Knowledge Continuity at Transition Boundaries in Digitally Supported Continuous Improvement: A Cross‐Case Framework and the Transition Knowledge Handover Canvas

ABSTRACT Continuous improvement can remain visibly active while actionable knowledge fails to survive the next transition boundary. In digitally supported improvement settings, teams log issues, update systems, and sustain process activity, yet what the next actor needs to understand is often thinned out, detached from its rationale, or trapped in local side channels. This paper examines that problem as a failure of knowledge continuity rather than as a simple problem of adoption or visibility. Drawing on nine exploratory interviews from manufacturing‐related settings, the study uses cross‐case qualitative analysis to reconstruct recurring discontinuities in carry‐forward learning. Four patterns emerge: compressed handoff, orphaned rationale, localized workaround memory, and reset without inheritance. On this basis, the paper develops a cross‐case framework that links visible activity, continuity conditions, and discontinuity patterns at transition boundaries. It also introduces the Transition Knowledge Handover Canvas (TKHC), a compact handover device for preserving actionable knowledge across such boundaries. The paper does not claim performance effects or validate a full intervention system. Its contribution is narrower: it explains why visible digital activity can coexist with broken learning continuity and offers a bounded device for reducing that risk.