Reading: What is the nature of knowledge?

 Epistemology can be used “as a tool to cut into the discipline of knowledge management and expose its anatomy” (Spender, 2008, p166 – p.49 of this report)

What is the nature of knowledge?

(scroll down if you just want my views – not the academic report summary)

Knowledge is described as a “loose, ambiguous, and rich” concept that cannot be easily reduced (Alvesson & Karreman, 2001, p.1012 – p.49), but is distinguished into two dimensions:

1. Taxonomic – where knowledge is separated into Cartesian dualistic or continuum-based categories.
   1. Various taxonomies and typologies have been proposed for knowledge perspectives and knowledge types, some of which are hierarchical (e.g. DIKW data, information, knowledge and wisdom; Ackof, 1989), many of which are not (e.g. where knowledge is both pre-cursor and consequence of information (Alavi & Leidner, 2001) or where knowledge is considered as data, as meaning and as practice; Spender, 2008), equally knowledge can be considered as a variety of states: 1) a state of mind – belief that enables confidence to act, 2) an object – a manipulatable thing, 3) a process – simultaneous knowing and acting, 4) a condition of having access to information, or 5) a capability for using information (Alavi & Leidner’s, 2001).
   2. Tacit and explicit models of knowledge are generally accepted, though not whether they are separable (see embedded).  Gourlay’s (2006) taxonomy of dualist approaches to knowledge across various disciplines, reflects the idea that only explicit (not tacit) knowledge relates to consciously analytic and reflective behaviour (observable).  He proposes that knowledge is created through action i.e. a consequence of behaviour, suggesting knowledge can be managed through behaviour.
   3. Schulse & Leidner’s taxonomy (2002) blurs boundaries by using ‘discourse’ as the conceptualisation with knowledge being a ‘double edged sword’ which can lead to unintended negative consequences when organisations attempt to manage knowledge.  Their four discourses are (p.215 – p.53):
      • Normative discourse: positivist, seeking generalisable and causal findings using nomothetic methods
      • Interpretive discourse: social/sensemaking view of organisation using ethnographic and hermeneutic methods
      • Critical discourse: cultural criticism used to reveal / amend power relations
      • Dialogic discourse: uses deconstructionist and genealogic methods to consider “the constructed nature of reality and the role of language in this construction process” (p217 – p.54)
2. Embedded capability – where knowledge cannot be separated from knowing, and explicit knowledge cannot be separated from tacit knowledge, and knowing cannot be separated from doing.
   • Communities of Practice use ‘know-how’ rather than ‘know-what’, which is easily shared within a community but difficult to move between (Brown & Duguid, 1998 – p.54). Knowing is performative where tacit knowledge is a form of knowing constituted through and therefore inseparable from action (Orlikovski, 2002).  Competence and capability are “generated through action and reconstituted through different contexts” (p.54).  If knowledge is embedded in practice, then this challenges the very idea of ‘best’ practice and that knowledge can be transferred across boundaries.

Wow, I made a meal out of that!  And only 5 pages of the report…  Maybe I should come back to this later and try for a plain english version!

What does it mean?

Fundamentally, there are lots of ways of considering “knowledge”.  Some are cleaner and clearer – more black and white – some seem as shades of grey within complexity, identifying the impact of the individual, the group or community, the organisation and the wider contexts.  Some seems to be focussed on particular perspectives – knowledge management rather than knowledge mobilisation for example.

There’s no suggestion that there is a ‘right’ way to consider knowledge in the NHS.  But also no wrong way.  And, perhaps by extension, no easy way.

Any individual who is being recruited to a new knowledge mobilisation or improvement cause may have a different initial conception of knowledge and therefore be operating in what is essentially a different paradigm.  This seems to be a recipe for challenge and dissent, and in a subject area in which I suspect few are sufficiently well versed to argue constructively.

An individual’s epistemology may be one of the fundamental tacit knowledges – do we even know how we think about the nature of knowledge?

How many have the time/space/inspiration to consider this.

And yet it may have a fundamental impact on the ability of organisations to develop systems to mobilise knowledge.

Hmmm…

This summary and reflections was based on the beginning of Chapter 5: Nature of knowledge and knowing from

Reading KM0001: SDO knowledge mobilisation literature review (3)
Crilly T, Jashapara A, Ferlie E (2010) “Research Utilisation & knowledge mobilisation: A scoping review of the literature” Report for the National Institute for Health Research Service Delivery and Organisation programme HMSO