Beyond Knowledge, towards Knowing: the Practice-based Approach to Support Knowledge Creation, Communication, and Use for Innovation and Strategies

The purpose of the current conceptual article is to discuss the practice-based approach (Practice-Based Studies, PBS) to knowledge and knowing, and how its adoption enables the design of approaches to support knowledge creation, communication, and use in organizational contexts, in a way that is close to what matters to workers’ practices and that acknowledges the situatedness and in-betweeness of knowing and knowledge. The excessive focus on knowledge as an object detached from the situated knowing actions in which such knowledge is needed and used has guided most of those supportive approaches, particularly in supporting the knowing work. The rationalistic approaches to knowledge are reviewed and their limitations are explained. The practice-based approach is detailed and also the two ways of engaging practice in research. In designing PBS-oriented supportive approaches to the creation, communication, and use of knowledge, gaps in communicating existing knowledge can be reduced, enabling the effective use of workers’ time and efforts and reducing complexity in using existing knowledge. The article systematizes and differentiates the approaches to knowledge and knowing, and explains the value of a practice-based approach to support knowledge creation, communication, and use. The article contributes to deepen the understanding of the different approaches to study knowledge, the impacts of adopting one or another, and the advantages of a practice-based approach to understand and support knowledge creation, communication and use in consonance with their dynamics and nature.