Anuj Nanavati
INF 385Q - Knowledge Management Systems
School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin
March 1, 2005
The book The Knowing Organization focuses on how organizations use information to construct meaning, create knowledge, and eventually make decisions leading to the creation of "knowing organization". Author Chun Wei Choo (Choo, 1998) describes "knowing organization" as the organization which is well prepared to sustain its growth and development in a dynamic environment (preface, xi). Further, "knowing organization" is the one that links up three strategic information processes of information interpretation, information transformation, and information analysis that are exercised by sense making, knowledge creating, and decision making into a continuous cycle of learning and adaptation to decide a strategy or a course of action (p. 18, 25). Various theories, concepts, models, and related cased studies for creating, transferring, and managing organizational knowledge were explained for better understanding of the "knowing organization". In addition to providing a brief over of a large number of studies in information science on information seeking, needs and uses; their effects on three principal ways of strategic information use in organization - sense making, knowledge creation, and decision making are also assessed.
These three principal ways are described as follows: Sense making, triggered by ecological change resulting in variations in information flow of the organization, constructs the enacted environment and shared interpretations that serve as meaningful contexts and guidelines for future actions. The shared interpretations motivate and direct the knowledge creation process in which a clear vision is set up for learning and knowledge building. Knowledge creation is achieved through recognition of the relationship between tacit and explicit knowledge in the organization. After developing the understanding and knowledge to act, a decision among available options or capabilities is made in the process of decision making. Various decision routines and premises that specify roles, methods, and norms are adapted to make organizationally rational decision from individual's bounded rationality. These three modes of organizational information use link up in the knowing cycle to achieve organizational goals through adaptive behavior (p. 18). The following sections of the review details organizations as sense-making communities, and knowledge-creating enterprise. Organizations as decision-making system is not discussed here instead an overview of information management in the "knowing organization" is presented at the end.
Organizational sense making is to reduce ambiguity in messages about the environment and to develop shared meaning among members for collective and purposeful action to take place. The principal information activities in sense making are scanning, noticing, interpreting, and sharing of information. Author cites Weick (1995), who defines sense making as a "continuous social process in which individuals look at past events, bracket packets of experience, and select particular points of reference to make webs of meanings". One of the interesting ideas about sense making as "plausible reasoning" in an environment of continuous change and uncertainty was given by Isenberg in 1986. He gives an example to explain plausible reasoning. A general manager who received a phone message from a product expediter in a sister division surmised that the expediter could have been calling for two possible reasons. The surmise was based on his previous experience, existing knowledge, and his impression that he had never interacted with the expediter around any other issue. The general manger also checks with the marking manager about any other possibility of calling. After this process of reasoning he returns the call with minimal effort and minimal risk. Thus "plausible reasoning" helped the manger increase his certainty to the point of feasible action. When thinking is tied to an action people can make clear interpretation of the situation and make more concrete decisions (Isenberg, 1986).
The organizational process of sense making is explained as a sequence of enactment, selection, and retention (ESR). Where raw data from the environment acts as an input to the enactment phase, which brackets raw data and outputs equivocal data for sense making. Equivocal data and enacted interpretations work as inputs to the selection phase, which selects and imposes meanings to them and generates enacted or meaningful environments. These enacted environments are stored as product of successful sense making and used for future ESR sequences (p. 73). The author of the book also points at shared aspect of organizational sense making. Where information is lacking or equivocal; shared beliefs, assumptions, and experiences can reduce ambiguity in order for organizations to be able to act. Overall, the sense making organizations use information to reduce equivocality and develop shared meaning.
Author classifies organizational knowledge as tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge, and cultural knowledge. The "knowing organization" transfers and transforms these three types of knowledge across different levels of the organization. The basis of organizational knowledge creation is the conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit and back again (p. 120). Author gives an example of numerical control as an instance of converting tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge codified into computer programs. This is done by recording the movements and tasks of the most skilled machine operators (tacit knowledge) and converting into machine readable code (explicit knowledge). Author identifies expertise in the knowledge conversion process as the key reason why Japanese and German control the international sales of most machine tools with compared to the United States. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) explain four modes in which organizational knowledge is created through interaction and conversion between tacit and explicit knowledge: socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization. Socialization transfers tacit knowledge such as shared mental models and technical skills through the medium of shared experiences. Externalization transforms tacit knowledge into explicit through shared metaphors, analogies, models, or stories in a collective environment. Combination transfers existing explicit knowledge into new explicit knowledge by combining disparate sources of knowledge. Internalization transforms the explicit knowledge of the applied principles and procedures into tacit knowledge of the individual's style and habit by the process of learning and socializing. Wikstron and Normann (1994) describes three kinds of knowledge processes in organizations: 1) generative process, in which new knowledge is created from problem solving activities, 2) productive processes, in which new knowledge is accumulated and used for consumer offerings, and 3) representative processes, in which knowledge is made available to the customer for their own value-creating process. In summary, to mobilize internal knowledge; information processes are managed to promote sharing of information, conversion of tacit knowledge, and migration of knowledge to other parts of the organization.
Once the understanding is established, knowledge is created, and decision is made it is important to manage created knowledge for future actions. The last chapter of the book explains a process model of information management as follows (p. 271):
The book examines the processes of information interpretation, information transformation, and information analysis that are exercised in sense making, knowledge creating, and decision making leading to the "knowing organization". I think the book is mainly written for organizational managers who have a good amount of managerial experience to relate these theories, models, and concepts to real world situations. Though many case studies and real world examples were provided the book lags in providing practical applications or tools to implement these theories and models. This book appears to go in conjunction with Davenport et al. (2000) and Davenport, et al. (1998).