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Knowledge-based work is growing at a significant pace in the context of large organizations. As a consequence, use and transfer of knowledge are considered important activities of knowledge mobilization. Existing literature suggests that there is an increasing gap in the understanding of roles and typical responsibilities in knowledge mobilization. The purpose of this article is to examine how roles enable knowledge mobilization in large organizations.

A qualitative research design was used where three large organizations representing multiple sectors were selected to study roles that enable the mobilization of organizational knowledge.

This study explains the understanding of five roles and their typical responsibilities to enable the mobilization of knowledge in large organizations – knowledge mentor, broker, taxonomist, content editor, and gatekeeper. These roles foster collaboration and communication activities within and between teams enabling knowledge mobilization.

The authors acknowledge the limitations of this paper. Although the recognized roles provide valuable insights with respect to mobility of knowledge, it does not specify how each role can be assessed in terms of performance. Another limitation is that these roles were studied in the context of large-scale organizations where knowledge work is central to their performance.

This study ' s findings suggest that there is a strong need for management to recognize and value roles and responsibilities to realize organizational knowledge mobilization.

The authors review the literature on information behavior, an autonomous body of work developed mainly in library studies and compare it with work on knowledge mobilization. The aim is to explore how information behavior can contribute to understanding knowledge mobilization in healthcare management.

The authors conducted a narrative review using an exploratory, nonkeyword “double-sided systematic snowball” method. This is especially useful in the situation when the two traditions targeted are broad and relies on distinct vocabulary.

The authors find that the two bodies of work have followed similar trajectories and arrived at similar conclusions, with a linear view supplemented first by a social approach and then by a sensitivity to practice. Lessons from the field of information behavior can be used to avoid duplication of effort, repeating the same errors and reinventing the wheel among knowledge translation scholars. This includes, for example, focusing on sources of information or ignoring the mundane activities in which managers and policymakers are involved.

The study is the first known attempt to build bridges between the field of information behavior and the study of knowledge mobilization. The study, moreover, foregrounds the need to address knowledge mobilization in context-sensitive and social rather than technical terms, focusing on the mundane work performed by a variety of human and nonhuman agents.

This study aims to explore how stakeholders leverage their guanxi and structural holes to promote knowledge mobilization to increase the performance of sci-tech achievement transformation.

This study conducted questionnaires, a social network analysis and semistructured interviews to examine its hypotheses by gathering data from a university and an enterprise in China.

Structural holes impede knowledge mobilization among stakeholders in their network, but guanxi moderates this impeding effect. In addition, knowledge mobilization promotes transformation performance.

By developing a mechanism to illustrate how stakeholders strategically leverage their guanxi and structural holes to affect the efficacy of knowledge mobilization to increase transformation performance, we reveal how stakeholders interact to co-create values for innovation, thereby contributing to the innovation and knowledge management literature.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of leaders on knowledge creation and mobilization.

This mixed methods study included three high-performing districts based on provincial assessment results and socio-economic factors. Interviews and questionnaires were used to gather data from 53 participants including: 11 principals, 11 teacher leaders, 26 teachers, and five system leaders.

The findings of the study emphasized the importance of leaders supporting knowledge creation and mobilization processes through practices such as engaging school-based knowledge influencers and fostering cultures of trust and risk taking. The author defined knowledge influencers as leaders, formal or informal, who have access to knowledge creating groups at the local and system level. These leaders influenced knowledge mobilization at different levels of the district.

A research limitation of this study was present based on the sole use of high-performing districts and schools. Participation was determined via comparisons of provincial assessment results (Ontario, Canada) and socio-economic status (SES) factors. Although causal effects are cautioned, districts and schools from various SES communities (high, medium, low) were chosen to support broad generalizations and associations.

This study provided pragmatic considerations and recommendations for system and school leaders, those charged with increasing student achievement (e.g. use of knowledge influencers and an expanded array of data use while creating knowledge).

A knowledge creation model was developed by the author based on a synthesis of the findings. The model and study will be of interest to those wishing to further implement or study the creation and mobilization of knowledge within organizations.

Communities of Practice (CoPs) are increasingly being created to facilitate knowledge mobilization in organizations. This paper aims to elucidate an underexplored aspect of participation in mandated CoPs – identity reconciliation. Specifically, the authors explore how actors reconcile their existing identities with becoming members of new knowledge mobilization CoPs.

The authors conducted a longitudinal qualitative case study over a 12-month period to explore identity reconciliation practices during the formation of the “ED CoP” – mandated by policymakers to mobilize knowledge between process improvement advisors and clinicians from various hospitals. Observation and interviews allowed us to uncover “front stage” and “backstage” practices of identity reconciliation.

The findings reveal two key unexpected modes of identity reconciliation – “distancing” and “peripheral lurking”. These modes resulted in different trajectories of participation of two of the key participant groups – “veteran” improvement advisors and “veteran” clinicians.

Different modes of identity reconciliation of different participants impact the formation of CoPs and how knowledge mobilization occurs within them. This paper offers a sensitizing lens for practitioners creating CoPs which enhances awareness of hidden identity practices, and recommendations to enable practitioners to effectively facilitate CoP formation.

This study suggests that identity reconciliation is an integral aspect of CoP formation, and essential for knowledge mobilization within CoPs. Whereas studies on CoPs in the knowledge management literature have mostly assumed that collaboration produces beneficial knowledge mobilization outcomes, the findings build a more nuanced picture of the processes involved in producing these outcomes.

In organisational and innovation research, the term “open innovation” refers to the inflow and outflow of knowledge to and from organisations: with open innovation theory suggesting active exchanges of knowledge with external actors leads to the development of exploitable new ideas. In the field of education, however, the exchange of knowledge with external parties represents a paradigm shift. In response, this article presents findings from research design to explore the nature and composition of school innovation networks, and the effects of such these networks on knowledge mobilisation.

The study draws on data from a representative random sample of 411 German school leaders. Respondents were asked to detail their engagement in open and closed innovation activity and their school's external collaborations during the last 12 months. A latent class distal outcome model was developed to examine whether different types of collaboration associate with different knowledge mobilisation processes.

The study findings suggest that schools in Germany mainly use internal knowledge for innovation, with external knowledge exchange taking place on a very limited basis. Knowledge mobilisation varies depending on the innovation network. The authors use the findings to indicate new insights for how schools can further innovate learning and teaching in future.

Although there is increasing discussion on Professional Learning Networks in schools, the discourse on knowledge mobilisation within educational networks is limited, making concept of open innovation so far completely absent from discourses on school improvement. This paper initiates the population of this new research space.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate three streams of literature – organizational capabilities based in resource‐based view (RBV) and the team‐ and organization‐level innovation – to provide a theoretical framework of how firms invest in developing innovative capabilities for entrepreneurship and change management.

This is a conceptual paper based on the RBV and the team‐ and organization‐level innovation literatures.

Linking the three bodies of literature, two main models for developing innovative capabilities are proposed: organization and project team models. The “organization model” requires firms to invest at the organization level to generate the supporting organization‐level processes, i.e. communication routines, independent of when they organize for innovation, and the “project team model” calls for just‐in‐time investment as needed in the process of innovation. The paper discusses other potential models and provides directions for future research on this important and timely topic.

The paper expands the RBV of the firm by providing a theoretical framework of how firms develop the capabilities to mobilize and create knowledge for innovation as an entrepreneurial activity and for managing the changes in organizations.

The study analyzes how equity-focused knowledge brokers, working at different levels of the US education system, understand and discuss capacity building in education systems, such as schools, districts, state and local education agencies, to answer this research question: How do equity-focused knowledge brokers support capacity building in education systems?

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five well-known equity-focused organizations that broker evidence-based knowledge and resources to educational systems, practitioners and policymakers. The research team members qualitatively analyzed 18 h of recordings, using their co-developed codebook based on the research questions and prior research on knowledge mobilization.

Four strategies to build capacity within the educational systems were identified. Pursuing sustainable educational change, brokering organizations built capacity with context-specific strategies: (1) engaging various roles within educational systems, (2) fostering communities and partnerships, (3) supporting educators and policymakers’ agency and efficacy and (4) creating a wider culture of external support beyond the systems themselves.

This study shows how knowledge brokers employed context-specific strategies targeting whole systems instead of individuals to ensure that the organization and individuals within had the mindsets, capability, and conditions to engage with and adapt the brokered knowledge and resources. Findings build on existing literature showing how knowledge brokers build capacity through well-known approaches, such as workshops/training, online tutorials and other online resources.

As district leaders consider professional learning opportunities for educators, mobilizing new thought and actions across an entire system is a vexing challenge. Classroom-based learning may unfortunately be viewed as juxtaposed to district-based learning. It becomes essential for district leaders to develop knowledge mobilization strategies which provide a framework for any district-wide focus or initiative. In doing so, opportunities for knowledge influencers to interact with each other at various levels of the educational system are intentionally enhanced, that is, at the classroom, school, and district levels. Knowledge creating groups are thereby encouraged to challenge the status quo and promote innovation.

Based on recent neuroscience research, and a deeper understanding of information and knowledge, this paper aims to investigate the characteristics of building sustainable knowledge for communities and cities with a focus on the social process of knowledge mobilization.

This paper explores the concept of knowledge reuse by providing a new model of information and knowledge consistent with neuroscience and the demands of CUCA, using this model as an analogy to explore the social context of knowledge mobilization with its process of collaborative entanglement, and looking at the concepts of knowledge robustness and sustainability from the viewpoints of individuals and the community.

Knowledge mobilization is modeled after the associative network of neuronal firings in the human brain. The process of collaborative entanglement among experts and stakeholders not only helps provide specific solutions to current issues, but seeds the ground for continuous community improvement, collaboration, and sustainability.

The paper provides practical ideas and techniques for communities and individuals to move toward knowledge sustainability.

The paper develops a new frame of reference for looking at social knowledge mobilization and knowledge sustainability.