Bridging Epistemologies : The Generative Dance Between Organizational Knowledge and Organizational Knowing

Much current work on organizational knowledge, intellectual capital, knowledge-creating organizations, knowledge work, and the like rests on a single, traditional understanding of the nature of knowledge. We call this understanding the “epistemology of possession,” since it treats knowledge as something people possess. Yet, this epistemology cannot account for the knowingfound in individual and group ractice.Knowing as action calls for an “epistemology of practice.” Moreover, the epistemology of possession tends to privilege explicit over tacit knowledge, and knowledge possessed by individuals over that possessed by groups. Current work on organizations is limited by this privileging and by the scant attention given to knowing in its own right. Organizations are better understood if explicit, tacit, individual and group knowledge are treated as four distinct and coequal forms of knowledge (each doing work the others cannot), and if knowledge and knowing are seen as mutually enabling (not competing). We hold that knowledge is a tool of knowing, that knowing is an aspect of our interaction with the social and physical world, and that the interplay of knowledge and knowing can generate new knowledge and new ways of knowing. We believe this generative dancebetween knowledge and knowing is a powerful source of organizational innovation. Harnessing this innovation calls for organizational and technological infrastructures that support the interplay of knowledge and knowing. Ultimately, these concepts make possible a more robust framing of such epistemologically-centered concerns as core competencies, the management of intellectual capital, etc. We explore these views through three brief case studies drawn from recent research. (Knowledge; Knowing; Epistemology ; Practice) Introduction In recent years, knowledge has become a prominent theme in the organizational literature. However, in such discussions, as in informal contexts, knowledge is typically spoken of as though it were all of a piece, as though essentially it comes in only one kind. It is our contention that there are, in fact, a number of distinct forms of knowledge, and that their differences are relevant, both theoretically and practically, to an effective understanding of organizations. There is now much discussion of organizational knowledge, knowledge-based organizations, knowledgecreating organizations, knowledge work, etc. There are numerous related themes such as organizational learning, the collective mind (Weick and Roberts 1993), and the organizational brain. It has become common to talk of knowledge in the context of both individuals and groups, and even to consider knowledge in explicit and tacit senses (where, for example, explicit knowledge is treated as knowledge that can be spelled out or formalized, and tacit knowledge as that associated with skills or “knowhow”). Accordingly, there are discussions about: how explicit knowledge acquired by individuals in an organization is associated with “learning” at the level of the SCOTT D. N. COOK AND JOHN SEELY BROWN Bridging Epistemologies 382 ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 10, No. 4, July–August 1999 organization (March and Olsen 1976, Argyris and Schon 1978, Sims and Gioia 1986, Simon 1991, Sitkin 1992); how a group’s mastering of explicit routines can be an aspect of organizational memory (Cohen and Bacdayan 1994); how the tacit skills of an individual can and cannot be tapped for the benefit of the organization (Nonaka 1994, Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995, Spender 1996); and how the activities of groups can constitute organizational learning (Weick and Westley 1996, Weick 1991). Meanwhile, such concepts are clearly vital to such concerns as the management of intellectual capital (Stewart 1997), core competencies (Hamel and Prahalad 1994), and innovation (Leonard-Barton 1995). Increasingly, such work has pushed provocatively and insightfully at the boundaries of the theoretical frames used in understanding knowledge and organizations—as in Weick and Roberts’s (1993) application of “taking heed” and “mindfulness” to operations of teams; in Cohen and Bacdayan’s (1994) use of notions of procedural memory from psychology as a way of understanding organizational routines; in what Hutchins (1991, p. 2) sees as the “pattern of communication” within the “cognitive system” of a group; in Nonaka and Takeuchi’s spiral of knowledge creation; and in Kogut and Zander’s (1996) considerations of the interplay between individuals’ social knowledge and the organizing principles of work in explaining what organizations know how to do. Yet, even in this growing body of literature that explores epistemologically significant themes, there typically remains an expressed or implied tendency to treat knowledge as being essentially of one kind. That is, the epistemology assumed in the literature tends to privilege the individual over the group, and the explicit over the tacit (as if, for example, explicit and tacit knowledge were two variations of one kind of knowledge, not separate, distinct forms of knowledge). The former tendency is reflected in the insistence that organizational learning is really about individual learning since “All learning takes place inside individual human heads . . .” (Simon, 1991 p. 125). The latter, meanwhile, can be seen in Nonaka’s argument that “While tacit knowledge held by individuals may lie at the heart of the knowledge creating process, realizing the practical benefits of that knowledge centers on its externalization . . .” where “externalization” for Nonaka entails a process of “converting” tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge (1994, p. 20). Cohen and Bacdayan, meanwhile, contend that organizational routines arise when “individuals store components of a routine as a procedural memory” (1994, p. 554). And even Weick and Roberts have made the epistemologically provocative move of describing “collective mind” in terms of “a distinct higher-order pattern of interrelated activities” grounded in and emerging from “individual actions” (1994, p. 374). Meanwhile Hutchins (1991, p. 284) speaks of investigating the “ways in which the cognitive properties of human groups may depend on the social organization of individual cognitive capabilities.” As we will detail below, we believe that the tendency to treat all knowledge as being essentially the same severely limits the current work on epistemologicallyrelevant organizational themes, both theoretically and operationally. Theoretically, these tendencies fail to honor aspects of the distinction between explicit and tacit, and individual and group knowledge that we see as germane to understanding the acquisition, maintenance, and exercise of competencies by individuals and groups. Practically, it limits our ability to assess and support these competencies in their own right. The first contention of this paper is that each of the four categories of knowledge inherent in the explicit/tacit and individual/group distinctions is a distinct form of knowledge on equal standing with the other three (i.e., none is subordinate to or made up out of any other). Also, this distinct character is reflected in the fact that each form of knowledge does work that the others cannot. We view these four forms of knowledge as constituting the appropriate focus of what we call the epistemology of possession,since these forms of “what is known” are typically treated as something people possess. 1 To say, for example, “Robert knows auto mechanics” points to Robert possessingknowledge of auto mechanics. The second contention is that not all of what is known is captured by this understanding of knowledge. Put another way, there is more epistemic work being done in what we know how to do than can be accounted for solely in terms of the knowledge we possess. 2 So, in addition to talking about the four distinct forms of knowledge we also want to be able to speak about the epistemic work done by human action itself—that is, about what is part of practiceas well as what ispossessed in the head. To say, for example, “Robert is fixing cars” points not only to knowledge he possesses but also to things he is doing. To give an account of what Robert knows, we claim, calls for an understanding of the epistemic work done, which needs to include both the knowledge he possesses and the actions he carries out. Borrowing from the epistemological perspective of the American Pragmatist philosophers, we call what is possessed “knowledge” and what is part of action “knowing.” Individuals and groups clearly make use of knowledge, both explicit and tacit, in what they do; but not everything they know how to do, we argue, is explicable solely in terms of the knowledge they possess. We believe SCOTT D. N. COOK AND JOHN SEELY BROWN Bridging Epistemologies ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 10, No. 4, July–August 1999 383 Figure 1 Knowledge and Knowing that understanding of the epistemological dimension of individual and group action requires us to speak about both knowledgeused inaction and knowingas part of action. Therefore, in addition to the traditional epistemology of possession, there needs to be, in our view, a parallel epistemology of practice, which takes ways of knowing as its focus. By this, we do not mean that practice needs to be brought under the umbrella of traditional epistemology (nor do we mean that all of human action needs to be accounted for epistemologically). Rather, we contend that there needs to be a radical expansion of what is considered epistemic in its own right, which includes knowledge and knowing. Furthermore, we do not see knowledge and knowing as competing, but as complementary and mutually enabling (see Figure 1). 3 Indeed, as we will spell out in detail in what follows, understanding what is entailed in bridging the two epistemologies provides a more robust account of such matters as: how individuals and groups can draw on tacit and explicit knowledge simultaneously; how what ind