Abstract
This chapter is structured in two main parts. The first part offers a brief, and self-admittedly stylized, overview and critique of dominant approaches to knowledge management and its links with innovation. Adopting a view of knowledge as socially constructed, it concludes from this that, where the specific purpose is innovation, then action concerns need to be as critical to knowledge management as cognitive or decision concerns. The second part draws upon a case study example to begin to draw out some key issues from a more action-oriented approach to knowledge management. This suggests, first, that innovation is often, by nature, a highly interactive process requiring knowledge and expertise from different functions and layers across the organization. In such cases critical problems concern the integration of knowledge across disparate, sometimes loosely formed, social groups and communities, rather than the accumulation of knowledge within communities. Second that if knowledge integration is to develop, then a more action-oriented perspective on knowledge management and the development of associated tools and technologies may be needed.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Alavi, M. and D. Leidner, “Knowledge Management Systems: Issues, Challenges and Benefits,” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 1, Article 7, 1999.
Alvesson, M. “Talking in Organizations: Managing Identity and Impressions in an Advertising Agency,” Organization Studies, 15, 4, 1994, 535 - 563.
Alvesson, M. and D. Karreman, “Odd Couple: The Contradictions of Knowledge Management,” Journal of Management Studies, 38, 7, 2001, 995 - 1018.
Amidon, D.M., “The Evolving Community of Knowledge Practice: The Ken Awakening,” International Journal of Technology Management, 16, 1998, 45 - 63.
Argyris, C. and D. A. Schon, Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1978.
Bijker, W.E., T. Hughes, and T.J. Pinch (eds), The Social Construction of Technological Systems, London: MIT Press, 1987.
Blackler, F., “Knowledge, Knowledge Work and Organizations: An Overview and Interpretation,” Organization Studies, 16, 6) 1995, 16 - 36.
Blackler, F., M. Reed, and A. Whitaker, “Editorial Introduction: Knowledge Workers and Contemporary Organizations,” Journal of Management Studies, 30, 6, 1993, 851 - 861.
Boland, R.J. and R.V. Tenkasi, “Perspective Making and Perspective Taking in Communities of Knowing,” Organization Science, 6, 4, 1995, 350 - 363.
Brewer, M.B., “The Social Self: On Being the Same and Different at the Same Time,” Personality and Psychology Bulletin, 17, 1991, 475 - 482.
Brunsson, N., “The Irrationality of Action and Action Rationality: Decisions, Ideologies and Organizational Actions,” Journal of Management Studies, 19, 8, 1982, 29 - 44.
Chumer, M., R. Hull, and C. Prichard, “Situating Discussions about ‘Knowledge’,” in Prichard, C.; Hull, R.; Chumer, M. and Wilmott, H. (eds), Managing Knowledge, London: Macmillan, 2000, 1 - 19.
Ciborra, C. and T. Jelassi, Strategic Information Systems: A European Perspective, Chichester: John Wiley, 1994.
Ciborra, C., “A Theory of Information Systems Based on Improvisation,” in Currie, W. and Galliers, R. (eds.), Rethinking Management Information Systems. Oxford: OUP, 1999.
Clark, T. and G. Salaman, “The Management Guru as Organizational Witch Doctor,” Organization, 3, 1996, 85 - 108.
Cohen, S., “Knowledge Management’s Killer Applications,” Training and Development, 52, 1, 1998, 50 - 53.
Cole-Gomolski, B., “Users Loathe to Share Their Know-How,” Computerworld, 31, 46, 1997, 6.
Cyert, R.M. and J.G. March, Behavioural Theory of the Firm. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.
Davenport, T.H., S.L. Jarvenpaa, and M.C. Beers, “Improving Knowledge Work Processes,” Sloan Management Review, Summer, 1996, 53 - 65.
De Sanctis, G. and M.S. Poole, “Capturing the Complexity in Advanced Technology Use: Adaptive Structuration Theory,” Organization Science, 5, 2, 1994, 121 - 147
Drucker, P. “The Coming of the New Organization,” Harvard Business Review, January-February, 1988.
George, J.F. and J. King, “Examining the Computing Centralization Debate,” Communications of the ACM, 34, 1991, 63 - 72.
Grant, R., “Toward a Knowledge Based Theory of the Firm,” Strategic Management Journal, 17, 1996, 109 - 122.
Grant, R., “Knowledge and Organization,” in Nonaka, I. and Teece, D. (eds.), Managing Industrial Knowledge: Creation, Transfer and Utlization, London: Sage, 2001, 145 - 169.
Hansen, M.T., “The Search Transfer Problem: The role of Weak Ties in Sharing Knowledge across Organizational Sub-Units,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 44, 1999, 82 - 111.
Hansen, M.T., N. Nohria, and T. Tierney, “What’s Your Strategy for Managing Knowledge?” Harvard Business Review, March-April, 1999, 106 - 116.
Kogut, B. and U. Zander, “What Firms Do?: Co-ordination, Identity and Learning,” Organization Science, 7, 1996, 502 - 518.
Lave, J., Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Lave, J. and E. Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Leonard, D., Wellsprings of Knowledge, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1995.
Levinthal, D. and J. March, J.,”The Myopia of Learning,” Strategic Management Journal, 14, 1993, 95 - 112.
Lindquist, J, J., “Open Sourcing,” European Conference on Information Systems, Vienna, July, 2000.
Markus. L., “Knowledge Management,” Warwick Business School Seminar Series, University of Warwick, August, 2000.
McDermott, R., “Why Information Technology Inspired but Cannot Deliver Knowledge Management,” California Management Review, 41, 1999, 103 - 117.
McLoughlin, I., Creative Technological Change. London: Routledge, 1999.
Mumford, E., “New Treatments or Old Remedies: Is Business Process Reengineering Really Socio-Technical Design?” Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 3, 4, 1994, 313 - 326.
Nahapiet, J. and S. Ghoshal, “Social Capital, Intellectual Capital and the Organizational Advantage,” Academy of Management Review, 23, 2, 1998, 242 - 266.
Newell, S., H. Scarbrough, J. Swan, and D. Hislop, “Intranets and Knowledge Management: De-Centred Technologies and the Limits of Technological Discourse,” in Prichard, C.; Hull, R.; Chumer, M. and Wilmott, H. (eds.), Managing Knowledge, London: Macmillan, 2000, 88 - 106.
Nonaka, I., “A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation,” Organization Science, 5, 1994, 14-37.
Nonaka, I., R. Toyama, and N. Konnon, “Ba and Leadership: A Unified Model of Dynamic Knowledge Creation,” in Nonaka, I. and Teece, D. (eds.), Managing Industrial Knowledge: Creation, Transfer and Utlization, London: Sage, 2001, 13 - 43.
Orlikowski, W.J., J. Yates, K. Okamura,M. Fujimoto, “Shaping Electronic Communication: The Metastructuring of Technology in the Context of Use, ” Organization Science, 6, 4, 1995, 423 - 444.
Orlokowski, W.J., “Improvising Organizational Transformation over Time: A Situated Change Perspective,” Information Systems Research, 7, 1, 1996, 63 - 92.
Orr. J., Talking about Machines: An Ethnography of a Modern Job, Ithaca, NY: IRL Press, 1996.
Prusak, L., Knowledge in Organizations, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1997.
Quintas, P., “Knowledge Management: A Strategic Agenda,” Long Range Planning, 30, 1997, 385 - 391.
Ritzer, The McDonaldization of Society, Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1993.
Salton, G., Automatic Information Organization and Retrieval, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968.
Sarvary, M., “Knowledge Management and Competition in the Consulting Industry,” California Management Review, 41, 1999, 95 - 107.
Scarbrough, H., “The Management of Knowledge Workers,” in Currie, W. and Galliers, R. (eds.), Rethinking Management Information Systems, Oxford: OUP, 1999.
Scarbrough, H. and J.M. Corbett, Technology and Organization: Power, Meaning and Design, London: Routledge, 1992.
Scarbrough, H. and J. Swan, “Explaining the Diffusion of Knowledge Management.” British Journal of Management, 12, 2001, 3 - 12.
Schreiber, G., H. Akkermans, A. Anjewierden, R. de Hoog, N. Shadbolt, W. Van de Veide, and B. Wielinga, Knowledge Engineering and Management, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000.
Schultze, U. and B. Vandenbosch, “Information Overload in a Groupware Environment: Now You See It, Now You Don’t,” Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, 8, 2, 1998, 127 - 148.
Seely Brown, J. and P. Duguid, “Structure and Sponteneity: Knowledge and Organization,” in Nonaka, I. and Teece, D. (eds.), Managing Industrial Knowledge: Creation, Transfer and Utlization, London: Sage, 2000, 44 - 67.
Shadbolt, N. and N. Milton, “From Knowledge Engineering to Knowledge Management,” British Journal of Management, 10, 1999, 309 - 322.
Starburck, W., “Learning by Knowledge-Intensive Firms,” Journal of Management Studies, 34, 1992, 389 - 414.
Swan, J. and P. Clark, “Organizational Decision-Making in the Appropriation of Technological Innovation: Cognitive and Political Dimensions,” European Work and Organizational Psychologist, 2, 1992, 103 - 127.
Swan, J. and H. Scarbrough, “Knowledge, Purpose and Process: Linking Knowledge Management and Innovation,” HICSS Conference, Maui, 2001.
Swan, J., S. Newell, H. Scarbrough, and D. Hislop, “Knowledge Management and Innovation: Networks and Networking,” Journal of Knowledge Management, 3, 1999, 262 - 275.
Swanson E.B., “Information Systems Innovation Among Organizations,” Management Science, 40, 9, 1996, 1069 - 1092.
Tajfel, H., “Social Categorization, Social Identity and Social Comparison,” in Tajfel, H. (ed.) Differentiation Between Social Groups: Studies in the Social Psychology of Intergroup Behaviour. London: Academic Press, 1978.
Tsoukas, H. “The Firm as a Distributed Knowledge System: A Constructionist Perspective,” Strategic Management Journal, 17, 1996, 11 - 25.
Tsoukas, H. and E. Vladimirou, “What Is Organizational Knowledge,” Journal of Management Studies, 38, 7, 2001, 973 - 994.
Vandenbosch, B. and M. Ginzberg, “Lotus Notes and Collaboration: Plus CA Change,” Journal of Management Information Systems, 13, 1996, 65 - 82.
Weick, K.E., “Technology as Equivoque: Sensemaking in New Technologies,” in P.S. Goodman, L.S. Sproull and Associates (ed.) Technology and Organisations, Oxford: Jossey-Bass, 1990.
Wikstrom, S., and R. Normann, Knowledge and Value. London: Routledge, 1993.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Swan, J. (2004). Knowledge Management in Action?. In: Holsapple, C.W. (eds) Handbook on Knowledge Management 1. International Handbooks on Information Systems, vol 1. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24746-3_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24746-3_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-20005-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-24746-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive