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Knowledge Management And Society*
Although the use of knowledge for practical purposes began more than 10,000
years ago, the theory of “knowledge management” has had a much more recent
development. Why? One of the most common hypotheses is that for the first
time, humanity now has at its disposal a critical mass of sciences and methods
that allows us to shape almost all aspects of the world.
We all live in environments that have been artificially altered by the
advances of science and technology. Cities are an obvious example. However the
most isolated areas are suffering catastrophes as a result of the poor use of
our technical resources. The dissemination of information tends to replace the
traditional functions of memory and human labor. Farming production is now
based on animal or plant genetics. Medicine now replaces organs rather than
repairing them in a traditional manner. We live in a new setting that many are
calling the “knowledge society.”
Twenty years ago, large businesses began to develop management programs that
took advantage of the intellectual capital of their employees. They discovered
that organizations can be agents of learning and innovation, or rather
intelligent organizations.1 Curiously,
universities and educational centers took much longer to assume this new
perspective in spite of the fact that the academic world has, since the
eighteenth century (from the time of Immanuel Kant), created theories to
explain the production and scope of knowledge. The various branches of modern
epistemology subsequently took shape.
We can interpret these trends in two ways. On the one hand, it is clear that
society has evolved by taking advantage of technical resources. This offers a
pragmatic dimension to knowledge. On the other hand, humanity discovered that
behind the methods were rules of reality (and hence the emergence of science)
and that behind science were rules of knowledge (and hence the emergence of
epistemology).
“Knowledge management” is the convergence of these two processes. In principal
it offers methods for improving the performance of organizations with
intelligent resources, such as making explicit the implicit knowledge of
individuals and of the organization. Resources include the computerization of
functions, although it has been shown that use of the computer alone is not
sufficient to simplify procedures. An information culture for management and
employees must also be present and training is essential.
On the other hand, and this is more crucial for educational institutions such
as universities, knowledge management proposes creating an organizational
culture that allows all of the actors to assume the scientific, pedagogical
and management practices of the organization. Many institutions lack the
capacity for “self-knowledge” and end up prisoners of bureaucratic inertia.
Both self evaluation and external evaluation demonstrate this deficiency. Some
universities and research institutions are analyzing the trends of science,
technology and society in order to establish adequate knowledge policies.
The idea of managing knowledge seems relatively simple. However in practice it
is difficult to implement given the complexity of knowledge, the actors and
the factors in play. Strong resistance to self-knowledge exists at both the
individual and collective levels. Raising awareness of what we do and what we
create with our knowledge seems to be an excessive goal. Knowledge management
is a new effort to bring us closer to a more rational society.?
Augusto Pérez Lindo, Ph.D.
Guest Editor
University of Buenos Aires / Inter-American Open University
1. Peter Drucker, Senge, Nonaka and Takeucki are among the experts who developed these ideas.
*The ideas, thoughts, and opinions expressed are not necessarily of the OAS nor of its member states. The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors.
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