Knowledge Management: The Relational Dimension

Neil OlonoffDissertation Summary

Taos-Tilburg Doctoral Program

1990s - knowledge management (Km), began to coalesce

Km derives from diverse sources including◦ Philosophy,

◦ Social sciences, economics, organizational development,

◦ Business theory, rationalization of work (Taylorism),

◦ Psychology, cognitive sciences etc., etc.

In the 1990s Km weathered a stormy infancy. Organizational change and development methods

PLUS attempts to “manage” knowledge seemed to equal CONTROVERSY

KM has survived many challenges: ◦ Should Km exist at all?◦ Efforts by self-interested agents (VENDORS) to

influence its movement in directions they favored. KM now thrives as a turbulent storm of

colliding discourses. These collisions illustrate paradoxes at the

core of organizational life.

Some see two grand discourses in Km: ◦ Information Technology, and

◦ Organizational Learning

I see diverse discourses, among them ◦ the nature of organizational knowledge,

◦ ways of organizing around knowledge, and

◦ individual relationships within and to the organization.

My dissertation is focused on the third discourse, concerning persons and relationships in organizations.

Early knowledge management efforts were exercises in “collection” of knowledge, viewed as an object.

Km moved on to collaboration, and an “activity centric” model of knowledge use.

I will profile a third phase, knowledge as “connection.”

This vision draws on the relational, constructionist view of knowledge.

The knowledge as connection idea confronts us with a paradox at the heart of modern organizations: ◦ Organizations are increasingly complex,

information centric and technological, BUT◦ If knowledge is really relational, THEN ◦ Organizations are also increasingly

dependent on basic human communication – conversation – as the fundamental source of new knowledge.

◦ Two Imperatives: Technology and Complexity versus Human Connection

This paradox generates an opportunity to explore the following questions: ◦ 1. Since organizational knowledge is seen as

largely implicit or tacit, in what sense can any organization be said to own knowledge?

◦ Given that leading organizations are constantly striving for new knowledge creation – i.e., innovation – what does the relational nature of knowledge mean for future organizations?

More questions …◦ How will this conception of intentional and personal

collaboration for knowledge creation interface with the mindset of the traditional, modernist organization with its notions of proper “businesslike” relationships?

◦ Will organizational forms dissolve and deform under the collective weight of hierarchy’s impediments to knowledge flows?

◦ What needs to happen for knowledge intensive firms to evolve into increasingly fertile spaces for trust, conversation and deepening human relationship?

At the present moment we cannot avoid the darkening shadow of economic and social events.

The possibility exists that powerful economic stressors may derail the utopian progression of organizations towards civility, deepening the violence of the collision between modernist and postmodernist discourse.

For more information, contact Neil Olonoff

[email protected]

Neil [email protected]