Knowledge ecosystem emergence: Organizing participation, identity, and actorhood to bridge the governance void

Multi-organizational collaborations involving the industry, academia, and government have become prevalent in developing knowledge to address complex societal problems. These fluid and loosely coupled forms of collaboration, known as knowledge ecosystems, provide the necessary organizing elements for the search and creation of new knowledge. While the literature acknowledges the prevalence of knowledge ecosystems, it remains relatively silent on how their organization develops over time. This lacuna in our understanding is problematic, given the challenge of governance voids for cross-sectoral knowledge collaborations, which lead to difficulties in mobilizing action, securing resources, and ultimately achieving the knowledge-related goals of these collaborations. To address this gap, we theorize knowledge ecosystems as meta-organizations, examining how they gradually develop organizing elements that bridge the initial governance void. Empirically, we draw on an in-depth field case study of the High-Capacity Transport ecosystem in Sweden, demonstrating how three interrelated organizational elements—participation, identity, and actorhood—emerge through an iterative, yet broadly sequential process to resolve governance void challenges in resourcing, belonging, and collective action. Furthermore, we identify discursive and performative meta-organizational practices that enable the actors to collectively enact the aforementioned organizational elements and to engage in knowledge search. We further demonstrate how the organization of knowledge ecosystems is never ‘complete’ and the governance void remains only partially resolved, given the underdefined nature of new knowledge as the ecosystem's shared goal. Overall, our process model contributes to the theory, practice, and policy of knowledge ecosystem emergence and organizing.