Discourse and Knowledge Matters: Can Knowledge Management Be Saved?

The Knowledge Management (KM) literature is reviewed with a focus on theory, finding a core issue in the lack of a widely accepted and understood definition of knowledge. Theories are categorised on the bisecting continua of personal vs. organizational knowledge, and reified knowledge vs. knowledge as social action. It is argued that a fresh approach based on the Discourse Psychology framework, and its research tool of discourse analysis, would shed new light on the primary issues. Social interaction – and therefore, language – is considered by many KM theorists to be essential to knowledge sharing and creation, yet language has not been the locus of investigation. DP views language as the site of social action, and reality construction. Consequently, a study of talk in interaction is likely to reveal more about the nature of knowledge and in particular its psychological formulation, with implications for its management.