Playing across the playground: paradoxes of knowledge creation in the videogame firm
研究一家大型电子游戏工作室如何在追求艺术表达的同时满足大众娱乐的经济约束，通过混合项目管理模式平衡创意单元的探索与利用，并发现整合措施不仅控制创意，还产生了促进进一步创新的创意余裕。
Abstract This contribution illustrates how a videogame firm copes in managing creativity and expression of artistic values, while meeting the constraints of the economics of mass entertainment. The research is based on a case study in one of the largest video game studios in the world located in Montreal, Canada. The approach considers that the creative units of the firms are the communities of specialists (game developers, software programmers, etc.). Each of these communities, which have found a fertile soil in Montreal that nurtures their creative potential, is focused on both exploration and exploitation of a given domain of knowledge. In order to benefit from these sources of creativity, the integration forces implemented by the managers of the firm to bind the creative units together for achieving commercial successes reveal a hybrid form of project management which combines decentralized platforms with strict constraints on time, and a specific management of space that favors informal interactions. However, we suggest that the integration forces put forward by the firm are not just for harnessing creative units: they also generate creative slacks for further expansion of creativity. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.