Science Fiction, Philosophy, or Management? Essay Example

The Theoretical Foundations and Debates of Knowledge Management

Introduction

Unlike the fathers of most current fields of knowledge, Otlet, Briet, Heidegger, and Benjamin were not born in an era of powdered wigs or togas. In fact, their peers were the predictors and creators of technology, as well as the subsequent ethical and management dilemmas. In 1932, Aldous Huxley described many shallow personal connections, consumerized production, and a nation on anti-depressants; in 1938, H.G. Wells described a “World Brain” capable of storing, organizing, and distributing global information (Dalkir, 2005); in 1951, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 described flat screens encircling an entire room and the instant gratification habits of technology in the words of a self-proclaimed Marcus Aurelius: “They can’t admit it. They know they can hold their audience only so long. The show’s got to have a snap ending, quick!” (15). Despite the fact that they alluded to themes of the push-and-pull between Capitalist and Communist government and also predicted that knowledge would become overwhelming, these other great men had only been considered fiction writers who were very good at their job. It took the words of serious authors to reveal the mine field that would become data mining. Ironically, the underestimated descriptions of H. G. Wells helped to form and inform the practices of Knowledge Management as we know it today and as we envision it tomorrow (Wallace, 2007).

Classical Theories

The literature of Paul Otlet and Suzanne Briet began an academic debate concerning what is considered knowledge, which of the available materials for learning should qualify as knowledge, and how much knowledge should be private and public. Their theories were among the first modern critiques of the ethical aspects of the availability of information, transitioning data storage techniques from Information Management (IM) to Knowledge Management (KM). Today these two camps are both alive and well but have left today’s oft-transferring student to make the disjointed transition between one academic database (and its preconceptions) and another (Day, 2001).

Paul Otlet was a dreamer in the mold of Thomas More. He believed that knowledge should be accessible to all in an effort to create a state of common knowledge and sympathy which he claimed would lead to the realization of Utopia. Since knowledge is an inherent good, the sharing of knowledge must be a good also, asserted Otlet (Milam, 2005). In fact, one of his more controversial theories stated that world peace cannot be achieved without a world language (Rayward, 1997). English operates as a lingua franca today, especially in the realm of knowledge management, but economically disadvantaged and less- industrialized areas of the world are often unable to utilize these resources.

Philosophical debates aside, many of the academic elite sided with Otlet as the facilitator of a constancy of expectations. Data mining tools, in particular, were seen as a limiting factor, inhibiting the perimeters of truth within subjective grounds of definition (Sculley & Pasanek, 2008). Namely, if data mining is to be considered a science, then the number of simultaneous-acting independent variables should be reduced to maintain the integrity of the results. As Fallis and Whitcomb (2009) wrote: “When people make such information management decisions, the relevant values tend to be epistemic values” (177). Critics of Otlet (mainly learning theorists) maintained that a fixed distribution, a group of truths considered the fullest representation of the truth, are necessary to a global understanding of specific concepts (Sculley et al., 2008). Generally, the issue of knowledge acceptance divided Otlet’s inclusionary followers into the camp of evidentialism, and his exclusionary critics into the reliability camp, which emphasized the process of reaching a conclusion about potential evidence (Fallis & Whitcomb, 2009).

If Paul Otlet was the father of the knowledge revolution, then Briet was the first lady of the learning theory, the antagonist answer to utopian knowledge. One of the first female librarians in Paris, Briet was soon known as “Madame Documentation”. Suzanne Briet was one of the only women involved in the movement to re-examine the European documentation (Buckland, 1995).

It is this “organized complexity of collaborative work to share and use information across all aspects of an institution which marks the effective use of knowledge” (Milam, 2005, 61). “The tasks of KM involve cultivating, nurturing, and exploiting knowledge at both the personal and organizational levels to help get the right knowledge to the right people at the right time” (Milam, 2005, 62). Similarly, if Briet had expounded on the complexities of her colleagues, at that time it would have been considered unacceptable by the academic community. In her landmark 1976 memoires, Madame Documentation herself only left subtle hints of most of her sources to support her arguments, as was commonly done at that time (Buckland, 1995).

The debate between Otlet and Briet spurred multiple meanings in the comprehension of knowledge: evidence, reliability, liberality, conservatism, Capitalism, Communism, optimism, and skepticism among others. Knowledge also crosses traditional boundaries. The historian, the student, the philosopher, the scientist, the politician, and the career-oriented individual of any vocation involving technology or academia has had extensive experience with aspects of Knowledge Management- often unbeknownst to them.

The globalization of technology has provided a decided advantage to followers of Briet. What’s more, the emerging perspective of organizational learning is gaining support within KM fields as a tool for the realization of knowledge (or intelligence) capital, which provides the threefold benefits of education in the personal, community, and vocational spheres. Thus, from the current managerial standpoint, Knowledge Management is a multi-layered benefit overlapping the human, social, and structural spheres simultaneously. Recent examples of organizational learning as KM can be found in commercial advertising. Honda set up a constructivist “brainstorming camp” in which employees at any level within the company can eat, drink, and be merry and thus discuss the possibilities of the future in a relaxed and socially-undifferentiated environment (Morey, Maybury, & Thuraisingham, 2002).

Despite these advantages, the Knowledge Management community remains divided along the theories of Otlet and Briet, and there seems to be no permanency to the favoritism of one belief or the other. Morey et al.’s 2002 book Knowledge Management: Classic and Contemporary Works demonstrated the increasing number of supporters for technological advancement and organizational learning, specifically in commercial advertising; a credible, pro-organizational learning 2009 journal article stated:

The more emergent view is of the organisation as ‘milieu’ or community of practice, where the focus on explanatory variables shifts away from technology towards the level of interactions between individuals, and the potential for collective learning (French, Thomas, Baker, Burton, Pennington, & Roddam, 2009, 3).   

The article goes on to contentedly point out that healthcare still frequently utilizes the technological advances and that the theoretical school of Reliability according to Briet embraces multiple perspectives in an effort to make educated deductions regarding the inclusion and exclusion of certain materials from the accepted designation of knowledge. Perhaps the most important contribution to the debate is one of the conclusions that the study reached: the learning culture is among the most significant contributors to the overall success of knowledge management. Namely, the creation of an open environment in any workplace setting will facilitate progress (French et al., 2009).

References

Bradbury, R. (1951). Fahrenheit 451. Evanston: McDougal, 1998.

Buckland, M. (1995). The Centenary of “Madame Documentation”: Suzanne Briet, 1894-1989.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 46(3), 235-237. Retrieved from  Academic Search Complete database.

Dalkir, K. (2005). Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice. Oxford, UK: Elsiever Butterworth- Heinemann.

Day, R. (2001). Totality and Representation: A History of Knowledge Management Through European Documentation. Journal of the American Society for Information Science &  Technology, 52(9), 725-735. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Fallis, D. & Whitcomb, D. (2009). Epistemic Values and Information Management. The  Information Society, 25: 175-189. Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

French, B., Thomas, L., Baker, P., Burton, C., Pennington, L., & Roddam, H. (2009). What can   management theories offer evidence-based practice? A comparative analysis of   measurement tools for organizational context. Implementation Science, 28 (4). Retrieved   from Academic Search Complete database.

Milam, J. (2005). Organizational learning through knowledge workers and infomediaries. New Directions for Higher Education, (131), 61-73. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Morey, D., Maybury, M., & Thuraisingham, B. (2002). Knowledge Management: Classic and Contemporary Works. Paperback ed. Massachusetts, U.S.A.: the MIT Press.

Rayward, W. (1997). The Origins of Information Science and the International Institute of Bibliography/International Federation for Information and Documentation (FID). Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 48(4), 299-300. Retrieved from     Academic Search Complete database.

Sculley, D., & Pasanek, B. (2008). Meaning and mining: the impact of implicit assumptions in  data mining for the humanities. Literary & Linguistic Computing, 23(4), 409-424.doi:10.1093/llc/fqn019.

Wallace, D. (2007). Knowledge Management: Historical and Cross-Disciplinary Themes.  Westport, CT, U.S.A.: Libraries Unlimited.