Ethical Issues and Social Dilemmas in Knowledge Management: Organizational Innovation

Ethical Issues and Social Dilemmas in Knowledge Management: Organizational Innovation Gonçalo Jorge Morais da Costa De ...

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Ethical Issues and Social Dilemmas in Knowledge Management: Organizational Innovation Gonçalo Jorge Morais da Costa De Montfort University, UK

InformatIon scIence reference Hershey • New York

Director of Editorial Content: Director of Book Publications: Acquisitions Editor: Development Editor: Publishing Assistant: Typesetter: Production Editor: Cover Design:

Kristin Klinger Julia Mosemann Lindsay Johnston Joel Gamon Milan Vracarich, Jr. Deanna Jo Zombro, Milan Vracarich, Jr. Jamie Snavely Lisa Tosheff

Published in the United States of America by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global) 701 E. Chocolate Avenue Hershey PA 17033 Tel: 717-533-8845 Fax: 717-533-8661 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.igi-global.com Copyright © 2011 by IGI Global. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without written permission from the publisher. Product or company names used in this set are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the names of the products or companies does not indicate a claim of ownership by IGI Global of the trademark or registered trademark. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ethical issues and social dilemmas in knowledge management : organizational innovation / Goncalo Jorge Morais da Costa, editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-61520-873-9 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-61520-874-6 (ebook) 1. Knowledge management. 2. Information society--Moral and ethical aspects. 3. Organizational change. I. Morais da Costa, Goncalo Jorge, 1979HD30.2.E85 2011 174'.4--dc22 2010041636 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors, but not necessarily of the publisher.

To the memory of my grandparents (João, Maria, José e Adelaide); and, to my princesses (Bianca and Ema), whose smiles fulfil my heart.

Editorial Advisory Board Antonino Vaccaro, Catholic University of Lisbon, Portugal Bernd Carsten Stahl, De Montfort University, UK Chuck Huff, St. Olaf College, USA Kiyoshi Murata, Meiji University, Japan Krystyna Górniak-Kocikowska, Southern Connecticut State University, USA Mario Arias-Oliva, Rovira i Virgili University, Spain Mary Prior, De Montfort University, UK Simon Rogerson, De Montfort University, UK Terrell Ward Bynum, Southern Connecticut State University, USA Ugo Pagallo, University of Turin, Italy

List of Reviewers Antonino Vaccaro, Catholic University of Lisbon, Portugal Chuck Huff, St. Olaf College, USA Gonçalo Jorge Morais da Costa, De Montfort University, UK Kiyoshi Murata, Meiji University, Japan Krystyna Górniak-Kocikowska, Southern Connecticut State University, USA Mario Arias-Oliva, Rovira i Virgili University, Spain Mary Prior, De Montfort University, UK Nuno Sotero Alves da Silva, De Montfort University, UK Piotr Pawlak, Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan, Poland Simon Rogerson, De Montfort University, UK Terrell Ward Bynum, Southern Connecticut StateUniversity, USA Ugo Pagallo, University of Turin, Italy

Table of Contents

Foreword ............................................................................................................................................ xiv Preface ............................................................................................................................................... xvii Acknowledgment ............................................................................................................................... xxv Section 1 Knowledge Management Social and Ethical Dimensions Chapter 1 Knowledge Creation and Sharing in Japanese Organisations: A Socio-Cultural Perspective on ba .................................................................................................................................... 1 Kiyoshi Murata, Meiji University, Japan Chapter 2 What Does Knowledge Have to do with Ethics? .................................................................................. 17 Chuck Huff, St. Olaf College, USA Section 2 Societal Knowledge Management Chapter 3 Knowledge Management and Democracy: A Critical Review of Some Moral Issues and Social Dilemmas .............................................................................................................................................. 28 Krystyna Górniak-Kocikowska, Southern Connecticut State University, USA Chapter 4 Global “Knowledge Management” in Humanist Perspective ............................................................... 45 Piotr Pawlak, Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan, Poland

Chapter 5 Utilization of Resources: An Ethical Issue — The Anti-Commons and the Aquaculture Case............ 63 José António Candeias Bonito Filipe, UNIDE/ISCTE-IUL, Poland Manuel Alberto Martins Ferreira, UNIDE/ISCTE-IUL, Poland Manuel Francisco Pacheco Coelho, SOCIUS/ISEG-UTL, Poland Section 3 Organizational Knowledge Management Dilemmas Chapter 6 The Emerging Ethics of Knowledge Sharing: Hacker Ethics, Participatory Culture Ethics and Proselytization Commons Ethics .......................................................................................................... 80 Maslin Masrom, University Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia Zuraini Ismail, University Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia Chapter 7 The Trouble with Digital Copies: A Short KM Phenomenology .......................................................... 97 Ugo Pagallo, University of Turin, Italy Chapter 8 From “Connectivism” to “Ethicism” .................................................................................................. 113 António dos Reis, The Graal Institute, Portugal Chapter 9 Glocality, Diversity and Ethics of Distributed Knowledge in Higher Education ............................... 131 Nuno Sotero Alves da Silva, De Montfort University, UK Isabel Maria Surdinho Borges Alvarez, Lusíada University of Lisbon, Portugal Simon Rogerson, De Montfort University, UK Section 4 Organizational Innovation Dilemmas Chapter 10 Renewal and Personal Mastery in Knowledge-Based Organisations: The Case of a Finnish ICT-Company...................................................................................................................................... 160 Päivi Lohikoski, University of Oulu, Finland Chapter 11 The Importance of Balancing Knowledge Protection and Knowledge Interchange........................... 180 Yutaka Takahashi, Senshu University, Japan

Chapter 12 Management of Moral Knowledge and Ethical Processes in Organizations ...................................... 199 Agata Kostrzewa, Uppsala University, Sweden Mikael Laaksoharju, Uppsala University, Sweden Iordanis Kavathatzopoulos, Uppsala University, Sweden Section 5 Trends Chapter 13 Knowledge Worker Fair Compensation: Ethical Issues and Social Dilemmas .................................. 215 Gonçalo Jorge Morais Costa, De Montfort University, UK Chapter 14 Mobilizing Knowledge in the UK Public Sector: Current Issues and Discourse ............................... 232 David Pullinger, London, UK Chapter 15 Ethical Evaluation of Learning Organizations: A Conceptual Framework......................................... 250 Gonçalo Jorge Morais Costa, De Montfort University, UK Compilation of References ............................................................................................................... 278 About the Contributors .................................................................................................................... 321 Index ................................................................................................................................................... 326

Detailed Table of Contents

Foreword ............................................................................................................................................ xiv Preface ............................................................................................................................................... xvii Acknowledgment ............................................................................................................................... xxv Section 1 Knowledge Management Social and Ethical Dimensions Chapter 1 Knowledge Creation and Sharing in Japanese Organisations: A Socio-Cultural Perspective on ba .................................................................................................................................... 1 Kiyoshi Murata, Meiji University, Japan The Japanese contribution to knowledge management results from the work of Ikujiro Nonaka and his colleagues, who developed an Organisational Knowledge Creation Theory. In fact, throughout the literature the importance of these scholars in knowledge management is evidently recognisable. However, it is important to understand this theoretical contribution in the context of the socio-cultural background that pervades it. For that reason, this chapter explores the relationship between the Japanese school of knowledge management and, the socio-cultural systems of Japan. Furthermore, the chapter also demonstrates that this relationship disrupts an organisation’s ba (sense of place and structure), and as a consequence some social dilemmas arise, most importantly a degradation of trust. Chapter 2 What Does Knowledge Have to Do With Ethics? ................................................................................ 17 Chuck Huff, St. Olaf College, USA In the same way that useful theory in knowledge management system leads us to rethink the nature of knowledge (Spender & Scherer, 2007) a theory of ethics that would be informed by current research in moral psychology will lead us to rethink the nature of ethical action. This chapter introduces a research program that has tracked ethical action among computer professionals and uses the insights from that research to make suggestions about how purposive moral action is undertaken and how it might be supported by knowledge management systems.

Section 2 Societal Knowledge Management Chapter 3 Knowledge Management and Democracy: A Critical Review of Some Moral Issues and Social Dilemmas .............................................................................................................................................. 28 Chuck Huff, St. Olaf College, USA The main problem discussed in this essay is the question of compatibility between knowledge management in the knowledge economy and democracy in the ICT-driven global society. The assumption is made that democracy is the dominant form of organizing the global society on a variety of levels; and that it is regarded as desirable and morally superior in comparison with other such forms. Chapter 4 Global “Knowledge Management” in Humanist Perspective ............................................................... 45 Piotr Pawlak, Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan, Poland The term “knowledge management” is widely circumscribed to organizations, being considered fundamental at an institutional level (frequently within a specific corporate level). Hence, it is the domain of organizational and management theories, rational selection theories or, of various concepts related to economic efficiency. Nonetheless, this chapter will attempt to consider this issue from a holistic perspective, considering as a starting point the global dimension of this quandary. This overview falls back on analyses conducted by widely understood social studies, which use economic tools and methodologies. My opinion is that today the Internet evidently is a specific global knowledge warehouse. To be more specific, I mean the “ICT space” created by the Internet, which herein I will refer to as the cyberspace entails a global knowledge flux. As a result, this chapter is an overview of humanist discussions on cyberspace exploration and (more importantly) management. Chapter 5 Utilization of Resources: An Ethical Issue — The Anti-Commons and the Aquaculture Case............ 63 José António Candeias Bonito Filipe, UNIDE/ISCTE-IUL, Portugal Manuel Alberto Martins Ferreira, UNIDE/ISCTE-IUL, Portugal Manuel Francisco Pacheco Coelho, Portugal Anti-Commons Theory is an interesting theme that is being developed in the area of property rights since the 80’s. It intends to explain why an “anti-commons” emerges and why resources may be prone to under-use. In an anti-commons situation there are too many exclusion rights that lead to the underuse of resources. In Portugal, too many people (and institutions) have been involved in the approval processes of aquaculture projects. They may be involved in reaching a decision about the approval of a project which gives rise to the under-utilization of the resources that promoters aimed to exploit. Actually, it takes so long to approve a project that the time required for its implementation may be excessively delayed. This kind of problem results typically from bureaucratic environment. An ethical problem rises with this phenomenon. Projects may not go forward and all the amounts spent in the project will be lost. Besides, a viable project simply can be gone, with all the inherent losses of value.

Section 3 Organizational Knowledge Management Chapter 6 The Emerging Ethics of Knowledge Sharing: Hacker Ethics, Participatory Culture Ethics and Proselytization Commons Ethics .......................................................................................................... 80 Maslin Masrom, University Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia Zuraini Ismail, University Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia A key challenge that is emerging for organizations in nowadays is how to encourage knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing is an activity through which knowledge is exchanged among people, a community or organization. Knowledge constitutes a valuable intangible asset for creating and sustaining competitive advantages. Knowledge sharing activities are generally supported by knowledge management systems. Nevertheless, technology comprises simply one of the several issues that influence organizational knowledge sharing, such as organizational culture, trust, and incentives. So, knowledge sharing entails a key challenge in the field of knowledge management because some individuals tend to resist sharing their knowledge with others (it may be an individual, a group, a community, or an organization). The aim of this chapter is to describe and discuss three emerging ethics of knowledge-sharing, namely: (i) hacker ethics, (ii) participatory culture ethics, and (iii) proselytization commons ethics. Future research directions are suggested and concluded the chapter. Chapter 7 The Trouble with Digital Copies: A Short KM Phenomenology .......................................................... 97 Ugo Pagallo, University of Turin, Italy This chapter analyzes some of the most relevant ethical issues and social dilemmas in knowledge management and organizational innovation, by focusing on a paramount feature of digital technology, which is “copying.” The new ways in which information is produced, distributed, and shared in digital environments have in fact changed crucial aspects of human life. Whereas, most of the time, scholars consider such transformations in connection with the impact of digital copies on copyright law, the aim of the chapter is to widen this perspective by examining data protection as well as file sharing application systems. The new economical scenarios and business models proposed by this copy-based technology suggest new ways for balancing property rights and “the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community.” Chapter 8 From “Connectivism” to “Ethicism” .................................................................................................. 113 António dos Reis, The Graal Institute, Portugal Distance learning characteristics has been changing dramatically, namely since the fourth generation of distance learning. Moreover, e-learning impressive “evolution” enabled a trade-off between learning outcomes and ethical behaviour, which traditional learning theories do not embrace and that connectivism endeavours to illustrate. Although, two important queries arise: what challenges e-learning 2.0 and 3.0 impose? And, does connectivism promote ethical knowledge? Therefore, this chapter aims to

endorse a theoretical debate regarding e-learning, as well as to understand if connectivism will act as 21st century learning theory, or if the quest for an ethical connective knowledge and e-learning fusion with knowledge management itself will require a novel contribution (connethionicism). Despite the assumption that connectivism has been promoting a reasonable debate, the author personal experiences highlight the need for ethicism. Chapter 9 Glocality, Diversity and Ethics of Distributed knowledge in Higher Education ................................ 131 Nuno Sotero Alves da Silva, De Montfort University, UK Isabel Maria Surdinho Borges Alvarez, Lusíada University of Lisbon, Portugal Simon Rogerson, De Montfort University, UK Global networks through distributed systems technology granted a new meaning to knowledge creation, storage and distribution within higher education context. This global dimension imposes a considerable amount of ethical and social impacts concerning distributed knowledge because it is expressed within local contexts. Nonetheless, main stream literature highlights equity and cultural sensitivity as leading issues, and disregards the existent social dilemmas concerning organizational innovation in higher education. Therefore, this chapter aims to promote a philosophical and empirical argument within contextual determinants, in order to explore the ethical and social key dilemmas of distributed knowledge between global and local diversity in higher education. For that, under scrutiny will be a specific layer regarding first co-author e-University strategic implementation framework which interacts with ethics and culture, in order to, understand e-learning current practices in higher education, as well as, to nominate potential future guidelines concerning these trends. Section 4 Organizational Innovation Chapter 10 Renewal and Personal Mastery in Knowledge-Based Organisations: The Case of a Finnish ICT-Company...................................................................................................................................... 160 Päivi Lohikoski, University of Oulu, Finland Being knowledge management crucial to companies, it seems reasonable to understand an organisation intellectual capital. The three leading components of intellectual capital (human capital, structural capital and relational capital), are intrinsically bounded to the organisational ICT system, organisational structure, and to workers personal mastery. Nonetheless, in order to evolve organisational intellectual capital it is required a high level of personal mastery, which is clearly bounded to human resources. Therefore, this chapter aims to promote a theoretical and empirical discussion in order to understand the diverse dimensions between renewal, personal mastery, and employee wellbeing within a knowledgebased organisation (Finnish ICT-company). For that, the chapter is divided into six major sections: the research questions; theoretical framework and main concepts; the case study organisation and research methods applied; findings; discussion; and future research.

Chapter 11 The Importance of Balancing Knowledge Protection and Knowledge Interchange........................... 180 Yutaka Takahashi, Senshu University, Japan Business organisations are aware of the importance of knowledge to keep and acquire competitiveness, so willing to find and keep knowledge holders in their organisations. However, employees in many developed countries have freedom to choose what to do for their living; it is possible a suddenly leave regarding their current jobs and get a new job elsewhere. This is a great loss for the former employer, because it means that not only the knowledge holders themselves but also their knowledge leaves the former business. Moreover, this knowledge would be beneficial for the new employers which are often competitors of the former employers. In order to avoid this kind of brain drain, employers often require that employees sign non-disclosure and non-compete agreements. Nevertheless, this request can cause some trouble in the long run. This chapter shows the structures causing this trouble and how to deal with it using the systems thinking approach. Chapter 12 Management of Moral Knowledge and Ethical Processes in Organizations ...................................... 199 Agata Kostrzewa, Uppsala University, Sweden Mikael Laaksoharju, Uppsala University, Sweden Iordanis Kavathatzopoulos, Uppsala University, Sweden Moral knowledge is necessary for organizational functioning in order to get legitimacy and increase profits. Given Blackler’s assumptions about organizations, we discuss managing moral knowledge in organizations as a set of organizational processes with a time point and in a certain environment. We argue that to become ethically competent, organizations have to combine individuals and organizational ethical skills. Instead of on what is supposed to be done, we focus on what is done: interactions within the organization and with its environment, structured by practical routines, bearing main responsibility for transferring moral knowledge. The means facilitating this are organizational roles and structures, trainings, formal and informal support systems along with rules and guidelines. Further, we suggest two tools to assist managing moral knowledge: Ethical Index ETHIX (questionnaire to describe how ethical issues are handled in the organization) and the IT system ETHXPERT (supports and structures the process of ethical decision making). Section 5 Trends Chapter 13 Knowledge Worker Faire Compensation: Ethical Issues and Social Dilemmas................................. 215 Gonçalo Jorge Morais Costa, De Montfort University, UK One of the key characteristics in knowledge management is the importance of human resources. Therefore, main stream literature has been discussing the concept of knowledge worker, its characteristics, and duties versus rights, and human resources policies in its dissimilar perspectives (knowledge work-

ers retention, personal mastery, intellectual property rights, among others). Although, empirical studies seem to disregard if knowledge workers feel that are well compensated, or what dimensions entail faire compensation. Hence, this chapter aims to recognize knowledge workers feeling about faire compensation, and what elements are essential to achieve it through a conceptual framework. For that, the chapter is divided into six sections: the research questions; knowledge worker (key characteristics and responsibilities versus rights); fairness (etymology and the contribution of Rawls); linking the theoretical basis; empirical results (methodological remarks, findings and discussion); future research directions (the surrealist assumption, Dali surrealism and the metaphorical assumption). Chapter 14 Mobilizing Knowledge in the UK Public Sector: Current Issues and Discourse ............................... 232 David Pullinger, London, UK Knowledge management supports the key goals of an organization. For government this is creating public value, through trust, outcomes, service quality and cost effectiveness. These are vital matters for the UK government, and the need to mobilize knowledge is essential in delivering them. Knowledge management has tended to be about corporate knowledge inside an organization. This is important for government, not least in joining up its many parts to deliver more effective services and outcomes to citizens. However, citizens also have knowledge that can help deliver public value. How citizens and government share knowledge forms a second exploration. Citizens are also concerned about the use made by the state of personal data and knowledge about them; this forms the third strand. The issues that arise are mapped as ethical tensions onto Nonaka’s SECI model, providing both a framework for exploring ethics and for examining the space for organizational innovation. Chapter 15 Ethical Evaluation of Learning Organizations: A Conceptual Framework......................................... 250 Gonçalo Jorge Morais Costa, De Montfort University, UK A key assumption for recognizing knowledge society is the existence of learning organizations. As a result, literature has been fruitful in engaging a wide debate concerning its characteristics, dimensions, evolution, evaluation procedures, or ethical behaviour. Likewise, it is interesting to denote that research appears to pay little regard to the impacts of existing ethical and social dilemmas about knowledge creation, retention/use and sharing within organizational contexts. Therefore, the key purpose of this manuscript is to present a conceptual framework that denotes these dilemmas and their impacts in organizational strategy. For that, this contribution resumes an ongoing research project which intends to approach ethical and social dilemmas in learning organizations. Moreover, it suggests that these dilemmas impact on organizational strategy, as well as that existing evaluation models for learning organizations do not promote the ethical evaluation. Compilation of References .............................................................................................................. 278 About the Contributors ................................................................................................................... 321 Index ................................................................................................................................................... 326

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Foreword

Long ago, in his classic work Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explored a number of significant connections between knowledge and ethics. For example, under some circumstances, a lack of knowledge can excuse someone from blame. Thus, suppose that a person had good reasons to believe that a certain chemical is medicine which can cure a given disease. In reality, however, that chemical is poison. The person in question did not know that the chemical is poison, so he gave it, with tragic consequences, to someone who was ill. If his lack of knowledge was not his own fault- if for example it was not due to his own negligence- and if he had excellent reasons to believe that the chemical actually is effective medicine- then the person may be excused for giving poison. On the other hand, if the person’s lack of knowledge was indeed due to his own negligence, it would not excuse him from blame. This example is just one of many different important connections between knowledge and ethics. According to Aristotle, because knowledge and ethics are significantly interrelated, a person must acquire appropriate knowledge- and apply it wisely- to be ethical. This includes knowledge about virtues and vices, as well as knowledge about the specific circumstances under consideration. It follows that wisdom and excellent ethical judgment depend upon effective knowledge management. Thus, among other things, parents, teachers and community leaders should take steps to make certain that their children can attain the knowledge needed to become virtuous. The amount of such knowledge is enormous, and Aristotle believed that a person must live for several decades before he or she could attain sufficient knowledge and experience to become ethically wise. In the Western world, since the time of Plato, philosophers have offered a variety of theories of knowledge and have engaged in many debates about the fundamental nature of knowledge. Those debates continue to this day, and they often are interesting and helpful. Fortunately, however, we do not have to wait until all philosophers agree- if they ever do- about the fundamental nature of knowledge. Instead, our commonsense everyday understanding of knowledge is sufficient to explore some important connections between ethics and the management of knowledge. We know, for example, that knowledge can be created, stored, secured, copied, shared, applied, taught, learned, forgotten, lost, stolen, and managed in many other ways. Some of those ways are ethically reprehensible, some are ethically admirable, and some are ethically debatable. In the pages of the present book, a number of connections are explored between knowledge management and important ethical considerations. All of the discussions in the book take for granted the fact that we are living in “the Information Age”, and that we therefore have available to us a vast array of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), which can be used to create, compile, extract, store, retrieve, compare, filter, convey, disseminate, encode, hide, steal, scramble, erase, buy and sell information. And because knowledge and information are closely related, the tools of the Information Age are having an enormous impact

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upon our ability to manage knowledge. This book explores some aspects of that enormous ICT impact together with some related ethical issues. A number of such issues can be viewed as questions of fairness and distributive justice. For example, in today’s “knowledge economy” what is fair compensation for knowledge workers whose jobs and accomplishments are so central to the well being of society? Another issue of distributive justice concerns new knowledge being generated, in economically developed countries, by innovative companies and research laboratories. Doesn’t justice require that this new knowledge- and related ICTs for managing it- be shared globally in ways that benefit poor countries as well as wealthy ones? Shouldn’t knowledge and related ICTs be shared in ways that reduce “the digital divide” between the “haves” and the “havenots”? And shouldn’t that sharing include knowledge about the many diverse cultures of the world, as well as various ways to preserve and defend their cultural values, rather than merely disseminating knowledge and values of wealthy influential Western (i.e., America and European) countries? One of the most effective ways to share knowledge globally- and also to spread cultural artifacts and values- is to use person-to-person (P2P) file sharing on the Internet. However, P2P distribution in the past has generated major worldwide ethical and legal questions involving, for example, ownership of intellectual property, privacy rights, security questions, and violations of personal freedom. These are fundamental issues that could take years- perhaps, even decades- to resolve. Since P2P knowledge sharing is here to stay- and it also provides new cultural, personal and business opportunities- many ethical, legal and cultural challenges lie ahead. Knowledge sharing is related to a number of other ethical questions. For example, constant and rapid changes in the world economy make it necessary for businesses, if they are to remain competitive, to renew continually the knowledge resources that are embodied in their experts, their policies and their procedures. But sharing new knowledge that can help a business remain viable might also benefit its competitors and thereby threaten its own existence. On the other hand the economy generally and, therefore, the specific companies within the economy, depend upon new widely disseminated knowledge. There is tension, therefore, between knowledge protection and knowledge sharing. A very special and important kind of knowledge sharing is the education of our children. Teaching involves the transfer of knowledge from teacher to student, as well as the facilitation, by teachers, of student self-learning. New ICTs have led to “distance learning” over the Internet, as well as ICT-enhanced teaching and learning in a traditional classroom. Pedagogical ethics requires that the new tools and teaching/ learning techniques of the Information Age provide effective education. In addition, the new ICT teaching tools and methods require that teachers, if they are to remain effective, must acquire new knowledge themselves in order to be able to use the new tools and methods successfully. Global education issues are also ethically important, including an educational version of “the digital divide” in which distance learning and computer-assisted learning are concentrated in the developed world, thereby perpetuating the unjust distribution of knowledge between economically developed and underdeveloped countries. Another global issue, of growing importance, is the possible development of a “global ethics” that could result from knowledge sharing among a wide diversity of the world’s cultures. Access to the Internet in many different cultures has enabled a worldwide conversation about ethics and values. As part of that conversation, some philosophers have argued that the Internet is “inherently democratic”; and therefore, as more and more countries gain access to the Internet and to knowledge about democracy, respect for human rights and freedom will grow, and democracy could become the dominant form of governments worldwide. Other, more pessimistic, philosophers and social thinkers have argued, instead, that the powerful ICT tools of the Information Age might actually be used by politically and economi-

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cally powerful people, companies, and governments to control and withhold knowledge and thereby dominate- perhaps even enslave- a vast majority of the world’s population. In addition to the above-mentioned knowledge-related ethical issues, there are issues related directly to ethical knowledge itself. For example, is knowledge about traditional ethical theories from philosophers, such as Aristotle, Bentham and Kant, sufficient to make a person ethically wise? Or does ethical wisdom require broader, tacit, and perhaps more intuitive kinds of knowledge? Can recent theories and experiments in moral psychology shed any light on the kinds of knowledge that wise persons actually use to make ethical judgments and to live ethical lives? These and related questions are also addressed in the pages below. Terrell Ward Bynum Southern Connecticut State University New Haven, Connecticut, USA 29 November 2009 Terrell Ward Bynum is Professor of Philosophy at Southern Connecticut State University, Director of the Research Center on Computing and Society there, and Visiting Professor at De Montfort University in Leicester, England. He is Past Chair of the Committee on Philosophy and Computers of the American Philosophical Association, a lifetime member of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, and Past Chair of the Committee on Professional Ethics of the Association for Computing Machinery. In 2005, he gave the Georg Henrik von Wright Ethics Lecture at the European Computers and Philosophy Conference in Sweden. In 2008, he won the Barwise Prize of the American Philosophical Association, and in 2009, he received the Weizenbaum Award of the International Society for Ethics and Information Technology.

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Preface

“All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and, hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.” -- Benjamin Franklin The editor at some extent agrees with Benjamim Franklin quotation, because hitherto main stream literature has been neglecting the ethical and social dilemmas that knowledge management enables. Nonetheless, if this handbook aims to alter the knowledge society status quo (mental and cultural revolution) through theoretical and practical solutions, it is reasonable to expect that these amendments will encourage a better society.

ABOUT THE SUBJECT The philosophical dialogue as regards to “knowledge” is divided into four constructs: “episteme (knowledge about common and collective agreements, hereby episteme means a concrete knowledge about something, which can be easily passed to the next generation), techne (ability or practical capacity, knowledge about how to handle tasks and exercises), phronesis (intuitive knowledge like wisdom, which is combined with personal experiences and with a specific social attitude, which cannot be easily passed to other people), métiers (knowledge, which is based on personal experiences and social practises; it means a specific type of cleverness and individual brilliancy, developed by a person in a specific context; obviously métiers also cannot be easily passed to other persons)” (Renzl 2004, p. 32). This quotation emphasizes the process of creating, using and sharing knowledge despite the underlying level of knowledge management, which may vary according to literature. For example, Sinclair (2008) refers three levels: personally-based, community-based, and organizationally based. Higgison (2005) describes personal knowledge management as the process of managing and supporting the knowledge that is significant and valuable to an individual through preserving its social networks. Community-based knowledge acknowledges the multiple configurations (communities of practices, virtual communities, etc) that technology supports in order to create, use and share knowledge (Sinclair, 2008). And, for instance Brelade & Harman (2003) argue that organizational knowledge management enables the acquisition and exploration of resources to generate an environment in which information is available to all organizational members. This environmental characteristic will allow individuals to

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acquire, share and use that information to develop their personal knowledge, as well as persuades them to apply their knowledge for the benefit of the organization. Even so, the editor proposes another conception: personal, organizationally, and society-based. The disparity resumes two arguments: • •

a perception of what is considered an organization, because the editor assumes community as a form of organizational taxonomy (broader perception); and, states possess their own knowledge management strategies (societal approach). For Wiig (2006), societal knowledge management entails the knowledge-related initiatives within a society, which is achieved through a blend of proactive and voluntary actions managed by personal and local contexts and public knowledge infrastructures.

Regardless the theoretical configuration, the relationship among these levels as well as the knowledge construct, induces ethical and social tensions never glimpsed before (the scope of Ethical Issues and Social Dilemmas in Knowledge Management: Organizational Innovation). Besides, these ethical and social dilemmas clearly reflect the need to rethink knowledge society fundamentals, or otherwise the positive and desirable legacy for future generations will be a mirage. If, the impact of knowledge society is economic, cultural, social, political and technological with intergenerational consequences, a multidimensional analysis is compulsory in order to promote a reliable and feasible discussion.

WHY THIS PUBLICATION The underlying motivations for this handbook are the editor academic, professional and publishing background which IGI Global has recognized. From the array of these experiences, the editor has gain conscience that humans have a natural curiosity for understanding their world, which highlights dissimilar queries or means. On the other hand, it is also typical to query about the existing reality and until what extent we believe in the principles that guide mankind actions. In conclusion, this handbook attempts to demonstrate that knowledge management needs to change “its course”, which is proven through brilliant theoretical and empirical contributions, as well it resumes the human reasoning: more we know, more we wonder about the right questions.

MISSION AND AIMS The mission of this handbook is to provide an inclusive coverage of the latest and most relevant developments, solutions and problems related to this topic that has been systemically neglected by literature and given its overall impact in knowledge society and organizational knowledge management projects. Thus, some significant objectives of this handbook embrace: • • •

to demonstrate the philosophical underpinnings concerning knowledge management, and the importance of ethics; to reveal the multiple facets of knowledge management; to illustrate the ethical and social dilemmas that occur in societal knowledge management;

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• • • •

to exhibit the ethical and social dilemmas that arise in organizational knowledge management; to relate organizational innovation with these dilemmas; to introduce solutions that allow to minimize the ethical and social dilemmas; to promote a change for a truthful knowledge society (based on ethical and moral principles).

In conclusion, the resulting publication enables a valuable, challenging and multidisciplinary resource for Readers acquire excellent insights pertaining to the transformations and challenges that knowledge management is and will face.

ORGANIZATION This handbook resumes a compilation of 15 contributions that discuss numerous dimensions: Knowledge Management- schools of thought and dimensions; “Societal” Knowledge Management- ethical and social dilemmas; “Organizational” Knowledge Management- ethical and social dilemmas; Organizational Innovation- dilemmas; and Trends. Hence, these chapters are written by 21 authors (20 authors and the editor), namely academic and practitioners related to the multiple dimensions that the handbook core enables: ICT experts, lawyers, ethicists, consultants, among others. Ethical Issues and Social Dilemmas in Knowledge Management: Organizational Innovation is organized in five sections: • • • •

•

Section 1: Knowledge Management, discusses the schools of thoughts and the contribution of moral psychology (critical dimension) to knowledge management; Section 2: “Societal Knowledge Management”, acknowledges a macro perception of knowledge management and its ethical and social dilemmas; Section 3: “Organizational Knowledge Management”, enables a meso perspective of these dilemmas within knowledge environments, namely within educational settings; Section 4: “Organizational Innovation”, resumes a blend between organizational knowledge management and trends in order to the Reader understand the continuum process and bound between both realities; Section 5: Trends, debates practical solutions concerning the ethical and social dilemmas previously illustrated.

Nevertheless, at this point some additional remarks are mandatory: the handbook acknowledges the overlapping realities among the three levels and knowledge construct, as well as it might seems to assume a top-down analysis that disregards personal knowledge management (due to its sections, namely from section 2 to 5). Although, the personal dimension can be easily recognized within societal and organizational knowledge management, and section 1 is a “milestone” for what to expect (a non-traditional approach to knowledge management). As a result, the following step is to articulate the aims and objectives of each section versus its content (chapters), and a graphical representation of the handbook’s architecture. Section 1 includes 2 chapters, as well as it enables propaedeutic instructions about the philosophical underpinnings of knowledge management as a research field, as well as it introduces the contribution of moral psychology.

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Kiyoshi Murata debates the SECI model, Japanese input to knowledge management, encompassing a double analysis: the explanation of the theoretical contribution of Nonaka and his colleagues given their importance to the research field; and, the socio-cultural background that pervades it. Chapter 1 investigates the bond between the Japanese school of knowledge management and, the socio-cultural systems of Japan. In addition, the Japanese socio-cultural features of uchi/soto awareness, insular collectivism and the hon’ne/tatemae tradition can disrupt an organisation’s ba (sense of place and structure), leading to several social dilemmas, most importantly a degradation of trust. Chapter 2 embraces the contribution of moral psychology to knowledge management, enabling the need to rethink the nature of ethical action by computer professionals given the importance of knowledge management systems in supporting knowledge creation, sharing and use. Chuck Huff introduces a research program that has tracked ethical action among computer professionals and uses the insights from that research to make suggestions. In that sense, the author has concluded that an ethical actor is not a passive recipient of a pre-packaged decision space, but shapes his or her decision according to the situation and goals of the system. The second section, “Societal Knowledge Management”, comprises 3 chapters that emphasize an overview of societal knowledge management, namely the conditions required to knowledge society flourish and be humanist, as well as the effect of bureaucracy in a national knowledge management project. In chapter 3, Knowledge management and democracy: A critical review of some moral issues and social dilemmas, Krystyna Górniak-Kocikowska acknowledges the trade-off amid knowledge management economy and democracy in the ICT-driven global society. The assumption is that democracy is the prevailing structure of organizing the global society on a multiplicity of levels; and that it is regarded as desirable and morally superior in comparison with other political forms. This trade-off is “cyclical” (historical analysis) because it can benefit the humankind collectively and individually, or it merely benefits a select group of individuals. The outcome will depend on which ethical and social values would be accepted, however as Plato alleges the conception of good is the last assumption of knowledge. Following up the previous chapter, Piotr Pawlak in chapter 4 approaches knowledge through a holistic viewpoint of the global dimension, which outlines the social studies approaches if we consider that Internet represents a specific global knowledge warehouse. This global warehouse enables global fluxes based on the cultural commodities as an extension of Western power, leading to an exchange of various cultural products. If this global flux detracts local culture, the recognition of an inclusive knowledge society is in danger or, if diasporic communities arise is essential to pose the following questions: how do equally ideas will be converted across cultures? Does the outcome depend on how components are demonstrated, or individuals’ comprehension? It is possible to achieve infusion cultures that are neither isolationist or imperialistic? What will be the response of intellectual property rights? Another potential approach to societal knowledge management is the effect of bureaucracy when managing environmental resources at a national level, namely in Portugal. The intention of chapter 5 is to describe why “anti-commons” appear and why resources may be prone to under-use. Anti-commons generate too many exclusion rights leading to the under-use of resources. In Portugal, the knowledge flux absorbs a wide spectrum of institutions as regards to the approval of aquaculture projects. The inflated interaction of knowledge responsibilities undermines the approval of a project which engages an inefficient utilization of the resources. Therefore, Filipe, Ferreira & Coelho refer that bureaucracy act as a constraint to national knowledge management projects, raising ethical issues like equity as a consequence of the anti-commons tragedy.

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The third section, “Organizational Knowledge Management”, covers 4 chapters and sheds some light over the ethical and social dilemmas that educational knowledge environments promulgate. Despite education be a transversal process and its key role in knowledge society, the editor has considered its focus and impacts at an organizational level as the following chapters will highlight. In chapter 6, Masrom & Ismail debate the issues surrounding knowledge sharing, being this an action through which knowledge is exchanged among people, a community or organization. This sharing process is today based technological systems, although is only one of the features that influences organizational knowledge sharing. So, knowledge sharing entails a key challenge in the field of knowledge management because some individuals tend to resist sharing their knowledge with others (it may be an individual, a group, a community, or an organization) due to multiple reasons. The objective of this chapter is to portray and debate three emerging ethics of knowledge-sharing, namely: hacker ethics, participatory culture ethics, and proselytization commons ethics. In fact, this triangulated analysis reflects the need to change the mindset of people in line with common ethical norms in believing that “knowledge sharing is power”. On the other hand, Ugo Pagallo (chapter 7) demonstrates that knowledge sharing implies the need to debate the concept of copying in digital environments, meaning that novel ways for balancing property rights and “the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community” are required. Therefore, it is remarkable that common thinking is that digital copy is solely related to copyright issues, and not a responsible or altruistic behaviour through trust or incentives in order to guarantee a fair compensation to the author. This perpetual “pursuit” attempts to weaken the potential of innovation that digital copies generate and its potential to permit a truly knowledge society, which is clearly contradictory. Finally, chapters 8 and 9 highlight the ethical and social issues that learning environments have enhanced. In chapter 8, António dos Reis illustrates the differences among the e-learning generations and the trade-off about ethical behaviours. For this author, e-learning 2.0 and 3.0 will require novel learning theories despite the positive contribution of connectivism to achieve ethical knowledge. Hence, ethicism will facilitate the quest for an ethical connective knowledge in e-learning 2.0 environments, and “connethionicism” for e-learning 3.0 (linking connectivism, ethicism, connectionism). Silva, Alvarez & Rogerson in chapter 9 approach the global distributed knowledge systems in education and its ethical and social impacts in local contexts. So far, main stream literature points out equity and cultural sensitivity as leading issues, and ignores a systematic array of social dilemmas, as proven by these authors. For that, a theoretical and empirical argument within contextual determinants is exhibited in order to explore the arising dilemmas amid distributed knowledge, global and local diversity in higher education. Beyond these evidences, a wide range of empirical examples are depicted and analysed through Silva e-University strategic implementation framework which interacts e-learning with ethics and culture. As a final remark, the authors claim that to minimize the current and upcoming dilemmas novel educational systems must be: localitas (as a basic quality of bodies), connectivitas (blend status with reference to multi-glocal experiences), and humanitas (ability for self-consciousness). Chapters 10, 11 and 12 are the components of the fourth section, “Organizational Innovation Dilemmas”, which purpose is to portray the dialogue involving organizational knowledge management and trends. From this overlapping reality a more transparent analysis and outcomes will be achieved. To Lohikoski, chapter 10, it is essential to realize organizational intellectual capital, and for that sheds some light over its three components: human capital, structural capital and relational capital, as well as how are these inherently bounded to the technological system, organizational structure, and to workers personal mastery. Even so, the importance of human resources in knowledge management is

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Figure 1. Graphical representation of the handbook’s architecture

widely recognized in literature and the author promotes an academic and practical debate in order to identify the various dimensions connecting renewal, personal mastery, and employee wellbeing within a knowledge-based organisation (Finnish ICT-company). The conclusions of this contribution reveal that the transactional boundaries of interacting are obvious, generating change within communities that promote the integration of participants with unlike motivations. Likewise, Takahashi in chapter 11 tries to acknowledge the challenge of protecting and interchange knowledge in organizations. Similarly to Lohikoski, this author claims that knowledge workers are an invaluable asset within organizational contexts; however, the problem relies on how to retain knowledge workers and their knowledge, and until what extent should be promoted access to the organizational body of knowledge. A not balanced trade-off may induce: the corrosion of working conditions, leading to a lack of attractiveness for future workers; lack of commitment and restraining knowledge sharing, so

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internal knowledge creation will be affected. Finally, the non-compete and non-disclosure agreements have a short term outcome, and despite increasing its length of time seem a practical hypothesis it entails a “mirror effect”. The “mirror” effect acknowledges the lack of availability of knowledge workers at long term as a consequence of the previous procedure. In chapter 12 is underlined the legitimacy of companies to increase profits but through moral knowledge. Furthermore, the chapter debates how it is possible to manage moral knowledge within organizational contexts having in consideration Blackler’s assumptions. To become ethically competent, companies have to combine individuals and organizational ethical skills. Instead of focusing on what is supposed to be done, the authors bear in mind moral knowledge transference within the multiple organizational interactions. In order to help managers cope with these challenges Kostrzewa, Laaksoharju & Kavathatzopoulos introduce the Ethical Index ETHIX (questionnaire to describe how ethical issues are handled in the organization) and the IT system ETHXPERT (supports and structures the process of ethical decision making). The reason for this contribution derives from an empirical observation: the dominant approach toward ethics is normative, which does not accurately reproduce societal status quo, because norms are shaped and revised as a result of global information sharing. Trends, the fifth section, aim to introduce practical explanations with reference to the ethical and social dilemmas highlighted throughout the handbook, and for that entail chapters 13, 14 and 15. In his first contribution, the editor, questions the issue of fair compensation regarding knowledge workers. The recognition that human resources are a crucial asset in the knowledge economy is methodically documented in literature, as well as the underlying characteristics of knowledge workers and their responsibilities and duties. Furthermore, other leading focus is the human resources policies multiple features, as for instance: knowledge workers retention, personal mastery, intellectual property rights, etc. Despite this overall and continuous debate, literature seems to reveal lack of empirical studies with reference to the feeling of knowledge workers compensation fairness and what dimensions are valued as critical. So, in order to shed some light over this theme the editor resumes his PhD empirical results, as well as academic and professional experiences. In chapter 14, Pullinger debates the current reality of UK government policy regarding knowledge management. Public knowledge management intends to create public value (outcomes, service quality and cost effectiveness) through trust. However, the author argues that the major constraint is to understand how it is possible that citizens shared knowledge become a source of value for public knowledge management, as well as the trade-off between personal data and shared knowledge. For that, Pullinger provides a comprehensive analysis of the ethical tensions in each stage of the SECI model in UK government. The empirical results allow us to conclude that cultural challenges need to develop consensus through social construction, which is enhanced by the relationship citizen-state in public knowledge management. Last but not least, the editor presents the underlying assumptions of learning organizations namely its characteristics, dimensions, evolution, evaluation procedures, or ethical behaviour. In addition, Costa demonstrates that learning organization literature has been ignoring to the impacts of existing ethical and social dilemmas about knowledge creation, retention/use and sharing within organizational contexts (proven by the empirical outcomes of his PhD research project). So, in chapter 15 is acknowledged a conceptual framework that indicates the impacts of these dilemmas in organizational strategy and that certainly will produce feasible results when applied worldwide.

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EXPECTATIONS This handbook presents a comprehensive coverage of the theme, providing to a broad audience of researchers, scholars, practitioners and students with state of the art theoretical and practical developments and solutions on this domain. Some keen examples of potential Readers are people from management, human resources, organizational behaviour, information science, information technology, organizational sociology, computer ethics, and law, among others. As a result, it is expectable several and interesting comments from the audience in order to promote an enhanced discussion with reference to the ethical and social dilemmas that knowledge management imposes. Moreover, the editor created an open forum about the handbook in order to promote a truly communitarian debate (http://www.goncalocosta.com/index/index.php?option=com_ccboard&view=fo rumlist&Itemid=66), as well as sincerely hopes that this stimulating and thought provocative work will allow future research and eloquence enough to change the guiding principles of the knowledge society. Gonçalo Costa Editor Caldas da Rainha (Portugal), September 2010

REFERENCES Brelade, S., & Harman, C. (2003). A practical guide to knowledge management: A special commissioned report. London: Thorogood Professional Insights. Higgison, S. (2005). Your say: Personal knowledge management. Insight Knowledge, 7(7). Retrieved September 20, 2010, from, http://www.ikmagazine.com/xq/asp/sid.0/volume.7/issue.7/qx/displayissue.htm. Renzl, B. (2004). Zentrale aspekte des wissensbegriffs- Kernelemente der organisation von Wissen. In B. Wyssusek (Ed.), Wissensmanagement Komplex- Perspektiven und Soziale Praxis (pp. 27-42). Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag GmbH & Co. (in German). Sinclair, N. (2008). The changing face of KM. VINE: The Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems, 38(1), 22-29. Wiig, K. M. (2006). Societal knowledge management in the globalised economy. International Journal of Advanced Media and Communication, 1(2), 172-191.

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Acknowledgment

This publication could not have been written without the support of several “actors”, to whom I address my deepest regards. Similarly to the overall book configuration I advocate the existence of institutional/ organizational, groups and individual “actors”, whose contributions assume different forms however with equal importance. My sincere thanks to IGI Global for the unbelievable invitation and for believing in my work, as well as, guidance and support throughout the entire book editing process; nonetheless, I need to express my gratitude to my “personal assistant” at IGI Global, Mr. Joel Gamon, whose help was incomparable and far beyond my personal expectations. I would like to acknowledge the support provided by all the educational institutions whose authors have contributed for this book. Likewise, I sincerely hope that these institutions recognize the tremendous effort of its researchers, in order to help me creating an innovative and critical publication concerning knowledge management status quo. Moreover, I want to thank to the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University, for its doctoral program experience, represented by my supervisors, Professor Mary Prior and Professor Simon Rogerson. Their intellectual guidance, judicious support, encouragement, and challenging ideas (some expressed in this book), have been the input of my evolution. Finally, it is essential to acknowledge the additional support that my lecturing institution in Portugal had provided me: to ISLA Leiria University my sincere esteem. Moving forward, it is also necessary to remember the positive attitude of all the non-educational organizations that directly or, indirectly had contributed for this publication: to all my gratefulness. Therefore, I sincerely hope that the answers and new ideas presented in this book, become a useful tool for an ethical organizational innovation of their internal procedures. Although, is time to scrutinize which were the various groups of actors that allowed the dream come true! Thus, the actors were: •

•

The Editorial Advisory Board: I am speechless, and as you all know it is not a ordinary situation. I felt deeply honoured with your marvellous support, comments, ideas and contributions, as well as, I had never expected that leading authors, whose knowledge and expertise I respect, could accept my challenging invitation. So: Nino, Bernd, Chuck, Kiyoshi, Krystyna, Mario, Mary, Simon, Terrell and Ugo, I am indebted to you. The contributors: A special regard is mandatory for all that believed that this publication could at some extent promote important changes. I am confident that those changes will occur, due to the high quality and unique contributions that you have produced. Therefore, without reasonable doubt I am a privileged editor.

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• •

The reviewers: From a miscellaneous mixture of the Editorial Advisory Board and contributors a list of reviewers arose. And, once more the result was outstanding, because everyone understood the level of criticality regarding the reviewing process. Family: To my parents, brother, wife and daughters, I require their forgiveness due to my lack of time. Nonetheless, I know that you are proud of my achievements. and, my students: To my past and present students I thank their support and continuous challenges, because without them it was impossible to accomplish so different objectives. In fact, this book also represents our hopes and dreams concerning a more ethical knowledge society.

Finally, my thoughts go to a specific actor: Nuno Sotero Alves da Silva (my PhD comrade), and to Tiago Filipe Rodrigues da Fonseca (my honourable apprentice). Thank you to both for the continuous support, insightful comments and critics, and above all your friendship. It has been truly an honour to “serve” with both... Gonçalo Costa Editor Caldas da Rainha (Portugal), September 2010

Section 1

Knowledge Management Social and Ethical Dimensions “Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace” Oscar Wilde If this manuscript's purpose is to rediscover knowledge management, namely knowledge as a process (people centred), it is crucial to understand its moral principles like Oscar Wilde argues. Therefore, it is reasonable to query if the founder and inspirational work of the SECI model imply moral issues given its recognition regarding the socio-cultural environment? Nonetheless, knowledge society is enabled through technology (knowledge management systems), leading to a relevant discussion as regards to the ethical actions that computer professionals should undertake without jeopardizing imaginative practices of knowledge workers.

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Chapter 1

Knowledge Creation and Sharing in Japanese Organisations:

A Socio-Cultural Perspective on ba Kiyoshi Murata Meiji University, Japan

ABSTRACT The Japanese contribution to knowledge management results from the work of Ikujiro Nonaka and his colleagues, who developed an Organisational Knowledge Creation Theory. In fact, throughout the literature the importance of these scholars in knowledge management is evidently recognisable. However, it is important to understand this theoretical contribution in the context of the socio-cultural background that pervades it. For that reason, this chapter explores the relationship between the Japanese school of knowledge management and the socio-cultural systems of Japan. Furthermore, the chapter also demonstrates that this relationship disrupts organisation’s ba (a field of knowledge creation and sharing), and as a consequence some social dilemmas arise, most importantly a degradation of trust.

INTRODUCTION Japanese business scholar Ikujiro Nonaka and his colleagues developed an organisational knowledge creation theory as a basic theory of knowledge-based management, rooted mainly in their observations of Japanese manufacturing firms such as Honda, Sony, Kao, Canon and NEC. They recognised that the competitive advantage of Japanese firms in the international market has derived from the skill and ability of these firms with DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-873-9.ch001

regard to organisational knowledge creation. This theory is composed of four conceptual elements: a socialisation-externalisation-combinationinternalisation (SECI) model, ba (spatial and time settings of organisational knowledge creation), knowledge assets, and knowledge leadership. The theory is based on a number of ideas such as tacit knowledge (Polanyi, 1966; 1958), the logic of ba or place (Nishida, 1933; 1911), teleonomic evolutionary theory (Imanishi, 1976), and holons, fluctuation, self-organisation and ba in bioholonics (Shimizu, 1992; 1978). Many of these ideas are based on Eastern thought.

Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Knowledge Creation and Sharing in Japanese Organisations

This chapter deals with knowledge creation and sharing in Japanese organisations, focusing on organisational knowledge creation theory (e.g., Nonaka & Konno, 1998; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995) and Japanese socio-cultural characteristics, including uchi/soto awareness, insular collectivism and the hon’ne/tatemae tradition (Adams, Murata & Orito, 2009). In particular, the nature of the ba/field, in which knowledge creation and sharing activities are made, is examined from a Japanese socio-cultural perspective. In that examination, the author explores how knowledge creation and sharing in Japanese organisations is enhanced or restricted by the cultural characteristics of Japanese society. Success and failure factors in organisational knowledge creation and sharing are the targets of the investigation in this chapter. This clarifies intrinsic Japanese elements embedded in the knowledge creation theory and could be useful for non-Japanese organisations in applying the theory. The structure of the remainder of this chapter is as follows. The next section describes the ideas and the background of the organisational knowledge creation theory, based on the studies of Nonaka and his colleagues. The following section examines the relationships between the organisational knowledge creation theory and Japanese culture. The last section investigates how ba, as a field of knowledge creation and sharing, should be managed in Japanese business organisations to permit them to achieve successful knowledge creation and sharing in Japanese socio-cultural circumstances.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORGANISATIONAL KNOWLEDGE CREATION THEORY Information Creation as a Self-Organising Activity The organisational knowledge creation theory was originally developed as the antithesis of the

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scientific or analytical strategic planning theory (e.g., Abel & Hammond, 1979). Nonaka (1985) noted that the adoption of analytical strategic management methodologies such as product portfolio management in uncertain economic environments triggered the paralysis by analysis syndrome in many firms, in which strategic staff tend to exaggerate quantitative analysis and consequently design infeasible strategic plans. He also pointed out that modern organisational theory and contingency theory are useless in the ever-changing business environment, and stressed the necessity of evolution of business organisations by shifting their focus of strategic and organisational design from the analysis of market environments to the creation of information or new ways of thinking and behaving. Nonaka’s arguments are based on scientific research into areas such as dissipative structure (Nicolis & Prigogine, 1977), synergetics (Haken, 1983), teleonomic evolutionary theory (Imanishi, 1976) and bioholonics (Shimizu, 1978), among others. Bioholonics addresses life phenomena, and characterises a living system as a self-organising system where holons (autonomous components of a living system) create a new order for the whole system cooperatively, with each constituent, through fluctuation and entrainment. Applying the ideas of these scientific findings to the management of organisations, Nonaka described the nature of business organisation evolution and concluded that it essentially involves the creation of information through self-organising activities proactively conducted by organisational members in an intraorganisational environment designed to enhance the self-organising processes. According to his theory, typical evolutionary or self-innovative organisations have the following characteristics: • •

they face rapidly changing business environments; they develop an organisational scheme to create internal fluctuation by generating chaos, diversity and/or uncertainty;


•

•

•

•

•

internal individuals and groups are continually provided organisational support to behave autonomously to generate fluctuation; they develop a management scheme to enhance innovative destruction and self-transcendence; they develop an organisational mechanism to promote entrainment or synchronisation of fluctuation generated by internal individuals and/or groups; they enhance information/knowledge sharing among organisational members to develop learning organisations; their evolution is not random, but teleonomic.

Organisational Knowledge Creation and Management Tacit and Explicit Knowledge Scepticism about the practical effectiveness of the information processing paradigm (Galbraith, 1973; March & Simon, 1958; Simon, 1957), in which organisations are characterised as entities that process information to adapt to the uncertain environment surrounding them through solving problems given in the environment, and the belief that organisations are entities that proactively change their environment through creating information and knowledge motivated Nonaka (1990) to formulate the organisational knowledge creation theory. Based on the traditional theory of knowledge and Polanyi’s concept of tacit knowing (Polanyi, 1966; 1958), he recognised that knowledge has two aspects or phases: explicit and tacit. The former is objective and rational knowledge that can be expressed in words and numerals, and shared among people in terms of formulae, data, procedures, universal principles and so on. The latter is subjective and experiential knowledge, and expressing this type of knowledge clearly in words and/or numerals is difficult.

Somewhat unlike Polanyi’s definition, Nonaka’s tacit knowledge, containing technical skills like know-how and cognitive skills like mental models (Johnson-Laird, 1983), is considered to have a cyclic and complementary relationship with explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge can be converted into explicit knowledge in certain organisational settings using metaphor and analogy as a tool for the conversion. Polanyi, on the other hand, considered that tacit knowledge is hidden behind explicit knowledge and that it is impossible, or at least extremely difficult, to make tacit knowledge explicit. Once tacit knowledge is articulated or converted into explicit knowledge, it becomes sharable among members in an organisation. The converted knowledge can then be internalised to enrich the existing tacit knowledge possessed by individual members. Nonaka’s knowledge creation theory was based on the belief that knowledge is created and expanded through the transition between tacit and explicit knowledge. Nonaka also considered that someone’s tacit knowledge could be transferred to others. This is typically observed in the process of training of an artisan or a martial artist. This transfer is called socialisation. Another type of knowledge creation is that of combination, which represents the process of creating new explicit knowledge through the combination of existing explicit knowledge. Of the four modalities of knowledge creation, articulation, conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, and internalisation, conversion of explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge, are fundamental because they deeply relate to self and subjectivity, and therefore enhance selforganisation. On the other hand, socialisation and combination create surface or phenomenological knowledge.

Individual and Organisational Knowledge Creation Nonaka (1990) correctly recognised that an organisation cannot create knowledge. Instead, an

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organisation can create an environment or context for supporting and encouraging knowledge creation by individual members of the organisation. Individual knowledge creation in an organisation is the actual source of organisational knowledge creation. Nonaka pointed out that intentional fluctuation and a certain level of autonomy on the part of individual organisational members in a welldesigned organisational setting tends to enhance double loop learning (Argyris & Schön, 1978) and information/knowledge creation by organisational members. Knowledge creation performed by individuals in an organisation is social as well as personal in that knowledge creation generally occurs through interaction with others. However, the tacit knowledge of individuals must be shared among organisational members to create organisational knowledge. According to Nonaka, setting up a field or ba for interaction among individuals in groups in an organisation is fundamental to enhancing tacit knowledge sharing. In this field, interaction with continual and candid dialogue among those who have strong mutual relationships makes it possible for each group member to relativise his/her own perspective and, therefore, any tacit knowledge the member has can be shared and verbalised or conceptualised among the members. This creative dialogue or concept development process in a group is supported by leadership which is the basis for constructive communication among the members and facilitates the development of useful concepts. Concept development by groups is the basis of organisational knowledge creation. Concepts developed in groups often cause fluctuation in an organisation, which can be recognised as a nonequilibrium self-organising system or a living system. When the fluctuation is amplified through entrainment (Shimizu, 1992; 1978) or dynamic cooperation among groups as components of the organisation, a new order in the living system is formed. Then, if the order is fed back to each

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group, and the dynamic cooperation among the groups is enhanced, a new stable order of the organisation is formed. This newly created order or knowledge should be endorsed and justified by existing values shared among the organisational members. Therefore, the quality of the created knowledge tends to depend on the attitudes of the organisational leaders and members. In addition, created knowledge has to be materialised as products and services, for example. This enables the organisation to gain feedback information from individuals inside and outside the organisation, which enriches the organisational semantic network. The created knowledge and the revised organisational semantic network are resources for further knowledge creation in the organisation. Organisational knowledge creation as order formation from disorder or chaos requires information redundancy in the organisation to enable dynamic cooperation among groups through the generation of mutual trust relationships. The organisation must also contain requisite variety (Ashby, 1956), which is internalised in individual members of the organisation to deal with information redundancy.

Middle-Up-Down Management Based on the observation of Japanese firms that have been successful in organisational knowledge creation, Nonaka (1990) identified a new management style that these firms had developed, one that worked well in a fiercely competitive business environment with rapid changes in technology. He called it middle-up-down management. In this management style, top managers set out their vision or present grandiose, abstract concepts and values or grand theories (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995) that are, for example, embedded in the missions and domains of their companies. Lower managers in the same companies pragmatically face up to reality and generate realistic concrete concepts. When the concepts presented by top


managers contradict, to some extent, those expressed by lower managers, middle managers then go on to create moderate concepts or mid-range theories (Nonaka &Takeuchi, 1995) to resolve the contradiction. Here, unlike top-down or bottom-up management, organisational members from the top to the bottom commit organisational knowledge creation cooperatively. The top managers are catalysts of organisational knowledge creation who offer fundamental general directions or visions for information/knowledge creation in their organisations. They set up fields for knowledge creation, assign appropriate people to specific fields, and encourage them to engage in constructive communication with each other. They also fix deadlines for such creation when necessary. Middle managers as knowledge producers (Nonaka, Toyama & Konno, 2000) are at the crossover point of macro/global and micro/local information provided by the top and lower managers, respectively, and are expected to play a central role in organisational knowledge creation. They develop their own information or concepts by integrating macro and micro information, and promote the realisation of organisational knowledge creation based on these concepts by generating and amplifying fluctuation. Thus, they occupy a strategic position and are required to demonstrate entrepreneurship. The decisions of top managers as to who should be assigned to middle management as entrepreneurs in a field of knowledge creation is extremely significant in organisational knowledge creation. The lower managers are experts who respond to the dreams of top managers from the standpoints of their own specialties. Trust among members within a field of knowledge creation is necessary to successful middle-up-down knowledge creation because it is essential to this type of knowledge creation that the members in the field candidly discuss about concepts the middle managers propose.

Organisational Knowledge Creation Model The SECI Model In contrast with the Western definition of knowledge, as justified true belief, which has been strongly affected by Cartesian dualism, Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995) declared that knowledge is created in social interaction and is defined as a dynamic human process of justifying personal belief towards the truth. The observation of Japanese firms made them realise that these firms recognise knowledge as being primarily tacit. Based on this, and the Japanese intellectual tradition represented by terms of subject-object unity such as oneness of humanity and nature, oneness of body and mind and oneness of self and other, they considered that the organisational knowledge creation and sharing that were successful in the Japanese firms they observed could be described as an ordered spiral process of knowledge conversion between tacit and explicit knowledge. This process is embodied in the SECI model (Figure 1), where SECI stands for the four modalities of knowledge conversion (Nonaka & Konno, 1998). The SECI process can be interpreted as follows. First, personal tacit knowledge is converted into group knowledge; i.e., tacit knowledge is shared among individuals in a group through physically proximal shared experiences. This conversion is called socialisation, as described above, and this creates sympathised knowledge such as shared mental models and know-how. Second, shared tacit knowledge is converted into explicit or conceptual knowledge, typically through dialogue using metaphors, analogy and models, in that order. Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995) called this knowledge conversion externalisation, which includes articulation. Externalisation is crucial to successful knowledge creation in an organisation. Nonaka & Konno (1998) suggested that an individual commits to the group and thus

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Figure 1. SECI model: Spiral evolution of organisational knowledge creation and sharing (Source: Nonaka & Konno, 1998, p. 43, Figure 1)

becomes one with the group during this stage of knowledge creation. Third, explicit knowledge shared among members of a group is combined with explicit knowledge from other groups inside the organisation, and sometimes from outside the organisation, and is consequently converted into systematised explicit knowledge or systemic knowledge. This conversion or combination can be enhanced by the use of information and communication technology (ICT)-based facilities such as databases and email, and middle managers often play an important role as information editors for the realisation of the combination. Finally, systemic knowledge is converted into organisational tacit knowledge in the form of, for example, organisational mental models and know-how. This internalisation brings about operational knowledge; it also enriches the personal tacit knowledge of individuals and, consequently, further enhances the higher-order knowledge creation started in the socialisation stage. Explicit

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knowledge should be verbalised or schematised as documents, manuals and stories, for example, to facilitate the internalisation.

ba as a Field of Knowledge Creation To represent organisational settings that enable knowledge creation and sharing, Nonaka and his colleagues often use the Japanese term ba, which can be translated as field, place, space, playground, forum, agora or occasion. Nonaka & Konno (1998) explained that ba is a shared context or framework, made up of the borders of space and time in which knowledge is created, shared and used. Knowledge is embedded or resides in ba and is not isolable from it because knowledge is primarily personal and contextual. ba can be physical, virtual, mental or any combination of these. ba has a complex and ever-changing nature, and the creation of ba by design is a good way of motivating people in organisations to engage in creative activities.


Nonaka & Konno (1989) stated that there are four types of ba corresponding to the four modalities of knowledge creation in the SECI model; the ba terms were modified slightly by Nonaka, Toyama & Konno (2000) (Figure 2). Originating ba, where individuals in a group share feelings, emotions, experiences and mental models, is the primary ba from which the knowledge creation process begins. Physical face-to-face interaction is the key to sharing personal tacit knowledge among group members. Care, love, trust and commitment, which are the basis for knowledge conversion, emerge from this ba. Tacit knowledge is converted into explicit knowledge in interacting ba or dialoguing ba. Dialogue with figurative language such as metaphors and analogies is helpful in actualising the conversion. This type of ba can be constructed more consciously than originating ba. Cyber ba or systemising ba is a framework of collective interaction in which the combination of existing explicit knowledge takes place. ICT-based systems provide this ba with efficient and effective support to enhance the combination. Exercising ba facilitates the conversion of explicit knowledge into organisational tacit knowledge. This type of ba

synthesises transcendence and reflection through action such as on-the-job training.

Knowledge Assets and Leadership ba is the platform for the resource concentration of organisational knowledge assets, which are the foundations of knowledge (Nonaka & Konno, 1998). During the spirally repeated knowledge creation processes conducted in the four types of ba, knowledge is accumulated and stored in the organisation as knowledge assets. Nonaka, Toyama & Konno (2000) defined knowledge assets as the input, output and moderating factors of the knowledge creation process. They recognised four types of knowledge assets: experiential, conceptual, systemic and routine. Experiential knowledge assets are composed of tacit knowledge shared by organisational members as well as by people inside and outside the organisation through shared experience. The typical example of this type of knowledge asset is the skills and know-how acquired and accumulated by individuals through experience at work, and shared with other people in the workplace. Emotional knowledge like care, love and trust is another example of experiential knowledge assets.

Figure 2. Four types of ba (Source: Nonaka, Toyama & Konno, 2000, p. 16, Figure 6)

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Conceptual knowledge assets are made up of explicit knowledge articulated with images, symbols and language, whereas systemic knowledge assets consist of systematised explicit knowledge. Routine knowledge assets are composed of tacit knowledge embedded in organisational routines of day-to-day operations, know-how and culture. Nonaka, Toyama & Konno (2000) pointed out that to create knowledge successfully, the spiral knowledge creation processes should be well managed by knowledge producers or middle managers through the provision of proactive commitment and leadership in ba, and they should be properly supported by top managers. Top and middle managers should take a leadership role, not only by leading but also by reading the situation in terms of what kind of knowledge assets are available to their organisation, rather than in terms of what kind of knowledge they are lacking. Top managers are expected to articulate knowledge vision, which defines what kind of knowledge the organisation should create in what domain, and the value system that evaluates, justifies and determines the quality of the knowledge that the organisation creates. Top managers are also expected to communicate this throughout the organisation. Middle managers must break down the values and visions created by the top managers into concepts and images that can guide the knowledge-creation process in effective directions.

ORGANISATIONAL KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND JAPANESE CULTURE Japanese Personal Identity and ba Nonaka and his colleagues seem to consider that the actuality socially constructed by autonomous individuals in an organisation deeply influences what is created in the organisation as knowledge. However, as long as ba is composed of people, the human activities and interactions in ba are

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inevitably affected by the socio-cultural characteristics surrounding it. Japanese ethicist Tetsuro Watsuji characterised ethics as a study area to investigate the order and logic that underlie human relationships and communities (Watsuji, 1934). He conducted an etymologic analysis of the Japanese term ningen, corresponding to the English concept of human beings. Watsuji concluded that ningen is a term used to express the world or seken a person lives in and, simultaneously, a person who lives in a seken. People can become human beings when they reside in a seken and are recognised as human beings because they represent the whole seken. Watsuji maintained that the principal problem of ethics is the fundamental dualistic structure of ningen. Ningen is self plus certain relationships with others or aidagara, and the inseparability of human existence from aidagara should be understood. Watsuji’s insistence of human existence in aidagara adequately represents a typical Japanese way of thinking and behaving. In fact, many other scholars have presented similar views. For example, the Japanese mentality of amae (Doi, 1973), which means an assumption of the good will of others, reflects Japanese people’s realisation that their living is ruled by interdependent relationships with others. Kimura (1981) mentioned that the personal identity of an individual is usually determined based on his/her perception of relationships with others. Kimura called this aida, which has the same meaning as aidagara. Abe (1995) also pointed out that an ordinary Japanese person lives, at least mentally, not in society but in a seken, which is a small world defined by relationships with others whom the person recognises a present and/or future connection with and, therefore, considers the need to do his/her duty toward and to have human empathy with. From the viewpoint of an Eastern mind-body theory, Yuasa (1987) interpreted existence in aidagara as human existence in a definite spatial ba. Instead of ba, he used the Japanese term basho,


which has the same meaning as ba. Yuasa characterised Watsuji’s aidagara as an intersubjective space or ba. Yuasa pointed out that Watsuji’s view of a person emphasises space as the ba of human existence and hence stresses the spatial existence of the body, whereas the traditional Western view of humanity generally considers that time or historicity is more important than space, and that mind is more important than body. Yuasa identified the traditional Japanese and Eastern mode of thinking about the relationship between humanity and nature behind Watsuji’s view as the inseparable unity of mind, body and nature.

ba in Shimizu’s Bioholonics Nonaka & Konno (1998) explained that the concept of ba was originally proposed by the Japanese philosopher Kitaro Nishida and has been further developed by Hiroshi Shimizu. Shimizu’s bioholonics has exerted a considerable influence over theories of organisational knowledge creation. Nishida’s logic of ba involves identifying an authentic dimension of self. He contended that the self can reach correct knowledge of the Being of beings when it transforms itself from the everyday self grounded in ba of being to self as ba based on the ba of nothing (Yuasa, 1987). On the other hand, Shimizu’s study was motivated by the question of “what is living?” He addressed this research subject from a natural scientific viewpoint and arrived at a recognition that the core of life phenomena is the macro living systems’ spontaneous creation of order or information, through self-organisational and self-referencing processes, in order to survive and evolve in an unpredictably changing external environment (Shimizu, 1992; 1978). Contrary to the law of entropy increase, living systems, as non-equilibrium open systems, universally create dynamic order from chaos. They are hierarchy-like entities within which supersystems and subsystems usually exist. Micro living systems or holons that make up a macro system originally exhibit autonomous behaviour and fluc-

tuate so that the macro system can survive in its changing environment. Once certain conditions are achieved to create a new but rudimentary order in the macro system as a consequence of the choice of a desirable outcome among the ones brought about by fluctuation, they react synergistically to create dynamic order cooperatively. Dynamic cooperation such as entrainment is directed by information concerning the place or location of each micro system in the macro system, provided by the rudimentary order, and the cooperative behaviour of the micro systems promotes the transformation of the rudimentary order into an established one. A living system is controlled not by energy but by information, in terms of the necessity of continuing to create meaningful information for the system to survive and evolve in its environment. This occurs through information-feedforward and -feedback control, in processes of which information is exchanged between the living system and its supersystems and subsystems. In the feedforward and feedback processes, the semantic environment or ba surrounding the systems plays a role in providing each micro system with information about its semantic location in the whole system, or information about the ba, to enable dynamic cooperation among the micro systems. Shimizu (2003) maintained that the nature of life or living is the functioning of a cyclical process of creation that develops ba, locates existence of self in ba and develops new ba through expressing self in existing ba. Life exists as ba or globally existing self and, simultaneously, as an individual substance located in that ba or locally existing self. Living things cannot exist independently of ba, because the function of life is to express itself. Based on these arguments, Nonaka & Konno (1998) defined ba as the world where the individual realises himself/herself as part of the environment on which his/her life depends. Shimizu (2003) highlighted the oneness of a human being and ba by noting that no human being can be separable from ba and the others in ba.

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He explained that when we attempt to undertake some action, we unconsciously envisage ba in which the action will be taken and those who will be involved in ba. Sharing of ba among people, therefore, is affected by the values and culture that people have. The greater the diversity in people’s values and culture, the more that sharing of ba among them tends to be difficult. Although Shimizu’s conceptualisation of ba is basically derived from his natural scientific research, it is also strongly affected by Eastern thought, including Zen Buddhism and Nishida’s philosophy (Shimizu, 2003), and is influenced by the ideas underlying the art and skill of the Yagyu Shin-Kage-Ryu Japanese swordplay tradition (Shimizu, 1996). He recognised that Japanese culture is characterised as the culture of ba, which was developed based on Buddhism, and that this culture has enabled co-creation in Japanese society (Shimizu, 2003). His recognition has similarities with views on Japanese culture provided by other researchers such as Abe (1995), Yamamoto (1983), Kimura (1981) and Nakane (1970).

Japanese Aspects of Organisational Knowledge Creation Theory Both Nishida’s and Shimizu’s thoughts were affected by Zen Buddhism. This means that they were consciously or unconsciously influenced by the Daoist thought of Laozi and Zhuangzi, which constituted the foundation from which Zen and Jodo (Pure Land) Buddhism were developed during the Sui and Tang Dynasties. These Daoist gurus preached that everything in the universe is unity, and that language and letters are useless for perceiving or telling the truth. Only experiential intuition makes it possible for people to understand the truth. They contended that artificiality is an obstacle to knowing the world as it is (Mori, 1987). Daoism has influenced the Japanese way of thinking and behaving via Zen and Jodo Buddhism since the end of the 12th century, when these sects of Buddhism started to spread throughout Japan;

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thereafter, however, these separate sects combined with the tradition of spiritual life in Japan and developed independently (Suzuki, 1944). Thus, it is not surprising that we find the influence of Japanese and East Asian culture throughout the organisational knowledge creation theory that Nonaka and his colleagues have developed, whereas the theory also has aspects that are universally effective. For example, many Japanese people can easily understand the paralysis by analysis syndrome because they tend to believe that the real world cannot be fully understood through logical analysis, according to Daoism. Socialisation, the conversion of personal tacit knowledge into tacit knowledge shared among group members, can be recognised as ishin denshin or knowing the details of another person’s knowledge by telepathy among associates on the same wavelength. This relates to the characteristic of Japanese linguistic culture, where implication is often used when important things are communicated (Kindaichi, 1975) and also to Japanese collectivism or, more precisely, groupism culture where group members are expected to behave cooperatively based on common basic values. The importance of the commitment of individuals to the group they belong to, and their becoming one with the group in the externalisation stage of organisational knowledge creation, is easily understood by Japanese people immersed in a groupism culture and the intellectual tradition of oneness of self and other. It is recognised in Japanese society that members of a group can be unified and that the group is essentially an indivisible social unit. This sort of group is typically composed of five to seven individual members who share a workplace and work cooperatively on a constant basis. This serves as the basis for the citizenship of its members (Nakane, 1978). The meanings and nuances of ba as fields of knowledge creation activities, with spatial and time boundaries, may be comprehensible to Japanese people, at least in an obscure way, because they


are living in a groupism culture. Nakane (1978) pointed out that Japanese people can behave animatedly as individuals and enjoy working and dealing with acquaintances when they are in their own small groups as the social units described above. They tend to have loyalty to their own groups and understand their responsibility only for those groups. Simultaneously, as Hamaguchi (1982) described, they are not totally ruled by the groups, but autonomously commit prosperity of the groups and attempt to accomplish symbiosis between the groups and the group members through the commitment. In fact, in a Japanese business organisation, people tend to be expected to behave as representatives of their own groups based on their recognition concerning their positions in the groups as well as in the organisation. If they forget their positions and behave in fully individualistic fashion, they are often branded incompetent employees. In the context of knowledge creation in business organisations, this suggests the importance of the leadership exerted by middle managers, and their ability to edit information and knowledge. It is only they who are expected to be actually capable of behaving autonomously, even though they are also under the unification pressure from the groupism culture, among those who engage in knowledge creation in ba, in which organisational members from different groups can participate. Reading the situation or sensing the atmosphere in ba is an extremely important art that they are expected to develop, in order to avoid causing unnecessary friction among small groups, and to avoid discouraging participants in ba, thus ensuring that knowledge creation is not affected by a negative atmosphere. In fact, a situation in which some dominant atmosphere, for better or worse, shapes organisational decisions beyond dispute often exists in Japanese organisations (Yamamoto, 1983). Nemawashi or informal previous arrangements for consensus-building between leaders of groups from which participants attend ba is also a significant task middle managers have to do to

make ba function well in Japanese business organisations because they are managed based not on individualistic but rather on communitarian principles (Yamada, 1985).

MANAGEMENT OF ba IN JAPANESE SOCIO-CULTURAL CIRCUMSTANCES Characteristics of Japanese Communication Culture Figure 3 shows the in-group/out-group or uchi/ soto model describing the Japanese people’s understanding of the relationship between self and others (Adams, Murata & Orito, 2009). The innermost regions are the individual self (watashi) and the close family (miuchi). The outermost region consists of tanin, those who can never be inside one of the individual’s in-groups. The separation between uchi and soto is not a fixed measure but a sense of the relative psychological distance between people. In general, the further away one moves from the self, the less information is revealed. In speaking to members of one’s uchi group, one uses hon’ne speech; that is, one speaks the bare truth or one’s real intention. When speaking to members of one’s soto group, one uses tatemae speech; that is, one communicates just what one politely says on the surface to casual acquaintances (Orito & Murata, 2008). The uchi/soto awareness is directly related to Japanese insular collectivism (Adams, Murata & Orito, 2009). In a society characterised by insular collectivism, Japanese people tend to place more importance on the interests of the uchi group to which they belong than on their personal interests (Hendry, 2003; Benedict, 1946) or the good of society as a whole (Haitani, 1990). This Japanese form of groupism creates strong vertical hierarchies based on strong personal relationships with superiors and subordinates, weak horizontal relationships with fellow subordinates of a supe-

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Figure 3. Uchi/soto model (Source: Adams, Murata & Orito, 2009, p. 334, Figure 2)

rior, and very weak ties to other members of the organisation. Figure 4 shows a typical situation where ba is created in a Japanese organisation. Individuals in ba recognise a hierarchical human relationship between them. This relationship is not necessarily the same as the one described in the formal organisational structure of the organisation. Members at the same horizontal level of the hierarchy who have the same superior communicate with each other using hon’ne speech, whereas they use tatemae speech when talking with other members in ba. Subordinates behave carefully to prevent their superiors losing face and, therefore, they often hold back their true feelings in meetings held in ba. Instead, subordinates are sometimes required to express their superiors’ views through reading the superiors’ minds based on their words, expressions and gestures. Meanwhile, superiors are expected to give their support to their subordinates. Note that the basic human relationships between Japanese people are bilateral ones, constructed in uchi groups, which are recognised as unified, and not separate (Nakane, 1972). 12

Promotion of Organisational Knowledge Creation and Sharing in Japan In the typical situation in ba in a Japanese organisation, individuals, except for those at the top of the hierarchy, usually find it difficult to behave autonomously and talk frankly. At the same time, individuals in ba consider that they should all take responsibility concerning knowledge created in ba. If some harm occurs due to the use of the knowledge, ambiguity regarding the locus of responsibility prevents loss of face on the part of the superiors and of the groups. However, this means that no one may take any responsibility regarding the knowledge. On the other hand, due to a culture of insular collectivism, knowledge created in one insular group tends to be considered something not invented here by those in other insular groups. They sometimes hate to lose their own insulars’ face as well as their superiors’ face by easily accepting knowledge created by another insular. This can degrade the function of ba as a basis for knowledge creation


Figure 4. Vertical human relationship and communication

and sharing. When ba is composed of individuals from different insulars, the insular group to which a person at the top of the hierarchy in ba belongs tends to be recognised as an owner of knowledge created in that ba. It is not unusual that a person who committed knowledge creation but doesn’t belong to the owner insular tells “actually, I was opposed to creating such knowledge” when the knowledge is used or shared. In addition, because any creation somewhat contains disavowal of the past and can become a threat to those who have vested interests, newly created knowledge is prone to be misconstrued in the externalisation stage and to be ignored or disallowed in the combination stage. To avoid these difficulties, managers who are in charge of knowledge creation and sharing should remove invisible barriers between insular groups and shorten the mental distance between participants in ba. They are expected to show magnanimity to individuals in ba so as to develop a relaxed atmosphere in ba so that everyone in ba

is encouraged to commit to knowledge creation. Fostering a sense of ownership of knowledge created in ba among participants in that ba is extremely important for successful sharing of created knowledge. In addition, nemawashi between relevant organisational members are usually necessary to be made by the mangers in order for created knowledge to be accepted in the organisation. Of course, these are not necessarily easy to do. Development of relationships based on trust between people, not assurance (Yamagishi & Yamagishi, 1994), should be recognised as an issue to be addressed in order to make organisational knowledge creation and sharing successful in Japanese society. On the other hand, a high level of ba cohesiveness can be expected when ba is composed of individuals from the same insular group. This type of ba may be helpful for incremental or adaptive creation. However, sharing created knowledge from this ba across insular groups is difficult, as is innovative creation.

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CONCLUSION The organisational knowledge creation theory that Nonaka and his colleagues have developed includes useful concepts such as the SECI model, ba, middle-up-down management, knowledge assets and leadership for modern business organisations. Even though the theory is purported to be universally effective, these concepts have close relationships to Japanese culture and are therefore culturally bounded. Moreover, the Japanese socio-cultural characteristics of uchi/soto awareness, insular collectivism and the hon’ne/ tatemae tradition can make it difficult for Japanese business organisations to create and share knowledge. These may cause malfunctions of ba as a field of organisational knowledge creation and sharing. Knowledge creation processes and ba should be properly managed to avoid these difficulties. Developing trust among people is a social issue that contributes to successful organisational knowledge creation and sharing in Japan.

REFERENCES Abe, K. (1995). What is “seken”?Tokyo: Kodansha. (in Japanese) Abel, D. F., & Hammond, J. S. (1979). Strategic market planning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall. Adams, A. A., Murata, K., & Orito, Y. (2009). The Japanese sense of information privacy. AI & Society, 24(4), 327–341. doi:10.1007/s00146009-0228-z Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Ashby, W. R. (1956). An introduction to cybernetics. London: Chapman & Hall.

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Benedict, R. (1946). The chrysanthemum and the sword: Patterns of Japanese culture. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Doi, T. (1973). The anatomy of dependence. Tokyo: Kodansha International. Galbraith, J. R. (1973). Designing complex organizations. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Haitani, K. (1990). The paradox of Japan’s groupism: Threat to future competitiveness? Asian Survey, 30(3), 237–257. doi:10.1525/ as.1990.30.3.01p03644 Haken, H. (1983). Synergetics, an introduction: Nonequilibrium phase transitions and self-organization in physics, chemistry, and biology (3rd ed.). New York: Springer-Verlag. Hamaguchi, E. (1982). What is Japanese collectivism? In Hamaguchi, E., & Kumon, S. (Eds.), Japanese Collectivism (pp. 1–26). Tokyo: Yuhikaku. (in Japanese) Hendry, J. (2003). Understanding Japanese society. Oxford, UK: Routledge. Imanishi, K. (1976). What is evolution?Tokyo: Kodansha. (in Japanese) Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1983). Mental models. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Kimura, B. (1981). Self, relationship and time: Phenomenological psychopathology. Tokyo: Kobundo. (in Japanese) Kindaichi, H. (1975). Japanese linguistic expression. Tokyo: Kodansha. (in Japanese) March, J. G., & Simon, H. A. (1958). Organizations. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Mori, M. (1987). Laozi and Zhuangzi. Tokyo: Kodansha. (in Japanese) Nakane, C. (1970). Japanese society. Berkley, CA: University of California Press.


Nakane, C. (1972). Conditions for adaptation: The Japanese thought of continuation. Tokyo: Kodansha. (in Japanese)

Polanyi, M. (1958). Personal knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Nakane, C. (1978). Dynamics of a vertical society. Tokyo: Kodansha. (in Japanese)

Polanyi, M. (1966). The tacit dimension. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Nicolis, G., & Prigogine, I. (1977). Self-organization in non-equilibrium systems: From dissipative structures to order through fluctuations. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Shimizu, H. (1978). Reconsidering life: What is living?Tokyo: Chuo Koron. (in Japanese)

Nishida, K. (1911). An enquiry into the good. Tokyo: Kodokan. (in Japanese) Nishida, K. (1933). Fundamental problems of philosophy: The world of action and the dialectical world. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. (in Japanese) Nonaka, I. (1985). Theory of corporate evolution. Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shimbun Sha. (in Japanese) Nonaka, I. (1990). Theory of organisational knowledge creation: Epistemology of Japanese firms. Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shimbun Sha. (in Japanese) Nonaka, I., & Konno, N. (1998). The concept of “ba”: building a foundation for knowledge creation. California Management Review, 40(3), 40–54. Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (1995). The knowledgecreating company: How Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation. New York: Oxford University Press. Nonaka, I., Toyama, R., & Konno, N. (2000). SECI, ba and leadership: A unified model of dynamic knowledge creation. Long Range Planning, 33(1), 5–34. doi:10.1016/S0024-6301(99)00115-6 Orito, Y., & Murata, K. (2008). Socio-cultural analysis of personal information leakage in Japan. Journal of Information. Communication and Ethics in Society, 6(2), 161–171. doi:10.1108/14779960810888365

Shimizu, H. (1992). Life and place: Relational science creating meanings. Tokyo: NTT Publisher. (in Japanese) Shimizu, H. (1996). The logic of ba as knowledge of life: The logic of co-creation of Yagyu ShinKage-Ryu. Tokyo: Chuo Koron. (in Japanese) Shimizu, H. (2003). The thoughts of ba: Creative stages of life. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. (in Japanese) Simon, H. A. (1957). Administrative behaviour (3rd ed.). New York: Free Press. Suzuki, D. (1944). The Japanese spirits. Tokyo: Daito Publishing. (in Japanese) Watsuji, T. (1934). Ethics as the study on human beings. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. (in Japanese) Yamada, Y. (1985). Ringi and nemawashi. Tokyo: Kodansha. (in Japanese) Yamagishi, T., & Yamagishi, M. (1994). Trust and commitment in the United States and Japan. Motivation and Emotion, 18(2), 129–166. doi:10.1007/BF02249397 Yamamoto, S. (1983). The study on “atmosphere”. Tokyo: Bungei Shunju. (in Japanese) Yuasa, Y. (1987). The body: Toward an Eastern mind-body theory. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS ba: Can be interpreted as field, place, space, playground, forum, agora or occasion. In organisations entails a shared context or framework, made up of the borders of space and time in which knowledge is created, shared and used. Japan: Country located in the Pacific Ocean that comprises by 6,852 islands. A major economic world player belonging to the G8, and a nonpermanent member of the UN Security Council. Regarding knowledge management theories is well known the work of Nonaka and his colleagues. Organisational Knowledge Creation: Multilevel process (because it involves all levels of an organisation) that intends to combine personal with

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existing organisational knowledge (or vice-versa) in order to produce new knowledge. The process is unique in each organisation, and in Japanese organisations is bounded to ba. Organisational Knowledge Sharing: Other multi-level process which aims to facilitate knowledge transfer/sharing between all the individuals, as well as between the individual and the organisation (or vice-versa). Again, due to organisational culture the procedure is distinctive in every organisation, and in Japan is circumscribed to ba. Socio-Cultural Characteristics: Cultural and social norms or, traditions that guide our basic behaviours within different contexts.

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Chapter 2

What Does Knowledge Have to do with Ethics? Chuck Huff St. Olaf College, USA

ABSTRACT In the same way that useful theory in knowledge management systems leads us to rethink the nature of knowledge (Spender & Scherer, 2007) a theory of ethics that is informed by current research in moral psychology will lead us to rethink the nature of ethical action. This chapter introduces a research program that has tracked ethical action among computer professionals and uses the insights from that research to make suggestions about how purposive moral action is undertaken and how it might be supported by knowledge management systems.

PROBLEMS, PURPOSES AND KNOWLEDGE There is a consensus concerning the subject-matter of ethics so general that it would be tedious to document it. It is that the business of ethics is with “problems”, i.e. situations in which it is difficult to know what one should do; that the ultimate beneficiary of ethical analysis is the person who, in one of these situations, seeks rational ground for the decision he must make; that ethics is therefore primarily concerned to find such grounds, often

conceived of as moral rules and the principles from which they can be derived (Pincoffs, 1971, p. 552). After claiming that it would be tedious to do so, Edmund Pincoffs’ classic article on “Quandary Ethics” documents the extensive philosophical agreement that ethics is primarily about giving rational principles and procedures for solving moral problems, or “quandaries.” This agreement on the nature of ethics is also foundational to agreed-upon goals for the practical and professional ethics curriculum (Callahan, 1980).

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-873-9.ch002


What Does Knowledge Have to do with Ethics?

If ethics is primarily about applying principles and procedures to make decisions in response to problems then what does knowledge have to do with it? Presumably, one needs to know the problem and the principles and then to apply the procedures. In much ethics teaching the problems are predefined by the cases, designed to highlight particular ethical principles, (Huff & Frey, 2005) and so not much effort is expended in defining the problem itself. Both in the classroom and on the job, the recommended procedure to define the problem is stakeholder analysis. Many decision support systems (e.g. Gotterbarn, 2001) use this approach to guide decision-making regarding the design of software systems. Thus, a knowledge management system to support such decisions would need to contain information about stakeholders and provide access to procedures and principles that could be applied to the problem. This classic approach to ethics treats the problem as static and locates the expertise in the correct application of principles to the problem at hand. And the sort of knowledge needed to support such a process is relatively unproblematic factual knowledge that can be indexed and straightforwardly combined. In this approach, a knowledge management system to support ethical decisions should in principle be relatively simple to design and implement. It would include a structure to help the decision maker collect and organize the relevant factual knowledge, some processes that led the decision maker to evaluate various options in the decision space, and perhaps a way to systematize value tradeoffs in making a decision. This approach focuses the knowledge management system on the task of providing decision support, which in turn presumes that ethics is about the decisions one makes when confronted with a relevant choice. But Pincoffs’ (1971) early essay casts doubt on this approach to ethics and insists that being ethical is more than responding appropriately to isolated decision problems. Likewise, our recent research on moral exemplars in computing

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(Huff, Barnard & Frey, 2008a; 2008b) provides a picture of ethical careers that are not primarily composed of a series of ethical decisions, but instead are constructed over time in response to life goals, organizational and social constraints, and idiosyncratic attachment to particular ethical goals (e.g. help the customer or the handicapped, reform privacy laws or software design standards) (Huff & Rogerson, 2005). The purpose of this short essay is to introduce this alternative notion of ethics, a conception that is rooted in planned action over the life of a career and based in the goals of the individual actor in their organizational context. We might call this a purposive-action approach as opposed to the deliberative-decision approach described above. If this is a better picture of ethical action in the modern organization, what are its implications for knowledge management systems that aim to support this sort of ethical action?

THE COMPLEXITY OF PURPOSIVE MORAL ACTION The picture of purposeful moral action we present is based on the most recent work in moral psychology (Haidt, 2008; Huff & Frey, 2005; Lapsley & Narvaez, 2005; Narvaez & Lapsley, 2005) and on an analysis of extensive “life-story” interviews with moral exemplars in computing (Huff & Rogerson, 2005). The picture is not narrowly focused on how the individuals made isolated ethical decisions in particular circumstances. Instead, it is focused on how each one became the sort of person who was able to recognize opportunities for moral action, to plan the steps to take advantage of the opportunities, and then to carry out those plans in complex and conflicting social and organizational contexts. In psychological terms we are interested in how individuals achieve sustained excellence in ethical behavior in the field of computing. In philosophical terms we are interested in how


individuals attain the virtues needed to achieve the virtuous practice of computing. This model arises from our study of moral exemplars in computing (Huff & Barnard, 2008; Huff & Rogerson, 2005). In this research we did extensive interviews with individuals in the UK and Scandinavia who had been nominated as moral exemplars in the field of computing. An international panel with expertise in computing ethics nominated and approved all the exemplars. Criteria for nomination were: 1.

2.

3. 4.

Either a) a sustained commitment to moral ideals or ethical principles in computing that include a generalized respect for humanity, or b) sustained evidence of moral virtue in the practice of computing; A disposition to make computing decisions in accord with one’s moral ideals or ethical principles, implying also a consistency between one’s actions and intentions and between the means and ends of one’s actions; A willingness to risk one’s self-interest for the sake of one’s moral values; A tendency to be inspiring to other computing professionals and thereby to move them to moral action.

The final sample consisted of 24 individuals, including men and women, academics and those in industry and government, and people at the beginning and ends of their careers. Interviews ranged from 2 to 5 hours in length, spread across 2 days. Interviewees were asked to tell stories from their professional career (ranging from 19 to 30 stories each). These stories provide extensive detail about characters, goals, organizational contexts, personal feelings, strategic planning, and problem solving in the careers of people with a wide range of professional moral and ethical commitments. Several striking findings from that work have shaped the theoretical position we outline here. First, we found that there was not a unitary profile of the way moral exemplars went about their work.

There were, at least, two types: reformers who tried to change social systems and craftspersons who designed systems to help individuals. A significant number of the exemplars did not cleanly fit into either category. We expect that two types is not enough complexity to capture the variety of way our exemplars are pursuing moral goals. This leaves the likelihood that there are more types or forms of good computing. Each individual had a history of specific, even idiosyncratic, ethical commitments and purposes they were pursuing. From their perspective they were not trying to “make ethical decisions,” but instead, they were designing systems for the handicapped, or designing privacy-enhancing software to change businesscustomer relationships, or supporting women in engineering, or changing the way safety-critical software was designed and evaluated, or supporting openness in software design. These purposes were the motivations for their actions and they varied dramatically from person to person. It was these purposes that organized and energized their moral action over their careers. Occasionally they would talk of ethical deliberation at particular choice points in their careers (e.g. to take a job offer, accept a contract, to leave an organization). But most of their stories were about the pursuit of their purposes over time: forming goals and plans, gathering support from others in their networks, finding creative solutions to difficulties, regrouping when plans went awry. The skills and knowledge usually associated with ethical deliberation over choices were not often essential to these endeavors. Instead, we found that social skills (e.g. understanding other people) and technical skills (e.g. understanding database structures) more often featured as central in these stories. Purposive moral action, undertaking long-term projects with ethical goals in mind, involves far more than simple decision making. It can take a variety of forms, have a variety of goals, and is supported by a variety of influences.

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Influences on Purposive Ethical Action: PRIMES This more complex picture of the moral actor as engaged in purposive action over time, within a social context, has lead us to construct a model of sustained moral action in social context (PRIMES). The model we present here (1) grounds moral action in relatively stable Personality characteristics, (2) guides moral action based on the Integration of Morality into the self-system, (3) shapes moral action by the context of the surrounding Moral Ecology, and (4) facilitates moral action with morally relevant Skills and knowledge (thus the PRIMES acronym). The model seeks to explain the daily performance of moral action of computing professionals and to illuminate ways that this ethical action might be supported and encouraged.

fully about the components of moral commitment, how it is cultivated and achieved, and the ways that it influences moral action. Recent work in psychology can help us build a multi-faceted view of moral commitment as one component that guides moral action, but still is not solely determinative of it. Our picture of moral action among computing exemplars shows moral commitment appearing more like strategic goals that guide action over time, and less like isolated acts of willpower. These strategic goals are set apart from other goals in our exemplars by being so central to the individual’s conception of who they are that they take precedence over many other goals. But they are not static. These strategic goals both influence and are influenced by the social and organizational surround and are themselves open to change over time.

Personality

Moral Ecology

Personality clearly influences both the kinds of jobs that people undertake and the ways they go about their work (John & Srivastava, 1999). In our work, we have found that it influences the moral goals of our exemplars (Huff & Barnard, 2009). For instance, those who were more extraverted were more likely to choose goals that involved influencing organizations and systems in order to reform them. Thus, personality can serve as an anchoring point for moral inclination. Even so, personality can in turn be influenced by appropriate life experiences. New work in personality theory (Roberts, Walton, & Viechtbauer, 2006) suggests that personality can change over time, particularly when such change is reinforced by social roles (that is, moral ecology). Thus personality grounds, but does not solely determine moral character and action.

Moral action is embedded in a social surround that can either support or thwart it. We call this social surround a moral ecology (Huff, Barnard, & Frey, 2008b), or more accurately, a system of interlinked moral ecologies. Countries, cultures, industries, companies, divisions, workgroups, mentorship networks, and professional organizations all have morally relevant expectations and pressures that constrain and sometimes support moral action. These values, expectations, and influences are embodied in rules, guidelines, and mission statements, but also in the structure of software, the design of buildings, the requirements of procedures, and the roles individuals in the organization adopt or are assigned. Individuals can enter and leave moral ecologies, can influence them, and can even act in defiance of them (Greene & Latting, 2004; van Es & Smit, 2003; Marnburg, 2000; Trevino, 1986). Knowing how to navigate in the relevant moral ecologies is a crucial skill for purposive moral action in an organization. But many of the moral exemplars told stories of significant time spent influencing

Integration of Morality into the Self Much has been made of the centrality of moral commitment. But few theorists have spoken care-

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moral ecologies in organizations or professional societies or in building smaller networks of “local climate” to support their plans. Moral ecologies thus constrain and support, but do not solely determine moral action.

Moral Skills and Knowledge Much of what we call virtue is based in skills and knowledge of how to act in particular worlds (Lapsley & Narvaez, 2005). The highest praise we might summon for the morally committed incompetent would be “well intentioned” but certainly not “virtuous.” Without these skills and knowledge, moral commitment would be impotent. Some of the skills and knowledge associated with successful moral action among our computing exemplars are listed in Table 1. The categories of skill and knowledge are based on a simplified version of the waterfall model of software design, and thus represent the kinds of tasks typically associated with the work of computer professionals. They encompass framing the work to be done, constructing creative solutions, testing those solutions, and finally implementing the solution. It is important

to remember that the list in each set is composed of examples of relevant skills and knowledge. The particular skills and knowledge needed for any specific task can vary widely. As one might expect, the more abstract the description of the skill (e.g. “projecting oneself into the perspective of others”) the more it will broadly apply. So the category labels are useful guides in understanding the structure of skills and knowledge in computing professionals, but less helpful in predicting the specific knowledge or skill needed in one application (e.g. understanding the privacy and job security concerns of Swedish union workers when designing a medical information system). In software design, where one might work on a range of different applications, some of the skills involve knowing how to seek out, acquire, and test the needed knowledge.

SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE, AND PURPOSEFUL MORAL ACTION With the addition of the skills and knowledge component of the PRIMES model we can see where

Table 1. Skills and knowledge to support moral action (Adapted from Huff & Rogerson, 2005) Moral Imagination

Moral Creativity

Skills

Constructing the relevant stakeholders in a socio-technical system; data collection about stakeholders; understanding stakeholder perspectives

Identifying value conflicts in a socio-technical system; constructing and evaluating solutions under constraint

Knowledge

Specific knowledge about the domain (e.g. privacy, safety, equity); knowledge of socio-technical systems; knowledge of methods to investigate stakeholder perspectives

Specific knowledge about domains (e.g. privacy, safety, equity); technical knowledge of constraints and opportunities; knowledge of socio-technical systems

Reasonableness

Perseverance

Skills

Constructing data-based and reasoned arguments; engaging in reasoned dialogue, gathering relevant evidence, listening to others, giving reasons, changing plans/positions based on reason

specific knowledge about domain (e.g. privacy, safety, equity); technical knowledge of constraints and opportunities; knowledge of ethical argumentation

Knowledge

Constructing and revising implementation plans based on organizational constraints. Negotiation within complex organizational environments

Specific knowledge about domain (e.g. privacy, safety, equity); knowledge of socio-technical systems; knowledge of ethical dissent and whistleblowing

Moral Imagination: projecting oneself into the perspective of others; Moral Creativity: generating solutions to moral challenges while responding to multiple constraints; Reasonableness: engaging in reasoned dialogue with openness; Perseverance: planning moral action and responding to unforeseen circumstances while keeping moral goals intact.

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the management of knowledge and the design of knowledge management systems might fit in the picture of purposive moral action. The PRIMES model delineates at least two categories where support could be helpful: not surprisingly, skills and knowledge, but also moral ecology.

Identifying Skills and Knowledge for Ethical Action If we could compile an agreed upon list of skills and knowledge that aid the expression of moral decision making and performance, then it would be relatively straightforward to determine the sort of support they require and to include this support in knowledge management systems. But compiling a useful, generalizable list has proven more difficult than it sounds. Many have recently contributed to the discussion concerning moral skill sets, and their respective lists of skills differ from one another both in structure and content, despite many common themes (see Huff, Barnard & Frey, 2008b for several lists). Blasi (2005, pp. 70) notes that lists of skills tend to be “invariably long … easily extended, and are largely unsystematic.” Even where two authors agree on some of the same skills, they categorize them differently and use different terminology to describe the same skill. This difficulty in determining a canonical set of skill sets is understandable, once one recognizes the variety of moral goals and moral ecologies that influence moral action. Different people with different moral goals and in different ecologies will need different skills and knowledge to achieve their goals. Thus, it is doubtful that a canonical list of skill sets could be created or that it should even be attempted. We can take some solace in the knowledge that as one is more concrete in specifying goals (e.g. protecting the privacy of the Swedish hospital workers mentioned above), the specific kinds of support that would be needed to accomplish those goals become more clear (e.g. knowledge of Swedish privacy law, empirical

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methods to understand the role of Swedish hospital workers, etc.). Thus, though there may be a more general subset of skills and knowledge that support ethical action broadly, it is likely that skills and knowledge (and even commitment) are more domain specific. This domain specificity helps us to understand how individuals can carry out worthy ethical projects in one domain, and yet be found wanting in others. Thus the success and structure of purposive moral action in one domain may well differ from those in other domains. In addition, the local moral ecology can alter the structure of moral action from one ecology to another. Work by Frey & O’Neill-Carillo (in press) suggests, for example, that in Caribbean countries where significant corruption is found, even individuals who simply want to adopt the goal of being good craftspersons may well find themselves of necessity engaging in reform of the system (in the form, for example, of whistleblowing). In addition, the structure of work in a profession or organization may well alter the kind of skills (and certainly the knowledge) required for successful moral action in that profession or organization. The work of our computing moral exemplars consists, for the most part, of planning, creating, testing, and implementing particular products. This is design work and requires something like the skill and knowledge sets listed in Table 1. The organization of table one is based on a simplified “waterfall design” from software development, and thus both the structure and content of the skills and knowledge are tailored to the context of design work. However, individuals in other occupations are engaged in differently structured work (e.g. the direct provision of service). We expect that inductive approaches to compiling a skills and knowledge inventory will find these differently structured professions to have different sets of skill and knowledge. Again this has implications for the design of KM systems. If the skills and knowledge in moral action in software design are different from those


required for moral action in direct service, then a KM system would have to reflect those differences, perhaps even in the structure of work flow and the kinds of knowledge indexed. This is not a trivial task. The idea is that there may well be no general-purpose KM system for ethical/moral action within a profession (since there are different goals even within the profession) and most likely no general-purpose KM system that would work across professions.

Swimming Upstream: Whistleblowing and Reform in Organizations Another issue for the construction of knowledge management systems to support purposive moral action is the variety of purposes that the moral actor can adopt. One of the moral exemplars in our sample characterized the theme of his career as “swimming upstream.” Invariably, the positions he adopted in organizations and in research direction were initially unpopular, but his persistence and skill in building supportive networks often allowed him to successfully challenge the received wisdom. This story of working within an organization to influence, adapt, and even challenge an organization’ goals are not uncommon among our exemplars. This kind of moral excellence, then, often consists in going against the grain of at least the proximate goals of an organization. As the director of an academic program, our “upstream swimmer” shared higher order goals (e.g. designing and delivering good education) with his organization. But his vision for his program was substantially different (and ultimately successful). How can an organization (or a knowledge management system) anticipate and support such excellence when it occasionally runs counter to proximate organizational goals? There are harder cases than the successful internal entrepreneur. The classic hard case is that of whistleblowing. Here, the proximate goal of the individual (exposing wrongdoing or changing

organizational policy) runs explicitly counter to that of the organization. There are arguments to be made that supporting whistleblowing, or ethical dissent, is in fact in the interest of the organization (Near & Miceli, 1995). And there are recommendations for the construction of support systems for whistleblowing (Greene & Latting, 2004). But this kind of support consists less of providing static information to the individual and more of providing access to organizational networks, procedures, and resources. Ethical dissent in an organization requires support to be successful, and the support is consists not of traditional access to information, but rather what one might call instrumenting the Moral Ecology. Designers of knowledge management systems are not, of course, ignorant of the need to provide access to people and procedures (Spender & Scherer, 2007). But it is interesting to note that in the moral domain as well as in other organizational support domain, access to static knowledge is not enough to support the complexity of action. Thus the greatest benefit that might come from KM systems in organizational life might be to instrument the moral ecology to provide support for ethical dissent.

CAN WE MANAGE SUPPORT FOR ETHICAL PERFORMANCE? Thus we now find two places to anchor knowledge management for purposive moral action: (1) the skills and knowledge associated with a profession or goal set and (2) access to the moral ecology to support purposive moral action. This is a substantially different picture of the moral actor from that of “quandary ethics.” It is not limited to decision-making or judgment and is as complex and long term in structure and goals as most other organizational activity. We thus need to think anew about moral action in organizations to discover how to support it with knowledge management systems. Useful knowledge management approaches

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derive their usefulness, at least in part, from the extent to which they make us think anew about knowledge (Spender & Scherer, 2007). And in this case, we need to think anew about the knowledge that supports ethical/moral action. What knowledge management systems do, in fact, is help to support practice in the absence of knowledge, or “supporting imaginative practice” in knowledge workers (Spender & Scherer, 2007). This is also what moral exemplars do, act with skill in the face of a lack of knowledge. To support this imaginative practice, knowledge management systems should provide access to explicit and implicit knowledge, social relationships, organizational processes, and relatively straightforward things like standards and best practices. The variety of skills and knowledge in Table 1 corresponds to the similar variety in the sorts of things identified as knowledge in current theory on Knowledge management systems. And KM systems that support the acquisition, indexing, and access to knowledge that supports moral action could indeed be thought of as ethical KM systems.

CONCLUSION: RECONSTRUCTING ETHICAL ACTION AND ETHICAL KNOWLEDGE It seems hopeful that in thinking carefully about ethics and knowledge management systems, we have had to rethink purposive moral action. This parallels the rethinking that knowledge management theorists have been doing about the nature of knowledge and work (see, for example, Spender & Scherer, 2007; or, Nonaka, 1991). The ethical actor is not a passive recipient of a pre-packaged decision space. Instead he or she must shape the decision, and the organization, in light of proximate and long-term goals and imaginatively construct and implement solutions, often in the absence of explicit knowledge about the right course of action. It is this more complex view of

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moral action that should be our guide in thinking about the role of knowledge management systems in supporting moral action. We may well find that KM systems that support moral action in an application area are, indeed, simply those that best support the actors in doing their work well. The implication is that acting morally is not a general-purpose thing one does while doing other work. It is a thing that is inherent in the way one goes about the work itself, and the goals one chooses and skills one possesses. If so, then we are unlikely to see any useful generic “ethics knowledge management system” that can be applied in any profession or organization. Instead, we will need KM systems to incorporate a concern for the ethical aspects of action within each of the areas. In this respect, we might then say that “all ethics is local.”

REFERENCES Blasi, A. (2005). Moral character: A psychological approach. In Lapsley, D. K., & Power, F. C. (Eds.), Character Psychology and Character Education (pp. 67–100). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame. Callahan, D. (1980). Goals in the teaching of ethics. In Callahan, D., & Bok, S. (Eds.), Teaching Ethics in Higher Education (pp. 61–74). New York: Plenum. Frey, W., & O’Neill-Carillo, E. (in press). Engineering ethics in Puerto Rico: Issues and narratives. Science and Engineering Ethics. Gotterbarn, D. (2001). Reducing software failures using software development impact statements. Australasian Journal of Information Management Systems, 9(2), 155–165. Greene, A. D., & Latting, J. K. (2004). Whistleblowing as a form of advocacy: Guidelines for the practitioner and organization. Social Work, 49(2), 219–230.


Haidt, J. (2008). Morality. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(1), 65–72. Huff, C. W., & Barnard, L. (2008). Good computing: Life stories of moral exemplars in the computing profession. IEEE Computers and Society, 28(3), 47–54. Huff, C. W., Barnard, L., & Frey, W. (2008a). Good computing: A pedagogically focused model of virtue in the practice of computing (part 1). Journal of Information. Communication and Ethics in Society, 6(3), 246–278. doi:10.1108/14779960810916246 Huff, C. W., Barnard, L., & Frey, W. (2008b). Good computing: A pedagogically focused model of virtue in the practice of computing (part 2). Journal of Information. Communication and Ethics in Society, 6(4), 284–316. doi:10.1108/14779960810921114 Huff, C. W., & Frey, W. (2005). Moral pedagogy and practical ethics. Science and Engineering Ethics, 11(3), 1–20. doi:10.1007/s11948-005-0008-1 Huff, C. W., & Rogerson, S. (2005). Craft and reform in moral exemplars in computing. In Collste, G. (Eds.), ETHICOMP 2005: Looking Back to the Future (CD: paper 30). Linkoping, Sweden: Linkoping University. John, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The big five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In Pervin, L. A., & John, O. P. (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research (pp. 139–153). New York: Guilford. Lapsley, D. K., & Narvaez, D. (2005). Moral psychology at the crossroads. In Lapsley, D. K., & Power, F. C. (Eds.), Character Psychology and Character Education (pp. 18–35). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame. Marnburg, E. (2000). The behavioral effects of corporate ethical codes: Empirical findings and discussion. Business Ethics (Oxford, England), 9(3), 200–210. doi:10.1111/1467-8608.00191

Narvaez, D., & Lapsley, D. (2005). The psychological foundations of everyday morality and moral expertise. In Lapsley, D. K., & Power, F. C. (Eds.), Character Psychology and Character Education (pp. 140–165). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame. Near, J., & Miceli, M. P. (1995). Effective whistleblowing. Academy of Management Review, 3(20), 679–708. doi:10.2307/258791 Nonaka, I. (1991). The knowledge creating company. Harvard Business Review, 69(NovemberDecember), 96–104. Pincoffs, E. L. (1971). Quandary ethics. Mind, 80(320), 552–571. doi:10.1093/mind/ LXXX.320.552 Roberts, B. W., Walton, K., & Viechtbauer, W. (2006). Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 132(1), 1–25. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.1.1 Spender, J.-C., & Scherer, A. G. (2007). The philosophical foundations of knowledge management: Editors Introduction. Organization, 14(1), 5–28. doi:10.1177/1350508407071858 Treviño, L. K. (1986). Ethical decision making in organizations: A person-situation interactionist model. Academy of Management Review, 11(3), 601–617. doi:10.2307/258313 van Es, R., & Smit, G. (2003). Whistleblowing and media logic: A case study. Business Ethics (Oxford, England), 12(2), 144–150. doi:10.1111/14678608.00314

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Craftspersons: Individuals who design systems to help others (e.g. to help the handicapped or to help clients).

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Moral Action: How individuals achieve sustained excellence in ethical behavior within a domain (e.g. the domain of computing). Moral Exemplars: Individuals that dedicate a significant amount of their resources to fulfill their moral obligations, follow their enthusiasm for service, and inspire others to do the same. Moral Skills: Skills directly related to the ability of an individual to take moral action.

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Reformers: Individuals who try to change social systems. Whistleblowing: Premeditated, intentional disclosure of personal or organizational misconduct by a person who has or had access to data, events or information.

Section 2

Societal Knowledge Management

“He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it” Confucius “Societal” knowledge management has been widely recognized, however the democratic concern for the people, by the people was been neglected. This is consistent with the supremacy of economic and cultural knowledge management (Western society). As a result, instead of embracing a “north polar star” (humanist and democratic), the global knowledge flux has become a “black hole” (nothing escapes and enables a deformation on knowledge society). These ethical and social dilemmas are even enhanced when bureaucracy resumes the political environment.

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Chapter 3

Knowledge Management and Democracy: A Critical Review of Some Moral Issues and Social Dilemmas Krystyna Górniak-Kocikowska Southern Connecticut State University, USA

ABSTRACT The main problem discussed in this chapter is the question of compatibility between knowledge management in the knowledge economy and democracy in the ICT-driven global society. The assumption is made that democracy is the dominant form of organizing the global society on a variety of levels; and that it is regarded as desirable and morally superior in comparison with other such forms.

INTRODUCTION When seen from a certain perspective, the problem of knowledge management and democracy- which is the chief subject of this essay- has a long history. However, I will discuss it mainly as it occurs in its most recent form, i.e., as it occurs in today’s ICT-driven global society. Unfortunately, I will explore this problem almost exclusively from the “western” point of view due to both my inadequate familiarity with “non-western” societies as well as the restrictions to the length of this text. Nevertheless, I would like the Reader to be aware of the fact that a truly global context brings to this matter a richness of issues not mentioned in this DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-873-9.ch003

essay, both important and interesting, which certainly need a thorough inquiry and which could shed new light on many aspects of the subject of knowledge management and democracy in the ICT-driven global society. There are certain concepts that are perceived as quite obvious and self-explanatory today, although they would be highly doubtful or controversial a few years ago. Twenty, or even just ten years back, some of them might not have even been in existence. For instance, the term knowledge economy gained popularity only as recently as the second half of the 1990s, apparently first in New Zealand, according to the World Bank website (The World Bank, 2009). Today, knowledge economy is almost a household name. Likewise, it seems that there isn’t much doubt anymore that human-


Knowledge Management and Democracy

kind entered the phase of global society. Yet, the global society is still not even well established; rather, it is in the process of becoming. It moves through its own formative period; its final shape is presently hard to predict. The same applies to one of the foundations of the global society, namely Information and Communication Technology (or Technologies, as some prefer), hereafter referred to as ICT. It too is a relatively new phenomenon in its present form, although information and communication belong to the most ancient forms of human activity (Górniak-Kocikowska, 2008; 2007; 2005). Computers and other forms of digital technology which became the main components of ICT changed it so profoundly that the change can be safely declared as revolutionary, and ICT of today is justifiably seen as a very powerful new technology. Knowledge management and several other concepts and processes which will be the subject of this essay have an even more recent presence in our “collective consciousness”. Some of them are still “fuzzy”- their exact meaning has not been fully agreed upon yet. It is possible that the meaning ascribed to them today will not last; either because they will change to the point that the present understanding will cease to be correct, or because a better way of describing them will be found. The definition of democracy used in this chapter covers notions like “government by the people” as well as “a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges”, and also “political and social equality, democratic spirit” (Webster’s Dictionary, 1996). A democratic global society would be, therefore, truly of the people, by the people, and for the people; whereas “the people” would include all humans. The idea of democracy, unlike knowledge management and knowledge economy, has been a “staple” of western civilization for a very long time, although its definition evolved over the ages to take its present-day form as quoted above. There is a general agreement that it originated in

Ancient Greece; and it had its devoted supporters and fierce opponents ever since. Although there have always been groups which were functioning on the principles of democracy they usually did not play a dominant role in society at large (one of the exceptions has been the nobles’ democracy in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which lasted several centuries and had a profound, not always positive, impact on the history of these nations). Most of the time, communities organized on the principle of democracy were treated as utopian social experiments. This situation started to change rapidly by the end of the 18th century, especially after the founding of the United States of America. Since then, democracy both as a theoretical concept and in its practical function progressed in the field of politics and in many other areas of public life worldwide. This progress accelerated in recent years due largely to the wide-spread use and rapid advance of ICT, which serve as news, information, knowledge, and opinion-sharing devices. Today, democracy can be rightfully regarded as a dominant form of social organization in the global society, especially with regard to political structures and organizations. In the area of political and social theory, too, democracy is favored as the best form of social organization, especially from the ethical standpoint. It is widely believed that democracy serves best the flourishing of human beings who treasure individual freedom, dignity, and actively practice self-perfection while believing that all their fellow humans should have the same rights as they do. One of the questions emerging from what I have written above is the question of compatibility between knowledge management and democracy. When considering the title of the book this essay was written for, Ethical Issues and Social Dilemmas in Knowledge Management: Organizational Innovation, it seemed to me that one of the most urgent and daunting tasks regarding organizational innovation within knowledge management is making sure that knowledge management is built on the principle of democracy. Not fulfill-

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ing this task would almost certainly result in the emergence of several quite serious “ethical issues and social dilemmas”, or in the deepening of the ones already in existence (Costa & Silva, 2007). For this reason, the question of compatibility of knowledge management and democracy is the question which I will primarily focus my attention to in this text. In order to establish the foundation of this endeavor, I shall first refer to definitions of some crucial terms used in this essay. I think it is necessary to do so because some of these terms are defined in a variety of ways. I would like the Reader to follow my train of thought knowing which definition I have in mind when I use a particular term.

has been knowledge- whether organized, institutional, or otherwise- there were some forms of knowledge management exercised for public/ institutional (in the sense of societal institutions and organizations) or private/individual purposes. In the past, knowledge management only very rarely was used directly in business enterprises in a conscious, purposeful and methodical way. Today, unlike in the past, knowledge management is of great interest to the world of business. From the business perspective, one can be interested in knowledge management for two main reasons: a.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT There are quite a few definitions of knowledge management; they differ in details but the differences do not matter much for this essay. I selected- rather arbitrarily, I have to admit- for the purpose of this paper the definition according to which knowledge management is understood as an “integrated, systematic process for identifying, collecting, storing, retrieving, and transforming information and knowledge assets (including previously unarticulated expertise and experience held by individuals) into knowledge that is readily accessible in order to improve the performance of the organization” (Competitive Intelligence Glossary, 2009). Knowledge management, defined in the way presented above is a fairly recent phenomenon, generated mostly by the shift from industrial (or agrarian-industrial) to post-industrial mode of production of wealth which took place in some societies in the second half of the 20th century. Presently, knowledge management is associated mostly with the field of business activities. One has to remember, though, that as long as there

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b.

when knowledge is a tool used to manage particular business procedures (this is the reason indicated in the above quoted definition of knowledge management). In this case, the concept of knowledge management applies to already existing knowledge (and information); the definition quoted earlier is quite clear about it; when knowledge itself is a commodity- a commodity that needs to be managed. In this case, the situation in more complicated. The management of knowledge as a commodity involves all three main processes the subject of which is knowledge namely, production (creation), storage (preservation) and distribution (dissemination).

This overlaps partly with knowledge management described in point A, where the basic goal is- according to the definition quoted earlier- “to improve the performance of the organization”, which most often means: to maximize the organization’s profits; but the scope of the entire process is much more complex and wide-spread than that. The management of knowledge as a commodity belongs also to the area of knowledge economy. Knowledge management as part of knowledge economy is of primary interest in this chapter.


KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY Although Francis Bacon had already claimed in 1597 that “knowledge itself is power”, and although at the time of the industrial revolution not only the economists but even poets were well aware of knowledge as an economic factor (“Grace is given of God, but knowledge is bought in the market”, Arthur Hugh Clough, The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich), this was still quite a marginal factor. “For the last two hundred years, neo-classical economics has recognized only two factors of production: labor and capital” (Riley, 2003). It was only in the late 20th century that the commoditization of knowledge became fully and openly recognized. In the words of Luc Soete, “since the early 1980s, the economic profession has started to recognize the fact that knowledge accumulation can to a large extent be analyzed like the accumulation of any other capital good. That one can apply economic principles to the production and exchange of knowledge; that it is intrinsically endogenous to the economic and social system (…)” (Soete, 2002, pp. 36). There are many definitions of knowledge economy. According to the same source which supplied the definition of knowledge management quoted earlier, knowledge economy (or, as it is sometimes called, knowledge-based economy or knowledge-driven economy) “is based on the production, distribution, and use of knowledge as the main driver of growth, wealth creation, and employment across all industries. It does not rely solely on a few advanced-technology industries but is applicable to traditional industries, such as mining and agriculture” (Competitive Intelligence Glossary, 2009). Another definition, similarly, claims that knowledge economy is an economy “in which the generation and exploitation of knowledge play the predominant part in the creation of wealth” (Ministry of Economical Development, 2006). Let me quote just one other source because it is defining knowledge economy more bluntly

than the above-quoted definitions do, namely as an “economy based on creating, evaluating, and trading knowledge” (Business Dictionary, 2009). As I mentioned earlier, and as the above-quoted definitions show quite clearly, in the case of terms like this, that is for instance, knowledge management or knowledge economy, the definitions are more often than not still not “set in stone”. They vary from source to source. Sometimes, the differences between these definitions are insignificant, but sometimes they are quite substantial. Case in point: Martin Boddy (2005) discusses not only a variety of existing definitions of knowledge economy, but he also presents the criteria for including an industry’s activity into belonging- and to what degree- to knowledge economy. He relies heavily on the data provided by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), one of the primary “movers and shakers” in the post-World War II economy [Boddy cites as his source: OECD (2003)]. Boddy notices that as recently as 2003, the OECD’s definition of knowledge economy excluded “both higher education and hospital-based activities, both of which are considered to represent knowledgeintensive sectors in terms of both skills and the application of knowledge and outputs” (Boddy, 2005, pp. 7). Further in his text Boddy specified: “OECD (2003) does not include education or health in knowledge-based services as such on the basis that data are not available for all countries. It does however; include education and health separately in its country tables of technology and knowledge-intensive industries- indicative of the importance of these two sectors in this context” (Boddy, 2005, pp. 16). The exclusion of higher education as well as health care from the category of knowledge-based industries by an organization as influential and as “trend-setting” as OECD is very interesting from the point of view of the subject of this essay. Even more important are the reasons: “data are not available for all countries”. Depending on the kind of criteria accepted for the decision-making process, this may make perfect

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sense- or not (Boddy himself changed the selection criteria for his own report into which he included Higher Education and Hospital Activities on the grounds of “the availability of data for the UK” (Boddy, 2005, pp. 17). The above paragraph supports the argument that: a.

b.

c.

knowledge economy is presently a very important phenomenon; but it is still in its infancy; the concept of knowledge economy is quite “fluid”, its boundaries are “fuzzy”, and it is sometimes re-defined to suit the purpose of a particular agent (researcher, administrator, politician, etc.); institutions of production (creation), storage (preservation) and distribution (dissemination) of knowledge, e.g., institutions of higher education are not always included in the concept of knowledge economy. This may happen- as the case of the decision made by OECD shows- for reasons which are arbitrary and “bureaucratic” rather than theoretical, or conceptual. Yet, decisions like this may have a big impact on the theory of knowledge economy, and on the research in this area.

KNOWLEDGE Thus far, neither knowledge management nor knowledge economy has turned out to be easy to define, to “pinpoint”. There are many “gray areas” in the definitions which mean that a cautious treatment of both phenomena is advisable. But there is yet another difficulty in dealing with knowledge management and knowledge economy in a conceptual way. This difficulty is caused by the concept of knowledge, in particular, the difficulty with defining knowledge itself; a difficulty often acknowledged by authors who write about knowledge management and knowledge economy.

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For the purpose of this essay, I have chosen to use one of the standard definitions of knowledge (unsurprisingly, there are many). According to this definition, knowledge is a “justified and true belief” (Quinton, 1972). This is a very basic and general definition, and as such, it is not very helpful in a detailed investigation. On the other hand, exactly because it is so general, this definition gives quite a clear image of how vast the area is denoted by the term “knowledge”. Moreover, while the authors of definitions of “knowledge management” and “knowledge economy” often notice the difference between knowledge and information (see, e.g., the definition of knowledge management quoted earlier in this essay) they rarely pay attention to the difference between knowledge and belief; unlike Anthony Quinton (1972) in his definition of knowledge and in the text from which this definition was quoted. There are, of course, other important problems related to this issue, like, for example, the problem of knowledge and certainty, the problem of truth and the like. They may all have substantial influence on issues within knowledge management and knowledge economy; sometimes without the experts in these areas even being aware of them. As interesting and important as these problems are, however, I will not focus on them here due to the lack of space. Like democracy, the phenomenon of knowledge has been an object of interest to scholars, especially philosophers, for a very long timein western civilization at least since Ancient Greece. With time, especially after the Scientific Revolution, the problem of knowledge actually gained in importance to the point that epistemology (philosophical theory of knowledge) eventually became the leading branch of philosophy. Knowledge is also a very prominent subject of investigation in some other disciplines, like psychology, sociology and linguistics, to name but a few. Such a wide range of disciplines investigating the problem of knowledge is due largely to the fact that knowledge is both a personal (private) as


well as a societal (public) phenomenon; and that the two areas, far from being identical, overlap. Within personal knowledge, two types of knowledge could be of interest here: self-knowledge (or, as John Locke called it, consciousness) and private knowledge (knowledge kept to oneself, not revealed to others). Again, these two areas partly overlap; there are also other types of personal knowledge, and they are all interconnected and stimulate each other. Likewise, the societal knowledge (part of which what was sometimes called the “collective consciousness”) is a tremendously complex phenomenon. The dynamics of the relations between these two areas of knowledge, personal and societal, heavily influence most of the social, political and economic phenomena, and also individual human lives. In organized social structures, among others in business organizations, these two basic types of knowledge with all their complexities meet in dynamic interaction, sometimes to the point of dramatic clashes. One of the foundations of the modern concept of knowledge, and certainly the theoretical underpinning of modern science is the idea of democracy- understood in terms of the equality of human individuals qua humans- and the problem of personal (individual) knowledge. Ever since René Descartes, the “proper” method of scientific inquiry with its requirement of careful, thorough, rational verification assumes the equality of humans in this sense: it assumes the ability of every single human individual with a normally functioning brain to think rationally, and to be capable of learning to think according to certain rules, notably, the rules of logical reasoning, and to use this kind of thinking skillfully in a problemsolving process. Once equipped with the right set of tools (the mastery of rational/logical thinking) an individual should also be able to follow and/ or to re-create the thinking of another human individual; a thinking which would be based on the same rules. This way, they can all participate in the process of creation, preservation, and dissemination of knowledge. Verifying the correct-

ness of the thought-process of other individuals engaged in the solving of the same problem allows validation and acceptance of the results of the said process. This concept of “democracy of knowledge” purposefully excluded human emotions and individual characteristics, and today it is largely outdated for this exact reason. However, the idea that every human individual (except for individuals with no cognitive functions of the brain and no motor functions of the body) is capable of some form of knowledge is widely accepted based on studies done by psychologists, physiologists, neuroscientists and other scholars. As interesting as the problem of knowledge is, however, this essay is not devoted to the subject of knowledge (or scientific knowledge for that matter) per se; therefore, I will not develop it any further. The point I am making here by bringing the issue of knowledge to the Reader’s attention is that both knowledge management and knowledge economy in their present form can only apply to a very restricted area of the vast phenomenon called knowledge. This alone makes them both vulnerable to all kinds of criticism, unless they deal with a rather restricted field of human activities and use a very clear and narrow definition of knowledge. In this case, however, to define them as knowledge economy and knowledge management would be rather presumptuous, wouldn’t it? The problem of knowledge is obviously an important one; not only for the issue of knowledge management (don’t we want to know what is to be managed?), but for humankind in general. Knowledge is fundamental to humankind’s flourishing. Even this statement, however, could be questioned; some would say that only the right kind of knowledge is fundamental to humankind’s flourishing. Not all knowledge is equally valuable. Some philosophers (for instance, Plato, Friedrich Nietzsche, Roderick Chisholm, and others) claimed, explicitly or implicitly, that epistemology could be reduced to ethics. The reasoning for this case can be presented in a very simplified way in the following manner. Truth is a value;

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generally speaking, truth is a “positive” value (“truth is good”)- this is an ethical judgment. If knowledge is about truth (if it is a “justified and true belief” as claims the definition quoted earlier), seeking knowledge means seeking, identifying, and promoting the good. If one continued this reasoning the next step would be to ask the question: Does it mean, then, that knowledge economy and knowledge management are about seeking, identifying, and promoting the good? Does it mean, further, that knowledge economy and knowledge management belong to the field of ethics? Is this what their purpose is- to contribute to the moral betterment of humankind? They both belong in the field of business. Would it mean that spreading ethics is the purpose of business? What is the purpose of business?

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF BUSINESS? Richard Field wrote, “in my job as a university professor, the question sometimes arises in class discussions about the purpose of business. One usual answer is to make money, but I don’t think that is right” (Field, 2002). This quotation, it seems to me, encapsulates the core of the problem we are dealing with here. Is the purpose of business to make money? Or are there some values other than money which should be the fundamental goal of business? (I mean business in general, not the purpose one points to in answer to the question, “What is the purpose of your business?” An answer to this particular question should be corollary to the answer about the purpose of business in general). Rakesh Khurana of Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts and Herb Gintis of the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, present a view similar to the view of Richard Field of the University of Alberta, Canada, quoted earlier in the essay. They argue that- although a wide-spread view among the business students is that the purpose of business is to make money- this

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is not what the primary goal of business should be (Khurana & Gintis, 2008). Moreover, this is not what used to be the purpose of business, at least in business theory. They cite Joseph Wharton, the founder of The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Wharton expected that those who graduate from the school will “aid in maintaining sound financial morality” (Khurana & Gintis, 2008, pp. 55). He founded his school in 1881. But, the authors continue, “over the last century, however, business schools have placed less emphasis on a socially driven objective” (Khurana & Gintis, 2008, pp. 55). It seems there are many people today (I don’t want to say a “majority”), not only business school students, who think the purpose of business is to make money. Some people think this is the only purpose of business. And there are people (I don’t want to say a “minority”) who think that making money is not- or should not- be the only purpose of business; some even think that making money shouldn’t be the most important part of business. Who is right? Who is wrong? Whose view will prevail? Who of these people has or will have the power to make decisions in the area of knowledge management? Who makes and will make the decisions in the knowledge economy and thus will be shaping the future of the global society? Things are further complicated by the fact that often the same phrases are used to express quite different thoughts (this, of course, happens everywhere, not only in the world of business). Case in point: Lord John Browne, the Chief Executive Officer of British Petroleum said in his speech given at MIT in 2006: “I don’t think that a business which just generated money would be a very good business”. And further: “I believe that a good successful business is part of society, and exists to meet society’s needs. That is the purpose of business at the highest level” (Browne, 2006). This sounds quite similar to the words spoken in 1925 by Wallace B. Donham, the dean of Harvard Business School. According to Khurana & Gintis, “Donham noted that the world’s problems would


not be solved through governmental or police intervention, but from within on a higher ethical plane” (Khurana & Gintis, 2008, pp. 55). The topic of Donhan’s speech was The Social Significance of Business. But Lord Browne- after making his statement about meeting society’s needs being the “purpose of business at the highest level”- proceeded in justifying BP’s project to build a pipeline to transport oil (and another one for natural gas) from Baku, Azerbaijan, through Iran and Turkey, and emphasizing the need of security (military security) related to this project. Would that be an action taken “from within on a higher ethical plane” like Donhan wanted a business action to be? For my part, I have some doubts. I would like to remind the Reader that, as mentioned earlier in this essay, the powerful multinational organization OECD excluded from its 2003 definition of knowledge economy the sectors of health care and higher education. Let’s juxtapose this with the- rhetorical, I think- question asked by Khurana & Gintis (2008): “when business schools produce graduates who are unsure of the primary objective of business in society, how can society know exactly what role business schools play in the world?” (p. 54). Now the problem I see here is this. OECD does not include higher education in knowledge economy. Business schools are part of the higher education system. Business schools are supposed to educate people for the knowledge economyassuming, as I do, that knowledge economy will dominate the economy of the ICT-driven global society- but they are not part of this economy, according to OECD. Moreover, business schools “produce graduates who are unsure of the primary objective of business in society” (Khurana & Gintis, 2008, pp. 54). So now the graduates of business schools, “unsure of the primary objective of business in society” will make decisions about knowledge (i.e., about the production, storage, and distribution of knowledge in society). They will have to if they are to be active in the knowledge economy, and they will make these decisions- if

it is true that knowledge economy is the economy of the future. What will they be guided by while making decisions? How will they manage knowledge? What a mess (The Reader is most likely not surprised to know that Khurana & Gintis rejoice at the fact that “a few business schools have returned to the socially constructive objectives set out by Joseph Wharton, Wallace Donham, and other founders of business education” (Khurana & Gintis, 2008, pp. 55). The objectives they have in mind are the ones cited earlier in this essay; the ones which focus on the ethical aspect of business. So where are we at this point? The definitions of knowledge management and knowledge economy are not satisfactory enough; knowledge is such a vast issue that it can only be defined either very broadly or- if specified- with large parts of it left out; and there is no agreement as to what the purpose of business is. What about knowledge in society at large?

KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY VERSUS KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY: THE PROBLEM OF SHARING Today, one almost takes it for granted that ICT is global. Therefore, the society of the ICT era can be rightly called the Global ICT-driven Society- a global society supported by a technology which is applied universally all over the world. This new, global society is also often called the knowledge society (and its economy- the knowledge economy). The knowledge society is sometimes called the “knowledge and information society” as well. Knowledge society will be understood here as “a society endowed with the ability and capacity to generate and capture new knowledge and to access, absorb and use effectively information and ICTs” (d’Orville, 2000). At times, “knowledge society” and “knowledge economy” seem almost to be synonymous, but they are not. It does matter whether we use the term “knowledge society” or “knowledge economy”,

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even though sometimes it might be difficult to notice the difference between these two terms because at least since the time of Adam Smith and later Karl Marx there is a tendency to identify a society with its economy or- more preciselywith the society’s leading mode of production of wealth. Therefore, if knowledge becomes the leading mode of the production of wealth, it is no surprise that a society in which it happens is “naturally” called a knowledge society. Yet, it is important to see the difference in the meaning of these two terms. The roots of this difference go back to what in Ancient Greece was perceived as the difference between episteme and techne; roughly the equivalent of theoretical and practical knowledge or- as Joel Mokyr calls it- the propositional knowledge and the prescriptive knowledge (Mokyr, 2002). One could call the propositional knowledge the “what” knowledge, and the prescriptive knowledge the “how” knowledge (it seems that scholars who are more interested in the theoretical, propositional knowledge are inclined to favor the idea of the knowledge society, whereas those involved with the prescriptive knowledge, favor the concept of knowledge economy). It is worthwhile to ask whether it would be possible to build a bridge between knowledge society and knowledge economy; and if so, what kind of ethical problems could be solved that way. It seems to me that ICT could be helpful here, since ICT, the universal technology, is used for the advancement of both propositional and prescriptive knowledge. Moreover, the presence of the communication component in ICT blurs the line somewhat between the technology understood as “the manipulation of nature for human material gain” (Mokyr, 2002, pp. 3) and human sciences. There seems to be, therefore, a hope that the new global society in which ICT plays a pivotal role can become a knowledge society based on knowledge economy. Despite the relatively insignificant economic position of knowledge in the past, there has been

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a struggle over the ethics of the commoditization of knowledge throughout the history of western civilization ever since the famous controversy between Socrates and the Sophists. All that timein theory, at least- the Socrates/Plato position, namely, that the production and distribution of knowledge should not be “polluted” with a market attitude (opposite of the “knowledge for sell” motto of the Sophists) seem to have been victorious in the West. Other civilizations generally supported similar views. The realm of ideas was supposed to be a common good, free for anyone bright enough, determined enough, brave enough, and patient enough to seek it. This accessibility of knowledge/ideas according to the above-listed criteria was supposed to even apply to some very lucky women and slaves. In other words, in the Socratic/Platonic theory, societal knowledge took precedence over personal knowledge. It had a higher value, including the ethical value, than the personal knowledge had. Plato makes it clear in the most famous part of his book The Republic, i.e., in the allegory of the den (or cave, depending on the translator’s choice of word) that an individual who possesses personal knowledge of the kind that could alter the societal knowledge has the moral duty to share this knowledge with his fellow humans, even if this would bring him in danger of his own demise. Almost since its beginnings, ICT became the battleground between two approaches to knowledge which mirror the Socrates-Sophists controversy. One of them is to see knowledge as a commodity and an individual property; the other- to treat knowledge as collective/communal property which should be freely shared (i.e., with no restrictions of any kind). At present, it is hard to imagine that a compromise between these two positions could be reached anytime soon or that it could be achieved easily. Intellectual property rights defendants are as fiercely convinced about the moral value of their position as are the shared knowledge advocates. In the context of this essay, the line between Socratic/Platonic “free knowl-


edge” and the Sophists’ “knowledge for sale” positions could be drawn- very imprecisely- in this way: at the present time, the concept of knowledge society fits in with the idea of shared knowledge, whereas the knowledge economy embraces the idea of knowledge as property and commodity. A problem which could possibly tip the scale is the issue of the digital divide, and especially digital exclusion of certain segments of the global human population along economic, gender, geographic, racial and other lines. This is a problem addressed frequently by numerous authors. Digital exclusion is, among others, the result of the policy of denying certain groups in various societies, or even entire societies, access to societal/public knowledge. The arguments used by the critics of digital exclusion (some works of Richard Stallman, 2004; Helen Richardson, 2002; and, Andrzej Kocikowski, 1996 would be a fitting example) usually express the general philosophy of the knowledge society as presented in this paper. One should notice that digital exclusion plays a negative role in an ICT-driven global society whose economy is the knowledge economy as a whole; and it has a negative impact on the knowledge economy itself, if only by restricting the number of users, i.e., consumers of ICT. Admittedly, there is an inherent tension- some may even say- contradiction between the capitalist knowledge economy in its present form and actions leading to the eradication of the digital exclusion, but only if the accepted definition of the purpose of business is that the purpose of business is to make money. Otherwise, the societal benefits of the abolishment of the digital exclusion are pretty obvious, including the economic benefits to the society as a whole. On the other hand, a strictly (business) organization-based, competition-focused approach to this problem not only will contribute to the strengthening of the digital divide and to the increase in the number of those discriminated by digital exclusion, but it will eventually have a negative impact (including an economically negative impact) on the global

society. This said, one needs to add that the most obvious way to eradicate- or at least diminish- the digital exclusion, is through free and unrestricted access to societal knowledge the production, storage and distribution of which is today almost unimaginable without ICT. Due to the dynamic changes taking place in the economy (as mentioned earlier, transition to knowledge economy is not a finished process yet), there are indicators- as shown by W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne (2003) later in this essay- that the concept of shared knowledge will have to be adopted by the knowledge economy at least in the area of management, including knowledge management. This is a very interesting prospect; but it also means the emergence of hard-to-solve contradictions which the economic theory will have to deal with. In doing so, scholars will most likely have to reach to the fundamentals. Perhaps, even the theoretical foundation of the capitalist mode of production and the concept of capitalism itself will have to be re-examined and possibly modified. Now let me share some thoughts on the ethics of the ICT-driven global society whose economy is the knowledge economy. Obviously, technology as well as knowledge can be used for ethical or unethical purposes. “Athena’s gifts were many: she gave King Cecrops the olive tree, but she also gave the city of Troy the wooden horse that led to its destruction” (Mokyr, 2002, pp. 297). In the case of ICT the importance of this ambivalence was acknowledged very early on, even before the power of the new technology could be truly appreciated. One of the creators of computer technology, Norbert Wiener, paid great attention to the ethical problems this technology might generate. He was also exceptionally interested in the ethical aspect of science, his firm position being that science should serve the wellbeing of humankind. The following quotation indicates that he would also be a proponent of knowledge sharing. He wrote,

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...we (Mexican physiologist Arturo Rosenblueth & Wiener) believed that the divisions between the sciences were convenient administrative lines for the apportionment of money and effort, which each working scientist should be willing to cross whenever his studies should appear to demand it. Science, we both felt, should be a collaborative effort (Wiener, 1956, p. 171). Collaboration in a scientific endeavor without sharing knowledge is rather impossible. Today, scores of scholars examine ethical issues caused by and/or related to ICT, and ICT is now pretty much everywhere, and has an impact on everyone’s life, not being dealt with by any single profession exclusively. Therefore, the ethics of ICT (earlier known as computer ethics) becomes more and more the ethics of the ICT-driven global society; it cannot be treated as just one of the types of professional ethics. Another phenomenon that needs to be addressed with regard to further development of global ICT ethics (especially in the area of the social status of knowledge) is the shift in the interpretation of the definition of humans as social animals. Throughout the history of western thought, several major changes occurred regarding this concept. When Aristotle brought it up while speaking of humans as “political animals,” or when the Stoics, like Seneca, called humans “social animals” they did so mainly to emphasize that it is the presence of “the animal in us” that makes us social. Aristotle’s definition of a human being placed humans within the category of animals. Living in society, or as Nietzsche much later derogatively called it, in a herd, has been seen as our natural condition. A human being was regarded as a member of a society first (usually with a fixed place and role in it), and a unique individual second. With time, however, and especially since Descartes, a reversal of this order gradually took place in western societies. It became almost a

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paragon of humanness to suppress this “natural condition” part of which were the “herd instinct” and “herd mentality”; instead, one was supposed to regard oneself as a (rational) individual apart from society and ideally above it. This way, humans could elevate themselves above nature- a desirable process from the point of view of the value hierarchy accepted in those days. Consequently, the problem of the individual self and of one’s own identity as an individual became of great interest to scholars and ordinary people alike. However, when later philosophers, sociologists, and other scholars from George Herbert Mead and John Dewey (1960) through Peter Berger (1967) to Alasdair MacIntyre examined this problem, they concluded that it is indeed the social character of human nature that makes us truly human- if we define humans as rational beings. In their view, human rationality was not featuring which attested individual’s uniqueness but rather the social character of human beings. In the words of G. H. Mead (1934), “minds and selves are essentially social products, products or phenomena of the social side of human experience” (p. 1). According to MacIntyre, the acknowledgement and cultivation of the social character of human nature is necessary for humans to flourish as humans (MacIntyre, 2002). He further writes: “for we cannot have a practically adequate understanding of our own good, of our own flourishing, apart from and independently of the flourishing of that whole set of social relationships in which we have found our place” (MacIntyre, 2002, pp. 107-108). As a result, we seem to have arrived at some sort of synthesis because at present neither MacIntyre nor any other serious scholar who accepts the definition of humans as “social animals” would negate the individuality of each human being. To be fully human today means to flourish as an individual within human society; and to be not only a member of this society but to define oneself as such.


There are several other unsolved problems which would need to be dealt with from the perspective of both knowledge economy and knowledge management like, e.g., the problem of freedom- freedom of information, freedom of speech, even freedom of thought. The problem of freedom is closely related to the issue of intellectual property. Therefore, it has been raised for some time by scholars in the area of computer/ICT ethics. On the surface, the guarantees for freedom as worked out within the democratic societies organized in nation-states with capitalist free market economy remain undisturbed. But the very nature of knowledge economy as it is perceived today has to put the various kinds of freedom under scrutiny and make them questionable at best, and possibly even in danger of being suppressed. The commoditization of knowledge, if it becomes total, would also mean the commoditization of thought. A commodity is by definition not there to be shared freely- it is there to be traded for a profit. Therefore, as was so often in the past, freedom could once again become a luxury only attainable to few individuals, if any; but this time it would be because only a few could afford it. This would also mean that democracy in its present form would lose its credibility. All this could happen, but it does not mean that it will; it does not need to happen. Among other things, making ethics a foundation of knowledge economy is of the important conditions for protecting both freedom and democracy.

KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN THE DEMOCRATIC ICTDRIVEN GLOBAL SOCIETY Obviously, it is impossible to exhaust the issue of the knowledge management and democracy in a short essay. It is even hard to present it adequately. Nevertheless, I hope the information I presented to the Reader shows that the task of preparing

the global society for the transition to knowledge economy with a proper knowledge management is enormous, and that the business world at large is not yet ready to make this transition successfully. As pointed out by one of the most prominent contemporary American ethicists, Alasdair MacIntyre, in the history of Western moral philosophy “from Plato to [George Edward] Moore and since” very little attention has been paid to the problem of “human vulnerability and affliction and to the connections between them and our dependence on others” (MacIntyre, 2002, pp. 1). At present, the structure and management of the majority of business enterprises still follows the theories (scientific and philosophical) created as a result of the scientific revolution and reinforced by the technological revolution. Consequently, the situation as characterized by MacIntyre didn’t change much. Nevertheless, many of these theories need to be revised and the relations between them rearranged. ICT and globalization not only brought this process in motion; they also contributed to its acceleration. In the knowledge economy, these changes will have to be acknowledged. They will also have to be adopted in practice, which means, among others, in knowledge management. In business circles, there seems to be a growth in awareness of the necessity to revise the old approaches to business which is based on outdated theories; an article by W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne (2003) may serve to support this statement. I wrote earlier in this essay (in the part about knowledge) that the modern concepts of knowledge (science, in particular) as well as democracy rest on the view that human beings are first and foremost rational individuals. This view was so strong that one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century, Karl Popper (in Miller, 1985), made the rationality principle into one of the fundamental principles of scientific inquiry. The influence of his views is visible in what Kim & Mauborgne (2003) write about the business world: “for the purposes of their theories, economists assume that people are maximizers of

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utility, driven mainly by rational calculations” (p. 3-4) of their own self-interest. That assumption has migrated into much of the management theory and practice. It has, for instance, become embedded in the tools managers traditionally use to control and motivate employees’ behavior- from incentive systems to organizational structures” (Kim & Mauborgne, 2003, pp. 3-4). The authors proceeded to present some cases which substantiated the claim that this approach is not only outdated but even harmful to management in the knowledge economy. Kim & Mauborgne (2003) do not “blame” Karl Popper for the present-day problems in management. Rather, they focus on Frederick Winslow Taylor (1911), who about a century ago created the concept of scientific management. Yet Taylor’s views were firmly rooted in the modern (i.e., post-scientific revolution) theory of knowledge. Problem is, that in Taylor’s interpretation, the rationality of a human being became the only characteristic that mattered (Taylor was by no means an exception; these views were wide spread). Moreover, Taylor followed in his theory the procedures of scientific inquiry with its clean cut “yes-no” answers (in Popper’s terminology, the falsification-verification procedure). He also perceived productivity as an outcome of rational procedures which assigned each individual a precise, rather restricted role in the production process. Remembering this helps to understand why Taylor’s “scientific management” promoted autocracy not democracy in the workplace. “Scientific management” with its authocratic style relies, as Kim & Mauborgne (2003) point out, on the idea of “distributive justice”. Yet, the factors which are necessary for an enterprise to thrive in knowledge economy and in knowledge management are “procedural justice” (or “fair process”, as the authors call it), democratic approach to management (“voluntary cooperation”), and appreciation of all types of human intelligence (see Gardner, 1999) as well as all the knowledge an individual- no matter what his/her job description- brings to the table. Needless to say his type

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of management is hard, if not impossible, to envision in a situation where strict rules regarding intellectual property are observed. On the other hand, the principle of knowledge sharing is very advantageous to knowledge management based on the principles described above. Seen in this light, knowledge sharing seems to be the winning approach to the problem of ownership of ideas in the knowledge economy. Here, the other views of the human being which was mentioned earlier in this text needs to be remembered, the view that humans are social animals. In light of this view, willing readiness to share (in this case, to share knowledge) is regarded as part of the human nature. The problem, of course, remains whether it is in the best interest of the flourishing global society to follow the human nature, or rather to overcome and subdue it.

CONCLUSION In the ICT-driven global society of today, knowledge management, like ICT, can be used to benefit the humankind collectively as well as the individual human being; or it can be used to benefit a select group of individuals while a large part or even the majority of the global population might not benefit from it at all. In the worst-case scenario, knowledge management could even have a harmful effect on a large segment of humanity. Much depends on which ethical and social values would be accepted by those who set the rules for knowledge management and by those who practice it, and how these values would be respected. At present, the problem is further complicated by the fact that there seem to be no real agreement as to what is actually beneficial and what is harmful to humans (beyond the obvious like the claim that to live is beneficial while to die is not; but even this is debatable in some cases). Being fully aware of this difficulty, I adopted the concept of a “flourishing society” based on “flourishing ethics” proposed independently by


two philosophers, Alasdair MacIntyre (2002) and Terrell Bynum (2006). Keeping in mind Alasdair MacIntyre’s reflection on some of the basic flaws in the most influential theories within the western moral philosophy of the past, it seems to me that one of the fundamental moral rules should be the flourishing (both in MacIntyre’s and Bynum’s sense) of every human individual. And further, as MacIntyre writes, “for a human being to flourish unqualifiedly qua human being, it is her or his life as a whole that must flourish (…)” (MacIntyre, 2002, pp. 113) remembering that humans are “social animals” will help to see that individuals can truly flourish in a flourishing society. This concept of flourishing does not contradict Kant’s stipulation that a human should always be the goal, never a mere means, or Wiener’s appeal for the human use of human beings; but it adds a new dimension to them. The human flourishing, perceived as the fullest development of the human potential towards the Good can actually stop being a utopia, and it can become a realistic goal for the global society. The “flourishing ethics” is still not a fully satisfactory solution to all of the above-described problems, and it is still being worked on and refined, but it seems to me that there won’t be anything better for some time to come; and possibly not for as long as the humankind (global society) will be composed of unique individuals because the human uniqueness dictates the diversity of goals, values, and actions. From my point of view, the uniqueness of each human being is definitely a positive value; one of the values which should- no, must- be preserved if there is to be a humankind. If this causes a disagreement as to what is harmful and what is beneficial to humans so be it, as long as humans know how to resolve their differences through a democratic process and according to the best of their knowledge (again, the importance of knowledge). Moreover, the concept of human flourishing does not need to be in conflict with knowledge economy. Even if “useful knowledge” (Mokyr,

2002) is the backbone of knowledge economy, other types of knowledge and other human activities that contribute to human flourishing will also play a vital role in knowledge economy if they are to contribute to the greater productivity of the minds engaged in the production, trade, and application of knowledge. With the assistance of ICT, humans can accomplish this. What is now needed most is for knowledge economy to gear up for the pursuit of this goal. In the global society in which knowledge has the leading economic role and value, every human mind should be regarded as a potential source of economic growth, and it can contribute to the flourishing of humans. Therefore, every human being should have the opportunity and the conditions to develop his/ her mind’s potential to the fullest. This should be one of the most important tasks for knowledge management. The task for moral philosophers would be to see to it that the goal towards which humans would want to develop their minds would be the wellbeing of the global society in which every individual could live in conditions of freedom, equality, and democracy. This is a very important point considering the fact that the two dominant positions, or cultures as some call it (Costa, Prior & Rogerson, 2008), in the world today are collectivism and individualism. More often than not they are regarded as antagonistic towards each other and mutually excluding. This would mean that the simultaneous occurrence and comparable strength of both of them would turn the global society into a deeply divided one. It would, therefore, mean also that the flourishing of humankind the way McIntyre and Bynum have envisioned it would be all but impossible. However, it needs not be so. The solution lays likely in the dialectic approach to this duality which would permit reaching a synthesis of individualism and collectivism through the process of changes. In order to make this process a successful one, i.e., to achieve a desirable result of a flourishing global, ICT-driven knowledge society, (which economy would be

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the knowledge economy) one would have to set the goal for a global effort; for purposeful actions towards the creation of the kind of society I mentioned above: a society in which every individual could live in conditions of freedom, equality, and democracy. Instead of treating collectivism and individualism as perennial antagonists, and the relationship between them as combative and aimed at the destruction of the other, humankind could follow the thought expressed by the German philosopher Karl Jaspers in his acceptance speech after receiving the Peace Prize from the German Book Trade he was awarded in 1958. Jaspers said: “a violent struggle gets extinguished in communication. The result is a collective truth, instead of superiority in victory” (Jaspers, 1958, pp. 10, my translation from German). I believe the economy of the global society will increasingly be a knowledge economy. I also believe that the importance of knowledge management will increase not only in the business sector of society but in society at large. This essay was supposed to demonstrate, among other things, that the future character of the global society will depend very much on which direction both knowledge management and knowledge economy takes. My hope is that the new global society will become a knowledge society in the sense described earlier in this text; and that the economy of this society, the knowledge economy, will support the flourishing of knowledge society and all individuals in it. It will be based on principles of democracy aiming at the flourishing of all humans. Right now there is still time to make crucial decisions about the direction the knowledge economy should take and to find the determination to execute them. One of the most important among these decisions will be the decision regarding the value of democracy for the ICT-driven global society whose economy will be the knowledge economy and whose knowledge management will be competent and skillful. Should the value of democracy be determined as low then knowledge economy and knowledge

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management would become a very powerful tool for destroying democracy. If the value of democracy turns out to be high, then it seems to me that there will have to be some very serious work done before compatibility between knowledge economy (and within it knowledge management) and democracy as well as between individualism and collectivism in the ICT-driven global society could be achieved. It would be worth the trouble, though. As Plato claimed, “in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all” (Plato, 1986, pp. 257), but it does appear nevertheless.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT Some parts of this text were published in GórniakKocikowska, K. (2007). From computer ethics to the ethics of the global ICT society. K. E. Himma (Ed.), Special Issue: Information Ethics (pp. 4757). Library Hi Tech: Emerald.

REFERENCES Berger, P. L. (1967). The sacred canopy: Elements of sociological theory of religion. New York: Doubleday. Boddy, M. (2005). The knowledge-driven economy. South West of England Regional Development Agency. Retrieved March 17, 2009, from http://download.southwestrda.org.uk/res/general/ KE%20Final%20Report%20190705.pdf Browne, J. (2006). The purpose of business. Beyond Petroleum. Retrieved July 27, 2009, from http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryld =98&contentld=7017837 Business Dictionary. (2009). Knowledge economy. Business Dictionary. Retrieved August 2, 2009, from http://www.businessdictionary.com/ definition/knowledge-economy.html


Bynum, T. W. (2006). Flourishing ethics. Ethics and Information Technology, 8(4), 157–173. doi:10.1007/s10676-006-9107-1 Competitive Intelligence Glossary. (2009). The language of competitive business intelligence. Quantumiii- the solutions people. Retrieved August 2, 2009, from http://www.quantum3.co.za/ CI%20Glossary.htm Costa, G. J. M., Prior, M., & Rogerson, S. (2008). Individual ethics and knowledge management: arising Conflicts. In Bynum, T. W. (Eds.), ETHICOMP 2008: Living, Working and Learning Beyond Technology (pp. 117–129). Mantua, Italy: University of Pavia. Costa, G. J. M., & Silva, N. M. A. (2007). Knowledge management: how ethical is your organization’s knowledge? In Bynum, T. W., Rogerson, S., & Murata, K. (Eds.), ETHICOMP 2007: Glocalisation: Bridging the Global Nature of Information and Communication Technology (Vol. 1, pp. 123–136). Tokyo: Meiji University. d’Orville, H. (2000). Towards the global knowledge and information society- The challenges for development cooperation. United Nations Development Programme. Retrieved March 15, 2009, from http://www.undp.org/info21/public/ pb-challenge.html Dewey, J. F. (1960). The quest for certainty. New York: Minton, Balch & Co. Field, R. (2002). What is the purpose of business? University of Alberta. Retrieved May 23, 2009, from http://www.business.ualberta.ca/rfield/PurposeofBusiness.htm Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st Century. New York: Basic Books. Górniak-Kocikowska, K. (2005). Problemy z nazwaniem nowego spoleczenstwa. Ethos (Berkeley, Calif.), 18(1-2), 77–99.

Górniak-Kocikowska, K. (2007). From computer ethics to the ethics of the global ICT society. K. E. Himma (Ed.), Special Issue: Information Ethics (pp. 47-57). Boca Raton, FL: Library Hi Tech: Emerald. Górniak-Kocikowska, K. (2008). ICT and the tension between old and new: The human factor. Journal of Information. Communication & Ethics in Society, 6(1), 4–27. doi:10.1108/14779960810866774 Jaspers, K. (1958). Wahrheit, freiheit und friede. München, Germany: Piper & Co. Verlag. Khurana, R., & Gintis, H. (2008). What is the purpose of business? BizEd Magazine, JanuaryFebruary, 54-55. Kim, W. C., & Mauborgne, R. (2003). Fair process: Managing in the knowledge economy. Harvard Business Review, 81(1), 127–136. Kocikowski, A. (1996). Geography and computer ethics: An Eastern European perspective. T. W. Bynum & S. Rogerson (Guest Eds.). Special Issue: Global Information Ethics. Science and Engineering Ethics, 2(2), 201–210. doi:10.1007/ BF02583554 MacIntyre, A. (2002). Dependent rational animals: Why human beings need the virtues. IL, Peru: Open Court. Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, & society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Miller, D. (Ed.). (1985). The rationality principle- Popper selections. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ministry of Economical Development. (2006). What is knowledge economy? New Zealand Government. Retrieved June 11, 2009, from http:// www.med.govt.nz/pbt/infotech/knowledge_ economy/knowledge_economy-04.html

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Mokyr, J. (2002). The gifts of Athena: Historical origins of the knowledge economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. OECD. (2003). OECD science, technology and industry scoreboard 2003. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Retrieved June 11, 2009, from http://www.oecd.org/document/21 /0,2340,en_2649_33703_16683413_1_1_1_1,00. html Plato,. (1986). The republic. (Transl. B. Jowett). Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Quinton, A. (1972). Knowledge and belief. In P. Edwards (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Vol. 4 (pp. 345-352). New York: Macmillan Publishing & The Free Press. Richardson, H. (2002). Exercising different choices- The gender divide and government policy making in the “global knowledge economy”. In I. M. S. B. Alvarez et al. (Eds.), ETHICOMP 2002: The Transformation of Organisations in the Information Age: Social and Ethical Implications (pp. 471-484). Lisbon: Lusíada University of Lisbon. Riley, T. B. (2003). An overview of the knowledge economy. e-Gov monitor. Retrieved June 1, 2009, from http://www.egovmonitor.com/features/ riley07.html Soete, L. (2002). The challenges and the potential of the knowledge-based economy in a globalised world. In Rodrigues, M. J. (Ed.), The New Knowledge Economy in Europe. A Strategy for International Competitiveness and Social Cohesion (pp. 28–53). Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Stallman, R. (2004). Why software should be free. In Bynum, T. W., & Rogerson, S. (Eds.), Computer Ethics and Professional Responsibility (pp. 294–310). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Taylor, F. W. (1911). The principles of scientific management. New York: Harper Bros.

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The World Bank. (2009). ICT Glossary Guide. The World Bank. Retrieved August 1, 2009, from http://web.worldbank.org/wbsite/external/topics/ extinformationandcommunicationandtechnologi es/0,contentMDK:21035032~menuPK:282850~ pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:28282 3~isCURL:Y,00.html Webster’s Dictionary. (1996). Webster’s new universal unabridged dictionary. New York: Barnes & Noble Books. Wiener, N. (1956). I am a mathematician: The later life of a prodigy. Cambridge, MA: Doubleday & Day.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Democracy: A state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges. Knowledge: A non-linear commodity that needs to be managed. Therefore, involves three key processes, namely production (creation), storage (preservation) and distribution (dissemination). Knowledge Economy: Economy based on creating, evaluating, and trading knowledge. Knowledge Management: Integrated, systematic process for identifying, collecting, storing, retrieving, and transforming information and knowledge assets (including previously unarticulated expertise and experience held by individuals) into knowledge that is readily accessible in order to improve the performance of the organization. Knowledge Sharing: Willing readiness to share (in this case, to share knowledge) as a component of the human nature, in order to promote a flourishing global knowledge society. Knowledge Society: A society endowed with the ability and capacity to generate and capture new knowledge and to access, absorb and use effectively information and ICTs.

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Chapter 4

Global “Knowledge Management” in Humanist Perspective Piotr Pawlak Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan, Poland

ABSTRACT The term “knowledge management” is widely circumscribed to organizations, being considered fundamental at an institutional level (frequently within a specific corporate level). Hence, it is the domain of organizational and management theories, rational selection theories or, of various concepts related to economic efficiency. Nonetheless, this chapter will attempt to consider this issue from a holistic perspective, considering as a starting point the global dimension of this quandary. This overview falls back on analyses conducted by widely understood social studies, which use economic tools and methodologies. The author’s opinion is that today the Internet evidently is a specific global knowledge warehouse. To be more specific, he means the “ICT space” created by the Internet, which herein the author will refer to as the cyberspace entails a global knowledge flux. As a result, this chapter is an overview of humanist discussions on cyberspace exploration and (more importantly) management.

INTRODUCTION This chapter aims to present a non-standard, a slightly different approach to knowledge management as a result of the inspiring work of Godzic (2001). Taking into account this novel approach, that can be characterized as more academic than practical in its essence, it is time to outline its basic definitions, as well as the scale within which the DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-873-9.ch004

problem is being discussed. These matters must be elaborated on prior to further reading about the underlying topic of this contribution. Traditionally, knowledge management is perceived by contemporary companies as one of the key elements for competitive advantage. The ever-changing world economy makes companies and other organizations permanently enhance their operation methods. The abrupt transformations occurring in all areas of corporate operations are the “signs of our time”, because these amend-


Global “Knowledge Management” in Humanist Perspective

ments frequently challenge current trends and principles. The problem that most companies face is how to manage its assets in this new era: it is the proper use of knowledge, information and data that assumes a key relevance. According to Peter Drucker (1999) traditional resources, such as work, land, and capital have become more an obstacle than a driving force for corporate growth. Furthermore, creativity in all fields of life is born out of knowledge. Knowledge management is a relatively new concept, which particular authors date it back to 1987. In this year the first conference about Managing the Knowledge Assets into 21st Century was held in the United States. It was jointly organized by Purdue University and DEC. Additionally in the same year in Sweden, the so called Konrad Group was established and it commenced its work on intellectual capital management. Consultancies were the first to identify the need for new management area, because for them knowledge itself was a product. They quickly got down to establishing repositories with their consultants’ knowledge and experience. Knowledge management grew rapidly in the late 1990’s and the idea was disseminated by Ikujiro Nonaka, a Japanese researcher. In 1995 together with Hirotaka Takeuchi he published The Knowledge - Creating Company- How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation. To their minds knowledge is created to a smaller extent by collecting, processing and using the existing knowledge within a given organization. For them it is more about creating new knowledge. It is their belief that the overriding objective of knowledge management is about creation and not about its effective circulation within an organization. Their ideas shed new light on both theories: knowledge management and innovation. Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995) emphasize the importance of using “tacit” knowledge (the idea of “tacit knowledge” was introduced by Michael Polanyi much earlier), embedded in the employees’ heads, for a company’s success. This led to

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another theory, which encompasses knowledge creation through contacts within teams and not in the heads of individual persons (Grudzewski & Hejduk, 2005; Rheingold, 1994). Both in theory and in practice there are numerous definitions of knowledge management. This is the result of the popularity of the theory and a relatively short time of its use. Hence, knowledge management can be defined as a totality of formalized methods of collecting and using formal and tacit knowledge of the participants of an organization, as an attempt of its preeminent utilization and being available throughout the organization as new knowledge, and its increasing understanding. Knowledge management is a multi-faceted process. It can be analysed from various points of view: particular entities (business ones- public and private- in particular), as well as particular states (knowledge management policy could even be elaborated on) and last but not least, in the context of international arena. From the following discussion it will be demonstrated that knowledge management is a specific element of international and supranational administration. At this point, the author constructs another singularity- on one hand exists knowledge management, which is understood as an element of a defined policy developed by particular international community (as for instance, the European Union); and, on the other hand, entails management of knowledge, which is understood as an element of wide-ranged global processes that are common for all international communities. This chapter investigates the issue from this global perspective. The underlying topic is closely connected with various research fields: political science, law, economy, sociology, cultural studies, etc. For example, public administration research seeks to uncover answers as regards to knowledge management issues. Furthermore, the intrinsic characteristics of this research field (multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary), implies a valuable methodological to knowledge management analysis. Finally, social researchers have been continuously


scrutinizing the global information flow, leading to multiple concepts and categorizations. Therefore, this chapter attempts to demonstrate several key concepts with reference to global knowledge flows. These concepts will reveal the mechanisms behind the world information and knowledge flow, which are subsumed under various theories.

GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Mapping the Global Knowledge Management “Territory” Knowledge, as an expression, is used frequently. Despite this scenario encompasses a generic sense, or configures more or less abstract perceptions. In the classic definition by Plato (e.g. Jowett, 1899), which is featured in one of his dialogues, Socrates and Theaetetus concluded that knowledge is justified and is a true belief. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (2008), knowledge is expertise and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. Or, the Nowa Encyklopedia Powszechna (2004) (Polish Universal Encyclopedia) defines knowledge as all reliable information about reality together with the ability to use it. The title of this chapter features a concept, which can be broken down into two basic items: “knowledge” and “management”. For the purpose of this analysis “knowledge” is perceived as the totality of information to be found in cyberspace (Rheingold, 1992). Consequently, by information management I mean the activities of the dominating businesses (among others), which are to a different extent involved in filling the Internet with content (for further details concerning the differences between knowledge and content, e.g. Costa & Silva, 2010). Media (mass media in particular) are carriers of a substantial portion of human knowledge. Electronic media

have a unique role to play, because practically almost every existing piece of information can be saved as hypertext or in any other electronic form (text, graphic, sound, video file, etc.) (Mróz, 2005). All data accumulated and saved data by this method fill up the global computer network and constitute a large and ever-expanding global knowledge base. It is currently the most popular compendium of knowledge about research, culture, tourism, education and even commercial institutions around the world. Furthermore, it features comprehensive information about almost all subjects (OCDE, 2008). The other titular item is “management”, which can be defined as all actions taken in order to use human and material resources effectively and attain the set out objectives. For the purpose of this analysis, management is viewed as a process of establishing objectives and streamlining their attainment in organizations subjugate to the manager with the use of own production capacity (possibilities) or own knowledge sources or resources (Drucker, 1999). Thus, the chapter will seek to describe the entities wielding the monopoly on information, as well as the knowledge management mechanisms at work at supranational scale. I reckon that the Internet is clearly perceived as another mass medium (a relatively young one), which is influenced by similar (but not always identical) factors as the traditional mass media. Powerful businesses that is, international media corporations, have always impacted mass media market organization (inclusive the Internet) (Manovich, 2000). Together with various political determinants, the conglomerates decide about the worldwide flow of information and hence their operations and politics can be seen as a specific form of knowledge management at a global level (Golding & Harris, 1997). The above mentioned political determinants, which are particularly significant (especially under previous historical periods), as factors for providing or denying access to the widely considered knowledge, presently lose foothold against economic factors. As a result,

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their role is currently less essential and typically is economic factors that compel them to act in the context of global knowledge management. Knowledge management at a global level has been inextricably connected to the monopolization of information flows, which has pestered traditional mass media from their onset and currently pervading the Internet. An analysis of the sector-specific problems illustrates that the largest global information production and distribution companies must be scrutinized (Lister et al., 2003). The companies in question include: Time Warner (owner of CNN), Disney (owner of ABC), Sony, General Electric (owners of NBC, AT&T, The News Corporation, Seagram- music and movies), Viacom (owner of CBS and Bertelsmann). Besides, the discussed problem is also strictly related to an additional global issue, which scholars from different fields of studies frequently refer to as the “ICT revolution”. The revolution-related transformations, which occur in the context of ever-present globalization, substantially affect global knowledge management. The problem was relatively quickly recognized by various social studies researchers (Appadurai, 2005; Huntington, 2004; Castells, 2003; Mattelart, 2003; Rifkin, 2003; Chomsky & McChesney, 2000; Chomsky, 1999; Soros, 1998; McLuhan, 1962; and others), who have sought to address it and account for it in a number of ways. Eventually the researchers came up with several interesting concepts, which for the purpose of this chapter will be analysed in reference to the titular issue.

Framing the Discussion McLuhan’s Work The exchange of electronic information is also related to establishment of a new qualitative social structure, which is variously referred to (for instance, “global society”, “information society” or “information-based society”). At the turn of the 20th century Marshall McLuhan projected the

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creation of a global society. In The Gutenberg Galaxy he inferred that electronic media, television in particular, will create a global village, where “medium is a message” and communication tools exert a more tangible influence on people than the message itself. Nevertheless, in most cases the term “information society” is contextualized through contemporary societies that acknowledged highly developed capitalist countries. It illustrates technological transformations (advancement of information and communication technologies), as well as economic and social changes which occurred within the societies. The term “information society” was coined in 1963 by Tadao Umesao, a Japanese researcher and economist, in reference to the Japanese society. Evidently, the titular issue must be analysed in connection with globalization-related matters. The comprehensive literature provides numerous interesting conclusions, which I tentatively called “global knowledge management”. The prevalence of globalization triggers changes in societal structures and world economy. The transformations are induced by the abrupt boost in international trade and cultural exchange, which translates into an increased global interdependence between countries. From the economic point of view, the term is mainly linked with trade deregulation or “free trade”. In a wider context it refers to the everspreading integration and co-dependence between global businesses on social, political and economic platforms (Gilpin, 2001). Three chief dimensions of globalization (economic, cultural and political) must be highlighted. Considering the focal point of the chapter, the cultural and economic aspects seem to be of particular significance; nevertheless we must also remember that all three dimensions are interconnected. Cultural aspects of globalization are best evidenced in the high-profile commercialization of selected cultural products. The process appears to gain momentum in line with the advancement of mass communication tools, which, in turn are utilized by international corporations for market-


ing activities. When characterizing the dynamic growth of the advertising market, Marshall McLuhan (1962) concluded that never before such a high employment rate was reported in a sector which aims to manipulate other people. Globalization creates numerous problems, which some have a key significance for the discussed issue. Most importantly, globalization leads to creating and gapping of global disproportions in access to the widely understood knowledge. Disproportions in global communication and world information exchange can be categorized as dark sides of ICT revolution (Floridi, 2006).

Armand Mattelart Perception Armand Mattelart (2003) puts forward to analyze the terms communication and information separately. Communication designates construction (reconstruction) of culture, which among others, aims to tighten ties between people by reinforcement of personal identity. Information, on the other hand, means identified evidences, acknowledgement of which involves our beliefs, queries and denies to-date acquired knowledge, make us review it, testing our readiness to take actions and, finally, separates people (Mattelart, 2003). Consequently, by this token, global knowledge management is perceived as a disbalanced flow of information. Hence, a small group of people has access to information, which next (selectively or after “reprocessing”) is made available to others as, for instance, media information. According to Mattelart (2003) the idea of “information society” dates back to 1648 (date of the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War). The new order introduced by the Peace of Westphalia meant the beginning of a new state, where the rulers (who believed to be God anointed to rule) had a monopoly on information, which facilitated power-wielding. Monopoly on information was first recorded to be used in the Ancient times. The Egyptian elites restricted access to astronomy and resorted to it to corroborate its God-given right

to rule (for example, Sun eclipse). The state used information to exert “symbolic pressure” and consequently to create state identity. According to Mattelart (2003), the so called “universal” culture, which is recognized by people worldwide, originates from the state-owned information. The idea of “state information” is in fact an alternative (to be exact, it is the third solution) which came to light in the times of global competition between military and ideological blocks. It can be deemed as a kind of a compromise proposal. It was interesting for Mattelart (2003) to characterize the world communication and information situation (that is to depict two systems) in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Mattelart (2002) inferred that it was at that time that the planetary awareness in society was born. As a result, societies came to a conclusion that the “cultural dependence was not triggered by any conspiracy or plots, but stemmed from structural transformations. The domination was born out of a disproportionate exchange between the centre and its peripheries” (Mattelart, 2000, pp. 66-67). When it comes to communication discrepancies in both ideological blocks, information was more widely accessible in the West (in the countries of the “free world” as referred to by the author) as there were hardly any restrictions. Thus, information was consolidated and culturally affected by the US: “information society means a collective with access to information, yet it does not necessarily designate a society, which receives and processes information in a uniform way” (Mattelart, 2002, pp. XV). It is with great reluctance that Mattelart (2003) describes the ultraoptimistic visions of the society of tomorrow (including the information society) as well as the far-reaching demands, which form its basis and promises born with it. He emphasizes that the idea of a society with unrestricted access to information is either a utopia or a romanticized vision enjoyed by a small society of hackers [society of hackers as defined by Castells (2003)], because the state still monopolizes information. It is thought that if the power is taken over by

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the widely understood economy (which in fact has already been underway) can be considered a viable alternative. Mattelart (2003) claims that information has a great economic significance, in particular all economic activities, because the free market can be seen as a game where the best informed wins (as referred by Bourdieu, 2003). At this point, it is worth noting that culture is crucial for attaining economic objectives. When it comes to defining “culture”, I refer to the concept by Jerzy Kmita (1985), according to whom culture (to be more exact to one of its elements, which is composed of a collective of normative and directive judgments) motivates an individual to take specific actions, which as subjectively seen by him/her, will help to achieve the previously set-out goals (directive judgments). What must also be born in mind is the fact that the goal of an action (not only market action) is also culture-dependent (normative judgments), and thus culture infuses economic activities. The vision of information society is subtly tainted by a kind of totality notion “bestsellers about the promised society of tomorrow forecast that we enter the era of optimism, and a failure to conform to the trend of positive thinking is instantly named technological phobia or antimodren. The old demons of anti-intellectual populism surface” (Mattelart, 2003, pp. 133). Technological revolution does not eradicate old problems and is not free from ever-present (frequently undesired) tendencies. At the same time, culture is shaped more quickly and intensively than ever before (as a consequence of advancement of communication technologies). Moreover, this author suggests that “for the sake of speed, the slow cumulative historical process of culture construction is thoroughly transformed, as it was the case ages ago in so called primitive societies, when heralds of the incessant progress imposed a strenuous march towards modernity” (p. 134). Information technology advancement sped up and consequently various societies began to be inter-linked. The technology reached more and

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more new fields and engaged more and more new countries. As a result, more and more entities became involved in shaping Web topology on the basis of diverse ideas, as for instance Mattelart (2000) points out: • • • • •

the universalism of predestined civilization; religious ecumenism (frequently in extreme forms); interdependence of nations for the sake of joint security; inflexible imperative of international work distribution; joint fight against domination.

Mattelart (2003) warns against forgetting history, which can be the consequence of unquestioned belief in numerous myths bounded to the future society. Recapitulating, a media expert of Belgian origin, makes a point that the present situation (for which implementation of new ICT technologies and appearance of “information society” is characteristic) stems from (yet not ultimately) a long-term process of knowledge management, which dates a long way back to transformations in social structures and forms of communication (flow of information). The reality, which is described by the researcher, represents a certain stage of the process and does not supersede the well-ingrained unchanged tendencies and processes and consequently does not create an entirely new cognitive category, the analysis of which would require a substantial review of so far applied tools and concepts.

Appadurai’s Work under Scrutiny A different point of view is shared by Arjun Appadurai (2005), to whom, the cultural aspects of globalization enable mankind to enter in a novel phase of development. What is characteristic about this stage is that, it distances itself from acquired experience and cuts itself off from the past. Before observe the postmodern reality under scrutiny,


the central categories of cultural anthropology must be re-defined, which means that an entirely new approach to research on numerous aspects of globalization must be worked out (inclusive changes in culture and the role of mass media in the transformations). Otherwise, the erosion of our knowledge as regards to the world becomes obsolete and insignificant. Appadurai (2005) suggests that we should stop to perceive the world as a totality of cultures separated by borders (geographically). With globalization in place, the borders of the cultures get blurred (disappear). The author pays attention to the process of deterritorialization, which is directly connected with two important factors- electronic media and mass migration of people. Thanks to deterritorialization, modern cultures are locationfree and are subject of remote factors (fragments of other cultures) in their reproduction. In fact, culture is produced through soft political assumptions rather than contained by pre-determined boundaries, jeopardizing cultural reproduction. What cannot be ignored is the growing intensity of the process of culture shaping, which, according to the author is connected with the advancement of information and communication technologies. These technologies promoted an interrupt and continuous flow of miscellaneous cultural objects that defy geographical boundaries. As our media became omnipresent numerous cultural phenomena become fluid (specific fragments, ideas are detached from their original cultures and are taken away by ever-present electronic media and mass migration), while the entire process is free from domination of any prevailing culture and in its form resembles rather a diffusion of five basic spheres of culture-ethnic, media, technical, financial and ideological. If the present transformations are diffusionlike, knowledge management on a global level becomes less vital or even inexistent. The author proposes to perceive global cultural economy though a prism of disjuncture, where economy, culture and politics are part ways. So, to Appadurai

(2005) global cultural economy is intricate given its multiple overlaps, which traditional centerperipheries models cannot elucidate. This criticism is legitimate even in models that account multiple centers and peripheries. Disjuncture cultural content circulates globally in five “imaginary” cultural spheres (specific dimensions), which include: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, finanscapes and ideoscapes. Appadurai (2005) explains the use of the suffix “scape” in the following manner: The terms with “scape” suffixes show it is not about objective accounts, which are the same from any point of view, but rather about perspectivesensitive constructs, which are either modified by historical, linguistic and political situations of various actors from different national states, international concerns, societies in diasporas, and also sub-national groups and movements (religious, political and economic ones) (Appadurai, 2005, p. 52). Consequently, it is believed that globalization does not lead to a common homogenization of cultures around the world, as well as an incoherent global knowledge management (process or processes), or information restriction. Hence, the fear of a destructive influence of a given dominating culture (American or any other) is groundless. Thus, various contents originated from a variety of cultures, incessantly circulate in a global flow of people and information connecting with other contents and cultures. What is particularly important for this analysis- their free economic assumption. Following Friedman (1999), it is feasible to claim these constant movements, not simply in terms of migrating egos, imposes chaos and cumulative disruptions in our lives. By this token the aforementioned five culture dimensions are diffuse. Yet, Appadurai (2005) appears to ignore the fact that the global flow of information in a contemporary world is not (has never been) totally unidirectional, even considering the most scepti-

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cal arguments (e.g. Schiller, 1976; Nordenstrang & Varis, 1974). Contents and values specific to particular cultures, just like “raw materials”, are selected, properly treated, and afterwards sold on a global information market as a result of knowledge management. Although, they core characteristic is to become worldwide free dissemination commodities, because cultural representatives scarcely enjoy their economic profits. The truth is that peculiar values are not sufficiently popular or appealing to pervade the postmodern global reality as described by Appadurai (2005). Theoretically speaking, these would catch on if mass media pluralism was at work (traditional and new mass media). Meanwhile, cultural contents are given a “tag”, which is frequently concealed so as not to belittle the traditional “exotic” element of a unique culture. As a consequence, it is possible to buy a dangerouslooking mask of an African warrior, which inside hides its genuine place of origin- “made in China. Or, a traditional amulet utilized by Indian tribes living in North America, which is commonly known as the “dream catcher”, exemplifies how an element of a culture is anchored off from its traditional port. In both cases, the proprietary cultures at some extent acknowledge an economic profit, which Appadurai (2005) also debates. At this point it is worth stressing one issue- the amulet is referred to by its English name all around the world, while most of its present owners do not have the faintest idea what the original name of the artifact is. Similarly, large US film production companies popularize less known images from local productions or, various literary works on a global scale (just to mention the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien, or the film adaptation of the mythological tale of the Trojan War). Last but not least, would people all around the world try the “traditional” delicious Mexican tacos, if there were no McDonald’s, or KFC chains? Media (particularly the new electronic media) tend to create a spacious mosaic of images and contents

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from pieces from a range of cultures. Appadurai (2005) makes the following point: individuals practically have unrestricted access to knowledge, which in turn makes it possible to create new identities. Nevertheless, we must bear in mind two issues: the several forms of access restriction in place typically referred as “digital exclusion”; the discussion about information flow in all sorts of media ought to consider an important context, which pertains to the cultural identification of the communication tool (as regards to content and form). Furthermore, Appadurai (2005) discusses the concept of habitus as defined by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. For Bourdieu (1996; 1993), habitus is a result of interiorization of trends, attitudes, values, cultural patterns, as well as social norms acquired by individuals. Thus, it covers the entire set of features which affect human behaviour- on one hand, personal beliefs of individuals and his/her inclinations, as well as a wide spectrum of behavioural patterns socially accepted in particular situations; which Appadurai (2005) concludes is devalued in the postmodern world. This is the result of abrupt transformations, due to transnational and deterritorized events commonly triggered by mass media. The new power of imagination to create forms of social life is inextricably connected with images, ideas and possibilities, which flow in from everywhere and often are transmitted by mass media. Therefore, standard cultural reproduction is currently in peril (similarly as standard English). It is successful only in those places, where it is planned, pre-determined and supported by political will (Appadurai, 2005, p. 85). This cultural reproduction introduces a new quality that allows to an individual to broaden his/her possibilities, which in turn, increases the likelihood of leading a life beyond the pre-defined strict patterns rooted in the habitus. Although Bordieu’s (1996; 1993) concept of habitus remains


partially topical, it is important to emphasize the concept of improvisation. Therefore, Appadurai (2005) remarked that in places that improvisation can be managed, it is compulsory to observe cold habitus trends, as well as habitus reinforcement against shifting life systems. Paradoxically, an explanation of the role of habitus in the contemporary world is in accordance with certain elements of symbolic violence (e.g. Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). Appadurai (2005) concludes that is a result of dynamic processes taking place in the postmodern reality (with destructive features) the form of habitus evolved and turned global. Nevertheless, it is essential to remember that habitus is changed (removed) and replaced by a dissimilar one (pertinent to a legitimate culture), which is characteristic of symbolic violence (being its ultimate objective). If we realize that an individual in fact has abundance and a variety of choices, this soft form of violence will appear clandestine and secretive. Finally, Bourdieu’s habitus can be seen as a shrewd knowledge management (locally and globally).

Debating Jeremy Rifkin Analysis The problem of knowledge management at a global level is discussed by several authors, who scrutinize the crucial issues of late 20th century and early 21st century (social, civilization, cultural, political, economic issues, among others). These authors’ tend to express their concerns with the interpretation of the present transformations, as well as prospects of global reality. Appaduraj (2005) seems reluctant to discuss the economic aspects of cultural information and content circulation in media, which in turn is recognized by Jeremy Rifkin (2003). Rifkin infers that the production of information and cultural items is the most lucrative economic sector, being cultural contents transformed into commercial activities. The old giants of the industrial era- Exxon, General Motors, USX and Sears- lose grounds in favour of new giants of cultural capitalism-

Viacom, Time Warner, Disney, Sony, Seagram, Microsoft, News Corporation, General Electric, Bertelsmann AG and PolyGram. “These superstate media companies use digital revolution for communication purposes and connect the entire world. Consequently, they engage culture to commercial activities, which transform culture into commercial experience tailored to the needs of particular clients” (Rifkin, 2003, pp. 11). Therefore, Rifkin (2003), Appadurai (2005), Mattelart (2003), as well as many other scholars (not only from cultural studies) acknowledge certain global processes and try to describe them (resorting to various terminologies), leading to pinpoint the potential consequences (which for instance in the case of Rifkin take the form of changes in consciousness).

Combining Soros, Chomsky and Huntington Ideas In his projections regarding world capitalism crisis, George Soros perceives the world as one gigantic circulation system which is composed by a centre and its peripheries, where “links between the centre and the peripheries are far from equivalent” (Soros, 1998, pp. 140). Any actions within the system can be characterized by absorption of global capital by financial markets, and centre institutions. Then, the capital is injected back to periphery countries (through investments or, activities of international corporations). Noam Chomsky & Robert McChesney (2000) mention the chief institutions, which make possible to centre countries to wield their power (G-7 Group) over the world. These include- the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The institutions constitute a new ruling class (with global power), which adopts neoliberalism as its governing ideology- “the fundamental political and economic paradigm of our times, which pertains to procedures and processes, by which a small group of people can

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control, to the extent it is possible, the social life in order to maximize their proceeds” (Chomsky & McChesney, 2000, pp. 5). Additionally, these authors plead that the United States are privileged in the core and use this standing to disseminate (to export) American values worldwide. These “American values are well visible in the trends of the future: in ICT, the Internet, in advanced computer technologies and other creations of the American entrepreneurship bulging on the market, which since Regan times has been free from political influences” (Chomsky & McChesney, 2000, pp. 53). Both realities, the advancement of new technologies and the extensive marginalization of social masses facilitate “the centre to wield power with the meagre intervention of common people, who anyway have no influence on the decisions of those in power, (the rudimentary rule of capitalist autocracy) and are oblivious of the fact” (Chomsky, 1999, pp. 104). Another example of a power tool, which is enumerated by Chomsky is the “Davos people” as defined by Samuel Huntington (2004). By Davos people the author means businessmen, bank officers, state officials, intellectuals, journalists from numerous countries, who create the world elite, which convenes every year at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss town of Davos. Almost all of them are holders of M. Sc. titles in physics, social studies, business or law. They deal in words or figures (or one and the other), speak fluent English, are employed by governments, corporations, colleges with international contacts, frequently travel the world. What they all have in common is individualism. They all believe in free economy and democracy, which are prevalent in the Western civilization. The Davos people are in charge of all international institutions, they rule many countries and are in control of a substantial part of economic and military resources (Huntington, 2004, p. 79).

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Despite the fact that Huntington (2004) does not acquiesce to the idea of cultural homogenization and the existence of a “universal civilization”, the author is also very sceptical about the role of media and information (knowledge) in culture creation. Nevertheless, it recognizes the unquestionable hegemony of the United States in mass media, and consequently in global knowledge management. Beyond this claim, Huntington concludes that mass communication tools currently are an evidence of Western power: “the American hegemony in film, television and video production is larger than in air industry. (...) Two American and two European organizations enjoy almost an equal monopoly to collect and disseminate topical information worldwide” (Huntington, 2004, pp. 81).

The Non-Forecasting of Hardt & Negri (2005) Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri (2005) forecast (to be more precise- announce) the establishment of a new global order, which they refer to as the “empire”. The authors do not associate it with the United States in spite of the country play a key role within the system. The empire enables a transformation from the modern to the postmodern world, which produces a mixture of deterritorized capital and decentralized sovereignty on the basis of a network (a new information infrastructure which is incorporated in the production of new processes and totally inherent). The power is self-governing without any headquarters and any specific location. The empire is made up from a number of processes combined with political, economic and cultural interdependencies. It seems to parasitize humanity, divide it (in a novel way) and segregate it into different social layers. Next, it seeks to maintain the state of balance (order), to allow a feasible control regarding the divided and segregated layers. The imperial control is enforced by three global absolute tools: bombs, money and


airwaves. Airwaves, as a tool of imperial control cover communication, which is clearly demonstrated by these authors: communication management, the educational system and culture control are now more than ever before prerogatives of sovereignty. However, this all is dispersed by airwaves. Contemporary communication systems are not subject to sovereign power. Quite the opposite, sovereignty is subject to communication (Hardt & Negri, 2005, p. 366). These authors still recognize the power behind communication and mass media, perceiving them as one of three elements topping the global structure. Their condition for structure endurance (existence) relies on the elements advancement: “the advancement of communication networks is somehow connected with establishment of a new world order. Another words, it is the consequence and reason, product and producer. Communication not only expresses, but also organizes globalization” (Hardt & Negri, 2005, pp. 48). The advancement and expansion of cutting-edge technologies (both computers and cell phones and evidently the Internet) led to a radical proliferation and popularization (larger mobility- for instance, telephones or portable computers) of web communication points (on the structure of which the empire is based), translating a more comprehensive deterritorization. In conclusion, despite promising democracy and equality information communication technologies have enhanced the disparities between countries.

CONTROVERSY “Cultural Imperialism”: History Repeats Itself? The idea of “cultural imperialism” can be very helpful for understanding the complexities and interdependencies around knowledge manage-

ment in a global context. It stems from the theory of unilateral acculturation, which endorses the prevalence of a dominating culture, as well as a subjugate minority, which by rule, is technologically less advanced. These sort of intercultural relations in the above-mentioned area leads to a focal interest by some researchers and publicists. Under scrutiny is the relationship with the concept of “cultural imperialism” by Herbert Schiller (1976), an American sociologist, who introduced the idea to the scientific arena. Initially, the term was adopted to define inequalities in the global information flow, as well as in order to pinpoint their negative consequences for specific cultures and economies. Or, to exhibit the relationships between rich, developed countries (United States, in particular) and then newlyestablished so called developing countries. In the light of both concepts media and entertainment are key aspects of the economy, as well as operate in accordance with competition market rules, profitability and efficiency- similarly to all other industries and products. For historical reasons, which are commonly known- Western civilization (North Atlantic civilization) has at its disposal a substantial part of all financial and technological resources- material ones in particular- which are necessary to generate all media products, including global ones, such as big movie productions. Thus, the remaining countries are the recipient for those products, because it is cheaper and more cost-effective than launching own production. Schiller (1976) proposed a model approach to debate these trends. The author connotes a biological expression of a “core” and a “circumference”, that is the periphery. If the model is applied for analysing international relations, the dominating countries are the “core” and the dominated countries are the “circumference” (periphery). Both elements create a system, the objective laws of which set the core in motion. In return, the core motion- as a centrifugal reaction- reaches the circumference. By this token, culture is circulated together with all other values formed under the

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“root” countries’ dominance. Hence, these are transported to the circumference, which is to the Third World countries. Despite the fact the Schiller’s concept dates back to the 1970’s and that it was mostly related to traditional mass media, it appears that it can also be of relevance today. It can be applicable for the purpose of analysis of knowledge management matters in the globalized world, which heavily relies on the omnipresent computer network. Today information and knowledge are commodities and systematically adopted in order to boost production and consumption worldwide. Free access to information becomes restricted due to the dynamic advancement of new technologies, the substantial costs which must be incurred to implement them and the need of acquiring new skills to use them (Rifkin, 2003). Low income and low level of education, so characteristic of the Third World countries, only reinforce the negative trend. The “Cultural imperialism on the Internet” is an interesting publication from 1998 by Seongcheol Kima, then a PhD from the Information Technology Communications Institute at the University of Michigan. It elaborates a cultural imperialist analysis with reference to the cutting-edge information technology communications. The author poses two questions: will the Internet become an additional tool for cultural imperialism; and, what can be the advantages and disadvantages of adopting the cultural imperialism premises for analysing the Internet’s influence on the society. Kim (1998) is argues that if mass communication researchers continue to disregard the Internet as an area of research, their theories will become useless. The author discusses several factors, which could potentially impede the adoption of cultural imperialism concepts for the analysis of the Internet. First of all, the difference between a recipient of traditional media and an Internet user (an Internet user is not passive- he/she actively searches for information); and second of all, there is no centralized power of control which would

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administer the Internet decentralization. Finally, in contrast to traditional media products, which are developed by TV stations or information agencies, in the Internet anyone can create information. Furthermore, Kim claims that thanks to the Internet users can participate in their cultures, despite their geographical location in a given moment. Consequently, it is feasible to stay in touch with their families and friends. Nonetheless, it is important to acknowledge why the author adopted the ideas of cultural imperialism for research the Internet. Kim (1998) infers that the core reasons are: the unchallenged dominance of English in the cyberspace, Internet’s basic infrastructure is located in the US, as well as the majority of Web navigation software is manufactured in the US or in English. Recapitulating, the author implies that the notion of cultural imperialism can be valuable to examine the irregular global flow of information.

Ethical Issues and Social Dilemmas For a prompt and meaningful discussion as regards to ethical and social challenges the author acknowledges two leading arguments: knowledge flux characteristics in cultural commodities; and, cultural imperialism. Given the previous sections it is possible to consider that globalization reinforced local inequalities despite enabling worldwide access (Cloete & Moja, 2005). As Quéau (2002) refers: the crux of globalization is to magnify the global divide! This global flux assumes ambiguous features since cyberspace promotes an innovative space-time configuration, as well as is filled with content. According to Costa & Silva (2010) content entails a collective representation and utilization of knowledge, which cultural commodities (movies, TV series, novels, etc) promulgate. This argument is reinforced throughout Nonaka’s (1994) contribution: information is a flow of messages which schemas and mental models of each “actor” influence. In addition, this influence


can be divided into three layers of actors: micro (individuals), meso (organizations) and macro (states) (Stahl, 2002). Therefore, the holistic and global perception of this manuscript will induce to shed light simply upon macro considerations. According to Crystal (2003, pp. 12) “without a strong power-base, of whatever kind, no language can make progress as an international medium of communication”; however, this blend configures economic, technological, and cultural power. Moreover, this author argues that the utilization of a lingua franca is well documented throughout history, as well as English is an “open” language (etymological roots of several English words entail influences from Latin, Anglo-Saxon, French, etc). Even so, information media technology has distorted the existence of other languages, as will endanger 50% of the world languages during this century (Harrison, 2007), namely native dialects. For that, some organizations have trying to preserve this precious cultural heritage (e.g. The Foundation for Endangered Languages), because as Crystal (2000) refers most of these languages entails an oral tradition. Despite this effort the outcomes are unpredictable, which is crucial to question cultural media dominance. As a response, local regions have attempted to assume two dissimilar responses: a proactive; and, a reactive. At a first glimpse a reactive strategy seems more adequate (e.g. Cuba), but empirical results acknowledge otherwise (Eriksen, 2006). On the other hand, as this chapter demonstrate Western civilization possess all the technological and financial resources to generate these cultural commodities. As De Laurentis (2006) demonstrates, cultural industries in knowledge economy are clearly uneven in geographically and economic terms. Still following De Laurentis (2006), regional cultural diversity could play an important role for peripheral regions reply to this cultural imperialism, leading to some key dilemmas: •

inequality: despite the effort of the UNESCO projects in funding cultural

•

content productions of indigenous people (e.g. Salazar, 2009), in order to allow selfdetermination and maintain cultural heritage, the truth is that so far these efforts have been insufficient. Another interesting project that is worthwhile to acknowledge is How Latitudes Become Forms: Art in a Global (Dietz, 2003). Dietz (2003) engaged a translocal media art culture that gathers artists from Brazil, China, Croatia, India, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, and United States. This media art culture is enabled simply by cyberspace (virtual art); intellectual property rights: cultural imperialism corrupts indigenous cultural rights, as well as defends the dominant culture (Broude, 2007). This author still claims that international intellectual property laws are an allegory given the concept of culture, despite recognizing that are required at some extent in order to support the process of cultural production. Nevertheless, the author expresses that the current legislation is contrary to the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity (UNESCO, 2005). This argument is even detailed by the work of Gruber (2008; 2006).

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS Bearing in mind the complexity for a comprehensive debate with reference to the underlying topic of this chapter, it is truly challenging to predict future outcomes, or to scrutinize any dominating tendencies. This is the aftermath of current world developments (present events which we are witnessing), since this cultural global flux is shaping non-Western cultures and societies. So far, researchers, as for instance ethnologists, observed the influence of Western culture on various local and regional cultures and its profound consequences. In order to describe these effects

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concepts like “cultural clash”, “cultural contact”, “cultural diffusion”, “acculturation”, “transculturation” have been acknowledged, although its numerous ambiguities imposes a continuous and additional discussion. Acting as an inspiring guide for this debate, is the sublime writing (literary, language and philosophical interpretations) of Chang (2007), as well as Le Choc du Numérique (Hervé Fischer, 2001) (note that I am not trying to develop paradoxical laws for the digital world similarly to Fischer!). Thus, some important remarks will be detailed: cyberspace neutrality; and, “cultural infusion”. Cyberspace is not neutral! This claim is justifiable throughout this contribution, but also if we acknowledge the contributions of Gailey (2009) or, Turilli, Vaccaro & Floridi (2008). Gailey (2009) argues that ICANN need to substantiate its actions resumes the cultural battle (imperialism), because bureaucracy or indecision concerning cyberspace will continue, as well as United States argument (duty to the rest of the world) is simple deontological. Therefore, in order to understand network neutrality is needed to address the following questions (Turilli, Vaccaro & Floridi, 2008): • • •

what is the ethical nature of cyberspace neutrality?; should cyberspace neutrality endorse when considering its ethical implications?; what ethical framework should be endorsed for regulating Internet traffic?

Therefore, it is crucial to develop regulatory models that respect market power (resources and influence), and cultural and legal issues. Besides, it should congregate representatives from all groups (United Nations, World Trade Organization, UNESCO, etc) (for a first draft proposal based on similar principles examine Costa, Silva & Pawlak, 2010). As regards to “cultural infusion” is a personal conceptualization to explore the dialogue between imperialist and remaining cultures. According to

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the Free Dictionary (2010), infusion resumes the introduction of a solution into the body through a vein for therapeutic purposes. Through a metaphorical interpretation, it is reasonable to consider: solution (Western cultural media), body (worldwide cultures), vein (cyberspace- information and communication technologies), and therapeutic purposes (imperialism). Although, contrarily to the medical perception, this cultural infusion entails an explanans and an explanadum bidirectional process, which is just starting due to mobility, connectivity and communication (Tsagarousianou, 2004). Moreover, this author claims that Benedict Anderson “imagined communities” will become a reality, which at some extent is explained by Pieterse (2009) layers of global multiculture. Therefore, Dietz (2003) raises the following questions: if cyberspace “non-space” can potentially create a diasporic community, what commons interests will be held? How do equally ideas will be translated across cultures? Does the outcome depend on how components are illustrated, or how individuals comprehend them? It is possible to achieve infusion cultures that are neither isolationist or imperialistic? What will be the response of intellectual property rights?

CONCLUSION If the notion of knowledge management is adopted worldwide as an attempt to cover all Internet information, then a vast majority of the discussed ideas will be elements of the mass culture. The theory of cultural imperialism is occasionally referred to as a critical theory (Mattelart & Mattelart, 2001; Goban-Klass, 1999), which is connected (loosely) to the perception of culture claimed by the Frankfurt school (particularly by M. Horkheimer or T. W. Adorno). These authors suspected that media uses symbolic violence and are instruments of power or dominance. On the basis of the cultural industry, their analysis demonstrated that culture is a commodity, that is, a product produced and


distributed by an industry. The dissemination of a cultural industry (its spreading on new areas and more and more effective production methods) resulted in an inevitable bankruptcy of culture. Cultural imperialism, which grew out of these theories, considers international relations in culture and communication and underscores the unequal exchange of various cultural products. Thus, this theory is yet another critical approach to mass culture, which concentrates on revealing the characteristic methods of production, as well as production objectives. “In accordance with this definition of pop culture, it is composed of works produced in a mechanical, planned, mass manner by specialized groups of people for profit-making only” (Krajewski, 2003, pp. 26). This organization of culture production (subject to market economy) is oriented towards maximum profitmaking by producers and mass manipulation, that is, towards wielding control over production and consumption.

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Graber, C. B. (2008). Substantive rights and obligations under the UNESCO convention on cultural diversity. In Schneider, H., & van den Bossche, P. (Eds.), Protection of Cultural Diversity from an International and European Perspective (pp. 141–162). Antwerp, The Netherlands: Intersentia. Grudzewski, W. M., & Hejduk, I. (2005). Zarządzanie wiedzą w organizacjach (in Polish). E-mentor. Retrieved June 13, 2009, from http://www.e-mentor.edu.pl/artykul_ v2.php?numer=8&id=115 Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2005). Empire. Boston: Harvard Business Press. Harrison, K. D. (2007). When languages die: The extinction of the world’s languages and the erosion of human knowledge. London: Oxford University Press. Horkheimer, M., & Addorno, T. W. (2002). Dialectic of enlightenment: Philosophical fragments (Cultural memory in the present). In Noerr, G. S. (Ed.), trans. E. Jephcott. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Huntington, S. P. (2004). Who are we? The challenges to America’s national identity. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc. Jowett, B. (1899). Protagoras: Dialogues of Plato. Michigan, MI: The Colonial Press. Kim, S. (1998), Cultural imperialism on the internet. The Edge: E-Journal of Intercultural Relations, 1(4). Retrieved January 10, 2009, from http://interculturalrelations.com/v1i4Fall1998/ f98kim.htm Kmita, J. (1985). Kultura i poznanie. Warszawa, Poland: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. (in Polish) Krajewski, M. (2003). Kultury kultury popularnej. Poznań, Poland: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM. (in Polish)


Lister, M. (2003). New media: A critical introduction. New York: Routledge.

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Pieterse, J. N. (2009). Global multiculture: Cultures, transnational culture, deep culture. In Baraldi, C., Borsari, A., & Carli, A. (Eds.), Hybrids, Differences, Visions: On the Study of Culture (pp. 1–14). Aurora, CO: Davies Group.

Mattelart, A. (2002). História da utopia planetária. Porto Alegre, Portugal: Sulina. (in Portuguese) Mattelart, A. (2003). Information society: An introduction. London: Sage. Mattelart, A., & Mattelart, M. (2001). Teorie komunikacji: Krótkie wprowadzenie. Krákow, Poland: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. (in Polish) Matteo, T., Vaccaro, A., & Floridi, L. (2008). Network neutrality: Ethical issues in the Internet era. In Bynum, T. (Eds.), ETHICOMP 2008: Living, Working and Learning Beyond Technology (pp. 773–774). Mantua, Italy: University of Pavia. McLuhan, M. (1962). The Gutenberg galaxy. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Mróz, A. (2005). From Gutenberg to ICT: New lingua doctus. In Collste, G. (Eds.), ETHICOMP 2005: Looking Back to the Future (CD: paper 48). Linkoping, Sweden: Linkoping University. Nonaka, I. (1994). A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organization Science, 5(1), 14–37. doi:10.1287/orsc.5.1.14 Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (1995). The knowledgecreating company. New York: Oxford University Press. Nordenstreng, K., & Varis, T. (1974). Television traffic a one-way street (UNESCO Reports and Papers on Mass Communication, 70). Paris: Les Éditions UNESCO. Nowa Encyklopedia Powszechna. (2004). Nowa Encyklopedia Powszechna T. 8. Warszawa, Poland: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. (in Polish)

Polanyi, M. (1966). The tacit dimension. London: Routledge. Quéau, P. (2002). Global governance and knowledge societies. Development, 45(4), 10–16. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1110398 Rheingold, H. (1992). The virtual reality. New York: Touchstone. Rheingold, H. (1994). Virtual community: Finding connection in a computerized world. London: Secker & Warburg Publishers. Rifkin, J. (2003). The age of access: The new culture of hypercapitalism where all of life is a paid-for experience (2nd ed.). New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putman. Salazar, J. F. (2009). Self-determination in practice: The critical making of indigenous media. Development in Practice, 19(4/5), 504–513. doi:10.1080/09614520902866397 Schiller, H. I. (1976). Communication and cultural domination. White Plains, NY: International Arts and Sciences Press. Soros, G. (1998). The crisis of global capitalism: Open society endangered. New York: Public Affairs. Stahl, B. C. (2002). Ethics and e-teaching: the students’ perspective. Communications of the IIMA, 2(3), 51–62.

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The Free Dictionary. (2010). Infusion. TheFreeDictionary.com. Retrieved November 30, 2009, from, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/infusion Tsagarousianou, R. (2004). Rethinking the concept of diaspora: Mobility, connectivity and communication in a globalised world. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 1(1), 52–65. Umesao, T. (1963). Joho sangyo ron. Chuo-kohron, 46-58 (in Japanese). UNESCO. (2005). Convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions. UNESCO. Retrieved November 25, 2009, from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ images/0014/001429/142919e.pdf

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Cultural Clash: Acknowledges the influence of Western culture on local and regional cultures, as well as its deep consequences. Nevertheless, social studies refer an array of synonymous of this concept: “cultural contact”, “cultural diffusion”, “and acculturation, among others. Cultural Commodities: Concept that recognizes the importance, as well as the similar features of culture as an economical commodity.

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Cultural Imperialism: Analysis concerning the unequal impacts of international relations and communication in cultural products distribution. Cultural Infusion: Author metaphorical analysis for explaining the unequal cultural dialogue between Western culture (centre) and worldwide remaining cultures (peripheral). Cyberspace: Informational flux between computer networks that allow an interactive experience despite the geographical location. These informational fluxes are filled with cultural content, leading to a global knowledge warehouse. Humanism: A philosophical approach that refers to human behaviour, namely personal reasoning, experiences and values. Moreover, it claims that individuals should act according to socially accepted patterns. Knowledge Management: Total of formal methods of collecting and using formal and tacit knowledge organizational participants, as an attempt of its preeminent utilization and being available throughout the organization as new knowledge, and its increasing understanding. Mass Media: Technologies that enable massive communication, and which influence individuals at various levels. Although, cyberspace has deepen these influences with unforeseen consequences.

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Chapter 5

Utilization of Resources:

An Ethical Issue — The Anti-Commons and the Aquaculture Case José António Candeias Bonito Filipe UNIDE/ISCTE-IUL, Portugal Manuel Alberto Martins Ferreira UNIDE/ISCTE-IUL, Portugal Manuel Francisco Pacheco Coelho SOCIUS/ISEG-UTL, Portugal

ABSTRACT Anti-Commons Theory is an interesting theme that is being developed in the area of property rights since the 80’s. It intends to explain why an “anti-commons” emerges and why resources may be prone to under-use. In an anti-commons situation there are too many exclusion rights that lead to the underuse of resources. In Portugal, too many people (and institutions) have been involved in the approval processes of aquaculture projects. They may be involved in reaching a decision about the approval of a project which gives rise to the under-utilization of the resources that promoters aimed to exploit. Actually, it takes so long to approve a project that the time required for its implementation may be excessively delayed. This kind of problem results typically from bureaucratic environment. An ethical problem rises with this phenomenon. Projects may not go forward and all the amounts spent in the project will be lost. Besides, a viable project simply can be gone, with all the inherent losses of value. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-873-9.ch005


Utilization of Resources

INTRODUCTION Ethics, first of all, discusses matters related to human behaviour and character. If the objective is to discuss ethical issues, human values must not be neglected. In the discussion of ethics in resources exploitation area, particularly in aquaculture field when anti-commons are considered, some questions are posed primarily on resources environment and conservation but also on the violation of the basic rights of individuals and companies. Above all it happens when they propose to create value and to contribute to the improvement of the welfare of the society as a whole. Complex and bureaucratic administrative structures and procedures make these projects unviable. This chapter has three main parts: • • •

commons and anti-commons discussion; anti-commons, ethics and aquaculture analysis; conclusions and final notes and remarks.

First, some ideas are presented on property rights, specifically on commons and anti-commons. The discussion about the concepts is not an objective of the present study. The main objective is to show how anti-commons may represent a problem when agents want to exploit resources and some impediments are posed, objecting to an efficient use of resources. So, in sections 1 and 2, commons and anti-commons conceptualization are presented and the discussion about how anticommons tragedy happens is introduced. Ethical problems derived from these different situations are discussed. In the second part (sections 3 and 4), the aquaculture sector in Portugal is approached to develop a case study in which we evaluate the possibility of using the hypothesis suggested by Buchanan & Yoon (2000) that the bureaucracy can be studied with the help of the anti-commons

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conceptualization. In this context, we approach some questions about ethics in the live resources exploitation, particularly in fisheries and aquaculture projects and raised the legal problems in the Portuguese case. An economic analysis is made to show how under-defined property rights can originate an important loss of value. These two sections comport a rich report on anti-commons tragedies and the relation with the aquaculture problem. In the third and last part (sections 5, 6 and 7), conclusions of the study are made, highlighting the results of the analysis, specially the fact of the hypothesis of Buchanan & Yoon (2000) is considerably consistent with the problems of Portuguese aquaculture. Important considerations are made about the close connection between ethics, anti-commons in the aquaculture projects and effects over organization’s structure, ethics and values. These conclusions are preceded by some solutions and recommendations that remark the importance of overcoming some impediments and barriers posed to the development of projects in the area of aquaculture. At the same time some future directions for the research are suggested. The objective of this chapter is to show first how the utilization of common resources can carry important ethical problems, but mainly to stress that the many attempts to solve tragedies in the fisheries, by creating interesting projects in aquaculture, are confronted with many obstacles and barriers in the approval process. These obstructions conduct to inefficiencies and carry out also an important ethical problem. In situations in which projects are not approved, there are resources that are invested in the project and considering bureaucracies the projects become not exploited and many financial (and other) resources of investors are lost. Besides, promoters cannot profit with the project and their contribution to replace common fisheries for private aquaculture becomes not successful.


“COMMONS” TRAGEDIES AND ETHICS Usually, commons are presented first, because commons and anti-commons may be viewed as the two faces of the same coin. According to this, follows a short introduction of the commons case. Commons have long been a central theme in natural resources economics (Scott, 1979). The second half of the 20th century demonstrated the great problems caused by under-defined property rights for commons (Alchian & Demsetz, 1973; Demsetz, 1967). This kind of situations may represent an inefficient use of the resources (Filipe, Coelho & Ferreira, 2006b) and has generated tragedies around the world (Filipe, Coelho & Ferreira, 2007). The Hardin’s metaphor “tragedy of the commons” (Hardin, 1968) is a reference to study the problem of commons in several areas, such as the overexploitation and extinction of species, the problems about human overpopulation, prices externalities, oligopoly behaviour, global warming or air pollution. The problem is that people usually have no incentives to preserve the common areas and common resources and often overuse them (Bjorndal & Conrad, 1987). A resource is prone to be overused when too many people have the privilege of using it and no one has the right to exclude others (Filipe, 2006). The lack of property rights implies that no one can exclude others to access to a given resource. The existence of many agents to use the resource, in these conditions, causes an inefficient level for the resource use and causes a special motivation for agents over-using it. The real level of utilization for the resource will take place at a higher level compared with the optimal level for the society as a whole (Neher, 1990). In a situation regarding the “Tragedy of the Commons” very important ethical problems are created. The overexploitation of resources is discarding the availability of the resources for the next generations because resources may collapse or they may get exhausted. Many examples can

be presented, studied from the historical reality of the last decades. The collapse of the fishing stocks of several species or the disintegration of many forests in the world are cases that can be showed. The conservation of natural resources is an ethical issue that is relevant to study. Besides, when some agents propose themselves not to exploit a resource because they are worried with resources preservation, if one agent considers that there is an opportunity to gain advantages to exploit the resources that another agent has left and he does it, the tragedy comes and an ethical question is posed. The agent that is concerned about the future has lost the rents for not exploiting the resource and, as a consequence, the other agent has won the short run rents for exploiting it. This problem represents very well the traditional formal issue “Dilemma of the Prisoner” that is relevant in the Game Theory analysis (Filipe, 2007; Filipe, Coelho & Ferreira, 2005). This problem is posed in the Game Theory for situations in which the two players in the game have dominant strategies, what makes that the solution of the game is a dominant strategies’ equilibrium. This equilibrium is stable and the players will not change their choices. What is a problem is that this kind of solution implies a total payoff that is under the result one that the players could have, if they had some form of cooperation between them. In these situations, the players will choose the dominant strategy (which in the case of the natural resources is always the strategy of non conservation) and they will not have incentives to use efficiently and conserve the resource. The players are compelled to switch this strategy because they are functioning in competition conditions. So, this puts the players in a situation that represents a dilemma with ethical boundaries. By one side, the fisherman really thinks that is important to have a proper management policy for the use of the resource in the long term but by the other side he is compelled to have an egoistic and myopic view of the resource use and exploit it

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too much compared with the ideal inter-temporal production level. The problem of over-fishing has long been claiming for good practices coming from international cooperation and coming from a preserving approach on the processes of decision making of resource management institutions. This may be some kind of a contribution to solve some of the multiple problems in the ethical area of commons. So, to solve the problem of maintaining the biodiversity, the preservation and related ethical issues in this area it is necessary to pose questions about how to use environment and Earth resources and how to treat other species, plant or animal. This problem raises a central question in resources economics. What should be the level of the inter-temporal discount rate, that is, the time preference rate? This discount rate allows making the evaluation of projects. In this sense, its level is a form of highlighting the relation between present and future consumption. It gives an idea about the way present generation gives importance to the resources left to the future generations and their level of welfare. This choice has also important ethical resonances. Law is the first pillar for a rational exploitation of commons resources and the support on the preservation of resources, like fishing resources. Illegal fishing has been traditionally a big problem on this matter. Therefore it covers a wide range of behaviours. Any violation of national laws or international regulations, or any failure to comply with the recommendations of international bodies, especially those of Regional Fisheries Organisations, constitutes an infringement. The fundamental problem in fisheries management is to obviate the tendency towards overexploitation of the resources under common waters in the regime of open access. Regulation methods used to curb this tendency of overfishing and overcapacity includes gear restrictions, area and seasonal closures, TACs, ITQs, limiting entry and other forms of reducing fishing effort (Coelho & Lopes, 2000; Clark, 1980). So, public enforcement of law, that

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is, the use of public agents to detect and sanction violators of legal rules, is important for fighting illegal fishing (Polinsky & Shavell, 2000). To give an idea of ethical issues that are posed in such a situation, a formal model of fisheries law enforcement is introduced to show how fishing firms behave and fisheries policies are affected by costly, imperfect enforcement of fisheries regulation (Sumaila, Alder & Keith, 2006; Sutinen & Anderson, 1985). This model combines standard Gordon/Schaefer fisheries model (Clark & Munro, 1975) with the theory of crime and punishment of Becker (1968). Let’s assume that, whatever means are applied to reduce catch rates, any catch level above the level of the permitted quota for a certain fishing, q*, is illegal. If we suppose a system of individual non-transferable quotas, the amount of the individual firm catch above its quota (qi - qi*) is illegal. If detected and convicted, a penalty fee is imposed on the firm in an amount given by f, Equation 1. Fee total amount f = f (qi − qi *), where f >0, if qi > qi*; and f = 0, otherwise; Equation 2. First derivative ∂f ≥0 ∂q and, Equation 3. Second derivative ∂2 f ≥ 0; ∀ qi > qi ∗ . ∂q 2 An individual firm’s profit before penalty is given by: Equation 4. Individual firm profit

∏

i

(qi x ) = p * qi − c i (qi x )


where p denotes the price of fish, x is the size of fish stock and c(.) is the cost function. Let’s assume that firms are price takers. In an imperfect law enforcement regime not every violator is detected and convicted. Let the probability of detection and conviction be given by θ, and, to simplify, presume that all firms face the same probability. If detected and convicted of a violation, a firm’s profit will be: Equation 5. Firm profit after a convicted violation

catch at the open access catch rate. This approach reveals the importance of empirical studies trying to estimate the factors that ensure compliance with the regulation (Sutinen & Gauvin, 1989). These studies give important basis for public authority decision about the actions to be implemented. Stigler (1970) argues that public authorities have four basic means to improve compliance:

∏

•

i

(qi x ) = f (qi − qi *)

If not: Equation 6. Firm profit after non-convicted violation

Õ

i

(qi x ).

So, expected profits are: Equation 7. Expected profits i i q ∏ (qi x ) − f (qi − qi * ) + (1 − q)∏ (qi x )  

Assuming that firms are risk neutral and maximizing expected profits, each qi is determined by the first order condition (subscripts other than i denote partial derivatives) Equation 8. Risk neutral and maximizing expected profits

∏ (q x ) ≥ q i

q

fq (qi −qi * )

•

• •

minimizing the chances that violations will go undetected; maximizing the probability that sanctions will follow the detection of violations; speeding up the process from time to detection to assignment of sanction; making the sanctions larger.

There is a dispute among experts about the best alternatives. Some scholars have argued that the probability of being detected is more important than the size or magnitude of the sanction, while others argue that making the charging time follow as closely as possible to the detection of illegal behaviour is the most important factor in enhancing compliance. Others, also, put in evidence the level of expenditure oriented to monitoring activities (Tietenberg, 2003). An ethical vision is seen as a reflex of the model. That is, the authority practices of enforcement have an ethical reason. Governments can impose measures to create fairness and trust between the players and raise the compliance of fishermen because it is the only way to assure that the sacrifices of some fishermen in the recovery of the stocks are not in vain because of the irresponsible action of others.

i

This solution has a clear economic meaning. For a given stock size (x), the firm sets its catch rate at a level in excess of its quota, where marginal profits equals the expected marginal penalty. If there were no penalty for fishing beyond legal quota, or if there were no probability of being detected and convicted (f = 0 or θ = 0) the firm would set its

ETHICS AND LIVE RESOURCES EXPLOTATION: FISHERIES AND AQUACULTURE PROJECTS, HOW “ANTI-COMMONS” HAPPEN? There are other ways to offer fish in the market without producing wild fish. An entrepreneurial

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way to profit with the imposition of lower catches is to arrange alternatives to fisheries, particularly through the development of projects of aquaculture, friends of sea live resources. In the fishing area, this allows authorities to deal with the problem of overexploitation creating alternatives to fisheries, approving projects to be implemented in aquaculture sector. The aim is to reduce the fishing activity and to create artificially conditions for sea recovering. So, aquaculture may be seen as a possible part of the solution for the problem of fisheries overexploitation. Some of the conflicts that result from ethical relationship between private agents and public agents or also some ones that result from environmental policies deal with the rights of individuals versus the rights of the state and with the rights of property owners versus those of the community. The ways of dealing with the environmental issues may vary according the organizations that intend to protect the environment and some conflicting situations may result from the way environment is faced. Often, a private agent intending to exploit a resource for self interest is contributing also with the project for the public good. This fact for itself permits to solve some ethical issues. When a private agent intends to implement an aquaculture project his interest is to make profit. Anyway, this will allow that sea live resources may be conserved. Aquaculture fish offer in the market is increased, given an existing demand. This means that aquaculture can give a strong contribution for reducing sea fisheries. This situation raises an important discussion on property rights. In the last decades, there has been an innovative approach to the issues generated by the excessive fragmentation of property rights, in order to solve this kind of problems. It has been classified as anti-commons tragedies (Filipe, Coelho & Ferreira, 2006a). Michelman (1982) presented the anti-commons as “a type of property in which everyone always has rights respecting the objects in the regime, and no one is ever privileged to use any of them except

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as particularly authorized by others”. Heller (1998) states that in an anti-commons problem there is a property regime in which numerous owners hold effective exclusion rights over a scarce resource. Therefore, the coexistence of multiple exclusion rights creates conditions for the suboptimal use of the common resource. The idea is that too many property rights lead to a sub-exploitation (a subutilization) for a given resource. Heller brought a powerful tool for the analysis of property rights, which global implications are not known yet. Property rights are under-defined in many situations (Heller, 2008). In relation to anti-commons, the undefined limits for property rights trigger several problems that are expressed by the under-use of the resources as well as by loss of value. Indeed, an anti-commons problem produces tragedies that are presented as the mirror effect when it is compared with the tragedies of the commons (Parisi, Depoorter & Schulz, 2005). In fact, a “tragedy of the anti-commons” occurs when multiple agents have the right to exclude others from the use of a scarce resource but none of them has an effective privilege for its use. When several agents take decisions about how to use a specific resource which is jointly held and exploited by all of them, and when one of them impose his/her own decision on the others, imposing his/her veto power, we face an anti-commons problem. In such a situation, all the agents must agree on the utilization given to the jointly used resource otherwise the resource may simply not be used or will be underused. We find the “Tragedy of the Anti-commons” when resources remain idle even in the economic region of positive marginal productivity. Acting under conditions of individualistic competition, exclusion rights will be exercised even when the use of the common resource by one part could yield net social benefits. One way of overcoming the inherent problems of anti-commons situations is to gather all the rights in a usable private property. However, this is often slow and complex.


Buchanan & Yoon (2000) have created a model in which commons and anti-commons are viewed as symmetrical. They used the same framework for the analysis of both theories and have suggested that this kind of conceptualization could be used to study the problems generated by bureaucracy. In a situation of anti-commons, once more there are several cases in which ethical questions may be posed. For example, each agent’s veto power makes that a resource may rest idle or sub-utilized. Often, this resource is important for one specific agent that is co-proprietary of the resource but has not the right of using it without the consent of the others. In aquaculture, an investment of a private investor in a project may collapse because several public agents, each one with a veto power, make it unviable since they delay the approval or reject it. In the case of aquaculture, valuable projects promoted by individual private companies can face the authorities’ arms and their veto power when their own interests are contradictory with those of the project or even when the will of the agencies representatives diverge from the interest of the submitted project. Sometimes, some entities that must evaluate the project are more interested in discussing some particular non relevant issues than to promote the discussion of the real interest of the project and often their position is to say no or to delay the process approval. This situation leads to the anti-commons situation in which some entities have the power to impose their position to the others and consequently the viable project approval is rejected. The multiple rights to decide about the project, some with veto power, conduct to the suboptimal use of the resource or to its non utilization and, in this sense, the tragedy of the anti-commons happens. In aquaculture private projects, considering that they can contribute to solve the problem of the “tragedy of the commons” in the world oceans with the problem of the overexploitation of fisheries resources, it is essential that practice change and projects are approved in a more rational basis.

In the same way that we were reflecting about the tragedy of the commons in the case of anticommons, regulation is also an important reflex of the implicit ethical issues. Law is fundamental to conserve and protect environment and so it is in this area of fishing resources. Rules should be precise and simple enough to be implemented and to be fulfilled. In aquaculture projects law often seems to arise too many procedures and to generate too many public agents involved in the decision process that complicate the final decision. An anti-commons problem can emerge from this complex situation. The multiple agencies and their work frequently frustrate worthwhile projects and economic growth (Filipe et al., 2008).

LOSING VALUE IN AQUACULTURE PROJECTS IN PORTUGAL DUE TO “ANTI-COMMONS” ISSUE? The General Problem As it can be seen, the anti-commons problem can be studied in Portugal for projects in aquaculture area. Many entities must give their approval for a project to be implemented. All administrative procedures may motivate a situation of delayed global authorization. There can be no doubt that many interesting projects which are profitable, fishing-friendly and viable will simply not begin to be exploited because there are just too many exclusion rights. Even though there is an agent that wants to exploit a resource with important economic, biological and social consequences, bureaucracy and administrative procedures simply make the project unviable. It can be anticipated an important loss of value. If there is a project to be launched (which requires financial resources) and the project has a delayed approval there will be no created value or even there will be a destruction of value. The agent who supports the project loses an important period of

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time to implement it and he loses money because there is an important period without producing. In many situations, projects are not implemented because the favourable and the appropriate time have simply gone. Sometimes, government agencies are so complex that decision processes are not efficient. This leads to situations in which private entrepreneurs loose resources with projects that get lost just because government agencies make them unviable. A very pertinent ethical matter is born with the fact that the State, that should protect its companies and citizens, breaks the rules making a subversive process destroying the project by wasting time and making disparate decisions. This view is consistent with the suggestion of Buchanan & Yoon (2000) that the anti-commons construction offers an analytical means of isolating a central feature of “sometimes disparate institutional structures”. That is, the bureaucracy. The persistence of bureaucratic circuits of approval and implementation of projects can difficult the entrepreneurship activities and it diminishes the potential of regional and coastal development.

•

•

the emergency of the problem of the “tragedy of the anti-commons”, in the sense that Buchanan & Yoon (2000) have designated. This reflects an excessive partition of the property rights and the existence of multiple bureaucratic circuits that create an enormous complexity and administrative slowness of processes of approval and implementation of the projects; the dimension of the environmental issues that are involved and the lack of a plan that regulates the coastal areas and that establish the territories to be used in the aquaculture sector, constitutes impediments equally significant.

The new Program for fisheries (the Fisheries Operational Program for the period 2007-2013) involves some particular risks in the aquaculture area to be highlighted (DGPA, 2007), such as: •

the experience has been demonstrating that the involved companies do not have the dimension, the economies of scale and the technical and organizational capacities to be involved in these projects; these developments involve an additional risk, larger periods of return of the investment and an additional competition in this area, particularly from the productions of the countries in the South of Europe.

The Portuguese Experience: And the Emergence of “Anti-Commons”

•

To show how we can speak about the emergence of an “anti-commons tragedy” in the aquaculture sector of Portuguese fisheries we must analyze the results of previous fisheries management plans in Portugal and the perspectives and aims of the new Portuguese Fisheries Program 2007-2013. In the last years, the impacts of investments in the aquiculture sector have been of little relevance and directed just for traditional species. Investments have not allowed significant productions. This situation is the reflex of:

The Portuguese Program for the Fisheries for 2007-2013 evidences a strong expectation from the private sector. However, the financial participation of the Fisheries European Fund is lower than the usual rates of co-participation. This problem gets a major dimension because of the “tragedy of the anti-commons”.

•

The Legal and Procedures Problem

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the insufficient dimension of economies of scale and the technical and organizational inadequacies of the project promoters;

This aquaculture problem is fitted under the control and supervision of Ministério da Agricultura, do


Desenvolvimento Rural e das Pescas (see Decreto Regulamentar nº 14/2000- September, 21st, 2000), that is the Ministry for Agriculture, Fishing and Agriculture sector. This decree specifies the requisites and conditions needed to install and exploit a plant on this area. The Decreto Regulamentar nº 9/2008 (March, 18th, 2008) defines a set of rules specifically for installations offshore. The responsible Department for Aquaculture is specifically DGPA (Direcção Geral das Pescas e Agricultura, that is General Board for Fishing and Agriculture), which is responsible for supervising and controlling the activity of aquaculture sector. The initial steps for a project approval are (Decreto Regulamentar nº 14/2000): 1. 2.

Request to DGPA; The request must have the following elements attached (Art 10º- nº 3): a. copy of ID card of the requester; b. authorization to use the aquatic domain, issued by the competent authority; c. property documents for the land; d. technical description of the productive process; e. topographic plant of the local (1:25000); f. design layout of the facilities (1:5000); g. detailed project of the infra structures, at 1:200; h. coordinates of the area referred to a central country reference point; i. plant and detail drawings of the infra structures at 1:50 or 1:100; j. sea sign project, depending on the type of installation.

The competent authority for this specific kind of activity is named Administração da Região Hidrográfica (in English, Board for the Hydrographical Region) and has a huge power, demanding an aquatic tax and controls all the activities within 500 meters from the coast line. This decree refers that (art. 12º) whenever the site is located on an area under maritime jurisdiction,

DGPA along with Capitania do Porto (Captaincy of the Port), promotes the following two actions within the next 30 days after having received the whole process: a.

b.

writes an edict (edital) with the authorization request, which must be visible for 30 days on a few legal buildings, so that third parts can claim against the request; call the survey committee.

If there are reactions against the project, it may be enough to block the project. Moreover, Art. 10º- nº 7 states that the project referred on j) of the number 3, is sent by DGPA to Capitão do Porto (Captain of the Port) of the area, with the objective of emitting a binding opinion, within 60 days, after consulting the Instituto Hidrográfico (Hydrographical Institute) and the Direcção de Faróis (Lighthouse Direction). The process is sent now by DGPA to each of the 10 entities involved in the survey that are described in the 13th article- see art 11º- nº 4. This part of the process may have already consumed 2 to 3 months. The referred entities that compose the survey committee are the following: a. b. c. d. e. f.

g.

h. i.

Capitão do Porto or another officer who may replace him; DGPA representative; IPIMAR representative; Maritime public domain representative; ICN representative (today ICNB); DRA representative (Direcção Regional do Ambiente, which means Regional Board for the Environment); Instituto Português de Arqueologia (Portuguese Institute for Archaeology) representative; Direcção Geral de Veterinária (General Board for Veterinary); Direcção Geral de Saúde (in English, General Board for Health);

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j.

Municipalities’ representatives (all involved areas).

Gathering all these representatives on a certain date is quite difficult. The committee only works with the presence of the majority of its members. There are at least 3 members of this committee whose starting point is usually against: a.

b. c.

Capitão do Porto, because he predicts more work and trouble in the future if the project is installed; Maritime public domain representative, for the same reason; ICN because they are always against everything in advance.

All the other members do not even care about the subject and their participation is not pleasant at all for them. The survey has to be scheduled within the next 30 days after the end of the edict term (art 14º). The result of the survey is considered favourable just if the whole committee members agree (art 15º). DGPA informs the requester about the result of the survey within the next 30 days. If the result is favourable under restrictions the requester has 30 days to correct the project according to these restrictions (art 16º). So, the edict is usually published 2 or 3 months after the request demand. It has to be published for 30 days before the survey is set up and the scheduled date for the survey may still take 30 days more to be set. All this may have taken more than 5 months, which clearly reveals how “disparate institutional structures” may lead to an irrational ending. This study for Portugal reinforces the idea of anti-commons. There are just few empirical studies on this conceptualization and most of them focus on the pharmaceutical industry. Our attempts are directed to the fisheries sector and natural resources management. However it is not a unique case. Buchanan & Yoon (2000) also encountered other applications of the anti-commons tragedy, which represent an important step in the

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research of the relation between this conceptualization and ethics in economics. It shows how practices affect competence management and must rely on a systematic evaluation and planning of competences of public agents. This is the form of reducing the problems derived from bureaucracy when there are too many property rights involved in the organization decision process. In the paper of Buchanan & Yoon (2000), the authors make reference to the case of Sardinia, Italy; here they were informed that a potential entrepreneur wanted to invest in a combined seaside/hunting-preserve resort. This action was inhibited by the necessity of getting permits of several regional agencies (tourist board, hotelrestaurant agency, wildlife protection agency), each one of which holds effective exclusion rights to the project. If the project was implemented it would be productive of value, but overlapping and intrusive regulatory bureaucracy introduced inefficiencies and provoke a loss of value.

The Economic Problem A significant loss of value may result with this process. This leads to a problem of value destruction because financial resources are required for the project but no value is created due to the delay on the approval. The inefficiencies introduced by overlapping and intrusive regulatory bureaucracies are widely recognized and may be studied with the help of anti-commons conceptualization. When an entrepreneur seeks to invest in an aquaculture project and the action is inhibited by the need to obtain permits from various national and regional agencies, each of which holds effective exclusion rights on the project, we encounter the mirror effect of the “tragedy of the commons”. Therefore, the Portuguese case suggests that all the authorities involved in the approval process (environmental, territorial, health, etc.) have prevented some value-reducing development but also value-enhancing development.


Economists and environmentalists usually concentrate too much attention on the commons side of natural and environmental resources and neglect the anti-commons side. This debate also raises another interesting issue. Neither the motivation of the bureaucratic authorities nor the constraints on their exclusion rights is captured by a simple one-dimensional theoretic model. Those who have the power to issue permits may not seek to maximize rents and, perhaps of greater importance, may be authorized to refuse permits only with cause. These agencies cannot or may not wish to acquire pecuniary gains. Therefore, the allowance for such non economic motivation on the part of the excluders also suggests that the potential conflict may not be primarily distributional but also reflect different objectives to facilitate welfare development. The economic view may bring the discussion of an ethical perspective as well. Sometimes, the different visions of a project from economists or environmentalists’ points of view may be different just because they have different forms and grids for analysis and not just because of self interest. There may be different kind of values and specific contextualization for their approaches. In this sense, we have also an ethical question.

SOME ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT ETHICS The ethical problems in environment issues were greatly influenced by Thomas Malthus (1798). He questioned about how many human beings could be supported by Earth ecosystems. He stressed, like some others like Robert Owen (Latham, 1987), the need of controlling human population growth. Other authors like William Godwin (1793) defended that the progress would allow improving living standards of people. In fact, environmental issues continuously involved conflicts and opposite ideas.

In the natural resources area, by the end of the 19th century some natural resources were already threatened and a strong opposition between conservation movements and economic interests has appeared. Conflicts are arisen between those who want to protect the natural environment and its species and those who think that this is not worrying or simply those who are not perturbed or sensible to environmental protection problems. These conflicts usually are centered on economic issues. Population increase and economic growth are the two most important factors that affect the demand for food fish. This permit to pose the following questions: •

•

the pressure posed to live sea resources oblige that viable solutions are developed to overpass the overexploitation of fish stocks?; aquaculture is a part of the solution? Or other ethical problems, for example, on environmental area emerge with big aquaculture projects? Particularly, aquaculture projects exploitation contributes for the environmental degradation of the aquatic environment?

A sustainable and responsible aquaculture is needed and must conduct, in other aspects, to the: • • • •

increasing of the fish stocks offer in the market; increasing of the biomass levels of species in the sea; improvement of the quality of waters in the aquaculture plants; guarantee of safe levels of medical use in the aquaculture products.

Frequently, aquaculture projects do not consider a sustainable and a responsible exploitation, what poses several ethical questions. The importance of a responsible aquaculture may

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dictate the difference between the success of sea stocks development and the collapse of the stocks of several species. The combination of increasing demand for food and other goods from the finite natural resource base need that aquaculture projects are approved with diligence and with fast authorities’ responses in order to allow an important increasing of the fish stocks in the market through this means. The efforts of fishing producers, researchers, national governments and development assistance agencies may contribute to solve emergent problems that are resulting from the development of non responsible projects. Some important ethical implications are involved when we discuss this kind of phenomena. If there is a project for aquaculture and the project has to be submitted to an approval process, a collective group (administrative entities) has to analyze it. Often many interests are involved and the project can be delayed in terms of approval and implementation or even rejected. Frequently the time of implementation has gone. Two main ethical points must be analyzed about this subject: a.

b.

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there are too many regulators, and projects must be analyzed by every one of them. Too much time to overpass all the steps and when ready for implementation it may be too late. Too many resources were spent on the project and the project simply is now unviable. An ethical question is posed. The project is viable and creates value for the investor and for the community but all the time wasted in bureaucratic analysis made the project unviable. A considerable amount was spent in the project for nothing; sometimes there are conflicting interests considering the promoters of the project (investors) and entities who are analyzing the project. These entities make things to slow down. And projects rest too long in the cabinets to be studied. Projects got unviable because a conflicting problem of interests. Again an ethical question is posed.

SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Aquaculture exploitation in Portugal, like it happens in other countries, involves many bureaucratic questions (Buchanan & Yoon, 2000) and with this, some ethical questions rise. Some important measures are needed and it is necessary to change structures and behaviours. Legislation must be recovered to avoid this kind of procedures and clean up this kind of obstruction structures and lobby organizations. A need to reduce the number of participants in the decision process seems to be clear. Due to the importance that aquaculture activity has for Portugal and owing to the confusion of entities involved in the approval process, maybe the best solution is to create a High Authority, which would be the only responsible for the approval of the processes. The other entities nominated would be strictly consultant entities of the High Authority. Besides, the binding consultant entities should be reduced to three: DGPA, Health Authorities and IPIMAR. The evaluation of these entities is fundamental in the process of approval of a project in this area. DGPA is the agency that regulates all the activities in the fisheries sector. Health Authorities must determine the health conditions for the projects and the accompanying process in this area. IPIMAR is the institution for the sea resources investigation. Other entities should create departments for fast answers in the non binding consultant process, as a way to create the best conditions for a sustainable and responsible project, as a whole. Another important ethical matter results from the fact that aquaculture production may replace the sea production of fish and so it contributes for the preservation of sea stocks. The stocks dimension often determines the evolution of biomass for the stocks of given specie. The role of aquaculture as a part of a solution for the problem of exploitation is really relevant. It is important to note that there is a specific need of regulation for the public


maritime domains, what is yet misregulated for aquaculture area in open sea. Public deciders must introduce maritime territorial physical definition of areas according to several requirements, particularly: areas for aquaculture, areas for fishing, areas for nature conservation, and so on. At the same time, authorities’ competences must be defined and bounded. The fisheries management requires the stakeholders’ expertise and experience and gives good insights for knowledge management. In general, knowledge management comprises a set of interesting practices. Portuguese Authorities can identify and work on these practices. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in individuals or embedded in organizational practice. These efforts focuses on the improvement of the organizations, which are subject of public policies and this kind of studies are very important to highlight the motivations leading the organizations to undertake a knowledge management approach. Making available increased knowledge in the development of products and services, increasing network between internal and external agents, solving complex problems as it is the case of bureaucracy, facilitating and managing innovation and organizational learning; all of these subjects are important forms of developing knowledge management.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS In this context, Chaos Theory may be involved to explain the importance of keeping the health of ecosystems (Scones, 1999). It is important to analyze the behaviour of stocks when they reach certain bounds. In these cases, small changes in ecosystems may cause the complete deterioration of stocks and the final collapse of ecosystems, which in extreme cases can lead to extinction. This is particularly important for schooling species (Clark, 1985; Clark, 1974), which are concentrated

in high density areas in small space. These are species that tend to live in large schools. This can be extremely dangerous due to poor biotic potential of the species subject to this kind of pressure (Smith, 1968). The reproductive capacity requires a minimum value below which the extinction is inevitable. Since the efficiency of the school is proportional to its size, the losses due to the effects of predation are relatively high for low levels of stocks. This implies non-feedback in the relation stock-recruitment, which causes a break in the curves of income-effort, so that an infinitesimal increase on fishing effort leads to an unstable condition that can lead to its extinction (Filipe et al., 2009). The analysis of Chaos Theory has already been developed with some interesting results in Fisheries (Filipe, Ferreira & Coelho, 2005) and it is very relevant when we want to study the effective risks of some species. Anyway, some developments are necessary to get new effective results to the study of these problems. This analysis brings the necessity of a deeper treatment of data to reveal some important trends for some Portuguese species, what highlights the importance of aquaculture programs as a contribution to preserve species in risk of severe degradation of stocks or even is risk of extinction. This analysis reinforces the importance of a fast approval process of projects in aquaculture, even as a contribution to understand the thematic of ethical discussion on this approach. An important point to discuss about this matter in Portuguese sector of fisheries is the relation between the traditional fisheries activities and the new aquaculture subsector. In this area, many things have to be researched in order to provide further practical measures. In this sense, we must discuss the trade off and complementarities between these two activities in terms of employment, competitiveness and entrepreneurship. Some important statistical developments about aquaculture are determinant in order to bring a stronger and robust analysis of the sector problems. At the same, an investigation of the relation between the

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economic side of this problematic and the biologic dynamics of the resources is required. There are a lot of issues to research in the area of the illness, growth capacity of the species, carrying capacity of the environment and the possible irreversibility that can result from the specific decisions made in an uncertain ambience.

CONCLUSION Studies about anti-commons require innovative approaches to research. In fact, anti-commons considerations may result not only from taking problems of the real world into account but also from the new methodologies used to analyze them in research. The anti-commons conceptualization seems to have an impressing capacity to be used in the analysis of the effects of bureaucracy. Empirical studies have been concentrated in the pharmaceutics industry. Our proposal of studying the aquaculture with the help of this framework suggests that the Buchanan & Yoon (2000) proposal satisfies the purposes of our study. Of course, this is just a working hypothesis but the results seem to be consistent with their suggestion. The analysis in this study is consistent with the idea that the existence of an extensive group of government agencies has a veto power that create impediments to good projects, the ones that can contribute to increase offer of fish in the market, instead to fish it in the sea banks, and contribute to maintain the health of oceanic ecosystems, preserving resources and guarantee the biodiversity for future generations. At the same time, we can highlight the specific ethical problems that the situation brings out. Consequently, we consider that our aim of investigation has been reached. Anyway, this perspective of analysis was intended to complement other points of view on the resource utilization issue. More discussion is needed about the boundaries

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of the concept to clarify its precise meaning in the broader context of property rights. Another important aspect of our research resides in the effects of the organizations and their ethics when they are confronted with the emergence of an anti-commons tragedy. This implies an important research about the values and principles of the organizations structures, rules of the game, human resources, the hierarchical relations in the organizations, the management and administrative circuits and processes.

REFERENCES Alchian, A. A., & Demsetz, H. (1973). The property rights paradigm. The Journal of Economic History, 33(1), 16–27. doi:10.1017/S0022050700076403 Becker, G. S. (1968). Crime and punishment: An economic approach. The Journal of Political Economy, 76(2), 169–217. doi:10.1086/259394 Bjorndal, T., & Conrad, J. M. (1987). The dynamics of an open access fishery. The Canadian Journal of Economics. Revue Canadienne d’Economique, 20(1), 74–85. doi:10.2307/135232 Buchanan, J. M., & Yoon, Y. J. (2000). Symmetric tragedies: Commons and anticommons. The Journal of Law & Economics, 43(1), 1–13. doi:10.1086/467445 Clark, C. W. (1974). Possible effects of schooling on the dynamics of exploited fish populations. Journal du Conseil Internatinal pour L’Exploration de la Mer, 36(1), 7–14. Clark, C. W. (1980). Towards a predictive model for the economic regulation of commercial fisheries. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 37(7), 1111–1129. doi:10.1139/f80-144 Clark, C. W. (1985). Bioeconomic modelling and fisheries management. New York: John Wiley & Sons.


Clark, C. W., & Munro, G. R. (1975). The economics of fishing and modern capital theory: A simplified approach. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2(2), 92–106. doi:10.1016/0095-0696(75)90002-9

Filipe, J. A. C. B., Coelho, M. F. P., & Ferreira, M. A. M. (2006a). A tragédia dos anti-comuns: Um novo problema na gestão da pesca? (Working Paper No. 15). Lisboa, Portugal: ISEG/UTL, Seminário do Departamento de Economia.

Coelho, M. F. P., & Lopes, R. J. (2000). The common fisheries policy and the feasibility of ITQs. In Hatcher, A., & Robinson, K. (Eds.), The Definition and Allocation of Use Rights in European Fisheries (pp. 138–156). Portsmouth, UK: CEMARE/University of Portsmouth.

Filipe, J. A. C. B., Coelho, M. F. P., & Ferreira, M. A. M. (2006b, July). The drama of the commons: An application of Cournot-Nash Model to the sardine in Portuguese waters. Paper presented at the Thirteen Annual International Conference on Advances in Management (ICAM 2006), Lisboa.

Demsetz, H. (1967). Toward a theory of property rights. The American Economic Review, 57(2), 347–359.

Filipe, J. A. C. B., Coelho, M. F. P., & Ferreira, M. A. M. (2007). O drama dos recursos comuns. À procura de soluções para os ecossistemas em perigo. Lisboa, Portugal: Sílabo.

DGPA. (2007). Programa operacional da pesca 2007-2013. Direcção Geral das Pescas e Agricultura. Retrieved August 1, 2009, from http://www. dg-pescas.pt/pls/portal/docs/folder/dgpa_content_area/noticias/destaques/po_pesca_22_5_07. pdf Filipe, J. A. C. B. (2006). O drama dos recursos comuns. Um caso de aplicação da teoria dos jogos aos comuns da pesca. Estudo da Cooperação aplicada à pesca da sardinha nas Divisões VIIIc e IXa do ICES. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, ISCTE, Lisboa, Portugal. Filipe, J. A. C. B. (2007). The drama of fishing commons: Cournot-Nash model and cooperation (Working Paper 03). Lisboa, Portugal: ISEG/DE. Filipe, J. A. C. B. (2008). Anti-commons: How tragedies happen. Some cases and the evidences on fisheries. China- USA. Business Review (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia), 7(11), 9–13. Filipe, J. A. C. B. (2009). Complexity, theory of chaos and fishing (Scientific Bi-Annual Magazine). Mainz, Germany: Wirtschaft FH Mainz, University of Applied Sciences. Filipe, J. A. C. B., Coelho, M. F. P., & Ferreira, M. A. M. (2005). Sistemas dinâmicos, caos e os comuns da pesca. Revista de Economia Global e Gestão, X(2), 45–59.

Godwin, W. (1793). Enquiry concerning political justice and its influence on morals and happiness. London: G. G. & J. Robinson. Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162(3859), 1243–1248. doi:10.1126/ science.162.3859.1243 Heller, M. A. (1998). The tragedy of the anticommons: property in the transition from Marx to markets. Harvard Law Review, 111(3), 621–688. doi:10.2307/1342203 Heller, M. A. (2008). The gridlock economy. New York: Basic Books. Latham, C. (Ed.). (1987). New harmony collection: 1814-1884. Indiana, IN: Indiana Historical Society. Malthus, T. R. (1798). An essay on the principle of population. New York: Penguin Classics. Maynard, J. S. (1968). Mathematical ideas in biology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Michelman, F. I. (1982). Ethics, economics and the law of property. In Pennock, J. R., & Chapman, J. W. (Eds.), Nomos XXIV: Ethics, Economics and the Law (pp. 3–40). New York: New York University Press.

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Neher, P. A. (1990). Natural resource economics: Conservation and exploitation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Parisi, F., Depoorter, B., & Schulz, N. (2005). Duality in Property: commons and anti-commons. International Review of Law and Economics, 25(4), 1–25. doi:10.1016/j.irle.2005.12.003 Polinsky, A. M., & Shavell, S. (2000). The economic theory of public enforcement of law. Journal of Economic Literature, (38): 45–76. Scones, I. (1999). New ecology and the social sciences: What prospects for a fruitful engagement? Annual Review of Anthropology, 28, 479–507. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.28.1.479 Scott, A. (1979). Development of economic theory on fisheries regulation. Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, 36(7), 725–741. Stigler, G. J. (1970). The optimum enforcement of laws. The Journal of Political Economy, 78(3), 526–536. doi:10.1086/259646 Sumaila, U. R., Alder, J., & Keith, H. (2006). Global scope and economics of illegal fishing. Marine Policy, 30(6), 696–703. doi:10.1016/j. marpol.2005.11.001 Sutinen, J. G., & Andersen, P. (1985). The economics of fisheries law enforcement. Land Economics, 61(4), 387–397. doi:10.2307/3146156

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Sutinen, J. G., & Gauvin, J. R. (1989). An econometric study of regulatory enforcement and compliance in the commercial inshore lobster fishery of Massachusetts. In Neher, P. A. (Ed.), Rights Based Fishing (pp. 415–428). New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Tietenberg, T. (2003). Environmental and natural resource economics (6th ed.). Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Anti-Commons: Dilemmas that seem to arise when interest groups press on for choice rights, often making their arguments in philanthropic terms that appeal to the remaining voters. Aquaculture: Rearing of fish, shellfish, and some aquatic plants to supplement the natural supply. Fish are reared in controlled conditions worldwide. Ethics Resonances: Entails the trade-off between the tragedy of the anti-commons and projects present economical value. As a consequence, in order to promote societal welfare it is required a truly institutional knowledge management. Tragedy of the Commons: Metaphor concerning coordination and payment of public goods.

Section 3

Organizational Knowledge Management Dilemmas

“Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one” Malcolm Forbes The words of Malcolm Forbes clearly resume the importance of education on the knowledge society; yet, to reflect upon the ethical challenges of a participatory culture entails novel approaches to the creative and sharing process of knowledge within ethical norms. These ethical norms will act as praxis for balancing property rights within digital environments without a dictatorial regime that denies the humanist principles of knowledge society. Despite this argument a prompt answer does not exist, because empirical analyses highlight major ethical and social dilemmas in distributed knowledge environments, leading to a proposal: connethionicism.

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Chapter 6

The Emerging Ethics of Knowledge Sharing:

Hacker Ethics, Participatory Culture Ethics and Proselytization Commons Ethics Maslin Masrom University Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia Zuraini Ismail University Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia

ABSTRACT A key challenge that is emerging for organizations in nowadays is how to encourage knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing is an activity through which knowledge is exchanged among people, a community or organization. Knowledge constitutes a valuable intangible asset for creating and sustaining competitive advantages. Knowledge sharing activities are generally supported by knowledge management systems. Nevertheless, technology comprises simply one of the several issues that influence organizational knowledge sharing, such as organizational culture, trust, and incentives. So, knowledge sharing entails a key challenge in the field of knowledge management because some individuals tend to resist sharing their knowledge with others (it may be an individual, a group, a community, or an organization). The aim of this chapter is to describe and discuss three emerging ethics of knowledge-sharing, namely: (1) hacker ethics, (2) participatory culture ethics, and (3) proselytization commons ethics. Future research directions are suggested and concluded the chapter.

INTRODUCTION Nowadays, knowledge sharing has become an important organizational activity. Many companies have come up with their own creative efforts to make knowledge sharing happen. Typically, the company will collect and categorize lessons

learned, provide yellow pages to help employees locate colleagues who might have access to the knowledge needed, as well as conduct site visits to other businesses. Dixon (2002) stated that these practices allow teams and individuals to successfully develop solutions to difficult problems, thereby reducing the costly duplication of effort while creating new and innovative solutions

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-873-9.ch006


The Emerging Ethics of Knowledge Sharing

through collaboration. Due to information and communication technology (ICT) advancement and knowledge transmission, knowledge sharing gets more and more important (Liu, 2008). In today’s knowledge era, knowledge sharing is important for success of organizations operating in turbulent and uncertain environment. Many organizations are starting to realize that knowledge shared is knowledge smartly used and leverage (Dixon, 2002). For example, Japanese industry could grow and develop in this knowledge era because of its ability in converting between personal, tacit knowledge of individuals who produce creative insight, and the shared, explicit knowledge which the organization needs to develop new products and innovations (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). However, the simple equation that knowledge sharing is good for organizations cannot be sustained. Knowledge can be augmented if it is shared, and in this respect knowledge sharing may also prove detrimental to knowledge. Perhaps the most prominent ICT tool for facilitating knowledge sharing is an Intranet. Related problems may occur when information systems, such as Intranets, distributed libraries, document management systems, or groupware applications are introduced to support knowledge sharing (Cheng, Hailin & Hongming, 2008). The common motivation to introduce these technologies is that they may empower the individual knowledge worker by providing the tools to support and boost his or her knowledge-sharing skills (Hendriks, 1999). Hendriks further pointed out that the motivation for knowledge sharing provides the appropriate focus for conceiving the difference such as personal preferences. Ethics relates to codes of conduct regarded by a community as right and good (Land, Amjad & Nolas, 2006). They are based on values and faith which is determined by rules of proper conduct laid down by higher authority, notions of morality. However, conflicts generally will arise when values clash. Unacceptable, illegal, and unethical use

of computers are concerns of information system (IS) and/or information technology (IT) professionals because of the potential harm to society and to the integrity of the IS/IT profession (Leonard & Cronan, 2005). Sharing requires knowledge. We are not sharing if we did not ask for permission or the other party does not accede to our request. Take for example, when library staff takes records without the knowledge or permission of the other library, they are not sharing. They are basically stealing the intellectual property of the other library. Generally, gathering knowledge is easy, but sharing it is difficult. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to describe and discuss three emerging ethics of knowledge-sharing, namely: (1) hacker ethics, (2) participatory culture ethics, and (3) proselytization commons ethics. This chapter is best classified as a discussion paper rather than as a research paper. In this chapter, we would like to discuss the need to share knowledge, how to ethically manage knowledge, as well as how to foster and sustain healthy activities of knowledge sharing. The chapter is divided into four sections. First we provide an overview of the knowledge management, knowledge sharing and ethics. Then, we describe how hacker’s participatory culture and, proselytization view of knowledge sharing regarding ethics. Finally, we give some future research directions and end the chapter with a conclusion.

OVERVIEW OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT, KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND ETHICS The biggest challenge in fostering a virtual or even the non-virtual community is the supply of knowledge, namely the willingness to share knowledge with other members. Technology, having made rapid and extensive advances particularly in the area of communication, has opened opportunities for the gathering of information and providing a means through which knowledge can be shared

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(Hock, 1999). It is obvious that with information and knowledge have an important bearing on where they are going in the future. With technologies as enablers, it facilitates the link functional areas providing effective conduit for information and the sharing of knowledge. Hence, it would be worthwhile to first distinguish knowledge management, knowledge sharing and ethics.

2.

3.

Knowledge Management Knowledge management refers to how organizations create, use, share, and protect knowledge (Liu, 2008). Gurteen (1999) defined knowledge management as a business philosophy, and it is an emerging set of principles, processes, organizational structures, and technology applications that help people share and leverage their knowledge to meet their business objectives. Knowledge management is fundamentally about sharing knowledge and putting that knowledge to use. Generally, knowledge is kept in people’s minds but not shared in an organization (Fong, 2006). More recent, some accounts (Martin, 2006; Bellinger, Castro & Mills, 2004; Waltz, 2003) have been produced in order to highlight diverse features of the discrete wisdom, knowledge, information, data and measurement. From the blend of largely widespread aspects explained throughout literature (Ullman,2004; Defense Acquisition University, 2003; Vandergriff, 2001), it is possible to promulgate a pyramid with wisdom at the apex and measurement as the base, implies that to achieve each level something is added and the volume is reduced. Thus, each level reflects intellectual capital with different processing and application levels. As a result, the Wisdom, Knowledge, Information, Data, and Measurement (WKIDM) layers are (Vandergriff, 2008, pp. 433-434): 1.

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measurement- is defined as physical readings of phenomena from scientific instruments

4.

5.

(for example, photons), or event/object observations by individuals or groups; data- are the symbols, numbers, textual clauses, and other descriptive phrases or displays of measurements (for example, evidence); information- is built from the organization of data sets through quantitative and/or qualitative analysis that relate data sets, and can range from mathematic equations, paragraphs, graphical illustrations, or images; knowledge is created by applying experience to available measurements, data, and information; wisdom results from the application of cognitive capability and judgment.

Despite earlier management principles addressed organizational knowledge, Fong & Chu (2006) detected that only during the 20th century, individuals’ become aware of this importance and significance for an forceful organizational growth as a consequence of today’s market characteristics (competition and uncertainty). Nowadays, knowledge creation and appliance is vital to the endurance of businesses. Potential motives for this scenario, among others are (Gurteen, 1999): 1.

2.

3.

4.

intangible products including ideas, processes, and information that are taking a growing share of global trade from the traditional, tangible goods of the manufacturing economy; increasingly the only sustainable competitive advantage is continuous innovation. In other words, the application of new knowledge; increasing turnover of staff. People do not take a job for life any more. When someone leaves an organization their knowledge walks out of the door with them; our problem as an organization is that we do not know what we know. Large global or even small geographically dispersed organizations do not know what they know.


Expertise learnt and applied in one part of the organization is not leveraged in another; accelerating change including technology, business and social. As things change so does our knowledge base erode whereby in some businesses, as much of 50% of what you knew five years ago is probably obsolete today?

Gathering Internal Experience

Hence, from the various views of knowledge management, in a nutshell it is obviously a significant resource in order to support creation, transfer and the application of the knowledge. Next we proceed in defining knowledge sharing.

The process of gathering experience needs to be one based on sharing and exchange. This requires awareness inside the organization of what it does and the impact of what it does, namely a clear role for monitoring, review and evaluation. There are particular paper mechanisms which can be used for this which may include: (a) evaluation studies, (b) annual reports, (c) documentary information systems, (d) policy documents strategic plans, and (e) research reports. Other non-paper mechanisms include meetings, workshops, debriefing and other forms of informal contact.

Knowledge Sharing

Accessing External Learning

Knowledge sharing can be seen as continuously emerging patterns of interactions between individuals. It particularly focuses on the nature of human organizations and how that nature affects the emergence of organizational knowledge. In today’s business environment, competitive advantage increasingly requires the open sharing of knowledge by organizational members (Chow, Deng & Ho, 2000). Ives, Torrey & Gordon (2000) defined knowledge sharing as a critical human behaviour that organizations need to carefully cultivate and harvest. Examples of eight dimensions of knowledge sharing are as follows (The International Labour Organization, 2007).

There are two major sources of organizational learning: (a) what the organization does, and (b) what others do. It is not enough to be clear about what the organization itself is achieving, it must actively seek out learning from elsewhere. This requires a genuine openness and willingness to share its own learning (which means being willing to share the learning from failure as well as success). Organizations may learn a lot from looking at “best practice” in a wide range of organizations in the corporate, public, and even the multilateral and bilateral agency sectors, as well as the Non Government Organization (NGO) world.

5.

Creating a Supportive Culture If knowledge sharing is to be a genuinely organization-wide endeavour, it must become part of the organization’s culture, namely the set of basic values, ideologies and assumptions which guide and fashion the norms of desirable individual and group behaviour of its members. This requires both a positive attitude to learning, a commitment by everyone to contribute to the process and a willingness to legitimize learning by providing adequate resources.

Communication Systems Learning is processed through communication, so in communication systems are crucial to promote its circulation. As a result, communication system design must balance efficiency and performance in order to guarantee information stability. In this continuum process organizational documents, training can be considered as heavy communication; and, informal conversations through social networks, e-mail platforms may be considered light communication (if no streaming video or documents are being shared). At this point another

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important remark must be referred: is being witnessed in organizations that light communication is enhancing its weight, as well as its importance given its intrinsic features.

this strengthens the process of integration and builds commitment for implementation.

Mechanisms for Drawing Conclusions

The ultimate test of learning is the ability to apply what has been learned. Only when learning is applied in the work setting can it be said that a continuous learning cycle has been created. The notion of a dynamic knowledge sharing creates competitive advantage needs that extend beyond any boundaries. Indeed, in creating and recombining knowledge leads to the diversity of knowledge that resides within any network.

To learn implies to portray conclusions and recognize the learning outcomes, which is clearly different of a simple information exchange. In order to draw conclusions, an individual needs to reflect upon the information in order to produce knowledge, and its appliance entails wisdom. Nonetheless, it is important to refer that those decisions are collective responsible (organizational level), and therefore experience engages a crucial part.

Developing an Organizational Memory It is a distinctive feature of organizational learning to remember or memorize. Moreover, it is feasible to argue that if an organization cannot learn will undoubtedly forget. If learning is an innate process to individuals, organizations become defenceless when these tend to leave or to not recall. Thus, a learning organization needs to create mechanisms that enable downloading individual’s memory to an information system, in order to everybody obtain access to that person’s experience. This attitude will allow an analysis of those experiences if the individual abandon the organization.

Integrating Learning into Strategy and Policy One way of building lessons learned into the fabric of an organization is to develop policy and procedures which reflect organizational learning. This provides the organization with a framework for decision-making and resource allocation which is grounded in the organization’s own experience and that of other agencies. If policy-development is seen as a participative learning process in itself,

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Applying the Learning

Ethics According to Schlick (2008), ethics is a system of knowledge and nothing else to which its goal is the truth. The ethical questions are bounded to morality, values, standards and norms. Those concerned with protecting the knowledge sharing generally focus on the seriousness of Falsification, Fabrication, and Plagiarism (FFP). Violations of FFP are obvious threats to work and environmental trust; however, “normal misbehaviours” are components of ordinary life that promote an understanding how individuals, communities and organizations generate compliance and deviance from ethical norms (De Vries, Anderson & Martinson, 2006). To date, the heavy usage of information communication technology (ICT) in society is creating a rather unique set of ethical issues that requires the making of new moral choices on the part of society and has yielded special implications for its members (Mason, 1995). Due to the innovative development in science and philosophy, in the mid 1940s, “computer ethics” or “information ethics”, a new branch of ethics had been created. All ethical questions arise initially out of human agency. The mission statement of computer ethics involves restricting the presence of selfishness or egoism of human nature and enabling harmonious human life in the ICT domain (Siponen, 1997).


Technology itself is not the only, nor necessarily the most responsible, cause of these issues. Potential ICT related harm maybe general categories as personal (privacy and integrity), or network (bandwidth and its availability). The hire of power-enhancing capabilities makes technology an inducer of sorts, a necessary but not sufficient underpinning to many of the ethical issues we face today. Recently, there has been an increased interest in ethical standards for computer users. Many studies have questioned whether today’s ICT user is a responsible and an ethical user (Masrom & Ismail, 2008; Baase, 2008; Gan & Koh, 2006; Turner & Roberts, 2001). Boomelaer & Shears (2007) pointed out that the Internet society has been guided by a primary principle that stresses the inclusive dimension of all its activities: “the Internet is for everyone”. This is no trivial matter, and remains as powerful a statement today as it was when the Internet Society was created: “for everyone” commits the Internet society to a set of key drivers or core values that are principle driven and rights based. In preparing the young generation towards the use of IT in gaining knowledge, Malaysia’s Ministry of Education embedded ICT to its secondary school curriculum commencing since 2006. Although ICT is an elective subject, issues on knowledge and ethics are addressed in tandem. The aims of the ICT curriculum at the school level are to provide students with knowledge and skills in ICT, to enable them to solve problems and make informed decisions in everyday life based on positive attitudes and noble values, and to develop concerned, dynamic and progressive individuals with an ICT culture that values knowledge and ethics towards the technological advancement of the nation (Samah, 2005). Computers and internet are powerful instruments that allow students to reach around the world and it is educator’s responsibility to teach them how to use it responsibly and inculcate a culture of ethics. Schools and universities have been so absorbed in their efforts to bring technology into

classrooms, but the issue of values and ethics as far as the general guide in e-learning usage has been neglected (Posiah & Kamaruzaman, 2008). Some frequently cited studies have reported that between 40 to 70 percent of all college students have reported cheating sometime during their academic career. Researchers identified factors that unethical academic influence includes competition and pressures for good grades, instructional situations that are perceived as unfair or excessively demanding, lack of knowledge and attitude on the part of the faculty towards academic ethics, peer pressure to support or to share with a friend, and a diminishing sense of academic integrity and ethical values among students (Bramucci, 2003). The statements to acquire knowledge and teach students to understand that the electronic community requires people to behave responsibly and use the resources beneficially have somewhat change the basic principle of ethical characteristics. Code of ethics had been applied in many professional bodies, among others, those in the medical field, lawyers, engineers, journalists. In general, a code of ethics is a set of rules and rights that to be inviolable, and self-evident. It perhaps seems odd that self-evident rights need to be declared at all, except that it gives us a yardstick, a modern form by which we can see how well we are doing in protecting those rights, and how our technology and our culture is doing to live up to the expectations and ideals of our individual lives and society. When organizations introduce knowledge management and wish employees to share knowledge, conflicts may arise owing to individual differences in self-interest and ethical considerations. If knowledge is controlled by individuals, then sharing knowledge with others is assumed to be an ethical behaviour. Wang (2004) questions whether employees are glad to share knowledge with others from self-interest concern. His study showed a significant positive relationship between ethical concerns and knowledge sharing intentions.

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It also found that specifically, individuals who see sharing knowledge with colleagues as required by workplace ethics will share knowledge. In another study, Long & Driscoll (2008) discussion based on codes of ethics as institutionalized organizational structures that extend some form of legitimacy to organizations. They analyzed a sample of codes to consider the question of whether a strategic, self-interested rationale lies behind the adoption of a code of ethics. They proposed that the process of employing codes of ethics in this strategic manner has become, through isomorphism, an institutionalized practice that itself confers a cognitive form of legitimacy to the organization and further distances the codes from their moral foundation. Organizations can indeed use a variety of legitimating mechanisms to increase their reputation as ethical enterprises. As knowledge is information combined with experience, context, interpretation and reflection, with ethical management of knowledge, knowledge sharing will instigate a more ethical society. Also, with the guideline known as code of ethics, a specific set of professional behaviours and values the professional interpreter must know and must abide by, including confidentiality, accuracy, privacy, integrity then knowledge sharing can happen in a more agreeable manner. The following section describes and discusses three emerging ethics of knowledge-sharing, namely: (1) hacker ethics, (2) participatory culture ethics, and (3) proselytization commons ethics.

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HACKER ETHICS

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• •

Hacker ethics involves the values and philosophy that act like praxis within the hacker community (Wikipedia, 2009). The roots of hacker ethics as a cultural movement or philosophy can be traced to the 50s and 60s, namely within the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Historically, the expression “hacker ethics” was firstly coined by the journalist Steven Levy in 1984, in his masterwork, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Hacker ethics principles easily demonstrate how computers have developed, as well as their impact in our daily lives. Then, its key aims are: access, free information, and life quality improvement. Levy (1984) detailed these principles and beliefs, which are clarified below: •

Hacker ethics is a new relation to knowledge. The term “hacker” originally meant anyone who loved computing. The term carried different meanings through four generations (Muktar, 2002): •

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1st generation (1960s)- used the term for a creative programmer;

2nd generation (1970s)- used the term for computer evolutionaries; 3rd generation (1980s)- used the term for games and copyright breakers; 4th generation (1990 to date)- used the term for criminal and cyber criminal.

•

hands on imperative- in order to promote a reliable knowledge every technology should be totally available, allowing a practical approach. This hypothesis of Levy reflects his personal belief with reference to hackers’ abilities: to learn, to repair, and to develop pre-existing ideas and systems. So, the cumulated knowledge from this experience would make possible to create and reinvent technology; information wants to be free- the existing information should be free, and for that it is required to have access to it. As a consequence, hackers would have the ability to fix, improve and reinvent systems, because a constant and unlimited informational flux enhances creativity. To a hacker, every system could benefit from this assumption; mistrust authority- in order to obtain a continuous and free flow of information an


•

•

•

open system is required. This is consistent with hackers “hands on imperative” (practical knowledge), as well as the statement that bureaucracy impose flaws; no bogus criteria- hackers should be judged by their actions despite degrees, age, race, or position. Hacker ethics assumes a meritocratic system in order to promote esteem about skills, and the remaining criteria are considered irrelevant within the community. In fact, skill is a decisive condition for acceptance; you can create truth and beauty on a computer- programming minimization is considered a game between early hackers. This aims to create codes that perform complicated tasks with few instructions; computers can change your life for the better- the hacker community truly believes that information systems deepen their lives through a constant discovery adventure. On the other hand, that society should enjoy this fruitful experience in order to spread hackers’ ethics. The process of transforming dreams into reality was achieved: hackers have demonstrated the unlimited boundaries that computer technology engages.

Still following Levy (1984), sharing is the basic and expectable rule within the informal hacker culture. This principle stemmed from the existing organizational environment of the MIT and its resources, because in “computer infancy” MIT hackers produced and shared programs. If a hack was considered good quality, it should be posted into the computers room board. This condition would enable free and immediately utilization by other members of the community, which attempted to do “bumming” (process of making source code more concise for an equal outcome). However, the second generation promulgate sharing with the general public beyond the community. A particular and idealistic organi-

zation was the Community Memory, which made available a computer outside Leopold’s Records in Berkeley, California. Another sharing experience was provided by Bob Altrecht to the People’s Computer Company (PCC) (Levy, 1984). This non-profit organization opened a computer center, being the cost of utilization per hour fifty cents. Moreover, this generation claimed free and open software and Bill Gates’ version of BASIC was heavily shared, leading to considerable economic costs. As a response, Gates wrote an open letter to several hobbyists. The moral principles of hackers are not that dissimilar of those that believe it is wrong (Denning, 2002). The claim for this argument relies on that hackers do not break into systems for producing harmful results, because for them damage implies critical operational systems, or even destroy data. Therefore, systems files modifications in order to gain privileged access entail regular behavioural patterns, as well downloads or resources utilization without paying; instead, their counter argument is that those resources would remain unused. Despite justifying their actions as a quest to promote learning, as well that free information benefits society (systems under scrutiny promote their development); the truth is that society does not accepted as legitimate. Although, hackers retort that is managers’ responsibility to prevent security breaches. On the other hand, some groups acknowledge these behaviours are a consequence of hackers’ innate skills and extra free-time, so punishment or sanctions are perceived in a positive way. In summary, although hackers violate laws and professional codes of ethics in the domain of computing, they essentially are computer enthusiasts who were accused of being perpetrators of the IT crimes. The moral principles of hackers differ is in their interpretation of what constitutes “hurt” and “damage,” and thus in their particular ethical standards of behaviour in promote knowledge sharing rationalize that the files remain on the system and the resources would otherwise go

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unused. Hackers are of the opinion that hacking is done for the purpose of learning, in search of system vulnerabilities, typically for the excitement of challenges, thrill, and social fun.

PARTICIPATORY CULTURE ETHICS A participatory culture is a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices (Jenkins et al., 2006). A customary knowledge management has always to create the infrastructure for knowledge sharing in the organization but its limits are the limits of understanding of the firm. Knowledge management assumption is that every employee or staff was prepared to share what they know. In the meantime, these members truly believe in the importance of their contributions, as well as at some extent are socially bounded (others personal perception of their achievements is a core concern). Forms of participatory culture include (Jenkins et al., 2006): •

• •

•

affiliations: entails official and unofficial membership through virtual communities centered around a variety of media forms; expressions: the production of novel and artistic forms; collaborative problem-solving: team work, whatever its nature or structure, enables knowledge creation; circulations: it is decisive to determine how media flows.

Participatory culture reallocates literacy hub as regards to individuality within a certain community. Therefore, “the new literacies almost all involve social skills developed through collabo-

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ration and networking” (Jenkins et al., 2006, pp. 4) (i.e. the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information). Participatory culture ethics is related with the involvement in information and knowledge. Technology may support a knowledge-sharing environment, but getting users to participate in effective ways is a key of success. According to Delaforce (2009), the “participatory culture” has been defined as “a new way of life that lets people create and circulate self-made content such as images, video, audio, and text”. The culture has been taking shape in the form of social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, Wikipedia, and Friendster which have stimulated large number of participation and collaboration. Social networks have been scrutinizing organizational interactions which characterize executives’ informal connections, as well as the relationships between individual workers in dissimilar organizations. For example, an organizational power flux entail until what extent an individual enables or connects potential relationships than is real job title engages. Besides, social networks have become an instrument regarding organizational human resources policies, because those provide an instantaneous impact in gathering information about competitors, or setting up price policies. Delaforce (2009) asserts that collaboration can overcome reluctance to participate by identifying who is contributing; measure what that means to the organization, its partners and customers, and reward it like any other contribution. In this context, the participatory culture embraces communication, coordination, community and social interaction. In establishing knowledge sharing through technology, among others, Mindjet, whose interactive knowledge sharing software is used by over one million people, believes that the shared community is the future for work. Mindjet permits groups to cooperate throughout the latest applications and web services (Mindjet, 2010). Similarly, ANOVA is not a tool that creates just


another answers website; it also helps to create an entire knowledge-sharing community. ANOVA allows the creation of a forum where people from worldwide can easily submit and share information in order to promulgate a revolution. Hence, this software promotes knowledge novelty through video and audio replies, interactive forums where users can come together to discuss and debate answers and keep up to date with all information on the site through the Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed option (ANOVA, 2010).

PROSELYTIZATION COMMONS ETHIC Proselytization commons ethic includes promoting information and knowledge. It was associated with religious conversion. Proselytization can be defined as any activity or process in which a person is trying to convert another person or group of people from not believing and acting in accordance with a certain set of religious beliefs, to accepting them and acting accordingly (Thiessen, 2000). In general, proselytization is the practice of attempting to convert people to another opinion, usually another set of beliefs or religion. Religious beliefs are very important part of people lives. The people values and morals actually derived from their religious beliefs. Therefore, it is not surprising that some people want to “share” their religious beliefs with others (Cline, 2009). Below are the ten commandments of proselytizing that are listed by Thiessen (2000): 1.

2. 3.

Proselytizing must always be done in such a way as to protect the dignity and worth of the person or persons being proselytized; Proselytizing must therefore always be part of a concern for the whole person or persons; The more personal the form of proselytizing, the more it must be preceded by personal investment in the person or persons being

proselytized. The proselytizer must earn the right to engage in personal proselytizing; 4. When proselytizing, there should be sensitivity to the pain involved in the crisis of conversion; 5. Tolerance (properly defined) must accompany all attempts at proselytizing; 6. Proselytizers affirming the right to proselytize must at the same time affirm and uphold the right of others to do the same; 7. Proselytizing must always be done in such a way as to protect the ability of the person or persons being appealed to, to make a genuinely free choice. Coercion and psychological manipulation are wrong; 8. Proselytizing must enhance the making of informed choices. It must therefore always include an appeal to the mind; 9. The proselytizer must be scrupulously honest in portraying not only the benefits but also the costs of being converted; 10. An attitude of humility should characterize all attempts at proselytizing. The presence of proselytization in open society cannot be avoided. There will be some people trying to convince other people to agree with some ideas. The proselytization can occur in the workplace, and it includes religion, political and social issues (Håkansson & Deer, 2006; Deer & Håkansson, 2005). Nevertheless, proselytization at the workplace will create uncomfortable environment because good social connection can be distracted once people attempt to defend their beliefs and ideas from attack by others. Hence, interfere with people productivity. In the proselytization context, sharing and explaining our beliefs to others is a good thing because it is in the nature of a human being to proselytize. John Stuart Mill also defended proselytizing on the basis of its benefits to society as a whole, namely, proselytizing stimulates thought and discussion, without which individuals and society are in danger

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of falling into the “the deep slumber of decided opinion” (Raeder, 2002).

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS At this point, it is reasonable to claim that complexity and multidimensionality are the characteristics of an unpredictable future. Nevertheless, is the authors’ belief that to frame future research directions about hackers, participatory ethics and proselytizing, a metaphorical analysis will be crucial. Dance resumes an art form that encompasses social and spiritual interaction through body movement, as well as entails a message through informal communication depending on the style (Daly, 2002). Moreover, it incorporates several biases (social, cultural, aesthetic and even moral) given its personal and collective participatory characteristics (Dils & Albright, 2001), leading to a continuously development. Therefore, the relationship between hackers, participatory culture and proselytizing commons encompasses rhythm, informal communication, and biases. Despite these assumptions and its importance in knowledge sharing literature has been neglecting this discussion, because only Koulikov (2008) attempted to explain the dialogue between hacker ethics, participatory culture ethics, and proselytization commons ethics. Likewise this criticism is extensible to a two dimensional analysis (participatory culture and proselytization), since mainstream focus merely discusses effects on education (McCrickard & Chewar, 2004), religion (Pelkmans, 2009; Malhotra, 2000), cultural imperialism (Berg, Evans & Fuller, 2007), or personal and organizational reflexitivity (Sultana, 2007). Thus, is the authors’ intention to portray some ethical and social issues that require an urgent response as regards to knowledge sharing by topic. Warren (2008) argues that “hacker taggers”, a novel subgroup, does not promote ethical hack-

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ing. This author claims that “ethical hacking” resumes the compliance with Levy’s (1984) ethical guidelines, which this subgroup disregards due to a fundamentalist perception of hacking (pure competition). This scenario poses the following question: does not humanism produce transformative creation (Losh, 2010)? Will not this proselytization diminish creativity and consequently knowledge sharing? On the other hand, knowledge society promotes an individual and collective participation (Thomas, 2010), which engaged a world of creativity (commons) and afterwards proselytization commons due to end-to-end principles (Lessig, 2002). Despite this claim, de Laat (2008) questions if knowledge commons-based will not resume an equal dilemma concerning profitability, which acts like praxis for a crucial answer: will be that profit ethical? Or, it will be again a fallacy with reference to profits and social responsibility (e.g. Solomon, 1992)? Besides, community expertise is based on two competing dynamics (David, 2007, pp. 181-182): (1) the legitimation of “aggregate” opinion, as opinions tend toward an equilibrium, even on controversial issues; and (2) the openness of the community to dissenting opinions, with the potential to change the aggregate consensus. In successful online communities, these dynamics produce confidence in the knowledge-making process, rather than confidence in any particular instance of expert opinion. The system is legitimate to the degree that it represents a properly constituted authority in the eyes of the community of users. Although, what mechanisms ensure knowledge transfer, as well as the individual benefits within the community? Will individuals value these benefits equally? Until what extent knowledge sharing is affected if trust is disrupted? All these questions are still enhanced due to organizational memory issues (for learning is essential to remem-


ber), since historical records containing all the social debates, revisions, etc. are hypothetically accessible (David, 2007). In addition, a societal participatory culture promotes further dilemmas as Wikipedia demonstrates: (1) authenticity (who produces content); (2) accountability (whose is responsible in case of rubbish knowledge); (3) liability/credibility (which criteria allow to evaluate credibility, and who is responsible for that choice); identity/privacy (tracking content producers may impose serious issues). At last, it is compulsory to bearing in mind that proselytization commons ethics affects knowledge sharing. If knowledge embodies a social interaction, then implies a process of proselytization! Hence, a debate about the characteristics of a sensitive proselytizer is vital, and for that the authors acknowledge Cline (2005) argument: (1) ought to comprehend the significance of its role; (2) should avoid stylized conduct, as well as promote potential conversion; (3) be willing to adapt and acknowledge that proselytization is a bidirectional process; (4) understand informational needs of others; (5) understands linguistic possibilities regarding communication; (6) provide an inclusive world perception for the community; (7) must be aware that knowledge transfer (learning process) resumes individuality. Therefore, it is possible to relate Cline’s (2005) work with the ethical issues and social dilemmas of knowledge creators (Costa & Silva, 2010). To wrap up, a possible contribution for understanding these ethical and social dilemmas regarding such transversal topic, the authors acknowledge the conceptual framework for computer ethics of Patrignani (2008). This model encompasses six vertical layers (planet, biosphere, people, infosphere, cyberspace and ideas), as well as twelve horizontal layers (e-democracy, accessibility/universal access/digital divide, workplace, content/education, copyrights, hackers, privacy,

computer crimes, computers (un)reliability, artificial intelligence, war and ecology/recycling).

CONCLUSION This chapter examines the various emerging ethics of knowledge sharing, and each ethics portrays a different focus. Hackers demonstrate ethics through the use of computers, encompassing that information needs to be free for hackers to fix, improve, and reinvent systems. Therefore, the notion of intrusion to any system is assumed permissible, unlike participatory culture ethics belief in expressing literarily through community collaboration and networking, sharing self-made content example images. In this case interactions within the collaborators are mutual. However, proselytization commons deals with the attempt to convert the other party have set of belief in religion, political or social issues. People values and morals are rooted from religion and social issues, thus knowledge sharing can be educating yet may cross the line if one overproselytized. Instigating political stands can also be damaging if not handled properly in trying to proselytize the party concern. Each of the mentioned ethics has different focus and motives in sharing knowledge. Thus each requires different approach, methodology and treatment in conducting further research pertaining to the nature of the context. To sum, due to globalization of economy, rapid growth in information technology, increase in knowledge based work and competition pressure the concept of knowledge management has gained momentum despite the dilemmas it holds in knowledge sharing. Regardless whether knowledge management means different things to different people, the biggest challenges is how to change mindset of people in line with common ethical norms in believing that “knowledge sharing is power”.

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Håkansson, A.-K., & Deer, K. (2006). Promoting the building of a people-centred, developmentoriented and inclusive information society, with a view to enhancing digital opportunities for all people. Indigenous ICT taskforce: The Panel of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development. Retrieved December 5, 2009, from, http://www.unctad.org/sections/ dite_dir/docs/dite_pcbb_stdev0033_en.pdf Hendriks, P. (1999). Why share knowledge? The influence of ICT on the motivation for knowledge sharing. Knowledge and Process Management, 6(2), 91–100. doi:10.1002/(SICI)10991441(199906)6:23.0.CO;2-M Hock, D. W. (1999). Birth of the chaordic age. San Francisco, CA: Berret-Koehler Publisher. Ives, W., Torrey, B., & Gordon, C. (2000). Knowledge sharing is a human behaviour. In Morrey, D., Maybury, M., & Thuraisingham, B. (Eds.), Knowledge Management: Classic and Contemporary Works (pp. 99–12). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jenkins, H. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. Chicago: The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Koulikov, M. (2008). Emerging problems in knowledge-sharing and the three new ethics of knowledge transfer (Selected works). New York: New York Law Institute. Land, F., Amjad, U., & Nolas, S.-M. (2006). The ethics of knowledge management. International Journal of Knowledge Management, 3(1), 1–9. Leonard, L. N. K., & Cronan, T. P. (2005). Attitude toward ethical behaviour in computer use: A shifting model. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 105(9), 1150–1171. doi:10.1108/02635570510633239

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Lessig, L. (2002). The future of ideas: The fate of the commons in a connected world. New York: Vintage Books. Levy, S. (1984). Hackers: Heroes of the computer revolution. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/ Doubleday. Liu, C. C. (2008). The relationship between Machiavellianism and knowledge sharing willingness. Journal of Business and Psychology, 22(3), 233–240. doi:10.1007/s10869-008-9065-1 Long, B. S., & Driscoll, C. (2008). Codes of ethics and the pursuit of organizational legitimacy: Theoretical and empirical contributions. Journal of Business Ethics, 77(2), 173–189. doi:10.1007/ s10551-006-9307-y Losh, L. (2010). Will “hacking the academy” be understood as “backing the academy”? Virtual Politik. Retrieved March 20, 2010, from, http:// virtualpolitik.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html Malhotra, R. (2000, October). The ethics of proselytizing. Paper presented at the Conference on Human Rights and Religion, Ithaca, NY. Martin, J. N. (2006, July). Using the knowledge pyramid to characterize systems. Paper presented at the INCOSE Symposium, Orlando, Florida. Mason, R. O. (1995). Applying ethics to information technology issues. Communications of the ACM, 38(12), 55–57. doi:10.1145/219663.219681 Masrom, M., & Ismail, Z. (2008). Computer security and computer ethics awareness: A component of management information system. In H. B. Zaman et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of International Symposium on Information Technology 2008, Volume 3 (pp. 1920-1926). Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.

McCrickard, D. S., & Chewar, C. M. (2004). Proselytizing pervasive computing: A strategy and approach influenced by human computer interaction. In B. Werner (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE Annual Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops (pp. 257-262). Orlando, FL: IEEE Computer Society. Mindjet (2010). Support- Knowledge base. Mindjet.com. Retrieved February 17, 2010, from, http:// www.mindjet.com/support/overview Muktar, M. (2002). Computer crime: The new threat. Crime-Research.org. Retrieved October 13, 2009, from, http://www.crime-research.org/ library/Mudavi1.htm Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (1995). The knowledge-creating company. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Patrignani, N. (2008). A conceptual framework for computer ethics. In T. Bynum et al. (Eds.), ETHICOMP 2008: Living, Working and Learning Beyond Technology (pp. 640-647). Mantua. Italy: University of Pavia. Pelkmans, M. (2009). The “transparency” of Christian proselytizing in Kyrgzstan. Anthropological Quarterly, 82(2), 423–445. doi:10.1353/ anq.0.0058 Posiah, M. I., & Kamaruzaman, J. (2008). Sustenance of values and ethics in the Malaysian higher education e-learning drive. Asian Social Science, 4(6), 115–121. Raeder, L. C. (2002). John Stuart Mill and the religion of humanity. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press. Samah, D. A. A. (2005, March). Rethinking Malaysian education: A brave new world? Paper presented at the 9th Malaysian Education Summit, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Schlick, M. (2008). Problems of ethics. New York: Prentice-Hall.

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Siponen, M. T. (1997). The applicability of ethical theories to computer ethics- Selected issues. Unpublished manuscript, United Kingdom. Solomon, R. (Ed.). (1992). Ethics and excellence: Cooperation and integrity in business. New York: Oxford University Press.

Vandergriff, L. J. (2008). Welcome to the Intelligence age: An examination of intelligence as a complex venture emergent behaviour. Vine, 38(4), 432–444. doi:10.1108/03055720810917697 Waltz, E. (2003). Knowledge management in the intelligence enterprise. Norwood, MA: Artech House.

Sultana, F. (2007). Reflexivity, positionality and participatory ethics: Negotiating fieldwork dilemmas in international research. ACME- An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 6(3), 374-385. Retrieved March 10, 2010, from, http://www.acme-journal.org/vol6/FS.pdf

Wang, C.-C. (2004). The influence of ethical and self-interest concerns on knowledge sharing intentions among managers: An empirical study. International Journal of Management, 21(3), 370–381.

The International Labour Organization. (2007). ILO knowledge strategy. ILO.org. Retrieved October 29, 2009, from, http://www.ilo.org/ public/english/support/lib/knowledgesharing/ strategy.htm

Warren, M. (2008). The ethics of the hacker taggers: The new generation of hackers. In Bynum, T. (Eds.), ETHICOMP 2008: Living, Working and Learning Beyond Technology (pp. 787–793). Mantua, Italy: University of Pavia.

Thiessen, E. J. (2000, November). The ethics of proselytizing: A multi-faith conversation. Paper present at the Chaplain’s Association and the Department of Studies in Religion, Toronto, Ontario.

Wikipedia. (2009). Hacker ethic. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Retrieved October 23, 2009, from, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_ethic#The_ hacker_ethics

Thomas, B. K. (2010). Participation in the knowledge society: The free and open source (FOSS) movement compared with participatory development. Development in Practice, 20(2), 270–276. doi:10.1080/09614520903566509

ADDITIONAL READING

Turner, E., & Roberts, P. (2001). Teaching computer ethics to IT students in higher education: An exploration of provision, practice and perspective. Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility. Retrieved October 13, 2009, from, http://www. ccsr.cse.dmu.ac.uk/conferences/ccsrconf/ethicomp2001/abstracts/turner.html

Gee, W. B., & Kim, Y.-G. (2002). Breaking the myths of rewards: An exploratory study of attitudes about knowledge. Information Resources Management Journal, 15(2), 14–21.

Ullman, D. G. (2004). Decision management: Punctuating the process. Incose Insight, 6(2). Vandergriff, L. J. (2001, May). Role tailored decision support: An investigation of decisionmaking and implementation process state of the art. Paper present at the Course 398 Lecturing, Washington, DC.

Cabrera, E. F., & Cabrera, A. (2002). Knowledgesharing dilemmas. Organization Studies, 23(5), 687–710. doi:10.1177/0170840602235001

Quinn, J. B. (1992). Intelligent enterprise: A knowledge and service based paradigm for industry. New York, NY: Free Press. Truch, E. (2001). Trust in knowledge sharing. Knowledge Management, July/August.

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Wong, K. Y. (2008). An exploratory study on knowledge management adoption in the Malaysian industry. International Journal of Business Information Systems, 3(3), 272–283. doi:10.1504/ IJBIS.2008.017285

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Ethics: Knowledge system which aims the truth, and that incorporates moral procedures, values, standards and norms. Hacker: Expression to designate everyone that truly aims computing. Moreover, hackers’ generations are a consequence of technological evolution. Hacker Ethics: Moral principles that act as guidance for hackers: (1) hands on imperative; (2) information wants to be free; (3) mistrust authority;

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(4) no bogus criteria; (5) you can create truth and beauty on a computer; (6) computers can change your life for the better. Knowledge Sharing: Ability that is innate to humans; however, is essential for organizations to foster in order to survive in a competitive market. Participatory Culture Ethics: Involvement of users in a successful way within a community, as well with information and knowledge. This participatory culture is a consequence of Web development. Proselytization: Action or procedures in which an individual attempts to convert other individual or group as regards to religious beliefs. Proselytization Commons Ethics: Global process that entails a reconversion of personal and group religious beliefs through a participatory culture.

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Chapter 7

The Trouble with Digital Copies: A Short KM Phenomenology Ugo Pagallo University of Turin, Italy

ABSTRACT This chapter analyzes some of the most relevant ethical issues and social dilemmas in knowledge management and organizational innovation, by focusing on a paramount feature of digital technology, which is “copying.” The new ways in which information is produced, distributed, and shared in digital environments have in fact changed crucial aspects of human life. Whereas, most of the time, scholars consider such transformations in connection with the impact of digital copies on copyright law, the aim of the chapter is to widen this perspective by examining data protection as well as file sharing application systems. The new economical scenarios and business models proposed by this copy-based technology suggest new ways for balancing property rights and “the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community.”

INTRODUCTION Both the structure and functioning of the Internet are founded upon distributed storage and replicated copies of the data to be transmitted among the nodes of the network. While such new ways in which information is produced, distributed, and shared in digital environments have transDOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-873-9.ch007

formed crucial aspects of human life, they have also changed the very notion of “copy,” since, theoretically speaking, there would no longer be any difference between the original and the replica. In order to offer a short (but hopefully comprehensive) phenomenology of this paramount transformation, this chapter is presented in six sections. First of all, I delineate the background from an economic viewpoint, emphasising how the


The Trouble with Digital Copies

traditional “long route” between creators/producers and consumers has been joined- and even replaced- by a “short route” (up to the point where we talk about the new category of “prosumers”). Even though the impact of such an impressive innovation was initially perceived in the field of intellectual property and, more specifically, in the realm of copyright law, the paradox of a copybased technology which has changed the very notion of copy has quickly extended to other areas. In particular, I analyse how legislators and courts have reacted (and even overreacted) to changes and challenges brought on by the technological revolution. By comparing the U.S. and EU legal systems, it should be clear that the trouble with digital copies does not only concern copyright but privacy as well. Hence, I illustrate some ways for balancing the various fundamental rights involved in file sharing application systems- namely P2P networks- as proposed by some projects such as FairPeers. Whereas the troubles with digital copies affect a number of other relevant areas like open access to the public sector information, executable programs, or traditional publishing, P2P systems clearly show how it is possible to harness the new economical scenarios and business models of the “short route” by sharing profits (and not only files) among users, while reinforcing responsibility and protecting people’s personal data. Of course, as I explain in the section on future research directions, further work is required on pseudonymous systems, reputation modules, trusted management, or recommender schemes, to name but a few. Nonetheless, the conclusion is that sound workable ways of balancing the different interests which are at stake are already viable. The potential contrast between fair compensation and privacy rights, between knowledge creation and digital sharing, can represent in fact an opportunity for organizational innovation. The trouble with digital copies does not only concern copyright after all.

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BACKGROUND In order to understand what has changed with the introduction of digital copies on the market, let me shortly illustrate the diverse phases and services of the traditional value chain of a media object (e.g., a music album). As I proposed with Glorioso & Ruffo (2010), the different activities and services may be distinguished in four different steps. First, we have the authoring phase in which an artefact is created. Sometimes this phase includes a pre-production stage as with the preparation of a demo tape to be presented to a content producer. Then, the production phase starts with individual contracts between authors and business organizations such as record companies, publishers, and the like. The artefact is usually refined by a team of professionals, and finally copied on a given physical support (e.g., a CD). Thirdly, what has been produced needs distribution according to a marketing strategy. Physical objects are then shipped all around the world (or a single country), so that the cost of the item increases as it is delivered to the distributed network of malls and shopping centres by means of transportation service-suppliers. Finally, there are the clients or consumers: they ideally close the chain by paying a price that covers all of the costs of the work which increase with every single step of the cycle. In a nutshell, this is the traditional “long route” known for decades and, in some cases, even centuries in the pre-digital world. Records had to be printed and, therefore, some sort of manufactory was indispensable to produce “fixed, stable, material or- as the expression now goes- hard copies of the work” (Ricolfi, 2007, pp. 285-286). Whereas such hard copies had to be stored, transported, and distributed before they could eventually be purchased by the public, it goes without saying that most of the authors could not engage in all these phases. The rule, on the contrary, was that “they preferred to resort to businesses to set up


the characteristic trilateral relationship between creator, business, and the public, which is typical of primary exploitation of copyrighted works” (Ricolfi, 2007, pp. 286). Besides, the secondary exploitation of the artefacts required an even longer route, because further classes of businesses and markets should be added both to the manufacture and sale of the product, as in the case of its broadcast via radio and television networks. The emergence of digital technology and of the Internet has literally disrupted this framework for, at least, three reasons. The first one deals with the revolutionary fact that, at least theoretically speaking, there is no longer any difference between the original version of an artefact and the copy. As the copyright holders of sound recordings and phonograms quickly understood both in the U.S. and in Europe, this new scenario means that the conventional distinction between primary and secondary exploitation of a given work simply vanishes in digital environments. The second reason concerns the difference between distribution and delivery of digital works which collapses in one single service. As it is illustrated by some popular on-line stores like Amazon or iTunes, there exist fully integrated information systems that are implemented by means of complex server architectures such as a CDN (Content Delivery Network). Finally, the digital revolution involves the very idea of creativity and authorship, along with the “route” connecting producers and consumers. While some scholars like Toffler (1980) or Anderson (2008) talk about the new type of “prosumers”, others insist on the difference between centralized and decentralized choices, between market and non market mechanisms, in order to stress the novelty of social exchange based upon reciprocity and cooperation rather than price (as in Benkler, 2006). The typical “long route” has in fact been joined- and sometimes substituted- by a “short route” where production and distribution tend to migrate from traditional business activities to the

public via social sharing. This transformation of the value chain does not depend only on the possibility of harnessing the “distributed intelligence” of the Internet, but also on the computational resources available at each step of the digital interaction that dwarfs conventional investments and makes many traditional intermediaries redundant (as already pointed out by Tapscott, 1997). Digital technology, however, does not imply that the traditional trilateral relationship between creator, business, and the public, is necessarily destined to disappear. For example, as I insist below, even file sharing application systems do not exclude “third parties” from the overall process: Rather, what they suggest is to reinvent many phases of the business model. This also occurs with the FLOSS (Free Libre Open Source Software) movement, in terms of legal safeguards (copyleft rather than copy-right), value chain (services rather than commodities), and development (Eric Raymond’s (1999) “bazaar model” rather than the “cathedral model”). Yet, in the early 1990s, most of the corporations and businesses did not think this was the case by arguing that digital copies would have destroyed their bricks-and-mortar rights. Hence, the first step in lobbying policy makers and legislators involved the realm of intellectual property and, more particularly, the field of copyright. The exclusivity rights over public communication pursuant to art. 20 of the Berne Convention (1886) were complemented by two international copyright treaties, namely the WIPO’s Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT), both from December 1996. According to the “making available” clause, the idea was to prevent “that members of the public may access these works (protected by copyright in sound recordings and phonograms) from a place and at a time individually chosen by them” (WCT’s art. 8; WPPT’s art. 14). Then, it was the turn of national legislators to defend the “long route” by tackling some of the possible illegal uses of the “short” one. In 1998, the

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U.S. Congress amended the Digital Performance Rights in Sound Recordings Act from 1995 with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the so-called Sonny Bono Act. Three years later, in 2001, the European Parliament and the Council adopted the first EU directive on “copyright and related rights in the information society”. Next, the U.S. Congress passed the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act in 2002, the Family Entertainment Copyright Act in 2005, and the Net Neutrality Bill in 2006. Meanwhile, the IPRED saga developed in Europe: the first directive on the enforced intellectual propriety rights is from 2004 (n. 48), and on April 25th, 2007, the European Parliament supported a new version (IPRED-2). In the light of this massive legal trend, a first conclusion can be drawn: whereas digital technology opened up new economical scenarios, as well as different business models for the novel “short route” between creators, producers, and the public, the main (if not the only) legal concern has for a while dealt with the claims of some copyright holders as music companies and movie producers. In the name of the noble right proclaimed by the second comma of art. 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, law makers have forgotten to reinforce the principle declared by the first comma. In other words, in the 1990s “the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author” trumped “the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits”. Against this background, let us see what has changed more recently.

FROM COPYRIGHT TO PRIVACY AND DATA PROTECTION The first generation of legal cases involving copyright issues and digital copies concerned some

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file sharing applications on the Internet known as peer-to-peer (P2P) systems, that have become (in) famous because they make it particularly easy for users to access copy(right)-protected files for free. The foremost important decision came in July 2000, when the U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel granted the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)’s request to stop making copyrighted recordings available for download through Napster services. Although the San Mateo company did not store any information, such as the recordings on its own computers, it was declared illegal to provide the information of where the songs were available on the computers of the community logged on. In fact, it was not considered enough to claim that the DMCA grants immunity to ISP providers for what their customers do. As a matter of law, this kind of protection would not include “contributory infringers” as the District Court of Appeals confirmed in its own decision on Napster, in February 2001. Four years later, it was the turn of the U.S. Supreme Court in MGM vs. Grokster to present P2P systems as Steamcast or Grokster, as a kind of technology that promotes the “ease of infringing on copyrights”, so that its producers “can be sued for inducing copyright infringement committed by their users”. The unanimous holding of the Court, however, did not make clear the legal consequences on further developments of these systems because the Justices were divided between the need to protect every technology “capable of substantial non infringing uses” as they declared in Sony vs. Universal City Studios from 1984, and the necessity to provide remedies against new ways of copyright infringement. Therefore, at least in the U.S., there is still the problem to determine whether the software creates “shared files folders” making the information protected by copyright “available for distribution” and, hence, illegally shared via those “files folders”. For example, in Elektra vs. Baker, a judge from the Manhattan federal court, Kenneth Karas, rejected the RIAA’s “making available”-theory


in January 2008, although he admitted the sufficiency of the allegations of “downloading” and “distributing”. Whereas Karas’ idea was to grasp the whole issue with the legal hypothesis of “offering to distribute for purposes of redistribution”, it is important to note that the suit in Elektra vs. Baker was based on the report of an Internet investigator who claimed to have detected the “shared files folders” which I mentioned above. In fact, there is a second major legal issue that involves digital copies on the Internet, which is privacy. As it occurred with another highly controversial decision in the U.S. opposing an American ISP, Verizon, and the RIAA, scholars have pointed out how people’s privacy on the Internet- specially when using P2P file-sharing applications- “is threatened under certain interpretations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the United States (as) a new form of panoptic surveillance that can be carried out by organizations such as the RIAA” (as stressed by Grodzinski & Tavani, 2005). The thesis was confirmed in 2007, when the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) required (lawfully, according to federal judge Florence-Marie Cooper) the IP addresses of those connecting to TorrentSpy files via their service in the U.S. The MPAA had in fact filed a lawsuit against the popular P2P system, alleging that the company violated copyright law by helping sharers find pirated movies. The dispute then overheated when TorrentSpy accused the MPAA of hiring a hacker (by the way an ex TorrentSpy employee) to pilfer the company’s trade secrets. Judge Cooper’s interpretation, however, did not favour the European company: By following the Wiretap Act, the word “intercept” would only mean that someone must intentionally obtain e-mails and not just acquire them from an electronic storage. Since TorrentySpy used to store e-mails on its server before they were copied and forwarded to the hacker’s e-mail account, the result was therefore that no interception would have occurred! Forced to enable server logging against its own privacy

policy, it is not a surprise that TorrentSpy, whose servers are physically located in the Netherlands, announced its decision to stop doing business in the U.S. on August 27th, 2007. The peculiarities of the U.S. legal system as well as some key differences between the U.S. and EU law can be further illustrated with two cases debated in Europe. The first one took place in Italy in 2006, when a German music company, Peppermint, commissioned the Swiss firm Logistep to raise the IP addresses of people making available copyrighted works by means of P2P systems on the Internet. On the basis of the claim that Peppermint would have been the only right holder, the plaintiff required a section of the Tribunal in Rome to obtain both the “real addresses”, and names of 3000 allegedly illegal file sharers from the involved ISPs. Judges, at first, granted the request so that three thousand letters were sent by a lawyer from Bozen to the indicted P2P users, asking them for EUR 330 in order to settle the case and avoid any further inquiry (in this way, Peppermint would have received cash worth almost ten times its own annual revenues…). Later on, in April 2008, the Bar Association in Paris interdicted a lawyer who sent similar letters to other French P2P users. Yet, even the Tribunal in Rome changed idea: on June 16th, 2007, it declared that it was illegal spying on citizens on the Web in order to guarantee the protection of alleged copyright holders pursuant to articles 13, 23, and 37 of the Italian “code of privacy” (ICP), as well as articles 2 and 15 of the Italian Constitution. Neither articles 8 and 9 from D-2004/48/EC, nor the exceptions from articles 3.2 and 13 D-1995/46/EC, could eventually legitimate such a violation of P2P users’ privacy. The second important ruling that confirms the relevance of data protection laws in deciding lawsuits against P2P file sharing systems is in Promusicae vs. Telefónica de España, decided by the European Court of Justice on January 29th, 2008. According to the judges in Luxembourg, EU law does not require Member States to lay down

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“an obligation to communicate personal data in order to ensure effective protection of copyright in the context of civil proceedings”. In addition, the Court warned that, when transposing directives into national legal systems, Member States must “take care to rely on an interpretation of them which allows a fair balance to be struck between the various fundamental rights protected by the Community legal order” (§ 70 of the decision). So, in the light of these different legal outcomes between the U.S. and the EU, between copyright claims and privacy concerns, a second conclusion can be drawn: The new economical scenarios and different business models for the “short route” between creators, producers, and the public, cannot ignore the data protection issues raised by the technology of digital copies. Furthermore, we are invited to seriously reconsider “the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community” by exploiting all the opportunities of the “short route” created by digital technology. Recent work on P2P systems shows how all this is possible.

A MATTER OF BALANCE There are two reasons why I think P2P technology is a particularly useful example in order to deepen our analysis on the current troubles with digital copies. First of all, by the end of 2007, these file sharing systems have surpassed the Web as the most bandwidth-consuming application in many parts of the Internet. This undoubted success highlights some relevant ethical issues, as well as social dilemmas in business management and organizational innovation that involve other kinds of knowledge. Along with the music industry, think of movies, books, newspapers, blogs, and so forth. Whereas knowledge management deals with the acquisition and use of resources to set up an environment where information is accessible to individuals, P2P systems are revolutionizing how

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individuals acquire, share, or utilise that information to develop their own knowledge (Brelade & Harman, 2003). Secondly, notwithstanding its undoubted success, P2P technology has polarized the opinion of the scholars. Some, like Michael Bauwens (2005), claim that these systems represent the key to a new paradigm since sharing of information via strongly decentralized or distributed forms of coordination among geographically dispersed actors would be the paramount example of a social transformation that should be further encouraged. Others, as Andrew Keen (2008), stress the risks and threats of such new technologies and how they undermine vital elements of our societies for “digital piracy, enabled by Silicon Valley hardware and justified by Silicon Valley intellectual property communists (sic!) such as Larry Lessig, is draining revenue from established artists, movie studios, newspapers, record labels, and song writers”. The polarization of the debate should be understood in connection with the ways in which information is distributed and shared in P2P networks. On the side of the new paradigm-advocates, it must be said that these file sharing application systems have solved some relevant problems of the CDN architecture- which is used by some of the most popular Web sites like Amazon, CNN, Google, and You Tube- based upon the traditional (and very expensive) client/server design. By decentralizing the processes of storage distribution and copy-replication of the data to be transmitted among nodes of the network through its “servents”- that is, nodes that are client and server at the same time- P2P systems have created wider opportunities in digital environments, making the “short route” even shorter. Nevertheless, on the side of P2P censors and opponents, we must pay attention to some of the serious problems still afflicting this technology as the free-riding phenomenon, the abovementioned copyright claims, along with issues of connectivity and availability of resources, or, to


be pessimistic in some cases, the collapse of the entire system. Despite the determined and at times even aggressive ways in which copyright holders are trying to protect themselves against this file sharing technology, the problems related to P2Ps have suggested some politicians in Washington, D.C., like the Government Reform Committee Chairman, Henry Waxman (D-CA), Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), and Rep. Paul Hodes (R-NH), that P2P systems represent such a serious threat for national security that the best way to deal with all of these risks would be to simply shut them down (as some U.S. campuses have already done). So, is there a way to overcome this deadlock? Can technical solutions be developed for balancing the various fundamental interests involved in file sharing application systems? Can the new economical scenarios and business models of the “short route” be exploited in order to share profits (and not only files), while reinforcing responsibility and protecting people’s privacy? As I show in the next section, some technical solutions are already viable and, yet, they require that even industry music producers and movie managers understand why digital copies via P2P systems represent more an opportunity than a threat for business and economic development. Let aside ethical issues (Pagallo, 2010), it is a matter of content delivery and multimedia streaming, broadband and multicast services, distributed databases, and so forth. The new horizons of digital sharing suggest avoiding the typical opposition between “long route”- and “short route”- advocates so as to focus on their common challenges, e.g., knowledge creation and fair compensation through individual contribution to the exchange of information in some crucial areas of the industry and society. Whereas knowledge management involves the connection between people, content, culture, and technology (Phillips, 2000), it is time to shed some light on the ways in which P2P management of digital copies is deeply reshaping such a dynamics.

ORGANISING INNOVATION VIA P2P SYSTEMS In order to approach the new horizons in digital sharing via P2P systems, we may start by casting light on a paradox: although those file sharing applications can be considered as a “mature technology” that promotes novel forms of coordination between owners and consumers, between developers and providers, P2P business model is still quite problematic. A main reason concerns the free-riding phenomenon (as shown by Adar & Huberman, 2000). Most peers, indeed, tend to use these systems to find information and download their favourite files without contributing to the performance of the system. Whereas this selfish behaviour is triggered by many properties of P2P applications like anonymity and hard traceability of the nodes, scholars have proposed ways to tackle the issue as, say, with incentives. Inducements may be based on trust (e.g., reputation mechanisms) or trade (e.g., services in return). This latter scheme implies that “the receiver can recompense the provider immediately, during or after the service provision, or she can promise a service in return” (Ruffo & Schifanella, 2007, pp. 358). In the first hypotheses, there is a sort of digital barter as with the “tit-for-tat” model in Bit Torrent, or the credit system of Emule. In the second case, a bond scheme which involves forms of digital money like Kazaa’s “Alnet’s points” is set in place. These economic transactions can be managed via a central authority like Elon Musk’s online-banking company PayPal- which was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion- or via distributed systems based on different ways of accounting (i.e., local, token, or remote). Since incentives can produce value in terms of revenue, some interesting management proposals have thus been presented like the Market Management of Peer-to-Peer Services or MMAPPS project, upon which additional architectural con-

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cepts have been suggested as the Service Oriented Peer-to-Peer Service and the distinction between service, market, and peer models proposed by Gerke et al. (2003). On this basis, further research has pointed out new ways to tackle the “original sin” of this technology, namely its copyrightrelated legal issues. Among such work, let me briefly insist on Ruffo & Schifanella’s (2007) FairPeers model, for this is the only proposal thatup till now- supports both copyright management and “fairness”. On the one hand, the idea is to include proper copyright management “without mitigating the technical benefits of a P2P system” (Ruffo & Schifanella, 2007, pp. 361). In order to regulate the distribution of copy-protected items such as movies, songs, executable programs and the like, it is introduced an Authority that certifies the identity of the users as well as the Copyright Grantor that stores the information- related to all of the items in the system- such as ownership, cost, and details about the content. While it is possible to add other mediators like, for example, payment brokers, the files to be shared in the system are issued with the Grantor’s copyright certificate and the distribution license released by the owner of the object. Therefore, the provider can be any regular peer of the system that has got the license to distribute files. On the other hand, both the owner and the provider- who contributes to the functioning of the system in terms of bandwidth, cpu cycles, and disk space- should be paid every time that a file is downloaded. As suggested by the authors, “we think that this property has been deeply underestimated and a proper implementation of fair mechanisms can strongly incentive users to behave legally and can bring success to a market” (Ruffo & Schifanella, 2007, pp. 362). In the typical case where a file is very popular and there are many providers, an Electronic Lottery Tickets scheme is adopted, so that only one provider will get the entire revenue for the distribution. As shown by Rivest (1997), the risk that only few peers could

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be the winners is counterbalanced by the law of large numbers, while maintaining “fairness without invalidating typical P2P efficiency” (Ruffo & Schifanella, 2007, pp. 379). However, it is hard to imagine a technology immune to all kinds of abuse, so that, in terms of responsibility, it is critical that service providers can avoid prosecution by denying accountability for other users’ behaviour. In this sense, the different possible configurations of these systems are particularly relevant just as how the nodes are linked to each other at the overlay level. P2P networks can in fact be unstructured, as in the cases of Gnutella and Kazaa, in which overlay links are created by chance. Yet, these systems can also be structured, as Kademlia and Pastry, that are defined in terms of a topology- like a forest, a ring, and so forth- along with routing mechanisms and identifier spaces which allow nodes and resources in the network to be located. This difference has legal significance because structured models seem to better prevent legal claims as liability for actions committed by users of these systems. Besides, compared to centralized networks, these structured overlays do not seem to present single points of failure or problems of efficiency like the flooding search method adopted by Gnutella. In addition, they do not push legal responsibility over few superpeers as in the case of Kazaa. This is why “the first learned lesson which must be considered during the implementation of (a) given P2P service model” is that “structured overlays are to be preferred to unstructured P2P systems in order to let the community owners and/or the developers decline their responsibilities for users’ actions” (Glorioso, Pagallo & Ruffo, 2010, pp. 65). In the same way, topology matters when we address the problem of protecting users’ privacy. Both anonymity and confidentiality in P2P interaction should be addressed at the lowest level of the technological platform since the use of the overlay network makes it possible to easily identify users inserting or storing information in the system.


Authentication protocols as well as identification policies should provide for use of pseudonyms, OpenID, and ways of ciphering content. This makes it safer to prevent both unauthorized access to the information stored at the overlay level, and legal liability of the content provider whom does not happen to be the source or the owner of that very information. Furthermore, significant evidence suggests spontaneous clustering of users by content distribution: this is what occurs with both Gnutella and Kazaa networks as shown by Ruffo & Schifanella (2009) and by Iamnitchi, Ripeanu & Foster (2004). Whereas different models can be used in order to detect this phenomenon like “data-sharing graphs” or “affinity networks”, what is extraordinary about these features is the possibility to develop interesting applications for recommender systems on the Internet, i.e., techniques for coping with the problem of overloading information. Besides short paths between couples of peers and high clustering factor, the existence of hubs- that is, users who share a large amount of items playing a significant role in providing connectivity- has a remarkable effect. As I stressed in previous work with Ruffo (2007a; 2007b), such topological features can be used to defend people’s privacy via decentralized recommendation schemes based on spontaneous affinities. By using partnership degree and relationships among peers there is no need for retrieving people’s profiles, and users are not required to give feedbacks to a data collector entity in order to avoid the problem of overloading information. Of course, anonymity and confidentiality techniques, encrypted communication and plausible deniability can be used by criminal organizations: it is still a hot issue, after all, whether OpenID represents the best solution to these problems. However, the aim of this section is not to claim that P2P networks offer the key to a new paradigm in the history of human evolution as asserted by Bauwens (2005). Although this technology encourages organizational innovation via decentral-

ized or distributed forms of coordination between owners and providers, between developers and consumers, what I want to suggest here is that rights and interests involved in the current debate can be feasibly balanced as in the case of knowledge creation and digital sharing, fair compensation and privacy rights. It should be clear that we do not need to ban P2P systems in order to tackle the trouble with digital copies: Nonetheless, further research is required.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS I have insisted on the example of file sharing application systems because this technology sums up some relevant issues concerning digital copies in today’s debate, as in the case of copyright claims and privacy worries (interestingly enough, on July 23rd, 2009, some advocacy groups as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation asked Google to commit to protect the privacy of readers in its book search service. Furthermore, Google’s project to build an expansive digital library has already attracted criticism and is being scrutinized for possible antitrust and copyright problems). Besides, P2P networks are particularly interesting in both the fields of knowledge management and organizational innovation insofar as these application systems specify some of the new ways in which information is produced, distributed, and shared in digital environments through strongly decentralized and distributed forms of collaboration. This is why further research on this copy-based digital technology includes a panoply of different topics like the structured vs. unstructured debate, search efficiency, incentive mechanisms, trust and reputation management, broadcast and multicast services, content delivery and multimedia streaming, distributed databases, anonymity techniques, advanced computing, and the like. Yet, before discussing some possible innovative trends and perspectives, it is indispensable to

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address a preliminary question. By considering some ethical problems (e.g., selfish vs. altruistic behaviour), as well as social dilemmas (e.g., intellectual property vs. social sharing) fostered by digital copies, it could be questioned whether this approach for balancing these different rights and interests is the proper one. Think for example of the “governmentally administered reward system” as proposed by Fisher (2004) or, the other way around, of the Digital Rights Management (DRM)-systems used by iTunes, FairPlay, or Napster to Go. In the first case, the proposal of a national administered system seems however inconsistent with the international obligations established by both the Berne Convention and the TRIPs Agreement, letting aside the ubiquitous nature of the Internet which transcends traditional legal borders. All in all, as frankly admitted by the same proponent of the system, the Berne Convention “would seem to forbid the curtailment of copyright law necessitated by the proposed regime” (Fisher, 2004, pp. 44). In the second case, by enabling right-holders both to monitor and regulate the use of copyright protected works, the employ of DRM techniques risks to severely curtail freedom as behaviour would unilaterally be determined on the basis of technology rather than by choices of the relevant political institutions. As stressed by Steve Jobs (2007), DRM compliant systems raise severe problems of interoperability and, hence, antitrustrelated issues. In addition, they jeopardize people’s privacy and responsibility that represent some of the ethical concerns which P2P research should focus on and, possibly, resolve. This is why, throughout this chapter, I have insisted on the societal constraints that determine the horizon of possible technological improvements: What about the consequences of the Grokster case in the light of that “fair balance” to be struck between fundamental rights, according to the ECJ ruling in Promusicae vs. Telefónica?

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Here, let me emphasize three areas of research which I think are particularly relevant. The first field is trust and reputation management in digital environments. As I pointed out in previous sections, the trouble with digital copies has not only involved copyright issues but people’s privacy as well. Business models and organizational innovation should pay particular attention to personal data protection, especially when it is considered malicious behaviour such as cheating, colluding, protocol aborting, and the like. One way of tackling these problems is obviously defined by security measures and reputation schemes; so that users can be asked to submit feedbacks once a transaction is completed (or aborted). However, one of the most relevant aspects of the “short route” scenario is that content distribution greatly benefits from users’ participation because the more they are stimulated to contribute to the system; the more resources are available on it. While there is extensive work on such topics as reputation and trust schemas as in Jøsang, Ismail & Body (2007), Marti & Garcia-Molina (2006), etc., it is clear that the problem is cultural, as well as computational and, therefore, it requires interdisciplinary approaches. The second direction of future research concerns the connection between anonymity, security, and responsibility. After the legal misadventures of Napster- that presented a typical centralized architecture in which operators of the server used to index each peer’s files and, thus, they could have intervened to stop copyright infringements pursuant to art. 512 of the DMCA- the following generation of P2P systems has developed a typical decentralized topology that provides plausible anonymity for its users. This, in return, has created new problems and original forms of uncertainty, because full anonymity may not only protect people’s rights against those political regimes that have developed extensive monitoring infrastructures (Deibert et al., 2008). Anonymity, in fact, may also encourage irresponsible acts. While I


stressed that it is still an open question whether pseudonymous systems like OpenID represent the best solution to these problems, it is always hard to determine a clear-cut line between the necessity of a venue for political information-sharing activities in countries where surveillance is routine, and the prospect that such systems protect or even encourage criminal activities. After all, it is certain that, among other things, Al’ Qaeda has been using encryption since 1993 that is, in their first and partially failed attack on the Twin Towers (Etzioni, 2004). Finally, we have the problem of overloading information in digital environments. Along with the “paradox of choice” (and abundance) as suggested by Schwartz (2005)- let alone the risk that people endorse positions that are not necessarily the best ones but simply the less controversial or most accepted, as denounced by Keen (2008)there is the possibility that the distributed topology of some networks can represent an obstacle to people’s interaction. Therefore, while some scholars as Kaune (2008), Zhao (2004), and their colleagues, have been proposing to reorganize even the topology of some P2P networks on the very idea of geographical proximity, the domain of recommender systems is among the most active fields of current research. After centralized and content-based schemes as with News Weeder or Syskill & Webert, or collaborative filtering as Tapestry, or using demographic approaches, we need new strategies as those discussed in the previous section by exploiting the specific topological properties of networks such as Gnutella (as in Ruffo & Schifanella, 2009).

CONCLUSION It is striking that, so often, people (and scholars) associate the trouble with digital copies exclusively with copyright issues. What is more, there are some associations like the RIAA or the MPAA in the U.S. or the collective rights management

organizations (CRMOs) in Europe, that tend to present the whole issue as if it were merely a matter of “piracy”. So, the aim of this chapter was to show that things are quite more complex and interesting. In a sort of Hegelian phenomenology, it is possible to sum up this remarkable complexity in three moments. First, in the early 1990s, we witnessed the eruption of copy-based digital technologies with the “short route” joining and even replacing the traditional long one between author, business, and the public. Both at legal and political levels, the reaction was swift and, occasionally, aggressive: After more than a century of the well-functioning provisions of the Berne Convention, intellectual property and copyright law-fields became the target of an intensive and even frantic intervention by law makers. It was as if the only right that mattered from art. 27 UDHR were “the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production”. A decade later, the drawbacks of such a shortsighted legal policy became evident: the trouble with digital copies did not concern only copyright holders’ interests but involved people’s privacy as well. While the technological innovation opened up new horizons and opportunities for business innovation, and the so-called “digital economy”, courts and tribunals, at least in Europe have reminded legislators of the need to strike a fair balance between the different fundamental rights at stake. Perhaps time has come to seriously take “the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits”. Finally, a lesson should be learnt when addressing further developments and future research. In fact, I illustrated some of the ways in which we can viably mediate digital file sharing and fair compensation with forms of trusted management, as well as selfish behaviour and altruistic actions via incentives, or people’s anonymity and social

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responsibility through architectural devices and recommender systems. So, it is important to recall not only the societal boundaries which limit or restrict the universe of possible technological scenarios, but also the values and principles that lie behind those societal boundaries while orientating and determining political choices. Digital copies are here to stay and they represent more an opportunity for innovation than a threat for economics, politics, or business management. This is why it is critical to further develop copy-based digital technologies in connection with that fair legal balance which should be struck between different fundamental rights. Those who do not know their own history will be forced to repeat the errors. Do we really want to go back to the 1990s?

REFERENCES Adar, E., & Huberman, B. A. (2000). Free riding on gnutella. First Monday, 5(10). Retrieved April 20, 2009, from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/792/701 Anderson, C. (2008). The long tail, revised and updated edition: Why the future of business is selling less of more. New York: Hyperion. Bauwens, M. (2005). P2P and human evolution: placing peer to peer theory in an integral framework. Integral Visioning. Retrieved April 20, 2009, from http://integralvisioning.org/article. php?story=p2ptheory1 Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Brelade, S., & Harman, C. (2003). A practical guide to knowledge management. London: Thorogood. Deibert, R. J. (2008). Access denied: The practice and policy of global internet filtering. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Etzioni, A. (2004). How patriotic is the patriot act? Freedom versus security in the age of terrorism. New York: Routledge. Fisher, W. (2004). Promises to keep: Technology, law and the future of entertainment. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Gerke, J. (2003). An architecture for a service oriented peer-to-peer system (SOPPS). Praxis der Informationsverarbeitung und Kommunikation, 26(2), 90–95. doi:10.1515/PIKO.2003.90 Glorioso, A., Pagallo, U., & Ruffo, G. (2010). The social impact of P2P networks. In X. Shen et al. (Eds.), Handbook of P2P Networking (pp. 47-70). Heidelberg, Germany: Springer. Grodzinski, F. S., & Tavani, H. T. (2005). P2P networks and the Verizon v. RIAA case: Implications for personal privacy and intellectual property. Ethics and Information Technology, 7(4), 243–250. doi:10.1007/s10676-006-0012-4 Iamnitchi, A., Ripeanu, M., & Foster, I. (2004). Small-world file-sharing communities. In INFOCOM 2004: 23th Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies: Vol 2 (pp. 952-963). Hong Kong: IEEE Communications Society. Jobs, S. (2007). Thoughts on music. Apple. Retrieved April 20, 2009, from http://www.apple. com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/ Jøsang, A., Ismail, R., & Boyd, C. (2007). A survey on trust and reputation systems for online service provision. Decision Support Systems, 43(2), 618–644. doi:10.1016/j.dss.2005.05.019 Kaune, S., Lauinger, T., & Kovacevic, A. (2008). Embracing the peer next door: Proximity in Kademlia. In K. Wehrle (Ed.), P2P’08: Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Computing (pp. 343-350). Aachen, Germany: IEEE Press.


Keen, A. (2008). The cult of the amateur: How blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the rest of today’s user-generated media are destroying our economy, our culture, and our values. New York: Doubleday Business.

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Pagallo, U. (2010). Ethics among peers: From Napster to Peppermint and beyond. In D’Atri, A., & Saccà, D. (Eds.), Information Systems: People, Organizations, Institutions, and Technologies (pp. 297–304). Heidelberg, Germany: Springer. Pagallo, U., & Ruffo, G. (2007a). On the growth of collaborative and competitive networks: Opportunities and new challenges. In S. Rogerson & H. Yang (Eds.), Proceedings of ETHICOMP Working Conference 2007 (pp. 92-97). Yunnan: Yunnan University. Pagallo, U., & Ruffo, G. (2007b). P2P systems in legal networks. Another ‘small world’ case. In R. Winkels (Ed.), Eleventh International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (pp. 287-288). Stanford, CA: ACM Press. Phillips, J. T. (2000). Will KM alter information managers’ roles? Information Management Journal, 34(3), 58–59. Raymond, E. S. (1999). The cathedral & the bazaar: Musings on Linux and open source by an accidental revolution. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media. Ricolfi, M. (2007). Individual and collective management of copyright in a digital environment. In Torremans, P. (Ed.), Copyright Law: A Handbook of Contemporary Research (pp. 283–314). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Ruffo, G., & Schifanella, R. (2009). A peer-to-peer recommender system based on spontaneous affinities. ACM Transactions on Internet Technology, 9(1), 1–34. doi:10.1145/1462159.1462163 Schwartz, B. (2005). The paradox of choice: why more is less (2nd ed.). New York: Harper Perennial. Tapscott, D. (1997). The digital economy: Promise and peril in the age of networked intelligence. New York: McGraw-Hill. Toffler, A. (1980). The third wave. New York: Bantam. Zhao, B. (2004). Tapestry: A resilient global-scale overlay for service deployment. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 22(1), 41–53. doi:10.1109/JSAC.2003.818784

ADDITIONAL READING Ardizzone, A. (2009). Copyright digitale. L’impatto delle nuove tecnologie tra economia e diritto. Torino: Giappichelli. Benkler, Y. (2004). Sharing nicely: On shareable goods and the emergence of sharing as a modality of economic production. The Yale Law Journal, 114(273), 273–358. doi:10.2307/4135731 Bynum, T. W., & Moor, J. H. (Eds.). (1998). The digital phoenix: How computers are changing philosophy. New York, NY: Blackwell.

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Bynum, T. W., & Rogerson, S. (Eds.). (2004). Computer ethics and professional responsibility. Oxford: Blackwell. Christensen, C. M., & Raynor, M. E. (2003). The innovator’s solution. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Drahos, P., & Braithwaite, J. (2002). Information feudalism. London: Earthscan. Floridi, L. (2010). A very short introduction to information. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Foray, D. (2004). Economics of knowledge. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Frank, R. H., & Cook, P. J. (1995). The winnertakes-all society. New York, NY: Martin Kessler Books at The Free Press. Gervais, D. (2004). The price of social norms: towards a liability regime for file sharing. Journal of Intellectual Property Law, 12(1), 39–73. Ghosh, R. (Ed.). (2005). Code- Collaborative ownership and the digital economy. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Goldstein, P. (1994). Copyright’s highway. New York, NY: Hill & Wang. Greco, G. M., & Floridi, L. (2004). The tragedy of the digital commons. Ethics and Information Technology, 6(2), 73–81. doi:10.1007/s10676004-2895-2 Himma, K. E. (2007). The legitimacy of intellectual property rights: The irrelevance of two conceptions of an information commons. In L. Hinman et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of CEPE 2007: The 7th International Conference of Computer Ethics- Philosophical Enquiry (pp. 180-193). San Diego: Centre for Telematics and Information Technology.

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Hummel, T., Muhle, S., & Schoder, D. (2005). Business applications and revenue models. In Steinmetz, R., & Wehrle, K. (Eds.), Peer-to-peer Systems and Applications (pp. 473–489). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. doi:10.1007/11530657_28 Kelling, D. T. (2003). Intellectual property rights in EU law: Free movement and competition law. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Krishnamurthy, S. (2003). A managerial overview of open source software. Business Horizons, 46(5), 47–56. doi:10.1016/S0007-6813(03)00071-5 Landes, W. M., & Posner, R. A. (2003). The economic structure of intellectual property law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lerner, J., & Tirole, J. (2002). Some simple economics of open source. The Journal of Industrial Economics, 50(2), 197–234. doi:10.1111/14676451.00174 Lessig, L. (2001). The future of ideas: The fate of the commons in an interconnected world. New York, NY: Random House. Limpsey, R. G., Karlaw, K. I., & Bekar, C. T. (2005). Economic transformations- General purpose technologies and long-term economic growth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miller, F. H. (Ed.). (2003). Rights and resources. Dartmouth: Ashgate. Nicita, A., & Ramello, G. B. (2007). Property, liability and market power: the antitrust side of copyright. Review of Law and Economics, 3(3), 767–791. Pagallo, U. (2005). Introduzione alla filosofia digitale. Torino: Giappichelli. Pagallo, U. (2008). La tutela della privacy negli Stati Uniti d’America e in Europa. Milano: Giuffrè.


Posner, R. (2005). Intellectual property: The law-and-economics approach. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19(2), 57–73. doi:10.1257/0895330054048704 Reichman, J. H. (1994). Legal hybrids between the patent and copyright paradigms. Columbia Law Review, 94(88), 2432–2558. doi:10.2307/1123143 Shapiro, C., & Varian, H. R. (1998). Information rules: A strategic guide to the network economy. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations. New York, NY: Penguin Press. Slobogin, C. (2007). Privacy at risk: The new government surveillance and the fourth amendment. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Solove, D. J., Rotenberg, M., & Schwartz, P. M. (2006). Privacy, information, and technology. New York, NY: Aspen. Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. D. (2006). Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything. New York, NY: Porfolio. Tavani, H. T. (2005). Locke, intellectual property rights, and the information commons. Ethics and Information Technology, 7(2), 87–97. doi:10.1007/s10676-005-4584-1 Von Hippel, E. (2005). Democratizing innovation. Boston, MA: The MIT Press. West, J., & Gallagher, S. (2006). Patterns of open innovation in open source software. In H. W. Chesbrough, W. Vanhaverbeke & J. West (Eds.), Open Innovation: Researching a New Paradigm (pp. 82-106). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zittrain, J. (2008). The future of the internet and how to stop it. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Copy: Traditionally conceived as the secondary representation or replica of an original, its current digital dimension has dramatically changed the relation with the archetype. Whereas, theoretically speaking, there is no longer any difference between the original and the copy, many relevant legal, economical, and business-related distinctions have vanished as with the demarcation between primary and secondary exploitation of an author’s work. Copyright: The right to the protection of the interests involved in any artistic or scientific production. The author’s exclusive right to exploit the benefits of her own work, with the drawbacks of such a monopolistic condition, has always been counterbalanced by determining a period after which the exclusivity expires. If the first copyright act, i.e., the Statute of Anne (1709), established a fourteen year term of protection, this period has now expanded to an average term of seventy-five years worldwide (the algorithm is equivalent to adding twenty years to Mickey Mouse’s age). Digital Rights Management (DRM): Systems that enable right-holders both to monitor and regulate the use of their copyright protected artefacts. On the assumption that digital technologies undermine legal provisions as commands enforced through physical sanctions, the goal is to achieve a perfect self-enforcement. Besides problems of interoperability and antitrust issues, the risk is however that DRM compliant systems can curtail freedom because behaviour would unilaterally be determined on the basis of technology rather than by choices of the relevant political institutions. Incentive: A positive motivator that is extremely relevant in digital environments since anonymity and decentralization often trigger selfish behaviour. They are mainly based on trust or trade, that is, through reputation mechanisms implemented via forms of digital barter or through services in return, where a bond scheme involves forms of digital money. As incentives can pro-

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duce value in terms of revenue, there have been some interesting management proposals like the MMAPPS project or FairPeers. Information: A tricky concept that has divided even giants like Wiener and Shannon. While, for the former, information and entropy are inversely proportioned, for the latter it works the other way around, because the more a message is unexpected or random, the more the information we have. Luckily enough, despite this difference, a new sort of metaphysics has arisen, according to which everything can be conceptualized in terms of information and the universe in terms of an “info-sphere”. Peer-to-Peer: File sharing applications for the Internet that have become particularly infamous, at least among music companies and movie producers, for they make it easy for users to access copy(right)-protected files for free. These systems, however, have solved some relevant problems of the CDN architecture based upon the traditional (and very expensive) client/server design, by decentralizing the processes of distributed storage and replicated copies of the data to be transmitted among nodes of the network through its “servents” (that is, nodes that are client and server at the same time). Privacy: The old “right to be let alone” that technology has combined with the novel need to protect people’s personal data in digital environ-

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ments. While, in the U.S., a property approach still prevails, so that consent represents most of the times the key legal notion of current debate, privacy is mostly associated in Europe with human dignity and presented as an inalienable right. Today’s troubles with digital copies have made this very difference extremely relevant in connection with alleged copyright infringements. Route: A metaphor which is used to illustrate the different phases and services making up the value chain of a given object. In the pre-digital world there was a traditional “long route” between an author and the public, in that several different steps were required to reach the potential buyer or consumer: production, storage, distribution, delivery, and the like. This value chain has been joined and even replaced by a “short route” in the digital era. Not only distribution and delivery have collapsed into a single service but boundaries between creators and consumers tend to blur. Topology: The way in which systems are configured and information is created and distributed in a network. Its relevance has not only a technical meaning- see the debate between centralized vs. decentralized networks- but legal and political significance as well. Different levels of technological platforms for sharing files on the Internet have an impact on the liability and responsibility of the users and the providers.

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Chapter 8

From “Connectivism” to “Ethicism” António dos Reis The Graal Institute, Portugal

ABSTRACT Distance learning characteristics has been changing dramatically, namely since the fourth generation of distance learning. Moreover, e-learning impressive “evolution” enabled a trade-off between learning outcomes and ethical behaviour, which traditional learning theories do not embrace and that connectivism endeavours to illustrate. Although, two important queries arise: what challenges e-learning 2.0 and 3.0 impose? And, does connectivism promote ethical knowledge? Therefore, this chapter aims to endorse a theoretical debate regarding e-learning, as well as to understand if connectivism will act as 21st century learning theory, or if the quest for an ethical connective knowledge and e-learning fusion with knowledge management itself will require a novel contribution (connethionicism). Despite the assumption that connectivism has been promoting a reasonable debate, the author’s personal experiences highlight the need for ethicism.

INTRODUCTION Since e-learning become aware literature has been debating pedagogical theories or its generations. However connectivism as a learning theory has emerged (Siemens, 2006a), and the analytical focus shifted completely. Therefore, today’s questions are: does educational technology itself fulfil good learning practices (Egbert, 2008)? Or, is DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-873-9.ch008

simply “technological noise” in order to promote happiness and motivation to online generations, instead of offering good learning (Cornwell & Cornwell, 2009)? It is a fact that the uprising of new information and communication technologies opens a large range to learners’ engagement (Small & Vorgan, 2008), as well as to implement a connectivist perspective due to the existence of information and connections (Downes, 2005b). Nonetheless, these technologies also enhance the gap of pedagogical


From “Connectivism” to “Ethicism”

and didactical skills with reference to educational agents’ ethical perception. Hence, is essential an urgent debate in order to ensure that appropriate pedagogical and methodological training is bounded to e-learning 2.0 and 3.0. In that sense, this chapter aims to discuss: what challenges e-learning 2.0 and e-learning 3.0 impose? And, if connectivism reinforces the quest for an ethical knowledge? Furthermore, for analytical purposes the author refers that ethical knowledge management comprises the learning process outcome and educational agents’ behaviour. At last, the chapter structure considers: historical background (presence versus distance learning and online learning generations); shaping educational knowledge (knowledge versus learning and emerging technology); mapping the territory (“blowing up” the mind and connective knowledge); the quest (ethics for connective knowledge, ethical frameworks for connective knowledge and a proposal: “ethicism”); and, future research directions.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Presence vs. Distance Learning During an important fraction of 19th and 20th centuries distance learning was a supporting tool for starting education, post graduation, or professional training to those who lived in peripheral areas. Therefore, Holmberg (2005) identifies several generations of distance learning: • •

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1st generation (1840 to 1970): acknowledged correspondence courses; 2nd generation (1970 to 1980): open universities era, in which universities have full degree programmes through new media, in a systematic way, and having evaluation systems in various parts of the world;

•

•

3rd generation (1980 to 1990): videotapes and TV were the key technological features; 4th generation (from the “90s” until now): online teaching/e-learning are learning enablers. Nevertheless, this generation encompasses various strands (see section online learning generations).

Despite each generation technological features a common characteristic arises: until the 21st century presence and distance learning prevailed in two dissimilar worlds (Holmberg, 2005). Although, the evolution of e-learning to blended learning due to technological evolution gathered both realities. As a result, a distinctive feature of knowledge society is content massive production and distribution in multiple forms in order to support lifelong learning in all learning environments (Commission of the European Communities, 2009; Tuomi, 2004). Therefore, Harris, Connolly & Feeney (2009) argue that for a successful learning process in nowadays blended learning is crucial. This resumes online learning features (content delivery, potential, aperture and versatility), as well as presence learning (formal contact), in spite of e-learning latest streams of the fourth generation allow purely e-learning, as well as learners’ characteristics.

Online Learning Generations E-learning definition has in itself undergone major changes since its first appearance, so the analogy as regards to information processing supported by computers and teaching exhibits this development. Initially, computational programs were referred as Computer Based Instruction or, simply Computer Based Learning which frames distance learning fourth generation. In fact, this mutual exclusive relationship and dependency on distance learning is pointed out by Rosenberg (2001), which even prophesied e-learning terminus. Furthermore, this author aimed to distinguish distance learning


Figure 1. Comparing e-learning generations (Source: Reis et al., 2009, Figure 1)

supported by information and communication technologies from the one supported by printed documents. Nevertheless, today this theoretical debate is inadequate since it is common understanding that e-learning integrates all available means in order to support the learning process, whatever its key features (blended or pure distance learning). For example, Turban et al. (2006) define e-learning as the online delivery of information for purposes of education, training, or knowledge management, and is different from formal education, which occurs off campus, and usually, but not always, through online resources (distance learning). Or, for Abram (2003) is basically using the Internet, an intranet, extranet, or other Web technologies to provide training to individuals in a synchronous or asynchronous mode. As a result, a new arrangement of concepts and content is possible for e-learning (Reis, 2007): •

•

blended learning: includes formative multimedia contents (face-to-face or at a distance), online tutoring and online formative evaluation; distance learning: comprises auto study (contents and evaluation) and online tutoring (contents, tutoring and evaluation).

Likewise, at the moment mainstream debate focuses on e-learning generations: 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. Although, how can we define them? E-learning 1.0 reflects the historical perception previously introduced; Downes (2005a) considers e-learning 2.0 as an “interlocking set of open-source applications, where learning is becoming a creative activity and that the appropriate venue is a platform rather than an application”; and, e-learning 3.0 corresponds to the introduction of semantic web technologies in order to provide contextual information and coordination with reference to text, voice or images through workflow tools as supporting infrastructure (Teten, 2007). In addition, for an easy perception of these generations the author introduces Figure 1. Therefore, e-learning 1.0 acknowledges content distributed through asynchronous technologies, meaning unidirectional communication through top-down analysis; 2.0 engages interactive content through synchronous communication, leading to a bottom-up collaborative analysis; 3.0 resumes technologies for cooperation, enabling a transversal collaborative analysis (Ebner, 2007). Following Rossi (2008) it is still possible to denote that: •

e-learning 1.0: entails a prevalence of instructivist (learning objects design), socio-

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Figure 2. Tools of e-learning generations (Source: Reis et al., 2009, Figure 2)

•

•

constructivist (peer review through e-mail, forum or chat) and cognitivist approach (consumption of information); e-learning 2.0: acknowledges a connectivist (distributed collaboration) dominance, despite a socio-cognitivist (social interaction observation) and socio-cultural (cultural competences) engagement; e-learning 3.0: remains in a “veil of ignorance” (e.g. Rawls, 2001; 1971), although artificial intelligence is bounded to this evolution.

As a result, it is time to shed some light as regards to the tools that allow content distribution in each e-learning, and for that the author pleads Figures 2 and 3. If the Reader bears in mind the distinctive features of each generation, as well as Figures 2 and 3 easily recognizes that: (1) e-learning 1.0 (documents or videos) entails Web early version; (2) e-learning 2.0 is bounded to the rise of Web

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2.0 (wikis, blogs, chats, games, among others), which O’Reilly (2005) describes as the evolution for a network platform given the possibility of users provide data and exercise some control over that data, as well as to participate; (3) and, last but not least e-learning 3.0 echoes Web 3.0 (video conference, e-meeting, webcasts, etc)! According to Hempel (2009), the Web 3.0 will configure novel information production through computers rather than humans. In conclusion, today’s learning process can be identified through the following table.

SHAPPING EDUCATIONAL KNOWLEDGE Knowledge vs. Learning According to Siemens (2006a), knowledge and learning are procedures that arise inside vague environments of variable core basics, which are


Figure 3. Content distribution in e-learning generations (Source: Reis et al., 2009, Figure 3)

not totally under the control of the individual. However, given the overall argument of this manuscript it is fundamental to debate the underlying discrepancies between both concepts, because throughout literature both concepts are inconsistently used leading to a continuous conflict. To Driscoll (2000, pp. 11) learning is “a persisting change in human performance or performance potential (…) as a direct result of the learner’s experience and interaction with the world”, or “a cognitive and/or physical process in which a person assimilates information and temporarily or permanently acquires or improves skills, knowledge, behaviours, and/or attitudes” (American Society for Training and Development, 2010). On the other hand, Stacey (2001) spotlights the paradoxical nature of knowledge, which is simultaneously a thing and a flow or, a process. Moreover, this author points out some key heuristics: knowledge can only be volunteered and values narrative in order to demonstrate knowledge context. And, the result or product of knowing;

information or understanding acquired through experience; practical ability or skill; cognition (Oxford English Dictionary, 2008). Hence the key remark is the notion of sense making, which Kurtz & Snowden (2003, pp. 466) describes as the “use patterns to order the world and make sense of things in complex situations”. This scenario clearly outlooks present educational paradigm, because the aim is to analyse, interpret, and apply in order to obtain knowledge.

Emerging Technology Regardless knowledge and learning dissimilarities, e-learning 2.0 and 3.0 is thrusting a technological fusion in order to enlarge e-learning scope. In fact literature has been discussing this blend (e.g. Haldane, 2004) although some open remarks continue to exist. Nonetheless, knowledge management in educational institutions is not a hype given the key characteristics that knowledge society encompasses (knowledge is a resource,

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Table 1. E-learning processes (Adapted from Reis, 2008) E-learning Content distribution Tutoring Evaluation

Processes

Results

Synchronous technologies

Presence and virtual classroom

Asynchronous technologies

Learning Management Systems (LMS)

Without tutoring

Self studying

With tutoring


Formative and summative evaluation


and lifelong learning is compulsory) (Sedziuviene & Vveinhardt, 2009; Kidwell, Linde & Johnson, 2000). The reasons for this convergence are (Lytras, Pouloudi & Poulymenakou, 2002): (1) the connection to particular education requirements or problems; (2) the customization of content in order to reflect the needed learning circumstances; (3) promote learners’ participation into the learning process; (4) improving commitment mechanisms, which will involve further sophisticated learning circumstances; (5) the establishment of tangible learning procedures in order to achieve unlike learning objectives; (6) the development of delivery modes able to support the daily business life of executives. After debating this blend, is necessary to highlight LMS technological streams (Siemens, 2004a): •

•

Learning Knowledge Management Systems (LKMS)- acknowledges LMS social development, and involves Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) and Social Software (SS); Learning Oriented KM Systems (LOKMS)LMS instructional evolution.

PLEs resume the ability to learners’ manage their own learning environment ; and, SS gathers a mix of bounded technologies that allow a bidirectional process in creating and sharing information and knowledge, rather than simply accessing peripheral informational objects (Attwell, 2007). To conclude, Lytras & Pouloudi

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(2006) refer that LOKMS attempts to describe the required feedback loops that instructional design imposes to e-learning. Nevertheless, as Siemens & Tittenberger (2009, pp. 15) remind: “the choice to use a particular technology also reflects an accompanying world view or existing mindset”. Consequently, this claim is consistent with recent e-learning literature regarding the importance of ethics within learning environments.

MAPPING THE TERRITORY “Blowing Up” the Mind? Several improvements in diverse scientific and social areas led to deep changes in the educational process: (1) technological evolution; (2) multichannel learning process; (3) and, socio-cultural revolution. The 90’s imposed a quality leap regarding information and communication technologies consolidation for educational purposes, as for example content generator software, video projectors, and easy presentation tools. Besides, computer chips evolution up to 2GHz, hard drives current speed (Nickerson & Bryner, 2002), as well as the idea that broadband distribution with affordable prices was essential to educational software and media (e.g. European Commission, 1996) allowed video processing and streaming leading to rich multimedia learning environments (present reality) (Handelzalts et al., 2007). Simultaneously the open source movement enabled online tutoring


and an effective cost reduction in all learning platforms (Online Education Database, 2007), as well as the possibility of to personalize the learning environments (examples of pure virtual lecturing platforms are Marratech, Adobe Connect, Elluminate, Saba, LiveLearning, among others). As regards to multi-channel learning process the author draws his attention to psychology and neurobiology contributions to brain “mapping”. In fact, Damasio and his colleagues’ work (1984; 1985) established that the learning process involves concurrently several brain areas according to the existing stimulus, which empirical deductions during the 18th century seem to highlight (e.g. Brodmann, 1909). From this major discovery Joan Stiles-Davis (1988) identified the main physiological and psychological areas for each stimulus, namely two significant areas: rational and emotional. As a result, this discovery would be in the line of reasoning with Gardner’s (1983) theory about learning styles, the VARK model (Fleming & Mills, 1992), and emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1995). The mix of these contributions gives emphasis to multi-channel formats in order to meet learning styles, as well as pedagogic principles bounded to motivation. In addition, Alcino Silva & Sheena Josselyn (2002) debated memorising processes from a neuropsychological perspective, which underlined dissimilar phases during learning. Once again, this discovery confirmed Moore’s (1993), Lauzon’s (1997), and Northrup’s (2001; 2002) theories about interactivity aspects within the learning process (learner versus lecturer, learner versus learner, and learner versus contents and intra-personal interactivity). The third reason, socio-cultural revolution, resumed lifelong learning that has been characterizing knowledge society (van Weert, 2005), and societal dependence on digital technologies (van der Velden et al., 2009), which change dramatically education process for learners’ and lecturers’. Even so, in order to produce a more reliable argument the author will detail the overlapping dimension concerning e-learning generations.

Neurobiology contributions, namely spindle cells and mirror neurons, legitimate socio-cultural interaction or collaboration (Goleman, 2006), because mirror-neuron system seems to be strongly bounded to the praxis of human culture (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004), to the evolution of language and other forms of expression (artistic and non-artistic) (Oztop, Kawato & Arbib, 2006), to cognitive skills involved in social groups (Erlhagen, Muskoysky & Bicho, 2006), and to emotional consciousness (Parr, Waller & Fugate, 2005). So, these arguments clearly reinforce elearning 2.0 pedagogical features (connectivist, socio-cognitivist and socio-cultural), and justify the evolution from 1.0 to 2.0 since challenges 1.0 pedagogical theories (Chernigovskaya, 2007). Moreover, neurobiology and psychology scientific research on emotions and human computer interaction enables e-learning 3.0 (Gan & Wang, 2005), despite the nebulous scenario concerning pedagogical perceptions.

Connective Knowledge Concept From an etymological analysis it is possible to refer that “connective” derives from a combination of connect and the suffix ive, and connect suggests to establish a relationship or awaken meaningful emotions. Furthermore, a connector resumes a tube for connecting other materials, which entails a scientific perception (Online Etymology Dictionary, 2010). However, what is the meaning of connective knowledge? Downes (2005b) defines connective knowledge as the embryonic knowledge ensuing from connections, which in his own words, “a property of one entity must lead to or become a property of another entity in order to them be considered connected”. Downes (2008) still points out that exist three types of knowledge: empirical (experiences); rationalist (quantitative); connective (derives from connections). Likewise, Downes’ assumption engages

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a dissimilar perspective when compared to the work of Cromer (1997), Connected Knowledge: Science, Philosophy and Education, in which the author argues that connected knowledge demonstrates scientists and educators differences regarding scientific and philosophical principles. Regardless Cromer’s (1997) argument, which etymology legitimizes at some extent, it is feasible to claim that today’s educational reality does not reproduce these discrepancies.

Connectivism Connectivism integrates principles explored by chaos, network complexity, and self-organization theories (Siemens, 2006a), as well as the tenets of connectivism is current educational technology (e-learning 2.0 and 3.0) instead of be simply a logistical vehicle that delivers information (Siemens & Tittenberger, 2009). Therefore, the principles of connectivism are (Siemens, 2004b): • • • • • • • •

learning and knowledge relies in multiple beliefs; learning is a procedure of linking focused nodes or information sources; learning may be inherent to non-human applications; ability to know more is more important than what is presently known; fostering and preserving connections is obligatory to support continuous learning; talent to notice connections among fields, ideas and concepts is a core skill; existing or up-to-date knowledge is the aim of all connectivist learning activities; decision-making encompasses a learning process.

Additionally, Siemens (2005; 2004b) describes connectivism as a form of knowledge and a pedagogy based on distributed networks, in which learning entails the skill to construct and across those networks. Still following this author, learn-

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ing versus knowledge is a dynamic, living and evolving state that depends on sharing environments characteristics (Siemens, 2003): informal, not structured, tool-rich, consistency and time, trust, and simplicity. In fact, for Downes (2007) connectivism implies pedagogy due to diversity, autonomy, openness and connectivity as key features of networks, as well as describes individual and societal procedures (learning is an individual and collective process). Thus the starting point of connectivism is the individual; nonetheless, it becomes an organizational and societal process. This is consistent with Siemens (2006b) argument that learners and organizations face numerous key challenges: societal changes, technology, globalization, information development, and decentralization. From this miscellaneous blend emerges some critical trade-offs: how knowledge is shared throughout educational organizations? Has everyone access to the organizational body of knowledge? Do connections promote learning?

THE QUEST Ethics for Connective Knowledge Ethics as a concept acknowledges an interchangeable distinction due to the continuous use of “morality” or “ethics” (Pojman, 1994). For the purpose of this manuscript ethics is centred on three basic concepts: good, self and the other (Rossouw, 2002), despite Stahl’s (2008) perspective that a theoretical assumption is insufficient to discern on a latent issue, because our primary ideas must be considered moral conceptual instincts and require ethical legitimacy, which moral beliefs will admit or not. Therefore, due to information and communication technologies magnitude and overall impact in society computer ethics assumes a vital role, namely the underlying ethical issues in education. Issues like intellectual property, copyright violations, plagiarism, and open source versus open standards have been systemically under


debate (Doha Development Agenda, 2008); or, power, privacy, monitoring, surveillance, access, opportunity cost, and awareness (Stahl, 2002). Even so, is the author belief that the continuous debate around these issues, as well as computer ethics integration in curricula do not appear to diminish unethical practices. This conviction is based on some empirical evidences experienced by the author, as for instance the example of Pedagogical Convention in 2007. In this convention a speaker claimed that:

Ethical Frameworks for Connective Knowledge

(...) Today we do not need to reinvent the wheel. We just need to use an Internet browser, find what we need, copy and paste it (...)

•

Of course that during the debate period the presenter was confronted namely the author of this manuscript through the following comments: I totally agree with this idea, however I need to add three comments: always disclose the name of the author of the information, as well as always disclose the references where the information was extracted. This small attitude makes a difference between a plagiarist, intellectual property and copyright violator into a researcher (a credible person acting morally)... The key problem is that many educational actors, like lecturers and learners do not fully understand these ethical issues and its consequences.

Jefferies & Stahl (2005) analyse the relationship among pedagogy, ethics and technology. These authors consider the overlaps about the three domains: • •

e-learning- resumes the interaction between technology and pedagogy; computer ethics- is the relationship among technology and ethics; theories of learning- refers to the interface between pedagogy and ethics.

Although as Figure 4 exhibits the core overlapping domain remains unknown, despite Sarmento & Costa (2006) first proposal: ethics should be simultaneously a key domain and the overlap. This argument was further detailed by Silva et al. (2009): the “e” highlights lecturer’s ethics, learner’s ethics, and organizational ethics. These contributions entail a follow-up of Stahl’s (2002) work, Ethical issues in e-teaching: A theoretical framework. This author introduces a tridimensional matrix for e-learning ethical quandaries: the awareness of the ethical impact;

Figure 4. Pedagogy, ethics and technology model (Source: Jefferies & Stahl, 2005, Figure 1)

And, as a result of finding easily all types of information, a permanent temptation to anonymous copy and paste exists. It is absolutely necessary a clear and open debate covering the ethical and legal issues concerning plagiarism and copyright violations. This is the only way to teach our learners a proper behaviour.

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who is involved; and whether it is a hypothetical or practical problem. On the other hand, these dimensions engage three potential scales: microlevel (individuals); meso-level (organizations); and, macro-level (the educational institution, or society). The explanation for this assumption according to Stahl (2002) is that, ethical theories over time denote to be a characteristic associated to the micro-level, the e-learning project is inseparable from the organization, and the educational institution decisions have a tremendous impact in society.

A Proposal: “Ethicism” According to The Free Dictionary (2010), “ethicism” is a conscious tendency to moralize, and a doctrine that ethics and ethical ideas are valid and important. Or, “is the thesis that the ethical assessment of attitudes manifested by works of art is a legitimate aspect of the aesthetic evaluation of those works” (Gaut, 2004, pp. 283). Likewise, a considerable debate about strong or weaker versions of moralism exists in literature; however, given the nature of this manuscript the author pleads a less strong version of moralism (Carroll, 2000; 1996), as well as that e-learning entails an aesthetic perception (Stenalt & Godsk, 2006). Therefore Gaut (2007, pp. 10) claims that “an artwork is aesthetically flawed in so far as it possesses an ethical flaw that is aesthetically relevant, and conversely that an artwork has an aesthetic merit in so far as it possesses an ethical merit that is aesthetically relevant” due to ethicism features, which Halwani (2009) contradicts through five reasons: (1) artworks have no moral content; (2) that do have moral content but whose prescribed responses are non-moral; (3) whose prescribed moral responses do not ask the audience to accept or reject the moral claim but merely to contemplate or entertain it; (4) whose prescribed moral responses assert moral claims that are indeterminate; and (5) whose prescribed moral

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responses are embodied in equally plausible or true but incompatible interpretations. Nevertheless, Halwani (2009) assumes that all artwork encompasses similar features to a film which is clearly controversial. Besides e-learning 2.0 and 3.0 aim to engage people, and imply a trade-off between formal and informal education, which can be related to the claim of Conolly (2000) that education is a form of art, because: (1) aims to involve people in order to promote learning through pleasure; (2) and, pleasure engages subjectivity due to personal preferences which constraints an objective evaluation.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS Revolutions affect all parts of society and education is not exempt from the ongoing technological revolution. Moreover, it is necessary to bear in mind that future predictions are a challenging discussion and for that three main assumptions ought to be underline: •

•

•

connectivism may not be the 21st century thinking as regards to pedagogy (Kerr, 2007), although it clearly enhanced a necessary dialogue concerning learning theories in network collaboration (Ally, 2008); the quest for a ethical connective knowledge is a long term scenario, because it is crucial to educate all future educational agents like the empirical evidences demonstrate; ethicism highlights a “natural” process that education as an artwork needs to integrate (Stenalt & Godsk, 2006).

Yet an important query arises: will e-learning 3.0 enhance these challenges? Will connectivism be able to cope with these challenges in e-learning 3.0? And if not, what theoretical contribution will emerge? If e-learning 3.0 “basic idea is to use


the knowledge embedded within the web and include possible web elements on top to begin to extract greater meaning” (Kerr, 2006), is the author belief that connectivism will not highlight a full response to the new learning environments because educational agents have different learning styles, as well as that ethical challenges concerning connective knowledge will be enhanced due to the e-learning 3.0 appliances that will try to discover or extract knowledge. Summing up, a new theory for e-learning 3.0 is vital. On the other hand, Downes (2009) explains through neurobiology contributions how cloud collaboration will enhance agents distributed cognition and learning, which is consistent to Stelarc’s (2005) argument that our informational objects are our own body extensions. This is consistent with connectivism and the problem of moral judgment regarding non-human agents that ethicism imposes, which summarizes e-learning 3.0 challenges. Thus, e-learning 3.0 will shape a massive global neural learning network! Despite the consideration that neural learning network discussion is not novelty (e.g. Roth, 2005); the truth is that connectionism may regain a new impulse with this global neural learning network. However, what is the meaning of connectionism? According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2010) is a: “movement in cognitive science which hopes to explain human intellectual abilities using artificial neural networks (…). Neural networks are simplified models of the brain composed of large numbers of units (the analogs of neurons) together with weights that measure the strength of connections between the units”. In this case, the author alleges that a potential pedagogical or learning theory for e-learning 3.0 will be “connethionicism”. This concept resumes an overlap between connectivism (pedagogy and learning theory for collaborative environments),

ethicism (the demand for ethical ideas) and connectionism (human and non-human learning agents). In conclusion, the author argues that Plato’s Allegory of the Cave provides an interesting response to future research directions, because the shadows are a casual awareness of the omni-presence of light which illustrates educational agents’ amendment to this challenging environment, and the rising of “connethionicism”.

CONCLUSION E-learning can be a powerful support tool to presence and distance learning; however, it is vital to remember that online learning stands on four structural pillars, as follows: (1) new learning technologies (generation 2.0 and 3.0); (2) novel lecturing methodologies (connectivism); (3) educational agents’ ethical principles (ethicism); (4) and, context (societal circumstances). Besides, connectivism contribution for understanding pedagogy, learning, and knowledge in nowadays educational environments is evident; although, it tends to disregard ethical issues as regards to connective knowledge. For that, ethicism will enable the quest for an ethical connective knowledge in e-learning 2.0 environments, since 3.0 learning environments characteristics and challenges will compel a further debate. Therefore a possible retort for e-learning 3.0 outcomes is “connethionicism”, which will emphasize Sarmento & Costa (2006) argument that the “e” of e-learning implies ethics/ethical behaviours, instead of Rosenberg (2001)terminus. This is consistent with the four structural pillars in order to e-learning be globally accepted as a prerequisite for future social and economic development, providing basis for knowledge management in a truthfully education (Richards, 2004). Concluding, Machiavelli’s comic play, Mandragola, it is possible to feel the spirit of modern science without any of its apparatus.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author would like to appreciate the insightful comments of Nuno Sotero Alves da Silva to the earlier versions of this manuscript, as well as to the editor for its endeavour, support and guidance throughout the writing process.

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Downes, S. (2008). Types of knowledge and connective knowledge. Half an Hour. Retrieved October 27, 2009, from, http://halfanhour. blogspot.com/2008/09/types-of-knowledge-andconnective.html Downes, S. (2009). The cloud and collaboration. Half an Hour. Retrieved January 20, 2010, from, http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2009/06/cloudand-collaboration.html Driscoll, M. (2000). Psychology of learning for instruction (2nd ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Ebner, M. (2007, April). E-learning 2.0 = Elearning 1.0 + Web 2.0? Paper presented at the Second International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security, Vienna, Austria. Egbert, J. L. (2008). Supporting learning with technology: Essentials of classroom practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Erlhagen, W., Muskovskiy, A., & Bicho, E. (2006). A dynamic model for action understanding and goal-directed imitation. Brain Research, 1083(1), 174–188. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2006.01.114 European Commission. (1996). Educational software and multimedia (Report of the Task Force). European Commission. Retrieved October 2, 2009, from http://aei.pitt.edu/5651/01/001851_1. pdf Fleming, N. D., & Mills, C. (1992). Not another inventory, rather a catalyst for reflection. To Improve the Academy, 11, 137-149.

Gaut, B. (2004). The ethical criticism of art. In Lamarque, P., & Olsen, S. H. (Eds.), Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytical Tradition: An Anthology (pp. 283–294). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing. Gaut, B. (2007). Art, emotion and ethics. New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acp rof:oso/9780199263219.001.0001 Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books. Goleman, D. (2006). Social intelligence: The new science of human relationships. London: Hutchinson. Haldane, A. (2004). The convergence of e.learning and knowledge management: Fusion or confusion? European Consortium for the Learning Organisation. Retrieved October 14, 2009, from http://www.eclo.org/pages/uploads/File/ The%20Convergence%20of%20e-learning%20 and%20Knowledge%20Management%20-%20 Andrew%20Haldane.pdf Halwani, R. (2009). Ethicism, interpretation, and Munich. The Journal of Applied Psychology, 26(1), 71–87. Handelzalts, A. (2007). Preservice teachers’ perceptions of an ICT-rich learning environment: Development of an instrument. Learning Environments Research, 10(2), 131–144. doi:10.1007/ s10984-007-9024-1 Harris, P., Connolly, J., & Feeney, L. (2009). Blended learning: Overview and recommendations for successful implementation. Industrial and Commercial Training, 41(3), 155–163. doi:10.1108/00197850910950961 125


Hempel, J. (2009). Web 2.0 is so over. Welcome to web 3.0. CNN Money. Retrieved September 22, 2009, from, http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/07/ technology/hempel_threepointo.fortune/index. htm Holmberg, B. (2005). The evolution, principles and practices of distance education. Oldenburg, Sweden: BIS-Verlag der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg. http://halfanhour.blogspot. com/2008/09/types-of-knowledge-and-connective.html Jefferies, P., & Stahl, B. C. (2005). Some ethical considerations regarding the relationship of e-learning and pedagogy. In Collste, G. (Eds.), ETHICOMP 2005: Looking Back to the Future (CD: paper 31). Linköping, Sweden: Linköping University. Kerr, B. (2006). Web 3.0- E-learning 3.0? Elearning technology. E-learning Tech. Retrieved January 21, 2010, from, http://elearningtech. blogspot.com/2006/11/web-30-elearning-30. html#ixzz0zfMkSsKW Kerr, B. (2007). Which radical discontinuity? Bill Kerr. Retrieved January 20, 2010, from, http:// billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/02/which-radicaldiscontinuity.html Kidwell, J. J., Linde, K. M. V., & Johnson, S. L. (2000). Applying corporate knowledge management practices in higher education. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 23(4), 28–33. Kurtz, C. F., & Snowden, D. J. (2003). The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-making in a complex and complicated world. IBM Systems Journal, 42(3), 462–483. doi:10.1147/sj.423.0462 Lauzon, A. C. (1997). Postmodernism, interactive technologies and the design of distance education. In M. Koble & E. Wagner (Eds.), Distance Education Symposium 3: Course Design, ACSDE Research Monograph Number 14 (pp. 6-21). University Park, PA: The American Centre for Distance Education, PA, The Pennsylvania State University. 126

Lytras, M. D., & Pouloudi, A. (2006). Towards the development of a novel taxonomy of knowledge management systems from a learning perspective: An integrated approach to learning and knowledge infrastructures. Journal of Knowledge Management, 10(6), 64–80. doi:10.1108/13673270610709224 Lytras, M. D., Pouloudi, A., & Poulymenakou, A. (2002). Knowledge management convergence- Expanding learning frontiers. Journal of Knowledge Management, 6(1), 40–51. doi:10.1108/13673270210417682 Machiavelli, N. (1981). Mandragola. Transl. M. J. Flaumenhaft. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press Inc. Moore, M. G. (1993). Theory of transactional distance. In Keegan, D. (Ed.), Theoretical Principles of Distance Education (pp. 22–38). New York: Routledge. Nickerson, M., & Bryner, J. (2002). From video tutors to electronic portfolios: Using advanced screen capture in support of educational technology instruction. In D. Willis et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (pp. 430-431). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Northrup, P. T. (2001). A framework for designing interactivity into web-based instruction. Educational Technology, 41(2), 31–39. Northrup, P. T. (2002). Online learners’preferences for interaction. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 3(2), 219–226. O’Reilly, T. (2005). What is web 2.0. O’Reilly Network. Retrieved September 17, 2009, from, http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/ news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html Online Education Database. (2007). How the open source movement has changed education: 10 success stories. OEDB. Retrieved September 22, 2009, from http://oedb.org/library/features/ how-the-open-source-movement-has-changededucation-10-success-stories


Online Etymology Dictionary. (2010). Connective. Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved January 30, 2010, from, http://www.etymonline. com/index.php?search=diversity&searchmode =none

Richards, C. (2004). From old to new learning: global dilemmas, exemplary Asian contexts, and ICT as a key to cultural change in education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 2(3), 337–353. doi:10.1080/1476772042000252470

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Rawls, J. (2001). Justice as fairness: A restatement. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Reis, A. D. (2007). Media, knowledge & education (digital media ecologies). Innsbruck, Austria: Innsbruck University Press. Reis, A. D. (2008). Support documentation for post graduation on pedagogic and didactic skills on e-learning and ICT. The Graal Institute. Retrieved August 1, 2009, from, http://thegraal.ccems.pt/ Reis, A. D., et al. (2009). To be or not to be mlearning (that it is the question). In P. Norbert & S. Judith (Eds.), 3rd WLE Mobile Learning Symposium, Mobile Learning Cultures across Education, Work and Leisure (pp 75-80). London: WLE Centre.

Sarmento, M. M., & Costa, G. J. M. (2006). Elearning: does the “e” also means ethics? In Reis, A., & Piecha, J. (Eds.), DLCW 2006 (CD: paper 4). Lisbon, Spain: ISEG. Sedziuviene, N., & Vveinhardt, J. (2009). The paradigm of knowledge management in higher educational institutions. Inzinerine EkonomikaEngineering Economics, 5(65), 79–90. Siemens, G. (2003). Learning ecology, communities, and networks. Extended the classroom. Elearnspace. Retrieved August, 21, 2009, from, http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/learning_ communities.htm Siemens, G. (2004a). Learning management systems: The wrong place to start learning. Elearnspace. Retrieved August 19, 2009, from, http:// www.elearnspace.org/Articles/lms.htm

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Siemens, G. (2004b). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. Elearnspace. Retrieved August 21, 2009, from, http://www.elearnspace. org/Articles/connectivism.htm Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: Learning as network-creation. Elearnspace. Retrieved August 21, 2009, from, http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/networks.htm Siemens, G. (2006a, October). Connectivism: Learning and knowledge today. Paper presented at the Education.au Global Summit 2006: Technology connected futures, Sydney, Australia. Siemens, S., & Tittenberger, P. (2009). Handbook of emerging technologies for learning. Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada: University of Manitoba. Siemens (2006b). Knowing knowledge. Elearnspace. Retrieved August 21, 2009, from, http://www.elearnspace.org/KnowingKnowledge_LowRes.pdf Silva, A. J., & Josselyn, S. A. (2002). Cognitive neuroscience: The molecules of forgetfulness. Nature, 418(6901), 929–930. doi:10.1038/418929a Silva, N. S. A., et al. (2009). The evolution of e-learning management systems- An ethical approach. Paper presented at the Network Ethics 2009, Lisbon, Portugal. Small, G. W., & Vorgan, G. (2008). iBrain: Surviving the technological alteration of the modern mind. New York: Harper Collins. Snowden, D. (2000). The paradox of story: Simplicity and complexity in strategy. Journal of Scenario and Strategy Planning, 1(5), 16–20. Stacey, P. (2001). E-learning value chain and market map. New Media BC e-Learning SIG. Retrieved August 17, 2009, from http://www. bctechnology.com/statics/bcelearning.swf

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Stahl, B. C. (2002). Ethical issues in e-teaching- A theoretical framework. In King, G. (Eds.), Proceedings of Inspire VII, Quality in Learning and Delivery Techniques (pp. 135–148). Limerick, Ireland: The British Computer Society. Stahl, B. C. (2008). Researching ethics and morality in information systems: Some guiding questions. In Te’eni, D. (Eds.), ICIS 2008 (paper 175). Paris, France: University of Montpellier II. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2010). Connectionism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved January 21, 2010, from http:// plato.stanford.edu/entries/connectionism/ Stenalt, M. H., & Godsk, M. (2006). The pleasure of e-learning- Towards aesthetic e-learning platforms. In T. Lillemaa (Ed.), Proceedings of the 12th International Conference of European University Information Systems (pp. 201-212). Tartu, Finland: University of Tartu & EUNIS. Stiles-Davis, J. (1988). Spatial dysfunctions in young children with right cerebral hemisphere injury. In Stiles-Davis, J., Kritchesvky, M., & Bellugi, U. (Eds.), Spatial Cognition- Brain Bases and Development (pp. 251–272). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Teten, D. (2007, June). Web 3.0: Where are we headed? Paper presented at the Web 2.0 New York Conference, New York, NY. The Free Dictionary. (2010). Ethicism. The Free Dictionary. Retrieved January 15, 2010, from, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ethicism Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. (1985). Knowledge without awareness: An autonomic index of facial recognition by prosopagnosics. Science, 228(21), 1453–1454. doi:10.1126/science.4012303 Tuomi, I. (2004, December). Innovation, growth and competitiveness in the knowledge society. Paper presented at the Foro de la Innovación y Modernización en Andalucía, Malaga, Spain.


Turban, E. (Eds.). (2006). Electronic commerce: A managerial perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Prentice Hall. van der Velden, M., et al. (2009). Autonomy and automation in an information society for all. Paper presented at the Information Systems Research Seminar in Scandinavia, Molde, Norway. van Weert, T. (2005). Lifelong learning in the knowledge society- Implications for education. International Federation for Information Processing, 161, 15–25.

ADDITIONAL READING Bednar, A. (2010). Theory into practice: How do we link. In Anglin, G. (Ed.), Instructional Technology: Past, Present and Future (3rd ed., pp. 100–112). Denver, CO: Libraries Unlimited. Costa, G. J. M., & Silva, N. S. A. (2010). Knowledge versus content in e-learning: a philosophical discussion! Information Systems Frontiers, 12(4), 399–413. doi:10.1007/s10796-009-9200-1 Costa, G. J. M., Silva, N. S. A., & Rogerson, S. (2008). Knowledge versus content in e-learning: A philosophical discussion! In T. Bynum et al. (Eds.), ETHICOMP 2008: Living, Working and Learning Beyond Technology (pp. 143-155). Mantua: University of Pavia. Iacoboni, M. (2008). Mirroring people: The new science of how we connect with others. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Jones, A., & Mercer, N. (2003). Theories of learning and information technology. In Scrimshaw, P. (Ed.), Language, Classroom and Computers (pp. 11–26). London: Routledge. Kelly, M. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of aesthetics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Ravenscroft, A. (2001). Designing e-learning interactions in the 21st century: Revisiting and rethinking the role of theory. European Journal of Education, 36(2), 133–156. doi:10.1111/14673435.00056 Silva, N. S. A., et al. (2009). Knowledge or content? The philosophical boundaries in e-learning pedagogical theories! In A. M. Vilas et al. (Eds.), m-ICTE 2009 - V International Conference on Multimedia and ICT in Education (pp. 221-225). Lisbon: University of Lisbon. Stiles-Davis, J., & Nass, R. (2004). Spatial grouping activity in young children with congenital right or left hemisphere brain. Brain and Cognition, 15(2), 201–222. doi:10.1016/02782626(91)90026-5 Trappl, R., Petta, P., & Payr, S. (Eds.). (2002). Emotion in humans and artifacts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Connecticism: A theoretical proposal that endeavours to be e-learning 3.0 future pedagogy. For that, it bonds connectivism, ethicism and connectionism features. Connective Knowledge: Knowledge that arises through network collaboration, in which individual is a nodule that produces connections. Connectivism: Form of knowledge and pedagogy that resumes network collaboration. E-Learning 1.0: The first generation of learning through computational technology. It resumes a static and non bidirectional communication between all educational agents. Instructivism, constructivism and cognitivism characterize this generation. E-Learning 2.0: Entails the evolution concerning synchronous technologies (podcast, wikis, blogs, etc) that promote bidirectional communication and total collaboration among the educational

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agents. For that, assumes the following pedagogical streams. connectivist, socio-cognitivist and social-cultural. E-Learning 3.0: The ultimate generation of e-learning! It acknowledges the possibility of

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coordinate and generate contextual information through semantic appliances (artificial intelligence). At a pedagogical level it remains a mystery. Ethicism: Philosophical system in which ethics and ethical ideas are legitimate and crucial.

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Chapter 9

Glocality, Diversity and Ethics of Distributed Knowledge in Higher Education Nuno Sotero Alves da Silva De Montfort University, UK Isabel Maria Surdinho Borges Alvarez Lusíada University of Lisbon, Portugal Simon Rogerson De Montfort University, UK

ABSTRACT Global networks through distributed systems technology granted a new meaning to knowledge creation, storage and distribution within higher education context. This global dimension imposes a considerable amount of ethical and social impacts concerning distributed knowledge because it is expressed within local contexts. Nonetheless, main stream literature highlights equity and cultural sensitivity as leading issues, and disregards the existent social dilemmas concerning organizational innovation in higher education. Therefore, this chapter aims to promote a philosophical and empirical argument within contextual determinants, in order to explore the ethical and social key dilemmas of distributed knowledge between global and local diversity in higher education. For that, under scrutiny will be a specific layer regarding first co-author e-University strategic implementation framework which interacts with ethics and culture, in order to, understand e-learning current practices in higher education, as well as, to nominate potential future guidelines concerning these trends.

INTRODUCTION To debate XXI century high education is essential to investigate the key features that characterize informational society: communication, interaction, DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-873-9.ch009

automation, post-industrial, specialist, service, immaterial needs, postmodern, or learning society (Webster, 2006; Castells, 2000). As a result, it is comprehensible that governments or organizations (namely universities), do not intend to mislay this opportunity related to information society (Lallana, 2004), because as Richards (2004) suggests:


Glocality, Diversity and Ethics of Distributed Knowledge in Higher Education

e-learning is globally accepted as a prerequisite for future social and economic development, providing a new essential style, as a base level for accessible education. This claim is justified by the e-learning concept itself: acquisition and use of knowledge distributed and facilitated primarily by electronic means, which incorporates synchronous or asynchronous access and may be distributed geographically with varied limits of time (Hall & Snider, 2000). Therefore, the emergence of a global education marketplace can be understood as a consequence of informational society and globalization (Friedman, 2005). Despite this global awareness, education is inevitably expressed within local dimensions (Altbach, 2004), or at least focusing a certain global region (the European Bologna Process is an example), in which is feasible to distinguish different local perspectives regarding the process itself, as well as concerning the main issues that illustrate education in that region: cultural diversity, ethics and values, mobility, intercultural communication, organizational cooperation, economical value, and government’s education policy. Thus, following Meyrowitz (2005) “glocality” (global dimension with multiple local dimensions) engages a whole new range of ethical and social issues in education. This line of reasoning is consistent with the work of Audrestch, Lehmann & Warning (2005): “local regions” exhibit an increasing importance in the era of globalization. In addition, diversity plays a progressively role in shaping the relationship between local and global (Gaspay, Legorreta & Dardan, 2009). Furthermore, beyond the characteristic dialog concerning global and local dimensions in higher education, main stream literature focus as primary analysis the subsequent differentiated ethical issues: learner’s diversity in various educational settings (Berge, 2001); highly sophisticated educational settings in distributed interactive versus learning experiences (Vrasidas & Glass, 2002); learner’s versus ethical norms (Stahl, 2002); the relationship between ethics, technologies and

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pedagogy (Jefferies & Stahl, 2005), and in different local contexts (see for example: Heyneman, Anderson & Nuraliyev, 2008); or, how virtual universities may impact on cherished values, such as liberty, justice, privacy and sociality (Brey, 2004); equity issues (Patrick & Gaële, 2007); or even cultural sensitivity (Uzuner, 2009). However, it is interesting that e-learning literature seems to pay little regard to the current ethical and social key trends regarding distributed knowledge (creation, sharing and distribution), and diversity within globalized higher educational contexts. Against this backdrop, the chapter structure considers: the contemporary scenario concerning higher education; knowledge in education (concept and systems evolution); globalization versus glocality (globalization, glocality and emergent trends); globalization versus glocality in higher education (overview, ethical issues, social dilemmas, and eureka); empirical evidences (overview, a cross-cultural diagnosis, lecturing experiences, and others testimonials); discussion; and finally, future trends. As a final remark, the authors point out that to understand the ethical and cultural issues trade-off between global and local in distributed knowledge, this contribution focuses upon the knowledge/content management layer regarding e-University strategic implementation conceptual framework (Silva, 2007).

HIGHER EDUCATION STATUS QUO Higher education mission can be referred as teaching and research in order to promote societal development. Although 21st century manifestations enhance some of these fundamental roles of creating, preserving, integrating, transmitting and applying knowledge, which leads to a plausible conclusion: contemporary universities are “knowledge servers” (Duderstadt, 2001). Nonetheless, the key focus of this chapter impels an approach to the idea and purpose of a university.


Throughout literature it is possible to acknowledge dissimilar perceptions of this long standing debate: for example, Newman (1976) has debated the role and impact of universities in society during the latter half of the 20th century, namely concerning science, logic, lecturing, research, academic authority and national culture. However, the global movement concerning educational massification embraced a whole new perspective (Scott, 1995), in spite of the existing debate surrounding if education it is a private or, public good due to public expenditure constraints (Musial, 2007). Other authors like Gibbons et al. (1994) pointed out the shifting ideas with reference to knowledge universality, communication, and application. In fact, this scenario has produced an analogous outcome to organizational theory evolution: an assessment culture concerning organizational mission (Lucas, 2006). As a result, other scholars have debated higher education governance, as well as its allegations (Deem, Hillyard & Reed, 2007). Even so, since the last decade of the 20th century educational challenges enabled a tremendous shift regarding universities existence and purpose. Despite this finding, for Barnett (2003) universities multiple conceptions are often neglected which can be related to: the changing roles of the welfare state (Kwiek, 2006); or, the interference of supra-national organisations (Dewatripont, Thys-Clement & Wilkin, 2002); still, how novel technologies outline universities (Sakai, Kuriyama & Miyahara, 2007; Arias-Oliva, González & Santiago, 2004; Bygholm & Nyvang, 2004); and finally, the impact of globalization or else transnationalization (Santos, 2006). In conclusion, the following sections of this chapter will reveal that Nowotny, Scott & Gibbons (2001) argument regarding the preservation of university values is insufficient and innocuous. The reason for this claim encompasses the leading aim of this chapter: the emergent ethical and social trends between global and local contexts, and the role of diversity in higher education.

KNOWLEDGE IN EDUCATION From Praxis to Distributed Knowledge Knowledge structure in academic organizations has changed over time, reflecting normative perceptions concerning its significance or educational conception, which knowledge sociology examines. For example, to Plato in his work “Protagoras”, knowledge is “the food of the soul” (Jowett, 1899) given that academic knowledge embraced a non-formal structure; however, formal higher education have required formal knowledge categories. Therefore, traditional knowledge sociology tried to understand the bound between the development of ideas and the exact social setting, as well as individuals and groups interests (for further detail see Weber, 1946; Mannheim, 1936). Nevertheless, knowledge society represented a new leap about academic knowledge categories, requiring a feasible understanding on how social organization ordering leads to knowledge (Swidler & Arditi, 1994), specifically due to network connectivity (Cavanagh, 2007; Dron, 2007). In fact, in 1983 Clark had already argued the need to change the conservative approach to knowledge categories within higher education. In spite of these considerations it is imperative to discuss the overall concept of knowledge in education. To Karl Popper (1972) objective knowledge resumes the result of synchronized research procedures, and that is written down in science communication processes. Gergen (1995) investigates the utilization of a dialogue as an allegory to evaluate a number of educational practices. So, these “knowledgeable tellings” are embedded on an ongoing relationship, which is analogous to the expression “just-in-context” with reference to knowledge (cultural bound) (Budin, 2002; Snowden, 2000). Thus, knowledge can be considered as a body of understanding and skills which is constructed by people (Standards Australia, 2003); or, the result or product of knowing;

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information or understanding acquired through experience; practical ability or skill; cognition (Oxford English Dictionary, 2008). Although modern forms of educational technology offer a great potential to act as an enabler for novel categories of knowledge, namely distributed knowledge (Hardaker & Smith, 2002; Gibbons, 2000), and also distributed learning experiences (McPherson & Nunes, 2006; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003), it is fundamental not disregard particular cultural attributes: language, discourse, and former peculiar forms of expression that learner’s use to interpret and build knowledge (Anderson, 2008; Cheung, 2008; Nowotny, Scott & Gibbons, 2001). Nonetheless, it is interesting to acknowledge that literature suggests the concept of pedagogic content knowledge (Koppelman 2008; Kanuka, 2006; Wilson, Shulman & Richért 1987), even when a systematic methodology is under debate (Chu et al., 2006; Rushkof, 2005; Davis et al., 2001), which network learning environments seem to challenge regarding “knowledge” and “content” as concepts (Costa and Silva, 2010; Silva et al., 2009; Costa, Silva & Rogerson, 2008). Moving forward, distributed knowledge is supported by two generic principles (Bonifacio, Bouquet & Cuel, 2002): •

•

autonomy- each individual should have a high level of autonomy to manage its local knowledge (similar to personal knowledge management. See Efimova, 2005); coordination- each individual must be allowed to share knowledge with other individuals, not through imposition of a solo diagram, but making possible to each person understand other individuals context. According to Foss & Foss (2008), coordination it is possible without possessing much knowledge of the other elements.

Apart for this reasoning, various authors (for example: Coombs et al., 2003; Coombs & Metcalfe, 2000) merely contemplate officially

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structured distributed activity (knowledge and learning) as a result of joint ventures, strategic alliances, conscious outsourcing, and other welldefined organizational forms, which the authors of this contribution do not agree due to the following reasons: due to uneven distributions of knowledge, it is often difficult to know where to look for appropriate knowledge (Robertson & Smith, 2007); and, the increasing and exponential importance of social media in distributed knowledge systems (see next sub-section of this contribution).

From Knowledge Management Systems to Distributed Knowledge Systems In order to identify, capture, store, preserve and disseminate knowledge, higher education organizations have incorporated technological systems to promote continuous feedback and adjustment to their knowledge strategy (Handzic & Hasan, 2003). Nonetheless, recent evidence demonstrates a convergence between traditional Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) and e-learning (Mihalca et al. 2008); due to a mutual feedback process that entails two levels of analysis: the influence of e-learning on KM processes, and their common characteristics. The reasons for this alliance are expressed through two arguments: networks, are a essential foundation structure of social organization (Castells, 2009) which political actors seem to recognize (Bonifacio, Bouquet & Traverso, 2002); and, the new educational paradigm encompasses a certain intellectual affiliation between learner’s and technologies (Small & Vorgan, 2008), and it is required to enquire whether if individualised and collective acquisition of knowledge, content and skills, is likely to support the development of competences needed to flourish in these environments (Castells, 2009). Therefore, networks encourage a collective contribution, and not individual ownership through distributed intelligence, which Jenkins (2006) emphasizes as the key role that technologies engage during the process, although


it is closely bounded to the social production of knowledge. As a consequence e-learning (see for example Hall & Snider, 2000) is converted into distributed learning, or in distributed knowledge (Gâlea, Leon & Zaharia, 2003), meaning that course components are distributed across multiple media, as well as exhibits a tendency for a student-centred learning approach and evokes a collective contribution (Mason & Rennie, 2008). Despite the previous acknowledgements it is compulsory to approach Distributed Knowledge Systems (DKS), which literature introduces as the evolution of Learning Management Systems (LMS) (Siemens, 2004). According this author LMS engages two different concepts: •

•

Learning Knowledge Management Systems (LKMS)- LMS evolution due to social interaction, which entails into Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) and Social Software (SS); Learning Oriented KM Systems (LOKMS)LMS evolution at an instructional level.

PLEs are a recent feature of LKMS, as an alternative to the structured model of an LMS. PLEs are defined as: systems that help students to take control and manage their own learning (Hall, Paradice & Courtney, 2003). SS is “a conceptual shift that acknowledges the reality of distributed learning practices and the range of learner preferences” (van Harmelen, 2006). Finally LOKMS it is an evolution concerning instructional design, including feedback loops concerning KMS underlying inquiring systems (Hall, 2005). Nevertheless, it is important to remember the discussion surrounding knowledge versus content, as well as student’s content creation (see previous sub section), leading to a necessary approach regarding Learning Content Management Systems (LCMS). For Shaw (2008), these systems facilitate the subsequent features:

•

•

separating content from presentation- authors need to be focused on delivering their content and not be anxious concerning layout reflection, except if it is relevant to understand the article itself; enforcing workflow processes- articles sent in by the authors are primary accepted by editors prior to publication.

GLOBALIZATION VS. GLOCALITY Globalization Globalization may bear a multiplicity of significances, which the final outcome can be considered as positive or, as negative. In spite of the previous argument, the authors believe that in order to understand this phenomenon an etymological, historical analysis can provide some important clues regarding the concept itself, as well as its contemporary dimensions. Etymologically globalization derives from a combination between globalize and action (Online Etymology Dictionary, 2010a). Accordingly, globalize means global economic systems, and action the mode of doing it, which is not surprising due to the countless interpretations as a largely economic phenomenon (Friedman, 2005; Stiglitz, 2002). Nonetheless, this perception seems to unforeseen that globalization is a concept that goes far beyond the expansion of multinational and other transnational corporations, as well as the growth of information and communication technologies. In fact, throughout literature it is possible to acknowledge an overwhelmingly disagreement concerning the concept itself, and it dimensions. A plausible reason for this controversy can be found into the book Globalization and the Margins (Grant & Short, 2002), whose authors demonstrate that to comprehend globalization is required a multidisciplinary approach. This is clearly con-

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sistent with other perspectives, namely focusing cosmopolitan ethics (Beck, 2006; Held, 2004), or the power discourses that construct globalization as a process of systemic marginalization (Steger, 2004; Kofman & Youngs, 2003), and finally as a general process of homogenization regarding Western culture and capitalism (Ferguson, 2005; Balakrishnan, 2003). Therefore, Benyon, & Dunkerley (2000) notes that exists a crude dichotomy between global and local, which requires an intermediate concept: glocality. As a result global and local are “negating but complementary reciprocation that erodes the major institutional and cultural framework of the nation-state” (Shafir & Peled, 2000, pp. 218). As a final remark, the authors claim that metaphorically the dialog between global and local has its historical roots in the Roman Empire, which authors like Hitchner (2008), or Geraghty (2007) have demonstrated. Due to possible critics, the authors acknowledge two different arguments: the “tools” were the roots and bridges that characterized the Roman Empire, as well as due to the spatial conception of the Earth during that period. Later on, the second wave was the Portuguese Discoveries (for further detail see Friedman, 2005), and finally, ICT (distributed knowledge systems) the third (Toffler, 1980).

Glocality In order to preserve a high level of analytical consistency, the authors will equally approach glocality through an etymological and historical analysis. Therefore, according to Meyrowitz (2005) it resumes a convergence between the terms: global and local, due to an increasing distinction of a synthesised existence among participating within a global village, and the preservation of local traditions and influences. In an etymological sense global is bounded to globe or globalize (see previous sub-section), and local encompasses the Latin words localis (pertaining to position or a place, as well as belonging to a

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place), or else localitas (as a necessary quality of bodies) (Online Etymology Dictionary, 2010b). Once again, the etymological root is reliable with the modern status quo. Nevertheless, authors like Dirlik (1998), or Medeni (2004) argue that glocality has acquired various meanings and connotations, as well as resumes an artificial combination of concepts leading a lack of meaning. For that, these authors acknowledge this dilemma through a new expression: lobal. Following Medeni (2004), lobal results from a combination of the words lobe (lung or brain, which can be used through a metaphor), and its derivatives lobalization and lobalism. However, this present contribution will neglect that argument due to the following line of reasoning: the allegedly non-natural combination of global and local is similar to other several words, as for example: biotechnology and nanotechnology lead to bionanotechnology; meme and genetics give origin to memetics; or simply, cybernetic and organism were the praxis for cyborg (so neologisms like glocality are quite common); and, the contradictory claim of Medeni (2004), which points out that for some specific contexts with specific meanings attached, glocal can be a useful term. Moving forward within the chapter analysis, Eric Gordon (2009) claims that local information access is no longer restricted to the geographic location, due to the network configuration or distributed fluxes of information, in spite of the undefeatable cultural barriers that glocality imposes (Meyrowitz, 2004). Although, this author recognizes that we are increasingly sharing information with individuals who reside in localities dissimilar from our own, as well as the dissociation involving physical position and experimental space encourages the maturity of what might be entitled as “glocal morality”. Therefore, this “glocal morality” is a fusion between global and local identities, where diversity shapes the relationship between local and global (Poster, 2005).


Emergent Trends Given the nature of this essay it is necessary to assess the relationship between globalization and glocality. Therefore, using as a starting point the following question: would be glocality be overlapped by the global process? Or, as Boyd (2006) criticizes is an ugliness that ensures that both concepts are propelled comfortably within a unique idea? For King & Heltne (2007) it is undeniably a process that is taking place, encompassing a dual movement with bidirectional consequences. Nonetheless, for Grixti (2006) this process is paradoxically reinforcing, as well as symbiotically transforming each dimension (for a practical example see Grixti, 2008). World culture does not present itself as uniform, but can be rather described as “organised diversity”, that is, a web of various local cultures (which are not necessarily anchored to a geographical territory): “glocalities”. Particular articulations of global versus local in contemporary societies give life to new, modern and plural cultural forms. In fact, Welsch (1999) emphasize that cultural fertilisation on a multiplicity of levels, from the macro-level (whose cultural shapes are characterised today by a rising inner differentiation, intricacy and hybridisation), to micro-level (individual experiences), where personal and cultural uniqueness hardly ever, if ever, corresponds to civic and national identity and is instead gradually more influenced by multiple cultural connections. Therefore, we disregard Eriksen (2001) claim that it is not necessary to utilize the concept of culture in order to respect local conditions in development work: it is only sufficient to be sensitive to the fact that local realities are always locally constructed. However, Poster (2005) argue that if the concept of “culture” is dismissed, it is unfeasible to comprehend why the majority of local cultures embraces technoscience, but tries to negotiate a “cultural exception” to control the admission of foreign cultural products. This scenario obscure social space and reconfigures the relationship.

GLOBALIZATION VS. GLOCALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION Overview Educational organizations are shifting their priorities to an emergent global education marketplace through the use of ICT (Richards, 2004). However, the internationalization of campus and community is simultaneously a chance and a challenge that higher education institutions ought to deal today. According to a study conducted by Wood (2006) that encompassed 110 U.S. institutions of higher education, university leaders comprehend and embrace this trade-off. This major conclusion reflected the input questions that Wood (2006) posed during the interviews: •

•

•

•

what kind of careers are emerging in today’s interconnected world, where are they emerging and how do we prepare our students and communities for them? how can our departments, schools and university as a whole achieve an enhanced international presence? how can institutions of higher education be positioned for success in today’s global environment, and what role should local, regional, national and international partners play? what global trends, developments and related research topics are most important to our scholarly disciplines today, and how can we take advantage of such to create new knowledge in the future?

Despite the comprehension of this phenomena, chronological data with reference to knowledge transfer in higher education exhibits a wide array of unequal results, namely when it concerns cultural restrictions (Altbach, 2004). For example, during the Colonial Period, it was common policy to set up colonial campus sponsored by metropolitan universities, forgetting significant aspects of local

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cultures (Bhabha, 1994). Nevertheless, in spite of the end of Colonialism over 50 years ago it is needed to criticize current practices, because as Coraggio (2001) claims: it is compulsory to understand global knowledge as local knowledge, whose meaning is regenerated as part of every other local knowledge system, not as local knowledge made globally accessible. Thus, the contemporary concept of a university (or a higher education institution), needs to reproduce this cosmopolitanism and recognize the substance of different cultures, which will permit a flexible separation of diverse categories of universities (Peters, 2007). This argument is consistent with the work of Lobera & Escrigas (2009) multiversity; the post-historical university of Peters (2007); or still, Santos (2006) that pleads the concept of pluriversity. As a result, the existing and essential role that universities have in social context (Altbach, 2008), is reinforced by glocality in order to promote sustainability and intercultural dialogue. Yet, a decisive re-examine concerning the human development agendas imply that universities have been “followers” instead of “influencers” (proactive agents) (Tandon, 2008).

Ethical Issues According to Cecez-Kecmannovic (2001) systemic aspects of a University involves: material and intellectual production, economical foundations, administrative and management structure, rules and regulations, etc. This contextual environmental is mostly determined by Government regulations, policies and funding; however, organizational model, curriculum, administrative policies, etc., should be considered as an essential component. Although, Brey (2004) claims that cross-cultural virtual universities need to understand the role of culture and language, which the authors believe to be an insufficient argument: it is compulsory that all cross-cultural higher education institutions acknowledge it. Moreover, Margison

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(2007) argues that higher education institutions are limited to two domains of meta-institutional practice, in order to produce a distinctive social “character” when approaching values and ethics: •

•

communicative association- owes somewhat to established beliefs to the insights of Jurgen Habermas about communicability within public sphere. Hence, it includes the right to speak, to conduct a dialogue based on honesty and mutual respect, as well as intra-institutional and inter-institutional relationships grounded in justice, solidarity, compassion, cosmopolitan tolerance and empathy for the other; secular intellectual practices- include sustaining actions for freedom and productive intellectual activity.

Nonetheless, as Stahl (2002) points out the relationship of ethics and e-learning is a complex one, as well as to achieve a responsible use regarding distributed learning, and for that, the participants need to recognize a considerable amount of “life facts”. Consequently, it is fundamental to embrace a multidisciplinary perception (professionals, practitioners and users), in order to minimize unethical practices (Nagi, 2006). Moving forward, Laudon & Laudon (2004) identifies some moral dimensions regarding generic information systems (information rights and obligations; property rights and obligations; system quality; and, control); and, Stahl (2002) also acknowledges several moral problems in e-teaching (power; privacy; monitoring; surveillance; access; opportunity cost; and, awareness). Despite, these perceptions is necessary to debate the arising ethical issues in distributed knowledge. In some ways globalization opens access, however existing local inequalities are only reinforced and new barriers erected, which is an emerging trend between equity and efficiency (Cloete & Moja, 2005). A clear example is developing


countries, or smaller academic systems, because powerful universities have always dominated the production and distribution of knowledge, while weaker institutions and systems with fewer resources and lower academic standards have tended to follow in their wake (Altbach, 2004). This scenario is still enhanced due to the tightening copyright and other ownership restrictions through international treaties and regulations, which limit access to information sources, such as: databases, electronic journals, e-books, and related knowledge products (Correa, 2000). In fact, these arrangements were created to protect sellers and providers, not buyers and users, and once again negative implications arise (Raikhy, 2002). Nevertheless, if education plays a crucial role regarding the achievement of sustainable development, it is reasonable to agree with the critics of Solomon (1992) to the Aristotelian approach to business ethics, given false antagonism between profits and social responsibility. Additionally, distributed knowledge systems current developments comprise also several ethical issues, including: •

•

•

privacy- standardize formats that allow learner’s access to distributed knowledge, also require maintaining learner’s profiles and activity records. Although, if this records are freely exchanged, without consent or learner’s knowledge, their privacy is severely compromised (Harada et al., 2002); plagiarism- language translation services enhance non detected digital plagiarism (Jia & Zhou, 2005). For Brey (2004), digital plagiarism had become one of the major forms of academic dishonesty; copyright violation- file sharing services allows other users to have access to stored files within a central server without permission (Kallinikou, 2009).

Social Dilemmas At the turn of the millennium, the Task Force on Higher Education (World Bank, 2000) recommended a more generalized formal education as an alternative to the existing largely specialized curriculum in higher education; however, this report have tremendously failed in several social aspects that led to dilemmas, which distributed knowledge networks have enhanced. Even so, it is essential to debate these social dilemmas in order to the authors claim do not seem futile. Almost a decade after, according to Patrick & Gaële (2007) is still fundamental to develop a programme of comparative research which focuses on the social characteristics of students who are enrolled in higher education. Recalling Anderson (2008), distributed learning environments must respect and accommodate particular cultural attributes, particularly language and particular forms of expression, which the learner uses to interpret and build knowledge, as well as lecturer’s should be educated to get intellectually or, emotionally accustomed to unlike learning ways (for a cultural example see Schulte & Al-Fehaid, 2004). And, these socio-cultural realities also encompasses challenges to instructional designers regardless the technological platform (Rogers, Graham & Mayes, 2007). Following Goertzel (2008a) it is possible to understand the features of distributed knowledge: local (abstract logical relationships stored in explicit logical form), and global (large-scale patterns of network activity). Hence, without local input and merely re-fashioning global knowledge distribution can be inappropriate, misconceived and perverse; because as Stone (2003) points out, when distributed knowledge is spread is not inevitably inclusive, legitimate or progressive. This dilemma is a corollary that resumes the extreme boundaries of knowledge (codified or, tacit) (Stone, 2003), as well as the perception how knowledge is transferred (as a process or, as a product) (Costa & Silva, 2007).

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As a consequence, successful mechanisms are required in order to local communities share their indigenous knowledge; nonetheless, some tensions arise regarding intellectual property rights. For Tarasofsky & House (2005), in spite of not literally be “under the umbrella” of intellectual property rights, indigenous knowledge is collective and ignores power issues. Despite the authors agree at some extent with this argument; believe that this default or “gap” concerning intercultural communication cannot act as a constraint, due to two reasons: Universal Declaration of Human Rights (article 27, paragraph 2) (1948), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (article 15, paragraph 1c) (UNHCHR, 1966). From the mishmash of these articles is possible to conclude that any scientific, literary or artistic production has the moral right to protection in spite of the author, and indigenous knowledge typically assumes literary or artistic forms. Even if some detractors exploit the default or gap, local knowledge should be fairly compensated (Castle & Gold, 2007; Norchi, 2000). On the other hand, if the Reader observes the “other face of Janus” is obligatory to discuss content in its different levels: •

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transnational or regional: enables questions like recognition and accreditation as for instance the Bologna Process. For example, Augusti (2006) have demonstrated that in spite of the process is difficult to recognize and acknowledge accreditation due to: the absence of legislative competence regarding education by the European Union, higher education institutions conflicting autonomy, and the process covers 40 countries, but is only valid in 25. Another critical dilemma is the global dominance of English-speaking academic systems, which leads to a global content homogenised market (Stewart, 2004), so disregarding local needs (educational that

•

•

will have consequences into the local market labour), as well as posing once again a dilemma about human rights (Watson, 2007); national: high quality distributed learning implies content aligned to national curriculums, and so Governments are responsible for defining or approve national/regional core curriculum, (Stahl, 2002). The problem is that in present times, for example in Europe, the actual content delivered to students is regulated by the Bologna Process meaning that local needs are not embraced; local: students believe that introduce local content within the curriculum is a key issue (Dunn & Wallace, 2004), being an ideal example Korean learners: the top ten sites visited by them are all Korean (Retzer, 2005). However, in distributed learning it is usually the course coordinator that decides if this inclusion is relevant (Davis, Olson & Bohm, 2000), which according to Pyis & Chapman (2005), frequently not fully meet student expectations (and prior experiences) due to exaggerated Western frameworks.

In conclusion, this scenario is a clear signal of inertia concerning higher education institutions and stakeholders, in spite of distributed knowledge networks being widely recognized as a new and fascinating field of research (Stahl, 2004; Sorensen, 2002).

Eureka! Despite some perceptions shed some light as regards to ethical issues, or social dilemmas in distributed knowledge, the truth is that main stream literature does not present a conceptual framework that allow a feasible and simultaneously analysis. As a consequence, a crucial evolution is first co-author e-University strategic implementation


Figure 1. e-University strategic implementation conceptual framework (Source: Silva, 2007, p. 59, Figure 2)

conceptual framework (Silva, 2007), which Figure 1 depicts. The authors also inform that under scrutiny will be the Knowledge/Content Management layer; however, it is virtually impossible to detach distribute knowledge without acknowledging the other layers, because the framework engages an interactive process of bottom-up and top-down feedbacks in order to allow a real time comparison. Therefore, the following step of this chapter is to characterize the remaining layers: •

•

•

Value Added: a transversal cost/benefit ethical analysis, which aims to provide information regarding the e-University project, and each layer individually; Computer Mediated Communication: is transforming education making learning more interactive, diverse and enjoyable experience. This layer is prosperous in social interactions; Technological Infrastructures and Services: encompasses all technological means that support the distributed knowledge systems, as well as back-office or administrative services.

EVIDENCES Overview In order to portrait and match up empirical evidences with the theoretical background, the authors highlight some keen contextual examples that have detected through their academic experience, which reinforces the substance of this contribution. For that, under analysis will be three distinct analytical dimensions, nevertheless complementary among them: •

•

•

a cross-cultural diagnosis: underlines several conclusions that the first co-author has been noticing at an empirical level, due a cross-cultural project that he has been involved (related to his PhD research project); lecturing experiences: concerns to the lecturing experiences of the second co-author, namely with reference to the necessary preliminary work using e-learning, as well as lecturing process for divergent learner’s background; other testimonials: emphasize some interesting and common testimonials that have been experienced by the first co-author,

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throughout his participation in a recent conference (Network Ethics 2009).

A Cross-Cultural Diagnosis This sub-section reproduces the empirical work that has been conducted by a global higher education institution with campuses in Europe (Portugal), and Africa (Angola, St. Thomas and Prince). These educational institutions share their name, as well as technology and knowledge, due to a cooperation protocol between all the autonomous entities that manage each local campus. Throughout data analysis it is possible to recognize some ethical issues and social dilemmas that glocality imposes to distributed knowledge. For instance, if we draw our attention to common curricula and courses in each university some interesting conclusions arise. The intended consequence of Bologna Process in Europe, which is not being pursued in Africa, engages a tremendous social issue: the current curriculums and programs require a resynchronization in order to allow truly knowledge sharing and distribution. Despite the possible resynchronization another important social dilemma occurs: curriculums and programs do not attend the local labour market structure and its requirements. Beyond these social dilemmas, it is remarkably important to stress an ethical issue that results from the misuse of incorrect information, in spite of its implicit authorization (African culture). This issue is enabled by the non-existence of an official website concerning the multiple African campuses, as well as the proliferation of multiple non-authorized websites of these universities. Likewise, when an African student access to these websites does not obtain reliable institutional information; as a result, searches the Portuguese website and download the existent curricula and programmes, which are applied in his curriculum vitae. Although, as previously acknowledged Portuguese educational process reflects the Bologna process leading to a contradictory reality.

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Concerning the educational process, some important social dilemmas can be reported: inequality about regulatory procedures; and, inequality regarding knowledge sharing. Inequality about regulatory procedures is a consequence of the Portuguese content development, namely syllabus design in accordance with Bologna process. Contrarily, in Africa the regulatory procedures are reduced, and constantly not controlled: an example is the absence of a syllabus, or even class summaries. These differences promote a lower level of certainty concerning the educational process. Moreover, from the standpoint of knowledge sharing, it is reasonable to attend the subsequent reciprocally dependent issues: linguistic interpretation; learner’s cognitive skills; content cultural sensitivity; technological infrastructure liability and adoption. Regarding linguistic interpretation plentiful of inconveniences has been occurring because lecturers are primarily non-African natives. The most common nationalities are: Portuguese, Brazilians, Cubans, Russians, and even Eastern Europeans. Some cases of linguistic interpretation are: the use of pandilha (Brazilian) instead of folha de cálculo (Portuguese) regarding Excel sheets; Cubans do not pronounce correctly or, in a distinctive way some Portuguese vocabulary derived from Arab language, such as algarismo versus algoritmo. These evidences are enhanced by the 42 different native dialects that exist in Angola (Lewis, 2009), in spite of Portuguese be the official language; however, learner’s communication is based on their own dialects. This quandary is enhanced because Portuguese content development is only in Portuguese and replicating the Bologna Process; therefore, ignoring local needs (absence of cultural sensitivity). In addition, this social dilemma is enhanced because local managers consider it a minor question, which is the main reason for sharing curricula and programmes. Beyond these claims, lecturers are confronted with an ethical issue: the use of global references (even digital), or instead a combination of global and local didactical references? The au-


thors claim that this situation exposes the theme under debate: homogeneity or heterogeneity in distributed knowledge. Finally, the core for all these linkages is ICT infrastructure liability and adoption, leading to a necessary comparison between both countries. For that, the authors introduce the World Bank (2009) report concerning Information and Communications for Development: •

•

Portugal: with reference to Internet subscribers (per 100 people) in 2007 is referred 15.2, and infrastructure liability (international Internet bandwidth (bits/second/person)) encompassed 4.790; Angola: as regards to Internet subscribers (per 100 people) in 2007 the integer was 0.3, and infrastructure liability (international Internet bandwidth (bits/second/person)) coverage was 17.

This reality is easily perceived throughout the field work as the following examples demonstrate: Internet connection through satellite is extremely difficult to obtain in Angola campus, and even its liability is easily questioned.

Lecturing Experiences In this sub-section the second co-author reproduces her lecturing experiences concerning e-learning in two dissimilar settings: a higher education institution, located in Lisbon; and within a local publisher that enables lifelong learning. Despite their different organizational structures both organizations acknowledged an equal technological platform, but reporting considerable unlike outcomes. In the university, the platform aimed to act as an auxiliary tool for lectures in classes (face to face contact) allowing: to post documentation, exercises and essays; online discussions through forums; virtual working groups; and possibly to perform online exams. This user friendly tool, however has reported low levels as regards to

lecturer’s adherence. This phenomenon, which is widely recognized in literature, was anticipated and foreseen by the ICT department. So, this department have organized some introductory open training sessions showing the usefulness of a DKS, its basic functions, and how to interact with the system. Nevertheless it was a failed attempt to target lecturer’s population, because merely five per cent have attended these open training sessions. Likewise, the second co-author noted during some informal conversations with her peers, in order to understand their level of adherence and found out that lecturer’s scientific background had a major impact in their behaviours and attitudes towards this system. Therefore, it was possible to conclude that those with a technological background evidenced a higher level of adherence and understanding; although, an interesting transversal remark was the bound between lecturers’ appetence to adhere and fear that e-learning would cause unemployment and so the negative reaction. A probable solution would be personalized training sessions to the different background groups in order to decrease their fears, as well as help to understand the systems usefulness. With reference to students, their usage was broader and acknowledged primarily the following issues: access to documentation, glimpse essays results, lab work to be done. However, it was clear that forums and online group discussion are not being utilised. The second organizational setting is a publisher located in Lisbon, and specialized in publishing accounting and engineering/production books. They had already some experience in organizing training or seminar sessions for their customers (companies), under the scope of various business subjects. In 2006 they decided to start online lifelong training courses, because the majority of their customers are in remote areas. After some preliminary considerations about project implementation and characteristics, the choice was to exploit the same e-learning platform. For content creation (and literature seems to disregard how to

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develop proper content for an e-learning course), as well as to clarify format and layout it was decided to organize each course in sessions (ranging from 7 to 15 depending on the course complexity). Furthermore, each session should acknowledge: maximum 10 A4 pages with light colours, simple text and an individual practical exercise to be solved in the end of each session. Afterwards, it was outlined rules for lecturers and participants: lecturers should respond to participant’s solicitations maximum within a timeline of 48 hours; and for participants, beyond the weekly essay is also compulsory to participate in forums in a weekly basis, as well as is impossible to download more than a session per week in order to enhance their level of understanding. Finally, it was also taken into account participant’s organizational structure, namely technological infrastructure and ICT literacy of its human resources. Contrarily to the previous scenario, e-learning courses participants are keen users of a distributed learning system. The adherence for these e-learning courses has been extremely high and exhibits positive comments. The participants claim that this is an excellent opportunity for lifelong learning, even for professional duties, without extra travelling costs due to their diverse geographical locations, and feeling that could manage their own learning depending on their availability. From the above experiences it also important to denote that obligatory behaviours allow minimizing glocal barriers, as well the effects of diversity! From this assumption is possible to conclude that cultural change implies personal effort; even so, it raises an important ethical issue: self determination or info-exclusion?

Others Testimonials As an introductory remark, the authors would like to present a more indulgent argument that justifies their choice concerning Network Ethics 2009: first, it was recently held in Portugal, from June 23 to 25, due a joint organization between:

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Carnegie Mellon University, Catholic University of Portugal, and the University of Northern Iowa; second, its intention was to debate ethical issues and social dilemmas that network society poses at three levels: social responsibility, business ethics, and education. Given the nature of this chapter the authors will focus their attention into the educational track, namely the contributions of Boyd & Newton (2009); Kenon (2009); and, Nicholas & Lewis (2009). Boyd & Newton (2009) have shared the experience of Southern Cross University (a regional university) regarding the design of small courses within a global context. These authors have exposed a discrepancy involving curriculum aim and assessment principles, due to the effect of pedagogy in online re-design. Additionally, ethical issues become gradually more visible, especially regarding equity of access and embedding ethical practices in student learning. Kenon (2009) has presented a case study concerning Transnational High School-University Bridge programs, which consent the student to adjust to a novel culture and work to develop their second language skills. In this particular case, the similarities were concerned linguistic interpretation regarding the delivered content for Chinese schools within the distributed knowledge platform: some schools have reported a considerable amount of problems due to the existing hundreds dialects only in Continental China, despite the initial translation for Chinese. The reason is simple: usually Chinese dialects are mutually unintelligible (Hearne, 2009). Finally, Nicholas & Lewis (2009) from Salve Regin University conducted a study concerning the acceptance, usage and satisfaction of learner’s concerning e-text books. It was interesting that the report demonstrates that 85% had never previously used an e-book; nonetheless, when questioned 100% claimed that their main motivation to buy an e-book was the price (usually half). In spite of these considerations the authors question an important ethical issue: it is an expenditure saving


characteristic for students to use an e-text book, or an adversity for the ones that do not own a computer?

DISCUSSION After introducing the theoretical background and empirical evidences, the authors truly believe that in order to produce a more fluid and indulgent argument is rather important to resume the

chief findings. For that, ethical issues and social dilemmas will interact with the e-University strategic implementation framework as Table 1 demonstrates. Going deeper with reference to the argument, and if the Reader consider the previous table as a “target” (metaphorical perception), in its inner centre or core it will be diversity! This is reliable with multiple distributed knowledge networks, as well as the contemporary awareness concerning multicultural higher education institutions.

Table 1. Glocal ethical issues and social dilemmas in higher education Framework Level

1

2

3

4

Issue

Local

Global

Dilemmas

Organization

Economical foundations, organizational practices

Academic cooperation

Innovation, constraints, profitability, efficiency, governance, social responsibility

Curriculum

Adapted to local labour needs, interests, social development

Transnational recognition and accreditation, enhanced educational market regulation

Equity, inequality, academic cultural responsibility

Digital objects

Local access, price, delivering, copyright and other ownership restrictions, sustainable development

Global cost reduction (production and distribution), ecological value

Equity, homogeneity, local development needs, interoperability

Human Communications

Psycho-cultural constraints, group socialization, learner’s profiles and activity records

Cultural sensitivity, high levels of community connectedness, time perception

Distance, information flux control, distributed multiple media, educational games use, privacy

Content

Cultural adaptation, language translation services

Public domain, digital library, file sharing, commons

Design, usability, interoperability, cultural concept of intelligence, cultural compatibility, digital plagiarism

Knowledge

Dialects, cultural heritage, learning predisposition, psycho-cognitive competences

Dominant languages, international knowledge production and distribution

Autonomy, ethicultural sensitivity, international training for lecturers

Pedagogy

Cultural influences, dissonant practices, psycho-cognitive-emotional competences

Connectivism, self- regulated learning, openness

Culturally sensitive instructional practices, lecturer cultural competences, distributed cognition

Network

Infrastructure, technological adaptation

Distributed environment, connectivity, international internet bandwidth

Cost, access, liability, digital literacy, market introduction time-frame according to local development

Level 1: Value Added; Level 2: Computer Mediated Communications; Level 3: Knowledge/Content Management; Level 4: Technological Infrastructures and Services.

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Nevertheless, several questions arise: how can we define diversity? What is its level of importance? What is its relationship with “glocal morality”? Diversity derives from the Latin word diversitatem (contrariety, contradiction, or disagreement), that in a secondary sense is bounded to diversus (turned in different ways) (Online Etymology Dictionary, 2010c). The importance of diversity has been recognized throughout countless fields of research: literature, economics, sociology, anthropology, biology, etc., which is easily acknowledged. An example is the magnificent poem of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven (1845): “(...) Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he, But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door Perched, and sat, and nothing more. (...) (...) Then the ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou, I said, art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore! Quoth the Raven: Nevermore. (...) (...) Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning- little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his

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chamber door Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as Nevermore.” (...) Furthermore, diversity implies a continuous intercultural communication which globalization has enhanced, and this glocal dialogue produced “glocal moralities” (see section 4). According to Roudometof (2005), glocalization leads to two dissimilar accounts of cosmopolitanism: a thick and a thin. Despite the existence of two options this author supports a thin account of cosmopolitanism, because it operationalizes the different degrees of attachment of an individual regarding the global and local predispositions. Therefore, a possible criterion for understanding this “glocal individual morality” is an existential criterion, since is simultaneously universal (global) and flexible (local) (see for example Dewey’s (1938) criteria for experience). For, Taylor (2002) a genuine assessment requires a virtue of willingness to change, leading to a self-understanding and mutually understanding, which should be a characteristic of all educational “actors”, as well as stakeholders.

FUTURE TRENDS In spite of being under debate possible future trends, the authors argue that is necessary to shed some light regarding some contradictory contemporary assumptions with reference to 21st century education reality. In fact, it is interesting that modern literature encompasses two analytical levels for higher education institutions (Knight, 2006): •

recognized: includes public non-profit, private non-profit and private for-profit institutions, usually as a component of national educational systems and accredited;


•

non-recognized: includes profit oriented domestically and internationally institutions, that typically are not a formal part of national educational systems.

Likewise, it is feasible to introduce potential critics: higher education as been seen in an economical sense (educational market) encouraged by political actions (Scott, 2008), leading to some ethical issues and social dilemmas presented throughout this contribution. This is consistent with the claim of ESU (2004) about cultural sensitivity and transnational recognition issues, as a mixed consequence of higher education taxonomies along with political actions. Other key feature to point out is the significance surrounding diversity within 21st century educational context, which distributed knowledge has enhanced dramatically. This argument is justified through the concept of distributed universities: could mean that each learner is located in a different location, without any face-to-face interaction (Levin, 2002); however, this definition is reductionist given that lecturers can be also in different geographical locations, and not within the physical environment of the university. Despite this new educational scenario, researchers, practitioner’s and stakeholders have focused their attention merely into policies and models for diversity management within the physical location (as for instance Davis, 2009; Inglis, 2008), instead of “distributed diversity” in order to identify intercultural dimensions of learning theories and teaching models (Bélisle, 2007; De Vita, 2003; De Vita, 2002), as international responsible governance imposes (Dominese, 2009; Morin, 1999). Even so, the authors argue that is crucial to develop international normative rules for ethical education knowledge distribution, which is in line of reasoning with Olsen’s (2009) political glocalism: humanity’s collective requirements ahead of vested interests’ short term desires; humanity’s collective priorities forward to politicians’ short

term ambitions; and, humanity’s local needs and priorities equally balanced with global. This dialectical-ethical relationship between local and global ethical systems (“glocal ethics”) evokes a reciprocal and symmetrical recognition, which stresses the regulative principles of self-respect and justice (Zirfas, 1999). Moreover, distributed knowledge networks are ICT-based which can be referred as the most human technology (Górniak-Kocikowska, 2007), leading computer ethics to become a global ethics with different mindsets (Górniak-Kocikowska, 2004). Thus, higher education institutions have a social responsibility to promote “glocal knowledge”; so, the authors believe that ultimately is required a deeper understanding of “glocal morality”. Is the author’s opinion, that “glocal morality” implies a fusion of competences that permit ethical decisions within different cultural diasporas (glocal), which is bounded to the degree of attachment claimed by Roudometof (2005). For that, is feasible to understand each individual moral intensity (degree of issue-related moral imperative in a circumstance) (Jones, 1991), and sensibility (individual cognitive process) (Jones, 1991), in which moral psychology may be considered a new paradigm (Huff & Frey, 2005). In addition, this “glocal self” implies that an individual mind is distributed across the social, natural and cultural environment (“glocal memory”) as pointed out by Goertzel (2008a), which engages a whole new perspective of distributed knowledge or distributed cognition (Goertzel, 2008b). Despite these novel perceptions the authors believe that noetic sciences as “explorations into the nature and potentials of consciousness using multiple ways of knowing- including intuition, feeling, reason, and the senses” (IONS, 2009), will allow further developments concerning “glocal morality”. In conclusion, as Lewin Thomas (1995, pp. 150) has referred: “science will...produce the data..., but never the full meaning. For perceiving real significance, we shall need...most of all the

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brains of poets, (and) also those of artists, musicians, philosophers, historians, writers in general”.

CONCLUSION Distributed knowledge networks indeed facilitate knowledge sharing; however, its globality imposes serious ethical issues and social dilemmas, which generates critical dimensions for 21st century universities. This is reliable with the claim of Arias-Oliva, González & Santiago (2004) that higher education institutions and its stakeholders should consider the advantages and disadvantages of ICT, pertaining to educational practices, as a way to ensure openness, equity and international understanding. Nonetheless, as the authors have proved throughout this chapter this discourse is hitherto merely rhetoric or, in a non-fundamentalist perception is a very premature phenomenon. Furthermore, education aims to embody “the beliefs, traditions, customs, rituals and sensibilities along with the knowledge of why these things must be maintained” (Maison, 2007, pp. 28), because is a dynamic flux where diversity engages an essential ingredient. In fact, the magnitude of diversity is recognized in the Declaration of Principles of the World Summit on the Information Society (2003), or in to UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2002): “culture takes diverse forms across time and space. This diversity is embodied in the uniqueness and plurality of the identities of the groups and societies making up humankind. As a source of exchange, innovation and creativity, cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature.” Therefore, the leading quandary (authors assumption to reproduce the sum of ethical issues and social dilemmas) underlying distributed knowledge and diversity in higher education, relies on the tradeoff between homogeneity and heterogeneity in education leading to “glocality”.

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In conclusion, the authors argue that to minimize the existent and future dilemmas new educational systems must be: localitas (as a necessary quality of bodies), connectivitas (fusion status about multi-glocal experiences), and humanitas (capacity for self-consciousness, self-exploration, and self-determination as the Roman philosopher Cicero describes).

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank the insightful comments of Goncalo Costa (editor).

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Distributed Knowledge: Encompasses the new categories of knowledge that network learning environments consent. It assumes as fundamental principles: autonomy (is manageable at a local level by each individual), and coordination (each individual must be allowed to share knowledge, not through obligation, but through his personal context). Diversity: In a cultural sense refers the collection of local cultures within a cultural setting (which is not necessarily anchored to a geographical territory). It resumes the multiple interactions that occur from the macro-level to a micro-level within a particular culture. In contemporary cultural forms, can be considered the referee between global and local (glocality). Globalization: A complex and multidisciplinary phenomenon. In an early stage was considered as a consequence of the international economical movement, as well as the growth of ICT; however, today encompasses a tremendous challenge for researchers due to its cultural, social, ethic, artistic, etc dimensions, and how they interact. Glocality: Refers to the growing peculiarity of a synthesised existence amongst participants within a global village, and the preservation of local cultural traditions and influences. Higher Education: Includes all the organizations or institutions that devoted their work to teaching and research in order to promote human development. Nonetheless, its characteristics and impact have changed in accordance to the evolutionary stage of mankind.

Section 4

Organizational Innovation Dilemmas

“Imagination is more important than knowledge...” Albert Einstein What have in common personal mastery, knowledge protection versus interchange, and moral knowledge? The response is imagination! Imagination is decisive to create models that benefit organizations and workers concerning knowledge protection versus knowledge interchange, because it will allow an effective personal mastery. For that, it is vital for managers the existence of a support system that promotes an overall stakeholder analysis within these imaginative business models.

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Chapter 10

Renewal and Personal Mastery in KnowledgeBased Organisations:

The Case of a Finnish ICT-Company Päivi Lohikoski University of Oulu, Finland

ABSTRACT Being knowledge management crucial to companies, it seems reasonable to understand an organisation intellectual capital. The three leading components of intellectual capital (human capital, structural capital and relational capital), are intrinsically bounded to the organisational ICT system, organisational structure, and to workers personal mastery. Nonetheless, in order to evolve organisational intellectual capital it is required a high level of personal mastery, which is clearly bounded to human resources. Therefore, this chapter aims to promote a theoretical and empirical discussion in order to understand the diverse dimensions between renewal, personal mastery, and employee wellbeing within a knowledgebased organisation (Finnish ICT-company). For that, the chapter is divided into six major sections: the research questions; theoretical framework and main concepts; the case study organisation and research methods applied; findings; discussion; and future research.

INTRODUCTION Powerful technological development in society and the Internet has changed world business structures and communication infrastructure massively since the 1990s. The Internet, which enables global activities and enhances globalization, has caused an ever-faster changing business infrastructure in which knowledge at all levels plays a more crucial DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-873-9.ch010

role than ever before. Knowledge and the ability to renew are therefore among an organisation’s key assets (Harrison & Kessels, 2004). Plentiful research exists in many scientific fields on the organisation of learning, quality management, and change management. However, general wellbeing at work is current particularly in technology, economics, psychology, and social science research. A common understanding is that work environments must become more peoplefriendly for organisations to continue to innovate,


Renewal and Personal Mastery in Knowledge-Based Organisations

creating better products and services for changing markets in a growing, knowledge-based economy (Torvi & Kiljunen, 2005). As everything in the world connects and changes, the ability to adapt and to renew becomes crucial to organisations and individuals (Ståhle & Laento, 2000). Learning and change always go hand in hand: change prompts learning and learning is a way to change. Change management means- among other tasks- managing team learning, individual learning, and learning at an organisation level (Otala, 2002; Argyris & Schön, 1996). It is the starting point to studying renewal. This study aims to recognise the state of an organisation’s intellectual capital (IC). When weaknesses and strengths are acknowledged, processes and procedures can be developed from the results. This article is based on a study carried out in spring 2005 in a Finnish ICT-company supplying information services to a large ICT company. The study looked to increase empirical knowledge of the renewal ability of knowledge-based organisations, and of employee wellbeing in a changing work environment. The purpose was principally to investigate the state of IC in that organisation. The theoretical background for the investigation stands on principle elements of a learning organisation and IC. Research methods were qualitative; the empirical data consisted of interviews within the case study organisation. Experts, it was assumed, to possess qualities of personal mastery, and a personal responsibility for learning. It was interesting therefore to examine how an organisation’s culture and structure support or inhibit the expert’s renewal ability and contribution to the organisation’s ability to innovate and work effectively. In order to perform well, it is crucial to evaluate employees’ personal mastery, in relation to the organisation’s culture, values, goals, structure, and management practises. Performing well is also a question of power and how it is shared between employees, management and partners. In further sections the theoretical background of the study is presented, the research methods applied

are described, and the main findings of the study reported. The chapter concludes by discussing the findings and further studies.

THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS Traditionally, human resource (HR) managers have been responsible for enhancing and developing the organisational knowledge that resides in people. IC, however, belongs to the organisation as a whole. Organisational structures should support the development of organisational knowledge and competencies based on it, transforming those competencies into the property of the entire organisation. Before IC can be measured or developed, its present state must be investigated: existing processes and structures and their effects must- for instance- be known. By acknowledging the present state of competencies and their related renewal ability, the present state of an organisation’s IC can be investigated and its commitment issues shared. To understand developing activities is part of investigating the present state of IC, because an organisation must balance economical objectives and intangible resources (Rastas & EinolaPekkinen, 2001). In this study, the author examines organisational renewal through the central issues of its IC, including knowledge management (KM), relations with business partners, and structural capital, a critical factor between the human capital and the customer capital of an organisation. The research questions were set out as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

How does the IC renews itself?; How does the renewal support achievement of the organisational goals?; How does the renewal affect the organisation´s intellectual capital?; How does the renewal support relations with the customers?; What is the present state of the organisation´s IC?.

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The first research question investigates whether the renewal of IC is in different areas: proactive or reactive, and if the channels are communicating the need for change and renewal. The second question approaches the meaning of renewal in relation to organisational goals. The third question clarifies how renewal supports individual and organisational learning, and how staff perceives the customer relationship. The last question, the most significant, elucidates about the present state of the IC.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND MAIN CONCEPTS The theoretical framework of this article comprises the concepts of renewal ability, personal mastery, and IC, including the components of an organisation. These ideas and their relations are displayed in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The key elements of organisational renewal

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Renewal Ability Renewal ability evolves at an individual level and at a collective level. A quality of managers and other staff, renewal ability can be seen in practical procedures, and it directly influences an organisation’s ability to carry out strategy and to adjust to changes in environment (Ståhle et. al., 2002). Theories of learning organisation identify cumulative learning and constant self-renewal as the keys to success: a successful organisation combines flexibility and effectiveness. Mobilising knowledge, a high priority in a learning organisation, requires knowledge sharing and an open door policy that encourages staff members and managers to bring problems to the attention of top management (Minzberg, Ahlstrand & Lampel, 2005). Renewal ability, a quality of an organisation’s members, can be seen in the way those members work. The ability to renew directly impacts an organisation’s ability to carry out strategy and adapt to changes in society, and is based on


proactive learning and on efficiency in “taking advantage of new possibilities” (Ståhle et. al., 2002, pp. 10). According to the organic growth principle, all members of an organisation must share common goals and a common vision, so that they can take responsibility for developing IC in the right direction. Employees must know what skills they will need to add value to the IC (Brooking, 1996). An organisation can adapt easily to changes within a society by developing, planning, and managing information resources and processes. Just as it is important to be able to learn new things, it is equally important to unlearn old ways of thinking and old patterns of behaviour (Choo, 1998). Commonly, people only see their own place within an organisation and the positive sides of their behaviour and work. The impact of the work of other people, however, cannot be seen on a large scale. It also is typical to scapegoat and blame the system without trying to identify underlying reasons behind the existing problems (Senge, 1990). All people are different and all have their own limitations to sharing and receiving information (Choo, 1998). By applying the concept of KM, one may remove old patterns of thinking, leaving room to learn new things. Innovation and creativity can be enhanced through learning, and efficient decision-making can occur (Choo, 1998).

Personal Mastery Personal mastery evolves mostly at an individual level, relating to personal responsibility for learning, and suggesting a special level of proficiency: personal and professional. Those with personal mastery live in a mode of continual learning (Senge, 2006), with a totally new attitude to life, an openness to new things, and a strong will to develop and grow as a human being. Furthermore, those with personal mastery, have a strong vision and a clear mission for where they are going, and what they want to become. They are often found

in changing environments, because people with personal mastery do not use their energy to resist change. They also actively seek to change their environment without trying to control it (Senge, 1990). Himanen, Torvalds & Castells (2001) also describe the importance of personal responsibility in learning. With personal responsibility they describe self programming, often called personal development (PD) in literature. They separate seven different characteristics for personal development that help people to get ahead in life and cope with change in society (Himanen, Torvalds & Castells, 2001). Growth as a human being, an essential part of personal mastery, starts with a commitment to something that truly matters. A commitment to personal growth is important, particularly for managers. Through the theory of personal mastery it is easier to understand that an organisation or a team is a social system and that there are more integrated ways of looking at problems (Senge, 2006).

Intellectual Capital Interest in IC has grown steadily since Stewart introduced IC as a concept at the beginning of the 1990s. According to Stewart (1997), IC is the sum of everything people know that gives a competitive advantage in the market. IC consists of three components: human, structural, and customer capital. It has been defined, moreover, as a set of knowledge that creates value for the organisation, or can create value in the future (Castellanos, Rodriquez & Ranguelov, 2004). Common to these two definitions is the understanding that IC adds value to existing outcomes by producing, for instance, a competitive advantage (see Iivonen & Huotari, 2007). Intellectual capital has become a popular concept as the number of knowledge-base organisations has increased. While the expert is the most important element of knowledge-based organisations, only a few companies can tell the value of

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an expert’s intellectual capital. According to a survey carried out in the UK, companies use only around twenty percent of employee competence. The use of intellectual capital is valuable for the company and for motivating and rewarding the expert (Brooking, 1996). IC involves human capital (HC), structural capital (SC), customer capital (CC) or, relational capital (RC). HC is knowledge, skills, knowhow, experience, creativity, education, and the capability to innovate. RC is relations to customers, stakeholders, and also of image, brands, and contracts with business partners. SC is patents, technology, information systems, processes and procedures, values, organisational culture, and management philosophy (Lönnqvist & Mettänen, 2003). Iivonen & Huotari (2007) considered that the IC components of a university library indicate the potential contribution of that library to the overall performance of the university IC. Iivonen & Huotari (2007) referred to Seetharaman, Sooria & Saravanan (2002), who claim that even at the end of the last millennium, too much about the nature of IC remained unknown and was difficult to capture it in explicit terms. They contributed to this discussion by presenting summaries of the major components of IC, as displayed in Table 1.

aspects of organisational knowing. Tacit knowledge is crucial to HC; because, personal and private knowledge is difficult to communicate to others. Tacit knowledge grows in time through experiences and can be seen as intuition, vision, and know-how (Choo, 1998). The concept of tacit knowledge can be traced to Michael Polanyi (18911976), a Hungarian researcher of medicine who identified tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge as concepts, and to Ikujiro Nonaka, who popularised the concepts in the mid-1990s. However, according to many authors, tacit knowledge has been used too superficially as a term in certain cases (Huotari & Iivonen, 2004; Yates-Mercer & Bawden, 2002; Cook & Brown, 1999). Tacit knowledge plays a vital role in HC, and manifests as the implicit knowledge of employees, crucial to promoting organisational learning and innovations (see Choo, 1998). Tacit knowledge can be transferred by teamwork and by learning-bydoing methods (Sveiby, 1997). As much as tacit knowledge is deeply rooted in organisational practices and culture, it may also have a negative impact by causing change resistance among staff members (Stewart, 1997). Embedded tacit knowledge may sometimes reduce the ability to enhance organisational performance.

Human Capital

Structural Capital

HC is a component of IC whose content most often describes employee competence (see Table 1). HC includes the explicit and tacit knowledge of employees and relates strongly to the cultural

The SC of IC, its internal processes, may be organisational and include, for example: learning, management, and business processes; culture; and technological processes consisting of databases,

Table 1. A description of HC (Source: Iivonen & Huotari, 2007, pp. 85) Components of IC

Edvisson & Malone (1997)

Magic Project (Seetharaman, Sooria & Saravanan, 2002)

Castellanos, Rodriquez & Ranguelov (2004)

Johannessen, Olsen & Olaisen (2005)

HC

All the individual capabilities, knowledge, skill, and experiences of the company’s employees and managers

The basic potentials of an organisation

The set of explicit and tacit knowledge of the people in the organisation, shared or not amongst them, that has value to the organisation

The sum of internal and external knowledge bases in a system

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licenses, and information systems. For the study this article reports on, SC is a crucial component of IC that includes an organisation’s capability for continuous improvement, often called “innovation capital”. Also, SC encompasses the ability of an organisation to adjust to environmental change and to create its own future, which in turn is entitled “systemic capital”. According to Johannessen, Olsen & Olaisen (2005), SC consists of organisational learning and innovation. Explicit knowledge, state Castellanos, Rodriquez & Ranguelov (2004), relates to the internal processes of SC, both organisational and technological. Edvinsson & Malone (1997) have separated a specific innovation capital that consists of renewal capability and of the results of innovation in the form of protected commercial rights, intellectual property, and other intangible assets and talents. Johannessen, Olsen & Olaisen also separate systemic capital, which they regard as an ability to adjust to changes in the environment demonstrated by social systems, and also an ability to create one’s own future (Iivonen & Huotari, 2007). Personnel development processes are necessary for an organisation to perform in changing business environments; they make learning possible at all times. Effective communication, supported by a strong structure of teams, is needed to secure continuous functioning and a flow of information on current issues, future changes, and new goals. Technology is needed to spread information about changes and new goals. By evaluating areas of knowledge and expertise, we can discover what goals must be reached and what is needed to achieve them in the future. Career plans are also required to develop learning processes, motivate employees, and simply to add knowledge and motivation. Also, a rewarding economic reflection of the work- and processes of reward in general- are crucial to structural capital in a knowledge-based organisation. Open feedback processes and their evaluation are needed. Learning, training, and developing competence is especially important, allowing supervisors and

managers to lead teams, services, and products (Harrison & Kessels, 2004). It has been suggested that the nature of the reward is essential: the research shows that public recognition of skill and contribution, rather than plain economic reflection of the input measured, motivates the expert to work harder and stay longer with a company (Lee-Kelley, Blackman & Hurst, 2007). Processes, the glue that keeps the components of an organisation together, should reflect its (the organisation’s) values and management philosophy. The values of top management will not be visible in an organisation if middle management is not committed to working according to the values, mission, and strategy of the organisation; to quality processes, information management, change management and a continuous striving to work better. Among these strategies, communication methods are significant (Brooking, 1996). Structural capital can also help managers to build fences, support weak communication processes, or weaken the flow of information and learning in organisation. By simplifying and lowering organisational structure, processes can become even more effective, adding value for the customer. Well-formed structures support an efficient information flow between customers, stakeholders, and organisations. If they do not, an invisible informal structure can develop beside the formal structure, stronger than the “actual” formal structure. Different structures, upon analysis, either support or inhibit the successful work of an organisation (Rastas & Einola-Pekkinen, 2001).

Relational Capital The RC (also called customer capital, market capital, or network capital) of IC comprises an organisation’s relationships and includes the explicit and tacit knowledge of how an organisation deals with its external agents (Castellanos, Rodriquez & Ranguelov, 2004). In today’s turbulent, networked environment, an organisation cannot survive without relations to stakeholders

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(Iivonen & Huotari, 2007). Success in a relationship is based on quality: in an inter-organisational collaboration, quality means shaping cooperation, trust, mutuality, and joint learning. Supporting the building of such relationships is not easy, given the competitive culture and transactional relationships usual to “organisational” life (Senge et al., 2007). Organisations usually have customers and stakeholders, but according to Schein (2004) definitions may be vague. Is the customer, for instance, the person who ultimately buys the product; or the career occupant’s peers in a neighbouring department, dependent on the department he or she is in; or the boss; or subordinates; or the community? “Client” and “customer” vary as concepts by function and by occupational community. Each community has norms for how to “get along”, for information that can be passed or withheld, and for interests that must ultimately be protected (Schein, 2004). An organisation’s internal relations are essential to RC, being also essential to RC is the ability to network, to create and maintain relations beyond internal and external organisational boundaries. Success in collaboration stands, therefore, on an organisation’s strategic-linking capability; RC indicates a capacity to build partnerships (see Iivonen & Huotari, 2007). Guiding ideas develop when people share values, vision, and general guidelines, resulting in a network of people working together, everything connected and renewed constantly through learning and change. In such a network, people share a common language by which to interpret their experiences to create something new and investigate shared values and beliefs (Choo, 2002). Partners have a joint interest in value creation and in mutual success, and must learn to trust in a joint future despite occasional mistakes and shortcomings, without looking for new service providers when dissatisfied (Iivonen & Huotari, 2007). Modern organisational networks usually consist of teams, groups that share a common goal and vision. A team employs a variety of processes,

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procedures, and systems to achieve that goal and vision. Managers encourage employees to work towards a shared aim, and reorganise people to make teams (Scholtes, 1997). Team learning correlates the highest with resource adequacy. Simply being a team member may possibly give some employees greater job satisfaction. The independent nature of experts in a knowledge organisation is reflected in a low correlation of relations to co-workers. Experts value colleagues, but personal reward does not result from being with them; teamwork may not come naturally to experts. Knowledge workers tend to see development and learning as a personal thing. If team work is vital to a project, it needs to be managed carefully (Lee-Kelley, Blackman & Hurst, 2007).

Organisational Culture Organisational culture and the ideas behind an organisation change constantly due to changes in society. Organisational culture defines how people should act and work within an organisation (Hofstede, 1993). A power that affects everything, it takes organisation and fragments it, knitting a collection of individuals into an integrated entity. Culture is what is unique about the way we do all things. It is interpretations shared collectively in a social process. No private cultures exist. There might be individual activities, but their significance is always collective (Minzberg, Ahlstrand, & Lampel, 2005). According to Schein (1996), a culture can be a set of basic tacit assumptions about how the world is and ought to be. Culture is a group of people that share and determines their perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and, to some degree, their overt behaviour. Cultures arise within organisations based on their own histories and experiences. It manifests itself at three levels: the level of deep tacit assumptions that are the essence of the culture. Also the level of espoused values reflecting group’s wishes to be ideally and what it wants to be publicly. Finally there is the day-to-day behaviour


that represents a complex compromise among the espoused values, the deeper assumptions, and the immediate requirements of the situation. Different kinds of organisations exist, but common to all of them is that their internal functions have to be in balance with their mission, techniques, external functions, and their member needs and expectations (Aula & Hakala, 2000).

THE CASE STUDY ORGANISATION AND RESEARCH METHODS APPLIED The Case Study Organisation The case study organisation reported on in this article is a knowledge-based organisation specialising in engineering work, in the environmental sciences, and in information sciences. The case study organisation is located in five major cities in Finland and also in “international” locations: in China, India, Russia, and in Sweden. The study was conducted within the Information Services branch of the organisation, which produces a variety of information technology services that demand a high level of expertise based on a high level of education, a strong practical knowledge of the work, and on excellent English skills. Most of the employees work as technical writers, as the main users of databases, as information designers, or in other “information support” functions within customer organisations.

The Qualitative Approach It is typical of qualitative research that its empirical results can be observed from many different angles. It is also typical of qualitative research that its data is expressive, rich, multileveled, and even complicated to understand (Alasuutari, 1995). Qualitative research is part of the examined organisation’s world, a type of sample about language and culture of the organisation under

investigation (Alasuutari, 1995). This research aims to explain certain phenomenon within the case study organisation, which is quite common in qualitative research, rather than to expose or prove phenomenon (Alasuutari, 1995). The data was collected by applying the “theme interview” method, a half-structured interview method. In this type of interview, the form of the themes discussed is the same for all interviewees, but the interviewer can state the themes in a different order if necessary (Hirsjärvi & Hurme, 2000). Applying the theme interview method, all individual experiences can be studied, including thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and experiences (Hirsjärvi & Hurme, 2000). The theme interview method is excellent for situations and circumstances in which, a deeper and increasing understanding of the research is needed (Hirsjärvi & Hurme, 2000).

Collecting and Analysing the Empirical Data The basis for the empirical study was formed from thirty-seven organisational members in two teams. The team managers also had members in other cities and in other location. The staff members to be interviewed were selected randomly, though, as the personnel in the case study organisation were homogeneous, the backgrounds of the study subjects displayed no variation when compared to the backgrounds of the rest of the staff. Features common to those interviewed included an age of around thirty, a master’s degree at university level, and three years’ work experience. Of the study subjects, seventy percent were women and thirty percent men. The services this company offered were outsourced from services provided by a larger technology company: a significant factor in employee backgrounds. Some of the subjects of the study had worked in the large company, which was their customer now, while others were new employees.

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Some significance to the findings concerning the SC and RC of the case study organisation was caused also by the arrangement, where some of the interviewees were working in the customer’s premises, while others worked in the company’s own premises and were in contact with the customer mainly by e-mail or by phone. The data was collected by interviewing the members of two teams in March and April 2005. The themes of the interview were divided into three main categories, namely HC, SC, and RC. Fourteen staff members altogether, from two separate teams, were invited for interviews. The researcher interviewed eleven study subjects either in a company meeting room or staff members’ own offices. Each interview was recorded, and took from thirty-five minutes to an hour and fifteen minutes, depending on the interviewee. The recordings were transcribed within a few days after the interviews, and the researcher had the atmosphere and the details clearly in mind when analysing the data. The theme interview proved a suitable method for studying issues also of a more intangible nature, since it was possible in the interaction between the researcher and the study subjects to discover so-called “grey areas” connected to the subject. As a final remark, the

author points out that Figure 2 shows the main themes of the study, which form the basis for both interviews and analysis.

FINDINGS The Renewal of Intellectual Capital IC is renewed mainly through customer orders, through changes in employees, and through the joint learning of employees. In the case study, renewal occurred principally by adjusting to new customer processes, new IT tools, and to new projects. The values, goals, and strategies of the case study organisation itself were unknown to employees; all those employees interviewed said that most important to the organisation was economic profit. We are here only to make money for the company, that´s it (Person A on the theme of values) Well, a company can have all kinds of values, but you see the actual values in how things are done. There can be anything on paper. Those values have been presented to us in info sessions, but to

Figure 2. The central themes of an interview based on the theory of learning organisation

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tell you the truth, I can´t recall them. (Person H to the question about values) The organisational structure showed signs of inflexibility at work, binding frames and processes so tightly together in certain procedures that employees found them almost impossible to change. This was evident even in situations in which personal competence and knowledge would suggest change. Staff learning together- one aspect of renewal activities- was possible due to good team spirit, due in part to the similar educational background and age structure of the staff. While top management were seen as distant and almost invisible, ten out of eleven study subjects found their nearest project managers easy to get along with and regarded them as equally important colleagues. However, six out of the ten staff members interviewed found it almost impossible to influence their own work environment. Many of us have the competence to develop our services; we actually could do documents of excellent quality, but the company doesn´t want that, they are missing common sense in all the decisions. The bureaucracy is too thick. It just isn’t this company’s thing to do excellent documentation. The customer has seen that also: when busy, we are trying to let out all kinds of crap (Person D to the question can you use your own full competence in your work?) Managers promise to deliver whatever the customer asks. They don´t know how to be strict about what can be ordered. They can´t negotiate (Person H to the question about structural capital theme ‘managerial work’) To achieve proactive renewal and enable better, innovative practices, an organic or even a dynamic organisational structure is needed. Managers require new competencies and qualities in this type of environment, including an ability to motivate people, to support learning

and insight, and to motivate staff members and skills for KM (Rastas & Einola-Pekkinen, 2001). Those staff members interviewed wanted- in addition to nice managers- increased proactivity for change, better planning abilities, better negotiation skills, sturdiness, and better managing skills in general. According to Kessels (2001), managers can also be helpful facilitators who create the necessary environment for knowledge work. At worst, traditional managers who organise work in obedience to bureaucratic rules are a hindrance to the development of knowledge networks, which are a prerequisite for knowledge productivity (Kessels, 2001).

Renewal and Goals Goals are an important foundation and motivating factor at individual, team, and organisational levels of decision making. A shared vision can be a goal that all members of an organisation can recognize. To achieve that vision, all members of an organisation must be committed to it and want it to work. It is extremely difficult for an organisation to succeed in a changing world without long term goals that all the members’ share (Senge, 1990). Organisations should have a plan for learning and renewal: not an educational program tied to a certain time or place, but a culture of learning visible in every-day work practises. Routine, work, and learning should mesh naturally in the everyday life of an organisation, creating an environment that supports and encourages the ability of staff to adopt changes and new procedures and to innovate (Harrison & Kessels 2004, 155). When an organisation has a clear goal, employees do not need to be pushed to change, but want to change of their own will, and look consciously to improve the quality of their work and of their work environment (Senge, 1990). In the case study organisation, the biggest problems connected to a lack of goals were: insufficient commitment to work, and a lack of processes for evaluation and reward. All the staff

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members, ten out of eleven interviewees, did not have clear goals in their work. This was stated for example as follows: There aren’t any goals. Life goes on only by ongoing work orders. If something new suddenly comes up, they quickly try to train us for that. We just need to jump into new things with our head up. Whoever happens to have most time gives advice and trains as much as they possibly can, while taking care of their own projects. Work duties are tied too much to one person here. (Person A to the question what kind of goals do you have?) Moreover, all the interviewed (11/11) thought the evaluation, reward, and feedback processes were inadequate or even poor: There isn´t a formal feedback channel. Feedback comes when it comes, just by accident sometimes. By e-mail, for example. Appreciation for work is not shown in the salary. It doesn´t give any economical feedback about how well or poorly you do your job. It just doesn´t matter. (Person I to the question: on salary, feedback and rewarding practices, what thoughts come to mind?) Goals of the case study organisation other than economic were unknown to the staff, who were also without any personal goals or career plans. Work and training was planned according to customer orders. Also, lack of evaluation, reward, and feedback processes decreased motivation and the level of performance at work. The company did have regular “development discussions” between managers and staff members once a year, but these were considered inadequate and even useless.

The Effects of Renewal on Intellectual Capital People find it rewarding to use their competencies at the highest level, which for an employer means taking risks instead of maximizing security and

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giving the freedom to innovate, even sometimes to fail. New methods should therefore be preferred to actions that have become routine. How beneficial new information is depends on the structure of the organisation. A mechanical structure aims to save organisational knowledge, an organic structure to renew knowledge, and a dynamic structure to innovate new, better practices (Ståhle et al., 2002). In the case study organisation, in-service training was regarded as inadequate and lacking in consensus as to priorities. However, employees learned by doing, by guiding each other at work and finding solutions together. This is a practical way of transferring tacit knowledge between employees and of generating new information or knowledge through shared experiences and meanings (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 19955). An unwillingness to share one’s knowledge or a lack of shared time- among other hindrances- may obstruct the transfer of tacit knowledge. An organisation geographically scattered or under constant change has poor chances to benefit from the tacit knowledge its members have gained at work (Grönroos, 2003). In the present study, all eleven interviewees regarded a heavy workload and even burnout as a significant problem in their organisation. Among factors causing burn-out stated in answers, the most common were those connected to the SC. A lack of resources was mentioned by all interviewees in all answers as the culprit causing burnout; employees had been overburdened with work for a long time. Changes in personnel or sick-leaves due to burnouts resulted in a need for those remaining to work overtime, as expressed, for example, as follows: Burnout, it exists. People have taken other jobs. Meaningless work causes exhaustion; week after week you don´t know what you are doing, you can´t plan your work, contracts regulate everything, there are too many crisis situations, resourcing is below judgement. It is hard to feel any professional pride; working at a cash desk in a shop wouldn´t make any difference to this.


Although good, skilful people, we feel humiliated and treated as slaves. (Person D to the question if they had found burnout in their job). Customer demands and strictly-restricted assignments were regarded as obstacles to work. Eight out of the eleven study subjects felt that employees could not benefit from their capabilities in their work because of too many strict contracts. All the interviewees were prepared for more challenging tasks. Guiding others was not allocated any resources, and was supposed to happen along with one’s own tasks. The most common reasons for exhaustion at work are overburdening, illegibilities, conflicts between aims and roles, a lack of independence and options, boredom at work, and problems connected to interaction (Hakanen, 1999). This study concludes, on the basis of the interviews, that reactive renewal in an organisation increases exhaustion among workers, and in that way has a negative impact on the IC of the organisation.

Proactive Renewal and Wellbeing at Work Close to the Customer Of those interviewed in the present study, two were working on customer premises, while the remainder worked geographically apart from their customers. These two persons present an interesting exception: they appeared more satisfied with their jobs than the rest, having more freedom to develop their modes of action with customers and make arrangements and interact face-to-face as the following comment shows: I work quite freely. I use my own relationships for taking care of things. (Person X answers a question about their chance to effect on own tasks). The majority of those interviewed, by contrast, seemed regulated by agreements and strictly restricted tasks. One of the interviewees also pointed out a deterioration of customer relations after

moving away from the customer´s premises. His view of this customer partnership was as follows. I don´t know, really. The relationship has deteriorated after we moved away from their premises. (Person K answers the question about partner relationships) In summarising the renewal of customer relations, it can be said that they are still mostly renewed by different requirements and agreements- as the following comment shows: You really can´t be creative here; we should have more time and better knowledge of the products. If average or even poor quality has been accepted earlier, there really isn´t much motivation to improve the quality later either. In most tasks everything is really boring and strictly specified; all the orders come ready, like, “Do this, and do it exactly like this!” (Person H to the question about using one’s full competence at work.) Unfortunately this type of renewal supports a non-active culture in the organisation, characterised by a lack of confidence with no prospect of active participation to develop working conditions. According to the study, change was possible, but required face-to-face communication with the customer in confidential relationships. Trust between partners is the key to strategic partnerships. Changes in surroundings put the endurance of the partnerships in a permanent test situation. Two out of three started partnerships fail, according to researchers. A strategic partnership requires- in addition to joint strategy- a shared goal and open actions towards achieving that goal. Everything is based on trust. A successful partnership results in efficiency in costs, predictability, and innovativeness, and benefits all partners (Vihma, 2005). According to Bradley & Vozikis (2004) (cited in Huotari, Hurme & Valkonen, 2005) when building confidence, the emphasis must be on creating an atmosphere for communication that is

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open and encourages co-operation. For individual skills, of equal importance is a positive attitude towards communication, as well as participation in decision making, and attentiveness. Building confidence requires that versatile abilities communicate. Good practises in co-operation indicate deep trust between partners (Huotari, Hurme & Valkonen, 2005).

The Current State of Intellectual Capital At the end of the analysis, empirical findings were collected through a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis, and the organisational strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats could be analysed easily, based on investigation of the interview data. The findings of the study show the principles of a mechanical organisational structure at work, attempting to control an ever-changing environment through typical methods, namely strictly specified work tasks, an excessive amount of reporting, and formal methods of communication with the customer. Moreover, when customer orders are the only input for renewal, an organisation cannot not produce its own goals or proactively renew, which in turn causes a lack of motivation, stress, and even cases of burnout among highly educated personnel. According to many interviewees, the prominent reasons for burnout were the lack of possibility to affect the work environment, a lack of goals, fragmented project work, and inadequate and improper processes for reward and feedback. Stress occurs, states Ek, when individual interests and ambitions do not meet the challenges or possibilities the environment has to offer (Ek, 2000). Threat can also be reactive renewal in itself. Knowledge and competence based on customer processes is not the same as the organisation’s own competence, and can even be a risk to a business. It is also very likely that professionals will leave the organisation in the long run to seek better opportunities, better financial satisfaction, more

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respect, and above all a more internally rewarding job. A high level of sick leaves and of experts leaving an organisation should be considered as a warning that the organisation is losing IC and ultimately its competitive advantage (Sveiby, 1997). Strengths of the case study organisation included a highly educated staff; endeavour towards self-development and developing the work community appeared as strengths in the SWOT analysis. The stuff had- furthermore- homogeneous backgrounds and good relations with co-workers and project managers. A clear opportunity exists for the organisation to utilise personnel more effectively in planning and developing services. Besides the possibility of better services, this would earn the company more profitable results in the long run, not to mention personnel happier about their work. According to Siltala (2004), workers who feel pleasure at work stay healthy, have fewer periods of sick leave, and produce a better outcome than workers continuously on overtime and overburdened. Figure 3 illustrates the present state of the intellectual capital of the case study organisation, in the frame of the SWOT analysis. The key issues in renewal of the intellectual capital have been taken into account, namely human, structural, and relational capital. Figure 3 summarises the results of the present study in intellectual capital.

DISCUSSION The findings of this study are based on empirical data from a Finnish ICT company operating in a constantly and rapidly changing environment, in which, tasks and organisation were based on a very strong customer orientation totally determining the sequence, nature, and speed of the experts’ work. This study concludes that while it may seem easy to attempt to control a changing work environment with methods familiar from a mechanical organisation structure, such as: strictly regulated tasks; formal reporting; and manager control of


Figure 3. SWOT analysis on the present state of IC

communication and development work. And, this approach does not work in a knowledge-based organisation. In a knowledge-based organisation, mechanical structural methods cause reactive renewal of IC, not proactive renewal. They engender a lack of aims in the personal development of highly educated, creative employees, arriving at exhaustion and an absence of motivation. The material studied shows that employees working in customer’s premises were more satisfied with their work, because they could regulate their working conditions and content of work and also had an opportunity to learn more effectively. In addition, employees working in customer premises felt that they could benefit the partnership more by better customer contact. Interpersonal communication is the starting point for the renewal of intellectual capital. The key to successful renewal is to support interaction between the customer and the team serving the customer. In-service training is required, and clear short and long-term objectives; also, possibilities to develop the content

of the work, and processes producing incentive, processes of evaluation, feedback, and reward. Building a shared strategy and goals is crucial to working with partners (Harrison & Kessels, 2004). An organisation’s culture is a shared reality, is assumptions and unrecorded rules; these either encourage or slow learning. To gain the new, constructive ways of thinking and acting that are necessary to make justifiable decisions, you must also consciously give up old attitudes and beliefs. In the case study organisation, the customer had considerable influence on every facet of activity. The interviews demonstrate that the company’s attitude to the customer was an essential part of its culture, but appeared unfavourable to human capital and structural capital, and especially to relational capital. The interviews indicate, however, that proactive change may be produced when it is seen as valuable, and that it is possible to allocate resources to that change. Two persons working on customer premises felt that they were treated as experts and that their expertise was in full use and appreci-

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ated. As experts they also enjoyed appreciation of the customer, who asked for their advice. One employee working on customer premises said she could find better methods of working and could improve actions, meaning that she made the effort to introduce and justify those new ideas to the customer. In these cases, the integration of the IC produced added value for the customer, while mutual confidence in their co-operation increased. This type of activity should be rewarded consistently, giving more employees endurance and a willingness to develop co-operation towards proactive procedures. As a phenomenon this can be called social intelligence, meaning good negotiation skills, a deep knowledge of one’s own competence, and excellent communication skills (Choo, 2002). Among the management and personnel department, the outcomes of the study raised interest and they were unaware of the current situation of the IC. Details of the employees’ working day had remained unknown to the distant top management and even to middle management. The renewal of intellectual capital among management and its expansion to the borderlines of customer contact would make a fruitful subject for further study, the outcomes of which may contribute to mutual understanding, and lead to better partnerships. So, Figure 4 shows recommendations for actions in the case study organisation.

An organisation reaching towards successful development has its basis of functions in different elements of learning. The keys to the renewal of an organisation are: developing competence management; problem solving abilities; social and communication skills; capability of creating new information; and creating and encouraging an atmosphere for learning. Creative-chaosproducing innovations are also needed, while on the other hand stability and time is necessary for finding and adopting new solutions and practical judgement in routines. The situations in which practical judgement is missing are easily detected, but it seems more complex to define the meaning of practical judgement where routines and learning are concerned (Harrison & Kessels, 2004).

FUTURE RESEARCH The current situation within global financial markets affects all organisations, even in Finland. General wellbeing at work is an important issue that has been examined within the fields of technology, economics, psychology, and social sciences. This research expands the scope of KM and related Information Management (IM) to wellbeing at work in knowledge-based organisations. In this context, IM is crucial to providing information for the knowledge-based work of

Figure 4. Recommendations for actions in the case study organisation

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experts, for which information is seen- among other things- as an input to knowledge processes (Huotari & Iivonen, 2005). Personal mastery has been used frequently as a concept in organisational learning, in innovations, and in expert organisations. An organisation needs the commitment of employees with personal mastery to achieve its goals, mission, and vision. García-Morales et al. (2007) have examined the affect of personal mastery on organisational performance by calculating and analysing the correlations between personal mastery, innovation constructs, and organisational learning. Significant and positive correlations between personal mastery and organisation’s performance exist directly and indirectly through organisational learning and innovation, state these authors. Further, organisational learning influences organisational performance positively, both directly and indirectly through organisational innovation (GarcíaMorales, 2007). Also, Lee-Kelley, Blackman & Hurst (2007) demonstrate in their research a relationship between learning organisation theory and the potential to retain knowledge workers. By breaking down the elements of learning organisation, including personal mastery, managers are provided with a better insight on how a learning organisation´s disciplines impact knowledge workers. According to Lee-Kelley, Blackman & Hurst (2007), HR managers should adapt personal mastery to link HR strategies pertaining to challenge, sharing vision and developing holistic systems throughout the organisation (Lee-Kelley, Blackman & Hurst, 2007). The talents of knowledge workers are put to optimal use through material provisions and especially through an educational environment that furthers personal expertise. This type of climate enhances and stimulates the participation of talented employees in interesting and useful projects in professional networks. Employee surroundings should enhance the development of individual perspective within opportunities for the organisation’s strategic objectives (Kessels, 2001).

According to Hamel, in every human being are innovation genes that managers and HR leaders simply do not know how to turn on; for that, the theory of innovation is required. Some individuals at certain points in time see opportunities that are invisible to everyone else (Hamel, 2009). This research aims to increase our understanding of personal mastery in relation to wellbeing at work and to the renewal ability of an informationintensive, knowledge-based organisation. This includes, for example, the following aspects: •

•

•

increasing understanding of the relation between effective IM and experts’ wellbeing and satisfaction at work; indicating the factors including communication and information competencies that affect personal mastery and wellbeing at work; increasing understanding of organisational change when communicating internal information processes

Through these aspects the study will contribute to our understanding of the nature of innovative knowledge- based work and its management. Therefore, Figure 5 describes the connection between personal mastery and the organisation.

CONCLUSION While the limits of transactional ways of interacting are apparent, generating change at a scale that matters often requires engaging large communities of diverse participants with different motivations. All members should share a strong commitment to the success of the organisation as a whole (Senge et al., 2007). On the basis of the attributes of personal mastery, power, and intellectual capital in relation to renewal ability, the following questions can be stated:

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Figure 5. The link between personal mastery and the organisation

1.

2. 3. 4.

5.

6. 7.

What are the main perceived qualities of personal mastery of the experts in case study organisations?; What is the relation of wellbeing at work to carrying out personal mastery in practise?; How are experts able to influence their work environment and tasks at work?; What kind of factors, for instance culture, climate, and structure, affect experts’ ability to renew?; What kind of communication infrastructure supports individual and organisational renewal?; How does management philosophy support experts’ personal mastery?; What is the difference between changerelated formal documentation and face-toface communication?

An expert’s knowledge is power, but the key problem is how to utilise all this potential knowledge within an organisation (Castrén, 2001). This new research project will add knowledge of managing information for knowledge-based work within the fields of technology and health care. Growing interest lies in experts in the ICT field and in medical doctors who are specialists within their fields. My future study will pursue

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comparisons of the personal mastery of those professionals within their organisations and its management. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of KM, the results of future research will contribute to the fields of Information Studies, Management Information Systems (MIS), Organisational Communication and Administrative or, Management Sciences. The results will be scrutinised in the most significant domestic and international scientific journals and conferences within these fields.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT I would like to thank my supervisor, professor Maija-Leena Huotari who gave me help, suggestions, advice and who encouraged me to go ahead with my article. I furthermore would like to thank the Faculty of Humanities in Oulu University for partial funding for this article. Also, I would like to thank Matti McCambridge for correcting English style and grammar of this article. Especially, I would like to give special thanks to my husband Veikko Lohikoski who enabled me to complete this work.


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Stewart, T. A. (1997). Intellectual capital. The new wealth of organizations. New York: Currency Doubleday. Sveiby, K.-E. (1997). The new organizational wealth- Managing & measuring knowledge based assets. San Francisco, CA: Berret-Koehler Publishers, Inc. Torvi, K., & Kiljunen, P. (2005). Onnellisuuden vaikea yhtälö. Elinkeinoelämän valiokunnan (EVA). Retrieved July 30, 2009, from http://www. eva.fi/files/1110_onnellisuuden_vaikea_yhtalo. pdf (in Finnish). Vihma, P. (2005). Kaikki etsivät kumppaneita. Yritysten yhteistyön hallinta on johtajien päällimmäinen puheenaihe. [in Finnish]. Talouselämä, 5, 22–27. Yates-Mercer, P., & Bawden, D. (2002). Managing the paradox: the valuation of knowledge and knowledge management. Journal of Information Science, 28(1), 19–29. doi:10.1177/016555150202800103

ADDITIONAL READING Aro, A. (2001). On niin kiire, ettei ehdi tehdä mitään. Helsinki: Edita. (in Finnish) Mintzberg, H., Lampel, J., & Ahlstrand, B. (2005). Strategy safari: A guided tour through the wilds of strategic management. New York, NY: Free Press. Siess, J. A. (2003). The visible librarian: Asserting your value with marketing and advocacy. Chicago, IL: American Library Association. Ståhle, P., & Grönroos, M. (2000). Dynamic intellectual capital- Knowledge management in theory and practise. Vantaa: Tummavuoren Kirjapaino Oy. (in Finnish)

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Human Resources: It includes all the existing personnel inside an organisation. Is the most important asset within a learning organisation, because personal mastery is commonly an individual feature, however human resources management policies seem to neglect this reality. Intellectual Capital: A set of knowledge that creates, or might create value for the organisation in a near future. Its components are: human capital (encompasses workers explicit and tacit knowledge); structural capital (characterizes internal processes); and, customer capital (includes an organisation’s relationships). Learning Organisation: An organisation that in which all systems, processes, and structures- at all levels (individual, group, department, systemas-a-whole)- constantly seek data on system performance, and use it at all levels to make the organization more productive/creative now (integration), as well as simultaneously allows it to achieve a successful organisational position in an uncertain environment (adaptation). Organisational Culture: Can be resumed as the way organisations recognize themselves. It is based on history and structure, giving a sense of identity: “who we are”; “what we stand for”; “what we do”. It determines the existing organisational procedures. Personal Mastery: Enables an individual feature, and implies a high level of proficiency: personal and professional. Renewal Ability: Encompasses two levels: an individual; and, a collective. Related to the ability to people execute practical procedures or, how an organisation executes its strategy and adjusts to the changing environment.

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Chapter 11

The Importance of Balancing Knowledge Protection and Knowledge Interchange Yutaka Takahashi Senshu University, Japan

ABSTRACT Business organisations are aware of the importance of knowledge to keep and acquire competitiveness, so willing to find and keep knowledge holders in their organisations. However, employees in many developed countries have freedom to choose what to do for their living; it is possible a suddenly leave regarding their current jobs and get a new job elsewhere. This is a great loss for the former employer, because it means that not only the knowledge holders themselves but also their knowledge leaves the former business. Moreover, this knowledge would be beneficial for the new employers which are often competitors of the former employers. In order to avoid this kind of brain drain, employers often require that employees sign non-disclosure and non-compete agreements. Nevertheless, this request can cause some trouble in the long run. This chapter shows the structures causing this trouble and how to deal with it using the systems thinking approach.

INTRODUCTION Knowledge and knowledge holders are crucial resources for competitive business organisations. Baskerville & Dulipovici (2006) indicate two classifications for knowledge: organizational knowledge and personal knowledge. If knowledge is dealt with as organizational knowledge, the rights concerning knowledge of the organization, DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-873-9.ch011

knowledge acquirer, should be protected as the organization’s property. On the other hand, the rights of a person, the knowledge holder, would be protected when the knowledge is classified into personal knowledge. Teece (2000) defines organizational knowledge as information being incorporated in organizations’activities. Naturally, such knowledge can be either articulated or tacit (Hedlund, 1994). Griffith, Sawyer & Neale (2003) give more detailed classification; organizational knowledge should be articulated and captured by


The Importance of Balancing Knowledge Protection and Knowledge Interchange

some systems like information technology, and on the other hand, tacit knowledge in an organization would be called social knowledge. Myers (1996) illustrates that personal knowledge should be recognized as an attribute of its knowledge holder. Fahey & Prusak (1998) define knowledge as something known by someone. They stress the points that knowledge is produced only by knowledge holders and that knowledge acquired by organizations and embedded to task routines is always incomplete. Davenport & Prusak (1998) define knowledge as a mixture of experience, values based on contextual information, and insights. This thought is clearly based on the idea that knowledge is produced, matured, and used in knowledge holders’ heads (Gottschalk, 2005). The current ubiquitous computing society provides free or low cost access to various kinds of information; information is stored in computer devices, and these are mutually connected as a network. Such online information can be accessed by anyone with a computer. Besides, information can be accessed by ones who are not authentic creators, nor-owners of the information, and such access can also stimulate someone to create new value. This means that just storing or collecting much information no longer improves competitiveness of business players. This is completely different from tangible properties. Knowledge, which is the form of “a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information” (Davenport & Prusak, 1998, p. 5), needs “a constant renewal through the accumulation process” (Costa & Silva, 2007, p. 125). Recently, knowledge is still more important in order for business people and organizations to be competitive than ever. The highly uncertain current situation requires us to solve new problems one after another using knowledge. Knowledge is not a product itself; using knowledge can produce something. Hiding or limiting use of knowledge does not earn anything. Rather, it would simply waste

resources. Knowledge comprises information, and information reveals itself when being used (Arrow, 1962). Dealing with knowledge like a tangible or scarce resource may lead organisations to inefficient knowledge use and result in lowering organisations’ competitiveness for obtaining consumers’ advocacy. Although managers and organizations are aware of the importance of knowledge, they often fail in knowledge management; companies lose knowledgeable employees despite the attempt to keep them within the organisations, or companies cannot see innovations despite the introduction of knowledge management software packages. One of the reasons that knowledge is lost within their organisations is the lack of balance between knowledge protection and knowledge interchange; they deal with knowledge like old physical assets, such as machinery. Indeed, precious, physical commodities should be safely kept in order not to be stolen. These commodities are valuable only for the current owners. Holding the commodities is important in being competent. However, knowledge does not disappear when being used. Rather, the use of knowledge yields profit. If knowledge is captured by other people, the original owner of the knowledge can still use the knowledge. It is possible that the relative personal competitiveness of the original knowledge owner might be temporarily damaged. However, how knowledge is utilized depends on the knowledge acquirers’ ability. Tacit knowledge is often regarded as important knowledge, but at the same time, such knowledge would be hard to use soon after its acquisition. This means knowledge sharing does not directly lead to invalidation of the original knowledge holders’ personal competitiveness. Nevertheless, many organisations still only pay attention to how to protect knowledge. One of the most clearly described forms of knowledge protection is the non-compete and non-disclosure agreements, and these contracts are commonplace (Gayton, 2008). Non-compete agreement forbids employees to leave for the current employers’

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competitors, and non-disclosure means that employees must not disclose information obtained in their jobs. These agreements are comprehensive contracts to ensure that employees never use their knowledge for their employers’ competitors. The agreements impose too stringent limitations on employees; it is possible that employees may not be able to work for another company in the future even when a former employer stops the business. They make employees feel anxious about their lives, although many developed countries secure rights for citizens to be free from fear and to choose one’s job based on one’s volition. Gayton (2008) argues that the agreements are now of a “one size fits all” design and should be “tailored to economic realities of both” (p. 181), employers and employees. In addition, economic situations and interests are diverse among people, organisations, and industries, and change over time. Simple applications of past solutions do not always work well again because of changes in conditions and circumstances. Moreover, our intervention might cause counterintuitive behaviour (Forrester, 1971), and sometimes “yesterday’s solutions become today’s problems” (Sterman, 2001, p. 13). These unsuccessful interventions bring about further unexpected or unappreciated reactions or resistances (Meadows, 1982). This means that cumulative data or information cannot suffice in coping with real problems. Contextual meaning and understanding causality are important. People usually focus on events, as opposed to causality. One does something with a certain expectation. However, outcomes may differ from the expectation. In such cases, one feels that investment or effort is insufficient or that the circumstances are “complex.” Nevertheless, it is not always true; everything is not always complicated with uncertainty and untraceable causal connections. Although structures around the object are simple, the performance of systems can be unexpected when they contain feedback loop structures (Sterman, 1989). Indeed, causalities often, or almost always, move in circular ways,

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called feedback loops. For example, the difficulty in holding the balance comes from the facts that every action and its influence change employees’ decisions made in future, and these decisions also influence managers’ and employees’ decisions, attitudes, learning, and self-confidence in the further future; they comprise feedback loops around knowledge protection activities. In this chapter, feedback loops mean circular sequences of causalities with a consistent direction, not advice or critique transactions. One change brings about another element’s change, and this change consequently leads to a status change of the element which triggered the original change. A feedback loop is a powerful structure that influences or regulates performance of whole objective systems. Systems’ structures comprising feedback loops have strong influences on their performance. Feedback systems steadily resist interventions or pressure produced by elements outside the systems; systems often seem to change their performance reflecting an intervention but soon go back to their original courses, although someone intervenes in the system. It is often difficult to understand feedback structures and make appropriate decisions for people who are inside systems including feedback structures or people whose research interests have feedback loops, as “cause and effect are often distant in time and space” (Sterman, 2000, p. 11) in such systems. Employers have enjoyed significant rights over their employees’ future because employers would be able to forbid them using any knowledge for any future employers because of the non-disclosure and non-compete agreements (Gayton, 2007). Nevertheless, these agreements would reduce their companies’ competitiveness. Managers’ experience in maintaining conditions which help to generate knowledge is important. However, it is not enough to have rich experience; managers and corporate governors need to understand the effect of feedback loops behind knowledge management in order to “hit the spot” when hoping for continuous growth. Otherwise, any policy which


keeps people inside, encourages them to generate knowledge with great effort, and is in defiance of the effect of feedback loops, is only wasted. Computer software packages, such as knowledge management systems, cannot currently offer full functions for knowledge interchange. In other words, there are possibilities that human managers are requested to do many things concerning knowledge management, including making sound agreements and contracts. This chapter shows the causal loop structures which consist of knowledge protection through the agreements and knowledge interchange activities and then analyses them using the systems thinking (qualitative system dynamics) method. Observing this structure, one can understand elements which should be really controlled and the importance of balancing the influences of feedback loops to promote knowledge creation and utilisation. The analyses support the idea of relaxing this kind of strong restriction for knowledge workers in order to obtain and keep whole competitiveness of business organisations. This would be particularly effective in fast “clockspeed” (Fine, 1998) industries, such as information technology industry. The systems thinking method is independent of one’s sense of value. This is important in proposing generic ideas. Existing debates or guidelines have different standpoints, most of which employ normative theories. Knowledge management activities are naturally business activities. Thus, knowledge management should need to pay great attention to business ethics. Schmidt (2000) points out the fact that most business ethics textbooks deal with teleology and deontology. Teleology is the theory that states one always has a certain purpose so that one ought to choose the most rational and reasonable methods to serve the purpose. Deontology is another theory that one should conduct everything in reference to moral and ethics regardless of the purposes or results. These normative ethics theories help one to choose a correct or appropriate activity when one is in a problematic or dilemmatic situation.

Even in the field of knowledge management, it is not uncommon that normative theories sometimes give different answers to the same question because the ethical criteria are completely different between people and situations. For example, how much knowledge should employees share in private (inside organization) using a Social Network System (SNS)? Suppose that one faces a dilemmatic situation. One accepts the idea that an employer requests all employees to share their knowledge through SNS, a deontological answer would be that one should post all knowledge online. One is a member of a project team and sincerely hopes for the growth of the company. At the same time, one knows that some knowledge is also craved by other project teams. However, one believes that other teams might poorly deal with the information. In this situation, keeping the information secret would be correct from a teleological viewpoint. Deontology might look less flexible than teleology because deontological suggestions set rigid criteria and teleological suggestions depend on the people and circumstances concerned. Nevertheless, there is no difference of rigidness between deontology and teleology. Norms, which provide bases for deontological ideas, are contingent on one’s belief. Different religions, different geographical areas, and different positions in an organization contribute to setting different norms. These normative theories are mainly implemented when one faces a dilemma (Schmidt, 2000). Now, one question arises: what kind of dilemmatic situations do knowledge holders or, knowledge acquirers’ face when contracting the non-compete and non-disclosure agreements? One needs no decision process in reference to ethics when one is in situations with not only explicit personal rules nut also public legislation. In this situation, everyone must obey the rules. Otherwise, one can face the risk of accusation, or even dismissal. Indeed, there is no explicit dilemma before nor after signing the agreements; an organisation main-

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tains its knowledge workers and their knowledge in order to continue to be competitive for longer, and an employee would hope for the success of his or her employer organisation while he or she is hired. After signing the agreements, there are clearly contracts which should be complied with. However, there are no contracts, common senses of value, and common purposes before signing the agreements. In this situation, both employers and employees face no dilemma; they can pursue their own interests. On the other hand, there is a significant difference in attitudes between employers and employees. As knowledge acquirers, organisations naturally hope to maintain their rights indefinitely. As knowledge holders, employees hope to terminate the agreement after their resignation. Normative theories cannot answer the question whether organisations should maintain the strict agreement thereafter or not because there is no dilemma. Therefore, this chapter employs no normative theories as tools to clarify and solve problems around the agreements. There is a quantitative difference in preferable length of time of agreements between employers and employees, so this chapter employs logical approach, systems thinking.

BACKGROUND Because of the importance of knowledge, it is generally accepted that business organisations require knowledge workers to sign non-disclosure and non-compete agreements when hiring them. These contracts, or restrictions for employees’ conducts, are bases of business organisations’ knowledge management in order to keep and increase the business organisations’ competitiveness. This employers’ behaviour would look unethical because they eliminate their employees’ right to choose and freely change their jobs or employers, although right to freely choose employments is secured for many employees in many developed

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countries. Moreover, at the time of recruitment, potential employees are not in a strong position, compared with their employers (Gayton, 2008). If they are unwilling to miss out on imminent job opportunities, their practical choice is to sign the agreement regardless of their thought on the agreements. This unbalanced condition between employers and employees can be also regarded as unethical. UN (2005) indicates the importance of personal privacy protection when knowledge holders negotiate their labour conditions without worrying over privacy rights. On the other hand, prospective employers also have their reason to be cautious in evaluating knowledge holders highly; this may increase the cost of human resource, often the most expensive resource to employers. In addition to the inflexible agreement, some job applicants accept low remuneration despite their specialism. Arrow (1962) points out a fundamental paradox that the value of information and knowledge is not clear for potential information buyers so that potential buyers would estimate the value of incompletely appropriable information less than optimal evaluation. This situation gives managers a reason not to pay high remuneration to their knowledge workers. Thus, both sides have their reasons to dislike and prefer the non-compete and non-disclosure agreements. However, if the agreements are unethical or at least problematic, employees and some employers might gradually feel more stress and change their attitudes and strategies to obtain and keep knowledge profitable for business. This might lead to the situation that employer’s who prefer the agreements might lose excellent knowledge holders due to tough competition from other employers to hire high quality knowledge workers in the human resource market. Consequently, such employers might face difficulties in business growth. However, regardless of the decision whether the agreements’ effects on employers’ behaviours are ethical or not, the agreements actually cause


problems for knowledge workers throughout their careers. There have been many lawsuits concerning non-compete and non-disclosure agreements. This chapter introduces two examples that have appeared in the existing research. In order to show what kind of troubles can happen, both cases are ones that employees face relatively unbalanced, unfair, or unethical, from some viewpoints, conditions. Readers should notice that a country or region has its own restrictions to enforce or invalidate non-compete and non-disclosure agreements. The variety of restrictions is shown afterwards. One case is referred to in Gayton (2008), which is a court case in the United States, Advanced Marine Enterprise, Inc versus PRC, Inc. in 1998. In this case, PRC employees were laid off due to PRC reason that PRC was going to sell one of its business sections to another company, and consequently, some of employees in the section were recruited by Advanced Marine Enterprise. After Advanced Marine Enterprise offered jobs to former PRC employees, PRC brought a suit against Advanced Marine Enterprise and former PRC employees. The original reason of the lay-off was that the PRC decided to abandon the business. When the employees were fired, PRC was no longer business which could compete with American Marine Enterprise. Nevertheless, PRC ultimately won the trial. Another case is shown in Baskerville & Dulipovici (2006), a court case of Evan Brown versus DSC Communications and Alcatel USA, two parties was later merged. While Brown was working for DSC Communications, he developed a new idea. DSC (Alcatel, afterward) filed a suit against Brown after his resignation because he refused to relinquish his rights to the ideas he developed. He insisted that the idea was mainly drawn up in his vacation time, so his idea was his own property and not DSC Communications. Eventually, the DSC won the case. These examples show that knowledge workers are actually restricted in choosing an appropriate job when they want to change employment while

under the agreement. This is natural because the agreement is a contract and should be complied with after signing it even if it looks (partly) unethical. It would be also supported from a contractualism viewpoint. Contractualism gives importance on contracts and agreements more than circumstances, and Scanlon (1998) expresses contractualism’s attitude like that “an act is wrong if it would be disallowed by any principle that no one could reasonably reject” (p. 197). Nevertheless, it could be also considered unethical both because the condition is unbalanced between employers and employees at the time of signing and because employers deny the freedom of job choice to employees with normative criteria, as mentioned above. Of course, knowledge workers might leave or choose less severe working conditions, which would be disagreeable situation for former employers. To avoid this situation, employers emphasise the importance of the noncompete agreement. Even if they stay in their current jobs, the agreements paradoxically injure companies’ performance. Under the non-compete agreement, knowledge workers’ attitudes would be also self-protective regarding their companies and colleagues, or at least secretive. The reason for this is that employees want to be competitive in their organisations in order to secure their jobs, because they do not have a choice to go to another company. Otherwise, they might be fired because their specialism is no longer exclusive to them, and they are therefore not required by the company. Wang (2004) explains that severe competition among employees makes them selfprotective, and the possibility of generating new knowledge is lowered. This means the whole competitiveness of the business organisation might be damaged in the long run. In order to extract knowledge from protective knowledge workers, it would be possible to introduce rules and systems to share forcibly knowledge in an organisation. However, it means to let people do “free ride” on another’s efforts. This would be considered as

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an unethical attitude. Without sufficient respect for knowledge creators and practical sanctions against knowledge free-riders, no knowledge resource would be offered. The morale needs to be integrated into institutional rules and systems (Costa, Prior & Rogerson, 2008). Likewise, any cause of unethical attitude should be eliminated from rules and systems. Thus, forcible knowledge sharing would not function. Moreover, new knowledge has a characteristic that it can be generated when existing knowledge is mixed with or stimulated by other knowledge or information. Making employees self-protective might prevent knowledge generation and sharing inside organisations. This means that the overprotective human resource control might lead to a decline in business competitiveness. Besides, Arrow (1962) indicates the fact that legal constraints on knowledge holders might lead to under-investment in innovation. Employers need to recognize the weak points of the non-disclosure and non-compete agreements. One might consider that this protective policy is still reasonable for most managers because current merits look over-important. However, an overprotective policy on knowledge management results in reducing knowledge interchange between people inactive. Indeed, active interchanges of ideas are important for knowledge workers because they need opportunities not only to learn new ideas but also to build and maintain relationships with other people. As Bock et al. (2005) explain organisations’ performance depends on their own employees’ abilities to share their knowledge. Whittaker, Burns & Bereven (2003) noted that social capital enables knowledge transfer. One of the tangible forms of such social capital would be information technology, such as knowledge management systems. However, simply retrieving information is different from knowledge transfer. It is important that knowledge givers and receivers share a common intellectual background, or “redundancy” (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995).

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The non-disclosure agreement would be effective in increasing temporary competitiveness. However, the attitude behind this agreement would reduce the chance of collaborations, such as what O’Reilly (2005) refers to as “mash up” in Web 2.0 situation. In the current business situation where all conditions are changing with bewildering rapidity, such short term competitiveness is less important in the long run. In addition, using information brings about the situation that users or recipients know all or part of the information and knowledge; Arrow (1962) explains that a characteristic of information is that its use necessitates it to be revealed, so that legal restrictions, such as intellectual property rights, can only work partly. Rather, knowledge should be raised not only by people in an organisation but also by people outside the organisation, in order to catch up with the speed of changes in society. Information technology businesses and World Wide Web services face difficulties brought about by old and current style of overprotective ideas behind the non-compete and non-disclosure agreements. In almost the whole history of commercial software, programs’ source codes are proprietary and secret information, because they are an integration of engineers’ knowledge. Companies invest many resources in order to release their software. They believe their business cannot continue unless they keep the contents of their software secret because no one buys their software when someone reproduces it and distribute it at a lower price or free of charge. Thus, software vendors and service providers protect their knowledge. Nonetheless, in the age of Web 2.0 (O’Reilly, 2005), making source codes partially available publicly has begun to have a good effect on business. Many software packages and web services have opened their application programming interface (API) and rich sample codes in uncomplicated scripting languages. Users and other companies make their own interface or additional services for existing Web 2.0 services, which leads to an


enrichment of the existing sites’ services. Then, users increasingly depend on original service providers; sites using other existing service providers contribute to the original existing sites. These phenomena are achieved by offering free access to part of the source code which used to be hidden in proprietary software distribution. It might be different from the completely free circumstances around software. Rather, it can be a modern “feudalism” as Lessig (2004) indicated. Nevertheless, the conditions around software and knowledge related products and services are now changing from overprotective to open. There are also other ideas about software coding and distribution. In contrast to proprietary software, The Free Software Foundation (2009), led by Richard Stallman, proposes “free software” and “copyleft.” It is possible that these different streams of ideas for knowledge usage can affect a major protective commercial stream. Von Hippel (2005), states that innovation and knowledge are democratized. Indeed, offering free access to the source codes by software developers has begun, and this has helped companies achieve significant business success. Successful new service providers are likewise opening up some of their API, and this is having a positive effect on business. The trouble is that it is difficult to control or adjust the degree of “knowledge protection.” First of all, it is doubtful to state that weakening knowledge protection is possible. The examples shown above are the cases in the situation which completely enforces the non-competence and non-disclosure agreements. Yet, there are some countries and regions which limit the efficacy of the agreements in order to protect employees’ rights concerning their lives and jobs. For example, In Germany, the duration of the agreements is restricted to at most two years, and employers need to pay compensation for the agreements to employees in accordance with German Law, HGB 74. Japan has no substantive enactment of the duration limit and compensation rules for the

non-compete and non-disclosure agreements. However, Japan’s courts use criteria based on judicial precedents. One model case was the “Foseco Japan Limited” case (Nara District Court, Japan, 23 October 1970). The court supported subsequently the validity of the agreements. The importance of this judgement is that it set limits practically on the valid duration and geographic area of the agreements. Moreover, this judgement indicated the fundamental idea that workers whose activities are restricted, such as looking for a new job, by the agreements must be a specialist, such as a person who knows trade secrets or other critical information, and that workers should be compensated for the inconvenience caused by the limitation of his or her activities. In the Foseco Japan Limited case, the company paid compensation for keeping the agreements during employment. Therefore, the court supported the company’s argument. After this judgement, Japanese courts have consistently returned verdicts similar to the Foseco Japan Limited case. Indeed, some former employees and board members have won their cases. A former auditor of Tokyo Legal Mind K.K. won his lawsuit (Tokyo District Court, 6 October 1995); the agreement was invalid because the compensation was too small. In another case, Tokyo District Court decided to deny the validity of the agreements between Tau Corporation and its former employees because the former workers’ knowledge was not very critical to the company and the duration of the agreements was relatively too long (9 October 2002). On the other hand, there have been also judgements supporting the validity of the agreements. Tokyo District Court ordered that a former board member of French F&B Co., Ltd. must keep the agreement because the compensation was sufficient (4 October 1993). In another case, Yamada Denki Co., Ltd won a lawsuit against its former store manager because the court decided that the manager held trade information and related knowledge; the judgement resulted from the idea that the manager was

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recognised as a knowledge worker (Tokyo District Court, 24 April 2007). Limiting the agreements’ duration, geographic areas, and occupational categories is basically helpful and meaningful to protect knowledge workers. However, it is still unclear whether restrictions by the agreements are necessary and beneficial for businesses or not. The law and court decisions are currently still based on the existence of the agreements and separate, individual conditions. As a result, knowledge workers are often unsure whether they are free from constraints of agreements or not. Besides, courts in Japan seem to be still seeking the best criteria for issues concerning the agreements. Indeed, knowledge is an advantage, more so than technology (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). Companies naturally tend to protect their knowledge and keep it proprietary. Nevertheless, for example in the computer science field, protection of source code is not compatible with the current situation, including the success of open source software and World Wide Web (WWW) services, as shown above. Therefore, this chapter shows the causal structures which support the ideas that setting an appropriate degree of knowledge protection is profitable, and also those companies need to stop excessively tightening knowledge protection to keep their competitiveness. Observing these structures also allow us to discuss the pertinent issues in promoting knowledge cultivation, beyond simple protection. This is not a maverick opinion. Indeed, the agreements are invalid in California, the United States, in accordance with Business and Professions Code, section 16600-16607. Moreover, some researchers and business people have indicated the disadvantage of strict enforcement of the non-compete and non-disclosure agreements. Lessig (2006, p. 181) states “the balance of rights with intellectual property differs from the balance with ordinary real or personal property.” Spinello & Tavani (2005) introduces the example that the United States court stated that “intellectual

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property rights do not give copyright holders immunity from obeying antitrust law” (p. 56); the court expects that the intellectual property rights should not prevent sound business activities and market competition. Moreover, in the panel discussion at Harvard University on 19th June 2008, panellists concluded that the agreements would stifle innovations and make hesitate to start new business (Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 2008). In this panel discussion, it is pointed out that the empirical data concerning the agreements’ effects should be accumulated more. Although such empirical data are still being collected, the structure causing troubles not only with knowledge workers but also with organisations can be illustrated using systems thinking diagrams. The diagrams shown afterwards assist us to consider the power or rights balance between knowledge workers and employers with the agreements. Of course, as Gayton (2007) points out, the importance of legislation on current intellectual property rights in most developed countries should be respected. Nevertheless, she proposes the need for a new scheme to protect intellectual property and knowledge not only for knowledge holders but also for knowledge acquirers. In order to achieve this, balancing knowledge protection and cultivation is crucial. This chapter provides evidence that suggests that there are common structures concerning issues related to the agreements and the importance of relaxing the agreements. Of course, the evidence is consistent with the purpose of the property legislations.

THE NON-COMPETE AND NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT STRUCTURE The non-compete and non-disclosure agreements are not only simply contracts but also catalysts that influence knowledge workers’ attitudes. The agreements shackle knowledge workers to their current jobs. This means that knowledge workers


are increasingly unwilling to concentrate on their jobs under the agreements. Rather, their devotion to their jobs declines. This would naturally adversely affect knowledge acquirers’ performance in the long run. This process is caused not by laziness of employers or employees but by the causal structure among people involved in the agreements. In this section, the non-compete and nondisclosure agreements structure is analysed using the system dynamics method. System dynamics is “a rigorous method for qualitative description, exploration and analysis of complex systems in terms of their processes, information, organisational boundaries and strategies” (Wolstenholme, 1990, p. 3). The following analyses use causal loop diagrams which allow an examination of the object system’s characteristics using a qualitative method of system dynamics. Causal structures work logically without exception. When systems are stimulated, causal structures continuously drive systems in a consistent direction. Even if an element within the system tries to adjust or intervene in the systems’ transitions, the system’s consistent changing direction cannot be controlled because the change is caused not by lack of deontological or teleological ethics of people within the system but by physical causalities. This approach, based on physical causalities, is independent of any sense of value so that its analyses are generally acceptable regardless of the culture of organisations.

bringing about change of states. Relatively longer agreements time reduce employees’ opportunities for future job changes. When employees believe that they have the potential to be hired by another employer at the time they lose their current jobs, they might not be committed to current jobs. Still, under the agreements, employees might hope to secure their positions and try to get promoted inside their companies. This attitude brings about each knowledge worker’s knowledge protection because they do not want lose their personal competitiveness. Trauth (1999) points out the possibility that employees are reluctant to share knowledge in order to protect their professional value. In the long run, companies would fail to accumulate knowledge within companies. This causes companies to lose their competitiveness. Consequently, lower performance of companies has a bad effect on job security. This leads to stronger “temporary commitments to current jobs” of employees. Temporary commitments are based not on the devotion to current jobs but on fear of dismissal, so these commitments are temporary. When knowledge workers recognise one of the above conditions, this structure makes companies’ performance suffer. The causal loop diagram is shown in Figure 1. It has a reinforcing loop so that the organisations’ performance changes are consistent once started.

Securing Job Positions

Figure 1. Securing job position structure

The non-compete and non-disclosure agreements restrain employees from using their knowledge to seek another job. In order to express this, the model here employs the variable “length of time of the agreements”. As illustrated above, there would be a gap in preferred length of time of the agreements between knowledge holders and knowledge acquirers; knowledge holders prefer the length of time to be shorter, whereas knowledge acquirers prefer it to be longer. This gap is one of switches

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Working Conditions When employees tend to stay in their current jobs and not to seek other better working conditions, employers would have little or no incentive to improve working conditions. Of course, there are many employers who have a strong belief that they shall treat employees well, which is an attitude based on deontological reasons. On the other hand, many other employers control their employees working conditions in order to make them focus on their work targets, which is an attitude from teleological reasons. However, these micro, person-oriented reasons for dealing with personnel might be easily changed by factors, such as recessions or senior managers’ opinions. Working conditions influence organisations’ attractiveness to current employees. Therefore, this structure has a balancing (adjusting) process, shown in Figure 2. This adjustment does not always work. If there are sufficient applicants for vacant posts, working condition improvement might not appear. Nevertheless, this chapter deals with only knowledge workers; such workers are relatively limited. There are many talented people on the earth, but people who have a certain knowledge which contributes to a certain problem in a company are limited by practicalities. Thus, knowledge workers have a relatively stronger power or higher

chance of adjusting their working conditions, compared with non-knowledge workers.

Attractiveness to Outside People Figure 2 expresses the working environment around current employees. But, organisations’ attitudes also change their own attractiveness to people outside the company at the same time. One possibility of such people is prospective employees. They might not apply for a vacant post at the present, but companies’ cumulative reputations and performances influence the attitudes of knowledge holders in the human resource markets. As illustrated in the previous subsection, knowledge workers who match the requirement of a company in a certain knowledge requiring situation are actually limited in number. If a company hopes to hire appropriate knowledge holders, its reputation and performance should be well maintained. Otherwise, really competitive people would not give the slightest attention even if offered higher salaries. Knowledge holders often have networks across organisational borders, and inside circumstances, such as working conditions, also influence the people outside their companies. This structure is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Influence across organisational borders Figure 2. Working conditions and temporary commitment to current job

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Holding Qualified Employees Organisations’ performances directly determine the stability of their businesses. Skilled and well experienced knowledge workers could not ignore their companies’ performance, even if they have significant potential to be hired after quitting their current job. Unstable conditions around employees do not allow employees to plan their futures and they are concerned about their future careers so that their devotion for and concentration on, current jobs might be lost. This is not particular to knowledge workers but the general situation for people regardless of their job type. Figure 4 expresses this structure.

Whole System All causal loop diagrams above are interconnected (Figure 5). The system has three reinforcing loops, shown in Figure 1, 3, and 4, and one balancing loop, shown in Figure 2. All reinforcing loops bring one of two results: a continuous growth or inevitable crash. Both are generated by the same structure. This depends on a trigger, stimulus, or a change of state in the elements of a system. If an element slightly changes when the system is stable, a system moves Figure 4. Job security and the stability of employees

as if it is a train on rails. After starting the movement, ordinary impacts cannot change the direction of movement, nor stop it. The difficult point shown in this diagram (Figure 5) is that all reinforcing loops are impacted on by the same one element “length of time of the agreements”. Moreover, the direction of change on each element is the same. This means that the controllability of the whole system is very limited because an intervention to all loops is difficult and intervention to each loop in turn is ineffective. The most serious problem is that the source of impact on the reinforcing loops is only to recognise longer “length of time of the agreements”. This leads organisations to lose their competitiveness: both in terms of good performance and qualified knowledge workers. One balancing loop (Figure 2) might be a control lever; the balancing loop can seek a goal. Nevertheless, this loop’s efficacy is limited. The reason is that job seekers and employees are in a relatively weak position to state their opinion or, negotiate their working conditions than are the employers (Gayton, 2008). Therefore, this system has no realistic brake when the system starts to rush into a crash. During the time when almost all companies are employing this system structure, one company does not face such severe conditions because its competitors are also struggling in the same situaFigure 5. Whole systems

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tion. However, if companies start to increasingly change their protective attitudes; other companies that might not be aware of the need for change might face severe competition, especially in the R & D area and human resource markets.

DISCUSSION In order to eliminate some aspects of the agreements damaging companies’ competitiveness, it is necessary to lessen loops’ effect. For this purpose, there are two options: cutting the loop and inserting a new loop with the opposite direction. In this case, cutting reinforcing loops is challenging; each reinforcing loop has an aspect that works as an engine for growth. Nonetheless, the link from “temporary commitment to job” to “offering knowledge” in Figure 1 is one of the keys to this. If a manager repeatedly assert that one’s specialism and superiority cannot be easily removed, it is possible that employees could start opening their mouths and offer their knowledge. Knowledge transfer is always challenging because knowledge cannot be acquired without cumulative real experience. As Cohen & Prusak (2001, p. 66) indicate, “knowledge tends to be local, sticky, and contextual”. This means that the common background, which is called “redundancy” by Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995), is required to share and transfer knowledge. Therefore, building and keeping social relationships is important and an inevitable aspect of knowledge creation and utilization. Cohen & Prusak (2001) also explain that providing such opportunities and places, which is “Ba” explained by Nonaka & Konno (1998), for knowledge workers means that they “earn their keep as social capital investments” (p. 47). There is another view about knowledge; Teece (2000) explains that some of this knowledge is useful only in particular circumstances, whose conditions are the same as those of knowledge working. Therefore, this kind of tacit knowledge would not be very important for organizations,

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because each circumstance has its own conditions. Supporting this view is the idea that simple knowledge transfer is naturally unrelated to job security issues. Wasko & Faraj (2005) point out the roles of computer networks and services on knowledge and people; some computer networks provide a place for discussion and knowledge sharing. One can sometimes obtain profitable knowledge, which can often be found nowhere in one’s own workplace, from such a virtual place. However, introducing a knowledge management system in order to help employees offer their knowledge should be done with great care. If employees feel that their knowledge is “abducted”, they might become self-protective and secretive again. Some employees believe that an introduction of knowledge management systems increases knowledge acquirers’ power over knowledge holders (Bryant, 2006). As Bryant (2006) maintains, knowledge management is simply another expression for downsizing. Thus, there are many “worries” about conducting knowledge management. Nevertheless, information technology can attract managers who believe that it can improve companies’ performance. Nahapiet & Ghoshal (1998) illustrate the roles of modern information technology as functions serving knowledge workers with collecting, systematizing, building structures of, storing, combining, distributing, and presenting knowledge. Knowledge workers seem to use communication technologies as a tool for solving problems or creating something new. These experiences are seen even online so that it is natural that they also communicate offline. Florida (2005) shows that creativity can be stimulated in cities where people naturally gather in the real (physical) world. Besides, this real world relationship is more important than a virtual one. Knowledge management systems can work both desirably and undesirably. It depends on the real office atmosphere and relationships of mutual trust. The protective tendency of humans depends naturally on the atmosphere in an organization; a


supportive or reciprocal atmosphere could encourage employees to share their knowledge (Constant, Kiesler & Sproull, 1994); nonetheless, severe competition might let employees to be protective (Wang, 2004). Wasko & Faraj (2005) report that legal professionals share their experience when they recognise that sharing activities enhance their professional reputations and sharing is one way to maintain the status of a member of these expert societies. Knowledge sharing does not always entail monetary rewarding. For example, the Open Source Software community often succeeds in development of software without financial reward (Hertel, Niedner & Hermann, 2003). The situation that people feel free from worry about the possibilities of job loss seems to make knowledge sharing more dynamic. Inserting opposite loops is possible. For example, giving learning opportunities to employees who offer their knowledge to the public can ensure that they are competitive and have high self-esteem so that the power of the reinforcing loop shown in Figure 1 might be weakened, or move in the opposite direction, namely, work as a growth engine. However, it might take a long time to show the effect of learning, and recognising longer length of time of the agreements might occur more frequently. Even inserting a new opposite loop is not a definitive solution. Managers should consider an appropriate agreement time in order to keep their organisations competitive. The most important thing is knowledge, not knowledge management tools or methods. Nonaka, Toyama & Konno (2000) consider that organizational knowledge is, for organizations, not only an asset but also essential resources in order to be creative. This definition should include tacit, or personal, knowledge inside knowledge holders’ brains. The reason for this is that the inevitability of this kind of knowledge is originated by the fact that one cannot easily produce such knowledge again. Knowledge captured by information systems can be stored and copied at a low cost. Nevertheless, transferring knowledge from one

brain to another is difficult. Squeezing and storing knowledge make people protective and does not lead to successful knowledge management. Helping people generate knowledge is successful. This difference must be always remembered by on-site managers.

CONCLUSION Since people have regarded knowledge as an invaluable asset to organisations, the non-compete and non-disclosure agreements are signed almost without exception by knowledge workers. They have been working to help companies be competitive, especially during the manufacturing industry era; innovations were brought about at relatively longer intervals than they are today, and having knowledge exclusively has been an important advantage for business. However, the situation is changing drastically. Innovations and version up of software and services occurs very frequently. This is rendering the agreements’ efficacy relatively low. Today’s rapidly changing situation means that the expiry date of acquired knowledge is sooner than ever. Not all knowledge needs to be strictly protected. Under the protective agreements that not only forbid employees from using their knowledge with other companies in the future but also eliminate subsequent chances of job change, employers may believe that they are free of worry of losing good employees. This might also lead to worsening working conditions compared with other companies. When the deterioration of working conditions becomes clear, the company loses high quality knowledge workers and attractiveness to prospective future good employees. This adversely affects companies’ competitiveness. Moreover, employees’ temporary commitment to their current job might make themselves protect their knowledge in order to secure their positions; the internal knowledge creation might badly affect.

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From a macro point of view, employers sometimes need to hire new employees who have newer, competent knowledge. Nevertheless, employers face difficulties in hiring new knowledge workers because external knowledge workers might be under non-compete and non-disclosure agreements of other companies. The non-compete and nondisclosure agreements are still meaningful in the short term. The important point is that the length of time of the agreements should be practical both for knowledge acquirers and knowledge holders.

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Bryant, A. (2006). Knowledge management: The ethics of the agora or the mechanisms of the market? In K. VanLehn (Ed.), Proceedings of the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 144c-144c). Washington, DC: IEEE Computer Society. Cohen, D., & Prusak, L. (2001). In good company: How social capital makes organizations work. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Constant, D., Kiesler, S., & Sproull, L. (1994). What’s mine is ours, or is it? A study of attitudes about information sharing. Information Systems Research, 5(4), 400–421. doi:10.1287/isre.5.4.400 Costa, G. J. M., Prior, M., & Rogerson, S. (2008, September). Free ride in knowledge management? Ethical and moral dilemmas! Paper presented at the ETHICOMP 2008, Mantua, Italy. Costa, G. J. M., & Silva, N. M. A. (2007). Knowledge management: How ethical is your organization’s knowledge? In Bynum, T. W., Rogerson, S., & Murata, K. (Eds.), ETHICOMP 2007: Glocalisation: Bridging the Global Nature of Information and Communication Technology (Vol. 1, pp. 123–136). Tokyo: Meiji University. Davenport, T. H., & Prusak, L. (1998). Working knowledge: How organizations manage what they know. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Fahey, L., & Prusak, L. (1998). The eleven deadliest sins of knowledge management. California Management Review, 40(3), 265–276. Fine, C. H. (1998). Clockspeed: Winning industry control in the age of temporary advantage. New York: Perseus Books. Florida, R. (2005). The world is spiky. Atlantic Monthly, 296(3), 48–51. Forrester, J. W. (1971). Counterintuitive behaviour of social systems. Technology Review, 73(3), 52–68.

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Gayton, C. M. (2007). Legal issues for the knowledge economy in the twenty-first century. VINE: The Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems, 36(1), 17–26.

Nahapiet, J., & Ghoshal, S. (1998). Social capital, intellectual capital, and the organizational advantage. Academy of Management Review, 23(2), 242–266. doi:10.2307/259373

Gayton, C. M. (2008). Business ethics, restrictions on employment and knowledge management. VINE: The Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems, 38(2), 174–183.

Nonaka, I., & Konno, N. (1998). The concept of “Ba”: Building a foundation for knowledge creation. California Management Review, 40(3), 40–54.

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Hertel, G., Niedner, S., & Herrmann, S. (2003). Motivation of software developers in open source projects: An Internet-based survey of contributors to the Linux kernel. Research Policy, 32(7), 1159–1177. doi:10.1016/S0048-7333(03)00047-7

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Schmidt, D. P. (2000). Ethics for knowledge management. In Srikantaiah, T. K., & Koenig, M. E. D. (Eds.), Knowledge Management for the Information Professional (pp. 115–131). Medford, NJ: American Society for Information Science. Spinello, R. A., & Tavani, H. T. (2005). Intellectual property rights in a network world: Theory and Practice. In Spinello, R. A., & Tavani, H. T. (Eds.), Intellectual Property Rights in a Network World: Theory and Practice (pp. 1–66). Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing. Sterman, J. D. (1989). Modeling managerial behaviour: Misperceptions of feedback in a dynamic decision making experiment. Management Science, 35(3), 321–339. doi:10.1287/mnsc.35.3.321 Sterman, J. D. (2000). Business dynamics: Systems thinking and modelling for a complex world. Homewood, IL: Irwin/McGraw-Hill. 195


Sterman, J. D. (2001). System dynamics modelling: Tools for learning in a complex world. California Management Review, 43(4), 8–25. Takahashi, Y. (2008). Dynamics simulation modelling using descriptive information in natural language. International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling, 4(3/4), 215–222. doi:10.1504/ IJSPM.2008.023683 Teece, D. J. (2000). Strategies for managing knowledge assets: The role of firm structure and industrial context. Long Range Planning, 33(1), 35–54. doi:10.1016/S0024-6301(99)00117-X The Free Software Foundation. (2009). Free software definition. The Free Software Foundation. Retrieved January 23, 2009, from http://www.fsf. org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html Trauth, E. M. (1999). Who owns my soul? The paradox of pursuing organizational knowledge in a work culture of individualism. In R. Agarwal & J. Prasad (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1999 ACM SIGCPR Conference (pp. 159-163). New Orleans, LA: CM Press. UN. (2005). Understanding knowledge societies. New York: United Nations.

Whittaker, J., Burns, M., & Beveren, J. V. (2003, September/October). Understanding and measuring the effect of social capital on knowledge transfer within clusters of small-medium enterprises. Paper presented at The Small Enterprise Association of Australia and New Zealand 16th Annual Conference, Ballarat, Australia. Retrieved January, 23, 2009, from http://www.cecc. com.au/programs/resource_manager/accounts/ seaanz_papers/57Whittakeretal.pdf Wolstenholme, E. F. (1990). System enquiry. Chichester, UK: Wiley.

ADDITIONAL READING Alter, S. (2006). Goals and Tactics on the dark side of knowledge management. In K. VanLehn (Ed.), Proceedings of the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 144a-144a). Washington, DC: IEEE Computer Society. Anderson, C. (2008). The long tail, revised and updated edition: Why the future of business is selling less of more. New York, NY: Hyperion.

Von Hippel, E. (2005). Democratizing innovation. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

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Cheng, E. Y., & Liu, Y. L. (2008). Adoption of knowledge management technologies and organisational culture: An exploratory study. Journal of Information & Knowledge Management, 7(1), 15–29. doi:10.1142/S0219649208001944

Wasko, M. M., & Faraj, S. (2005). Why should I share? Examining social capital and knowledge contribution in electronic networks of practice. Management Information Systems Quarterly, 29(1), 35–57.

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Forrester, J. W. (1961). Industrial dynamics. Waltham, MA: Pegasus Communications. Frohmann, B. (2008). Subjectivity and information ethics. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59(2), 267–277. doi:10.1002/asi.20742 Garrick, J., & Clegg, S. (2000). Knowledge work and the new demands of learning. Journal of Knowledge Management, 4(4), 279–286. doi:10.1108/13673270010379821 Gick, E. (2003). Cognitive theory and moral behaviour: The contribution of F. A. Hayek to business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 45(1/2), 149–165. doi:10.1023/A:1024141017104 Gordon-Till, J. (2002). Applied ethics in business information units. Business Information Review, 19(2), 48–54. doi:10.1177/026638202321036231 Kim, D. H. (1999). Introduction to systems thinking. Waltham, MA: Pegasus Communication. Land, F., Amjad, U., & Nolas, S.-M. (2007). The ethics of knowledge management. International Journal of Knowledge Management, 3(1), 1–9. Lin, C. P., & Ding, C. G. (2003). Modeling information ethics: The joint moderating role of locus of control and job insecurity. Journal of Business Ethics, 48(4), 335–346. doi:10.1023/ B:BUSI.0000005745.63324.79 López-Huertas, M. J. (2008). Some current research questions in the field of knowledge organization. Knowledge Organization, 35(2/3), 113–136. Maani, K. E., & Cavana, R. Y. (2000). Systems thinking and modelling: Understanding change and complexity. 2nd ed. Zug: Pearson Education. Mooradian, N. (2005). Tacit knowledge: Philosophic roots and role in KM. Journal of Knowledge Management, 9(6), 104–113. doi:10.1108/13673270510629990

Murray, F., & Stern, S. (2007). Do formal intellectual property rights hinder the free flow of scientific knowledge? An empirical test of the anti-commons hypothesis. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 63(4), 648–687. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2006.05.017 Northcutt, S. (2004). IT ethics handbook: Right and wrong for IT professionals. Rockland, MA: Syngress Media Inc. Richardson, G. P. (1986). Problems with causalloop diagrams. System Dynamics Review, 2(2), 158–170. doi:10.1002/sdr.4260020207 Senge, P. M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art & practice of the learning organization. New York, NY: Doubleday Business. Senge, P. M., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R., & Smith, B. (1994). The fifth discipline fieldbook: Strategies and tools for building a learning organization. New York, NY: Broadway Business. Sullivan, P. H. (2000). Value driven intellectual capital: How to convert intangible corporate assets into market value. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. Sussman, L. (2002). Organizational politics: Tactics, channels, and hierarchical Roles. Journal of Business Ethics, 40(4), 313–329. doi:10.1023/A:1020807700478 Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. D. (2006). Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything. New York, NY: Portfolio. Widén-Wulff, G., & Ginman, M. (2004). Explaining knowledge sharing in organizations through the dimensions of social capital. Journal of Information Science, 30(5), 448–458. doi:10.1177/0165551504046997 Wilson, T. D. (2002). The nonsense of knowledge management. Information Research, 8(1). Retrieved September 25, 2009, from http://informationr.net/ir/8-1/paper144.html.

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Balancing Loop: A feedback loop with an odd number of negative causal relationships. Elements in this kind of loop perform goal seeking or oscillation. Causal Loop Analysis: The detailed examination focusing on feedback loop structures. The concept of this method is generated in the development of system dynamics. Using this, systems’ broad performance can be predicted, like exponential growth, goal seeking, or oscillation. This is also called qualitative analysis of system dynamics. Causality: Relationship between cause and effect (result). In system dynamics, there are two types of causality: positive and negative. Positive causality means a result element changes to the same direction as its cause element changes to. Negative causality indicates a result element changes to the opposite direction to its cause element’s change. This is also called a causal relationship. Feedback Loop: Circulations which consist of causalities between elements in subject systems. Feedback loops are classified into reinforcing loops and balancing loops.

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Non-Compete and Non-Disclosure Agreements: The contract that an employer and an employee exchange. Under these agreements, an employee must not work for competitors in the future and disclose information acquired and generated in business. Reinforcing Loop: A feedback loop with an even number of causal relationships. Elements in this kind of loop perform exponential growth or decay. System Dynamics: Originally developed as a computer simulation method for social systems. It focuses on the causalities between systems’ elements and uses diagrams (stock flow diagrams and causal loop diagrams). Stock flow diagrams precisely express accumulation, delay, or other complex processes. The modellers eventually simulate dynamic models generated by system dynamics software from stock flow diagrams. Systems Thinking: An analysis method based on system dynamics. It focuses on feedback loop structure in order to forecast the direction of performance and find pertinent elements for controlling systems. This is also called qualitative system dynamics.

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Chapter 12

Management of Moral Knowledge and Ethical Processes in Organizations Agata Kostrzewa Uppsala University, Sweden Mikael Laaksoharju Uppsala University, Sweden Iordanis Kavathatzopoulos Uppsala University, Sweden

ABSTRACT Moral knowledge is necessary for organizational functioning in order to get legitimacy and increase profits. Given Blackler’s assumptions about organizations, the authors discuss managing moral knowledge in organizations as a set of organizational processes with a time point and in a certain environment. They argue that to become ethically competent, organizations have to combine individuals and organizational ethical skills. Instead of on what is supposed to be done, the authors focus on what is done: interactions within the organization and with its environment, structured by practical routines, bearing main responsibility for transferring moral knowledge. The means facilitating this are organizational roles and structures, trainings, formal and informal support systems along with rules and guidelines. Further, the authors suggest two tools to assist managing moral knowledge: Ethical Index ETHIX (questionnaire to describe how ethical issues are handled in the organization) and the IT system ETHXPERT (supports and structures the process o ethical decision making).

INTRODUCTION In order to avoid raising the reader’s expectations we feel urged to state already from the start that we, in this chapter, will not give any clues to what DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-873-9.ch012

a correct decision in an ethical matter is. We will focus only on the process of handling moral problems, disregarding the normative content of them. Without doubt, it is necessary that the solution of the problem at hand becomes satisfactory, but if the process is correct then the result will be appropriate (Kant, 1997). If we compare with baking


Management of Moral Knowledge and Ethical Processes in Organizations

a cake it seems obvious that the result, the cake, would be what we judge the quality of the baker by. Nevertheless, if we would like to reproduce an excellent result it seems better to investigate exactly how the baker did when producing it instead of fooling ourselves to believe that the daintiness and aroma of the outcome are results of just using the right ingredients. We would correctly assume that a delicious cake requires both good ingredients and suitable processing. Moral problems are on the other hand often treated as “good in- good out”, i.e. if good values are guiding the solution then the result will be good. Psychological studies have shown that this is not always enough; the process is often complicated by the strong emotions involved (Sunstein, 2005; Baron & Spranca, 1997). An explicit process when handling real-life problems, in situations where we can assume to be naturally constrained by moral boundaries, does not mean that the results will risk becoming immoral. More likely, a systematic structuring will widen the problem scope and help discover other important aspects. Consequently, we will discuss how ethical issues are handled in organizations, where we treat moral knowledge as latent in the ability to manage moral problems, i.e. knowledge as a process. Moral knowledge about what is right and what is wrong is not always offered ready to use. Neither is it easy to have awareness of the moral problems an organization is facing, or of the moral problems that might be coming. And, of course, the ability to handle moral problems, to find solutions and to make decisions is not located explicitly in a certain group or in a specific person. Both moral knowledge in the form of suitable solutions, and ethical competence in the form of skills and processes are spread in the organizations. One might think that the aim for a decision maker always should be to establish a conception, as complete as possible, about the problem at hand. However, one easily realizes that such a conception is often hard to achieve for many reasons. If we for a moment disregard the apparent difficulties in

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the actual information gathering and instead focus on the mental process of decision making, we can identify unawareness about possible implications, inattention, preconceptions and cognitive biases about the problem as some of the obstacles to overcome in the pursuit of a wide problem understanding. The decision maker thus seems to need help to block tendencies to biased decision making apart from the obvious call for help with widening the understanding of a problem (Kunsch, Kavathatzopoulos & Rauschmayer, 2009). From a knowledge management perspective we also consider it to be important to make a decision process explicit and formalized; the organization as a whole should benefit from the experiences made in specific problem situations. The usual strategy to facilitate organizational learning about moral problems is to codify implications into codes of ethics and ethical guidelines. These assemblies of ethical considerations tend to have a more or less general and normative approach, addressed more to the public at large than to the decision maker facing a difficult situation. They are purposeful, because are telling to the public what to expect from the organization, and thus also for setting up moral boundaries for the people in the organization. Nonetheless, for a specific decision maker in a specific situation, or for a group during a process of creating ethical rules or policies, it would be more valuable to have some kind of support when structuring the problem, in order to be better able to judge which of the codified principles to consider relevant for the specific case and which to disregard. The most important issue is to understand why choices are made and to have good explicit arguments supporting the final decision. Therefore we seek to codify the actual process of ethical decision making rather than the outcomes of it. Moral problems, the way they are posed, often depict the world in a black-and-white dichotomy, which can give the impression that there do not exist any satisfactory solutions to the problem. It is the nature of such problems; since they occur


when conflicting values or interests cannot all be satisfied at the same time. For many real-life moral problems it can also be asserted that a commonsense solution most of the time leads to the “best” result, be it neither completely satisfactory nor sustainable. Given these preconditions, there is, from the member’s point of view, little incentive to not act according to a standard protocol. Also from an organizational perspective, acting according to standards has mostly positive features: the actions of individuals become predictable by anyone aware of the protocol and the organization can better control and regulate the behaviour of its members. A side effect of strong organizational control is that it leaves the individual, to a large degree, free from responsibility in situations where misjudgements have occurred. Whenever a scandal with moral implications has occurred, it does not come as a surprise when a spokesperson from the responsible organization makes some fuzzy statements about policies that need revising. Even though the problem is caused by professional misconduct it is often hard to point out a responsible individual. First, it has to be proven that the member who committed the misconduct did it knowingly and second, the organization has to judge how other members, not to mention the public, will view such scapegoatism. The unclear distribution of ethical responsibility often leads to the impression that moral problems are owned by organizations rather than by its representatives. There thus seems to be a need for procedures and tools to identify and handle possible moral issues and also to make clear what responsibilities each member has. Ethical awareness on an organizational level requires an inventory of the ethical competence of its members and processes to share moral knowledge between these. The use of IT systems has revolutionized many fields of knowledge management, but within the field of ethics, technology has yet not had the same breakthrough. In our research we have come to suspect that this is likely to be a result of an interpretation of ethical choices as something

different than usual decisions; moral problems as something greater and vaguer than ordinary problems; ethical decision- making as something dependent on secrets “out there”- something indescribable- something more than mere reality. This interpretation might be true, but it still does not reduce the need for systematizing of the ethical decision process. One may wonder why this field has not yet been widely approached. The catch seems to be the lack of strategies for how to approach the seemingly volatile character of ethics in a computerized support system. In our research we have found strong indications for our hypothesis that the most purposeful and general method to treat moral problems is to do just like philosophers do, namely to focus on the specific interests and needs of the stakeholders that are involved in the problem. If this identification of interests is carried out in a systematic, reflective and holistic way, it will help to identify and include considerations about previously neglected stakeholders (Rauschmayer et al., 2009). In this chapter we will therefore present two tools for organizations to handle moral issues in a competent way. One of them is the Ethical Index ETHIX, a survey that describes the way the organization manages those in a given point of time, and thus can be used as a starting point for development. The other tool, ETHXPERT, is an IT system to support ethical decision making through making the process a conscious one. We begin, though, by discussing the theoretical basis on how moral knowledge can be viewed upon.

BACKGROUND Recent decades have shown an increasing recognition for knowledge management as a success factor, also within traditional fields of trade. With the emergence of new technologies, requiring a substantial knowledge input, understanding sources of knowledge and learning how to handle it has become an issue of central importance.

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Both practitioners and scholars seem to agree that knowledge offers competitive advantages (Empson, 2003; Davenport & Prusak, 1998; Reich, 1991; Sveiby & Lloyd, 1987; etc). As Davenport & Prusak (1998) put it: knowledge (…) can provide a substantial advantage. Eventually, competitors can almost always match the quality and the price of a market leader’s current product or service. By the time that happens, though, the knowledgerich, knowledge-managing company will have moved on to a new level of quality, creativity or efficiency. The knowledge advantage is sustainable because it generates increasing returns and continuing advantage. Unlike material assets, which decrease as they are used, knowledge assets increase with use: “ideas breed new ideas, and shared knowledge stays with the giver while it enriches the receiver” (Davenport & Prusak, 1998, pp. 17). The view on knowledge presented above is dynamic: the greatest advantage is granted to the first mover; yet, even the subsequent users can benefit from it. Moreover, using it promotes its growing, as new ideas are being born. The above paragraphs give an image of knowledge being distributed (and to some extent shared) among different actors on the market. Similarly, there is a common conception that the actors within a company- the CEO, the HR department, the R&D department, etc- possess knowledge that is unique to them and act in accordance to it. Yet, we would rather subscribe to the viewpoint as presented by Styhre (2003), i.e. that process of decision-making cannot be limited to certain areas and departments. Instead, it “takes place everywhere all the time and often on basis of collective discussions and agreements” (Styhre, 2003, pp. 34). Therefore, it is of vital importance to make the process of coordinating decision making based on the possessed knowledge a conscious one. Whereas the above-mentioned ideas apply to organizational knowledge, with regard to the company’s daily operation within the area of manufacturing or innovations, it should be stressed

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that they apply even more too moral knowledge due to the special nature of ethics. Nowadays, it is hardly sufficient to concentrate on making business- and profit- without taking into account the ethical aspects of the company’s operation. The two areas, making business and ethics, are intertwined; an organization neglecting the latter may lose legitimacy and, as a consequence, face decreased profits. The above-discussed, growing interest in and stress on managing knowledge in organizations and companies, due to an ongoing technology development, has resulted in an emergence of two research streams; one accentuating knowledge as an asset, or “objectively definable commodity”, while the other one emphasizing knowledge as processes, “a social construct” defining what proper knowledge is (Empson, 2001, pp. 812). For the former conceptual model, the unit of analysis is the firm or organization perceived as a set of competencies and capabilities used to add competitive advantage (Grant, 1996; Szulanski, 1996). Within this model, knowledge is viewed as static, a commodity to be identified and effectively managed. The latter model, on the other hand, presents knowledge as a social process, “created, articulated, disseminated, and legitimated within organizations” (Empson, 2001, pp. 813). Below we will discuss the two models with regard to how they apply to managing moral knowledge.

Knowledge as an Asset The viewpoint that knowledge is a commodity among others to provide competitive advantage can be observed within a range of research areas. Knowledge can be treated as any other resource; it can be generated, stored, managed and transferred. For strategic management theory, the focus lies in analyzing how firms generate competitive advantage and position themselves on the market (Powell, 2001; Ghemawat, 1986). The firm can either by its superior position on the market create competitive advantages (Porter, 1985; 1980; Bain,


1968); or, it is the firm-specific resources that are the origin of heterogeneity on the market, which in turn help the firm outperform its competitors (Penrose, 1959). As one of the resources, knowledge is looked upon with regard to its attributes (“valuable”, “costly to imitate or substitute”, etc), as a way of assessing how it contributes to the success of a firm, its role being instrumentally limited to dealing with achieving goals (Kalling & Styhre, 2003; Styhre, 2003). Knowledge can, and often is, created as a joint effort by companies, either in networks (Teece, 1998) or in co-operation with other companies (Simonin, 1999). Some researchers argue that firms and organizations often experience difficulties when relocating knowledge since it is “sticky” (von Hippel, 1998) as it requires effort and is costly to transfer. Moral knowledge, like technology knowledge, contributes to competitive advantage of a firm, its efficiency and profit. The view on moral knowledge as a resource is however inapplicable in our opinion. Certainly, written or unwritten rules like ethical guidelines can be regarded as assets. Nevertheless, they have to be created, interpreted, applied and revised in an ongoing process. In most cases static moral knowledge is purposeful to reach satisfactory solutions in an automatic, knee-jerk way, but in new or special situations, when new thinking is necessary, such knowledge can best contribute by promoting awareness about known moral issues. On the other hand, it can obstruct critical thinking by luring people into believing that what is not included in the knowledge base is morally accepted. This can also lead to insensitivity to nuances and misinterpretation of how guidelines should be applied (Fairweather, 2004). Furthermore, moral knowledge does not, unlike technology knowledge, in itself increase production rates, but it can legitimize the firm and in the long run improve revenues. Even though it can in parts be branch-specific due to the special requirements of the industry type in question, it should in general be shared across the markets. The flow of it is accomplished more easily and is

less cost-intensive. In addition, the view is static and neglects the fact that knowledge (be it moral or technological) is subject to constant changes in the process of using it.

Knowledge as a Process “As a socially constructed phenomenon”, Alvesson (2001) writes, “knowledge does not exist on its own, but is dependent on social recognition, without being perceived and recognized by others, for all practical matters, knowledge does not appear as such” (Alvesson, 2001, pp. 872). Knowledge demands a social context, an interaction between individuals or groups of people, inside and outside the firm. As such, it emerges, and undergoes changes during the activities of a firm in operation. As a consequence, it is subjected to a constant process of becoming an alteration; its nature is fluid and amorphous (Styhre, 2003). The same is valid for moral knowledge. It cannot exist without human interactions, and is spread on all levels of the hierarchy in a firm or organization, even though, as there are differences in between the ranks, persons of the higher hierarchical rank being more aware of the process of ethical decision-making (Kavathatzopoulos, Kostrzewa & Berg, 2008; Kavathatzopoulos & Rigas, 2006; 1998) (see below, section ETHIX: A tool describing moral knowledge management). It comes into expression not just in what is said in ethical codices, guidelines or rules; it rather shows itself and develops through what is done practically. It affects the course of the firm’s operation, i.e. in action; and, on the other hand, action creates new moral knowledge as well. The process is never-ending, due to the constant influences from the environment (on a normative level as new laws and regulations and on a processual level as new awareness of how moral issues can be managed more effectively) as well as, from inside the firm where novel approach to handling moral problems can emerge.

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But, how can moral knowledge be processed in the best way? We believe that in order to answer this question it is important to see firms and organizations as activity systems, which enables an analysis of the relationship between intentions behind and the context of action, and of the thought process leading to an activity. Based on the theory of Vygotsky (1978; 1962) and his followers, and furthermore developed by Engström (1987), activity theory in the form provided by Blackler (1993) provides information about the society-based motives of action, discusses mediation processes in performing activities, participation and the role of tensions and inconsistencies in activity systems. In Blackler’s model of organizations, the unit of analysis is collective activity, not thoughts of individuals. Knowledge management in organizations is placed on a time trajectory, since concepts and approaches change and develop over time. Organizations learn from previous methods of action that did not necessarily fit their goal and either apply minor changes in the old ones or, create new ones. These social and economic histories of organizations consist of normative and ideological constraints, choice of technology and core competence, etc. They are also dependent on the social context of learning: as a result of inconsistencies, tensions and ambiguities within and around them, organizations have to revise old approaches and develop new methods to cope with the changing requirements of the environment. As a way of managing social interactions, mediating is used on three levels: of tools and concepts that regulate the interaction between the individual and their context, of traditions, rituals and rules mediating the interaction between the individual and the organization they are active in, as well as of division of labour that regulates the interaction between the organization and the activities of its members. The most important role in unifying of the system is played, however, by practical organizational routines, promoting co-operation rather than conflict. Routines are often tacit,

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entrenched in the system, chosen automatically until some unusual events make the users to consciously examine their choice. As a consequence, in case routines are changed, even rethinking of the activities of the individual members of the organization might be needed (cf. Grant, 1996). The active participation of the individual is thus essential, as a bearer of knowledge, or rather expertise. Keeping in mind the influence of the organization’s history and social context, it can be concluded that expertise can be of diverse kind due to the origin of the issue at hand. Furthermore, the expert acts in response to specific situations, employing information gathered from the activity system he or she works in. Becoming an expert, i.e. making knowledge explicit, is a process in itself since people sometimes perform more than they are aware of being able to. This motivates an interpretation of individual ethical competence as a process of self-critical systematizing and structuring of problem situations and as a way to increase the awareness about these. As an organizational process, ethical competence is about creating roles and processes that formalize and utilize its members’ ability to handle moral issues. Lastly, we would like to draw the reader’s attention to the fact that the emergence of thinking of knowledge as a process seems to coincide with the IT revolution during the last decades of the previous century. We agree that IT has affected the operation of organizations, as well as created new threats and problems which have to be addressed (Gotterbarn, 2004; Maner, 2004), but we think that it is rather the complex and changing world of today with its ambiguities and conflicts, to which IT has also contributed, that makes it more suitable to regard knowledge more as a process than as an asset.

Formal and Informal Processes In our view, the process-based activity theory answers the question of how to create, store, transfer and deploy moral knowledge. The actual processes


can be both formal and informal. Formal processes and structures reflect the goals of an organization in order to make it efficient (Simon, 1997; Taylor, 1911). The organization regulates explicitly, through its organizational scheme, the behaviour and the nature of relationships of its members and makes them standardized and predictable. As a result, if the goals are changed, the organizational structure can easily be remodelled. However, there are two serious disadvantages with this approach. First, the organization does not adapt to changing conditions on the market without operational control, and second, the approach does not take into consideration real internal organizational dynamics. At the same time, formal structures and standardized procedures call for a stable environment that is a seldom-observed state in today’s world. Moreover, efficient operation of an organization depends on the interactions between its members, as well as cooperation processes and support relationships. Therefore, informal processes and structures are needed for an efficient operation of an organization. Informal processes develop their own goals and activities, which, nevertheless, support the accomplishment of the organization’s formal goals. They make the organization respond better to internal as well as external influences since they focus on what in reality happens rather than on controlling how well structures and operations fit formal goals. This is also explained by the fact that the behaviour and activities of the individuals and groups within the organization are not only a result of economical considerations but also other factors not necessarily determined by the organization. In sum, informal structures and processes should complement formal ones in order to enhance the efficiency of the organization (Kavathatzopoulos, 2001).

Management and Moral Knowledge According to our opinion, it does not suffice to treat moral knowledge as a commodity. Naturally,

it can be seen as part of the intellectual capital, something to be created, acquired, stored and deployed by the organization. It is, on the other hand, spread between the individuals and groups in the organization and has to be coordinated so that the whole organization can profit from it. We subscribe here to Grant’s (1996) words, when he concludes: “… the organizational problem common to all forms of social organizations is that of cooperation: reconciling the conflicting goals of organizational members” (Grant, 1996, pp. 121). It is, however, important to mention that the notion of members, beside individuals, include groups (teams), departments, etc. We view moral knowledge rather as a process, with the whole organization participating in managing it. It is an ongoing process of learning, since the organization has to adapt to the changing moral demands of the surrounding environment, as well as to internal changes. New issues become valid and thus a new approach to handle them has to be created. The organization is then an arena of activity (Blackler, 1993), coordinating interactions between its members and between the organization and its stakeholders. Each organization has to develop practical routines to be able to do it. Frequently, the routines are not explicit; instead, things are “done just the usual way”. To facilitate the interactions, in addition, a set of three mediating factors is used: division of labour, tools and concepts along with explicit and implicit rules. On a practical level, these mediating factors are represented by four categories of processes in managing moral knowledge: •

•

education for training all aspects of ethical competence, e.g. ethical problem solving, argumentation and rule construction; personal support where the decision maker works together with an expert in ethical competence, who is supporting the analysis and structuring of the ethical decisionmaking process;

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•

•

organizational support where the organization cooperates with an expert in ethical competence when handling moral problem situations and crises or when constructing ethical rules and guidelines for the organization; formal roles and structures, routines and informal support structures among organizational members.

Formal roles and structures developed for handling ethics account for Blackler’s factor division of labour and can include ethical officers and/or boards. Education as well as support structures both on the personal and organizational levels provide tools for improving the members’ ethical competence and confidence. Most of the processes listed above are of formal nature, initiated by the organization to promote the efficient handling of moral issues. In the instable world of today, organizations need additional structures beside the formal ones, in order to respond properly to what is happening inside as well as outside their venues. The informal support among the members is such a complement to the formal processes, contributing with additional expertise, strengthening the interactions in the organization and enhancing the process of its members becoming ethical experts. Given that we focus on organizational and personal processes of handling and producing moral knowledge we can build reliable tools that can describe, evaluate and support ethical problem solving and decision making. Last but not least, Blackler’s explicit and implicit rules can be found partly in codes of ethics and ethical guidelines and partly in the corporate culture.

ETHIX: A TOOL FOR DESCRIBING MORAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Ethical Index (ETHIX) is a survey constructed to describe ethical competence in organizations,

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both at personal and organizational levels (Kavathatzopoulos, Kostrzewa & Berg, 2008). It is aimed to identify organizational ethical strengths and weaknesses, to map needs, to plan, follow-up and evaluate organizational changes, in addition to assessing the effect of certain measures such as personnel training, introduction of ethical processes and roles, etc. ETHIX describes how an organization manages moral knowledge, i.e., ethical processes, on both a group and personal levels. Personal ethical competence is an indispensable condition for organizational ethical competence. There is a need for ethically competent individuals so that organizational structures and procedures, aimed at answering to the demands of ethical competence can work properly. Ethical competence on personal level in our opinion includes: high ethical awareness, ethical problemsolving abilities, ethical argumentation skills, and ethical confidence. The above-mentioned factors constitute a good method for handling moral issues and are necessary for members, officers and decision makers. With the conditions of personal ethical competence fulfilled, for organizational ethical competence suitable processes and roles are needed, both for managing moral issues and problems, and for providing satisfactory support to the members confronting those. Both these two levels of ethical competence, personal and organizational, are mutually dependent: the ethical development of an (already ethically competent) individual progresses faster in an organization which demands it from them, and an organization can function ethically only if the persons working there are able to run it in an ethically competent way. As mentioned above, parameters of ethical competence at personal level include awareness, problem-solving and decision-making skills, argumentation skills, training, and confidence. At organizational level important parameters are organizational profile and concern in moral issues, adoption of special processes and roles,


and support to the members. Another important aspect are ethical guidelines, the way they are constructed, revised and applied as well as what impact they have on organizational effectiveness, member support, work environment, and customer/stakeholder satisfaction. The approach is process-oriented, seeing the organization as a place of activity. The interaction between the individual workers is inquired- both on formal and informal levels in form of training possibilities, perceived support from co-workers and own opportunities to affect ethical processes. The system of informal support that is included in the formal structure of the organization is a complement to other processes. The parameters mediating the ethical activities include organizational structures and roles promoting ethics (e.g. ethical boards and officers), explicit and implicit traditions and rules (ethical guidelines, codices, etc), as well as training tools. The questionnaire gives an image of the implicit routines for handling moral issues, as a unifying factor for the efforts the organization makes to manage ethics. The questionnaire in its full version consists of 37 questions of Likert-type with six alternatives (see Appendix). The survey has already been tested on two organizations- a university department and a manufacturing company. At that time, it contained only two subscales, Personal Competence and Organizational Processes. In future versions of the instrument, however, a subscale about the construction, revision and application of ethical rules and guidelines will be included. The results of the pilot study proved to be encouraging, confirming the reliability of the questionnaire, as assessed by Cronbach’s alpha, correlations and factor analysis. The levels of acceptance were high, pointing at one main factor, in this case, ethical competence. ETHIX did not only show high internal reliability; it also revealed differences between persons, as indicated by the respondent’s hierarchical position in the organization, as well as between organizations, depending on their organizational structure. Persons at higher

levels of organizational hierarchy, on one hand, as well as working in expert organizations such as a university department, on the other hand, scored higher. This can be explained by the fact that persons working independently and taking more responsibility, at higher hierarchical levels or in the flat structure of university department, tend to perceive themselves and their organization as more ethically competent. Moreover, organizations like the university, with a flat structure and responsibility taking members, encourage their members to become more ethically conscious. This said, we are quite aware, though, that even the university world faces sometimes cases of plagiarism and fraud. We do not claim scientists to be morally superior in general. We just notice that there is a difference in the way the members of various organizations treat moral problems. Although subjective, an ETHIX report provides valuable knowledge on the state of affairs in organizations and is an important starting point in the process of acquiring and/or enhancing ethical competence.

ETHXPERT: A TOOL FOR SUPPORTING ETHICAL PROCESSES ETHXPERT (Kavathatzopoulos & Laaksoharju, 2010; Laaksoharju & Kavathatzopoulos, 2009) is an IT system to support the process of structuring and gathering information. It is based on the assumption that moral problems are best understood through identification of interests and values of stakeholders affected by and affecting a decision. It is important to point out that this kind of system does not, and should not, make any assertions of the normative correctness in any decisions or statements. The system’s sole purpose is to support the decision maker, irrespective of whether this is a person, a group or the whole organization, when analyzing, structuring and reviewing choice situations- not to make any decisions for the user.

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In the ETHXPERT procedure options and interests of each imaginable stakeholder are identified; gains and risks in the relationships between stakeholders are scrupulously assembled and studied. The user interface of the system presents relational data in three different ways depending on which part of the process that is undertaken. These different views have specific purposes. The first view is intended for identifying and establishing relationships between stakeholders and organizations. It represents stakeholders as nodes in a network, where each stakeholder and organization is initially assumed to have an interest relationship towards other stakeholders and organizations. Some of these relations might appear unnecessary at first thought, but the purpose of implying them is to provoke the user into widening the scope of attention and countering selective search for evidence and choice-supportive bias. People generally choose the easiest way to handle problems, which means that, apart from limiting the number of aspects to consider by neglecting “irrelevant” information, they will try to avoid having to justify decisions. The reverse approach to forming relations shifts the need for justification from adding to removing relations. Choosing which relationships to dismiss thus becomes an action that requires attention. The second and the third views are somewhat similar. These feature a visually optimized matrix intended to support a holistic overview of the problem. The purpose is to block biases about selective search for evidence and choice-support through reminding the user of the complexity of the information. If the matrix becomes unbalanced it will alert the user to investigate the reasons for it. One of these views is intended for management and revision of relationship information and the other for determining the effects of optional decisions. The process of adding stakeholders and interests, identifying how interests affect other stakeholders and how stakeholders are affected by optional solutions, is central in the process and much care has been

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put on to make this process lean. The procedural simplicity combined with a systematic, associative process reduces the risk for oversimplification of the problem. Somewhat ironically, this kind of widening of moral problems does not always make the choice easier. More likely it makes it harder to determine what is “right”; such is the downside of ethical awareness. When preconceptions about what is right and what is wrong have been rightfully questioned, the decision maker, whether this is a person or an organizational process, is left to the own ability to make a good judgment based on known facts. This of course creates stress and anxiety, and puts a lot more responsibility on the decision maker, but it can increase the chances to make sustainable decisions. Many decision makers already use this kind of mental process, even though they are not explicitly aware of it (Kavathatzopoulos & Rigas, 2006; 1998). Organizations can, however, benefit from a more systematic sharing of the experiences made in specific situations. ETHXPERT is constructed so that several users can work independently with the same decision problem- analyzing stakeholders, interests and options- and then share the insights through the system. The system, thus, becomes a platform for collaborative work and knowledge sharing. Even in this case, a process of managing knowledge in the activity area of the organization is in focus. Active participation in using the tool is required. The users are trained to identify different actors, internal and external for the organization, who take part in the process as well as to recognize the underlying interactions between them. The roles and different interests of the actors are highlighted and reflected upon, both on the formal and informal levels. The tool can be used in a process of training the organizational members to consider various situational outcomes and their impact on the stakeholders.


FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS Knowledge management has faced a shift in interest during the last few decades: from viewing knowledge as a commodity to be created, stored, managed and transferred to perceiving it as a process, where the focus rests on the longitudinal relations between the organizational members and with the environment, as well as on the factors to facilitate these interactions (Empson, 2001). This shift is not as apparent when it comes to managing moral knowledge. The dominant approach toward ethics is normative, which does not properly reflect the current society where ethics is in a constant state of flux; where norms are created and recreated as a result of global information sharing. However, even in this area, a change of focus is eventually likely to be expected. In our opinion, this is a necessary development in order to adapt to the demands of an evolving information society. We can expect more tools and methods to approach moral issues arising from the recognition of new, previously unexpected stakeholders and values. Even the tools described in this chapter, ETHIX and ETHXPERT, need further development to better serve their goal of codifying ethical processes in organizations and supporting the acquisition and the use of personal ethical skills and suitable organizational processes.

facing a moral problem is its solution, the focus of our approach is on the processes leading to the solutions. Viewing the organization as an arena of activity, where moral knowledge is managed in a conscious way, we see that both ETHIX and ETHXPERT address the interactions between the various actors within and outside the organization. Moreover, they give us a longitudinal image of the organization in its environment. ETHIX enables us to describe the formal and informal ethical processes on personal and organizational levels present (or sometimes absent) in the examined organization, the way the survey participant perceives them. It also gives an idea of which underlying routines lie behind the management of moral knowledge. ETHXPERT, on the other hand, is a dynamic tool to support the processes of making ethical decisions. Instead of merely describing the processes for the researcher, it highlights and makes them conscious to the tool user in order for him or her to find a solution to a given moral issue. Supported theoretically by knowledge management as well as by research in social sciences, carefully constructed tools, using the advances and the advantages of IT, this chapter can contribute to a more efficient and effective management of ethical processes and moral knowledge in organizations.

CONCLUSION

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Porter, M. E. (1985). Competitive advantage, creating and sustaining superior performance. New York: The True Press. Powell, T. C. (2001). Competitive advantage: Logical and philosophical considerations. Strategic Management Journal, 22(9), 875–888. doi:10.1002/smj.173 Rauschmayer, F. et al. (2009). Why good practice of OR is not enough- Ethical challenges for the OR practitioner. Omega- The International Journal of Management Science, 37(6), 1089-1099. Reich, R. B. (1991). The work of nations: Preparing ourselves for the 21st century capitalism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Simon, H. A. (1997). Administrative behaviour (4th ed.). New York: McMillan. Simonin, B. L. (1999).Ambiguity and the process of knowledge transfer in strategic alliances. Strategic ManagementJournal,20(7),595–623.doi:10.1002/ (SICI)1097-0266(199907)20:73.0.CO;2-5 Styhre, A. (2003). Knowledge management beyond codification: Knowing as practice/concept. Journal of Knowledge Management, 7(5), 32–40. doi:10.1108/13673270310505368 Sunstein, C. R. (2005). Moral heuristics. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(4), 531–573. Sveiby, K. E., & Lloyd, T. (1987). Managing knowhow: Add value by valuing creativity. London: Bloomsbury. Szulanski, G. (1996). Exploring internal stickiness: Impediments to the transfer of best practice within the firm. Strategic Management Journal, 17(Winter Special Issue), 27-43.

von Hippel, E. (1998). Economics of product development by users: The impact of “sticky” local information. Management Science, 44(5), 629–644. doi:10.1287/mnsc.44.5.629 Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. doi:10.1037/11193-000 Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes (14th ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press.

ADDITIONAL READING Blackler, F. (1995). Knowledge, knowledge work and organizations: An overview and interpretation. Organization Studies, 16(6), 1021–1046. doi:10.1177/017084069501600605 Bynum, T. W. (2004). Ethical decision-making and case analysis in computer ethics. In Bynum, T. W., & Rogerson, S. (Eds.), Computer Ethics and Professional Responsibility (pp. 60–88). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Kavathatzopoulos, I. (2004). Making ethical decisions in professional life. In Montgomery, H., Lipshitz, R., & Brehmer, B. (Eds.), How Professionals Make Decisions (pp. 277–288). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc. Styhre, A. (2003). Understanding knowledge management- Critical and postmodern perspectives. Malmö: Liber Ekonom.

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Ethics: The authors include into ethics all the matters that arise from conflicting values and interests of stakeholders. Ethics is not just about specific nameable core values like right to life, justice, privacy, etc. Rather it regards all the needs, values and interests of individuals and groups. Ethical Competence: Not the ability to always act according to guidelines or predefined principles; not the ability to act in a manner that is consistent with the most number of normative philosophies; but the ability to use purposeful ethical problem-solving and decision-making methods when handling moral problems.

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Ethical vs. Moral: The distinction between these two terms is not always clear and it is not uncommon to use them as synonyms. We use the word ethical when we write about ethics from a metaphilosophical perspective and, moral when we write about personal values or interpretations of ethical topics. An expression “moral decision making” would for instance suggest that a person is well acquainted with contextual moral values and readily prepared to do “good” in any given situation. The expression “ethical decision making” does not address the substance of morality but instead the procedural competence of handling moral problems.


APPENDIX Ethical Index: ETHIX Person 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Have you received education in sufficient extensiveness and quality for you to be able to deal with moral conflicts and problems in a satisfying way? How do you find predicting moral conflicts and problems before they arise or develop into bigger conflicts? How do find handling and solving concrete moral problems you face upon in your work? How do you find arguing for, explaining and defending your ethical decisions and procedures in a convincing way? Do you feel certain or uncertain when dealing with moral problems?

Organization 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Does your organization show an ethical profile outwards and inwards; does it present itself as an organisation that cares about ethical issues? Do you find your organization taking a real interest in ethical issues, or does it only pretend? How do you find your organization dealing with the ethical issues? Does your organization have special processes and routines for handling moral problems, for example, plan meetings, discussion groups etc.? If your organization has ethical processes and routines, how do find them working? Are there in your organization formally responsible individuals, groups or committees dealing with ethical issues? If your organization has formally responsible individuals or groups, how do you find them working? Do find your organization supportive when you face ethical issues? Do you find support in your colleagues if and when you face ethical issues?

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Section 5

Trends

“Action is eloquence” William Shakespeare In order to be an eloquent manuscript, the following chapters will “unlock” ideas and practical proposals to approach the ethical and social issues in private and public knowledge management environments. The future is starting despite a “long road ahead”... Therefore, is challenging to expect a multiple critics and comments from scholars and practitioners from a broad range of research disciplines, in order to improve these proposals as well as to introduce new ones.

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Chapter 13

Knowledge Worker Fair Compensation:

Ethical Issues and Social Dilemmas Gonçalo Jorge Morais Costa De Montfort University, UK

ABSTRACT One of the key characteristics in knowledge management is the importance of human resources. Therefore, main stream literature has been discussing the concept of knowledge worker, its characteristics, and duties versus rights, and human resources policies in its dissimilar perspectives (knowledge workers retention, personal mastery, intellectual property rights, among others). Although, empirical studies seem to disregard if knowledge workers feel that are well compensated, or what dimensions entail faire compensation. Hence, this chapter aims to recognize knowledge workers feeling about faire compensation, and what elements are essential to achieve it through a conceptual framework. For that, the chapter is divided into six sections: the research questions; knowledge worker (key characteristics and responsibilities versus rights); fairness (etymology and the contribution of Rawls); linking the theoretical basis; empirical results (methodological remarks, findings and discussion); future research directions (the surrealist assumption, Dali surrealism and the metaphorical assumption).

INTRODUCTION The last decades have witnessed production of research on knowledge work, due to a conviction that economic achievement of post-industrial societies progressively depends on skills to utilize knowledge (Stehr, 2001; Castells, 2000). Therefore, beyond manage knowledge organizations DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-873-9.ch013

need to realize that human resources are essential to promote knowledge creation, utilization and sharing. In spite of this level of criticality that human resources introduce the concept of “knowledge worker” entails an ambiguous perception (Pyöriä, 2005; Alvesson, 2004; 2001). This is a consequence of an attempt to resume its distinctive features, as for instance: processes information (Davenport, Järvenpää & Beers, 1996); utilizes information and communication technologies


Knowledge Worker Fair Compensation

(Garavelli et al., 2003); has problem-solving skills (Tsoukas & Vladimirou, 2001); produces non-routine work (Lillrank, 2002); has increasing levels of autonomy (Darr, 2003); and, is collaborative (Kristensen & Kijl, 2008). Furthermore, in order to attract these workers (Gayton, 2008) with high levels of personal mastery (Senge, 2006) it is essential to create an effective Human Resources policy. Literature has been recognizing this quandary and assumes that human resource management practices need to be internally consistent so that they mutually reinforce each other, namely career structure and reward systems (Currie & Kerrin, 2003). In that sense, an array of organizational incentives can be highlighted: monetary and non-monetary rewards, as well as intrinsic and extrinsic (Bartol & Srivastava, 2002); despite dissimilar motivation strategies for knowledge workers (Petroni & Colacino, 2008). As a result, this contribution endeavours to discuss knowledge workers feeling about faire compensation, and what elements are essential to achieve it through a conceptual framework based on the theory of justice (Rawls, 1971). The author still refers that the argument will consider the concept of fairness about compensation as a combination of three dimensions of organizational justice: distributive, procedural, and interactional (e.g. Cropanzano & Randall, 1992).

THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS Since this contribution is not promoting a traditional approach to human resources managing, namely knowledge workers. Despite the novelty of the subject it entails a minor component of the author PhD research project (for further details chapter 16), leading to the following research questions:

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1.

2.

Do you consider that knowledge creation, management and sharing into the organizational environment are fairly rewarded? State what is meant to be a fair compensation regarding knowledge creation, management and sharing in an organizational environment?

The initial research query examines if knowledge workers feel that are fairly rewarded, as well as the question was also posed to middle managers and top managers in order to understand each group perception. Yet, it is compulsory to notify the potential Readers that is an open choice question with the subsequent answering possibilities: never, rarely, usually, often, always, and I do not respond. On the other hand, the second question seeks to recognize fair compensation dimensions through an ask for agreement option.

KNOWLEDGE WORKER Key Characteristics Following Kelloway & Barling (2000) it is possible to illustrate knowledge workers as investors, because these choose when they want to use their knowledge. So, knowledge workers are likely to employ their knowledge as an extension of their skills, motivation and opportunity. Or, Davenport & Prusak (2000) define knowledge workers as those who create knowledge, or the prevailing component of their work is knowledge. Although, this definition was enhanced in order to include the ones who also distribute and employ knowledge (Davenport, 2002). Concluding, the author will follow Horvath (2001) definition: “anyone who works for a living at the tasks of developing or using knowledge”. Additionally, for Efimova (2003) knowledge work can be explained through the iceberg metaphor: unlike traditional work its


interactions seem invisible, because informal circumstances may represent until 80%. Thus, knowledge workers impose a shift in the balance of organizational power, because power in social contexts assumes three primary sources (Nickols, 2003, pp. 5): “politics (i.e., power derived from relationships among people); position (i.e., power derived from formally constituted authority); and profession (i.e., power derived from specialized knowledge).”

Responsibilities Versus Rights Bearing in mind that every worker is bounded to duties and rights, it is reasonable to claim that a trade-off arises. For The Free Dictionary (2010a), trade-off can be defined as an exchange of one thing in return for another, especially relinquishment of one benefit or advantage for another regarded as more desirable. For the purpose of this analysis the author introduces the work of Storey (2005) as regards to knowledge worker requirements: •

•

•

behaviour: resumes the organizational expectation that workers have the ability to be creative and proactive instead of complying with repeated custom actions. Another prerequisite is to present educational qualifications along with pertinent professional experiences, as well as the possess the ability to learn constantly; capabilities: ability to deal with large amount of complex data or information, as well as to learn from it in order to respond to the external environment challenges through semi-structured organizational routines; motivations: knowledge workers need to be motivated in order to enhance their personal mastery, and for that the organizational values, culture and climate are vital.

FAIRNESS Etymology According to the Wiktionary (2010) fairness is the property of being fair; and fair means free of bias, which evolved from an earlier meaning “morally pure” (Online Etymology Dictionary, 2010). Moreover, fairness or fair entail a similar definition in nowadays: having or exhibiting a disposition that is free of favouritism or bias; impartial: a fair mediator; just to all parties; or even, equitable: a compromise that is fair to both factions (The Free Dictionary, 2010b).

The Contribution of Rawls John Rawls (1971) defined justice as fairness: “it conveys the idea that the principles of justice are agreed to in an initial situation as fair.” (p. 12). Rawls still claims that individuals decide under the veil of ignorance, meaning that are not entirely aware of their personal features and role in society. Hence, this assumption leads us to conclude that people do not pursue personal interests, and by that mean assuring equality. In addition, this author refers three psychological factors that sustain the principle of justice: morality of authority, morality of association, and morality of principles. Therefore, Okin (1989) criticizes Rawls moral development assumptions namely the duty to teach morals and gender neutrality. Although, the author will disregard Okin criticism as pointed out by Hartline (Hartline, 2008).

LINKING THE THEORETICAL BASIS After framing the theoretical components it is time to understand how these variables interact, and most importantly which key issues promote the existence of a fair compensation within knowledge environments.

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Remembering Horvath (2001), “anyone who works for a living at the tasks of developing or using knowledge” is considered a knowledge worker. This statement induces to the following assumption: knowledge process (creation, retention/utilization, and sharing), meaning that Rawls (1971) macro analytical guidelines will be: • • • •

justice and knowledge creation and sharing; justice and fair protection and retribution; justice and fair compensation; justice and recognition of human dignity and autonomy.

Justice and Knowledge Creation and Sharing According to Hurley (2005), knowledge workers are morally accountable with reference to knowledge production and sharing within the organizational environment. In addition, that moral accountability is also bounded to organizations (Costa, Prior & Rogerson, 2008a), because it is compulsory the existence of a knowledge sharing environment. Nevertheless, to promote ethical environments concerning knowledge sharing is extremely difficult, and not utopian like Wilson (2002) points out. The answer relies on balancing the ethics of self-interest versus knowledge sharing (Wang, 2004).

Justice and Fair Protection and Retribution Lambert et al. (2005) defends that exclusively spotlighting upon employee rewards or outcomes, is expectable to deal with sanction in a fair and just manner, which is consistent with the claim of Costa, Prior & Rogerson (2008). The focus on fairness should act for rewarding and sanctioning, because workers have a moral responsibility not simply to be productive but also share the produced organizational knowledge (O’Neill &

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Adya, 2007). The following example resumes the previous arguments: an employee might compare the pay and benefits received by their fellow employee and make a comparison of their effort at work with their rewards. As a result of this comparison, individuals decide to exert more or less effort, or change their perceptions of inputs or outcomes. Equity is perceived when the input/outcome ratio of the individual is equal to those of others compared with. Perceived inequality, for example, an employee who perceives rewards are inequitably distributed among employees in their organization, might react with seeking employment elsewhere. (Haar & Spell, 2009, p. 1829)

Justice and Fair Compensation Distributive justice principles would acknowledge that a worker deserves additional compensation, however does not portray the reasons to such claim. In fact, distributive justice frequently evaluates job satisfaction and workers intentions to continue working (Greenberg & Cropanzano, 2001). Although, workers are also concerned with the fairness of procedures that enable compensation systems, which according to these authors are: be a consistent process, free from bias, correct, participative and ethical. On the other hand, procedural justice will shed some light over the impact of organizational values and mutual trust, because workers that are fairly treated easily accept if necessary a decreasing in their payment (Turillo et al., 2002). Furthermore, fair compensations must reproduce desirable values and ways of achieving organizational goals (Verplanken & Holland, 2002), since compensation systems structure typically reflects the underlying organizational ideology. Therefore, these systems must entail acceptable ethical and moral values (Cropanzano et al., 2001), which for example CEOs exorbitant wages are an example (Lavelle, 2002).


Justice and Recognition of Human Dignity and Autonomy Miller (1999) refers that a core component of any theory of justice embraces human rights, which in this case configures the following dimensions: •

•

•

•

•

the right to life- includes the right to feel secure and safe, which means that organizations ought to inform society about potential harm (Ryan, 2002); the right to the freedom of expression of ideas- is bounded to the moral accountability of knowledge workers produce knowledge, as well as organizations create a knowledge environment (du Plessis, Britz & Davel, 2007); the right of access to those ideas- debates the existing trade-off between personal effort and benefit (Ford & Staples, 2005); the right to protect and control expressed ideas- resumes the trade-off among workers faire compensation, and the organizational moral right to protect its economic interests (Blyth, 2005); the right to privacy recognizes the autonomy and dignity of individuals- knowledge environments must respect individual privacy rights (Baskerville & Dulipovici, 2006), which leads to a necessary discussion about privacy (Stahl, 2007).

Intermediate Conclusion The quotation of O’Reilly III & Pfeffer (2000, pp. 3) summarizes in an interesting way the overall discussion: “great people want to work at great places where they can actually use their talents, where they are treated with dignity, trust, and respect, and where they are engaged by the values and culture of the organization.’’

Theoretical Framework As a final remark, the author refers that figure 1 depicts these concepts and their relationships (theoretical framework).

EMPIRICAL RESULTS Methodological Remarks Creswell (2003) refers that a qualitative research may induce several angles of analysis. For that, in order to explore an event from an in-depth insight the researcher might choose a diminutive but informative case, or might perform a simple inferential numerical analysis. On the other hand, Miles & Huberman (1994) denote that descriptive research intends to make complex issues logical by reducing them to their fundamentals; or, if the researcher is not entirely conscious of the facts, in

Figure 1. Theoretical framework

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spite of recognizing the research issue (Zikmund & Zikmund, 2000). And, explanatory research endeavours to exemplify certain phenomena from contrasting insights (Yin, 1994), which entails the research problem. In addition, to consent subjective and inquisitive outcomes a blend of interpretative and critical theory is consistent with look for meaning in context. So, to identify how a reality appeared is imperative to analyse the social and historical environment (Klein & Myers, 1999), regardless the possibility to question the output (Sandberg, 2005). Likewise, the study of social reality is inner to critical research as acknowledged in numerous narratives of critical research (Hirschheim & Klein, 1994). Finally, empirical data was collected throughout questionnaires and interviews (PhD research project- see chapter 16), and informational conversations. Semi-structured interviews sponsor a method to acquire the informants beliefs and opinions through a verbal exchange (Burns, 2000); a questionnaire can serve as an inductive method with the aim to formulate new theory with higher or lower levels of validity according to the type of questions (Gill & Johnson, 2002); and, informational conversations intend to discover, understand and gain insight of people experiences (Paton, 1980).

Findings PhD Results The empirical outcomes highlighted in this section involve two levels of analysis: pre-tests and pilot studies results. In short, pre-tests were performed to 50 individuals with divergent professional and educational backgrounds during February 2009; and, the pilot studies have occurred in June 2009 within a learning organization that operates in Portugal, being their sample size objective 25 per cent of the organizational population. Moreover, for further details as regards to the methodological

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and analytical procedures read chapter 16; although, an important remark is: the results for each procedure will be divided into simple inferential numerical analysis (global and by focus group- top management, middle management, and workers) for research question 1, and content analysis for research question 2 (just focus groups). The results demonstrate the denial of a fair compensation, and it is interesting to denote that middle managers seem to share workers perspective with reference to this topic. Nonetheless, a higher detail of analysis is decisive for understanding these results (observe the following sections), and the dimensions of faire compensation (content analysis). Hence, some keen examples of fair compensation and its dimensions are illustrated in table 2, as well as translation was not performed in order to avoid the lost of sensitive meanings.

Academic Experiences This subsection endeavours to shed some light over the author personal experiences in his lecturing or participation in worldwide conferences, and a major conclusion seems to arise: fair compensation tends to demonstrate extreme positions! The expression “extreme positions” intends to portray the existing gigantic gap about faire compensation: managers’ assumption is that workers are often fairly rewarded; and, workers acknowledge the absence of a fair compensation. For instance, during IIRH 2010 Conference in Setúbal, Portugal, devoted to Research in Human Resources it was interesting to denote that despite literature refer that people are the “core”, and what stimulus managers need to produce to engage a knowledge environment the empirical results demonstrate that these policies do not engage personalization, compensation features resume traditional approaches which are not suitable for a knowledge economy, or even that managers actions do not match their discourse. An example was the keynote speech of Francisco Cesário, CEO of PT Contact:


Table 1. Research question 1 results

Group

Group

Pre-tests

Results

Global

The generic results were: never (8%), rarely (50%), usually (22%), often (16%), always (4%)

Top management

More than 80% believed that workers are fairly compensated (combining usually, often and always)

Middle management

60% referred never and rarely

Workers

The combination never and rarely entailed over 85%

Pilot studies

Results

Global

52% acknowledged rarely, 24% usually and 20% often

Top management

100% argued that workers were fairly compensated

Middle management

65% combining never and rarely

Workers

62% claimed rarely

Nós apostámos em transferir parte dos nossos call centers para zonas do país com elevadas taxas de desemprego (interior), pelo que se prova a nossa responsabilidade social (…) (transfer of “production” to areas with high rates of unemployment, as a sign of moral responsibility) However, when confronted about the true reasons for this movement the answer was: Razões económicas! Por exemplo, as entidades públicas locais cederam um espaço para permitir a instalação da empresa, assim como efectivamente os salários auferidos pelos colaboradores destas regiões são inferiores aos praticados em Lisboa ou no Porto (..) (economic reasons! Being examples, the local government support, and these workers lower salaries when compared with Lisbon or Oporto) These arguments clearly demonstrate that beyond rich literature is vital to educate managers to be open-minded and ethical! In fact, this corroborates the numerous informal dialogues undertaken with the editor learners about the perception of faire compensation in knowledge environments. Their responses, representing professional experiences, demonstrate that two

additional critical issues seem to arise: the Human Resources policies shortcomings about intellectual property rights (personal versus organizational), as well as the gap amid managers and workers compensation. Eu rejeito por complete que as experiências pessoais vivenciadas pela minha pessoa na organização sejam propriedade intelectual desta (personal experiences as intellectual organization property- a explicit denial) É inacreditável a diferença existente entre os valores auferidos pelos colaboradores e a gestão, até porque esta comete erros de palmatória! (gap between managers and workers compensation, as well as knowledge workers have the ability to question about strategic options)

Professional Experiences While as a Key Account (before embracing lecturing), or acting today as a consultant the author has observed that faire compensation is an extremely complex issue in organizational contexts, namely in small and medium enterprises (SME’s). Despite this observation a detailed analysis will be underlined in subsection discussion; so, about

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Table 2. Research question 2 results Pre-tests

Top management

Middle management

Workers

Pilot studies

Top management

Middle management

Workers

Results

Analysis

“Justa compensação: o retorno (pessoal e profissional) pela participação individual nos processos de criação, gestão e partilha do conhecimento”

The importance of knowledge creation, use and sharing

“Justa compensação não assenta em princípios meramente economicistas, mas também de reconhecimento e valorização do colaborador”

The recognition of the financial and non-financial dimensions

“Justa compensação: quando alguém recebe algo em troca do seu trabalho ou esforço por ter conseguido um feito com relevância para a organização, sendo partilhado por toda a equipa”

The identification of the financial and non-financial elements

“Justa compensação pode ser monetária, ou melhores condições no ambiente organizacional”

The acknowledgment of financial and non-financial realities

“Todas as pessoas na organização quando partilham ideias ou colaboram devem ser reconhecidas, ou monetariamente ou através de novos cargos, etc”

Primacy regarding recognition for those who create, use and share knowledge

“Compensação: plano de carreira e promoção de acordo com o desempenho, assim como, prémios monetário”

The traditional perspective: pure economic

“Acho que se deve recompensar de forma justa aqueles que contribuem para a criação, gestão e partilha do conhecimento”

Again, the significance of knowledge as a process

“A justa compensação poderá mostrar-se pela análise, validação e quiçá adaptação e partilha de novas ideias, podendo assim ser um contributo positivo para a empresa”

The importance of knowledge sharing

“Justa compensação pode ser monetária, flexibilidade de horários, aumento da autonomia”

A interesting bound: enhanced autonomy as a way of fair compensation

Results

Analysis

“Justa compensação é o reconhecimento a todos os colaboradores que fazem parte da organização”

The evidence of an organizational transversal process

“Justa recompensa surge através de factores monetários e não monetários”

Economic and non-economic factors

“Tudo depende do impacto e das próprias pessoas em causa”

Personalization as a fact

“Entendo os valores financeiros associados (salário e/ou promoções), e os não financeiros (reconhecimento)”

The combination of economic and non-economic principles

“Compensação pode resumir-se apenas ao reconhecimento verbal do esforço no desenvolvimento do conhecimento. Não tem que se reflectir obrigatoriamente em valores monetários”

Recognition as a crucial factor

“Em termos pessoais uma perfeita compensação é saber qual o meu trabalho e papel organizacional, e através dele respeitarem a minha autonomia e privacidade”

Autonomy and privacy as basics for faire compensation

“O conhecimento que o colaborador possa partilhar e que o vá afectar positivamente ou negativamente na evolução dentro da empresa”

Knowledge sharing substance

“Justa compensação é a partilha de conhecimento sustentada na confiança mútua”

Sharing knowledge and trust as keys for faire compensation

“As nossas organizações ainda não estão adaptadas à realidade de que as empresas são as pessoas e não o contrário, isto é, o mérito deve trazer mais valias, apesar do objecto de trabalho ser raramente recompensado seja por estímulo oral ou por valores compensatórios (financeiros ou outros)”

The claim that Human Resources policies are inadequate

of empirical evidences at a professional level is the author intention to highlight two essential

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quotations: the first occurred during a meeting with a CEO of a medium learning organization;


Table 3. Professional experiences as regards to question 2 Professional experience

Context

Results

Analysis

Meeting

Discussion about innovation in rewarding workers

“Os colaboradores não necessitam de incentivos adicionais, pois já auferem o salário (…) Além disso, autonomia significa que não podemos controlar o seu trabalho”

Ignoring literature recommendations

Human Resources Manager speech

“Nós temos uma verdadeira política de recursos humanos, pois valorizamos o conhecimento dos nossos colaboradores (…). Um exemplo foi a atribuição de um prémio de produtividade de 400€ a um colaborador por ter criado um produto financeiro totalmente novo que vai ser introduzido nos mercados financeiros”

The quandary of fair compensation

Conference about organizational innovation

the second happened in a conference organized by a major financial institution on the topic organizational innovation. Nevertheless, it is vital to detail the context of each quotation, as well as to understand the content of these quotations (observe table 3). Once again, translation was not executed in order to avoid the lost of insightful connotations.

Discussion More people feel that are treated fairly, more reasons will have to identify with that group. This assumption is also recognized in organizational environments, because empirical data demonstrate that workers are less worried their absolute income (Adams, 1963). In fact, Cohen (2008) highlights that Rawls social requires benefits and burdens distribution by individuals, as well as inequalities concerning incentive payments are indeed fair. The reason for his claim relies on the following argument: workers with higher levels of productivity will benefit the organization, and as consequence all organizational members will benefit from that situation. Even so, a CEO salary when compared to the remaining organizational members is a social dilemma. For instance, Söderström et al. (2003) have demonstrated tremendous gaps between CEOs and other professions; Piketty & Saez (2006) study acknowledges that CEO salaries between 1980-1998 raised 9 per cent average and workers just 3,7; and, the major problem is the historical

data of unethical and fraudulent behaviours as regards to corporate performance for CEOs personal gain (Meyer, 2003). The knowledge economy has enhanced this dilemma because knowledge workers possess enough competencies, skills and knowledge to question managers’ strategic decisions as well as their consequences. In addition, it is common to observe that knowledge workers academic and professional background is higher than the CEO, namely in small medium companies, which enhances this dilemma. Thus, the author disregards Nichols & Subramaniam (2001) claim that CEO compensation is a matter of personal judgment. On the other hand, procedural fairness is related to the process of distributive fairness and can be summarized through: •

participation: reflects the opportunity of knowledge workers express their knowledge, which bounded to a tangible and intangible reward as regards to knowledge sharing will promote a truthful sharing environment (Cabrera, Collins & Salgado, 2006). This is consistent with the recognition that sharing activities improves and sustains knowledge professionals (Wasko & Faraj, 2005), as well as if knowledge workers feel that their knowledge is “snatched” tend to become self-protective and secretive;

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•

•

neutrality- a precondition to achieve it the conviction that rules do not allow personal advantages to enter their decision-making. Fehr & Rochenbach (2003) also demonstrate that sanctions that serve the punisher’s self-interests disable cooperative behaviour, whereas sanctions perceived as pro-socially; and dignity/respect/autonomy- empirical evidences highlight that knowledge workers treated with dignity and respect enhance their levels of sharing behaviour and altruism (Moorman, Niehoff & Organ, 1993). Furthermore, autonomy encompasses for managers the following actions: acknowledge the knowledge worker understanding, afford it significant information in a non-manipulative way, offering decision making, and encouraging proactivity (Baard, Deci & Ryan, 2004), because a supportive management style to autonomy is crucial to promote knowledge sharing (Vansteenkiste et al., 2004).

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTION The Surrealist Assumption According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2010), surrealism resumes the principles, ideals, or generating fantastic or inconsistent imagery or effects in art, literature, film, or theater through deviant juxtapositions and blends. As such, it reproduces quite well the proposals to be introduced by the author for future research.

work because surrealist theory of automatism was transformed in a method. For Ruffa (2005), by linking surrealist actions and scientific research Dali demonstrates that we systemically have partial or total lack of understanding regarding a subject, meaning that reflection upon existing models is required. As a result, “Dalí draws our attention to the fact that there is no ontological difference between the scientific and artistic spheres, and nor is one superior to the other in terms of their approach to reality” (Ruffa, 2005, pp. 12).

The Metaphorical Assumption After a careful research with reference to Salvador Dali paintings, the author has decided to illustrate The Ship (1943). In his painting, Dali inspires us to question ourselves instead of being slaves (“tied up to the strings of life”), as well as to promote change (“go by the wind”). The wind is seen as the life flow which people may dare (Coelho, 2009). In fact, the aim of these proposals is to acknowledge the need to challenge the established principles with reference to knowledge workers without ignoring compensation systems literature (e.g. Scott et al., 2007) despite the several critics that will arise. Therefore some proposals that organizations should entail are: •

•

Dali Surrealism Dali through is Paranoia Critical Method assumed a way to observe reality in order to reflect double images in the same composition (Salvador Dali Art Gallery, 2010). Moreover, his artwork is not merely used in artistic creation, but equally in scientific

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•

personalize the compensation systems: as Cohen (2008) demonstrates it is possible to sustain equity and fairness; creative rewarding systems: personalization will promote creative rewarding systems. From the author professional experience, typically too many constraints are imposed in designing novel ways of acknowledging the topic. For some ideas the author suggests the work of Zairi, Jarrar & Aspinwall (2010), or Petroni & Colacino (2008); protect tacit and explicit knowledge: is common that organizational tacit and ex-


•

•

•

plicit knowledge is not entirely protected. Explicit knowledge encompasses a simple resolution; however, organizational tacit knowledge is bounded to workers personal knowledge which resumes the trade-off between self-interest and versus knowledge sharing (Wang, 2004). A potential solution is to “draw a moral flexible rule” that acknowledges personal experiences as non-organizational property. Through this assumption knowledge workers will feel treated with fairness and dignity leading to a truly knowledge sharing environment; acknowledge intellectual property rights: as previously referred Human Resources policies do not address this issue. Define a Solomonic decision, meaning to acknowledge workers intellectual property rights as for instance, offer a percentage over the market outcome of the product or service for a period of time which can be diminished if the worker leaves the organization. Bearing in mind the second example of professional experiences, the financial institution ought to reward the worker with a percentage of the market result during a year!; create a knowledge sharing environment: despite the existing backgrounds and competences of knowledge workers, it is vital to be aware of the existing relationships in knowledge sharing amid “those who know” and the “know-notes” (Wang & Noe, 2010); assume that knowledge workers values maybe contradictory to organizational values: organizational culture is “a spherical concept (metaphorical symbolism for perfect and constant), and therefore does not reproduces the existing challenges that knowledge management enables” (Costa, Prior & Rogerson, 2010, pp. 84). Although, to recognize values diversity and knowledge workers autonomy will al-

•

low to enhance knowledge sharing (Berg, 2010), and ultimately a growing identification with the organization ethical values; actions versus discourse ethics: managers primary responsibilities inherent in the organizational ontology through discursive ethics resumes two assumptions: normative claims in order to be valid require a cognitive meaning and can be treated like claims to truth; the justification of norms involves a real discourse be carried out and thus cannot occur in a strictly monological form, i.e., in the form of a hypothetical process of argumentation occurring in the individual mind (Rhen, 2002).

As a final remark, the author reveals the following thought for managers: do not question the financial value of increasing compensations if knowledge workers demonstrate higher levels of productivity, because it would be a sign of a competitive organization as well as additional profits. Besides, the economic approach skews any changing attitude as regards to non-monetary compensation, which is sometimes far more important than the monetary one.

CONCLUSION Changing traditional compensation systems enable several theoretical constraints namely “psychological and cultural”, however neglecting that possibility induces to a lack of organizational retention concerning knowledge workers. Knowledge workers have distinctive characteristics that require a novel approach to its rewarding as the empirical results clearly demonstrate, which top management continues to ignore. A potential justification for today’s organizational reality might be the novelty of the topic, but clearly depicts the status quo of knowledge society and managers lack of moral reasoning. In fact, despite the introduction of ethics in business the truth is that

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managers still ignore it, or use it as a marketing tool (similar to corporate social responsibility) which will endanger organizational survival. The assumption for this resumes the lack of recognition about justice in knowledge creation and sharing, fair protection and retribution, fair compensation, and the recognition of human dignity and autonomy. As a final remark, the author argues that the conceptual framework also enables a positive and feasible response to the research questions; yet, is urgent to enhance the number of empirical studies and novel approaches to the topic.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The editor would like to thank the insightful comments of Nuno Sotero Alves da Silva to the earlier versions of this chapter, as well as to all that shared their insights with the editor with reference to fair compensation in knowledge environments.

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Compensation: Something given or received as a counterpart for actions taken. Compensation systems in organizational systems assume two major dimensions: monetary and non-monetary.


Equity Theory: The perception of fairness in allocating resources within social and professional realities. Fairness: Inexistence of favouritism or bias, impartiality, or equity.

Human Resources Policies: Formal rules and guiding principles that organizations need to encompass for hiring, training, evaluating, and rewarding its organizational members. Knowledge Workers: Everyone who works that needs to create, manage and share knowledge.

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Chapter 14

Mobilizing Knowledge in the UK Public Sector: Current Issues and Discourse David Pullinger London, UK

ABSTRACT Knowledge management supports the key goals of an organization. For government this is creating public value, through trust, outcomes, service quality and cost effectiveness. These are vital matters for the UK government, and the need to mobilize knowledge is essential in delivering them. Knowledge management has tended to be about corporate knowledge inside an organization. This is important for government, not least in joining up its many parts to deliver more effective services and outcomes to citizens. However, citizens also have knowledge that can help deliver public value. How citizens and government share knowledge forms a second exploration. Citizens are also concerned about the use made by the state of personal data and knowledge about them; this forms the third strand. The issues that arise are mapped as ethical tensions onto Nonaka’s SECI model, providing both a framework for exploring ethics and for examining the space for organizational innovation.

INTRODUCTION A group of us were gathered to discuss aspects of delivering the UK government’s new information and knowledge strategy (HM Government, 2008a). Who exactly is in this group, and for what is it responsible, I was asked by someone the group meeting. It’s an informal group of DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-873-9.ch014

people who meet occasionally to exchange information and build each other’s knowledge, I replied, continuing that it had no formal authority, governance or reporting, although we did so through various routes. The initial reaction of my colleague civil servant seemed to be one of unease. This encapsulates and illustrates a feeling in the government’s administration about the need to follow processes that can be monitored and for which it should be accountable. There are


Mobilizing Knowledge in the UK Public Sector

very good reasons for state administration being consistent, process-driven and open to scrutiny but meetings are consequently often representative, hierarchic and proceduralised. Sharing knowledge is not like that. Access to, and engaging with, the knowledge that people have, whatever their role and seniority, requires a major cultural shift from a procedure-based approach. The first section of this chapter looks at some of the aspects that need to be addressed in mobilizing knowledge within government. The work of government in setting strategy, policy and implementation extends widely. The knowledge that is required to do each well does not only reside in public service officials. This is one reason for the large number of independent advisory bodies set up by the government in the UK. Beyond this more formal means of sharing knowledge from expert to government, is a move towards citizens communicating what they experience and sharing their knowledge through feedback mechanisms (HM Government, 2009c). To deliver the maximum benefit for society, everyone needs to be involved. This may be done, perhaps, through social media tools. The public, however, cannot get fully involved if they do not know what is going on, so there is also a major move in the UK to release data about public services and more generally to allow others to analyze and communicate (Cabinet Office, 2009). In release of data and use of social media, there are issues about data control, rights to use and re-use and intellectual property. The second part of the chapter explores what knowledge mobilization looks like when including people external to an organization into the delivery of its goals. Individuals, whatever their role, expect that increased transparency should not lead to personal information being shared. With the increasing ability to analyze information, security and protection of data is essential. What is considered personal is itself a social construction. In the UK, people are astonished that Norwegians can put a name into a

government website and discover how much they declared in earnings to the tax authorities. Or, that in USA one can type the name of a realtor and see if there has ever been a court case associated with that person. What is personal and what is not is yet to be clearly defined in the UK. Moreover, we can be double-minded about the use of data in the delivery of public services. When we need to report the death of a family member to the authorities, there can be 44 contacts in the UK (Varney, 2006) and people would like to be able to do it just once, as in Sweden, and all the public bodies know about it. But there is a strong and consistent reaction against the idea that information might be shared between public bodies. The third section of the chapter examines this aspect of information and knowledge about an individual. In summary, we look at mobilizing knowledge in government, mobilizing the knowledge in the citizenry and sharing it with government, and the knowledge that the state has about individuals and how that should be treated. We explore a number of issues and then consider the ethical aspects more specifically in the final fourth section. First, we begin with scoping the work of government that makes knowledge sharing critical and the ways in which knowledge management (KM) can contribute to its outcomes.

WHY LOOK AT KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT? Why does an organization such as a government want to look at the mobilization and management of knowledge? KM is more usually associated with competitive business advantage (Liebowitz, 1999). There are a number of drivers for UK government looking at how to mobilize and manage its knowledge more effectively. First it is recognized that some implementation of government policy cannot take place without a broader integration

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of information and knowledge. For example, the welfare of children was highlighted through a major incident where a child died (Laming, 2003). Poor record-keeping and exchange of knowledge among different parts of the organization were given as contributory reasons. One result was the integration of some local government functions covering social and educational care. In that case organizational development was considered to be part of the overall solution. Another example is dealing with the context that gives rise to drug use, which can often involve policing, health and education policies. Traditionally these are in different sections of government. Recognizing this, for the first time, the UK government set all its targets for its three-year outcomes so that policies and actions across the various parts of government had to be joined up (McNabb, 2006). Many of the benefits to nations come when policies and practices are integrated. Mobilizing knowledge within and across different parts of a complex organization becomes critical. In parallel, there is a strand that seeks to make implementation of policies more effective, in delivery and cost efficiencies. This includes delayering of the traditional staffing structures, outsourcing to new public bodies and outsourcing to commercial companies independent of government. Each requires better exchange of knowledge. Delayering means that the organization is much more sensitive to the movement of staff, who hold much of the knowledge. Outsourcing policy implementation to new public bodies, while strategy is retained within central government, can mean lack of access to knowledge on feedback. Specifically, is what is enacted what was intended, with consequent input to forming strategy. Outsourcing from the public to private sector can mean a similar lack of knowledge transfer, but one that is even more established through contract, custom and practice. Such issues are common to all governments and most large organizations. They have the need for effective and efficient delivery units while

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finding ways to join up services around customers. Information management and knowledge mobilization can be seen as glue between the tensions of forming delivery units that are sufficiently focused to implement the required outcomes and yet delivering an overall integrated service to a customer. The difference between governments and other organizations is moving beyond shareholder value to something that can be judged to be in the public interest (HM Government, 2005).

PUBLIC VALUE If the purpose of KM is to support the outcome of government, what exactly is that outcome? The benefit of KM is usually described in terms of using corporate knowledge as a competitive advantage to businesses (for example McElroy, 2000). For the public sector the outcome can be described as public value. Work is underway to define this further in order to measure it and assess efficiencies and value for money. For example Jones (2003), Kaplan (1999), and others have examined public value from the perspective of balanced scorecard approaches. Kelly, Mulgan & Muers (2002) identified three main factors as service quality, outcomes and trust. In a recent review of the different approaches to public value, Lusk, Roberts & Mackie (2008) note that the different approaches coalesce around three main categories: •

•

public value is that which the public values- understanding what individuals in society need and transforming public services to meet those needs with clear marketing and communication; public value as a system of mandates- delivering public goods through the unique authority of government, for example to levy taxes, to administer justice and imprison people or to provide welfare benefits, where each depends on the endorsement of


•

elected representatives and expressions of public support; public value as equivalent to shareholder value- the government acting as a good corporate body in delivering efficiently, effectively and doing what is perceived by society as the right thing.

They believe that when looking at outcomes, all three should be considered in combination. Public value should deliver services that people need, that are endorsed and which are done efficiently and effectively. Clearly managing data and information well is essential to delivering on each of these categories of public value, but so is managing knowledge and, which we will consider in the second section, the engagement of citizens in the generation of public value. Before turning to how government can organize itself to mobilize knowledge, we clarify what we mean by knowledge in this context.

KNOWLEDGE IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR We will use the increasingly standard distinctions between data, information and knowledge. Following Improvement and Development Agency (2004), data (using the term for both singular and plural forms) is something given, a discrete, specific or limited bit of communication. For example 3.000, 4.000, and “this care home has 100 beds”. Information is the result of asking a question and (quite literally) being in-formed, with the asker being different as a result of knowing it. For example, 3.000m is the height of this aircraft, 4.000m is the height of that mountain; or “these figures represent the bedding capacity of a care home, calculated as a theoretical capacity based on floor space or actually number of physical beds available at the home, or number of beds that the home is resources to support, backing on

staff levels, health and safety, etc.”. Knowledge is about something in addition that is either not or, not easily capable of being codified, as for example: “aircraft that have got within 20 miles of that mountain at this height have often crashed” or, “this is a large care home that is likely to be difficult to manage because of the known staffing difficulties in this area of the city and tends to be the place where people go if they cannot afford private care”. UK Government has tended to focus on two complementary types of knowledge strategy: connection and codification (Improvement and Development Agency, 2004). Connection strategies focus on interactions and communications among people, while codification strategies seek to make explicit knowledge available, usually on some form of IT-based service. What is apparent is the most of the focus hitherto has been on the codification approach (see also McElroy, 2000, on this for businesses). Examining some models may help move knowledge strategies on. Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995) researched the value of distinguishing between two kinds of knowledge: explicit and tacit. Explicit knowledge either has been or is capable of being captured somewhere, perhaps in a document or as notes attached to data. Tacit knowledge tends to be personal and rooted in experience, ideals and values, and is difficult, or found to be impossible, to articulate in a way that is codifiable. As those working in expert systems discovered to their frustration, what is done by top experts was often found not to be describable. This could either be because the models and language do not yet exist, or perhaps because knowledge is not processed in the conscious and rationalizing brain. These are closely related, and one way to develop the needed models and language is through group work. Nonaka’s SECI model describes a way of moving from a single person’s knowledge to others through discourse and internalization within a group, rather than seeking to extract from someone as if they

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were a data store, and then codifying that for the benefit of others to internalize and use. Nonaka’s SECI model appears to be the most referenced in UK government documents, however there are other approaches that are valuable to consider because their classifications encompass elements that transcend internal organization development. Costa & Silva (2007) review the major classifications of knowledge that lie in the different models. Boisot’s (2002) classifies knowledge assets into three dimensions: uncodified to codified; concrete to abstract; undiffused to diffused. This is a helpful approach in determining progress in the process of sharing knowledge and making it sufficiently explicit to enable it to be shared. Antonelli (2005), considers the different kinds of knowledge from which it is useful to determine which one is being considered in managing knowledge, whether as a public good, as a proprietary good or complex path dependent activity. This would be a valuable exploration for governments to make about their knowledge. In Costa, Prior & Rogerson (2008a) it is suggested that the different types of knowledge can be viewed in two dimensions: an individual to system embedding and a market to non-market embedding. This could be fruitful for governments to explore since much of their knowledge is embedded in the administrative processes of government with specific areas of expertise in individuals. The process of delayering, noted above, changes the intrinsic knowledge of process and, potentially, ready access to tacit knowledge. Moreover, government actions affect markets, even without direct policy intervention. For example through release of data that can encourage development of new commercial services (Newbury, Bently & Pollock, 2008). Other models include a customer-focused knowledge strategy. Given that one of the main drivers for government is to support its policies for citizens, this kind of strategy may also be worth exploring.

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MOBILIZING KNOWLEDGE WITHIN GOVERNMENT Towards a Culture Change KM has been a recurrent theme across national and local UK government over the past 15 years (for example, Hovland, 2003). Although some of the work could be described as closer to information management (codification strategy), there is growing momentum to address the culture that is required for sharing knowledge (connection strategy). There are various parts of government: the elected representatives who form the House of Commons and set the direction including through legislation; the senior civil service who develop policies on how to deliver required outcomes; and, a set of delivery bodies ranging from school education, health and policing through to administrative functions. The process of government in UK is based on a Cabinet of Ministers of which one is (s)elected as the Prime Minister, but each runs their brief and Department separately. Only in 2008 was it established that outcome targets would be shared across the Departments in the Public Sector Agreements and Service Transformation Agreement (Comprehensive Spending Review 2007 for period 2008-11) (National Audit Office, 2009). Right from the top, there is separation of responsibilities with a consequent wide variety in organization. This results in state departments with very different cultures, that now need to begin to work together to deliver their targets. Mobilizing the expertise and knowledge of each has become a critical necessity. Into this context, a review of knowledge and information management has pointed to how the success of technological approaches to data and information has tended to encourage people towards similar ones for managing knowledge. The much more important task is to develop a culture to mobilize the knowledge that exists


among people (HM Government, 2008a). This strategy proposes some actions, ranging from the informal to very formal, as follows: harness the enthusiasm for sharing knowledge that goes on via social networking sites and look for ways to establish profession and vibrant communities of interest within government; enable teams and communities to achieve common business purposes, with simple support toolkits; integrate KM into core competencies as a priority so that senior staff adopt the appropriate behaviours; and review each Department’s capability in managing knowledge. These recommendations essentially constitute a culture change around connection strategies. There are some early innovative approaches to connecting people. For example the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) new building was explicitly designed to encourage the informal contact that leads to exchange of knowledge (HM Government, 2008a). Internal wikis are being used to build knowledge bases, and to identify those with knowledge through their contributions. Other social networking tools are in use within and across public bodies, for example the forums run by Improvement and Development Agency for local government that are now being used by central government. When in 2008 we wanted to build a community of experts in digital communication instead of the hierarchic council structure adopted by the IT profession (appropriate for them), we chose a free grouping approach, supplying some tools and encouraging others into trying out what might work and be useful. It looks as if it lacks general authority and might appear anarchic to some, but mirrors the loosely and constantly re-forming groups found on the Internet. It is working well, but the reaction of senior policy-makers to people forming and declaring new groups is sometimes instructional about how far the public sector needs to move culturally to mobilize knowledge! Just as challenging are those aspects that are more sociopsychological: willingness to display differences of opinion and thought about what to

do; to be prepared to say “I don’t know”; to give up individual reward for ideas.

Sociopsychological Factors Inhibiting Knowledge Mobilization The wish to give the appearance of unanimity is a driving force in some organizations. For example, Coyle (2001) examined policy-making in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. There she found that policy-making in both institutions was characterised by a tension between consensus and dissent, in which it proved difficult to incorporate dissenting knowledge into programmes and decision-making because of the need to present an image of the organization having the right answers and maintaining a consensual official line. My experience is that this is as true, if not more so, of government activities. The UK media, in particular, enjoys headlining disagreement and controversy; any hint of that within policy-making is aired as some kind of failure. In a knowledge-sharing environment, however, it is essential that different views are heard, recorded, accessible and used to inform work as appropriate (HM Government, 2009a). For this kind of reason, public bodies can also be reluctant to record lessons learned, case studies, and discussions or expressions of views in the policy-making process, particularly as these are open to Freedom of Information requests. The fear is that they might be used in a misrepresentative way to illustrate incompetence, whether directly from things that could have been done better, or merely from expressing a need for expertise from others. To address this concern, ways need to be found to ensure that the detail of case studies and lessons learned is not lost, while at the same time generalizing and anonymising to the extent that individuals and suppliers, for example, are not identifiable, even while the salient facts are communicated and those with knowledge able to be accessed. The codified knowledge may be sufficient, but often it is the start of access to tacit

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knowledge. Last year I was invited to respond to a Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee report and its recommendations, including making a public statement in response to their press release. I was advised that this had to follow certain rules. I looked up the rules, but their interpretation and the usual practice was what I then wanted to know. I could not find anyone who had actually gone through the process, dealing with all the necessary Ministers and briefing the Prime Minister. Indeed, I and the press office had a long discussion about interpretation that could probably have been circumvented by identification of a person with knowledge through experience. This is a typical need in large complex organizations. Another cultural issue is the nature of expertise in government. Recently there has been a strategy of qualification and professionalization for specific corporate functions of public bodies that support policy-making, for example, financial, HR, IT and project management, to add to the long-established legal, statistical and communication professions. This is a shift within UK government, and introduces the idea of specialists working in partnership with the policy-making generalist whom can turn their brains and work to any subject required by the elected political party (Public Management and Policy Association & National School of Government, 2007). This gives scope for knowledge sharing that has hitherto not come easily to those familiar with generating new ideas and policies. New knowledge strategies are needed to encompass these aspects within a connection perspective. Codification strategies assume that knowledge can be captured, distributed and managed primarily through IT systems in the form of documents and other digital media. Their focus is therefore on making knowledge explicit wherever possible and doing so in such a way that people are rewarded for contributing, and that others can easily find it and use it and are rewarded for doing so. When the strategy has been restricted to putting codified knowledge into structured databases,

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without the ease of process for finding it and any reward mechanisms for using or contributing, then little use appears to be made of it. New tools may offer a better approach to storing, accessing and retrieving stories, lessons learned, ideas and case studies. For example they might be stored in the discussions, comments and Question and Answer exchanges stored in social media, whether in forums, blogging or networking applications. Rather than structured databases as found in previous IT-based approaches, another means to facilitate retrieval is to mark up unstructured text in some way that enables findability. For example one might use the new W3C standards for semantic web to identify aspects in which others may be interested. This approach is already used by UK government for unpublished research reports, facilitating access and access control, in addition to some published information restructured for re-use (for example The London Gazette). In particular, marking up the individuals connected with lessons-learned document would be valuable, so that the knowledge searcher can ask the questions of the type “what other projects has this person worked on?” These examples illustrate that what is needed in a codified approach is ease of contribution and ease of findability. Social media offers a natural way of contributing story, experience and expertise at point of need (i.e. there is known value for investment of time and effort). Explicit effort, however, towards use of new search and monitoring tools because of the many services supporting discourse and the different languages used to talk about a particular subject. Where knowledge is held on known services then semantic web mark-up offers a natural way of handling unstructured data. Neither, however, will ensure that any knowledge will be used unless there is also a culture in which there is a reward system for contribution and usage. Some measures will need to be found that members of the public sector recognize as fair and equitable. They may include, for example, such measures as the number of contribution made, the


number of times the contribution is accessed, and the number of contributions used.

MOBILIZING KNOWLEDGE ACROSS ORGANISATIONAL BOUNDARIES Mobilizing Citizen Knowledge The work of the public sector cannot be easily bounded. The knowledge to set strategy, propose policy and implement effectively also engages many others beyond public sector officials, including experts, stakeholders, voluntary sector and citizens. The value given to expertise among specialists can be seen in, for example, the hundreds of government-funded independent advisory bodies and the solicitation of stakeholder views during public consultations. The public sector also works in partnership with the voluntary sector, who are also lobbyists for change. And citizens have experience of public services that can provide information for improvement or new strategies, and the UK Government is keen to gather this experience through feedback processes, conversation and collaboration (for example HM Government, 2009c; Parker & Gallagher, 2007). Public value cannot be delivered without some meaningful interaction with citizens. What does KM look like when it includes people external to an organization into delivery of its goals? Introducing a new dialogue to share knowledge present throughout society can be done through a variety of face to face or digital means, with varying degrees of direct, representational or mediated contact. These include citizen juries and forums, summits and wikis, workshops and petitions, feedback and public meetings, blogs and webchats, to name some of the available mechanisms. To deliver the maximum benefit for society, everyone needs to be involved (Graham, 1992). There have already been successful initiatives in improving services at a local level through local engagement, in improving medical care through

patients being able to comment on their experience of doctors and hospitals (through feedback opportunities in Patient Opinion and www.nhs. uk), and through the introduction of some schemes such as Children’s Trusts that formalize inclusion of citizens. Parker & Gallagher (2007), point to four different means of encouraging such collaboration between government and the citizen: by incentivise with money or recognition; by force through introduction of new structures by law and funding mechanisms; by augmenting what government can do by working with partners and the voluntary sector; and by a small number of prioritized goals for a limited time. A propos this last, I argue in Pullinger (2001), that both culture and online tools encourage this kind of short-term political engagement by citizens. Conversely, civil servants have been given permission and encouraged to participate in online forums and respond to blogs as individuals. Previously any contact with the public was either routed through the press office or similar formal procedures, or designated as part of their frontline job. Commenting and participating in citizen discourse is a new departure for government as an organization and is being closely watched by other governments to see where this innovation might lead. The person can speak on their own behalf, instead of representing an elected representative, provided they are clear about their role and limit commentary to agreed positions (HM Government, 2009b). Since most dialogues occur on commercial web-interfaced Internet services, there are some interesting tensions around who owns what and who has the rights of re-use and under what conditions, who can delete content and under what national jurisdiction would decisions be made. To give one small example, some online services have sought to claim that they own the copyright on whatever is stored in their service. Sometimes this may be Crown Copyright, but there is no recognized means for legally transferring of Crown Copyright in this way. The UK Government is

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therefore exploring how to enable appropriate use of individual contributions and re-use of government content that has previously been automatically Crown Copyright (Cabinet Office, 2009).

Enabling Citizen Engagement through Data Release The public cannot get fully involved if they don’t know what is going on, so there is also an important parallel move in the UK to release data (Cabinet Office, 2009) and, specifically, data about public service performance (HM Government, 2009c). It is a major cultural change to release data and information in a form that others can use to create new analyses and services. In the UK, it was considered radical in 2000 when the then Prime Minister Tony Blair launched National Statistics, following the Labour Party Manifesto (1997). Prime Minister Gordon Brown made it completely independent of government in 2008, in the form of the United Kingdom Statistics Authority. The first step was a process whereby information about what was happening was issued even if it was inconvenient to the government. The potential discomfort was either its content, perhaps showing something different to what the government wanted to announce, or its timing, for example bad figures appearing on the eve of a party conference. The second step was to put a distance between productions of statistics about what is happening in UK to political comment upon it (HM Government, 2008b). Systematically releasing data and information explicitly structured to enable others to use and re-use it in analysis, new services and commercial use is a further step. It has been routine in US, where there is a strong consensus that public data belongs to the public. There are however many concerns among the public bodies, including the following: •

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risks and liabilities on the use of the data, whether, for example, on listing all schools

•

•

•

•

•

with their locations, or releasing the results of health inspections of restaurants, which might damage their business. In what way might the public body be responsible for third party use?; worry about misuse, for example of giving a list of all schools that removes all those of a particular type, for example faith schools. In what way might the public body be responsible when not monitoring all uses?; apprehension over analyses that might come to a different conclusion about the policy that should be adopted to those of the public body releasing the data, for example on catchment areas for local schooling. Will the role and identity of the public body need to change?; loss of revenue, where previously the data had been sold to cover some costs. What will have to stop being done if revenue is no longer forthcoming?; lack of resources in making data available in a form that others can use, which go beyond the requirements of the public body itself. Why spend money making things possible for others (especially given the fears listed above)?; uncertainty over whether there is any value in the data, when none has been demanded. Why spend if there might be no takers?.

It is agreed that no personal data will be released, but the power of information processing means that some unexpected combinations of data can amount to data being identified to particular individuals. For example, crime statistics are being mapped so that people can see hotspots. A search of local newspapers is likely to retrieve the victim’s name and even place of residence and any conviction will also result in that information being public. Although all this data is already available, it can be brought together into a service that might not have been anticipated, and transgress what


might be perceived as victims’ rights, even though that information is already in the public domain. This debate was aired in the national media (for example, Edwards, 2008). So there is a tension about deciding how to release the data. Where crimes are low in number, do you anonymise and place the incident anywhere in a large area to avoid all possible information processing and so deliver a service close to the point of uselessness, or do you say that it is already in the public domain and so should not be an issue? Both government and individuals have reason to be cautious while exploring these new data releases.

KNOWLEDGE THROUGH PERSONAL DATA A common reaction to my writing this chapter has been for friends to launch into discussions of personal data. This appears to be in the context of the danger of the state “knowing too much about me”. Further exploration identified this as a feeling of being known, but not having the reciprocal knowledge to what use the impersonal knower, the state, may put the knowledge “about me”. The question then is about power and its potential. This has, of course, been widely analyzed and is reflected in Dahrendorf’s sociological definition of power: “is the ability to reduce, limit or eliminate alternatives for the social action of one person or group by another person or group” (Dahrendorf, 1959, pp. 89). Boguslaw (1965) explicitly applied the idea to computer programmers and designers of computer equipment and languages, with Robins & Webster (1999) claiming that the information revolution does not lie in technical innovation as much as in “differential (and unequal) access to, and control over information resources” (p. 91). This is of particular concern to individuals in regards to the state, which has need to gather data and information on its citizens in order to promote social, economic and welfare goals, for example through a census to plan for schools and hospitals,

and the individual’s need to protect personal data as far as possible. This is part of the three-way relationship that individual citizens have with the state (Offe, 1996). Note that two of the three share commonality with the main strands in public value identified by Lusk, Roberts & Mackie (2008), but the middle one, with which we are concerned, is different: • • •

creators of state authority through the democratic voice; potentially threatened by state force or coercion, but protected by rule of law; dependent on the services and provision for welfare organised by the state.

Data and information about individuals are required to run the administrative function of the state. There is also non-codified knowledge about individuals. In UK this is at the interface between citizens and officials (for example, welfare and benefit officers) and service delivery agents (for example, nurses, police and teachers). Their knowledge is used for specific cases and increasingly so for the care of children. However, it is rarely documented or codified and so open for others to use except when explicitly and legally required, for example when doctors suspect that patients are addicted drug users and for suspicions about the welfare of children (Recommendation 16) (Laming, 2003). In order to improve public services, the expertise of these frontline workers is being encouraged to grow through knowledge sharing of observations and experience without an intention to discuss details of individual people except in exceptional circumstances (HM Government, 2009c). In particular, citizens want to ensure that their options for manoeuvre are not reduced by the state bringing data together in such a way that disadvantages them, either by painting an inaccurate picture through losing contextual and clarifying information (“this person lives on a boat”) or by identifying inaccuracies to which the state may want answers, thereby imposing

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additional burdens of proof. Citizens also want free-loaders and criminal activity in relation to the state to be caught. This leads to an interesting situation perhaps peculiar to the UK government: the history of public services has led to departments or agencies focusing on the supply of specific products rather than taking a citizen or business-led approach. Departments’ and agencies’ services are all developed independently of each other. It is leaving the citizen or business to join up the public service island economy to meet their needs (Varney, 2006, p. 4). As in the example recounted in the introduction to the chapter of a citizen needing to contact government 44 times following a bereavement, it is often the most vulnerable citizens who have to do the most joining-up between the public service islands; much of it could be avoided with more collaborative service delivery. Although people don’t want their information shared across the government, they also want the benefit of services that can only result from doing so. Why this might be is currently being explored, but ideas include: it might build up too comprehensive a picture (too much knowledge); contain errors that affect other services (inaccurate data); or be misapplied in situations other than the one for which it was given (contextual misapplication). One approach is to identify what is reasonable to be shared across the whole public sector, what should not be shared, except with express permission of the individual concerned, and what falls into the middle ground where what is shared is a matter of consensus. Thomas & Walport (2008) began to explore these different categories. In the first category lies the registration and updating of records associated with births, deaths and name changes by choice or on marriage. The registration of citizens has been the most basic form of government because of the state’s role to protect and seek the well-being of its, and not that of others’, people along with rights of abode. Such registration answers the question about whom the state should be responsible for.

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Despite some appearances to the contrary, there is often no need to share data in order to provide the services needed. For example, it is possible to interrogate data by asking if it meets certain criteria, without ever having access to that data or knowing what it contains. Thus to provide a free school meal at lunchtime for a child whose parents have no income, requires checking status of parents and their receipt of welfare benefits as an indicator. Data does not need to be transferred for this, only establishing if a condition is met. This approach means that there need not be the concatenation of data that might lead to knowledge that individuals consider inappropriate. Through a social consensus, it may therefore be possible to start to map a series of interactions with personal data that can be used to deliver services people want that is: • • • • •

able to be shared and updated (for example the death of someone); shareable but not changed; used and viewed for specific tasks but no transfer or recording made; interrogated with certain criteria with no viewing of the data; not accessible at all.

The Institute for Public Policy Research is beginning a series of qualitative discussions with citizens on such matters. This presumes we know what we mean by personal data and what should and should not be in the public arena. In fact there is little consensus over this. It varies considerably across nations as our examples from Norway, Sweden and USA have illustrated. That this information is socially constructed and varies widely in practice can be seen from comparison with other countries. Germany, for example, does not publish the names of its company directors. USA makes data about many events concerning individual’s public. There is publication by statute of some individual data in the UK as it is deemed important


for the overall welfare of citizens. These include, for example, names of those who are insolvent and so unable to pay bills, names of directors of companies, and those convicted of criminal offences. In some areas citizens would like to go further, for example have published the location of people on the child sex register or convicted paedophiles. The state has obligations for their protection too, so arrangements are in place for ensuring protection of all parties. So to our former list, we can also add those data that are associated with being made public: • • •

•

•

•

• •

that is published by law (statutory notices); that is published by custom (e.g. honours list); that is published routinely but was previously difficult to get hold of and so is perceived to be newly available; that may be made available upon request (either set up to do so, or through Freedom of Information requests); for which there is public clamour that should be made available, but where the government has responsibilities to individuals (paedophile locations); which is used only in exceptional circumstances with explicit legal powers (for example in counter terrorism actions in protection of citizens); for which the state is guardian and should never release (personal data); for which the state declares it will not itself use other than in aggregation (Census data).

Identification of individual data that is personal and falls into all these different categories is an urgent task in order to deliver the trust in the state that citizen wants in the context of the three-way relationship. There is no simple means for this, as the differences between nations exemplify. Rather there is a social construction leading to a consensus about what is and what is not acceptable

to that society at that time. That acceptability or otherwise is usually described as ethics, to which we know turn, focusing on the KM issues.

ETHICAL TENSIONS Most people are prepared to share if they get something back- if there is some perceived reciprocity in making contributions. This appears to be part of the human condition in that the size of community groups are claimed to be created around reciprocity and avoiding freeloading, or freeriding as it is also described (Dunbar, 2007). The need to encourage sharing through some return has always been part of the problem about KM, and various attempts have been made to address it. For example, one might say that you cannot get information unless you give it (Thimbleby, Witten & Pullinger, 1995) or that there is a financial reward to the contributor for its use (for example the knowledge-trading IQPort, Skyrme, 2001). This is the exchange model that is found in all human societies, however old. Intellectual property is an outworking of this as the right to be associated with a contribution and get some return for it. This has been described as contribution justice (Mason, Mason & Culnan, 1995) and explored in Costa, Prior & Rogerson (2008b). Nonaka’s SECI framework where externalization phase follows socialization identifies an associated problem with intellectual property- that it is often generated in a group. This is the converse of the freerider, being where people may be contributing but not getting the recognition for doing so. The redactor may be writing up a group activity and some members of the group might look for credit for their contribution to the process and feel aggrieved if it is not there. New practices are required to encourage knowledge sharing and externalization by the identification of all players within recognition and reward structure. Contribution justice is as applicable a term here.

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A second theme to emerge is access to knowledge. First in changing the culture so as to encourage its mobilization and then in finding ways to get access to people and knowledge in documents that cannot be fully codified in the same way as information, stored often in the form of stories, case studies, experiences, and lessons learned. The ethical tension comes in whether there is a presumed right of no access, or presumed right of access to others’ knowledge (and its associated data), and under what terms. The former has prevailed both within government and for the citizen about what the government does. There are moves to a presumed right of access, but this is still contested and requires more than an individual reward and recognition- it is the interplay between the corporate task of building public value and the individual delivery components of the organization. The clarity of the business proposition about impact on the bottom line has yet to be developed in the public sector. A specific tension for government, that may not be applicable to all organizations, is one that lies between three groups of people: the generalist policy-makers who need to be able to turn to any policy; the specialist corporate support functions; and the process-driven government administrative function. Public value cannot be delivered without joining these up across government. Moreover it is also necessary to include citizens and other stakeholders. Thus the process for sharing is challenging and requires a new recognition of the role and value of each within the overall purpose of delivering public value. Another tension, related to the first, is the individual need to develop and be recognized for one’s knowledge at the very time one is subsuming it for the greater good into the group. There are tensions over the time and effort in sharing knowledge that frequently conflicts with that for building on and developing further knowledge. Space is required to develop knowledge, either through accomplishing tasks and responsibilities

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or through reflection and learning, but it is only recognized when shared and released. In other words, reward is delayed relative to the cost and so can be hard to justify. In summary, in mobilizing the knowledge from inside people’s heads and documentary evidence there are a number of tensions that must be resolved in any organization. For government this can pose a particular challenge as the public sector is extensive and includes many different organizations, as well as citizens in the process of delivering value for the nation. In examining the issues that arise around mobilizing and managing knowledge, one way of viewing the tensions is the use of Nonaka’s SECI framework: Each of those tensions relates in some way to balancing our needs to pursue our own self-interest with duties to make the best possible decisions for all parties concerned. If there were no such tensions, then we wouldn’t need to establish practices of what is acceptable and what is not. If our actions fitted naturally into what everyone else expected and wanted, then there would be no need. Conversely, if we could act as we wished purely on the basis of our own desires, then there would be social chaos. Whereas there have been many broad treatments of ethics in information management over the past two decades, for example Mason, Mason & Culnan (1995) and the reader Dunlop & Kling (1991), there has not been the same focus on doing the same for mobilizing and managing knowledge. Using UK Government as a case study, this chapter has looked at some of the issues for government and the ethical tensions that arise. Many of these will be applicable to other large complex organizations.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS In exploring the issues for government and its citizens in mobilizing knowledge, we have identi-


Table 1. Ethical tensions displayed using Nonaka’s SECI framework Conversion Process

Examples of Organisational Innovation

Ethical Tensions

Externalization

Conversion of tacit knowledge into a form accessible to others

Use of wikis, forums, and other social media inside government; citizens sharing their experience of public services through online feedback mechanisms

Contribution justice: the right to be recognized and rewarded for contributions and reciprocal contributions

Combination

Conversion into new sets of explicit knowledge that can be shared

Introduction of semantic web applications into government (using RDFa); reorganization of Local Authorities to integrate welfare for children

Development of individual knowledge

Internalization

Conversion of new explicit knowledge into individual (or organization) tacit knowledge

SECI Point

Socialization

Sharing tacit knowledge; converting individual knowledge into other people’s tacit knowledge

fied a number of ethical tensions and mapped them onto Nonaka’s SECI model. Building on this model and frameworks that have been developed from it, may be a fruitful way to uncover more issues and present a structure for discussing them in a coherent way. The SECI model has been used, as it is the one most cited by government documents looking at KM. However there is other with classifications that could prove fruitful for examining ethical issues. Throughout, we have also noted some organizational innovation. Again future research may wish to take the different models and ask more specifically how organizational innovation could be used at various parts to support the mobilization and use of knowledge. Finally, we have implied throughout the chapter that the ethical tensions should be resolved by consensus, pointing to national differences as evidence that these are socially constructed (Burr, 2003). Further research might usefully be done in identifying effective means to do this and so directly address the issues that arise in mobilizing knowledge.

Development of individual knowledge Permission for civil servants to blog and participate in forums and respond to blogs; construction of GCHQ building explicitly to encourage sharing of knowledge

Individual development of knowledge and being recognized as source to go to, while at the same time giving it to others; finding means to share knowledge across organizational boundaries

CONCLUSION Public value is driving many of the initiatives in the UK Government. This can be seen particularly when expressed as trust, outcomes, service quality and cost effectiveness, (Lusk, Roberts & Mackie, 2008; Kelly, Mulgan & Muers, 2002) which are all vital issues for UK society in relation to government. The financial constraint initiated by the collapse of the banking sector in 2007 has further driven the need to deliver public value, and this was one genesis for UK Government’s strategy (HM Government, 2009c). It sets out the development of delivering professionalism and efficiencies through joining up and sharing across government and engaging citizens in a new dialogue to reform public services and give them information on public service performance to enable them to do so. The cultural challenges and need to develop consensus through social construction on the issues identified in the chapter suggest that such an agenda might take some time and may have to survive several political changes in order to be driven through. There are examples

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of organizational innovation and we have identified them through the chapter. These should be considered experiments to see what further questions are raised and if sufficient numbers can be drawn into their use to make a real difference. In each area there are ethical issues that need to be made explicit as choices, so that a process of deliberation can be created in order to ascertain what will be acceptable and what will not in terms of mobilizing and sharing knowledge. This is true whether in terms of behaviour inside the public sector itself, in the citizen-state relationship and in what the state knows about individuals as persons. Nonaka’s SECI model has been much developed from the time when it was first published and alternatives proposed, nevertheless it has proved a useful structure for the initial identification and articulation of some core ethical issues.

DISCLAIMER The author works at the Central Office of Information, part of the UK Government, but writes in an individual capacity; nothing written here constitutes or should be taken to constitute UK Government policy, unless published as such in the documents referenced.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT With appreciation to the UK Government Head of Profession for Knowledge Management, Natalie Ceeney, and to Kevin McLean for discussions on key issues facing government in KM. However, all responsibility for the content is the author’s.

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Dunbar, R. (2007). Grooming, gossip, and the evolution of language (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dunlop, C. E. M., & Kling, R. (Eds.). (1991). Computerization and controversy: Value conflicts and social choices. Boston: Academic Press. Edwards, R. (2008). Crime maps to show offences for every street. Telegraph. Retrieved August 2, 2009, from www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/2466325/Crime-mapsto-show-offences-for-every-street.html Government, H. M. (2005). Transformational government: Enabled by technology. Cabinet Office. Retrieved August 7, 2009, from http://www. cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/141734/transgovstrategy.pdf Government, H. M. (2008a). Information matters: Building government’s capability in managing knowledge and information. National Archives. Retrieved July 31, 2009, from http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/informationmatters-strategy.pdf Government, H. M. (2008b). Data handling procedures in government: Final report. Cabinet Office. Retrieved August 1, 2009, from http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/65948/dhr080625.pdf Government, H. M. (2009a). The United Kingdom report on the re-use of public sector information 2009. Office of Public Sector Information. Retrieved August 5, 2009, from http://www.opsi. gov.uk/advice/psi-regulations/uk-report-reusepsi-2009.pdf Government, H. M. (2009b). How the civil service code applies to online participation. Civil Service. Retrieved August 7, 2009, from www.civilservice. gov.uk/about/work/codes/participation-online. aspx

Government, H. M. (2009c). Working together: Public services on your side. HM Government. Retrieved August 7, 2009, from http://www.hmg. gov.uk/media/15556/workingtogether.pdf Graham, G. (1992). The internet- A philosophical enquiry: The Gifford Lectures. London: SCM Press. Hovland, I. (2003). Knowledge management and organizational learning: An international development perspective. ODI Working Paper 224. Retrieved August 5, 2009, from http://www.odi. org.uk/resources/download/143.pdf Improvement and Development Agency. (2004). An introduction to knowledge management: Topic briefing. London: Improvement and Development Agency. Jones, R. (2003). Measuring the benefits of knowledge management at the financial services authority. Journal of Information Science, 29(6), 475–487. doi:10.1177/0165551503296005 Kaplan, R. (1999). The balanced scorecard for public-sector organizations. Harvard Business Review, (January/February): 3–4. Kelly, G., Mulgan, G., & Muers, S. (2002). Creating public value: An analytical framework for public service reform. Cabinet Office. Retrieved July 31, 2009, from http://www.cabinetoffice. gov.uk/media/cabinetoffice/strategy/assets/public_value2.pdf Laming, H. (2003). The victoria climbie inquiry report. House of Commons- Health Committee. Retrieved August 7, 2009, from http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/ cmhealth/570/570.pdf Liebowitz, J. (1999). Knowledge management handbook. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

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Lusk, S., Roberts, T., & Mackie, J. (2008). Strategy: What place in government. Summary of research findings. National School of Government. Retrieved July 31, 2009, from http:// virtual.nationalschool.gov.uk/StrategyExchange/ News/NSG%20strategy%20project%20-%20 research%20summary%20paper%20July%20 08.doc Mason, R. O., Mason, F. M., & Culnan, M. J. (1995). Ethics of information management. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. McElroy, M. H. (2000). Integrating complexity theory, knowledge management and organizational learning. Journal of Knowledge Management, 4(3), 195–203. doi:10.1108/13673270010377652 McNabb, D. E. (2006). Knowledge management in the public sector: A blueprint for innovation in Government. New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc. National Audit Office. (2009). Helping government learn. London: The Stationary Office. Newbury, D., Bently, L., & Pollock, R. (2008). Models of public sector information provision via trading funds. UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Retrieved August 1, 2009, from www.berr.gov.uk/files/file45136.pdf Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (1995). The knowledgecreating company: How Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation. New York: Oxford University Press. Offe, C. (1996). Modernity and the state: East, West. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Parker, S., & Gallagher, N. (Eds.). (2007). The collaborative state: How working together can transform public services. Cabinet Office. Retrieved August 1, 2009, from http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/cabinetoffice/strategy/assets/ collaborative_state_report.pdf

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Codification Strategy: A knowledge management strategy that focuses on making knowledge explicit, usually through an IT-based service. Connection Strategy: A knowledge management strategy that focuses on interactions and communications between people.


Contribution Justice: The perception of fairness and reciprocity in giving and receiving contributions, for example, knowledge. Data Release: Free communication of nonpersonal data for others to use and re-use. Data Sharing: Communication of data to third parties. Ethical Tension: The ongoing interplay between two goals about what is acceptable and not acceptable practice and behaviour.

Knowledge Mobilization: A preferred term to Knowledge management as it describes getting knowledge moving around and across organizations. Personal Data: Data specific to an individual. Public Value: The purpose of government activity, equivalent to the competitive advantage in commercial organizations. Social Construction: The idea that concepts and agreements are not delivered from outside a society but constructed through discourse within it.

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Chapter 15

Ethical Evaluation of Learning Organizations: A Conceptual Framework Gonçalo Jorge Morais Costa De Montfort University, UK

ABSTRACT A key assumption for recognizing knowledge society is the existence of learning organizations. As a result, literature has been fruitful in engaging a wide debate concerning its characteristics, dimensions, evolution, evaluation procedures, or ethical behaviour. Likewise, it is interesting to denote that research appears to pay little regard to the impacts of existing ethical and social dilemmas about knowledge creation, retention/use and sharing within organizational contexts. Therefore, the key purpose of this manuscript is to present a conceptual framework that denotes these dilemmas and their impacts in organizational strategy.For that, this contribution resumes an ongoing research project which intends to approach ethical and social dilemmas in learning organizations. Moreover, it suggests that these dilemmas impact on organizational strategy, as well as that existing evaluation models for learning organizations do not promote the ethical evaluation.

INTRODUCTION Complexity is probably the most significant distinctive feature of our civilization (Pinha e Cunha, Fonseca & Gonçalves, 2001). As technical and economic progresses allow production, transportation and communication to be further efficient, individuals interrelate with a growing number of other individuals, institutions, systems DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-873-9.ch015

and objects. Concurrently, while this network of connections develops and spreads around the world, the miscellaneous systems become reciprocally dependent. Accordingly, 21st management requirements compel a collaborative approach in order to capitalize dissimilar workers perceptions, instead of the traditional authoritarian, command and control philosophies. People are considered as a “natural” resource and an organizational asset to promote sustainable competitive advantage. Hence, the


Ethical Evaluation of Learning Organizations

novel managing orientation is also embracing innovation as a key element for success and competitiveness (Liyanage & Poon, 2002). This involves expanding the innovative potential of the organization by nurturing new ideas, harnessing people’s creativity and keenness, tapping the innovative potential of workers, and encouraging the dissemination of autonomy and entrepreneurship (Black & Porter, 2000). Nevertheless, new ideas (knowledge) creation, retention/use and sharing in organizations have simultaneously shaped crucial dilemmas for managers given their key role in promoting creativity and innovation inside an organization. Despite Roth & Kleiner (1998) argument that learning organizations have been recognized for decades, the truth is that knowledge society have strengthen several inner ethical and social dilemmas that impact organizational strategy. Thus, this manuscript suggests that these dilemmas, as well their impacts have been neglected as regards to evaluate learning organizations ethical behaviour.

DISCLOSURE INFORMATION Following The Free Dictionary (2010), disclosure is the act or process of revealing or uncovering, as well as to make a revelation. Given the overall argument of this chapter, is the author intention to shed some light as regards the concept of an ethical learning organization. For analytical purposes, refers to the recognition of the ethical and social dilemmas that resume knowledge creation, retention/use and sharing within organizational contexts (access to organizational knowledge, autonomy, dignity, privacy, intellectual property, faire compensation and trust). In spite of being a complex reality, because it depends on the moral values of each agent (Moraga, 2006) it is reasonable to claim that managers need to identify and develop idiosyncratic virtues strategically recognized by the society (Gowri, 2007). As a result, to promote an ethical learning organization is necessary that

managers recognize these existing dilemmas in order to minimize their organizational impacts.

LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS: “WHO”, “WHAT”, “HOW” AND “WHY”! Literature, at least main stream, is approaching managers’ latest responsibilities’ within organizations (“who”), “what” is a learning organization or even its dimensions (“how”). However, the “why” has been almost neglected which resumes a paradox, due to the importance of the ethical and social dilemmas that arise throughout the knowledge flow (Costa & Silva, 2007). So, the author argues that the “why” is the missing link!

Managers Responsibilities’ (“Who”) CEO character is an imperative because these enable organizational values, culture, and performance. The range of outcomes in a virtuous or vicious cycle may be a function of the length of time that an individual is a CEO, which can influence positively or negatively an organization, depending on its character (Gowri, 2007). As a result, the CEO is a key “building block” for setting up an ethical climate. In addition a numerical constraint occurs in this process, since few individuals generate at some extent organizational commitment. Furthermore, if an organization’s unique features are aligned with ethical values will permit to differentiate from other competitors, and thereby produce competitive advantage (Chun, 2005), being a truthfully positive organization (Verbos et al., 2007), as well as transparent one (Costa, Prior & Rogerson, 2008a). Although, to obtain an ethical corporate background is compulsory to verify the subsequent settings (Gilmartin, 2003): managers ought to “embrace the right tone”; formal guidance in ethics and standards of conduct is an organizational imperative; and, the organization should

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grant formal instruments, internal and external, in order to permit reporting any misconduct.

Concept (“What”) What is the meaning of learning organization? Some writers highlight the learning of all organizational members (Johnson, 2002; Pedler, Burgoyne & Boydell, 1996), whereas others focus on organizational competitiveness (Cavaleri, 2008; Moilanen, 2005; Dealtry, 2002; Slater & Narver, 1995), or even abilities and business purposes (Dusko et al., 2006; Gilley & Maybunich, 2000; Lessem, 1990). At last, a number of authors like Senge (1996) adopt a broader approach, including all the preceding perspectives. Therefore, since the expression “learning organization” was referred by Senge et al. (1994), explanations have prospered in management literature (Sankar, 2003; Loermans, 2002). Yet, literature seems to reveal a lack of accuracy about the concept itself. Ortenbald (2002) denotes that merely a few authors, as for example Argyris (1999), have attempted to produce groups of learning organizations. According to Ortenblad (2002), a learning organization can be recognized throughout four ontological dimensions: cultural values, leaders, communication, and workers.

Dimensions (“How”) Researchers and practitioners advocate that permanent learning is crucial to obtain novel skills allowing companies to achieve ever-changing client demands (Barkur, Varambally & Rodrigues, 2007; Addleson, 2000). With constant education and training, assigning resources is vital because the talent to learn is insufficient. An organization must also highlight its ongoing improvement procedure, and engaging a learning culture exhibits a substantial amount of features. Initially, the organization ought to clearly set its lifelong learning practices, from incessant learning and education to fostering and assisting workers learning (Yeo,

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2005; Leitch et al., 1996). Secondly, is necessary to maintain a learning environment, which is verified by free will in order to generate stuff and fail, and failure does not entail any organizational sanction (Bratton, 2001; Ahmed, Loh & Zairi, 1999). Thirdly, typically learning organizations do not encompass boundaries, in which members aspire to learn and are compelled to share knowledge (DiBella, 2001; Abernathy, 1999). Finally, permanent innovation is an idiosyncratic element of a learning organization (Cavaleri, 2004; Waldersee, 1997). Leaders embrace key roles given their importance for organizational change (Senge, 1996), however enhance workers’ ability to learn. Therefore, leadership commitment and empowerment should be recommended. Learning organizations managers have the duty to communicate organizational mission and goals to everyone within the company. Moreover, a communication network among organizational members requires being successful and proficient (Ortenblad, 2002; West III & Meyer 1997), because upward or downward communication allows knowledge creation and sharing within an organizational context (Nesan & Holt, 2002). Additionally, communication is the link amid workers’ behaviour and organizational performance. In fact, an easy assumption can be illustrated: if more knowledge is communicated, the more it grows (Sunoo, 1999). For this reason, knowledge transfer is a significant characteristic of learning organizations, given that if more interactions involving individuals are encouraged, the higher level of knowledge transfer is achieved (Ortenblad, 2004; Bresman, Birkinshaw & Nobel, 1999); nevertheless knowledge growth is a non linear process due to some ethical and moral dilemmas (Costa & Silva, 2007). Last but not least, some authors enquire about learning organizations values. For Otala (1995, pp. 163) a learning organization is like a living organism, consisting of empowered, motivated employees, living in a clearly perceived


symbiosis, sharing the feeling of a common destiny and profit, striving towards jointly defined goals, anxious to use every opportunity to learn from situations, processes and competition in order to adapt harmoniously to the changes in their environment and to improve continuously their own and their company’s competitive performance? It is an ambition frequently viewed cynically by people who do not consider this rhetoric (Garrat, 1999)? Does it suggest to individuals’ liberation and empowerment to capitalize their full potential as inventive, intelligent workers (Dymock & McCarthy, 2006; Fenwick, 1995)? Or, it is a tool that can be changed into a “weapon” by managers in a competitive world (Grieves, 2008; Pandey & Gupta, 2008)?

Ethical and Social Challenges (“Why”) In order to approach the potential ethical and social dilemmas within learning organizations, it is crucial to embrace the unlike insights with reference to the knowledge creation, retention, and sharing. Following O’Neill & Adya (2007), workers have a moral duty not only to be productive (particularly regarding knowledge creation), as well as to share knowledge that benefits organizational body of knowledge. Nonetheless, tacit knowledge should be debarred from manageable knowledge within organizational contexts (KPMG, 2002). This is consistent with KPMG (2002) definition of intellectual property: not just patents, trademarks, copyrights, database rights and other pure intellectual property, or even other types of codified knowledge like business processes, methodologies and know how. Despite this argument, it is important to clarify the reasons that promote this claim: organizational knowledge versus individual knowledge rights entails a trade-off between privacy, property rights (du Plessis, Britz & Davel (2007), and job security (Costa, Prior & Rogerson, 2008b). Thus,

opinions that allege that personal knowledge is effortlessly managed, because it can be “more readily bought and sold” by hiring and firing individuals (Teece, 2000) is a social dilemma that requires an urgent answer. In fact, Ryan (2002) refers that is a personal social right to have right to security and safety. Companies have a moral accountability to build a knowledge environment where workers can be productive, and engage a chance to generate, share and learn with other organizational members (Costa, Prior & Rogerson, 2008b); although, have the right of reasonably defend their economic moral interests (Blyth, 2005), without violating individual rights like autonomy, dignity, privacy (Baskerville & Dulipovici, 2006). On the other hand, a core query arises: how to sponsor ethical knowledge sharing environments? This paradox replicate two possible trade-offs: holding personal tacit knowledge for individual output versus sharing for organizational output (Trauth, 1999); and, personal effort versus benefit (Ford & Staples, 2005). Finally, knowledge creators have the right to be fairly compensated for their work (Blyth, 2005), and typically employment contracts do not define in a proper and explicit way intellectual property rights and how these are compensated. Even so, as Davenport & Prusak (1998) recommend is necessary to combine monetary and non-monetary instruments. In conclusion, Wilson (2002) declares that a truly knowledge environment is a utopian assumption, which at some extent is illustrated by ethics and self-interest act like counter-determinants for knowledge sharing (Wang, 2004). Thus, the ethics of knowledge transfers and conversions become extremely important due to the individual losing sole rights to knowledge (Baskerville & Dulipovici, 2006). Besides, it is intricate to detach divergent motivations versus the kind of social relations (Manski, 2000), since individual conduct is determined by various motives which may vary in similar contexts (Mooradian, Renzl & Matzler

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2006). The identification of pre-conditions for successful cooperation engages a major challenge, as well as the role of trust to support knowledge sharing (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002; Ostrom, 2000).

THE CLICHÉ OF EVALUATING The expression “cliché” aims to resume the stereotype that is possible to measure, manage and evaluate everything. In fact, prior literature focuses on evaluating the subsequent characteristics of learning organizations: economic performance (e.g. Westover, 2006); organizational knowledge project (e.g. Ali & Ahmad, 2006; Collison & Parcell, 2001); auditing organizational knowledge flows (e.g. Bontis, Fearon & Hishon, 2003); organizational and individual learning (e.g. Sun & Scott, 2003; Simons, 1995). Hence, an ethical evaluation has been neglected! Although, is the author belief that is logical to portray the concept “evaluation” and its dimensions in order to promote a substantial argument.

Evaluation: An Overview The traditional perception outlooks evaluation as a method that basically commences when capacitybuilding has happened, and overlooks historical data in order to guarantee that organizational demands about evaluation are being meet (Armitage et al., 2003). The evaluation procedure must capitulate significant information permitting an incessant upgrading process, and for that needs to embrace the following topics: • •

•

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what is the organizational strategy and how does it assist in meeting its objectives?; what is the position of capacity-building in the overall structure and function of the organizational strategy?; how does capacity-building support the organization’s strategy and its objectives?;

•

•

what data does the organization need about the effectiveness of its capacity-building programmes?; how will this data be applied?

As a final remark, it is feasible to claim that transparency is crucial and the responses to these questions will act as guidance for the measurement procedure. If transparency do not occur, its results will not be relevant for the organization, because evaluation main purpose is to warrant organizational improvement and consequently organizational competitiveness (Armitage et al., 2003).

Economic Performance Westover (2006) work enables the following conclusion: none of the features that describe a learning organization affects its economical performance, which is consistent with the theoretical assumption of Kontoghiorghes, Awbre & Feurig (2005). For that, Westover (2006) firstly applied the learning organization assessment matrix of Kline & Saunders (1993) to determine if the organizations were learning organizations. Afterwards these results were gathered in ten primary categories, and finally constructed a table to exhibit the information about sector, size, ownership, share value or net profit and the average scores for each category. Finally, each individual score was graphed against share value and net profit in order to recognize the influence or not of each characteristic.

Organizational Knowledge Project The Ali & Ahmad (2006) framework advocates that environmental forces and organizational resources are geographically disseminated; and an active response to the environmental forces imply a knowledge management project. Throughout a mix of human resources, ICT, information and


energy is facilitated goods and services production. For that reason, the authors acknowledge three major components with reference to knowledge progress: creation, retention, and sharing. Furthermore, management literature pleads that decision making involves uncertainty and incomplete information, reinforcing the need for novel approaches. Time pressure demands that companies exploit historical data; hitherto, this approach indulges serious limitations as demonstrated by the current economic crisis. Therefore, it is important to embrace a refined level of know-how, know-what, know-who, know-where and know-why. The knowledge management model has created about 700 virtual communities around the world including in public and private domains (Collison & Parcell, 2001). Collison & Parcell (2001) refer that during its implementation a myriad of processes require managers’ attention: integration process, cultural barriers, and best practices. In fact, acquisitions and mergers are keen examples of cultural conflicts within organizational contexts which require a pro-active attitude by managers. Likewise best practices resume a critical praxis for managers in diverse organizational scenarios, because it promotes a culture of improvement and continuous learning without ignoring business ethics practices.

Organizational Knowledge Flows Bontis, Fearon & Hishon (2003) in their work The e-flow audit: An evaluation of knowledge flow within and outside a high-tech firm, have evaluated through an auditing process the knowledge flow through e-mail. For that, the authors considered: 1. 2. 3. 4.

the e-mail flow inside and outside the company; the flow map through a combined organizational chart; how workers utilize the e-mail; e-mail correspondents and senders;

5.

which factors affect its usage.

The methodology is quite simple: an amount of internal and external e-mails is chosen and the following step is to categorize them by senders (individuals and departments), as well as the correspondents (individuals and departments). Additionally, the subject was analysed in order to understand if acknowledges the expected flow within the organizational context. Afterwards, a questionnaire provides information regarding the factors that affect its usage, as well as the motives about the correspondents’ choice.

Individual and Organizational Learning The theoretical model of Sun & Scott (2003) resumes an attempt to link individual and organizational learning. Despite individuals perform as prime learning agents (Huber, 1991; Argyris & Schön, 1978); their learning process is far from independent. In fact, Brodbeck & Greitemeyer (2000) demonstrate that when individuals act as a communal agent have a more steady and productive form of learning. Nonetheless, the nature of learning is related to the existing barriers, anxieties, and results in either single or double-loop learning, which acknowledges the quandary of learning transfer throughout the organization. In addition, the transfer itself hinders some disabling factors that require to be minimized. Sun & Scott (2003) still argue that single and loop-learning is the sphere of influence of learning theorists, while learning transfer is the field of learning organization practitioners. So, the extent of learning transfer, across its dissimilar stages, determines the gap amid both streams. This clearly highlights that learning barriers constantly enhance the gap as regards to descriptive and prescriptive organizational learning. Simons (1995) examines the existing levels of learning: individual ability; groups’ ability; and,

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organizational ability. All these levels configure objectives, actions, measuring, and feedback/ rewards. Objectives configuration entails the common influence of the external and internal environment, leading to an analysis of their sources: environment; individuals; groups; and management. What literature refers is that idealistic all these sources should engage a similar way, as well as individual objectives will be a component of group and organization learning throughout a mix of autonomy and freedom. Moreover, individual influence over group and organizational objectives reveals a blend among strict and broad boundaries, which allows maximizing autonomy within these limits.

RESEARCH PROTOCOL Traditionally the main purpose is to portray a clear and a complete description concerning aims, objectives, methodological assumptions and data collection methods. In spite of this statement, the author will simply shed some light upon the aims and methodological assumptions. The motives are simple: data collection methods will be explained in section empirical procedures due to their importance, as well as to promote a more indulgent argument; in addition, it is vital to integrate the research project methodological assumptions and empirical procedures with analogous studies in order to consent a plausible and effective explanation.

Aims The ongoing research project aims to debate the ethical and social dilemmas in learning organizations, as well as their overall impact in organizational strategy. For that, the analysis embraces three distinctive dimensions: knowledge management, organizational culture and ethics.

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Methodology Assumptions Miles & Huberman (1994) refer that descriptive research aims to make complex issues logical by reducing them to their elements; or, when the researcher is not totally aware of the circumstances, despite acknowledging the research problem (Zikmund & Zikmund, 2000). On the other hand, explanatory research aims to illustrate certain phenomena from unlike perceptions (Yin, 1994), which resumes the research problem. In order to permit subjective and inquiring results a mix of interpretative and critical theory is consistent with look for meaning in context. Therefore, Klein & Myers (1999) argue that to recognize how a reality emerged is vital to analyse the social and historical context, despite the output be discussable (Sandberg, 2005). Likewise, the observation of social reality is an imperative of critical research as documented in several narratives of critical research (Hirschheim & Klein, 1994). Moving forward, a blend of a case study approach and grounded theory will generate reasonable outcomes. Hence, the author considers that an embedded multiple-case study (Yin, 1994), as well as Myers (1997) procedures as regards to case study method will assure a positive answer to the underlying research option. Plus, grounded theory enables a theoretical framework through data rather prior studies, as well as permits modify data collection through continuous penetrating questions (Glaser & Strauss, 1967).

Design Justification As a consequence of being a recent discipline knowledge management studies do not engage a conceptual consensus, and this scenario is even enhanced due to an insignificant number of empirical research about its ethical dilemmas. Thus, the limitations of a positivist approach and


the researcher’s pre-understanding allow recognizing the validity of an interpretative approach (e.g. Senges, 2007), leading to a descriptive and explanatory analysis for organizational knowledge processes. Regardless the existence of other theoretical contributions (e.g. Seppanen, 2008; Bajracharya & Masdeu, 2006), a novel one is required to promote an effective and realistic response to the underlying assumptions. So, to interpret managers’ and workers’ behaviours and decision making is essential through subjectivity and inquiring results (e.g. Senges, 2007). Additionally, two case studies and one pilot study will let a feasible comparison of organizational environments (e.g. Greig, 2008), and the emerging theory will disclose the complexity of human interactions throughout a permanent feedback process pertaining to the empirical results (e.g. Douglas, 2006; Fuchs & Hanning, 2001).

EMPIRICAL PROCEDURES Data collection methods acknowledge five semistructured interviews to organizational key managers, and web questionnaires comprising multiple choice and ask for agreement queries for workers. Semi-structured interviews promote a way to obtain the informants beliefs and opinions through a verbal exchange (Burns, 2000), and according to Macionis & Plummer (1998) these questionnaires are typically filled in by the respondents. Although, due to interviews or questionnaires multiple perils and the sensitive nature of the research project is advisable to conduct pre-tests and pilot studies (Yin, 1994). Besides, for justifying data collection methods the author refers as examples the work of Squier (2003) and Kull (2002), who have reported semistructured interviews as a way to be aware of managers’ insights about organizational culture, and their decision-making process. This argument is still reinforced with Hariparsard (2005)

multiple choice questionnaires for observing workers’ awareness concerning organizational culture. As a final remark, analogous cases can be pointed for fine-tune the interview protocol or questionnaires in order to recognize managers’ and workers’ behaviours and values (Waldstrøm, 2003; Kull, 2002).

Pre-Tests Diagnosis Pre-tests (simply questionnaires) have occurred throughout February 2009, and acknowledged various sampling constraints: •

•

sample size: 50 individuals from dissimilar professional and educational environments. Plus, to promote a high level of reliability it was determined the following weights for each focus group (top management: 30%; middle management: 30%; operational management: 40%); professional background: at least five years of professional experience, and working in learning organizations were also considered.

In order to proceed with the pre-tests some design procedures were required: •

•

sections: the questionnaires were divided in three sections (participant profiling, knowledge management and organizational culture). Participant profiling aimed to highlight respondents’ characteristics, and the remaining sections to identify the ethical and social dilemmas because ethics is an unifying and transversal element; feedback process: a box for comments and suggestions was introduced for each query in order to obtain feedback about the question content, generated feelings (comfortable or uncomfortable), and if respondents answers were honest and sincere.

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So, the next step is to report the existing questions, its category, as well as its aim of analysis (Table 1). In order to understand the systematic procedures about pre-tests conclusions, it is vital to illustrate three milestones: •

•

•

comments and suggestions content analysis: reported respondents remarks, as well as the grounded theory procedures that allowed to gather and categorize them; answers content analysis: underlined a qualitative scrutiny for all questions, despite each query category had a dissimilar combination of methods. Multiple choice queries were revised using a numerical analysis to all results, as well as for each group analysis (top managers, middle managers and workers); on the other hand, the ask for agreement questions were authenticated through a blend of grounded theory and hermeneutics; framework versus results: described the interaction involving pre-tests results and the theoretical framework.

After the pre-tests results analysis, four leading conclusions were asserted: •

•

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sampling constraints: sampling size and professional background were both achieved, in spite of a minor detail (two respondents had less than two years of professional experience). This was considered irrelevant due to sample features as well as pre-tests do not act as modus operandi for a research protocol; commentaries and suggestions content analysis: the queries revealed a high level of consistency, which was demonstrated by insignificant amendments in questions 2, 5 (instigated two dissimilar questions), 6, 8, 10 and 15 (observe Table 2);

•

•

answers content analysis: the results indicated that the ethical and social challenges referred are factual, and managers tend to recurrently ignored them (Costa, Prior & Rogerson, 2010a); framework versus outcomes: justified the need for a novel approach, as well as the outlined framework (observe section “a proposal”) engaged an encouraging reply.

Pilot Studies Diagnosis After accomplishing the pre-tests, during June 2009 a series of pilot studies (questionnaires and interviews) were conducted within a learning organization in Portugal; nevertheless, at this point is decisive to emphasize the systematic procedures of both data collection methods. In order to guarantee a feasible and consistent research, the author has produced similar sampling constraints for the questionnaires: •

•

sample size: 25 per cent of the population within the learning organization, representing each focus group the following weights: top management (30%), middle management (30%), and workers (40%); professional background: at least five years of professional practice within the pilot study organization.

Nonetheless, an important detail concerning pilot questionnaires design was the absence of a box for comments and suggestions in order to emphasize the results of pre-tests, and to confirm the queries reliability. Beyond these assumptions, the author acknowledged two interviews outside the learning organization prior to dialogue with the learning organization Human Resources Manager (HRM). Once again, these procedures validate the research protocol namely through recognizing potential differences among interviews in learning and non-learning organizations.


Table 1. Pre-tests questionnaire Nr.

Question

Category

Aim of analysis

1

Organizational position: top manager, middle manager or worker?

MC

To understand which organizational perception is being covered

2

What you value most? (order from 1 to 3 your options)

MC

To perceive individual behaviour of managers and workers

3

How you mainly define your organizational role?

MC

To recognize the level of influence of managers and workers inside organizational culture

4

Do you consider that workers may express themselves and have free access concerning the organizational body of knowledge?

MC

To identify possible ethical dilemmas concerning organizational knowledge processes

5

Do you consider that worker’s autonomy, dignity and privacy are recognized into the organizational body of knowledge?

MC

To identify ethical dilemmas concerning personal knowledge management

6

Do you consider that your personal experience is organizational intellectual property?

MC

To understand ethical dilemmas concerning personal knowledge management

7

Do you consider that knowledge creation, management and sharing into the organizational environment are fairly rewarded?

MC

A not faire compensation may undermine cooperation, therefore knowledge sharing can be seriously affected

8

Do you consider that workers who do not proceed to knowledge creation, management and sharing are fairly sanctioned?

MC

To perceive the relationship between behaviour and knowledge sharing

9

State what is meant to be a fair compensation or a fair sanction regarding knowledge creation, management and sharing in an organizational environment?

AfA

Allows the perception of possible contradictory answers regarding the two previous questions

10

In your opinion, does the organizational code of ethics or conduct clearly demonstrate the possible dilemmas concerning the process of knowledge creation, management and sharing, particularly at an individual level?

AfA

Allows a personal perception concerning existing organizational codes

11

Do you consider that employees feel that exists a culture of trust in the organizational environment?

MC

To comprehend the level of confidence concerning organizational culture is a key issue

12

Do you consider that a culture of trust is vital to allow knowledge creation, management and sharing into the organizational environment?

MC

Given the learning organization dimensions it is vital to realize this relationship

13

Do you consider that top management and workers feel confident in their mutually organizational relationship?

MC

To be aware of possible tensions concerning managers and workers

14

Do you consider that organizational values represent a culture of trust in the organizational environment?

MC

To grasp how organizational codes generate trust

15

In your opinion, in which ways can a culture of trust be promoted in the organizational environment? And, how could you individually generate trust in the organizational environment?

AfA

To understand how each focus group values trust

16

Refer if you consider that ethical decisions may change according to the role and the context of knowledge creation, management and sharing. And, in which way such decisions affect organizational trust?

AfA

A key question to understand individual decision making, as well as ethical intensity

17

In your opinion, does the organizational code of ethics or conduct allow a transparent relationship regarding all the stakeholders?

AfA

To realize how the framework responds

18

Practical examples (for managers only)

MC and AfA

Two practical examples in order to allow managers present and justify their personal beliefs

MC: multiple choice queries; AfA: ask for agreement queries.

259


Table 2. Pre-tests revised queries Nr

Question

Category

Aim of analysis

2

What you value most? (order from 1 to 3 your options, being 1 the most important. In case of evaluating the criteria in the same way choose that option)

MC

To perceive individual behaviour of managers and workers

5

Do you consider that worker’s autonomy, dignity are recognized into the organizational body of knowledge?

MC


6

Do you consider that worker’s privacy is recognized into the organizational body of knowledge?

MC


7

Do you consider that your personal experience lived within the organization is organizational intellectual property?

MC

To understand ethical dilemmas concerning personal knowledge management

9

Do you consider that workers who do not proceed to knowledge creation, management and sharing are sanctioned?

MC

To perceive the relationship between behaviour and knowledge sharing

11

In your opinion, does the organizational code of ethics or conduct (written or tacit) clearly demonstrate the possible dilemmas concerning the process of knowledge creation, management and sharing, particularly at an individual level?

AfA

Allows a personal perception concerning existing organizational codes

16

In your opinion, in which ways can a culture of trust be promoted in the organizational environment? What measures you individually take to generate trust in the organizational environment?

AfA

To understand how each focus group values trust

As a result, the underlying analytical procedures resumed the following remarks: •

•

answers content analysis: a qualitative enquire was performed, in spite of multiple choice embrace a generic and group numerical analysis and a mix of grounded theory with hermeneutics for ask for agreement queries; framework versus results: similar results were reported.

Given the overall arguments, it is mandatory to report the pilot studies results: •

•

260

sampling conditions: sample size and constraints intentions were reached, since the learning organization population was roughly 100 employees, being produced 28 questionnaires from which 25 were considered valid; answers content analysis: revealed queries reliability and corroborated the existence of ethical and social dilemmas, as well as

•

an analogous awareness as regards to managers’ (Costa, Prior & Rogerson, 2010b); framework versus results: similar conclusions were obtained.

“LIGHT REFRACTION” “Light Refraction”: An Understatement According to the Wikipedia (2010a) “refraction is the change in direction of a wave due to a change in its speed”, so dissimilar optical materials resume different refraction angles and levels of dispersion (refraction index). Likewise is reasonable to suggest multiple refraction (multidisciplinary analysis), as well the refraction index (each research discipline contribution) to describe the conceptual proposal.

Conceptual Tools The theoretical contribution exploits instruments of four research fields: business strategy, mainte-


nance management, e-learning, and ethics. It might appear complex and reckless to merge these four disciplines; nonetheless, the intricacy of an ethical evaluation justifies a multidisciplinary approach.

Business Strategy According to Thompson & Strickland (2003), organizational strategy is a management game plan to reinforce the organization’s competitive position, please customers, and achieve performance goals because through flexibility and adaptability. The conceptual tool that this discipline provides is the SWOT analysis, which aims to audit the organizational internal and external environment to determine its competitiveness and survival chances. Following Freire (2008) strengths and weaknesses are internal factors, and opportunities and threats are external factors. Given the nature of this manuscript the ethical and social dilemmas mainly influence organizational strengths and weaknesses.

Maintenance Management Maintenance management acknowledges the industrial function or other that unites management, technical and economic activities, in order to optimize any organizational good life cycle (Campbell & Jardine, 2001), with the intention to achieve high levels of availability. In this case, under debate will be the Permanent Internal Auditing Process (PIAP), which is a diagnosis process supported by a sequence of questionnaires, with three analytical stages: data collection; information analysis; and to set up an improvement action plan when a quandary is recognized (Marimba & Farinha, 2003). Each question introduces four possible answers pertaining to the organizational context: “always” (if always occur); “not always” (sometimes is not verified); “hardly ever” (occasionally takes place); and “never” (never happens within the organization). As a result, the questionnaire entails

two components: answers about the performed enquiries; and, assess the obtained outcomes. In addition, to every potential reply is specified a scale of importance, representing three colours: green, yellow, and red. These retorts act as elimination criteria: green is the suitable answer (desirable answer); yellow implies an extraordinary reply (its existence must be squat, entailing an urgent upgrading); and finally, red designates a critical answer (under no circumstances should occur within the organization). As a final remark, the author denotes that throughout PIAP will be possible to continuously monitor, diagnosis and improve action plans to minimize the ethical and social dilemmas that arise in knowledge creation, retention/use and sharing.

E-Learning E-learning can be considered as the use of new multimedia technologies and the web, to develop learning throughout access to resources and services, as well as remote exchanges and cooperation (Commission of the European Communities, 2001). Or, basically is nothing more than the exploitation of electronic tools and technologies to support lecturing and learning. In addition, when compared to organizational knowledge management e-learning entails analogous ethical and social dilemmas, as for instance: intellectual property, privacy, autonomy, among others. Therefore, to explore the e-teaching model of Stahl (2002) is reasonable. Stahl’s (2002) theoretical matrix connects three analytical levels: ethical impact awareness, subject involved, and whether it is a hypothetical or practical problem. The insights concerning ethical impact exhibit the distinction between descriptive, normative and meta-theory philosophy. The next dimension represents the evolution of acting in a moral sense, because traditionally ethical theories symbolize an individual feature. Despite this argument, contemporary society has been replacing individual by collective agents

261


(meso-level). This level causes numerous issues since the agent status is blurry; even so, its decisions encompass moral rights and duties. Apart from the previous levels state or society is also a moral subject (macro-level), given its influence over ethical issues. Moreover, the author believes that is not required to detail the divergences amid theoretical and practical ethical problems. In conclusion, this contribution will allow to recognize the awareness, subject involved, and if the ethical issue is theoretical or practical.

Ethics As a field of academic inquiry, ethics aims to differentiate among good or evil in more or less abstract terms, despite the lack of consensus regarding the concept itself (Pojman, 1994). However, since the mid 1990s a rising number of scholars and practitioners from diverse research fields considered as vital the introduction of ethics into their disciplines. Thus, this manuscript will focus two business ethics instruments: codes of ethics and codes of conduct, regardless Kaptein & Schwartz (2008) critics. These authors acknowledge the concept of “business codes” as a sum up of both codes, although codes of conduct act as an instrumental component of an organizational code of ethics. This argument resumes the non-unitary perspective of ethics, in which ethics embraces the “common good” and moral regulates our actions (Stahl, 2002). It is broadly recognized that codes of conduct or behaviour attempt to predict and avoid certain particular behavioural patterns like conflicts of interest, self-dealing, bribery, and inappropriate actions. To Schneider & Baroux (2002), these refer principles and rules of conduct about individual’s responsibility within organizational environments. These authors still argue that in spite their changes overtime (biological comparison), occasionally is valuable to reflect upon historical standards in order to identify related behavioural issues, bearing in mind the impacts of technological and

262

social constraints. For that, the author does not agree that is possible to locate codes of conduct amid codes of ethics and of practice as Donald Gotterbarn (2000) refers, because codes of ethics are also used to express individual and collective purposes. Examples of collective purposes are easily demonstrated throughout history, as well as their antagonism with reference to law (Bynum & Rogerson, 2003). Ethical codes rarely provide meticulous or precise prohibitions; instead, they refer a broader set of attitudes which endeavours to inform individuals pertaining to their behaviours (Gilman, 2005). Or, according to Pater & Van Gils (2003) ethical codes can be described as written, official and formal manuscripts which act as guide for employees and corporate behaviour. Nevertheless, in order to produce a fruitful debate surrounding codes of ethics is necessary to comprehend their efficiency. For authors like Seib & Fitzpatrick (2006), McNamara (2005), and Bivins (1993) an effective code of ethics must demonstrate to stakeholders that violators will be punished. Simultaneously, it must promote cooperation by working with offenders as a replacement for instant punishing (Ayers & Braithwaite, 1992). Despite the impeccable logic of these theoretical contributions, Fairweather (2003) expresses a complex quandary: what constitutes an incomplete ethical code? And what constitutes a complete ethical code? The answer to the first question is acknowledged above. The second question leads to a further query: does the author of any ethical code or any other writing moral obligation foresee (mis)interpretations of this code? Hence, the option is to cover as many circumstances and issues as possible or not? The truth is simple: it is impossible for an author to determine the “completion” of a code of ethics or to foresee all probable behaviours. In spite of this claim, through the analysis of the organizational codes of ethics and conduct it will be possible to recognize the ethical practices and values, as well as how these


Figure 1. Theoretical framework, part

influence managers perception regarding the ethical and social quandaries.

A Proposal As previously explained PIAP is a diagnosis method based on a sequence of enquiries, with three analytical stages: data collection; information analysis; and to elaborate an improvement action plan every time a dilemma is acknowledged. Accordingly, PIAP will continuously interact (feedback process) with the organizational code of ethics, organizational code of conduct, and also with the organizational knowledge management project. Besides, the questionnaire outcomes (by colours) will be reflected in Stahl’s (2002) matrix, indicating an “intermediate status” on the topic of organizational ethical and moral behaviours, as Figure 1 exhibits. The idea of “intermediate status” intends to express an incomplete analysis (stage 1), since organizational survival depends on how the mar-

ket (society) comprehends these internal and external behaviours, leading to the “final status” (stage 2, which Figure 2 illustrates). For that reason, the SWOT analysis will evaluate the organization’s ethical positioning despite potential critics (e.g. Deephouse & Carter, 2005). Nevertheless, in order to produce a reliable argument is vital to detail the interaction among the PIAP, Stahl’s (2002) matrix and the SWOT analysis (Tables 3 and 4). Table 3 displays the virtual weighting of every impact within the SWOT analysis, considering the probable scenarios of Stahl’s (2002) matrix. The lowest value is 0% and the highest value is 100%, which for some readers may contradict the research design criteria (a qualitative analysis). Although, the author argues that such criticism is groundless due to the importance of the following reminders: •

SWOT analysis: the SWOT itself considers unlike impacts for each criteria within

263


Figure 2. Theoretical framework, part 2

the different layers: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. These impacts reflect a combination of a relative and absolute scales, and are a pre-condition of constructing a SWOT analysis. Even so, the “value” given by individuals depends on their personal experiences, judgment and sensitivity; PIAP analysis: a pre-condition for constructing the PIAP framework is that the probable responses to the enquiries (“always”, “not always”, “hardly ever”, and “never”), are transformed into a colour scale according to their historical data: “al-

•

•

ways” and “not always” (green); “hardly ever” (yellow); and “never” (red); descriptive research: resumes the author “blurry” perception about the organizational impacts for both analysis. This is consistent with the fact of the researcher is not entirely conscious of the situation (descriptive research).

Likewise, to avoid further negative comments the author introduces a novel table as regards to the organizational impact, by converting the numerical values into colour scales due to PIAP (read after Table 4 the empirical argument). Furthermore, in

Table 3. PIAP, Stahl’s (2002) matrix, and the SWOT analysis interface (act 1) Subject Involved

Meta-theory Ethical Impact

Normative Descriptive

264

Micro

Meso

Macro

5

10

15

Theory

20

25

30

Practice

70

75

65

Theory

85

90

80

Practice

45

40

35

Theory

60

55

50

Practice

Category


Table 4. PIAP, Stahl’s (2002) matrix, and the SWOT analysis interface (act 2) Subject Involved

Meta-theory Ethical Impact

Normative Descriptive

Micro

Meso

Macro

Green

Green

Green

Theory

Green

Green

Green

Practice

Yellow

Yellow

Yellow

Theory

Red

Red

Red

Practice

Yellow

Yellow

Yellow

Theory

Red

Red

Red

Practice

section rigor and liability the author will proclaim and validate these procedures through research methods literature. The conversion procedure reflects the absence of historical data, because the empirical results analysis undeniably reveal that top managers have been ignoring the reported ethical and social dilemmas (for further details see Costa, Prior & Rogerson, 2010a; Costa, Prior & Rogerson, 2010b). As a consequence, the following combinations arise: •

•

•

•

• •

•

meta-theory/micro-level/theoreticalgreen, since it discusses theoretical issues an individual level, so no impact is verified; meta-theory/meso-level/theoreticalgreen, due to similar reasons in spite of being at a meso-level; meta-theory/macro-level/theoreticalgreen, because societal theoretical debates have no impact into the organization; meta-theory/micro-level/practical- green, in spite of analyzing practical issues because it is simply a theoretical subject; meta-theory/meso-level/practical- green, by analogy although at a meso-level; meta-theory/macro-level/practical- green, since macro issues have a inexistent impact within organizational context; normative/micro-level/theoreticalyellow, because normative ethics attempts to sub-

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

Category

stantiate individual moral issues, as well as theoretical scenarios have a lower impact; normative/meso-level/theoreticalyellow, by equivalence in spite of a dissimilar ethical actor; normative/macro-level/theoreticalyellow, for the reason that societal moral issues have some impact into organizational strategies; normative/micro-level/practical- red, because it becomes a practical issue meaning higher impact; normative/meso-level/practical- red, due to analogous reasons although at a divergent level; normative/macro-level/practical- red, assuming the impact into organizational strategies; descriptive/micro-level/theoreticalyellow, regardless theoretical dilemmas promote lower impacts within organizational contexts. Moreover, descriptive ethics engages ethical practices and that is what justifies this colour; descriptive/meso-level/theoreticalyellow, due to comparable state of affairs although concerning meso-level; descriptive/macro-level/theoreticalyellow, because societal ethical and social practices have a gigantic impact in business strategy;

265


•

•

•

descriptive/micro-level/practical- red, for assuming practical issues and individual’s ethical behaviour; descriptive/meso-level/practical- red, in order to be consistent with the previous arguments concerning the relationship between micro and meso-level; descriptive/macro-level/practical- red, as a consequence regarding organizational strategy.

Is the author belief that these answers may be changed as a consequence of organizational dynamics (historical data interpretation), as for instance the next example highlights: if top management is having a conjectural debate pertaining to intellectual property rights throughout the use of its social network, the colour will be green (first interaction); however, if the dilemma becomes practical within the organizational context the colour is yellow (a non-regular issue that requires an intervention) (historical data because resumes a second interaction), or will become red if its level of frequency enhances tremendously (future interactions). Finally, this novel insight with reference to ethical and social dilemmas impacts promise to capture the richness of results that empirical data will produce.

“Shedding Extra Light”: A Practical Example This subsection aims to highlight two practical cases (similar to the existing ones in pre-tests

and pilot studies), in order to display how the framework interacts. A critical assumption will be considered: the organizational code of conduct consents workers to explore the IT resources apart from their standard tasks: is legitimate to have private folders, receive personal e-mails, and utilise the social network for social or collaborative reasons. Despite these privileges, the code informs that is an organizational right to monitor employee’s productivity throughout remote control systems. The initial example is theoretical: managers are trying to classify potential content violation with reference to workers’ personal folders or e-mails. This quandary is theoretical because it has no historical background within the organization, and a non-replication constraint is included. The second example can be labelled as practical: managers obtain an idea for an innovative product through the monitoring process of the social network, namely using a conversation amid two workers. The idea was non-work related, and non-related to the organizational core business or future strategies. In spite of these characteristics, this product became a worldwide market leader. So, in order to achieve a clear and productive explanation concerning how the framework will interact the author introduces Table 5. If the reader bears in mind the relative weights typified in table 4, the outcome for each example into the SWOT analysis will be similar to Figure 3 and Figure 4.

Table 5. Practical examples analysis Case

Ethical and social dilemmas

Stage 1 (PIAP)

Stage 2 (Stahl’s matrix)

1

Privacy

Answer: “never” due to the absence of similar past events

Answer: meta-ethics; meso-level; and, theoretical. Colour: green, in spite of being an attempt to categorize a possible event

Faire Compensation

Answer: “never” due to the absence of similar past events

Answer: normative; micro-level; and, practical. Colour: yellow, because it requires a intervention, because it is a practical situation

2

266


Figure 3. Example 1

On the other hand, the empirical procedures promote two analytical dimensions: pre-tests and pilot studies design, and results analysis. The questionnaires “design” (sections and queries characteristics) intended to understand individual ethical behaviour and its impact within a system, which is similar to qualitative and numerical approach of Šuc, Vladušič & Bratko (2004). Regarding results analysis it is possible to acknowledge: •

Rigor and Liability Rigor and liability are key features of any empirical research, so the author has decided to shed some light regarding the following issues: methodological design, empirical procedures, and philosophical argument. Numerous researchers plead the concept of methodological pluralism or “triangulation” (e.g. Cox & Hassard, 2005; Weber, 2004), as an opposite perspective to multi-site research (Audet & d’Amboise, 2001). According to Creswell & Clark (2007) mixed methods promote: triangulation (corroborate data and obtain convergent validity); complementarity (total explanation about the results); development (guide further data collection, sampling, or analysis). Even so, Ammenwerth, Ilber & Mansmann (2003) argue that different categories of data obtained through unlike sources cannot validate each other, which the empirical outcomes seem to contradict. This last claim is consistent with the philosophical, cultural and even psychological concern that Alaranta (2006) reports with reference to triangulation, because in spite of facilitating the phenomenon analysis engages multiple practical problems.

•

answers reliability: the author has drawn a table that compares respondent’s data profiling (organizational position, what you value most and organizational role) with their answers (multiple choice and ask for agreement) of each section, as well as this procedure was acknowledged with both sections to detect probable conflicting opinions and beliefs (interpretative flexibility) (Doherty, Coombs & Loan-Clarke, 2006); answers content analysis: multiple choice questions were analysed through a numerical analysis, which is defensible through Creswell (2003) argument: if a researcher asserts to acknowledge in-depth insight into an event, it might choose a diminutive however informative example, or might also exploit a simple inferential numerical analysis to detail the results. Nevertheless, the concept “numerical analysis” will surely induce criticism because in AngloSaxon culture numerical implies a quantitative research, which is consistent with the argument of Alaranta (2006). In addition, ask for agreement questions were analysed through a mix of grounded theory and hermeneutics which is consistent with Strauss & Corbin (1998, pp. 178) claim that “grounded theory will include its combination with other methodologies including phenomenology and hermeneutics”, as well as that can interact as the missing link in interpretative research (Goulding,

267


Figure 4. Example 2

argument reaches beyond the limits of critical evidences (Calvert-Minor, 2009).

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS Bearing in mind light refraction, the author proposes to extend the metaphor to lighthouses lens to debate potential future research directions. Following the Wikipedia (2010b): A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for pilots at sea or on inland waterways.

•

1998). This argument is enhanced because interpretative research limits are visibly diminished when methodological isolation does not occur (Williams, 2000); framework versus results: the pre-conditions to construct a PIAP and SWOT analysis, as well as the conversion process sums up the author judgment and sensitivity as regards to managers perception of the ethical and social dilemmas throughout the questionnaires and interviews (including the practical examples). Descriptive research features will help to cope with probable critics, and once again the visible limitations of interpretative research are diminished due to grounded theory “cycles”, which is consistent with Williams (2000).

Finally, the philosophical argument refers to abduction (identical to inferation of a cause in order to explain a consequence), which acknowledges numerous explanations along with some erroneous outcomes (Zait & Zait, 2009). Peirce (1878) argues that is a method of experimentational mental reflection hospitable to forming hypotheses and conducive to testing them, whereas the abductive

268

Furthermore, their light refraction depends on several factors, like the power of the optical device, observer geographical position, etc. and its range is expressed in three levels (Instituto Hidrográfico, 2003): • • •

geographical: distance that the light can be seen from the lighthouse; light: maximum distance that light is observable; nominal: imposes to calculate its height (distance among the base and light) and altitude (difference amid the mean sea level and light focal plane).

Through a metaphorical explanation, it is reasonable to consider that geographical range (enables the ethical evaluation framework proposal), light range (potential organizations under scrutiny), nominal range (framework critical assessment). Yet, two important queries arise: what is the significance of potential organizations? And, what is a critical assessment? The initial purpose of the conceptual framework is to evaluate learning organizations as regards to ethical avoidance, although some authors like Rowley & Gibbs (2008) argue that learning


organizations will become wisdom organizations. The concept is related to the confrontation between neo-liberal tendencies and internal and external moral practices, so: wise organization must create time for the virtues that allow wise, practical judgements to be made. An organization has a temporality where it remembers the past, accepts responsibility for it and uses that to devise a new space for itself in the future whilst acting now (Rowley & Gibbs, 2008, p. 364). Hence, to grasp the veracity of this scenario the author claims that wisdom organizations fall under the “conceptual umbrella”, despite the importance to initially assess the framework through worldwide applications in learning organizations given the specificity of organizational contexts. This process will generate an adequate amount of historical data (empirical results), allowing to determine if changes are required or not, in order to increase the level of reliability.

CONCLUSION In spite of being an ongoing research project, the author will pinpoint some additional interesting conclusions through two macro arguments: research protocol analysis, and author future insights. Yet, research protocol analysis will be divided into the following issues: reseaarch protocol overall structure; data collection analysis; framework response; rigor and liability; author future insight. First, the research design structure (including data collection methods) appears to respond positively to existing ethical and social dilemmas within learning organizations. Secondly, the empirical results confirm the existence of these dilemmas, being reasonable to argue that learning organizations are not ethical because managers neglect these dilemmas with reference

to knowledge creation, retention/use, and sharing. This attitude is at some extent explained by the novelty of these dilemmas; nonetheless, is the author conviction that resumes managers’ lack of moral reasoning and sensitivity. The second conjecture requires further focused empirical research despite numerous approaches to managers’ moral sensitivity (e.g. Pedersen, 2009; Treviño & Weaver, 2003; Wittmer, 2000). On the other hand, it is important to emphasize that the conceptual framework also enables a positive response, allowing categorizing these dilemmas and analysing their impact in organizational strategy. Therefore, it is reasonable to argue that rigor and liability resume this ongoing research. Regarding the second macro reason is the author conviction that future case studies will entail similar empirical results, which demonstrates the need for an ethical evaluation (permanent procedure that helps managers to recognize the outcomes of applying new strategies concerning moral and behavioural values in organizations). Therefore, wisdom organizations will require an analogous analysis despite Rowley’s (2006) argument that these will act ethically in order to collective good be achievable.

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Ethical Dilemmas: A situation that frequently engages an apparent conflict among moral imperatives. It is also considered an ethical paradox in which ethical decision enables conflicts. Ethical Learning Organizations: Organizations that recognize the existing ethical and social dilemmas as regards to knowledge creation, retention/use, and sharing within their contexts, as well as their impacts in organizational strategy.

Evaluation: Method that aims to gather organizational historical data in order to give updated information feedback as regards to capacity-building versus strategy, objectives and effectiveness. Learning Organizations: Organizations that recognize that knowledge will only flourish if: individual and collective learning occurs, an innovative environment exists, boundaries are not well defined, and how communication is essential among all members. Social Dilemmas: Circumstances in which individuals reasoning leads to collective irrationality. Resumes interpersonal conflicts versus group reasoning.

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About the Contributors

Gonçalo Jorge Morais da Costa is a PhD student in Knowledge Management and Ethics, through the doctoral programme of the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University, with supervision of Professor Mary Prior and Professor Simon Rogerson. In addition, he is a member of ILID Research Group at Lusíada University of Lisbon since 2006, and lecturer in several universities as an inherent consequence of its academic background (Degree in Economics, Master in E-Business and IT, and MBA in Management) along with its professional background (Key Account Manager in Finance and ICT). Beyond the challenging PhD, its current research areas are all the major appliances regarding ICT and ethics, which is demonstrated throughout his published work in several journals or books chapters, as well as presented in several conferences. Among other publications, he has published: Knowledge versus content in e-learning: a philosophical discussion (2010), Knowledge authoring in e-learning: an ethicultural diagnosis! (2010), Why link knowledge management, organizational culture and ethics: analysing empirical enquiry (2010), Trustworthy and ethical environment in knowledge management: a dilemma to solve! (2009), Communities of practices- the future or return to the past- a sceptical approach (2008), Will the evolution of ICT ethics engage organizational transparency? (2008), Free ride in knowledge management: ethical and moral dilemmas! (2008), Individual ethics and knowledge management (2008), Knowledge management: how ethical is your organization’s knowledge (2007). Finally, the editor is also a reviewer of the following journals: Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, Journal of Ethics and Information Technology, IPSI Transactions Journal, and Energy- the International Journal. For further and continuously updated information, visit the editor’s website at www.goncalocosta.com, namely this publication forum. *** David Pullinger has worked on the interface between people and technology since 1979, focusing particularly on online information systems. His PhD was one of the first in the area of human-computer interaction, which, for him, has gone onto to include psychosocial aspects and so ethics. He contributed many firsts during the time the Internet and then the World Wide Web were growing, including the first academic journal onto the Web and conceiving and initiating the linking of references from one to another through CrossRef. He won awards for innovation and websites and has reflected ethically on this work through articles and books, including one for an ethics series, Information Technology and Cyberspace (2001). He now works for the UK Government to improve the user experience of public sector online services, ensuring that they are customer-focused by setting standards, describing best practice and giving advice and guidance.



Kiyoshi Murata is a director of Centre for Business Information Ethics and a professor of management information systems at School of Commerce, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan. His research interest is in information quality management, e-business, knowledge management and information ethics in business organisations including privacy, ICT professionalism, surveillance, gender issues and online bullying. He is an international research associate at Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK and an editorial board member of Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, Journal of the Japan Society for Management Information and Journal of Information and Management. He has organised an information ethics research project within the Japan Society for Information and Management since 2008. Chuck Huff is Professor of Psychology at St. Olaf College, USA. He began doing research in social and ethical issues in computing in the mid-1980s at BellCORE and Princeton University. After a postdoc at Carnegie-Mellon University he moved to St. Olaf College where he has continued his research in moral psychology and in computing. His National Science Foundation funded work in moral exemplars in computing has taken him to Scandinavia and the UK to interview exemplars in those cultures. He most recently served on a US National Academy of Sciences and Engineering panel to survey the state of the art in teaching science and engineering ethics. Krystyna Górniak-Kocikowska She published more than one hundred articles in scholarly journals and books in several languages mainly in the area of the history of philosophy, and social and ethical problems in the ICT-driven global society. Is also co-author of the books On Selected Problems in Contemporary Ethics (1979) and The History of German Intellectual Culture (1985), both published in Polish. Moreover, also co-edited several books, including The Introduction to Information Ethics (with Andrzej Kocikowski and Terrell Bynum), a CD-ROM collection of “milestone” papers on Computer Ethics translated from English into Polish; and translated works of German and American authors into Polish. Finally, is on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Information, Communication & Ethics in Society. Piotr Pawlak Piotr holds a Ph.D. title at the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan, Poland. His specialization is political sciences, as well as cultural sciences. He studied at the Social Science Faculty, Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan, obtaining during 2008 his doctorate title. Currently, his areas of interest are: cultural, social and also political aspects of modern mass-media, especially the Internet (his PhD thesis). One of his basic scopes is to try to give a response about the influence of Information and Communication Technologies at the lives of individuals, and societies. José António Candeias Bonito Filipe has a PhD in Resource Management and Theory of Games by ISCTE. He is an investigator of UNIDE/ISCTE. His interests are directed to Theory of Games and Environmental and Natural Resource Economics. He is Assistant Professor in Quantitative Methods Department at ISCTE-IUL. Manuel Alberto Martins Ferreira has a PhD in Management and an Aggregation in Quantitative Methods Area by ISCTE, where he is Full Professor. He was Chairman of the Board of Directors and Vice-President of ISCTE. He is an investigator of UNIDE/ISCTE, being his interests directed to the Stochastic Processes Area (Queues, Applied Probabilities) and to the Theory of Games and to their applications to management, finance and social problems. 322


Manuel Francisco Pacheco Coelho has a PhD in Economics by the Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, where he is Assistant Professor. He is an investigator of SOCIUS/ISEG. His main field of research is Environmental and Natural Resource Economics. Maslin Masrom is a Senior Lecturer in College of Science and Technology at University Technology Malaysia. She received her Bachelor in Computer Science (1989) at University Technology Malaysia, and Master in Operations Research (1992) at Western Michigan University. She pursued her Ph.D. in Management Information Systems, which was obtained in 2003 at University Putra Malaysia. Her current research interest includes information security and ethics, security management, and IS adoption using structural equation modelling. She has published, among others, in Information & Management, Oxford Journal, International Journal of Cyber Society and Education, and ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society. Zuraini Ismail started her tertiary education with Diploma in Computer Science (1981) at University Technology MARA. She obtained her Bachelor in Computer Management Systems (1984) at Southern New Hampshire, and a Masters in Computer Management (1987) from University of New Haven. She further awarded PhD in Management Information System (2007) at International Islamic University Malaysia. Currently, she is a Senior Lecturer at College of Science and Technology (CST), University Technology Malaysia, as well as CST’s IT Manager. Her present research interest includes information security- policy, awareness and ethics, physical and cyber security, knowledge management, IT outsourcing. Furthermore, has been publishing in Journal of US-China Public Administration, and ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society. Ugo Pagallo is a full Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Turin, since 2000, and visiting professor at Georgetown University Law School in Washington, D.C., and at the Center for Transnational Legal Studies in London. Member of the board in the PhD programs of the University of Turin, where he directed the research on “Computer Science and Law” (2004-2006), he has coordinated various national scientific projects and is current chief editor of the Digitalica series published by Giappichelli. In addition to numerous essays in scholarly journals, he is the author of eight monographs, among which Introduzione alla filosofia digitale (2005), Teoria giuridica della complessità (2006), and La tutela della privacy negli Stati Uniti d’America e in Europa (2008). Nuno Sotero Alves da Silva is doing PhD in Computer Ethics and Education in De Montfort University with supervision of Professor Simon Rogerson and Dr. Bernd Stahl. Plus, he holds a Degree in Computer Science Engineering and a Pos-Degree in E-Business and IT. He is also a lecturer and IT Manager in Lusíada University of Lisbon, Portugal. His current research areas are e-learning, bionanotecnhology, computer happiness bounded to ethics. Isabel Maria Surdinho Borges Alvarez holds a Ph.D. title at the De Montfort University, United Kingdom. She is specialized into culture and electronic commerce, namely within the pharmaceutical sector, in which was IT Manager during 20 years. Beyond these achievements she is an IS lecturer since 1986 in Lusíada University of Lisbon, and was involved in several Portuguese governmental projects concerning IT implementation.

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Professor Simon Rogerson is Director of CCSR. He is experienced in identifying the ethical issues related to new technologies. He is Europe’s first Professor in Computer Ethics. He received the 2000 IFIP Namur Award for outstanding contribution to the creation of awareness of the social implications of ICT. In 2005 he was given the prestigious SIGCAS Making a Difference Award by the ACM. He is currently working on two European-funded projects PHM-Ethics; Personalized health monitoring (PHM): interdisciplinary research to analyse the relationship between ethics, law and psychosocial as well as medical sciences and ETICA; Ethical Issues of Emerging ICT Applications. He conceived and co-directs the ETHICOMP conference series on the ethical impacts of ICT and created the world’s leading portal on computer ethics. He is Chair of Council and Vice President of the Institute for the Management of Information Systems (IMIS), and a member of the Ethics Strategic Panel of BCS. MA Päivi Lohikoski is a Ph.D. student in Finnish, Information Studies, and Logopedics at the Centre of Excellence in Research in Faculty of Humanities in University of Oulu. An associated member of The Graduate School of Communication Sciences and a member of The Graduate School of Culture and Interaction, she has worked previously as a lecturer in Communication Studies at Oulu University. Before that she worked several years as a Documentation and Communication Coordinator in an ICTcompany in Oulu, Finland. Päivi’s interest is in expert engineers in the ICT field. Her future studies aim to compare the personal mastery of those professionals within their organisations and management. Financial crises add the need for education, training, and reorganisation of duties within organisations, and stress the importance of renewal ability in knowledge-based work. Moreover, an increasing need exists for better managerial skills to improve wellbeing at work in all organisations. Yutaka Takahashi is a professor of computer simulation of business and social issues at School of Commerce, Senshu University in Japan. He is applying simulation methods, including system dynamics and systems thinking, to solving social science issues. His current interest is providing solutions to troubles related to use of information communication technology and designing policies of public and private sectors using modelling and simulation. Developing simulation methods which are convenient not only for engineers but also for management people to help their own decision making is also his interest. He earned PhD at Gakushuin University in Japan with a doctoral dissertation on a system dynamics modelling method focused on mental model expressions in 1999. Agata Kostrzewa is a PhD student in Business Studies at the Department of Business Studies, Uppsala University. Agata’s work focuses on how companies and organizations cope with ethical issues as well as how to enhance their ability to do it efficiently. Agata is now working on the construction and application of questionnaires and interviews to identify and evaluate ethical processes in organizations. She holds also a Master of Science in Business and Economics from Uppsala University. Before the Ph.D. studies she worked as a Research Assistant within the project “Between Public and Private: Democratic Governance in Healthcare Networks”, the field of her interest being creating markets in healthcare. Mikael Laaksoharju is a PhD student in Human Computer Interaction. He has a background as civil engineer and has as student been working with artificial intelligence in robots. His research is concentrated on developing computer tools to support and train ethical decision making. The tools are based on an assumption that structuring and presenting information in a suitable way can improve the

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handling of moral problems. They have been presented at several conferences and the procedural approach has impacted especially the field of Operations Research. Among his duties at the University is to ensure good usability in the development of a new web content management system. Iordanis Kavathatzopoulos is Associate Professor of Psychology and Human-Computer Interaction at the Department of Information Technology, Uppsala University, Sweden. His main interests are in the areas of Business Ethics and Information Technology Ethics. He has created education programs for the development of ethical competence of professional decision makers, and constructed special tests for the assessment of ethical problem-solving and decision-making ability. His research is also in the areas of assessment and development of personal skills and organizational processes behind construction and running of usable IT Systems. He has constructed special instruments for the evaluation of IT systems usability and investigated the structure and dynamics of informal cooperation and cognitive support between IT systems users.

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Index

A Ali & Ahmad 254 analytical strategic management 2 analytical strategic planning theory 2 ANOVA 88, 89, 92 anti-commons 63, 64, 65, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, 76, 78 aquaculture 63, 64, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78

B ba 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 balancing loop 191, 198 bricks-and-mortar rights 99 business scholar 1 business strategy 260, 265

C causality 182, 198 causal loop analysis 198 change management 160, 165 codification strategy 236, 248 collective rights management organizations (CRMOs) 107 compensation systems 218, 224, 225 computational resources 99 Computer Based Instruction 114 Computer Based Learning 114 Computer Mediated Communication 141 connection strategy 236, 248 Connectivism 120, 128, 129, 130 Content Delivery Network (CDN) 99, 102, 112 contribution justice 243, 249 copy 97, 98, 99, 100, 102, 104, 105, 107, 108,

111, 112 copyright 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 109, 110, 111, 112 copyright law 97, 98, 101, 106, 107 craftspersons 19, 22, 25 cross-cultural diagnosis 132, 141 cultural clash 58, 62 cultural commodities 56, 57, 62 cultural diversity 132, 148, 153, 157 cultural imperialism 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 62 cultural infusion 58, 62 cultural shift 233 culture ethics 80, 81, 86, 88, 90, 91, 96 cumulative learning 162 customer capital (CC) 164 cyberspace 45, 47, 56, 57, 58, 60, 62

D data control 233 data release 249 data sharing 249 deliberative-decision approach 18 democracy 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44 digital copies 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 107, 112 digital environments 97, 99, 102, 105, 106, 107, 111, 112 digital interaction 99 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) 100, 101, 106 Digital Rights Management (DRM) 106, 111 digital technology 97, 99, 100, 102, 105 distance learning 113, 114, 115, 123 distributed intelligence 99


Index

distributed knowledge 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148, 149, 151, 155, 158 Distributed Knowledge Systems (DKS) 135, 143 diversity 131, 132, 133, 136, 137, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 153, 155, 157, 158

E economic analysis 64 Edmund Pincoffs 17 e-learning 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 134, 135, 138, 141, 143, 144, 150, 151, 153, 154, 156, 261, 271 electronic media 48, 51, 52 ethical boundaries 65 ethical competence 200, 201, 204, 205, 206, 207, 210, 212 Ethical Index (ETHIX) 199, 201, 203, 206, 207, 209, 213 ethical rules 200, 206, 207 ethical tension 244, 249 ethical vs. moral 212 ethics 80, 81, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 200, 201, 202, 206, 207, 209, 210, 211, 212, 251, 253, 255, 256, 257, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 265, 266, 270, 271, 272, 274, 275, 276 ethics resonances 78 ETHXPERT 199, 201, 207, 208, 209 etymology 215 e-University 131, 132, 140, 141, 145

F fair compensation 215, 216, 217, 218, 220, 222, 223, 226 Falsification, Fabrication, and Plagiarism (FFP) 84 feedback loop 182, 183, 198 feedback mechanisms 233, 245 file sharing 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 105, 107, 110 Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) 99 fuzzy 29, 32 fuzzy statements 201

G Game Theory 65 global education 132, 137 globalization 132, 133, 135, 136, 137, 138, 146, 148, 151, 155, 158 global knowledge 45, 47, 48, 49, 51, 54, 62 global knowledge management 48, 49, 51, 54 global society 28, 29, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 48 global village 48, 59 global warming 65 glocality 132, 136, 137, 138, 142, 148, 154, 158 Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) 237, 245

H hacker 80, 81, 86, 87, 90, 95, 96 hacker ethics 80, 81, 86, 90, 96 higher education 131, 132, 133, 134, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142, 143, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158 historical background 114 hon’ne/tatemae tradition 2, 14 human capital (HC) 164, 168 humanism 62 human resource (HR) 160, 161, 175, 179 human resources management 179 Human Resources Manager (HRM) 258

I ICT 254, 271 Ikujiro Nonaka 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16 incentive 104, 105, 111 industrial revolution 31 information 97, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 109, 110, 111, 112 informational society 131, 132 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) 28, 29, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 81, 84, 85, 93 information-based society 48 information society 48, 49, 50

327

Index

information system (IS) 81, 84, 94 information technology (IT) 81, 85, 87, 91, 94, 95 intellectual capital (IC) 46, 82, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 168, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 178, 179 intellectual capital management 46 intellectual property 81, 233, 243 intercultural communication 132, 140, 146 International Monetary Fund 237

J Japan 1, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16 John Rawls 215, 216, 217, 218, 223, 228, 229

K Key Account 221 knowledge 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 knowledge as a commodity 30, 36 knowledge assets 1, 7, 8, 14, 30, 44 knowledge-based management 1 knowledge-based services 31 knowledge creation 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 46, 61, 82, 88 knowledge creation theory 1, 2, 3, 10, 14 knowledge economy 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 knowledge era 81 knowledge flow 251, 255, 270 knowledge holders 180, 181, 183, 184, 186, 188, 189, 190, 192, 193, 194 knowledge input 201 knowledge interchange 181, 183, 186 knowledge leadership 1 knowledge management (KM) 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 58, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 88, 91, 93, 96, 160, 161, 163, 169, 174, 176, 179, 181, 182, 183, 184, 186, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 200, 201, 203, 204, 209, 210, 211, 233, 234, 236, 237, 239, 243, 245, 246, 247, 248, 254, 255, 256, 257, 259, 260, 261, 263, 271, 273, 274, 275, 276

328

knowledge management systems 17, 18, 22, 23, 24 Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) 134, 135 knowledge mobilization 233, 234, 249 knowledge protection 181, 182, 183, 187, 188, 189 knowledge sharing 3, 4, 16, 37, 40, 44, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 162, 181, 186, 192, 193, 194, 196, 197, 218, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 230, 233, 238, 241, 243 knowledge sharing environment 218, 225 knowledge-sharing skills 81 knowledge society 35, 36, 37, 41, 42, 44, 250, 251 knowledge strategy 232, 235, 236 knowledge transmission 81 knowledge workers 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 221, 223, 224, 225, 227, 229 KPMG 253, 273

L Labour Party Manifesto 240 Learning Knowledge Management Systems (LKMS) 118, 135 Learning Management Systems (LMS) 135 learning organizations 161, 162, 168, 175, 179, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276 Learning Oriented KM Systems (LOKMS) 118, 135 Light Refraction 260 long route 98, 99, 103, 112

M maintenance management 260 mapping the territory 114 mass media 47, 48, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 62 methodological pluralism 267 mirror neurons 119 moral action 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26 moral commitment 20, 21 moral decision making 22 moral ecology 20, 21, 22, 23

Index

moral exemplars 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 moral goals 19, 20, 21, 22 moral implications 201 moral knowledge 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 209 moral problems 17, 199, 200, 201, 203, 207, 208, 212, 213 moral skills 26

N new knowledge 46, 62 nobles’ democracy 29 non-compete and non-disclosure agreements 181, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 193, 194, 198 non-virtual community 81

O online information 181 organisational culture 164, 166, 179 organisational knowledge 161, 170 organisational knowledge creation 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16 organisational knowledge sharing 16 organisational learning 162, 164, 165, 175 organizational activity 80 organizational culture 256, 257, 259, 271, 272 organizational knowledge 180, 193, 196 organizational strategy 250, 251, 254, 256, 261, 266, 269, 277 organizational theory 133 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 31, 32, 35, 44

P P2P networks 98, 102, 104, 105, 107, 108 P2P systems 98, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 109 Paranoia Critical Method 224 participatory culture 80, 81, 86, 88, 90, 91, 93, 96 participatory culture ethics 80, 81, 86, 90, 91, 96 peer-to-peer (P2P) 98, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 112

personal data 232, 240, 241, 242, 243, 249 personal identity 49 personal knowledge 180, 181 Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) 118 personal mastery 160, 161, 162, 163, 175, 176, 177, 179 PIAP 261, 263, 264, 265, 266, 268 political and social theory 29 PRC 185 presence learning 114 PRIMES 20, 21, 22 privacy 98, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 112 property rights 63, 64, 65, 68, 70, 72, 76, 77 proselytization 80, 81, 86, 89, 90, 91, 96 proselytization commons ethics 80, 81, 86, 90, 91, 96 public sector 98 Public Sector Agreements and Service Transformation Agreement 236 public services 233, 234, 239, 241, 242, 245, 248 public value 232, 234, 235, 241, 244, 245, 247, 249 purposeful moral action 18 purposive-action approach 18

Q quality management 160 quandaries 17

R rational principles 17 reformers 19, 26 reinforcing loop 189, 192, 193, 198 relational capital (RC) 164, 165, 166, 168 renewal ability 161, 162, 175, 179 route 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 106, 107, 112

S SECI framework 243, 244, 245 SECI model 232, 235, 236, 245, 246 self programming 163 shaping educational knowledge 114

329

Index

short route 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 106, 107, 112 social construction 233, 243, 245, 249 social context 20 social experiments 29 socialisation-externalisation-combinationinternalisation (SECI) model 1, 5, 6, 7, 14, 15 social knowledge 181 social media 233, 238, 245 social media tools 233 Social Software (SS) 118, 135 socio-cultural characteristics 2, 8, 14 socio-cultural perspective 2 Socrates 47 spindle cells 119 stakeholder analysis 18 structural capital (SC) 164, 165, 168, 170 Surrealist Assumption 224 SWOT 261, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267 SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis 172, 173 symbolic pressure 49 system dynamics 183, 189, 198 systems thinking 180, 183, 184, 188, 197, 198

T tacit knowledge 46, 62, 181, 192

330

Technological Infrastructures and Services 141, 145 teleonomic evolutionary theory 1, 2 Theaetetus 47 the quest 113, 114, 122, 123 topology 104, 106, 107, 112 traditional compensation systems 225 tragedy of the commons 65, 69, 72, 77, 78 triangulation 267, 270, 271

U ubiquitous computing 181 uchi/soto awareness 2, 11, 14

V Value Added 141, 145 value chain 98, 99, 112 VARK model 119 virtual community 81 virtual universities 132, 138

W whistleblowing 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 Wiretap Act 101 Wisdom, Knowledge, Information, Data, and Measurement (WKIDM) 82 World Bank 237, 246

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