What is Knowledge

1
What is Knowledge?

• Epistemology from a practical perspective

2
Week 5 Quiz

• For purposes of Knowledge Management, Fred
  Nickols distinguishes four kinds of knowledge
  tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge,
  ______________ knowledge, and ______________
  knowledge.
• For purposes of Knowledge Management research,
  Venzin, von Krogh, and Roos distinguish three
  epistemologies ______________, ______________,
  and ______________.
• According to Nonaka and Takeuchi there are four
  modes for converting between tacit and explicit
  knowledge socialization, externalization,
  ______________, and ______________.

3
Week 5 Quiz Answers

• For purposes of Knowledge Management, Fred
  Nickols distinguishes four kinds of knowledge
  tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge, declarative
  knowledge, and procedural knowledge.
• For purposes of Knowledge Management research,
  Venzin, von Krogh, and Roos distinguish three
  epistemologies cognitive, connectivistic, and
  autopoietic.
• According to Nonaka and Takeuchi there are four
  modes for converting between tacit and explicit
  knowledge socialization, externalization,
  combination, and internalization.

4
The Knowledge in Knowledge Management

• Explicit Knowledge
• Tacit Knowledge
• Declarative Knowledge
• Procedural Knowledge
• Related Terms
• Implicit Knowledge
• Strategic Knowledge

Source Fred Nickols
5
Explicit, Tacit, and Implicit
Source Fred Nickols
6
Declarative, Procedural, Strategic

• Declarative knowledge consists of descriptions of
  facts and procedures
• Procedural
• Knowledge that manifest itself in the doing of
  something
• Knowledge about how to do something is
• Procedural?
• Declarative?
• Strategic knowledge (know-why, know-when) is a
  form of declarative knowledge
• Do you agree?

Source Fred Nickols
7
Relationship between the four forms of knowledge
Source Fred Nickols
8
Modes of Knowledge Conversion

• Nonaka-Takeuchi Framework
• Tacit to Tacit Socialization
• Tacit to Explicit Externalization
• Explicit to Explicit Combination
• Explicit to Tacit Internalization

Source Fred Nickols
9
Knowledge Development, KD

• Creation
• Collection
• Codification
• Transfer

KD depends on ones choice of epistemology
10
Future Research in KM Agenda

• KM Theory has four layers
• Six reasons why K is important to strategic
  management (layer one issue)
• Reasons to discuss epistemology
• Three epistemologies (layer two epistemology)
• Categories of K, briefly, (layer three
  appearance)
• Applications of K, skip, (layer four
  application)
• Contextualized Research

Source Venzin, von Krogh, and Roos
11
Why K is important

• Implies sustainable, heterogeneous, resource
  distribution
• Changes the nature of resource investment
  decisions
• Increases path dependencies
• Triggers positive feedback loops
• Changes the nature of work and property
• Emphasizes the social context

Source Venzin, von Krogh, and Roos
12
Why K is important

• The emerging importance of K as a source of
  competitive advantage makes it essential to
  rethink the foundations of strategy
• What makes this a challenge is that the nature of
  knowledge is different from that of other
  resources
• K cannot be fully owned by the organization
• K is not easy to transfer or to imitate
• K is context-sensitive
• K is observer-dependent

Source Venzin, von Krogh, and Roos
13
Reasons to discuss epistemology

• Knowing which epistemology is at play enables a
  more efficient and effective use of K
• KD is context-dependent hence managers need to
  be alert to epistemological shifts
• Knowing the different epistemologies empowers the
  manager to choose the most appropriate perspective

Source Venzin, von Krogh, and Roos
14
Three epistemologies

• Cognitivist
• Connectionistic
• Autopoietic

Source Venzin, von Krogh, and Roos
15
Cognitivist Epistemology

• Organizations are open systems that develop
  knowledge by formulating increasingly accurate
  representations of their pre-defined worlds.
• Reality is objective

Source Venzin, von Krogh, and Roos
16
Connectionistic Epistemology

• Organizations are networks that develop knowledge
  by embedding it in the connections of experts.
• Reality is objective but its representation
  resides in the network reality is what the
  network agrees is true experts who have
  accumulated information about parts of the
  objective reality bargain about the truth.

Source Venzin, von Krogh, and Roos
17
Autopoietic Epistemology

• Organizations collect and output only data data
  is interpreted and given meaning and value within
  the organization using self-defined rules thereby
  creating information and knowledge. Knowledge
  resides within the boundaries and cannot be
  transferred directly
• Reality is subjective

Source Venzin, von Krogh, and Roos
18
The importance of K depends on the epistemology

• Implies sustainable, heterogeneous, resource
  distribution
• Changes the nature of resource investment
  decisions
• Increases path dependencies
• Triggers positive feedback loops
• Changes the nature of work and property
• Emphasizes the social context

Source Venzin, von Krogh, and Roos
19
Categories of K

• Tacit (Polyani 1958)
• Embodied (Zuboff 1988)
• Encoded (Zuboff 1988)
• Embrained (Blackler 1995)
• Embedded (Berger and Luckmann 1966)
• Event (Venzin, von Krogh, and Roos 1998)
• Procedural (Zander and Kogut 1995)
• Others . . .
• How relevant these categories are depends on the
  epistemology

Source Venzin, von Krogh, and Roos
20
Clustering Knowledge Categories

• By discipline, e.g., biotechnology
• By development path, e.g., embrained
• By location, e.g., encoded

Source Venzin, von Krogh, and Roos
21
Applications of Knowledge

• For example,
• K Transfer,
• Models of K and KD,
• K and Power,
• Etc.
• The application depends on the epistemology
• For our purposes we can skip the rest of this
  section

Source Venzin, von Krogh, and Roos
22
Contextualized Research

• Strategic management needs to consider different
  epistemologies at the same time in order to
  understand how an organization knows in different
  contexts.
• Autopoietic assumptions have long been ignored,
  and this one-sidedness has implications
• Contextualized Research has three parts
• Make the implicit epistemological assumptions
  explicit
• Retrofit concepts and applications taken from
  other epistemological perspectives before using
  them
• Break assumptions most strategic theory and
  practice was developed during the industrial era
  a new perspective is needed

Source Venzin, von Krogh, and Roos
23
Managing and Measuring Knowledge in Organizations

• Knowledge Spiral
• Socialization ? Externalization ? Combination ?
  Internalization ? Socialization ? . . .

Source Nonaka, Katsuhiro, and Sasaki
24
Five-Phase Model of Knowledge Creation

• Sharing Tacit Knowledge
• Develop methods for sharing individual tacit
  knowledge
• Creating Concepts
• Tacit group knowledge is crystallized into
  concepts through metaphors, analogies, sketches,
  etc.
• Justifying Concepts
• Concepts are validated as worthy of further
  development
• Developing Archetypes
• Justified concepts are transformed into
  archetypes by combining them with existing
  codified knowledge
• Cross-leveling Knowledge
• An archetype moves on horizontally, vertically,
  and across organizational boundaries, thereby
  starting new cycles.

Source Nonaka, Katsuhiro, and Sasaki
25
Sharpe Corporation

• Tokuji Hayakawa and his bias towards quick
  product development
• The Hypertext Organization
• Project team layer
• Business system layer
• Knowledge base layer
• Extensive use of RD conferences
• The Urgent Project System, kin bajji

Source Nonaka, Katsuhiro, and Sasaki
26
Sharpe Corporation

• Extending the ken bijji,
• Concurrent engineering
• Newing products and SE products
• STAR 21
• Tacit knowledge in the market
• The Center

Source Nonaka, Katsuhiro, and Sasaki
27
National Bicycle

• Mass Customization
• Panasonic Order System
• Interactive and service-oriented
• 8 million possible variations
• POS converts customers tacit knowledge into
  explicit knowledge
• POS uses the tacit knowledge of expert workers
  much of which is embedded in the robotics and
  also transferred in mentoring relationships.

Source Nonaka, Katsuhiro, and Sasaki
28
Seven-Eleven Japan

• Creating knowledge by hypothesis testing
• Employee hypothesizes what will sell well
• Each hypothesis is tested by an actual order and
  confirmed by POS data
• Successful hypotheses are collected by field
  counsellors
• A selected one is reported at a weekly meeting at
  headquarters, which is attended by all
  counsellors, top management, and headquarter
  staff
• Town watching
• an alternative means for generating hypotheses

Source Nonaka, Katsuhiro, and Sasaki
29
Seven-Eleven Japan

• Creating knowledge through deductive reasoning
• Four principles are emphasized on a daily and
  on-going basis
• Freshness
• Assortment
• Cleanliness
• Friendliness
• With changing market and technology conditions,
  there principles stimulate ideas for improvements

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Seven-Eleven Japan

• Creating knowledge through team merchandizing
• Delicafoods Cooperative, lunchboxes
• Cooked noodles
• Fresh bread
• Seven-Eleven provides the key data, when to
  deliver the bread
• Itochu provides logistics and distribution
• Ajinomoto Frozen Bakery provides the dough
• Local bread makers bake the bread