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Communities
and Social Networks in Organizational Knowledge Communication*
Organizational Communication
In his seminal work, Gerhard Maletzke (1963: 18) defines communication
as the mediation of meaning between creatures. The complexity and
omnipresence of communication is prominently expressed in the first
axiom by Watzlawick et al. (1969 (1967): 53) that one cannot not
communicate. This postulate has become an established part in studies
on interpersonal communication and has been widely accepted as well as
misunderstood by communication scientists and scholars. Based on the
work of Fisher (1978), Krone et al. (1987) adopt four conceptual
approaches to human communication of (1) mechanistic, (2)
psychological, (3) interpretive-symbolic, and (4) systems-interaction
perspectives as a framework for the study of organizational
communication. As an adoption from the study of human communication,
these perspectives provide a suitable theoretical framework of
organizational communication with a focus on the interpersonal
relationships.
The mechanistic perspective views communication “as a transmission
process in which a message travels across space (a channel) [and time!]
from one point to another" (Krone et al. 1987: 22). With regard to
organizational communication, especially research of organizational
communication networks takes the position of a mechanistic perspective:
it puts its focus on the communication flows among individuals. This is
also applies for a variety of network studies on organizational
communication (see, e.g., Monge and Eisenberg 1987).
Knowledge Communication in Organizations
Following Schenk (1984: 244), from a network perspective communication
in organizations can be differentiated according to three dimensions:
(1) structure, (2) function, and (3) system. Structure focuses on the
repetitive, relatively stable sets of communicative relationships that
exist between the members of an organization. Function is the
consequences of communications that could be described as production,
maintenance of the social relationships and innovation
(adaptation) (with reference to Barnard 1951 (1938)). The system level
is the aggregation of individuals, which provide the basic units of
analysis from dyadic
relationships to the whole organization.
The function of knowledge communication in organizations is learning,
innovation, and decision-making with regard to development
and management processes as well as with regard to strategic
orientation on the individual and organizational levels (on
information, knowledge, and decision-making processes see also Sorg
1982). Choo (1996) identifies these three areas in which an
organization uses information strategically: (1) to make sense of
change in its environment, (2) to create new knowledge for innovation,
and (3) to make decisions about courses of action.
From the perspective of socially constructed knowledge creation, Weick
(1979) seems to be useful to serve this perception. He “proposes a
model of organizations as ‘loosely coupled’ systems in which individual
participants have great latitude interpreting and implementing
directions" (Choo 1996: 333; with reference to Weick 1979). Since here
it is conceived that knowledge resides in the minds of individuals,
this personal knowledge needs to be converted into knowledge that can
be shared and transformed into innovations. “During knowledge creation,
the main information process is the conversion of knowledge" (Choo
1996: 338). And these conversion processes must happen for every
individual times and again. Therefore, processes of knowledge creation
are strongly connected to processes of knowledge transfer and
transformation. It seems useful to further explore similarities of and
differences between personal,
organizational, and network knowledge and the corresponding processes
of knowledge sharing in
future research.
Formal and Informal Organization
Informal social relations in organizations have been subject to
research since at least the 1930s with the classical Hawthorne studies
(Roethlisberger and Dickson, 1947). The studies of the late 1950s
considered a large discrepancy between formal and informal social
structure as negatively influencing the overall cohesion at the work
place as well as the performance of an organization (see, e.g., Coleman
1956; Dalton 1950).
Regardless of the direction of impact of the informal network on the
formal organization, there is a general consensus that it is impossible
to understand processes within the formal organization without taking
the influence of the existing informal relationships into account. As
Barnard (1951 (1938): 120) wrote in the 1930s: “Formal organizations
arise out of and are necessary to informal organization; but when
formal organizations come into operation, they create and require
informal organizations". Or as Blau and Scott (1962: 6) stated in the
1960s: “In every formal organization there arise informal
organizations". And they continue: “The constituent groups of the
organization, like all groups, develop their own practices, values,
norms, and social relations as their members live and work together.
The roots of these informal systems are embedded in the formal
organization itself and nurtured by the very formality of its
arrangements."
This leads to the conclusion that it is not only impossible to
understand processes within the formal organization without taking into
account the influence of the existing informal relationships, but that
the study of informal relationships within organizations needs taking
into account the formal organizational structure as well. The
application of social network analysis as a method to support
organizational knowledge communication takes this fact into account.
Communities of Practice and Social Networks
The focus of research and practice on the interpersonal relationships
and informal structures in organizations has lead to various
conceptualizations of organizational and inter-organizational knowledge
communication in communities and social networks. The social
perspective has emerged as the dominant paradigm in information and
knowledge management studies in the last few years. Such a social
constructionist view of knowledge exchange considers not only
single individuals and dyadic interpersonal relationships but also
social aggregates and their structural patterns. A growing literature
studies and describes the concepts of communities and networks from the
perspective of knowledge management (see, e.g., Botkin 1999; Erickson
and Kellogg 1999; Erickson and Kellogg 2001; Lesser et al. 2000;
Schmidt 2000; Brown and Duguid 1991; Lesser 2001; Wenger
1999; Collinson and Gregson 2003; Liyanage et al. 1999; Powell 1998;
Seufert et al. 1999a; Seufert et al. 1999b).
In the knowledge management debates, particularly the concept of
communities of practice (CoP) has become an influential approach. From
the background of anthropologically oriented pedagogics, Lave and
Wenger (1991) introduced the concept of communities of practice.
Central to their concept is the role of “legitimate peripheral
participation" that describes how knowledge and skills are transferred
in groups through modes of guidance, implicit learning, and growing
participation in communities. The importance of communities of practice
for processes of knowledge sharing and learning in organizational
environments is based on their capacity to wholly integrate knowledge
and learning into their social practices without treating them as
individually isolated processes beyond everyday life (Lave and Wenger
1991: 47-48). In their concept, knowledge is not localized in the
individual person but in the group through forms of socially
constructed meaning (Lave and Wenger 1991: 50). The concept of
communities of practice was quickly transferred from learning theories
to the domains of knowledge management, human resource development, and
business administration. Especially in R&D environments, it is of
overall importance to effectively support and manage communities and innovation networks.
* A
comprehensive version of this text and all references can be found in
the book
presented here.
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