What is Organizational Knowledge? -Tsoukas
Tsoukas starts this article out well. He clearly identifies his purpose, which is to examine the "links between individual knowledge, organizational knowledge, and human action undertaken in organized contexts" (pg. 973). From here he presents the definitions that others have developed to explain what exactly knowledge is and then addresses what he believes to be the flaws in their explanations. From here he highlights the point that in order to understand what organizational knowledge is there has to be both a theory of what knowledge is and what organization is. Tsoukas brings up Polayni and his belief that all knowledge is personal and Wittgenstein's statement that all knowledge is in a way collective and combines the two to examine how "...how individuals appropriate knowledge ...and how in organized contexts becomes organizational ..." (pg. 975). The article goes on for awhile explaining the difference between personal and organization knowledge and ultimately decides that personal knowledge is "...the ability to draw distinctions within a domain of action based on an appreciation of context or theory." Organizational knowledge is the capability members of an organization have developed to draw distinctions in the process of carrying out there work..." The article was good and made some interesting observations.
Customer knowledge management via social media: the case of starbucks -Chua and Banerjee
This article I found to be the most interesting of the three I read for this post. It looks at how companies are using social media as a tool for the management of customer knowledge. It acknowledges that many businesses need to develop relationships with the customers and the ones that are able to have a competitive edge. If a company is effectively able to tap into their customers knowledge base they are able to provide them with the necessary offers, services, etc... that will keep them buying products and it will also give the customers an inside look into how that company operates and how to better use their products and services. The article does acknowledge that their are some issues that can arise such as the customers being able to voice their opinion without any filters or editing process. It can also be a challenge at times to tap into their knowledge base if they are unwilling to divulge any information. The article looks t Starbucks as a company that was able to successfully use social media to increase sales, their customer base, and the overall happiness of the customers by allowing them to voice their opinions and contribute ideas. Social media also allowed Starbucks to gather information directly from the customers by asking them questions through twitter and Facebook. I found the article to be very interesting and thought that it really highlighted the power that social media can have.
Bridging Epistemologies -Cook and Brown
I liked this article in that it looks at knowledge not as one entity but rather a number of different ones. Cook and Brown argue that not all knowledge is the same and that looking at it like it is "...severely limits the current work on epistemologically relevant organizational themes..." Cook and Brown claim that their are four types of knowledge; tacit, explicit, individual and group, and each one is on equal footing with he other. There is also the need to look at the "...epistemic work done by human action itself..." which mean that we need to look not only at the knowledge a person possesses but also to the actions being done. Polanyi is again brought up in this article which makes me come to believe that he is the father of all things knowledge in modern times. His name is synonymous with tacit knowledge. The article then proceeds to distinguish the differences between the four types of knowledge among other things which go on for awhile, so for the sake of time and space I will just get to the conclusion. They conclude the article with asking how much more could be know about knowledge if we also looked at how groups use and out into practice the specific knowledge that they have acquired and urging that their is a need for more case studies looking into this.
Your description of how companies are using social media to manage customer knowledge was interesting. I think it demonstrates the evolving role of marketing. Good marketing connects to user interests and preferences. It is important then that marketing departments carefully analyze what kind of information users provide through social media, how that media influences that information, and how they will use it to make decisions. I hadn't thought of it as knowledge management before but your description demonstrates that it is.
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