Oh, what a tangled web we weave when we practice managing knowledge.

            Some might say that knowledge lives in the network rather than books and people’s heads.  I would respectfully disagree.  By definition, knowledge involves an understanding of information acquired through education—formal or informal and experience.  Networks contain information and data, but not necessarily an understanding of said data or information. Therefore, I do not believe that the networks contain knowledge but rather a collection of information that could be organized and conceptualized.  Having said that, it might be necessary to internally distinguish between sensory knowledge, like knowing the right time to launch a product or knowing when to intervene in a conflict, and knowledge management systems that house content and can be retrieved from a knowledge base.  So, what about knowledge management?  Let’s look at three perspectives: 

            Kelly (2016) used five concepts that resonated with my reflection on the idea of knowledge management: access, sharing, collaboration, cooperation, and collectivism. All great buzzwords, but how much of these ideas are sustained through knowledge management in reality. 

            Dixon (2009) gives a good history and description of knowledge management and its implications in parts one, two, and three of her articles.  Dixon (2009) focuses on the people side of “knowledge management” by highlighting the “leveraging of experiential knowledge”….our “know-how.”  Our “know-how” can not just be dumped into a database and expected to be relevant two minutes after it is put there …….. knowledge is dynamic and context-specific. 

            As Davenport (2015) mentioned in his article, knowledge management is complex. It is not enough to just put “knowledge” into a system and hope that it would be applied or utilized. He said something I agree with…that knowledge, the acquisition, and possession of it, is too tied up with ego, politics, power, and even culture.  Although I agree that having knowledge accessible to everyone in an organization will, in a perfect world, improve the operations and productivity of an organization.  It does not facilitate cognitive diversity.  It does not motivate employees to share information or prevent knowledge hoarding by middle management and those at the top.  It does not increase trust, as everyone wonders which parts of the knowledge system they do not have access to—who has level 1 clearance versus level 5 clearance.  Who gets to manipulate the knowledge in the knowledge management systems?  Will I get credit for my contribution to it?  Will there be transparency?  Will I have full access?

            As I think about the idea of access, my own experience comes to mind.  At my place of work, if I did not possess, own, and guard my knowledge, I will not be invited to the decision-making table.  I am a woman of color and an immigrant, and based on my personal experience, access is not always a reality in my organizational environment. 

            Kelly (2016) asked us to imagine a magical rental store where even the most ordinary person can get a hold of a product or service as fast as if they possessed it.  Kelly (2016) further asked us to imagine a kind of “Mary Poppins Carpetbag,” where all we have to do is knock on the outside and summon an item from the bottomless container.  What a magical idea!  What an imagination indeed!  We might say that this bottomless container might be the intention of a knowledge management system or knowledge management in the cloud environment.  However, I ask, is there always access for all within an organization or among entities who say they are collaborating.  Access is nice, but in my experience, possession of my knowledge is not just a security blanket but insurance where there is no assurance.  My knowledge about the intricate parts of my work has been reinforced by my experiences, personality, and serious reflection and lessons gleaned from my successes and failures.  My knowledge can not be simply uploaded to a web tool and left there in a static state.  My knowledge makes me visible, and if I am visible, it would be obviously unjust if I am not granted needed access to the necessary knowledge, and then it becomes politized.  I value both access and possession to knowledge that facilitates growth—professionally and personally.  I value access to the knowledge base that improves organizational functioning.  Kelly (2016) seems to allude to the idea that one (access) is more important than the other (ownership or possession).  In a fair world, I would be content with access, but please, bear with a little foolishness from me for now.

            So, I will conclude by saying the term “Knowledge management” is unfortunate. Although its benefits could include having common information at our fingertips, having a standardized set of processes, facilitating collaboration among those with access, and spending less time recreating existing knowledge, the dynamic and organic nature of knowledge can not be managed.  The idea of managing knowledge is like trying to manage the weather. Knowledge will take on various forms and land wherever it may—-whether that knowledge is used for good or not, or whether that knowledge is presented as fact or as fake news for whatever reason.

            According to the psychology of fake news, Pennycook and Rand (2021) found that people do not share fake news on social media based solely on partisanship and political thinking.   Lack of reasoning, lack of relevant information, poor truth discernment, and inattention to impact are some of the reasons fake news gets shared with the help of social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and other web tools, as discussed by Pennycook and Rand (2021).  They also found that what people believe and what they share on social media are also disconnected most of the time.  The availability of information and the dissemination of that information becomes mostly a source of entertainment, desire to acquire as many likes as possible, and use the information to become relevant and part of the conversation.

            I wonder if the dissemination of fake news increases during times of crisis, stress, or uncertainty.  There was some fake news during the pandemic. Dr. Joseph Chan discussed the relevance of a reliable knowledge management system to slow the misinformation and disinformation of pandemic news and track and coordinate efforts to slow down the virus and educate on the vaccine.  Dr. Chan also alluded to the benefit such a knowledge management system had on those who worked remotely and needed information housed in their organizations.  If it is designed and built to act as a living organism, there is nothing inherently wrong with a well-developed and purposeful knowledge management system.  I just wonder about the need to contain knowledge, the reliability of the contained knowledge, the accessibility of the contained knowledge, and who is responsible for refreshing said knowledge since knowledge is not static.

            The good news is that we, as leaders, do not really have to worry about how we can manage or contain knowledge in this digital age.  Leaders must focus on assessing their organizational culture and determining if it is a conducive knowledge-sharing environment.  They can do this by attaching employee credit to the knowledge they shared, creating a give-and-take conversation among cognitively diverse people, as suggested by Dixon (2009) and Scott Page, author of the diversity bonus.  Maybe, rather than using the term “knowledge management,” we could use the term “knowledge sharing” instead.  However, as Dixon (2020) mentioned, knowledge sharing is mainly sustained by reciprocity in three actions: share, ask, appreciate as we observe when knowledge should be shared, more reflection is needed, and conversations should be had, even in this digital age.

References

Kelly, K. (2016). The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 technological forces that will shape our future. Viking Press.