About the Growth of Knowledge

1. About the Growth of Knowledge Alan McLean Universiti Tun Abdul Razak, Malaysia (UNITAR) International School of Kuala Lumpur

2. Presented at The Knowledge Management International Conference and Exhibition, June 2006, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia(www.kmice.uum.edu.my/ Full text available from: http://www.angelfire.com/linux/alan1/about.html

3. My contact details & aims: • http://www.angelfire.com/linux/alan1 • 016 636 0754 My aims:Outline some main ideasInvite criticismPossibly find collaborators

4. Some interesting ideas: • “ … there are no well-developed … measures … to assess the value of … knowledge assets …” (Chong Siong Choy) • “Organisations … are … forced to learn at a faster rate in order to remain successful …” (Chong Siong Choy)

5. What the other experts say: • … knowledge is growing faster and faster … (Bodendorf & Schertler) • You will not understand what is happening in our intellectual life if you do not see the exponential growth of knowledge as the central intellectual fact. (John Searle) • Knowledge is growing faster today than at any period in history. (Julian Cribb) • And Prue Mercer said …

6. And Prue Mercer said … Knowledge is growing faster today than at any period in history. (So is there any factual basis for this idea? Is it just a rumour? An urban myth? Do we repeat it because we heard it … and it sounded good?)

7. This is the problem: To say that knowledge is growing suggests that we have some way of knowing that the knowledge available now is greater than it was in the past. Perhaps the most natural way of estimating the rate of knowledge growth is to know the total quantity of knowledge available at two instants and calculating the growth rate from that data. Unfortunately, we do not have the capability to do this. Until we have some credible means of estimating knowledge growth, we should not pretend that we can speak sensibly about it. I am not contesting the idea the it is true that knowledge is growing. Instead, I’m wondering whether it is meaningful to talk about the rate of growth of knowledge while we have no credible indicator of how much knowledge there is or of how quickly it is growing.

8. These claims look to me like empty talk. They sound good and mean very little. This is not academic griping on my part. Nonsense is nonsense in any context. I do not think we should invest our faith in it.

9. So … how can we estimate the growth of knowledge?

10. Knowledge Growth 5 x 1018 bytes of new information in 2002, growing at around 30% per year. (Lyman and Varian, 2003) (print, film, digital etc.)

11. a DIKW pyramid Wisdom Knowledge Information Data

12. Unresolved problems in the theory of knowledge • Speaking coherently about the growth of knowledge is impossible without first recognising a group of unresolved problems in the theory of knowledge. These include the question of what qualifies as knowledge and the related question of which entities are able to possess knowledge.

13. But NO! Surely it is people who know things

14. Yes, that is the traditional view of knowledge. • Senge identifies team knowledge as - more than personal mastery plus the ability to work in a team – Teams are a ‘larger intelligence’ which has procedural knowledge that individuals do not possess.

15. So, what is a learning organisation? - an organisation that adapts appropriately to its environment by correcting errors and evolving understanding

16. And in social learning theory? - learning is not a process that takes place in individual minds - rather it is a matter of social transition

17. A New Framework ? • Knowledge that can be stored • Personal knowledge • Communities of Practice • Team knowledge • Learning Organisations (… this seems to be about different units of analysis …)

18. Knowledge that can be stored 5 x 1018 bytes

19. Personal knowledge A B C

20. Personal knowledge A B C Only non-quantitative approaches to modelling growth are available. The prospect of devising a credible indicator is remote.

21. Communities of Practice - flatly qualitative theories - Quantification of the growth of knowledge simply does not arise within this analytical framework

22. Team knowledge Assessing team knowledge is a matter of judgement. There is no credible indicator for evaluating learning or knowledge growth.

23. Learning Organisations - no credible indicator of how good an organisation has become at learning, or of the total organisational knowledge it possesses.

24. So … what do you think?

25. Obstacles to Research • There are not many people around with a ‘KM’ job title - a low ratio in relation to managers in general. • Individuals holding explicitly KM positions are likely to be IT specialists with an affinity to first generation KM. • People who see all or part of their job as being KM but do not have a KM job title are difficult to identify; there is no strongly correlated common factor such as job title or easily identifiable organisational role. • People who self-identify with KM (i.e. it is not in their job description) have feelings of amateurism. They use KM’s ideas and techniques but do not see themselves as ‘real’ practitioners. • KM is poorly defined. There is no consensus on the function of a knowledge manager which would allow a researcher to identify KM practitioners independently of their job title or self-identification. • KM is part of a tradition of storytelling. The selective narrative accounts typical of writing on KM support practitioners but are not useful for compiling a survey of practice.

26. McLean’s Hypotheses: The purpose of hypothesis formation is testing. That is to say: appropriate research design would show evidence of an effort to break the hypothesis. I follow Karl Popper in suggesting that a good hypothesis is likely to be bold, well defined and general.

27. What knowledge managers do and do not do There seems to be consensus, for example, that system dynamics does not get much use. By contrast, there is anecdotal evidence of anxiety over the frequent loss of expert employees.

28. What knowledge managers do and do not do There seems to be consensus, for example, that system dynamics does not get much use. By contrast, there is anecdotal evidence of anxiety over the frequent loss of expert employees.This suggests a Maslow-like hierarchy of KM needs according to which managers ensure that they have the human resources they need, that people can communicate effectively and that they have access to appropriate information resources. Only then do managers attend to the functionality of teams, communities of practice and, finally, to the learning capabilities of the whole organisation.

29. What knowledge managers do and do not do Can we use the same framework as before to explain the selective inattention of knowledge managers? • Knowledge that can be stored • Personal knowledge • Communities of Practice • Team knowledge • Learning Organisations

30. This hypothesis is entirely speculative but if it is correct, it has parallels with the ability of KM practitioners to track the effectiveness of their efforts.

31. The final hypothesis • Donald Schon points to the doctrine of technical rationality that still permeates our universities, and especially the professional schools. He contends that professionals often practice selective inattention to the ‘swamp’ of tasks that are “messy and confusing and incapable of technical solutions”.

32. The final hypothesis • I am suggesting that Schon’s conjecture is part of the explanation for the pattern of actual KM practice. KM practitioners demonstrate selective inattention to team learning, communities of practice and organisational learning because of the absence of well defined techniques in these areas. In particular, these forms of learning (and associated bodies of knowledge) are difficult to track.

33. … I don’t know so much … However attractive this model may seem, it is a hypothetical one and is offered for testing. I am making no claims about its accuracy. And I have no intention of studying it empirically. Are there any volunteers here? Anyone?

34. … I don’t know so much … I think that is more than enough. Thank you.