Knowledge management introduction ELP VERSION.pdf

Knowledge management – it might not be what you think it is!

INTRODUCING KNOWLEDGE WORK: PROCESSES, PURPOSES AND CONTEXTS*

• What Is Knowledge?

• Structural Perspectives and Types of Knowledge

• Process and Practice Perspectives: Knowledge and Knowing

• Perspectives Compared

INTRODUCTION*

• Importance of managing knowledge

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?*

• The classical Greek period

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?*


WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?*


• The 'knowledge as possession' view

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?*



• The ‘epistemology of practice’ view

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?*

“Individuals and groups clearly make use of knowledge, both explicit and tacit, in what they do; but not everything they know how to do, we argue, is explicable solely in terms of the knowledge they possess. We believe that individual and group action requires us to speak about both knowledge used in action and knowing as part of the action” (Cook and Brown, 1999, p. 382).

“Organizations are better understood... if knowledge and knowing

are seen as mutually enabling (not competing). We hold that knowledge is a tool for knowing, that knowing is an aspect of our interaction with the social and physical world, and the interplay of knowledge and knowing can generate new knowledge and new ways of knowing” (Cook and Brown, 1999, p. 381).

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?*



• The ‘epistemology of practice’ view

• Working definition of knowledge

– 'the ability to discriminate within and across contexts' (Swan, 2008).

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?*

• The classical Greek period • The 'knowledge as possession' view • The ‘epistemology of practice’ view • Working definition of knowledge

– 'the ability to discriminate within and across contexts' (Swan, 2008).

– 'a learned set of norms, shared understandings and practices that integrates actors and artefacts to produce valued outcomes within a specific social and organizational context' (Scarbrough, 2008).

STRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVES AND TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE*

• Structural perspectives on knowledge draw largely from the epistemology of possession


• Structural perspectives on knowledge draw largely from the epistemology of possession

• Frameworks for understanding knowledge types


• Nonaka's framework (1994)



– Originating 'ba’




– Interacting 'ba'




– Interacting 'ba‘

– Cyber 'ba'





– Cyber 'ba‘

– Exercising 'ba'





– Cyber 'ba‘

– Exercising 'ba‘

• The SECI model of Nonaka and his colleagues is not without critics


• Spender's framework (1996, 1998)


• Blackler's framework (1995)


• Critique of structural perspectives

– Theoretical objections


• Critique of structural perspectives

– Theoretical objections

– Practical objections

PROCESS AND PRACTICE PERSPECTIVES: KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWING*

• Failure of previous knowledge management initiatives


• Failure of previous knowledge management initiatives

• Knowing is not a static embedded capability or stable disposition of actors, but rather an ongoing social accomplishment, constituted and reconstituted as actors engage the world in practice (Orlikowski, 2002, p. 249).


• Practice perspectives



– social philosophers; social theorists; cultural theorists; ethnomethodologists




– knowledge is 'sticky'





– when we perform practice we use many kinds of material and physical objects





– when we perform practice we use many kinds of material and physical objects

• implications for managing knowledge work


• Practice perspectives – social philosophers; social theorists; cultural

theorists; ethnomethodologists


– when we perform practice we use many kinds of material and physical objects • implications for managing knowledge work

– knowledge work actually takes place in a broader 'field of practices'


• Practice perspectives – social philosophers; social theorists; cultural theorists;

ethnomethodologists


– when we perform practice we use many kinds of material and physical objects • implications for managing knowledge work

– knowledge work actually takes place in a broader 'field of practices'

– investment of knowledge in peoples' practice

PERSPECTIVES COMPARED* Epistemology of

Possession Epistemology of Practice

Structural Process Practice

View of social life 1 2 3

View of Knowledge 4 5 6

Major locus of Knowledge

7 8 9

Link between knowledge and organizational Performance

10 11 12

Major focus for managing knowledge Work

13 14 15

Major tasks of Knowledge Management

16 17 18

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Knowledge management introduction ELP VERSION.pdf