E VOLUTION OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

The first generation or age is defined as collection of KM related issues that emerged prior to 1995. Tuomi (2002) sees that KM as a management “movement” did not emerge until 1995 with the publication of Nonaka & Takeuchi’s famous book “The Knowledge Company”.

Tuomi also places KM in a continuum with TQM and BPR, whereas Hong & Ståhle (2005) do at least implicitly claim that some form of KM did exist on its own prior to 1995, and in part led to the technologically led revolution of process management and BPR as discourse:

they describe the first generation of KM as “…focused on the appropriate structuring and flow of information to decision-makers, as well as on the computerisation of major business applications, which lead to a technology-enabled revolution dominated by the perceived efficiencies of Business Process Reengineering (BPR)” (Hång & Ståhle 2005, 131). Snowden (2002) takes the middle ground, stating that prior to 1995 the KM –type activities’ main goal was to provide the informational support for BPR initiatives, and as a distinct entity emerged in 1995. There are also views that KM actually emerged because of BPR: the efficiency gains were achieved often by downsizing, which in turn meant the loss of expertise in organizations (Zorn & Taylor 2003). Hislop (2009) and Schultze & Stabell (2004) call KM of this era as the neo-functionalist discourse; Newell et al. (2009) use the label “structural perspective).

However the first generation is defined, it has some distinct features: it has a technological perspective, its main concern is to identify knowledge and take care of its subsequent storage and distribution (information processing), using mainly ICT as the key tool. Individuals are seen as the prime knowledge carriers. Knowledge is an asset, rational, explicit and context free – unproblematic, so to speak (Snowden 2002). The temporal focus is on skills and knowledge needed at present.

Unlike the first, the second generation is much easier to define: the year 1995 is seen as a historical year for KM. The second generation “…started circa 1995, focusing on the movement of socialisation, externalisation, combination, and internationalisation known as the SECI model, proposed by Nonaka and Takeuchi” (Hång & Ståhle 2005, 131). The perspective is one of sociology and organizational development, with the main concern of knowledge sharing and transfer and its exploitation. Key tool is social interaction and communication, which defines the nature of knowledge to be communicative and tacit – and thus more problematic. Prime knowledge carrier is a collective, group or a community. The temporal focus is more in the near future. In addition the advances in distributive computing and groupware as well as the emergence of what became the internet around mid 1990s helped spark the interest in the more socially oriented and knowledge sharing views (Tuomi 2002). However, knowledge is still seen as something organizations can transfer/convert from one type (e.g. tacit to explicit) or location (individual, organizational) to another (Newell et al.

2009). Nonaka’s SECI-model and knowledge creation theory associated with it (Nonaka 1994; Nonaka & Takeuchi 1995; Nonaka et al. 2006) has reached a paradigmatic position within KM, but it has also been more critically evaluated, for example Gourlay (2006) offers a summary of existing critique as well as presenting his own, and Gueldenberg & Helting (2007) criticize the epistemological and philosophical grounding of Nonaka’s theory.¹⁶ Notably, Hislop (2009) and Newell et al. (2009) firmly place KM research in this vein and era still in the neo-functional and structural “box”.

The third generation (and beyond) has brought more multifaceted views into KM discourse.

There is no one view that would represent the recent developments around the concept of KM. Tentatively, three broad themes or developments can be singled out. First, there is research on the philosophical foundations of knowledge itself, where knowledge itself is treated more as a representation than something “actual”, and this discussion on the very nature of knowledge has been the subject of much KM research (see e.g. Spender & Scherer 2007). Second, an emerging theme is the even more pronounced shift in focus towards exploration and knowledge creation: how to create new knowledge for the needs of a future

16 Overall, for an interesting analysis on how organizational research has used and (misused) the foundational concepts from Simon (bounded rationality) and Polanyi (tacit knowledge), see Miller (2008).

still unknown (Hong & Ståhle 2005); this has resulted in the further development of knowledge creation theory (Nonaka et al. 2006). For example, Nonaka et al. (2014) have very recently brought fore the concept of “dynamic fractal organizations” where knowledge exists in “triad relationships” of tacit, explicit and practical knowing, the overall aim being the promotion of “knowledge-based transformation” and culture which “…fosters the culture of synthesizing parts and the whole […] through dialogue and practice from which new knowledge constantly emerges” (Ibid. 145). In addition, the role of context, physical and virtual places where knowledge creation becomes localized as well as the broader ecosystem to which organizations belong to has gained increasing research interest (van Korgh &

Geilinger 2014).

Third, the evolution of KM can also be linked with the broader “practice turn” in organization studies (Schatzki et al. 2001), where organizational work and “knowing” is seen as embedded situated practice (Orlikowski 2002). Research under the labels of e.g. “knowing-in-practice”

and “practice-based approaches/perspectives” has increased notably (Corrodi et al. 2010;

Erden et al. 2014), and e.g. Hislop (2013) sees this increased focus on practice as one of the most significant recent changes in KM. “Arguably, the neo-functionalist perspective may no longer be as dominant as it used to be (Ibid. 251).”

It is however evident that the representations of all of the generations of KM are simultaneously present: the later generation builds on the earlier ones, mixing features of this discourse with new rhetoric. As Tuomi (2002) aptly describes, in the increasingly informationalized society, the first generation KM will stay alive and well, as investments into information technology have a long lifecycle and their replacement is slow and expensive. Spender & Scherer (2007, 8) note: “What concerns and anxieties appear in the KM literature? For most the IT issues dominate…”

KM has been argued to be on its decline as a management discourse - for example Newell et al. (2009, 21) state that “Knowledge Management has largely lost its ground as ‘flavour of the

month’”¹⁷. However, one can also argue the opposite. For example, Hislop’s textbook

“Knowledge management in organizations” is now on its third edition (2013), and Serenko &

Bontis (2013) identified currently 25 academic journals purely dealing with issues of KM (and intellectual capital). However, the central themes of Knowledge Management are also increasingly researched under the keywords of for example organizational learning, knowledge creation, epistemology, practice and more generally, organization theory – and not as “Knowledge Management”. Thus – as it of course should be - KM is ever evolving, perhaps to the direction of dissolving into the “other” practices of the organization.