**2.2 Learning organizations and communities of practice**

According to the influential vision of Peter Senge, learning organizations are: "*organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together*." (Senge, 1990). From the perspective of learning organizations, the focus of knowledge creation should begin with individuals and in helping them to learn using tools such as: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building a shared vision, and team learning (Senge, 1990). Arising from the field of organizational learning, the notion of communities of practice refers loosely to interest groups that get together at work and in social settings into which newcomers can enter and learn the sociocultural practices of the community. A community of practice is defined as "a unique combination of three elements: a *domain* of knowledge, which defines a set of issues; a *community* of people who care about this domain; and the shared *practice* that they are developing to be effective in their domain" (Wenger et al., 2002). From our perspective, a community of practice within an organization can be seen as a practical way to connect people, share existing tacit knowledge, and create new knowledge.

#### **2.3 Knowledge communities and knowledge ecology**

Closely allied to the notion of learning organizations, the concept and practices of knowledge communities and knowledge ecology recognize the systemic and holistic nature of knowledge and aspire to go beyond knowledge management to develop shared intelligence and collective wisdom. Members of several communities of practice will often interact with one another in wider knowledge communities. George Pór describes communities as those that connect islands of knowledge into self-organizing networks that share knowledge. Knowledge ecology, in contrast to command and control hierarchies, aims to unleash the full potential of its participants in order to design and support self-organizing knowledge ecosystems, whereby information, knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom can cross-fertilize and feed on one other (Pór, 2000). The practices of knowledge ecology seem to be more distributed, discipline-transcending, and customer-or problem focused than communities of practice.

#### **2.4 Knowledge and policy networks**

Knowledge networks can be seen as being larger, more diffuse and distributed, and less cohesive and practice-oriented than communities of practice or knowledge communities (Jordan & Schubert, 1992). Networks are neither solely organized like a market nor do they have official hierarchic regulatory structures. Rather, while they may share some characteristics with markets and hierarchies, they are more likely to have informal practices of coordination, common goals or interests, and transaction mechanisms based on attributes such as trust and recommendations rather than prices or administrative orders (Thompson, 2003). Knowledge networks provide an effective coordination mechanism for creating, sharing, and distributing knowledge within and across organizations as well as in specialized domains such as cancer and climate change. Policy networks may be seen as special types of knowledge networks in the political domain which attempt to relate private and public actors.

#### **2.5 Knowledge asset management and knowledge markets**

Knowledge asset management views knowledge as an organization's intellectual capital (Boisot, 1998) and as a strategic asset. This view attempts to combine process-centric approaches that views knowledge management as a set of communication processes and the product-centric approach that focuses on the documents, creation, and reuse. In the early knowledge management literature, the knowledge market was generally described as a mechanism for distributing knowledge resources between providers and users. It was Albert Simard, who developed a cyclic end-to-end knowledge-market model (Simard, 2006). The model is based on nine stages: generate, transform, manage, use internally, transfer, add value, use professionally, use personally, and evaluate. The latest (third generation) vision of knowledge markets is even more ambitious: It views knowledge markets as formal or informal community contexts, platforms, or environments (real or virtual) used to promote knowledge commerce, trade and exchange, demand and supply, between knowledge buyers and sellers. They are used to organize, coordinate, aggregate, facilitate, communicate, broker, and network flows and exchanges of knowledge between knowledge seekers and knowledge providers (Davis, 2007).

#### **2.6. Wisdom management**

220 New Research on Knowledge Management Models and Methods

Stafford Beer was the first to apply cybernetics to management in the 1960s, calling it the "science of effective organization". Management cybernetics focuses on the study of organizational design, and the regulation and self-regulation of organizations from a systems theory perspective (Beer, 1985). Beer's viable system model (VSM) can be used to study different aspects of knowledge management in an individual, organization or network and to model knowledge processes dynamically over time with the goal of improving the organizational systems (Leonard, 2000). Management cybernetic approaches have led to the transformation of organizations particularly of public bodies such as

According to the influential vision of Peter Senge, learning organizations are: "*organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together*." (Senge, 1990). From the perspective of learning organizations, the focus of knowledge creation should begin with individuals and in helping them to learn using tools such as: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building a shared vision, and team learning (Senge, 1990). Arising from the field of organizational learning, the notion of communities of practice refers loosely to interest groups that get together at work and in social settings into which newcomers can enter and learn the sociocultural practices of the community. A community of practice is defined as "a unique combination of three elements: a *domain* of knowledge, which defines a set of issues; a *community* of people who care about this domain; and the shared *practice* that they are developing to be effective in their domain" (Wenger et al., 2002). From our perspective, a community of practice within an organization can be seen as a practical way to connect

Closely allied to the notion of learning organizations, the concept and practices of knowledge communities and knowledge ecology recognize the systemic and holistic nature of knowledge and aspire to go beyond knowledge management to develop shared intelligence and collective wisdom. Members of several communities of practice will often interact with one another in wider knowledge communities. George Pór describes communities as those that connect islands of knowledge into self-organizing networks that share knowledge. Knowledge ecology, in contrast to command and control hierarchies, aims to unleash the full potential of its participants in order to design and support self-organizing knowledge ecosystems, whereby information, knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom can cross-fertilize and feed on one other (Pór, 2000). The practices of knowledge ecology seem to be more distributed, discipline-transcending, and customer-or problem focused than

Knowledge networks can be seen as being larger, more diffuse and distributed, and less cohesive and practice-oriented than communities of practice or knowledge communities (Jordan & Schubert, 1992). Networks are neither solely organized like a market nor do they

governments and the advancement of new forms of governance.

people, share existing tacit knowledge, and create new knowledge.

**2.3 Knowledge communities and knowledge ecology** 

communities of practice.

**2.4 Knowledge and policy networks** 

**2.2 Learning organizations and communities of practice** 

**2.1 Management cybernetics** 

Many recent approaches have begun to recognize that the focus on mere knowledge is not enough. Many organizational and societal crises are crises not because of a lack of information, knowledge or other resources but because of greed, lack of values, and a dearth of wisdom. While wisdom has been a focus of philosophical and religious traditions since antiquity, only in recent times are we seeing attempts to understand wisdom from an organizational science perspective. Combining the notions of wisdom, communities of practice, and networks, Nikunj Dalal has proposed the vision of wisdom networks as communities that aim to actualize and inculcate wisdom in specific domains (Dalal, 2008). Wisdom networks are involved in inquiry of key issues in a domain, the creation and dissemination of wisdom-based learning, counseling, participation in community initiatives, and in building linkages with other wisdom networks.

#### **2.7 Chief knowledge officers**

It was Thomas H. Davenport, one of the "founding fathers" of Knowledge Management who has successfully introduced the concept and described the "activity portfolio" of the Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO), fertilizing the discussion about the "knowledge leadership" of an organization (Davenport, 1994). Michael J. Earl and Ian I. Scott created a well-itemized tipology of the CKO's, as integrator and synchronizators of all the relevant

Transcending Knowledge Management, Shaping Knowledge Governance 223

**Knowledge Governance** 

*Company as a whole* by information interfaces, having complementer character (1&1=3)

Coordinative effectivity, adaptation and reaction skills in changing environments, ability for regenerational capacity improvement

Scardamalia and Zhang, 2010)

Integrated CKO (*Chief Knowledge Officer*)

probabilities

revealing and interpreting the points of relevance, planning, building and operation of knowledge environments, coaching, facilitation of knowledge transfer

problem solving based on environmental scanning and the development of related skills, maintenance and development of constructive and creative technologies, detection and organic elimination of knowledge deficiencies

Work *with* the corporate partner Finding tailored solutions

*Learning Knowledge building* (Hong,

inductive, deductive reasoning abductive reasoning

**Information and Knowledge Management**

*Divisional* by the division of labour of corporate units, having additive character (1+1=2)

proportionality, rationalisation, optimalisation of the business, production and decision processes

CIO (*Chief Information Officer*), Education/Training director, Leader of Research and Development, Director of Human Resources, PR and communication

"instant" software products, consultant-driven implementations, platform and solution development by the IT units, information center

Business and operations information systems, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Manageemnt), DSS (Decision Support Systems), DMS (Document Management Systems), data mining, market research, corporate Intranet, training, etc.

Selling existing solutions

Table 1. Knowledge Management versus Knowledge Governance – a comparison

A prominent Hungarian service provider invited us to conduct a Knowledge Governance audit of his organisation. Through our initial discussions we learned that in an effort to make the incumbent company a more agile competitor of its industry they have already had a corporate risk profile audit completed and another one focusing on corporate culture. They wanted to concentrate on knowledge because there was a shared understanding

2 The research was conducted by DEAK Zrt,, a joint research and development company of the University of Szeged and Hungarian Academy of Sciences, established in 2008 to enhance industrial cooperations, international innovation relations, and the development of knowledge based economy. The field work and desk research was supported by the New Hungary Development Plan GOP-1.1.2- 07/1-2008-0007 "Multidisciplinary research and development by DEAK KKK". The main author of this

**Way of thinking** *technical thinking*: analytic certainties *design thinking*: interpretational

**Leadership approach** Effectivity, return, value-

**Control** Distributed

**Consultant strategy** Work *for* the corporate partner

**4.2 Knowledge governance in action: A case study2**

**Organizational focus, operative basis and nature** 

> **Main knowledge work**

> > **Approaching problems**

**Technological macroenvironment** 

**Tipical domains and forms of activity** 

summary is *Judit Benczik*.

aspects of the corporate knowledge flow, building and maintaining a network from knowledge champions, knowledge sponsors, knowledge partners and knowledge skeptics (Earl & Scott, 1999). The expression itself became very popular, but the appearance of CKO's in a corporate leadership hierarchy was very limited in the last decade. Conversely, the sweep of Knowledge Governance could bring the "big time" for the new generation CKO's.
