Communication network structure parameters and new knowledge generation capabilities in companies engaged in industry control system engineering projects

Abstract

Engineering companies engaged in business of industry control systems need to manage the processes of generation of innovations within and across their projects. Generation and diffusion of innovations materialize through the communication networks of project teams. Therefore, it is possible to hypothesize that the characteristics of communication networks play role in generation of new knowledge. With the data from 14 industry control system projects of a Russian engineering company the communication network structure characteristics were calculated and the analysis of correlation between these characteristics and knowledge generation capabilities was performed. As a result correlation between centralization of communication and the number of new technical solutions developed in projects was discovered.