C H A PT E R 3

Theorizing Knowledge in

Organizations

This chapter provides an overview of the development of research findings and theories related to knowledge management. In order to better understand the notion of “managing” knowledge, there is a need to better understand what it is about knowledge flow in organizations that lends itself to any form of management. 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. In the resource view, knowledge is conceptualized as an object that exists largely in formal documents or online artifacts amenable to organizing and manipulation.The process view, on

the other hand, largely emphasizes the emergent nature of knowledge that is often embedded within a person or within organizational routines, activities, and outcomes, or arises from the interplay of persons and existing information or knowledge.While both perspectives may vary significantly in terms of the scope for the “management” of knowledge, it is still worth exploring the issues and debate surrounding the practice of creating, gathering, and sharing knowledge within organizations.

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. On the other hand, through the process view, organizations are thought of as information processing and knowledge generating systems [Grant, R., 1996]. In the course of innovation and production of goods and services, information and knowledge are regarded as central inputs to organizational processes.

3. THEORIZINGKNOWLEDGE INORGANIZATIONS

tise), and, explicit-collective (rules). Grounding the use of the quadrants in observations of exemplar case-study organizations, Baumard suggests that the creation of organizational knowledge can be tracked by locating actors’ responses (knowing) within the appropriate quadrants of the matrix.

3.2 INTERACTIONS FORKNOWLEDGE 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].Sense-making [Weick, K.,1995] is then seen as an activity that reaffirms whether the decisions and actions taken are rational in hindsight, constituting the “knowledge” that is created.

3.3 ACTIVITY AS CONTEXT

Instead of examining knowledge per se, Blackler, F. [1995] and others propose that attention should focus on systems through which knowing and doing are achieved. By suggesting an alternative stance of knowing as mediated, situated, provisional, pragmatic, and contested, as opposed to a more classic viewof knowledge as embodied, embrained, encultured, and encoded, Blackler recognizes that knowledge permeates activity systems within the organization. Building on Engeström, Y. [1999] general model of socially distributed activity systems, Blackler, F. [1995] 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,

3.3. ACTIVITY AS CONTEXT 21

individuals in organizations gain tacit knowledge, the sharing of which occurs as a result of the mutual participation [Tsoukas, H., 1996].