A New Methodology for Distributed Knowledge Management Analysis

The Distributed Knowledge Management (DKM) approach tries to overcome problems deriving from a typical outcome of traditional Knowledge Management (KM) solutions: the creation of a unique conceptualization of corporate knowledge (e.g. an ontology or a unique system of classification) which does not allow autonomy of organizational units and the coexistence of different conceptual schemas (e.g. points of view or perspectives). This new approach takes strongly into account local heterogeneity, and looks at complex knowledge-based organizations as constellations of local organizational units which manage knowledge in an autonomous way, exchanging it with other units through meaning negotiation/coordination processes. In a DKM system each autonomous unit is reified by a Knowledge Node (KN), a useful abstraction which allows us to identify, within organizations, people who manage knowledge according to a local conceptual schema and a personalized system of artifacts. In this paper, a new methodology is described and then used to unveil Knowledge Nodes in a case study: Impresa Pizzarotti & C. S.p.A., a complex Italian building industry. It is argued that the resulting Distributed Knowledge Management system might be implemented within the firm with a high probability of success, because the system of Knowledge Nodes (discovered through this methodology) reflects the perspective and the way in which organizational units usually manage their knowledge.