Codifying transformative learnings: Examining the codified boundary object characteristics that afford project-to-project learning between sustainability demonstrations

Abstract

Sustainability demonstration projects, which bring emerging technologies closer to large-scale adoption through public-private collaborations, are critical for sustainable development and climate change response. These projects are motivated by knowledge development however immature practices are resulting in missed opportunities for project-to-project learning. This challenge is consistent with cross-domain findings that effective project learning is complex and rare, constrained by temporal, geographical and organisational barriers. A key approach to spanning scale-barriers and community-of-practice boundaries is the externalised sharing of codified learnings within boundary objects, where these objects require structural characteristics that afford project-to-project learning. To date, these characteristics have not been studied in sustainability demonstration contexts, forming a significant research gap. We conduct an integrative review of the cross-domain literature and, as a new contribution to knowledge, propose a reconceptualised 13-characteristic schema for codified boundary objects affording project-to-project learning between sustainability demonstrations. The study advances the theory of knowledge sharing from projects for sustainability by putting boundary object characteristics into context providing insight into enabling and restricting potential along with identifying key research gaps for future research.