Managing Knowledge in Organizations: A Critical Pragmatic Perspective

✍ Scribed by W. David Holford

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 187
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book explores organizational knowledge and how it can be pragmatically exploited within many of today’s socio-technical-economic contexts. It provides both conceptual and empirical findings across different organizational contexts, addressing areas which have either been under-developed, such as power in relationship to knowledge, or require further examination, such as the role a more holistic, action-oriented view can contribute towards identifying and retaining expert knowledge within an organization, especially within digital environments. Further, it looks at how different perceptions, mental models, beliefs, and emotions (or lack of), as well as differing actions and behaviors, affect our abilities to detect hidden risks. This book will guide researchers in rendering the relationship between the managing of knowledge and the presence of risk more visible.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Introduction
References
Chapter 1: The Ambiguous Knowledge of Mètis: Enter the Street-Smart Expert
The Greek Heritage of Western Knowledge—The Rise of Abstractionism
Mètis as Human Expert Knowledge
What Is Mètis?
Mètis’ Long Acquisition and Quick Deployment Across Mindfulness
The Landing of US Airways Flight 1549 as an Example of Mètis
Mètis as Cause and Effect of Democratic Social Processes
In the Next Chapter…
References
Chapter 2: From Ancient Greece to the Digital Workplace: A Story of Mètis’ Usurpation
Philosophy’s Ostracization of Mètis
The Establishment of Techne as Search for Efficiency
Digital Taylorism’s Erosion of Human Mètis and Decisional Powers
Specific Examples of Organizational Policies Thwarting Mètis
The Paradoxical Effect of Algorithmic Efficiency
In the Next Chapter…
References
Chapter 3: The Dilemma of Developing and Maintaining High-Level Expertise
Mètis as Both Constructed Entities and Action
The Elusive Nature of Tacit Knowledge
Understanding Tacit Knowledge
Can Tacit Knowledge Be ‘Converted’ to Explicit Knowledge?
Knowledge as Personal Construction
Collins’ Weak, Medium, and Strong Tacit Knowledge
Management Issues Regarding the Irreducible Nature of Tacit Knowledge/Mètis
In the Next Chapter…
References
Chapter 4: IT’s Impressive, but Sometimes Misleading Track Record
Robots, Automation, and AI
AI and the Turing Test
IBM’s Watson and Google’s AlphaGo Deconstructed
The Turing Test as a Test of Complexity, Uncertainty, and Ambiguity
AI Versus Human Decision-Making
Decision-Making in the Face of Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity
In the Next Chapter…
References
Chapter 5: Power and Its Enactment: A Traditional View and Its Consequences
Power-as-Possession
The Impact and Pertinence of Enactment Phenomenon
Impact of Power-as-Possession on Mètis
In the Next Chapter…
References
Chapter 6: Knowledge, Power, and Hidden Risk
A Few Words on Risk
Blindsided Toward Unknown Risk
Organizational Configurations and Institutional Logics Thwarting Mètis
Mitigating Unknown Risk Across Mètis and Co-active Power
In the Next Chapter…
References
Chapter 7: Knowledge and Power Across the Material-Discursive Practice of Agential Realism
The Material-Discursive Practice of Agential Realism
A Few Words on the Information Systems’ (IS) Interpretation of Critical Realism
An Agential Realist Framework on Knowledge and Power
Enter Mindfulness, Democratic Processes, and Knowledge Enrichment
In the Next Chapter…
References
Chapter 8: The Working Group as Expert
The Challenges and Potential Advantages of the Working Group as Heterogeneous Individuals
The Differentiated Workgroup: Lower Risk Across Mindful Conversation
In the Next Chapter…
References
Chapter 9: Enhancing Group Expertise and Performance Across Technology
Avoiding the Efficiency Paradox of Technology-Centric Organizing
The Case of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work
Human-Centric Design and Affordance Across Agential Realism
In the Next Chapter…
References
Chapter 10: The Integral Role of Conversation in Business Architectures
Conversation as Both a Core Process Indicator and Method of Inquiry
Management’s Challenge of Recognizing Conversation as a Human-Embodied ‘Technology’
References
Epilogue
Index