Organizational Knowledge in the Making: How Firms Create, Use, and Institutionalize Knowledge

Gerardo Patriotta9780199275243, 0199275246

This book aims to fill the gap between theory, method, and practice by developing a phenomenological approach to the study of knowing in the context of organizing. The book contributes to the fields of strategy and organization in three ways. First it provides a critical review of the concepts, debates, and epistemological assumptions underpinning existing theories of organizational knowledge. Second, it develops a methodological framework for studying knowledge processes as an empirical phenomenon that is based on three methodological lenses: time, breakdowns, and narratives. Third, drawing on the three-lens framework, the book presents a phenomenological enquiry on knowing and organizing processes within two large car-manufacturing plants at Fiat Auto, Italy. The book highlights the need to re-think organizational knowledge from an action-based perspective and suggests a new vocabulary for understanding knowledge oriented phenomena in organizations