The Discursive Construction of Organizational Knowledge – Communication Theoretical Issues and Practical Problems

There is no shortage of statements in the extant literature to the effect that gathering, producing and communicating knowledge is vital to any organization. There is, however, little consensus about what ‘knowledge’ means and – derived from that – how to communicate it. In theory as well as in organizational practice, two camps exist. One holds that knowledge is basically information, i.e. a knowledge-as-representation view, and that organizational knowledge, therefore, can be gathered, produced and/or communicated by means of documents, databases etc. The other camp favors the radically different view that knowledge is knowledge-as-construction. In this view, knowledge cannot be gathered, produced and/or communicated in the form of, say, documents. Gathering, producing and/or communicating knowledge is a matter of re-constructing knowledge.
The fact that these two camps exist is not merely a communication theoretical problem, pertaining to lack of conceptual consistency and clarity (although it surely is that); it is also a problem for organizational communication practice. For if organizational knowledge is discursively constructed as a ‘thing’ (as representation) then it can indeed be harvested, stored and utilized as documents. If, on the other hand, organizational knowledge is discursively constructed as something which is (co-)constructed by the members of an organization, then documents, databases, etc. are merely means to an end – not, as it were, ends in themselves.
According to the first view, the prevailing organizational discourse becomes one of logistics; according to the second view, it becomes one of enabling. Each discourse gives rise to the communicative construction of fundamentally different organizations – and not only as far as organizational knowledge is concerned. I will discuss and critically evaluate core promises and pitfalls of both organizational discourses; in doing so I will draw on empirical examples from business and industry.