Design Theory: Supporting the Discovery of Novel Knowledge in Organizations

In my dissertation, I examine novel knowledge discovery in the context of organizational learning. Novel knowledge, defined as knowledge that is potentially strategically important to the organization, not currently known to the organization, indirectly relevant and therefore difficult to find, is proposed to be one of three different types of knowledge that organizations seek to discover in their environment. A taxonomy is developed to differentiate three levels of knowledge discovery in the environment, including goals and tools to support these goals. However, tools supporting the discovery of highly novel knowledge are rare compared to tools supporting the other levels of knowledge discovery. Accordingly, a design theory for novel-knowledge-discovery tools is proposed based on organizational learning theories. The results are proposed to demonstrate how novel-knowledge-discovery tools can support organizational learning.