Posted by Yogesh Malhotra on July 16, 1997 at 19:02:59:

In Reply to: Re: Is 'Knowledge Management' an Oxymoron?: 'Control', 'Compliance' & 'Performance' posted by Don Mezei on June 19, 1997 at 10:43:16:

Don,

I share your point about control as a key element of knowledge management. However, if you will, allow me [for the sake of dialog] to pose a different perspective of the behavior of humans we are wanting or hoping to control. In that spirit here goes...

We may ask someone to 'do' something, however, we may not necessarily be able to control what they will be thinking about... they may be thinking about their next promotion, their family at home, or downright how they dislike what they are expected to 'do' because they [say] find it uninteresting, boring, not contributing to their growth/development, etc.

When we explicitly attempt to monitor their work, what steps in is surveillance that is intended to ensure that the given work is done in the specified manner, thus explicit focus on behavior control (see for instance, Grant, R.A. & Higgins, C.A. (1991). "The Impact of Computerized Performance Monitoring on Service Work: Testing a Causal Model," Information Systems Research, 2(2), pp. 116-142.).

You have stated: "Thus the importance of a healthy equilibrium between control and freedom. And knowledge management is the term which illuminates this relationship, in my opinion. I can't think of another business term which does this quite so implicitly. Can you?"

I would agree that, viewed from various perspectives, knowledge management signifies the balance between control and freedom (with emphasis on freedom). One may view it in terms of divergence-convergence, dissent-consensus (dialog), chaos-structuredness, effectiveness- efficiency, etc.

- Yogesh

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