2.1 ADDRESSING SOME KEY QUESTIONS

The following two chapters consider some of the other big questions in knowledge management (KM). What we find, like those around the nature of knowledge, is that the principle issues have changed little over the last two decades. One in particular concerns the question over what KM is all about. This might seem a little surprising considering how long KM has been active in organizational management and research. But this remains a live issue as we will find in the following discussions, and in Part Two in the analysis of a public online knowledge manager’s discussion forum which is themed on this precise question (the topic of computer-mediated communication in general is reviewed in Chapter 6). The roots of the issue can be clearly traced back to the debate over the nature of knowledge itself and the influence of the systems approach.

The present chapter focuses on the constitution of KM, beginning with an investigation of its origins revealing a variety of often competing opinions and viewpoints. The discussions then move onto KM itself, finding multiple perspectives and near limitless boundaries. Particular consideration is given to the question of whether KM is merely a passing management fad. The role of technology as both a defining and push factor in the drive to take up KM reveals interesting perspectives with the suggestion of a further schism in the field: those who consider the nature of knowledge as the KM defining factor and those who approach technology as the single most important factor in its constitution. Inevitably, all of these issues and debates lead to the question of whether knowledge should be managed, with the implication of an ethical issue that is largely unresolved.

2.2 THE ORIGINS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

KM is variously described as having its roots in the 1960s and 1970s, in the 1980s and the early 1990s, and even in the seventeenth-century scientific revolution. Then, there is what David Snowden terms “the three generations of KM,” which we touched on in Chapter 1. Taking a practical line, Karl Wiig proposes that in reality humans have been explicitly or otherwise managing knowledge since the earliest agrarian settlements. One could safely conjecture, following psychologist Thomas Suddendorf’s reasoning, that humans have been managing knowledge for a lot longer than this, implying that sharing and creating knowledge is a basic human behavior. But it has only emerged as a business practice in the latter half of the twentieth century. By far, the majority of commentators locate the beginnings of organizational KM in the mid-1990s marked by the publication of one book. Supportively or otherwise, many credit Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi as the progenitors of modern organizational KM with their book The Knowledge-Creating Company.

Nonaka and Takeuchi’s book presents a detailed account of the theory of the knowledge-creating firm, which arguably stands as one of the most significant KM theories so far developed and which continues to evolve. An earlier account, published in the Harvard Business Review in 1991 , resulted in Nonaka being described as “Mr. Knowledge” by The Economist magazine and, elsewhere, as the author of KM. Beyond doubt, the publication of this book and its subsequent rise to fame have had a paradigmatic impact on the shape, direction, values, and validity of KM in almost every sense.

An important feature of Nonaka and his colleague’s theory is that it draws significantly on the philosophical and scientific domains, particularly on the work of Polanyi as we have already seen in the previous chapter. Consequently, Polanyi’s work has become the second most cited after Nonaka’s in the KM literature. This is shown to have consequences for an understanding of the nature of knowledge (see Chapter 1), with implications for KM success or failure (see Chapter 3) and practice in general. Nonaka’s work and its many derivatives may well set their roots in philosophy and science, but they are roundly criticized in many quarters for misrepresenting, ignoring, or even misinterpreting what these disciplines have to say on the subject of knowledge. In fact, similarly to a labeling of the tacit–explicit distinction as close to achieving the status of banality, criticism of The Knowledge-Creating Company has reached equally mundane status.

A recent alternative to this “received” view of KM’s origins comes from Patrick Lambe who argues that KM is more properly and accurately located in the disciplines of economics and sociology and more specifically organizational learning, intellectual capital, and data and information management. Referring to KM’s “collective amnesia,” he claims that the “five golden years” of KM during the 1990s, which saw the publication of the popular KM classics, effectively erased all traces of its antecedents, thus setting a new agenda for decades to come. As Lambe states: “…a better understanding of prior thinking … can perhaps clarify some of the confusions and inconsistencies that beset knowledge management practitioners, [and] bring focus to some of the muddy thinking and silly doctrines that still abound in knowledge management …” (2011: 178). His central argument is that KM’s direct origins lie in the works of Arrow, Machlup, and Rogers published in the 1960s. These, Lambe insists, laid the foundations of social and economic theory for the next five decades. Moreover, these and similar works debate and address precisely the issues that KM wrestles with today. It is this “carelessness” in ignoring its parentage that is at the heart of KM’s dichotomies, according to Lambe.

However, it is not strictly true that all KM has totally ignored Lambe’s interpretation of “parentage”: for instance, both Nonaka’s Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation and Robert Grant’s Knowledge-Based View of the Firm make reference to works by Machlup and Arrow. Nonetheless, from Lambe’s perspective, there is a hint that KM has run before it can walk.

2.3 MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES AND LIMITLESS BOUNDARIES

It seems a simple enough question—what is KM? But like the nature of knowledge this question opens the proverbial tin of worms. From one perspective, an organizational manager could argue that the management of knowledge is defined and scoped in accordance with what the organization practices. From another, it would make sense to suggest that variations between organizations, industries, cultures, and so on make the need for any kind of common definition of the field somewhat irrelevant. Furthermore, J.C. Spender of the Kozminski University Business School claims at the outset of KM’s “third generation” (see Snowden’s generational account of KM in Section 1.2) that the “vast bulk” of managerial interest lies in a perception of knowledge as an object and a concern with how organizational knowledge is different from the management of other resources. This, he concludes, leads to the conflation of knowledge, information and data, and an approach to KM centered on gathering all of an organization’s “knowledge” into some database.

Writing in the same timeframe as Spender, researchers Bouthillier and Shearer use a framework of six “dimensions” of KM initiative (goals and objectives, the nature of the knowledge under management, the sources and users of knowledge, knowledge processes and methodologies, and technologies used) to investigate publicly available organizational KM case studies. They report eight “distinct KM methodologies” ranging from an emphasis on communication to one on action. What is particularly intriguing about this study is the suggestion of the prime organizational focus on “tacit knowledge,” which they criticize as ill-defined. However, on a cautionary note, Bouthillier and her colleague’s interpretive study is based on an investigation of published case studies and could consequently be questioned on the grounds of selectivity. The researchers do nonetheless raise the valid question of whether KM is just a “faddy” new name for information management, suggesting that the differences between the two disciplines are not well expressed. Such a conclusion would certainly be consistent with that drawn by Spender. However, it could also be interpreted as simply the result of a combination of concern with best practice and organizational differences.

But that being the case, how is the field to evolve and develop, to improve and become more effective if its boundaries cannot be seen? Can there ever be boundaries to the practice of managing knowledge? Interestingly, in the first public outings of his theory, published in 1991 and 1994, Nonaka does not actually define KM. And why should he? His work is concerned with promoting the concept of the knowledge-creating organization at the expense of the traditional “input–process–output” or “learning” conceptualizations of the organization. We do not have to look far to find definitions and accounts elsewhere. The following brief discussions address thematic issues that all arguably stem from the multiplicity of perspective and near boundless constitution of what is referred to as “KM.”

2.4 IS IT A PASSING MANAGEMENT FAD?

A valid question touched on earlier in this chapter concerns whether KM is a “trendy” name for information management. A related question, which has troubled many, concerns whether KM is merely a passing management fad. Laurence Prusak of IBM’s Institute for Knowledge Management insists that KM “…is not just a consultants’ invention but a practitioner-based, substantive response to real social and economic trends” (2001: 1002). However, he does acknowledge that there is some credibility to the “skeptic” perception of KM as a consultant’s new economic gravy train to replace declining revenues from the practice of “reengineering.” Echoing this perspective, Katsuhiro Umemoto of Japan’s Graduate School of Knowledge Science points out that KM has become “a lucrative” industry in its own right. Hardly surprising when as consultant Steve Denning reports in 2012, the World Bank, to quote just one example, spends US$4 billion a year on knowledge services.

Others by contrast express incredulity that KM has even survived as a corporate practice when, according to published research, it has a fairly poor and often negative reputation with, as we have already seen, comparatively high “rates of failure.” Drawing on another example from Denning’s report, a large consulting firm motivated its staff to record “knowledge objects” in an IT repository. Within a few years, around 1.6 million “objects” were stored in the system. One measure might suggest that this was a successful implementation in terms of “outputs,” but from the perspective of outcomes, it was a failure because no one was using it as a knowledge resource. Rather than representing a professional response and toolset for evolving market needs, corporate trends, and pull factors, as Prusak suggests, is KM no more than a manufactured doctrine with a practice designed to generate funds for its practitioners and inventors? Or does it have real substance and a justifiable foundation?

It is suggested here that KM is more than a passing fad. Why? For three pragmatic reasons: Firstly, as researcher Donald Hisplop concludes, the sheer number of journals, books, and conferences devoted to KM, which appears to be increasing, is a testament to the topic’s enduring attraction. Secondly, billions are spent on its practice. Thirdly, perhaps more fundamentally, it is highly unlikely that organizational leaders are going to turn aside from the attempts to leverage that which is generally acknowledged to be their most precious asset. One can also conclude that it takes its origins from multiple directions, which surely make it a far-reaching organizational endeavor, perhaps one with limitless boundaries at that.

2.5 TECHNOLOGY AS A DEFINING “PUSH FACTOR”

Technology, in particular the rapid developments in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and Web 2.0, is implicated by many scholars and authors as an influential driver for the development and uptake of KM. For instance, Bouthillier and her colleague note a reliance on IT in their analysis of KM case studies, consistent with the perceived emphasis on knowledge sharing. If organizations are only intent on knowledge sharing supported by IT as concluded by Spender (see Section 2.3)—and by default, coding, recording, and storing—is it not the case that the object of their intent is not, in fact, knowledge, but rather information? It would seem that in practice KM is at least in part defined by technology and technology practices.

Taking the “technocentric” approach, a recent study by Sirous Panahi and his colleagues at Queensland University of Technology, for instance, emphasizes the role of Web 2.0 and social media and their affordances for sharing tacit knowledge. Specifically, they claim that social media supports tacit knowledge sharing through triggering social and information communications, facilitating collaboration and brainstorming, making personal knowledge accessible, and reducing the time and effort needed to share such knowledge. However, they do admit to a dearth of empirical support for such a thesis. Writing some 16 years earlier, Wiig also notes the lack of academic and management research to support KM in general, so not much has changed. The influence of technology is something of a double-edged sword. Over the years, there has been considerable criticism of KM theories and practice for placing too much emphasis on a systems (IT) approach to the point of risking a loss of distinction from information management, an issue raised at the start of Section 2.3.

Critics of the systems approach include, somewhat ironically given his role in IBM, Prusak who argues that the focus on technology has reductively defined KM as nothing more than “moving data and documents around.” This, and again the irony is inescapable, he blames on the IT vendors. In a similar vein, Charles Despres and his colleague condemn the rush to take up technology solutions and the brushing aside of accumulated wisdom of cognitive sciences, philosophy, and other disciplines. Perhaps then, the “rush to adopt technology” is an explaining factor in Lambe’s problem with “ignored parentage.” Researchers Ragab and Arisha point to evidence that implies that many organizations’ KM initiatives that took a 100% IT-based approach have in fact failed, blaming this state of affairs on the belief in “exaggerated predictions.” The implication is that it was the vendors of IT solutions who were making the predictions—and probably still are.

In Section 3.3, we will encounter the revealing case study reported by Ashley Braganza and his colleague Gerald Möllenkramer. Their forensic investigation of US giant PharmaCorp’s failed KM initiative recounts how, despite having the highest priority, with strong top management support, adequate funding, and dedicated teams of experts, the initiative had no connection with people’s everyday jobs and eventually the KM team was closed down. Braganza and his coworker draw useful “lessons learned” and suggestions for the avoidance of similar pitfalls. What they do not do is draw close attention to the inability of the IT teams to deliver the IT systems in what was essentially a 100% IT-driven strategy, and that this could be construed as a major contributor to failure. Without the intended tools, even if they had turned out to be irrelevant to people’s everyday jobs, the KM initiative could not be implemented as strategically designed. There is no mention of the IT teams being held accountable. Many have pointed to IT-based approaches as the cause for failure. In how many instances was it more a case of IT not fulfilling on its part of the deal, rather than the KM strategy per se failing?

The adherence to technology has softened somewhat, and none but the most dedicated IT purist would consider that technology is the start and end solution to any organizational activity. As John Seely Brown and his coworker argue, problems cannot be solved through the use of information technologies alone, and that to try to do so is to make the error of conflating knowledge and information. Nonetheless, any casual online search for jobs in KM today quickly reveals that IT continues to be the defining hallmark. A recently advertised lectureship at a university, for instance, explicitly linked “KM” to “information systems” in the role’s title. Despite the debates around it, technology, as a specifiable, tangible resource, is perhaps an easier prescription to apply than some of what we will encounter in Chapter 4 on theory.

We have already noted how recent years have seen a marked shift toward a more ecological approach to KM with a more people-centric perspective. Haridimos Tsoukas, for instance, reasons that treating personal knowledge as a definable “thing” that can be withdrawn from the head of its owner and converted into explicit knowledge risks diluting the former’s values. In part, this change in emphasis could be explained by the Web 2.0 phenomenon and its impetus for sharing, broadcasting, and socializing. But, in contrast to Panahi and his colleagues’ perspective on Web 2.0 and tacit knowledge, it is perhaps more a case of web developments ushering in a new era of social networking tools that enable people to become push participants as opposed to passive pull voyeurs.

With KM’s apparent obsession with technology from its earliest days, it is a compelling notion to consider that it is technology in the shape of social networks and media services that are again shaping KM’s theory and practice. But, as ever, there are two sides to the coin. For instance, a research study into the causes of “wikifailure” in a research institution cautions strongly against making the assumption that Web 2.0 tools are the all-in-one solution in overcoming issues with knowledge sharing. Contrastingly, Prusak and Weiss’ emphasis on social networks and new search technologies in facilitating effective KM sounds like support for a Web 2.0-based solution. They do, however, point out that one of the factors underlying “early wave” KM failures was the primacy given to technology. Note though that while their arguments and viewpoints are based on the somewhat slim evidence of anecdotes and references to other literature, the “wikifailure” study, albeit small scale, draws on original empirical evidence. On the point of the usefulness of evolving web technologies, “wikifailure” researchers Garcia-Perez and Ayres conclude that there is still much to understand about Web 2.0 technologies. If this is the case, then what chance for KM and “big data analytics,” with the latter recently identified as constituting both a threat and an opportunity? (see Crane and Self, 2014, for a discussion).

In the alleged rush to take up new technologies and exciting applications, there is evidence that a schism is emerging in the KM field, between those who approach technology as the defining factor in KM and those who prefer a definition based on the conceptualization of its product—and the firm’s most valuable asset—knowledge. Further, technologies continue to be an influential driver, but this paradoxically places KM in a position of risk: What will happen to KM as technologies continue to develop and evolve, opening radically new ways of leveraging their capabilities and contents? But from any perspective, should knowledge be managed at all?

2.6 SHOULD KNOWLEDGE BE MANAGED?

If knowledge is quintessentially social, as many have claimed, should it be managed? In particular, should it be managed, controlled, and ordered in the way that KM seems to suggest? These questions suggest a potential ethical issue. In his review of KM frameworks, researcher Peter Heisig finds that the most frequently discussed KM activities are knowledge transfer, generation, use, storage, management (e.g., organizing and classifying), and acquisition. These can all be understood as “control activities.” (Note that this report, published in 2009 is based on data acquired in 2003 and is drawn from frameworks that include anything from an academic theoretical piece to a firm’s published organizational strategy.)

Evidence of “control” is also found in a study by Sally Burford and her colleagues at the University of Canberra. They divide the literature into two discordant theoretical themes: the traditional approach contrasted with the practice-based approach. The traditional view emphasizes high-level organizational strategy, with work directed and knowledge controlled at every stage from production to use, and the role of manager as central to knowledge work. In contrast, the practice-based view has learning and knowing as embedded in everyday practices and experiences, from which knowledge emerges. In their opinion, it is the latter that is the more successful and practical approach. In other words, traditional KM is about decisions made by managers, and in this paradigm, knowledge simply slips through the organizational net. Connecting back to the question of interest, this view of the practice-based approach has some consistency with the findings of an interesting ethnomethodological study of how representatives of an alliance of organizations evolve into a distinctive and unified social entity through their everyday practices and sharing of experiences: they become a practice in their own right, and there is no suggestion of any attempt to manage the group’s knowledge.

Stephen Gourlay raises the key point made here. In referring to the social nature of knowledge, he suggests that collective knowledge can also be viewed as behavior. In this sense, then, “(T)the issue of consciously influencing others’ unconscious behaviors also raises important ethical questions” (2006: 1429). Among the few researchers who tackle the subject of ethics head on, Isabel Rechberg and her colleague at the Kent Business School, University of Kent in England, focus on the issue of ownership. They claim that this raises a conflict in that while employees have knowledge inside their heads (which they own), their employers require that they share it. Their reasoning suggests that this creates a tension in knowledge processes and potential ethical concerns in the organizational conduct toward those individuals. Their solution is a moral contract between employees and employers, suggesting that such a contract would lead to improved KM practices. That is however speculation, but at least they question the ethics of the assumption that organizations have rights to the contents of employees’ heads.

The whole issue of the appropriateness of managing what some view as a social phenomenon, or as “sticky” to the individual, is sparsely covered in the literature and remains open to debate.

2.7 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

What can be concluded from these discussions on the constitution of KM is that commentators largely agree on the primary aims of KM, albeit often using differing terminologies, but disagree on where its primary emphases should lie and how KM should be practiced. This is in part explained by the difference of opinion in where KM finds its origins with Lambe, for instance, claiming that KM has ignored its real “parentage,” with its connotations of a case of running before walking.

The multiple perspectives on KM’s constitution raise a question over how the field can develop if its boundaries are so blurred—and changeable. However, it could be inferred from all of these perspectives that how an organization conceptualizes itself is a significant factor—perhaps an obvious one—in how it manages its most prized asset. We can see this in two ways: first in the apparent delineation between those who view learning as a subset of knowledge and those “knowledge organizations” that are inherently learning organizations. Second, we can see it the technology marker: the notion of whether the practice of KM is defined by technology or whether it is the conceptualization of knowledge that defines the practice. As a further marker for KM, the systemic/systems thinking approach, with its conceptualization of knowledge as a social phenomenon, accomplished in social interaction, which is a theme introduced in Chapter 1 and which recurs in successive chapters, raises clear implications for the management of knowledge.

All of these questions and debates indicate an apparent gulf between the academic field of KM and that of practice, which surely cannot help but add to the sense of a “disunified” field. This, in turn, raises the question of what scholars and theorists can offer to KM leaders and practitioners who, it seems, may not see the relevance of such avenues of debate—the issue of ethics, for instance, which is largely unresolved.

Perhaps the core lesson is that there is more to managing knowledge than digitization and ICT/IT and that an emphasis on these directions, like Barabba and colleagues’ criticism of KM for an “inventorying approach,” is largely responsible for KM failures. There is perhaps some substance to concerns that KM is too poorly distinguished from IT. But is KM just a passing management fad? The widely held belief in the values of knowledge, the billions spent on its management, and the growing numbers of publications and conferences would suggest that, despite what Vincent Barabba and his colleagues describe as the increasingly negative attitude toward KM, there is no terminal point on the near horizon.

FURTHER READING

1. Barabba, V., Pourdehnad, J. and Ackoff, R. (2002). Above and beyond knowledge management. In Choo, C. and Bontis, N. (Eds). The Strategic Management of Intellectual Capital and Organizational Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2. Hislop, D. (2010). Knowledge management as an ephemeral management fashion? Journal of Knowledge Management, 14, (6): 779–790.
3. Lambe, P. (2011). The unacknowledged parentage of knowledge management. Journal of Knowledge Management, 15, (2): 175–197.
4. Prusak, L. (2001). Where did knowledge management come from? IBM Systems Journal, 40, (4): 1002–1007.
5. Spender, J. (2002). Knowledge Management, uncertainty, and an emergent theory of the firm. In Choo, C. and Bontis, N. (Eds). The Strategic Management of Intellectual Capital and Organizational Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.