Introduction

I'm told that a PhD has a number of stages and goes through a number of refinements - mine is no different. This link will take you to overview of my research as I thought it would develop. This page provides a very brief overview of my research as it stands at the moment.

Research Problem

The problem being addressed in my research is - ‘How can mapping knowledge and knowledge flows improve knowledge worker productivity?’

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The Tacit Knowledge Advantage . A paper that I wrote as part of my Masters of Knowledge Management in 2003.

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The Knowledge Conundrum. Unraveling the Knowledge Component on Knowledge Management Models . A paper that provided background for my minor thesis and informed my PhD research proposal. The paper was researched and written in 2004.

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Introduction

The knowledge management literature provides many definitions of knowledge, most of which build the concept from data, to information, to knowledge. Some of the literature even takes this one step further and expands knowledge to understanding and wisdom (Ackoff 1989; Kannegieter 2001; Stewart 1999); however there is little agreement for a precise definition of knowledge (Biggam 2001, p. 2; Håkanson 2001, p. 3). Unfortunately data and information are often used interchangeably, and information and knowledge are used as synonyms.

Data

Data is typically thought of as being ‘a set of discrete, objective facts existing in symbolic form that have not been interpreted’ (Davenport & Prusak 1998, pp. 2-3), but which can be ‘shaped and formed to create information’ (Laudon & Laudon 1998, p. 16. The symbolic form may be text, images, or pre-processed code. Data is usually organised into structured records, however it lacks context. The declaration ‘Iron melts at 1,538 degrees Celsius.’ is a data statement because it has no context. When data is enriched by adding context it may become information.

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What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.

Thomas Carlyle

Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labour; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.

Samuel Johnson

Knowing is not enough. We must apply

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The categories of human thought are never fixed in any one definite form; they are made, unmade and remade incessantly; they change with places and times.

Emile Durkheim

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

Albert Einstein

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

John Locke