TECHNOLOGY BROKERING AND INNOVATION IN A PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT FIRM

We blend network and organizational memory perspectives in a model of technology brokering that explains how an organization develops innova tive products, The model is grounded in observations, interviews, info rmal conversations, and archived data gathered during an ethnography o f IDEO, a product design firm, This firm exploits its network position , working for clients in at least 40 industries, to gain knowledge of existing technological solutions in various industries. It acts as a t echnology broker by introducing these solutions where they are not kno wn and, in the process, creates new products that are original combina tions of existing knowledge from disparate industries. Designers explo it their access to a broad range of technological solutions with organ izational routines for acquiring and storing this knowledge in the org anization's memory and, by making analogies between current design pro blems and the past solutions they have seen, retrieving that knowledge to generate new solutions to design problems in other industries. We discuss the implications of this research for understanding the indivi dual and organizational processes and norms underlying technology and knowledge transfer more generally.