Getting the Message across with Communicative ...

Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Knowledge Management and Intelligent Decision Support –2000

Getting the Message across with Communicative Knowledge Management Rob Meredith & Frada Burstein School of Information Management & Systems, Monash University, PO Box 197, Caulfield East, Victoria 3145, Australia [email protected], [email protected] Abstract Knowledge management is in danger of becoming just another management fad. This is largely due to the fact that much of what is passed off these days as knowledge management is in reality nothing more than data or information management re-badged. This has come about due to a lack of understanding of the nature of knowledge. We propose that knowledge is anthropocentric and that it cannot be reified in external artefacts. This view of knowledge necessarily leads to the view that the major concern of any knowledge management activity is communication. The act of communication involves a knowledge source and a knowledge seeker, and serves the purpose of knowledge externalisation, information exchange, and knowledge internalisation. Taken broadly it is the communication process, rather than the knowledge directly, that we manage in knowledge management. We explore the implications of this view for knowledge management technologies and techniques. Keywords knowledge management; communications theory; semiotics 1.

Introduction

There would be few to disagree with the statement that knowledge management is currently a ‘hot topic’. For several years now a bandwagon of management and information technology consultants have been calling on organisations to look to their intangible assets lest their most valuable resource, knowledge, be lost through lack of management. However, as with previous hot topics in the past such as TQM, BPR and outsourcing, knowledge management is already facing the prospect of being labelled nothing more than the latest management fad (Wah, 1999). The implication is that knowledge management is a concept that lines the pockets of consultants and management ‘gurus’, imposes stressful change on an organisation, and often fails to deliver on promised benefits. In this paper, we argue that knowledge management is indeed in danger of deserving the derision ‘fad’. This assertion is based upon the fact that much of what is being passed off as knowledge management is, in reality, nothing more than old technology with a new badge. From datawarehouses (Bolloju & Khalifa, 2000), decision support systems (Holsapple & Whinston, 1996) and expert systems (Malhotra, 1998), to word-processors, spreadsheets and presentation packages (Microsoft, 2000), all have at some time or another been labelled as ‘knowledge management technologies’. Knowledge management, if it is to win over the minds of sceptical managers and decision-makers, needs to be shown as fundamentally different to previous management and IT efforts. This is true both from a management and organisational culture perspective, as well as in the application of the information technology that supports it. Knowledge management must differentiate itself from data and information management, as well as previous management movements such as TQM and BPR. To fail to do so will see knowledge management going down the same track as all other fads to date (Phillips, 2000). 2.

Semantics, Semantics: Two Different Paradigms

Knowledge Management, as an object of academic interest, is a relatively new phenomenon when compared to other areas of research. Even by information technology standards the field is still in its infancy, grappling with issues of definitions, and trying to work out just what the right research questions are. As a result, much of the literature on knowledge management, especially that written by non-

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Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Knowledge Management and Intelligent Decision Support –2000

academics, has been characterised by a distinct lack of intellectual rigour, adopting, chopping and changing a variety of definitions of knowledge and knowledge management, often within the same paper. There have been previous calls to address the issue of definitions of terms and this paper is clearly part of that push to clarify meanings so that participants in the debate are not always talking past each other. Despite these calls, some have responded that to worry about definitions of knowledge and knowledge management is to quibble about semantics, to be overly concerned with philosophical, esoteric theory when there is much ‘practice’ to be done. Why bother with definitions? Philosophers have been messing around with epistemology for over 2,000 years. We can’t wait that long. Let’s just get on and do it! The problem with this stance is that without a clear understanding of what we broadly mean by knowledge, we cannot have a clear understanding of ‘it’. We find ourselves in the situation where old technologies are passed off as new and anything remotely connected with knowledge is suddenly a KM technology or technique. If this path is followed, pretty soon people are going to realise that knowledge management is, in reality, another fad. Semantics are important. A bit of ‘navel gazing’ is not inherently a bad thing (Pemberton, 1998), especially when different understandings of what we mean by knowledge lead to very different implications for knowledge management in practice. Emerging from the flurry of writings on the topic of knowledge management can be seen two fairly distinct views, or paradigms, of knowledge, which we have dubbed the ‘externalisable’ and the ‘anthropocentric’ views. The first is not so much a coherent view but rather a kind of default alternative to the latter. Whilst we are not going to enter here into a detailed epistemological debate, we are going to attempt to clarify these two broad views and argue that one, rather than the other, leads to significant benefits from knowledge management efforts. 2.1.

The Externalisable View of Knowledge

A great deal of the hype that surrounds knowledge management is concerned with utilising information technology to capture and disseminate organisational knowledge. This approach is mainly supported by technology vendors, but also by management consultants. The emphasis here is on knowledge repositories, knowledge mining, intelligent search engines and so on. Indeed, as stated above, often the implementation of one or more of these information technology solutions is simply equated with knowledge management. This technocratic view of knowledge management (Swan & Newell, 2000) sees knowledge as similar in nature to information: it can be captured and reified in artefacts such as information systems, books, documents and diagrams. The knowledge contained in these artefacts accurately matches that which resides in people’s minds, assuming a correct interpretation and synthesis. At the core of this view is the idea that knowledge can be codified, stored and disseminated in artefacts. That which is reified in these artefacts is, indeed, knowledge. Knowledge is regarded as an entity, independent of a conscious human ‘knower’. Swan and Newell (2000) describe this view as an information processing view in which knowledge is an input that is transformed to produce innovation as an output. 2.2.

The Anthropocentric View of Knowledge

Often, discussion in knowledge management begins with a differentiation between the three entities of data, information and knowledge (McDermott, 1999). Usually data represents a record of facts with little analysis or interpretation. Information, on the other hand, emerges when the data is re-arranged, interpreted and organised in such a way as to be useful for some purpose, and carry some meaning (Kennedy & Schauder, 1998). Both information and data can reside in a variety of media, including books, computer systems (both software and hardware), diagrams, pictures and so on. Where the difference between the externalisable and anthropocentric views diverge, however, is on the nature of knowledge. Under the externalisable view knowledge extends the organisation and manipulation of data into information, to turn information into knowledge. The externalisable view sees knowledge as simply more useful, more organised information. As a result, knowledge is also seen as being embodied in such things as books, computer systems and documents. The anthropocentric view however, does not equate knowledge with a more refined kind of information. This view is well represented by the following quotation from C. West Churchman (1971):

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Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Knowledge Management and Intelligent Decision Support –2000

“To conceive of knowledge as a collection of information seems to rob the concept of all of its life… Knowledge resides in the user and not in the collection.” In other words, knowledge requires a knower, and knowing is a fundamentally human act (McDermott, 1999). A library, therefore, does not contain a body of knowledge; rather it contains a collection of information that can be used to generate knowledge in a reader. When a knowledgeable individual externalises their knowledge by writing it down, that knowledge becomes information, which, when read and understood by another individual, becomes knowledge for that person. Importantly, this ‘copy’ of the original piece of knowledge will not be an exact replica. By incorporating the information into their own experience, their own mental framework, the information becomes unique to that individual. It takes on a form that is uniquely personal. Knowledge, under the anthropocentric view, is inherently subjective. It is this aspect of the anthropocentric view that makes it a more realistic view of knowledge. The externalisable view is an inherently objective, positivist view of knowledge. A view which Spender labels “naïve neo-Kantian”, often used by organisational theorists in the past, and which ignores much of the philosophical debate over knowledge (Spender, 1996). People do not share exactly the same experiences of the same event, and likewise do not share the same understanding of the same piece of information. To say that a book or a document has an individual understanding and experience of its contents is ludicrous, but it is this very understanding and experience that differentiates knowledge from information. 2.3.

What does this mean for knowledge management?

The problem with the externalisable view of knowledge is that not only are knowledge and information indistinguishable, but so too are knowledge management and information management. This means that knowledge management can provide no benefits that the relatively older disciplines of information and data management cannot. Indeed, the technocratic externalisable view results in a view of knowledge management that emphasises the use of information technology and documents stored therein (Pfeffer & Sutton, 1999). The following chart shows the emphasis placed on information technology in knowledge management efforts: 47%

Creating an Intranet Data Warehousing / Creating Knowledge Repositories

33%

Implementing Decision Support Tools

33%

Implementing Groupware to Support Collaboration

33%

Creating Networks of Knowledge Workers

21%

Mapping Sources of Internal Expertise

18%

Establishing New Knowledge Roles

15%

Launching New KnowledgeBased Products or Services

14% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

% of respondents

Figure 1 Project Priorities. From Pfeffer & Sutton (1999) Figure 1.

Under the anthropocentric view, however, knowledge management is fundamentally about ensuring that a person possesses the right knowledge at the right time. In other words, that the person who needs to utilise

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Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Knowledge Management and Intelligent Decision Support –2000

a certain piece of knowledge either knows it already, or has access to someone or something which can give them the appropriate information that will lead to the formation of knowledge within that individual. Knowledge management, therefore, occurs at several levels: the individual; the group; and the organisation (Linger, Burstein, Kelly, Ryan, & Gigliotti, 2000). At the individual level, knowledge management is primarily concerned with knowledge use and personal learning. At the group and organisational levels, however, knowledge management is largely concerned with knowledge sharing.

Organisational Level

Area of Knowledge Management

Individual

Knowledge Use

Group

Knowledge Sharing

Organisation

Knowledge Communication

Table 1 Individual, Group and Organisational Levels of Knowledge Management

Management of knowledge use is predominantly up to the individual. The major focus, therefore, for knowledge management under the anthropocentric view is management of the communication process. 3.

Communicative Knowledge Management

If knowledge management needs to be concerned with managing the communication process, we need to develop an understanding of what aspects of the process can, in fact, be managed. Whilst data and information management deal with the control of explicit artefacts, the anthropocentric view of knowledge management has no such artefacts to manipulate and control: it deals, rather, with people and how they interact with each other. In this section, therefore, we take a rudimentary look at the theory of communication and identify several aspects which knowledge managers must be concerned with. 3.1.

The Communication Process

There are two quite distinct paradigms within communications theory (Fiske, 1990): the process oriented paradigm, concerned with the mechanics of communication; and the semiotic paradigm, concerned with the interpretation and socio-cultural factors of the message being communicated. According to Fiske, communications theory grew out of Shannon and Weaver’s now famous Mathematical Theory of Communication (Shannon & Weaver, 1949). The Shannon and Weaver model of communication was largely concerned with the mechanics of communication with little regard to the content of the message being communicated. The model applies regardless of whether the information source and the destination are human or otherwise. Message Sent

Information Source

Transmitter

Signal

Signal

Channel

Message Received

Receiver

Destination

Noise Source

Figure 2 Shannon and Weaver’s Model of Communication. Adapted from Fiske (1990), p.7.

The model was an important starting place; but the fact that humans, and the unique problems they introduce into the process, are ignored led to later models, which take people and the individual ways in which they interact with the message into account. George Gerbner later created a model of the

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Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Knowledge Management and Intelligent Decision Support –2000

communication process, similar to the Shannon and Weaver model, which acknowledged the fact that the perceived content of a message is different between a communicator and the audience (Fiske, 1990). However, the problem remained that these models were overly concerned with the mechanics of the communication process, rather than with the meaning or content of the message and how it passed between one person and the next. The new paradigm of semiotics arose to counter this through an emphasis on the nature of the message, its encoding and subsequent interpretation, and how this related to the socio-cultural context for each individual (Fiske, 1990). Roman Jakobson’s model of communication (Jakobson, 1960), was the first to lead into this new paradigm (Fiske, 1990), and whilst not ignoring the fact that communication is a process, emphasised the importance of non-physical aspects. His model consists of an addresser and an addressee, a message with a context (that which the message refers to), the medium or connection (both physical and psychological) between the two communicators (referred to as a contact), and a coding or sign system (ie. language or other shared meaning system). Context Addresser

Message

Addressee

Contact Code

Figure 3 Jakobson's Constitutive Factors of Communication. Adapted from Jakobson (1960), p. 89

Importantly, this process occurs within a socio-cultural environment that impacts on all entities. A supportive culture is one that facilitates and fosters acts of communication by ensuring, first of all, that communicators wish to communicate (eg. a culture of knowledge sharing). Secondly, it ensures that there is the infrastructure to provide an appropriate medium (eg. video conferencing, face to face meeting etc.). Finally, it ensures that the communicators share a common understanding of a coding system (eg. common language, definitions of terms). Conversely, an unsupportive culture is one that hinders one or more of these factors. 3.2.

A Model of Communicative Knowledge Management

We can adapt Jakobson’s model to a model of knowledge management with a small number of changes. Firstly, we need to explicitly introduce the concept of a socio-cultural environment. As stated above, this is widely accepted as being an important factor by authors writing on communications theory (Fiske, 1990; Kaufer & Carley, 1993 for example), as well as also being considered important by authors specifically concerned with knowledge management (Alavi, 1997; Duffy, 2000 for example). We also need to acknowledge the fact that the communication process is not perfect and that the knowledge that the addressee acquires will be different to the knowledge of the addresser (Kaufer & Carley, 1993). In the following model, therefore, (K) represents knowledge to be communicated, (I) represents the encoded, externalised information being transmitted in the message, and (K′) represents the addressee’s interpretation and internalisation of (I) to form new knowledge. Finally, two modifications to Jakobson’s terminology might be useful. Firstly, ‘contact’ may be better represented from a knowledge management perspective by the term ‘medium’. This helps to emphasise the fact that we need to provide the facilities and infrastructure, both technical and organisational, for a variety of means of communication. Secondly, the term ‘context’ is somewhat misleading in today’s nomenclature. Jakobson equates the term ‘context’ with the concept of a ‘referent’ (Jakobson, 1960), or object that is referred to by the message. To make this concept clearer, and to adapt it to our purposes, we will use the term ‘topic’. This term is somewhat broader than Jakobson’s since his has connotations of physical real world objects, and applies to

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Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Knowledge Management and Intelligent Decision Support –2000

all such objects referred to in the message. Our concept of a 'topic’, however, focuses on the main object of interest in the message, but can include non-physical entities such as concepts and ideas and so on. We arrive, therefore, at the following model: Socio-Cultural Environment Topic

Addresser (K)

Message (I)

Addressee (K`)

Medium

Code

Figure 4 The Constitutive Factors of Communicative Knowledge Management

3.2.1. People and Communities The communicators, the addresser and the addressee, are vital aspects of communicative knowledge management. Under communicative knowledge management, the identities of the communicators are wide and varied: it is difficult, and probably undesirable, to stipulate who needs to communicate with whom. It is important to note that either the addresser or the addressee may well be more than one individual. Groups can be communicated to, lecture style, or groups can communicate with groups, and also, as in situations where an expert advisory group or committee is formed to advise a certain individual, groups communicating to individuals. Further, knowledge management can occur at individual and group levels simultaneously. Whilst individual knowledge management is necessary for successful group knowledge management, it is not sufficient. In dynamic, changing organisations, the need to communicate with a particular person or persons may well be unforeseen, and from a totally unexpected quarter. In such an organisation, with a desire to leverage intellectual assets, there should be little or no restrictions or barriers to two or more individuals who desire to communicate. Indeed, not only should barriers be removed, but the communication between the knowledgeable addresser and the addressee should be actively encouraged and may be technologically supported, so that individuals are actively distributing their knowledge and/or acquiring new knowledge. However, at the same time, the organisation should also be attempting to anticipate potential communicators: essentially determining where potential knowledge shortfalls are likely to arise, and from which quarter that knowledge need might be best satisfied. A balance must be found between formalised communication channels, and the ability for communicators to strike up a spontaneous communicative act. This largely arises from creating an organisational culture that values communication and knowledge sharing. Essentially a management task, there are, never-the-less, technological aspects to bridging certain barriers to communication, most notably geographic and temporal barriers. Furthermore, technology can play a role in brokering communicative acts in allowing communicators to find each other (Duffy, 2000) through a kind of intellectual marketplace where skills and expertise are advertised as available or desired. One of the outcomes of the successful implementation of such a view on knowledge management is creation of collaborative information communities. For such groupings geographical co-location is not a primary concern, other than as a barrier to be overcome. The major factor that links them is some common sense of interest in a particular topic (or context as it appears in Figure 4). Such communities have become of particular interest for those thinking and writing about new types of organisations of the future.

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Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Knowledge Management and Intelligent Decision Support –2000

3.2.2. Media and Codes Just as the identity of the various communicators that we must deal with can be wide and varied, so too can the various means these communicators utilise to perform communicative acts. An organisation concerned with knowledge management must cater for a variety of media, allowing the communicators to select the particular medium they deem most useful. This is where technology plays its greatest role. Video, audio, text, diagrams, images and so on, each have their own advantages and disadvantages. Through technology, we can make available a large number of media. However, we must not be swayed by technology and must recognise the fact that low-tech media are also viable, for example text on paper, face to face meetings, and so on. The knowledge management organisation must cater for, anticipate as much as possible, and allow a variety of media to be used. These organisations need to be open to the use of a variety of media - not only those that would be considered ‘traditional’ - so as to allow for creative selection on the part of the communicators. It may be that in addition to traditional forms of business communication we open up the possibility for creative means of expression, such as through visual art, film, music, and so on. Whilst such creative means of communication may be seen as inappropriate by many organisations, the point being made here is that we should be open to a variety of means of communication, rather than being bound by traditional media. This in turn allows for a variety of different kinds of messages to be communicated. Indeed, Michael Polyani’s oft’ cited categories of tacit and explicit knowledge are better communicated via different media. Tacit knowledge, since it cannot be encoded (Hedesstrom & Whitley, 2000), is necessarily communicated through subtext and action. This is better communicated by some media rather than others, particularly visual media, which allow for communication of body language and so on. In addition to the medium used for communication, the knowledge management organisation must also be concerned with what Jakobson refers to as codes, or “a shared meaning system by which the message is structured.” (Fiske, 1990) At the most obvious level, this refers to a common language or definitions of terms that must be shared by the communicators. However, this also applies to non-verbal systems of meaning, such as the way a particular document is structured, or the meaning derived from a particular communicative situation. It is important that both communicators have a similar understanding of what the various signs, terms and structures actually mean for knowledge to be shared effectively. 3.2.3. Messages and Topics Of the various aspects of the model in Figure 4, the storage and transmission of the message itself is perhaps the least important from a knowledge management perspective, as this is really the domain of information management. However, this doesn’t mean that the message should be totally ignored. Rather, the emphasis should be on the kind of message as this will impact upon the medium chosen to communicate in, as well as the impact that the message itself will have upon the communicators. It has been argued that knowledge has a variety of aspects: specifically cognitive, emotional (or affective), and experiential and motivational (conative) aspects (Meredith, May, & Piorun, 2000). Each of these is communicated with different kinds of messages, and across different kinds of media in different ways. Knowledge managers must be aware of this, and facilitate the communication of a variety of messages, on a variety of topics. Again, a balance must be struck between allowing a free range of topics and in anticipating and creating a structure for facilitating likely topics. For example, an accounting firm will often discuss matters related to finance or business management, and a knowledge management organisation will have taken steps to facilitate this kind of knowledge sharing. However, the organisation should not do this at the expense of stifling communication on other topics that may be relevant to an individual or a group at a particular time (even if in isolation the topic would appear irrelevant). 3.2.4. Socio-Cultural Environment This is the most difficult of all aspects of knowledge management, but also perhaps the most important. Even if there is a very advanced technical infrastructure, a variety of media available and a real need for knowledge sharing, without a supportive organisational environment that encourages communication and the dissemination of knowledge, people simply will not share their knowledge (Comeau-Kirschner, 2000). A knowledge management culture requires more than simple lip service to the benefits of sharing

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Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Knowledge Management and Intelligent Decision Support –2000

knowledge, collaborating as a team and so on, but the entire organisational culture needs to be infused with the values of, and a commitment to, the sharing of knowledge. This also applies to the creation and use of knowledge: whilst the application of knowledge is largely up to the individual, the organisational culture should encourage people to experiment and learn, thereby finding new and novel ways of using, and creating new, knowledge. This requires more than simply organising a team or company seminar once a month or once a year. Whilst such formal practices can be worthwhile, often they only offer the opportunity for one person or group to lecture another group of people on a particular topic. Indeed, such seminars often end up failing in their intentions through a lack of interest on the part of the participants who get no real benefit from what they see as an enforced exercise. Knowledge management must go beyond the formal, occasional communicative act to ensuring that many smaller, less formal, but much more frequent acts of knowledge sharing occur. As with any significant change in organisational culture, the shift to a knowledge-sharing culture can be painful and difficult. Moving from a culture where possession of knowledge means power and control over your own political fiefdom, to one in which knowledge is freely shared and exchanged is something that should be strived for. However, it is also something that will meet a great deal of resistance. It requires a huge amount of support at all levels of the organisation, but especially from the top down, where politically motivated resistance may be most prevalent. The move to a knowledge management organisation requires a powerful champion, but also requires ‘buy-in’ from all levels of the organisation to be successful. In this sense organisations with a “smart and healthy” management culture, where inter- and intra-organisational communication has been an intrinsic part of the overall strategy, have been practising knowledge management even before it became a focus of “new” management trends. 4.

Conclusion

Knowledge management has for some time now suffered from a lack of definitions. This is probably due to the newness of the field, but nonetheless is still an area of concern. It is an area that has engendered a lot of debate, as well as management hype, that sees it in danger of becoming nothing more than ‘just another management fad’. Part of the cause for this view (and itself a symptom of the problem of loose definitions) is the fact that a lot of that which is passed off as knowledge management is, in fact, nothing more than previous IT/management movements re-badged. To continue further down this track is to endanger a lot of organisations who take the hype on board, and risk dooming knowledge management as a movement to just another painful memory. To address this issue, we have proposed that the anthropocentric view of knowledge is the only paradigm for knowledge management that leads to a substantial potential for benefit to adopting organisations, and that this is the first step towards avoiding consigning knowledge management to failure. The practical implication of this view is that knowledge management must be largely concerned with communication between people. We have outlined here several factors in this process that can be managed and supported through technology. However, we also emphasise that technology is not the only answer – knowledge management can often be effective without the use of cutting-edge technology. However, when using technology, we shouldn’t be limited to current paradigms of computing, afraid of utilising cutting edge approaches to IT. Some have already made the call for a new paradigm of computing based upon communication rather than on the desktop/files/workspace metaphor used to date (Reynolds, 1998). Part of knowledge management research should focus on how to utilise technology in new and novel ways. It is important to note that our view of communication and knowledge management is not one of control, and therefore restriction, but rather one of facilitation and support, thereby allowing the freedom to be creative and to innovate. We have emphasised that organisations should anticipate people’s communicative needs, providing infrastructure and support for efficient knowledge sharing. However, this infrastructure and support should not restrict people from communicating via alternative means that may be better suited to the participants and the individual situation. Whilst information and data management are also affected by communication issues, communication is of secondary concern in these fields. The strength of communicative knowledge management is that it

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Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Knowledge Management and Intelligent Decision Support –2000

acknowledges and allows for and the fact that people interpret shared knowledge. Information and data management do not allow for this aspect this, and therefore of the human aspects of information and knowledge. However, this doesn’t mean that knowledge management efforts should not enjoy a symbiotic relationship with data and information management technologies and techniques as document management, datawarehousing, expert systems and so on, drawing on and leveraging all of them to benefit the organisation. We do, however, deny that they should be considered in and of themselves knowledge management, and that therefore knowledge management has nothing more to offer organisations. References Alavi, M. (1997). Knowledge Management and Knowledge Management Systems: Presentation at the 1997 International Conference on Information Systems, Accessed via World Wide Web. Produced by Alavi, M. Available at: http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/is/malavi/icis-97-KMS/index.htm Last Updated: Unknown. Accessed on 28th October, 2000. Bolloju, N., & Khalifa, M. (2000). A Framework for Integrating Decision Support and Knowledge Management in Enterprise-Wide Decision Making Environments. Paper presented at the IFIP TC8/WG8.3 International Conference on Decision Support through Knowledge Management, 9-11 July, Stockholm, Sweden. Churchman, C. W. (1971). The Design of Enquiring Systems: Basic Concepts of Systems and Organization. New York: Basic Books. Comeau-Kirschner, C. (2000). The Sharing Culture. Management Review(January), 8. Duffy, J. (2000). Knowledge Management: What Every Information Professional Should Know. The Information Management Journal(July), 10-16. Fiske, J. (1990). Introduction to Communication Studies. (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Hedesstrom, T., & Whitley, E. A. (2000). What is Meant by Tacit Knowledge? Towards a Better Understanding of the Shape of Actions. Paper presented at the 8th European Conference on Information Systems: ECIS 2000 - A Cyberspace Odyssey, 3-5 July, Vienna, Austria. Holsapple, C. W., & Whinston, A. B. (1996). Decision Support Systems: A Knowledge-Based Approach. (First ed.). St. Paul, USA: West Publishing Company. Jakobson, R. (1960). Linguistics and Poetics. In R. T. De George & F. M. De George (Eds.), The Structuralists: From Marx to Levi-Strauss (pp. 85-122). Garden City, New York: Anchor Books. Kaufer, D. S., & Carley, K. M. (1993). Communication at a Distance: The Influence of Print on Sociocultural Organisation and Change. Hillsdale, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum & Associates. Kennedy, J., & Schauder, C. (1998). Records Management: A Guide To Corporate Record Keeping. South Melbourne: Addison Wesley Longman Australia. Linger, H., Burstein, F., Kelly, J., Ryan, C., & Gigliotti, P. (2000). Creating a Learning Community Through Knowledge Management: The Mandala Project. Paper presented at the IFIP TC8/WG8.3 International Conference on Decision Support through Knowledge Management, 9-11 July, Stockholm, Sweden. Malhotra, Y. (1998). Toward a Knowledge Ecology for Organisational White-Waters, Accessed via World Wide Web. Produced by @Brint. Available at: http://www.brint.com/papers/ecology.htm Last Updated: Unknown. Accessed on 4th June, 1999. McDermott, R. (1999). Why Information Technology Inspired But Cannot Deliver Knowledge Management. California Management Review, 41(4), 103-117. Meredith, R., May, D., & Piorun, J. (2000). Looking at Knowledge in Three Dimensions: An Holistic Approach to DSS Through Knowledge Management. Paper presented at the IFIP TC8/WG8.3 International Conference on Decision Support through Knowledge Management, 9-11 July, Stockholm, Sweden.

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Microsoft. (2000). Business-Planning Scenario Overview - A Knowledge Management Example, Accessed via World Wide Web. Produced by Microsoft Corporation. Available at: http://www.microsoft.com/TechNet/Bosi/prodfact/revguide/offbosgd/ofgdmdbs.asp Last Upd• ted: 12th January, 2000. Accessed on 21st September, 2000. Pemberton, J. M. (1998). Knowledge Management. Records Management Quarterly, 32(3), 58-62. Pfeffer, J., & Sutton, R. I. (1999). Knowing "What" to Do is Not Enough: Turning Knowledge into Action. California Management Review, 42(1), 83-108. Phillips, J. T. (2000). Will KM Alter Information Managers' Roles? The Information Management Journal(July), 58-62. Reynolds, C. (1998). As We May Communicate. SIGCHI Bulletin, 30(3). Shannon, C., & Weaver, W. (1949). The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Illinois: University of Illinois Press. Spender, J.-C. (1996). Making Knowledge the Basis of a Dynamic Theory of the Firm. Strategic Management Journal, 17(Winter Special Issue), 45-62. Swan, J., & Newell, S. (2000). Linking Knowledge Management and Innovation. Paper presented at the 8th European Conference on Information Systems: ECIS 2000 - A Cyberspace Odyssey, 3-5 July, Vienna, Austria. Wah, L. (1999). Behind The Buzz: Keys to Implementation of Knowledge Management Program. Management Review(April), 17-22.

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