Knowledge Creation: Systems Thinking or Process Paradigm?

Although the field of Knowledge Management has notched up some significant theoretical successes over its short history, the key processes of novelty-emergence and new knowledge creation remain largely an enigma. These processes are important, however, because they inform crucial organisational activities such as change and innovation. It is our contention that theorising in this area has been constrained by the philosophical assumptions that underlie systems thinking. In this paper, we explore the nature of these constraints as a preface to introducing an alternative approach that is grounded in a process-based paradigm. By combining two existing streams of theory that are consistent with this paradigm, namely Complex Responsive Processes theory and Personal Construct theory, we elaborate nine theoretical propositions, which collectively provide a comprehensive description of the dynamic process of knowledge creation. In particular, the propositions examine the necessary conditions for novelty generation through human micro-interactions, the ontological and temporal nature of this interaction space, the construction processes that are engaged during micro-interactions, and the non-linear, self-organising dynamics that lead to the emergence of new knowledge in the form of organisational innovation.