Navigating the mutual knowledge problem: a comparative case study of distributed work

The purpose of this paper is to show how workers successfully address constraints posed by distributed work – specifically, the lack of cognitive common ground or “mutual knowledge” – through emergent practices.

The authors draw on archival and interview data collected over a ten-month period, from two matched product development teams, one working side-by-side in the USA and the other distributed between the USA and India.

The paper illustrates how distributed team members compensate for the difficulties presented by the lack of mutual knowledge by modifying their use of knowledge management systems and communication technologies to coordinate work, and using temporal and task-based differences to facilitate problem solving.

This study answers calls to examine how distributed teams actually work. By emphasizing the creation of new practices over knowledge transfer and employees’ perspectives over managers, the paper adds to current understandings of how aspects of the mutual knowledge problem can be alleviated. Since emergent practices are not dependent on shared values or identities, they can coordinate action without compromising the distinct perspectives of workers or constraining the diversity that inspires innovation. In addition, the attention to problem solving in distributed teams – particularly tacit knowledge recombination – extends a literature primarily focussed on communication and coordination processes.

In this paper, the authors shift the focus from managerial and organizational policies to the emergent practices of workers themselves, by showing how the authors successfully coordinate and innovate in a changing organizational context.