Activity as a unit of analysis for knowledge management frameworks

The authors of this paper take the view that knowledge management is a set of practices for systematically adding value to the knowlege of individuals, which is generated and shaped through interaction with others. It is therefore appropriate that knowledge management research be conducted in the context of particular organisations, focusing on local activities. To that end two of the authors have conducted a four-year research program investigating the factors in organizations that enhance and enable the assimilation, generation, sharing and building of knowledge that transfonns an organization into a learning organization. Human activities in organisational contexts have been analysed through the lens of the cultural-historical Activity Theory where the pragmatic concept of "Activity" is simply what people do. It is argued that Activity Theory provides a framework suitable for the analysis of everyday human work where information and communications technologies make a strategic contribution.