lecture 3 the nature of knowing

Jashapara, Knowledge Management: An Integrated Approach, 2nd Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2011

Slide 2.1

Analysis 1: Evidence and the Nature of Knowledge in the Digital Age

Topic: The Nature of Knowing

Topic Number: 3


Slide 2.2

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• To describe the underlying philosophical traditions in western philosophy and their debates on the notion of knowledge

• To explain different philosophical paradigms in our understanding of knowledge

• To assess positivist, constructivist, postmodernist and realist perspectives in knowledge management

• To identify current typologies of knowledge within knowledge management


Slide 2.3

Question you should think about during this session

• What is ‘knowledge’?

• How does ‘knowledge’ differ from data or information?


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THINKERS ON KNOWLEDGE ACROSS HISTORY

Figure 2.1 Idealist and empiricist perspectives on knowledge


Slide 2.5

PLATO (427–347 BC) – THEAETETUS

• Socratic questionning• Knowledge is perception• Knowledge is true judgement• Knowledge is true judgement together with an

account


Slide 2.6

ARISTOTLE (384–322 BC) – THE METAPHYSICS

• Start with ‘appearances’ – ordinary beliefs and language

• Work through puzzles (contradictions and find central beliefs)

• Come back to ‘appearances’ with better understanding


Slide 2.7

DESCATES (1596–1650) – MEDITATIONS

• ‘Cartesian doubt’ –sceptic• Lay aside things on common-sense grounds that

are doubtful• Doubt you are awake or perceiving anything at

any moment• Imagine malicious demon trying to deceive you• ‘Cogito ergo sum’


Slide 2.8

IDEALISM & EMPIRICISM

• Idealists: Kant (bounded by ‘possible experience’), Hegel (dialectic), Husserl (Phenomenology), Heidegger (being), Satre (consciousness as ‘nothing’)

• Empiricist: Locke (knowledge comes from senses), Hume (truths of reason and fact), Peirce (abductive, deductive and inductive)


Slide 2.9

DAVID HUME (1711–1776)

• Agreed that one could make ‘inductive inferences’ such as A causes B (e.g. night follows day)

• But past experience could not justify future behaviour – no grounds to prove ‘principle of uniformity’ in nature

• Knocked bottom out of science• Divided propositions into ‘truths of reason’ (from

theory or a priori) and ‘truths of fact’ (from practice or a posteriori)


Slide 2.10

KANT (1724–1804) & HEGEL (1770–1831)

• Kant – saw knowledge as bounded by ‘possible experience’. Provided third proposition to Hume ‘Form of Sensibility’ that was synthetic and a priori (space and time are inescapable modes of experience)

• Hegel – saw goal of knowledge as greater development of mind towards freedom. Considered all concepts historically as part of ‘dialectic process’


Slide 2.11

AMERICAN PRAGMATISTS

• Peirce (1839–1914) – development of knowledge follows three phases of inquiry: ‘abductive’ (presenting theories for consideration), ‘deductive’ (preparing theories for test) and ‘inductive’ (assessing test results)

• James (1842–1910) – pragmatic theory of truth to be in accord with underlying evidence

• Dewey (1859–1952) – knowledge closely bound with activity. Keen on learning by doing


Slide 2.12

PHENOMENOLOGY & EXISTENTIALISM

• Husserl (1859–1938) – knowledge based on our conscious awareness. Established movement known as phenomenology

• Heidegger (1889–1976) – concerned with the ‘question of being’. Human existence or ‘Dasein’ linked to public norms

• Sartre (1905–1980) – sees consciousness as nothingness and not subject to rules of causality


Slide 2.13

DATA, INFORMATION & KNOWLEDGE


Slide 2.14

WISDOM & PROVERBS

• Children have more need of models than of critics (French)

• You can’t see the whole sky through a bamboo tube (Japanese)

• There is plenty of sound in an empty barrel (Russian)

• Trust in Allah, but tie your camel (Muslim)• Wonder is the beginning of wisdom (Greek)


Slide 2.15

Questions to think about

• Which philosophical position would you adopt to best understand knowledge in organisations?

• Which philosopher has the greatest influence on your thinking?


Slide 2.16

Ryle & Polanyi

• Ryle: Distinction between ‘knowing how’ and ‘knowing that’

• Polanyi: Develops Ryle’s distinction as existing along a continuum

• ‘the fact that we can know more than we can tell’

Figure 2.2 Philosophy of Gilbert Ryle and Michael Polanyi


Slide 2.17

PARADIGMS & EPISTEMOLOGIES

Figure 2.4 Burrell and Morgan’s four paradigms and different epistemologies (adapted from Burrell and Morgan 1979)


Slide 2.18

Questions to think about

• Please explain why there is almost negligible management research from a ‘radical humanist’ or ‘radical structuralist’ perspective

• Why is management research dominated by a functionalist perspective?

• What are the dangers of a functionalist perspective?


Slide 2.19

REALIST THEORY OF EXPLANATION

Figure 2.7 Realist theory of explanation


Slide 2.20

TYPOLOGIES OF KNOWLEDGE

KNOWING HOW

CONTINUUM KNOWING THAT

Kogut & Zander (1992)

Know-how Information

Nonaka (1994) Tacit Explicit Blackler (1995) Embrained Embodied Encultured Embedded Encoded Spender (1996, 1998)

Individual/Implicit Social/Implicit

Social Knowledge

Individual/Explicit Social/Explicit

Brown & Duguid (1998)

Know-how Know-that

Davenport & Prusak (1998)

Experience Insight Values Data Information

Cook & Brown (1999)

Knowing (Tacit) Discourse Knowledge (Explicit)

Pfeffer (1999) Knowing-Doing Knowledge Hassard & Kelemen (2002)

Processual – Knowing the world

Cultural Practices

Being in the world

Newell et al. (2002)

Processual Perspective

Structural Perspective

Orlikowski (2002)

Knowing Knowledge


Slide 2.21

STRUCTURE OF KNOWLEDGE


Slide 2.22

TAXANOMIC PERSPECTIVE

• Treats knowledge as a commodity• Nonaka with his knowledge conversion

processes• Is tacit and explicit knowledge mutually

constituted?• Can our awareness of knowledge change over

time?


Slide 2.23

PROCESS-BASED PERSPECTIVE

• Draws on social constructivism• Emphasis on ‘knowing as a social and

organisational activity’• Knowing is a form of sensemaking where

individuals develop meanings of the world• Only reality is one of ideas and constituted by

our perceptions


Slide 2.24

PROCESS-BASED PERSPECTIVE (CONTINUED)

• Knowing is dynamic and subject to change• Knowing is uncertain as intersubjectivity and

interpretations may change• Knowing is context dependent and inseparable

from social context• Isolates mental activity as distinctive feature of

self


Slide 2.25

POSTMODERNISM

• Postmodernists emphasise diversity of world, plurality of perspectives and difficulty of obtaining reliable knowledge

• ‘Incommensurability’ – cannot understand radically different discourses while retaining own beliefs

• Can protect favoured discourses from criticism


Slide 2.26

FEMINISM

• ‘Situated’ knowledge concerning power in what constitutes knowledge

• Bears social context of sex, race and gender of authors

• Argues certain positions more advantageous than others

• Problematic as can assume research by white males is distorted but not black females


Slide 2.27

PRACTICE-BASED PERSPECTIVE

• Action is more primary than thought• Knowing is inseparable from practice and

‘embedded’ in human activity• Knowing is something we do rather than

possess• Knowing and practice are mutually constituted


Slide 2.28

PRACTICE-BASED PERSPECTIVE (CONTINUED)

• Orlikowski (2007) argues that social and material are ‘constitutively entangled’

• Uses metaphor of a ‘scaffold’ to describe how ICT scaffolds and influences social activities

• Language conveys meaning but can be ‘ambiguous’ as knowledge depends on context and social activity


Slide 2.29

REALIST CONCEPTION

Figure 2.8 Realist conception of organisational knowledge (Jashapara 2007)


Slide 2.30

Reading and preparatory work to be done

Read:• Jashapara, A. (2011) “ Knowledge Management:

An Integrated Approach” Pearson Education, Chapter 2

Work to be done before the seminar:• Carry out all the reading above• Answer the questions on the handout• Bring your work to the seminar

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Slide 2.31

Essential work for next week

• Please consult the OLE for details of:– Essential readings*– Seminar/workshop preparation work*– Recommended further readings– Any additional learning

* Essential readings and preparation work must always be completed in time for the next session

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lecture 3 the nature of knowing

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