Theorizing Knowledge in Organizations

The literature has discussed organizational knowledge both as a resource [Grant, R., 1996] and a process of learning [Argyris and Schon, 1978, Senge, P., 1990], often emphasizing one aspect over the other.

There is 3 theorizing knowledge in organizational :

1. Knowledge as resource and Process

Through the resource perspective, organizations view knowledge as a fundamental resource in addition to the traditional resources of land, labor, and capital. It is held that the knowledge that the firm possesses is a source of sustainable competitive advantage, and is, accordingly, regarded as a strategic resource of the firm in need of management attention.

2. Interactions for knowledge creation

While knowledge itself may be perceived as a resource, its creation occurs through human interactions, whether physical or virtual. For example, for knowledge to emerge from within a group, interactions that occur among its members shape the knowledge that emerges from the mutual engagement and participation of the group members.Those with a communication and interaction perspective have argued that through discourse and dialectics, individuals shape and re-shape the thought processes of others, eventually leading to a situation of negotiated ormutually co-constructed reasoning for action and knowledge [von Krogh et al.,1998].

    

3. Activity as Context

Proposes that knowledge can be observed as emerging out of the tensions that arise within an organization’s activity systems, that is, among individuals and their communities, their environment (rules and regulations), and the instruments and resources that mediate their activities. Through immersion in joint activity, individuals in organizations gain tacit knowledge, the sharing of which occurs as a result of the mutual participation [Tsoukas, H., 1996].

Background Bibliographic Analysis

One measure of the influence of a discipline is to track the “formal communications” or published works in that discipline [Koenig,M., 2005, Ponzi, L., 2004]. Ponzi observed that “knowledge management is one emerging discipline that remains strong and does not appear to be fading”. The authors have continued that tracking of the KM literature time series (Figure 2.1 below) through the 2009 literature.The KM business literature continues to grow. Note that Figure 2.1 almost certainly underestimates the size of the KM literature. In the early years of KM, it was probably a very safe assumption that almost all KM articles would have the phrase “knowledge management” in the title, but as the KM field has grown, that almost certainly is no longer a safe assumption.There are now numerous articles about “communities of practice” or “enterprise content management” or “lessons learned” that clearly are KM focused, but they do not use the phrase “knowledge management” in the title.

in reading about KM as well. The specific departments and disciplines in which the dissertations were written range from mathematics to mass communication, with business administration being strongly represented.

 

 

Figure 2.1: Knowledge Management Growth. Number of KM articles published by year.

communication, with business administration being strongly represented. See Figure 2.3 below for the publication pattern. In general, the number of dissertations focusing on some aspect of knowledge management rises gradually until 2006 and has remained steady with about 100 theses produced each year in English with, however, a decline in 2008 and 2009.

In reading about KM as well. The specific departments and disciplines in which the dissertations

were written range from mathematics to mass communication, with business administration being strongly represented. See Figure 2.3 for the publication pattern.

 

Figure 2.3: Doctoral Dissertations and Masters Theses written with ‘Knowledge Management’ in the Title, Abstract or KeyWord Fields 1996–2009. An interesting observation is that there was a very brief spurt of articles about KM in journals devoted to education, but that interest soon waned. This is likely a function of the fact that KM, as mentioned previously has a very corporatist and organizational emphasis, while for most academic principals, the faculty, their commitment to their field, their discipline and sub-discipline, their “invisible college” comes first. Their commitment to their nominal home institution is quite secondary. And, for most of those faculty, their invisible college already functions as their community of practice.