Title: Data, meaning and practice: how the knowledge-based view can clarify technology's relationship with organisations

Authors: J-C. Spender

Addresses: Cranfield University School of Management, and Leeds University Business School, 411 East 57th St., New York, NY 10022, USA

Abstract: Theorists of technology, firms and organisations are now treating knowledge and skills as strategically significant. This is the good news. The bad news is that what we know about what knowledge and skills are insufficient. Our knowledge is also insufficient on how to create, acquire, identify, possess or transfer and manage knowledge and skills. Drawing on radical constructivism, we suggest a novel knowledge typology reflecting: a realist/interpretive distinction; an intellectual/practical distinction; a rationality/creativity distinction. The resulting model relates technologies to organisations, illuminating their interaction and the essential learning processes as organisations adopt technologies developed by others.

Keywords: knowledge management; technology management; tacit knowledge; knowledge types; organisational learning.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2007.012435

International Journal of Technology Management, 2007 Vol.38 No.1/2, pp.178 - 196

Published online: 13 Feb 2007 *

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