1. Managing of Knowledge with the
Aid of Communication Technology
Learning Networks at the Countryside Agency
from
Nadejda Ognianova Loumbeva
Project report submitted in part fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of Master of Science (Human-Computer Interaction with
Ergonomics) in the Faculty of Life Sciences, University College London,
(2002).
Note by the University
This project report is submitted as an examination paper. No responsibility
can be held by London University for the accuracy or completeness of the
material therein.

2. I would like to thank Malcolm Ballantine, whose help has been
invaluable for the accomplishment of this thesis.
I would also like to thank Barney Smith at the Countryside Agency,
whose initiative made the present work, and the process of it, possible.
I would also like to wholeheartedly thank my sister, Mira Loumbeva,
who, with great patience and care, typed the whole thesis for me
because I had tendonitis. We sat together for days until all of it had
been typed up. Had it not been for her, this thesis would not have seen
the day. Not many people would willingly go through that kind of a
sacrifice, but Mira did. For this, and all else, I will always remember
her.
Last, but not least, I would like to thank all the facilitators of the three
Pilot Learning Networks at the Countryside Agency: Kate Jopling and
James Hatcher, Carolyn Cadman and Simon Michaels. Their insights
and opinions have been of great help to my understanding of the
Countryside Agency Learning Networks. In addition, I would like to
thank Ian Bilsborough at the Countryside Agency for his help and
enthusiasm for my project.
II

3. ABSTRACT
The present work is concerned with the effectiveness of managing knowledge
using Communication Technology to support this. The main purpose is to
evaluate three initiatives of managing knowledge, using Communication
Technology in this process, at the Countryside Agency, a public sector body in the
UK.
Evaluation is conducted in the following way: After introducing the purpose of
the present work in Part I, a literature review is outlined in Part II, in order to
derive recommendations for successful managing of knowledge using
Communication Technology. These recommendations specify the importance of
ensuring a healthy community-of-practice using the technology, as well as
recognizing that knowledge is different from and superior to information.
Knowledge exists only within interpersonal contexts.
The recommendations also emphasize the importance of tacit, explicit, individual
and organizational knowledge, in a process of dynamic development of this within
social practice. In this way, these recommendations are used as criteria against
which to evaluate the knowledge managing initiatives at the Countryside Agency
in Part III of this work.
These initiatives (called Learning Networks) are in terms of optimizing a
community, by making available a technological solution for use to community
members. This is so that members can optimize the interpersonal interactions
among them, thus increasing the value of the community knowledge discourse.
The evaluation of the three Learning Networks revealed the importance of a social
context necessary for knowledge creation, in order for technology supporting
knowledge processes within a community to be effective, and not only efficient,
in fulfilling its purpose as a knowledge managing tool.
In addition, it was revealed that socially accepted ways of working within the
public sector can inhibit the natural process needed for managing knowledge
within a community. This can make technology used for managing knowledge
within such community largely ineffective in its purpose, even though its
technological usability may be adequate.
III

4. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part I ...………………………………………………………. 1 - 7
1. Introduction to the present work ……………………………….. 2
1.1. Overview of the subject of the present work ……………………….. 2
1.2. Overview of the process behind the present work …………………. 2
1.3. The host organization: The Countryside Agency …………………. 3
1.4. Knowledge Management at the Countryside Agency …………….. 4
1.5. Learning Networks at the Countryside Agency:
What are they? …………………………………………………………… 4
1.6. Learning Networks: the stakeholders ……………………………... 5
1.7. The problem: Are Learning Networks effective for the
managing of knowledge within a community of people? ……………….. 6
Part II ……………………………………………………… 8 – 55
1. Introduction …………………………………………………….. 10
1.1. Summary of the this literature review …………………………….. 11
1.2. Purpose of the literature review …………………………………… 12
2. Situated learning in communities-of-practice ………………... . 13
2.1. Ordained practice and actual practice …………………………….. 15
2.2. Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) ……………………….. 19
2.3. A socio-technical architecture for Communication Technology
and communities-of-practice ……………………………………………. 20
2.4. Conclusions ……………………………………………………….…. 23
3. The ‘real world’ problem: Is Communication
Technology at present useful to human knowledge creation? …. 25
3.1. Information is not knowledge ………………………………………. 25
3.2. Information can not effectively yield knowledge,
unless within the context of practice …………………………………… 27
3.2.1. How knowledge is enabled, but not optimized with
Information Technology ……………………………………………...…. 27
3.2.2. Optimizing knowledge by increasing the value
of social exchange with Communication Technology …………………. 29
IV

5. 3.3. Conclusions ………………………………………………………….. 30
4. Explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge ……………………… 31
4.1. Polanyi’s view on the acquisition of knowledge ………………... … 31
4.2. Understanding information to learn new knowledge …………….. 33
4.3. Communication Technology design
for emerging cultures …………………………………………….….…... 36
4.4. Conclusions ………………………………………………………….. 37
5. Individual and organizational knowledge …………………….. 38
5.1. Why is organizational knowledge important? ……………………..
39
5.2. Nature of organizational knowledge:
explicit heuristics and tacit genres ……………………………………… 40
5.3. Organizational knowledge and individual action ………………… 42
5.4. Conclusions ………………………………………………………….. 43
6. Knowing in practice ……………………………………………. 45
6.1. Knowledge as possession and knowing as practice ……………….. 45
6.2. Productive enquiry ………………………………………………….. 47
6.3. Dynamic affordance ………………………………………………… 48
6.4. Conclusions ………………………………………………………….. 49
7. Recommendations for approaches to
Communication Technology use for managing knowledge …….. 51
8. Conclusions to Part II ………………………………………….. 54
Part III …………………………………………………… 56 – 90
1. Introduction ………………………………………………….… 57
1.1. The problem behind managing knowledge
in the UK public sector ………………………………………………..… 57
2. Methodology …………………………………………………….. 59
2.1. Level of response from each network ……………………………… 59
2.2. Interviews with facilitators of each
Learning Network ………………………………………………………... 60
2.3. Questionnaire emailed to members ……………………………….... 60
2.4. Personal style/preference measures ………………………………... 61
2.5. Rationale behind using the EPQ in the present evaluation ………. 62
V

6. 2.6. Rationale behind using the MBTI
in Learning Network evaluation ………………………………………….63
2.7. Data obtained from the personal style/preference instruments ….. 64
3. Learning Network Evaluation …………………………………. 65
3.1. Market Towns Learning Network …………………………………. 65
3.1.1. Background to the Market Towns Learning Network …………. 65
3.1.2. Evaluation preview ……………………………………………….. 66
3.1.3. Conclusions …………………………………………………….….. 72
3.2. Equipping Rural Communities Learning Network ………………. 73
3.2.1. Background to the Equipping Rural Communities
Learning Network ……………………………………………………….. 73
3.2.2. Evaluation preview ……………………………………………….. 73
3.2.3. Conclusions ………………………………………………………... 78
3.3. Rural Affairs Forum for England Learning Network …………… 80
3.3.1. Background to the Rural Affairs Forum for England
Learning Network ……………………………………………………….. 80
3.3.2. Evaluation preview ……………………………………………….. 81
3.3.3. Conclusions ………………………………………………………... 86
4. Learning Network Evaluation: Limitations …………………... 87
5. Learning Network Evaluation: Conclusions ………………….. 89
References …………………………………………………….. 91
Appendices ………………………………………………….… 99
VI

7. LIST OF TABLES
Market Towns Learning Network Evaluation:
Table 1 …………………………………… p. 111
Table 2 …………………………………… p. 112
Table 3 …………………………………… p. 113
Table 4 …………………………………… p. 113-114
Table 5 …………………………………… p. 115-116
Table 6 …………………………………… p. 117-118
Graph 1 ………………………………….. p. 120
Graph 2 ………………………………….. p. 121
Graph 3 ………………………………….. p. 121
Equipping Rural Communities Learning Network Evaluation:
Table 7 …………………………………… p. 122-123
Rural Affairs Forum for England Learning Network Evaluation:
Table 8 …………………………………… p. 124-125
VII

8. Part I
Introduction

9. 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE PRESENT WORK
1.1. Overview of the subject of the present work
The present work was set out with the aim to evaluate three technological
attempts at managing knowledge within an organization.
These attempts are in terms of providing an electronic extranet for use to a
community of people brought together by their interest in a domain of practice, a
topic or a shared activity. The extranets, also called ‘dynamic extranets’ by the
organization, were designed and delivered with the assumption that the shared
electronic space they offer will serve to bind the people participating in the
communities together, in order for them to elaborate on their knowledge. This
would be by improving the quality of the interactions among them and thus
making the knowledge possessed by individuals readily available to all
community members. Therefore, the extranets were endowed with functionality of
communication potential, in terms of: member log-in, subgroups, discussion
forums, member expertise search facilities, chat rooms, documents loaded for
member use, automatic notification of members concerning contributions posted
on the network, member database, who’s logged on feature and brainstorming.
This was aiming to provide opportunities for online communication among
individuals and between them and the entire community.
The present work is the result of the evaluation of these three technological
attempts at managing knowledge, in terms of their effectiveness at delivering the
values they were planned and designed to fulfill. Because these technological
initiatives were conceived as essentially knowledge managing initiatives, they
were evaluated against general criteria for managing knowledge within
organizations. This is in terms of the benefits technology can bring into this
process and its limitations at making it effective, should it be regarded as the only
means for creating a cohesive community where knowledge is regarded as a
public good and is thus readily available to all community members for the
fulfillment of desired aims and objectives.
1.2. Overview of the process behind the present work
The evaluation consisted of conducting informal unstructured and semi-structured
interviews with the managers of each extranet (facilitators), as well as distributing
2

10. a general questionnaire to members of the communities that the extranets were
deemed to support. These interviews and questionnaire were designed to
investigate the assumptions behind managing and using the extranets, as well as
the perceived benefits of members from not only using the extranets, but also
being part of the communities that these extranets support. In this way, the
effectiveness of the extranets at supporting general knowledge managing
strategies, thus being appropriately used according to the nature of optimization
potential they can offer, was verified.
In parallel to this, a literature review, drawing upon literature exploring the
opportunities that technology offers to make knowledge managing more effective,
was carried out to inform the evaluation process. On the basis of this literature
review, recommendations for managing knowledge within communities and
organizations, with the help of the potential offered by Communication
Technology, were derived. These recommendations were used as criteria against
which to evaluate the extranets (described below), following on the relevant
material obtained from the interviews and questionnaire responses.
The results of the literature review are outlined in Part II of this work. The results
of the evaluation of the three extranets are outlined in Part III. Both of these aim
to establish an understanding of learning and the nature of knowledge that will
inform the effective planning, design and carrying out of knowledge managing
within organizations strategically supported by Communication Technology.
1.3. The host organization: The Countryside Agency
The organization hosting these technological attempts at managing knowledge is
the Countryside Agency in the UK. The Countryside Agency (from now on
referred as ‘the Agency’) is a non-departmental public sector organization
concerned with the preservation of the English countryside and the development
of rural areas within this country. Its responsibility within the public sector is to
advise central and local government on ways forward through practical projects
and take action on issues affecting the social, economic and environmental well
being of rural areas and communities. Within their role and function, the Agency
aim to influence other organizations with similar purposes by conceiving and
developing projects, thus creating a unified strategy to rural development. The
Agency resulted from the merger of the Countryside Commission and the Rural
Development Commission in April 1999.
3

11. 1.4. Knowledge Management at the Countryside Agency
About a year ago (June 2001), following on the Modernizing Government White
Paper (1999), the Agency began to invest resources in knowledge management.
The White Paper constructed a vision of electronic public services, moving the
UK to a knowledge-based economy. The aim was to move towards a modern,
joined up government, by sharing ‘best practice’, in order to learn from this for
the sake of future developments.
In relation to this, a Knowledge Management Team was assembled at the Agency,
which purpose is to design initiatives making knowledge within the Agency, as
well as among this and other big and small organizations concerned with rural
development and preservation within England (most frequently Agency partners
and contractors), readily accessible to those who need it. In this way, the
Knowledge Management Team works alongside all other teams within the
Agency, as well as organizations with purposes similar to this, towards a better
state of the English countryside.
In order to explore the potential of technology for making knowledge within a
community of, frequently very busy, people more effective towards achievement
of desired objectives, the Knowledge Management Team, following on the idea of
the Countryside Agency Chief Executive, set out to develop three pilot knowledge
management initiatives. They called these initiatives Learning Networks, which
the present work aims to evaluate in terms of their success at bringing people
together to collaborate and learn from each other, in order to make their individual
and collective work practices more effective.
1.5. Learning Networks at the Countryside Agency: What are they?
A Learning Network, as is viewed by the Agency, is either a ‘community of
purpose’, composed of people who share knowledge and information in working
together towards a ‘smart’ objective, or a ‘community of practice’, composed of
people performing similar tasks and having similar roles, helping each other by
sharing knowledge of their practice. In both cases, the aim is to manage
knowledge within the group in order to benefit a specific objective or a more
general work practice.
This process is primarily enabled by web technology, also called a ‘dynamic
extranet’, although it is not unusual for the community to pre-date the Learning
4

12. Network. Learning Networks provide a web-based space, specifically designed to
project Agency messages and views on creating policies.
The people participating on the network are brought together to collaborate on a
project, theme or issue, in order to produce a successful, more or less defined,
outcome. In this process, these people are always managed in their collaborative
activity by a ‘facilitator’, who aims to bring their efforts at the successful
fulfillment of the desired objective.
In this way, Learning Networks aim to engage various stakeholders in a project
from the very earliest stages of this project development, in order to implement
their views within executive decisions. Learning Networks are not expected to
completely replace face-to-face meetings in these processes, but merely save
precious time often lost in travelling across distant geographical locations.
1.6. Learning Networks: the stakeholders
Within the process of planning, delivering and fulfilling a Learning Network,
there are a number of stakeholders involved, each having different conception of
what makes a successful network.
First of all, there is the view of the Knowledge Management Team within the
Agency, which is essentially concerned with the effective branding of the Agency
throughout Learning Network participation. In particular, it is important that each
network, by engaging participants in a purposeful community process, succeeds in
influencing strategies and practical projects for countryside development.
Then, there are the views and expectations of Learning Network participants.
These are essentially concerned with their ability to effectively participate on the
network, so that they can derive practical benefits from their participation that
they can use to improve their work. Effective participation, in their terms, is being
able to connect to others in the way they want to, using technology, or not, and
respecting public sector role assumptions, values and beliefs, or not. In order to
do this, members need to be drawn to the network community out of genuine
interest in its shared activities and not be forced or obliged to participate, thus to
fulfill their ordained role within this sector. In any case, they want to learn more
about the issue being discussed and benefit from networking opportunities. Thus
network members are concerned with having free access to other members, in
order to elaborate on each other’s knowledge and build relationships. They also
want to have sufficient time to do so from their general work commitments, i.e.,
5

13. for them, their work practice must allow for the execution of a knowledge practice
within it, so that it can be effective.
Finally, there are the views of Learning Network facilitators, concerned with
managing member participation and, when necessary, leveraging this towards the
achievement of desired objectives. In order to do this, facilitators need to have
sufficient knowledge of the area subject of member discussions and also be
committed themselves to enriching the knowledge and expertise contained within
the community, regarding this area of interest. They will also want to be given
sufficient freedom to facilitate the network as it seems best to them at any one
time, according to their commitment to its purpose and their interest in benefiting
all members, not limited by contextual pressures to make network facilitation the
exclusive arena for Agency branding.
1.7. The problem: Are Learning Networks effective for the managing of
knowledge within a community of people?
Despite the potential dynamic extranets offer to the managing of knowledge
within a community of people, the three pilot Learning Networks at the Agency
have presented some problems with their use. Precisely, there seems to be not
enough participation and involvement from members as would be expected form a
vibrant community where knowledge is dynamically exchanged among people
and thrives in continuous renewal.
In particular, one of the pilot Learning Networks, the Rural Affairs Forum for
England network, has been used very poorly. From an overall of 66 members, 13
have never logged on the network since its launch in November 2001 until July
2002 (20% of members). 33 members have logged on less than 10 times for the
duration of this time and the majority of log-ins for this period have in fact
originated from network facilitators (48%). Only 6% (4 members) have made
active contributions to the network by creating dialogues and 15% of members
have contributed to these dialogues (10 members). Countryside Agency members
initiated the main part of these active contributions, although there are only 6
Countryside Agency members on the Forum. The maximum total number of
logins per member was estimated at 42, which is less than once each week since
the Network was made available for use to Forum members.
The situation with another of the pilot networks, the Equipping Rural
Communities Learning Network, is similar, although not so extreme at first sight.
6

14. Interviews with the facilitator and material provided by some of the participants
indicated that contributions on the network are not genuinely driven by learning
interest and are proportional to facilitator input. In other words, members do not
seem to engage enough with the community purpose and contribute to it for the
sake of being part of an initiative introduced by an influential organization and not
for the sake of participating in a learning experience intimately valuable to their
interests and concerns.
Finally, the last of the pilot Learning Networks, the Market Towns Learning
Network, has been used very little at the beginning of its initiation, seemingly
because there were too many members on the whole, not knowing each other
sufficiently to engage in discussion. Although the network has since gained a lot
of speed and is much better used by its members at the moment, these being
generally interested in its purpose, there seems to be lack of focus of the issues
being discussed. In this way, using the network has little perceived benefits to
members and the Agency, despite the fact that it has generated reasonable public
sector interest.
This outline of Agency Learning Networks’ effectiveness problems is not
exhaustive and is meant to merely introduce the issue of interest, which is social
and organizational aspects of using Communication Technology.
In other words, the nature of the Countryside Agency pilot networks’
effectiveness problems is, in the body of this work, shown to arise from
insufficient emphasis on the people using the networks, the latter as only one
means for developing dynamic relations among them, in order to collaborate and
renew their knowledge.
Precisely, even though the Learning Network websites appear to be mostly good
and adequate in their usability, they appear to be insufficient in enabling
communication among people, aiming to bring desired benefits to a specific
purpose or general practice. Appropriate facilitation of the community using the
network, in terms of enabling social conditions for development of vibrant
interpersonal relationships, appears to be of much greater importance to what
makes a Learning Network, in terms of the technology that it uses, effective.
7

15. Part II
Literature Review

16. LEARNING AND THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE
How to Optimise Human Knowledge by Using Communication Technologies
as Part of a General Knowledge Managing Strategy
“If managing knowledge is the solution, then what is the problem?”
Zack, 1999
“If companies are going to compete on knowledge, and manage and design
structures and technology for it, they need to base their strategy on an
understanding of what the knowledge challenge is.”
Wenger, McDermott and Snyder, 2002
“We can know more than we can tell.”
Polanyi, 1966
9

17. 1. Introduction
Within the recent five years, there has been a growing interest in the nature of
knowledge, in terms of its generation, transfer and application within firms and
organisations. Knowledge has been regarded as the most important asset for
competitive advantage, unlike the nature or amount of financial or technological
resources that organisations possess, especially for organisations competing in
uncertain environments (Miller and Shamsie, 1996; Penrose, 1959; Winter, 1987).
In effect, knowledge is what harnesses the financial and technological potential of
an organisation towards the realisation of its mission.
Theorists have argued that knowledge is the firm’s most important resource
because it represents intangible assets, operational routines and creative processes
that are hard to imitate (e.g. Spender, 1996). Through understanding the nature of
knowledge, organisations have been looking to inform the process of managing
this knowledge within, and among, them, in order to assure themselves
competitive advantages. These advantages are viewed as the successful adoption
of organisations within sectors, industries and markets, as well as their ability to
induce changes into these areas (Brown and Duguid, 1991).
However, Birkinshaw (2001) notes that although managing knowledge ‘promises
very much, often it delivers very little.’ (p. 11). He further notes that this is
because managing knowledge has focused on managing information propagated
via IT systems, rather than managing social relations that use this information as
knowledge.
Indeed, within the present work, it is shown that, in an effort to initiate and sustain
competitive advantages, organizations have concentrated on ‘knowledge
management’, rather than ‘knowledge managing’ (these terms are arbitrary in
making the desired distinction).
‘Knowledge management’ regards knowledge as a commodity, i.e. an entity that
can be removed from people and transferred among them like an object. This is
equal to information, which is of little use in practice (i.e. Davenport and Prusak,
1998) and is observed in organisations investing resources in developing IT
repositories for ‘codified knowledge’ (Birkinshaw), such as ‘best practice’
databases. These databases in fact remove knowledge from its original context of
creation that enables its effective meaning. In this way, ‘knowledge management’
in such organisations is no more than information management, of little use to
employees in the context of their inherently social day-to-day practices.
10

18. ‘Knowledge managing’, in contrast, recognises the continuous social construction
of human knowledge via the dynamic nature of community discourse (e. g.
Lanzara and Patriotta, 2001). In this way, there is recognition that knowledge is
part of society and not produced by technology. Organisations adopting such an
approach invest in facilitation of social communities-of-practice as vibrant
contexts for knowledge creation and aim to support, but not ordain, these
communities by Communication Technologies (CT).
The above distinction makes clear that, to effectively engender ‘knowledge
managing’, rather than ‘knowledge management’, organisations need above all to
enable and support the social contexts that yield knowledge. They need to
optimise human processes within these contexts by Communication, rather than
merely Information Technologies.
1.1. Summary of this literature review
In the present literature review, the reasons why adopting a strategy about
knowledge, rather than information, brings benefits to organizations are explored.
It is argued that this is because social contexts nurture personal commitment and
beliefs in their members that endow information delivered by, amongst others,
Information Technology, with significance generating knowledge (e. g. Nonaka
and Takeuchi, 1995, p. 59). Knowledge processes are above all socially enabled,
before they can be supported and effectively optimised by technology. These
processes happen during communication among people, therefore development of
social relations is far more important than development of digital information
(Tsoukas, 1998). Optimising social relations by Communication Technologies is
far more effective in managing knowledge than merely investing in information,
because all knowledge, as a personal phenomenon, happens within collective
contexts of interpersonal interaction (Tsoukas and Vladimirou, 2001). These
contexts allow for knowing what to do within particular circumstances, which is
far better than having the information without knowing what to do with it. And
knowing what to do happens within communities-of-practice.
Optimising such collective contexts of interpersonal interaction is possible by
using Communication Technologies. Designing multi-user systems aiming to suit
group and organisational requirements for effective knowledge creation, rather
than aiming to solely suit individual users, is necessary. Within the literature, this
has been referred as a socio-technical system interaction between social practices
11

19. and technology tools (Kling, 1993), where organisational analysis embraces
computer science, and can be seen as a superior form of human-computer
interaction that should be enabled to continuously develop over time. In this way,
organisations’ knowledge potential would be increased because knowledge, as the
most valuable asset organisations have, would be optimised.
1.2. Purpose of the literature review
The purpose of this review is to specify recommendations for enabling and
supporting social contexts within organisations, in terms of an approach to
Communication Technologies (as part of Socio-Technical systems) design and
use for managing, and not merely management, of knowledge. These
recommendations are subsequently used to evaluate the effectiveness of three
knowledge-managing initiatives at the Countryside Agency, a non-government
organisation in the UK. In such a way, the validity of these recommendations is
verified against the success of these initiatives at managing human knowledge and
not information.
The derivation of recommendations is attempted after reviewing literature
discussing the situated learning within communities-of-practice, shown to
effectively use and generate human knowledge (2). The reasons why situated
learning within communities-of-practice is effective in sustaining knowledge
processes are explored in reviewing additional literature about technology
usefulness to human knowledge (3), the nature of learning and knowledge as both
an explicit and tacit process (4) and an individual and group/organisational
process (5), as well as the notion of practice (6).
12

20. 2. Situated learning in communities-of-practice
In their work based on ethnographic observations, Lave and Wenger (1991) and
Wenger (1998) conclude that knowledge is a social phenomena dynamically
constructed as part of practice. This practice takes place within self-selected
communities (Rheingold, 1993), defined to embody the purpose of knowledge
creation. In this way, learning of knowledge and knowing how to use this
knowledge within these communities is an integral part of the community
practice, i.e. learning within these community contexts is situated within the
particular circumstances that the practice presents, demanding the application and
derivation of knowledge. These circumstances have also been described as
essentially different from those in the classroom, where absorption of abstracted
heuristics is encouraged without reconnecting these to their original sources in
actual practices (Brown, 1998).
Wenger and Snyder (2000) describe communities-of-practice as ‘groups of people
informally bound together to share expertise and passion for a joint enterprise’
(italics added). This description is reminiscent of Polanyi’s view of spoken
communication as:
‘the successful application … of the linguistic knowledge and skill acquired by … (an)
apprenticeship, (when) one person (is) wishing to transmit, the other to receive, information.’
(Polanyi, 1962, p.206, italics added).
Polanyi regards spoken communication as enabled by the ‘intelligent effort’ of
individuals within groups unified by a common practice, such as an
apprenticeship (also referred by him as a ‘common complex culture’1). These
individuals are willing to share their expertise with the group and actively use in-
1
Polanyi (1962) argues that such communities are found within ‘common complex cultures’.
Similarly to ‘infocultures’ (Newell et al., 2001, later described in this review), these cultures
are communities where ‘a network of confidence’ and mutual trust makes possible the
generation of ‘systems of facts and standards’ (i.e. systems of explicit heuristics and tacit
knowledge for applying heuristics in practice) (Polanyi, 1962, p. 375). Such systems of facts
and standards are created in the process of elaboration on the personal knowledge of
members of these cultures, by them sharing in the ‘intelligent effort’ of other individuals,
such that ‘one person wishes to transmit and the other to receive, information’ (p. 206).
Polanyi further describes these ‘systems of facts and standards’ as ‘superior’ (i.e. beyond
personal) knowledge, upheld by people mutually recognizing each other as a community and
thus perceiving their knowledge to be of social value. Such superior knowledge is closely
reminiscent of community knowledge found within communities-of-practice (as described by
13

21. coming information to elaborate on their knowledge. The presence of shared
intelligent efforts follows from the joint passion to learn about an enterprise as the
subject of common interest, and creates conditions for collective learning in
action. The application of existing knowledge in action is what allows not only the
sharing of tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge within the community-of-
practice, but also the development of new ways of knowing this knowledge and
applying skills in combinative ways, during the development of multiple
interpersonal relations. Communication Technologies should aim to optimize
social processes within these communities, rather than exclusively focus on what
is seen as developing the knowledge these processes generate. This is because
knowledge is socially constructed and cannot possibly exist outside of the
interpersonal context of its creation.
Knowledge creation within these communities is distributed throughout multiple
‘actors’ (Araujo, 1998) by the development of interpersonal relations, which
acquire a ‘routine’ status over time, as they become social platforms for
knowledge creation (Nanda, 1996). Supporting these social platforms by
technological infrastructure in order to optimize their development is by
collaborative technologies such as listservs, electronic discussion and chat (Wasko
and Faraj, 2000), which can bring novel aspects to the debating processes within
the community and keep track of the progression of the interpersonal interactions.
Von Krogh (1998) further points out that the motivation behind the creation of
these social platforms is not self-interest, but care for the community, where
knowledge creation is engaged in for the public good of all members. As a result,
knowledge is viewed as a process that collectively benefits the community and is
thus the moral obligation of all members. Similarly, Wasko and Faraj (2000) and
Rheingold (1993) observe that for long-standing electronic communities, the main
motivation behind participation is generalized reciprocity, where help given to one
person is reciprocated by someone else in the future, in a common expectation
that community interaction is on-going and self-fulfilling. Technological support
designed to optimize these social processes must consider their spontaneous and
unconstrained nature, by using technological platforms flexible enough to co-
evolve with the life within the community.
Lave and Wenger, 1991) and organizational knowledge found within organizations (e.g. as
described by Tsoukas and Vladimirou, 2001).
14

22. Thus communities-of-practice, through the cultivation of social bonds, offer the
conditions enabling not only knowledge, as existing and newly acquired, but also
knowing this knowledge in actual practice. Schultze (1999) points out that
knowledge within such communities is ‘the social practice of knowing’, where
learning new knowledge, knowing this in practice and innovating by applying
existing knowledge and knowing in novel ways are inexorably connected in
practice. This is because, by their informal, continuously evolving and enacting
nature, these communities are vibrant fields for active experimentation and
innovation. In this way, within communities-of-practice, there is a purpose of
learning about being a practitioner and not merely learning about practice (Brown,
1998). Knowledge and knowing are thus continuously intertwined in a ‘generative
dance’ (Cook and Brown, 1998), which ensures the success of these communities
as ‘knowledge communities’. Technological support for this generative dance
should be designing for optimization of the social context, in order to benefit the
purpose of action learning. When a community of people engage in action
learning they, without realizing this, manage their knowledge and knowing
throughout their practice.
2.1. Ordained practice and actual practice
Importantly, Brown and Duguid (1998) note that ‘conventional communities are
not necessarily communities-of-practice’ (italics added), thus observing the
difference between formal communities imposed ‘from above’ and informally
fluid communities-of practice. In this way, attempts at managing knowledge and
knowing by bringing people together using formal obligations, expressed by the
institutionalization of over-structuring ‘knowledge’ databases and other IT tools,
will not be successful for the purpose of managing knowledge within this
community.
Wasko and Faraj (2001) note the prominent conservative approach to applying IT
through the automation of existing processes in industry, based on the assumption
that ‘design of the original process is satisfactory’ (p. 6). Such an approach
focuses on processes creating operational efficiency rather than people
participating in them (in the terms of Business Process Reengineering) and
reinforces existing management practices investing in efficiency, rather than
effectiveness, this by bringing people together to fulfil ordained roles rather than
collaborate. Such an approach is also expressed by statements of ‘computers being
15

23. everywhere except in the productivity statistics’ (Solow, 1987), ignoring that the
way to productivity is indirect and passes by ensuring healthy social relations
first, before (and no doubt importantly) ensuring efficient computer systems.
Therefore, because of the already discussed social and inherently voluntary nature
of human knowledge, cultivated by developing strong interpersonal relations
stimulated by shared interest, management practices should focus on knowledge
rather than mechanistic notions of efficiency (Brown, 1998). Managing
knowledge, in itself, is about informally facilitating emerging social relations and
stimulating development of moral obligation behind participation in communities-
of-practice. It is not about imposing a rigidity on the flexible reality of actual
practice.
Orr (1996) further illustrates the gap between ordained practice and actual
practice. In his detailed ethnographic studies of service technicians, he observed a
marked distinction between the practice imposed on the technicians by the
organization (in terms of impoverished instruction manuals for repairing copiers
at customer sites that top management considered sufficient in doing the job), and
actual practice that the technicians found most comfortable and fulfilling in the
process of their jobs. Actual practice of the service technicians took place within
informal communities-of-practice, rather like social ‘organisms’ thriving with
knowledge and knowing processes. Orr describes these communities as:
“ Occupational communities…have little hierarchy; the only real status is that of a member…are
often non-canonical and not recognized by the organization. They are more fluid and interpretative
than bounded, often crossing the restrictive boundaries of the organization to incorporate people
from the outside (and that can include both suppliers and customers).” (Orr, 1990a).
In this way, within service technicians’ informally interpretative actual practice,
there were conditions for the social derivation and construction of knowledge, this
by the production and dissemination of stories telling and interpreting work
experiences. Within these stories, the technicians organized seemingly unrelated
events into coherent discourse artifacts, connecting cause and consequence to
inform the understanding of their jobs, in terms of the insufficiency of formal
instruction. By accumulating socially distributed insights in the process of their
social discourse, they actively engaged in constructing a collectively explicit
memory as a summary of their practice, as well as a collective tacit understanding
of what the spoken and material practice artifacts mean. This is reminiscent of
16

24. case studies described by Tsoukas and Vladimirou (2001) and Lanzarra and
Patriotta (2001), where communities-of-actual-practice invented ways for
applying ordained practice artifacts (in terms of technology imposed ‘from
above’) to suit their purposes, because these artifacts failed to account for the
contextual demands of actual practice2.
Therefore, actual practice, in terms of engaging in and caring for a community-of-
practice, provided a context where the ordained practice, in terms of impoverished
work manuals, was actively reconnected to the situated demands of specific work
cases. In other words, actual practice presented conditions for ‘situated learning’
from events occurring and actions initiated in this practice (Lave and Wenger,
1991), as opposed to the practical deficiencies of instruction manuals, formally
telling what to do in this practice. Actual practice, in terms of the community that
the technicians had defined for themselves, in fact compensated for the rigid
deficiency of the ordained practice (despite the existence of the community having
been opposed by top management on multiple occasions, until its strategic
importance was recognized).
In this way, Orr shows the importance of communities-of-practice as contexts
where knowledge applicable in practice is actively constructed; therefore these
contexts should be encouraged to develop. Brown (1998) further notes the
importance of communities-of-practice as contexts where leveraging of ordained
practices is made possible in order to assure organizational competitive
advantages in accordance with the purpose behind the organization. It is clear
therefore that creating conditions for emergence of common practices is crucial to
successful managing of knowledge within and among organizations. Furthermore,
optimizing processes of actual practice by Communication Technology (from now
on referred to as CT) must consider their autonomous self-fulfilling nature that
2
Lanzara and Patriotta (2001) illustrate the effect of this in a case study on organizational
knowledge in the courtroom. These authors show the highly ‘interactive, provisional and
controversial nature’ of knowledge found within courtroom communities struggling to find
a meaning for novel technology introduced within the community process (i.e. videotape
recording of Mafia trials as a more efficient means for trial documentation). In effect, the
courtroom communities were faced with a novel artifact, the need for which was not
naturally derived by them in the process of its practice (as it should be in effective cultures;
Schein, 1985), but considered to be necessary by outside parties. The authors adopt a socio-
constructivist perspective to knowledge formation, arguing that knowledge can only be
understood in its practice, therefore optimizing this practice via technology must
successfully ‘integrate’ the technology within the community. Within the courtroom
described by them, “actors keep designing local solutions and arrangements in order to
integrate the VCR into the activity system.” (p. 963). In this way, there was a struggle
between actual and ordained practice that ended by integrating the technology in
knowledge processes in only a few cases.
17

25. resents over-structuring designs in attempts at other than facilitating their
development.
The above makes clear the opposition that may exist between ordained practice
and actual practice in organizations, when management ignores that adults tend to
learn in the multiple contexts of their work by attending to situated demands from
specific circumstances, rather than by following institutionalized abstractions of
work practice (e.g. Burgoyne and Hodgson, 1983).
Such contradictions are often reinforced by the very design of information
technology implemented within organizations. This technology is designed with a
view of over-structuring the learning-while-and-in-working of employees, in order
to control for accountability, rather than foster initiative; in order to define
responsibility, rather than genuine interest; in order to enhance competition, rather
than rivalry; and in order to maintain secrecy and privacy, rather than openness to
external perspective (Brown, 1998).
Ordained practice is thus an abstract ‘modus operatum’3 that removes practice
from a situated context of taking place, ignoring the importance of action learning
in managing knowledge. In contrast, actual practice is an ‘opus operandi’4, where
practice exists only within concrete circumstances in reconnecting the abstract
knowledge of group heuristics with the reason for their existence, i.e. to inform
individual action (Bourdieu, 1977). This Brown (1988) described as ‘reconnecting
the map with the mapped’. In other words, ‘modus operatum’ sees action as a
finished task, whereas ‘opus operandi’ within communities-of-practice sees action
as a process of doing a task that is constantly tuned and tuning to the context of
the physical and social environment.
In relation to opus operatum and opus operandi, Brown (1998) notes:
“ Work on expert systems suggests that technologies whose representation of the complexities of
practice are misleadingly partial may make that practice difficult or even impossible. Any
decomposition of the task must be done not with an eye to the task or the user in isolation, but to
the learner’s need to situate the decomposed task in the context of the overall social practice.” (p.
233)
This observation thus emphasizes the need for considering technology-supported
tasks in the contexts of their social and physical environments, without removing
3
In Latin, ‘modus operatum’ means ‘mode of use’.
4
In Latin, ‘opus operandi’ means ‘the part (entity), which is being used’.
18

26. them from contextual demands in order to facilitate the design process (i.e. in the
tradition of classical Ergonomics; this also questions the validity of Hierarchical
Task Analysis as a technique for mapping system structure). An approach to
technological design aiming for optimization of knowledge creation must agree
with the contextual characteristics of human actions, particularly social actions as
they happen in practice, and aim for minimally supporting these actions in their
dynamic development.
2.2. Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP)
To further illustrate this point, let us look at Legitimate Peripheral Participation
(LPP) in Communities-of-Practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991).
In Communities-of-practice, learning is not primarily about the subject of practice
as such, but about being a member and functioning within the community.
Members of communities-of-practice acquire above all the ‘embodied ability to
behave as community members’ (Brown, 1998) within the shared complex
cultures that characterize the development of interpersonal dynamics within the
community. These developments make knowledge possessed and knowing
engaged in by the community accessible to all members.
In their ethnographic studies, Lave and Wenger observed that when novice
members join a community, they are implicitly given legitimate access to the
periphery of communication unfolding among expert members. That is, novice
members are allowed to observe experts until they have learnt enough to feel
comfortable with active community participation. During their seemingly passive
residence in the periphery of communication, novice members pick up valuable
tacit knowledge of the community practice, by acquiring knowledge of
community rituals and routines that enable circulation of stories and other forms
of negotiation of meanings (Deal and Kennedy, 1982). In this way, novice
members are gradually ‘enculturated’ (Brown and Duguid, 1991) within the
community, allowed to move from the periphery to the center of communication.
Eventually, they actively join into the knowledge discourse.
In relation to this, Brown (1998) describes ‘stealing knowledge’ as picking up
knowledge from the informal periphery of on-going practice, this being a most
effective way for novices to learn from actions that others undertake within
situated contexts. Stealing knowledge of peripheral members from ‘central’ expert
19

27. members in fact assures the community a challenging, whilst an informally
productive, vibrancy.
Expert members of communities-of-practice find processes in the periphery
thoroughly stimulating to the derivation of new knowledge. In relation to this,
Brown and Duguid (1998) note, the importance of continuously incorporating
‘new elements’ into existing structures in order to ensure adaptability to
continuously changing markets. This is at strong play within communities-of-
practice, who define themselves not only by their knowledge, but also by knowing
how to use this in new ways. Their openness to new experience assures
themselves a vibrant interpretative potential and constant fitness to outside
challenges, as expressed by continuously evolving collectively accepted ways for
doing the work.
This LPP development generalizes across all particular knowledge communities;
however, LPP is also unique to each separate community, according to the domain
of theory and practice within which the community develops, deriving their
knowledge. The personal styles of members and the socially accepted
assumptions, values and beliefs (Schein, 1990) are also important to community
development. Therefore, the particular dynamics of LPP are hard to predict for
each separate community-of-practice and community development is created by
community members. Designing technology to optimize this creative process
must offer a minimal structure, as a flexible technological platform co-evolving
with the community.
Therefore, CT for managing of knowledge and knowing within communities must
allow for processes of LPP to develop, as these are necessary to community
healthy existence. CT must be designed to allow for the different preferences of
members to use technology at any one time. Its use must also ensure that the
knowledge discourse is well supported both by active and passive, but rather vocal
and silent members (no member is a passive member within a community). CT
offers the potential for doing this by, for example, copying peripheral members in
emails that are part of central knowledge discourse and giving these members
access to discussion forums.
2.3. A socio-technical architecture for CT and communities-of-practice
The above sections conclude that, prominently, CT within organizations is not
designed with a view of the informal networks that bind people together, driven
20

28. by ‘intelligent efforts’ to elaborate on their expertise. Rather, it is usually
‘imposed’ on employees, following on an unrealistic notion inherent in its design
of the organization as a mechanistic, rather than an organic body (Morgan, 1986).
In this way, in terms of, for example, knowledge managing efforts at Hewlett-
Packard Laboratories, people still recur to ‘informal networks’ despite over-
abundance of IT tools designed with the aim of managing knowledge
(Birkinshaw, p. 12).
Tsoukas and Vladimirou (2001) point out the need for recognizing the informal
practices for managing of knowledge, thus turning these practices from
organizationally unreflective into organizationally reflective. Once these informal
practices are appropriately recognized as important sources of organizational
knowledge creation, there will be conditions for open integration of ‘minimal
support’5 technology within them, to optimize the knowledge processes taking
place.
A socio-technical architecture enabling the systematization of such an approach is
described by Brown (1998) and is displayed on the table below:
5
Hansen et al. (1999), distinguish between codification and personalization IT strategies to
managing knowledge. Whereas the codification ‘database’ approach confuses knowledge with
information, the personalization approach recognizes that knowledge is shared, used and created in
the process of interpersonal communication. This approach seeks to support knowledge processes
by providing minimal ‘structure’ for their development (Hahn and Subramani, 2002), thus
encouraging the autonomous and informal existence of knowledge communities as a recognized
prerequisite for healthy knowledge formation (Wenger et al., 2002). These technologies thus
possess a potential flexibility to mimic, and systematize, the discursive nature of human
knowledge, exemplified by problems of uncertainty, equivocality, ambiguity and complexity faced
by organizations (Zack, 1999).
‘Minimal structure’ technologies can be electronic discussion boards, electronic chat and meet
rooms and electronic brainstorming, provided that their use is part of a general knowledge
managing strategy. These tools engender the existence of ‘virtual’ communities complementing
the existence of face-to-face communities by providing media where alternative perspectives on
the face-to-face knowledge discourse are created, thus enriching the dynamics of knowledge
generation towards full realization of knowledge resources (Nanda, 1996). The use of ICT has
been widely and successfully explored in informal, self-selective on-line communities where
social exchange is the main incentive for participation (e.g. Rheingold, 1993). Therefore, their
potential for increasing the value of the social discourse generating knowledge in organizations is
to be inferred.
21

29. Table 1. : Shift in thinking and practice experienced by Xerox, which offers an organizational
model for managing communities-of-practice as complex adaptive systems within organizations
and communities-of-communities as organizations themselves. (in Brown, J. S., (1998): Internet
technology in support of the concept of communities-of-practice., Mgmt & Info. Tech, 8, 227-236)
Old paradigms New paradigms
Technology push/pull Co-evolution of technology and organization
Products Product platforms
Authorized work structures Emergent/authorized work structures
Teams Communities-of-practice
Strategy specified from the top Generative strategy specified from the top
Managing for efficiency Managing for knowledge
Brown hypothesizes that, within an organization that is reflective about its actual
and not merely ordained practices, there is a socio-technical architecture that
allows for community-of-practice formation supported by technology platforms.
These platforms, if correctly designed, can probe the tacit knowledge within the
community and provide for its latent needs for knowledge creation, by product
variants rapidly evolving from them, or by evolving of the platforms themselves
(Brown, p. 234). This architecture thus overtly recognizes the importance of
communities-of-practice, in terms of their potential for innovation and fosters a
‘healthy autonomy’6 for their development. It also links among communities
within and among organizations to create an intra- and inter-organization
knowledge discourse, in order to establish an overall social platform of
communities-of-communities that facilitates managing of knowledge.
Such a socio-technical architecture defines organizations in addition to formal
definitions of organizational practice, and assures them an enactive quality of
‘knowledge organizations’. Within such socio-technical architectures, there is
recognition of both ‘modus operatus’ and ‘opus operandi’. In other words, the
formal organization recognizes the informal within it and there is appropriate
6
Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002) list three elements to the knowledge process: a
knowledge domain (i.e. physics), a community of people and a common practice to unify the
domain with the community. In order for the knowledge process to be effective, the community
of people needs to be autonomous in order to explore the knowledge domain according to their
interest and thus create their own practice.
22

30. facilitation of knowledge communities. The stories disseminating the knowledge
acquired within communities-of-practice are allowed to circulate via email,
bulletin boards and home pages, supporting narration and social construction of
knowledge. Therefore, both type of organization ‘work together and leverage each
other where possible’ (Brown, p. 245).
In this way, at the organizational level, as well as community and individual level,
there is re-connection of abstract heuristic knowledge with tacit codes for its
application and interpretation in practice7. This reconnection, when
institutionalized by facilitating and not ordaining technology for managing
knowledge, ensures an appropriate synergy between organization and technology
and creates conditions for optimization of ordained via the existence of actual
practices. This reconnection also happens during the development of socio-
technical systems that optimize human knowledge creation within and among
organizations.
In the language of Brown, such organizations are ‘complex adaptive systems’
between forces driving technology and forces driving markets. In other words,
they are socio-technical systems influenced and influencing technology and
markets by adapting to conditions created by these, as well as enabling their own
conditions for development, naturally synchronized with the nature of technology
and market development. Within such systems, Internet and the Web can provide
a medium for innovation in terms of flexible technological designs to suit the
dynamic evolution of communities-of-practice, thus enabling conditions for co-
evolution between the social dynamics of communities and technology.
2.4. Conclusions
To conclude this section, managing knowledge aiming for its optimization by
technology should approach knowledge as above all a socially constructed
discourse by people. This discourse will serve people’s needs only in actual and
not ordained practices, ensuring competitive advantages. Therefore, organizations
need to recognize the importance of actual practice within knowledge
7
Cook and Brown (1998) point out that organizational/community knowledge is both
explicit (i.e. heuristic) and tacit (which is also referred to as ‘genre’ by Oravec (1996), in
terms of a socially constructed communication medium where people learn to use a common
set of interpretation codes for making sense of information). Polanyi (1962) argues that
knowledge is not possible without combining explicit and tacit components in its creation.
Tsoukas and Vladimirou (2001) further point out the importance of heuristic and tacit group
knowledge to individual action within a group, where both types of group knowledge inform
individual action.
23

31. communities. Designing technologies with facilitating and not ordaining
assumptions will stimulate the development of actual practice and create
conditions for successful synergy between social and technological systems in
order for competitive advantages to be cultivated, and for an optimized process of
human knowledge creation during socio-technical interactions.
24

32. 3. The ‘real world’ problem: Is Communication Technology
at present useful to human knowledge creation?
Within the present section, it is shown that the assumption behind Information
Technology disagrees with the nature of human knowledge and what can
potentially optimise its creation. It is argued that current attempts at managing
knowledge should shift their focus from design of information databases for this
purpose, because information is removed from the social contexts nurturing
knowledge. Instead, there should be a focus on developing social relations, as
these make knowledge readily available to people, and optimising these relations
by Communication Technology.
3.1. Information is not knowledge
Brown and Duguid (in their book ‘The Social Life of Information’, 2000) argue
that knowledge is a social phenomenon existing in human contexts and not
information systems. They note the importance of social interaction between
people at the heart of managing knowledge. Thus, they draw a firm distinction
between information and knowledge, the latter being information acquired
personal significance for individuals, i.e. active ‘knowers’ (Brown and Duguid,
2000) constructing their knowledge within a context of human practice. In this
sense, every knower is attached and committed to what he knows.
The fact that knowledge is not information makes the electronic transfer of
knowledge from people that have originated this, situated within a common
practice, difficult across community and organisation boundaries, because of the
personal character of knowledge that cannot be digitised (Ciborra and Patriotta,
1998). Therefore, knowledge has been defined as ‘sticky’ to the context of its
creation (Szulanski, 1996). Information, in contrast, travels easily along electronic
networks because it lacks contextual properties. The challenge for technology use,
therefore, would be to ensure that information reaches potential ‘knowers’ and not
merely information ‘users’, so that information can fulfil an important role in
human processes of knowledge creation.
Regarding the personal significance of knowledge, Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995)
note:
“ First, knowledge, unlike information, is about beliefs and commitment. Knowledge is a function
of a particular stance, perspective, or intention. Second, knowledge, unlike information, is about
25

33. action. It is always knowledge to “some end”. And third, knowledge, unlike information, is about
meaning. It is context-specific and relational.” (p.58).
These authors emphasise the importance of a relational context where, through
actions according to beliefs and commitment to defined purposes, information
acquires meanings that give rise to knowledge. In other words, human knowledge
is volitional by nature as a result of contextual reflection; it is enabled by the use
and acquisition of information meanings within the context of purposeful human
actions. Therefore, to Nonaka and Takeuchi, human knowledge is not a static
commodity that can be objectively quantified like information; it is instead a
dynamic contextual process where individuals and organisations alike actively
pursue ‘the truth’ according to their beliefs and according to the types of
information provided to them (Bateson, 1973).
In this way, within the process of knowledge, information provides a commodity
capable of, and necessary, in yielding knowledge, but insufficient within itself to
do so. Knowledge is identified with the information-produced, or sustained, belief
that happens within human heads (Dretske, 1981) and is cultivated within
communities-of-practice (Brown and Duguid, 1991).
In this way, the usefulness of mere information to organisations is minimal.
However, knowledge processes that involve information are very useful. They can
transform a reactive organization into a pro-active, ‘enacting’ body with a
competitive stead (Brown, 1998), by enabling individuals within an organisation
to take important decisions in relation to their work that fulfil the organisation
purpose (Orr, 1996). Managing human knowledge needs to enable the
development of interpersonal contexts, within which information delivered by IT
can be hosted, and which can be optimized by CT8.
8
Within the present work, Information Technology (IT) is seen as substantially different
from Communication Technology (CT). The former is concerned with delivering information
when a request has been made to do so (i.e. databases, yellow pages of experts, expertise
profiles, document repositories and other structured search approaches). In contrast, the latter
is concerned with ‘serving’ social relations and interpersonal communication (i.e.
collaborative filtering tools, intranets and extranets, electronic discussion forums and other
unstructured approaches to human communication). Personal preferences for using
technology may differ between these two types of technology, according to individual
approaches to assimilating new information and learning knowledge.
26

34. 3.2. Information can not effectively yield knowledge, unless within the context
of practice
Efforts to manage the knowledge inside organizations have typically centred on
the creation of ‘knowledge’ databases, i.e. corporate intranets deemed to contain
the ‘knowledge’ that organizational members will need, complemented by tools
such as search engines and intelligent filters to assist ‘knowledge seekers’ locate
requisite knowledge (Wasko and Faraj, 2000).
The very assumption behind these databases of knowledge as ‘need’, rather than
knowledge as ‘creation process’, contradicts the reality of knowledge as a
continuously evolving social construct, not possible to quantify as a static
commodity within an IT database. Therefore, if well designed, such databases
may contain information of strategic value, but not knowledge (Birkinshaw,
2001). The usefulness of these databases for managing knowledge, in terms of the
information that they deliver, will only exist provided that there is a human
context, i.e. a ‘practice’, within which to embed the information, so that it can be
used to yield knowledge through the beliefs and dedication of practitioners9.
These beliefs and dedication are cultivated within the social dynamics found
among practitioners.
Using such databases, however, removes the technology used for managing
knowledge from the very process of knowledge generation (in this way the term
‘knowledge management’, rather than ‘knowledge managing’, is more
appropriate). Thus using information databases can enable knowledge, but can not
necessarily optimize the dynamic processes of its generation.
3.2.1. How knowledge is enabled, but not optimized with IT
Thompson and Walsham (2001) illustrate merely enabling but not optimizing
knowledge in case studies. They evaluated a range of ‘knowledge management’
initiatives in terms of making forms of IT accessible for use in a company they
called A1 software.
One initiative was deemed to disseminate ‘knowledge’ to employees via
information repositories, presentation slides and reports assembled within a large
corporate intranet. In all cases there were not appropriate community contexts to
9
In the context throughout this work, a ‘practitioner’ is a person engaged in a ‘practice’,
which is any practical domain of applying knowledge (e.g. from medical practice, through
software engineering, to philosophy).
27

35. initiate knowledge-enabling interpretation of information via collective memory
action. The assumption behind this approach was that knowledge is a
‘commodity’ readily captured and electronically delivered to employees.
Knowledge was not recognized a process within which the use of an intranet
database is merely an information-supplying artifact and not a means-to-an-end.
Therefore efforts were not made to contextualise information according to the
relevance of its content to practitioners. In this way, the information delivered was
of too wide of a scope to be applicable to the specific circumstances of
community practices found within the organization.
In contrast, another initiative aimed to enable knowledge processes by providing
specific information support to community practices found within the
organization. The approach was in terms of codifying ‘raw data into more readily
usable forms of information’ (Walsham, 2001, italics added) in providing services
to employees such as decision-making tools, templates intended for individual
customization and ‘technology-push’ reports and news. This initiative was found
useful only partially because it did not always succeed in meeting demands from
particular contexts for sense making of the provided information. In this way, this
approach recognized that appropriate management of information delivered by IT
could have a role in knowledge creation, provided that the information is
delivered within the context of a community actively engaged in information-
relevant collective sense-making. Therefore, only when individual needs were
appropriately anticipated and the information provided was good ‘material’ to
stimulate knowledge processes within the community, was the ‘knowledge’
database found useful. Information made sense only when it fulfilled some
knowledge goal.
In both above described technological initiatives, there is not a consideration for
knowledge as a social phenomenon. Rather, it is regarded as removed from the
very social efforts that generate it and technology supporting it is used
accordingly. A different application of technology for managing knowledge,
however, is to consider the nature of knowledge social discourse10 and to increase
the value of social exchanges. This is illustrated in turn.
10
A ‘discourse’, in this sense, is a social exchange process, where people engage in multiple
interactions by talking about issues of interest.
28

36. 3.2.2. Optimizing knowledge by increasing the value of social exchange with CT
In their work, Thompson and Walsham (2001) considered an additional initiative
of managing knowledge with respect to the ones reviewed above. Within this
initiative, CT was embedded within the context of a ‘community-of-practice’,
supporting knowledge processes as they developed within this community. These
processes were enabled by a ‘continual inter-subjective communication between
individuals’, such as mentor relationships and multiple face-to-face interactions.
Once enabled, these processes were supported, in the way of optimization, by
appropriately managed CT, providing information within special interest groups,
discussion boards, community indexes showing who is most knowledgeable about
a topic and email interaction. This initiative was deemed very successful in terms
of making knowledge within the community readily available to all members.
Within this initiative, there is a mix among complementary forms of human
communication, such as face-to-face interactions and email, each contributing
different aspects to the knowledge process. In addition, the nature of the social
discourse within the community was considered paramount, with technology
deemed to support and not create it all together. CT was used in a general effort to
optimize what was already existing as socially constructed knowledge, thus not
constraining the existing communication process.
Such member autonomy to choose the best communication medium (be it face-to-
face or technological), as well as its content, in each case of interpersonal
interaction is necessary for healthy community development and participation
(Wenger et al., 2002). A study by Maznevski and Chudoba (2000), where the
authors found that most successful ‘virtual teams’ tend to intersperse regular face-
to-face meetings with less intensive electronic interaction incidents, further
supports these conclusions. The nature of human knowledge necessitates above
all an on-going informal discourse for its development, the potential of which can
be increased by CT bridging geographical spaces and time differences. This case
study illustrates how managing knowledge is effective when there is a primary
focus on knowledge as a socially evolving discourse, which process CT can
optimize.
29

37. 3.3. Conclusions
The above section shows that technology is not useful to human knowledge
creation, unless technology supports a well-defined and overtly recognized social
process of participation in a community, this created with a knowledge purpose in
mind. In this way, technology that optimizes communication among people and
not merely delivers information is most effective for managing knowledge.
The next sections elaborate on the nature of knowledge as it unfolds in the process
of community participation. This is in order to show the ways in which CT can
and cannot support communication among people and how its use can optimize
managing knowledge as a unified strategy for organization development.
30

38. 4. Explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge
The purpose of this section is to provide a thorough account of the nature of
knowledge that plays a part in its acquisition. Within this work, it is considered
important to understand, both tacitly and explicitly, what human knowledge is, in
order to plan, deliver and carry out optimal ways for managing it within
communities and organisations. These ways would be according to the benefits
that CT can bring to knowledge processes and its limitations in optimising these
processes. The aim is to assure an effective co-evolution between knowledge and
technology media, in terms of a socio-technical system.
4.1. Polanyi’s view on the acquisition of knowledge
Knowledge is not only used, but also acquired in practice. Michael Polanyi (1962)
makes one of the greatest contributions to our understanding of knowledge and its
acquisition.
Polanyi states that all knowledge is above all ‘personal’, i.e. it is the result of
processes happening within ‘individual heads’ (quote from Cook and Brown,
1999). Personal knowledge is both tacit and explicit, and is neither subjective nor
objective, but lies between individual passions and acknowledged requirements
(Polanyi, p. 300). Using one’s personal knowledge is exemplified by human
judgement, which is similarly neither a subjective nor an objective act.
In knowledge processes, there is a constant interaction between explicit and tacit
components of personal knowledge possessed by the individuals involved in these
processes. Such processes are not merely about knowledge exchange. When they
happen within a defined community context, there is also generation of new
knowledge that is the possession of the community, i.e. what Polanyi calls
‘superior knowledge’.
Regarding the acquisition of knowledge, Polanyi draws the important distinction
between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge11. He states that it is the tacit
11
Tacit knowledge, associated with ‘tacit power’ and ‘tacit knowing’, when this knowledge
is used in practice, is beyond human conscious awareness (Polanyi). Tacit knowing is what
enables us to ‘make sense’ of novel experiences as we encounter them by integrating them
within a framework created by previous experiences. In other words, tacit knowledge is the
‘outcome of an active shaping of experience performed in the pursuit of knowledge’ (p.6). It
is the result of the application of ‘tacit power by which all knowledge is discovered and
when discovered is held to be true’ (p. 6).
In contrast, explicit knowledge is within human conscious awareness and can be spoken and
found within books and databases. It is the knowledge that can be expressed through
symbols, such as letters or formulas, as the result of intended explication. Explicit
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39. knowledge shared by individuals that makes possible the perceived
meaningfulness, exchange and acquisition of explicit knowledge12. Exchange of
explicit knowledge, in turn, makes it possible for tacit powers within a domain of
practice to be developed by the individuals involved in this practice, thus
increasing their potential for learning within this field of practice. In this way,
situated learning within a context of practice is about a constant shifting between
explicit and tacit knowledge acquisition, in terms of a self-fulfilling cycle.
Polanyi illustrates the process of knowledge acquisition with an example from
medical training (p. 101):
“Think of a medical student attending a course in the X-ray diagnosis of pulmonary diseases. …
At first the student is completely puzzled. … The experts seem to be romancing about fragments
of their imagination; … Then as he goes on listening for a few weeks, looking carefully at every
new picture of different cases, a tentative understanding will dawn on him: he will gradually forget
about the ribs and begin to see the lungs. And eventually, if he perseveres intelligently, a rich
panorama of significant details will be revealed to him: … He still sees only a fraction of what the
experts can see, but the pictures are definitely making sense now and so do most of the comments
made on them.”
This example illustrates the mechanism of knowledge acquisition, where personal
knowledge, both tacit and explicit, is exchanged and elaborated in the context of
practice. This practice makes possible learning by generation of new knowledge
in the process of interpersonal communication 13.
knowledge, within itself, is always abstract as it uses a more or less commonly agreed code
for expression. It is never independent of tacit knowledge, because all forms of explicit
knowledge will ‘make sense’ and be understandable only when there is tacit power to deem
them with personal significance (p. 203). In this way, there is no such thing as ‘objective
explicit knowledge’ that will exist independently of individual tacit power to endow it with
personal meaning though interpretation.
12
All knowledge is personal in that it simultaneously has explicit and tacit components
being used for interpretation. Polanyi states: “An exact mathematical theory means nothing
unless we recognize an inexact non-mathematical knowledge on which it bears and a person
whose judgement upholds its bearing.“ (Polanyi, p. 195). Therefore, it is not possible to
make sense of explicit knowledge unless we hold and apply tacit power through which we
can incorporate this knowledge within a framework of personal experience.
13
In fact, Polanyi sees learning to be more complicated than this. In the process of
interpersonal interaction, there can be primary development of ‘subsidiary awareness’ of the
subject of this interaction, starting with an awareness of the whole and only then gradually
discovering particular details about it. Alternatively, there can be primary development of
‘focal awareness’, where a person learning about a subject starts by developing an awareness
of the details and only after beginning to appreciate the whole that these details constitute
(e.g. students of anatomy usually develop focal awareness of the body organs, but initially
experience great difficulty to spatially relate them in their natural positions within the body).
Polanyi further argues that subsidiary awareness and focal awareness are two opposing
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40. Cook and Brown (1999) also discuss the tacit-explicit knowledge dimension in
terms of knowledge acquisition:
Precisely, tacit knowledge is what, for example, a bicycle rider knows how to do
but can’t say (e.g. say which way to turn in order to avoid a fall on the left or the
right). In contrast, explicit knowledge is what, for example, a person trained to
teach bicycle riding can say about which way to turn in order for a trainee to
avoid a fall on the left or the right14.
Cook and Brown further point out that each type of knowledge is distinct from the
other, ‘doing work the other cannot’, and that one form of knowledge can not be
made or changed into the other’ (p. 73). In other words, tacit cannot be
‘converted’ into explicit or vice versa, as some theorists argue (most prominently
Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). This is because, as far as explicit or tacit knowledge
components can be helpful in the acquisition of new knowledge, these remain in
individual possession while and after new knowledge is acquired. Learning about
which way to turn in order to avoid a fall does not mean that tacit knowledge
about riding a bike is lost. Thus new knowledge does not lie ‘hidden’ or dormant
in old knowledge, but is generated during the activity of practice with the aid of
old knowledge.
In this way, explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge are both ‘tools’ for acquiring
new personal knowledge. They are both needed to make sense of and learn
information. Understanding how this happens is important for realising the
potentials and limitations of CT when used to optimise human knowledge.
4.2. Understanding information to learn new knowledge
To understand how information is used to form new knowledge, we need to think
about the nature of tacit and explicit dimensions of knowledge, used in knowledge
formation.
As outlined above, if we do not possess tacit power to interpret an explicit
concept, we cannot effectively understand and learn the meaning of this concept.
processes in the acquisition of knowledge. Effective learning requires both in a constant
switching back and forth between them.
14
The tacit skill possessed by the individual in the first case can be helpful in him avoiding a
fall while riding. In addition, it can be helpful in discovering which way to turn in order to
avoid a fall while riding, thus drawing on his tacit knowledge in order to acquire a new
explicit concept of personal knowledge. In the second case, the explicit concept possessed by
the cyclist trainee case can be helpful in preventing him from falling off when riding, as well
as helpful in him ‘getting the feel’ for staying upright on the bike. In this way, he would be
using his explicit knowledge to acquire a tacit skill.
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41. We can learn such meanings by getting involved in the context (e.g. a community-
of-practice) from which the explicit concept has been originated, because these
contexts hold the tacit powers and knowledge necessary to explicit concept
interpretation and understanding.
Therefore, the usefulness of CT for managing knowledge is limited. Precisely,
explicit texts found within reference databases, on-line discussion boards and
email won’t make sense to individuals, unless these individuals hold relevant tacit
powers to enable their sense reading15 of these texts. Tacit powers are acquired
and used within communities-of-practice, endowing individuals with an
interpretative code for understanding these texts. For example, having a personal
relationship with the person posting a comment or sending an email produces a
context within which to embed the generated text (Walsham, 2001)16.
Thus any process of knowledge creation is not a straightforward activity, but
rather a negotiation of intended meanings within particular contexts. For this
process to be successful there needs to be sufficient overlap among the tacit
knowledge and skills of the individuals communicating, in terms of them sharing
a common cultural background, or a work practice. The value of technology in
this process is in enhancing the benefits from social communication to elaborating
on and generating socially produced knowledge. Technology cannot be used as
merely an information provider, but must be included within a community context
15
In his work, Polanyi further argues that it is not only the ‘making sense’ of explicit
knowledge that is ‘personal’, according to the nature of the tacit powers used by the
individuals in this process (i.e. ‘sense-reading’). So is the ‘endowing with sense’ of any
explicit construction of knowledge that an individual produces (i.e. ‘sense-giving’) in an
effort to communicate intended meanings dependent on his tacit understandings. In this way,
in any knowledge discourse, there are at least three different sense-making processes: one
where an individual sense-reads an event, second where he gives sense to this within a
constructed explication and a third where another individual sense-reads this explication and
interprets this according to his tacit knowledge (Walsham, 2001).
16
This is discussed by Antonelli (1997), who points out the limited potential of CT to the
distribution of knowledge, in terms of it being a conductor for explicit (also called by him
‘codifiable’, this in reminiscence to descriptions of information in the literature), but not tacit
knowledge. Johannessen et al. (2001) further argue that unilateral investment in CT may lead
to a de-emphasising of tacit knowledge, hindering the development of sustainable
competitive advantages; these authors additionally point out that, for tacit knowledge to be
re-established for organisational sense-making, there is a need for continuous development of
a sensitivity towards innovation, by “learning by doing, using, experimenting and
interacting” (p. 13). This would be within apprenticeship groups and larger communities, in a
way such that organisational knowledge is both explored for tacit meanings and exploited for
practical applications. Neither Antonelli, nor Johannessen and his colleagues, however, seem
to understand the complex mechanisms of human knowledge formation, in terms of its
impossibility to be removed from ‘human heads’ and contexts. Such an understanding is
nevertheless necessary in order to develop ways for managing knowledge in terms of general
knowledge managing strategies. These strategies would optimise knowledge with the help of
the communication potential that well designed CT offers.
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42. of knowledge creation. This point is illustrated within the case studies by
Thompson and Walsham (2001) described earlier within the present review.
In relation to this, Walsham concludes:
“…the challenge is to design systems and approaches to their use which recognize the tacit basis
of all sense-reading and sense-giving activities, and try to make these activities more meaningful
and valuable to all parties.” (Washam, p. 601, italics added)
In other words, for the managing of knowledge, there must be primary concern for
shared practice as ‘common ground’ among people. The concept of ‘common
ground’ was introduced by Clark in relation to constant referral to shared artefacts
in successful communication (Clark, 1992). In the present case, these shared
artefacts can be understood as explicit forms of communication enabled to exist
effectively by tacit codes for their meaningful interpretation, created by the
community using the artifacts. An approach to CT use, where knowledge is
effectively managed within the context using the technology, would consider
people, as knowers and not information users, to come first. In other words, the
value of interpersonal communication would be seen as crucial to knowledge
generation and, in this way only, to effective use of CT for managing knowledge.
Hayes and Walsham (2000) additionally illustrate this point by describing a case
study from a pharmaceutical company, where use of a shared database for
recording experiences, views and advice was introduced to salesmen to share
‘best practice’ on the job. The purpose of the database was to optimize the
knowledge of practitioners in distributed geographical locations of the company
and enable them to take better decisions in approaching specific projects.
However, the company did not recognize the need for establishing a ‘common
ground’ among the salesmen, so that they can effectively learn information
provided by the database by bridging across each other’s knowledge. There was
not a recognized approach to enable communities-of-practice before or in parallel
to using the database, in order for the salesmen to develop tacit knowing as a way
for sense making of database information17. The use of the electronic database
was thus ineffective for managing knowledge because of the non-coordinated
sense-reading and sense-giving processes underlying the interpretations of
individuals. The entering of information to communicate a meaning, and the
17
The role of context in tacit knowledge sharing is pointed out by Augier et al., (2001).
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43. reading of information to understand and apply this understanding in practice,
were not unified by a socially integrated purpose within a common practice. Thus
explicit knowledge entered into the database was not more than useless
information, as it could not acquire significance for individuals reading it and be
learned by them to effectively apply on their jobs18.
4.3. CT design for emerging cultures
Newell, Scarbrough and Swan (2001) illustrate the points raised above in a case
study, showing the importance of designing CT for managing knowledge with the
assumption of it fitting a wider organizational context. They describe a global
bank with numerous decentralized branches in a structured attempt to manage IT
knowledge among IT divisions and ultimately coordinate the IT infrastructures
throughout the bank. The solution to this was seen in designing a corporate
intranet and introducing this for shared use among all IT divisions. The intranet
was inefficient and ineffective, which the authors consider to be because of lack
of recognition for the highly ‘context-dependent pattern of usage’ of the
technology and ‘not enough effort put into coordination’ among the IT divisions
within the bank. In this way, they point out the need for creation of a sufficiently
common human context to guide and stimulate knowledge sharing and generation
among the IT divisions, with or without using the intranet.
Therefore, designing technology for knowledge managing must operate in
synergy with the context of the practice/practices that are to use the technology,
for it to be effective. If this practice is not existent, then it should be allowed to
emerge, so that the designed technology has a practical reason for its creation to
assure its effectiveness19.
18
In the language of Polanyi, conditions were not created for the salesmen to ‘find the same
set of symbols manageable for the purpose of skillfully reorganizing their knowledge’ (p.
205).
19
Newell et al. further point out that adequate technological ‘infrastructure’ and
‘infostructure’ (Bressand and Distler, 1995) of the intranet were altogether insufficient in
making the intranet effective. Whereas the meaning of the term ‘infrastructure’ is clear,
‘infostructure’ for them means the rules that bind a common language, in terms of the explicit
jargon and terminology connected by syntactic and semantic relationships, together
(Vygotski, 1986). Infostructure is explicit group knowledge, also referred to as ‘heuristics’
(Tsoukas and Vladimirou, 2001). The authors hypothesize that the technology serving the IT
divisions could have been effective if there was a common ‘infoculture’ (Bressand and
Distler, 1995) as a human context to embed usage, additional to the above-described levels of
technology existence. An ‘infoculture’ is the social relations’ context within which the
‘infostructure’ is embedded, this by the negotiation of meanings to agree a code for
infostructure tacit interpretation. An infoculture thus allows interplay between tacit and
explicit components of personal knowledge within a community and the related generation of
superior, i.e. collective, knowledge (Polanyi, 1962).
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44. 4.4. Conclusions
Using CT for effectively managing knowledge aims to optimize the knowledge
activities organized within communities-of-practice. As described above, the
existence of community interactions other than via CT, e.g. face-to-face, is
important to the healthy existence of the community and for the effectiveness of
CT in supporting already existing interpersonal processes with view of knowledge
creation. This is because community processes provide a ‘common ground’, in
terms of an explicit language and a tacit code for its interpretation, to which CT
can be adapted, and flexibly adapting to, in order to optimize the knowledge
processes already defined within the community20. The dynamics between
knowledge possessed by separate individuals and knowledge possessed by all of
them together as being part of a community is discussed in the next section.
20
Once these processes are defined and social prerequisites exist for elaboration on
knowledge, effective use of CT for managing knowledge could happen in terms of a socio-
technical interaction (Kling, 1993). The CT infrastructure would be tailored to the
community infoculture and infostructure, in order for co-evolution among the three to
continuously take place; thus technology flexibility would allow the community to discover
new ways of using the knowledge it has. In this way, knowledge within these cultures would
not be merely enabled or effectively supported by technology, but optimized, in terms of
allowing for synergistic co-evolution between social groups and technology. Such a socio-
technical system can happen with adequate social and technological ‘platforms’ allowing for
interplay between tacit and explicit knowledge among community members to take place and
yield coherent ‘superior’ knowledge (Brown, 1998).
37