Rethinking Knowledge Management

The challenge of augmenting transitions and transformations through technological design is addressed here by putting forward a model of Conversations for Reflection. This model helps deal with the practical problem of helping people develop their professional expertise. The model specifies procedural conditions that support the complex communicative activity of publicly testing private assumptions, surfacing dilemmas, and publicly discussing sensitive issues. This is illustrated by showing how the model informs two interventions that augment the development of expertise. The model follows from the theory of reflective practice, current understanding of accounting behavior in interaction, and the insights and recent developments in theory and research on the Language Action Perspective. The model, its rationale, and use illustrate an approach to understanding knowledge as a process.

Knowledge management theory and practice is dominated by two over-arching concepts: tacit and explicit knowledge. It is argued in this chapter that tacit knowledge is poorly conceptualized, and applied to disparate phenomena. Other disciplines testifying to action without awareness manage without invoking tacit knowledge, a course of action advocated here. Explicit knowledge is typically treated as unproblematic, an assumption challenged here by exploration of some issues in knowledge transfer, and with reference to reading research. Knowledge itself is admittedly a difficult concept, but it is argued that in all this we are in effect concerned with two types of activity: routine activity on the one hand, and reflective activity on the other. The chief characteristics of each are indicated, and a framework showing their inter-relations is outlined that helps draw together important aspects of knowledge management’s concerns.

This paper explores elements of a favorable environment or climate for knowledge Management (KM) based primarily on collaboration and trust. It focuses on knowledge sharing aspects of knowledge management practices, and it demonstrates why there must be a climate of trust before organizational activity can support knowledge sharing. Trust is explored from the standpoint of ethical practices and the desire to create a learning organization. Evidence from the qualitative data resulting from a study of knowledge management in large organizations in New Jersey is used to support the arguments made in the first part of the paper.

Based on a review of selected literature, this chapter identifies and explains three categories of potential barriers to the intra-organizational transfer of best practices. The first category is the organizational context, including institutional and organizational environment, absorptive capacity, competency traps, identity, culture, and size. The second category is related to the diffusion process itself: stages of diffusion, attributes of the innovation, the recipient, and the knowledge to be transferred, and the state of relationship between the source of knowledge and the receiving unit. The third category includes management-related barriers, such as the level of managerial commitment and the appropriateness of training and reward systems. Common strategies for facilitating best practice transfer are reviewed and research propositions are derived.

The complex phenomenon of organizational change is a continuous challenge for scientists and for practitioners alike. Simple models tend to be regularly worn out by field evidence. More and more factors must be taken into account in order to ensure a better reliability of change models. A recently proposed solution suggests that learning theory should be placed more centrally within the theory of planned organizational change (Hendry, 1996; Schein, 1993; Kilmann, 1989). However, this research direction has already been broached, although under a slightly different perspective. Early studies (Starbuck and Heberg, 1976; Hedberg et al. 1976) have shown that organizational change should initially go through an unlearning phase. The elimination of old, obsolete organizational knowledge–that is, unlearning–makes room for the development of new adaptive capacities (Hedberg, 1981; Nystrom and Starbuck, 1984; Hedberg et al. 1976; Markoczy, 1994; Starbuck, 1989). This paper reviews the different conceptualizations of the unlearning process in the research literature. The integration of these various perspectives allows inferring that organizational unlearning is mainly apprehended as a tool for the removal of ineffcient behavior in favor of an adaptive one. A subsequent analysis of the intimate bonds between organizational knowledge and actions (Pfeffer and Sutton, 1999; Kuwada, 1998; Klein, 1989) shows that other knowledge manipulation processes may have the same behavioral effect. Two new processes are proposed. Knowledge inactivation and rivaling enforced enactment eliminate undesired behaviors by altering the perceived validity and, respectively, the operational capacity of underlying organizational knowledge. All together, unlearning, rivaling enactment, and knowledge inactivation are labeled as knowledge neutralization phenomena. The article concludes over the place of the newly proposed class of processes in a change context. It is argued that, although the neutralization of old knowledge is not imperative for learning, its behavioral effects provide support for organizational change. Furthermore, knowledge inactivation, rivaling enactment, and unlearning seem to fit in specific organizational settings, according to the time and resources available. An analysis of management literature uncovers latent evidence for these findings (Lorsch, 1986; Starbuck and Laudon, 1996; Carmona and Grönlund, 1998).

This chapter aims to provide a review and critique of shifts in dominant ways of thinking about the relationship between knowledge management and innovation, both in terms of the assumptions they make about knowledge (and knowledge management) and the assumptions they make about innovation processes. Thus, three broad perspectives, referred to here as “production,” “process,” and “practice” perspectives are contrasted. These perspectives are outlined briefly below and illustrated, in the chapter, by drawing from examples from our IKON (Innovation, Knowledge and Oragnizational Networks) Research Centre. In contrasting these perspectives, I argue, not that one or other is necessarily superior, but rather that each has its own set of assumptions, and limitations, regarding the nature of knowledge and innovation. Viewing the knowledge management through these different lenses makes it possible to rethink the paradoxes and tensions around attempts to manage knowledge in innovation contexts.

The chapter presents a case study of new technology in a rapid response social work unit that is part of an e-government program in a Scottish municipality. The objective of the project was to improve the configuration and delivery of resources for housebound clients, and it was construed as a simple knowledge integration exercise by senior management. Taking a social informatics perspective, the authors interpret the case in terms of competing discourses or multiple versions of KM, and suggest that KM versioning is a characteristic, but underexplored, feature of complex projects that involve multiple actors with different knowledge trajectories.

This chapter links together a practice based perspective on knowledge with the interests of the ‘‘virtual working’’ literature on how the technological mediation of communication in such processes affects the nature of the social relationships that exist between workers. For example this literature suggests that it is more difficult to develop and sustain interpersonal trust than when significant opportunities for face-to-face interaction exist. As the practice based perspective on knowledge emphasizes the impact that interpersonal communication has on knowledge processes this represents an interesting context within which to examine the relationship between communication dynamics and knowledge processes.

Further, the practice based perspective on knowledge regards processes of knowing as being embedded in, sustained through, and developed via the specific (and typically collective) work activities that people carry out. Thus to research and understand the process of knowing that workers are involved in requires an empirical focus on their work activities (Orlikowski 2002). This chapter therefore examines the knowledge processes and communication dynamics of some virtual workers by paying close attention to their work tasks.

The specific type of virtual workers examined are mobile teleworkers, a relatively neglected sub-group in the population of teleworkers/virtual workers. These are workers who require to be spatially mobile to conduct their work, traveling between different sites. The chapter shows how the specific spatial mobility patterns of the workers examined had a significant effect on the communication dynamics of their interactions with co-workers.

As libraries become increasingly based on digital storage and~access technologies, knowledge management approaches seem particularly useful. Most knowledge management systems emphasize the role of information and communications technologies, and the question arises about the role of librarians in these systems. This paper posits that if globally digital libraries are to realize their potential for providing access to the widest feasible range of knowledge, librarians and information officers need to fulfill a challenging and critical role as boundary spanners across cultures. This paper is based on evidence that knowledge is culturally derived, acquired, and applied, and that learning —the acquisition of new knowledge—is enabled by skills that are culturally dependent. This aspect of knowledge suggests that the tacit dimension of knowledge and learning may require humans to aid in spanning the boundaries across different knowledge domains and different cultures. This paper has three components. First, it reviews what is becoming known about learning and how this relates to knowledge creation and knowledge transfer. Second, it reviews a boundary spanning model proposed by Carlile, comprised of three levels—syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic—and applies this model to learning across cultures. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of such a model of knowledge for libraries that seek to serve as global resources for multiple cultures. For digital libraries, new skills and approaches may be required for the pragmatic category

Narratives have long remained unacknowledged as knowledge processes within organizations. Narratives are so ubiquitous in nature and so taken-for-granted that they have remained in the shadow of formal knowledge management initiatives and programs. Yet, they play a critical role in the creation, transmission and application of knowledge in the workplace. This chapter addresses two types of narratives—storytelling and conversations. The role of these narratives as knowledge processes is examined, especially their contribution to sensemaking and the creation of social webs in work settings. How storytelling and conversations can be enabled within the contexts of designing work, workspaces, and enabling these narratives in virtual and global organizations is also briefly discussed.

Strong consumer brands have shifted, lately, from a traditional—advertising-based—way of communicating with consumers to a more interactive and networked approach, which often include relevant investments in a brand community.

A brand community is described in the literature as “a specialized, nongeographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand.” These communities play a relevant role in building a stronger bond between brands and consumers, so that the affective ties tend to transform in advocative consumer behavior and loyal relationships. But brand communities can also provide a number of valuable learning opportunities for both customers and the organizations that sponsor them. This paper wants to explore the process through which these learning objectives are met, and the social level variables that influence the nature and the evolution of this process.

The present chapter discusses the different epistemologies behind different strands of management thinking and calls for the need for further theoretical development. It proposes a specific management methodology, Semiotic Learning, that corresponds to an innovative approach to the field of organizational learning, one that draws on social semiotics and on ontological hermeneutics in order to develop an integrative perspective to the individual and to the social dimensions of organizational learning. Pragmatism stands for the inseparable nature of the individual and the collective aspects of learning. Though many organizational learning theories draw on pragmatism, Semiotic Learning argues for the need to develop further this perspective because once its underlying assumptions are understood its consequences imply a radical shift in relation to dominant management thinking.

In this paper we will support a view that considers the explicitation of knowledge as being one among the diverse strategies allowing transferring the activities performed by a small community of action in a larger collective whose practices will have to be distributed spatially, socially and temporally.

This chapter has two parts. The first part critiques mentalism in cognitive psychology and Knowledge Management theory’s basis in mentalism. The second part proposes a reading of indexical psychology as an alternative to mentalism. The purpose of the chapter is to reposition our understanding of psychological events, including personal knowledge expressions, from a mysticism of private minds and their public representations to a conception of human agency constructing person and self through cultural forms and in social situations. Such an analysis leads to a breakdown of the “inner” and “outer” dichotomy which has formed the basis for much of psychological theory and for Knowledge Management theory (the latter in terms of a dichotomized notion of private knowledge and public mediums for that knowledge’s representation). The view proposed here is that psychological research, including research into knowing acts, must begin with the understanding of persons and their selves as dynamically constructed by learning and by experience. In this way, this analysis also is associated with what is sometimes referred to as “activity theory.”