ITs such as groupware, the intranet, repositories, discussion forums, and E2.0 are likely to continue to have an ever-increasing role to play in knowledge management initiatives as they provide a way to record, store, and access textual accounts of people’s activities. This allows for them to be made accessible regardless of time or location. This chapter has argued for a relational view of knowledge, and has highlighted some of the difficulties that arise from adopting a content view of knowledge management, and, specifically, adopting a technologically deterministic approach. From a relational perspective, knowledge cannot be conceived of as being an entity that can be possessed, codified, organized, and shared in the same way that data and information have been in the past. Instead, I have highlighted the importance for both academics and practitioners to view knowledge as being socially embedded and inseparable from practice.
Specifically I have offered the concepts of acting and accounting processes as a lens to think through the sense making, sense giving, and sense reading processes that take place as people are engaged in sharing knowledge through technology such as groupware. I have indicated that what is represented on the screen is merely a snapshot, reflecting an author’s sense-making, giving, and reading abilities which are necessarily limited and inseparable from his or her own historical and social locations of practice. Furthermore, I have illustrated how the nature and extent of knowledge sharing is influenced by and influences each professional domain’s socio-political context. I have also drawn on the lessons from the literature, the case, and the conceptual framework to consider how and if these issues may differ with regard to E2.0 technology.
Overall, I suggest that there are three important priorities for future research on the role of IT in knowledge management initiatives to consider. First, to examine sense-making, giving, and reading activities so as to better understand the activating and acting processes that take place as people make use of IT when working across diverse professional domains. Second, I suggest that future studies should also address how the use of ITs maintain or change the political and normative context, and what implications for knowledge working arise. Finally, I would suggest that future studies could contribute to considering how these lessons can be understood in the context of the development of new information technologies such as E2.0.
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1 The author would like to acknowledge the contribution of Geoff Walsham to an earlier version of this chapter.