Organizing for the sharing and creation of knowledge - are we too afraid to kill it?

This paper raises the question of whether learning and knowledge creation in organizations should be left to live its own life, practice-related and without intervention or nourishment, or whether these processes should be actively facilitated and organized for. An empirical example from the introduction of a control-and measuring system (Balanced Score Card and Business Process Reengineering) in a hospital ward, illustrates that even through top down initiated projects, represented by these systems, a learning space is created, and learning and sharing of soft knowledge takes place. The knowledge processes are unintended consequences of a structural intervention, and point to the general need for facilitation and organizing of knowledge processes. Lack of-and difficulty with knowledge sharing and knowledge creation is often due to lack of This paper concludes that imposed projects, like the empirical example of introducing balanced score card in a maternity ward, can also provide a field for learning and knowledge creation, and suggests that organization of knowledge processes can be useful in rule-and procedure based organizations.