Organizational knowledge, learning and memory: three concepts in search of a theory

TLDR

Organizational knowledge is strategically important, yet no comprehensive theory exists; existing frameworks such as Penrose, Nelson & Winter, and Lewin’s gestalt concepts remain the frontier, while recent literature remains inconclusive. The study adopts Jamesian and Durkheimian distinctions between knowing what/how and individual/social knowledge to develop a new theoretical perspective. The pluralistic epistemology yields a dynamic, dialectical theory of the firm based on interrelated knowledge processes.

Abstract

There is much interest in organizational knowledge following the recognition of its strategic place in inter‐firm competition, but there is no adequate theory of such knowledge, or of its acquisition, storage and application. Penrose’s (1959) theory of the growth of the firm, Nelson and Winter’s (1982) evolutionary economics, and the gestalt notions of discontinuous perceptual change taken from Lewin (1935), still define the cutting edge of the learning and knowledge‐based approaches to the firm. Compared with these field‐shaping works, the recent literature on organizational knowledge, learning and memory seems inconclusive. Takes a new start from the Jamesian distinction between knowing what and knowing how, and the Durkheimian distinction between individual and social forms of knowledge. The resulting pluralistic organizational epistemology implies a dynamic theory of the firm as a dialectical system of knowledge processes.