Blackwell Reference Online

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For scholars, the question of what exactly is meant by knowledge is central to epistemological and ontological inquiry. This debate has spilled over into work on the area of knowledge management where differences persist over how to define knowledge and what knowledge management entails. In much of the empirical work on knowledge management, researchers have defined knowledge in the terms established by their research subjects. Conceptually, some work has run dangerously close to tautology by suggesting organizational knowledge is that which is known in an organizational setting. Otherwise, the distinctions between data, information, and knowledge have been widely acknowledged. Data are the basic organized stream of signals or sequences of events; information is organized data such that the relation between components of the data are evident; knowledge is judgment of the significance of information via theory or contextualization. Using this schema, some researchers have stressed how knowledge is anchored in or structured by the beliefs and values of its holder. Of importance here is the emphasis on the role of actors in interpreting meaning from information, and the relation to action that follows from knowing: knowledge is used to make sense of the world, to solve problems, and to enact change ( see enactment ). Knowledge management implies, at the least, an intent to organize ... log in or subscribe to read full text