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International Journal of Innovation Management Vol. 10, No. 2 (June 2006) pp. 197–215 © Imperial College Press

FROM QUALITY MANAGEMENT TO KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN RESEARCH ORGANISATIONS
ASTRID JAIME∗ , MICKAËL GARDONI† and JOËL MOSCA‡
Laboratoire GILCO, Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble 46 Ave. Félix Viallet, 38000 Grenoble, France ∗jaime@gilco.inpg.fr †gardoni@gilco.ing.fr‡Joel.Mosca@ensgi.inpg.fr

DOMINIQUE VINCK
Laboratoire CRISTO, Université Pierre Mendès France BP 47, F- 38040 Grenoble Cedex 9, France Dominique.Vinck@upmf-grenoble.fr

Received 30 July 2004 Revised 20 July 2005 Accepted 23 July 2005
Some scholars have recognized the important role of publicly funded basic research (Salter, AJ and BR Martin (2001). Research Policy, 30(3), 509–532; Szulanski, G(2000). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 82(1), 9–27) for the production of knowledge. Among the identified benefits is an increase in “the stock of useful knowledge” available to society, which could be used for innovation and in this way contribute to economic growth (Szulanski, G (2000). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 82(1), 9–27). Thus, it is important tosupport scientific activities. We claim that a way to support them is to use quality management complemented by knowledge management as a way of improving the process followed when carrying out research activities. Consequently, we studied the methods used while implementing a quality management system within various research organisations. This lead us to propose an approach which integrates qualitymanagement and knowledge management as a way to support the scientific activity. Keywords: Quality management; knowledge management; research laboratories; capitalisation; basic research.

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Introduction
According to Chalmers (1991), “the goal of science is to produce knowledge about the world ”. Therefore, it is an activity that increases “the stock of usefulknowledge” (OECD, 2002) available to society, which could be used for innovation and in this way contribute to economic growth. However, there are multiple definitions of knowledge. It is therefore important to define our understanding of the concept. After looking into several definitions, we propose one based on the work of Frank (2003) and Simoni (2001) as follows: Knowledge is a temporallystabilized comprehension resulting from interpretations of information, human experience and reflections based on a set of beliefs, which resides as fictive objects in people’s mind and is suitable for transformation into action. Given that science produces knowledge, the reliability of such knowledge is an issue that has been reflected upon by certain groups. Among the main ones are the French Working Group“Quality in Research” and the AFNOR (French Standardization Association). They have proposed quality management (QM) as the response to this problem. According to the ISO 9000 — 2000 (AFNOR, 2000a) QM is defined as the “coordinated activities to direct and control an organization with regard to quality”. The latter is defined as the “degree to which a set of inherent (existing) characteristicsfulfils requirements”. It is then necessary to understand the meaning of these concepts in the scientific environment in order to be able to introduce them. However, fulfilling this requirement requires an understanding of the actor(s) whose needs research organizations are meant to fulfill. This is not clear in basic research.1 Additionally, the introduction of QM into the scientific environment is notcurrently backed by a well-defined methodology. In fact, QM has traditionally been used by industry. However, the general characteristics of scientific activity are different from those of industrial activity in terms of working conditions, goals, resources, tasks performed, etc. Thus, the introduction of QM requires a methodology adapted to the scientific environment. In spite of this, during the...