Organizational Ecology and Knowledge Networks

I n an “information age” in which employees are “knowledge workers” and the amount of “information” expands exponentially, managing knowledge in all its forms has become a major organizational challenge. Just what is knowledge management? Davenport and Prusak as well as Dixon distinguish among three components of the overall concept: data, information, and knowledge. Davenport and Prusak define data as a “set of discrete, objective facts about events.” Information transforms data by adding meaning or value to give it “relevant purpose.” Dixon defines “information” in more operational terms as “data that has been sorted, analyzed, and displayed, and is communicated through spoken language, graphic displays, or numeric tables.” Knowledge draws on both data and information but “is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information.” Dixon says much the same thing when she defines knowledge as “the meaningful links people make in their minds between information and its application in action in a specific setting.”