LB5124

BUSINESS INNOVATION &

TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT

Lecture 4
How Do Businesses Learn to Innovate?

LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises

Objectives of Lecture 4

• Define Knowledge
• Define Organizational Learning
• Use Frameworks for Knowledge Management
• Critique the Frameworks for Knowledge
Management

LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises

A Definition of Knowledge

“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 that
individual and group action requires us to speak about both knowledge used
in action and knowing as part of the action” (Cook and Brown, 1999, p. 382).

“Organizations are better understood... if knowledge and knowing are seen as

mutually enabling (not competing). We hold that knowledge is a tool for
knowing, that knowing is an aspect of our interaction with the social and
physical world, and the interplay of knowledge and knowing can generate new
knowledge and new ways of knowing” (Cook and Brown, 1999, p. 381).
LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises
A Definition of Knowledge

'the ability to discriminate within and across contexts' (Swan,

2008).

'a learned set of norms, shared understandings and practices

that integrates actors and artefacts to produce valued outcomes
within a specific social and organizational context' (Scarbrough,
2008).

LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises

Organizational Learning

LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises

Knowledge as Possession View

• Knowledge derived from an intellectual process;

• Knowledge is disembodied entity/object;

• Knowledge is objective facts;

• Explicit or objective knowledge is privileged over

tacit knowledge;

• Distinct knowledge categories.

LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises
Knowledge as Practice View

• Knowledge is embodied in practice; knowledge

and doing are inseparable;

• Knowledge is embodied in people and is

socially constructed;

• Knowledge is culturally embedded; contestable;

• Tacit/Explicit forms of knowledge are

inseparable, mutually constituted and multi-
dimensional.LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises
Nonaka’s Framework (1994)

• Describes the process of creating knowledge;

• Explains how knowledge is transferred from the

individual to the broader organization-wide
context.

• Individuals are ‘essential’ actors in the creation

of knowledge.

LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises

Nonaka’s Framework (1994)

• Socialization: tacit knowledge is created through

shared experience between people;

• Externalization: an individual’s tacit knowledge is

translated into forms understood by others;

• Combination: individuals exchange different explicit

knowledge through social interactions thereby
amplifying the explicit knowledge;

• Internalization: when newly created explicit knowledge

is converted into the organization’s tacit knowledge.
LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises
 Nonaka’s Framework (1994)

LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr02SdqmY2A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d71xhEbjDg
 Key Features of an Innovative Firm
• Organizational Structure

• People

• Teams

• Involvement

• Organizational Climate
 Involvement

Externalization Externalization
Socialization

Team
Involvement Involvement

Tacit
Knowledge
Team Team
Socialization Socialization

Explicit

Combination
knowledge Internalization

Factors
Organizational structure
Organizational Climate
 Interconnected creativity

How to convert
newly created
explicit
knowledge into
organization’s
tacit knowledge.
The interconnected themes of creativity and innovation. Source: Goran Roos, University of South Australia
 Class Exercise 1
Watch the following video (from 6.39 to 8.51 minutes), which
forces on the neuro-electrical patterns created in peer-to-peer
learning, especially complex divergent problem-solving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBt7LMrIkxg

What are the confluences and what do they imply for effective
leadership in an engaged workplace?
 Class Exercise 2

Discuss your findings after completing the van Wulfen’s

innovation maze exercise

• Decide which of the four possible routes is or would have

been most critical to your solution. Why was it that route?

• What were the ways that you attempted to interconnect

possible solutions to the problem? Were your responses
innovative in attempting to combine your purpose with
coherent business goal-setting?
Spender’s Framework (1996, 1998)

LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises

Spender’s Framework (1996, 1998)

• Argues that collective (social/implicit)

knowledge is the most valuable; other firms
would have difficulty understanding/imitating;

• Informs very little on how various types of

knowledge interact, and how the firm becomes
a context favorable to the interaction of
knowledge-creation and knowledge-
application processes;

LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises

Spender’s Framework (1996, 1998)

• Combines concerns of what knowledge is

(epistemology – tacit or explicit), with where it
resides (ontology – individual or social)

• Individual/explicit: conscious

• Individual/implicit: automatic

• Social/explicit: objectified

• Social/implicit: collective
LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises
Blackler’s Framework (1995)

LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises

Blackler’s Framework (1995) - Overview

• Different types of knowledge exist either at the

individual or the collective level;

• Each of these knowledge types can be more or

less explicit, giving rise to encoded knowledge.

• Different types of knowledge dominate in

different types of organizations.

LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises

Blackler’s Framework (1995) - Process

• Embrained Knowledge: is dependent on

conceptual skills and cognitive abilities;

• Embodied Knowledge: knowledge is action

oriented and only partially explicit;

• Encultured Knowledge: the process of

achieving shared understanding;

• Embedded Knowledge: knowledge that resides

in systematic routines.
LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises
Critique of Knowledge Frameworks

• All frameworks assume a ‘knowledge as

possession’ view’;

• Therefore, does not take into account of the

more subjective, highly equivocal, and dynamic
nature of knowledge.

LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises

Critique of Knowledge Frameworks

• The frameworks overstate the separation of

tacit and explicit knowledge;

• Explicit knowledge is that which we are aware

of at any given moment; but tacit and explicit
knowledge are mutually ‘constituted’ in that
they define each other.

LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises

Critique of Knowledge Frameworks

• The frameworks assume that organizations are

a collection of inter-dependent parts that work
towards a common, agreed-upon goal.

• Does not address important issues of power

and conflict in organizations, or in society at
large.

LB5207 Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises