Working Paper No. 3 Exploring the Foundations of Organizational Knowledge

If knowledge management is to be more than an art, it needs to be based on a sound epistemology and understanding of organizations. We present a paradigm and an ontology of organizational knowledge based on Karl Popper’s 1972 and later works on evolutionary epistemology, Maturana and Varela’s concept of living things as self-producing complex systems (“autopoiesis”), and theories of hierarchically complex systems. This approach to ontology development leads us to conclude that organizations can become living systems and thus have emergent properties of a higher order than the sum of the parts. We develop this theoretical argument by providing examples of how several different types of knowledge created by people within organizations emerge and change through time. We suggest the social processes of creating these different types of knowledge gives rise to meta-levels of organization that act to maintain the existence and coherence of organizations. We think that our ontology improves the basis for understanding the nature of knowledge that is important for proper organizational functioning. We draw out recommendations about the management of transformations between personal and organizational knowledge. We propose this biological understanding of knowledge in organizations because as practitioners, we think it provides a way of interpreting the dynamics of what actually happens in the realm of managing organizational knowledge. Thus, we lay a foundation for better understanding the considerable challenges associated with developing a practical approach to organizational knowledge management as a result.