Knowledge Management

(2006) (with Henry Linger and Frada Burstein) “Supporting organisational knowledge work: Integrating thinking and doing in task-based support.”. Presented at International Conference on Organizational Learning, Knowledge and Capabilities (OLKC) 2006. Monday 20th March – Wednesday 22nd March 2006. University of Warwick, UK.

This paper focuses on what Davenport (2005) terms the Integration Model of knowledge work: relatively routine collaborative knowledge work. The main purpose of this paper is to look at the requirements for supporting this form of work, which we term organisational knowledge work. The approach adopted here is built on the theoretical framework of the Task-based Knowledge Management (TbKM) approach pioneered by Burstein & Linger (2005). Rather than focusing on the management of knowledge in an organisation, we focus on supporting knowledge work in an organisational setting. We draw our conclusions from empirical studies into knowledge-work settings which look closely at the work of weather forecasters.

The main conclusion of this paper is that effective knowledge work support must involve the integration of the doing and thinking dimensions of knowledge work activity, and therefore must support both the productive and cognitive dimensions of knowledge work. Our study also reveals a crucial weakness with Davenport’s characterisation of knowledge work. In particular, Davenport’s scheme gives no account of the relationship between the pragmatic and cognitive dimensions of knowledge work, and gives a flawed account of the relationship between individual and group knowledge work in cases of collaborative activity.

(2005) “The Relationship between Epistemology and Knowledge Management”. In Schwartz, D. G. (ed) The Encyclopedia of Knowledge Management. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing.

This article surveys and explores the relationship between epistemology and Knowledge Management (KM). Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and extent of human knowledge. Knowledge Management is clearly deeply indebted to many ideas derived from epistemology. Much of the seminal work in KM discusses epistemology in a fair amount of detail, and explicitly appeals to insights from epistemology in developing a theoretical account of KM. In particular, the groundbreaking works by Sveiby, Nonaka and Takeuchi, make explicit appeal to the philosophical insights in epistemology, which has provided the groundwork for much of their pioneering work in Knowledge Management. One would thus expect there to be a fairly intimate connection between epistemology and Knowledge Management. The relationship between these two fields, however, is far from straightforward.

(2004) (with Henry Linger and Frada Burstein) What is the task? Applying the Task-based KM framework to weather forecasting. Australian Conference for Knowledge Management & Intelligent Decision Support ACKMIDS 2004. November 29-30, 2004, Melbourne, Australia.

This paper explores the details of task identification and analysis within the Task-based Knowledge Management (TbKM) framework. It describes the process by which a task can be determined, both in general, and as applied to the challenge of improving meteorological forecasting systems. It also discusses some implications of this analysis, including the importance of conceptualising the differing dimensions of the task at each of the different organizational levels. Additionally, this study serves as a means to develop and test the TbKM notion of a task, thus providing a form of theory testing as well as a means for refining and clarifying the theoretical framework of the task-based approach as a whole.

(2004) (with Henry Linger) Filling the Knowledge Management Sandwich: An Exploratory Study of a Complex Work Environment.Presented at the 13th International Conference On Information Systems Development: Advances in Theory, Practice and Education ISD 2004. September 9-11, 2004, Vilnius, Lithuania.

In this paper we examine the complex work environment, exemplified by weather forecasting, in order to explore how knowledge management can be deployed to support the knowledge processes that underlie such complex work practices.

(2004) The Disunity of Knowledge Work. Proceedings of the Fifth European Conference on Organizational Knowledge, Learning and Capabilities OKLC2004, Innsbruck, April 2004.

This paper applies recent discussions about the implications of a disunified view of the sciences to the practical challenge of understanding and managing knowledge work in modern organizational settings. The main claim of this paper is that a disunified view will provide a rich and powerful analysis of knowledge work, and thus help provide the necessary guidance for the support of knowledge work in organizational environments. In particular, it can provide a methodology for analysing knowledge work in a complex organizational setting, and can provide guidance on how to manage organizational change when it involves a fundamental shift in the nature of knowledge work.

(2003) From Philosophy To Knowledge Management And Back Again.

In Linger, H.; Fisher, J.; Wojtkowski, W.G.; Wojtkowski, W.; Zupancic, J.; Vigo, K.; Arnold, J. (Eds.) Constructing the Infrastructure for the Knowledge Economy: Methods & Tools, Theory & Practice. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers 2004

In this paper I explore the relationship between philosophy and knowledge management: I explore how philosophical theory has contributed to the development of KM, and also how additional philosophical insights can be applied to help further the enterprise of KM. In doing so I point out some areas of philosophy that are of limited relevance to KM, despite the attention paid to them in the KM literature. In particular, traditional philosophical discussions about epistemology are very limited in their application to KM, since they focus on the production of individual or personal knowledge, rather than sharing and use of knowledge in a collaborative context. I then identify some ways in which philosophy can be relevant to KM, highlighting the areas of philosophical theory seem most promising in their practical application to KM. My suggestion is that the most promising theoretical insights for KM come from recent work in both the philosophy of science and social epistemology.

Philosophy Of Science

(2001) Thinking Locally: A Disunified Methodology of Science. PhD manuscript, School of Philosophy and Bioethics, Monash University

(2001) On Acids.
Presented at the Australasian Association of Philosophy (AAP)
Conference. University of Tasmania, Hobart, July 1-6, 2001. Now part of
my thesis

(1999) Can the Fox Outwit the Hedgehog? Presented at the Australasian Association of Philosophy (AAP) Conference. Melbourne University, July 1999. Now part of my thesis

(1997) Thinking Locally.

Presented at the Australasian Association of Philosophy (AAP) Conference. Auckland University, New Zealand, July 1997. Now part of my thesis

Other Stuff

(2003) Restoration Ecology: The concept of ‘Naturalness’ in the Australian context.

(2003) Wild Things: Defending the Importance of Wilderness for Sustainability.

(1997) The Serious Procrastinator’s Introduction to Juggling. Compass 1997, the annual handbook of the Monash Postgraduate Association, Monash University.

(1997) Knowledges and Environmental Politics. Proceedings of Ecopolitics Association of Australia Conference, Melbourne University 1997.

This was written for the conference proceedings as an introduction to the group of papers in this stream of the conference.

(1997) Philosophy, Ecology and Conservation. Proceedings of Ecopolitics Association of Australia Conference, Melbourne University 1997.

In Conservation Ecology there are two approaches we can take to problem solving: a top-down theoretical approach utilising robust generalisations or laws of nature, or a bottom-up modelling approach which models local causal and stochastic processes. Philosophers of science, motivated almost entirely by physics, have typically valorised top-down theoretical approaches to scientific knowledge, making the specific localised approaches seem weak and explanatorily empty. However Conservation Ecology is generally only concerned with solving practical problems involving local systems. Thus, in practice, the top-down methods are deeply problematic in terms of their usefulness for conservation or management, while the bottom-up methods are extremely powerful.

Yet some scientists, motivated by a deeply distorted physics-biased view of science, still try to fit ecology into the mould of what they see as a strongly predictive science. In this paper I argue that ecologists should not succumb to physics envy, and should persist in developing strongly predictive localised models. I also very briefly explore some of the policy implications of this view in terms of funding priorities for biodiversity conservation.