Knowledge, Groupware and the Internet

David Smith

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9780750671118
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136389467
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Knowledge, Groupware, and the Internet details the convergence of modern knowledge management theory and emerging computer technologies, and discusses how they collectively enable business change and enhance an organization's ability to create and share knowledge.

This compendium of authoritative articles explains the relationship between knowledge management and two major technologies enabling it: Groupware and the Internet. These critical technologies help an organization evolve from individual to group knowledge, quickly make tacit knowledge explicit, and enable people to use and apply this knowledge. Knowledge, Groupware and the Internet helps readers understand how to unite the people and technologies that define effective knowledge management.

Part I History

Chapter 1 A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation¹

¹ Reprinted by permission, Ikujiro Nonaka, “A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation,” Organizational Science, Vol. 5, No. 1,1994, the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), 901 Elkridge Landing Road, Suite 400, Linthicum, Maryland 21090-2909 USA.

Ikujiro Nonaka

Institute of Business Research, Hitotsubashi University, Kunitachi, Tokyo, Japan

DOI: 10.4324/9780080509815-2

I recommend this paper to Organization Science readers because I believe that it has the potential to stimulate the next wave of research on organization learning. It provides a conceptual framework for research on the differences and similarities of learning by individuals, groups, and organizations.

—Arie Y. Lewin

Abstract—This paper proposes a paradigm for managing the dynamic aspects of organizational knowledge creating processes. Its central theme is that organizational knowledge is created through a continuous dialogue between tacit and explicit knowledge. The nature of this dialogue is examined and four patterns of interaction involving tacit and explicit knowledge are identified. It is argued that while new knowledge is developed by individuals, organizations play a critical roie in articulating and amplifying that knowledge. A theoretical framework is developed which provides an analytical perspective on the constituent dimensions of knowledge creation. This framework is then applied in two operational models for facilitating the dynamic creation of appropriate organizational knowledge.

(Self-Designing Organization; Teams; Knowledge Conversion; Organizational Innovation; Management Models)

1 Introduction

It is widely observed that the society we live in has been gradually turning into a “knowledge society" (Drucker 1968; Bell 1973; Toffler 1990). The ever increasing importance of knowledge in contemporary society calls for a shift in our thinking concerning innovation in large business organizations-be it technical innovation, product innovation, or strategic or organizational innovation.²It raises questions about how organizations process knowledge and, more importantly, how they create new knowledge. Such a shift in general orientation will involve, among other things, a reconceptualization of the organizational knowledge creation processes.

² See Lewin and Stephens (1992) for arguments on challenges to and opportunities for organizational design in the post industrial society.

The theory of organization has long been dominated by a paradigm that conceptualizes the organization as a system that “processes" information or"solves" problems. Central to this paradigm is the assumption that a fundamental task for the organization is how efficiently it can deal with information and decisions in an uncertain environment. This paradigm suggests that the solution lies in the “input-process-output" sequence of hierarchical information processing. Yet a critical problem with this paradigm follows from its passive and static view of the organization. Information processing is viewed as a problem-solving activity which centers on what is given to the organization-without due consideration of what is created by it.

Any organization that dynamically deals with a changing environment ought not only to process info.rmation efficiently but also create information and knowledge. Analyzing the organization in terms of its design and capability to process information imposed by the environment no doubt constitutes an important approach to interpreting certain aspects of organizational activities. However, it can be argued that the organization’s interaction with its environment, together with the means by which it creates and distributes information and knowledge, are more important when it comes to building an active and dynamic understanding of the organization. For example, innovation, which is a key form of organizational knowledge creation, cannot be explained sufficiently in terms of information processing or problem solving. Innovation can be better understood as a process in which the organization creates and defines problems and then actively develops new knowledge to solve them. Also, innovation produced by one part of the organization in turn creates a stream of related information and knowledge, which might then trigger changes in the organization’s wider knowledge systems. Such a sequence of innovation suggests that the organization should be studied from the viewpoint of how it creates information and knowledge, rather than with regard to how it processes these entities.

The goal of this paper is to develop the essential elements of a theory of organizational knowledge creation. In the sections which follow, the basic concepts and models of the theory of organizational knowledge creation are presented. Based on this foundation, the dynamics of the organizational knowledge creation process are examined and practical models are advanced for managing the process more effectively.

2 Basic Concepts and Models of Organizational Knowledge Creation

The following subsections explore some basic constructs of the theory of organizational knowledge creation. They begin by discussing the nature of information and knowledge and then draw a distinction between “tacit" and “explicit" knowledge. This distinction represents what could be described as the epistemological dimension to organizational knowledge creation. It embraces a continual dialogue between explicit and tacit knowledge which drives the creation of new ideas and concepts.

Although ideas are formed in the minds of individuals, interaction between individuals typically plays a critical role in developing these ideas. That is to say, “communities of interaction" contribute to the amplification and development of new knowledge. While these communities might span departmental or indeed organizational boundaries, the point to note is that they define a further dimension to organizational knowledge creation, which is associated with the extent of social interaction between individuals that share and develop knowledge. This is referred to as the “onto-logical" dimension of knowledge creation.

Following a consideration of the two dimensions of knowledge creation, some attention is given to the role of individuals and, more specifically, to their “commitment" to the knowledge creating process. This covers aspects of their"intention,” the role of autonomy, and the effects of fluctuations or discontinuities in the organization and its environment.

Next, a “spiral" model of knowledge creation is proposed which shows the relationship between the epistemological and ontological dimensions of knowledge creation. This spiral illustrates the creation of a new concept in terms of a continual dialogue between tacit and explicit knowledge. As the concept resonates around an expanding community of individuals, it is developed and clarified. Gradually, concepts which are thought to be of value obtain a wider currency and become crystalized. This description of the spiral model is followed by some observations about how to support the practical management of organizational knowledge creation.

2.1 Knowledge and Information

Knowledge is a multifaceted concept with multilayered meanings. The history of philosophy since the classical Greek period can be regarded as anever-ending search for the meaning of knowledge.³ This paper follows traditional epistemology and adopts a definition of knowledge as “justified true belief.” It should be noted, however, that while the arguments of traditional epistemology focus on “truthfulness" as the essential attribute of knowledge, for present purposes it is important to consider knowledge as a personal “belief,” and emphasize the importance of the “justification" of knowledge. This difference introduces another critical distinction between the view of knowledge of traditional epistemology and that of the theory of knowledge creation. While the former naturally emphasizes the absolute, static, and nonhuman nature of knowledge, typically expressed in propositional forms in formal logic, the latter sees knowledge as a dynamic human process of justifying personal beliefs as part of an aspiration for the “truth.”

³ Discussion on epistemology here is based on such classical accounts as Plato’s Tbeaetetus and Phaedo, Descartes’s Discourse on Method, Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, and Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. For interpretation of these works, see Hospers (1967), Dancy (1985), Hallis (1985), Moser and Nat (1987), and Winograd and Flores (1986).

Although the terms “information" and “knowledge" are often used interchangeably, there is a clear distinction between information and knowledge. According to Machlup (1983), information is a flow of messages or meanings which might add to, restructure or change knowledge. Dretske (1981) offers some useful definitions. In his words:

Information is that commodity capable of yielding knowledge and what information a signal carries is what we can learn from it (Dretske 1981, p. 44). Knowledge is identified with information-produced (or sustained) belief, but the information a person receives is relative to what he ·or she already knows about the possibilities at the source (ibid. p. 86).

In short, information is a flow of messages, while knowledge is created and organized by the very flow of information, anchored on the commitment and beliefs of its holder. This understanding emphasizes an essential aspect of knowledge that relates to human action.

The importance of knowledge related to action has been recognized in the area of artificial intelligence. For example, Gruber (1989) addresses the subject of an expert’s “strategic knowledge" as that which directly guides his action, and attempts to develop the tools,to acquire it. Since the 1980s, the development of cognitive science has been based on a serious reflection on behavioralist psychology’s neglect of such traditional questions as, “Why do human beings act in a certain way?”, which was a central issue for so-called “folk psychology" (Stich 1986). Searle’s discussion on the “speech act" also points out a close relationship between language and human action in terms of the “intention" and “commitment" of speakers (Searle 1969). In sum, as a fundamental basis for the theory of organizational creation of knowledge, it can be argued that attention should befocused on the active, subjective nature of knowledge represented by such terms as “belief" and “commitment" that are deeply rooted in the value systems of individuals.

The analysis of knowledge and information does not stop at this point. Information is a necessary medium or material for initiating and formalizing knowledge and can be viewed from “syntactic" and “semantic" perspectives. The syntactic aspect of information is illustrated by Shannon’s analysis of the volume of information which is measured without regard to its meaning or value. A telephone bill, for example, is not calculated on the basis of the content of a conversation but according to the duration of time and the distance involved. Shannon said that the semantic aspects of communication, which center on the meaning of information, are irrelevant to the engineering problem (Shannon and Weaver 1949). A genuine theory of information would be a theory about the content of our messages, not a theory about the form in which this content is embodied (Dretske 1981).

In terms of creating knowledge, the semantic aspect of information is more relevant as it focuses on conveyed meaning. The syntactic aspect does not capture the importance of information in the knowledge creation process. Therefore, any preoccupation with the formal definition will tend to lead to a disproportionate emphasis on the role of information processing, which is insensitive to the creation of organizational knowledge out of the chaotic, equivocal state of information. Information, seen from the semantic standpoint, literally means that it contains new meaning. As Bateson (1979, p. 5) put it, “information consists of differences that make a difference.” This insight provides a new point of view for interpreting events that make previously invisible connections or ideas obvious or shed light on unexpected connections (Miyazaki and Ueno 1985). For the purposes of building a theory of knowledge creation, it is important to concentrate on the semantic aspects of information.

2.2 Two Dimensions of Knowledge Creation

Although a great deal has been written about the importance of knowledge in management, relatively little attention has been paid to how knowledge is created and how the knowledge creation process can be managed. One dimension of this knowledge creation process can be drawn from a distinction between two types of knowledge-"tacit knowledge, and explicit knowledge.,As Michael Polanyi (1966, p. 4) put it, “We can know more than we can teii".⁴ Knowledge that can be expressed in words and numbers only represents the tip of the iceberg of the entire body of possible knowledge. Polanyi classified human knowledge into two categories. “Explicit" or codified knowledge refers to knowledge that is transmittable in formal, systematic language. On the other hand, “tacit" knowledge has a personal quality, which makes it hard to formalize and communicate.

⁴ See also Polanyi (1958) and Gelwick (1977).

Tacit knowledge is deeply rooted in action, commitment, and involvement in a specific context. In Polanyi’s words, it “indwells" in a comprehensive cognizance of the human mind an...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Front Other
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Part I: History
• Part II: The Technical Enablers
• Part III: The Effects in Organizations
• Part IV: Knowledge, Groupware and the Internet In Practice
• Index