Organizations and Markets

New Book on Knowledge Governance

9 January 2009 at 7:22 am Nicolai Foss 1 comment

| Nicolai Foss |

I and various other people, notably Prof. Anna Grandori (U. Bocconi), who came up with the term, have been pushing the notion of “knowledge governance” over the last five years or so.

The organizing knowledge governance idea is that processes of knowledge use, creation, retention, integration, and sharing can be influenced towards desired levels through the deployment of administrative apparatus. “Knowledge governance” signifies that this field is taken up with the interplay between knowledge processes and organizational processes. It represents the coalescing of a number of parallel developments, such as the convergence of organizational economics (i.e., transaction cost economics, property rights theory and agency theory) and the knowledge-based view in strategic management, and the emerging interface between knowledge management and perspectives from organization theory and organizational behavior. Here is a Primer on knowledge governance.

With Professor Snejina Michailova of the University of Auckland, I have edited Knowledge Governance: Processes and Perspectives, which was published this week by Oxford University Press. It features a number key contributors to the emerging knowledge governance field, including Anna Grandori, Jackson Nickerson, Todd Zenger, Linda Argote, and Teppo Felin.

Here is the table of contents:

1. Knowledge Governance: Introduction to the Book , Snejina Michailova and Nicolai Foss.2. Governing Knowledge: A Problem-Solving Perspective , Bruce Heiman, Jackson Nickerson, and Todd Zenger 3. The Architecture of Knowledge Organization , Michael Christensen and Thorbjørn Knudsen 4. Polyarchic Governance and the Growth of Knowledge , Anna Grandori 5. Authority in the Context of Distributed Knowledge , Kirsten Foss and Nicolai J. Foss 6. The Governance of Explorative Knowledge Production , Margit Osterloh and Antoinette Weibel 7. Superordinate Social Identity, Receptivity to Innovations, and Knowledge Transfer in Organizations , Linda Argote and Aimée A. Kane 8. Socialization Tactics as a Governance Mechanism in R&D Collaborations , Kenneth Husted and Snejina Michailova 9. Evolutionary Interactions of Context and Content in the Development of Knowledge Governance: Evidence from UK R&D Partnerships , Harry Scarbrough and Kenneth Amaeshi 10. Knowledge Governance: A Dialogue Concerning its Epistemological Foundations , Teppo Felin and JC Spender 11. Lessons Learned , Nicolai Foss and Snejina Michailova

Entry filed under: - Foss -, Management Theory, Recommended Reading.