Knowing as Desiring. Mythic Knowledge and the Knowledge Journey in Communities of Pratictioners

Why do people and their organizations seek out knowledge? Most of the recurrent explanations emphasise the instrumental use of knowledge: in order to solve problems, to gain competitive advantages, to exploit innovation commercially, or to contribute to the well-being of future generations. But besides the rationality and purposiveness of knowledge-gathering, there is another aspect that may be undervalued in organization studies: that of a search for knowledge driven by a love of knowledge for its own sake. Does not also knowledge as an end in itself motivate people and organizations? This is what I intend to argue in this paper. In what follows I shall provide an example of how mythic knowledge may operate in exploring an organizational issue: the role of desire in practical knowledge. To do so, I shall refer to the literary figure of the 'knowledge journey' and to one of the greatest of all travellers: Ulysses.