Book review: The Knowing Organization

TITLE: The Knowing Organization
AUTHOR: Chun Wei Choo
PUBLISHER: OUP, 1998
ISBN: 0195110129

The author, who is an associate professor of the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto, claims this book has three objectives.

First, to explore the principal ways in which organisations use information strategically to make sense of the changing environment, create new knowledge for innovation and make decisions that reflect past learning and ongoing adaption. Secondly, to examine the structure and dynamics of information seeking and use in three different contexts: Sense making through the development of shared meanings; knowledge creation through the conversion and sharing of different forms of organisational knowledge; and decision making through the use of rules and routines that reduce complexity and uncertainty. Finally, the book proposes a framework for knowing, in which sense making, knowledge creating and decision taking are linked as a continuum of information activities that stimulate the organisation with the information and knowledge necessary for it to act more intelligently. These are ambitious objectives. The underlying theme is that 'knowing organisations' need to ensure that information systems and services go beyond simply what people want to know, to why and how the information will be used.

The book's structure starts by setting the scene in chapter one with a brief introduction to theories of organisations as sense-making communities, knowledge-creating enterprises, and decision-making systems ('The Knowing Organization - A Holistic View of How Organizations Use Information'). The next chapter ('How We Come to Know - A General Model of Information Use') reviews the large-body of research that has been completed since World War II on information needs, information seeking and information use. Chapter three ('The Management of Ambiguity - Organizations as Sense-Making Communities') considers the first of three models of strategic information use - sense making; while chapter four ('The Management of Learning - Organizations as Knowledge-Creating Enterprises') examines how an organisation creates and makes use of new knowledge. Chapter five ('The Management of Uncertainty - Organisations as Decision-Making Systems') discusses how decisions are made in organisations, and chapter six ('The Knowing Organization (1) - Theory and Process') reviews the theory and processes that underlie a knowing organisation. The final chapter ('The Knowing Organization (2) - Balancing Tensions and Managing Information') provides an analysis of the contradictions that the author believes are inherent in the making of meaning, knowledge and decision-making, as well as showing how to learn and resolve the necessary tensions that allow an organisation to adapt. As a final conclusion the author notes: 'The knowing organization thus evolves knowledge across three planes. It constructs knowledge as shared meanings about what the organization can perceive as reality, it develops knowledge as expanded competencies about what organizations can do, and it nurtures knowledge as learned behaviors about what the organization can achieve.'

It is an impressive synthesis of a vast amount of literature - over 300 references but relatively few after 1996 - that reflects the wide range of ideas that have influenced thinking on the whole subject of the management and development of knowledge within organisations, particularly over the past decade. It is full of closely reasoned argument, though often package in somewhat lengthy sentences - see the quotation at the end of the previous paragraph as evidence.

Overall, the author persuasively argues that an understanding of how people use information in an organisation is critical to its long-term success. But the whole approach appeared to me to be strongly based on the assumption that, although it is recognised that people are involved, effective knowledge management is essentially a technical issue. In practice, it is critical to ensure the effective incorporation of values and this area could have usefully been given a greater priority.

One possible weakness in the enormous amount of detail included is the fact that, as far as I could locate, there was no mention of the word 'wisdom'; it certainly did not merit a mention in the index. Nor did the subject of 'values'. These are important omissions, as there is considerable support for the view that 'wisdom' is not only the 'highest' form of value-added knowledge, but it is the vehicle through which values are integrated into the decision-making process about information and knowledge. The ultimate development of 'The Knowing Organization' is surely to be able to successfully integrate it with producing and operating 'The Wise Organization'.

But despite the above reservations, the book should be read by anyone with a serious interest in knowledge management. However, busy practitioners might usefully confine themselves to the helpful summaries included at the end of each chapter. The material is aimed at being a core or supplementary text, especially in departments of organisational behaviour within schools of business and in departments of management information systems. It could be a valuable addition to the reading list for a wide range of under/postgraduate courses, as well as being of value to researchers in the area.

Dr Bruce Lloyd is a principal lecturer in strategy at South Bank University. He can be contacted at: 101645.1441@compuserve.com