This paper sketches a complexity conceptualization of knowledge. Building from evolutionary theories, it defi nes knowledge as rules that reduce environmental uncertainty through connections between ideas and facts. Knowledge is conceived as a structure validated through action, a process contextualized in individual experience and a system embedded in social and cultural experience. It exhibits four characteristics of a complex system: it is sensitive to initial conditions, exhibits multiple feedback loops, is non-linear and is recursively symmetrical. Knowledge's four interdependent deformation dimensions are identified (personal, common, tacit and explicit) and their interactions are discussed. This conceptualization of knowledge as a complex system contributes to the knowledge-based theory of the firm by providing some micro-foundations to organizational knowledge, and it opens the opportunity to re-think theories of communities of practice, entrepreneurship and firm creation, the role of managers, and knowledge management.
%0 Journal Article
%1 Tywoniak_knowledge
%A Tywoniak, Stephane A.
%D 2007
%I Sage
%J Organization
%K KM uncertainty knowledge_management evolutionary_theory CoPs CoP complexity_theory
%N 1
%P 53-76
%T Knowledge in Four Deformation Dimensions
%V 14
%X This paper sketches a complexity conceptualization of knowledge. Building from evolutionary theories, it defi nes knowledge as rules that reduce environmental uncertainty through connections between ideas and facts. Knowledge is conceived as a structure validated through action, a process contextualized in individual experience and a system embedded in social and cultural experience. It exhibits four characteristics of a complex system: it is sensitive to initial conditions, exhibits multiple feedback loops, is non-linear and is recursively symmetrical. Knowledge's four interdependent deformation dimensions are identified (personal, common, tacit and explicit) and their interactions are discussed. This conceptualization of knowledge as a complex system contributes to the knowledge-based theory of the firm by providing some micro-foundations to organizational knowledge, and it opens the opportunity to re-think theories of communities of practice, entrepreneurship and firm creation, the role of managers, and knowledge management.
@article{Tywoniak_knowledge,
abstract = {This paper sketches a complexity conceptualization of knowledge. Building from evolutionary theories, it defi nes knowledge as rules that reduce environmental uncertainty through connections between ideas and facts. Knowledge is conceived as a structure validated through action, a process contextualized in individual experience and a system embedded in social and cultural experience. It exhibits four characteristics of a complex system: it is sensitive to initial conditions, exhibits multiple feedback loops, is non-linear and is recursively symmetrical. Knowledge's four interdependent deformation dimensions are identified (personal, common, tacit and explicit) and their interactions are discussed. This conceptualization of knowledge as a complex system contributes to the knowledge-based theory of the firm by providing some micro-foundations to organizational knowledge, and it opens the opportunity to re-think theories of communities of practice, entrepreneurship and firm creation, the role of managers, and knowledge management.},
added-at = {2007-01-04T21:08:03.000+0100},
author = {Tywoniak, Stephane A.},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2f96a86b551b8dd60e73fa32a61f5705a/wcrosbie},
description = {e.g. complexity theory KM & CoPs},
interhash = {61af79c874702228cc962fe7091161d8},
intrahash = {f96a86b551b8dd60e73fa32a61f5705a},
journal = {Organization},
keywords = {KM uncertainty knowledge_management evolutionary_theory CoPs CoP complexity_theory},
number = 1,
pages = {53-76},
publisher = {Sage},
timestamp = {2007-01-04T21:08:03.000+0100},
title = {Knowledge in Four Deformation Dimensions},
volume = 14,
year = 2007
}