Organizational Knowledge in the Making

Knowledge is a very seductive, but elusive concept. Following the wider debate about the emergence of the information age and the knowledge society, recent years have seen an explosion of writings about organizational knowledge from different disciplinary and theoretical perspectives. Yet, theoretical development has not always been accompanied by sound empirical research. Methodologies for studying knowledge as an empirical phenomenon are still lagging behind. This book aims to fill the gap between theory, method, and practice by developing a phenomenological approach to the study of knowing in the context of organizing. The book contributes to the fields of strategy and organization in three ways. First it provides a critical review of the concepts, debates, and epistemological assumptions underpinning existing theories of organizational knowledge. Second, it develops a methodological framework for studying knowledge processes as an empiricalphenomenon that is based on three methodological lenses: time, breakdowns, and narratives. Third, drawing on the three-lens framework, the book presents a phenomenological enquiry on knowing and organizing processes within two large car-manufacturing plants at Fiat Auto, Italy. The book highlights the needto re-think organizational knowledge from an action-based perspective and suggests a new vocabulary for understanding knowledge-oriented phenomena in organizations. The book is addressed both to scholars of strategy and organization and to reflective practitioners. Academics will be stimulated to reflect upon concepts they normally take for granted and habitually use in their research. The book is also suitable for young researchers and doctoral students whose research interests lie in the areas of knowledge and organization. The Fiat case study, on which the book is based, offers interesting insights to practitioners as far as classical themes likechange, innovation, and organizational design are concerned. Contrary to mainstream knowledge management texts, however, this book does not provide any recipes about alleged best ways for managing organizational knowledge. Rather, it invites managers and practitioners to reflect about the repertoire ofknowledge they possess and yet cannot articulate.

"... entails aggressively novel ideas about the relationships between leading edge technology and empowered staff and, pivotally, about how to make good use of collective learning. But most of all, Patriotta gives us new insight into how to do empirical research in a KM frame.", Organizational Knowledge in the Making is a provocative, insightful description and analysis of the dual process of_ knowing and organizing..., Patriotta's book is of an enduring kind; it offers us some brilliant developments that really start to address the fundamental question of knowing in the dynamic of organizing..., Organizational Knowledge in the Making is a remarkable study of organizing, remarkable in its grounding of organizational knowledge, remarkable in its steady focus on knowing amidst breakdown, and remarkable most of all in the author's accessible grasp of the complexities of process and becoming., Review from previous edition Review from previous edition An eloquent, timely, and scholarly study of knowing in the context of organizing. ... This is not yet another static and inert treatment of organizational knowledge where knowledge is portrayed as a simple commodity ... Rather we have here a processual treatment of knowing in its organizational context, where the core questions are about how knowledge is created, utilized, legitimated, and institutionalized

Gerardo Patriotta received his Ph.D. in Business Studies from the University of Warwick. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Organizational Behaviour, Nottingham University Business School. He has held previous appointments at the Theseus Institute (France), the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, Warwick Business School, and the University of Bologna. His research interests include knowledge management and organizational learning; the study of institutionbuilding processes in organizations; organizational sensemaking; technology and organization.