Computer-Based Information Systems and Knowledge Management: Contrasting the Objectivist and Subjectivist Perspectives

This paper examines the role that computer-based information systems can play in the communication and sharing of knowledge. It considers the actual and potential symbiosis of such systems with the concepts of knowledge management within an organizational environment. It identifies the objectivist philosophy of knowledge, which typically underpins the literature advocating computer-based knowledge management, and questions the foundational assumptions of this perspective in terms of the dichotomy made between tacit and explicit forms of knowledge. Thus it is suggested that there is a lack of critical understanding within the paradigms of research which examine the role of computer usage in managerial knowledge development, and that this is based upon a prevailing objectivist orientation to systems design. A subjectivist philosophy of knowledge is introduced which identifies the tacit and explicit elements of all human knowledge that are embodied in both human minds and bodies and embedded in organizational actions, activities and environments. The paper develops a critique of the possibility of computer-based information systems and their contribution to the process of communication of knowledge. This is based not only systems developers’ failure to understand key social and cultural issues but also on a failure to recognise the fundamental character of what human knowledge consists of. Finally, the possibilities for the true extension of the role of computer-based information systems within human knowledge communication and sharing activities are explored.