Polymorphic Nature of Knowledge: Towards a knowledge creation model ______________________________________________ Abou-Bakr A. Moteleb Middlesex University, UK a.moteleb@mdx.ac.uk Walaa M. Bakry Middlesex University, UK w.mohamed@mdx.ac.uk
Abstract The ability to create and communicate knowledge represents a major challenge for organisations today. Yet, a gap is apparent between different notions of knowledge creation in epistemology and models of knowledge management in literature. This paper attempts at narrowing this gap by studying the nature of knowledge and presenting a holistic generic model for knowledge creation based on different epistemological notions in literature. Keywords: knowledge, knowledge creation, eKnowledge, knowledge management This paper explores
1. Introduction Knowledge has always represented an important component in civilisations and an interesting topic of discussion. Ever since ancient Egyptians, to Greek philosophers, to modern scholars, ‘Epistemology’, the study of knowledge, occupied people minds for millennia. Today, knowledge is considered “the key personal resource and the key economic resource” (Drucker P. 1993). Recognising this fact, many organisations have initiated Knowledge Management programmes (Nonaka I. and Takeuchi H. 1995; Davenport T. and Prusak L. 2000; Nonaka I. et Al. 2000). However, there are few examples in literature that bridge the gap between knowledge and knowledge application (Roth J. 2003). Knowledge Management (KM) is a multi-oriented subject that has roots and is influenced by a variety of disciplines such as philosophy, cognitive, social, economics, and management sciences, as well as knowledge and information systems engineering and artificial intelligence. As a result, a multitude of variant philosophies, definitions, theories and models of KM are circulating in literature as well as in practice today. (Kakabadse N. et Al. 2003). However, KM models are often criticised of supporting one notion of knowledge creation over another. For example, Gebert et Al. (2003) criticises most KM models developed within the last decade; as it either takes an epistemological approach “view[ing] knowledge as an entity with distinctive