’ (p.440). It
can be seen that there is considerable existing research which investigates the role of
individual characteristics towards KM issues, such as personality (e.g. Gupta, 2008;
Zhou and Shalley, 2003), emotion (e.g. Isen, 1987; McConnell and Eva, 2012), and
individual knowledge (e.g. Ajmal and Koskinen, 2008; Shalley and Gilson, 2004).
Hence, it is necessary to incorporate a specific level of the individual in the
investigation of KM in the context of this thesis.
While this research suggests a need to dig deeper into the individual level, it also
contends there is a need for a wider consideration about incorporating the influences
of the external environments on KM issues in the project ecology. It hence leads to
another proposed level which is the level of external environment. The proposal to
incorporate this level is consistent with the fundamentals of multilevel perspective
which is ‘the recognition that micro phenomenon are embedded in macro contexts …’
(Kozlowski and Klein, 2000:3). All the lower-level elements are nested one by one,
and eventually nested into the layer of overall environment (Hitt et al., 2007).
The factors from the external environment can exert diverse influences on the
business entities of which the organisation usually has limited control over
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(Gillingham and Roberts, 2006). It is manifest that there is an external environment
surrounding the relevant individuals, teams, organisations of certain project, and that
the characteristics of such external environment can actually influence the interactions
and dynamics of these relevant entities in terms of their performance in project and
KM-related issues. The categories of external environment are diverse. A frequently
researched category related to KM is about the technology environment. The swift
shift of technology environment pushes the improvements of KM-related
mechanisms. For instance, communication technologies improve the transferability of
knowledge (e.g. Roberts, 2000; Frank et al., 2015), the application of information
system and transactive memory system facilitate the management of organisational
learning (e.g. Argote and Guo, 2016; Chatterjee et al., 2015). Besides the technology
environment, other environments have also received attention from the researchers
who have investigated their roles in KM-related activities, such as physical
environment (e.g. Frank et al., 2015) and social-cultural environment (e.g. Bhagat et
al., 2002; Chinying Lang, 2004). Therefore, this research considers the level of
external environment should not be neglected during the investigation of KM in this
research context.
To summarise, knowledge is another key factor in the innovation process, and it is
also critical for creativity as shown from the literature. This section initially examines
the various definitions and typologies of knowledge as well as the nature of general
knowledge management. Then, a further discussion is raised around some key areas
of knowledge management and their relationships with tourism. The key areas of
knowledge management are: the governance functions, the staff functions, the
operational functions, and the value realisation of knowledge. These areas provide
useful perspectives to research knowledge management in the context of tourism;
however, as the following discussion about the research gap shows, a systematic and
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specific understanding of knowledge management in tourism industry is required,
especially in the knowledge-intensive companies like TDCs. This is the focus of this
research.
Therefore, the thesis initially discusses a range of KM models and formulates a model
which is suitable for this research context. The model adopted in this research
involves three components of KM, i.e. knowledge creation, knowledge transfer, and
knowledge retention. The specific definitions of the three components is given:
knowledge creation refers to the process of bringing knowledge into existence within
the TDC context; knowledge transfer connotes a situation where there is the
conveyance of knowledge from one unit to another, within the context of the TDP;
knowledge retention refers to the processes and activities influencing
persistence/variation and accessibility of the individual/organisational knowledge
stock in the TDC context.
After the discussion of KM model, this research notes that knowledge is context-
specific in terms of a physical context including particular time, space, and
interrelationships to be processed. It hence adopts an organisational ecology (OE)
approach, which refers to a system at the level of the field which is constituted by a
number of organisational entities and their interrelationships. A series of factors
including intra- and inter-organisational factors are discussed to be the essential
components in portraying organisational ecology for single organisation. For instance,
intra-organisational factors are the composition of organisational units, the size,
development phase, and type of organisations, while inter-organisational factors are
the networks between project-related organisations and the characteristics of industry.
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Some latent factors, such as personal relationships, are also mentioned in the
discussion.
On the basis of the discussion, the researcher adopts the framework of project ecology
which covers ‘the interdependencies between projects and the particular firms,
personal relations, localities and corporate networks from which these projects
mobilise essential sources’ (Grabher, 2002a: 246). Grabher’s framework of project
ecology covers four layers, i.e. the core team, the firm, the epistemic community, and
the personal networks. Each layer is discussed, and some hints related to KM within
these are also briefly introduced. Apart from the four layers, this research also
proposes two more layers to be incorporated into Grabher’s project ecology
framework, i.e. the level of individuals and the level of external environment. Both
levels conform to the fundamentals of multilevel perspective, and they are found to be
essential towards KM-related issues according to the relevant literature. A more
specific definition and framework of project ecology in terms of tourism development
project will be addressed in later chapters.
2.4 Short Summary of the Chapter of Literature Review
In this chapter, the researcher discusses four essential terms related to this research:
tourism product, innovation, creativity, and knowledge management. It exhibits the
gradually evolving process of the specific research ideas of this research during the
researcher’s PhD life: Initially, as a tourism PhD student, the researcher wished to tap
on the core of tourism industry. From this point, some articles suggest that product
should be at the core of all business activities (especially marketing) in leisure;
meanwhile, tourism attractions (as well as tourism destination) lie in the centre of
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tourism system that they are the core product of tourism product. However, there was
seldom seen fruitful studies focusing on the companies who provided the service of
developing tourism attractions and destinations, i.e. tourism development companies.
In the meantime, innovation, especially product innovation, is considered to be
essentially important to business performance including tourism businesses, and the
factors of creativity and knowledge management were both demonstrated to be
significant towards innovation process. Furthermore, knowledge management was
found to be essential for the creativity process as well.
By combining these findings, the necessity of investigating knowledge management
in the tourism development companies has become obvious. During this evolving
process, numbers of definitions, characteristics, relevant issues and gaps of the
involving terms are generally discussed. Then, this research generalises a series of
knowledge management models in the literature, into a relatively general KM model
for this research. The model covers three essential components of KM, i.e. knowledge
creation, knowledge transfer, and knowledge retention. After that, the approach of
project ecology, a derived concept of organisation ecology in the project-specific
context, is introduced in order to investigate knowledge management in tourism
development companies from a more comprehensive and systematic perspective.
Some more specific literature will be reviewed during the discussion in the later
chapter of findings.
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Chapter 3 Methodology
3.1 Introduction
The methodology and methods applied in this research will be discussed and
developed in this chapter. The previous chapters have highlighted a research gap in
that there is relatively little research investigating knowledge management issues in
the context of tourism development companies (TDCs), despite the importance of this
type of business per se to the overall tourism industry. It is acknowledged from the
preceding literature chapters that knowledge is context-specific which implies a
physical context including particular time and space characteristics, and
interrelationships to be processed (Hayek, 1945 cited in Nonaka and Toyama, 2003).
It underlines the need to understand knowledge management issues through a
relatively comprehensive and systematic contextual framework. After considering the
unique project-based feature of TDC businesses, this thesis chooses and develops a
project-specific organizational ecology framework entitled project ecology.
Therefore, the overall research aim of this study is
To understand knowledge management in tourism development companies in China
via a project ecology approach
Based on this research aim, the following research objectives have been developed:
To provide a detailed account of the general project ecology of TDCs in China
To understand how knowledge is managed within the project ecology of the
chosen case studies
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The methods and methodology utilised to achieve the aim and objectives are
discussed and developed in this chapter. In Section 3.2, the main theme is related to
the philosophical foundation of this research which will be mainly based on the
research paradigms model proposed by Burrell and Morgan (1979). Subsections 3.2.1
and 3.2.2 discuss the two axes of the model respectively, i.e. the radical change-
regulation axis and the objectivist-subjectivist axis. These discussions guide the
adopted research paradigm, the relevant characteristics of which are introduced in
subsection 3.2.3.
On the basis of the research aim and the research paradigm, the corresponding
research methods which will be adopted in this thesis are presented in the following
section 3.3. The introduction outlines the overall research design and, after that,
subsection 3.3.1 discusses the research strategies adopted in the thesis. This is
followed by a discussion of the data collection methods used at different stages of the
research in relation to the two research objectives (subsection 3.3.2). In the end,
subsection 3.3.3 and 3.3.4 introduces the techniques and the corresponding
operational sequences in the data collection, storage and analysis stages will have
been outlined.
3.2 Foundation: Research Paradigm
Saunders et al. (2009) state that research philosophy plays an overarching role in the
design of research methodology, which acts as the most external surface of the
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‘research onion’. It contains the assumptions about the researcher’s worldview which
would fundamentally influence the whole research process. In order to clarify the
research philosophy of this research, a concept of ‘paradigm’ will be presented in the
next paragraphs. As mentioned here, although Shapere (1964) considers that paradigm
is still an abstract and global term, the author believes paradigm is a further concept
which draws research philosophies together through a particular systematic way and
has closer links to the research ideas and processes.
There is a series of definitions of the term ‘paradigm’ as it is a frequently-used term in
the social sciences (Saunders et al., 2009). In this section, the author mainly refers this
term to its implication during the process of planning and conducting. Paradigm,
according to the definition of Guba and Lincoin (1994), is the fundamental belief
system or basic worldview for guiding the research in terms of research ontologies,
epistemologies, and methods. Kuhn (1970) also gives a well-known concept of
‘paradigm’ as an exemplar and disciplinary matrix which is a means of connected and
shared theoretical and methodological beliefs and values that controls the
corresponding selection, evaluation, and criticism of them. Furthermore, Gummesson
(1991) defines paradigm as a kind of subconscious value and norm that controls the
researchers’ thinking and action in research. Likewise, McArthur (1992) supports that
a research paradigm can be viewed as an overriding viewpoint that shapes research
ideas and action.
In the understanding of the author of this research, no matter what bodies, either as a
belief system, worldview, or value , that the term ‘paradigm’ has been described,
research paradigm can be treated as a particular set of lenses of research (Burke,
2007:4) which covers a range of factors in knowledge development, such as laws,
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theories, models, standards etc., that guides and controls ontologies (the nature of
reality), epistemologies (the nature of knowledge), methodologies (the nature of
research), axiology (value) and the related methods that directly influence the
accomplishment of research.
According to the definition of paradigm, the factors of a paradigm cover, just as
Shapere (1964) states, ‘anything that allows science to accomplish anything’ (p.385).
Therefore, the types of paradigm and the corresponding classification methods are
diverse on the basis of the varying of these factors. This research has no intention to
digress to compare the different types or classification methods of research paradigm.
The author agrees with Saunders et al. (2009) that there is generally no ‘better’
research paradigm than others because specific research context and questions decide
the relatively more suitable paradigm. In this research, the author considers the work
of Burrell and Morgan (1979)’s book Sociological Paradigms and Organizational
Analysis is particularly helpful in clarifying the choice of paradigm of this research
due to a number of elements mentioned in the monograph.
First one is the Matched Context, which means the background of this study
corresponds to the context of the referring literature. For this research, the research
topic is primarily about tourism project-based organization and the interrelationships
within its internal and surrounding actors which shows the representative social and
organizational context of this research. Therefore, it corresponds to the background of
Burrell and Morgan (1979)’s work in terms of organization studies. Second is the
Explicit Apply. this research believes that Burrell and Morgan (1979)’s work provides
a more comprehensive and explicit scheme to map the research paradigm of
organization studies than previous congeneric literature, and the 2x2-paradigm model
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(Figure 3.2) can relatively easily guide the author to allocate the research within it.
Thirdly, High Recognition: even if in its critics (Deetz, 1996; Hassard and Cox,
2013), they admit the work of Burrell and Morgan (1979) is widely accepted and cited
in numerous researches and literature which testified its validity from a general
perspective.
Figure 3.2 2x2-social paradigms model by Burrell and Morgan (1979)
The Burrell and Morgan’s four-paradigm grid contains four mutual-exclusive
quadrants, namely radical humanist, radical structuralist, interpretive, and
functionalist. The classification is based on two dimensions: subjectivist-objectivist
and radical change-regulation dimensions. In order to clarify the most suitable
paradigm of the research, the author needs to allocate the original research idea and
the overall research assumption to this two-dimensional framework.
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3.2.1 Radical Change or Regulation
As for the first pair, the radical change-regulation axis which is conceived from the
conflict-order dimension (Clegg, 1982) mainly refers to the assumptions about society
and derivative sociologies. From the perspective related to viewpoints of the
organizational affairs (Saunders et al., 2009), the radical change dimension primarily
provides a critical perspective or judgment about the operation mode of
organizational affairs and suggests improving the ways of these organizational affairs
from the perspective of making fundamental changes to the existing state of affairs. In
contrast to the radical change dimension, the regulation dimension is relatively less
critical. It seeks an explanation for the existing state of organizational affairs and
works out solutions within the existing framework.
With respect to this study, its research assumption is to portray the framework of
project ecology of tourism development companies in China, and to accordingly
obtain an insight in the knowledge management in tourism development companies
within the framework. It is clear that this research places particular emphasis on
providing an explanation for the existing state of project ecology in the context of
TDCs as well as an understanding of the factors influencing current knowledge
management practices within the context rather than critically judging the rationality
and effectiveness of those project ecologies and knowledge management practices.
Even if the author aims to identify the role of the factors in the project ecologies in
terms of managing knowledge within the TDCs, the aim of this research is not to
criticize the existing project ecologies and make dramatic changes of them. Although
some of them might be proved to be ineffective and unstable in the process of tourism
product development and innovation, this research will identify the main facilitators
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and obstacles of the existing project ecologies and seek a better understanding of all
these factors rather than suggesting overturning them into a theoretically-ideal one. To
conclude, the original research idea and the overall research assumption determine
that this research should be allocated in the dimension of regulation.
3.2.2 Objectivist or subjectivist
In regard to the second pair, the objectivist-subjectivist axis, which are the two
aspects of ontology that are concerned with the nature of reality and social science.
The objectivist dimension emphasizes that ‘social entities exist in reality external to
social actors’ (Saunders et al., 2009: 110). Furthermore, the key feature of objectivist
is that researcher should remain detached from the research object and measure it by
the use of highly structured, objectifiable and measurable instruments. As for the
latter, the viewpoint of subjectivist considers that social phenomena are created
through a continual process of perceptions and consequent actions of social actors. In
contrast to the objectivist, it allows researchers to be a part of their research, and
measure them through in-depth qualitative investigations.
This research will adopt the perspective of subjectivist. By corresponding the research
aim and objectives of this research to the relevant literature of this section, there can
be found several hints justifying the reasons for such choice. Firstly, as Burke (2007)
states, subjectivity is one of the fundamental aspects of those researches whose
primary concern is on people and information. As for this research, it corresponds to
the above research focus that Burke mentioned: project ecology which constitutes by
a series of relevant actors (people), and knowledge management which focuses on
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knowledge (even more than information) and their carriers (mainly refers to people)
as the most valuable asset of organizations.
To be more specific, White (1985) indicates that although the functionalist paradigm
(regulation, objectivist) has been the dominant paradigm in organizational research
and sociology, there is an increasing demand for new research paradigms as the
objectivist tends to ignore individual consciousness and the subjective meaning of
individual experience which can provide innovative framework of analysis in terms of
organizational research. Furthermore, Burke (2007) complements that the objective
instrument would reject to take the context of research object into account, which can
be critical to the study about people and information.
Moreover, Smircich (1983) identifies that the objectivists are more likely to view
organizational culture as something that the organization ‘own’, while the
subjectivists would tend to view it as something that the organization ‘is’. The author
believes that this opposing viewpoint can not only be applied in the discussion of
organizational culture, but also in other aspects of organizational life, e.g. project
ecology in this research. Correspondingly, Grabher (2002b) considers that the
perspective of economic geography analysis should be shifted beyond a kind of
objectivists’ perception which views ‘organizational practices as being passively
‘embedded’ in social structure’ (p.212). He further refers to the statement of Yeung
(2001) to suggest a kind of subjectivists’ ways that to understand the mutual
constitution of economic behaviour and social structure (i.e. the social phenomena
mentioned in the first paragraph) through exploring the interdependencies (e.g.
personal ties, local relations, and etc.) between projects (i.e. the perceptions and
actions of the relevant social actors).
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3.2.3 Approach adopted: The interpretive paradigm
As the summary of the above discussions, the paradigm choice of this research would
be allocated in the bottom left corner of Burrell and Morgan’s quadrant which is the
interpretive paradigm. By referring to numbers of relevant literature, the
characteristics of the interpretive paradigm can be listed in Table 3.1:
Interpretive Paradigm
Ontology Reality is subjective, multiple, and possibly changing
Epistemology Knowledge is subjective
Focus on the details of situation
Accept diverse interpretation of the details and the reality
Probability statements: no ultimate way of knowing
Methodology Inductive Approach
Focus on understanding
Value on the interaction between researcher and research objects
Gather diverse interpretation
Qualitative
Methods Tends to choose qualitative methods, especially small samples
and in-depth investigations (e.g. case studies, focus groups,
interviews)
Table 3.3 The characteristics of the interpretive paradigm (Source: Allen et al., 1986;
Corbetta, 2007; Denzin and Lincoln, 2011; Guba and Lincoln, 1982; Saunders et al.,
2009; Weaver and Olson, 2007)
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3.3 Research Methods
The following subsections will discuss and detail the methods used in this research,
which are shaped by the interpretive paradigm mentioned by the last section. It starts
with a discussion about the overall research design of this thesis, which introduces the
preliminary conceptual framework, the overall research strategies, the adopted
methods, and their connections to the corresponding research aims and objectives.
This is followed by a discussion about the research strategy in this research (i.e.
ethnographic case study). After that, the data collection, storage and analysis methods
are discussed in detail.
3.3.1 Research Design
This section outlines the overall research design of the thesis. As Saunders et al.
(2009) introduce, the research design is the general plan about how the research aim
will be achieved, including the research strategy, the corresponding data collection
and analysis methods, and the time horizon over which the research is undertaken.
Hence, it will start with the further clarification of the research aim and the objectives,
along with the overall research purpose, in order to consolidate a foundation for
proceeding to following subsections. As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter,
the research aim is to understand knowledge management in tourism development
companies in China via a project ecology approach.
From this perspective, the research primarily adopts an exploratory approach because
there has been limited research about knowledge management in the context of
tourism development companies, and even on similar research issues (Sekaran, 2003).
It also echoes Robson’s (2002) suggestion that an exploratory study is useful and
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valuable in the context of clarifying the understanding of a problem. Furthermore, a
case study approach is adopted as the primary research strategy for this research. As
Morris and Wood (1991) suggest, a case study strategy is particularly useful in
obtaining an insightful understanding of the research context and the process being
enacted. Saunders et al. (2009) further suggest several ways of dealing with an
exploratory study including searching the literature, interviewing experts, and focus
group interviews. Some of these are also incorporated in this research.
For instance, this research has initially reviewed the literature on several interrelated
key topics ranging from tourism product to innovation/creativity to knowledge
management. Based on the discussion in the literature review chapter, a preliminary
conceptual framework has been developed as in Figure 3.3. Furthermore, this study
will continue to conduct further searches of the literature in terms of specific topics
during the field research stage and the data analysis process. This preliminary
framework is a relatively broad one which will be gradually refined and adapted
according to the follow-up empirical research.
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Figure 3.3 The preliminary framework of this research
This overall framework echoes with one noticeable characteristic of exploratory
approach, i.e. flexibility. The flexibility characteristics of exploratory study stress that
the research direction should not be highly rigid at the beginning of research. This
characteristic can be seen as both an advantage and a potential risk. As for the
advantage, exploratory research is adaptable to change. It might obtain more
insightful and valuable outcomes even if unexpected data and novel understandings
frequently appear during the research process, as the exploratory study is normally
conducted in the situation of a nearly unknown research area. Its potential risk is that
the enquiry loses direction.
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However, Adams and Schvaneveldt (1991) consider that the nature of flexibility has
been misunderstood and that in exploratory research it means ‘the [research] focus is
initially broad and becomes progressively narrower as the research progresses’ (cited
in Saunders et al., 2009:140). Adams and Schvaneveldt’s statement also corresponds
to the approach of this research so far in this early stage. The initial interest of the
thesis is to explore knowledge management in the tourism industry, and this broad
focus is progressively narrowed through the researcher`s own personal experience of
dealing with several projects in TDCs and desktop research. It is during this process
that the author progressively focussed the research angle from product innovation to
knowledge management to project ecology, and this research angle will be further
refined and adapted according to the empirical research.
Apart from its attribution of exploratory study, this research will also contain a
descriptive study. The mix of other types of study can be treated as a combination of
‘paths’ to fulfilling the overall research aim rather than the ends in themselves. For
instance, it is significant ‘to have a clear picture of the phenomenon’ on which the
subsequent field research will be undertaken (Saunders et al., 2009: 140), and a
descriptive study exactly aims ‘to portray an accurate profile of persons, events or
situations’ (Robson, 2002:59). The descriptive study of this research will be primarily
applied to identify the context of the research, for example to identify the range of
activities of TDCs in China; and to portray a generic conceptual framework of project
ecologies of TDCs in this particular industry. Furthermore, descriptive discussions
and comparisons adopted in the KM chapter can produce useful and vivid insights
about the roles of various factors which shape KM-related activities in the given
context. It can be viewed as ‘a precursor to explanation’ about the interrelationships
between the listed factors and KM-related activities, which represents a form of
‘descripto-explanatory studies’ (Saunders et al., 2009:140).
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Project ecology is a framework consisting of ‘the interdependencies between projects
and the particular firms, personal relations, localities and corporate networks from
which these projects mobilize essential sources’ (Grabher, 2002a: 246). As discussed
in Section 2.3.4.1, when utilising project ecology to understand knowledge
management related issues, at least six layers or aspects should be considered: the
individuals, the core project team, the mother firm, the epistemic community, the
personal networks, and the external environments. The diverse and complex
composition of project ecology implies that it is necessary to specifically adjust it to
the context of this research, which echoes with research objective 1.
Objective 1: To provide a detailed account of the general project ecology of TDCs in
China
In the meantime, as there is little literature directly related to the project ecology of
the TDC industry providing such a detailed description means it is an exploratory
study per se. Therefore, in order to achieve this objective, the researcher on the one
hand refers to the relevant secondary data (e.g. TDC websites); while on the other
hand, he conducts key informant interviews. The relevant secondary data contribute
basic knowledge about the elements within the project ecology and the activities of
TDCs. The key informant interviews are conducted with the representatives of TDC
and experts in the relevant fields in order to strengthen the understanding of the
relevance of the theoretical framework of the project ecology. The focus of these
interviews specifies the various entities involved in the project process and how these
entities interact with each other to deliver the projects. Findings from the interviews
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are used to construct a description of project ecology in the TDC industry and further
adapt the conceptual framework for the subsequent research.
Furthermore, the key informant interviews also cover several questions related to the
KM-related activities in the previous experiences of the interviewees in the context of
tourism development projects. Responses from these questions not only contribute to
explore the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of knowledge management within this ecology, but also
provide some insights about the ‘why’ of these KM-related activities and of the
policies implemented in the respondent organizations. It hence implies the following
research objective 2:
Objective 2: To understand how knowledge is managed within the project ecology of
the chosen case studies
The insights from the key informant interviews facilitate the researcher to construct a
preliminary understanding of knowledge management in the chosen context.
However, it still requires more solid and comprehensive understanding of the focused
phenomenon in the main study. Given that an interpretive approach is adopted, it is
proposed that the knowledge management issues can be empirically investigated
through case studies. The researcher adopts multiple cases for the consideration of
both the richness and the generalization of findings. Participant observation and
informal interviews with the participants in the case studies are the main data
collection methods during the process. Findings from the case studies do not only
contribute to the achievement of Objective 2, but also provide vivid examples to
portray project ecology in details.
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Objective 2 has multiple purposes including exploratory, and descripto-explanatory.
The adoption of exploratory research here is because of its flexibility and adaptability
as the research is exploring a relatively new research topic. In the case studies, it is
unpredictable whether or when there is new data and insights may appear. Hence, the
research direction has to be continually adjusted and modified during the process.
Furthermore, as presented in Section 3.2.3, the interpretive paradigm calls for diverse
interpretation of the details and the reality. It implies the necessity of descriptive
research on the details and the reality of the phenomenon on the basis of participant
observation. Description here is not an end in itself but as ‘a precursor to explanation’
(Saunders et al., 2009:140). The combination of participant observation and informal
interviews can facilitate the researcher to explore the reasons why the observed KM-
related activities and policies occurred in the case-study companies.
To summarize, the overall research design and the methods used at different stages of
this research can be seen in Figure 3.4. The next section will further explain the
rationale of the research strategies adopted in this study. Following this, the specific
data collections methods are presented according to each objective.
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115
Figure 3.4 The overall research design of this study
3.3.2 Research Strategies
As for research strategies, Saunders et al. (2009) present seven different research
strategies in their book as experiment, survey, case study, action research, grounded
theory, ethnography, archival research. Each of the seven strategies is not better or
worse than others. They possess different pros and cons in different situations, and
therefore the choice of them depends on whether they are appropriate to accomplish
the research aim and objectives, fit to the philosophical framework and are feasible
according to available resources such as time, access, and knowledge. According to
these factors, the author excludes some strategies: experiment is infeasible for the
available resources, survey is not suitable to obtain in-depth understanding, and action
research does not comply with the current aim and objectives. Case study suits the
research aims as the primary research strategy of this research.
To be more specific, the author believes case study is inherently fit to this research for
the following reasons. Firstly, case study is a research strategy based on a
constructivist/interpretivist paradigm (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003). Therefore, it matches
the research paradigm of this research. According to this context, from the perspective
of the research aim and objectives, case study is particularly useful in obtaining an
insightful understanding of the research context and the process being enacted (Morris
and Wood, 1991). This collides with this research aim being to obtain understanding
of the contextual field of project-based organization and the way of each unit being
enacted. Moreover, case study is superior in the situation of building, revising and
completing theory (Yin, 2003), which this research means to contribute by the
portrayal the framework of project ecologies in TDCs and connect this framework to
its implication in terms of knowledge management.
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Furthermore, Cui (2011) extends this viewpoint that case study is suitable for the
research aim related to building new theory, especially in the issue that the research
context can hardly be controlled by the researcher. The issue mentioned in Cui’s
statement corresponds to the situation of this research that the researcher has limited
power (its role in the research objects) to control the research context. Various factors
from different sources involved in the context also make it inherently uncontrollable.
This is also the primary reason that the author excludes experiment as a choice of
research strategy in this paper. In addition, from the perspective of types of
investigation, case study is the top choice in conducting exploratory and explanatory
studies due to its capability in answering the research questions about ‘how’ and
‘why’ among empirical research methods (Cui, 2011), as well as the ‘what’ questions
(Saunders et al., 2009).
In the meantime, the case study strategy in this study will involve a number of
qualitative research methods. For instance, archival research will be applied in the
investigation of previous notes, works and records in the TDCs to collect and
summary a series of essential information related to the composition of project team,
client and other stakeholders. It is one part of the early stage of case study related to
provide and consolidate a conceptual framework for the whole research. Secondly, the
ethnography strategy is conceptualized as ‘the art and science of describing a group or
culture’ (Fetterman, 1998: 1), which is well suited to describe relationships between
research objects and obtain understanding about a case in the whole social setting
which are also inherently fit to the research context and ideas. One reason for
choosing case study rather than a pure ethnography as primary strategy in this
research is because the significant length of time usually required for ethnography.
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However, as Parthasarathy (2008) asserts that ethnographic case studies, which he
terms a kind of case study that involves the ethnographic approach, can be conducted
over shorter length of time to explore narrower research focus.
Furthermore, the orientation of study is different between these two strategies:
ethnography strategy learns from people, while case study strategy studies people. To
be more specific, Cohen and Court (2003) compare that ‘ethnography is inward
looking that aiming to uncover the tacit knowledge of culture participants, while case
study is outward looking that aiming to delineate the nature of phenomena through
detailed investigation of individual cases and their contexts’ (p.283). In the case of
this research, although ethnography would uncover the beliefs, values and attitudes
that structure the behaviour (related to knowledge management and creativity) of the
research object (herein would be the project team), the orientation of the latter would
be more appropriate to the research topic: it can provide not only a holistic description
and analysis of a single functioning unit (Merriam, 2009) (herein would be project
process or specific project team), but also an in-depth understanding of the unit within
the research setting (i.e. project ecologies). Therefore, this research will choose case
study as the main research strategy, and apply ethnographic methods as the primary
supplement of this strategy from the perspectives of data collection.
3.3.3 Data Collection Methods
The concept of methods of this research is presented according to the order of
research objectives; however, the implementation of these methods will vary
according to the practical situation which might be non-linear and circulatory. Just as
McGrath (1982) states, it is impossible to ‘conduct an unflawed study’ (cited in
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Bohme et al., 2012:73). Therefore, the possible limitations and implementation
challenges of the methodology of this research will be presented accordingly.
Furthermore, the author will provide brief introductions related to data storage and
data analysis at the end of this whole section.
Objective 1: To provide a detailed account of the general project ecology of
TDCs in China
Due to the absence of the literature and secondary data with direct-related topics in
the field of tourism, the researcher plans to achieve this objective from three paths
through collecting both primary and secondary data:
a) Examination of the content of TDC`s websites
Today, more and more corporations own their websites and show the organizational
information (more or less) to the public through those websites, so do the TDCs. The
organizational information on the website covers organizational institution, culture,
structure, consultants, primary employees, etc. Possibly, from the perspective of
organizations, such disclosure of the organizational information is to demonstrate
their scientific and comprehensive organizational design and the strength of staff
composition for numbers of reasons (e.g. attract new talents from public and new
orders from clients). In the meantime, such disclosure opens the gate for the
researchers from relevant fields to take a ‘peek’ at what they are interested. This
situation also fits this research.
Saunders et al. (2009) suggest that a general search engine is ‘a good way of finding
an organization`s home page’ (p.266). By browsing the homepages of TDCs searched
through search engines (Google.com and Baidu.com), it can be seen that some TDCs
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have relatively abundant content in their homepages (see in Appendix 1) according to
the raw search results. The high relevance of the information provided on their
homepages can be summarized in terms of the following categories: scope of
business, organizational structure (including the types and numbers of its branches
and alliances), successful cases, team composition, and the role of staff in the
companies and projects.
However, the information presented on the homepages is incomplete (e.g. there is
only brief introduction of successful cases rather than full details), so the project
members of the projects of these cases cannot be easily identified. It is also, subjective
and exaggerated; for instance, due to the reason mentioned in the last paragraph, the
companies are more likely to advertise something positive and hide more negative
aspects, with the result that the information presented is highly selective. In addition,
a number of micro or small TDCs currently have no homepages, and their websites
are still incomplete even with respect to the basic information required for this
research. These limitations frame the following discussion of the characteristics of the
TDCs which are considered to influence their project ecologies.
The Chinese government classifies the TDCs into four categories according to their
‘qualifications’. The first three of the classification are ‘ ’ ‘ ’ ‘ ’ 甲 ， 乙 ， 丙 in a ranked
order that is similar to levels ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ of an English grading system, while the
fourth refers to ‘the other’ TDCs which are considered to be unqualified (e.g. too
small in terms of size; the specific classification standards can be found on the
relevant website). Based on the announcements from China National Tourism
Administration and the Internet search, the author obtains a list of TDCs of level ‘ ’甲 ，‘ ’ ‘ ’乙 ， 丙 , and unclassified. The author selected all (93 in total) level A (‘ ’甲 ), 100
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(274 in total) randomly-picked level B (‘ ’乙 ), 100 (128 in total in the reference
webpage) random-picked level C (‘ ’丙 ), and 57 (57 in total in the reference webpage)
in level D, ‘unclassified’ companies within the list. Their homepages were then
searched through ‘Google.com’ and ‘Baidu.com’ which are the biggest internet search
engines in the world and in China respectively.
Strengths: Easy to find required information;
Limitations: the vast amount of search results; the information distortion and
incompletion
Outcomes: The website information (see in Appendix 1) is incomplete to provide a
framework of project ecologies as the ecology framework requires a lot of details
related to the interactions between different units. However, the website information
can be used as good support to clarify the research context and enrich the researcher`s
understanding of the overall characteristics of the TDC industry in China. Section
4.2.1 describes the research context drawing on the web site analysis to clarify the
roles and classifications of TDCs in China.
b) Initial interview with key informants
It should be noticed in the first place that, this initial interview with key informants is
not only for the purpose of achieving Objective 1, but also covers the research topics
in Objective 2. There are two primary reasons for this arrangement: the first one is the
mutually compatible participant inclusion criteria (e.g. the majority of key informants
are working or worked for TDCs), and the second one is the consideration of limited
resource of the researcher. These interviews will be conducted among representatives
of tourism development companies, the relevant higher education institutions, and the
clients and stakeholders of certain tourism attraction development projects in order to
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strengthen the understanding of the relevance of the theoretical framework of the
project ecology. The data that are gathered from this stage will be applied to help
clarify the research focus and questions in the following stages. The theme for these
interviews will be their role in the project process, and the examples of KM-related
activities in their previous experiences in the context of tourism development projects.
The goal is not only to reveal the real framework of TDC`s project ecology and
‘what’ and ‘how’ of knowledge management within this ecology, but also to
understand the ‘why’ of these KM-related activities and policies implemented in the
respondent organizations.
Expected outcomes:
To reveal the real framework of TDC`s project ecology in China
To explore the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of knowledge management within this ecology, but
also to understand the ‘why’ of these KM-related activities and policies implemented
in the respondent organizations;
According to these two expected outcomes, the analysis of this part of data will exists
in both the project ecology chapter (Chapter IV) and the knowledge management
chapter (Chapter V).
Participant selection: This study will adapt criterion-based sampling as the sampling
approach of this interview. The criterion based sampling means the selection of
interview participants and settings is purposive (Mason, 2002), and the characteristics
of the population are normally applied as the basis of selection criterion (Ritchie and
Lewis, 2003). The interviewees will be selected as representing experienced and
qualified individuals who can provide deep insights into the research topic (Rubin and
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Rubin, 2005). Therefore, the specific experiences related to TDC industry is the main
feature that the sample units of this phase should possess; however, it does not mean
the sample units will be homogeneous as the employees in the TDCs. Robson (2002)
suggests a heterogeneous approach to criterion-based sampling when the target
phenomena of research vary widely from each other. As for this study, the
organizational ecology of TDCs is a phenomenon which covers a range of units that
possess different roles in the field. Therefore, the author will apply the heterogeneous
sampling approach to select interviewees who are from different actors drawn from
the range of general project ecology as Table 3.4.
Project Team Such as Project Leaders,
Copywriters, and
Draftsmen
Client Such as Government, and
Private Sectors
Other epistemic
communities
Such as External
Consultants, and Other
Project Companies
Table 3.4 The list of actors in a general project ecology
A target of 10 interviews is intended in this stage, several basic information of
interviewees can be found in Appendix 2. The selection of this size is given
consideration to the depth and comprehensiveness of research objectives, as well as
the difficulty and challenge of the access to research objects. This size is large enough
to allow the researcher to cover a range of informants. In addition, as this interview
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method is not the sole data collection method in this research, the relatively small
number of interview is acceptable according to Lee et al. (2002). Notably, the
interviewee may have played several actors in his/her experience: for instance, the
project leaders of certain project team might act as copywriters in other project team
or the relevant specialist of university. Therefore, the small size sampling group is
able to cover all the actors in this phase. Furthermore, it has to be admitted that the
author is constrained by the available budget and resources. As the author is
constrained by time and financial resources and possesses limited relevant social
network in the industry, this sampling size is modified by the consideration of
available budget and time as well as accessibility to the interviewees.
Access to interviewees: The access to interviewees primarily relies on the personal
network in the TDC industry, and the snowball sampling by the assistance of the
researcher’s personal contacts and previous employers. Multiple independent entry
points to the interviewees will increase the potential to reach a wider range of the
target population. Furthermore, the accessibility will also be facilitated by three
factors. First, interviews are more likely to be accepted by the managers of
organizations, compared to other data collection methods (Healey, 1991). Secondly,
the organizations are more willing to co-operate with researchers if the research is
close and helpful to their businesses (Saunders et al., 2009). Thirdly, the researcher
will be able to utilize his past work experience in several of the target respondent
companies, his personal relationships with the managers, and the high reputation of
his supervisors and the University of Surrey in the field of tourism and hospitality
management.
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The interview form: The interview form will be individual, semi-structured and formal
interviews. Furthermore, the interview will be conducted by combining both face-to-
face interview and distance interview according to the specific location and
availability of each interviewee. The justification of this combination is that face-to-
face interview enables the research to better clarify the possible doubts of the
respondents and ensure proper understanding of the response, while the internet (or
phone) interview can encourage some respondents to feel more comfortable by
eliminating the possible discomfort of face-to-face interview (Sekaran, 2003).
Another reason is about the spatial distribution of the interviewees and the available
costs of the researcher.
Interview procedure and interview protocol development: Participants are provided
with an overview introduction of what the interview will cover and the approximate
time length of the interview in the first place. A discussion related to informed
consent and the participants’ questions related to the interview will be presented
below. The interview recording approval was orally requested from interviewees.
Then the interview questions were presented to the participants. This section will
make explicit the development of the interview protocol in the next paragraphs.
As Richie and Lewis (2003) summarize, that there are two main types of questions for
in-depth interview, i.e. content mapping and content mining questions, being used to
achieve both breadth and depth of the key issues. Content mapping questions are
preposition questions which open up the research territory and identify the relevant
research topic to the interviewees, while content mining questions are digging
questions which explore the detailed meaning of and obtain in-depth understanding
from the interviewees’ responses. Saunders et al. (2009) also introduce a classification
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of questions which can be applied in the in-depth interview, i.e. open questions,
probing questions, and specific/closed questions. While specific/closed questions are
used to ‘obtain specific information or to confirm a fact or opinion’ (p.339), the
concepts of open questions and probing questions are similar to Richie and Lewis
(2003)`s concepts of content mapping questions and content mining questions
respectively.
The aforementioned three types of questions are all included in the interview protocol
in order to achieve the expected outcomes of the key informant interviews. For
example, the researcher asked an open question ‘what is the task of the project?’ to
obtain the essential facts about the expected outcome of the project they were
participating in. Then the researcher would ask a probing question ‘how did the client
express his/her/their preference to your team?’ to explore the communication patterns
between the clients and the project team. A closed question ‘how frequently did your
team meet the client face to face?’ would be asked to further specify the information
related to such a communication pattern.
The general interview question structure of this research is shown in Table 3.5 which
revolve around the two research objectives. It starts with warm-up questions to ask the
interviewees to provide a relatively complete example of a tourism development
project that they took part in. These questions are not only designed to open up the
discussion and lead the interviewee to the subject. They can also contribute to some
descriptive evidence and general understandings of both the project ecology and the
KM-related activities in the given context. Then, it moves to two main areas of
questions, i.e. the project ecology of tourism development projects and KM-related
activities during the process. The questions specify the various entities involving in
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the project process and how these entities interact with each other to deliver the
projects. They also provide examples of KM-related activities which occurred during
TDP processes and the participants` viewpoints towards these activities. After these
two areas of questions, the researcher probes questions about creativity and
innovation in tourism development projects, which aim to supplement the
understanding towards Objective 2. The reason for adopting this group of questions is
because this research views innovation as a kind of successful outcome of KM-related
activities, and creativity per se is also viewed as an essential component of knowledge
creation according to the literature review (Argote et al., 2003).
The design of the interview questions is based on key references in the literature on
the two main themes respectively, i.e. project ecology and knowledge management.
The relevant key references are exemplified in Table 3.5. The questions related to
project ecology are mainly derived from Grabher`s research (e.g. Grabher, 2002a;
2004a; 2004b). For instance, Grabher (2002a) identifies three professional roles in the
project teams in the London advertising industry and discusses their distinct but
interrelated influences towards delivering projects. This informed the development of
open questions about the description of the types of professionals, and the team
composition in the project teams in the TDC industry, as well as the probing questions
to dig out their specific roles and their interactions during the project processes.
As for the theme of knowledge management, the key literature contributes to the
questions related to knowledge management (including creativity). There are several
book and review studies (e.g. Argote, 2005; Argote and Miron-Spektor, 2011;
Jashapara, 2011; Shalley and Gilson, 2004), which provide a basis for extending the
focus to various literature according to their relevance to different issues in the field
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of knowledge management. For instance, Argote and Miron-Spektor (2011) argue that
a current theme in the research is about identifying the facilitators and the barriers to
knowledge transfer, and from this perspective they mention the role of several factors,
such as motivational factors (Ouigley et al.,2007). A corresponding question is hence
proposed in the protocol, i.e., ‘what are the main barriers to knowledge sharing in a
project?’. In the meantime, if the interviewees are unable to get a clear understanding
of this question or do not know how to clarify their response logically, the researcher
will probe several relevant factors (e.g. the aforementioned ‘motivational factor’)
through supplementary phrasing, i.e. ‘such as individual reluctance or other causes?’
As the interviewees are all Chinese people working in mainland China, the language
used in the entire interview process is Chinese. The sample interview schedules (both
the English version and the Chinese version) are presented in Appendix 3 and
Appendix 4. It should be noted that the questions are specifically designed under the
assumption that the interviewees have working experiences in the TDC as project
leaders or members. Questions relating to other actors in project ecology will be
slightly varied according to this sample. For instance, as for the topic of knowledge
transfer between project team and clients, the question is ‘how did you obtain and use
these knowledge and information (from clients)’, while the question to the client
interviewee is ‘how did you express your ideas and preferences to the project team?
And do they make good use of them?’
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Question Area Corresponding Research
Objective
Key References
Warm-up questions about the
recent project that the
interviewees were involved in
Contributes to some general evidence
and understanding of both objectives
Grabher, 2002a;
Jashpara, 2011
Project ecology of tourism
development project
Objective 1: To provide a detailed
description for describing the general
project ecology of TDCs in China;
Grabher, 2002a; 2002b; 2004a;
2004b
KM-related activities during
project process
Objective 2: To understand how
knowledge is transferred and managed
within the project ecology of the chosen
case studies;
Argote, 2005; Argote and Miron-
Spektor, 2011; Jashapara, 2011;
Shalley and Gilson, 2004;
Creativity and innovation related
to tourism development project
Contributes to the further understanding
of Objective 2 and future works
Table 3.5 Interview question structure of this research
Limitation: It should be noticed that there are several limitations of this sampling
strategy. One potential limitation is the limited number of interviewees. The author
will try for saturation principle (see in the discussion of the preceding bullet point
‘participant selection’); however, available resources (especially the factors of time,
expenses and social networks) constrain to obtain more accesses.
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Furthermore, this limitation will be contradictory with the nature of the organizational
ecology to a certain degree. As mentioned in the literature review, there are different
organizational ecologies according to the variation of organization size, type,
development stage, and etc. The characteristics of project can also be a critical factor
in the organizational ecology of project-based organizations. For instance, the scale of
project determines the boundary of project ecology to a certain degree. Therefore, the
limited number of interviewee means this interview may not cover all types of project
ecologies. The questions of this interview should be designed more pertinent in order
to reduce the negative impact of this limitation. For instance, the researcher can ask
the respondents their experiences in different scale of projects.
Another potential limitation would be the translation of interview records as the
original language of the transcripts is Chinese while the working language of this
research is English. Therefore, the translation possibly results in losing information or
misunderstanding the respondents’ original viewpoints. It is therefore necessary for
the researcher to strictly translate the transcripts. Furthermore, the researcher needs to
ask clarificatory probes to clarify terms and explore language with the respondents, or
consult to professional institution when there is doubt with the meaning of terms.
Objective 2: To understand how knowledge is managed within the project
ecology of the chosen case studies
According to Morris and Wood (1991), the case study strategy is particularly useful to
gain ‘a rich understanding of the context of the research and the processes being
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enacted’ (cited in Saunders et al., 2009:146). As Objective 1 will provide a conceptual
framework for the TDCs’ project ecologies and how the factors of project ecology
might influence knowledge management and transfer, the author will apply a case
study strategy to conduct an empirical investigation of how knowledge is transferred
through and managed in the project ecologies during tourism product
development/innovation processes with a particular focus on TDC and its project
team in this Objective. The reason to take this special focus is because the
significance of project team and its belonging organization as shown from the relevant
literature review: the project team lies in the fundamental layer of project ecology
(Grabher, 2002a), while the characteristics of organization determine a series of
aspects of its contextual field (Becker, 2007).
Selecting Settings and cases:
Ideally, two or three case studies of tourism design and planning companies will be
investigated as multiple cases are preferable when the research needs to estimate a
relationship between different elements (Woodside, 2010). However, one thing should
be noticed is about the uncertainty and difficulty of accessing to the ideal number of
case study objects. Just as Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) mention that, although
there is generally a large number of settings that could be relevant to the research (e.g.
as shown in Appendix 1, there is hundreds of TDCs in China), ‘contacts with
personnel promising easy access, the scale of the travel costs … etc.’ often act as
primary considerations in the final selections (p.30).
In the initial stage of planning the case study, the author obtained the access to one
company named Hangzhou Linfeng Tourism Planning and Design Company, herein
marked as Company A. The author is the previous student and employee of the leader
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of the first company and keeps a close relationship with him. That leader gives the
oral approval to let the author conduct the case study in his company. This company is
a micro scale and young company that its organizational structure is fairly compact.
The company possesses close relationships with other epistemic communities (e.g.
university and other TDCs).
Therefore, this setting is suitable to explore the specific KM issues within the project
team and the knowledge transfer between the layer of project team and the layer of
epistemic community. However, the limitation is also obvious that it is less effective
to distinguish the knowledge management practices between the project team and the
firm and discuss the specific issues of the interrelationship between the firm layer and
other layers in the ecology. Therefore, the author will devote to get access to more
settings and cases with distinct characteristics in order to offset the limitation.
As a complement to this situation, the author later obtained the verbal consent to
access to other two companies (named Zhejiang Yuanjian Tourism Development
Group and Zhejiang Academy of Tourism Sciences, named as case-company B and
case-company C respectively). The person contacts of the author facilitated the author
to get access to them from their owners respectively. They are both classified to level
A TDCs, which are well-developed and widely recognized for their qualifications.
Although they share this common feature of being level A, they have quite different
characteristics (e.g. size and institutions) which contribute to the potential of diverse
perspectives of project ecology in the given context. More background information
can be seen in the later chapter of project ecology.
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What should be noticed that, the choice of research settings should not be confused
with the selection of cases. As Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) state, ‘a setting is a
named context in which phenomena occur that might be studied from any number of
angles; a case is those phenomena seen from one particular angle’ (p.32).
Furthermore, a case may not be limited inside the boundaries of a setting. As for this
research, the setting is the selected TDCs (which might be studied from a range of
angles, e.g. organizational development, client relationships, crisis management),
while the case of Objective 2 is seen from knowledge management and transfer within
the framework of project ecology, which includes not only the internal units (e.g. the
project team and the core company), but also considers the external units (e.g. the
clients) and the environmental factors.
Time:
Time is an important factor not only in social life but also in research design:
adequate temporal coverage of the case is essential to represent to the entire range of
persons and events under research. In this study, the author spent over 10 months in
the phase of case studies. To be more specific, the author spent 5 months in case-
study A, 3 months in case-study B, and 2 months in case-study C. The variation of
time spent in different case-study companies was because of the different lengths of
projects that the researcher participated in them, the different permit of access that
researcher obtained, and the other consideration and constraints (e.g. data saturation,
time limits of PhD registration). During the process of each case study, the author will
act as a full-time employee that work together with the project team under study.
Therefore, the primary period of data collection will generally be the working hours:
from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm, although some informal interviews could be outside this
(e.g. interviewing someone over a cup of tea after working hours).
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It should be noticed that the core of project ecology is the ‘project’. Therefore, the
consideration of time should not only refer to the time of case-study company but also
the time of project. According to the previous experience of the author as an
employee of TDC, the real working hour schedule tends to vary according to the
process of project, and the discussion of project (the main representative of
knowledge transfer in this research) will happen at random time and random places
through erratic manners. Therefore, it is necessary for the researcher to keep flexible
and sensitive attention to the knowledge-related practices and mark the collected data
with their contexts (i.e. place, time, pipeline) which might be a novel and important
angle for the research (e.g. the possible relationship between the features of settings
and the knowledge transfer efficiency)..
In addition, each project has its own life cycle and length of life, which cannot be
precisely predicted in advance. Therefore, although it is ideal for the researcher to
conduct the study through the whole process of project or at the same stage of project
life cycle in each case, the researcher has to recognize this potential defect in the
study due to the limitation of power and time. In order to reduce the potential impacts
of the limited time spent in each case-study company, the author will return to the
company to discuss and interview about what happens to projects that the author has
been studying before leaving the case.
Data Collection:
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As for the method in the case study, the author emphasizes on methodological
triangulation and data triangulation (Denzin, 1989) in order to improve the convergent
validity of the research. As for the methodological triangulation, the author will
combine the method of ethnographic observation, interview and documentary
analyses to analyse project ecologies and working procedures in the selected TDCs:
Participant observation: Participant observation, which has been defined as ‘the
process of learning through exposure to or involvement in the day-to-day or routine
activities of participants in the researcher setting’ (Schensul et al., 1999), is one
primary ethnographic data collection methods (Mack et al., 2005). In this study, the
researcher will conduct participant observation, which is helpful in conducting
exploratory case study (Hannan, 2006), within the project team of target case in order
to describe working process, behaviour, learning and communication patterns of the
team during the project process. The author will immerse himself in the project team
as a team member to gain deep knowledge about the inner workings of the project
team and the intricacies of the project ecology.
By considering the issue of ethics, the stances of the author will be ‘participant as
observer stance’ (Gold, 1958), where ‘the researcher is a member of the group being
studied, and the group is aware of the research activity’ (Kawulich, 2005:2). The
specific role of the author in the project team (i.e. acts as an account manager, planner
or creative) will be determined by the owner of the case company. Once the study
conducts, the research needs to value building rapport with participants through
‘hanging out’ (Bernard, 1994) and other active behaviours (e.g. active listening, being
truthful and respectful), that would contribute to collect deeper insights.
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As for the process of conducting observation, there are several literature articles
developing guides for observation (e.g. Angrosino and dePérez, 2000; Merriam,
1998). The author will provide a brief discussion about the way of conducting
participant observation through the following connective angles:
-preparation
The foregoing sections have already introduced several key issues within the stage of
preparation for conducting observation, e.g. the research objective of this stage, the
selection and the access to the research settings and cases, the degree of self-
revelation of the researcher during the observation. However, there are still a series of
details which are necessary to be taken into account before the observation begins.
For instance, a truthful, concise and understandable self-introduction should be
prepared in order to comfortably and effectively enter into the observation field.
Furthermore, shaping personal aspects of the researcher (e.g. dress, language, habit,
characteristics) into the acceptable and appropriate style in the observation field is
also very important for the researcher to smoothly and effectively conduct the
participant observation. Just as Bernard (1994) suggests that, to speak the language of
the people under studying well (in the understanding of the author of this study, ‘well’
herein not only means in terms of accurate grammar or abundant vocabulary, but also
means to approach the way the participants talk (e.g. the local norms or native
dialects) is the most important thing to immerse the researcher in the community. At
last, to realize the information as much as the researcher can about the sites and the
activities will be under observing is useful in preparing for the subsequent participant
observation activity.
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To summarize, the preparation stage is mainly about making the researcher familiar
with the research objectives, settings and cases, and leading the researcher to a better
position to establish rapport with participants afterwards.
-During observation process (how: when, where, what (including who))
After the stage of preparation, the formal participant observation will be conducted.
As shown in the book of Guest et al. (2013), the question of ‘how’ to process the
observation includes the sub-questions ‘when’ to observe, ‘where’ to observe, and
‘what’ to observe. The facts of ‘when’ and ‘where’ to conduct observation have been
introduced in the section of ‘time’ and ‘research settings’.
As for the question of ‘what’ to observe, there are several options for this research
according to the relevant literature. For instance, Angrosino and dePérez (2000)
describe three types of observation processes and the things should be focused on
each process: (1) descriptive observation (observes anything and everything); (2)
focused observation (observes the things that are guided by the participants` insights
through pre-interviews with them); (3) selective observation (observes different types
of activities and distinguish the characteristics between those activities). From the
perspective of the author of this research, these three processes are not mutually
exclusive with each other, and the things to be observed should be the most relevant
ones to the research problem. Therefore, the author believes that the above three
processes can act as three continuum stages within the observation process of this
research according to the needs of research, so can the things observed within them.
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To be more specific, although the author has working experiences in the TDC, he
should assume that he has no knowledge of the environment or situation under
investigation in the first place. This can avoid the initial bias and prejudice from the
side of observation. Therefore, a descriptive observation can be conducted in this
stage (for the length of one week in each case study) in order to build a fresh
preliminary realization of the research settings (the target TDC) and cases (the
knowledge-related activities and the project) as well as the participants (mainly the
project team member and the stakeholders they will contact).
After the author finishes the interview with key informants in the case studies (e.g. the
owner of the TDC or the team leader of the project team), a following focused
observation will be conducted with the focus on the activities and events. They are
considered to be relevant to the research objective (the relevant activities and events
herein will be decided by the response of interview). When the researcher gets
familiar with these relevant activities and events (project-based knowledge-related
activities), the author should have the awareness to classify them into certain
categories. For instance, the classification might be conceptualized on the basis of the
scale of the activities: intra-team activities (e.g. team brainstorm), outer-team but
intra-project activities (e.g. the field investigation to the destination under planning or
the meeting with clients), outer-team and outer-project activities (e.g. self-searching
for reference on the Internet or in the library). Such classification can be discussed
with the key informants to demonstrate its rationale.
After that, the selective observation will be conducted to further explore and delineate
the characteristics, functions and mechanisms of each type of activities. The results
will directly facilitate the understanding of how knowledge is transferred and
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managed within the project ecologies of the chosen case studies, and identify the
relevant facilitators and obstacles.
Furthermore, apart from the processes (stages) of observation, the specific elements
which should be observed have also been discussed by a number of scholars (e.g.
DeWalt and DeWalt, 2011; Fine, 2015; Jorgensen, 1989). This content is also closely
connected to the topic about what to record or document the data after everyday
participant observation. Therefore, the author will mainly discuss it in the next
section.
-what to record
The author will take a daily field note of things observed, including a variety of
elements which are conceptualized by Spradley (1980) as Figure 3.5. Similarly, Mack
et al. (2005) suggest a list of general categories of information that worth observing
and noting as Table 3.6. These two figures have internal similarity with each other,
and can both be used as a checklist and manual about what elements to be observed
and noted and how to delineate the observed objects in useful details. Apart from
these, there are several issues that should be considered during the recording process.
Firstly, the tools to take field note is not limited to pen and notebook that audio or
video recording devices or camera can effectively complement with the handwrite
recording if the participants allow. Secondly, the ethical issue should also be valued at
this stage, mainly in terms of confidentiality. For instance, the researcher will need to
avoid using any direct or implicate description (including disclosing their name,
address, even personal characteristics (Mack et al., 2005) that will link particular
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individuals with the data they provided. Thirdly, although it is necessary for the
researcher to provide and extend the field note as much detailed as possible, the
author of this study will need to avoid mixing his own interpretation with the
objective description of what he observes in order to provide a good quality of data
for the afterwards analysis. Schensul et al. (1999) support that the researchers should
note their own thoughts and assumptions separately from what they actually observe.
Some examples and descriptions of how the researcher record the field note and other
data from the participant observation are introduced in the later section 3.3.4.
Figure 3.5 Spradley (1980)`s nine observational dimensions (the descriptions of each
dimension is quoted from Reeves et al. 2008: 512)
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Elements of participant observation field note
Space-Physical layout of the places
Actor-Range of people involved
Activity-A set of related activity that occur
Object-The physical things that are present
Act-Single actions people undertake
Event-Activities that people carry out
Time-The sequencing of events that occur
Goal-Things that people are trying to accomplish
Feeling-Emotions felt and expressed
Table 3.6 What to observe during participant observation and recommendations for
noting (Source: Mack et al., (2005:20))
-Potential Limitation
Furthermore, although it may generate an insightful understanding of the target
context, there are two potential problems in the method of participant observation.
The first one is related to ‘bias’ (DeWalt et al., 1998) as the field notes are all taken
by the single observer`s hand and the interpretation are all provided. through the
single observer`s mind. Therefore, it is necessary to extend the observation into a
cyclic iterative process which is suggested by Whitehead (2005): observations,
interviews, interpretation, and move in cycles. For instance, in the stage of interviews,
the author can take the field notes and interpret back to the participants and get their
comments to check the accuracy of the findings. The second one is named as
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‘reactivity’ that is specially related to the stances of the observer in this study (i.e. the
participant as observer stance). To be more specific, it is easy to influence other
people`s behaviour when the observer is a participant in the observed context
(Merriam, 1998).
In order to reduce this negative impact on the authenticity of research, the researcher
needs to fade his own characteristics as a researcher and build a close relationship
with the participants as their teammates. For instance, although the researcher told the
participants that his field work was required to take some field notes about what he
observed during the project work, he made his behaviour of making field notes as
subtle as possible during the field work (e.g. quickly switch the field note to the
project document on the laptop when the participants walked or talked to him) which
to certain degree reduce the participants` feelings of being observed and fade the
researcher`s own characteristics as the observer. Furthermore, in each case-study
company, the researcher attempted to quickly build a good friendship with one
participant as the breaking point into their original groups.
Interview: The researcher will conduct informal conversational interview with the
participants in order to listen to their unique viewpoints during the project process.
The informal conversational interview will be irregularly scheduled according to the
progress of observation and the project development process. In the meantime, the
researcher will mainly rely on the interaction with the participants to guide the
interview process rather than ask certain specific questions (McNamara, 2009). The
informal conversational interview is mainly applied as the complement of the
observation process as mentioned above.
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Documentary analyses: In addition, documentary analyses will be conducted in the
selected companies. Documentary data normally include written materials such as
‘notices, correspondence (including emails), minutes of meetings, reports to
shareholders, diaries, transcripts of speeches and administrative and public records’
(Saunders et al., 2009: 258). Furthermore, the documentary data in this research will
also include the available previous tourism planning project. This part aims to
complement the understanding of the written ideas in the project documents as well as
the specific roles of different team members in the project process.
3.3.4 Data storage and data analysis
As mentioned before, audio recording device will be used as the main recording tool
for the formal interview of this study. After each interview finishes, the researcher
will transcribe the interview recoding files into a Microsoft Word document. As it is a
time-consuming activity (Saunders et al., 2009), the author hired professional
transcribing service to facilitate the transcribing process, and then checked the
transcripts by himself due to his familiarity of the specific interview process and the
specific terms used during the interviews.
As for the participant observation, the researcher made most field notes through the
software of Microsoft OneNote (not only the software on the laptop, but also the app
on the smartphone, which depends on the varies situations occurred in the field works
(e.g. when the researcher was working in the office with other participants, it was
relatively easier to use laptop to make the field notes; while he had to rely on the
smartphone when he travelled with the participants to conduct the field investigation).
From this perspective, the field notes were also sometimes conducted through
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handwriting on the pocketbooks or were temporarily memorized in the researcher’s
minds due to the constraints of certain factors occurred during the observation (e.g.
when the mobile phone and laptop were out of power; making notes on the mobile
phone were relatively easier perceived to be impolite in some circumstances (e.g.
during the conversation between the user and the others).
No matter which methods the researcher used to make the field note during the
observation, the researcher extended all the field notes to be a relatively more detailed
descriptive narrative after each day observation to prevent oblivion, and then
transcribed them into Microsoft OneNote. The language used in the field note was
Chinese (the example of field note can be found in Appendix 5 with rough translation
in English for the sake of illustration). The researcher set up passwords in the
software to keep the safety of the data (the example can be seen in Figure 3.6).
Pseudonyms were given to each participant as the format of ‘(serial number) (first
English letter of gender) (English abbreviation of the actor`s title)’. For instance,
05ML means the 5th interview participant is a male leader of certain project
team/TDC). During the transcribing process, the research will keep attention to ensure
no identifying information will be tied to the transcripts. After the end of fieldwork,
all transcripts and field notes (in the USB storage) and other related documents (e.g.
memos) were imported into the software of Nvivo for the later purpose of data coding
and analysis.
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Figure 3.6 The example of the form of field note stored in the software of Microsoft
OneNote
The data analysis was conducted through the coding of data in order to enrich the
description and understanding of the research questions level by level. After finishing
each transcript, the initial codes will be developed into a series of categories that
represented more abstract concepts (i.e. open coding, (Strauss and Corbin, 1990).
These codes will be developed not only by relying on the transcript, but also on the
basis of the author’s own past experience in TDC industry and the literature review.
One ready-made example is the titles of the three categories of interview question: the
answers to these questions will be categorized into project ecology, knowledge
management, creativity and innovation according to their emphasis. This step can
provide a basis for the following axial coding step – developing subcategories to them
in order to provide more precise and comprehensive explanations about the topics.
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For instance, ‘project team’, ‘clients’, and ‘epistemic communities’ can be the second
level codes of the coding category of ‘project ecology’, and ‘private sector’,
‘government’, and ‘university’ can be the third level codes of the corresponding
subcategories. The subcategories can be discovered level by level in order to portray a
detailed description of the research object.
To be more specific, the first group of codes is ‘name of units’ which identifies the
entities involved in the project ecology. This group includes three categories, i.e.
project team, (mother) organization, (other) epistemic community. These three
subcategories are the key settings mentioned by Grabher (2002a) in the project
ecology framework which represents the social settings that the individuals belonged
to. Under each category, there are various subcategories entitled as professional
identities of the core individuals and some external collectives involved in the TDP
(e.g. team leader and team members in the project team, client, external consultant
and local community in the category of (other) epistemic community). These
subcategories are initially developed on the basis of the researcher`s own experiences
in the TDC business, and further extended according to the transcripts of the key
informant interviews. For instance, the researcher`s own experiences were mainly in
relatively small-scale TDPs, in which only corresponds to one of the TDCs that had
participated in those projects. After the key informant interviews, the researcher
obtained insights into several examples of relatively large scale TDPs which
sometimes involves more than one project team or companies in delivering those
projects. Hence, the researcher added the subcategory ‘partner companies in the same
project’ to the category of epistemic community.
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While the group ‘name of units’ contributes to the basic identification of the entities
involved in the project ecology, the researcher also proposes a group named
‘characteristics’ in order to provide a more holistic description of those entities. The
approach to this group of codes is enlightened by the literature on knowledge
management (e.g. Argote and Miron-Spektor, 2011; Nidhra et al., 2013; Shalley et al.,
2004; Shalley and Gilson, 2004) which identifies various characteristics of the entities
in the organizations which influence KM-related activities. This group consists of two
categories to represent the characteristics of individuals and collectives respectively,
i.e. properties of individuals and properties of collectives. The researcher developed a
series of relevant subcategories on the basis of the literature articles which are
relevant to project ecology and knowledge management, e.g. personality (Shalley et
al., 2004), expertise, and emotions (Argote and Miron-Spektor, 2011) in the category
of properties of individuals, culture (Anantatmula and Kanungo, 2008; Palanisamy,
2007) in the category of properties.
While the above coding groups cover the first four layers of project ecology in this
research (i.e. the individual, the project team, the mother firm, the epistemic
community levels), the researcher also proposed two groups related to the layers of
personal networks and external environments. As for the former, the researcher
developed a group entitled as ‘relations’ with two categories of coding under this
group. The first category is about the properties of relations which are used to
describe the interrelationships among the units in the project ecology. These
subcategories are mainly developed according to the literature, e.g. trust (Levin and
Cross, 2004), similarity (Mäkelä et al., 2012), and one-off/continuous relations
(Ramasamy et al., 2006).
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Apart from the category ‘properties of relations’, the researcher also identified a
subcategory titled as ‘specific events’. This category is initially suggested by Grabher
(2002a) which mention the role of specific events (e.g. hang out, or other idleness
period) in terms of influencing interrelationships and knowledge sharing between the
units in the project ecology. Then the researcher realized that the interviewees also
mentioned some key events where they built relationships or communicate with
others, e.g. dinner time and after hours. The researcher hence listed them under the
category of specific events.
As for the ‘external environment’ group, the researcher developed its initial codes
from two perspectives. The first is about the general environment which includes
technology, policy, economy, industry, society etc. According to the literature (e.g.
Chatterjee et al., 2015; Roberts, 2000; Frank et al., 2015), technology is viewed to
have an increasingly important role in the knowledge management process. Besides
the technology environment, the social-cultural environment has also received
attention from the researchers who have investigated their roles in KM-related
activities (e.g. Bhagat et al., 2002; Chinying Lang, 2004). The other subcategories of
the general environment (e.g. political environment, economic environment) are listed
because of their potential influence on business activities according to the prevailing
PEST analysis (e.g. Peng and Nunes, 2007; Gupta, 2013).
Apart from the general environment, it also covers the physical environment where
the project work actually takes place (e.g. workplace, project land). Under this
category, the researcher identified four subcategories, i.e. location (locality),
characteristics of workplace (atmosphere/sound/layout/pace of work), weather, and
other distraction. These subcategories are mainly derived from his own experience of
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TDCs and the conversation with the interviewees about the knowledge management
process or project ecology to a certain degree. There is also supporting evidence in the
literature. For instance, there is a series of research outputs (e.g. Boutellier et al.,
2008; Liebowitz and Yan, 2004; Soliman and Spooner, 2000) which consider that the
organization`s office layout plays a significant role to influence daily communication
amongst colleagues.
While the above groups of codes are mainly related to project ecology, the researcher
also developed codes related to knowledge management in the initial codebook. The
first group related to KM is the outcome and process of knowledge management,
which is developed according to the literature review related to the KM model. It
covers the three components of the KM model adopted in this research, i.e.
knowledge creation, knowledge transfer, and knowledge retention. The detailed
discussion can be seen in the corresponding Section 2.3.3.
The second group is entitled ‘determinants’ of knowledge management, which refers
to several significant factors in successful knowledge management. Argote et al.
(2003) argue that ‘successful knowledge management depends on ability, motivation,
and opportunity’ (p.575). According to this argument, this research proposes three
corresponding categories with the same names, i.e. ability, motivation, and
opportunity. These categories aim to identify the data related to the ability, the
motives, or the opportunity of a certain entity of project ecology to create, transfer, or
retain knowledge. It can facilitate the understanding of the influences of the properties
of entities or their interrelationships on KM processes through these mechanisms.
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The third group related to KM is entitled ‘management of the KM process’, which
refers to several significant issues running through the whole KM process. The
categories under this group are mainly based on the key informant interviews, which
are applied to mark the special issues mentioned by the interviewees. Initially, the list
of these issues was very raw which hence need to be revised at the end of the coding
process.
Apart from the groups of codes related to project ecology and knowledge
management, the researcher also developed a group entitled ‘project process’ to
supplement the aforementioned codes with a more holistic contextual concept. As
shown in Grabher`s work (2002a; 2004a), the entities and their interrelationships in
project ecology can change throughout the project period. The interviewees in the key
informant interviews also mentioned the information about some KM-related
activities in particular time points within the project process, e.g. field investigation
and idea discussion meetings.
The sample of the initial codebook and coding structure can be seen in Appendix 6.
Accordingly, the researcher constructed the node tree in the software of Nvivo (the
example can be seen in Figure 3.7) for the later coding and analysis. After the axial
coding stage, a more detailed and interconnected coding strategy (i.e. selective
coding) was applied to the transcripts and the field notes. Selective coding can be
treated as a process to generate, validate, and refine the relationships among the
preceding categories. Take an example, individual property emerged as a core concept
(the main category). Some subcategories within this were identified during reading
and reviewing of the field notes and transcripts: e.g. personality characteristics,
individual emotion, individual knowledge, thinking style/characteristics. These
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subcategories were found to be further interrelated with the other factors within the
project process, organization policy, personal relationships, etc. It should be noticed
that the aforementioned open coding, axial coding, and selective coding are not
single-way straight order but were circularly iterative during the coding process and
the further adding of new field notes.
Figure 3.7 The node tree in the software of Nvivo
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Chapter 4 Project Ecology of Case Studies
This research adopts a project ecology approach to understanding the knowledge
management (KM) in the tourism development companies (TDCs). Hence, before the
discussion of KM-related issues, it is necessary to provide a brief overview and
description of the range of activities and professional portfolios of TDCs. It will also
cover the other elements (e.g. the epistemic communities) of the project ecology of
the tourism development projects (TDP), which were observed to be involved with
the project process and the related KM activities. In this chapter, the author mainly
divides the content into four sections. Initially, the author introduces the overview of
TDPs in China, and the key elements of each of the tourism development projects
which constitute the case studies that are the focus of the analysis. Then, the author
discusses three layers of project ecology in three sections accordingly, i.e. the mother
firm (i.e. TDC), the epistemic communities (i.e. clients, external consultants, other
project companies, and local communities), and the project team. Some discussions
related to the other layers of project ecology (e.g. the individual layer and the personal
network layer) are included in these three sections. In each section, the author
introduces their general role and background in terms of tourism development
projects based on the interviews and the informal conversation with the participants in
the case studies, and also describes the specific situations in the three case studies on
the basis of the field work.
It should be noted that, the author applies two brief notation systems to indicate the
individuals who were interviewed during the formal interviews or observed during the
case studies. As for the interviewees in the key informant interviews, the style of the
notation is of the form of (number)(gender)(main professional identity in the context,
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e.g. leader = L, copywriter =C). For instance, 01FC means this interviewee is the first
interviewee in the formal interviews, and her professional identity in the tourism
development project is copywriter. The style of the later notation system related to
case studies is of the form of (case number)(main professional identity in the context)
(number (in case of differentiating the individuals who possessed the same
professional identity in the same case)). For instance, Bdm2 means this participant is
the 2nd draftsman of case company B. Both notation systems will be applicable to the
whole thesis.
4.1 Tourism Development Projects
4.1.1 Overview of TDPs in China
TDPs can be classified according to different criteria. The government publishes a
document to classify TDPs, and this stipulates the government requirements for the
production of project documentation in the form of the <General Specification for
Tourism Planning > (GSTP, China National Tourism Administration., 2003).
According to GSTP, tourism planning in China can be classified into two main
groups, i.e. tourism development plans and tourism area plans. Tourism development
plans aim to establish a target system to facilitate sustainable development of the
tourism industry in certain areas in certain time periods from a relatively macro and
comprehensive perspective. In this group, TDPs can be further classified according to
the spatial area and the length of planning period. To be more specific, according to
the length of the planning period, it can be classified into short-term planning (3-5
years), middle-term planning (5-10 years), and long-term planning (10-20 years).
Based on the spatial area, it can be classified into national tourism planning, regional
tourism planning, and destination planning.
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The main aim of tourism development plans is to make explicit the position and
functions of the tourism industry in national economic and social development, to
identify the aim of tourism industry development, to optimize the structure and spatial
arrangement of tourism industry development, to arrange the prior development
project of the tourism industry, and to facilitate sustainable, healthy, and stable
development of tourism industry. The documentation of the tourism development plan
consists of the planning text, planning diagram, and attachment. The planning
diagram includes a location analysis diagram, tourism resource analysis diagram,
tourist source market analysis diagram, the diagram of the development goals of the
tourism industry, tourism industry development planning diagram, etc. The
attachment should include an instruction book on planning, basic materials, etc.
As for the tourism area plan, it can be further classified according to the planning
levels, i.e. master plans, specific control plan, and specific construction plans. In
particular, the main aim of the master plan should be to analyse the tourist source
market of the tourism area, to determine the thematic image of the tourism area, to
delimit the land area and spatial arrangement of the tourism area, to arrange the
construction content of infrastructures, and to propose development measures. The
documentation of the master plan should include planning text, planning diagram, and
attachment. The planning diagram covers a location map of the tourism area, a
general picture the present situation, tourism market analysis diagram, tourism
resource evaluation diagram, map of the master plan, road traffic planning diagram,
function division diagram and other specialized planning diagrams, diagram of short-
term construction planning, etc. The attachment includes an instruction book of
planning, basic materials, etc.
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With regard to the specific control plan, its main purpose is to stipulate every control
index and other planning management requirements of the construction land required
for the tourism area in order to guide all development construction activities on the
basis of the master plan. The documentation of the specific control plan should also
include the planning text, planning diagram, and attachment. The planning diagram of
the control plan covers a general picture of the present situation, the diagrams of
specific planning control in every district of the tourism area, and the planning
diagrams for the main utility pipelines in the area.
With respect to the specific construction plan, its purpose is to further deepen and
specify on the basis of the master plan or the specific control plan in order to guide
the design and construction of the architectures and the facilities. The documentation
of the specific construction plan should consist of the instruction book of planning
and design, and planning diagram. The planning diagrams include an overview of the
present situation, the master diagram of the specific control plan, the blueprint of road
and greenbelt system planning, the blueprint of pipe network planning, the blueprint
of vertical planning, the design sketch with bird`s-eye view or other visual effects.
The sheet scale of the diagrams usually ranges from 1/500 to 1/2000,
GSTP further gives the relatively specific requirements for different types of TDPs,
the example of which can be seen in Appendix 7 (taking tourism development plans
as an example). Besides, GSTP also stipulates a series of general requirements for the
TDPs. To be more specific,
(1) The formulation of the TDP should be built on national and regional social
economic development strategies, and tourism industry development policies. It
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should be compatible with urban master planning, land-use planning, and other
related planning. It should also present the required improvements in relation to
the aforementioned planning in the context of the current situation of the national
economy;
(2) The formulation of the TDP should be informed by tourism market-oriented,
tourism resource-based, tourism product-dominated, and sustainable development
guidelines;
(3) The formulation of the TDP should highlight the local features, pay attention to
regional coordination, emphasize spatial integrative development, and avoid
unreasonable high densities of redundant construction. It should also strengthen
the protection of tourism resources and reduce the wasteful use of these resources.
(4) The formulation of the TDP should be based on adopting advanced methods and
skills. It should conduct comparisons among various plans during the formulation
process, and should consult the relevant administrative departments and local
communities.
(5) The survey and measurement methods and the related maps and materials, which
are adopted during the formulation process, should conform to the relevant
national standards and technique specifications.
(6) The technique index adopted in the TDP should meet the needs of long-term
tourism industry development and should incorporate foresight. The selection and
establishment of the technique index should be referred to General Specification
for Tourism Planning.
(7) The group participating in the formulation of TDP should be composed of
individuals drawn from relatively wide professional domains, e.g. tourism,
economy, resource, environment, urban planning, architecture.
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The above requirements to a certain degree reveal the general knowledge
requirements of TDPs, such as other relevant planning, policies, and strategies (see
above term 1), information about the target tourism market, local tourism resources,
and the tourism product portfolio (see above term 2 and 3), planning methods, skills,
and techniques (see above term 4, 5, and 6), stakeholders` viewpoints (see above term
4), and the diverse knowledge composition of the project members (see above term
7). It also discloses several of the entities involved in the TDP process, such as
government and local communities (see above term 4). In the next section, the
researcher will introduce the key elements of each of the TDPs that the researcher was
involved in as part of the case studies, and will then present several differences among
the different types of TDPs according to the field work.
4.1.2 TDPs in the case studies
During the field research on the case studies of the three companies, the researcher
has participated in 14 tourism development projects to a varying extent, i.e. 10
projects in case-company A (1#-10#), 2 projects in case-company B (11#, 12#), and 2
projects in case-company C (13#, 14#). The key elements of each of these will be
narratively described in Table 4.7. To be more specific, the column ‘planning object’
refers to the tourism area under planning in the project. The column ‘type of plan’
echoes with the aforementioned discussion of the types of TPDs. It can be seen that
the researcher has participated in a wide range of TPDs during the case study period.
The produced document refers to the researcher’s main job responsibility in the
project. The columns of ‘type of client’ and ‘other key players’ together describe the
main entities which participated in the project process. The last column ‘Special
features of the project or the key players’ identifies the distinct and special features
observed during the project process by in comparison with other projects. Due to the
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different extent that the researcher participated in these, some information on the key
elements of certain projects are necessarily vague.
159
No. Planning Object Type of
Plan
The produced
document that
the researcher
was involved
in
The type of client Other key players Special features of the project or the key
players
1 A series of
fruit/vegetables gardens
and farms distributed
within a county-level city
Master plan One of the
main parts of
the planning
text
The agriculture-
related department
of local
government
(county-level city)
One team leader, two copywriters and one
draftsman in the core team; One external
consultant; Another company which is
responsible for the specific construction plan;
Several local farm managers;
The decentralization of project land which is
operated by different managers with different
degrees of recognition of the project;
Various entities in external epistemic
communities involved in the project, some of
which play a significant role, .e.g. the client is
introduced by the external consultant to
company A
2 The core area of province-
level modern agriculture
integrated district
Master plan One of the
main parts of
the planning
text
The agriculture
bureau of local
government
(county-level city)
One team leader, two copywriters and one
draftsman in the core team; Several lower-
level government officials and businessmen
in the project area
The client is attracted by the previous projects
delivered by the company A
The different parts of the project area are
operated by three businessmen who have
competitive relationships with each other;
160
3 One large-scale
agriculture farm
Specific
control plan
Participated in
the idea
discussion
meeting, and a
few elements
of the planning
diagram
The farm managers One team leader, one copywriter and one
draftsman
The agriculture-related department of local
government
The client is introduced by the client of 1#
project;
4 A folk custom base in a
village
Specific
control plan
Participated in
the
proofreading of
planning text,
and the project
presentation
The local
government
(village-level)
One team leader, one copywriter and one
draftsman
The purpose of the client is to use this project to
apply for grants from higher-level government
rather than actually implementing the plan to
develop an ecological park;
The examiners of project presentations are also
the experts selected by the higher-level
government
5 An ecological park in a
village
Specific
control plan
Participated in
the
proofreading of
planning text,
and the project
presentation
The local
government
(village-level)
One team leader, one copywriter and one
draftsman
The purpose of the client is similar to that of the
client in 4# project;
The examiners of the project presentations are
the experts selected by the higher-level
government
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6 The main business street
in a tourism town
Specific
construction
plan
Collecting
reference
materials
The local
government (town-
level)
One team leader who also acts as a
copywriter, one external consultant who also
acts as a draftsman
The other employees from the TDCs
This belonged to a project about providing a
master plan for a tourism town, where there are
several project teams from different
backgrounds and companies;
The skills of the draftsmen of company A are
considered less qualified for the project
7 A theme village in terms
of health and long-life
Tourism
development
plan
One of the
main parts of
the planning
text
The local
government
(village level)
One team leader who also acts as a
copywriter, one copywriter and one
draftsman
The team leader in this project is newly
assigned by the company leader, and hence has
no experience as a project leader
The company leader still provide supervisory
control to the team leader in order to ensure
quality control
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8 A theme town in terms of
featured handicrafts
Specific
control plan
One of the
main parts of
the planning
text
The local
government (town-
level)
One team leader, three copywriters, and one
draftsman
The requirements of the diagram in this project
are relatively few, while the requirements on
the texts in this project are relatively large.
Hence the draftsman is also asked to participate
in the production of planning text
The client has a long relationship with the
company leader, and the tourism development
plan and the master plan of this town were also
delivered by the company leader
Urgent requirement of time but loose
requirements of originality from the clients
9 A farm and a mountain
villa located in a village
Master Plan One of the
main parts of
the planning
text
The private owner
of the farm and the
mountain villa
One team leader who also acts as copywriter,
one copywriter and one draftsman
Similar to 7# but the team leader in this project
is a different copywriter in the company who
also has no experience as a leader for project
The client is introduced by the local
government which has a history of cooperation
with the company leader in previous projects
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10 Rural tourism in a county-
level city region
Tourism
development
plan
Early-stage
preparation
The local
government
(county-level)
One team leader, one copywriter in this stage The company leader admits that he has very
limited experience in terms of producing this
kind of tourism planning
The project had not formally started when the
researcher left the company
11 A mountainous area near
a town
Master plan Main parts of
idea proposal
A public enterprise
and some private
investors
One team leader, one copywriter in this stage;
Local government (town-level)
One of the client contacted the company
because of its high professional reputation;
The members in the client party have largely
distinctive ideas and interests that means that
they have not reached a common vision;
Some clients insist on several relatively
outdated and infeasible ideas which conflict
with the project team members;
The company failed to sign the contract with
the client due to the conflict
12 The overall tourism in a
town
Master plan Main parts of
the planning
text
Local government
(town-level)
One team leader, one copywriter, and one
draftsman;
Local enterprises
This town is located near #11 project;
The team leader had a vacation after the initial
field investigation, so the main parts of
planning text was produced by one copywriter
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13 The landscape design
around a large reservoir
Specific
construction
plan
Participated in
the idea
discussion
meeting
Local government
(town-level)
One team leader who also acts as copywriter,
and one draftsman
Although the project is relatively small scale,
many colleagues are invited to the idea
discussion meeting in order to enrich the ideas
14 Tourism in a town-level
district
Tourism
development
plan
One of the
main parts of
the planning
text
Local government
(county-level and
town-level)
One team leader, one copywriter, and one
draftsman;
Company leaders as supervisors;
Local enterprises
The team leader in this project is newly
assigned by the company leader, and hence has
no experience as a leader for project
The members of the team are cooperating with
each other for the first time
Table 4.7 The TDPs that the researcher participated in the case studies
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Summarizing Table 4.7, the researcher to varying degrees participated in 14 diverse
TDPs during the total period of fieldwork. Within these, there were two main types of
TDPs that the researcher participated in, which are tourism development plans (3 in
total, all involving destination planning), and tourism area plans (11 in total). The
latter is subdivided into master plans (5 in total), specific control plan (4 in total), and
specific construction plans (2 in total). The common general requirements of these
types of TDPs can be seen in the last section (Section 4.1.1). The following
paragraphs will outline several differences in knowledge requirements and production
among these TDPs on the basis of the field work.
The first difference is the different dimensions of these TDPs in relation to tourism
development issues, which echo with the different main aims of these TDPs (see
Section 4.1.1). The tourism development plan accords with the macro level: to guide
the development of tourism industry from an overall perspective including to clarify
the overall aim, the optimized spatial arrangement and development structure, and the
priorities of tourism industry development according to the complex conditions and
features of particular planning areas (usually ranging from county-level to national-
level). Such a macro level perspective also calls for attention to be paid not only
towards the tourism industry, but also extending to the connections between tourism
industry and other industries in the project area. For instance, No.7 TDP proposes
ideas about guiding local industrial transformation through developing tourism, and
this would involve multiple industries (e.g. agriculture, food, healthcare industries).
No.14 TDP emphasizes the concept of city-industry integration which is about
developing the tourism industry to drive the renewal of public infrastructure and
service.
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The master plan type of tourism area plan is at the meso level which is based on the
tourism development plan and hence is relatively more detailed. It needs to specify
the tourism development plan in order to further elaborate the thematic image,
tourism spatial arrangement, product portfolios and the corresponding development
steps of certain planning areas. These can be more specific than the tourism
development plan, e.g. including village-level and town-level. For instance, No.1 TDP
proposes the overall theme of the master plan phrased as ‘Fruits and vegetables, make
the city more charming’. This overall theme not only points out the primary basis of
the tourism product portfolio in this project is designed around fruits, vegetables and
the associated production and processing activities; but also implies an image that the
natural and good quality environments in the project area are based on the integration
of tourism and agriculture industries.
The specific control plan and the specific construction plan are types of TDP at the
micro level, which specify the details of tourism products and the relevant
construction activities, architectures and facilities within the framework of the related
master plan. These are characterised by a series of specific drawings and diagrams
rather than the relatively conceptual diagrams in the other TDPs. For example in No.5
TDP, Figure 4.8 is the specific construction drawings of handrails which were
proposed to be built in the target park.
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Figure 4.8 Specific construction drawings of handrails in No.5 TDP
The different dimensions of these types of TDPs lead to their second difference, i.e.
the different time spans of the planning aims and different degree of emphasis on
planning period length. According to the field work, tourism development plans
emphasize the continuity of policies in a certain period of time. Hence the production
of tourism development plans should consider the feasible development direction of
the tourism industry for a certain time period, and formulate the coherent strategic
objectives in the different segments of that time period. The significance of planning
period length in the tourism development plans are also reflected in the sub-
classification mentioned in Section 4.1.1, that it can be further classified according to
the different length of the planning period (i.e. short-term planning (3-5 years),
middle-term planning (5-10 years), and long-term planning (10-20 years)). As the
inheritor of tourism development plans, it can also be seen phased policy design based
on different time periods in the master plan. The slight difference is the distinguished
168
weighting of content in different time periods: the master plan generally make
detailed short-term plans about tourism product, support, and security systems, while
it outlines general long-term arrangement for developing tourism in the project area.
As for the specific control plan and the specific construction plan, they usually focus
on the activities in a relatively short-term period rather than making long-term
arrangements.
The different dimensions of these types of TDPs also lead to their third difference,
which is that different entities are involved in the project ecology. Firstly, the types of
clients involved in different types of TDPs are different. Tourism development plans
and most tourism area plans are commissioned by the governments and public sectors,
while some tourism area plans are commissioned by the private sectors or the public-
private sectors in combination (examples can be seen in the aforementioned Table
4.7). The different types of clients can result in different demands being made on the
TDP outcome (see Section 4.3.1.2). Then, the different requirements in different types
of TDPs can also lead to the different composition of project members from different
professional domains, which to a certain degree echoes with term 7 of the general
requirements of TDPs mentioned in Section 4.1.1. For instance, the special
construction plan (e.g. No.6 TDP) often requires the specialists, in terms of drawing
and charting, to produce required special diagrams, while tourism development plans
and master plans sometimes call for experienced advisors to assist the other project
members to produce key ideas (e.g. No.1 and No.14 TDPs). A more detailed
discussion about advisors and specialists can be seen in Section 4.3.2.
These differences among different types of TDP to a certain degree inform the latter
discussions about the various entities involved in the TDP ecology, and the diverse
factors influencing KM activities within the TDP ecology. In the next sections, this
169
research will introduce the entities involved in the TDP ecology by starting with the
discussion of the mother firm, i.e. TDCs.
4.2 Mother Firm
The level of mother firm herein refers to the tourism development companies (TDCs)
which stand for the basic commercial agency in the tourism development industry.
From the external perspective (the side of tourism industry and clients), the TDCs are
typically project-based organizations which provide tourism destination planning,
tourism product development, destination marketing and travel business
implementation advice to the tourism industry. These services/products are based on
the form of projects, although some TDCs (e.g. case company B of this research) also
provided certain non-project work (e.g. managing tourism destinations as trustees).
Although the nature of project (such as temporality and wide coverage of knowledge)
indicate how fuzzy the organizational boundary of traditional firm may be, the firm
can still be viewed as a unitary and coherent actor when carrying out business
activities with the outside units and collectives. For instance, as 10MM commented,
‘The initial reason why we wished to seek the help of Company XX is due to its good
reputation and high qualification … We normally signed the contract with the
companies (TDCs) rather than with any individuals, even if we got in touch with the
company through some managers or famous talents in it’. There are some additional
hints arising during the observation of TDCs` websites, e.g. the outstanding cases
present on most of those websites are only marked as the product of the company
rather than being associated with the specific project leader`s name.
170
While the firm represents the social entity of the primary project business deliverer
from the external viewpoints, the firm level also plays a significant role in shaping the
project activities through its internal characteristics. For instance, the TDCs which
were known from the data collection process are all project-based organizations. Such
phenomena are characterized by their inherent nature as PBOs and facilitates the
coordination and operation of project activities to a certain degree. Also, such a
structure has its own disadvantages (e.g. Hobday (2000) indicated that PBO is
inherently weak in terms of promoting organization-wide learning). This damage the
continuity and consensus of the organization and can lead to a series of negative
impacts on the project-to-project knowledge transfer as well as the sustainability of
organization development which will be discussed later in the future sections.
In brief, although in the context of project-related business which is argued to be less
well located within the firm-centred paradigm (Grabher, 2002a), the mother firm still
has its unique and unreplaceable functions in project ecology from both external and
internal perspectives as will be demonstrated in the author`s work. In the next
paragraphs, the author will initially describe the overview of TDCs in China, and then
present the features of the mother firm level of the three cases in more detail.
4.2.1 Overview of tourism and TDCs in China
As mentioned in Jia (2012), it can be seen that the evolution of the tourism planning
aims as well as of the TDC industry is shaped by the distinct state of the development
of the tourism industry in China. In the germination stage (the period before China`s
reform and opening-up to the early 1980s), tourism was mainly treated as a channel to
receive foreign guests and earn foreign exchange, and the tourism product was limited
and deficient. Tourism planning in this stage was mainly ‘resource-led’ which aims to
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obtain a general understanding of local tourism resources and decide which resources
should be developed and how. There was no formal TDC at this stage as the main
planners involved were experts from various disciplines (e.g. geography and botany)
invited by the governments.
Then, tourism development companies began to appear and grow along with the
establishment of the tourism industry in China since the middle 1980s, when the
Chinese government officially included the tourism industry in the national economy
and social development plan and 7th Five-Year Plan. Through experiencing influences
from the industrialization of tourism and the construction of the market economy,
tourism planning in this stage was transformed from being ‘resource-led’ to ‘market-
led and resource-based’, which emphasized the market analysis and tourism industry
planning in order to develop local tourism resources in a way which is consistent with
the market demands.
After experiencing years of the development of the tourism industry in China, tourist
demands have become more diverse as for have tourism products. The types of
tourism products evolved from traditional sight-seeing tourism to more diverse and
new forms, e.g. leisure tourism, ecotourism, and experience tourism. The market
competition among tourism products was getting fiercer which hence called for
product innovation for the sake of better competitive advantage. The main
characteristics of tourism planning in this stage were therefore becoming ‘resource-
based, benefit-led, and product-centred’. This started to emphasize innovative
products in order to both improve the destination image and the tourism incomes. In
the meantime, the impacts of tourism development on the natural environment and
social community were gradually realized, which lead TDCs and other planners to
consider these aspects during their planning process.
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Since the millennium, the status of the tourism industry in China has become more
significant and firm, especially as it has been positioned as a strategic pillar industry
of the national economy since 2009. More diverse, fruitful, and innovative tourism
products are emerging in the tourist source markets. During this period, the TDC
industry also experienced very rapid development, while new requirements and
challenges continue to appear. For instance, the visions of some general tourism
development plans moved beyond the single destination to a relatively broad region
with certain common themes (e.g. Yangtze River Delta), which plays an important
role for regional collaborative tourism development. The focus of this kind of tourism
development projects starts not only to emphasise the development of tourism
products, but also cover the subsequent management issues of destinations. In the
meantime, the need for more theming and specialized tourism development projects is
increasing, as some clients start to call for more feasible and implementable plans.
During this development period, the government strengthened the management of the
TDC industry, and a series of authority files was released which facilitate the industry
to become more mature and standardized. The aforementioned GSTP is an example of
these authority files.
Another example can be seen in how China National Tourism Administration
introduced <The Management Method of Qualification Level of Tourism Planning
and Design Organizations> in 2005 (China National Tourism Administration., 2005).
According to this file, the Chinese government classified the TDCs into four
categories according to their qualifications. The first three of the classification are
‘甲’，‘乙’，‘丙’ in an order that is similar to levels ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ of English grading
system, while the fourth refers to the other TDCs which are unqualified (e.g. too small
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in terms of size, the specific classification standards can be found on the relevant
website) to be allocated within the system. There are hundreds of TDCs in each level.
The specific standards of this classification can be seen in Table 4.8, which is based
on the length of time that the organization has participated in the relevant business
(marked as ‘’ for short), the length of period that the organization held the junior level of qualification (‘’), the amount of registered capital (‘’), the number and the professional background of its employees ‘’), and the number
(‘’) and reputation (‘’) of its previous projects.
A ‘甲’ Over 3
years
More than
1 year
Not less than
1 million
CNY
At least 5
employees with at
least 3-year relevant
working experience
Have accomplished a
province-level or
above TDP, or 5
influential TDPs
Excellent
B ‘乙’ Over 1
year
N/A Not less than
500 thousand
CNY
At least 3
employees with at
least 3-year relevant
working experience
Have accomplished
at least 3 influential
TDPs
Very
Good
C ‘丙’ Over 1
year
N/A Not less than
100 thousand
CNY
At least 1 employee
with least 3-year
relevant working
experience
Have accomplished
at least 1 influential
TDP
Good
Table 4.8 The specific standards of the qualification classification in <The
Management Method of Qualification Level of Tourism Planning and Design
Organizations>
It should be noted that, apart from this official classification of TDCs, there are also
several kinds of ‘slang’ classification in the industry according to the background and
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fashion of TDCs. For instance, the school of ‘Academism’ refers to the TDCs
established by the scholars from universities. The school of ‘Government’ refers to
the TDCs possessing government background or the government-owned TDCs. The
school ‘Professionalism’ refers to the specialized TDCs which are established by the
relevant professionals and the core business is around tourism planning. The school of
‘City planning’ refers to the city planning or landscape design companies which also
hold some business in terms of tourism planning. The case-study companies selected
in this research can be allocated to the schools of ‘Academism’, ‘Professionalism’,
and ‘Government’ respectively. The next section will further discuss the three case-
study companies in more detail.
4.2.2 The Location of the Firms
All the three case companies are located in the city of Hangzhou, which is the capital
of Zhejiang Province and the local political, economic and cultural centre. It is a
world famous tourism city with countless historical relics and natural beauty. Both
levels of governments of Hangzhou City and Zhejiang Province frequently
emphasized the importance of the tourism industry and tourism development. So these
three companies are all in a location with fruitful opportunities for conducting tourism
development projects.
Furthermore, the specific geographical locations of the three firms in the Hangzhou
city demonstrates the high relevance of their respective background: On the one side,
case A company is located in the sponsoring university, while case C company is
based in the northwest side of the Westlake (the most famous tourism attraction of
Hangzhou city) while the regional tourism administration is located on the north side
of that lake. On the other side, as the background of case-company B is relatively
175
independent, ‘its site selection is more likely to have been based on the consideration
of the rental cost and the potential grants from the district government of the selected
location’ (Bsd1). It is set in a large business park in the north district of the city at
present.
4.2.3 The Size and Staffing of Firm
The sizes of the three companies reflect step-like differences. The case-company A is
micro-size in that its number of permanent employees is five. Due to its mini size,
most of the employees are hired to work on the projects rather than contributing to the
other traditional functions of the firm. Even the only person (Al2), whose job is
indirect to the project and was employed at the end month of the researcher`s
fieldwork in Case One, has to provide both accounting and human resource
management functions and is sometimes required to participate in the discussion of
project by A-ML-X. A similar situation can also be found in the case-company C
which is small-size and has 14 permanent staffs. Besides two specific accountants, the
other staffs are either copywriters or draftsmen for the projects. The other functions
are undertaken by the leaders or the other managers.
Case-company B is quite different from its abovementioned peers. It is a large-size
company which owns 16 subsidiaries over the whole state and 3 international branch
offices. The fieldwork was undertaken in the parent company which has a clear
department and staff configuration ‘in appearance’ (The reason of using the phrase ‘in
appearance’ is that, some departments, which are proposed to be responsible for the
non-project functions, are still required to undertake some tourism development
projects due to the company`s compensation and benefits system which will be
presented in later sections.). Furthermore, the diversity of the education background
176
of the case-company B staffs is more than in the others, not only because of the larger
number of staff (around 50-60 full-time staff in the parent company of case B), but
also due to its wider range of businesses (as mentioned in the beginning of this
section) and more abundant resources. The effects of this on knowledge management
will be discussed in later chapters).
4.2.4 The Enterprise Departmentalization (Organizational
Structure)
The enterprise institution of the three case companies will be mainly presented from
the perspectives of departmentalization (organizational structure) and the salary and
reward systems. As for the former, there are several reasonable hints which echo with
the discussion in the section of size and staffing. The following discussion will be
present in the order of Company A -> Company C -> Company B. The reason is that
of the similar size of Company A and Company C, and they both just happened to be
re-structuring their departments during the researcher`s fieldwork. The structure of
Company A was similar to a single project team (Figure 4.9): Al1 hold concurrent
posts of both company boss and team leader; his wife Al2 was in charge of corporate
finance. It should be noticed that both Al1 and Al2 have their own full-time jobs
outside the company A. There were no specific departments existing in the company,
and all the other employees were devoted to delivering the projects.
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Figure 4.9 Previous Organizational structure of Company A before Oct, 2014
In the middle of October 2014, they decided to reform the management system of the
company and the departmentalization for the purpose of achieving a higher
classification (from level C to level B) and dealing with the vastly increasing project
orders. In the meantime, the company hired Af1 as the specific staff member
responsible for corporate finance and Adm2 as a new draftsman. The new structure of
Company A is presented in Figure 4.10. The positions of Al1 and Al2 are balanced
with each other: Al1 draws more attention on the business side of the company, e.g.
marketing and negotiation with clients, and direct and control the outcome of project
teams, while Al2 are placed to be more specific to the internal daily operation and
management of the whole company.
178
Al1Company & Team Leader
Acw1Duputy of Team; Copywriter
Adm1Team Member; Draftersman
Acw2Team Member; Copywriter
Al2Management in Corporate
Finance & HR
Figure 4.10 New Organizational Structure of Company A after Oct, 2014
According to the managerial labour division, project teams are directly controlled
byAl1, and Af1 is mainly responsible for assisting the work of Al2. Furthermore, the
original project team is divided into two teams in order to solve the challenge of the
increasing volume of orders, although the two teams still have overlapping
membership in certain cases. The copywriters, Acw1 and Acw2, are respectively
assigned to be the nominal team leader of each team, although the actual team leader
of both teams is still Al1 due to the inexperience of Acw1 and Acw2. It should be
noticed that, the affiliation between draftsmen and copywriters is a common
phenomenon in the tourism development industry as the tourism development projects
are mainly based on ideas which are primarily ‘produced’ by the copywriters (from
the perspective of idea generation and literal expression), while the main
responsibility of draftsmen is to use ’proper graphs’ to facilitate the expression of
those ideas. However, some draftsmen also contribute to the idea generation of the
projects although usually to a far lesser extent than the copywriters.
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Al1Management for Businesses
Acw1Team Leader of Project Team
A; Copywriter
Adm1Team Member of Project
Team A; Draftsman
Acw2Team Leader of Project Team
B; Copywriter
Adm2Team Member of Project
Team B; Draftsman
Al2Management for Darily
Operation
Af1Staff for Corporate Finance
As for Company C, its original organizational structure is described in Figure 4.11. In
contrast to Company A, the company leader, Cl1, rarely holds the concurrent post as
team leader for any projects in the company. In fact, he acts as a consultant to the
projects and his ideas and suggestions are treated as seriously as an imperial edict for
the project staffs rather than by him directly participating in the project production
process. However, the functions of Cl2 are different: Cl2 serves as the deputy of the
company and supports Cl1 in the daily management of the company, and is seen to
inherit the position of Cl1 by the other staff; in the meantime, he is responsible for
being the team leader of several ongoing projects (mainly about some relatively large
scale projects). Besides the top managers, the remaining staff are allocated to three
departments, finance department, administrative office and project-related staffs. The
former two are functional departments in the general sense.
As for the group of project-related staffs, it constitutes most of the employees in the
company. Some of them would be temporarily organized into a project team when the
company received the project orders; the selection of team leaders and members of
the teams was conducted by Cl1 or Cl2. It should be noted that once a certain team
has been established for one project, its composition (referring to the internal staffs)
varied very little between projects due to the consideration of the familiarities
between team members and the importance of team cooperation issues (which will be
mentioned in the later chapters about knowledge transfer).
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Figure 4.11 Previous Organizational Structure of Company C before July, 2015
‘Such structure and the other regulatory systems exist in company C for over one
decade’ (Cl1), which led the managers to start to consider reforming the old
institutions. A new structure has been introduced at an internal monthly meeting
which was organized in early July of 2015. The new structure (Figure 4.12) attempted
to re-organize the series of copywriters and draftsmen in order to ‘achieve a better
compatible degree between project and project members’ (Cl1). The copywriters and
the draftsmen are nominally classified into two different departments (copywriters
Tourism Planning & Design Department; draftsmen Landscape Design
Department). The reason why the two departments were named Tourism Planning &
Design and Landscape Design is the different emphasizes of these two kinds of
activities on texts and graphs. In addition, the most experienced and active staff from
each category were promoted to be the head and the deputy of each department. All
staff were required to submit a list of information about their specialities and
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Cl1
Company Leader
Cf1Manager of Finance
Department
Cf2
Fianance Department
Cao1
Administrative Office
Ccw1/Ccw2/...
Project Staffs
Cl2
Deputy of Company
preferences to the heads in order to be allocated to the most suitable projects and
relevant teams.
Figure 4.12 New Organizational Structure of Company C after July, 2015
(Due to the relatively larger scale of the overall organization and the specific site
where the researcher conducted the fieldwork, company B herein merely refers to its
head company rather than the whole organization including the branches and
subsidiaries.) As mentioned in the early section, Company B seems to have a clear
department and staff configuration ‘in appearance’ (Figure 4.13). In fact, its
departmentalization is the most shapeless from the researcher`s observation. The
shapelessness can be demonstrated from two perspectives.
Firstly, the setup or the elimination of certain departments is dependent on the
personal willing of Bl1 ‘whose mind is very changeable’ (Bsd1), or ‘the purposes to
apply for grants from the country’. In the examples given by the interviewees, some
government grants require the applying enterprises to possess a certain degree of
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Cl1Company Leader
Cf1Manager of Finance
Department
Cf2Fianance Department
Cao1Administrative Office
Ccw1Head of Tourism Planning&Design
Department
Ccw3Copywriter
Ccw4Copywriter
...Other copywriters
Ccw2Deputy of Tourism Planning & Design
Department
Cdm1Head of Landscape Design Department
Cdm3Draftsman
...Other Draftsman
Cdm2Deputy of Landscape Design Department
Cl2Deputy of Company
specific professionals (e.g. research staffs), and hence the company would add an
extra research department and allocate several staffs to it in order to be qualified for
the grants) (Bsd1). So some of the previous departments had existed for a very short
period which led the overall organizational structure to an unstable form.
Secondly, as mentioned before, some departments which are proposed to be
responsible for the non-project functions, are still required to undertake some tourism
development projects due to the company`s compensation and benefits system. So
these departments usually ‘hunt for’ or ‘long-term borrow’ some project specialists
from the project teams, which lead to not only a negative impact on the
interrelationships between departments (that they are in conflict with cost-free
resources/staffs as those resources (staffs) were paid by the company) but also the
project specialists` confusion about which department they actually belong to. To sum
up, such conflict leads to a series of specific KM issues and general management
dilemmas which will be discussed in the future chapters.
Figure 4.13 Organizational Structure of Company B in the middle of 2015
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Bl1The chairman of the
board
Bl2CEO
Bsd1Directorof Strategic
Development Department
Bsd2(also Bdm1)
Staff of Strategic Development Department
Bsd3 (also Bcw1)
Staff of Strategic Development Department
Bhr1Human Resource
Department
Bao1Administration Office
Bts1Technical Service
Department
Bm1General Manager
One Subsidiary
Hangzhou Subsidiary
Bl3Head of Online Media
Group
One Branch Company
Online Media Group
Bl4Head of Business
Department
Eight project teams3-5 members per
team
4.2.5 The Salary and Reward System
The salary and reward system played a crucial role in the attitudes and emotions of
the staff as well as the workplace atmosphere in all three cases according to the field
work. In this section, the research will primarily describe the monetary payment
systems of the three companies, and the other parts will be presented in the later KM-
related sections.
The common monetary payment in the TDC industry is based on two parts, the
monthly base wage and the bonus from each project (07FL). The standard of bonus
for the whole team is around 10%-20% of the whole contract amount, and the specific
allotment ratio to each team member will usually be decided by the team leader. ‘The
bonus part is the main income for the TDC employees’ (Ccw1). An inexperienced
new employee could normally earn around 40,000 to 50,000 RMB (approximately
£5,000; the following currencies will all be translated into the approximate number of
British pounds) in the first year. Company B is generally following this salary system
and offers a 12% bonus ratio for the whole project. ‘The salary in xx (case Company
B) is fine for me’, Bsd1 who is a middle-aged well-educated white-collar woman said,
‘However the bonus ratio is still less than many other companies of the same industry.
Many resources are wasted on the cost of the top managers` field trip’.
The styles of payment systems are very similar to Company A and Company C.
Although they ‘intended to build the same official and countable payment system as
other companies in the industry’ (Acw1; Ccw1), the standard of salaries and bonuses
offered to the staff still remains a ‘black box’ in the company leaders` brain which
means it has lack of transparency about how the relevant calculation was done for the
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staff. The base wage offered in Company A is the lowest among the three companies
(approximately £2500-3000 annually for newbies, and this wage level increases £60
annually) and is ‘actually a bit less than the average payment level around the
industry’ (Acw1). There is no project-based bonus/reward for the employees. Instead,
Company A provides a bonus equalling to 2x monthly base wage every six months
which is much less than the other companies` project-based bonus. By calculating, a
new employee could only obtain at most £3000 pounds annually. During the
fieldwork in the case A, the researcher frequently heard complaints about low
payments in private, especially from those who knew the general payment situation in
the whole industry. The employees had a strong feeling that ‘the company develops
rapidly, but the payment remains unchanged’ (Adm1).
A similar situation can be found in Company C which does not consist any project-
based bonus system in its salary scheme. The bonus is highly subjectively given by
the company leader twice a year according to his subjective opinion about the
employees` performance. It lacks transparency for the staff as the leader hardly
explained the specific foundation and reason about it`. As Ccw2 said to the researcher
in an informal interview, ‘xx(Cl1) especially prefers the employees who contact the
client frequently during the project process, and gives them more bonuses.’ During
the fieldwork in the case C, the researcher had hardly heard the employees giving
their opinions or feelings about their salary, except once at the internal monthly
meeting of July 2015.
Ccw1 gave his opinion about increasing the payment. Cl1 replied in a prepared tone,
‘we have considered about this aspect for a long time, and agree that it is necessary to
improve the overall salary in order to encourage employees to be more active and
enthusiastic in work. The current basic wage will be increased according to the
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education qualification of the employees. And the annual increases in the wage will
be more. As for the project-based bonus, we know it is a common policy in other
companies. However, our company is suffering relatively heavy financial pressure. So
this suggestion will be temporarily put on ice. I hope for your understanding’. An
atmosphere of silence appeared in the meeting after Cl1`s words so that no one
continued this topic, and disappointment was written over the faces of some
employees present at the meeting.
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4.2.6 Summary
To sum up, this section mainly introduces the characteristics of the mother firms
(TDCs) of the case studies. Although they were located in the same city, their capital
background, qualification classification, size, staffing, and other operational matters
were distinctly different from each other (see Table 4.9). According to the fieldwork,
some of these differences in terms of these aspects led to various situations in terms of
KM issues which will be discussed in the later KM chapters.
Aspects Case A Case B Case C
Type and Capital
Background
Private (with
university/academic
background)
Private (family firm) Private (with
government
background)
Location Hangzhou Hangzhou Hangzhou
Qualification Level B Level A Level A
Size and Staffing Micro (5 employees) Large (50-60 FT employees
in the parent company, 16
subsidiaries and 3
international branch offices)
Small (14 employees)
Structure See details in the corresponding section
Salary and
Reward
Relatively low base wage
with little bonus from the
projects
Average base wage with
average bonus proportion of
project price (with specific
rules about bonusing)
Average base wage
with relatively low
bonus proportion of
project prices (highly
depends on the Cl1`s
subjective viewpoints)
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Table 4.9 Brief summary of the differences among three cases
4.3 Epistemic Communities
Apart from the staff in the tourism development companies, there are several other
entities involved in the project process which are referred to as ‘epistemic
communities’, in line with the use of this term in Grabher`s work (2002a). The
epistemic communities in the context of TDPs include the clients, the external
consultant/specialist, other project companies, and local communities in the project
region. In this section, the researcher will present the general information and
characteristics of these entities on the basis of the data collected from the interviews
and the field work. The discussion will be conducted in the order of clients, external
consultant, other project companies, and local community.
4.3.1 Clients
4.3.1.1 Ownership Background
The types of clients of tourism development project can be categorized according to
their ownership background, i.e. public sectors, private sectors, and public-private
combination. As shown from the interview responses, most clients are government
institutions at various level. They primarily come from local governments, tourism
administrations and agricultural offices. It should be noted that the frequent
involvement of agricultural offices is because of the trend of current policies
implemented by the Chinese government about establishing ‘the beautiful
countryside’. Apart from the public sectors, there are also some tourism development
projects which are directly authorized by property developers, i.e. private sectors.
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Most clients of this type, encountered during the fieldwork, are individuals, micro or
small enterprises, or several of them are united together, which implies the owners of
the client party of this type would frequently and directly participate in the project
process. It results in distinct implications in terms of the client demand, preferences,
and project knowledge activity as is evident by comparing these to other types which
will be presented in the later sections.
The third type of client, public-private combination, is also common in the TDC
industry which aims to make maximum use of both-parties resources. The specific
combination models between the public and private sectors are various, and some of
them are widely known and researched as DBFO (design-build-finance-operate), BOT
(build-operate-transfer) and PPP (public-private partnership) (see in Hall et al., 2003).
The researcher acknowledges that a further investigation into the influences about the
differences between these combination models can be a future direction for
investigation in this field as it indeed explains several interrelationships among the
units within the level of the client itself.
However, a detailed discussion about these categories will not be presented in this
research as the research is primarily undertaken from the perspective of TDCs. In the
meantime, it requires additional access to the various client communities which is far
beyond the researcher`s available resources. In addition, this research focuses on the
initial design stage of certain tourism product which implies the traditional definition
of some models overlaps with the government type used in this research. Take as an
example the BOT model, where the government only appears since the beginning of
the ‘conceptualizing’ stage, while the private sectors participate in the project after the
stage of ‘bid for investment’. In order to clarify the taxonomy of the client in this
research, only the model with both public and private sectors participants in the
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conceptualizing stage will be categorized into the third type, public-private
combination.
4.3.1.2 Client Demand
Different types of clients have different demands about projects. The private sector
type mostly takes consideration the ‘profit-led’ ability of the project. In contrast, the
needs of government clients are more complex. As for the financial profit perspective,
they actually need some outputs in many cases, at least to reach the balance between
input and output (04FC). Such desire for profit is weaker and less notable than
amongst the individual investor type. It was clearly shown in many project meetings
held between the core project team and the clients during the fieldwork.
To be more specific, the government client prefers the theoretical and abstract
perspective of the project as they wish the tourism development projects can have
broader implications and enhance local image (05ML). For instance, the client of
01FC`s recent tourism development project, the building and construction authority of
a certain county, clearly noted that they hoped the project can go beyond simply
seeking economic benefits, and develop a sustainable development template for the
whole region instead.
It should be noted that the client`s need of some ‘nominal’ tourism development
project is not just about the project itself. They primarily intended to use these project
documents to apply for grants or lands from other entities (e.g. higher-level
government). In most of these cases, the complete implementation of projects is
usually not going to happen: some projects stay ‘a picture’ on their walls to
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demonstrate their efforts (09FL). In this situation, apart from the reason of the client`s
initial primary need, another reasonable one is the conflict between the time period
required for implementing a relatively large tourism development project (e.g. a
municipal level tourism development project) and the frequency of government
succession.
In the context of the Chinese government system, the head of government can have a
significant influence on the policies and strategies of the region under his/her
jurisdiction. The heads of each term of government may have very distinctive ideas
about the tourism development aim of certain areas from the former term, and some
of them are more likely to make some their ‘own’ contributions and achievements
rather than carrying forward the previous plan (05ML). A detailed judgement of
tourism project implementation is not the objective of this research. But the
aforementioned situation will result in several implications for the knowledge flow
during the project process which will be discussed in the KM-related sections.
When the discussion turns to the public-private combination type, it becomes even
more complicated. Due to its composition, the public-private combination shares both
the preferences of the former two types which leads to new issues in the project
process about balancing the customer preferences among the stakeholders. Take an
example of one project in Case A which proposed to build dozens of mini agriculture
amusement parks. Those parks were intended to be transformed from the local
granges owned by different individual businessmen. The local government
represented by the agriculture office together with those businessmen to be a united
client and invited two project companies (one TDC (company A) and one advertising
company) to conduct overall tourism planning to their granges and farms (agriculture
tourism).
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A series of meetings were held between the project companies and the client to make
them understand each other’s knowledge and needs. The agriculture office, which
acted as a role of caller in the client party, attempted to make every relevant
businessman in the granges participate in the meeting in order to ensure the final
project document comprehensively seeks to take care of everyone`s interest. One
meeting was even delayed for half hour in order to wait for one of those businessmen
to attend. The consideration of every member in the client party (both the agriculture
office and the private sectors) contributed to their satisfaction (as reported by the team
members (Acw1, Acw2) who participated in the project presentation and review
meeting) to a large extent when the project document was present.
Although the client group had a shared vision and took care of everyone`s interest in
most cases, there are several negative cases. Here is an example told by 08MM. The
client was constituted of the local government and one large private company. The
government had a relatively dominant role in the client party as it offered land and
was in charge of the examination of project idea, while the private company was more
likely to be the investor that it offered the funds for implementing the project
outcome. When 08MM and his team presented the project document, the conflict
between the two parts appears in the client party which exactly corresponded to the
aforementioned different client preferences. The government was rather satisfied with
the project idea as it demonstrated to be superior, high class and sophisticated;
however, the private company rejected to invest in it as the required funding was
relatively large while the period of cost recovery was estimated to be too long. Each
refused to make a concession, so the project had to be shelved.
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The aforementioned different client demands also lead to the differentiation in the
clients` behaviours and the relevant knowledge activities during the project process,
which can be further explored in future works.
4.3.1.3 Attributes of the Connections between Clients and TDCs/
Characteristics of the Connectivity between Clients and TDCs
According to the projects which were discussed by the interviewees or observed in the
case studies, the patterns how clients and TDCs reach to each other before formally
conduct the project (i.e. sign the contract) are various (Figure 4.14).
Figure 4.14 How clients and TDCs connect to each other before formally conduct the
project
The situation was common where the clients were of the party who took the initiative
to seek for the TDC to obtain their service. Firstly, some clients are attracted by
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existing tourism products, and they then seek out the TDCs who previously developed
these products. According to the example project introduced by 05ML,
‘… The government of Tongli town wished to develop its wetland. So the government
attempted to find out the domestic wetlands which are well-designed. It came very
naturally that they call the city of Hangzhou to mind. A delegation was sent to do the
field investigation and was inspired by the tourism success of Xixi Wetland in
Hangzhou. Then the delegation reached out to Xixi Wetland Park administrative
board to ask about who did the planning for Xixi Wetland. The administrative board
introduced them to the project leader, Professor Z, who was responsible for the Xixi
Wetland tourism development project. As Professor Z was very busy that time, he
asked me to lead the project, and he acted as a consultant/advisor to this project. I was
responsible for the whole specific work.’
Note: 05ML who also participated in the Xixi Wetland tourism planning project who was Professor Z`s right-hand
man. 05ML is the company leader of a TDC, while Professor Z is one of the shareowners as well as being
consultants of that TDC. In addition, 05ML was a master degree student under the supervision of Professor Z, and
they retained a strong personal relationship after 05ML graduated.
Secondly, some clients made their choice of TDCs on the basis of other entities`
recommendation. Such a recommendation is usually generated because of the
previous co-operation between those entities and TDCs. Take an example told by
01FC which was about an overall tourism development project for Yunding village in
the city of Jinhua, for which case company A was responsible,
‘… its higher level of government, the town, conducted an overall town planning
before which xx (Al1) participated in. … (when the village had the willingness to be
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developed as a vacation destination) the town`s mayor recommended the project to xx
(Al1): He told the chief of village to find xx (Al1) to do this project …’
In addition, some entities make their recommendations because of their high
familiarity with the TDC industry and the reputation of certain TDCs in that industry.
For instance, it is very common that the town/village governments will inquire about
the suitable TDCs for their tourism development projects through the municipal
tourism administration. However, as for the clients of the private sector type which
probably have limited connection to the government, they will know and choose the
TDCs on the basis of some publicity channels, e.g. the company`s website. The
researcher heard a conversation between Bsd1 and the clients during the field work in
case B wherein the clients talking about their interests in a particular TDC because of
their qualification or their previous project listing on the website.
Furthermore, the TDCs actively have to look for orders sometimes. For instance,
when the researcher conducted the fieldwork in case B, only 3 project teams had their
project businesses, and the remaining 5 teams were idle. One common way to find
orders is through searching for the notifications about project bidding procedures on
the relevant government`s website. Once they find the bidding information for
suitable projects, they will contact the corresponding government for more details and
participate in the formal bidding procedures in order to obtain the order through
competing with other TDCs.
Apart from the instances in which the client and the TDC are new to each other, many
project businesses are based on established ‘loyalty’ interrelationships between both
parties. Although such connections are not always ‘secured’ by long-term contracts
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(which means they may not sign any contracts including promising future project
opportunities in written form), those relationships are usually rooted and maintained
from their previous satisfied corporation experiences with each other. For instance,
case company A has worked with the client of No.6 TDP for a series of tourism
projects at various levels for years. That government client is satisfied with those
project outcomes, and admires Al1`s strong sense of responsibility. Al1 has good
social skills to keep robust personal ties with the officials which further consolidate
the interrelationships between both parties. ‘Our future cooperation with them is very
promising as long as there are new project opportunities’ (Acw1).
In addition, despite the ‘one-off’ nature of tourism projects, the TDCs do have formal
long-term contracts with the clients occasionally. The researcher participated in a
signing ceremony of the strategic cooperation agreement between case company B
and a large horticulture and planting company named as SH (abbr.). There is a term in
the agreement which intentionally says company B should have the priority to obtain
the order when company SH proposes a new tourism-related project. This term
implies the long-term cooperation between both companies in the future projects.
4.3.1.4 Contacts in both Parties of TDP
The above discussion has already mentioned some hints with regard to the persons
who represent both sides during the course of project. It should be noticed that the
contact person may vary according to different project stages and different scales of
their entities. In the preparatory stage of projects, the contact persons on the TDC side
are usually the project director or the same level manager who are responsible for
business negotiations, while the contacts on the client side are the management who
are in full charge of the tourism-related work or the project. Take an example of a
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town-level tourism overall planning project in case B, the initial contact of the client
was the deputy township mayor being responsible for the agriculture, water supplies,
landscaping, rural cooperative economic management, and tourism of the whole town.
Bao1 is the person who contacted and got this order. Although her primary job is as
chief of the administration office, she was also occasionally required to participate in
the business negotiation and marketing.
After the initial contacts sign the contract and make the decision to conduct the
project, the contacts on both sides sometimes change, and this is left to their
subordinates who are specifically assigned to work out the project. As for a project of
case A in Longquan city, the initial contact of the client, the deputy chief of local
agriculture administration, assigned one officer Aclt1 to guide the field investigation
for the project team, and help the team with their requirements to accomplish the
project. In the meantime, the initial contact of the TDC, Al1, assigned Acw1 to
maintain day to day contact with Aclt1, and to secure the necessary information for
the project from the client side.
It should be noted that, the variation of contacts is influenced by a series of factors,
e.g. time availability, skill capabilities, status, labour division and etc. There were two
factors frequently being demonstrated during the field work which implies such a
change does not always happen. Firstly, the worry about the subordinates` lack of
social skills may prevent the leader from assigning the contact task to others. This
situation is very common when the TDC`s staffs are young and inexperienced, e.g. in
case company A. Just as Al1 said, ‘sometimes I can`t let them be in charge of the full
project. … They don't know how to deal with the clients properly… For example,
they don't know the implicit rule about how to prepare gifts for the client … (if I
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assign them to be the project leader) I`m afraid they will probably ruin the client
relation as well as the project.’
Secondly, the interrelationship between the TDC and the client are usually anchored
in the ties between the project director on the TDC side and the person in charge on
the client side, especially in the case of the projects with regular clients. Therefore,
the project director will attempt to ‘secure’ the personal ties to a certain degree by
holding them in his own hands. This phenomenon is relatively obvious in the case
company B, as there are eight project departments. Because of the aforementioned
competitive internal organizational climate in company B, ‘it`s not likely to happen
that the project directors of certain project department share their own client resources
to each other’ (Bsd1). Such defensive psychology can more or less be inferred to be
applicable in their relationships to their subordinates.
What`s more, contact persons, who represent the identity of their own side to each
other, by no doubt serve as the two ends of the connection bridge between the two
parties. Therefore, their characteristics, changes in them and the personal ties between
them will result in a series of implications for knowledge transfer in the project
process. Some parts of this perspective will be discussed or mentioned in the
knowledge transfer chapter, e.g. personal characteristics and personal ties. However,
the data about changing contact persons during the project period were very limited
on the basis of the field work, which hence requires further future investigation.
To sum up, the clients, which can be viewed as one of the most important entities in
the project ecology of TDP, has been introduced in this subsection. The researcher
initially classified the clients into three categories according to their different
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ownership backgrounds, and various general situations of these clients that the
researcher encountered during the fieldwork are also introduced. Different types of
clients lead to different demands about tourism development projects. Some of them
directly sought economic benefits from the projects, while the others might take
account of various aspects of project regions or expect to obtain more benefits beyond
the project itself. After that, the researcher introduced the various patterns and
attributes of the connections between the clients and the TDCs, and the contacts who
represent both sides during the course of project. During the discussion, these aspects
showed their potential roles in terms of knowledge transfer between both parties
which can be further explored in the future works.
4.3.2 External Consultant/Specialist
As known from the interviews and the fieldwork, developing a tourism product does
not only involve the matters of travel, sightseeing or amusement, but is also required
to cover almost every factor within the radius of the project, e.g. traffic, landscaping,
construction design, agriculture, crisis management, and etc. It implies that the
members of the core project team are usually insufficient for accomplishing the
project. The consultants come on stage in this context. The ‘consultants’ referred in
this section are the external consultants beyond the boundary of the TDC. They are
experienced individuals who provide professional services and advice to the TDP.
To be more specific, they can be further divided into two categories, advisors and
specialists. The advisors category refers to individuals who are usually senior and
owns extensive experience and rich knowledge in terms of the TDP. This type of
consultant normally does not directly participate in the production of project
documents. Instead, they mainly take part in the initial project stages, especially the
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project idea conceptualization process, and have significant impacts on the overall
project direction.
For instance, during the field work in case company A, Acons1 attended several
internal discussion seminars which were proposed to discuss the core idea and the
primary development direction of a certain TDP in the city of Jiande. He usually
spoke after every member of the core project team had presented their ideas. He
would summarize and analyse everyone`s ideas and then made a statement. His
statements were usually constituted of two parts: one was about several key points
which should be valued during the idea generation process of those projects, while the
other one was his core thoughts related to the core project ideas/directions which was
high-generalization, original, and usually incisive. The team attached a great deal of
value to his thoughts, and the core project ideas are usually based on these thoughts
plus other members` elaboration. Therefore, the impact of the advisors is significant
on the project, as they influence the main direction of the project team to a
considerable degree. It can be further demonstrated from the phenomenon that,
although Acons1 did not work with the project team after the end of the seminars, Al1
frequently quoted his previous words and sentences to the team members during the
remaining stages of those projects.
As for the specialists category, it refers to those persons who provide professional
services to supplement what the project requires but which are different from the core
team members` original knowledge. In general, they are directly responsible for the
production of certain special parts of project documents which are relevant to their
professional realms. 05ML described the role of the specialists as ‘Plug and Play’: ‘…
due to its complexity, if it (the project) requires some specific knowledge, we will
corporate with the people who enable to deal with. ... They are plug and play to us
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that our combination is not fixed. It totally depends on the nature of the project. If this
project is related to agriculture issues or that project is related to the life science, we
need to find the corresponding people.’
Sometimes the reason for engaging the specialists is not only their distinctive
knowledge realms, compared to the core team, but also they specialize in the same
field but have superior capabilities to the core team members in that field. For
instance, although there were usually one or two draftsmen in the team, the team
leader would outsource the job of some special graphics (e.g. engineering drawing,
effect drafts) to the specialists from a professional drafting company.
By contrast to the advisor category, the specialist-type consultants had less influence
on the whole project direction and the project idea generation process, as they hardly
attended the discussion seminars of the project and their workplaces were different to
those of the core team. They usually only contacted the project leaders or the member
who possessed relevant knowledge to their tasks. However, some specialists, who had
a relatively long history of interrelationships with the TDC, would occasionally be
asked (by the company leader) to teach some skills and experiences to the members
who had similar job descriptions to them. For instance, Adm1 told the researcher that
he learnt several techniques of using a certain drawing software from Acons2 through
their co-work experiences in the previous projects, and Al1 once asked Acons2 to
share his experiences in graphic drawing to the full-time employed draftsmen in case
company A (Acons2 was a senior employee of a construction company and acted as a
specialist in terms of engineering graphics for several projects of the case company
A).
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The sources of consultants are normally based on the social capital of project directors
or team leaders. One representative example is Professor Z mentioned in the last
section. Their credibility in the project is usually demonstrated through their
reputation (their reputation also influence the impression about the reputation of the
whole project team as perceived by the clients) in the industry and their history of
interactions within the TDCs, especially with the company leaders. In addition, the
source of consultant varies according to the characteristics of the TDC. For instance,
for the TDC which has existed for a relatively long history (e.g. case company B), the
retired top manager of the company will sometimes be re-employed back to the
company as a consultant. In regard to the TDC which possesses the background of a
university (e.g. the company operated by certain university), the teachers will
participate in the project in the form of consultants.
In addition, it is predictable that the salary of the consultants is usually paid by one-
off project-based rather than regular payments on terms: ‘it is impossible to keep all
these people (consultants) in the company as it requires too much money … and the
requirements of each project and client will vary … so some of them might be only
useful in one project … therefore we choose the mode of ‘plug & play’’ (05ML).
4.3.3 Other Project Companies
As mentioned before, due to the systematic and interdisciplinary characteristics of
tourism products, the core project team from the TDC sometimes may be insufficient
to meet every client`s need. Once the TDCs noticed this issue, they would connect to
certain consultants; however, when some of the clients would divide the original
project aim into several subprojects, and find corresponding companies (e.g.
advertising, construction, ecology design, and etc.) to undertake them in the same
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time frame. In these cases, the TDC and other project companies are in a mixed
relationship of both parallel relationship and iterative relationship, and their
work/knowledge influences the others to a certain degree.
Take an example of a project in case company A which was about developing a series
of agricultural bases into tourism attractions. There were two project companies
working on the project at the same time, case company A and an advertising company
OPC1. Company A was responsible for developing a master plan (No.1) for all the
farm bases and special themes for some key bases among them, so the content of its
subproject was relatively generalized and conceptualized. OPC1 was responsible for
the design of the decoration of those bases and the production of relevant promotional
materials which means its subproject was relatively visual. In order to match the
theme developed by company A and the decoration designed by OPC1, both
companies keep contact with each other during the whole project process through the
leaders of the respective teams. When the company A completed the first draft of the
project document, the first party received the draft was not the client: it was the OPC1
that Al1 asked the leader of OPC1 for his comments and advisors to the draft.
When the core project team from the mother firm and the team from other project
companies work jointly, the cooperation between them could be a challenge. The
extent of such challenges is closely interrelated to the project tasks which they
undertake respectively. Like the example of case-company A and OPC1 mentioned
above, although their projects are iteratively linked, their project tasks were actually
distinct from each other and belonged to different professional realms. In this context,
both teams hardly attempt to strive for the domination of the conversation between
them, and they valued the other one`s expertise in the respective fields and did not
raise any significant divisions or queries during their cooperation process.
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In contrast, the cooperation between company A and a team led by Professor Z was
not as smooth as that with OPC1. This case was introduced by 01FC who stated that
both teams were working on a project about conceptual planning for an ancient town
in terms of tourism development. Although Professor Z and Al1 had a strong personal
interrelationship with each other, it was the first time for cooperation between their
teams. Those two teams were having ‘fairly different ideas and practices’ (01FC). As
they were working jointly toward the same task, such divisions and the resulting
conflicts were frequently invoked. The result was that their cooperation was untimely
terminated: ‘In the end, XX (Al1) dominated the conversation and had a louder voice
in making decisions about the direction of the project idea generation. Then they (the
team of Professor Z) hardly participated (in the discussion of project) anymore’.
Just as mentioned in the client section, it is not always the client who finds all the
project companies to deal with the corresponding subprojects. For instance, the
strategic alignments between TDCs and other relevant project companies will also
contribute to whether they obtain orders from the other`s clients. It is a ‘win-win’ that:
For each order obtained from the other`s clients, the company will have 7%-10% of
the project price as a return. Furthermore, the quality of their interrelationship has a
significant causal relationship with their cooperation in the projects. On the one hand,
the familiarity between these parties rooted from their long history means that
cooperation will facilitate knowledge flows during the project process. On the other
hand, any unpleasant affairs in previous projects will result in deterioration, and
eventually the death of their alliance relations.
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For instance, during the field work in case company B, the researcher observed an
informal meeting between Bsd1 with a representative of a local famous large
construction company group (GS). The meeting was an initial connection between the
two companies which discussed the possibility of building their alliance relationships
in the future. During the meeting, the representative complained about a university-
based TDC which had been their last alignment and their relationship had ended
unpleasantly. The company GS considered that TDCs often ‘steal from them’ during
the project (although the representative did not clearly mention what were stole, from
the researcher`s understanding in that context she was referring to the ideas and
intellectual property rights of GS). Their cooperation was not very happy as GS felt
unequal with that partner: as that TDC was university-based, ‘there were many
professors and academics involved in the projects, and many of them have too high an
opinion of themselves. They thought they had a lot of knowledge and they were very
professional on the relevant issues. So they often instigate us to do something’. These
behaviours upset the leader of GS and gradually led GS to decide to end their alliance.
It should be noted that there are several exceptions to the connection between TDC
and other project companies. As for an example introduced by 04FC, she participated
in a tourism planning project for a provincial level tourism resort. The situation was
that several parts of the project land involved certain areas which were under planning
by the other company at the same time. Furthermore, the land belonged to one part of
the main urban area, and the planning of the main urban area was processing under
the guidance of another company. In total, there were three project companies
corresponding to three clients in 04FC`s case and the territories of their projects
overlapped with each other. So communication and coordination between these
projects were inevitable. In this case, the TDC where 04FC belonged to reached to the
other two project companies via the clients rather than directly contacting by itself.
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Although these companies served different clients during their respective projects,
their clients were actually in the same system that they belong to different levels of
government in that project region.
4.3.4 Local Community
Numbers of literature related to tourism development call for collaboration among
various stakeholders as being is the foremost path to success (e.g. Byrd, 2007;
Simpson, 2001). The complexity and systematic characteristics of tourism products
(e.g. destinations) not only imply the diversity of knowledge realms and
corresponding professional profiles that are required to be involved in the TDP.
Concurrently, these characteristics also imply the necessity of wide coverage of the
interests of most stakeholders related to the project environment. In this context, as far
as the physical tourism product is geographical locality based, the local community
where the project is located will be one of the most significant stakeholders. It should
be noted that, in most cases, the clients are local-based entities (e.g. local government,
local enterprises) and therefore the client can also be viewed as one of local
communities. In order to clarify the follow-up discussion and distinguish the various
terms, local community refers to the group of people sharing the project territory and
the surrounding areas, but not including the clients. For the perspective of TDC, the
involvement of local communities in the projects are usually indirect and the
intermediary entities are the clients. They are primarily present at the beginning and
the end stages of the projects (e.g. field investigation, project review meeting, public
notice of the project, and implementation) rather than the whole process. This
phenomenon leads to several implications for the role of local communities in the
project.
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In the first place, it implies the connection path between the local community and the
project. The entities from local communities, who have the chance to participate in
the project, are sometimes selected by the client according to the requirements raised
by both the TDC and the client itself. For instance, in a case introduced by 05ML, the
project leader asked the client party to organize one colloquia with the local
community in order to identify the interests and concerns of the entities within it and
the knowledge related to the project territory (e.g. local customs and practices, local
features and highlights).
Therefore, according to these (knowledge) requirements, the client (the local
government) not only noted the representatives of the local business owners (e.g. the
businessmen who operated the business of farm stay on the project arena) and the
local residents (the villager`s committee) who can represent the interests of the vast
majority of people related to the project, but also a retired middle school teacher who
‘was able to provide an articulate speech, had passion and knew the local culture well
’that can lead the project team to a further understanding about the local elements. In
addition, as long as the project has contact with the selected entities of the local
community, those entities will also introduce the TDC to other entities based on their
understanding of the project requirements which leads to a wider scale of the involved
local community.
The situation of ‘subjectively’ picking local communities primarily occurs in the
project stage of field investigation and information collection. When it moves to the
end stage (e.g. public notice of the project), the selection of the entities of local
communities is relatively more formal and institutional. 06MO introduced a relevant
institutional ‘selection’ process in the stage of project review and public notice that,
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‘When we produced our plan (the project document), it first requires asking for
comment on a relatively small scale (of people). Someone from the village level, e.g.
the villager`s committee, will come to read and discuss (with the team). … After
finishing the modification (of the document), the scale (of local communities involved)
will be enlarged. The enlarged scale normally involves the relevant government
departments to the project. … For instance, if the project land is located near a
reservoir or has a water channel in its area, then the water bureau is required to
come. Likewise, if there are several ancient trees and buildings in the project area,
then the forest bureau and the cultural bureau are also required to come. …When the
project passed the review stage, it will move to the public notice stage. The project
document will be notified to the public of the whole region for one month (in order to
collect feedback) … ’
Furthermore, this phenomena also implies the inconsistency and the fragmentation
about ‘who’ and ‘when’ with respect to the involvement of the local community in the
project process. No matter how they chose the involved entities (the initial
‘subjective’ selection or the latter ‘institutional’ process), the possibility of less than
comprehensive coverage of every interest of local communities always existed. For
instance, 07FL introduced a failed project which was about developing a wetland
resort. The area boundary of the project was pre-made at the beginning of the project,
and everything seemed smooth and fine for the local community within that area until
the project was going to be implemented. The villagers of a small village near the
project area complained about the possible traffic issues (due to the project proposing
to fence the wetland to exclude that village) and the economic issues (they wanted to
develop their own farm stays rather than follow the project plan to be managed
together with the other local businesses). The project team failed to anticipate these
reactions and balance these demands in advance which led to a series of troubles.
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What`s more, although the inconsistency of two selection methods at different project
stages seems to contribute to wider coverage of the entities of local community, it
may lead to the inconsistency of the participants during the project process which will
result in troubles if there are several conflicts between the participants in different
stages respectively. ‘The things wanted by A are not wanted by the others. But we
will never get the point until we meet them all or they choose to tell us’ (Adm1). This
situation can be aggravated by the weak connection between the project team and the
local community, especially in some cases: although the team and the local
community would leave their contact information to the others when they first meet
each other, ‘they hardly pick up their phones to actually make a call as they think
they`ve already made notes of everything’ (Adm1).
It should be noted that the internal relations within the group of local community itself
is very complicated and as diverse as the vast numbers of entities within it. Due to the
focus of this research being the TDCs, the specific social process of such internal
relationships will not be presented here in detail. But there is one phenomenon
observed by the researcher during the field work. Although such internal relationships
are complex, there is usually an initial balance between those entities. However,
during their contact processes with the TDC and the team, the original balance and
interrelationships will be temporarily upset and replaced by their positions/statuses in
the project to a certain degree. This argument was well demonstrated by a case project
in company A. There were three agriculture firms (X,Y,Z) in that project arena, which
in terms of their capital and influence in the locality are in a descending order of X,Y
and Z. However, Y owned most lands in the core project area which led the team to
take much more consideration of Y rather than of X.
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4.3.5 Summary
To sum up, the researcher introduced four primary entities of the epistemic
communities in the tourism development project: clients, external
consultant/specialist, other project companies, and local community. Different entities
play different roles in the TDP. As has been mentioned in the literature (e.g.
Thompson, 1991; Grabher, 2004a), clients play a highly significant role in project
activities. The importance of this role is also evident in this research. Not only do
clients initiate and invest the commissioning of the projects from the TDCs, but they
also have substantial influences on knowledge production during the TDP process.
For instance, in discussions about other project partners and the local community, the
client usually plays a key role in connecting these actors to the mother TDC. Such a
role can be viewed as ‘knowledge brokering’ which is about developing relationships
and enabling knowledge sharing among knowledge resources and knowledge users
(Johri, 2008; Lind and Persborn, 2000; Meyer, 2010; ).
Furthermore, as shown in subsection 4.3.1.2, the different types of clients have
different demands which forge the real goals of the TDPs. These different goals are
the drivers of the central requirements and measurements of project production and of
all the relevant KM activities. Furthermore, and echoing some early literature in the
relevant field (e.g. Amabile, 1997; Carson and Carson, 1993; Shalley, 1991), the
setting of these goals is observed to have connections with the processes of individual
creativity and the motivations in the knowledge creation process (see also subsections
5.1.1.5 and 5.1.2.1 of the KM chapter).
In some of the TDPs mentioned in the fieldwork, the TDCs do not possess all the
knowledge capabilities required by the clients` demands and goals. This therefore
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calls for supplementary or additional knowledge sources, i.e. external
consultants/specialists and other project companies. The involvement of these other
actors depends on the variable complexity and scale of different TDPs. They are not
only knowledge sources for the mother TDCs, but as knowledge users/producers they
participate in the actual production of the project in most cases. In contrast, the role of
the local community is more likely to be that of a knowledge resource rather than as a
form of co-worker, and co-producer of the project, during the TDP process. It is
necessary for the project team to take the community into account in order to broadly
cover the interests of the most relevant stakeholders for the sake of project success;
however, rather than directly participating in the production of project documents, the
involvement of the local communities in the TDPs is usually indirect through the
intermediation of the clients according to the field work. From this perspective, the
local community plays a role as an appurtenance of the client, which generates more
detailed requirements towards the project and contributes to a relatively deeper
knowledge of the project context.
This section has also attempted to further distinguish and classify subcategories and
situations for each of the broad categories in the epistemic communities. For instance,
it classifies the types of clients of the TDP according to their ownership background,
i.e. public sectors, private sectors, and public-private combination. This section has
also identified the potential for the diverse situations within these entities to have
variable influences in terms of knowledge relationships between them and the TDCs.
For instance, external consultants are further distinguished into the advisor category
and the specialist category according to their different roles during the project
process. While the advisor category mainly takes part in the project idea
conceptualization process which influences the overall project direction, the specialist
category is directly responsible for the production of certain specialised parts of the
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project documents depending on the nature of the project. It should be noted that, due
to the limited time and resources possessed by the researcher, that his field work
cannot fully cover all these entities. It hence requires further future research efforts to
investigate the role of the specific attributes of the epistemic communities and their
connections with the TDCs in terms of the knowledge transfer between these two
parties.
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4.4 Full Project Teams (Core Project Team; Outside Members)
Based on his previous relevant work experience in terms of tourism development
projects and participation in fieldwork, the author believes that the project team can
be treated as the most knowledge-intensive space during the process of the tourism
development project. Such understandings of the role of project teams echo the
responses from the interviewees and the conversations between the researcher and the
participants in the case studies. As such, the project team is recognized as the key
actor bearing the primary responsibility for the conceptualization and design of the
entire project. In this subsection, the researcher will discuss several characteristics of
and relevant information about the project team in the context of this study. The
discussion starts with the form and configuration of the full project team, and then
focuses on the core team and the specific situations of this aspect in the case studies.
4.4.1 The Form and Configuration of the Project Team
The first has a kind of ‘egg’ form, which consists of a core team and is supplemented
by several occasional/temporary team members (Figure 4.15). This form of team is
the most common in the TDC industry, which is a kind of firm-based team wherein
the core team is constituted primarily of the permanent employees from the TDC,
while the occasional/temporary team members are employees from other departments
and external consultancies. Besides the project team leader, there are generally three
to four members within a core team (as shown from the interview responses and all
three case studies), two copywriters, and one or two draftsmen. ‘This number of
members is quite enough for the main jobs of one regular size project on most
occasions. In some specific cases, it can vary up to a maximum of five or six members
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when the project scale is very large and complex, and can also decrease to only one
person if it`s a quite small project’ (04FC).
Figure 4.15 ‘Egg’ form of project team of TDP
Note: The term egg form is used in the thesis in order to visually describe the form of the project
team which was mainly grounded in the single TDC, and which also symbolizes certain
characteristics of this form: e.g. the core team is symbolized as the yolk which represents its
central role in the overall project team.
It has been found in some examples in the field work that a relatively large project
(e.g. a county-level or regional-based tourism development plan) requires a team
consisting of one team leader, two copywriters, one draftsman, and one external
consultant. However, in terms of a relatively smaller project in the same company
(e.g. a project to modify the simplified business plan in one tourism street) , Al1
assigned just one copywriter to be responsible. Although the famous saying states that
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there is ‘strength in numbers’, an increase in team-member numbers will not linearly
increase the project’s output: not only because of the associated staffing costs, but
also ‘the larger the teams, the more difficulties in terms of coordination and
cooperation around them: each of them will have their own thoughts that are distinct
from others’ (04FC). The example of such difficulties can be reflected in the section
on other project companies, which talked about the cooperation between Company A
and another team from the other organization led by Professor Z, as well as in the
later knowledge management chapter about the cooperation issue between
copywriters and draftsmen.
Furthermore, unlike the overall project team, which may vary from project to project
—and which corresponds to the traditional notion of the temporality of project teams
mentioned in DeFillippi and Arthur (1998) —the combination of the core team of the
TDP will not be dissolved in many cases. For instance, there were only three
permanent employees (excluding the researcher) in Company A to begin with. This
limited manpower had to deal with all the project work, so there was no room for
adjusting the team’s composition.
A similar situation was also reflected in Company B. Although it was a larger
company with far more employees than Company A, its manpower had been allocated
to different departments. As mentioned in the firm section, most departments of
Company B (no matter whether it is nominally project-related or not) had to
undertake project work due to its salary system. From this perspective, ‘although they
are ‘many’ in total, they are still ‘few’ in parts’ (04FC; 05ML): each department can
be viewed as a micro ‘Company A’ so that the departmentalization of employees
originated in a series of project teams with relatively permanent composition of the
staff in the same department. Furthermore, the institutions of Company B (e.g. each
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department was assigned its own target of project benefit annually) implies relatively
less employee mobility among departments which further results in the stationarity of
the core team composition in each department.
A somewhat counterexample can be found in the case of Company C (before the
change of its organizational structure mentioned in the firm section). Here, the
project-related staff were not specifically allocated into certain departments or teams
so that some of them would be temporarily organized into a project team when the
company received the project orders, and the selection of team leaders and members
was usually conducted by Cl1 and Cl2. It should be noted that, although it appears
that the temporality of team composition can be seen in this case, just as mentioned in
the previous firm section, there still can be found several latent fixed combinations
between certain staff. This was due to their mutual trust and familiarity which had
developed through previous projects as well as the consideration of their trust,
familiarity and resulting cooperation from the leaders (which will be mentioned in the
later KM chapter).
Beyond the core team, the occasional team members within the firm boundary involve
a project director, technical director, business manager, and other internal specialists.
To be more specific, the project director is the immediate supervisor of the project
leaders, who is primarily responsible for the overall operational management of the
projects (e.g. staffing). The job of the technical director, by comparison to the project
director, is less operational and much more technical (e.g. directly related to project
ideas, text structure, or other specific questions related to tourism development) in
terms of specific project work that he controls, or has a substantial influence on the
general direction of project idea development. The business manager is mainly
responsible for the dimension of marketing, e.g. business negotiation with the clients.
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Although these occasional team members were not as regularly involved as the core
team members in the whole period of the project, their participation was usually at the
so-called ‘key node’ of the project period, e.g. the initial discussion meeting about the
project’s main theme, ideas and structure, and the discussion meeting about the
completed first draft of project document. It should be noted that such clear job
partition only happens in relatively large TDCs, e.g. in the case of Company B (even
in Company B, not every team has these three roles separately). In the micro or small
TDC (e.g. in the case of companies A & C), the company leader usually holds the
concurrent posts of all these three positions, and sometimes even involves the project
leader. Likewise, the large TDCs (e.g. Company B) may hire a series of internal
specialists from different disciplines (e.g. transport management, water supply
management, etc.) in order to fulfil the multivariate requirements of numerous
projects in time; however, the expenditures for employing multiple internal specialists
as permanent employees would be a big challenge for the relatively small scale TDCs
(e.g. companies A & C), so they use external consultants as an alternative, as
mentioned previously.
The second form is a kind of ‘round table’ format, in which the whole project team is
divided into several sub-teams (Figure 4.16). This form can usually be seen in
relatively large and comprehensive projects, which need to deal with various issues in
terms of complicated systems and multiple disciplines in order to accomplish the
project. Each sub-team will be respectively assigned a set of objectives which
correspond to their team’s specialities, e.g. the project team from the TDC is one of
the sub-teams which is specialized in terms of the tourism development discipline.
The team leaders of these sub-teams unite to form a core team which coordinates and
synthesizes the efforts of the sub-teams to accomplish the overall project. One of the
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leaders of the sub-teams may also be selected to hold a concurrent post of the leader
of the core team.
Figure 4.16 ‘Round Table’ form of project team of TDP
Note: the number of seven sub-teams shown in the graph is an implication of the multiple teams
involved in a particular project, and the number herein does not have any specific meaning.
05ML gave the researcher an example of this form of team. There were seven
members (including the leader) in the core team, and each of them was specialized in
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certain aspect of TDP-related disciplines: ‘our team composes various members from
all aspects that are needed, e.g. construction, ecology environment, landscaping
design, tourism planning, etc.’ (05ML). Each of them might be from different
organizations and led a sub-team which corresponded to their specializations: For
instance, ‘XX is a designer from China’s National Academy of Fine Arts. We
assigned him to take responsibility for the conceptualization … design …
construction drawing and all the other jobs related to visually design of the ‘shell’
tourist centre… His part accounts for 1/7 of our team, and within this 1/7, he has his
own small team (working for his assigned objectives)’ (05ML).
The rationale behind this form of team is fairly apparent, not only because of the
variety of knowledge required by the project objectives, but also due to the
consideration of the operational costs for the project business: ‘within one team, it is
impossible to ‘equip’ all required people… so (this kind of) team formulation (the
way to formulate a whole project team with other teams from other companies) is a
very good thing for the people like us, who are running our own businesses, to control
the overall cost… our enterprise cannot solely afford the costs of the whole team
(including the members of the sub-teams)’ (05ML).
Likewise his description of consultants, 05ML describes the variety of sub-teams in
different projects as ‘plug and play’—according to the variety of requirements of
different TDP. In fact, from the perspective of TDC per se, the collaboration between
it and other sub-teams can be viewed as one of its collaborations with ‘other project
companies’ discussed earlier. In addition, the assembly of the core team in the case
mentioned by 05ML was slightly different from the other project team discussed
before: rather than temporarily combined/united by the client or the TDC itself, the
connection between these members of the core team had existed in relatively stable
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personal networks for a long period: ‘these people have been cooperative partners all
the time. We have known each other since very early on, and we are not only partners
in business, but also have a good friendship with each other’ (05ML). On the basis of
this cooperation pattern, the leader of the core team was selected to be the one who
not only possessed the relatively higher reputation, attainments, and experience in
terms of TDP, but also acted as the ‘hub’ of that social network that had relatively
closer and more intensive connections with other members.
4.4.2 The Core Teams
The core team is the starting point around which the project ecologies revolve
(Grabher, 2004a), and bears the core responsibility for the entire project activities.
The researcher will further deconstruct the core teams in the following pages.
4.4.2.1 Professional Profiles in the Core Teams
There are primarily three roles in the core team - a project leader, copywriters, and
draftsmen. The core responsibility of the project leader is to ensure the team
completes the project successfully (within budget, on schedule, and meeting the
client`s requirements). Then, the copywriters mainly are responsible for the linguistic
content of the projects. Their typical responsibilities include researching the project
background; producing original, suitable, and feasible ideas; and writing the main part
of the project documents. In the meantime, the draftsmen are responsible for the
standard graphic content of the projects, and they produce the necessary graphs (e.g.
information graphs, topography sketch maps, brief sketches) to supplement the
linguistic descriptions supplied by the copywriters.
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It should be noted that, sometimes the roles of copywriters and draftsmen overlap, for
various reasons. For instance, Al1 frequently told Adm1 he should learn more about
how to literally organize his ideas and write the documents, while Acw1 and Acw2
were sometimes also responsible for producing or modifying some graphs. It is not
only some team members` willingness to broaden their skill profiles or their active
working attitudes that help to ensure the project is completed on schedule, but also the
leader`s desire to make maximum use of the employees, even if limited. Such a
situation to a certain degree implies the pursuit of the notion of functional flexibility
(Paulhus and Martin, 1988) in Company A, which is about the organization`s
capability to train, adjust, and deploy the individual employees to perform various
kinds of jobs. As mentioned in the work of Peláez-Ibarrondo and Ruiz-Mercader
(2001) SMEs can reduce their personnel costs by introducing functional flexibility. To
a certain degree, this explains why such a phenomenon can usually be seen in the case
of Company A, the micro size TDC, rather than in the other two companies which
have relatively abundant manpower.
Furthermore, according to 07FL`s response, this phenomenon also more or less links
to the styles of the core teams. More specifically, each team has its unique features:
some old-fashioned teams tend to be more academic, and they are more likely to use
lengthy written language to express the project’s content in a very detailed and logical
way (which can be labelled the text school). In contrast, some teams prefer expression
in graphs (which can be labelled the image school): they believe the clients will not
spend too much time reading every single word in the document, and will be more
interested in the recapitulative outlines and straightforward graphs, rather than over-
detailed arguments. In this style of team, graphs account for more propositions than
text in their project documents, which therefore requires the copywriters to be capable
of producing both text and pictures during the project process.
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The styles of core teams are evolving through time. Some teams of the image school
are not born with this style. As several interviewees (e.g. 01FC, 07FL) commented,
the factors influencing the evolution of team styles are diverse, e.g. clients’
preference, industry trends, etc. The foremost factor is the team leader, something
which will be further discussed in the next section.
4.4.2.2 The Role of Team Leader
There were differences in terms of the functions of team leaders in different case
companies. For instance, as mentioned in the section 4.3.1, the team leader in case A
and case B held the concurrent posts of project director, technical director, and
business manager, which were separated as distinct job positions in the case B.
Nonetheless, team leaders have dominating influences on their teams in all cases of
the field work. Their preference/style to approach the project documents decide the
features of their teams, and the other influential factors mentioned above need to be
enabled through the acceptance of team leaders (i.e. the flexibility characteristic and
the absorptive capability of the team leaders) to a great extent. This is just one
element of the role of team leaders in their project teams and the project’s activities.
To be more specific, their influences in TDP can be primarily classified into the
following categories according to the interviewees` responses and the fieldwork:
Dominate the features of project outcome: as mentioned before, the project leader
makes almost all decisions in terms of the ideas and concepts of the projects. Their
degree of openness to the suggestions of = other team members varied from case to
case in the field work, due to their different leadership styles (e.g. directive or
participative leadership). This is something that will be discussed in the later KM
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chapters. ‘The level of the leader`s mind determines the level of the entire project. …
If he decides the project direction should be this way, it is very hard to turn it back by
the subordinates that everyone will or have to follow his direction and achieve his
ideas.’ (01FC). Therefore, their personal knowledge and preference influence the
direction of the projects to a great extent. 05ML mentioned that a creative and
productive team should have a team leader who has the nature of a ‘wolf’, which is to
be aggressive and motivated. ‘Such kind of team leader can bring the blood of passion
to the whole team’. Furthermore, such dominating role is represented since the project
leaders are usually the ones who organize and integrate all the parts of the team
members` efforts into the final draft of project documents.
Manage the operation of project team: naturally one of the job descriptions of
project leaders should be that their core responsibility is to ensure the team completes
the project in budget, on schedule, and meeting the client`s requirements. In some
large TDCs (e.g. Company B), there will be an additional and higher-level position
called project director, who is primarily responsible for the overall operational
management of the project portfolios, and the core team leader in these cases take on
fewer operational responsibilities and focuses more closely on the project work itself.
09FL suggests that the team leader need be a person who has several characteristics of
‘calm and steady’, in order to steadily forge ahead the daily operation of projects.
Rather than simply daily supervision of the project progress, the team leaders are also
responsible for strategically assigning tasks and distributing the proportion of bonuses
to the team members. Take the example of task assignments: the project leaders are
all responsible for assigning tasks to team members in the three case studies.
However, the foundations of their relevant decision-making are different from each
other. For instance, the team leader of case Company A allocated the work tasks on
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the basis of the members` time availability, while in case Company C’s assigned the
tasks according to the members` different competencies (this became more apparent
after Company C restructured its organization). As for Company B, when it refers to
the work tasks within the single project, the decisions were based on somewhere
between these two situations of cases A and C. However, when it refers to allocating
project orders to certain project teams, the project director usually proposed to
distribute the orders to the one who obtains those orders at first.
Negotiate to other actors in the project activities: as mentioned in the chapter on
epistemic communities, the team leader acts as the key communication node between
the core team and the other actors in project ecologies. The interviewees frequently
mentioned the importance of communication between the team leader and the clients,
an area where they occupy a privileged intermediary position. ‘The project leader is
the closest person to the client. They will communicate more frequently. Therefore,
the project leader knows more about what is the client`s demand… The way by which
satisfy the client should be the right way rather than the way the project members
prefer’ (04FC).
Furthermore, the team leaders are viewed as a kind of sluice gate mediating between
the client and the project team. Some leaders are a bit ‘soft’ when they face the
clients, so they will follow whatever the client says, even some exaggerated
requirements. In this context, the team members are more likely to face some
unpredictable and overwhelming pressures. ‘On one occasion, the client told the
leader that he required the first draft of the project document within one week and we
just took the orders: the leader didn't bargain with him and instead forced us to finish
it within the required schedule … it of cause negatively impacted on the quality of
that document’ (Acw2).
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Such pressure is not always on the client side, and sometimes it may be generated by
the team leader himself. 04FC introduced an example of a project leader who
possessed an early professional background in marketing that implied his relatively
vivid personality: ‘He will introduce a lot of unrestrained and vigorous style ideas to
the client. His thinking is very active. But some of his ideas are unfeasible to achieve.
… He likes bragging to the clients, but we cannot actually write those ‘day dreams’ in
the documents. … We have to spend much more effort to modify and rationalize
those ideas’. From the team members` perspective, they need team leaders who can
‘sweet-talk’ the clients rather than simply communicate with them, which means he
can not only describe an attractive enough project concept to the clients, but also give
enough space to the team members in terms of both ideas and operations.
Build a communicative team culture: The team leaders are not only responsible for
outward communications, but also for fostering a communicative team culture. This is
intended to enable effective and smooth internal communications and to increase team
members` creativity and productivity. In order to achieve this, one foremost element
is the personalities of team leaders. ‘The team leader is fairly important (in terms of
knowledge sharing) so that, what he is like, will also be what the team turns out like.
… If the team leader is a kind of ‘lone wolf’ who prefers to be free and alone and
doesn't like to share, the others—even those who originally lived to share—are more
likely not to share anymore’ (07FL).
Furthermore, by combining with the personality, the interrelationship between team
leader and team members will also influence the fostering communicative team
culture: ‘As far as I know, several good team leaders are very respectful of their
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subordinates. They will not look very powerful and assertive. … To be honest, no
designer will like the too dominating leader that will make him feel like his own ideas
cannot be fully elaborated and that his ability cannot be fully exhibited. He will feel
himself to be similar to a machine: what the leader says, what the team members do…
Then no one will like to share their ideas …’ (07FL). 07FL also gave an example that
‘In our company, there`s one team leader who is fairly assertive, and imperious. He
has a very bad temper, and he often abuses others. When you did anything wrong, he
would abuse you. So his subordinates never dare to advise him …’. This raises the
question of the role of relationships between managers, especially in moderating each
other’s behaviour – but this topic lies beyond the scope of this thesis.
Among these four roles, it has been shown that some of personalities and skills
required are different, and may contradict each other. There is no perfect man or
woman, and this includes team leaders. It implies each team leader has his or her own
characteristics, and hence distinct roles in the project process, which also leads to
various internal team environments and the resulting KM activities that will be further
discussed in the KM chapter.
4.4.2.3 Team Leader and Members of the Chosen Case Studies
The researcher took part in the project activities of the three case studies, and acted as
a regular copywriter of respective project teams. Several brief profiles of the team
leaders and relevant permanent staffs, based on the researcher`s perspective and
informal interviews with these actors, will now be presented.
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Case Company A: The researcher participated in the main production processes of
the planning text of five projects in Company A (No.1, No.2, No.7, No.8, and No.9
TDPs), while partly participated in certain stages of another five projects (No.3, No.4,
No.5, No.6, and No.10 TDPs). Among most of these projects, the composition of the
core team remained stable: Al1 as team leader, Acw1 as deputy and main copywriter,
Acw2 and the researcher as copywriters, and Adm1 as main draftsmen. In most times,
Al1 held the concurrent posts of both company leader and team leader. He had high
social capability that he held high-quality personal relationships with the other actors
of project ecologies including his team members. Some key staff were his students
before they graduated from the university, and they had kept good relationships and
had positive interactions since that time. They called him a ‘big brother’ personally.
Such good relationships between them helped stabilize the staff turnover rate for a
relatively long time, although the payment level of Company A is far less than the
average level of the general TDC industry.
Furthermore, he was an impressionable person who leads him to have an open mind
and good absorptive capability to creative ideas (especially to those from the senior
experts of the industry and the external consultants). However, he did sometimes act
like a ‘butterfly’ which can easily be attracted to the ‘flowers’: during the project
process, he frequently changed the preceding ideas to the fresh ones which he just
knew from the others and felt interesting. It made the team members feel confused
during their attempts to follow his thoughts according to the responses in the field
work. Furthermore, he acted very dominantly and powerful during the project work,
for example in the idea discussion meetings. He often seemed to (orally) accept and
approve the other members` ideas, but actually ignored or denied most ideas
(especially when the ideas were directly related to the core concepts of the projects)
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and used his own ideas. The staff often felt frustrated and questioned their own
abilities which negatively impacted on the members` work enthusiasm.
In this context, the staff still treated Al1 as a brother and accepted low wages. The
researcher discovered three reasons for this, by talking with the staff and considering
his own experience. Firstly, Al1 told the staff that he has given them an average wage
which was actually false (or in other words, much lower than the information known
from the other participants from the other TDCs), and some of them did not know the
actual payment level in the industry (maybe Al1 did not know either that the
researcher cannot judge). Secondly, some of the staff felt too troubled to find a new
job (e.g. Acw2) or felt too shy to tell Al1 about how they wanted to leave (e.g.
Adm1). Thirdly, there is a kind of ‘relation-oriented’ social culture in China, and the
interrelationship between Al1 and the staff was indeed good, which also led to
binding them to the company.
As for the team members, they had good personal relationships with each other.
Although Acw1 was a very irritable person, the personalities of Acw2 and Adw1
complemented Acw1’s, so that they could embrace her to a great extent: Acw2 was a
careless member, and personally she seemed to care little about how others treated
her. Adw1 was a very easy-going and good-natured man, and there had never been a
cross word between him and others. The good personal relationships more or less led
the communicative environments within the team to be good, such that the team
members kept frequent communication with each other and discussed the project
work immediately when issues arose. However, according to the informal
conversation between Al1 and the researcher, he complained several times about the
single loop communication between him and the team members and said that he
hardly receives feedback from his subordinates.
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Case Company B: The researcher mainly participated in two projects in Company B
(No.11, and No.12 TDPs), while also participated in the idea discussion meeting of
No.13 TDP. There were four actors within the project teams, including the team
leader and the researcher: Bcw1 as the team leader and copywriter, the researcher as
the main copywriter, and Bdm1 and Bdm2 as the draftsmen. Apart from the four
members of the core team, there was another staff located in the same office: Bsd1 as
the head of the department as well as the business manager for the projects. These five
staff all nominally belonged to the strategic development department, and one of its
functions was similar to ‘project management office’ (PMO). Beyond the department,
there was a direct supervisor (Bl2) who was also the project director for those two
projects. The description will start from Bl2, then Bcw1, and the other members.
Bl2`s office was not located together with the others, so there were few chances to
observe him. Furthermore, as he was one of the top managers of the companies, he
had quite a lot of affairs to deal with which meant the researcher had fairly limited
time to become familiar with him. However, from Bsd1 and Bdm1`s description of
Bl2, they thought he was the best manager in the company; he was very dependable,
unassuming, highly professional in the business, and truly nice to his subordinates.
Bl2 participated several times during the two projects` processes, and he was a good
listener from the researcher’s perspective. Taking an example of an idea discussion
meeting: although he was in the highest position of all the participants, he gave more
rights of speech to Bcw1, and other members. He only set a framework or general
direction for the project idea generation, and gave all others scope for creativity.
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However, Bl2 still had his own limitations, mainly in terms of his communication. He
had a relatively thick accent so that sometimes it seriously limited the potential for
meaningful conversation and knowledge transfer, especially for the people who were
unfamiliar with him. Although this problem could sometimes be eased through the
increase of familiarity (e.g. Bcw1 and Bsd1 complained little about it), it could be
worse when there was lack of effective conduit to feedback this issue. This is so as it
would be rude and offensive to the speakers, who might not like when the audience
frequently stops and checks the conversation with them.
Bcw1 had a relatively high education background and fairly professional skills in
terms of TDP so Bl1 and Bl2, the top two managers of Company B, had very high
opinions of him. He had excellent presentational skills and projected a high-wattage
aura so that he could easily hold the situation when contacted to the clients to ensure a
balance between both sides: the clients and the project team. Furthermore, he was
very hardworking and was usually the last person to leave the office. However, he
was not good at leadership in that his working style was that of a typical ‘lone wolf’;
in other words, he could be the best as himself alone, but his team could hardly
execute resultant force and obtain strong performance. He rarely supervised, urged or
provided detailed feedback to his subordinates.
The style of cooperation between his team members and him was like the following
description: when the subordinates conducted their work, Bcw1 hardly supervised
their progress or proactively check whether they met challenges or not; when the
subordinates finished their parts of work and sent it to Bcw1, he would just say some
vague evaluations (those vague evaluations were viewed as mere posturing from the
perspective of Bdm2) rather than provide detailed feedback to their works; after that,
Bcw1 would finish all the remaining jobs until the production of the final documents.
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Although it seemed that it was really easy for the team members to work with him, as
he never pushed any pressure on them, team members would feel confused about how
they could better cooperate with Bcw1 and how to improve the project abilities of
themselves.
As for the other team members, although the individual differences among them were
notable (the personalities between Bdm1 and Bdm2 were countered with each other to
a certain degree, in that Bdm1 was very irritable and impatient, while Bdm2 was a
kind of troublemaker who often caused small troubles during the project processes),
they kept a relatively harmonious atmosphere during project process that the key
facilitator of it was Bsd1. She had excellent social skills, further demonstrated through
the situations where Bl1 and other top managers often asked for her participation in
contact with clients and external partners. In the project process, although she did not
directly participate in the production of project documents, she was able to take care
of everyone`s emotional set points and unite the staff of her department together as a
whole.
Although the working atmosphere was generally good, they did not have close
personal relationships with each other. Their relationships were merely related to the
work they shared in common, and latent barriers between staff can still be perceived.
The influences of this situation to the project works will be further discussed in the
KM chapter.
Case Company C: The researcher participated in the production process of just one
project in the case of Company C (No.14 TDP), due to time limitations. There were
three actors within the project teams: Ccw1 as the team leader and main copywriter,
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the researcher as a copywriter, and Cdm1 as the draftsman. Beyond the core team, Cl1
acted both as the company leader and the project director of that project.
Likewise with Bl2 in the case of Company B, Cl1 was highly professional in the TDP
and deeply trusted by his subordinates. He also set a conceptual framework and
general idea generation direction for the project, and seldom influenced the project
team in other scopes of creativity. Furthermore, due to his background in government
and military, he had very good social skills and knew how to integrate himself with
the staff. He kept good personal relationships with all staff, and most of them treated
him as their ‘grandfather’.
Ccw1 was very hard-working, but sometimes an over-rigid person. She would write
down every sentence of Cl1 in the discussion meetings, and treat them as inviolable
commands which led to a series of difficulties when trying to secure the others`
cooperation with her. Furthermore, she was a typical introvert, in that she had no
personal relationships with other team members after work. It also led to little daily
communication within the project team, and relatively little feedback or supervision
during the project process (although it was a bit more than Bcw1). The situation was
worsened by the detached workplaces of the team members. From the perspective of
the researcher, the individuals were more likely to generate social interaction with
those individuals who sat in the same office, especially with the people whose seats
were quite close to them, and vice versa. Take for example of the lunchtime in the
case of Company C. Ccw1 always had lunches with the people who were in the same
office, rather than with the researcher and Cdm1—who were in another office.
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In addition, Cdm1 was a new staff member to Company C. He lacked social skills and
many other staffs felt weird about him, although he kept trying to integrate himself
into the company. It also negatively impacted the intra-team communication
environment. However, the cooperation with him was smooth, and he was hard-
working and had relatively abundant experiences and techniques in his professional
realm. He was a good listener and willingly carried out the demands of the
copywriters.
4.4.3 Summary
To sum up, this subsection mainly discussed several relevant attributes of project
teams in the context of tourism development projects, and reviewed the specific
situations of project teams in each case study. There are two main forms of project
team observed during the fieldwork. One is the ‘egg’ form team, which is a kind of
firm-based team that the core is primarily constituted of the permanent employees of
from the TDC, while the occasional/temporary team members are employees from
other departments and external consultants. The other form is the ‘round-table’ team,
which consists of several sub-teams from different organizations; each sub-team is
responsible for a certain key aspect of the project. Several hints can be seen from the
discussion that the scale and the complexity of the project (which imply the amount
and the complexity of required knowledge) primarily influences the form and
configuration of the full project team.
After the discussion of the form and configuration of the full project team, the
researcher then focused on the core of the core, i.e. the core team. The professional
profiles within the core team have been discussed first—mainly relating to job
responsibilities of copywriters and draftsmen and the variation of those
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responsibilities in different situations. Then the role of the team leader was presented,
according to the to the interviewees` responses and the researcher`s own
understanding from field observations. In the last part, specific characteristics and
situations of the team leader and members of the core project teams were identified
within the case studies. This exhibited several hints related to their diverse behaviours
and performances, in terms of knowledge management, something which will be
further discussed in later chapters.
4.5 Concluding notes about project ecology
This chapter starts with a section which introduces general information about TDPs in
China focussing on the classification and the general requirements of different types
of TDPs. This identifies that there are two main types of TDPs, i.e. tourism
development plans and tourism area plans. The former e aims to establish a target
system to facilitate (usually sustainable) development of the tourism industry in
certain areas, while the general aim of tourism area plan is about planning, deploying,
and specifically arranging every tourism element so as to protect, develop, utilize and
manage the tourism area in order to facilitate achievement of its multiple functions
and roles. After this overview of TDPs in China, the research then introduces brief
information is provided about the 14 TDPs that the researcher had participated in
during the case studies of the three TDCs. This discussion not only covers the basic
information about those TDPs (e.g. their planning objectives and the types of those
TDPs), but also introduces the role of researcher and the other actors involved in each
TDP. Furthermore, it also introduces the distinctive features of each TDP which
characterize and differentiate them. Some features will be further mentioned in the
subsequent discussions.
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After the introduction to the TDPs, this chapter then presents three main groups of
actors involved in the project ecology of TDPs which are the mother firm, other
epistemic communities, and full project team. Mother firm refers to the tourism
development companies (TDCs), which stand for the basic commercial agency in the
tourism development industry and are the main source of project team members. This
part of the chapter starts with an overview of TDCs in China along with the
development of the tourism industry in China (Subsection 4.2.1). It can be seen that
the features of the different development stages of the tourism industry have led the
evolution of tourism planning characteristics and the corresponding variation of the
focus of the TDCs. After that, Subsection 4.2.1 also introduces the official
classification of TDCs in China and what may be termed some popular or ‘slang’
classification which is widespread in the industry. The subsequent subsections present
the characteristics of the mother TDCs of the case studies including their capital
background, location, qualification classification, size, staffing, and other operational
matters. These TDCs exhibit distinctive characteristics which contribute to
contextualising the later comparative discussion of KM issues in different companies.
Following the discussion of the mother firm, Section 4.3 introduces the other
epistemic communities. Other epistemic communities refer to the other entities ‘who
contribute to the production of knowledge to accomplish the specific task, even if
only temporarily and partially’ (Grabher, 2004a: 1493). According to the field work,
the group of other epistemic communities covers clients, external consultants, other
project companies, and local communities in the context of this research. In each
entity, the researcher presented its general information and several key attributes, as
well as the connection between it and the TDCs during the project process. Within the
discussion, it identifies the potential that the diverse situations within these entities
lead to various influences in terms of knowledge activities between them and the
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TDCs. Furthermore, Section 4.3 also presents the different ways of connection
between the other epistemic communities and the mother TDCs. These forms of
connection further confirm the significance of the individuals and the personal
network in terms of the project ecology. For instance, the interrelationship between
the TDC and the client are usually anchored in the ties between the project director on
the TDC side and the person in charge on the client side.
After the discussion of the mother TDCs and other epistemic communities, the
discussion of the full project teams is presented in Section 4.4. Initially, it presents
two forms and configurations of the full project team according to the field work. The
first form (the ‘Egg’) is the most common in the TDC industry. It is a kind of firm-
based team wherein the core team is constituted primarily of the permanent
employees from the TDC, while the occasional/temporary team members are
employees from other departments or external consultancies (such as the external
consultants/specialists mentioned in the Section 4.3.2 ). The second form (‘Round
Table’) can be found in some relatively large and comprehensive projects. It is a kind
of cross-firm team whereby one sub-team based on the TDC (usually the ‘Egg’ form
per se) is incorporated with sub-teams from other organizations (such as other project
companies mentioned in the Section 4.3.3) to form the overall project team. Within
this, each sub-team is responsible for certain aspects of the TDP.
Then, the research explores the core team, which is the centre of the project ecology
and bears the core responsibility for the entire project activities (Grabher, 2004a). It
initially presents the professional profiles within the core team including the project
leader, copywriters, and draftsmen. The project leader is responsible for ensuring the
team completes the project successfully (within budget, on schedule, and meeting the
client`s requirements), while the copywriter and the draftsmen are responsible for the
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linguistic content and the standard graphic content of the projects respectively. Due to
the significance of project leader in the core team, the research further discusses their
various roles in the context of project ecology: including dominating the main features
of the project outcome, managing the operation of the project team, negotiating with
other actors, and building a communicative team culture. At the end of Section 4.4,
brief profiles of the team leaders and of relevant permanent staff members are
presented. These not only exhibit diversity among the cases but also lays down the
foundations for the later discussion in the KM chapter.
The discussion in these sections provides the basis for a relatively full description of
the entities in the project ecology of the TDP ranging across the key individuals and
the relevant communities. According to the field work, it can be further confirmed
that the acts and performances of the aforementioned entities of project ecology (i.e.
the mother firm, epistemic communities, and the project team) were influenced by
their belonged environmental context all the time (such as technologies, government
regulations, sound, and the arrangement of the workplace). Hence, the extra project
environment should not be neglected when investigating project-related activities. It
should be noted that, as the potential environmental factors are so diverse and deeply
affect every aspect of the aforementioned three components and the project process as
a whole, that it is difficult to fully describe these factors. Instead, the researcher will
provide the discussion of these environmental factors in the following KM chapters
along with the individual and the collective factors, which are mainly selected
according to their relevance to the field of knowledge management.
By considering the specific situation of TDPs discussed in this chapter, the author
further develops the preliminary framework (Figure 3.3 in the methodology chapter)
to the framework of general project ecology of TDPs in China (Figure 4.17). It
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correspondingly modifies the original concepts of project ecology (Grabher, 2002a) in
the context of TDP as
‘the project ecology in the context of tourism development project is the
interdependencies between tourism development projects and the particular
individuals, project teams, involved organizations, project environments, and the
interrelationships among these entities and context from which the projects draw
essential sources’.
Figure 4.17 The framework of general project ecology of TDPs in China
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By comparing with the original definition of project ecology present by Grabher
(2002a), project ecology in the context of tourism development projects emphasized
the involved individuals and project teams. These were observed to be essential to the
project. In the meantime, the new definition also covers the concern of project
environments that this research considers the discussion of tourism development
project should not be separated with the project environments according to the field
work: the project members, the project region, and other involved individuals and
collectives were influenced by the surrounding environments all the time. The
elements mentioned in this modified definition of project ecology (i.e. individual,
project team, organization, and external environment) will be adopted as four layers to
conduct the later discussion about knowledge management issues.
Chapter 5 Knowledge Management in the Context of Tourism
Development Project
As shown in the project ecology framework developed in the last chapter, and the KM
model selected in the literature review, this study considers that knowledge
management activities are a series of ongoing interactive processes (i.e. knowledge
creation, knowledge transfer, and knowledge retention). These are operated and
influenced by various entities and their interrelationships in the project ecology
context (Figure 5.18). Due to the limited time and resources available to the
researcher, this research mainly focuses on project members, the teams, and the TDCs
they belonged to during the fieldwork process. This is also because the general
research origin and purpose of this study was to understand the knowledge
management activities in terms of producing the conceptual work of tourism
development projects where the project members, the teams, and the TDCs are the
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main actors. In the meantime, the researcher will consider more briefly the other
entities (e.g. the clients) —who were observed to be commonly influenced by certain
factors. This is in order to present a more rounded and comprehensive perspective, as
these actors also play an indivisible role in relation to the aforementioned subjects
during the project process.
This research considers that project ecology is an integrated system, and the
characteristics and factors of the aforementioned entities, their interrelationships and
the external environment surrounding them jointly influence project activities and
outcomes, including KM-related issues. To a certain degree this echoes with the
multilevel perspective (Kozlowski and Klein, 2000) that ‘individual and
organizational characteristics interact and combine to shape individual and
organizational outcomes’ (cited in Liao and Chuang, 2004:42). Hence, in order to
clarify the subsequent discussion, this research classifies the factors into four different
contextual levels according to the definition of project ecology developed in the last
chapter, which are the individual level, the team level, the organizational level, and
the external environment level. Some examples of key factors within these levels can
be previewed in Table 5.10. In the next sections, this research will discuss the
influences of the factors within these levels on the three components of knowledge
management respectively, which starts with knowledge creation. In order to clarify
the presentation of a very substantial discussion, this research will highlight the
findings by numbering them in the order they emerge (e.g. ,,). Underlining is also
used to emphasise where the text is part of the preceding numbered findings.
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Figure 5.18 The KM model and the project ecology framework applied in this
research
Knowledge Creation Knowledge Transfer &
Retention
Individual e.g. personal characteristics (traits), emotions, individual knowledge
Team e.g. job factors, team size and composition, leadership
Organization e.g. rewards, situations of the physical workspace, size
Environment e.g. technology, weather, social-cultural factors
Table 5.10 Examples of influential factors of four levels in the project ecology
towards knowledge creation, knowledge transfer and retention
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5.1 The Effects of Multi-levels Factors on Knowledge Creation
As mentioned in the literature review chapter, knowledge creation (KC) in this
research is conceptualized as the process that brings knowledge into existence within
the TDC context. Successful innovation starts with good ideas. KC is self-evidently
important in the tourism development project (TDP), as it is directly related to the
creation of the idea and its development, which is the most crucial stage of the
innovation process as mentioned in the literature review. It should be noted that the
discussions of the three KM processes and outcomes cannot completely be separated
from one another, as they are iterative and causal-loop related. Furthermore, as the
scope of the term ‘unit’ can vary from individuals, to teams, to organizations, several
discussions related to knowledge creation in non-individual units will inevitably
involve relevant knowledge transfer inside these units. Therefore, the content of the
other KM processes will briefly be mentioned in this section and a more detailed
discussion will be provided in the corresponding later section.
5.1.1 Individual Level
The basic elements in project ecology are the individuals. They are also the primary
knowledge creators in KM activities. Hence, a series of characteristics related to
individuals are demonstrated to cause essential influences on the knowledge creation
process. This is shown by the empirical study that follows.
5.1.1.1 Personal Characteristics
There has been a long history of numerous researches digging into the influence of
individual personalities on their creativity capabilities (e.g. Barron, 1965 cited in
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Zhou and Shalley, 2003). Those researchers propose that differences in individual
personality traits result in different creativity-related potential and behaviours of
individuals. As the ‘creative person’ section of the ‘creativity’ chapter in the literature
review presented, creativity itself can be operationalized as a set of relatively stable
and enduring personality traits (e.g. confidence and curiosity). The personalities of the
sample individuals in that research were usually tested through a series of elaborate
critical trials (e.g. the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) (Torrance, 1998)).
As for this research, to conduct such test would be beyond the research focus and the
researcher`s available resources. Instead, this research will mainly present a
description of personal characteristics of the person who was more likely to be
creative in the TDP based on the interview responses and observations. Although it
might not be as (ideally) accurate as physiological trials to measure participants`
personalities, those characteristics were observed from their behaviours that occurred
during the field work, which were believed to reflect the personalities, at least to a
certain degree.
A series of personal characteristics are observed or mentioned to be significant for
knowledge creation-related activities in TDP during the field work. To be more
specific, curiosity and sensitiveness are observed to be two of the most significant
traits for idea generation in TDP. These traits lead people to become more likely to
access to far diverse knowledge fields, to immerse themselves into certain contexts to
obtain a deeper understanding, and hence to become more creative in the project idea
generation process. This is especially so for tourism products, which can be highly
diverse and interdisciplinary. For instance, Acw1 was a heavy microblog user who
was keen to browse news and anecdotes in terms of various fields (e.g. TV drama, art
and design, fashion shows) on the Sina Weibo (a Chinese microblogging website)
while she was resting. According to her presentation during the daily working hour
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and in several discussion meetings, some of her ideas about certain parts of the
projects originated from several interesting things she saw on the Sina Weibo:
‘Yesterday I saw a piece of news about several Japanese designers who designed a
series of fruit-style bus stops … I found them quite interesting … I think the design of
the stations can draw lessons from it … we can develop flower-style or fruit-style
stations for the sightseeing mini trains in our project’ (Acw1).
As mentioned in a conversation between two experts in the tourism development
industry of China (Jia, 2012), an artist-like mind is necessary for excellent
copywriters of TDP. In the context, an artist-like mind refers to one which is
independent, discerning, and imaginative. These three traits were all demonstrated to
be important for individual idea generation in the field work to a certain degree. As
for the characteristic of independent in particular, there is a counter-example—Ccw1
looked like a person who had limited independence in respect of her own judgement;
she tended to follow every instruction and idea raised by Cl1, without considering the
potential alternatives. Therefore, rather than developing and deepening the Cl1`s
ideas, it can hardly be seen that Ccw1 presented any of her own ideas about the
project.
With respect to the characteristic of discerning, this refers to someone who is able to
judge which objects or ideas are good and could be further developed in the context of
tourism product. It is closely connected to the characteristic of imaginative.
Discerning implies identifying creative opportunities, while imaginative enables the
translation of those creative opportunities into actual ideas. Although these two
characteristics were not especially measured in this research, there were a series of
relevant idea generation examples which demonstrated that discerning and
imaginative traits enabled creativity. For example, on one occasion Company A was
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requested to generate a series of creative business ideas for a certain project, and
Adm1 found that there was an absence of middle and high-end restaurants in the
project area. It seemed that the themed restaurant was really fashionable at that time
(discerning). He then felt that an aeroplane themed restaurant would be a fantastic
choice, and that this theme implied high-cost and full-service. Every detail in the
restaurant could then be furnished as in an aeroplane (imaginative).
Furthermore, responsibility and being aggressive are also mentioned in interviews—
in particular their influences on both individual and group creativity. Responsibility
not only refers here to the individual level, where ‘the individual treats their assigned
tasks seriously as their career challenges and achievements rather than merely a job. It
will lead them to try their best to ensure the success of project’ (03MC), but also to a
sense of social responsibility: ‘the planners should be self-disciplined and foster
themselves with high moral qualities in order to enable the project outcomes to be
people-oriented, tourist-oriented, and social responsibility oriented’ (10MM).
Aggressive refers here to ‘the individual who has a ‘wolf’ nature that is full of passion
and motivation and very eager to succeed … we need such a man in our team to
arouse the vitality of the whole group’ (05ML). Aggressive also implies self-esteem
and the individual’s willingness to take risk: extremely important aspects of individual
creativity, as mentioned by many scholars (e.g. Andrews and Smith, 1996; Sternberg,
2006). According to these arguments, both of these two characteristics can result in
the individual`s high willingness to be creative at work.
The above personal characteristics were observed or heard (through responses) to be
directly related to creativity capability. As well as these, there are several personal
characteristics that primarily influence the other parts of the knowledge process or
interact with other factors, hence are partially linked to knowledge creation in the
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TDP context. For instance, Acw2 was a homebody, so that when the company
permitted the staff to go outside and collect potential materials for future projects
(knowledge acquisition), she said ‘I don't like go anywhere. I prefer to stay in the
office or home’. This led her obtaining less relevant task domain knowledge (another
key individual characteristic that will be discussed in the next section). In addition,
the characteristics which influence the knowledge transfer process (e.g. introversion
and irritability) will also largely affect the team’s cooperation and the resultant
knowledge creation. This is due to the iterative nature of different KM processes,
something which will also be discussed in the following sections.
In fact, just as Anderson et al. (2014) indicated, personalities usually interact with one
another and other factors (e.g. supervisor support, cognitive style, position) resulting
in diverse outcomes for knowledge creation in project ecology. Take for example of
Company A: Acw1 was labelled as a fair, responsible, and experienced staff member
of the company. She had broad interests. However, her ways and angles of thinking
were ’narrow and low’ (mentioned by Al1 and Adm1, and observed by the researcher)
which often led her into a blind alley. For instance, during her ideation process for
certain products in the TDPs, she often focused on very minor-details and
insignificant issues, rather than considering those products from comprehensive and
diverse perspectives. For example, she proposed a product concept named ‘a 50s
opera stage’ in a nostalgic village tourism project. This was appreciated by Al1;
however, Acw1 then spent most of her time conceiving the specific opera list in that
‘stage’, which was considered less significant to that project as the client mainly
required the team to provide a list of brief product concepts in order to attract
investment. Al1 criticized Acw1 and said that she should pay attention to the
feasibility analysis of her ‘opera stage’ idea, rather than use her less professional
knowledge to conceive a so-called opera list as ‘the clients don't need and don't care
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about it’. Al1 himself was widely recognized as a very creative person; however, due
to his relative dominant characteristics and high-up position in the company, Al1 is
‘too influential and can easily assimilate the others` ideas, which negatively affects
the diverse thinking of the whole team’ (Adm1). From this point, future relevant
investigation is worthy, in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of
the complex relationships between personalities, other factors, and creativity.
In this section, several personal characteristics were initially identified to have
positive effects on staff creativity, capability, and performance in the given context.
This was according to the observations in the field work and the responses from the
interviews. However, the effects of personal characteristics were not always direct
and positive. Several indirect effects of personal characteristics on creativity were
found from their influences on other knowledge activities, due to the iterative nature
of different KM processes. For instance, personal characteristics (e.g. introversion,
irritability), which influence the knowledge transfer process, can largely affect the
team cooperation and the resulting knowledge creation. Furthermore, personal
characteristics were found to closely interact with one another. Such interactions
might not only lead to positive outcomes, but also the reverse ones—according to the
fieldwork observations.
5.1.1.2 Emotion/Mood
After the discussion of personal characteristics, emotion is another closely related
factor which also influences individual creativity. Just as Revelle and Scherer (2010)
state, emotion is to personality as weather is to climate: ‘personality represents an
integration of feeling, action, appraisal and wants over time and space so does
emotion represent the integration of these components at a particular time and
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location’ (p.1). The literature assessed the influence of emotion on creativity from two
perspectives: positive and negative emotions. This research discovers that both types
of emotions exert both positive and negative influences on the individuals` ideation
processes.
To be more specific, Isen (1987) considered that positive emotion can enhance the
individual’s cognitive process, hence facilitating their creativity, as demonstrated in
the field work of this research. It can be seen from several responses to interviews that
respondents talked about the small tips of interviewees to boost their creative ideation
process and the chance of having inspiration. For instance, Bcw1 once mentioned his
habits of eating snacks (especially the snacks, such as crisps) while he was working,
hoping to lead to improved mood and clearer thoughts. 08MM said he liked to go
hiking alone in the morning which made him feel calm and peaceful, and enabled him
to work with a clear mind in order to think more deeply. In contrast, the influence of
negative emotions on creativity was often observed to be negative. Negative moods
such as anxiety and irritability can affect the individual`s own train of thought, and
such interruptions can result in further negative moods, creating a vicious circle (such
a phenomenon was observed in relation to Acw1 and Bdm1). Furthermore, several
relatively fierce expressions of negative moods in the workplace can interrupt others`
thoughts, and bring their own positive emotions down. As such, mood can negatively
impact the whole team.
However, such an interrelationship between positive/negative emotions and creativity
are not immutable. Overly positive emotions can lead individuals to be complacent
for a period, which might lead them to consider fewer suggestions by others and
hence narrow their vision and thought processes. An example of this once occurred
when Bdm2 was summoned to meet the Bl1 and have a conversation with him.
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According to Bdm2, Bl1 praised his performance and encouraged him to continue to
exert himself. Bl1 looked to be elated on that afternoon, and he acted in not as modest
and warm-hearted a way as usual. This was especially so when the researcher gave
him some advice on his work, namely about the presentation slides of a certain
project, and asked him to help search for some materials. Furthermore, negative
emotion is not always necessarily negative for creativity. Shalley et al. (2004) referred
some literature to demonstrate how a negative mood can be positively related to
creativity in certain contexts. During the observation, it could be seen that Acw1 had
actively rethought her own working style for a period of time, when she felt very
frustrated that Al1 repudiated her efforts on the project. She then paid a lot of
attention to those faults and modified her ideation process accordingly in later
projects. This phenomenon echoes the relationship between self-reflective rumination,
mood, and creativity— as discussed by Verhaeghen et al. (2005) to a certain degree.
This phenomenon echoes the findings presented by Verhaeghen et al. (2005) to a
certain degree, in that past depressive mood can increase self-reflective rumination,
and in turn, influence creative performance.
Being similar with its relative ‘personality’, the factor of emotion was also found to
have both positive and negative influences on individual creativity and performance
in terms of knowledge creation. Such positive or negative effects were not immutably
connected with positive or negative emotions—positive emotions can also lead to
negative effects, and vice versa.
5.1.1.3 Individuals’ Own Knowledge
Grant (1999) considers that individual knowledge is the most fundamental necessity
for the knowledge creation process in the organization (e.g. new product
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development). Similarly, t his research identifies three types of individuals` own
knowledge (i.e. education, expertise, and experience) which are essential to
knowledge creation in the TDP context.
To be more specific, having depth and breadth of domain-specific knowledge is a
basic requirement of creativity (Amabile, 1988). This argument has been evidenced in
the TDP context which can be supported by the different educational backgrounds of
professionals in the TDC industry. The general requirements of TDPs mentioned in
the GSTP (term 7) calls for wide involvements of people from various professional
domains in the TDP process (see in Section 4.1.1). As tourism products are
characterized to be diverse and interdisciplinary, ‘the planners are required to possess
multifaceted knowledge, including tourism, geography, history, economic, and
archaeology. … which eventually contributes to the formation of one or several
creative tourism planning plans that contains various advantages …’ (10MM). Take
the example of the case studies, Al1 possessed bachelor’s and master’s degrees in
geography and meteorology, respectively, Bcw1 graduated from one of the top
universities in China—he studied Chinese history—and Ccw1’s college major was
business management. ‘Different education backgrounds result in distinctive angles of
perspective’ (01FC) when the participants face new propositions. Take for example
the case of Company A. In the late period of the fieldwork there was a project aimed
at developing a village into a ‘long-life’ themed village. At the beginning of the
project, Al1 asked the team members to investigate the key factors which enabled the
village to be different to normal villages, or at least to be related to the characteristics
of the key term ‘long-life’. Most members tended to search for information about the
air and water quality, healthy lifestyle, natural food, and long-lasting customs of the
target village. Al1 however raised a new breakthrough idea about the geographical
characteristics of ‘fengshui’, and the weather surrounding the village. From this
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perspective, the team then discovered several new materials related to the ‘long-life’
theme: the crane-like landform of the village area, for example (the crane is a
traditional Chinese symbol of longevity and health), which could further be developed
into a series of ideas about other local attractions or focal points.
Apart from educational background, the role of expertise is also necessary and
important to generate new knowledge. One common set of expertise in the context of
TDP is about the use of various technologies to support the production of project
documents. The general requirements of the TDPs mentioned in the GSTP also
emphasized the significance of this point during the formulation of the TDP, e.g. the
encouragement to adopt advanced methods and skills in the formulation of the TDP.
(term 4). For example, copywriters and draftsmen should possess the skill to use
software packages such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Illustrator, and Photoshop. The
better skill level they possess, the smoother the project production process will be.
Such ‘smoothness’ not only means the speed of using such software, but also implies
fewer distractions or disruptions to the individuals` thinking processes.
A negative example was seen with Bdm1, who suddenly forgot his original
inspiration just after he encountered a problem using PowerPoint when attempting to
describe the idea on the slides. Moreover, the term ‘smooth’ also suits inter-personal
cooperation during group work. Take for example one project of Company A, where
Al1 used a software package named ‘InDesign’ to write and edit his part of the project
document; he thought that ‘InDesign’ was better and more professional than
‘PowerPoint’, at least in terms of text composition. However, Acw1 and Acw2 had
formerly used ‘PowerPoint’ to compose the document, and they did not know how to
use ‘InDesign’ at all (the software had not even been installed in their computers).
What was worse, the format of the saved ‘InDesign’ file was not compatible with
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‘PowerPoint’. Therefore, this experience negatively impacted the combination process
around their respective parts of the project documents.
Furthermore, a practised and abundant skill set can also facilitate diverse and creative
forms of ideas (i.e. explicit knowledge). As Al1 said: ‘the improvement in terms of
the capability of draftsmen can let us more frequently use graphs and effective
drawings to describe our ideas, which will make the document much more charming
and vivid’. This corresponds to the statement of Shalley and Gilson (2004), that ‘by
developing a more extensive skill set, employees should be more comfortable in
trying new things and more aware of different alternatives and opportunities’ (P.36).
Therefore, this implies the significance of constant improvements to the project team
members` skills. According to observations, besides the skills which the staff
possessed before they entered the TDC, their primary method of skill learning was
self-study. ‘I didn't know how to make any of this style of graphs before I entered this
company … I learnt it by viewing the same type of graphs, searching on the internet,
and read some relevant books’ (Adm1). In-house training should be another way to
enhance the employees` skill sets (Buick and Muthu, 1997). However, an absence of
training was seen in the studied companies—to varying degrees, which will be
discussed in later sections at the contextual level.
In addition, apart from expertise, the intellectual skills (Sternberg, 1985) or the
creativity-relevant skills (Amabile, 1988) are perceived to be very important to
creativity, e.g. ‘(a) the synthetic skill to see problems in new ways and to escape the
bounds of conventional thinking, (b) the analytic skill to recognize which of one’s
ideas are worth pursuing and which are not, and (c) the practical–contextual skill to
know how to persuade others of—to sell other people on—the value of one’s ideas’
(Sternberg, 2006:88). From the author`s perspective, these intellectual skills are more
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related to the context of thinking style and knowledge transfer which, hence, will be
focused on in the discussions of the corresponding sections.
Experience is also an essential constituent of knowledge (i.e. empirical knowledge) in
order to accomplish creativity. Just as a simple preference rule about recruiting staff
for TDC shows that, TDCs favour the one who has some level of experience to the
TDP-related jobs. As several scholars (e.g. Weisberg, 1999) indicate, experience can
provide the individuals with the familiarity to perform the relevant work. From this
perspective, experience can enhance the efficiency of idea generation, and the
possibilities of new ideas of TDP to a certain degree. A relevant example is that, when
the interviewees and the staff in the case companies described someone who was
creative from their perspective, most of them used the word ‘experienced’.
Although the significance of experience is self-evident in terms of creative work, it
can be seen that some critics argue that a high amount of experience can in fact
negatively impact creativity (e.g. Audia and Goncalo, 2007) as it can lead to the
habitual or routinized performance of tasks. By viewing this argument in the context
of TDP, the author feels that this issue becomes more complex than simply judging it
as good or bad. The reason is that the literature review of this study considers that a
prior issue before the discussion of innovation and creativity should be ‘new’ to
whom, and the various actors within the TDP project ecology lead the word ‘whom’
to fairly wide dimension: new to themselves, new to the team, new to the
organization, new to the clients, or new to the end-users (tourists). A paradox is
evident, namely that the new proposed ideas cannot always be totally new to
everyone. However, due to the complex and abundant composition of tourism
products, those ideas are always new at some point, e.g. a new combination of two
existing concepts. In addition, the ‘big-c’ (the 4C Model of Creativity, Kaufman and
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Beghetto, 2009) was not always necessary in the real TDP work, for which the
primary goal for the project team was to ‘satisfy the clients` needs and achieve their
vision’ (Acw1). This implies that the foremost objective is to provide suitable ideas
within the given time and budget, rather than excessively pursue the newness of ideas.
In this context, although the interrelationships between the amount of experience and
the newness of ideas is hard to measure, the role of a high level of experience in
facilitating both the individual and group idea generation is evident. The
differentiation of the experience amounts of different actors inevitably led to the
observed phenomenon that the ideas from the people with more experience could be
more likely viewed as more suitable to the project context. Hence, more convincible
to the others—including the clients. From this point, the project team heavily relied
on the ‘experienced’ person (e.g. Aec1, Bcw1) to propose the key thematic idea of the
project and to guide the whole team`s ideation direction.
It should be noted that, experience here not only refers to the direct experience of
dealing with the relevant jobs, but also contains the individual experiences and
understandings accumulating through their previous daily lives and interests. Tourism
attractions are certain products which can be constituted by numerous diverse and
vivid elements. Therefore the inspiration often came from the ‘unnoticeable little
things in everyday life’ (08MM). The researcher himself also had such experiences
during the field work. He read the news every day, and one day he read a piece
talking about the biological invasion crisis of Asian carp in the US. In that article, it
introduced several methods that the local communities adopted to deal with this issue,
which included a multiple-methods fishing campaign. Some methods used in the
campaign were very interesting and fresh to the researcher (e.g. not only using
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traditional fishing rods or nets but also using archery) and this inspired him about one
similar activity product in the project he was undertaking.
The significance of ‘daily accumulation’ on the individual creativity was frequently
mentioned in the formal interviews and the daily conversations in the case studies. For
instance, 04FC mentioned that ‘sometimes our creativity and design can have also had
a problem caused by our designers ... some designers have never lived in a 5-star
hotel, but are asked to design a 5-star hotel for the client … if someone hasn`t
experienced the luxury, how can they position the project ideas you designed by high-
end and luxury for the clients?’ Al1 also frequently required his employees to ‘read
more, listen more, see more, travel more, and think more’, in order to improve their
creative capability. Other interviewees (e.g. 05ML, 10MM) also supported that the
planners should accumulate relevant experiences and foster understanding of fashion,
for example to grasp the most popular slang on the internet, in order to produce the
‘down to earth’ (05ML) and ‘full of contemporary atmosphere’ (10MM) TDPs, which
can then satisfy the tourists` up-to-date spiritual needs to a better degree.
To sum up, this section mainly discussed the effects of individuals` own knowledge in
terms of individual creativity and work performance in terms of the TDP context. This
study mainly views the individual`s own knowledge from three aspects-3’e’:
education, expertise, and experience. Based on the observations, education
background contributes to the individual`s basic thinking angle when he/she faces the
target issue. Then, better expertise contributes to a smoother process: in terms of
thinking processes, individual work, and interpersonal cooperation. The latter is in
terms of producing project ideas and documents, and it can further facilitate diverse
and creative forms of the presence of ideas in the documents.
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As for the role of experience in terms of knowledge creation and creativity, it was
found to be complex and controversial in the literature. However, as shown in the
field work, the role of experience was generally positive due to the foremost objective
of project work being to provide suitable ideas within the given time and budget,
rather than excessively pursue the newness of ideas. In this context, the individuals`
relevant experience in terms of tourism development projects was generally valued by
the TDCs and the company leaders, as it can enhance the idea generation efficiency
and the possibilities of new ideas of TDP to a certain degree. After that, the various
sources of experience were briefly discussed. This was found not only to have been
accumulated from the direct relevant project jobs, but also obtained through their
previous daily lives and interests. Future work can be invested into the issue to
measure the weight between these different types of individuals` own knowledge, or
different types of experiences in terms of idea generation process in the context of
TDP.
5.1.1.4 Task-specific knowledge
The above 3’e’ individual owned knowledge constitutes a large part of the
individual`s creativity capability in TDP; however, they are just the kitchenware that
it still needs ingredients for cooking the food ‘project idea’. The ingredients, i.e. the
task-specific knowledge of TDP are from many other sources, for example from
previous projects of TDC, transferred from the clients to the core team. The examples
of task-specific knowledge can be seen in the general requirements of TDPs
mentioned in Section 4.1.1, e.g. relevant policies and strategies, the information on
target tourism market, local tourism resources, and tourism product portfolio, and
stakeholders` viewpoints. According to the distinction and the connection between
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KC and KT identified in the KM model, the task-specific knowledge per se will be
discussed in this KC-related section as an important factor which influences the
production of new knowledge (i.e. project work). In the meantime, the process of
conveying knowledge between the units in the project ecology will be discussed in the
later section about knowledge transfer. It should be noted that knowledge within the
units of project ecology is usually insufficient to deal with the various challenges
arising from the TDP project requirement. Hence the author will mainly discuss
knowledge obtained from external sources in order to supplement the project
production. This is still covered by the definition of KC developed in the literature
review: the process of bringing knowledge into existence within the TDC context
from all possible sources and patterns.
There are three primary categories of task-specific knowledge required by TDPs
which, according to the observations, are: (i) the market-related knowledge of the
target region , (ii) the resource-related knowledge of the target land , and (iii) other
relevant knowledge to enrich/portray the project ideas or inspire the designers . As for
categories i and ii, this is usually collected through the field investigation process at
the early stage of TDP, which is viewed as one of the most significant stages during
the project (05ML). Before the field investigation, the team members will search on
the internet to become familiar with the general information of the planning land, and
then send the clients a framework about what data and aspects of knowledge they
require. According to that framework, the client will prepare to satisfy the knowledge
demands of the core team: e.g. they will send the team the required documents and
materials, accompany the team travel around the project land and explain the details,
hold meetings between the core team and the various stakeholders, and so on.
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Although most of these categories of knowledge are transferred from the clients or the
representatives of local communities to the core team, the team members will acquire
this knowledge from outside the project ecology in some cases. The primary reason
behind this situation—according to responses from the interviewees—is that the
knowledge transferred from the other units in the project ecology is sometimes
insufficient in terms of quantity, depth, and reliability. An example of reliability was
where 04FC talked about how they collected the tourists` opinions when they were
asked to develop a hot spring tourism project in a county-level city: ‘the government
provided us with over four hundred questionnaire responses … but we didn't fully
trust the government’s data … so we gathered another four hundred questionnaire
responses in the field by ourselves. We also did so with around another two hundred
questionnaires through the Internet’.
Furthermore, in the ‘real’ work, a huge imbalance can be seen between categories i
and ii: The project team usually emphasized collecting and excavating every detail of
the local resources (category ii) rather than conducting comprehensive market
research (category i). Although the researcher often heard the interviewees and the
leaders in the case companies talking about the significance of understanding markets
to the TDP, the researcher had not experienced any marketing investigation for any of
the projects in the case companies during his fieldwork. There is a series of articles
and business reports about tourist preferences and tourism marketing segments in
China. However, due to the varying scale, locality, and complexity of different
projects, those secondary data are actually insufficient to understand the tourism
market in certain particular project regions. In addition, by looking at the structure of
the project documents, it can also be seen that the tourism marketing analysis parts are
always shorter in length (sometimes just one page) than the local resource analysis.
The low value placed on market research in TDP is worthy of being explored
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specifically in the future, and the author will present several clues from observations
to explain this imbalance of knowledge categories—and the asymmetry of attitudes
and behaviour towards marketing-related knowledge.
An ostensible reason seems to be the limited manpower, skills, time and budget for
projects. For instance, some interviewees responded that they previously carried out
some market analysis (e.g. 02FE, 04FC) or had some external professional
consultancy companies to do the relevant market research in several projects, which
were relatively large scale and with relatively abundant time and resource
availabilities. However, these project attributes are just objective factors which cannot
fully describe the whole reason behind the undervalued attitude to market knowledge.
Another reason, taken from informal conversations between the researcher and the
copywriters, was that they used their individual knowledge to assume the target
market situation most of the time.
To be more specific, when the copywriters attempted to generate ideas about certain
sub-products within the project, in a general sense they should refer to the tourist
preferences of the project`s target market in order to achieve success. However, in the
real work, they referred to their own preferences instead. As some staff said: ‘in fact,
we judge the tourist preference from our own imagination’ (Al1) and ‘we usually treat
ourselves as the tourists to think about whether the ideas would be popular or not’
(Ccw2). The researcher does not deny the significant role of the planners` own
personal preferences and interests on their creativity process, but if there is an absence
of professional market knowledge of the project land and the planners replace it with
‘their own imagination’, the foundation of creativity is distorted, and it would be a
huge risk for the final success of the project. As Jia (2012) wrote in his book,
‘although talented people and creative ideas are one aspect (of successful TDP), I
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think standardized market analysis, position and prediction based on fact are also a
very important aspect’ (p.173).
Unlike the knowledge of categories i and ii, which are primarily collected in the early
stage of project, category iii is required throughout the whole project production
process. Furthermore, the form of this category of knowledge can be much more
diverse than the others, in that it can be pictures, poems, songs, holiday brochures,
and even blogs. From its functions and forms, category iii is also an important enabler
for individual creativity which is similar to the daily life experiences previously
mentioned. Al1 and Bl2 often suggested to their subordinates to ‘jump out’ of the
original knowledge framework of local resources, and to seek external knowledge that
is ‘useful’ for inspiring creativity. The differences between category iii knowledge
and the daily life experiences are its form (explicit vs. implicit). The former is usually
in representational forms, while the latter is of an implicit nature. Furthermore, the
acquisition of this category of knowledge is intended and directly purposive for the
projects including future projects. Therefore, this acquisition process is more likely to
be controlled and influenced by various factors.
The main knowledge acquisition pattern, applicable to all three categories, can be
divided into two sets based on the locality of the knowledge acquisition: in-field and
in-house. Each set has unique characteristics, advantages and weaknesses. In-field
pattern refers to knowledge acquired in the field, which includes the field
investigation during the project process and occasional field work. This occasional
field work refers to the staff of TDCs purposefully going to some places with
particular types of attractions, in order to collect relevant knowledge about those
places. It usually occurs in the gap between projects or in the relatively plentiful
project process. This is similar to primary data collection to a certain degree. In
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comparison to the in-house pattern, a series of unique characteristics of the in-field
pattern can be observed by the researcher during the case studies, which are namely
1). ‘ rarity ’, 2). ‘ randomness ’ and ‘ uncertainty ’, 3). ‘ pertinence’ and ‘ intuitiveness’ .
Firstly, the in-field pattern possesses the ‘rarity’ nature: these activities only occur a
few times in one place. Although several interviewees said sometimes there would be
supplementary investigations if the initial field investigation cannot satisfy the
knowledge demands, in most of the cases that the researcher observed, the field
investigation into one place was often just one time as the following description. The
team went to the project land and travelled around the land by the guidance of the
clients, and then record the details and information which are considered to be
essential to the project by taking photos and notes or just memorizing. After that, the
team go back to the office and conduct the project production, and not return to
project region until the project document is going to present to the clients.
Several reasons for the limited times of in-field activity in one project is because of
the restriction of time, budget, and staff` capacity. The researcher heard that Al1
sighed during his drive to the project land for field investigation, a five-hour drive
from the company site: ‘one trip like this is totally enough … my body can’t bear one
more trip that if the clients get us to go the project site again and again’.
This comment implies that the individuals have to thoroughly prepare before they
conduct the in-field activity, in order to make the best use of those ‘rare’ opportunities
(Al1). During the observation, several examples of imperfect occasional field work
were witnessed, inculpating the defects in the preparations which led to certain
important pieces of knowledge not being collected. For instance, Acw1 once went to
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the Xixi Wetland to conduct fieldwork in order to get a better understanding of
wetland tourism and to take some photos of certain key places to be used as future
project materials. However, as Acw1 did not carefully check the specific location of
every key place—and some of them were remote and isolated, and had not even been
labelled on the tourist map—she could not find those places, and therefore she had not
fully collected the required information.
Secondly, the in-field pattern has the characteristics of ‘randomness’ and
‘uncertainty’. These features are represented in many aspects of the in-field pattern
and can potentially result in a series of issues for the quality of the obtained
knowledge. For example, the displays and events in the target field would be changed
from time to time (e.g. different scenery in different seasons); the randomness of
arrangements of the investigation route by the clients (e.g. in certain cases, hasty
arrangement led the team to miss several key spots in the project land); and uncertain
quality of records made by the team members who participated in the field work (e.g.
mismatched field notes between two individuals). In order to mitigate these negative
impacts, some efforts in terms of knowledge transfer and knowledge retention can be
taken—according to the literature—which will be presented in the corresponding
sections.
Thirdly, the in-field pattern possesses the characteristics of ‘pertinence’ and
‘intuitiveness’. ‘Pertinence’ implies that knowledge acquired, processed, and
understood by the individuals during the in-field pattern is specifically targeted to
their purposes—which can lead the individuals to discover more details which cannot
be found from other sources, but are necessary to the project idea. ‘Intuitiveness’
implies that individuals can directly immerse into the field—that is, beyond the level
of objective or intellectual analysis—which enables them to form clearer and deeper
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understandings of the acquired knowledge, in its context. Both of these two
characteristics lead the knowledge from the in-field pattern to facilitate the
individuals in terms of their problem-solving and creativity processes. For instance,
during a field investigation in Company B, Bcw1 saw one small bridge located in the
proposed main entrance of a certain attraction that had been for long out of repair, and
he took a picture of the existing situation of the bridge. He immediately started to
think about the transformation approaches of it in the project context (which displayed
‘pertinence’). Then he generated several ideas (e.g. keep the original appearance of
the bridge, repair it, or reconstruct the whole bridge) by combining what he just saw
and felt about the project land during the field work (showing ‘intuitiveness’).
Due to the relatively smaller numbers of in-field patterns and given that most of the
period of project production is indoors, the in-house pattern is much more common
during the project process. It can be found a series of advantages and problems of the
in-house pattern and web search by comparing to the characteristics of in-field
pattern. For instance, advantages of the in-house pattern are: it can neutralize the
problems caused by the ‘rarity’ and ‘uncertainty’ characteristics of the in-field
pattern; people can easily get on the internet in the TDC workplace to search as many
times as they need and there can be found plenty of corresponding information based
on the proper keywords. In the meantime, the knowledge acquired through the in-
house pattern has its own defect to be less ‘contextual’ than that of the in-field pattern.
Just as Dochartaigh (2007) states, it can be much more difficult to understand and
evaluate the acquired knowledge from internet searches, as they are sometimes
isolated search results out of context.
In addition, the in-house pattern can be divided into two: internal and external
patterns, conceptualized by the source of knowledge. The internal pattern refers to
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retrieval knowledge from a TDC’s own knowledge warehouse, e.g. printed project
documents and intranet electronic resources. This pattern will be discussed in the
section on knowledge transfer and retention (as it can be seen as a knowledge flow
between the organization and the individuals). As for the external pattern, the web
search plays a predominant role, as found in the interviews and observations. It is
widely recognized as the most visible and efficient way to obtain the intended
knowledge from external sources.
However, a series of differences and issues can be found—in terms of processes and
results of different individuals conducting web searches. For instance, Ccw1 was once
frustrated that the wording she found in every material about the resource-related
background of a certain project was quite similar and often repeated, so such repeated
information limited her understanding of the local resources and impacted her
creativity process. According to Li (2003), the user`s behaviour is one of the most
important aspects in terms of online information retrieval, which is influenced by a
number of factors, including the individual`s education background, their experiences
using IT tools, information requirements, domain-specific knowledge, cognitive
ability, emotion, and types of tasks. The author will now discuss some of these
influential factors on the basis of his observations.
It can be observed that there are several interrelationships between the individual
factors (including the aspects discussed before) and how they operate in the in-house
pattern. Firstly, ‘individual personality’ and individual preferences for the knowledge
acquisition patterns: for instance, Acw2 is a typical ‘homebody’ (as recognized by all
staff in the company, including herself). Once when the company encouraged them to
travel outside and collect potentially useful materials for future projects by giving the
employees one day off-duty, she said ‘I`d like to stay in the office rather than travel
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outside’, so she collected the materials from the internet instead. In contrast, Adm1 is
a person who prefers to travel a lot. He told the researcher that he had worked in many
cities after his graduation and, no matter which city he went to, he would travel
around that city ‘to every corner’ during the initial several months. Therefore, the
company did not even need to encourage him to travel outside: once there was a break
from work, he would actively go to the sites to collect potential materials which
would be useful, from his perspective.
Next are ‘individual skills’ and their reach to knowledge sources: for instance, Acw1
and Bdm1 are skilled in of Korean and French. They often searched on corresponding
language websites to obtain inspiration and any necessary information. The advantage
of searching for knowledge in different languages is to broaden the knowledge
sources, and the idea based on other language sources is much less likely to be
repeated with others’ according to their responses. For instance, when they attempted
to search for a distinguishing Korean tourism feature, the quality and quantity of
search results from its English name (e.g. Korean steam room) were quite less than
from its original Korean name (i.e. 찜질방). Language skills are not only represented
by the variety of languages that an individual speaks, but also in their wording skills
—namely how to structure their use of keywords when using search engines. Bcw1
told the researcher about his experiences searching for information on the internet,
warning: ‘do not make your vision too narrow when you conduct the search,
especially in the initial stages of a project … getting clear phraseology in the first
place is good … but trying as many keywords with similar meanings as possible is
also a why-not opinion … it will lead you to be much more likely to find something
really useful’.
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Then, ‘individual experience’ and their efficiency and accuracy to reach the intended
knowledge. For instance, in the initial stage of a project in case Company A, Acw1
was facing a problem, namely that she found it was too difficult to find several theme-
specific photographs from the internet in order to present her ideas in a document.
After she explained her problem to the others in the office, Acw2 noticed that she had
participated in such activities which were similar to Acw1`s idea when she travelled
to South Korea. Then she recalled the Korean names and the related translations to
Chinese of those activities, and gave these to Acw1 eventually to help her to find the
intended photographs. Furthermore, an individual`s previous successful experience
searching for the intended information from certain sources can lead the individual to
become somewhat dependent on those sources to a certain degree.
This can inherit the advantages and the disadvantages from the discussion of
individual experience: on the one hand, such a successful experience will lead the
individual to be more efficient in reaching the intended knowledge the next time. On
the other hand, such habitual behaviours will prevent the possibility of discovering
better sources for the same type of knowledge. For example, Adm1 found a series of
high-resolution satellite maps on a website, so he was very satisfied with that site and
kept using it as the source for satellites when he drew the topographies for subsequent
projects. However, the satellite maps on that website were often in pieces, which
meant that Adm1 had to join those pieces together before he could use the maps in his
work. This impacted his efficiency in terms of producing the graphical part of the
project document. However, he got used to this additional workload during the next
two projects, until one external specialist gave him an alternative source where one
can find the same resolution satellites but on a much larger scale.
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To summarise, task-specific knowledge was introduced in this section. It initially
introduced the three primary categories of task-specific knowledge required during
the TDP process. Then it identified an imbalance in terms of the importance among
these categories (of knowledge in the project work). According to the fieldwork, the
accurate market-related knowledge of the target region was often ignored during the
real work, which was usually replaced by the project member`s own preferences and
interests. In the meantime, the acquisition and transfer tunnels/patterns of each task-
specific category were introduced. The three categories corresponded with different
patterns which implied that the acquisition of these categories of task-specific
knowledge suffered from the influences of distinct respective factors. The factors
which were from the individual level were discussed. Several factors from the group
and the contextual perspectives can also be found, and these will be discussed further
in the following sections.
5.1.1.5 Individual Creativity-relevant Processes
Creativity-relevant processes, or creativity-relevant skills, consist of ‘a cognitive style
and personality characteristics that are conducive to independence, risk-taking, and
taking new perspectives on problems, as well as a disciplined work style and skills in
generating ideas’ (Amabile, 2012:3). Within this process, cognitive (or thinking)
styles refer to an individual`s manner of acquiring, processing, remembering, and
evaluating information (Allinson and Hayes, 2012; Ausburn and Ausburn, 1978).
According to this definition, some components such as personalities and manners of
gathering knowledge have already been discussed. In the present section, the author
will present a brief overview of some of the processes used by individuals in TDC to
generate their ideas in the projects, instead of providing a thorough discussion or
detailed evaluation. This is because some fields (e.g. cognitive style) are specific
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terms used in other disciplines (e.g. cognitive psychology) which are currently beyond
the reach and the purpose of this research.
On the basis of interview responses the researcher considers that there are a series of
creativity-relevant skills that are required by the members of the core team: a)
Systematic thinking: this can lead the individual to organize and plan their ideas more
comprehensively and logically in order to synthesize and make the best use of all
relevant resources, and the potential market preferences within certain projects; b)
Insightful thinking: the ability to view things to a deeper or greater extent, e.g. to
explore nature and characteristics or to judge future market preferences; c)
Imagination ability: the ability to form a mental image of certain tourism products that
do not exist in real life or that have been perceived before, which is self-evidently
essential to creativity; d) Connective thinking: the ability to make associations
between different resources and characteristics of the project land to form new
combinations; e) Conceptual skill: the ability to conceptualize things (including
product features, current development trends, policies, and market preferences) into
certain good-writing form of concepts (e.g. neat and beautiful conception).
Cognitive style can be viewed as a complex mental process with synthesizing the
aforementioned skills. Literature has identified that individual personalities have
significant relationships with measures of cognitive style (Kwang and Rodrigues,
2002) and individuals have their own preferences towards different ideation
approaches. However, according to observations, the selection of an ideation process
is more likely to be influenced by the characteristics of the task, time pressure, and
other contextual factors. Inspired by the popular ‘adaption-innovation’ continuum
model of cognitive style (Kirton, 1984), the author proposes that the idea generation
process (and the corresponding ideation results) in TDP can fit a 4’I’ axis model (i.e.
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indiscrimination-imitation-inspiration-innovation, Figure 5.19 ). The keywords (“4
Is”) are differentiated in terms of the degree of intrinsic originality and the intention
of being creative . The former refers to the originality and the newness of a certain
idea to its creator. The latter refers to the creator`s initial intention to be creative in the
corresponding idea generation process, e.g. unconsciously creative, intentionally
copying, or intentionally creative.
Figure 5.19 4’I’ model for idea generation process in TDP
To be more specific, the quadrant of ‘Indiscrimination’ refers to the team members`
intention to indiscriminately copy the ideas from other sources to the projects at hand,
which sometimes occurred in certain observed projects in this study. This was
influenced by time pressure— some projects had a very short deadline, often at the
request of the clients. For instance, in No.8 TDP, a client from a township government
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asked Company A to provide him with a formal project document within four days
because they planned to use the document to apply for grants from higher-level
government. (Al1 said that ‘the township government or similar levels of government
are often acting like this (to be too hurried and urgent)’). One client requested
Company B to finish the first draft of his project within one week, as he needed to
discuss it with his partnership investor as soon as possible (No.11 TDP).
Under such urgent time restrictions, hence relatively loose requirements of originality
from clients, the copywriters were usually unable to thoroughly conceive every idea
of the project. This was so because one TDP would comprise numbers of ideas of
attractions and activities, which prompted the team members to make ‘trade-offs’
(Acw2) between originality and efficiency. Within context, directly copied word for
word text from previous projects in the TDC or from other TDCs was evidently a
most efficient choice for the copywriters, especially when ‘the types of previous
projects and the current one are exactly the same’ (Ccw2).
Furthermore, ‘indiscrimination’ also occurred when certain parts of a document were
perceived to be insignificant and to require less creativity, e.g. the recommendation of
human resource management policies. The team members thought the leader and the
client would not pay much attention to the originality of those parts (such overlook
existed during the observation), and hence indiscriminately copying become an easy
choice for them. It was hard to be judged as positive or negative by the leaders (they
even did themselves or told their subordinates to use ‘indiscrimination’ when it was
necessary): ‘Within whatever project, there are always some ideas the same as other
projects. If you treat them alone, it can be criticized as plagiarism. But when they are
put in the whole project along with other ideas, with different combinations, the
whole project can still be viewed as original’ (01FC). In fact, such ‘indiscrimination’
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can only be neutralized by the individuals` self-discipline, as there is lack of the
identification and the regulation of copyrights in the TDC as well as the whole
industry at present.
Then, ‘imitation’—according to its definition in Collins Dictionary—also means
‘copying’ something; however, the author herein differentiates ‘imitation’ with
‘indiscrimination’ by their initial intentions: ‘imitation’ refers to the idea generation
process which aims to provide something new and own on the basis of adjusting and
modifying the previous TDP ideas or other ideas of products in other industries,
which can be seen as a process of ‘extension and synthesis of works known to the
creator at that time’ (Rich and Weisberg, 2004:247). It is the most common idea-
generation process in the TDCs (according to the observations); it was applied as a
general strategy for core team members to generate the greatest number of ideas in
many projects. It usually occurs when certain previous ideas were commended, so
individuals attempted to maintain these ideas and imitate them in many other projects.
As for the specific imitation strategies, three sets of imitation-related strategies can be
found in Sternberg et al.`s article (2003), namely extension approaches, replacement
approaches, and integration approaches (see in Table 5.11).
Imitation needs a basis which is called ‘exemplar’ in Mecca and Mumford (2014)`s
work. In the context of TDP, such a basis becomes multiple previous TDPs or other
ideas of products in other industries. As Sternberg et al., (2003) defined, the extension
approach implies that the individual accepts current assumptions of the exemplar and
applies them in new manners and fields, while the replacement approach rejects and
proposes new assumptions of the exemplar. The integration approach means
comprising the good and relevant exemplars together to generate a new one. The
author will present some examples of these imitation strategies in the context of TDP.
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Some examples will be presented; these are based on the exemplar of
‘Rapeseed/Lavender flower sea’. Flower Sea is used to describe ‘(an area with)
numerous flowers’ in Chinese language, and it can be found in many projects as a
significant way for the Earth’s landscape to beautify a destinations and become a
primary attraction to tourists in many projects (such as in No.2, No.7 TDPs and some
other TDP examples read in the three case companies). Due to the remarkable success
of the rapeseed flower (in Wuyuan, China) and lavender (in Provence, France) in
terms of attracting tourists, the idea of Flower Sea has prevailed in many TDPs for
years, and was also mentioned frequently in the projects of the case study companies
during the field work—many projects were related to rural tourism and flowers were
treated as a key attraction to tourists in a rural tourism context. By summarizing the
presentation of those imitations in the project documents of case studies and the
discussions of related ideas during the day-to-day informal conversation, it can found
that the planners imitated the concept of rapeseed/lavender flower sea to their projects
through several strategies, in terms of the extension approach (Table 5.11),
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Strategies Operational Definitions Examples of ‘Rapeseed/Lavender flower sea’ imitations
Replication Application of an exemplar
solution in an alternate context
Replicate the idea of flower sea in the project lands with minor changes in certain implementation-related details
to ensure the concepts can fit the given context
Redefinition Approaching exemplar concepts
from an alternate perspective
Rephrase the theme of flower sea from its ornamental and agriculture/medical value to the cultural symbolism of
different flowers—e.g. having a new lease of life, and being romantic—in order to attract more tourists from wider
segments and to enrich the tourist experience
Forward
Incrementation
Extending exemplar concepts in a
clearly relevant direction
By consideration of the seasonality of flowers and the potential boredom of certain single colours by the tourists,
the planner extend the single flower species to multiple flower species. The multiple flower species are carefully
selected according to their florescence and colours, in order to ensure there will be flowers blossoming during all
four seasons, with different coloured flower seas during different season.
Advanced
Forward
Incrementation
Extending exemplar concepts in a
clearly relevant direction, beyond
the extent to which the exemplar
might be expected to be applied
On the basis of original flower sea, the planner proposed to divide the flower field into many small zones, and to
contract out each zone to the tourists to extend the merely ornamental value to the experience level. This can offer
the tourists unique and lasting experience of the flower agriculture, obtain extra profit, and build long-lasting
relationships between destinations and tourists.
Replacement Strategies
Redirection Shifting exemplar concepts in an
alternate direction
Redirect the concept of rapeseed/lavender flower sea with other species of flowers, e.g. the sea of peonies,
camellias, or roses.
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Reconstruction Linking the exemplar to a past
performance
The researcher could not find a corresponding ‘flower sea’ example of this strategy during the field work;
however, numerous examples in terms of other tourism attraction ideas could be seen, however. For instance,
some TDPs proposed to develop the real stage dramas with the theme of certain classical stories to immerse the
tourists into the given circumstance and experience the historical stories while letting them enjoy the performances
and music. A well-known example of this is the show ‘The Romance of The Song Dynasty’ in Hangzhou
Songcheng, which vividly unfold the ancient time of the Song Dynasty and the historical folklore in Hangzhou
City to before the tourists` eyes.
Reinitiation Initiating a new set of actions
based on concepts in the exemplar
Develop virtual scene of flower sea as part of virtual tourism through of virtual reality technology in order to
diverse the presentation of the flower beauty in multiple ways and enable wider groups of tourists to experience it.
Integration Strategy
Synthesis Integration of the exemplar with
another or multiple other
exemplars to produce a solution
Integrating the concepts of a flower sea and a labyrinth, to produce a new concept: ‘flower field maze.’
Integrating the concept of a flower sea and the concept of tanbo art, to produce a new concept: ‘flower field art.’
Table 5.11 Extension, Replacement, and Integration Strategies and their definitions (based on Mecca and Mumford, (2014:212); Sternberg et al.,
(2003) and the author’s own fieldwork)
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In a traditional section, inspiration serves an important purpose in the domain of
creativity (Rhodes, 1961). Rather than being one stage of the idea generation process,
the quadrant of ‘inspiration’ refers to a kind of inspiration-to-create ideation process.
Likewise, for the ‘imitation’ process, ‘inspiration’ also requires certain stimulus
objects. In other words, ‘triggers’ (Thrash and Elliot, 2003) to enable the process. The
difference is that ‘exemplar’ in imitation mainly refers to ideas from past TDPs or
other ideas of products in other industries, while every little detail of daily life could
possibly become a ‘trigger’ itself. For instance, Bdm1 saw a news popup on her
computer about the opening of the first 5S aeroplane shop in Zhejiang, which caused
her to generate an idea that the team could write some aeroplane-related or aeroplane-
themed business into the projects.
Another example is Company B, where—in the researcher`s own experience—he
washed his hands and accidentally turned up the water tap too much. Then he saw the
water flow hit the basin and splashed, which inspired him to come up with the idea
that he can use the sentence ‘a fish jumps into water to splash spray’ to describe the
future objectives of tourism development in No.12 TDP, regarding implementation of
a project and how its ‘splash’ effects can activate the economic vigour of the whole
surrounding areas. The selection of the subject ‘fish’ was also an inspiration from the
fish-shaped outline of the project land, as shown on the map.
While ‘imitation’ and ‘innovation’ are viewed as relatively purposeful and conscious
ideation processes, ‘inspiration’ is relatively unconscious and is evoked in an
uncontrolled way (Thrash et al., 2010). This is probably the reason why some people
in the case studies described it as ‘a lottery’. Therefore, people can only facilitate a
better chance of inspiration, rather than intentionally controlling it or forcing it to
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occur. There were some interviews which indicated to the researcher several tips in
terms of facilitating inspiration possibilities.
For instance, some interviewees mentioned ‘departure from the normal routine’; to
work and think in different localities. 04FC said that ‘I feel that to do tourism projects
requires us to go out more and observe more. Because some things—ideas—cannot
be generated when you just sit and think in the office … The inspiration will come out
if you walk outside more often’. Furthermore, Acw1 mentioned the effects of ‘having
a rest’: ‘to keep thinking can`t always help people think out ideas … sometimes take
a break, and the inspiration might find its own way to your mind’, which exactly
echoes the argument of Baird et al. (2012) about the positive effects of “mind
wandering” on creative problem-solving. Moreover, 08MM came up with the positive
effects of ‘solitude’. He talked about how his time for most inspiration was when he
stayed alone during hiking, so that he could have a clear mind and inspirations began
to emerge one after another. Such an effect of ‘solitude’ is also supported by Bcw1,
who preferred to work alone in the office after working hours until very late, because
he felt calm and could think more deeply in that setting, and sometimes inspirations
just occurred.
In regard to the fourth quadrant, ‘innovation’, the author conceptualizes it as a
conscious, purposeful, and endogenous ideation process rather than its traditional
definition discussed in the literature review. The primary difference between
‘innovation’ and ‘imitation’ in this model is their endogenetics versus exogenesis.
‘Imitation’ processes are normally based on certain exemplar from external sources
(endogenetics less than exogenesis), while ‘innovation’ relies on the individuals` own
understandings, analysis and judgement to construct their own ideas (endogenetics
greater than exogenesis). It should be noted that ‘innovation’ certainly requires
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external knowledge, but that knowledge is generally ‘raw’ and requires further
processing by the creator rather than the exemplar in the ‘imitation’, which is
generally ‘mature’ as certain forms of product. The ‘innovation’ ideation process can
often be seen as the construct of the core theme and concept of certain TDP.
Take for example 01FC: she talked about the ideation process of the core concept in a
rural tourism project. The creator took the consideration of the information, about the
locality of the project land (a village located near the summit of a mountain) and the
common climate in that place (cloudy), in addition to the individual`s own
understanding of the rural tourism market (wellness tourism as the dominant role),
and some local tales. Then through certain linguistic organization capabilities, the
creator generated the concept of ‘ ’ 云顶仙居 (yun ding xian ju in Chinese pinyin),
which means one celestial being`s living place on the top of a cloud, that covers all
the implications of knowledge. A further explanation can be found in Figure 5.20,
which partly represents how the creator processes the knowledge and selects relevant
words to constitute the idea of this core theme concept. It demonstrates a further
difference between the quadrants ‘inspiration’ and ‘innovation’. ‘Inspiration’ is
implied to be an uncontrollable intuitive cognitive mode, while ‘innovation’ is more
likely to be a deliberate analytical cognitive mode, which corresponds to the cognitive
continuum theory (Hammond et al., 1987).
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Figure 5.20 Explanation of the implications and related knowledge foundation within
the concept ‘Yun Ding Xian Ju’ based on author’s research
In this section, the factor about individual creativity-relevant processes has been
discussed by presenting several brief processes about how the individuals in TDC
generate their project ideas. It initially presented several creativity-relevant skills (e.g.
systematic thinking, insightful thinking, imagination ability, connective thinking, and
conceptual skill), the importance of which in terms of producing project ideas was
emphasised by the interviewees. After that, the researcher proposed a “4 I’s”
(indiscrimination, imitation, inspiration, innovation) axis model to describe and
categorize the idea generation process in TDP, covering the characteristics of the
originality and the newness of certain ideas to its creator, plus the creator`s initial
intention of being creative in the corresponding idea generation process. It then
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discussed the conceptualization and the example of each quadrant in the model, and
the differences between these quadrants.
5.1.2 Team Level
If we view individuals as battleplanes which directly deliver an attack on the project
target, then the project team is the aircraft carrier which can unite those separate
efforts into greater power. Although there are some exceptions when a project`s scale
is quite small and the individual is very familiar with its content (04FC), working in a
team has become a common approach in TDCs. Hence, the author will present a
series of factors at the team level which are important to knowledge creation.
5.1.2.1 Job Factors
General job requirements have significant influences on the individuals` motivation
and attitudes toward their work, as well as the resulting output (Oldham and
Cumming, 1996). In this research context, the dominant job requirements for the
project team and its team members should be the project requirements mentioned in
Chapter 4; these include the general requirements of the TDPs, the specific
requirements of different types of TDPs, and stakeholders` demands (mainly the
clients`). It is undisputed that these project requirements guide the performance and
outcomes of the project works delivered by the project team, that in other words,
directly influence knowledge creation in this research context which views the TDP
per se as a form of knowledge. Moreover, the different roles of individuals in project
ecology are decided by their respective jobs/roles, to a large extent. As discussed in
the section 4.3.2.1, the copywriters are mainly responsible for the linguistic content of
the projects. Their typical responsibilities include researching project background;
producing original, suitable, and feasible ideas; and writing the main part of project
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documents. The draftsmen are responsible for some standard graphic content of the
projects. They need to produce the necessary graphs (e.g. information graphs,
topography sketch maps, brief sketches) to supplement the linguistic descriptions.
From this perspective, although these two professional types are responsible for
creating different forms of knowledge, the copywriters are supposed to be the primary
engine of creativity in the TDP. It is an ‘acquiescent and obvious fact’ (01FC) that
copywriters and draftsmen contribute to the project ideas to different extents due to
their different job responsibilities.
Furthermore, as well as the distinct job requirements of copywriters and draftsmen,
people within the same roles (such as the same project which has more than one
copywriter) will act differently in terms of their individual creativity. Apart from the
other individual differences (e.g. personality and motivation, discussed in the previous
sections), the distinction between their specific job position during the project will
also influence creativity. There are many evidence taken from the field work that can
support this argument. For instance, project leaders usually produced or determined
the main theme and conceptual direction of the projects which were perceived as the
most creativity-needed part of the TDPs. In addition, the primary copywriters of the
projects were generally more active (e.g. presented more of their ideas) than the other
copywriters and the draftsmen in the idea discussion meetings. It corresponds to the
statement of several scholars (Shalley and Gilson, 2004) to a certain degree that, ‘the
more complex and demanding of their jobs, the more likely the individual will focus
all their effort and think deeply and broadly about their jobs, which should lead to
more creative outcomes’ (p.37).
Even the same individual could act differently according to their different roles in
different projects. For instance, a relatively dramatically difference in work
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enthusiasm and involvement was seen between Acw1 and Acw2, according to
whether they were the copywriter in charge or not. Take Acw2 as for example. She
was a fresh copywriter with one year’s work experience and had been drifting along,
careless towards her work. Her jobs in the projects were usually as an assistant
copywriter for Acw1, so her jobs were relatively fewer, simple in content, and
routinized in style. It can hardly found her contribution during the idea discussion
seminars of the projects which the researcher participated in the early-middle stages
of case A. Although there were occasionally some bright spots in her outlook and
textual content, the originality of her parts of project documents were not considered
to be great by the others. However, the researcher observed a transformation of
Acw2`s behaviour during the cooperation of the last project in the late period of case
A, when Al1 reconstructed the Company And Acw2 was assigned to be one of the
project leaders for several small projects, including the last project—which was the
one in which the researcher partially participated. Although her change was not
dramatic, Acw2 slightly improved her behaviour in the aforementioned respect, in
that she attempted to actively express her ideas in the discussion and raised the idea of
the core theme and the content structure of the project by herself.
This example also demonstrates the significance of job autonomy, which is one of the
most important job characteristics mentioned by Liu et al. (2011). Job autonomy
refers to the individual`s control of work methods, pace, and efforts (Wang and
Cheng, 2010) in certain projects, and it has been widely considered as a significant
factor related to individuals` intrinsic motivation towards their creative task
performance (Shalley and Gilson, 2004). As observed in all the cases, people with
limited job autonomy possessed little intrinsic motivation to be creative, as they
thought their parts of the work were not significant and ‘will be revised and changed
largely anyway when (the project leaders) organize the whole document during the
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last stage’ (Acw1). Those with sufficient job autonomy were more willing to exhibit
their creativity, as they felt they ‘had more responsibility and better job satisfaction
towards the project`s success’ (Bdm2).
Another job-related factor which influenced individual ideation in TDPs was observed
to be task assignment . In the context of TDP, the individuals` specific tasks can vary
between different projects and are usually assigned by the higher level of units (e.g.
main copywriter, project leader, project director). Such assignment of tasks is based
on two approaches: one is premade and assigned together to all the members when the
content structure has been built, while the other is temporary and assigned
individually during the project process. Based on the observations, it was seen that the
latter approach sometimes interrupted the individuals` trains of thought, as new tasks
were assigned unexpected and were possibly irrelevant to the original tasks. To be
more specific, as mentioned in some informal conversations with the staff, when the
content of newly assigned tasks was consistent and logical with the original tasks, it
can facilitate their ideation process; it can help to generate more comprehensive and
systematic ideas. In contrast—especially in some projects which were not clearly
positioned and structured at the beginning, or the project leader had not developed a
shared vision of the position and structure of project content among all the team
members—the team members felt their assigned tasks were scrappy, inconsistent, and
ambiguous. This inhibited their creativity to a large extent.
Furthermore, task interdependence is also an important task-related antecedent for
creative team performance. Task interdependence is defined as ‘the extent to which
team members are dependent on one another to carry out their tasks and perform
effectively’ (Hülsheger et al., 2009: 1129). It was very common that the tasks of each
team member of TDP closely interdepended with each other. For example, the
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draftsmen needed the conceptualized blueprint of project land from the copywriters,
in order to produce relevant graphs; and the copywriter responsible for the specific
tourism product design needs the information from the copywriter responsible for
market and resource analysis.
As Van der Vegt and Van de Vliert (2002) demonstrate, task interdependence can
facilitate team performance by boosting the team members` interpersonal interaction
and cooperation. This kind of stimulating intra-team interaction can be found in Case
A. The researcher observed that, due to their work being interdependent, Acw1 and
Adm1 frequently sought advice, gave comments, and discussed with each other at
work, which gradually became their normal working habits. Numbers of ideas and
solutions were generated and obtained during such interactions.
A negative example, however, was when Ccw1 was responsible for dividing and
allocating project tasks. The researcher (working as a copywriter) was assigned some
tasks which seemed to be relatively insignificant and independent from Ccw1`s tasks.
Therefore, during the field work in Case C, it can hardly be seen that Ccw1 came to
the researcher to discuss the details of those parts of work and to explain how both
parts can be better combined or logically linked. Hence the researcher often felt the
team was disunited and confused about the rationale for such task assignments, which
hindered his creativity and ideation process to a great extent. It should be noted that
task interdependence is a significant stimulus and antecedent of intra-team interaction,
and the resulting group creativity. However, its effect was mediated by a series of
other factors, such as workplace proximity, interpersonal relationships, team climate,
and individual knowledge, which will be discussed in future sections.
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The above discussion of tasks can be further linked to the research field in terms of
goal setting. There are three perspectives on goal setting (i.e. time deadlines, the
requirement of creativeness, the clarity and intelligibility of goals) which are found to
influence creativity and project production. Firstly, goal setting is closely related to
the setting of time deadlines for team members` work. As discussed in the section
5.1.1.5, overly tight deadlines can push people to choose the ‘indiscrimination’ model
of ideation. This constrains the individual`s creativity, as echoed by the work of
Amabile et al. (1996) about the potentially negative influence of stressful deadlines on
creativity.
However, it should be noted that the above argument cannot lead to the contrary
conclusion: that loose and comfortable time deadlines can immediately facilitate an
individual`s creativity. While some scholars (e.g. Amabile et al., 2002, Shalley et al.,
2004) consider that the pressure arising from tight deadlines can lower individuals`
intrinsic motivation and the resultant creativity, Baer and Oldham (2006) demonstrate
that the relation between time pressure and creativity should be curvilinear rather than
linear; a proper amount of time pressure can in fact facilitate an individual`s
creativity. According to the informal conversations with the staff in this study, many
of them recognized that they possessed—or considered others had the symptom of—
procrastination, at least to some extent. This can waste the expected advantages of the
original abundant time, especially when they felt they had quite enough time to deal
with certain project tasks.
It should be noted that this was not the sole example, and similar phenomena often
occurred and were mentioned by the staff in other cases. Acw2 told the researcher
about one of her own examples, where she was undertaking the job of writing two
chapters of a project document which was required to be finished within two and half
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weeks. She felt quite confident that she was able to finish the writing in just four days.
Therefore, she initially started to search for information on the internet. Many times
when she was browsing web pages, she could not help to glance over some irrelevant
online content (e.g. the gossip news of her Korean idol and the game strategy of some
video games) as she felt she had quite enough time and capabilities to finish the tasks
by the deadline.
Although such ‘hanging around’ on the internet did stimulate her about some ideas
towards the project (just like the individual knowledge section), those ideas were too
minimal in comparison to the requirements of the whole task. She only came into the
actual work three days before the deadline, and only after Al1 had checked and urged
her progress. She then hurried during that time to speculate and write the chapters.
She did not give a judgement about her own view of whether those chapters were
creative or not, but she did mention that she realized she had missed some very good
ideas which could be added into the chapters, but only noticed a few days after the
deadline. Such a working style was perceived to be inefficient by her leader Al1 and
her other co-workers. In order to reduce these negative effects of over-loose
deadlines, 05ML emphasized the significance of adopting managerial practices such
as schedule planning and time node control.
The setting of creativity goal is ‘a stated standard that output should be creative ---
novel and appropriate’ (Shalley, 1995:488). There is a series of literature (e.g. Carson
and Carson, 1993; Shalley, 1991) supporting that goal setting is critical for
employees` creative performance. In these studies, the assignment of creativity goals
was assessed to have a positive influence on employees` creative performance.
However, such an interrelationship was not observed or stated during the field work.
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Just as some staff in the case TDCs responded: ‘it is hard to say whether the so-called
creative goal can actually facilitate us to present creative ideas as it is a somewhat
common-sense that the employees should be creative to a certain extent’ (Bcw1), and
‘we get used to hearing the leader talking about how we should be creative, or have
more and new insights to the project target that I currently feel myself not really
paying attention to these words anymore’ (Adm1). The only exception which can
certify the interrelationship from the opposite side (to a certain degree) is the
discussion presented in the section of ‘indiscrimination’. When the client`s
requirement of originality was loose and the project leader emphasized the time
deadline of a project over other factors, the team members were more likely to choose
a relatively efficient way to complete the project document rather than pursuing
creativity, which was perceived to be too time-consuming and unpredictable.
Furthermore, the role of goal setting in creativity herein does not only refer to set
creative goals. It can also refer to ‘clarity of and commitment to objectives’ (West and
Anderson, 1996: 682). Numbers of scholars (e.g. Cardinal, 2001; Rickards et al.,
2001) state that clearly-set goals can actually enhance team members` work
performance by motivating them to focus their efforts. An obvious negative example
was found in the second project that the researcher participated in, with Company A.
Al1 assigned Acw1 as the project leader for the first time, in order to gradually hone
her leadership skills. However, when the project was conducted, Acw1 allocated very
specific tasks to the team members (including the researcher) without giving them a
clearly-stated overall goal or theme for that project. Therefore, the team members
were stuck; they felt confused and disordered in their ideation and work processes.
This was observed in the complaints from both Adm1 and Acw2, in addition to the
own feelings of the researcher. Such issues were relieved after a discussion seminar,
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in which Al1 was present. Al1 pointed out this problem and united the team to set up
a relatively clearer and more detailed core concept for that project.
This section started by reviewing the content about the different professional profiles
in the core teams (see in Section 4.3.2.1) to identify the role of job requirements
towards the team member`s role in the group work, in terms of producing project
ideas and documents. Then this research further discussed the differences within the
same category of professional profiles, or even the same individual in terms of their
specific job positions in different projects. From this point, the significance of job
autonomy was also found to be its applicability in terms of project work performance,
as it influences instinctive motivation toward tasks. After that, several task-related
factors, covering task assignment, task interdependence, and goal deadline-setting,
were discussed and their influences on individual`s creativity and work performance
were examined.
5.1.2.2 Team Size and Composition
While the job acts as a significant factor in individuals` creativity, the size and
composition of the team which can also be viewed as the key attributes for how those
individual jobs combine. Hence, they inevitably have an influence on both individual
and group creativity through their implications for diversity. As for team size, it is
viewed as one of the most significant group structural factors in terms of antecedent
conditions of team innovation (West and Anderson, 1996). In the context of TDP, as
discussed in the section of project teams, the team`s size is usually influenced by the
budget of TDC (05ML) and the complexity and scale of the target TDP (07FL).
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In some literature, team size is argued to have a negative interrelationship with group
creativity, through the mediator factor of centralization of communication within the
team. This is because that team size is positively related to the centralization of
communication of certain team which can decrease the creative performance of the
team (Leenders et al., 2003). Such an argument seems to coincide with the ‘round
table’ format of a team, where to a certain degree the whole large team is split into
several sub-teams and these sub-teams are connected through central nodes (i.e. the
team leader of each sub-team).
However, there is one difference between the aforementioned literature argument and
the ‘round table’ format: the way of such split: implicit disintegration during the
process or explicit division of labour at the beginning. This difference, by combining
with the limited large TDPs in which the researcher participated, led to difficulty in
measuring the actual interrelationship between team size and group creativity in the
context of TDP. This requires future research efforts.
While the case studies contribute little to this part of the discussion, several
interviewees spoke about several links between team size and group creativity. They
mentioned that, in general, the common scale of project teams for TDP varied from
one to six people including the project leader, depending on the scale and complexity
of the project. All the interviewees who mentioned team size and creativity (01FC,
03MC, 04FC, 05ML, 07FL) thought this team size was sufficient for accomplishing
the project`s requirements, including generating ideas for the project, and some of
them (03MC, 05ML, 07FL) said that five people would be the optimal size of a TDP
core team, including one project leader, two copywriters, and two draftsmen. This
situation corresponds to some extent with the statement of Guzzo and Shea (1992)
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about the interrelationships between team size and their performance: teams will be
most effective when they are of a sufficient, but not greater than sufficient size.
To the contrary, several interviewees expressed that the effects of team size on team
creativity were perceived to be relatively indirect and limited. They also considered
that team composition influenced team creativity to a greater extent than team size.
Diversity of group composition has been widely recognized as another key factor
boosting team creativity (e.g. Ancona and Caldwell, 1992; Egan, 2005). According to
the field work, this research identifies three forms of team composition diversity (i.e.
knowledge diversity, demographic diversity, and personality diversity) which exert
diverse influences on team performance and creativity.
There is some discussions in the literature (e.g. Hülsheger et al., 2009) related to the
former two forms of diversity of project teams: knowledge diversity (e.g. education,
expertise, experience) and demographic diversity (e.g. age, gender). As for knowledge
diversity, this refers to the heterogeneity of team members in terms of their individual
knowledge in relation to the project task, and its effects toward creativity have already
been discussed in the section on individual level factors. The significance of
knowledge diversity on the TDP can be seen in the general requirements of the TDP
mentioned in the GSTP (see in Section 4.1.1): e.g. the group participating in the
formulation of the TDP should be composed of individuals drawn from relatively
wide professional domains. The different requirements in different types of TDPs can
also lead to various compositions of the project group membership, possessing
different individual knowledge (see in Section 4.1.2), which is necessary to
successfully accomplish the project tasks.
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It is also the main perspective when the interviewees talked about group composition,
particularly through the factor of team members` education backgrounds and their
expertise. For instance, when 03MC responded to the researcher`s question about the
interrelationships between team attributes and creativity, he initially talked a little
about team size: ‘the size should not be too large … it depends on the situation ... I
feel that three or four core members are (a) very good (size)’.He then emphasized the
team composition of knowledge diversity, noting that: ‘these three or four core
members would better to have their own merits, especially in terms of their
specialities. For example, each of them can be an expert on architecture,
anthropology, culture, agriculture, business, media, or advertising respectively. It
would lead the team to be more diverse, and make people feel the team is being more
professional when it is performing project tasks. At least, it (such diversity) can lead
the team to be more creative and have special aptitude in some fields. If every team
member is from the same area of expertise, it is just like there is only one person
doing one job’, so the team cannot give play to its collective and diverse strength
fully.
Furthermore, hints of the significance of knowledge diversity (on team creativity)
were reflected through several managerial practices which were mentioned by the
interviewees. For instance, as 04FC said that, although sometimes the size of her
project team was just two or three people and the copywriters were all from tourism
or urban planning disciplines, all the staff from the project business department (one
department constituted several project teams, likewise the organizational structure of
Company B) would be organized together to brainstorm the key concept and ideas of
her project in the early stages of the process in order to maximum knowledge
diversity and achieve creative outcomes.
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In regard to demographic diversity, although there is some literature (e.g. Ancona and
Caldwell, 1992; Pelled, 1996) that gives insights into the interrelationships between
demographic diversity and team performance, almost none of the interviewees and
staff in the case companies mentioned the role of demographic diversity on team
performance and creativity in the context of TDP. However, there was an interesting
phenomenon that all the project teams: they were constituted of mixed genders.
Although it was not that everyone intentionally grouped their teams with mixed
genders, some leaders (e.g. Cl1) did say that they treated mixed genders as one reason
for building mixed teams. Although perhaps not a dominate reason, the leaders
referred to a Chinese common saying: ‘nan nv da pei, gan huo bu lei’, meaning ‘a mix
of Jacks and Jills makes a tough job a breeze’. It corresponds to Hoffman and Maier
(1961)`s work in terms of gender diversity to a certain degree, which argues that
individuals working in teams with mixed genders can perform better and hence boost
the team`s overall outputs.
As well as knowledge diversity and demographic diversity, there is another significant
form of diversity for team performance and creativity. On the basis of the researcher`s
fieldwork, this was found to be personality diversity. A series of efforts from within
the literature tried to demonstrate both positive (e.g. Neuman et al., 1999) and
negative (e.g. Poling et al., 2006) interrelationships between personality diversity and
team performance.
As for the present research, some interviewees mentioned the positive influence of
personality diversity on team performance through the complementation between
different individuals` personalities. For instance, as 05ML mentioned, one project
team not only needed a calm leader and several earnest and conscientious members to
steadily and firmly advance the project progress, but it also required several
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aggressive and active individuals to pour into the team with passion and motivation,
to trigger the team`s creativity.
It can also be observed in the case study that one relatively extroverted member (e.g.
Acw1 in the project team of Company A) can actually stimulate the others with less
extroversion (e.g. Adm1) to be more active during daily communication and
discussion. Furthermore, some interviewees identified the significance of the
compatibility of team members in terms of their personalities. The degree of such
compatibility can significantly influence the whole team climate, which will directly
affect the team`s cooperation and creativity: ‘without compatibility, (personality)
diversity and differentiation lead to chaos’ (07FL). The project leader was considered
to play a key role in facilitating compatibility between different members. The
relationship between team climate and team creativity will be discussed in turn, in
later sections.
To sum up, to a certain degree this section focused on the influence of team attributes.
It started with a discussion of the interrelationships between team size and group
creativity. No linear interrelationship was found between them, and the best team size
for group creativity was just one which is ‘sufficient’ according to the responses from
the interviewees. Then this section discussed the effects of team composition from
three perspectives: knowledge, demographics, and personalities. The diversity in
terms of knowledge composition has been found to facilitate group creativity, and
mixed-gender teams were mentioned to be more efficient. The diversity in terms of
the team members` personality characteristics can also contribute to team creativity
and work performance if they are complemented and compatible with each other.
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5.1.2.3 General Social Interaction within the Team:
Based on the above discussion, both factors can be found to have several implications:
their influences on team creativity might boost social interactions between team
members. Although in the discussion of personal level factors, some evidence was
found to show that isolation can facilitate individual creativity, and several literatures
(e.g. Shalley, 1995) have also demonstrated that people who work alone can be more
creative and productive in certain cases. However, there are a series of studies arguing
that creativity frequently results from the social interaction process between people.
Therefore, the researcher will mainly present the interrelationship between general
social interaction between team members and their creativity in the context of TDP.
Social interaction among team members and co-workers can not only influence
individual ideation, but also sometimes acts as the origin of creative ideas.
-Presence of others in the workplace/office (it should be noted in advance that the
workplaces in the case studies were not exclusively composed of the team members of
certain projects, but there were also team members from other projects or staff from
other departments. However, the discussion in this section is mainly about the
individuals` interactions rather than the setting of the workplace itself, and therefore
the author chooses to discuss them here rather than in the organizational chapter,
which will focus on institutions and physical settings).
Firstly, presence of management and co-workers in the workplace can exert
influences on the individuals` performance in knowledge creation. To be more
specific Management`s presence in the workplace has received attention from Zhou
and George (2001) who tried to examine its influence on individuals` work
performance and creativity. However, the results from those prior studies are
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inconsistent. For instance, as Zhou and Shalley (2003) reviewed in their article,
Matlin and Zajonc (1968) demonstrated that management presence in the workplace
(which they referred as surveillance) can significantly impact an individual`s
creativity. However, Amabile et al. (1990)`s work denied this. Similar inconsistent
impacts of management presence can also be found in different cases in this research,
especially when such a presence is connected to the company leaders.
The staff in both case Companies A and B showed negative emotions (e.g. nervous,
uncomfortable, and uneasy) when they felt they were under surveillance, especially
when the company leader or other management personnel appeared in the workplace.
One day on the way to the restaurant for lunch, Acw1 and Adm1 told the researcher
that when there was someone standing behind them watching their work and
frequently giving his comments, they felt that their work efficiency can be
dramatically decreased and their thoughts can be constrained due to nerves. Bsd1 and
Bdm1 also complained quietly in the office that they were very agitated when they
saw Bl1 come into the office, as they felt as if they were being watched and
interrupted. In contrast, the staffs in Company C did not report any similar negative
responses for surveillance or the presence of team leaders or management. Some (e.g.
Ccw1, Ccw2) were even observed seeming pleased about the presence of Cl1 and Cl2
in the same workplace as them. Several reasons behind such differences can be
inferred from overheard informal conversations (the potential reasons are marked in
italics in the sentences).
More specifically, the researcher observed that Bl1 had relatively poor social
relationships with the staff of the department where the researcher was subject to the
Company B during the field work. For instance, the staff in that office privately felt
an antipathy against the development strategies pushed by Bl1; meanwhile, they
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supported Bl2—their direct supervisor—and secretly had a conflict of interest with
Bl1 and his nepotism in management. Furthermore, Bl1 often interrupted their work
progress to order them to carry out some additional trivial matters, as their office was
located right next to hisBl1`s. They felt that such interruptions had become a custom
(negative mental impressions about the appearance of management as well as some
other certain co-workers).
As for case A, although Al1 had very good personal relationships with the employees
in Company A, Adm1 said that the pressure primarily originated from Al1`s dual
administrative roles in both the company and the project: ‘double powers, leading to
multiple tension’ (over-centralized power of individuals) and Al1`s strict and
changing requirements for the project business (defective leadership style). The above
reasons were not present in case C, which demonstrated the opposite phenomenon.
Both Cl1 and Cl2 were perceived as very warm people, and they possessed good
relationships and common leisure interests (such as stock investment) with the staff,
on the whole. Apart from providing comments and some key concepts for the
projects, they usually did not interfere with the project progress too much, and they
authorized the project leaders with relatively high levels of autonomy. Therefore, their
presence did not bring a nervous or unpleasant atmosphere to the workplace.
Surveillance by co-workers in the same workplace was also observed to influence
individuals’ performance, mainly in case of Companies B and C. In case B, it was
Bdm2 who often just walked over and stood behind the researcher`s seat, asking the
researcher what he was working on. Such situations sometimes boosted the
communication and cooperation between them, improving project work efficiency to
some degree. However, it was more often interruptive to the researcher`s thinking or
immersion in the work, and sometimes the researcher felt uncomfortable when he
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found Bdm2 was watching over the researcher`s work. A similar situation could be
seen in case C, where Cdm1 often walked around the office and stood behind other
seated staff to observe their work while also attempting to have conversations with
them. An expression of disgust flashed across the faces of those staff, and softly-
spoken whispers were heard about their negative attitudes towards Cdm1.
They considered this to be due to behaviour which they described as ‘weird’ (the
word which was used to describe Cdm1 by the other staff in the office), that is not
conforming to expectations of acceptable behaviour. According to the researcher’s
observations and some informal conversations with staff members, the reason behind
this phenomenon cannot be ascribed to Bdm2 and Cdm1`s so-called ‘weird’
behaviour. Indeed, their (Bdm2 and Cdm1) initial intentions of such behaviour were
about building relationships with other people in the office, or getting involved in the
project work to a greater extent. Hence, the researcher considered that such issues
reflected what can be described as newbie-unfriendly organizational climate (i.e. it
was hard for newcomers to assimilate into the original group) and weak human
resource practices (i.e. a lack of effective HR practices to guide and facilitate
newcomers to be assimilated) in terms of facilitating new employees` integration with
existing staff and projects.
As well as the influences of surveillance, the easy observation of the staff` emotions
and work did affect work performance because the staff of the three case companies
all worked in relatively open work environments. To be more specific, it was
frequently observed that when certain individuals were angry or fidgety in the
workplace—especially those relatively emotive ones (e.g. Acw1, Bdm1) who were
more likely to express their emotions—such negative feelings can easily spread to the
individuals sitting around them, inhibiting their work efficiency and interrupting some
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people`s trains of thought. As for work contents, this refers to the phenomenon that
the individuals can relatively easily observe their co-workers` work as their computers
are exposed to each other. This was observed to increase the chance of
communication (e.g. peer-evaluation, which will be discussed in the next section)
between co-workers about the exposed work content, which eventually improved the
content quality and encouraged individuals to generate more ideas. Several staff
members in the case studies did mention the possibilities of plagiarizing the ideas of
other people in the workplace; however, the interviewees and most staff exhibited
little concern for this potential issue as it can be barely seen in the real work and those
ideas themselves were supposed to be eventually communicated between members
and summarized into the final document anyway.
-expectation and evaluation
Among all kinds of social interaction within the project ecology of TDPs, the factors
of expectation and evaluation are found to play very important and variable roles in
individual and team creativity in different situations. Both factors have received some
attention in earlier studies. As for the perspective of expectation, it was often
discussed as a factor along with ‘job context’ or ‘goal settings’ in previous creativity
research (e.g. Shalley and Gilson, 2004). In the present research, the author refers to a
more general context which consists of both the specific project task related
expectations and the general expectations to the individual`s behaviour by others. As
for the project task related expectations, most of their effects on individual and team
creativity were discussed in the early ‘Job Factors’ section. With respect to the latter,
this refers to certain individuals’ beliefs about other individuals’ general behaviour.
These kinds of expectations can further be divided into two sets depending on the
situation and are not exclusive of each other: explicit and implicit.
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Explicit expectations are those whereby individuals will express their expectations to
the target individuals. The expression of expectations was observed to give cues to the
target individuals about what is needed and valued by the other individuals, teams and
organizations. This can sometimes encourage them to focus their efforts on these
expectations (extrinsic motivation, Ryan and Deci (2000)) and hence facilitate their
creativity. A direct example is the researcher himself. His background as a Ph.D.
student was known by the staff in the case companies. When he entered the case
companies, the managers and the staff all expressed their expectations about the
researcher, namely that they believed he was a creative person and could contribute
his advanced ideas and wide horizon to their projects. These expectations not only
became a pressure which pushed the researcher to be more involved in the project
work, but also gradually fostered and enhanced the researcher`s own belief in being a
creative person and that he could be creative in the project. Such self-beliefs, which
are termed ‘creative self-efficacy’ and ‘creative role identity’ by the literature (Zhou
and Shalley, 2003), are demonstrated to be positively related to the individual`s
creative performance (Farmer et al., 2003). It also has to be noted that inevitably they
influenced the field work.
With respect to implicit expectations, people will keep expectations in their own
minds rather than explicitly stating them to others. This built-in type of expectation
significantly influences the project process and the interrelationships between the
entities. In the project process, implicit expectations can be viewed as a pre-made
cognitive framework to predict the other entities` behaviours which form the
foundation of the cooperation between them. When one`s behaviour frequently meets
the other`s expectation of him/her, this is so-called ‘tacit agreement/understanding'
between them, which ‘contributes a lot to the (project) work efficiency and
performance’ (05ML).
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In contrast, when one`s behaviour often fail or exceed the other`s expectation, it will
generate an extra cost of adjustment, which hinders the project work`s smoothness.
Furthermore, unmatched expectations can sometimes trigger the individual`s negative
emotions and hence impact the individual`s own performance. For instance, when
Acw1 received one part of a chapter written by Acw2, she found the content was far
from what she had expected. Then Acw1 got angry with Acw2, and her own thoughts
towards her part of the work were interrupted for a while, so that Acw1 complained
that ‘what you (Acw2) have done is totally not what I had expected … You made me
forget what I was just thinking’. Some interviewees suggested that this inconsistent
match between expectations and behaviours can be adjusted and refined through a
consensual and communicative organizational culture with an emphasis on teamwork,
extensive socialization, and ongoing cooperation between them (07FL).
Furthermore, this discussion of expectations leads to evaluation and feedback which is
another influential factor related to creativity. In the literature, the reported effects of
evaluation on creativity are inconsistent and mainly depend on the specific form of
the evaluations. For instance, the controlling, critical style of evaluation as well as the
individuals` expectations to obtain such evaluations can lead to the abatement of their
creativity (Amabile et al., 1990). The developmental, informational style of evaluation
can facilitate individuals to exhibit higher creativity (Zhou, 2003). Some of the effects
of different evaluation types were also demonstrated in the context of TDP, during the
field work.
In cases A and B, critical evaluations were frequently heard when the leaders judged
their subordinates` work. For instance, during a project in which Acw1 was assigned
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as project leader for the first time, she made a considerable effort to impress and
added a lot of her own creative ideas to the project documents at the start of the
project. However, when Al1 reviewed the first draft that Acw1 had composed, he
strongly criticized the draft and insinuated that the document was totally unacceptable
without praising its strengths or giving any encouragement. The researcher observed
that Acw1`s original facial expressions—itching to be praised—faded to grey during
that review meeting process. Acw1 was very frustrated and was unable to re-motivate
herself to work on the project that afternoon with the same initial level of enthusiasm.
The impacts had not worn off. After that, Acw1 became more obedient to Al1`s
comments, and chose to reduce her own thoughts and ideas in the project documents.
Furthermore, Acw1 even ordered the other copywriters (e.g. Acw2, and the
researcher) to keep their ideas strictly within the comments provided by Al1 as far as
possible, which significantly impacted on her own creativity, team creativity, and the
diversity of outcomes in the final project documents. This transformation can be
explained through the decrease of her ‘psychological safety’ (Edmondson, 1999;
Burke et al., 2006) which resulted in her reduced willingness to take risks to advance
her own ideas when they countered the supervisor`s (Al1) viewpoints.
As for the effects of the developmental and informational styles of evaluation, the
researcher did not observe or hear staff talking about direct influences on individual
or team creativity in the field work. However, there were still some hints from staff
members and interviewees that they do need such styles of evaluation from either
leaders or clients. Some complained that ‘when we presented the outcome to the
clients in the final review meeting, they (the clients) often gave feedback to me about
how “you should achieve this, this, and this” without actually giving me more detail
or hints about how to achieve their requirements … when we modified the documents
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to which we thought was exactly what they required, sometimes they read the
document and just said “this is not what I wanted” … which led us to be really
confused’ (Ccw1). 01FC also complained about one of her previous team leaders who
‘only told you “yes or no” rather than explaining or discussing his evaluation to the
ordinaries’, and ‘the members in his team often felt confused or found it difficult to
understand his viewpoints’. Such complaints reflect that the less-informational style
of evaluation can barely contribute to the ideation process of team members.
To sum up, while the first two sections of the team level factors were mainly about
the attributes and characteristics of job and team, this section has started to discuss the
social interactions among team members and their co-workers. It initially discussed
the presence of others in the workplace, especially with regard to management
presence. The effects of this were often found to be negative towards the project
members` work performance and creativity, as observed during the fieldwork. These
effects influenced individual emotion, the atmosphere in the workplace, the pace of
work, and so on. It can however sometimes be positive when it increases the chance
of communication between co-workers.
Then this section discussed ‘expectation’, from two perspectives: explicit and
implicit. The effect of expectation was found to be complex towards individual work
performance and creativity: on the one hand, it can encourage the individuals`
extrinsic motivation, which improves their work performance and creativity; on the
other hand, it can impact the interrelationships among team members and their co-
workers if they fail to reach the others` expectations. This in turn negatively
influences the group`s cooperation and work performance. The discussion of
‘expectation’ also leads to some hints regarding the factor of ‘evaluation’. This study
then discussed the negative influence of the critical evaluation and the less-
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developmental/informational evaluation on team members` work and ideation
processes, according to the field work.
5.1.2.4 Competitive vs. Cooperative Work Atmosphere
The former discussion identified several aspects of social interaction between units in
the team and the contextual factors of the project team. There is another important
influential factor of the team members` creative efforts: the work atmosphere in the
team (Anderson et al., 2014).
By reviewing the literature, both competitive (Shalley and Oldham, 1997) and
cooperative (Amabile et al., 1996) work atmospheres were examined and found to
facilitate the creative work performance in certain cases, although again some of
results are inconsistent (see in Zhou and Shalley, 2003). The researcher raised this
question to the interviewees and company leaders in the case TDCs, asking which
work atmosphere is more significantly related to team creativity. The responses were
very consistent: the cooperative work atmosphere was said to be much more
important than the competitive one in terms of team creativity in the TDP. Some of
the respondents gave several hints which can be linked to the reason for the lesser
significance of a competitive work atmosphere in the context of TDP.
For instance, the project tasks were divided and assigned together by the project
leader on the basis of his/her own understanding of the individuals` respective
capabilities and preferences, and the tasks of each member were originally
complementary rather than substitutive. From this point, there is little conflict
between team members in terms of the allocation of bonuses. In those companies with
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a performance-led reward system, e.g. Company B, this was mainly based on the
quantity and quality of tasks accomplished by certain individuals, as the tasks were
assigned in advance and the evaluations were conducted independently rather than by
comparison with others. Therefore, just as 08MM said, ‘there is no need for
competition within the team’.
As for the cooperative work atmosphere, echoing the results reported in the early
literature, the interview responses identified its positive influences on individual and
team creativity. For instance, 04FC thought that the cooperative atmosphere was more
important, and she further praised the effects of a supportive team climate in her
previous team/company, noting that ‘there was a very excellent atmosphere in
Company X (anonymised): even if you are a newbie who is totally unfamiliar with
others in the team, the other team members were very willing to cultivate and help
you. Because from their perspectives, when you are grown, you are helpful and can
share the workload of the other people and contribute to a higher diversity of ideas,
which facilitate the team to achieve an overall successful performance of the
projects’. From her statement, the supportive atmosphere she experienced appeared
not only to facilitate the process of the individuals being integrated with the team and
the project work (hence contributing their own creativities), but also led to the
blooming of the team`s performance, as it could strongly utilize every individual`s
power.
Furthermore, the importance of a cooperative and supportive work atmosphere was
also found during the fieldwork. For example, just as Morris (2008) states, although
‘web search is generally considered to be a solitary activity … many tasks in both
professional and casual settings can benefit from the ability to jointly search the Web
with others’ (p.1), the group efforts in terms of the in-house knowledge acquisition
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pattern were frequently observed in cases A and B. For instance, a frequent
phenomenon in case A was that one team member faced some difficulties in searching
for desirable data (e.g. they cannot find sufficient or qualified examples of certain
types of attraction) and he/she would grumble faintly. When the others are sitting
nearby heard this, they would actively give their advice or directly helped to conduct
the search (e.g. the example was described in the section 5.1.1.3).
A more detailed example was seen in case B. As Bcw1—who was the project leader
—abruptly travelled abroad for his vacation without notifying the team in advance,
the researcher had to carry on his duties to understand the existing data and refine the
project content framework. Therefore, when the researcher was conceiving the idea of
certain integrated ecological urban tourism attractions in the project, he was too busy
and had to ask for help from another (Bdm2) to search for some cases of ecological
city planning. Bdm2 was available, and his education background was urban planning
which was closely related to the theme of the intended cases, so the researcher
thought that he could be helpful in finding desirable results. However, the most
important reason why this cooperative effort happened was neither his availability nor
his suitability, but the fact that he actively told the other team members that ‘I`m very
available today … I wish to find some work to do. When you guys need any help, just
tell me and I`ll do it’. He repeated this sort of statement several times during that
working day.
The above examples of group efforts did not only show the benefits of better
employing the human resources of the team, but also imply that wider knowledge
sources and more inspirational opportunities were exposed to each member in the
team. Most members of the teams of the two cases (e.g. Acw1, Adm1, and Bdm2)
also supported that these benefits should give credit to the cooperative and supportive
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work atmosphere in the team. In contrast, although the organizational climate of case
Company C was warm and ‘as a family’ (Ccw1), the work atmosphere in the team in
which the researcher participated was in fact very cold and unsupportive. The team
members within it rarely communicated with each other, which to a large extent
stopped the performance from reaching a relatively high level.
By emphasizing the importance of an appropriate work atmosphere in the team, many
interviewees and staff in the case companies thought that the team leader should take
the main responsibility for constructing such an atmosphere in the team. For instance,
07FL identified the dominant role of the team leader for building a cooperative and
supportive work atmosphere in the team in order to achieve higher creativity. This is
echoed by Andrews and Farris (1967), where it is stated that there is a constructive
role of supportive supervisors in terms of creating a creativity-supported work
environment. The role of the team leader—which is presented in the project team
section of project ecology chapter—further supports this statement, as one of the roles
of project leaders is to build a communicative team culture.
To sum up, the effect of work atmosphere has been discussed in this section. It
initially viewed work atmosphere from two categories: competitive and cooperative.
According to the interviews, a consistent response was that the cooperative work
atmosphere is much more important than the competitive one in terms of team
creativity of TDP. Then, the researcher took some examples from the field work to
further support and demonstrate such an argument. After that, the importance of
leader in terms of building and maintaining proper work atmosphere was mentioned,
and this will be discussed further in the next section.
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5.1.2.5 Leadership
The discussion in the former sections largely implied the critical role of TDP project
leaders and the supervisory behaviours in influencing the factors towards creative
performance. Therefore, the type of leadership actually plays a significant role in the
team creativity process, and this statement was widely supported by the interviewees
and the staff in the case TDCs. Somech (2005) mentioned two main types of
leadership in the literature: participative versus directive leadership. Participative
leadership refers to a democratic pattern, where the leader puts himself/herself as a
member of the team and the leader and other team members have a shared influence
in the decision-making process.
In contrast, directive leadership refers to an autocratic pattern, wherein all decisions
are made by the leader without the participation of the team members; the members
are just required to follow the leader’s orders. Echoing with the findings of Anderson
et al. (2014), participative leadership can contribute more to team creativity. Evidence
can be found in the field work of case Company B: Bl1 and Bcw1 just highlighted
several tips about the general theme of the projects and gave few constraints to the
content framework and the specific details, which gave full play to the subordinates`
creativity.
By contrast, Ccw1 worked purely in the directive style. In the discussion meetings
with the researcher she often expected the researcher to just follow her ideas rather
than seeking more diverse possibilities. Sometimes, she attempted to act as a
democratic pattern in that she asked the researcher and Cdm1 about the ideas in a
certain area, or asked them to give some names to certain ideas. In the initial couple of
days, the researcher and Cdm1 responded actively and sent Ccw1 some fruitful
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options and ideas; however, when she showed us the initial draft of the project, the
researcher and Cdm1 cannot find their proposed ideas anywhere in the documents,
and the content which she had told us to discuss was just a fulfilment of her own
thoughts. This situation leads the team members to feel that she had just acted in a
play named “participative leadership”, but that her real modus was still one of
directive leadership that ignored all the others` efforts toward the general framework
of that project. This reduced the intrinsic motivation of other team members, hence
lowered their creativity.
It should be noted that the roles of participative leadership and directive leadership are
not immutable in the knowledge creation process in the context of TDP. Particularly,
in those projects` requirements which exceed the original knowledge of the core team
members, and the small number of consultants, in terms of those specific fields were
not enough for accomplishing the project. At such time, participative leadership
would lead to much uncertainty for the core members, which can in turn lead to chaos
and inefficiency of the ideation process rather than creativity. In the unknown
(knowledge) area, the members were usually aimless, superficial, and could not
integrate their efforts effectively towards the project tasks, and they could be
described as being like ‘people came into a dark room without any lights’ (08MM). In
this situation, although the researcher had not experienced such cases during the
fieldwork, some interviewees (e.g. 04FC, 07FL, 08MM) mentioned that directive
leadership is required—as the ‘light’ to clarify the direction of the member`s
performance—which can provide essential guidance for the whole team to avoid
uncertainty and to accomplish the project tasks. For instance, the project leader set up
the whole framework, the core theme, and the intended outlines of each part of the
project document by himself/herself. They then tasked the team members to
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accomplish and enrich the remaining parts of the document according to these
contents.
To sum up, this section has discussed the critical role of TDP`s project leaders and
supervisory behaviours in influencing the factors towards creative performance. The
discussion was conducted by adopting the categorization of two types of leadership:
directive and participative. Although the participative type was usually mentioned in
terms of its contribution to the team`s creativity, as according to the literature and
indeed some examples in the field work, it was seen that the effects of both types of
leadership in the context of TDP can be either positive or negative influences on the
knowledge creation process, depending on the circumstances and other factors, such
as the task’s complexity.
5.1.3 Organizational Level
The previous sections mainly discussed the factors at the individual and team levels,
which can be treated as the main forces of knowledge creation and creativity in the
present context. However, it should be noted that the individuals and the teams can be
considered to be just fish, which cannot live without water, which is the wider
external environment around them. In the following sections some factors in the
levels of organizational and external environments will be presented, focusing on
those which are perceived to be important for knowledge creation.
5.1.3.1 Rewards
There is a good deal of literature discussing the effect of rewards on creativity (e.g.
Malik and Butt, 2013; Eisenberger and Rhoades, 2001). In a general sense, reward is a
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symbol of recognition, and acts as an encouragement for an individual`s (or a group`s)
good performance. According to Shalley and Gilson (2004), rewards can be divided
into two categories: nonmonetary and monetary. As for nonmonetary rewards, this
can refer to recognition or praise, which can be linked to the previous discussion of
evaluation. The effects of nonmonetary rewards on creativity in the case companies
did not seem to be distinct from each other. However, some staff in the case
companies mentioned that the effects of nonmonetary rewards can be different for
different individuals with different social experiences. For example the ‘newcomer’
individuals who had little social experience—for example some individuals who had
just graduated from the university and had little career history—could be more
stimulated and encouraged when they receive praise from senior employees. In
contrast, more sophisticated individuals treated the encouragement and recognition
from their leaders more ordinarily, so this only influenced their work performance to a
relatively limited extent.
As for monetary rewards, most individuals in the Companies A and B already knew
their payment levels (including bonuses) before they entered the company, and
therefore they all had their own expectations of the amount of their monetary income.
Such expectations can hardly be exceeded, as ‘it`s hard to specifically quantify
everyone`s contribution to the final creative outcomes, and hence it`s hard to use
money to reward creative performances’ (05ML). Indeed, the researcher never saw
such extra monetary rewards during the field work of cases A or B, nor heard their
staff talking about their motivation towards creativity being money. At most, the
leaders would buy the team a dinner to appreciate their efforts after they finished a
certain project, and team members had become accustomed to this, anyway.
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Therefore, the positive effects of monetary rewards on creativity were unremarkable
or at best ambiguous in those two cases. However, the situation was quite different in
the case of Company C, where the reward level was less institutionalized and highly
driven by the leader`s willingness. As discussed in the section of motivation on the
personal level, Ccw1 intended to be very creative and active in the work because of
her aspiration to obtain higher monetary rewards and Cl1, who controlled the
disposition of these project bonuses, favoured those creative and active behaviours.
Although the positive effects on creativity were inconsistent in the three cases, the
potential negative effects of monetary rewards were observed in every case. For
instance, when the growth institution of payment and rewards were unsatisfactory to
the employees and they were experiencing difficulties and troubles during the work
process, poor monetary rewards aggravated their emotions and their motivation
towards creative performance. A representative example was Acw1. As she suffered
total repudiation from Al1 about her conscientious efforts in one project (as
mentioned in the section on evaluation)—along with other difficulties in subsequent
projects—she became more conservative and less creative. She started to think that
the payment and reward that she got in Company A was far less than the payment she
might have received if she worked in other companies. Such feelings worsened her
performance, as she felt much less motivation to produce a creative work
performance, so instead she started to treat ‘it as simply a job rather than one of my
(her) life goals anymore’ (Al1). She finally left Company A and set up her own
business with several friends two months after the researcher had finished the case
study of Company A.
To sum up, this section focused on the effects of rewards towards creativity and
project work. It started with a discussion of nonmonetary rewards. The effect of such
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rewards was found to be different from the staff with different social experiences. As
for monetary rewards, since the creative work was hard to quantify, it was hard to see
how any reward system could accurately pay and reward the case companies` staff
according to their creative efforts. Such a situation in turn resulted in the phenomenon
that project leaders possessed the power to decide the allocation proportion of the
project bonus within the team. Therefore, when the project leader exhibited his
preferences for the team members` certain creative and active behaviours, it
encouraged those members to display such behaviours. Furthermore, the effect of
unsatisfactory rewards was found to be negative towards the staff`s creativity and
work performance. This was observed in all three cases.
5.1.3.2 Training
It should be noted that KC relates not only to the generation of the tourism project
ideas, but also to the development of the whole work skills and processes, which are
crucial to the overall success of both TDP and TDC. Training is one of the main
approaches that can be used to increase task domain expertise, creative skills, and
other relevant knowledge of the employees in an organization (Basudur et al., 1982).
However, there were no systematic training institutions or schemes in any of the three
cases. Some staff mentioned that their companies once provided some training classes
to them. For instance, Al1 invited Adm1 to participate in a series of training classes
about the effective use of drawing programs. Additionally, Bdm1 was once told to
join an intra-organizational training seminar for newcomers in the company. Although
they agreed that the training did improve their work skills or facilitated their
integration into the workplace, both these training opportunities were rare.
Furthermore, none of them was related to creative thinking skills, e.g. divergent
thinking. Such a phenomenon can be inferred from the relatively biased viewpoints of
the company leaders, who considered that their staff should mainly learn those skills
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from specific work. To sum up, although training was considered, to a certain degree
to be useful for improving skills and processes in the TDC context, there were no
systematic training institutions or schemes in any of the three cases, and any training
provided was occasional in frequency and partial in theme.
5.1.3.3 Organizational Climate
It can be seen from the field work that organizational climate played a much less
significant role than team climate and work atmosphere in knowledge creation and
creativity, although its significance has been frequently mentioned in the literature
(e.g. Chen and Huang, 2007; Ekvall and Britz, 2001; Janz and Prasarnphanich, 2003).
Such a comparison can be seen clearly in the cases where the climates in the specific
team and the whole organization were largely different from one another. For
example, case B, where the team climate itself was really united and cooperative, but
the climate in the whole company was full of competition and even grudge. Also case
C, in which the team climate was isolated and unsupportive, but the company was as a
whole warm and family-like (although it seems to be newbie-unfriendly as mentioned
in subsection 5.1.2.3, the experienced employees in case-company C are close and
cooperative with each other). A possible explanation for this difference is that,
although it might be very temporary, a project team is a kind of organizational form
where the individuals work and is incorporated, and the production of the project
documents actually occurs, hence factors of that entity influence the individuals in it
more immediately and effectively than the wider company entity, which is further
removed and less impactful.
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5.1.3.4 Sound
Sound is an important environmental factor in the workplace. It can be divided into
two sets in the context of this research: speaking and music, both of which exhibit
positive and negative influences towards KC process in different situations. The
sound of speaking—including the sounds created by people mumbling to themselves
—especially when loud, can accidentally interrupt other individuals` ideation
processes. Additionally, in certain circumstances, it can trigger other people`s ideas
and opinions, on the topic about which is being spoken (see the examples previously
discussed with regard to a cooperative team climate). With respect to music, people in
the case companies often listened to music through their computers or mobiles during
their work process. They considered it to facilitate their creative ideation process, and
construct a relatively relaxed or active working atmosphere, something which is
echoed by the work of Hallam (2010).
However, there was a paradox related to music in the office according to the
fieldwork observations: everyone has their own preferences of music types and
volume levels, so the music which might boost one`s ideation process may also
disturb another`s at the same time. The staff in case A attempted to wear earphones to
avoid this paradox, so that each of them could only listen to their own preferred
music. However, such behaviour was observed to have a negative impact on daily
communication within the team, as when they wore earphones they could hardly hear
other people talking to them. Therefore, the struggle to balance both the positive and
negative influences of music and other sounds requires further investigation.
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5.1.4 External Environmental Level
5.1.4.1 Technology
When the researcher spoke to the veteran employees or specialists in TDP roles, they
said that technology has dramatically changed every aspect of how the project team
produces project documents. For instance, formerly the team members had to write
down their textual parts and take the documents to the print shop, or ask the
specialised typist to print them out. The draftsmen had to draw the necessary graphs
with their own hands and basic tools. Now, however, team members rely on various
software packages on their computers or mobile phones to help them acquire,
produce, communicate, and store the project documents.
According to the literature, research into how technological tools affect knowledge-
creation is still in progress (Argote and Miron-Spektor, 2011). Fabian and Ogilvie
(2002) demonstrate that technology can significantly facilitate creative decision
making because of its unique characteristics, such as enabling rapid and scaled input
instantly, and simulating the environment with exact conditions. However, in the
context of TDP, the researcher did not observe or hear from any team members in the
TDPs about using such technologies to facilitate their ideation processes, although
there are numerous hardware tools and software programmes being marked as the best
helpers to achieve creativity on the market. Examples include mind-mapping and
brainstorming tools. In the meantime, access to search engines (e.g. Baidu.com and
Google.com), bloggers and its analogues (e.g. WeChat Official Accounts), online
communities of practices (e.g. QQ group) particularly extend the scope and the depth
of knowledge that can be reached, thereby increasing team member`s creativity.
Several examples of search engines and bloggers have already been presented in the
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section on knowledge in the discussion of personal level factors. The researcher will
now present a further example of online communities of practices.
Bcw1 was in a QQ group, in which members were all professional participators in the
TDC industry. One day, he took a screenshot of a few sentences he had written when
planning eighteen public toilets in a certain tourism destination project, and sent that
screenshot to the group to ask several senior members about their relevant
suggestions. Some other members also saw it and gave various opinions. For instance,
Member X (herein the capital letters are just used to differentiate different members
without further meaning) said Bcw1 could design those toilets linked with the popular
concept of internet/intelligent medical products: after people have used the toilet, the
inner devices could instantly link to the cloud database to analyse their excretions and
provide health reports to the users on the basis of the analysis. Further, Member Y
suggested that all eighteen toilets could be thematically designed and each of them
could be decorated with certain particular features of the destination, hence enriching
the experience of tourists. Bcw1 discussed with them about that topic in a lively way,
for almost an hour. Then, he took consideration of all suggestions and adopted some
of these into his original descriptions—to constitute a new idea.
Furthermore, as technology has already swept across almost every aspect of TDP
work, the researcher considered that access to those technologies can be viewed as an
important resource for TDCs, e.g. the stability, speed, quality of work computers and
reachability of network connections. Reachability herein refers how wide sources of
knowledge can be reached by the staff through the network. Low reachability was
found when the TDC in which 07FL was working only allowed their employees to get
on the intranet and technically restricted their accesses to the wider internet during
working hours. Sufficient resources have been widely recognized as one of the
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imperatives for sustained creative work performance (Andriopoulos, 2001; Shalley
and Gilson, 2004). During the fieldwork, the researcher experienced and observed
situations of unexpected network termination, low network speed, software crashes,
and slow computers, and their influences on the team members` creativity and daily
work. For example, this interrupted their trains of thought, they were unable to get the
desired information, and lost content which had not been saved. According to the
observations, these negative influences can further lead to negative emotions of the
staff, and hence impact their ideation process and the whole team—something that
was discussed in the previous relevant section. Therefore, to ensure a smooth and
high-quality technology access is rather important for knowledge creation in the
context of TDP.
5.1.4.2 Government and Policy
There are several other external regulatory factors influencing the knowledge process
in TDCs in China, e.g. the governmental policies related to Internet regulation and
shared knowledge infrastructure. Take for example web search behaviour: the policy
factor here is that Chinese government has implemented a relatively strict network
regulation policy, so that access to Google and some other overseas websites is
blocked. However, according to the researcher`s own experience and informal
conversations with staff in the case companies, people can find their intended
international information (e.g. descriptions of the mode of overseas destinations and
attractions, and relevant international journal articles) more smoothly through Google,
while Baidu (the main search engine in China) is relatively more effective in terms of
searching for domestic information (e.g. local government policy documents, and the
introduction of local customs and specialities). Therefore, such restrictions hinder
access to diverse knowledge sources to a relatively large degree.
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In order to overcome this issue, most of the staff in the teams in the case TDCs
adopted circumvention technology (e.g. a web proxy) to ‘climb over the wall’ (slang
dialogue among Chinese “netizens”—net citizens—and the ‘wall’ here refers to the
“Great Firewall of China” (GFW), a play on words). While the government seemed to
play a negative role from this perspective, there can also be found several policies
which positively facilitate the individual`s access to certain knowledge sources. For
instance, Bcw1 told the researcher that most of the journal articles on CNKI (one of
the main national knowledge infrastructures in China) can be accessed anywhere in
the city of Hangzhou, as the local government there agreed on a long-term contract
with the CNKI service provider, and which notably increased the access of the TDCs`
staff to academic knowledge resources.
5.1.5 Summary
To conclude, this chapter mainly discussed the factors which were observed to be
closely related to knowledge creation (e.g. creativity and general work performance in
terms of producing project documents). This was in terms of the tourism development
project context from four perspectives: the individual, the team, the organization, and
the external environment levels. It can be seen that each level has its own diverse
factors and relevant influences on knowledge creation in the given context. In
addition, there can be found diverse categories and situations within each factor, and
the influence of each category/situation is not always fixed and can vary due to the
change in other factors and categories. Furthermore, by echoing the interdependent
nature of project ecology, most factors were not isolated from each other (although
such links have not been specifically identified here due to the limited resources of
this research; hence this requires future work).
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In addition, this section not only contributes to understanding about knowledge
creation in the given context, but to a degree it also fills gaps in our understanding of
the innovation process. To be more specific, KC is especially self-evidently important
in tourism development projects (TDP), as it is directly related to the creation of the
idea and its development, which is the most crucial stage of the innovation process.
Also, the discussion of knowledge creation is closely related to the realm of
‘creativity’ (Argote and Miron-Spektor, 2011). Hence the factors presented in this
section can also be viewed as the factors affecting the tourism innovation process (at
least, the initial sub-phase of such process).
Apart from listing and discussing the influential factors, this section also contributed
insights about the actual process of idea generation within the context of tourism
product development and innovation. The 4’I’s model (i.e. indiscrimination, imitation,
inspiration, innovation) presented in sub-section 5.1.1.5 represent four distinctive
ideation processes observed in the field work, which are differentiated in terms of the
degree of intrinsic originality and the intention of being creative. This 4 ‘I’s model
portrays a relatively comprehensive description of the individual idea generation
process in the new tourism product development process. Discussing the factors and
the situation influencing these processes brings relatively deeper insights related to
the understanding of tourism innovation processes.
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5.2 The effects of multi-levels factors on knowledge transfer and
retention
Based on the former discussion, it can be seen that knowledge creation in the TDP
process not only involves individual creativity, but also group efforts. Furthermore, as
shown from the project ecology of TDP context, there are various entities existing in
the given context which interact with each other during the project process, and many
of them are essential knowledge sources for the project objectives. Such situations
imply that there are frequent knowledge flows conveyed from one entity to another
during the project process. This implication echoes with the discussion of the KM
model mentioned in the literature review, which is about the significance of KT for
TDP and the close linkage between KC and KT. In short, successful knowledge
transfer is essential for knowledge creation and for the overall success of a project.
In this chapter, the researcher will discuss the factors which were observed to
influence knowledge transfer in the context of tourism development projects, from the
aforementioned four levels: the individual, team, organization, and external
environment levels. It should be noted that the discussion of the team and
organizational levels are sometimes mentioned in the discussion of one another—as
there are some common keywords for these factors (e.g. composition and size) as
these levels both belong to the common concept of collectives. Furthermore, a
discussion of knowledge retention will be provided at the end of this chapter in its
own special section. Its discussion will be conducted in a distinct approach which will
be according to the list of several relevant events, as there is relatively less (and
different) material in terms of knowledge retention from the fieldwork.
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5.2.1 Individual Level
5.2.1.1 Personal Characteristics
According to the transcripts of key informant interviews, personality or personal
characteristics were seldom actively mentioned when the interviewees were asked
about the factors related to knowledge transfer in TDP. However, based on the case
studies, personality should not be neglected as it characterizes the individual, which is
the origin of knowledge transfer in the context of PBO (Ajmal and Koskinen, 2008).
As discussed in the knowledge creation chapter, personal characteristics have
significant influences on knowledge creation. According to the KM loop part of the
conceptual framework, it can be inferred that personal characteristics can also
influence knowledge transfer via their effect on knowledge creation. As described in
the job-related discussion, one primary role of copywriters and draftsmen is to
produce, organize, and deliver their ideas to the clients—textually or visually.
Therefore, the influence of their personal characteristics on knowledge creation will
inevitably affect the quality of the delivered documents and the absorption level by
the clients (i.e. how much knowledge the clients can obtain and understand from the
delivered project documents).
In addition, personality traits also directly influence knowledge transfer within the
given context. There are several studies (e.g. Gupta, 2008, Matzler et al., 2008)
demonstrating such effects by examining the Big Five traits (John and Srivastava,
1999). The Big Five traits (i.e. neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience,
agreeableness, and conscientiousness), along with their antonyms (i.e. emotional
stability, introversion, closeness to experience, rudeness, and non-dependability) are
treated as the most principal personality dimensions that can summarize and explain
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the individual personality diversity and variance (Amayah, 2011; Matzler and Müller,
2011). The findings about the roles of these factors in the previous literature (e.g.
Gupta, 2008; Lotfi et al., 2016) are inconsistent to some degree. For instance, Lotfi et
al. (2016)`s work demonstrates that openness is the most significant factor positively
influencing knowledge sharing behaviour, and neuroticism has a negative influence
on the knowledge sharing. This result is contradicted by Teh et al. (2011)`s research,
which identifies that university students with strong openness are less likely to share
their online entertainment knowledge.
As for this research, the individuals with all five traits of personal characteristics
demonstrate certain influences on the dimensions of knowledge transfer as viewed
through different perspectives, according to the field work. It should be noted that, in
view of the limited resources available to the researcher and the nature of the
participant observation method, some classifications of the observed participants in
this research are based on the comparisons between the researcher`s observation about
the participants` personal characteristics. This is as well as the personality
characteristics contained by each trait, which are summarized in previous literature
(see in Table 5.12). Sometimes the characteristics displayed by individuals varied
over time, so the researcher mainly concentrated on those individuals who clearly
demonstrated such characteristics. Several examples of the influences of the five traits
on knowledge transfer will be presented.
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The Big Five Traits Corresponding Personality Characteristics
Agreeableness Cooperative, Trustful, Good-natured, Courteous, and
Helpful
Openness to
Experience
Curiosity, Imagination, Artistic Sensitivity, Open-minded
Extraversion Energetic, Talkative, Sociable, Self-Confident, and Active
Conscientiousness Self-disciplined, Responsible, Dependable, Organized, and
Reliable
Neuroticism Nervousness, Moody, Self-conscious, Sadness, and
Worriedness
Table 5.12 The Big Five traits and the corresponding personality characteristics
(derived from Barrick and Mount, 1991; Norman, 1963; Benet-Martinez and John,
1998; Thoms et al., 1996)
To be more specific, some team members (e.g. Adm1, Bcw1, Bsd1) with relatively
high agreeableness (labelled as ‘HA’ for short) were more likely to enjoy helping
others—one of the key knowledge sharing enablers (Masa'deh et al., 2013).
Furthermore, they were demonstrated to be more likely to have strong social ties with
other team members. Strong ties imply more frequently repeated interaction between
the units, which can in turn promote the knowledge transferred between them. For
instance, when the researcher had informal conversations with the other team
members in Companies A and B, one common response was that they thought those
HAs were trustful and helpful and that they were more likely to communicate with
HAs than to other members in most cases. They believed their requests and
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conversations could be really ‘listened to’ (Bsd1) by HAs, and that HAs could provide
more responses and help than others.
However, several team leaders and members also mentioned the potentially negative
aspect of HAs: they rarely challenge other people`s viewpoints, or sometimes their
dissenting opinions were expressed too tactfully to make the recipient understand.
Such a phenomenon echoes with Liao and Chuang (2004)`s finding that HAs seek
cooperation rather than competition. It can result in the dilemma of diversity—the
initial viewpoints of the others are only implemented or enhanced by these
communications with HAs, but they are not replaced or challenged by them. The
dilemma can become dangerous to both KC and KT, especially when such initial
viewpoints were defective: the transmitter will fall deeper into the mistake, and this
will eventually negatively influence the project`s outcomes.
A remarkable example was in the project for which Acw1 was first assigned the role
of project leader. She initially focused on many superficial details rather than building
an overall content structure and developing a shared vision of the project among the
team. When the researcher had lunch and talked with Adm1, he discovered that Adm1
actually doubted the behaviours of Acw1 and he thought her ignorance of the overall
project aim and content structure might lead to a fragmented document. However, he
chose not to tell Acw1 his opinion and continued to follow her instructions to avoid
potential conflict with her. That said, the initial draft of that project did eventually
receive criticisms for its ‘unclear aim and confused structure’ from Al1 (in a
discussion meeting) and much of the content that Acw1 had contributed was deleted
by Al1 due to the issues.
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Both of the aforementioned positive and negative situations were also confirmed
when the researcher himself interacted with those HAs. For instance, Bsd1 was a
widely-recognized HA in Company B, and she was also cooperative, kind, and
helpful from the researcher`s perspective. During the project process, the researcher
felt that Bsd1 was deeply involved in communication with the others and responded
to their requests sincerely. When the researcher asked for some previous project
documents for reference, Bsd1 not only found most of the available and relevant
documents in the document warehouse, but also briefly introduced the details of some
key documents which she thought were highly relevant and valuable to the current
project. Her behaviour actually facilitated such knowledge transfer process; however,
the researcher also felt that it was less likely to obtain dissent from Bsd1, which led to
the one-sidedness of transferred knowledge and, in turn, negative outcomes. When the
researcher finished the slightly nervous presentation of the initial ideation draft to a
client and asked Bsd1 for her feedback, she gave a lot of positive praise and
encouragement to the researcher. Her words did make the researcher feel calm and
happy at that time; however, afterwards he realized that an objective and pertinent
comment on the draft and Bsd1`s observations about the client`s true reactions to the
proposed ideas were more important and necessary to him and the team eventually
failed to obtain the order for that project.
As for the trait of openness, this research found that it has two aspects of influence on
knowledge sharing. Firstly, the individuals with high openness (HO) were more
willing to seek knowledge from others due to the HOs` curiosity (Cabrera et al.,
2006). For instance, Al1 often participated actively in industry conferences and talked
with senior professionals in order to advance his knowledge. In this context, the
chance of knowledge transfer was increased due to his open-mindedness and
curiosity. Secondly, people with HO are more likely to possess relatively more
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knowledge (Matzler et al., 2008), which can sometimes lead them to be more motived
to share such knowledge with others.
Continue to take for example Acw1`s experience, as mentioned in the KC chapter: her
curiosity and wide related interests (another aspect of openness (Costa and McCrae,
1992)) led her to have much general knowledge that the others did not. She was
willing to share this with the team when she thought some of that knowledge could be
linked to the target issues. It should be noted that the second aspect was controversial,
both in previous literature and the current study’s fieldwork. Just as Amayah (2011)
suggested, HO did increase willingness to seek knowledge, but it cannot guarantee
that the individuals will share that knowledge. A relevant example was Bcw1, a
representative HO in that he read, travelled, and consulted others a lot whenever he
had spare time. Yet, the researcher had never seen him actively share his knowledge
—in terms of the project work—with other team members unless he was consulted or
required to do so (although he provided abundant and valuable opinions when he did
so).
In regard to individuals with high extraversion (HE), they are more likely to share
their knowledge even where there are no rewards or other external incentives to do so
(Wang et al., 2014). In this research, the researcher had not observed very distinct
degrees of extraversion among the core team members in the three cases. However,
during participation in the field investigation stages of certain projects in the case
companies, the researcher met several clients and representatives of local
communities who had relatively apparent differences in terms of extraversion. Some
of them were active, talkative, and sociable—which echoes the characteristics of HE.
When they interacted with the core team members, the HEs usually talked a lot, and
often provided more information than the core team initially expected. It should be
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noted that not all HEs guarantee a good outcome for KT, and not all more information
are good. Several of the HEs gave clear and abundant ideas and information to the
core team members in a logical manner, which facilitated the production of tourism
product ideas in the final project document to a large degree.
However, some of the HEs talked alone for a long time during the interactions, and
paid little attention to the real demands of knowledge by the core team members.
Although the ‘flood of information’ (Cl1) can sometimes trigger the creativity of the
receiver by chance, those HEs—especially those who presented in a very coherent
and logical manner—were more likely to confuse the receivers to a certain extent. In
this situation, the receivers had to spend extra energy and time to screen and absorb
this knowledge, which was worsened when many core team members that the
researcher worked with relied on their eyes, ears, and minds to receive and memorize
the information during the interaction process rather than having the habit to take
complete recordings and notes.
The interrelationship between conscientiousness and knowledge transfer has been
debated in the literature. Some have suggested that they are interrelated (e.g.
Mooradian et al., 2006), while others have found the relationship to be insignificant
(e.g. Cabrera et al., 2006). In this study, the researcher discovered that
conscientiousness can positively influence knowledge transfer in several ways.
Firstly, the individuals with relatively high conscientiousness (HC) were more
involved in and committed to the project work process. Therefore, when the nature of
the project work required teamwork or knowledge transfer, HCs would become the
best executors of these requirements to participate in KT activities.
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Take for example Acw1, a representative HC in that she was recognized as dutiful,
responsible, and hardworking by Al1 and other team members. To begin with, when
she took the job in Company A, she was not used to frequent contact with clients in
the working day or to talking with local communities during the field investigation. In
addition, she was not used to taking notes of the observation and conversation of the
field investigation. However, when she was writing the project document, she then
realized that there were several troubles arising. For example, she was not sure
whether the clients needed certain concepts of ideas or not, and she was not sure
whether the clients had mentioned how to contact them. In the meantime, no one in
the office could provide an answer. She had to abandon those uncertain concepts at
that time. After she rethought Al1`s suggestions about several corresponding
behaviours were required in order to provide better performances, Acw1
conscientiously followed Al1`s suggestions and devoted her time and energy to those
aspects. She then consciously keep contact with the clients, and prepared a list of
talking before the team carried out the field investigation and met with the local
community. Also, she started to use a digital recorder to record conversations. In
contrast, Acw2—who was with less conscientiousness and had similar original
behaviour before as Acw1—still persisted in their old ways even if she heard Al1`s
comments together with Acw1.
Secondly, the above example not only identifies that the nature of the work compels
the HCs to be involved in the KT process, but also that they treat the knowledge from
other sources more seriously than the individuals with less conscientiousness (e.g. the
above-mentioned case with the different outcomes when Acw1 and Acw2 both heard
Al1`s suggestions), and hence have a better absorption of that knowledge.
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For instance, according to the researcher`s observations and the content of the project
discussion meeting, the HCs in the case studies (e.g. Acw1 and Ccw2) paid much
more attention to the previous project documents of Company And the materials
received from the clients. For instance, they occasionally presented their ideas by
referencing those documents and materials during the discussion, while the others did
not. The researcher once saw Ccw2 using numerous sticky notes to carefully sort and
organize the contents of the project document received from the clients, for the sake
of easier reference. In the next few discussion meetings, she exhibited her deeper and
more comprehensive understanding of that document than the other team members.
She often presented her opinions by clearly and logically mentioning the chapters and
sentences from that document.
It should be noted that high consciousness can also negatively affect the KT process.
The HCs are more likely to display ‘annoying fastidious, compulsive neatness or
workaholic behaviour’ (Rothmann and Coetzer, 2003:69). These characteristics are
highly possible to lead to conflicts between team members during the work process
due to uneven work attitudes, pace, and outcomes among the team members. The
researcher observed such conflicts occasionally between Acw1/Ccw2 and their team
colleagues, including the researcher himself. Although the conflicts seemed relatively
less impactful to their personal relationships, they could still lead to temporarily
tension in the workplace and in turn impact their interaction processes during that
time period. In addition, HCs are also more likely to be stubborn (Toegel and
Barsoux, 2012), which implies their relatively lower capabilities in the absorption
aspect of the KT process. This negative effect was to a certain extent demonstrated
through the researcher`s observations about the difference acceptance degrees of other
team members (non-leaders)` suggestions by HCs (e.g.Acw1, Ccw2) and LCs
(e.g.Acw2, Bdm2): while LCs were more likely to amend their work according to
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suggestions from their colleagues, HCs tended to remain with the status quo of their
work content or behaviours.
Neuroticism, also termed “emotional instability”, has been recognised to have
negative impacts on job performance and individual interaction with co-workers in a
common workplace (Hurtz and Donovan, 2000), which in turn negatively affects
knowledge sharing (Gupta, 2008). Such situations were observed in the field work. As
mentioned in the last paragraph, Acw1 and Ccw2 were both HCs who occasionally
had conflicts with their colleagues about work. However, they were rather different in
terms of neuroticism: Acw1 was a moody person—as mentioned in the previous
sections, while Ccw2 looked like a relatively calm person—she generally showed
little emotion during the working hours. When confronted by the aforementioned
conflicts, their emotions and expressions were totally different: Acw1 would rashly
exhibit her emotion and thoughts before the surrounding colleagues, while Ccw2 was
only felt cold by the person whom she was communicating with.
Such differences led to different degrees of impacts on the atmosphere in the
workplace, and in turn on the interaction processes among other team members. The
case of Acw1 temporarily impacted the overall atmosphere in the workplace, and
could be observed by a marked decrease in the surrounding colleagues` interactions
and communication at that time. The case of Ccw2, however, had little effect on the
other colleagues. However, such differences were found to have an inverse outcome,
influencing the objects with whom they were communicating and conflicting with.
The objects were relatively easier to know the real attitude and thinking of the
individual with high neuroticism (e.g. Acw1), which echoes the unusual findings of
the potential positive influences of neuroticism on knowledge sharing, found by
several studies (e.g. Teh et al., 2011).
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By summarizing the above examples, the researcher observed that any one single
factor cannot fully portray the overall personal characteristics of any individuals
which should be a complex assemblage of all five factors to different extents. It leads
to complicated judgements about the performances of certain individuals in terms of
knowledge transfer, which is also a complex and iterative process. For instance, Al1
was observed as an individual with relatively high extraversion in that he was
talkative and liked sharing knowledge with his employees. By setting aside the
effectiveness of his knowledge sharing behaviour, which will be discussed in future
sections, it showed his clear intentions in terms of transmitting knowledge.
However, according to the observations, he also performed as an egocentric person
during the discussions with his team members which therefore led to his low
performance in terms of absorption. The researcher often caught the unobtrusive
expression of impatient in his eyes when the other team members were presenting
their ideas during the discussion meeting, and sometimes he looked at his mobile
rather than at the speakers or their presentation materials. It somewhat explained the
phenomenon that he might have praised some ideas presented by the team members
during the discussion meeting, but would totally forget them after a few days later.
Moreover, none of the ideas had ever been adopted in his work: he had not truly
understood or recognized those ideas, and his praise was just to encourage the team
members to present more, rather than sincerely understanding and recognising their
ideas. In order to understand the complex interrelationships between personality
dimensions and overall performance in terms of knowledge transfer, a further
clarification should be sought in future work.
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Furthermore, it should also be noted that knowledge transfer is essentially a process
between units, including the individuals, and therefore the compatibility of the
personalities of the individual involved in the process was important, which will be
discussed in the later section on team composition. In the meantime, different
personality characteristics lead individuals to be competent in different roles of the
KT process (e.g. Matzler et al., 2008), and have different preferences in terms of KT
patterns (e.g. the HEs prefer to talk) which can be further investigated in future work.
5.2.1.2 Emotion/Mood
As several examples of literature have shown, personal emotions are deeply
interrelated with how people perceive and act in the knowledge transfer process
(McConnell and Eva, 2012). The section on personality has shown that positive or
negative emotions did not simply result in a synonymously positive or negative result
(e.g. the aforementioned finding related to the positive influence of neuroticism on
knowledge sharing). To be more specific, the influences of emotion on knowledge
transfer in the context of this research have been observed and understood as having
the following aspects.
-Does positive influence only derive from positive emotions?
Positive or negative emotions can exert either-or influences on both parties in the
knowledge transfer process. As for the side of knowledge transmitters (as also called
knowledge senders or providers), emotions influence how they express their ideas
(e.g. attitude, content, intonation, speech rate) as well as how they are influenced by
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the feedback/reactions of the receivers. In regard to the side of knowledge receivers,
emotions influence how they absorb knowledge (e.g. identify, perceive, interpret) as
well as how they react. To be more specific, the researcher exemplifies several pieces
of evidence on the basis of the field work, in Table 5.13.
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Positive Emotions (e.g. happy, excited, tender) Negative Emotions (e.g. sad, angry, scared)
The Side of
Transmitters
Positive
Influence
Bcw1 often actively shared his opinions and clarified the
reasons behind them when he felt deeply about certain
objects (e.g. certain interesting features of the investigating
B&B) during the processes of field investigation or having
leisure time with the teams;
As observed in Company A, when the team members felt
relaxed and happy (inferred from their facial expressions
and manners of speaking), they were more likely to walk
around in the office and stimulate several extra chances to
communicate with others.
Ccw1 once told the researcher that, when he felt a bit ‘offended’
or ‘miffed’, he was likely to more actively express his opinions
and ideas to the opposite side in order to just feel comfortable (as
he once described the feeling as ‘I feel I have to get those ideas
off my chest’);
When the researcher enquired to Bdm2 in an informal
conversation about his feelings in such circumstances, he
responded that his mind would be more stimulated and he would
be more focused on expressing relatively higher quality content in
order to strive for a leading role in the conversation.
Negative
Influence
When several staff (e.g.Acw1 and Bdm1) looked very
excited, they were more likely to talk in a world all by
themselves rather than taking care of the reactions of the
receivers (e.g. talk at a relatively high speech rate or talk
too much).
When Acw1 was in an irritated mood, she would talk to the other
team members in an apparently moody tone, which relatively
easily evoked resistant attitudes by the others.
The Side of
Receivers
Positive
Influence
Several people (e.g. Al1) said they were more likely to
open their minds to or even accept others` viewpoints when
The researcher himself and some other staff reported that they
were more focused on the details of the received knowledge when
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they were had peaceful and soft feelings. they felt tense in a conversation with someone. (For the sake of
seeking solutions (e.g. arguments) to disencumber themselves
from the uncomfortable states of mind resulting from the
conversation).
Negative
Influence
As mentioned in the section of knowledge creation, Bdm2
was obviously in a state of exaltation on one afternoon after
he was praised by Bl1 about his recent performance, and
the researcher found it very difficult to communicate with
him at that time, as he acted in a manner not as modest and
warm-hearted as usual.
Many staff members (e.g. Acw1, Bdm1) were found to resist
patiently listening, reading, or considering carefully others`
speeches or messages when they felt anxious, depressed, and
resentful. This was caused by some trivialities (e.g. waiting to
finish near the end of working hours, and knowing their investing
stock prices have dropped significantly).
Table 5.13 The examples of the influences of emotions on both sides of knowledge transfer (Note: the categories of positive and negative
emotions are derived from the SASHET emotion families (Mersino, 2007))
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-Explanation from other categorizations of emotions
The above examples exhibit the diverse influences of emotions on knowledge sharing,
and show the difficulties involved in any simple classification of emotions in the
context of this fieldwork. By reviewing the relevant literature, the researcher finds
helpful the following categorizations of emotions, to provide certain insights into the
role of emotions in knowledge sharing between individuals. Van den Hooff et al.
(2012) adopted an ego-focused and other-focused emotions classification of emotions,
which distinguishes emotions on the basis of the different extent that they are
experienced through the focus on an independent (oneself) versus interdependent
(others) stance (Markus and Kitayama, 1991; Faseur and Geuens, 2012).
They brought insights into this research field by investigating the interrelationship
between emotions and knowledge sharing through the mediated role of attitudes and
intentions toward knowledge sharing, eagerness, and willingness. Those
interrelationships differ in their focuses on the actor`s own subject matter and the
collective interest respectively. As for the actors own subject matter, it can be seen in
the situation that a certain actor shares the knowledge because of being eager to do so.
With respect to the collective interest, it refers to certain actor shares the knowledge
because of expecting others` behaviours, e.g. share their knowledge either to increase
the collective performance. Their suppositions were demonstrated in this research to a
certain extent: ego-focused and other-focused emotions exert influences on KT-
related intentions and corresponding behaviour through the attitudes of eagerness and
willingness.
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For instance, ego-focused emotions influence knowledge-sharing intentions and
subsequent behaviour, mainly through the attitude of eagerness. As mentioned
previously, a relatively high amount and level of knowledge possessed by individuals
can contribute to their knowledge self-efficacy, and in turn increase the likelihoods of
their sharing knowledge. Many team members including the researcher himself
admitted that, when they felt proud or confident in their knowledge in specific areas
(e.g. Bdm2`s knowledge of city planning, or the researcher`s experiences travelling
abroad), it created a strong feeling in their minds about how spreading that knowledge
can make them feel satisfied, successful, or powerful. Such feelings often led them to
eagerly and actively express their knowledge related to those areas. For instance,
when the team were initially discussing a distinct topic, some individuals would
occasionally mention or just gradually guide the topic to their experiences in their
(might be exclusive) familiar issues.
In the same context, the aforementioned example of Acw1 identified that the other-
focused emotions influence knowledge sharing intentions and subsequent behaviour
mainly through the attitude of willingness: Acw1 felt happy and honoured to share her
knowledge in certain specific byway areas as she thought the team’s performance
could benefit from her knowledge contribution. Another example was derived from
several informal conversations: Al1 told his project team the reasons why he shared
some key information to the leader of another TDC. His company got essential help
from that company, and he used to learn a lot from the interaction with that leader.
Therefore, he felt a relatively strong sense of debt towards them, which drove him to
share his knowledge at that time.
Apart from the abovementioned seemingly fixed combination of emotions and
attitudes towards knowledge sharing, several observations also echoed one special
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finding of Van den Hooff et al. (2012)`s study: that ego-focused emotions can also be
associated with willingness attitudes. This was briefly mentioned in the examples of
the positive influence of negative emotions on the side of the transmitter (in Table
5.13). When Bdm2 felt offended or ignored in certain communication, his mind
would be more stimulated and he would be more driven to express relatively higher
quality content and to exhibit his knowledge level, in order to strive for recognition
and praise, and to acquire a more central role in the conversation.
In light of the temporality characteristic of the project context and the various entities
that can be involved in certain projects, in order to foster good impressions of one`s
professional identity and capabilities, such ego-focused emotions and willingness
attitudes commonly happened when the individuals entered into a fresh work
circumstance, or encountered new actors in the project ecology context. This was
found in the field work, e.g. when the external consultant met the core team in the
first discussion meeting of the project, or when the project leader met some
stakeholders of local communities for the first time. The researcher himself also
experienced such emotions when he initially entered the new case companies and
participated in the discussion meeting with the supervisors and the other team
members—he was attempting to think more about the project topics and crafting and
expressing his ideas in as creative a way as possible, in order to obtain
acknowledgements from others about his capability as a professional participant with
overseas experiences.
Furthermore, it is also observed that the emotion of one party can sometimes
infect/trigger a similar emotion in the opposing party in a social interaction context—
including the knowledge-sharing process—which is termed “emotional contagion” by
the extant literature (Schoenewolf, 1990; Barsade, 2002). Therefore, it is necessary to
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have an investigation studying simultaneously the role of emotions of the transmitter
and the receiver on their inter-individual knowledge sharing process. Only a few
authors have devoted their efforts towards this issue. For instance, Levin et al. (2010)
found that knowledge transfer can be facilitated through ‘having receivers and senders
in the same high-arousal affective state … regardless of whether the affective state is
positive or negative’ (p.123).
Some phenomena in the field work partly echoed Levin et al.`s findings. Ccw3 was an
outgoing and positive staff in the case Company C. Although they were not in the
same project team as the researcher, they worked in the same office and their
workplaces were just three meters to the right of the researcher. The researcher
observed that, once, Cdm3 was displaying a poker face and surfing the internet. When
Ccw3 brightly mentioned some gossip about their clients to him in a jokey tone,
Cdm3 cracked a smile. He then gradually became involved in the conversation with
her, and talked about some fantastic examples of hostel design which he had just read
on the internet. In the meantime, the consistent situations associated with negative
emotions were not observed during the fieldwork. Only some inverse examples were
observed. For instance, when Acw1 blamed Acw2`s poor quality of work in a slightly
angry manner, the atmosphere in the office seemed to immediately fall to a sub-zero
temperature. The others were seemingly flinching or turned cold at that time, and no
one talked for a while.
There were some other phenomena observed in the field work. Firstly, the emotions
of the individuals with higher status (e.g. the company leaders and the project leaders)
were more likely to ripple others` emotions than those individuals with relatively
lower status (e.g. their subordinates), although it was hard to judge whether the
employees were just going along with or actually influenced by their leaders.
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Furthermore, the habitual emotions of the individual were more likely to trigger the
similar emotion of others in the team than one`s unusual emotions. In the meantime,
the unusual emotions of the individual can sometimes trigger somewhat different or
opposite emotions of others. It should be noted that, although these phenomena
echoed the research outcomes of Brass (1984) about individual influences in an
organization, they were just several occasional phenomena that happened in the field
work or were concluded by the researcher from some low-level investigations into the
relevant people. The implications of these phenomena were therefore required further
insight in future work, through combining them with a consideration of the roles of
emotions on the transmitters, the receivers, and both.
-The various role of emotion in different KT channels
It should be noted that the previous discussion of emotions was mainly based on the
observation of the face-to-face interactions between the participants. However, due to
the rapid development of instant messaging tools (IMTs) in China (e.g. QQ, WeChat)
and the popularisation of personal computers and smartphones in the daily life of the
individuals in the project ecologies, the researcher also discovered that emotions
influenced knowledge transfer practices in the other channels, e.g. through IMT
technologies. This leads to different influences and challenges in terms of emotions
toward knowledge transfer in IMTs, due to its distinct characteristics.
It was generally said by the participants that communication through IMTs was more
likely to generate misunderstandings between both parties, and such
misunderstandings mainly originated from the uncertainty of one`s authentic emotions
and attitudes, from the other`s perspective. To be more specific, there were two
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reasons summarized from the complaints of the participants and the self-experience of
the researcher. First of all, written characters were found to be the primary form when
the individuals communicated through IMTs in the context of this research. Although
some people frequently adopted modal particles in their written communication,
which to a certain degree exhibited their attitudes and emotions, the participants
generally responded that they did not have the confidence to know exactly the other`s
emotions through IMTs, even if those who were communicating with them were very
familiar with them. For this reason, many participants said they once misunderstood
their communicating counterparts` information, and hence had to spend much more
extra energy and time to understand the authentic knowledge that they were supposed
to receive.
This also led to the difficulties of emotion contagion between the dyad who were
communicating through IMTs. The researcher summarized two reasons for this, from
the field work. The first is the dislocation or the breaking point (in other words the
inconsistent process) of the emotional contagion between both sides, due to the
inconsistent characteristics of online communication. For instance, the knowledge
sender cannot express his knowledge and ideas to the receivers until the sender has
transcribed it into written text or voice messages, and sent it to the receivers (although
such the speed of message from the sender to the receiver is instant). Additionally, the
sender cannot receive the reciprocal knowledge or feedback—although in certain
cases, no response was also a kind of feedback—until the receiver finishes the action
of absorbing the messages (e.g. reading the texts or listening to the voice messages)
and repeating the aforementioned action chains of the sender. This is all in contrast to
the relatively immediate face-to-face communication.
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Such inconsistency had become worsened and more common when voice messages
increasingly became another primary form of communication through IMTs, because
of the prevailing use of WeChat in recent years. This was found by summarizing the
researcher`s own experience, plus the responses from the participants. However,
although producing voice messages is usually faster than typing texts, listening is
much slower than reading, especially when the content of messages is excessively
long.
Another reason is the location-free characteristics of ITMs, which implies the sender
and the receiver can communicate in their respective locations and—in turn—they are
less likely to fully experience and understand the origins and context of the other`s
emotions. It should be noted that, even when they were sitting in the same office,
respondents also sometimes used ITMs to communicate with each other (e.g. when
necessary to conduct a discussion when the other staff were working quietly;
communicate some private notes). In such situations, both parties in the KT process
were facing the screen and interface of their computer or mobiles, rather than being
face-to-face with each other. This can also lead to the issue that they became less
likely to fully understand the emotions of each other.
Both of these challenges exist along with the potential conflicts between them and
their counterparts which led to impacts on their emotions and attitudes and even
resulted in a vicious spiral towards a worsening of the knowledge sharing process.
However, these challenges were not insolvable. The individuals spontaneously used
‘Emoji’ in their digital communications to help express their meanings and emotions.
‘Emoji’ means the “ideogram” or “smiley” used in the digital medias and
communication tools, and it is a term derived from the pronunciation of the
combination of three Japanese words (i.e. ‘ ’ 絵 e= pictures, ‘ ’ 文 mo = written, and ‘字341
‘ ji = characters). Some traditional Emojis and their representation of personal
emotions are listed in Figure 5.21. Apart from the traditional Emojis which are
developed by the IMTs and social media companies, there are some other customized
styles of Emojis which combine cartoons, photos, or text (e.g. see examples in Figure
5.22) which were also commonly used in daily communication between the team
members.
Figure 5.21 Examples of Emojis and their common meaning of emotions (derived
from Guinness, 2015; the responses from the fieldwork)
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(usually greater level) happy, positive
embarrassment, self-deprecating response
to compliments
upset, sad, hurt, (can be used ironically)
Figure 5.22 Examples of customized Emojis (searched from Google Image for ideas)
To be more specific, the effects of Emojis on daily communication and knowledge
sharing were not only their representations of personal emotions in the virtual
environment, but also had some further implications. Firstly, many staff members,
including several leaders (e.g. Al1), admitted that Emojis were effective alternatives
to textual sentences or voice messages, as they help staff to effectively and efficiently
express their emotions, attitudes, and opinions. They also responded that Emojis can
sometimes express some content which was hard to be organized into written or
spoken language. For instance, Al1 said that sometimes he solely replied to the
messages from his subordinates with a simple smiley Emoji which meant he thanked
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them for their messages and he gently denied them or just did not want to comment on
them at that time.
Secondly, Acw2 considered that the communication process would have ‘a lot of fun
and humour’ added by using Emojis (especially the customized ones) which can ‘ease
the communication circumstances and hence enhance knowledge sharing between the
dyad’. She was a heavy user of customized Emojis, and the surrounding staff were
also supportive of her argument, to a certain degree. It can be observed that they
increasingly adopted Emojis in their daily communication through IMTs, and a
resulting easy and joyful atmosphere could actually be felt by the researcher himself
during his field work with them. Several people from other case companies also
agreed with this argument. For instance, Bdm1 said, ‘Emojis are usually exaggerated
in style … this exaggerated style along with some feelings of humour can quickly
shorten the distance between people, or solve some opposed situations in a humorous
and easy way’.
Thirdly, the use of the same style/type of Emoji by individuals can enhance the
collective identity of the team members towards the team and the company. For
instance, the staff of Company A—including the researcher—were talking about
certain matters of the project, with Al1 in the QQ group once, when the researcher
initially entered that company. After Al1 allocated certain tasks to the researcher, the
researcher replied with a relatively formal smiley Emoji to express the meaning ‘I got
it’, and to show politeness. When the others saw the Emoji used by the researcher,
Acw1 said to the researcher that ‘you are too serious’. Then the researcher discovered
that they (Acw1, Acw2, and Adm1) used some exaggerated and funny Emojis to reply
to Al1 in similar styles, and that the chatty atmosphere of that QQ group felt like a
family. After that, the researcher also attempted to collect those Emojis from the
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Internet and used them to talk with the other team members, which was effective to
help the researcher to be integrated into the team. It should be noted that the above
three implications of Emojis can be further investigated through the perspective of
symbolic interactionism (Mead, 2013) in the future work.
While the use of Emoji can be effective in helping to express one`s emotions in the
virtual communication process, some challenges were identified in the field work.
Firstly, not everyone loved the use of Emoji. Some leaders and senior staff (e.g. Bl2,
Ccw1) gave negative responses—explicitly or implicitly—toward the abuse of Emoji
in their communication with the others. For instance, Bl2 said he did not want his
subordinates to use Emojis in their communication with him as he would accordingly
feel their work attitudes were not as conscientious as he wanted them to be. Secondly,
due to the various forms and styles of Emojis, sometimes some were hard to
understand or easy to be misunderstood by the receivers. Such challenges occurred
particularly when the original staff communicated with the newcomers that they were
not familiar with the others` habits and preference for using Emojis.
To sum up, this section discussed the effects of personal emotions on how people
perceive and act in the knowledge transfer process. It initially gave the examples of
the positive/negative role of positive/negative emotions in the knowledge transfer
process from the perspectives of the transmitters and the receivers. Diverse influences
of emotions exhibit the difficulties involved in any simple classification of emotions
in the context of this fieldwork. This section then discussed the role of emotions from
the perspective of ego-focused and other-focused emotions classifications. Then, the
emotion-related phenomena (e.g. emotional contagion, and the role of emotion from
the individuals of different status) was discussed briefly, according to the field work.
At the end of this section, a discussion about the role of emotions in the virtual
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communication tunnels was provided, including the difficulties and challenges
existing in such processes. After that, the concept of ‘Emoji’ and its positive effects
and challenges in terms of virtual communication in the given context were
introduced: this can facilitate the effectiveness and the efficiency of the virtual
communication process, and can also improve the social relationships between the
users. However, not everyone liked to use Emoji, and the availability of various kinds
of Emoji led to difficulties in fully understanding the meanings behind every single
Emoji.
5.2.1.3 Individual Knowledge
Just as Simon (1991, cited in Ajmal and Koskinen, 2008) states, individuals are the
origin of knowledge transfer between them and to other levels of organization. As
knowledge transfer is about transferring knowledge, it can be inferred that individual
knowledge plays an inevitable key role during this process that is the starting point in
most situations and may also be the destination in certain contexts (e.g. intra-
individual knowledge transfer). For instance, several scholars (e.g. Berlo, 1960; Gupta
and Govindarajan, 2000) support that the individual knowledge of the transmitter
(source) has significant influences on knowledge transfer between it with the
receivers (recipients). In this section, the researcher will mainly discuss the influence
of individual knowledge in terms of knowledge transfer from various perspectives on
the basis of the literature and his field work.
Firstly, the characteristics of (personal) knowledge directly influence the KT process.
For instance, by echoing the literature, the type of knowledge (e.g. tacit & explicit),
the source of knowledge (inside & outside certain context), and the level of individual
knowledge—in terms of social skills, language, and communication technologies—
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are all influential factors toward knowledge sharing in the context of this research,
especially in terms of selecting knowledge transfer mechanisms and tunnels. These
factors will be mentioned throughout the chapter. The role of individual knowledge in
terms of knowledge transfer is more than just the transferred knowledge itself. It is
also the key component of the individual mental model which is essential to
knowledge transfer (Bresnen et al., 2003) and defined as the representation of
conceptions that individual applies to understand external phenomena or experience
and in turn influences the individual`s acts (Magzan, 2012; Rook, 2013).
However, the individual mental model is inherently unobservable (Carley, 1997)
which implies that the data collection method adopted in this research finds it hard to
deal with this type of issue. By combining with the researcher`s limited resources in
terms of cognitive psychology, the researcher herein will not identify the role of
individual knowledge directly through the discussion of the individual mental model.
Rather, the researcher will present several observed phenomena which reflects the
interrelationships between individual mental model and knowledge transfer to a
certain degree and summarize the influence of individual knowledge from those
phenomena instead.
Then, regarding the influence of the content of the knowledge on knowledge transfer,
individuals do tend to share their own positive stories or experiences and avoid
mentioning the failure experiences (Ellis, 2001). An example can be seen from the
key informant interviews. When the researcher asked the interviewees to provide an
impressive example of projects that they had participated in, all of them actively
talked about the positive aspects of their roles in the examples (e.g. how they
successful secured orders, what good relationships they built with clients and partners,
how their team overcame difficulties and generated satisfying ideas for the clients).
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They only mentioned that negative issues happened in the example to a very limited
extent. It was not until the researcher directly questioned them about the problematic
situations that were faced by them that they would go further.
Such a phenomenon also occurred in the process of the case studies. Although several
participants sometimes openly talked badly about the others—behind their backs—
only a few of them would directly admit their mistakes to their colleagues or openly
mention their embarrassing or failure stories, not to mention any experiences and
introspections that they had learnt from their previous failures. This issue is one of the
common challenges of knowledge transfer: that people merely share selected aspects
of certain cases and hoard the other aspects, rather than providing the totality
(although they know both aspects (Goh, 2002)). To build a communicative,
cooperative, and trustful climate is one solution to this issue (Yang, 2008) and it will
be further presented in the corresponding section on work atmosphere.
Furthermore, the characteristics of the knowledge possessed by individuals can
influence their willingness and their actual behaviour in the KT process. This is in line
with research (e.g. Bock and Kim, 2002; Szulanski, 1996; von Krogh et al., 2000)
which demonstrates that the relatively high amount and level of knowledge possessed
by individuals can facilitate their likelihood to share knowledge. As mentioned in the
discussion of openness in the last section on personality, the example of Acw1 also
supported that the extra general knowledge possessed by her motivated her to share
them to her team members, when she thought those knowledge are relevant to the
focal issue.
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Moreover, the example of Acw1 also implies that people sometimes share their
knowledge on the basis of the evaluation of the necessity and relevance of it in the
context of the task at hand. Such evaluations and judgements also originate from their
individual knowledge, which directly affects their behaviour, acting as the main
‘switch’ of tunnels of knowledge flowing between them and other team members in
the given context. Likewise, some employees in the case companies also said that
sometimes they choose not to share knowledge with other individuals as they believed
that knowledge did not have value to the ongoing topics undertaken by other team
members.
Similar evidence can be taken from the literature, in that people are less likely to share
their ideas and opinions with others when they think their knowledge is inadequate for
or irrelevant to the focal issue (Wasko and Faraj, 2005). Teh et al. (2011)
demonstrated that such evaluation apprehension resulting from self-perception about
the possibility of getting penalties and criticism from others can limit individuals from
sharing their entertainment knowledge (e.g. illegal music and movie websites) with
others.
Such evaluation and judgement is not just a black-or-white matter. Sometimes people
cannot judge if their knowledge is valuable or relevant to others. Disterer (2001)
identified this situation and labelled it as one of the barriers to knowledge transfer. It
was shown to a certain degree during observations; to a certain degree, several
employees (e.g. Adm1, Bdm2) reported that they would tend not to express their
opinions in discussion meetings when they were not sure about the quality of their
opinions. Some project leaders (e.g. Al1, Cl1) adopted several managerial practices in
order to combat this issue, which will be further presented in the corresponding
sections (e.g. leadership, team culture).
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By referring to the literature, the aforementioned discussion can be linked to the
concept of self-efficacy, which is defined as the individual`s belief in their capability
to achieve specific levels of performance or to succeed in specific situations
(Bandura, 1977). Self-efficacy is argued to positively influence individuals`
performance in terms of knowledge creation (this was briefly mentioned in the section
on ‘expectation and evaluation’) and knowledge transfer in several examples of
literature. For instance, individuals who perceive that their participation will enhance
their professional reputations will more actively share their knowledge (Wasko and
Faraj, 2005).
It can be inferred that this partly explains why participants in the field work preferred
to talk about their successful stories. Furthermore, knowledge self-efficacy can
positively influence individuals` willingness to share their knowledge (Lin, 2007).
Knowledge self-efficacy refers to the individuals ‘believing that their knowledge can
help to solve job-related problems and improve work efficacy’ (Luthans, 2003, cited
in Lin, 2007:139) which exactly echoes Acw1`s aforementioned self-evaluation of the
necessity and relevance of their knowledge to the focal tasks and context.
The discussion based on the fieldwork, however, showed different findings to the
argument in the existing literature that: such knowledge self-efficacy towards
individuals` own knowledge has both positive and negative effects towards KT
processes and outcomes. As for the former, it can largely reduce the noise and smooth
the KT process as the transmitters will filter the knowledge when they choose to
deliver rather than pouring everything onto the receivers. A representative example
was when the researcher participated in two projects in Company B. In the first
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project, Bdm1 sent the researcher whatever project documents she could find on her
computer desktop at that time, without further considering their relevance and
usefulness to the current project. However, Bsd1 gave the researcher a list of previous
project documents which was highly relevant to the latter project, from her
perspective. By comparing both situations, the researcher had to spend extra energy to
arrange and sort out the reference project documents by himself in the former project,
while he could more efficiently conduct his work in the latter. It should be noted that
such filters in several cases sometimes decreased the transferred knowledge that was
perceived as useful by the receiver. The researcher could occasionally hear
homologous sentences such as the following during the field work: one person said,
‘why didn't you tell us about this information before; we might have used it in the
document’, the other responded, ‘I thought they seemed useless or irrelevant to this
topic at that time’.
The role of individual knowledge in terms of knowledge transfer is also embodied in
the aspect of individual influence during KT process. Davenport and Prusak (1998)
said that ‘people judge the information and knowledge they get in significant measure
on the basis of who gives it to them’ (p.100). Such a situation was also demonstrated
in the field work, to a certain extent, in that individuals with relatively more profound
knowledge (in terms of the knowledge domain of the focal issue) were more
influential to the knowledge-transfer process. For instance, Aec1 (a senior external
consultant of case Company A) and Acw1 both mentioned a similar point about the
importance of elaborating the various themes of the subareas of the project areas and
designing the travel route to optimally link those subareas in one discussion meeting.
However, when the team members referred to this idea in the subsequent project
process, they merely mentioned that the idea was presented by Aec1 and seemingly
ignored or forgot the role of Acw1.
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The interrelationship between individual knowledge and individual influence in KT
process not only exhibited the relatively dominant role of those individuals possessing
senior knowledge, but also implied the situation that the knowledge from the junior
workers was more likely to be rejected or ignored. For instance, in the early period of
the field work in Company A, Al1 once mentioned how Adm1`s ideas were not worth
being listened to, because Adm1 knew too little about the focal issues and his ideas
were used to being ‘disorganized and naive’.
Such situations were also observed with Bdm2 and Cdm1 to a certain extent. They
were not specialized in terms of generating ideas for the projects (as they were
draftsmen and relatively fresh to the TDC industry). The copywriters more or less
ignored their ideas or just pretended to listen to them but actually did not adopt their
ideas in the documents. Although some of them (e.g. Bdm2) once struggled to be
more active and to express his ideas in a more organized way for a period of time in
order to ‘prove themselves (also can have creative and valuable ideas to the project)’,
the frequent ignorance eventually frustrated the enthusiasm and willingness of these
members of staff to share their knowledge further.
By extending the above discussion of the interrelationship between individual
knowledge and the individual`s influence on the KT process, individuals possessing
rare knowledge have exclusive influences on the project and the organization.
Therefore, it implies one possibility which inverses the aforementioned statement
about the positive interrelationship between the amount and level of individual
knowledge and their knowledge sharing possibilities: sometimes people with rare
knowledge will choose to withhold their knowledge rather than sharing it with others,
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in order to retain their exclusive position (Disterer, 2001) or competitive advantage
(Cooper, 2006).
The applicability of this argument depends on the situation of competition within the
given context. When both sides of the knowledge transfer were the members within
the boundary of a core team, as several interviewees were (e.g. 05ML, 07FL), the
members with relatively higher knowledge levels were more likely to transfer their
knowledge to the other team members, rather than withholding it. This was as they
thought their workloads can be shared with the other team members if they could
learn that knowledge and become capable of the certain project tasks. It should be
noted that, an inverse example was observed: some team members attempted to hoard
their ideas and some corresponding task-specific information until they attended the
discussion meeting for project ideas. Acw1 mentioned the possible reason behind this
during one informal conversation, noting that: ‘in fact, the competition stealthily
exists during the discussion meeting that many of us want to provide superior ideas to
gain the leader`s favour … I wanted to surprise the leader and the other members (by
presenting that idea)’.
Disterer (2001)`s findings support the negative influence of competition on
knowledge transfer, as individuals might give up their advantages if they openly share
their knowledge with the others who are in competition with them. Such negative
effects of competition were also demonstrated on knowledge transfer between the
dual sides in different project teams of the TDC. 08MM and the staff from case
Company B (e.g. Bsd1, Bcw1) told the researcher that, in order to stop clients being
stolen by the other project teams, they concealed the information about the clients
from the other teams in many cases. Even if the other teams had happened to obtain
the project orders from their clients, they tended to only share their understanding of
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the clients` preference and some details about their interactions with those clients to
the other teams to a rather limited extent.
By further summarizing the above discussion and the observation in the field notes,
the researcher discovered that knowledge transfer at the individual level (mainly
refers to the intentional knowledge transfer) from the aspect of the transmitter often
acts like a trade-off process, which echoes the arguments from several examples from
the literature. For instances, Chua (2003) states that knowledge sharing is ‘governed
by a perceived payoff … (which) encapsulates all the interests and concerns pertinent
to that individual’ (p.126). Within this trade-off process, the factor of individual
knowledge plays a key role within this measuring process that knowledge is not only
the object which gets exchanged, but also directly affects the participant individuals`
motivation, judgement, influence, and outcome of such knowledge transfer activities.
While the above discussion mainly identifies the influence of individual knowledge
on the aspect of the transmitter, the researcher also discovered its influence on the
aspect of the receiver. Firstly, as mentioned in the chapter on knowledge creation,
tourism products are characterized to be diverse and interdisciplinary, and multiple
domains of knowledge will be involved during the project process. The researcher
observed that, the greater the degree to which the receiver is familiar with the domain
of the transferred knowledge, the greater the extent to which the receiver can be
involved in that KT process; hence, the greater the richness of knowledge transferred
(also called ‘viscosity’ in Davenport and Prusak (1998)).
Take for example the discussion meetings that the researcher participated in, while at
the three case companies. The researcher proposed and introduced a similar idea to
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them all about adopting the concept of an ‘edible landscape’ into certain rural tourism
products. This was. to encourage and guide the tourists to plant and craft herbs, fruits,
vegetables, or other edible plants on their particular rentable zones in the destination,
and to teach and guide them to purchase and transplant those edible plants to their
own gardens. The responses in those meetings varied; there were different attitudes
towards this idea from different teams and their members in each company. A more
obvious difference was that the richness of the responses apparently varied from
different participants in the meetings. Some of them responded much more than the
others, and their involvement led to the introduction and the further development of
that idea to become more detailed and fruitful.
In contrast, some of the other participants just made very short and brief comments
which only notified the researcher about their general attitudes and judgements. On
the basis of observations and indirect informal conversations after those meetings,
such differences originated for various reasons, such as different personalities and
different qualities of interrelationships between them and the researcher. Among these
reasons, the different extent of their expertise in terms of the knowledge domain of
landscape design and agriculture was one of the predominant prerequisites. For
example, Acw1 said: ‘I know little about that field. Your concept was an unknown
term consisting of several simple words to me when I initially heard it … so I just sat
there and listened to the discussion between you and (Aec1) … Your discussion made
the concept much more detailed in my mind, and I then felt that the idea was quite
fascinating. It may have certain potential to be applied in the project’.
While the individual knowledge of the receiver influences the richness of the
knowledge during the knowledge transfer, it seems not to guarantee the absorption
result of the receiver, although an individual`s knowledge base is generally used as an
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important factor to identify the individual`s adsorptive capacity (e.g. Deng et al.,
2008). In certain cases, although abundant knowledge in specific domains can
facilitate the individual to better know and understand the issues from those domains,
they are more likely to build their egos on the basis of their knowledge in those
domains. In turn this can lead them to become more resistant to accepting knowledge
from others, which can challenge their existing knowledge and the corresponding
sense of egos and competence at work.
This argument to a certain extent explains why the researcher observed the slightly
impatient expressions shown by several team members when they heard some clients
professing their detailed ‘dream’ idea about the design and planning of tourism
attractions during the field investigation process. It also explains that some company
or project leaders (e.g. Al1) told the researcher that they sometimes preferred to hire
several staff members who were totally new to certain domains. They described those
staff as ‘blank slates’ who were perceived to be able to more fully and faster take on
new knowledge, or soak up details just like a sponge—and can be relatively more
easily imbued with the required knowledge and the resulting mental model (e.g. the
appropriate work patterns in their specific companies rather than their own obstinate
working styles and customs which might be unsuitable in the given context).
To sum up, this section discussed the role of individual knowledge in terms of the
knowledge transfer process in the context of tourism development projects. Firstly,
this research has found that the characteristics, the content, and the amount of
individual knowledge influences the individual`s behaviours in the knowledge
transfer process, from various perspectives. This section has discussed the dual roles
of self-efficacy and the relevant self-perception about individual knowledge in the
knowledge transfer process. After that, the role of individual knowledge was noted, in
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terms of the individual`s influence power, competitive advantage, feedback, and
absorption during the communication process—from both the transmitter`s and the
receiver`s perspectives.
5.2.2 Team/Organizational Levels
While this research has introduced several individual level factors that influenced
knowledge transfer in the given context, the nature of knowledge transfer is an inter-
entities (individuals or /and collectives) interaction process. Therefore, the researcher
will shift the attention to the level of collectives.
5.2.2.1 Job factors
As discussed in the knowledge creation part of this thesis, job requirements, position,
autonomy, and task-related factors such as assignment, interdependence, and goal-
setting were found to be related to team creativity and performance. They have also
been found to be interrelated with knowledge transfer by some literature. For instance,
Foss et al. (2009) discovered that autonomy and task identity can influence staff
knowledge sharing practices by determining their different motivations. As for this
research, autonomy and task identity were also mentioned by the participants as they
influenced their overall work attitudes, which inevitably affect their knowledge
sharing motivations during the project work (e.g. the example of Acw2 mentioned in
the section of job factors in the knowledge creation chapter). However, besides this
relatively indirect perspective, the researcher hardly heard they further explained the
specific links or issues between the two factors and knowledge sharing in their work
process.
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In contrast, the other two factors—job description and position/status—were found to
have specific influences on the knowledge transfer process. As for job description, as
introduced in previous chapters, copywriters are responsible for creating and
enriching the soul of the idea (e.g. conceiving the primary theme of certain attraction),
while draftsmen visualize its body and generate its appearance (e.g. drawing that
attraction). Therefore, as Al1 once said: ‘how can the clients truly know and
understand that idea, if the soul and the appearance are not matched with each other?’,
the cooperation issue between copywriters and draftsmen received wide and continual
attention from almost all project leaders, due to the distinct but indivisible nature
between these two jobs.
A representative example of the cooperation issue was that the graphs that the
draftsmen produced might be quite different from what the copywriters originally
wanted them to express. This was something coincidentally referred by several
interviewees and many participants from all case companies. From the perspective of
its result, this cooperation issue can be categorized into the dimension of knowledge
creation because it refers to unsatisfactory and unexpected outcome of their
knowledge work; however, the core of this issue should also be attributed to the
dimension of knowledge transfer because it mainly originated from the predicament
that both parties cannot effectively send understandable knowledge to each other
while the counterparties cannot fully absorb and apply the receiving knowledge.
According to the field work, the principal reasons behind the KT issue were mainly:
(a.) the different job requirements and corresponding individual knowledge of
copywriters and draftsmen (which will be discussed in the later section on knowledge
diversity), (b.) lack of familiarity and tacit understanding between the both parties,
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and (c.) inappropriate/insufficient feedback from copywriters to draftsmen. These
three reasons closely interact with each other.
For instance, the different individual knowledge of the two types of professionals
often led them to view the same object from different angles; viewpoints which might
be totally unknown to the other. Due to the lack of familiarity between the two
parties, it was even harder to bridge their distinct perspectives to actually get the
counterparty`s point, and sometimes they could only guess the other`s intentions. The
inappropriate/insufficient feedback from copywriters to draftsmen (e.g. sometimes the
copywriters just said he/she felt the graphs were imperfect, but without any detailed
explanation) can worsen the issue, as such feedback can be another item of guesswork
for the draftsmen, and that they still cannot absorb the necessary knowledge that the
copywriters transferred due to the former two factors.
In order to overcome or at least diminish this cooperation issue, a commonly
expressed coping strategy was to facilitate them to mix with each other. For instance,
in Companies A and B, the project leader would arrange the work seats of the
copywriters and the draftsmen to be side by side, in order to make them familiar with
each other as soon as possible and for convenience in future co-working. In Company
C, Cl1 introduced how he would organize several extra team meetings to increase the
members` contact frequency with each other when a new team was newly formed.
Furthermore, in all three companies, the leaders were more likely to fix the team
composition, since the core team initially formed in order to gradually cultivate the
tacit understanding and the common language among the team members. This in turn
boosted the overall team performance, including in terms of the intra-team
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communication. In addition, several interviewees emphasized using knowledge
transfer practices to deal with those KT issues: e.g. when the copywriters and the
draftsmen found or acquired good examples of project-related materials (such as
creative design ideas, cool slogans, interesting news and stories), they needed to share
them with their teammates in order to foster their shared values towards certain
project-related objects in = future collaborations (08MM). However, it should be
noted that these solutions primarily dealt with the first two reasons rather than directly
solving the third reason. Therefore, the researcher suggests that it would be necessary
to investigate this perspective to see whether the TDCs can develop a series of
communication rules in order to deliver accurate and detailed feedback to the
corresponding person on time.
As for the role of position/status on knowledge transfer in the given context, just as
Davenport and Prusak (1998) commented, that ‘people judge the information and
knowledge they get in significant measure on the basis of who gives it to them’
(p.100), such a situation was also observed in the field work. Some of the team
members whom the researcher worked with (i.e. Acw1, Ccw2) conformed to almost
every word or sentence uttered by their leaders, rather than drawing on the other team
members` wisdom and absorbing their ideas. This behaviour, judging by
position/status, was reasonable to a certain degree as position and the corresponding
reputation was usually a proxy for value that everyone applies it to evaluate the
transferring knowledge (Davenport and Prusak, 1998).
However, based on the field work, the role of position/status can actually constrain
knowledge sharing within the team: it harmed not only their own absorptive capacity
to diverse knowledge sources, but also the other team members` knowledge sharing
motivations as they felt they were ignored (e.g. Acw2 and the researcher himself).
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Furthermore, it also increased the risk of obtaining unsatisfactory project outcomes,
especially if the leaders cannot fully remember or unscramble the clients`
requirements at that time. This happened once in the case of Company A, when Al1
forgot some details of the client`s requirements, but Adm1 and the researcher
remembered. However, Acw1 still followed the structure and the theme introduced by
Al1 fully, rather than adopting the suggestions made by the others about modifying
the theme in order to meet the client`s requirements. It was eventually modified in a
whole-team discussion meeting half a week later: Adm1 and the researcher both
euphemistically mentioned to Al1 that mistake in the project theme, and then Al1
noticed and recalled what the clients had said previously. Unsurprisingly this was
even incurred the reminder from their leaders that ‘sometimes I can be wrong that you
need to think carefully … and discuss with others’ (Al1).
5.2.2.2 Size of Collectives
Size, as discussed in the knowledge creation chapter, is one of the most significant
structural factors of collectives. According to the field work, the size of the collective
to a certain degree decides the density of knowledge transfer as well as the
possibilities of conflicts which implies both benefits and challenges for KT-related
activities in the TDP ecology. To be more specific, the size of certain collectives
apparently implies its positive interrelationship with the density of the knowledge
transfer tunnel network within the boundary, as well as the number of the connection
nodes across the boundary to the external knowledge capitals. The larger the size of a
TDC the more abundant and diverse project-specific staff and internal consultants it
employs, which contributes to more efficient and easier accessibility to certain
knowledge sources required by certain projects. This statement to a certain degree
echoes Van Wijk et al. (2008)`s comments that ‘larger firms or organizational units
may not only have more resources to devote to knowledge transfer (Gupta and
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Govindarajan, 2000), but may also have more diverse knowledge resources that
enable absorption of new knowledge (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990)’ (p.844)’.
An example is the comparison between Case B (a large TDC) and the other two
TDCs: Case A (a micro) and Case C (a small TDC). As mentioned in the section on
external consultants/specialists, the source of external consultants is normally based
on the social capital of the project director or team leaders. While Company A did not
employ permanent consultants, Company B hired a series of internal specialists from
various disciplines (e.g. transportation, land, and city planning) as permanent staff,
and rehired several senior management and staff members post-retirement. Therefore,
when certain projects required these relevant knowledge domains and experiences, the
project teams in Company B could directly contact these individuals through internal
channels. Even if the project teams and their members had no contact with these
individuals before, these internal specialists and advisors would still participate in the
project processes and share their knowledge due to their affinity to the company and
their job responsibilities.
In contrast, Company A and Company C did not have such wide and convenient
internal accesses to these extra knowledge resources. Although, as mentioned in the
team size and composition section of the knowledge creation chapter, ‘sufficient’ is
the foremost aim rather than ‘large’ when the TDCs formulated the project teams for
specific projects. From the field work, a ‘large’ TDC was much easier to organize a
‘sufficient’ team and also more flexible during the project process if the clients
occasionally extended their demands about the project targets. As for the relatively
smaller-sized TDCs, just as Desouza and Awazu, (2006) mentioned, these had a
higher need for and dependence on external knowledge sources.
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On the other hand, as 07FL said: ‘conflicts cluster round when there are a host of
people’: to a degree, the greater the size of the collectives the greater the possibilities
of conflicts occurring within the boundary, and the greater the efforts that will be
required to create a shared commitment among the members and to foster a
cooperative and trustful culture within that collective. When the researcher
participated in Company B, he often heard the staff in the same office complained: it
was very difficult to know and get familiar with the staff in other departments. Bsd1
mentioned the frequent conflicts between each project teams about the allocation of
project business orders, which in turn led to a relatively intense atmosphere in the
company. In contrast, people in Company A knew each other very well and got along
with each other with ‘a united family feel’ (Acw2), in that their communication
(among all common staff excluding Al1 and his wife) was generally free and easy-
going.
A medium example was case C. Although the researcher had not observed any
notable conflicts during the interactions between the staff in their working hours,
there was a clear difference between the styles (in terms of social interaction and
communication) of two groups of staff whose seats were in two neighbouring offices
—from the researcher`s observation and interaction with them: the group of staff
whose seats in office X were in a style of ‘gang’ were very sprightly to their
acquaintances but relatively guarded to the outsiders (e.g. the newcomers, and the
staff in office Y). The group of staff whose seats in office Y, however, had a ‘school
girlish’ style: very polite, friendly, slightly curious, but sometimes overcautious
towards everyone. Such differences not only resulted in different issues in the
respective groups of staff, but also led to certain challenges towards knowledge
sharing between them.
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In fact, these observations echoed the conclusions of Serenko et al. (2010): that the
larger the collective is, the lower the degree of its internal knowledge flows and intra-
organizational knowledge sharing. Staplehurst and Ragsdell (2010) also support this
argument from the reverse perspective, believing that relatively small and compact
sized collectives are more likely to possess a conducive culture for knowledge
sharing.
As the issues in terms of knowledge transfer increase along with the increase of
collective size, it can be inferred that different sizes of organizations have their unique
advantages and risks in terms of applying KT-related initiatives in the organizations.
To be more specific, the larger organizations are more likely to notice the significance
of knowledge management and in turn implement knowledge transfer initiatives,
especially in terms of the knowledge transfer between individuals/teams and mother
organizations. For instance, Company B was the only case company that established a
project management office (PMO) in the organization. The PMO in Company B was
named as the department of strategic development, where the researcher stayed during
the fieldwork. Although as mentioned before this department was also responsible for
several project businesses just as other project teams, most functions of PMO
remained in it: e.g. Bsd1 and Bdm1 were responsible for the documentation of the
finished projects and the review reports from the entire firm and disseminating
relevant previous project documents when the project teams or the subsidiaries
requested. In contrast, Companies A and C did not set such departments in their
organizations, and there was no one specifically assigned to be responsible for this
type of work.
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From this perspective, the knowledge of previous projects remained with the
participators and was harder to transfer to the organization in the case of Companies
A and C than it in the case of Company B. For instance, the lack of such a department
in A and C implied a weakness in their ‘combination’ process (according to the SECI
model (Nonaka and Konno, 1998)) that the capturing, integrating, and dissemination
of the explicit knowledge about previous projects (e.g. the formal project documents)
was more likely to be undertaken in a random way.
Furthermore, this situation also implies a higher risk of knowledge loss and
discontinuity in relatively smaller-sized TDCs due to turnover of key employees. This
situation can be somewhat represented by the informal chatting between the
researcher and some leaders and managerial staff in the case companies (e.g. Al1,
Bl1, Bsd1, Cl1, Ccw1) during or after the corresponding fieldwork. It was clearly
shown that there were differences between the attitudes of these people towards
employee turnover. For instance, Al1 was very disappointed when he heard Adm1
and Acw1 decided to leave the company one after another within three months (their
demission occurred half year after the researcher finished the case study in Company
A). When the researcher interviewed him about his attitudes towards this matter, he
said his feeling was like ‘losing essential parts of Company As they (Adm1 and
Acw1) have got almost all his attention and the company resources to cultivate and
they were just capable of independently taking charge of the whole project process’.
In contrast, the management in Company B felt relatively calm and neutral when they
were facing this matter, even it was generally recognized that the employee turnover
rate of Company B was relatively high in the industry. Despite other cultural or
institutional reasons behind it, the researcher believed that one important reason was
their confidence about those knowledge transfer strategies adopted in the company
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which prevented knowledge loss and kept knowledge continuity to a certain degree.
For instance, Bl1 responded that knowledge loss and discontinuity ‘is indeed a
challenge for the company. So far we have adopted … (several fragmentary
descriptions of relevant KT practices) to help the company keep the knowledge
gained from past work process and disseminate to the other teams and departments.
The daily work remains stable as usual’, although some staff had left.
The smaller TDCs were more likely to suffer the risk and impact of knowledge loss
and discontinuity; however, they had advantages compared to larger companies
because the effectiveness of the knowledge-sharing activities was more likely to be
higher in the context of smaller TDCs. One notable example was that the comparison
between Company A and Company B which both invited external
consultants/specialists to hold training seminars for the internal staff. In the case of
Company B, there was one seminar held by an experienced staff from an alliance, the
primary business of which was about plant agriculture. Those training seminars were
held in one large conference room. According to a later short conversation between
the researcher and Bl1—who had proposed and organized it—the effect of the
seminar seemed to be not as had been expected by him (e.g. there were fewer
attendees than he expected).
Although it was also possibly influenced by other reasons (e.g. short notice to the
whole company about the seminar), the majority reasons can be to a certain degree
attributed to the large size of the organization. Firstly, due to the large size of the
company and various project teams/departments within it with different agendas at
hand, it was hard to organize and ensure all the staff participated in these kinds of
activities. As a result, only less than one-third of the staff participated. Although Bl1
and the presenter orally encouraged the attendees to share what they learnt to their
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colleagues who were absent, and suggested the department of publicity and media to
publish the content and information of the seminar on the company`s official WeChat
account, the effectiveness of such second-hand knowledge sharing practices needed to
be questioned. An example can be represented by the hit-count on the relevant article
—only reaches to 15 two months after that seminar.
Furthermore, no project leaders participated in the seminar, and Bl1 felt this to be
dissatisfactory and directly said to all the attendees before the seminar that ‘I see it
seems no project leaders come today … although the expertise of some people
(referring to those leaders) are at a good level currently, they will sooner be out of
date if they refuse to learn continuously’. The absence of all project leaders to a
certain extent echoed the gossip that the researcher heard from the staff during their
dinner time: as the company grew, Bl1 cannot fully take care of every aspect of the
whole company, and several managers beneath Bl1 were not very controllable by Bl1;
they often agreed the strategies introduced by Bl1 outwardly but sluggishly
implemented them in private, especially those strategies which appeared to be of little
or indirect benefit to themselves.
Regardless of the absentees, the large company size also implies the challenges to the
attendees. Even less than one-third of the staff participated in the seminar, the number
of attendees was still much higher than the total number of staff in Companies A or C.
The large conference room was half filled. Although Bl1 motioned to the attendees to
sit closer to the presenter, the number of attendees inevitably led attendees to sit or
stand in several rows. Due to their seats or standing positions being interweaved
together, it was hard to count the exact number of rows. The researcher estimated the
number to be five to seven. For the purpose of observation, the researcher sat at the
back of the whole room. The performance of the attendee relatively varied from their
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seat position: the attendees whose seat were in the front were looked as more
conscientious and engaged in the seminar (e.g. most of them were taking notes), while
the ones whose seat were hardly observed their performance demonstrating their
engagement towards the seminar (e.g. only few of them were also taking notes, and
the majority of them just sat or stood there; many of them often used their mobile
phones during the whole seminar process).
Such differences echoed the literature in the education field (e.g. Kalinowski and
Toper, 2007) which investigated the interrelationships between the students` seating
positions and their learning performances. The researcher himself also had the feeling
that he could not fully follow the pace of the presentation, not only because his
primary purpose was to observe, but also because he felt it was hard to get eye contact
with the presenter and sometimes could not hear the voices clearly due to his location
within the room and the distractions and obstructions caused by the attendees in front
of the presenter.
In contrast, in the case of Company A, the researcher also participated in a seminar
which was held by one external specialist who was specialized in terms of drafting
and charting (Aex2). Al1 and the other project staff (i.e. Acw1, Adm1, Acw2, and the
researcher) all participated in the seminar almost all sitting together in one small
office in the company, very close to the presenter. All the presenters and the attendees
sat in a relatively small office which had an area of four square meters. The attendees
heard the voice of the presenter and read his PowerPoint slides very clearly. The
presenter seemed to relatively easily identify the extent that the attendees understood
the presentation content through eye contact and by observing their facial expressions,
and in turn sometimes adjusted the pace of the seminar. By comparing these two
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situations, it was reasonable to infer that this kind of knowledge-sharing activities in
Company A is more effective in terms of engaging almost all staff.
The above discussion mainly identifies the role of size on knowledge transfer within
such collectives. It was also observed that the size of the collective also to a certain
degree influences its role in the knowledge transfer process between it and other
entities. According to the formal interviews and the daily informal chatting in the
case-study companies, the researcher often heard the participants talk about the
practices that happened in the large TDC in which they were employed or once
contacted to, or applied the large TDCs as a comparative reference to discuss and
judge the strategies and practices occurred in the current companies. Such
phenomenon echoed the argument in Haunschild and Miner (1997) that large firms in
the industry were more likely to be imitated by the others.
Furthermore, the researcher also observed how the size of an organization had an
influence on how TDCs communicated with clients, which in turn influenced the
knowledge transfer between them. The smaller TDCs tended to have a personal
pattern and they were more likely to amend their original ideas and rules with almost
no bottom line if they conflicted with what the clients requested. The large TDCs
were more likely to be in an institutionalized pattern—they were more likely to insist
on their original ideas and rules and provide certain bottom lines in a similar context
and to persuade their clients to accept these.
For instance, as the researcher observed in Company B and mentioned by the
interviewees (e.g. 04FC, 08MM) who worked for large TDCs, the team would not
conduct the formal project process until the clients had signed a contract with them. In
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contrast, the staff in both Company A and Company C told the researcher that they
once wrote the formal project drafts for the clients without signing any regular
contract, and—in certain cases—the contracts had never been signed even after the
project teams formally submitted the documents to the clients for review and
approval. The different patterns imply the different statuses of TDCs/project teams in
the interaction process with the clients which inevitably influenced the relevant
knowledge transfer process: the small TDCs were more likely to consider they were
beneath the clients (e.g. they were more likely to uncritically accept and compromise
with the clients` requirements), while the large TDCs were more likely to consider
they were of equal status to the clients (e.g. they were more likely to hold their
original bottom line and negotiate with the clients).
To summarise, size is one of the significant structural factors of collectives which
influences both the intra- and inter-collective knowledge transfer process. The large
TDCs can have more knowledge resources that enable absorption of diverse
knowledge and provide more access to various knowledge sources. They were more
likely to notice the significance of knowledge transfer and in turn devote resources to
implement relevant strategies which led them less likely to suffer the impact of
knowledge loss resulted from staff turnover. In contrast, the small TDCs were more
likely to create a shared commitment among the members and foster a cooperative
and trustful culture within them which hence greatly improved the knowledge transfer
process within the companies. The effectiveness of several knowledge transfer
practices/strategies was much greater in the context of small TDCs than in the larger
ones. Furthermore, the size of the collective also to a certain degree influences its role
in the interaction process including knowledge transfer between it with other entities.
Large TDCs were more likely to be imitated and studied by the others. In addition,
from the perspective of status in the KT process, the small TDCs were more likely to
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consider they had a lower status to their clients, while the large TDCs were more
likely to consider they were of similar status to the clients, and this influences
knowledge transfer.
5.2.2.3 Composition of Collectives
The size of the collective can also have implications in terms of their composition ,
which in turn influences knowledge sharing from another perspective. As mentioned
before, large TDCs had relatively sufficient resources to employ not only the basic
project staff but also a series of internal consultants/specialists from various
disciplines, while small TDCs were more likely to be constrained to solely hire
employees from the most relevant knowledge domains related to the work of
copywriters and draftsmen in order to sustain the basic project works under restricted
resources. In this context, both sizes of TDCs have their own advantages in terms of
knowledge transfer costs when they deal with the projects which require various
knowledge domains: the permanent employment of internal consultants in large TDCs
led to reduced costs of cultural conflicts as they experienced the same organizational
culture with the core team. In contrast, the prevailing ‘plug & play’ style of
employment of external consultants in the small size TDCs led to less pressure from
the perspective of budget (Al1). Future work is needed in order to investigate and
compare the costs and benefits of knowledge transfer in both situations.
Furthermore, regardless of the considerations and comparisons of these knowledge
transfer costs, the researcher considered it was necessary to explore the differences in
terms of knowledge sharing behaviours between the core project team members and
internal permanent consultants/specialists or external ‘plug & play’
consultants/specialists. However, due to the indirect responses from participants and
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the limited researcher`s own relevant experience during the field work, this research
cannot provide a conclusive inference currently which will therefore need future
works on it. According to the limited responses, the staff generally thought it was hard
to tell any substantial differences in terms of knowledge sharing between them and
internal employees from other departments or external consultants, under an
assumption that if they were in a similar degree of familiarity with either party, which
was to a certain degree corresponding to the findings in the work of Nesheim and
Smith (2015).
The benefits of diversity in terms of team creativity and knowledge creation have
been mentioned frequently. Paulus and Yang (2000) identified that creativity can be
boosted in the group context when group members share knowledge with each other
that ‘the attention to others` ideas may have resulted in additional cognitive
stimulation of ideas’ (p.84). Based on this interrelated nature of knowledge creation
and transfer, those aforementioned benefits to a certain degree resulted from the
contribution of knowledge diversity towards knowledge transfer among the team
members that the participation of more diverse knowledge sources can enable the
absorption of newer and wider knowledge in the given context.
However, interpersonal similarity—the antonym of diversity—has been identified as a
promoter of knowledge sharing among people (Mäkelä et al., 2012). Perry-Smith and
Shalley (2003) also introduced the argument that similarity contributes to
interpersonal communication. From this perspective, diversity in collectives can
hinder knowledge sharing within the collectives to a certain extent. What is
mentioned here, according to the dual effects of similarity/diversity in the knowledge
activities, it that it is necessary to reach an appropriate balance between similarity and
diversity—a topic that requires future work to explore and investigate. Instead of
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actually figuring out the balancing point between similarity and diversity in terms of
the composition of collectives, this thesis will mainly present their effects according
to the fieldwork, from the perspectives of knowledge and demographic diversity.
Regarding knowledge diversity, 07FL clearly gave an example of herself that the
difficulties and conflicts occurred in her (as a copywriter) communication with her
draftsman partner, and she ascribed the primary reason for it to their different
knowledge/education background which implied when they were facing certain
topics, they would consider it from very different perspectives. Such situation was
also mentioned in Jehn et al. (1999)`s work as task conflict. It in turn led to the
aforementioned cooperation issue between copywriters and draftsmen that: the graphs
that the draftsmen produced might be quite different from what the copywriters
originally wanted them to express. However, it should be noted that the negative
impact of knowledge diversity on knowledge sharing in other contexts (e.g.
communication between clients and copywriters) were not notable because neither did
the participants mention this nor did the researcher himself experience it.
A reasonable explanation is the degree of the interdependency of the work tasks of
both parties involved in the knowledge transfer process. In the case of the cooperation
issue between copywriters and draftsmen, their work tasks are highly dependent on
each other that their work contents involve the effort of each other from almost every
aspect. In other words, they need to collectively deliver their efforts as a whole (just
as the aforementioned description of ‘soul and fresh’). While in other contexts,
although the work tasks of the involved parties are also interrelated with each other at
least from the appearance (e.g. the copywriters/specialists who were both responsible
for writing the different chapters of the same project document), the actual situation is
that their work contents were relatively independent. They had the controlling power
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over their own part, and the connection between their job tasks was relatively weak.
Such connection was mainly linked via the core theme and the positioning of the
project rather than the aspects of the specific contents of their responsible parts.
Therefore, in this case, the negative impact of knowledge diversity made much less of
an effect than the former situation, which received little attention from the participants
in both interviews and case studies.
Instead, the aforementioned influences of knowledge diversity in terms of boosting
creativity were outstanding in this situation (i.e. independent job tasks). Just as Bcw1
once said on the car when he led the project team to return to the Company after the
field investigation and face-to-face communication with the clients, ‘sometimes we
don't need seek very full and deep comprehending and following of what the clients
said or some too specialized opinions from others, the important thing is what
inspiration can we get during listening what they say… it (the project) is what we are
taking charge of … we should take advantage of what they say rather than being
driven by what they say’.
As for personality composition exerts both positive and negative influences on
knowledge transfer. To be more specific, both the literature and the responses from
fieldwork mentioned the benefits of personality diversity on knowledge transfer.
Matzler et al. (2008) argue that different personalities, along with their corresponding
characteristics, imply their distinct appropriateness towards the various roles in the
knowledge transfer process. Therefore the diverse personalities of staff can provide
the managers with clues about assigning different team members to their optimum
positions. There can be found several examples in the case studies. For instance—as
introduced before—Bsd1 had typical characteristics of high agreeableness (i.e.
cooperative and helpful), and she maintained good relationships and strong social ties
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with all the leaders of the departments and project teams in Company B, even though
intense internal political conflicts existed between those managers. Therefore, Bl1 not
only highly replied on Bsd1 as the contact person to connect with the clients and the
alliances, but also assigned her as the manager of the aforementioned PMO that
coordinated among the project leaders in the company. The role of Bsd1 can therefore
be termed the ‘boundary spanner’ or ‘linkers’ (Thompson et al., 2006) who spans the
boundary between two entities and connect knowledge to those who could use them.
This situation was echoed the argument of Matzler et al. (2008) that the individuals
with high agreeableness are suitable for being ‘assigned the role of boundary spanners
between teams’ (p.310).
Furthermore, personality diversity also had a negative impact on knowledge transfer.
Several interviewees (e.g. 01FC, 07FL) mentioned the differences among the
personality characteristics of team members led to several issues in terms of team
communication and cooperation. Therefore, it is calling for the personality
compatibility of team members which has already been mentioned in the knowledge
creation chapter, in that the degree of such compatibility can significantly influence
the entire team`s climate and cooperation. It should be noted that, like the discussion
in the section on personality characteristics of this research, those judgements of the
personality characteristics of certain people were based on the subjective observations
and feelings of the interviewees and the participants in the case studies towards the
personal characteristics of the focal person rather than taking serious personality traits
testing towards them.
In regard to demographic composition, the researcher discovered its implications on
knowledge transfer from three perspectives according to the fieldwork, i.e. gender,
place of birth/hometown, and age. As for gender, apart from the aforementioned
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argument about how mixed gender groups can increase work efficiency, it should also
be noted that there could be a series of communicational issues occurring in the inter-
gender context. For instance, ‘genderlect’, a term coined by Tannen (1990), describes
the situation where males and females act and converse differently in terms of their
communication styles. Those differences can be inferred to result in a series of issues
in the context of inter-genders.
As for this research, although the materials from the fieldwork were relatively
insufficient to dig deeper into the differences in communication patterns between
genders, it has been observed and understood that there are several differences
between the communication in single-gender and inter-gender groups. The researcher
found that in all three case companies, the staff were much more likely to have dinner
or hang out together with those staff of the same gender, especially when the size of
such self-organized group is less than three people. According to the responses of
several interviewees (e.g. 01FC, 03MC, 04FC) and the field work, they chatted with
each other and their conversation often involved their personal experiences and the
affairs related to project or project-related people during the dinner time or other
leisure hours, as they felt safer and less constrained at that time. It echoed the
socialization process of Nonaka and Konno (1998)`s knowledge conversion model
that tacit knowledge exchange would occur through joint activities between
individuals in such extra time of being together in the same environment. According
to the field work, it can be reasonably inferred that a social environment enabling tacit
knowledge exchange is created more often by same-gender employees and hence also
enhances knowledge transfer during working hours.
As for place of birth/hometown, there is a ‘laoxiang’ concept prevailing in the
Chinese culture which refers to native ethnic group identity characterized for one`s
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home place (Zhang and Jiang, 2010). It can be viewed as one aspect of demographic
similarity: when people are from the same hometown, they are ‘laoxiang’ with each
other. The phenomenon of ‘laoxiang’ (similarity in terms of place of
birth/hometown) on the one hand facilitate knowledge sharing between the related
individuals, while on the other hand can exert potential negative impacts in the wider
context. To be more specific, many staff in all case companies mentioned that they
would feel affable and warm when they met their ‘laoxiang’, especially in a strange or
new environment (e.g. certain project staff met one ‘laoxiang’ from the clients or
local communities in the project region during the field investigation). In such
situations, the positive effect of demographic similarity towards the knowledge
sharing between these ‘laoxiang’ is apparent.
Just as the researcher`s own experience in Company C that, when he initially joined
the company, he felt relatively isolated from the original staff and it was very difficult
to be truly integrated into their group. Then one of the original staff Cdm1 by chance
knew the researcher was his ‘laoxiang’—that they are from the same hometown. It
could actually be felt that Cdm1 hence became warmer and friendlier towards the
researcher, and that he kept an eye on the researcher`s project work to see whether he
could help, and actively initiated topics related to the hometown to induce the
researcher to participate in the conversation, hence gradually immersing him into the
original group. It can be inferred that such ‘laoxiang’ relationships can facilitate to
build their personal relationships with each other and hence boost knowledge transfer
among them.
A relevant example was Al1, who had been in contact with the group of professors
and lecturers in a certain university where he got his master`s degree. Within that
group, he made a close friend with Professor Y, and he usually called that professor
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‘my laoxiang’ when he mentioned Professor Y to the others. He said he and Professor
Y often had contact with each other and discussed certain project-related affairs (e.g.
managing the team, managing the relationships with the clients, boosting creativity)
and that he thought their communications were usually fruitful and meaningful, in that
he often learnt from or was inspired by Professor Y.
Common language is a significant factor of knowledge transfer which has been
frequently mentioned by a number of authors (e.g. Simonin, 1999; Welch and Welch,
2008). From this perspective, another advantage of ‘laoxiang’ in terms of knowledge
transfer is about the common native language. In China, especially the southern part
of China (where the three case companies were all located), there were various kinds
of native languages which often sounded extremely different. Even if the staff mainly
spoke mandarin in the office, some of them talked with a thick accent which resulted
in extra language barriers in their communication with others. However, such issue
rarely happened with their ‘laoxiang’, who shared the common native languages and
accents.
An example can be taken from Bdm2, who was from the same hometown with Bl1.
While the other staff (including the researcher himself) in the department said that
they sometimes could not understand Bl1`s sentences as he had a relatively thick
accent from northern China, Bdm2 said he did not encounter such a problem and that
he could easily understand what Bl1 said. This to a certain degree can be explained by
some staff whispering to ask Bdm2 for clarification during Bl1`s presentations to the
whole company. In addition, common native languages can facilitate personal
relationships between individuals. Several participants mentioned that they felt they
were getting closer to others if both of them spoke in the same native language during
their communications in certain situations.
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However, such demographic similarity also has potential negative impacts on
knowledge transfer in the given context. As reported in several relevant pieces of
literature (Wu, 2004), ‘laoxiang’ can lead people to form several cliques based on
their distinct native ethnic group identities. This can in turn break up the originally
unified organizational culture into pieces and build invisible boundaries between
different cliques, which may largely hinder knowledge transfer between them.
Although such a situation was not observed or directly mentioned by the
interviewees/participants in the fieldwork, several participants mentioned their
negative experiences when they encountered other people who were in a ‘laoxiang’
relationship. For instance, Ccw1 once told the researcher about his negative
experience when two of his previous colleagues often communicated in their common
native language in the office. It not only hindered the other colleagues` involvement
in their conversation, which in turn reduced the possibilities of knowledge spillover to
the others, but also led Ccw1 to feel isolated and distant from them: ‘that two
colleagues were naturally in unity, and it seemed I could never be part of it’ (Ccw1).
Furthermore, some participants in the case studies commonly linked the individuals`
personality characteristics to their hometowns, noting that the northerners were
relatively more open, easy-going and frank, while the southerners were more likely to
be sensitive, thoughtful, and smart. Although the researcher cannot verify this
subjective argument from his own observations, there is a series of literature from
various disciplines (e.g. business (Han, 2006), food (Huang et al., 2016), geography
(Cai, 1992; Sun, 2012)) which echoes such statements. Hence, it can be viewed as a
future research point to further understand the interrelationships between
demographics and personality compositions, and the resulting influences on
knowledge transfer and team performance in the given context.
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The third aspect of demographic composition is age. Although age diversity can lead
to generational gap and resulting conflicts in a general sense, these impacts were
hardly mentioned by the participants or observed during the fieldwork, which to a
certain degree echoed the finding of Pelled et al. (1999) that the conflicts raised from
age diversity lacked substantial ties to the group`s performance. A potential reason in
this research can be inferred to link with one observed phenomenon: the status,
power, or knowledge of certain project-related staff in the three case companies
usually correlated with their ages, which in turn influenced their influence on
knowledge sharing with others and hence diminished the potential for conflicts.
Furthermore, the researcher also observed that intra-team knowledge transfer can be
boosted by age diversity. According to the informal conversations between the
researcher and them, the senior and elder team members (e.g. Aex1, Cl1) were very
willing to communicate with younger generations in order to keep their own minds
fresh and their knowledge up to date. This can also be attributed to their willingness to
cultivate the new generation of the industry, as it was not only for the sake of
enhancing the team`s capacity and performance, but also satisfied their desire to help,
and their self-esteem for exhibiting their superiority in terms of knowledge.
To sum up, this section discussed the role of the composition of collectives towards
knowledge transfer. It initially mentioned the implications of the aforementioned size
of collectives on the composition of collectives in terms of knowledge transfer. Then
it conducted a discussion from the knowledge, personality, and demographic
perspectives. From the perspective of knowledge composition, this study considers
that the influence of knowledge diversity on knowledge transfer and group
cooperation is positively influenced by the degree of the interdependency of the work
tasks of both parties involved in the knowledge transfer process. As for personality
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diversity, it suggests that the degree of such compatibility can significantly influence
the entire team climate and cooperation, hence the knowledge communication within
the team. By the end of the section, the researcher has discussed the role of
demographic diversity in respect of three categories (i.e. gender, place-of-birth, age).
In each category, there can be seen dual effects in terms of knowledge transfer under
different circumstances.
5.2.2.4 Inter-Collective Affinity
As discussed above, the position/status of individuals and the size of collectives can
influence the knowledge transfer process in their corresponding levels. Such a
situation can be extended to the role of the general background of collectives towards
knowledge transfer among organizations. The role of the general background of
collectives was seen from two perspectives. The first was about transferring project
capabilities and other operational knowledge of TDCs. Similarity and success were
often mentioned in the literature (e.g. similarity (Darr and Kurtzberg, 2000), success
(Haunschild and Miner, 1997)) as the essential characteristics to influence the
likelihood of knowledge transfer: firms were more likely to transfer knowledge with
the entities with whom they shared more common elements and ideal performance.
The researcher also found the TDCs and their leaders and staff used these two factors
(i.e. similarity and success) as proxies for value to measure the transferred knowledge.
For instance, it can be heard in their discussions about the institutions and good
project examples from the other TDCs with relatively good performance and
reputation in the industry. It should be noted that similarity did not imply that their
attention was solely focused on successful organizations in the TDC industry. In fact,
knowledge transfer also occurred between them and the firms in other industries
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which had several common elements with the TDC industry, such as the construction
industry—because they shared some common affairs and businesses such as project
bidding, design architecture, and producing effect drawings and construction
drawings; and the agriculture and horticulture industry—because they shared fresh
designs of farm stays and destination/attraction management strategies with each
other.
The second perspective was about transferring task-specific knowledge between
TDCs/teams and clients. Many interviewees mentioned the differences of the clients
with different ownership backgrounds, which was discussed in the project ecology
chapter. Such different ownership backgrounds, and the corresponding preferences of
clients, led to different knowledge transfer challenges for the TDCs in the
corresponding contexts. Taking an example from the field investigation: the
government clients usually led the project team to travel around the whole project
region and introduced them to communicate with various communities involved in the
region. Such behaviours were explained to be for the following reasons: a). the
projects commissioned by the government clients were usually involved a relatively
large area which inevitably involved various stakeholders; b). the responsibilities of
governments compelled them to take consideration of the interests of those
stakeholders; c). it was also a kind of social activity to make them feel that their
voices had been heard and the government takes consideration of their interests. In
contrast, the private clients were more likely to solely consider their own interests, so
the team was usually only in contact with them during the field investigation
(sometimes involved the local government, at most).
Furthermore, the different preferences of clients with different backgrounds led to
differences in terms of transferred knowledge during their interactions with the
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project teams. As mentioned in the project ecology chapter, the government client
usually preferred the theoretical and abstract perspective of project. They expected the
tourism development projects can have broader implications and enhance the local
image, while the private client mainly pursued purely economic benefits. It
correspondingly influenced the communication content between the clients and the
team. An example was given by 05ML: When the team produced and delivered
project documents to the government clients, they focused on how to make the core
theme and related product ideas appealing to the intended appearances and morals and
to reduce the possibilities of conflicts in the project region (e.g. land disputes between
scenic area and local residential area). In contrast, when the team served the private
client, they focused more on how the core theme could be attractive to the tourists and
how to design reasonable attractions and tour lines to maximise the potential profits
for the clients (e.g. to extend the estimated tourists` length of stay from half a day to
an overnight stay).
5.2.2.5 Leadership
The role of the leader and of management has been widely recognized as a key aspect
of knowledge sharing in numbers of literature (e.g. Cabrera et al., 2006; Connelly and
Kelloway, 2003). Just as shown in the leadership section of knowledge creation
chapter, both types of leadership (i.e. directive and participative leadership) implied
two very distinct knowledge transfer patterns in the given context. Apart from this
general influence, several specific influences of leader and of management on
knowledge transfer were discovered during the field work.
The first is that encouragement or discouragement from leader and management
significantly influenced their subordinates` motivations and behaviours in terms of
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knowledge transfer. An example was related the aforementioned case about the
seminar held in Company B. After that seminar, the researcher shortly chatted with
one staff in another department who did not participate in the seminar. He said it was
because the head of his department chose not to participate and the head told them his
thoughts about how the content of that seminar was not attractive or at all meaningful.
Therefore, he and many his colleagues in that department were convinced by the
head`s opinion and just stayed in the office and kept to their original work when the
seminar was being held.
The second one is about the demonstration and imitation effects of the behaviour of
leaders usually provided the model for the corresponding behaviour of their
subordinates. Take a common example from Cases A and C, where the staff from
both companies participated in the online WeChat groups of their respective
companies. Once their leaders shared certain articles related to good TDP-related
examples or other work-related skills or some meaningful sentences, it can be
observed that some other staff in the group would also share certain similar type of
articles one after another in the next few days. When the researcher talked with them
about those articles and indirectly about their motivations to share, one of the
relatively common answers was: because their leaders shared, which led them to think
they might gain favour from this kind of behaviour. Adm1 said that, although he did
not read any interesting materials at that time, in order to carry out such behaviour he
actively searched on the Internet and found an article which he thought would be a
good one to share with the group. Another example was also related to the online
WeChat group. Usually, it was rare to see any feedback or comments on the articles
shared by the members in the group. However, when the leader gave a virtual
“thumbs-up” or commented on certain articles, the other staff would also express their
opinion or thank the sharer for his/her behaviour of sharing, which to a certain degree
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contributes more feedback to the sharer as well as notifying the sharer that his/her
sharing efforts were not wasted.
The third point is about the leader/management`s control of rewards for desired
behaviour (e.g. KT-related activities). The example of the above two points to a
certain degree exhibits the willingness of the subordinates to obtain praise and
recognition from their leaders, which can be viewed as a kind of reward for the
subordinates. A more direct example was mentioned before about the clear voice of
Cl1 regarding his favour for high communication frequency between the team
members and the clients. Such frequency had already become one of the influential
factors in terms of bonus distribution, after team members accomplished each project.
This to a certain degree explains why Ccw1 painstakingly communicated with the
clients as much as possible. However, in other case companies, the researcher did not
see any similar KT-related reward strategies. When the researcher asked their leaders
the reasons behind this, one common response was that, although they also wished the
team members could communicate more with each other and with the entities outside
the team (e.g. the clients), they thought it was unrealistic to specifically quantify and
measure the communication frequency or effectiveness between dyad. In fact, in case
of Company C, the measurement of communication frequency between the team
members and the clients was also not any quantified methods, and they primarily
relied on the subjective judgement of Cl1 himself (sometimes he would canvass the
opinions from the team leaders).
5.2.2.6 The Physical Workspace of the Organization
The above discussions are mainly related to the social environment and interactions
among the entities. The researcher further discovered that the physical environment of
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workplace (e.g. seat and common facilities arrangement) had its own influence on
social interactions between individuals, which in turn influenced the corresponding
knowledge transfer. As mentioned before, some leaders intentionally arranged the
seating of team members so that they sat near to each other, in order to improve the
communication frequency and familiarity among them.
The researcher himself also experienced the differences between proximal work seats
and remote work seats with team members: the comparison between his experiences
in the three case-companies. Although it can be influenced by many other factors
which have been discussed before, the researcher mainly communicated with Ccw2
through IM software rather than face-to-face due to they were sitting in different
offices. While in case A and B, although the researcher and the team members would
also communicate with each other through IM software (especially transferring some
codified materials (e.g. documents, photos from field investigation) and discussing
certain gossips in the company) even if they sat near to each other, the primary
communication pattern was face-to-face which therefore not only increased the
effectiveness and timeliness of knowledge transfer between them, but also increased
the possibilities of knowledge spillover to the others who did had not participated in
the initial conversation.
However, such situation was not applicable to the seat locations of the team leaders
and the team members. It was notable from the example of case-company A—which
changed their company sites from a small one (one room) to a relatively larger one
(three rooms) —that when Al1 sat near the team members, the frequency of face-to-
face chatting with each other dramatically decreased and they instead started to
communicate through IM as they felt pressure of latent supervision from Al1. Such
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situation was relieved after they moved to the new site where Al1 had his own
independent office.
In addition, a few participants (e.g. Adm1) and the researcher himself felt that even
when the team members were sitting near to each other in the same office, there were
differences within three modes of seat arrangement (i.e. the side-by-side mode, the
back-to-back mode, and the face-to-face mode) towards their influences on
knowledge transfer (e.g. the communication frequency). The back-to-back mode was
perceived to be the worst situation among the three modes, such that the staff cannot
contact with each other conveniently or directly.
Furthermore, it can also lead to a feeling of being under surveillance by other
colleagues, as mentioned in the knowledge creation chapter. An interesting point is
that the side-by-side mode was perceived to be better than the face-to-face mode.
According to the observation, the reason behind the differences was because of the
current working modes in the TDCs that the staff were usually facing their computers
during working hours. Therefore, the vision of the staff in the context of the face-to-
face mode suffered by being blocked by at least two computers between the staff, i.e.
their own ones and the counterparties` ones, which decreased the convenience of
communication in this mode.
In contrast, the staff in the side-by-side mode could conveniently communicate with
each other as there was no physical obstacle between, blocking them. Furthermore,
the side-by-side mode also led the staff to find it easier to become involved in each
other’s work and to obtain information, as they can directly watch others` computer
screens without moving. The researcher often observed Acw1 and Adm1—as well as
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Ccw1 and Cdm2—whose seats were side-by-side. These two sets of employees
frequently discussed with one another in their respective companies about their work,
without even transferring the documents to the counterparty`s computer or moving
nearer their seat; instead, they could just slightly turn their heads and then directly see
the other`s work shown on the original screen.
Moreover, the researcher also observed the role of the arrangement of common
facilities (e.g. the printer and the water machine): when these facilities were arranged
in certain locations of the office so that the route between the staff and the facilities
was near certain staff`s seats. In certain cases it was a kind of distraction or result in
certain negative feelings by the others which hindered the individual creativity
process as mentioned in the section of general social interactions of knowledge
creation chapter; however, it can increase the possibilities of interactions and
communications between the staff. For instance, when the staff walked through the
others` seating areas, they sometimes glimpsed the content of others` work by chance,
and then they might have several conversations with each other including some
discussions related to the project works.
5.2.3 External Environmental Level
5.2.3.1 Weather
Weather is as an important environmental factor, and was observed to have its own
distinctive influence on knowledge transfer behaviour from two perspectives. The
first perspective is the direct feelings caused by the weather. An example was the
common complaints about hot weather heard by the researcher in case Company A
and Company C (the researcher participated in Company A since August 2014, and in
Company C from June to July 2015 which were the periods of the hottest season in
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China.). Some staff complained that they felt in low spirits and did not want to speak
even one word during the hottest days, especially in the afternoons. Bcw1 also said it
was too hard to do field investigation in the hot weather and that he just wished it
could be finished as soon as possible. From his statements, it can be reasonably
inferred that he might not be as patient and calm to collect and absorb the knowledge
from field investigation as usual.
The second perspective is the physical block resulting from the weather. For instance,
the researcher followed the project team in Company A to attend an outdoor field
investigation when the weather was raining heavily. It was planned to visit every key
location of the project region for at least half an hour to take photos, observe the
details, and communicate with the local communities. However, due to the bad
weather, the whole process of field investigation became very hasty and messy. The
team could not observe clearly the situation of the region, as the rain made the land
muddy and impacted their visions and conversations. Not one ideal photo was taken at
that time, which should have been used in the project documents as picture materials.
The contact person from the client party acted to be less interested to fully introduce
the situation of each location due to the heavy rain.
5.2.3.2 General Social Cultural factors: ‘Guanxi’ & ‘Mianzi’
Guanxi and Mianzi are two representative dynamics in the Chinese social-cultural
context. Guanxi is a common term used in the Chinese society to describe
interpersonal relationships and connections (Liu, 2014), while Mianzi refers the
individual pride, respect, and dignity (Leung and Chan, 2003) in the eyes of others as
a kind of recognition ego. They are revolved around daily social interactions,
including knowledge transfer practices between individuals and organizations from
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numerous perspectives in the daily time. Due to the limited period the researcher
spent in each case and the implicit and obscure nature of these two social-cultural
factors, it was difficult to portray the comprehensive and specific role of them on
knowledge transfer. As such, future efforts into this are required. Instead, the
researcher will present some selective observations on their roles along with the
corresponding examples.
As for guanxi, it to a certain degree echoed the fourth level (i.e. personal network or
latent network) of Grabher`s project ecology model which usually remained in the
given context and sustained around the entities rather than demising along with the
end of single project life. Guanxi enriched the potential knowledge sources involved
in the TDPs, which can be activated to solve project-specific issues (e.g. to reach the
clients who had been contacted and cooperated before to strive for new project orders
or more latent and detailed information) or enhance ongoing learning processes in the
context (e.g. to invite the personal friend who was specialized in certain project-
related knowledge realm to run a seminar). Furthermore, the researcher also
discovered that the process to actively build and maintain ‘guanxi’ with others can
contribute extra opportunities for knowledge transfer between both sides. An example
told by Al1 was that he often went to visit some retired professors and senior experts
to accompany and talk with them, and that ‘I often paid a visit to their homes … drank
tea and talked with them … they are all very experienced and good in their respective
realms … in each visit, I also gained a lot; the talks with them are very instructive and
inspiring’.
The role of mianzi (or in western terms, ‘face’) was very complex in respect of its
impact on knowledge transfer, according to the field work: mianzi complexly
influenced not only the individual himself/herself but also the other individuals who
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interacted with him/her. As for gaining or maintaining face, it was initially related to
the discussion in the individual knowledge about the concept of self-efficacy, which
refers to the individual`s belief in their capability to achieve specific levels of
performance or succeed in specific situations (Bandura, 1977). People were more
likely to actively share what they thought they were specialized in to accumulate their
mianzi with others, through obtaining the others` recognition and admiration. On the
other side, people were afraid to express their opinions in terms of certain areas which
were beyond their knowledge, in order to prevent losing mianzi, which can to a
certain degree limit the original benefits of diverse knowledge sources. It to a certain
degree explains why the researcher often heard the project leaders encourage their
members to be brave to express their thoughts and not to be afraid of failure.
Furthermore, it should be noted that mianzi does not solely belong to one`s own
business. For instance, some team members reported that they chose to distort or
conceal their real opinions to flatter or not offend the others (especially the company
and project leaders) in order to boost or not lose their face for the sake of maintaining
‘guanxi’ between them. In addition, in certain cases, Cl1 told the researcher that he
would intentionally criticize the viewpoints of some staff in their presence (i.e. a way
to damage their face) to arouse their motivations to save face (‘mianzi’), which often
led them to express more and detailed content to defend their initial viewpoints. The
examples of Ccw1 and Bdm2 in positive influences of the transmitter’s side of
negative emotions to a certain degree echoed this kind of ‘defence’ response from the
staff.
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5.2.4 Special Section: Knowledge Retention
As mentioned in the literature review chapter, the retained knowledge can be
influential to the organization's performance, and it can also be accessed and reused to
further create value for the organization (Burmeister and Deller, 2016; Marsh and
Stock, 2003). It is no wonder that many scholars have emphasized knowledge
retention—which includes the storage, organization, retrieval, and even restoration
(Walsh and Ungson, 1991) —should be viewed as another important aspect of
effective knowledge management (Chou, 2005). As mentioned in the previous section
on knowledge creation and transfer, when TDCs hire their employees they not only
employ the individuals, but also aim to acquire and absorb the knowledge residing in
them. When a certain project is set up, it calls together the project members with their
expertise and experiences. As the project progresses, new knowledge will be acquired,
created (e.g. writing up the project documents), and transferred. However, this
knowledge cannot be permanent in the context, due to the fact that it can be lost
through being forgotten by the individuals who knew them in the past, staff turnover,
project termination, and so on. Such knowledge loss situation can lead to various
challenge and waste for the TDCs to retain their competitive advantages or achieve
better efficiency. (the knowledge loss herein mainly refers to the involuntary loss of
knowledge, rather than referring to the intentional organizational forgetfulness
mentioned in several literatures (e.g. de Holan and Phillips, 2004)).
During the interviews and the field work, the definition of KR referred to is that
developed in the literature review: the processes and activities influencing
persistence/variation and accessibility of the individual/organizational knowledge
stock in the TDC context. It should be noted that, due to the limited time period of
each case study, it is difficult to know what exactly happened in the longer-term to the
knowledge possessed by the project staff, the teams, and the TDCs. Understanding
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this will require future study over a longer period. Here, the discussion will primarily
be related to those KR-related activities which were observed and experienced during
the field work rather than being conducted according to the four levels as the former
ones. The reason is that there are less and different types of information available
about KR than KT. For the sake of overall consistency, the factors which are
highlighted during the discussion of those KR-related activities will be listed
according to the four levels. The discussion of some parts of these sections (e.g. the
issues in using tools/technology to record) is also applicable to the issue of knowledge
transfer due to the indivisible nature of the knowledge flows as mentioned in the KM
model.
5.2.4.1 The false attitude? : The contradictory between the attitudes and the
actual behaviours towards knowledge retention
The leaders and many employees in all three case companies did admit the
significance of proper retention of knowledge; however, from their subsequent
responses about their actual behaviour and the researcher`s observations, there was a
huge gap between the significance they recognized and their actual behaviour in terms
of knowledge retention. For instance, it was a common response that they thought it
was necessary to make certain handbook or operation manual to regulate and
standardize the staff` behaviour in terms of their knowledge retention-related
behaviours, which include documenting the official documents of previous projects,
sorting out the bright ideas of previous projects or other established attractions,
documenting the photos taken during the field investigation, elaborating exit
interview for the leaving staff, and conducting post-review discussion of each
projects. However, they hardly actively put any of these thoughts into action, not to
mention any strategies of intentional organizational forgetting.
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Especially in case A and case C where the researcher witnessed the process of the
leaders (Al1 and Cl1) attempted to establish relatively regular system in their
companies, their focuses were mainly on the daily operational aspects (e.g. checking
attendance, salary) rather than any specifically KM-related aspect. As for case B,
there were certain relevant handbooks (e.g. the handbook of using OA system to store
and retrieve previous project document), and it can be supposed as the role of size of
organization in terms of their strategies related to knowledge transfer and retention in
the future work. But in fact, they were hardly implemented within the mother
company where the researcher conducted his fieldwork. For instance, when the
project teams within the mother company wished to obtain certain previous
documents from the mother company, they would directly reach to the one whom they
thought possessed the documents rather than following the handbook.
This dilemma can be termed as a knowing-doing gap (Pfeffer and Sutton, 2001),
where the organizations can hardly transform their knowledge about improving
performance into actual actions. For now, this research summarizes the result of this
knowing-doing gap as an organizational level factor named as ‘ineffective/vacant
organizational KM strategies and institutions’, which lead to negative impacts on KR-
related activities in the given context. It should be noted that to investigate the factors
that result in this knowing-doing gap per se is a major research topic and currently
beyond the scope of this exploratory study.
The aforementioned omission led not only certain observable problems during the
project process, but also resulted in several difficulties for the researcher who
originally wished to figure out the factors influencing those behaviours. It should be
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noted that, although the participants did not display any specific actions towards
improving knowledge retention, knowledge retention did happen informally,
continuously, and tacitly in both the intrapersonal and interpersonal perspectives.
According to this situation, the author will provide a relatively short discussion of the
problematic situation and the corresponding difficulties encountered during project
process.
5.2.4.2 The individual`s desultory performance
As this research is mainly focused on TDP-related knowledge, the primary difficulty
for knowledge retention is its negative impact towards the TDP-related knowledge
stocks and the corresponding flows. The first problematic situation was the
individuals` desultory and non-normative knowledge retention performance, resulted
in forgetting or biased judgements about the knowledge obtained from the project
field investigations. This happened during the researcher`s fieldwork in all case
companies. As mentioned in the previous chapters, project field investigation is one of
the primary stages that the project teams acquire TDP-related knowledge from the
project region or be transferred from the clients and the other stakeholders. From the
perspective of the project team, one end is the huge amounts of TDP-related
information and knowledge that the project teams are exposed to in the project region,
while on the other end is the challenge that how the team can fully obtain, absorb,
keep, and maintain these knowledge in order to achieve the optimal vision of KM that
getting right knowledge to right person at the right time. Unfortunately, during most
of the researcher`s participation in the field investigations, he observed that most
behaviours of the team members in terms of storing knowledge were just spontaneous
and desultory. This situation was confirmed by their responses in the informal
interviews after the investigations.
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As it can be hardly seen any pre-established rules or requirements to regulate their
KM-related behaviours got implemented during the field work, individual knowledge
and values were found to have significantly influenced what they finally recorded in
their notes, cameras, phones, and other tools. Some literatures also support this
argument. For instance, Friedman (2014) states that individual differences, especially
different working memory capacities—which are used for ‘both comprehension
(attention and understanding of course content) and production (identifying important
content and physically generating notes)’ (p.7) —inevitably impact note-taking
performance. Therefore, even if apart from their differences in terms of knowledge
transfer, their exhibits can be greatly variable.
This situation leads to unintentional knowledge loss as time goes on, due to the nature
of short-term storage of working memory (Baddeley, 2000). For instance, the team
members might remember relatively comprehensive details at the beginning of the
time they received, and were more likely to record those details they thought to be
important or should be recorded (e.g. complicated, cannot be understood immediately,
leader`s request). At the same time, the others remained in their memories, but
although they might later re-evaluate these as being important, some or many of the
details may no longer be remembered; the others were left in their minds, and some of
them might be rethought to be important as the project goes on. However, the details
of them had been gradually vanished in the memory. Such knowledge loss can impact
the efficiency of project work due to the extra effort spent on restoring that missing
knowledge (e.g. asking the clients again, often in a roundabout way in order to
maintain their professional image (Acw1)) as well as increasing the negative risk of
the final quality of project ideas due to the potential omission of certain key details
requested by the clients.
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Furthermore, this situation can result in certain conflicts towards the team`s
cooperation in the subsequent project stages. Project team members (in cases A and
C) sometimes argued about certain details of clients` conversation listened or
available tourism resources observed during the field investigation. In fact, it was hard
for any side in the conflicts to fully and truly describe the real situation, as the
evidence of their arguments were mainly based on the materials that they recorded at
that time which ‘only aimed to serve themselves respectively in most cases’ (Al1) and
hence inevitably mixed the actual state with their own understanding and the resulting
biases. This example can be viewed as the negative impacts of a KR-related issue
towards KC and KT processes, which to certain degree echoes with the iterative loops
among the three KM components exhibited in the KM model of this research.
5.2.4.3 The issues in using tools/technology to record
There were several additional factors other than the aforementioned individual
differences which were also observed to influence the corresponding knowledge
retention behaviours and performances during the field investigation. Different tools
that the project members use to record information lead to different KR challenges,
especially in terms of the accessibility to the retained knowledge. Take audio
recordings for example, also relatively popular among several project members during
the field investigation. Just as the situation which was encountered by the researcher
during his data collection and analysis process, audio recording is a relatively easy
way to collect relatively comprehensive content of certain conversations, but it is very
time-consuming to transcribe all the information into a visual style. The researcher
did not often observe the members who used this way to transcribe those recordings
into documents due to a relatively common reason about the imbalance between input
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(time, energy) and output (benefits from the whole transcribed documents from their
own perspectives) which was concluded from the responses of Acw1, Acw2, and
Bcw1 during informal conversations with the researcher. Instead, they would re-listen
to the recordings when they thought they missed something or felt confused about
certain details.
From the perspective of researcher that, this behaviour (not to process the recordings
into a more accessible and readable style) was not only inefficient for themselves, but
also largely restricted the potential to share them with the other team members. For
instance, most of them did not make any notes to marking the time spots about certain
key events (e.g. to mark the event ‘the head of the clients talks about xxx here’ at the
corresponding time ‘23min56sec’) along with the recordings which meant they had to
rely on their own memories and familiarities to the recordings or just luck to
accurately retrieve the information, and hence it was no wonder that the researcher
hardly saw any other team members (including the researcher himself) ask them to get
the recording document to listen—it can be very inefficient and frustrating to seek
desired information in the unfamiliar materials without any notice or assistance. This
example also further verifies the KR-KT linkage shown in the KM model.
Similar challenges about insufficiently processed materials were also faced by other
tools to a certain degree, e.g. photos and files with background information. Photos
were one of the key aspects that the project leaders would emphasize their team
members to treat seriously. Most photos in the field investigation were taken by the
draftsmen by complementing with several scattered photos which were spontaneously
taken by the others. Although some of them would do some basic filtering (e.g. to
delete some poor quality photos) and sorting (e.g. to store photos in different folders
in the computer which were labelled according to their taken time or places or
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combined), the remaining photos in each folder were still a relatively large amount.
Nearly none of those team members in all three case companies were observed to
further remark or make a small comment on the photos (even some key photos) after
they transferred those photos from their cameras/phones to their computers or to the
shared cloud storage. It implied that the problem was, when they or the other team
members wished to check some details which might be shown in or relevant to those
photos (e.g. why certain particular photos were taken, and what those photos were
trying to demonstrate), they had to ‘seek the needle in the sea’ (Bl1).
As well as these challenges residing in different types of tools used in the context of
TDP, the researcher also observed several conditions or factors influencing the
individual staff`s choices of specific tools. Firstly, different people seemed to have
their own preferences and incompatibilities with a selection of tools . For instance,
when the researcher conducted his fieldwork in the case Company A, it clearly
showed that the different people preferred to use different tools when they were
taking notes: Acw1 and Adm1 usually used traditional pens and notebooks to record,
while Acw2 preferred to use applications on her smartphone to make notes.
According to the observations of all the team members that the researcher worked
within the three case companies, most of them preferred to use the traditional way of
pens and notebooks to make notes as their first choices, and only a few of them were
more used to using their smartphones or laptops.
This situation implied one issue that, when some other conditions (factors that will be
mentioned shortly) occurred, some individuals would have to apply those methods
they were not used to. As there was no preparation or specific training in terms of
different KR tools in advance, they fussed that the unfamiliar tools and mistakes
would occur. Such a situation was observed in Case A: Acw1 realized that she had
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forgotten to bring the notebook, so she had to use her mobile phone to make some
notes (as Acw2) when the team discussed with one of the local officials during the
field investigation. However, her actions of using her mobile phone to make notes
looked to be unprofessional, and the researcher observed that the expressions on the
face of that official and Al1 were unhappy when they saw Acw1`s behaviour.
According to warnings by Al1`s after the discussion meeting, it had looked like Acw1
was texting or playing games, rather than taking notes.
Secondly, some other personal factors (e.g. emotions, physical status) were also
observed to influence the individual`s choice of KR tools. For instance, the author
heard Acw2 once complain that ‘I`m so tired today (physical status) that I don't want
to make any notes. I`ll just use the digital voice recorder to record’. Thirdly, several
contextual factors (e.g. weather and time) were also found to influence the choices of
tools. As mentioned in the knowledge transfer chapter, the weather of heavy rain
made the whole process of field investigation very hasty and messy. It was hard to use
pens and notebooks in those conditions, as the rain would ordinarily wet the
notebooks and make the handwriting bleed, unless requiring someone to hold an
umbrella. The length of stay at each node in the project region became very short
which meant that the team members did not have sufficient time to take detailed
notes. In addition, the team members also responded that they were less likely to use
voice recorder and camera in the heavy rain, as it not only increased the potential to
damage the equipment, but also could impact the quality of information (e.g. fuzzy
photos and unclear voices due to the rain).
This all led to a further issue for knowledge retention, and even the other two
components of KM model: various tools to record information by different team
members led to subsequent difficulties in combining different forms of information
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carriers (KC), which further results in difficulties in retaining this knowledge and
sharing it within the team or the wider organization. In the academic realm, to apply
various tools to record information and data might be a good way to ensure the
comprehensiveness and the authenticity of the research data. Although this advantage
was also recognized by many practitioners in the TDCs, the actual result was often
disappointing. These knowledge materials were hardly ever combined together and
most of them remained in the hands of their collectors/receivers during the whole
project process. The project leaders in the three case companies recognized the
importance of proper collected knowledge integration after the field investigation, and
one common practice they adopted was the post-investigation review meetings, which
were usually held once among all the participators from the project team in the
evening of the last day of the field investigation. However, such review meeting itself
was not perfect in terms of its application towards knowledge transfer and retention.
In the next paragraphs, the research will discuss the issues related to the review
meetings.
5.2.4.4 The issues in the review meetings
The purpose of this type of review meeting was to summarize the information that the
team members observed and heard during the process, to clarify the questions
encountered by the team members, and to develop a relatively shared understanding
about future work plans on the basis of the field investigation. Apart from this review
meeting, there was no other specific practice aiming to integrate and store the
information collected by different team members. In this context, several
corresponding issues were observed in the field work.
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Firstly, it led the whole team to be over-dependent on the review meeting, which
increased the risk that—once the effect of the review meeting was unsatisfactory—the
team members were more likely to encounter difficulties and conflicts in terms of that
part of knowledge during the subsequent project stages. In fact, just as with the
various factors discussed in the KT chapters, the effect of the review meetings cannot
be ensured to be ideal. For instance, in the review meetings of Cases A and C, the
actual project leaders (i.e. the company leaders, Al1 and Cl1) lead the conversations
during almost the whole meetings, and they presented a lot of their thoughts and
opinions about the experiences in the field investigations. In contrast, many team
members were observed to be less active in those review meetings: for the most part,
they were just listeners.
Although some of them would correct several unclear or problematic viewpoints
present by the leaders, what was seldom observed was that they further complement
and enriched the leader`s content with their own recordings and various details on the
basis of their own perspectives and experiences in the field investigations. The result
was that the so-called shared understandings of the information gathered in the field
investigation were mainly the viewpoints of the project leaders rather than the ideal
form, which appropriately and fully combined all sources. Such a situation was
echoed by the aforementioned group discussion in the general project works, where it
was observed to be more notable in the case project team with directive leadership
(such as in Cases A and C) than in the case team with participative leadership (Case
B).
Secondly, apart from the oral forms of the results of the review meeting, which were
mainly summarized by the project leaders, the review meetings usually did not
produce any united codified forms of documents as a reference for future work.
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Though some team members would spontaneously enhance their notes according to
the review meetings, their notes were hardly shared. Instead, the project leaders would
let the team members upload some relevant materials (mainly photos, voice
recordings, relevant public documents obtained from the clients and the internet, but
not their notes), and then directly assign tasks to each team members to conduct the
formal project production stage.
However, those uploaded materials were still independent from each. For instance, the
team members could not easily link the photos and their relevant project regions on
the map, as there were no specific remarks attached to those photos. Furthermore, the
practice of sharing their personal notes was rarely observed, which further limited the
formation of group memory and the potential for the team members to get to know the
several distinct details recorded by the others to contribute to inspiring their ideation
process. Although such practices sometimes occurred in case A, the researcher did not
see any receivers give their feedback to the providers about the details in the notes,
which can still not improve the original notes with the others` knowledge.
It should be an issue in terms of both KT and KR perspectives. Although it has to be
admitted that there is a difficulty in terms of transcription (e.g. from audio recordings)
and combination (e.g. linking different notes together and with the audio recordings)
of various forms and types of gathered knowledge, the formation of certain united
codified documents—which record the comprehensive description of the knowledge
gathered in the field work on the basis of all participators` perspectives—is necessary,
in order to increase the efficiency of subsequent work and to produce authentic,
realistic, and attractive project ideas and documents.
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These issues can be criticized as the negative impacts resulting from the
aforementioned factors (e.g. ineffective/vacant organizational KM strategies and
institutions, and tools). They not only occurred in the review meetings, but are also
applicable to all the similar contexts such as the idea discussion meetings. For
instance, there were also no formal/shared minutes of each discussion meeting in all
case companies. Therefore, some inspiration might be easily forgotten and lost after
meetings. During the informal conversation between the researcher and the team
members about this issue, some of them thought each part of project document which
was produced after the discussion meeting can be viewed as a form of knowledge
storage which to a certain degree preserved the knowledge created and transferred in
the discussion meetings. The researcher agreed with their opinions; however, such
form was insufficient to preserve every valuable point that occurred during the
meeting process: the project documents were only a collective of mature and
appropriate ideas. Some inspirations might not be very organized and matured at the
beginning, and some ideas might be valuable and interesting but not specifically
suitable for the context of the focal project or the clients` requirements: which meant
most of them were not stored or represented in the formal project documents.
Without minutes of the discussion meeting and proper sorting of those unused ideas, it
can be a great loss of knowledge asset of the TDCs and might negatively influence the
future project work. A representative example was when Al1 once wished to use a
previously mentioned idea in the ongoing project. However, he forgot the details of
that idea and only remembered some related concepts. Therefore, he asked around the
company to attempt to seek out the details of the idea and the reasons why some
options were selected, but no one could answer him.
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5.2.4.5 Other issues in the current repository patterns
Furthermore, due to lack of a codified form to store the knowledge acquired and
created during the project process—also including after the end of the project, as there
were not even post-project review meetings in all case companies, something which
should be one of the most important ways to obtain effective learned lessons from
past projects (Williams, 2007)— most TDP-related knowledge remained in the
individual knowledge and memories of the project members. Therefore, there are high
risks of knowledge loss because of individual forgetting , and some other factors
mentioned in the KT chapters (e.g. whether the organization and the team can be
benefited from those knowledge depended on whether these knowledge carriers
wished to share them or not).
Such risk of knowledge loss can also be found in terms of staff turnover . In the
literature, exit interviews were found to be a highly expected tool for knowledge
retention in this situation (Spain and Groysberg, 2016); however, no formal exit
interviews occurred in all three case companies. Some of the company leaders
attempted to interview the leaving staff, but the effect was unsatisfactory. For
instance, when the researcher did a return visit to Acw1 after the whole field work,
Acw1 told the researcher that she had already left the company. Al1 was wishing to
have a talk with her; however, he was too busy to actually conduct the talk during that
time. So that plan (the exit interview) left unsettled finally.
Furthermore, when certain staff wished to retrieve and use that knowledge, he/she had
to look for the carrier first, which could lead to another series of issues. For instance,
sometimes they did not know which person should be contacted. This issue was also
encountered by the situation that when the team members wished to consult the
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internal consultants in the case B that they were not familiar or even did not know
each other before. According to the responses of the staff, there were no expert
directories or similar strategies to facilitate them in terms of this issue in all case
companies. The information about who possessed certain knowledge or skills was
solely stored in the individuals` minds. So it was hard for the staff to actually find out
who possessed their desired knowledge, especially for the staff in the large TDCs (e.g.
Company B) and those new employees.
It should be recognized that such action of contacting the knowledge holders to obtain
the desired knowledge had its positive effects on increasing the communication and
contact frequency between both sides. However, according to the observation, it can
also lead to certain negative impacts on the knowledge holders. Their original paces
of work might be interrupted, for example. In addition, the time spent on this kind of
knowledge retrieval cannot be clearly expected as the knowledge holders might forget
or have to spend extra time to seek in their own knowledge repositories (e.g. their
laptops, portable hard drives, or cloud storage). Therefore, it was difficult for the
demander to get their desired knowledge at the right time.
Despite the above issues, the staff in all three case companies did rely on certain
technologies (e.g. cloud storage in the QQ group, and an Office Automation (OA)
system) to store some TDP-related information such as the aforementioned photos
and the relevant public documents. The specific situations of using technologies were
observed to be different from case to case. For instance, there was a company-wide
OA system (some functions of the system possessed the nature of knowledge transfer
and retention (e.g. upload the project documents to the database, request and retrieve
the previous documents from the database)) established in the case-company B and
can be accessed, while such system was not found in the case A and case C
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companies. When the researcher asked Al1 and Cl1 respectively about the absence of
such a company-wide KM-related system, their responses were different. Cl1
admitted the significance of this kind of system, noting that it can organize relevant
documents neatly and effectively.
However, Cl1 said his company could not import or build the system at that time due
to the stressed financial state of the company, although the researcher doubted this
reason or excuse as the company was in a high profitability and he often uses the
financial states as the excuse to respond to certain managerial issues (e.g. the staff
asked for improving their salary levels which mentioned in the project ecology
chapter). Al1 also mentioned the significance of properly storing and sorting the
relevant project documents in an organized way, but he considered that such a system
would be more suitable in large organizations, rather than in micro or small
organizations (e.g. his company (case A)). He thought the knowledge flow in the
relatively small organizations (organization size) was not as many or as diverse as
those large organizations so the staff could deal with it manually, and the investment
(finance and manpower) of the KM-related system might not generate attractive
profits in such context (cost-benefit concern). To shortly summarize, these three factors
of the organizational level (i.e. financial state, organization size, and managerial cost-benefit concerns)
affect the development of KM-related system in the TDCs and the resulting knowledge
retention in the given context.
While the KM-related system might possess relatively high thresholds in terms of
funding and technology, some cloud storage technologies were much easier to be
accessed and utilized in the TDC context. The reason for this was that they were
usually open to the public with relatively low prices. For instance, the BaiduYun
network disk is free to normal use (the space of free user is 2057 GB), and the users
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can spend about 10 GBP to get one year VIP and about 25 GBP to get one year Super
VIP with much more advanced functions, such as online unzip files, simultaneously
upload large size documents. Furthermore, several cloud storage technologies were
attached to the other daily-use software (e.g. the ‘QQ Group’ (a function of group
users in a widely prevailing IM software ‘QQ’). However, the situations of using of
these technologies also varied from case to case. The staff in case A were the heaviest
users of cloud storage which were attached to ‘QQ Group’. It was often observed that
they often stored and shared the relevant documents and information through this
technology. In contrast, although the staff in case B and case C also used ‘QQ Group’
function and ‘QQ’ software, they did not use the related cloud storage as frequently as
the staff in case A to store and share project-related documents.
It should be noted that that the members of the company`s QQ Groups usually
covered almost all staff. In such context, the researcher inferred one reason behind the
differences between the staff in case A and cases B & C towards their behaviours in
terms of using the bundled cloud storage technologies was the different range of
members covered in the three cases: e.g. when they uploaded something, they would
consider who were or would be the users of those documents.
For instance, as mentioned in the former chapter of project ecology, due to the micro
size of Company A, some project staff hold concurrent roles as project members and
other staff (e.g. human resources), and the two project teams were often involved with
each other`s projects. Hence, the members of the Groups in Company A were almost
all project-related staff who were interlocked with each other in different projects. In
contrast, the Groups in Company B and C were inevitably involved with the staff in
many other project teams, departments, and the non-project related staff. It to a certain
degree explained there can be seen a series of company-related documents (e.g. rules
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and regulations, daily useful documents (e.g. fee claiming forms, template of written
request for leave)) instead of detailed project-specific documents in their cloud
storages.
In this situation, as several interviewees (e.g. 01FC, 04FC) introduced that, each of
the project teams might have their own Groups which solely covered their own team
members. Hence, they primarily communicated, shared, and stored information in
their specific Groups rather than in the company-wide one. The researcher considered
that this alternative practice would result in new issues/barriers to transferring
knowledge between project teams and the organization, or with other teams. Future
efforts to examine this are required as the researcher had not experienced or been
added into such team-specific Groups in case B and C, which should be primarily
ascribed to the limited time period he spent in these cases and the resulting short life
of his belonged project teams.
In the meantime, although the three case companies exhibited different practices in
terms of applying knowledge transfer and retention technologies, there were several
common issues discovered during the researcher`s fieldwork. Firstly, not only the
forms, but also the versions of the documents uploaded by different people might be
different. This can lead to certain compatibility issues of software when the others
tried to open those documents. For instance, Microsoft Office on Al1`s computers and
many computers in case Company C was the 2003 version, as the computers of most
clients, especially the government clients, were installed this version of Office, which
cannot directly open documents created by the 2007 version without proper plug-in
components. Secondly, as mentioned before, those uploaded documents were not
elaborately sorted and marked, and the built-in sorting functions in technologies
themselves are not smart enough. Therefore, that storages were looked as a disorderly
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utility room (an example can be seen in Figure 5.23, showing that all types of
documents were listed together without any further sorting on the basis of their
categories or other attributes) rather than a clean library.
Figure 5.23 the example of online storage used in the case companies
In this situation, as Adm1 told the researcher, this storage was just a one-off transit
centre rather than a sustained knowledge repository. People uploaded documents to let
the others download in order to reduce the troubles, and they directly sent the
documents one by one. Once both sides got the documents, those in online storage
were just as walking into graves that almost no one would think to browse and sort
them again. Thirdly, some technologies had their own limitations which made them
unsuitable for long-term knowledge retention (e.g. the limited storage time in some
free cloud storage (e.g. 14 days) of each document). These three issues did not receive
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the attention of the company leaders, and in turn there were no specific strategies
dealing with them during the researcher`s fieldwork.
5.2.4.6 Short Summary of Knowledge Retention
To sum up, in this special section on knowledge retention, this research discusses a
series of KR-related issues that were encountered during the fieldwork. Due to
ineffective or non-existent organizational KM strategies and institutions that were
observed in the three case-study TDCs, most KR-related activities are individual
behaviours which happen informally and tacitly, and are susceptible to a series of
factors (e.g. the individual knowledge and value, emotions).TDP-related knowledge
primarily remained in the individual knowledge and memories of the project
members. This implies the fragility of the knowledge stock in the TDC context, as it
can be lost or become inaccessible through various patterns (e.g. individual forgetting,
staff turnover). Although there are several behaviours which aim to increase and
maintain the organizational knowledge stock in the TDC context through
technologies, formal KM-related systems are rarely established due to several
organizational factors (e.g. cost-benefit concern from the management). Instead, they
adopted several public technologies (e.g. cloud service) as alternatives, which resulted
in common issues in all cases. Overall, a series of factors which are summarized from
the preceding discussion are listed in Table 5.14 according to the four contextual
levels of project ecology. The issues in terms of knowledge retention in the case
companies were various and complex and need future efforts to find out more
comprehensive influencing factors and practical solutions.
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The Individual Level: The individual knowledge and value
Emotions
Physical status
Individual preference
The Team Level: Job factors (e.g. time length in the field
investigation)
Project leaders
The Organizational Level: Ineffective/vacant organizational KM
strategies and institutions
The financial state of organization
Cost-benefit concern from the
management
Size of organization
The External Environmental Level Tools and technologies
Weather
Table 5.14 Factors influencing KR-related activities in the case studies
It needs to be mentioned that the influences of knowledge retention as well as its
relevant concept of organizational memory are not always positive, and that
knowledge retention does not mean to preserve all knowledge in an organization.
Instead, organizations are required to intentionally forget and abandon some parts of
knowledge in order to receive and update new knowledge (Jashapara, 2004). In the
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fieldwork, such a situation occurred when the staff in case-company A refused to
change their original ways in terms of composing the project document (using
Powerpoint) to another software (i.e. CorelDRAW). They thought that the current
method was sufficient to deal with the original work, although the latter software was
more suitable and professional in terms of composing which can be expected to
provide longer-term benefits in future projects. However, the researcher only had very
limited materials, and therefore this issue requires future work to investigate and
enrich the discussion.
5.3 Concluding Note: Key Findings
This research has aimed to produce a wide and ranging and detailed analysis of the
project ecology and knowledge management features of tourism development projects
and companies. The multi-level analysis, based on 10 months of participant
observation fieldwork and interviews, has generated 73 findings, which can be seen
throughout the chapter (A summary table can be seen in Appendix 8). Reviewing
those findings suggests that the thesis has produced four key findings, which are
outlined below,
The first key finding is about the diverse and intrinsic effects of the individual level
factors on the individuals` performance in KM-related activities. The individuals tend
to perform more effectively in KM-related activities when they possess particular
types of personal characteristics (e.g. curiosity, sensitiveness, independence,
discerning, imaginative, and high levels of agreeableness and openness), and
abundant and relevant knowledge (e.g. individuals’ own knowledge and task-specific
knowledge). While these individual factors influence individuals` own performance in
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terms of KM-related activities, some individual factors (e.g. the personal
characteristics of high consciousness, and emotions) can exert an influence on
surrounding individuals and their corresponding performances in the KM-related
activities. For instance, the emotion of one party can sometimes infect/trigger a
similar emotion in the opposing party, with positive or negative implications for
knowledge management. This further implies the influence of these factors on KM
become multiple from a general perspective, e.g. positive or negative types of
emotions can have either-or effects on both sides.
Although individuals are the basic creators, origins, and carriers of knowledge, in the
TDP ecology they do not exist in a vacuum. Individuals in the project ecology are
exposed to a series of common features and processes of the relating collectives to
which they belong (i.e. project teams and organizations). Therefore, the second key
finding of this research is about the importance of the aligning functions of the team
level factors in configuring individuals` project work and their corresponding KM-
related activities. The task-related factors (e.g. goal setting, task assignment, task
independence, autonomy and identity, expectation, and evaluation) align the
individuals in the process of working on the projects, which inevitably influences
their performance in the corresponding KM activities. Besides, based on the project
tasks and requirements, the individuals are assigned to different job positions and
roles in the project process, which results in different motivations and influences
during the processes of KM. The alignment of the various roles and responsibilities of
individuals in the project process implies the various ways in which the team
composition, the team size, and the social interactions among team members are
articulated, resulting in both benefits and challenges in respect of the individual and
team performances in terms of KM.
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Similarly, the individuals in the project ecology are inevitably influenced by the
contextual characteristics of the organizations to which they belong. The differences
between the general role of the contextual factors related to the team and the
organizational levels are as follows. Many team level factors are based on project
tasks, requirements, and works, and hence reflect the temporary and flexible nature of
project, which are more likely to result in varied situations and effects across different
projects. For instance, the roles of participative leadership and directive leadership on
knowledge creation are not immutable but depend on the complexity of the project
tasks. In contrast, the organizational level factors (e.g. rewards, workplace
environment, and company leaders) exert relatively more ongoing and sustained
influences on KM activities despite the different features of the various projects,
which is the third key finding of this research. Such ongoing and sustained effects can
also be illustrated by negative examples: the absence of organizational KM strategies
and systematic training schemes cause a persistent failure to realise potential benefits
and supports which should have been provided from the firm level. As a result, the
individual members have to rely on their own efforts to increase their KM-related
capabilities (e.g. self-learning of certain skills from specific project work) and
perform KM-related activities (e.g. selecting KR tools according to their own
preferences and other personal factors).
Moving beyond the organizational level, it is important to recognize that there is an
external environment surrounding the relevant individuals, teams, and organizations
of certain project. Therefore, the fourth key finding of this research is that the
characteristics of the external environment can also exert latently ongoing, and
sometimes noticeable influences on the interactions and dynamics of these relevant
entities in terms of their performance in project and KM-related issues. The ‘latently
ongoing’ feature can be understood in terms of the influences of the prevailing
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Chinese social and cultural factors, and technological developments, on KM-related
activities in the given context. For example, their influence on the means of project
production, the patterns of interrelationships among the entities in the TDP ecology,
the channels of knowledge transfer, and the repositories where knowledge is retained.
The ‘latently ongoing’ influence also implies the entities involved have limited
control over the factors in the external environment. Moreover, those factors can drive
the changing patterns of factors at the other levels (e.g. in-house pattern of acquiring
task-specific knowledge; emotions can influence IMT technology-based knowledge
transfer practices through the pattern of usage of Emojis). The ‘sometimes noticeable’
nature of these features is illustrated by the influences of sound and weather on KM-
related activities in certain circumstances (e.g. the direct feelings and the physical
blocks deriving from climatic influences), which also to a certain degree implies the
random and conspicuous nature of such influences.
While this concluding note summarizes four main aspects of the key empirical
findings on in terms of the four levels of factors respectively, a longer set of
theoretical reflections on the findings will be provided in the concluding chapter.
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Chapter 6 Conclusion
This final chapter presents the conclusions and implications of the findings of this
research. Firstly, it will clarify to what extent the aims and objectives of this study
have been accomplished, and how the research findings contribute to related
knowledge and understanding. Then, the main implications for management of the
findings will be presented. After that, the author will indicate the main limitations of
the research, and how it could be taken forward in the future, including the main lines
of future research which could extend on this research.
6.1 Achievement of the Aims and Objectives
As previously stated, the overall aim of this research was to understand knowledge
management in tourism development companies in China, through a project ecology
approach. In order to achieve this aim, the subsequent two main objectives were set:
(1) To provide a detailed account of the general project ecology of TDCs in China
Grabher`s work (2002a) indicates that project ecology covers four levels: the project
team, the mother firm, the epistemic communities, and the personal networks. On the
basis of these four levels, this research proposes that two more levels can and should
be integrated into Grabher’s project ecology in order to provide a relatively more
comprehensive framework for the research in this thesis: these are the level of
individuals and the level of external environment. Both levels conform to the
fundamentals of the multilevel perspective, and are found to be essential for
understanding KM-related issues according to the relevant literature. Following these
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levels, this research constructed the following framework base on the analysis of the
data collected from the interviews and the field work (Figure 6.24).
Figure 6.24 The integrated framework of TDP ecology in China and the related KM
models
This framework initially exhibited all the key collectives which are closely involved
in the tourism development project: the core project team, full project team, mother
firm, epistemic communities, and project environment. Within each collective, the
author listed the corresponding individuals involved in them. Secondly, it also showed
the interrelationships between those entities and their roles within the project ecology
—in the context of knowledge management in the idea generation stage of tourism
development project. For instance, the core project team lies in the core of the full
project team, which is at the centre of the whole project ecology as they are the main
engine for generating and designing the concepts and ideas of the tourism
development projects. The full project team usually consists of the staff from the
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mother TDC, and sometimes also covers some individuals from the epistemic
communities under certain circumstance. So it is therefore placed in the overlapping
space between the block of mother firm and the block of epistemic communities.
Project environment surrounds all the individuals and collectives in the context, and
influences them from various perspectives in terms of their KM-related issues, which
is why it is portrayed as a platform to cover all these entities of project ecology.
According to these descriptions and understandings, the author further developed and
modified the original concepts of project ecology (Grabher, 2002a) in the context of
TDP—as ‘the project ecology in the TDP context is the interdependencies between
tourism development projects and the particular individuals, project teams, involved
organizations, project environments, and the interrelationships among these entities
and context from which the projects draw essential sources’.
Furthermore, in Chapter 4, the author further introduced the general role and
background of the entities in terms of tourism development projects, and also
described the specific situations of them in the three case studies on the basis of the
field work. From the discussion in that chapter and other data collected from the
fieldwork, it showed in several ways that the factors which actually influence the
knowledge management in the given context are the properties of individuals,
collectives, and interrelationships. Due to its difficulty to portray those properties
within the framework along with the various existing entities, the author listed some
examples of them as a note by the side of the framework.
(2) To understand how knowledge is managed within the project ecology of the
chosen case studies
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The roles of the aforementioned factors/properties in terms of KM within the context
of tourism development project were further discussed in order to fulfil the second
objective. As this research focused on the knowledge which is directly related to
tourism development projects, and the relevant knowledge management issues, this
research is mainly grounded from project members, core project teams, and the
belonging TDCs, which are the main producers of the ideas and plans of tourism
development projects. The factors selected were those which were found to influence
the motivation, capability, and actual performance of these entities in terms of the
corresponding KM activities. In contrast, the clients, the alliance—and the other
entities which are mentioned in the chapter of project ecology—are only referred
sometimes in this discussion, when the situation that project members were
encountering with them. These entities did not fully participate in the whole process
of producing project document in the cases from the fieldwork and hence the
available data related to them are limited.
In this context, the author reconstructed the aforementioned factors/properties into the
multi-level perspective in the order of: the individual, team, and organization. In the
meantime, as project environment indivisibly influences all entities in the project
ecology, the factors of project environment were added as a fourth level—external
environment. From this multi-level perspective, a series of factors were critically
discussed. There are 73 findings and related understandings about the role of these
factors on knowledge in the given context obtained, the summary table and the details
of which can be seen in Appendix 8 and the corresponding sections respectively.
Among these detailed findings, four general key findings serve to provide a synthesis
of the factors within the four levels respectively: (1) the diverse and intrinsic effects
of the individual level factors on the individuals` performance in KM-related
activities; (2) the aligning functions of the team level factors in configuring
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individuals` project work and their corresponding KM-related activities; (3) the
organizational level factors exertion of relatively more ongoing and sustained
influences on KM activities despite the different features of the various projects;
(4)the characteristics of the external environment can also exert latently ongoing, and
sometimes notable influences on the interactions and dynamics of these relevant
entities in terms of their performance in project and KM-related issues. Apart from the
understanding of the influences of the single factors, and the roles of the single levels,
the author further realised several common features among all factors in the four
levels.
It can be seen that there are many common factors influencing all three KM
components, which can be termed the ‘commonality’ characteristic. Take the
individual level for example: the common factors are found to be personal
characteristics (the representation of personality traits), individual emotion, individual
knowledge (including both the individual original knowledge and the task-specific
knowledge which were acquired during the project), and individual mental model.
The researcher`s data collection angle during the field work can be ascribed as one
reason behind it; however, the primary reason is the indivisible nature of knowledge
creation, transfer, and retention—indications of which can be found throughout the
discussion.
Although many factors were commonly found to have influences on the three KM
components, it can be seen that some factors acted differently in different KM
components. This is termed the ‘heterogeneity’ characteristic. For instance, diversity
of group composition has been widely recognized as a key factor boosting the team
creativity. This was also demonstrated in this research from the perspectives of
knowledge, demographic, and personality perspectives. As for their influences in
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terms of knowledge transfer—although they can be positive under certain
circumstances—the diversity in terms of these three perspectives was mainly found to
result in a series of challenges (although it can also be found to have some positive
influences related to these perspectives).
Apart from these linkage characteristics, it another characteristic can also be found
(termed as ‘mediation’) regarding the interrelationships between the factors discussed
in Chapter V. The ‘mediation’ nature is that some factors were observed not to
directly affect certain components of KM, but their effects can be enabled or
enhanced by other factors. For instance, the leadership styles of each project
leader/company leader were not found to be directly relevant to their team creativity
during the project process. However, its effect became obvious when the factor of
task complexity changed: directive team leadership is better for team idea generation
when the task complexity is higher than the project team`s capacity, while
participative leadership is better in the converse situation. It should be noted that the
‘dependence’ characteristic and the interrelationships between the factors discussed in
the chapters have not been fully discovered by this research, due to limited time in the
field work and the resultant data, which therefore requires future efforts towards this
area.
The example of different leadership existing in the different cases leads to the last
characteristic of the factors, which is termed as the ‘variety’ characteristic. It refers to
the situation that the attribute of the same factor is found to be different in different
cases (e.g. leadership: directive leadership in the project team of case A; participative
leadership in the project team of case B). The aforementioned characteristics lead the
entities in the project ecology to exhibit differences in the corresponding KM
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activities, which may further contribute to the understanding of the categorization of
different project ecology and their distinct effects in terms of KM.
However, according to the available data, the researcher considers that it is not
sufficient to actually differentiate the three cases into three different kinds of project
ecologies because of:
a.) the complex nature of project ecology in terms of KM, reflecting the fact that there
were various factors involving in the process and the researcher cannot provide the
specific weighting of these factors in terms of the corresponding process at the current
stage; and
b.) the differences among the entities in the three cases were not clear and precise
enough in many perspectives, reflecting the fact that after all they were in the same
industry and had similar business activities.
c.) Given by the aforementioned definition of project ecology adopted in this research,
project ecology is understood to consist of various elements and the involved
organizations (TDCs are just one type) are just one of these. Some commonalities
between other elements (i.e. individuals, teams, project environments, and some
interrelationships) result in some similarities in their performances, which in turn
makes it difficult to compare the three case-companies.
Although such limitations exist, the multi-case studies applied in this study, from at
least two perspectives, contribute to enriching the understanding of the roles of factors
which influence knowledge management in various situations. On the one side, it can
be seen the differences between the three case studies from different perspectives
along with the factors in the four levels. On the basis of this point, future research
could be devoted to constructing different project ecologies in the TDC industries or
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in the tourism industry as a whole, and to investigating their differences and
similarities in the field of knowledge management. On the other side, the overall
discussion of all three case studies contributes to a brief understanding of the general
project ecology of TDCs in China, and the ways in which their project ecology and
the inside learning logic are different from models of project ecologies developed in
other industries (such as the advertising industry and the software industry in Grabher
(2004a)). A more detailed discussion related to this point will be presented in the next
section.
6.2 Contribution to Knowledge and Understanding
This research has made a significant contribution to research and understanding in this
field in the following ways.
Firstly, continuing the discussion in the last section, this research takes a deeper step
(i.e. the individual level) and a wider step (i.e. the external environmental level)
towards adapting Grabher`s original structure of project ecology to investigate the
KM activities in the context of TDP. Grabher (2004a) admits that his framework of
project ecology did not represent the entire spectrum of project architecture, and the
researcher contends that adding the individual level and the external environmental
level makes a significant contribution to investigating KM activities in terms of both
the literature and the empirical work.
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As for the individual level, just as Argote (2011) states, the individuals ‘are the
mechanisms through which organizational learning generally occurs’ (p.440).
Individuals are the basic entities driving the project work and the KM activities in the
given context. The discussion in Chapter 5, demonstrates that the diverse and
significant influences of the individuals` characteristics in relation to the three KM
components within this research context. For instance, both the interview responses
and the observations in the case studies identify how a series of personal
characteristics can influence knowledge creation from various perspectives (see
findings No.1 and No.2). The individual emotion and mood of both parties have
diverse influences on the knowledge transfer process between them in various KT
channels (see findings No.31-No.35). The individual knowledge and values were
found to have significantly influenced what they finally recorded in their notes,
cameras, phones, and other tools (finding No.64). Furthermore, the higher levels of
entities (e.g. team, organization) actually emerge through the interactions and
dynamics of the individuals. It can be seen that many factors discussed in relation to
the higher levels are rooted in the individual characteristics or the interaction amongst
the individuals. An example is the discussion about the role of the composition of
collectives (i.e. team and organization) in KC and KT. Different compositions in
respect of different aspects of individual characteristics (e.g. individual knowledge,
demographic, and personality) exhibit various influences on KM-related activities
(see findings No.17, No.48-No.52).
As for the external environmental level, this research demonstrates the necessities of
incorporating this level into the construction of the project ecology and the discussion
of KM activities in the given context. According to the field work, it can be seen that
accomplishing the TDP requires a vast amount of knowledge resources from various
sources. Several perspectives on the external environment (e.g. technology,
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government and policy, weather, and general social-cultural factors) are found to
influence the interactions and dynamics of the relevant entities of the project ecology
in terms of their performance in project and KM-related issues. For instance,
technology and governmental policy influence the scope and the depth of knowledge
that can be reached by the entities in the project ecology (see findings No.27 and
No.29) which hence influence their performance in terms of knowledge creation.
Technology also diversifies the ways that the entities of the project ecology
communicate with each other. This results in the distinct patterns in terms of
expressing and receiving emotions which has a number of effects on KT-related
activities (see finding No.35).
Secondly, apart from the differences in terms of the structure of project ecology
mentioned above, the characteristics of the similar layers of the project ecologies
between this research and the early literature also exhibits several differences which
further differentiate the project ecology of the TDP with the others in terms of project-
based learning process. In order to articulate the differences between these project
ecologies, this research directly quotes the comparison table from Grabher
(2004a:1507), and add a new column exhibiting the learning logic of tourism
development project (TDP) ecology in China according to the hints contained in the
discussions of Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 (see Table 6.15).
To be more specific, the project team is recognized as the key actor bearing the
primary responsibility for the conceptualization and design of the entire project,
wherein the core team is the most significant component. Similar to research on the
software ecology sector, the TDP ecology emphasizes the importance of reducing
cognitive distance among the members of the core team, and seeks cohesion rather
than rivalry in the team (Section 5.1.2.4). The professionals generally remain in stable
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roles within the team during the life of the projects due to their clear-cut distinctive
knowledge backgrounds. This implies certain challenges in terms of reducing this
cognitive distance (see the discussion about cooperation between copywriters and
draftsmen in Section 5.2.2.1). Hence, the company leaders intentionally design the
team composition in order to gradually cultivate tacit understanding and common
language among the team members (Section 5.2.2.1). It should be noted that, the
company leaders are also found to encourage the team members to switch roles in
some cases (see in Section 4.4.2.1). Although it can be viewed as the leader`s desire
to make maximum use of the employees, this can result in reducing cognitive distance
within the team to a certain degree according to similar practices mentioned in
Grabher (2004a).
In the firm layer, the TDCs are found to benefit from both economies of repetition and
economies of recombination to increase their project capabilities, which refers to the
core activities related to successful bid and deliver projects (Brady and Davies, 2004).
Economies of repetition refer to the firm increasingly improving its efficiency in
terms of repeatable project activities (Brady and Davies, 2004; Lobo and Whyte,
2017). These are achieved by the TDCs in the case studies applying or proposing to
use tools (e.g. project management manuals, handbooks, and operational system) for
guiding and aligning employees with the work of the projects, especially those
relatively routine activities (e.g. project biding, contractual agreements drafting,
project scheduling, and reviewing). However, according to the field work, Case
Companies A and C were still in the relatively early stage of constructing such
codified institutions and tools (some hints can be seen in Section 4.2.4 and 4.2.5 on
the reformation of management institutions in both companies), while several tools in
Case Company B were rather ineffectively implemented (see Section 5.2.4.1). Hence
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the development and coverage of the tools were incomplete compared to the actual
requirement of the project activities, especially in terms of KM perspectives.
Apart from the tools which are generally codified and explicit, stories and cultures
shape the project practices in relatively tacit but more prevailing ways. Stories in the
TDP context refer to the previous outstanding projects delivered by the TDC and the
influential tales from other TDCs/industries. Experiences and understandings from
these stories gradually form the latent principles and rules of future project activities.
An obvious example in all three case companies is that the newcomers were generally
told by the seniors to read and learn from some of what they considered the previous
‘representative’ projects of the companies. In addition, there were stories about the
ways in which the seniors dealt with certain tasks in previous projects. As for the
culture, organizational culture encompasses cultural assumptions, values, beliefs,
expectations, and practices that the members of organization share in relation to
appropriate behaviours; this exists in various aspects of organizational life at various
levels of the organizations and in various patterns (Tracey et al., 1995; Ajmal and
Koskinen, 2008). From this perspective, the role of organizational culture can be seen
as reflected in several discussions at the team level and the organization level (e.g.
finding No.20). Furthermore, some factors discussed at the team level and
organization level can be linked with organizational culture, which can be supported
by the relevant literature; such as leadership (Ogbonna and Harris, 2000; Jaskyte,
2004; Huey Yiing and Zaman Bin Ahmad, 2009).
As for economies of recombination, this refers to reusing knowledge from previous
projects in a novel way in response to the current project’s requirements (Isaac et al.,
2017; Lobo and Whyte, 2017). The TDC accrues economies of recombination
through leveraging templates and modules from previous projects. Template herein
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refers to a model of project documentation for a certain type of TDP that the TDC
developed based on previous similar-type projects. It is usual that the templates are
used in the TDP process for guiding the production of related project documents by
providing the basic information about the content structure and the corresponding
required contents. While templates act as a framework or prototype of a whole project
document, module refers to a particular component of certain parts of previous project
documents which possesses unique features or serve particular functions.
Accordingly, the forms of module can be a particular kind of product idea, (e.g. the
example of ‘Rapeseed/Lavender flower sea’ in Section 5.1.1.5), or certain particular
chapters/sections of project documents (e.g. the recommendations about human
resource management policies). Several hints and examples about recombining
modules into new projects can be seen in Section 5.1.1.5.
By moving beyond the firm, it can be seen that the process of TDP production is a
series of epistemic communities involving clients, external consultants/specialists,
other project companies, and local communities (see Section 4.3). It should be noted
that, as each TDP has its own unique characteristics, and this research mainly focuses
on the perspective of TDCs, the entities covered in the epistemic communities are
different from the two ecologies in Grabher`s work to a certain degree. As for clients,
Grabher (2004a) distinguishes two types of interrelationships (projects ‘with’ clients
vs. projects ‘for’ clients) between projects and clients in the project ecology
framework according to ‘the different degrees of client involvement’ (p.1507). In the
TDP context, the clients are usually present at the initial stages of the TDP (e.g.
bargaining and contracting, field investigation) and the final stages (e.g. report and
assessment) rather than directly participating in the actual planning and production of
TDP documents (several hints can be seen in Section 4.3.1 and Chapter 5). From this
perspective, the degree of client involvement in the TDPs is much less compared to
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the description of client involvement in software projects (see in Grabher,
2004a:1499). Hence, the interrelationship between TDPs and their clients is more
likely to be described as projects for clients. Furthermore, the TDC is also driven by
the interest in transforming the single TDPs into long-term loyalty relationships with
clients (see in Section 4.3.1.3). According to Section 4.3.1.3 and 4.3.1.4, such lock-in
in the TDP context is mainly realised through establishing personal trustful
relationships between clients.
As for suppliers, this refers to third-party organizations or specific people affiliated
with third-party organizations which supply certain resources (especially knowledge)
to the projects. In the TDP context, suppliers include external consultants/specialists
and some other project companies which supply necessary knowledge to enable the
accomplishment of TDPs. The collaboration between the core team and these
suppliers resembles features of both orchestration and improvisation which depend on
the types of suppliers. As for orchestration, this involved clearly partitioning project
tasks and corresponding responsibilities in the collaboration process, which can be
seen in relations with the specialist-type consultants and other project companies
responsible for particular subprojects (Section 4.3.2 and 4.3.3). With regard to
improvisation, it refers to ‘deliberate interruption of habit patterns and resisting the
temptation to rely exclusively on routines and patterns of past success’ (Grabher,
2001:368). The collaboration with the advisor-type consultants can be viewed as
interrupting the previous habits of the core team in terms of idea generation in order
to stimulate group creativity and introduce fresh knowledge. The job descriptions of
the advisor-type consultants are relatively ambiguous, but their influences on projects
are more profound compared to other types of suppliers (Section 4.3.2).
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It should be noted that, the involvement of supplier in the TDP context is strongly
driven by the size and the complexity of projects. Hence, the collaboration with
suppliers in the TDP context can be described as plug-and-play: the collaborative ties
arise and exit when summoned by particular projects or particular stages of certain
projects (see the example of Acons1 in Section 4.3.2), and then becomes latent until
required in the next related projects. Compared with the collaboration ties with
suppliers in the two ecologies described in Grabher`s work (Grabher, 2004b:112-113),
the continuity of the collaborative ties with suppliers in the TDP ecology is less than
in the software ecology due to the relatively shorter lifecycle of projects. In the
meantime, such continuity is greater than that in the advertising ecology as there is
hardly any evidence of collaborative configuration being terminated in the context of
TDP in order to introduce fresh perspectives, according to the field work. This
contrasts with the collaboration with suppliers in the advertising ecology which are
‘deliberately interrupted or terminated’ in order to seek freshness (Grabher,
2004a:1501).
The role of corporate groups towards knowledge practices in TDP ecology is much
less significant compared with both software and advertising ecologies: no
respondents in the interviews or participants in the case studies had mentioned this.
However, it can be seen that there is a series of other entities contributing to the
knowledge flow in the TDP ecology, which are referred to as supplements herein. The
supplements cover the local community and several other project companies (e.g.
mentioned at the end of Section 4.3.3) who offer required knowledge to facilitate the
realisation of TDPs. The main difference between suppliers and supplements is that
provision of supplements is usually not paid for by the TDC or the client, which hence
implies relatively less involvement in the project process and less controlling power
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over their practices (see Section 4.3.4). The involvement of supplements in the TDP is
usually through the clients.
By stretching out the aforementioned organizational layers (i.e. core team, firm, and
epistemic community), the TDP ecology also comprises personal networks enduring
in the project background which can be activated to solve actual project problems. It
should be noted that, due to the different research focuses between this research and
Grabher`s work (Grabher, 2004a; 2004b), and the ‘latent’ characteristics of such
personal networks, this research is unable to classify clearly all the insight into
personal networks that have been generated. It has also not been possible to weight
the different types of networks according to Grabher`s classification of personal
networks (Grabher, 2004a), not to mention the three network types which ‘typically
overlap and alter their character over time’ (p.1502).
However, the insights from this thesis do suggest that all three types of personal
networks are present in the TDP ecology, although further research is necessary in
order to determine their relative weights. For instance, ‘communality’, lasting and
intense relationship-oriented networking, can be seen from the interrelationship
between 05ML and Professor Z (see Section 4.3.1.3) and the interrelationship
between Al1 and Professor Y (see Section 5.2.2.3), which are based on mutual
experience and common history. Sociality, the ephemeral and intense career-oriented
networking, can be seen from the interrelationship between case company A and
OPC1 (see Section 4.3.3), which is based on the exchange of knowledge and swift
trust. ‘Connectivity’ refers to ephemeral and weak task-oriented networking, which is
based on peer recognition. An example can be seen in the interaction between Bcw1
and his QQ group (see Section 5.1.4.1).
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To sum up, it can be seen that there are both similarities and differences in terms of
the dynamics of the learning process between the TDP ecology of this research and
the two ecologies discussed in Grabher (2004a), although some details still require
further investigation in order to align with the corresponding parts in the former two
ecologies. It should be noted that, future efforts are required to investigate the
potential influences of cultural differences on the learning logic within project
ecologies. This is due to there being not only sectoral but also socio-cultural
contextual differences amongst the three project ecologies, i.e. the advertising ecology
(London, the UK), the software ecology (Munich, German), and the TDP ecology
(Hangzhou city, China). Moreover, as shown in Grabher (2004a), many features in the
advertising ecology serve to ensure freshness and maximize creativity, such as
preserving cognitive distance among team members, switching teams, and not reaping
economies of recombination. In contrast, the situations in the corresponding parts of
the TDP ecology are found to be different, e.g. reducing cognitive distance among
team members, stable teams, and benefitting from economies of recombination. Due
to the different requirements of different kinds of TDPs, the imperative of freshness is
not overarching in all kinds of TDPs (see Section 4.1) nor in all idea generation
situations (see the 4’I’ model in Section 5.1.1.5). However, it does not mean the TDP
ecology makes light of originality and innovation. On the contrary, the significance of
creative ideas towards TDPs is frequently mentioned in this research. A possible
reason for this seeming contradiction is that creative idea generation in the TDP
context primarily relies on the individuals` own efforts, which hence can be
dramatically influenced by the individual factors and reflect a lesser extent the
features of other layers of the project ecology. This explanation further asserts the
necessities of involving the individual level in this research when discussing KM
issues through the framework of TDP ecology.
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434
Software Ecology Advertising Ecology TDP EcologyCore teamReducing cognitive distanceSwitching rolesStable teams
Core teamPreserving cognitive distanceStable rolesSwitching teams
Core teamReducing cognitive distanceStable roles in general; switching roles in certain casesStable teams
FirmEconomies of repetitionTools, culture, stories
Economies of recombinationModules, products
FirmEconomies of repetitionCulture, stories, tools
Economies of recombination-----
FirmEconomies of repetitionStories, culture, incomplete tools
Economies of recombinationTemplates, modules
Epistemic communityClientsProjects with clientsTechnical lock-in
SuppliersOrchestrationNever change a winning team
Corporate groupsProduct-centredPortfolio of skills and modules
Epistemic collectiveClientsProjects for clientsPersonal lock-in
SuppliersImprovisationAlways change a winning team
Corporate groupsClient-centredPortfolio of skills
Epistemic communityClientsProjects for clientsPersonal lock-in
Suppliers (External consultants/specialists, and some other project companies)Orchestration & ImprovisationPlug-and-play
Supplements (some other project companies and local communities)UnpaidVia-client
Personal networksCommunalityExperience
ConnectivityKnow-how
Personal networksSocialityKnow-whom
Personal networksCommunality
Sociality
ConnectivityTable 6.15 Synoptic comparison of software ecology, the advertising ecology, and the
TDP ecology (the former two ecologies are based on Grabher, 2004a: 1507)
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Apart from the aforementioned contribution to further understanding project ecology
in the TDP context, and the KM issues within the TDP ecology, this research can also
be viewed as filling several research gaps mentioned in the literature review chapter.
Firstly, it fills up research gaps in terms of tourism product development. Because the
tourism products (mainly referring here to tourism destinations and attractions) cannot
be given birth by themselves, this requires a number of people to make efforts to
conceptualize, design, and develop them into lands. It follows that this research
innovatively draws primary attention to the individuals and the groups involved in the
tourism product development project, rather than merely focusing on tourism products
per se. The findings of this research contribute to the understanding of the factor
influencing the individual and the group performance in terms of generating ideas in
the context of tourism product development to a large degree.
Secondly, the research contributes to filling the research gaps in tourism innovation
and creativity research, mainly in terms of tourism innovation and creativity
processes. Innovation process was a major gap in tourism innovation research. This
research contributes to filling that by drawing efforts towards the initial stage of
innovation process of tourism product development, which is the creative process. For
instance, this research introduces a novel 4 ’I’ axis model (i.e. indiscrimination-
imitation-inspiration-innovation, see Section 5.1.1.5) to explain the creative process in
the TDP context. The two axes in the model are the intention of being creative and the
degree of intrinsic originality, which represent the purpose and the performance
outcome of the ideation process respectively. The adoption of this 4’I’ model is
original in both the general innovation and tourism domains, and helps to deepen the
understanding of the different ideation processes in the given context. It provides a
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conceptual starting point for future research and also provides insights into relevant
management practices.
Thirdly, it fills the research gaps in the issue of knowledge management in the
tourism field. By focusing on the production process of tourism development project,
the author believes that knowledge exhibits an unreplaceable essential role within
such process, the significance of which in terms of tourism product development is
further consolidated through the discussion. Furthermore, this research chose tourism
development companies as the primary research object, which had received limited
attention by past studies in the literature. Then the research applied a research
approach termed ‘project ecology’ to investigate the knowledge management issues,
and demonstrates different and similar factors at play in the three parts of knowledge
management (i.e. knowledge creation, transfer, and retention), which can be rarely
seen in the previous literature of tourism knowledge management.
Fourth, this research also contributes to the general knowledge management field: not
only its efforts in terms of the project-specific management context—which has
received less attention by comparison to the traditional management context—but also
to the ‘people-centred’ essence of its project ecology approach, which endows a
unique and helpful angle to view the issues in terms of knowledge management, as
people are the main carriers and processors of knowledge. The conceptual framework
and the multi-level perspective applied in this research will open a new door to
understanding how the multi-level factors of the entities within the project ecology
influence tourism development project processes as well as the relevant knowledge
management activities.
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Furthermore, this research critically discusses the various aspects of each factor, and
further summarizes a series of common features among all the factors. This
contributes to a relatively comprehensive and systematic understanding of knowledge
management in the given context. In the meantime, this research also values the
combination between the literature, the data collected from the fieldwork, the up-to-
date trends in the world (e.g. the discussions of Emoji), the context-specific
phenomenon (e.g. the discussion of ‘laoxiang’, ‘guanxi’, and ‘mianzi’), which aims to
obtain the most advanced understanding of the focal topics.
Lastly, the identification of the various influencing factors and their diverse
interrelationships will enable decision makers in the relevant organizations to
systematically develop the most effective knowledge management policy and
knowledge transfer channel from various alternatives, in order to trigger staff`
motivation, optimize the allocation of limited available resources, justify the selection
of a certain policy for a tourism entity, and facilitate the final tourism product
innovation. The thesis will therefore make a contribution by constructing bridges
between academic research and industry, which is particularly important given both
the strong growth of the tourism sector in China (especially the tourism industry,
which has been positioned as the national strategic pillar industry), and the
increasingly globalized competition in the sector. Several managerial implications
will be provided in the next section.
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6.3 Managerial Implications
This research is believed to have profound implications for managing most valuable
resources in the context of tourism development project, i.e. people and their
knowledge. Several representative implications for management will be listed below.
Firstly, the necessity of actually managing knowledge or managing people through
knowledge management perspective in the tourism development companies.
According to the interviews and field work, it can be seen that the management in the
studied organizations understood the significance of knowledge in achieving projects`
success. However, by looking closely at the real situations in these organizations, it
can hardly be seen that any specific systematic KM-related rules and strategies have
been implemented, or even published. ‘Knowledge is power’ became just a pet phrase
in the mouths of the management. Without the support of specific strategies and
actual efforts, this can hinder the entities involved in the project ecology from
achieving their full potential, and impede the generation from a better outcome of the
tourism development projects. Therefore, it calls for the enhancement of the
managements` actual understanding about the importance of knowledge management
in the given context.
Secondly, under this situation, the participants in the case studies mainly relied on the
spontaneous behaviours to create, transfer and keep the knowledge in the given
context, which the author described as ‘knowledge amateurs’ (the knowledge workers
with less-trained KM-related skills), by developing the traditional term ‘knowledge
workers’. How to actually and fully realize the power to achieve better results of the
project is still a puzzle for most of them. Therefore, it notes the necessity to
implement corresponding strategies and to conduct systematic training schemes to
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guide the staff to become real ‘knowledge knights’, the knowledge workers with well-
trained KM-related skills). This can not only enhance the overall competitive
advantages of TDCs, but also to achieve more creative ideas and more smooth
production of tourism development projects.
Thirdly, the discovery of multi-level factors suggests that management should take
account of as many aspects as possible when they lead the team to conduct project
work, in order to avoid the situation that the relatively worse performance in terms of
certain factors may decide the overall performance and outcomes of certain KM-
related activities. According to the field work, the ‘shortest piece’ is sometimes the
most unnoticeable details in the context, the effects of which are often ignored and
hence lead to undesirable outcomes. For instance, just as the discussion in the
environmental factor ‘weather’ shows, bad weather can cause negative effects
towards knowledge acquisition and transfer in the field investigation process.
However, the management or other participants in the case studies showed little
preparation and few countermeasures towards these dilemmas.
Fourthly, it calls for the management`s consideration of the applicability of KM
technology in the project work of tourism development project, as well as the daily
operation of TDCs. As shown by the case studies and the interviews, the current
TDCs in China rarely applied any specific technologies which can facilitate the
knowledge management process. The current technologies that the staff used during
their project work were general technologies which were designed for the general
public (e.g. instant messaging technologies, cloud storage) rather than specifically for
knowledge management in the context of TDCs and tourism development projects.
The unprofessional functions of the technologies sometimes lead to several issues and
undesirable outcomes when the participants attempted to use them to accomplish the
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aim of managing knowledge, especially when there was no specific guidance or
strategies planned to deal with the issues. By looking at the other project industries
(e.g. construction and architecture), relatively fruitful examples (e.g. AI-Tabtabai,
1998; Wetherill et al., 2007) can be seen to adopt certain specific technologies to
facilitate knowledge management in those industries. Hence, the author suggests the
participants in the TDC industry can also consider the potential of applying KM
technologies to achieve better outcomes in their project work and the organization`s
performance.
6.4 Limitation
There are several limitations in this study that the author has recognized.
Firstly, because of resource constraints and the difficulties and limitations of his data
collection methods, the field work cannot fully cover all entities in the project
ecology. Hence, it needs to be admitted that this research can have its own limitations
in understanding fully the roles of epistemic communities in the focal stage of tourism
development project. Also, due to the time constraints and difficulties to obtain access
to interviewees, the research could have been expanded in terms of the number of
respondents including those from the side of epistemic communities, but time was
unavailable to do so. Similar situations can be seen in the case study process that this
research could have been expanded to more diverse case examples, i.e. the
international and oversea TDCs.
Secondly, due to resource constraints and the limitations of the author`s personal
knowledge, some classifications in the discussion of some factors (e.g. personal
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characteristics) were mainly based on the observations and records of the author
during the field work. It needs to be admitted that such classifications could be more
accurately achieved by certain specific professional tests (e.g. personality traits tests),
although the launch of such tests might suffer the risk of impacting the relationships
between the participants in the case studies and the researcher who worked with them
as a participant observer. Also, many factors were exhibited not to be isolated from
each other (e.g. the examples given in the ‘linkage’ and the ‘dependence’ features),
but such links have not been specifically and fully identified or tested.
Thirdly, the unstable time periods of project cycles and the difficulties to get access to
the research objects resulted in several limitations in primary data collection. The
research spent uneven time in the three case companies and participated in a different
number of projects in each case, which implies the relationships between the
researcher and the participants varied from case to case—because to build and
consolidate relationships and to obtain the trust of the participants are time-consuming
objectives. The different quality of relationships between the researcher and the
participants can potentially lead to different degrees and amounts of responses that the
researcher could obtain. Also such different quality of relationships can influence the
researcher`s own attitude and judgement towards them, which can potentially result in
certain biases or misjudgements in the relevant discussion. Furthermore, due to the
limited time period of each case study, it is difficult to know what exactly happened in
the longer-term to knowledge retention in the target cases. Hence, the discussion of
knowledge retention had to be modified and retrenched. This leads to becoming
different from the presentation styles in the knowledge creation and knowledge
transfer parts.
442
Fifth and finally, the research methods applied in this research generated a great
number of transcripts and field notes. The management and analysis of those data—
and presenting the corresponding findings—led to a big challenge to the researcher
from both the energy and time perspectives. It needs to be admitted that there can be
certain omissions in the discussion of this thesis and that it cannot fully cover all the
information contained in the field notes.
6.5 Suggestions for Future Research
As mentioned in the last section, this research has its own limitations in several
aspects, which results in several points for future work to improve on and to
overcome. As this research is an exploratory study aiming to investigate the issues of
knowledge management in the context of TDC and tourism development projects, the
author discovered the great potential for this research theme to be developed further in
future work. Several topics for future research are summarized below.
1.) ‘Others’: Future work can further be altered to investigate the role of epistemic
communities in terms of KM process in the given context—to complement this
research—in order to obtain a fuller understanding of the interrelationship
between the entities of project ecology and the relevant KM process. For instance,
the composition and combination models (e.g. DBFO (design-build-finance-
operate), BOT (build-operate-transfer) and PPP (public-private partnership)) in
the clients of tourism development projects requires a further investigation to
identify the influences of the differences in terms of these combination models.
This includes the interrelationships among the units within the client parties, and
their influences on their interactions with other entities in the project ecology.
443
Furthermore, different types of clients lead to different client demands, which
further leads to the differentiation in the clients` behaviours which can be inferred
to also influence their performances in the relevant knowledge activities during
the project process. Such links can be tested further. Also, due to limited relevant
data possessed by the researcher, the role of the patterns and attributes of the
connections between the clients and the TDCs, and the impact about the variation
of contact persons (i.e. the person who represents the identity of their own side,
such as clients, to each other) during the project period has not been investigated
in this research, which can be explored further.
2.) ‘Depth’: The author believes that each factor can further investigate their roles
towards knowledge management in the context of tourism development project to
a deeper and more precise extent. For instance, the discussion of personal
characteristics in this research is mainly based on the subjective classification
from the researcher`s observations and conversations with the participants, which
lacks professional tests to certify such classification from other perspectives.
Hence, in future research, it is worth combining both methods to provide a more
comprehensive understanding of the complex relationships between personal
characteristics (or personality traits) and individuals` performance, in terms of
KM. Likewise, some phenomena mentioned in the discussion of ‘emotion’ were
only observed occasionally during the field work, which can be further
investigated by combining them with the consideration of the roles of emotions on
the knowledge transmitters, receivers, and both. Meanwhile, the implications of
Emojis can be investigated further through the perspective of symbolic
interactionism (Mead, 2013) in future work. Some more topics which are
identified during the discussion are listed in Table 6.16.
444
Relevant factor(s) Corresponding topics to be further explored
Individual
Knowledge
a. To measure the weight between the different types of individual-own
knowledge or different types of experiences in terms of idea
generation process in the context of TDP
Team
Composition
b. To investigate and compare the costs and benefits of knowledge
transfer in situations when the team consists of the permanent
employment of internal consultants or the prevailing ‘plug & play’
style of employment of external consultants
c. To explore the differences in terms of knowledge sharing behaviours
between the core project team members and internal permanent
consultants/specialists or external ‘plug & play’ consultants/specialists
d. To explore the balance between similarity and diversity in terms of
team composition in order to achieve maximum team creativity
e. To further obtain an understanding of the interrelationships between
demographic and personality composition and the resulting influences
on knowledge transfer and team performance in the given context
General social-
cultural
environments
f. To portray the comprehensive and specific roles of ‘guanxi’ and
‘mianzi’ on knowledge transfer in the given context
Organization Sizeg. To investigate the role of organization size in terms of the strategies
related to knowledge transfer and retention
Technology
h. To investigate the issues and barriers to transferring knowledge
between project team and the organization or other teams through
IMTs
i. To investigate the costs and benefits of using the current methods
which have already been familiar with the users or the advanced tools
which are new to the users
Table 6.16 Several research topics for future research
445
3.) ‘Systematic’: According to the common features of the factors, there are some
features (e.g. ‘linkage’, and ‘dependence’) which demonstrates the
interrelationships between those factors. Therefore, apart from digging further into
each factor, future works can also take efforts into the exploration and the test of
the interrelationships between the listed factors which can contribute to a
relatively more comprehensive and systematic understanding about the role of
these factors towards knowledge management in the given context.
4.) ‘Duration’: Due to the limited time period of each case study, it is difficult to
know what exactly happened in the longer term to the knowledge possessed by the
project staff, the teams, and the TDCs. Understanding this will require future
study to be over a relatively longer time period. Furthermore, as this research
mainly focused on the initial stage of tourism product development and
innovation, future work can be devoted the later stages, e.g. the implementation of
those product ideas into the field. The author believes that the project ecology can
be continually varied and evolved along with the project process, and the different
stages of product development imply the different positions of the entities in the
project ecology. This can lead to new challenges and issues in the domain of
knowledge management.
446
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resources management, 22, pp.165-217.
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538
Appendices
Appendix 1 The Results of Pre-examination of TDCs` Website
This appendix including a brief discussion will be presented according to the list of
indicates (there are two characters appear in the diagram of every indicate: ‘N’=cant
find in the homepage; ‘O’=blank (which represents the author cant find the webpage,
get connection problem, or other similar situation)),
1) Organization Structure (‘Y’=introduced);
33%
41%
26%
Level A TDCs
Y N O
19%
35%
46%
Level B TDCs
Y N O
16%
17%67%
Level C TDCs
Y N O
9%
16%
76%
Level D TDCs
Y N O
It shows that the TDCs generally don't present their organizational structure on their
homepages. There is a tendency that the higher level of TDCs, the more proportion of
539
them present the organizational structure (Figure X.1). The potential reason is that the
higher level of TDCs, the former and more standard their organizational structures
are. Another reason could be the higher level of TDCs, the higher desire they wish to
show their high degree of organizational institutionalization to the public in order to
strengthen their reputation.
l e v e l - a l e v e l - b l e v e l - c U n c l a s s i fi e d
33%
19%
16%
9%figure X.1
2) Information about Staffs (‘P’=position; ‘S’=skills or education background;
‘P/S’=both position and skills);
P4% S
9%
P/S49%
N13%
O25%
level A TDCP
2%S
1% P/S27%
N24%
O46%
level B TDC
540
P4% S
5% P/S10%
N14%
O67%
level C TDCS
2% P/S14%
N9%
O76%
unclassified TDC
Firstly, there is a significant decrease that the lower level of TDC, the less information
they present about their staffs. Secondly, apart from level B, the TDCs in other levels
present slightly more information about the skills or qualification of their staffs rather
than the positions in the organizations. The reason could be that the skills,
qualifications, and education backgrounds of the staffs might be one of the focus of
the potential clients that visit their homepages.
3) The detail level about the staffs` information (‘Only M’=only introduce the
management; ‘All’= introduce all the staffs; ‘P’=introduce the composition
or proportion of different positions in the company);
Only M40%
All20%
P2%
N12%
O26%
Level A TDC
Only M24%
All5%
P1%
N24%
O46%
Level B TDC
541
Only M8%
All5%
P8%
N12%
O67%
Level c TDC
Only M9%
All5% P
2%
N9%
O76%
UNCLASSIFIED TDC
Firstly, one tendency is that the higher level of TDCs are, the more propotion of
TDCs only introduce their management rather than the whole team. The reason could
be that the higher level generally equals to the larger scale and the more staffs (*of
cause it is not an absolute situation), the companies therefore prefer to introduce their
management only in order to stress the ‘key point’. Secondly, over half of TDCs
which own homepage would like to present their staffs` information (it is the same in
each category: ‘Only M’+’All’+’P’ > ‘N’).
4) The list of counselors (‘Y’=Introduced);
Y43%
N32%
O25%
LEVEL A TDC
Y13%
N40%
O47%
LEVEL b TDC
542
Y3%
N30%
O67%
LEVEL c TDC
Y7%
N17%
O76%
uNCLASSIFIED TDC
Generally, the higher level of TDCs are, the more of them present the list of their
counselors. However, it should be noticed that the role and definition of counselors
are different in different companies, mainly in two categories: the counselors are
inside or outside the organizations.
5) The list of partners including mother company or subsidiary company
(‘Y’=Introduced);
Y44%
N30%
O26%
LEVEL A tdc
Y21%
N33%
O46%
LEVEL B tdc
543
Y11%
N22%
O67%
LEVEL c tdc
Y14%
N10%
O76%
UNCLASSIFIED tdc
6) The list of successful cases (‘FEW’=only brief introduced by few sentences or
pictures; ‘DETAILED’=relatively detailed introduced by words and pictures;
‘NAME’=the introduction includes the name list of project team members;
‘DOWNLOAD’= full text download available);
few19%
detailed43%
name5%
download1%
N5%
O26%
LEVEL A TDC
few13%
detailed31%
N10%
O46%
LEVEL b TDC
544
few22%
detailed5%
N6%
O67%
LEVEL c TDC
few7%
detailed14%
N3%
O76%
UNCLASSIFIED TDC
Firstly, most of TDCs in all categories who own webpage are likely to present their
successful cases on their homepages. The reason is that the successful case is
generally viewed as a key point of their competence, just as the qualification of staffs.
Secondly, apart from level, the TDCs in other categories are more likely to present
relatively detailed information about their successful cases (including both pictures
and long sentences).
7) The rate of the homepage (from my perspective) (‘1’=not its own homepage (e.g.
as one webpage of its mother company); ‘2’=homepage with less information;
‘3’=homepage with fruitful information);
16% 2
10%
360%
O24%
LEVEL A TDC
545
17%
213%
334%
O46%
LEVEL B TDC
110%
217%
36%
O67%
LEVEL C TDC
The rating of the TDCs` homepage is according to the own perspective of the author
in terms of key information fruitfulness during the process of browsing the webpages.
There is a dramatic change that there are much less high scoring homepages of level
C and unclassified TDCs than of level A and level B TDCs.
546
12% 2
9%
314%
O76%
unclassified tdc
8) Information timeliness (‘Y’=can find information uploaded within one year;
‘N’=cant identify its timeliness or the information uploaded before one year);
Y59%
N17%
O24%
LEVEL a TDC
Y39%
N15%
O46%
LEVEL b TDC
Y19%
N14%
O67%
LEVEL c TDC
Y14%
N10%
O76%
unclassified TDC
The inidicate of timeliness would be applied as a measurement for the information
accurancy in the relevant research.
9) The number of Staffs (this indicate can only be found within few homepages)
This indicate can only be found in few homepages. But one thing should be noticed
that the number of staffs has no directly relationships with the level of TDC.
547
To summarize, the above discussion shows that the TDCs generally don't present
enough information on their websites for building a framework for their
organizational ecologies. For instance, it shows that the TDCs generally don't present
their organizational structure on their homepages. There is a tendency that the higher
level of TDCs, the more proportion of them present the organizational structure
(Appendix A.). The potential reason is that the higher level of TDCs, the former and
more standard their organizational structures are. Another reason could be the higher
level of TDCs, the higher desire they wish to show their high degree of organizational
institutionalization to the public in order to strengthen their reputation. In this context,
the overviews of TDC`s project ecologies obtained from this approach has its own
limitation which are more likely to possess the characteristics of medium and large
TDCs (although the information on the larger ones are also not highly reliable and
assessable) rather than micro and small TDCs. Therefore, the author proposes two
following approaches to complement.
548
Appendix 2 Basic Information and Notation of Interviewees in
the Key Informants Interviews
No. Gender Main
identity
Relevant experience towards TDPs Notation
1 Female Copywriter 2 years of relevant working experience as
copywriter in a small-scale TDC
01FC
2 Female External
Consultant
as external consultant for three medium and
large TDPs
02FE
3 Male Copywriter 1 year of past working experience about
operating village tourism development
project; Over 2 years of relevant working
experience as copywriter in a medium-scale
project company
03MC
4 Female Copywriter 4 years of relevant working experiences as
copywriter (1 year in a micro-scale TDC,
and 3 years in a large-scale TDC)
04FC
5 Male Project
Leader
Over 10 years of relevant working
experience; having his own business of TDC
and being project leader for numbers TDPs
05ML
6 Male Government
Official
Holding expertise qualification of city
planning; over 20 years of working
experience in terms of city planning which
covers tourism areas; being the director of
06MO
549
county-level urban planning bureau for over
10 years
7 Female Project
Leader
3 years of relevant working experience as
copywriter in the TDC; 2 years of working
experience in a landscaping planning
company; established a TDC with her
supervisor, and currently acting as project
leaders
07FL
8 Male Company
Management
20 years of relevant working experiences as
copywriter and project leader; having his
own business of TDC, and currently
focusing more on the development and
management of his company rather than
directly involving in the project work
08MM
9 Female Project
Leader
4 years of past working experiences as
copywriter and project leader
09FL
10 Male Company
Management
Having past working experiences as external
consultants for various TDPs; being
assigned as the management of a
government-owned TDC
10MM
Note: The style of the notation in the key informants interviews is of the form of
(number)(gender)(main professional identity in the context, e.g. leader = L,
copywriter =C). For instance, 01FC means this interviewee is the first interviewee in
the formal interviews, and her professional identity in the tourism development
project is copywriter.
550
551
Appendix 3 Interview Schedules (English Version)
1. Greeting the interviewee, self-introduction, introduce the research project, and
ask for oral approval for interview recording
2. Tell me about a completed project you were recently involved with…
a) Please describe your company background and activities.
b) Who was the client, and what contact did you have with them originally?
- How did they build the connection in the beginning of the project (did they know
each other previously? / did the client know the company through advertise or
recommendation? / did the company beat other competitors to get the order in a
competition/ did the project is one part of long-term contract which was signed
before)?
c) What is the task of the project?
- What were the client`s wishes about the outcome of the project at the beginning?
- And how did the client express his/her/their preference to your team?
- What knowledge support did the project team get from the firm/client?
E.g. the free access to previous projects` documents, consultants, or information about
the company background (e.g. the branches, or the alliances which can provide
helps)?
d) What support in terms of knowledge, information, and data did your project team
obtain from the clients in order to achieve those tasks?
552
e) Who were the members of the project team – both from within the main
contracting company and any other research partners who were involved?
- How many team members were there in your team?
- Did the composition of project team change over the period of project process?
What were the team member`s professional backgrounds? Give some examples and
introduce their specific responsibilities in that project.
f) How long did the project last? What were the critical moments at which the
outcome of the project was influenced or decided?
g) How did your team research and synthesis the factors (both physical and program
perspectives, e.g. natural resources and markets.) related to the project?
h) How frequently did your team meet the client face to face? What influence did
the client have once you had started work on the project?
i) How many times did your full project team formally meet? In between these
meetings, how did you contact or work with other team members?
- Did you work as individuals or as sub-groups?
- What was the balance between face to face and phone or email contacts?
- Please describe the interaction amongst the team members involved in producing
the critical project design.
553
j) How did your project team split and allocate the job tasks to the copywriters?
What strategy did you adopt to make their chapters reasonably connectable to the
others?
k) What were the main sources of ideas which shaped how the project team
approached the project?
- Was your team’s approach inspired by experience of any previous projects?
l) How did you formally provide the final report to the client (the recommendations
stage of project)?
- How did they communicate their comments to you in the recommendation stage?
How did you adapt them into the report document?
m) Do you know the current situation regarding the implementation of the project by
the client?
- What factors do you think account for the success or lack of success in the
implementation of the project?
n) What did your personal networks contribute in providing ideas and resources for
the project?
- Who was/were the most important – and why?
3. General questions about project ecology…
554
a) Please list the general background of main types of clients of each type of your
services.
b) Give example of each type, and the differences in the approaches or requirements
of these different types, of clients. (e.g. do the certain type of client come with a clear
and specific set of objectives, or just general and brief imaginations?)
c) In the last year, how many team members were usually involved in your different
project teams? What influences the project team size (the complexity of project or the
length of project)?
d) What is the general composition of your project teams – in terms of the balance
of people employed by your company, and partner companies?
4. General questions about knowledge transfer and management in project
a) How did your team promote the working ability of newcomers?
- Would he/she be assigned a mentor? Please describe.
b) How do team members usually share ideas with each other?
- Does it vary according to the composition of the project team? What other
reasons?
555
c) Are there differences in types of communication between different projects?
- What are the potential reasons for the differences between different projects (e.g.
locality, technology development, lifestyle, size or number of companies involved)?
d) How do you make sure that you learn, and make use of, the ideas and preferences
of the users of the project (e.g. the tourists or local residents, or other users)? Which
channel did you obtain these knowledge and information?
e) How is the feedback between team members and leaders?
f) What are the main barriers to knowledge sharing in a project? Individual
reluctance or other causes?
g) How do the company or the team leader attempt to maximise the sharing of
knowledge and ideas?
h) Did you experience the situation that the other people (e.g. the clients, the other
stakeholders, the other team members, the project leader, and other consultants)
cannot clearly get your point? What was the main reason about that? Give some
examples.
i) Did you experience the situation that the other people (ditto)`s option that you
cannot get clearly? What was the main reason about that? Give some examples.
556
5. General questions about creativity and innovation…
a) What is the most innovative project you have worked on recently, and please
explain why you think it was innovative?
- And how did the idea generate? – What was the role of different team members
and patterns in this innovation?
b) In which context, do you feel you are most creative? (e.g. alone or group meeting;
work time or leisure time? Etc..)
c) How do you add the local factors (of the iland) into your idea/ or the general
approach presented by others? Give examples.
d) Do you work on multiple projects at the same time, and is this an advantage or a
disadvantage?
- Have there been any examples of crossover of ideas between any projects you
were working on simultaneously?
e) Did you (or your project leader) adopt some tools or methods to facilitate the
project idea generation? Was it more likely to be an anarchy of thought (relatively
random, tolerate to any ideas, e.g. brainstorming, synectics, and lateral thinking ) or a
structural way of thinking (relatively systematic and logical, e.g. idea/decision tree,
systematically analysis and analysis the scientific investigation…)?
557
f) What is the form of discussion meetings? Did you just mention idea prototype in
the meetings and develop the prototype into more detailed one after meetings, or the
major part of idea would be constructed during the meeting? Was there any rules?
g) Which is more important for the group creativity, team collaboration vs.
competitive environment? Give examples in each situation.
h) Which type of team do you prefer, a team with diverse and active thinking, or a
team with high obedience to your idea?
i) What type of team – in terms of size, skills, specialization – is most creative, and
why?
j) What type of client is likely to result in a creative (concept) and innovation?
Why? (e.g. less pressure, more sufficient information)
k) In summary, what do you think are the key factors that affect implementation of
the planning report by the client? Can you think of any example where a really good
original idea has not been implemented? Please describe it and explain the reasons for
this.
6. Thank interviewee and give the sourvenir
558
Appendix 4 Interview Schedule (Chinese Version)
中文访谈表
1. 与受访者打招呼，进行自我介绍以及介绍当前研究项目，并询问是否可以
对访谈内容录音
2. 请告诉我最近您所参与的一个完整的旅游规划项目…
a) 请描述您所在公司的背景和所涉及的业务范围；
b) 谁是项目中的甲方（客户）？你们的公司和项目组最初是如何与其进行接
洽的？（曾经你们双方是不是有过合作或相互认识？/ 甲方是不是通过广告或他
人推荐知晓到你们？公司是不是在竞标中击败其他对手获取这项订单？/这个项
目是不是属于曾经签署过的长期合同中的一部分？）
c) 项目的目标是什么？
--- 一开始时，甲方有没有提出对于项目的最终愿景？是什么？
--- 甲方是如何向你所在的项目组阐述他的倾向和愿景的？（在什么时候？是通
过谁？什么方式？措辞是否清晰？）559
d) 您所在的项目组从公司及客户中获得了哪些知识、信息、数据的支持以完
成项目目标？（例如，自由浏览过去的项目文档，公司顾问，公司信息（例如
子公司，有哪些项目团队，正在做什么项目））？
e) 项目组的成员由哪些人士组成 （仅来自公司内，或是包含了外部研究人
员）？
--- 项目组共有几人？
--- 项目组的成员有没有随着项目进程发生变动？为什么？
--- 各个项目组成员的专业背景是什么？请给一些例子，并介绍他们在项目中的
职责。
f) 项目持续了多久？（您参与这个项目多长时间？）
--- 请介绍一些其中影响了或决定了最终项目成果的关键时刻
g) 项目组如何搜集，研究和整合与项目有关因素和信息（包含所规划地的角
度（例如自然资源勘察），和该项目的角度（例如市场调研））？
560
h) 项目组与客户多久进行一次面对面会谈？其余时间项目组与客户之间如何
进行联系？谁通常作为联络人与客户联系？在项目启动后，客户对项目产生过
什么影响（例如其对一些概念的看法）？
i) 通常来说，整个项目组多久进行一次正式会谈？其余时间，您是如何与项
目组其他成员合作或交流的？
--- 您是以一个个体还是以分组的形式参与在整个项目组中的？
--- 在与其他成员交流过程中，您通常使用什么方式，（面对面，电话，或电
邮）
--- 请回忆并描述项目组产出项目的核心概念时的过程
j) 分工问题，文本分工的依据？。会采取什么方法来避免或消除各成员所分
配任务的脱节情况？
k) 项目组在设计项目概念时主要的想法来源是什么？能否回忆一下当时产生
的过程？
--- 项目组有受到过去项目经验的启发吗？561
l) 项目组如何对甲方汇报最后成果的？
--- 甲方如何反馈他们的意见？以及你们是如何将报告对应修改的？
m) 您知道当前的项目实施状况吗？
--- 您认为什么因素影响了项目的最终实施？
n) 您认为您的个人社交网络（组内外）对于您在项目过程中产生想法（灵
感）和提供相应资源方面起到什么作用？
--- 您认为谁是其中最重要的， 为什么
3. 有关项目生态学的综合性问题...
a) 请列出通常您公司所承接的旅游规划项目有哪几类客户。
b) 请给出一些相应的例子，并介绍他们之间在方法和要求上有什么不同点
（例如项目是需要“无中生有”还是“锦上添花”，客户对于项目目标有清晰
明确的愿景和目标，还是仅有一些模糊的想法）。
c) 在最近的这一年中，您所在的（不同的）项目组内通常有几位成员？您认
为项目组规模受到什么因素影响（例如项目复杂性，长度，公司规模，资金）？562
d) 项目组通常由哪些类成员构成 （例如公司内部员工或合作单位，文本策划
或画图师？）
4. 有关项目中知识管理的综合性问题…
a) 您的项目组如何提升新成员的工作能力？
--- 会给他/她安排一位导师带他/她吗？
b) 项目组成员通常如何与其他成员分享想法？
--- 这会根据项目组成员构成的不同而发生变化吗？还有什么原因？
c) 在您所参与的不同项目中，交流/联系方式会存在不同吗？
--- 什么是您认为导致这种区别的潜在原因 （例如地域，科技发展，生活方式，
公司规模或参与的公司数量）？
d) 您如何确保您在项目过程中学习并利用了项目用户（例如游客和当地住
户）的想法和偏好？（在项目过程中，您会不会考虑到当地住户或游客的想法
或偏好？从什么途径获取相关的信息？）
563
e) 反馈方面的问题：项目组成员和 Leader 之间的反馈程度？
f) 您认为在项目中主要是什么因素会阻碍知识分享？个人惰性，自私，或？
g) 公司或项目带头人如何确保（成员间）最大化地分享知识和主意？（公司
或项目团队采取了哪些方式方法来促进成员分享他们的知识和想法？）(有没有
一些共享式工作平台或者是内部数据库，架构是怎么样的)
h) 有没有在项目过程中经历过别人无法清晰把握您所表达的意思，您觉得主
要原因是什么？请试举一些例子。（和甲方，和其他一些利益相关者，和团队
成员，和项目 leader，和其他顾问等等）
i) 有没有在项目过程中经历过别人的一些表述表达，让您无法把握住他要表
达的点，您觉得主要原因是什么？请试举一些例子。（和甲方，和其他一些利
益相关者，和团队成员，和项目 leader，和其他顾问等等）
5. 有关创造力和创新的综合性问题…
a) 您认为您最近参与的最具创新的项目的是什么？为什么您认为它是创新的？
564
--- 相关的主意和概念是如何产生的？项目的其他成员和合作者对其有什么作用
和影响？
b) 您觉得自己在什么样的时空情境下最有灵感？（例如 独处 or 团队讨论；工
作时间 or 休闲时间 等等）
c) 您如何将规划地当地的一些元素融合到你的规划思路或其他人提出的一些
想法中去？请举一些例子。
d) 您是否在同一时段参与过多个项目，您认为这（对于项目的创新）是一种
优势或是劣势？
--- 是否有一些您所同时参与的项目中的想法产生交叉的情况？
e) 您（或者您的项目组长）有没有采取一些方法帮助大家提出点子和创意？
更倾向是无秩序的思考 （比较随机、对各种想法都比较包容，例如头脑风暴、
集思广益、横向思维） 还是结构性思维 （比较系统性、逻辑性，例如，决策树，
科学系统地将一些想法分解 然后再构造，或者根据科学调研进行推论分析）
565
f) 讨论会的形式 (是仅仅提出 ideas 然后在会后进行 development, 还是在会上
大家就一起进行完善？)； 有没有什么规则 （例如在有些媒体的晨会，不允许
任何人在别人提出想法的时候直接提出反对意见 等等）
g) 您认为对于团队创造力而言，团队合作和竞争氛围哪一项更为重要？请为
每种情况提供相应例子。
h) （多元和效率）您更倾向于一种非常多元、想法主意经常碰撞的团队，还
是一种围绕着您，根据您的想法加以完善与执行，统合程度较高的队伍？
i) 您认为什么类型的项目组（例如规模，技能专长，专业种类）是最具创造
力的？为什么？
j) 您认为什么类型的客户对于您在项目过程中实现创造力和创新是最有帮助
的？为什么？（例如较少的压力，更充分的信息）
k) 总的来说，您认为影响客户实施项目的关键因素有哪些？您认为在曾经有
没有一些非常好的原创性点子并没有被最终实施的例子？请描述它并阐述导致
没有实施的原因。566
6. 感谢受访者，并赠送纪念品
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Appendix 5 Example of Field Notes
The below is an example and its rough translation of the field note (from the time
when the researcher arrived at the office to the end of lunch time on 23/Oct/2014):
*The researcher labelled the leader as Leader, and the other employees by two capital
letters: the first one is about Female/Male, the second one is just A/B/C/… in order.
*and some of the personal thoughts and feelings of the researcher are recorded in the
brackets ().
8:36到达办公室，除了 FC 其他都在。/8:36am I arrive in the office. Everyone
except FC is already here.
MA在作图，FA在扫地，但同时也在和 FB聊工作上面的问题。/ MA is drawing
the picture. FA is cleaning the room, and chatting with FB about the issues related to
the project.
我询问了他们昨天几点走了，结果他们说后面 Leader也没过来，于是 5 点半前
都离开了。/ I ask them when they leave the office yesterday. They said Leader
hadn’t come, so they left before half past five.
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8:50am 我问 FA FB 说 求分量，然后她们才开始给我分工，具体分配什么我说
由你们安排，我都可以。（尽量减少我的 influence）/ 8:50am I ask FA and FB to
distribute some workload to me. After that, they start to give me some workload. I say
you can arrange me to do anything, I can handle that. (I try to decrease my influence
so I don't tell them which thing I wish to do. Just let them.)
8:56am FA 说 谁先说话 谁就有话题权（特指分工的时候）。/8:56am FA says:
who talks first, then who has the right to speak.(Here refers to the distribution of
workload.)
9:00am Leader到办公室。/ 9:00am Leader arrives at the office.
09:05am
FA 她们不确定到底应该在青瓷小镇中有多少个项目，所以问了 leader,Leader走
过来说道：
甲方对于 Leader 之前给他们的十五个项目是认可的，
这十一个（FA目前看到的）是乡里还有老总（季总，这个青瓷小镇的投资人）
的意思，但旅游局的意思 这个是招商项目、所以有些乡里和老总的项目，甲方
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联系人 张丽电话打来和 Leader硕，这十一个项目选择性的放进去，因为我们是
规划人员 比较专业 可以作为权衡方，也要既有几万块的项目 也要有几百万几
千万的项目，因为那十来个项目里面大都是接待功能的，而娱乐功能的太少，
吸引不来人，就根本不需要这么多的接待功能。相反，甲方对于 Leader当时发
过去的十五个项目还是比较认可的。所以 Leader也希望我们放进去一些。
Leader在介绍过程中也提到了一些项目的所在地的情况 （就是昨天 FA/FB 想问
的东西） / 09:05am
FA they are not sure how many businesses projects should be incorporated in the
Town of Celadon (the name of current project). So they ask Leader directly, and
Leader comes to us and says: The client accepts the fifteen ideas of businesses which
Leader sent them before. The eleven businesses (FA currently knows) are the ideas of
the village and the boss (Boss Ji, the investor of the Town of Celadon). But from the
perspective of tourism administration (the actual client of this project), it treats us as
specialized planners, so we can have our own justification to decide which business
idea can be placed in the project document: the investment scale of those businesses
can range from thousands RMB to millions RMB rather than only millions. The
eleven businesses presented by the boss are mainly utilized to receive the tourists
rather than give the tourists a fun entertainment. So they cannot attract tourists by just
relying on the eleven businesses, and therefore this place doesn't need too many
functions of receiving people. In contrast, the client approves the fifteen ideas that
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Leader sent them before. So Leader also wants us to place some of the fifteen into the
project document.
During his introduction process, Leader also mentions some information about the
land under planning (which are the questions that FA and FB wished to ask
yesterday).
09:11am
Leader接到一个电话，打断了他的谈话。然后 FB和 FA 讨论起来，说到 可以把
Leader 之前提的一些小项目融合到之前那十一个大项目中去，例如文创园这个
大项目里就可以放进很多小的鱼拓之类的小项目/
09:11am
Leader receives a call which interrupts his talking. Then FB and FA discuss with each
other. They say that we can add the Leader`s fifteen small ideas into the eleven
relatively large businesses ideas. For instance, the big business of culture innovation
park can add some little businesses, e.g. the rubbings of the fishes.
09:21am
Leader 电话打完后，对于 FA/FB的想法也认可，同时看了一眼MA在做的图，
给予了一些意见。
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然后再说了一下整个文本的文字安排，里面有些内容例如预算这些东西 还是只
能毛估估，就算他自己来弄也是一样/
09:21am
After Leader finishes his call, he approves FA and FB`s idea. In the meantime, he
glimpses the picture that MA is drawing, and then gives him some comments.
Then he says again about the arrangement of structure and wording of the whole
project document. Some contents, e.g. the budgets of each business, can only be
roughly estimated. This situation would be the same even the budgets are done by
himself.
09:24am
FB问 FA 具体哪些内容要写进去，FA予以了解答。然后两个人相互讨论了一
下前面那些项目相互之间结合的问题，很多结合的灵感 她们的用词都说：“我
感觉 。。。 我觉得。。。” (都是主观的想法感受，没有客观的实际分析)/
09:24am
FB asks FA which content should be specifically write in. FA answers her. Then they
discusses with each other about the incorporation of those businesses ideas. When
they discuss, their wording of many incorporation ideas is using ‘I feel that… I
believe that …’(There is no objective analysis but only subjective feelings and
understandings.)
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中间我也有让 FB 将 Leader的那十五个项目的文件，其将整个文件打包发给我。
我收到后发现就是昨天 FA 发给她的那个文件夹包（ID 排版稿+成稿图片）。/
In the middle, I let FB send me the compression file which has the Leader`s fifteen
businesses document. After I receive it, I find this is the compression file which FA
sent to her yesterday (the file has the composing draft in InDesign software and the
pictures used in the draft. ).
我和 FB 之间也进行了一些协调分工，FA也插了几句进来，例如我就负责比较
难的文字部分，而 FB侧重排版一些，(这个也是物尽其用的原则)。/
I coordinate with FB about the division of the work, and FA get some words in the
process, e.g. I can be responsible for the relatively hard part of writing, and FB can
place emphasis on composing the document. (This is the principle of making the best
use of everything.)
09:34am
在前面的讨论背景下，FA 重新整合罗列了需要写的 十二个项目，让我们就按
这个写。其将调整好的内容，发在了 大四喜这个群内。/
09:34am
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On the basis of foregoing discussion, FA integrate and arrange again the twelve
businesses ideas which are needed to be written. She let us to write according to this
list. She send the list to the QQ group named DaSiXi.
然后 FA口述了一些相应的要求，FB表示 已经知道了。/
Then FA dictates some corresponding requirements. FB says that she already knows.
09:43am
MA问 FB 要青瓷小镇的图片，FB以为是问其要当时考察的照片，遂问我 昨天
有没有将照片发给 FA、MA（因为昨天 FB 就带了 SD卡来，我在笔记本电脑上
打开拷出里面的照片后，FB曾让我发给 FA/MA，但是后来我忘记了，今天其
一问才发现，我才补发）但MA 意思是 青瓷小镇那些项目的文本和图片（在这
儿图片的真实意思是，用 ID 排版之后的格式文件，保存出来是图片的形式）。
然后 FB才弄清楚MA的意思，将那个文件夹包发给 MA （其实就是昨天 FA 发
给 FB的那个文件夹包，由于 FA的未共享，导致今天 FB 需要重复这个行为两
次，才让我们其他人都拿到这个东西）/
09:43am
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MA requests the pictures of the Town of Celadon from FB. FB thought he is asking
for the photo taken during the field investigation, so she ask me whether I sent the
photos to FA and MA yesterday (Because FB only brought SD card yesterday, and I
open that card on my notebook to copy the photos inside. FB let me send them to FA
and MA. But I forget. I realize this situation after her ask. Then I resend the photos.)
But MA means the file and the pictures (the pictures here means, if the document is
composed through the InDesign software, it would be saved as the format of the
pictures.) of the Town of Celadon. Then FB understands MA`s request, and send the
file folder to MA (This file folder is just the one which FA sent to FB yesterday and
FB send to me today. Because FA didn't share it yesterday, it leads FB to repeat this
behavior twice to let the others to obtain this thing.).
09:50am
Leader问我们谁有公司名片的模板（传统问答以查询文件保管方），FB 说其当
时做的，在其电脑上， Leader 让 FB找一下当时名片的模板文件并制作一份新
的名片。FB记不太清楚 那个模板放在哪里，是哪个文件，花了一些时间才找
到。（文件存储和人为记忆挂钩。）/
09:40am
Leader asks us who has the template of the company`s name card (traditional
questions and answers style to inquiry the file safekeeping person). FB says she does,
and the template is saved in her computer. Leader let FB find out the template and
make a new name card. FB cannot remember clearly where the template is and what
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name the template file is. She spends several time to find it out. (The file storage links
up with the keeper`s memory.)
09：55am
Leader在和 FC 交代工作时提到 其 11 点要出发去苏州同里。/
09:55am
During Leader`s talking with FC about work, he mentions that he will go to Tongli
Town of Suzhou City at 11`o clock.
09:58am
FB在排版名片时，会根据所要排的内容中字的数量，来寻找相同字数的过往名
片，参考排版格式。/
09:58am
When FB is composing the name card, she will find and refer to the design of the
previous name card with the same word counts according to the word counts of the
current content.
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10:17am FA问MA 要青瓷小镇的纸质图,然后询问MA图中的信息（例如图的哪
一边代表地图北方）,MA予以解答,FA在MA解答后还有不放心的地方,就问
MA 确定吗?MA 说 确定的./
10:17am FA requests the paper map of the Town of Celadon from MA, and ask MA
about some information on the map. (For instance, which part of the map represents
the north?) MA answers her. FA still feels worried after his answers, and ask MA: are
you sure?. MA says yes.
10:20am FA突然又在纠结图上哪个方位是北边（MA 给她的解答，她的信息接
收度很低；同时MA的表达也的确有说得不够清晰的地方）.而且表现的有些急
躁，让其他人有些些无语。/
10:20am FA suddenly struggles again with the map about which direction is the north.
(Her degree of receiving the information of MA`s answers is very low; also MA`s
expression is not so clearly.) FA express to be a bit impatient. Other people feel a bit
speechless.
10:24am FB在排好名片之后，又和 FA 讨论了几句关于某个项目里面具体放什
么内容（还是关于昨天提到的 甲方给出的特定名称， 然后让我方加入内涵的那
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个项目，单单这个项目就零零碎碎讨论了这么多次，感觉有些东西都没有很好
的商定下来，讨论的效率略低）。/
10:24am After FB finish composing the name card, she discuss with FA about which
content should be incorporated in the certain business idea (which is mentioned in the
yesterday: the client gave us one specific name of one business idea, and wished us to
fill some details under it. Just this business project is discussed so many times in a
piecemeal fashion. I feel some details are not appropriately decided. The efficiency of
discussion is bit low.).
10:27am FB在排版文稿时，会自言自语帮助其思考。/
10:27am When FB compose the document, she will soliloquize to facilitate her
thought.
10:41am FA问我和 FB 你们两个谁把瓷韵青谷的东西弄好了截图发给我看下,这
块应该是属于 FB的内容,所以我没有说话(表明了 FA不确定我们的分工),FB 还
是不确定瓷韵青谷(就是前述的那个甲方"命题作文")是做什么的(依旧不明确里
面的内涵).只能发一个暂时的版本给 FA 看,因为其还在做名片排版的事./
10:41am FA ask FB and me, Who of you two has written the section of‘Ci Yun Qing
Gu’, and screenshot that part and send it to me(FA). FB is responsible for this section,
so I don't say anything. (This represents that FA is not sure about how we divide the
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work. FB is still not sure about what ‘Ci Yun Qing Gu’is (what is its content and
details). So she can only send a temporal version to FA. FB is still busy to compose
the name card. )
10:49am 想起前面在分工的时候，我是想随她们安排，但她们是让我自己挑，
我看了项目 List，发现里面有些内容 FB已经在昨天写了，于是我就 不想占用她
的成果，就倾向选一些她还没有做过的内容来写。但 FB表示其不介意，因为
其也是根据 Leader的文本（也就是那个文件夹包来抄改的）/
10:49am I remember that during the process of dividing the work, I let them to
arrange whatever tasks to me, but they ask me to pick by myself. I look at the project
list, and find there are some sections have been written by FB yesterday. So I don't
want to occupy her work and results. Then I prefer to choose some sections that
haven’t been done by her. But FB says she don't mind, because those sections are just
copied from Leader`s document. (is copied and modified from that file folder.)
10:58am 目前工作氛围比较轻松，Leader和其wife在小办公室内办公， 我们其
他人在外面，在做事之余也会闲聊到音乐和新闻。/
10:58am The current working environment is relatively relaxed. Leader and his wife
are working in the small office. We, the others, are working outside it. We are
chatting about music and news while working.
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11:01am FB问一个项目的地理位置是不是在青瓷小镇的入口处啊，MA 回答说
是的，但 FA 说不要这么笼统，给甲方的时候要具体一点（FA的干预）。/
11:01am FB asks that whether the location of a business is near the entry of the Town
of Celadon. MA answers yes. But FA says the location should not be that general, it
should be more specific when submitting to the client.
FB 将青瓷小镇的地形图的纸质版放在我们四个人座位的中间，方便大家都可以
随要随取。FB 说最好在图上做一个地标点标出相应的方向吧，但是没有人回应。
接着 FB也问MA那张图哪个方向是北边，MA 说 等其把电子版的图弄好，大
家都看电子版的好了，（因为电子版上面其会表明，省的总是要问）/
FB place the topographic map paper of the Town of Celadon in the middle of our four
seats, which make it easy if we need to use it. FB says it would be better to mark a
point on the map to notice the direction. But no one responses her. After that FB ask
MA which direction is the north of that map. MA says we can see the electronic map
when he finish drawing it. (Because there will be marks on the electronic map, which
can avoid the frequent inquiries about the direction.)
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11:05am FB在写项目文本的时候 也经常自言自语，和把语句念出来，助其思考。
其他人偏向比较安静的工作。FB遇到项目占地面积的问题,直接询问MA,获得
有关答案./
11:05am FB often soliloquizes during writing the project document. She speaks the
sentence out to help her thought. Other people prefer a relatively quite working style.
FB directly ask MA and get corresponding answers about the scale of the business.
11:08am Leader 要出门了，其要去同里一趟，走前和 FA 说，有问题给她短信，
或者给她留言就可以，然后问我们今天下班前能不能大致弄好青瓷小镇这个文
本，FA 说应该可以的，Leaders 说不能的话，半成品也可以，其会看着改的。
Leader接着说争取明天下午要发给甲方他们了。/
11:08am Leader is going to go to Tongli Town. Before he goes, he says to FA, if
there`s any questions, text him or leave a message to him. Then he asks us can we
generally finish the draft of the project of the Town of Celadon. FA says it should be
OK. Leader says if you cant, semi-finished draft is also acceptable. He will modified
according to it. Then, Leader says we will try to send the document to the client by
the tomorrow afternoon.
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11:14am 因为前面讨论了之后（就是早上 Leader刚来时候的讨论） 项目 list 重
新列了出来，所以前面我和 FB的分工就出现了不对应的情况。但 FB似乎没有
发现这个问题，于是我就问了她说现在这个分工怎么分配。然后和 FB 依据 FA
在大四喜群里发的最新的一个项目 List进行了分工（基本也就是在原有分工基
础上稍作修改），但是里面有一个青瓷广场的项目，FB表示不知道这个是什么
内容，FA作了解答 说就是一个休闲 逛逛的广场，然后我觉得这个不能作为招
商项目，只能作为基础设施，因为没有什么盈利点，FB也支持我的看法，但
FA 还是让我们就那么先写上去，我和 FB又重新表达了一下我们对于这个问题
的意见，但 FA没有什么回应。接着我们就继续按照分工先写各自的项目，广
场那一块的内容 是分给 FB写的，这个当初也是 FB提出来的 idea，但其说道 其
当时提这个 idea也只是为了配套其他的一些项目，只是一个配套设施，而不是
用来招商的盈利项目（她在说的时候 是自言自语的形式，FA没有说话）。但
我不清楚 FB最后打不打算写这个内容，我之后就问了 FB 问她到底写不写这个，
FB 说其自己也不知道，这时 FA听到我们的问答，FA 还是要求我们要写，就是
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参照运河天地里面的啤酒广场的性质来写，FB 还是表示不太认同。。因为 FB
觉得这个完全可以和酒吧一条街这个项目结合在一起，而不是单独区分来写。
然后 FA表示酒吧一条街已经在一个区位上已经初具形态了（其当时实地考察
得知的）（意思就是 加不进广场这个东西了），然后 FA/FB/MA三人依据地图
聊了一下酒吧一条街现在的所处位置。之后，FB告诉我这个酒吧一条街的位置
（因为我是负责写酒吧一条街这个项目的）。但我还是不清楚她最后决定写不
写青瓷广场这个项目，所以又问了她一遍，她说 还是写咯，但是不知道写什么。/
11:14am As the project list re-lists out after the foregoing discussion (the time when
Leader arrive at the office), the work share between FB and me are not equivalent.
But FB seems hasn't realized this problem. So I ask her how should we divide the
work now?. Then FB and I re-divide the work according to the latest project list
which are showed in the QQ group named ‘Da Si Xi’ by FA (This list is slightly
modified on the basis of the previous one). But there is one business about the
Celadon square which FB says she don't know what it is. FA answers her that it is just
a leisure square. Then I think this business cannot attract the investment. It only can
be treated as an infrastructure of the resort because there is no profit point. FB also
support my thought, but FA has no response to it. Then we (FB and I) continue to
write the document. The section related to the Celadon square was divided to FB, and
the original idea of this square was raised up by FB herself. FB says her original idea
was to use this square to support other products. This is just an infrastructure rather
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than a profitable business project (This sentence is presented during her soliloquy.
And FA still doesn't say anything.). But I`m not sure whether FB will write this part
or not, so I ask FB whether she will write the section of the square or not. FB says she
don't sure either. At this time, FA hears our conversation and tells us to still write this
section. The section can be written by referring to the attributions of the Beer square
in Yunhe world. FB still a bit disagrees about writing this down. Because FB thinks
this square can totally incorporated with another business which is a Bar street rather
than writing it along. Then FA says that the Bar street is located on another area and
has already begun in its initial form (known from the field investigation. FA`s word
means that the area around the Bar street is no place for the Celadon square. Then
FA/FB/MA talk about the location of the Bar street according to the map. After that,
FB tell me the specific location of the Bar street (as I`m responsible for writing this
street). But I`m still not sure about whether she decide to write the Celadon square or
not. So I ask her again. She answers that she will write, but she don't know what to
write down.).
*FB 说有些项目让我可以直接照搬 Leader当时的描述，区位和面积的信息都问
MA 就可以。FB其自己也是这么操作的，在区位和面积不知道的时候 就问
MA。/
*FB says, as for some business ideas, I can directly copy from them in the description
of Leader`s document. As for the location and the area of each business, I can just ask
MA. FB also acts as this style: to ask MA when she is not sure about the information
of the location and the area.
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11:44am FA/FB又因为项目和产品的定义 出现了分歧，导致写得不是很顺。/
11:44am FA has divergence with FB again in terms of the definition of project and
product. This divergence negatively influence the writing process.
中饭我和MA一起吃, FA FB FC一组一起吃, FB因为现在用饭卡吃比较省钱,所
以都和 FA FC一起去食堂. 中午和MA聊到一些:/
I have lunch with MA, and FA/FB/FC have lunch together. FB goes to the mess hall
to have lunch with FA and FC because it saves money. MA and I chat with each other
during the lunch time about (the following information):
十三五的规划据 MA 说，Leader在回来的车上有介绍说，这个可能是全文字的
项目，所以可能没有MA什么工作。/
As for the 13th Five Planning (another project), Leader introduces on the way back
from the field investigation. That would be a project with full text and no picture. So
there would be no workload for MA in that project.
兰巨项目的后续可能按这个进度来：先由甲方自己各部门审阅一次（目前阶段，
预计下周拿结果）——然后我们改一稿——再最后评审一次。目前出现的一个
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问题就是，甲方临时增加规划范围，例如仙仁村、大巨村，所以我们的文本肯
定要修改。我问道 是谁说要增加这些区块的，MA 说 是龙泉市市长（甲方的上
级）/The latter stage of the project of Lanju may go like this process: the client will
revise the draft by each of their departments (the current stage, maybe we can get the
result in the next week) ---------- Then we modify the draft according to the feedback
-------- Then the final revision. The current problem is that, the client temporarily add
the scope of planning, e.g. Xianren Village and Daju Village. So our document has to
modify accordingly. I ask him who says to add these areas? MA says it is the mayor
of the Longquan City (the higher authority of the client).
我又询问了周一周二的项目考察顺序，MA简要和我介绍了一下，主要是仙仁
村——青瓷小镇——青瓷小镇的老板季总——大巨村。我问其有没有什么特别
的事发生，MA 说没有。/
I ask again about the order of the field investigation which happened on Monday and
Tuesday. MA briefly introduces to me: Xianren Village ----- the Town of Celadon ----
the boss of the Town of Celadon ---- Daju Village. I ask him whether there are any
special matters happened. MA says no.
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Appendix 6 Initial Codebook and Coding Structure
1. Entities in project ecology:
(1) Name of units
a. Project Team ( core project team ) Project Team is the basic organizational unit of tourism development
companies, which is also the main planner and core learning arena of
tourism development projects. The composition of project team are
generally including team leader and team members. It should be noticed
that, team leader is the same guy as the company leader in some cases. In
the further coding process, team leaders can be divided into actual leader
and deputy according to their practical influence and behaviours based on
the researcher`s observation, while the members could be further divided
into copywriter and draftsman according to their job description.
b. Organization (mother organization)
Although the notion of project ecology focus on a broader perspective
beyond the traditional organization boundary, the organization level is still
important: from the outside perspective, the primary social identity of
project actors is their mother companies; from the inside perspective, the
organization is the main context for managing project portfolios, project
teams, and other related resources. As for this level, there should a set of
units, e.g. management, staff or functional department. Such units can also
be further coded in the afterward stage. For instance, management can be
divided into top manager and middle manager (useful for case B and case
C), while the staff or functional department can be divided into the
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HR/transportation/accounting & finance which were recorded in the field
note.
c. Epistemic Community
As mentioned above, project ecology extends beyond the boundaries of the
individual organization. The level of epistemic community involves all
other project participants who contribute to the project production, no
matter some of them are merely temporarily and partially involved.
Currently, during the coding process, the units in this level are comprised
of client, external consultant, local community of the project destination
(also including the organizations which are not the client but affiliated to
the project), partner companies in the same project, other community of
practice (e.g. online groups).
(2) Characteristics
a. Properties of Individuals
Properties of units can contribute to portray the units in depth rather than a
simple title. The researcher quote a set of factors from numbers of
literature articles which are relevant to project ecology and knowledge
management, e.g. status & position, personality, attitude, skills &
experiences, emotions, gender, personal cultural background, age,
education & employment background, and etc.
b. Properties of Organizations/Communities (Culture/ Institution/ Structure)
Along with the individuals, groups are also need to be described further in
this study. For instance, culture is one of the most significant factors of
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organizational KM capacity which might be further divided into working
culture (Anantatmula and Kanungo, 2008), project culture (Ajmal and
Koskinen, 2008), and general organizational culture (Palanisamy, 2007)
according to the field note if needed. Besides, institution and structure will
also be paid attention.
2. Relations
(1) Properties of Relations
Project ecology is not only about the units alone, but also consisted of the
interrelationships among these units. Such relations shape the project ecology
as well as the relevant knowledge management process to a great extent. The
properties of relations will be described by intensity of connection (including
duration, content depth, purpose (legitimization/confirmation/…)),
communication or contact frequency, social similarity, degree of trust, one-off
relations or continuous, how and where the relation is enacted, and etc. Some
of those properties are somehow overlapped with each other due to the inner
links between them. The data will be coded according what the most direct
meaning belonging to, and be analysed in a systematic and comprehensive
way by considering these links in mind.
(2) Specific Events (Chatting in the workplace/ Connection/ Dinner Time/ Private
matters/ After hours)(how and where the relation is enacted..)
In the daily observation during the case study, there are numbers of specific
events which can demonstrate the interrelationships between certain units to a
certain degree. By reviewing the whole field note, such events could be
classified into several common situation. The research will list them out first
for the convenience of future research and obtain a further insight into these
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events. Such events currently can be found as ‘chatting in the workplace’,
‘connection’, ‘dinner time’, ‘private matters’, ‘after hours’.
3. Environment
As for the environment section, the researcher code the field note from two
perspective, one is about the physical environment where the observation was
conducted. The factors listed in this part are mainly derived from the observation
that they influenced the knowledge management process or project ecology to
certain degree. On the other side, the researcher also list the general environment
here which includes technology, policy, economy, industry, society and etc.
Technology is viewed to have an increasingly important role in the knowledge
transfer process, as well as in the stage of knowledge retention. The other factor
are expected to affect the TDCs differently in each case.
(1) General environment (too see whether it effect the case companies
differently )
a. Technology (Communication Technology/ Devices/ Internet Surfing/
Search Engine/ Short Message/ Telephone/ Drawing Software/ Issues)
b. Policy
c. Economy
d. Industry
e. Society
(2) Physical environment （inside and outside workplace）a. Location (Locality)
b. Workplace (Atmosphere/ Sound (Noise & Music)/ Layout/ Pace of Work)
c. Weather
d. Other distraction
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4. Knowledge Management
(1) Outcome & Process
There are kinds of classification and definition of knowledge management
process. According to the consideration of generality of initial coding, the
author quote Argote et al. (2003)`s theoretical framework for organizing KM
research. They list three knowledge management outcomes & process, which
are:
a. Knowledge Creation: The process to bring knowledge into existence
within the TDC context (Inspiration/ Imitation/ Issue …)
b. Knowledge Retention:’ The processes and activities influencing
persistence/variation and accessibility of the individual/organizational
knowledge stock in the TDC context. (… /Issue …)
c. Knowledge Transfer: A situation where there is the conveyance of
knowledge from one unit to another, within the context of the TDP (Daily
Work Communication/ Discussion/ Knowledge Acquisition (from
outside)/ Project to Project/Issues) (KT in different stage for the further
coding)
In each part, the researcher proposed several factors as intended codes based
on his knowledge in terms of this field, which are marked in yellow.
Furthermore, the researcher also highlight the code of ‘issues’ in each part
which are particularly paid attention during the data collection process and
will contribute to accomplishing objective 2 to a great degree.
(2) Determinants
The determinants here refers to several significant factors of successful
knowledge management. The further discussion related to this section will
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depends on the data collected. If the data is sufficient, they will be juxtaposed
in the content with other factors listed before. Otherwise, they will be
comprised into the discussion of other factors as some of them are closely
linked with each other. For instance, close social relationship could trigger
individual`s motivation to participate in the knowledge transfer process.
a. Ability
b. Motivation
c. Opportunity
(3) Management of the KM process
Likewise the section of determinants above, this section refers to several
significant issues running through the whole KM process. Currently, the list of
these issues are very raw which need to be revised and enriched during of
coding process.
a. Divergence managing different opinions
b. Hierarchical or decentralized (flat)
5. Project Process
The researcher lists relevant codes along with the reviewing process of field note.
(e.g. Assigning the task/ Manage & Control/ Field Investigation/ Marketing/
Writing the Document/ Present the Outcome/ Implementation/ Issues)
6. Others
(1) Methodology & Ethics
There are some parts of the filed notes mentioned about the researcher`s own
viewpoint about the experience of the research data collection process, such as
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the negotiation of the access, the balance between observation and the job
assigned. The researcher will code these parts as a memo in order to supply
the chapter of methodology.
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Appendix 7 The Specific Requirements of Tourism Development
Plan (Translation Version)
1). To comprehensively analyse tourism development history, current situation,
advantages and constraints of the tourism industry of the planning areas, and
connections to other relevant planning;
2). To analyse overall market demand, regional structure, consumption structure and
other structures in the tourist source market of the planning area, to forecast overall
market demand, regional structure, consumption structure and other structures in the
tourist source market during the planning period;
3) To propose the tourism theme and image and the development strategy of the
planning area;
4) To propose the development aim and the rationales for the development aim;
5) To clarify the orientation, features, and main content of tourism product
development;
6) To propose the major tourism development project, and to arrange the
corresponding schedule and space;
7) To propose the principles and the methods of structuring the tourism-related
elements), the spatial arrangement, and the supply factors;
8) To propose appropriate measures according to sustainable development principles,
and to pay attention to the relationships among protection, exploitation, and
utilization;
9) To propose supporting measures for implementing the plan;
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10) To analyse the total investment required to implement the plan, mainly including
the construction of tourism facilities and supporting infrastructure, tourist source
market development, human resource development and cost-benefit analysis.
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Appendix 8 Table of Findings
Knowledge Creation Knowledge Transfer
Knowledge Retention (the order
numbers of this column are based on the
order of them in the chapter)
The Individual
Level
A series of personal characteristics are
observed or mentioned to be
significant for knowledge creation-
related activities in TDP;
There are several personal
characteristics that primarily influence
the other parts of the knowledge
process or interact with other factors,
hence are partially linked to
knowledge creation in the TDP
The individuals with all five traits of personal
characteristics demonstrate certain influences on
the dimensions of knowledge transfer as viewed
through different perspectives;
Positive or negative emotions exert either-or
influence on both parties in the knowledge
transfer process;
The individuals` desultory and non-
normative knowledge retention
performance, resulted in forgetting or
biased judgements about the knowledge
obtained from the project field
investigations;
Individual knowledge and values were
found to have significantly influenced
what they finally recorded in their notes,
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context;
Both types of emotions exert both
positive and negative influences on the
individuals` ideation process;
This research identifies three types of
individuals` own knowledge (i.e.
education, expertise, and experience)
which are essential to knowledge
creation in the TDP context;
There are three primary categories of
task-specific knowledge required by
TDPs which, according to the
Ego-focused and other-focused emotions exert
influences on KT-related intentions and
corresponding behaviours through the attitudes
of eagerness and willingness;
It is also observed that the emotion of one party
can sometimes infect/trigger a similar emotion in
the opposing party in a social interaction context
—including the knowledge-sharing process;
Emotions influenced knowledge transfer
practices in the other channels, e.g. through IMT
technologies;
The effects of Emojis on daily communication
and knowledge sharing were not only their
cameras, phones, and other tools;
Different people seemed to have their
own preferences and incompatibilities
with a selection of tools, and some other
personal factors (e.g. emotions, physical
status) were also observed to influence
the individual`s choice of KR tools;
Most TDP-related knowledge remained
in the individual knowledge and
memories of the project members.
Therefore, there are high risks of
knowledge loss because of individual
forgetting, and some other factors
mentioned in the KT chapters (e.g.
whether the organization and the team can
be benefited from those knowledge
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observations, are: (i) the market-
related knowledge of the target region,
(ii) the resource-related knowledge of
the target land, and (iii) other relevant
knowledge to enrich/portray the
project ideas or inspire the designers;
A huge imbalance can be seen between
categories i and ii: The project team
usually emphasized collecting and
excavating every detail of the local
resources (category ii) rather than
conducting comprehensive market
research (category i);
The main knowledge acquisition
pattern, applicable to all three
categories, can be divided into two sets
representations of personal emotions in the
virtual environment, but also had some further
implications;
The characteristics of (personal) knowledge
directly influence the KT process;
Such knowledge self-efficacy has both positive
and negative effects towards KT processes and
outcomes: it can largely reduce the noise and
smooth the KT process as the transmitters will
filter the knowledge when they choose to deliver
rather than pouring everything onto the
receivers; such filters in several cases sometimes
decreased the transferred knowledge that was
perceived as useful by the receiver;
The role of individual knowledge in terms of
depended on whether these knowledge
carriers wished to share them or not);
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based on the locality of the knowledge
acquisition: in-field and in-house.
Each set has unique characteristics,
advantages and weaknesses;
There are a series of creativity-relevant
skills that are required by the members
in the core team: a) Systematic
thinking; b) Insightful thinking; c)
Imagination ability; d) Connective
thinking; e) Conceptual skill;
The idea generation process (and the
corresponding ideation results) in TDP
can fit a 4’I’ axis model (i.e.
indiscrimination-imitation-inspiration-
innovation. The keywords (“4 Is”) are
differentiated in terms of the degree of
knowledge transfer is also embodied in the
aspect of individual influence during KT
process;
The greater the degree to which the receiver is
familiar with the domain of the transferred
knowledge, the greater the extent to which the
receiver can be involved in that KT process;
hence, the greater the richness of knowledge
transferred;
Although abundant knowledge in specific
domains can facilitate the individual to better
know and understand the issues from those
domains, they are more likely to build their egos
on the basis of their knowledge in those
domains. In turn this can lead them to become
more resistant to accepting knowledge from
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intrinsic originality and the intention
of being creative;
others;
The Team Level Copywriters and draftsmen contribute
to the project ideas to different extents
due to their different job
responsibilities;
The distinction between their specific
job position during the project will
also influence creativity;
People with limited job autonomy
possessed little intrinsic motivation to
be creative，while those with
sufficient job autonomy were more
Autonomy and task identity were also mentioned
by the participants as they influenced their
overall work attitudes, which inevitably affect
their knowledge sharing motivations during the
project work;
The principal reasons behind the KT issue （i.e.
the cooperation issue between the copywriters
and the draftsmen） were mainly: (a.) the
different job requirements and corresponding
individual knowledge of copywriters and
draftsmen (which will be discussed in the later
section on knowledge diversity), (b.) lack of
various tools to record information by
different team members led to subsequent
difficulties in combining different forms
of information carriers (KC), which
further results in difficulties in retaining
this knowledge and sharing it within the
team or the wider organization;
so-called shared understandings of the
information gathered in the field
investigation were mainly the viewpoints
of the project leaders rather than the ideal
form, which appropriately and fully
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willing to exhibit their creativity;
Another job-related factor which
influenced individual ideation in TDPs
was observed to be task assignment;
Task interdependence is also an
important task-related antecedent for
creative team performance;
There are three perspectives on goal
setting (i.e. time deadlines, the
requirement of creativeness, the clarity
and intelligibility of goals) which are
found to influence creativity and
project production;
familiarity and tacit understanding between the
both parties, and (c.) inappropriate/insufficient
feedback from copywriters to draftsmen. These
three reasons closely interact with each other;
The role of position/status can actually constrain
knowledge sharing within the team: it harmed
not only their own absorptive capacity to diverse
knowledge sources, but also the other team
members` knowledge sharing motivations as
they felt they were ignored;
Size of collective to certain degree decides the
density of knowledge transfer as well as the
possibilities of conflicts which implies both
benefits and challenges towards KT-related
activities in the TDP ecology;
combined all sources;
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Teams will be most effective when
they are of a sufficient, but not greater
than sufficient size;
This research identifies three forms of
team composition diversity (i.e.
knowledge diversity, demographic
diversity, and personality diversity)
which exert diverse influences on team
performance and creativity;
Presence of management and co-works
in the workplace can exert influences
on the individuals` performance in
knowledge creation;
The factors of expectation and
evaluation are found to play very
Different sizes of organizations have their
unique advantages and risks in terms of applying
KT-related initiatives in the organizations;
The size of the collective also to a certain degree
influences its role in the knowledge transfer
process between it and other entities;
The size of the collective can also have
implications in terms of their composition,
which in turn influences knowledge sharing
from another perspective;
The influences of knowledge diversity in terms
of boosting creativity were outstanding in the
situation of independent job tasks;
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important and various roles in
individual and team creativity in
different situations;
The cooperative work atmosphere was
said to be much more important than
the competitive one in terms of team
creativity in the TDP;
The roles of participative leadership
and directive leadership are not
immutable in the knowledge creation
process in the context of TDP;
Personality composition exerts both positive
and negative influences on knowledge transfer;
A social environment enabling tacit knowledge
exchange is created more often by same gender
employees and hence also enhances knowledge
transfer during working hours;
The phenomenon of ‘laoxiang’ (similarity in
terms of place of birth/hometown) on the one
hand facilitate knowledge sharing between the
related individuals, while on the other hand can
exert potential negative impacts in the wider
context;
Intra-team knowledge transfer can be boosted by
age diversity;The Ineffective/vacant organizational KM
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Organizational
Level
The effects of nonmonetary rewards
can be different for different
individuals with different social
experiences;
Although the positive effects on
creativity were inconsistent in the
three cases, the potential negative
effects of monetary rewards were
observed in every case;
Although the training was considered,
to a certain degree to be useful for
improving skills and processes in the
TDC context, there were no systematic
training institutions or schemes in any
of the three cases, and any training
provided was occasional in frequency
The researcher also found the TDCs and their
leaders and staff used these two factors (i.e.
similarity and success) as proxies for value to
measure the transferred knowledge;
Such different ownership backgrounds, and the
corresponding preferences of clients, led to
different knowledge transfer challenges for the
TDCs in the corresponding contexts;
Encouragement or discouragement from leader
and management significantly influenced their
subordinates` motivations and behaviours in
terms of knowledge transfer;
The demonstration and imitation effects of the
strategies and institutions lead to negative
impacts on KR-related activities in the
given context;
The risk of knowledge loss can also be
found in terms of staff turnover;
These three factors of the organizational
level (i.e. financial state, organization
size, and managerial cost-benefit
concerns) affect the development of KM-
related system in the TDCs and the
resulting knowledge retention in the given
context;
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and partial in theme;
It can be seen from the field work that
organizational climate played a much
less significant role than team climate
and work atmosphere in knowledge
creation and creativity,
Sound is an important environmental
factor within the workplace. It can be
divided into two sets in the context of
this research: speaking and music, both
of which exhibit positive and negative
influences towards KC process in
different situations;
behaviour of leaders usually provided the model
for the corresponding behaviour of their
subordinates;
The leader/management`s control of rewards for
desired behaviour (e.g. KT-related activities);
The physical environment of workplace (e.g.
seat and common facilities arrangement) had its
own influence on social interactions between
individuals, which in turn influenced the
corresponding knowledge transfer;
The External
Environmental
Level
Access to search engines (e.g.
Baidu.com and Google.com), bloggers
and its analogues (e.g. WeChat
Weather was observed to have its own
distinctive influence on knowledge transfer
behaviours from two perspectives (i.e. the direct
Different tools that the project members
use to record information lead to different
KR challenges, especially in terms of the
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Official Accounts), online
communities of practices (e.g. QQ
group) particularly extend the scope
and the depth of knowledge that can be
reached, thereby increasing team
member`s creativity;
Access to the technologies can be
viewed as an important resource for
TDCs, e.g. the stability, speed, the
quality of work computers and
reachability of network connection;
There are several other external
regulatory factors influencing the
knowledge process in TDCs in China,
e.g. the governmental policies related
to Internet regulation and shared
feelings and the physical block caused by the
weather.);
’Guanxi’ enriched the potential knowledge
sources involved in the TDPs, which can be
activated to solve project-specific issues or
enhance ongoing learning processes in the
context;
‘Mianzi’ complexly influenced not only the
individual himself/herself but also the other
individuals who interacted with him/her;
accessibility to the retained knowledge;
Several contextual factors (e.g. weather
and time) were also found to influence the
choices of tools;
Although the three case companies
exhibited different practices in terms of
applying knowledge transfer and retention
technologies, there were several common
issues discovered during the researcher`s
field work: certain compatibility issues of
software; the built-in sorting functions in
technologies themselves are not smart
enough; some technologies had their own
limitations which made them unsuitable
for long term knowledge retention.
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knowledge infrastructure
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