Knowledge and Discourse Matters

Relocating Knowledge Management's Sphere of Interest onto Language

Lesley Crane

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781118931851
• eBook ISBN: 9781119079514
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Desktop Applications
• Index: Computer Science

This book provides a practical approach to harnessing knowledge in organizations. Its focus is on knowledge sharing, tacit knowing, and a view of knowledge as an accomplishment in social interaction.

The aim of this book is to explore and show how the phenomena of trust, risk and identity, as contexts constructed by speakers themselves, influence and mediate knowledge sharing in organizational encounters. The research particularly reveals how tacit knowledge (knowing), affects the scope and directions of everyday conversation. The first part of the book presents a comprehensive critical appraisal and analysis of the field of organizational knowledge management, followed by an introduction to the theory and methodology of discourse analysis, and a view of tacit knowing drawn from studies in implicit learning. The second part reports the detailed analysis and findings of original field research, investigating how participants in regular organizational meetings, including a discussion forum, manage the business of sharing knowledge. From the perspective of the research methodology, drawing on Discursive Psychology, knowledge is approached as an accomplishment in social interaction, with talk and text shown to be constructive, functional and action-oriented.

• Presents a rigorous, evidence-based approach to Knowledge Management using original research
• Approaches discourse as the location of knowledge work, and the site to which knowledge management practice should be focused
• Positions the actions of knowledge work in everyday talk and text, thus giving practitioners a ready toolset to improve their strategies, practices and understanding of knowledge within organizations

Knowledge and Discourse Matters: Relocating Knowledge Management's Sphere of Interest onto Language is a great reference for organizational leaders, knowledge managers, and human resource managers.

Dr. Lesley Crane is an independent consultant specializing in knowledge management, and technology supported learning for adults (e-learning). Much of her consultancy work involves providing strategic advice and research on the effective use of e-content, e-tools and the use of new technologies in the delivery of teaching and learning. Prior to working as a consultant, Lesley was Managing Director of her own SME business specializing in creative e-learning design and development for public and private sector organizations.

PART ONE

1
THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE

1.1 KNOWLEDGE: THE MOST PRECIOUS ASSET AND THE GREATEST CHALLENGE

Knowledge represents the “…highest value, the most human contribution, the greatest relevance to decisions and actions, and the greatest dependence on a specific situation or context.”

(Grover and Davenport, 2001: 6)

At the turn of the millennium, Varun Grover and Thomas Davenport reflected the opinions of many involved or interested in the organizational practice of knowledge management (KM) when they cast knowledge in the role of the organization’s top prize. It is also one of the most challenging and complex topics on the organizational agenda.

The value of knowledge to the organization is in fact one of the few areas of consensus in a field otherwise defined by its many debates, controversies, and disagreements. With the modern organization operating in an increasingly complex world marked by change and uncertainty, that value can only intensify. Consequently, knowledge has come to be seen as a firm’s most precious asset, the key to new product and service development, essential to understanding customers and market trends, and the principle ingredient to innovation, to name just some of its stellar attributes. It is also the asset that most easily walks out of the door.

Yet, as it turns out, the nature of knowledge is one of the greatest challenges facing organizations and the field of KM, according to the economist and business consultant Robert M. Grant and many others. This one word stirs up more of a storm of controversy than any other issue. As Grant points out, the search for a definition of knowledge is far from resolved, although some in the academic domain of philosophy might well dispute that.

This chapter has two main objectives. Firstly, it attempts to convince on the salience and importance of engaging with the question over the nature of knowledge. Secondly, it offers an overview of the shape of the debate in KM: what does it look like, and how does the perception of the knowledge phenomenon impact on its practice? The shape of the debate is itself something of a challenge: it does not conform to a dialogic debate in which one opinion can be seen as building on another, but rather is pulled this way and that, splintering off in this or that tangent. The question of the nature of knowledge is so broad that it is very easy to succumb to the superlative or to lose sight of the objective in a tangle of deep thought inspired by philosophical accounts. To be clear, we are interested in a conceptualization of knowledge from the perspective of the organization, and the practice of KM, and not that (or those) conceptualization(s) discussed within philosophy.

So, beginning with an overview of why this question is important, the discussions open up a critical review of the various ways in which knowledge is described with particular interest in what is arguably the most widespread and popular, yet most contested, of these: the tacit–explicit duality. This is contrasted with alternative ways of understanding knowledge, which are shown, in subsequent chapters, to be consistent at least in part with a perspective with considerable empirical support. This leads to a view of knowledge that is developed throughout this book as the central tenet of a way of thinking about knowledge and its management that extends some directions that many in the field have been indicating for the last two decades or more.

1.2 WHY AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE IS CRUCIAL

Given the eons of debate around the nature of knowledge, it is hardly surprising that a consensus eludes the field of KM. For instance, Peter Heisig, a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Engineering Design Centre, trawled through 160 different KM theories, concluding that a “uniform understanding” of knowledge is simply not available. Instead, there is a melting pot of confusion, ambiguity, and contradiction over its nature, constitution, and even its location (see the end of the chapter for a list of suggested further reading).

Of course, the irony in all of this is that while on the one hand knowledge and its management is understood as a vital part of organizational strategy, as the metaphorical key to organizational success and growth, there is on the other the absence of anything resembling a “uniformly” accepted definition. Now allowing for the fact that large disparate groups rarely agree on definitional matters (political parties, for instance, and the question of what constitutes economic success), this state of affairs inevitably casts a shadow of doubt over both theory and practice. Quite simply, if a product cannot be specified, how can it be the subject of theory? If it cannot be grasped, how can it be managed, measured, or otherwise leveraged? How can the manager claim success in managing knowledge, if there is disagreement over what it is? Ask any group of people within an organization to describe what they mean by knowledge, and it is virtually guaranteed to result in as many variations. Michael Polanyi, undoubtedly one of the most influential voices in the field—albeit indirectly—proposed that definition rises from “formalization” of meaning. From this perspective, a definition of knowledge would represent a generally accepted and unambiguous meaning shared by the majority. And in this case, “majority” refers to those within the KM field.

The bottom line is this: if it is the role of KM to improve the handling of knowledge, then it is important to arrive at an understanding of what knowledge is—that is, an understanding that is relevant to the organization and its activities, goals, and so forth, which can be subscribed to by the majority.

Developing this line of thought, Polanyi proposes that a word’s meaning takes shape in its repeated usage. More specifically, Professor and psychologist Kenneth Gergen suggests that the definition of knowledge is no more or less than as expressed in the language conventions favored by certain groups at certain times—that is, “meaning” as truth exists in shared consensus. Or, put another way, it is whatever is fashionable with a majority at any given time.

These viewpoints can be interpreted as diffusing any sense of urgency for definition and even as establishing a rationale for seeing a definition of knowledge as whatever is fashionable. But this raises a question: fashionable for whom, and shared and used by which groups? Is one group’s viewpoint more important than another’s? Or more right? Also, while the “fashionable perspective” offers the prospect of an escape route from a troublesome debate, it does not help in addressing other questions: Is knowledge objective, subjective, or both? Can knowledge only ever be personal, rooted to the individual’s experiences, beliefs, attitudes, and so forth, or can it exist as a communally shared phenomenon? Can knowledge ever be seen as a true representation of the world, or is it entirely socially constructed, influenced, and molded by human action? Is it an object or a commodity—is it a practice, or can it be either? And so on, and so forth. This is the proverbial tin of worms—and this is what KM sets out to manage.

These are complex questions, with profound consequences for the practice of KM. If knowledge is seen as one particular color, with energies and strategies geared around that, then there is a risk of ignoring knowledge of another color. Haridimos Tsoukas of the Athens Laboratory of Business Administration and Efi Vladimirou of Planet Ernst and Young, in their essay on the relationship between organizational and personal knowledge, take an even more pragmatic approach: criticizing those who claim there to be no need for a “concrete definition of knowledge,” they reason that where there is theoretical confusion, it should not be a case of simply abandoning theory, but rather it should promote the search for clarity and cohesion.

Arguably, it is this lack of a definition of knowledge that underpins many of the issues and debates, which characterize the field. For example, researchers and authors France Bouthillier and Kathleen Shearer, writing in 2002 , point to 18 different definitions of KM practice in their investigations of methodologies adopted by various organizations in published case studies. Almost a decade later, Patrick Lambe, principal consultant at Straits Knowledge in Singapore, also draws attention to this issue, remarking that throughout most of the 1990s, the same names were being applied to quite different concepts by different people in the KM field. The question over what constitutes the practice of KM is taken up in more depth in the following chapter.

The point should be adequately made by now. This is murky territory. So murky, in fact, that many scholars, researchers, and practitioners simply avoid any reference to the nature of what they focus on. For instance, a study of KM practice’s impact on firms’ innovation capabilities investigates the human barriers associated with knowledge generation, codifying, sharing, and application, but does not define the subject of the research. Another research study investigates how processes such as knowledge creation and between-firm knowledge sharing impact on innovation in firms in three different countries but also neglects to define what is meant by “knowledge.” Even Thomas Davenport, one of the most respected scholars and authors in the field, and who was named one of the top 25 consultants in the world in 2003,¹ is not immune. In his illustration of how technologies can be successfully deployed in firms for the management of knowledge, he seems to step aside from any definition of the subject of his investigations, although offering detailed and thorough discussions around, for instance, types of knowledge companies and attributes of the knowledge manager. He is, however, a prolific and widely respected author and authority and is likely to have tackled this issue elsewhere. Nonetheless, it is perhaps revealing that, in the context of a book aimed at business managers, this particular text avoids the question. Is it simply that no one is interested?

Here is another reason why the nature of knowledge should be of interest to the organization’s leaders and practitioners: if there is a mountain of viewpoints on what constitutes knowledge, then, as noted earlier, this unavoidably has an impact on the definition of KM itself. And that has consequences for what is practiced.

Lambe’s reference to the “1990s” suggests phases of development. David Snowden, founder of Cognitive Edge based in England, offers a concise and useful developmental context against which to pin the knowledge definition debates. He proposes three ages or “generations” of development. The first, before 1995, is very much dominated by technology and process reengineering, with its focus on managing the flow of knowledge to decision-makers. This was the age of “human replacement”—if a machine could do the job of the worker, then the worker had to go. The second generation, beginning in the mid-1990s, is ignited by the publication of Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi’s groundbreaking and influential book, The Knowledge-Creating Company, and its introduction of what would become the most famous—for some, infamous—perspective on knowledge: the tacit–explicit duality. The start of the new millennium ushers in a third generation, mobilized by Snowden himself with his formulation of knowledge as paradoxically both a “thing” and a “flow.” As the following discussions illustrate, both notions of knowledge are very much part of the polarized dialogue.

So, if theoretical confusion over the nature of knowledge is the case, the solution is not to avoid the issue—however tempting that might seem—but rather to evolve more and better theory, as argued by Tsoukas and his coworker. So how is “knowledge” defined by those brave enough to take a stand?

1.3 WAYS OF DEFINING KNOWLEDGE AND THE RISE OF A SINGLE PERSPECTIVE

It has been suggest...

Table of contents

• COVER
• TITLE PAGE
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
• FOREWORD
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• PART ONE
• PART TWO
• APPENDIX
• INDEX TO GLOSSARY TERMS
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• SUBJECT INDEX
• END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT