Discontinuity in Organizations:
نویسندگان
چکیده
Knowledge management research needs consistent and empirically supported theory for sound foundations. Our research seeks to understand how to extend established organization theory and emerging knowledge-flow theory to inform the design of organizations through development of empirical theory. Because knowledge flows enable workflows, and workflows drive performance, theory suggests the organization of knowledge—particularly tacit knowledge—is critical for competitive advantage. However, tacit knowledge does not flow well through the enterprise. It attenuates particularly quickly in organizations that experience discontinuous membership. The research described in this article builds upon an ethnographic study of facility development to understand the knowledge-flow patterns and pathologies in an organization that experiences severe discontinuous membership. Informed by ethnography, we employ methods and tools of computational organization theory to assess alternate organizational designs and knowledge-flow patterns. This work extends organization theory to address the dynamics of knowledge flows. And it informs practice through new theory on designing organizations with discontinuous membership. 1 Stanford University, Palo Alto, California 2 Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California
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