Can we really manage knowledge for innovation? A proposal according to the Situationist View of the Firm (SVF).

Purpose – This paper aims at proposing a different path to understand the innovation processes within the organisations. Alternative to the prevailing paradigm, which considers innovation processes as moved by a systemic rationality, here a Situationist View of the Firm (SVF) is adopted. Our purpose is to contribute to the scientific debate on knowledge management and innovation management enriching it through different concepts - power, coalitional dynamics and institutional pressures - until now in shadow, if not absent at all. Design/methodology/approach – The paper compares two paradigms of the firm replacing in the foreground their epistemological roots. On one hand, the ‘unified approach’ – widely dominant in management studies – reifies the firm and interprets it as a collective entity, a “pre-determined system with respect to the actors”, which is divided into sub-systems at lower levels and is part of inclusive, higher-level systems. On the other hand, the ‘situationist view’ defines the firm as a “concrete system built by the actors” and qualifies it as a space of games, a space of interaction, negotiation and conflict among actors and their coalitions. Originality/value – The SVF can be seen as an element of originality, since it puts in evidence and focuses on the organisational power dynamics and the isomorphism processes aiming at gaining legitimation. Practical implications – First, the different insight into innovation processes allows to increase the number of managerial and decision-making patterns with schemes and models focused on negotiation-based strategies. Moreover, the link with some constructs of the neo-institutionalism framework, such as isomorphism and rationalizing myths, paves the way for a less naive approach on organisational dynamics that animates, in practice, the processes of innovation that may be the result of decisions aiming at legitimizing the organisation in relation to the institutions and other key players operating in an ‘organisational field’