Guest lecture slides for University of Melbourne course in sustainable engineering. Covers the following topics: Key frameworks of understanding for sustainability practice o Tragedy of the commons o Elinor Ostrom (Nobel Laureate) on models of governance o Herbert Simon (Nobel Laureate) on - Theoretical basis for decision support - Theory of hierarchically complex systems o Intersecting theories of organization and knowledge Engineering for sustainability unavoidably involves understanding the social use of resources o People, communities and their imperatives o Social systems & infrastructure o Knowledge & decision support Topic 1 ― Sustainability and the “tragedy of the commons” Infrastructure includes those components of the complex system of systems comprised of the environment and people responsible for mediating the material and energetic interactions of people, systems and their environment. To successfully engineer infrastructure for sustainability you must understand the human components as well as the environmental components. Topic 2 ― Theories of organization and knowledge Physical theories are the basis for structural engineering.Theories of knowledge and organization are the basis for enterprise engineering. Knowledge has a physical basis.

1. Knowledge Generation, Use and Management
in
Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering
William P. Hall
President
Kororoit Institute Proponents and Supporters
Assoc., Inc. - http://kororoit.org
Principal
EA Principals – http://eaprincipals.com
william-hall@bigpond.com
http://www.orgs-evolution-knowledge.net
Access my research papers from Google Citations
A unique area in
the state space of the
Mandlebrot set
definition
An attractor
Presentation for CVEN90043 Sustainable
Infrastructure Engineering, Melbourne School of
Engineering, 23 May 2014
Attribution
CC BY

2. NOTE
―
This presentation is a
hypertext
Click underlined text
to open linked
material
2

3. Background
 Naturalist/evolutionary biologist by training (PhD Harvard, 1973
– taught biology through 1980)
 1981-1989: IT technical communicator & documentation manager
(journalism, software development, banking)
 1990-2007: Documentation and knowledge management systems
analyst and designer for Tenix Defence while it grew to be
Australia’s largest defence engineering prime contractor and
then failed. How did it succeed and why did it then fail?
 2001-present: Independent researcher trying to understand
what knowledge is and why organizations (especially engineering
organizations) find it so difficult to manage and apply knowledge
 Currently a member of Riddells Creek Landcare committee
 You might call me an “organizational biologist” and/or a
“enterprise engineer”
3

4.  Formed 1987 to bid for $7 BN defense project to build 10 ANZAC Frigates for
Australian (8) & New Zealand (2) Navies
 Oct. 1989 began stringently fixed price contract, with many difficult warranty/
liquidated damages milestones
 Project completed 2007 with every ship delivered on-time, on-budget,
company profit and happy customers
 Staff learned many things about shipbuilding & management of complex projects
 Mid 2004 began a $500 M project to build 7 ships to commercial standards for
New Zealand, to be completed in 2007
 By 2007 only one ship had been delivered – and that with substantial defects.
Tenix costs were so far over contract value that Tenix auctioned its Defence
assets to highest bidder (BAE Systems Australia)
 Tenix management thought the company knew how to build ships, but line
management policies prevented transfer of staff personal knowledge from
ANZAC project to NZ project.
 Last ship delivered by BAE Systems in 2010 together with NZ$86.4 settlement
for delays and remaining defects.
– Hall, W.P., Nousala, S., Kilpatrick B. 2009. One company – two outcomes: knowledge
integration vs corporate disintegration in the absence of knowledge management. VINE:
The journal of information and knowledge management systems 39(3), 242-258
Success & failure of Tenix Defence
4

5. Some lessons I learned from Tenix Defence about
corporate and engineers’ management of knowledge
 Engineers (and many others) have difficulties
understanding intangible stuff like “knowledge”
 Engineers are good at establishing and applying formal
rules and standards to discover and build solutions for
well analysed problems
 They are not so good at solving problems involving
people or other chaotic components
 Engineers work in and with organizations comprised of
people who are inherently error prone and sometimes
chaotic
 By recognizing these problems of knowledge and
organization, engineers can build systems to minimize
uncertainty and manage knowledge they need
5

6. Topics for today
 Key frameworks of understanding for sustainability
practice
– Tragedy of the commons
 Elinor Ostrom (Nobel Laureate)
– Models of governance
 Herbert Simon (Nobel Laureate)
– Theoretical basis for decision support
– Theory of hierarchically complex systems
– Intersecting theories of organization and knowledge
 Engineering for sustainability unavoidably involves
understanding the social use of resources
– People, communities and their imperatives
– Social systems & infrastructure
– Knowledge & decision support
 In time available today, I can only introduce topics6

7. Topic 1
―
Sustainability and the
“tragedy of the
commons”
Infrastructure includes those components
of the complex system of systems
comprised of the environment and people
responsible for mediating the material and
energetic interactions of people, systems
and their environment
To successfully engineer infrastructure for
sustainability you must understand the
human components as well as the
environmental components
Based on Else, S., Hall, W.P. 2012 presentation. Enterprise
knowledge architecture for community action. Kororoit
Institute International Symposium and Workshop - Living
Spaces for Change: Socio-technical knowledge of cities
and regions. 29 February – 2 March 2012, North
Melbourne, Australia
7

8. The tragedy of the commons
 “The tragedy of the commons”
Garrett Hardin 1968. The tragedy of the commons. Science Vol. 162, No 3859, pp. 1243-
1248
– Sets out the consequences of an uncompromising economic logic
governing the harvesting of valuable but limited resources from a
commons
 Unfettered individuals make a net profit of +1 for every unit of resource
they extract/harvest and use
 The future loss due to the removal of that unit is shared with all other
individuals extracting the resource for a net loss of -1/n
 It is always to the net economic advantage of every individual to continue
extracting the resource until the resource is totally consumed
 Situation grows worse if the resource’s unit value rises with scarcity
 Any individual refraining from extraction only benefits those who thus
have more resource to extract
 Only through some form of higher level control or governance
(e.g., social or despotic) over the scarce resource can its
extraction be limited to some socially beneficial level
8

9. GOVERNING OUR INTERACTIONS WITH OUR
ENVIRONMENT SO WE CAN SUSTAIN OUR LIFE
IN THE ENVIRONMENT IS DIFFICULT!
Governance is the exercise of authority over the
actions, affairs, etc, of a political unit, people, etc, as
well as the performance of certain functions for this
unit or body; the action of governing; political rule and
administration.
In other words, governance is the application of
socio/political constraints over individual action by some
higher level entity above the individual self.
Governance can have good or bad consequences9
Our world is finite

10.  Elinor Ostrom (2009) awarded Nobel Prize in Economic Science)
for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons
– Understanding the different kinds of markets
– Types of goods
– Management economics
– Showed resources can be managed successfully by involving people
(i.e., principal stakeholders!) who use them in the governance
Governing the commons
Impact of exploitation on depletion of resource
Difficulty
to exclude
potential
exploiters
Toll Goods
? theatre
? private clubs
? daycare centres
Private Goods
? food
? clothing
? automobile
LOW
Public Goods
? peaceful & secure community
? national defense
? knowledge
? fire protection
? weather forecasts
Common Pool Resources
? groundwater basins
? lakes
? fisheries
? forests
? air quality
HIGH
LOWHIGH
Impact of exploitation on depletion of resource
Difficulty
to exclude
potential
exploiters
Toll Goods
? theatre
? private clubs
? daycare centres
Private Goods
? food
? clothing
? automobile
LOW
Public Goods
? peaceful & secure community
? national defense
? knowledge
? fire protection
? weather forecasts
Common Pool Resources
? groundwater basins
? lakes
? fisheries
? forests
? air quality
HIGH
LOWHIGH
10

11. Ostrom’s model for environmental governance
ENVIRONMENTAL CONTINGENCIES &
CONSTRAINTS IMPACT OF
REALIZED
OUTCOMES
RULES
RESPOND TO
CONSTRAINTS
 Successful governance structures based on sets of rules regulating exploiters
to ensure optimum management/exploitation of resource
– Rules respond to constraints
– Impacts are consequences of realized outcomes of the application of the rules
11

12. Ostrom’s resource governance model
 Conceptual changes: common property resource
– common pool resources
– common property regimes
– recognized 5 property types
 access, withdrawal, management, exclusion & alienation
– Property rights systems for different resources mix all five
 One rule does not fit all situations!
 Concluded that successful systems followed certain practices (i.e.,
design principles) reflecting knowledge of particular environments
– Clear user & resource boundaries
– Congruence between benefits & costs
– Graduated sanctions
– Conflict resolution mechanisms
– Minimal recognition of rights by government
– Nested enterprises
– Regular/continuous monitoring of users & resource conditions with
corrective feedback
12

13. Governance = making and imposing decisions on
communities with costs/benefits
 Herbert A. Simon (1978) Nobel Prize in Economic Science for his
pioneering research into the decision-making process within economic
organizations and the limits to rationality
– Perfect decisions only possible with perfect knowledge and unlimited time to
consider alternatives
– Real world requires “satisficing” – i.e., best guess given the available
knowledge and time, optimizing time, knowledge, and urgency
– Simon’s other work explored the architecture of hierarchically complex
systems (i.e., nearly decomposable)
 Effective governance depends on
– Availability of appropriate knowledge
– Sufficient time for thinking before the next problem arises
– Capabilities to act
– Availability of resources to support action
 For a project to be sustainable engineers must understand the relationships
between the engineered product and the community that will use it and the
enterprise(s) that will govern it
 Need to engineer the structure of the project/community enterprise to
optimize resource governance (“social engineering”?)13

14. Government
centralized
management
Community self-
governance and
self-management
Co-management
Informing
Consulting
Cooperating
Communicating
Exchanging information
Advising
Acting (jointly, separately)
Partnering
Controlling
Coordinating
Government-based
management
Community-based
management
Community involvement
Government
centralized
management
Community self-
governance and
self-management
Co-management
Informing
Consulting
Cooperating
Communicating
Exchanging information
Advising
Acting (jointly, separately)
Partnering
Controlling
Coordinating
Government-based
management
Community-based
management
Community involvement
Government powers and resources vs local knowledge
Trade offs
– local
knowledge vs
scientific
knowledge
– Timely
decision vs
adequate
knowledge
– power to act
vs will to act
 Knowledge management at multiple levels is crucial14

15. Theories of
organization and
knowledge
physical theories are the
basis for structural
engineering
theories of knowledge and
organization are the basis
for enterprise engineering
Knowledge has a physical
basis
15

16. Organizations exist in contexts
 No enterprise or subsidiary component should be
considered in isolation from its existential contexts
– What are its imperatives for continued existence?
 to maintain survival and wellbeing
 to maintain resource inputs necessary to survival
 to produce and distribute goods necessary to survival
 to survive environmental changes
 to minimize risk
 to maintain future wellbeing
– Organizational systems satisfying imperatives must track
continually changing contexts with observations, decisions
and actions
 Beware of empty rhetoric and mismatches with
real imperatives (e.g., “mission statements”)
16

17. 17
Causation in hierarchical structure
 Holon – a “two faced” system that looks upward to the
supersystem that constrains its behavior, and downward to the
subsystems that determine what it is possible for it to do.
 Downward causation - Every organized entity (holon) is a
component within a higher-level supersystem (e.g., “the
economy”, “the system of government”) forming an environment
that constrains what the holon can or must do to survive (= meet
requirements)
 Every holon interacts with other holons at its own focal level of
organization to form that higher level supersystem
 Upward causation - Every holon is comprised of lower-level
subsystems (e.g., people, machines) whose capabilities and law-
like behavioral interactions determine what is possible for the
entity to do

18. 18
 Knowledge-based
“adaptive” systems
exist at several
hierarchical levels of
structural organization
– Nation
– State
– Council
– Community group
– Person
– Body cell
 For effective action,
flows of knowledge,
decision and action
must pass through
several hierarchical
levels
Seeing complex adaptive systems in a systems
hierarchy

19. Constraints and boundaries, regulations determine what is physically allowable
People joining
Other inputs
Observations
Other outputs
Actions
Subsystems andSubsystems and
processesprocesses
"universal" laws governing component interactions determine physical capabilities
The entity's imperatives and goals
The entity's history and present circumstances
HIGHER LEVEL SYSTEM / ENVIRONMENT
SUBSYSTEMS / COMPONENTS
Codified knowledge
People leaving
Codified knowledge
Constraints and boundaries, regulations determine what is physically allowable
People joining
Other inputs
Observations
Other outputs
Actions
Subsystems andSubsystems and
processesprocesses
"universal" laws governing component interactions determine physical capabilities
The entity's imperatives and goals
The entity's history and present circumstances
HIGHER LEVEL SYSTEM / ENVIRONMENT
SUBSYSTEMS / COMPONENTS
Codified knowledge
People leaving
Codified knowledge
Working with complex hierarchies
 Understanding
community action
in the complex
hierarchy
– hierarchical
bottom-up
construction
of knowledge
– hierarchical
top-down
devolution of
decision &
action
 Knowing and acting entities are complex adaptive systems that must
continually work to maintain their survivals
– May act as components in higher level systems
– May be comprised of lower level systems
– Knowledge must pass across systems at same level and up & down hierarchy19

20. Knowledge = solutions to problems
20
Pn a real-world problem faced by a
living entity
TS a tentative solution/theory.
Tentative solutions are varied
through serial/parallel iteration
EE a test or process of error
elimination
Pn+1 changed problem as faced by an
entity incorporating a surviving
solution
The whole process is iterated
 All knowledge claims are constructed, cannot be proven to be true
 TSs may be embodied as “structure” in the “knowing” entity, or
 TSs may be expressed in words as hypotheses, subject to objective criticism; or as
genetic codes in DNA, subject to natural selection
 Objective expression and criticism lets our theories die in our stead
 Through cyclic iteration, sources of errors are found and eliminated
 Solutions/theories become more reliable as they survive repetitive testing
 Surviving TSs are the source of all knowledge!
Karl Popper, Objective Knowledge – An Evolutionary Approach
(1972), pp. 241-244

21. Personal (i.e., human) knowledge
21
 Forms of knowledge
– Tacit
– Implicit
– Articulated
– Explicit
– Procedural
– Declarative
●Sense making
– W2 process
constructing tacit
understanding in
context
– We only know what we
know when we need to
know it
Nickols, F. 2000. The knowledge in knowledge management (KM).
in J.W. Cortada and J.A. Woods, eds. The Knowledge Management
Yearbook 2001-2002. Butterworth-Heinemann

22. 22
Creating and building knowledge is cyclical
 Following Karl Popper, knowledge is solutions to problems of
living
– Cycles of creation and destruction (Boyd, Osinga)
 Observe, Orient, Decide, Act
 Creation = assembly of sense data and information to suggest claims
about the world
 Destruction = testing and criticizing claims against the world to
eliminate those claims that don’t work
– Solutions are those claims which prove to work (at least most of
the time)
 Knowledge is mentally constructed
 Cannot logically prove that any claimed solution is actually true
 All claims must be considered to be tentative (i.e., potentially fallible)
 Follow tested claims until they are replaced by something that works
better
 Knowledge building cycles are endlessly iterated and may exist
at several hierarchical levels of organization

23. Personal vs organizational knowledge
 Important difference
– individual knowledge (in any form) is known only by a person
– organizational knowledge is available and physically or socially
accessible to those who may apply it for organizational needs
– Even where explicit knowledge exists, individual knowledge may be
required to access it within a useful response time.
 People know:
– what knowledge the organization needs,
– who may know the answer,
– where in the organization explicit knowledge may be found,
– why the knowledge is important or why it was created,
– when the knowledge might be needed, and
– how to apply the knowledge
 This human knowledge is critical to the organization
 Snowden, D. 2002. Complex acts of knowing: paradox and
descriptive self-awareness. J. Knowledge Management 6:100-111
– Personal knowledge is volunteered; it cannot be conscripted.
– People always know more than can be told, and will tell more than
can be written down.
– People only know what they know when they need to know it.23

24. 24
OODA system of systems in the socio-technical
knowledge-based organization
PROCESS
PEOPLE
CULTURE &
PARADIGMS
INFRASTRUCTURE
“CORPORATE MEMORY”
INPUT
ANALYSIS
SYNTHESIS
PEOPLE
PEOPLE
GENETIC HERITAGE
DATA CONTENT
LINKS
RELATIONS
ANNOTA-
TIONS
OBSERVE DECIDE, ACT
DOCS RECORDS

25. 25
Hierarchy of knowledge-building cycles
 3 stages in building reliable knowledge
– Personal/individual
– Group/team
– Peer review/formal publication
W1
Context
Individual
NOOSPHERE
Peer review /
formalization
Rework
Publication
Group/team
review/extension
W1
Context
Individual
NOOSPHERE
Peer review /
formalization
Rework
Publication
Group/team
review/extension
world knowledge-
base
application of
existing knowledge
Knowledge
construction cycle
Vines et al. 2011
Hall, Nousala 2010
Nousala et al. 2010
Hall et al. 2010

26. 26
Building and maintaining an adaptive KM
architecture to meet organizational imperatives
DRIVERS
ENABLERS &
IMPEDIMENTS
PEOPLE
PROCESS
STRATEGY
DEVELOPMENT
STRATEGIC
REQUIREMENTS
OBSERVATION
OF CONTEXT & RESULTS
ORIENTATION & DECISION
ENACTED
STRATEGY
In competition
 Win more
contracts
 Perform better
on contracts won
 Minimise losses
to risks and
liabilities
 Meet statutory
and regulatory
requirements
 Operational
Excellence
 Customer
satisfaction
 Stakeholder
intimacy
 Service delivery
 Growth
 Sustainability
 Profitability
 Risk mitigation
 Knowledge audit
 Knowledge
mapping
 Business
disciplines
 Technology &
systems
 Information
disciplines
 Incentives &
disincentives
 Etc.
 Internal /
external
communication
 Taxonomies
 Searching &
retrieval
 Business process
analysis &
reengineering
 Tracking and
monitoring
 Intelligence
gathering
 QA / QC
 Strategic
management
 Architectural
role
 Communities of
Practice
 Corporate
communications
 HR practices
 Competitive
intelligence
 IT strategy
 Etc.
… ITERATION …

27. END
See below for slides removed from
a more complete presentation
27

28. Some papers on relevant technology for building
knowledge infrastructures for sustainability
 Hall, W.P., Nousala, S., Best, R., Nair, S. 2012. Social networking tools for knowledge-
based action groups. (in) Computational Social Networks - Part 2: Tools, Perspectives and
Applications, (eds) Abraham, A., Hassanien, A.-E. Springer-Verlag, London, pp. 227-255
 Nousala, S., Hall, W.P., Hadgraft, R. 2011. Socio-technical systems for connecting social
knowledge and the governance of urban action. 15th WMSCI, CENT Symposium, July 19-
22, 2011, Orlando, Florida, USA.
 Vines, R., Hall, W.P., McCarthy, G. 2011. Textual representations and knowledge support-
systems in research intensive networks. (in) Cope, B., Kalantzis, M., Magee, L. (eds).
Towards a Semantic Web: Connecting Knowledge in Academic Research. Oxford: Chandos
Press, pp. 145-195.
 Hall, W.P., Nousala, S., Best, R. 2010. Free technology for the support of community action
groups: theory, technology and practice. Knowledge Cities World Summit, 16-19, November
2010, Melbourne, Australia
 Hall, W.P., Nousala, S. 2010. What is the value of peer review – some sociotechnical
considerations. Second International Symposium on Peer Reviewing, ISPR 2010 June 29th
- July 2nd, 2010 – Orlando, Florida, USA
 Hall, W.P., Nousala, S., Vines, R. 2010. Using Google’s apps for the collaborative
construction, refinement and formalization of knowledge. ICOMP'10 - The 2010
International Conference on Internet Computing July 12-15, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
 Nousala, S., Miles, A., Kilpatrick, B., Hall, W.P. 2009. Building knowledge sharing
communities using team expertise access maps (TEAM). International Journal of Business
and Systems Research 3(3), 279-296.
28

29. Some more readings in answer to questions
 Government relations:
– Hall, W.P., Nousala, S., Best, R. 2010. Free technology for the support of community action groups:
theory, technology and practice. Knowledge Cities World Summit, 16-19, November 2010,
Melbourne, AustraliaNousala, S., Hall, W.P., Hadgraft, R. 2011.
– Socio-technical systems for connecting social knowledge and the governance of urban action. 15th
WMSCI, CENT Symposium, July 19-22, 2011, Orlando, Florida, USA.
– Hall, W.P., Kilpatrick, B. 2011. Managing community knowledge to build a better world. Australasian
Conference on Information Systems (ACIS) 30th November - 2nd December, 2011, Sydney,
Australia.
 Context of decision making
– Hall, W.P., Else, S., Martin, C., Philp, W. 2011. Time-based frameworks for valuing knowledge:
maintaining strategic knowledge. Kororoit Institute Working Papers No. 1: 1-28.
 Engineering knowledge management (maintenance organization)
– Hall, W.P., Richards, G., Sarelius, C., Kilpatrick, B. 2008. Organisational management of project and
technical knowledge over fleet lifecycles. Australian Journal of Mechanical Engineering. 5(2):81-95.
– Hall, W.P. 2007. Managing lifecycles of complex projects. Government Transformation Journal, July
2007.
– Nousala, S., Miles, A., Kilpatrick, B., Hall, W.P. 2005. Building knowledge sharing communities using
team expertise access maps (TEAM). Proceedings, KMAP05 Knowledge Management in Asia Pacific
Wellington, N.Z. 28-29 November 2005.
– Hall, W.P. and Brouwers, P. 2004. The CMIS solution for Tenix's M113 program. MatrixOne
Innovation Summit. Shangri-La's Rasa Sentosa Resort, Singapore, 12 - 14 August, 2004.
– Hall, W.P. 2008. Presentations for 421-672 Management of Technological Enterprises - Managing
Knowledge in Technological Enterprises, Masters in Engineering Management, University of
Melbourne: Lecture 1 , Tutorial 1 , Lecture 229

30. Basic forms of resource governance
 Autocracy/despotism (Wikipedia):
– supreme political power to direct all state activities is concentrated in the
hands of one person (autocracy) or group (despotism), whose decisions are
subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of
popular control
 Gargantuan (R.C. Wood via V. Ostrom):
– formation of a single metropolitan government over all
 Multi-level governance (European Union via Wikipedia):
– many interacting authority structures work at various hierarchical levels in
the emergent global and local economy
 Polycentric
– (V Ostrom et al. 1961): traditional pattern of government in a metropolitan
area with its multiplicity of political jurisdictions
– (E Ostrom 2009): many centers of decision making that are formally
independent of each other. Whether they actually function independently,
or instead constitute an interdependent system of relations, is an empirical
question in particular cases
 Community-based resource management (Berkes 2006)
– local resource usage governed by local community
 Co-management (Berkes 2009):
– sharing of power and responsibility between the government and local
resource users30

31. New tools extending human cognition introduce radical
capabilities for knowledge infrastructure
 “Instant” observation/communication/decision/action possible
– Every smart phone in a hand is an intelligent sensing node also capable
of organizing and supporting action
 visual (photo & video sharing)
 auditory (Skype, etc.)
 spatial (geotagging)
 textual (twitter, email, blogging, etc.)
– Polling & voting (e.g., SurveyMonkey)
– Acting (e.g., Mechanical Turk)
 Crowd sourcing tools for assembling knowledge
– wiki
– databases
 Unlimited access to knowledge resources
– cloud computing
– Google Scholar / Google Translate
 > 50% world knowledge available free-on-line via author archiving
 > 95% available via research library subscriptions
– University of Melbourne accesses 105,000 eJournals
– Scholar offers direct access from search result to university subscription
 Etc. – beyond imagining31

32. Sample community action groups
32
Click picture
to open link
See: Hall, W.P.,
Nousala, S., Best, R.
2010. Free technology
for the support of
community action
groups: theory,
technology and practice.

33. More on the
theory of
organizations
and
organizational
knowledge
33

34. What is an enterprise?
 A coherently definable organized entity that may be:
– Comprised of multiple interacting entities
– Unified by a common system of governance
– Working towards a common goal
 “A complex, adaptive, evolving system” (Mathet Consulting, Inc.)
– Existing in complex & changing environments (physical, economic, technological, and
legal)
– constantly receives, uses, transforms, produces and distributes products and services
that have value to itself and its customers
– exhibits characteristics of hierarchical complexity, reactivity, adaptability,
emergence, downward and upward causation, self-organization, non-linear chaotic
responses
 An organized, notionally bounded socio-technical system, addressing its internal
/ external imperatives for business / survival (i.e., an “organic” entity),
comprised of
– People (participants in the organization from time to time)
– Processes (automated, documented, tacit routines, etc.)
– Infrastructure (Web, ICT, physical plant, etc.)
– Organizational knowledge (i.e., contributing to organizational
structure/success)
 Knowledge as a deliverable product (e.g., technical documentation)
 Knowledge about and embodied in deliverable products
 Knowledge about and embodied in organizational processes and
infrastructure
 Members’ personal knowledge relating to their organizational roles
Organizational knowledge
Leave one of the
legs off, and the
stool will fall over34

35. Organizations exist in contexts
 No enterprise or subsidiary component should be
considered in isolation from its existential contexts
– What are its imperatives for continued existence?
 to maintain survival and wellbeing
 to maintain resource inputs necessary to survival
 to produce and distribute goods necessary to survival
 to survive environmental changes
 to minimize risk
 to maintain future wellbeing
– Organizational systems satisfying imperatives must track
continually changing contexts with observations, decisions
and actions
 Beware of empty rhetoric and mismatches with
real imperatives (e.g., “mission statements”)
35

36. Where does knowledge exist?
36
Energy flow
Thermodynamics
Physics
Chemistry
Biochemistry
Cybernetic
self-regulation
Cognition
Consciousness
Tacit knowledge
Genetic heredity
Recorded thought
Computer memory
Logical artifacts
Explicit knowledge
Reproduce/Produce
Develop/Recall
World 1
Existence/Reality
World 2
World of mental or
psychological states and
processes, subjective
experiences, memory of history
Organismic/personal/situational/
subjective/tacit knowledge in world
2 emerges from world 1 processes
World 3
The world of “objective”
Knowledge Produced /
evaluated by world 2
processes
“living/personal
knowledge”
“codified
/explicit
knowledge”
Karl Popper, Objective Knowledge –
An Evolutionary Approach (1972)
Hall, W.P. 2011. Physical basis for the
emergence of autopoiesis, cognition and
knowledge. Kororoit Institute Working Papers No. 2: 1-63
“living/personal
knowledge”

37. Personal (i.e., human) knowledge
37
 Forms of knowledge
– Tacit (W2)
– Implicit (W2)
– Articulated (W2)
– Explicit (W3)
– Procedural (W2)
– Declarative (W2/W3)
●Sense making
– W2 process
constructing tacit
understanding in
context
– We only know what we
know when we need to
know it
Nickols, F. 2000. The knowledge in knowledge management (KM).
in J.W. Cortada and J.A. Woods, eds. The Knowledge Management
Yearbook 2001-2002. Butterworth-Heinemann

38. Building and processing knowledge in the
organization
IFK
(W2)
FK
CK
EK
}Semantics of explicit
knowledge are only
available via World 2
processes
Code:
EK – Explicit Knowledge
CK – Common Knowledge
FK – Formal Knowledge
IFK – Integrated Formal
Knowledge
For the purposes of this diagram
CK and FK are expressions
of explicit knowledge (EK)
WORLD 1
WORLD 2
PERSONAL
KNOWLEDGE
WORLD 3
KNOWLEDGE
BUILDING
PROCESSES
KNOWING
ORGANIZATION
(including organizational tacit knowledge)
ENVIRONMENTAL
CONTEXTS
SEMIPERMEABLE
BOUNDARY
●
●
DRIVE & ENABLE
ANTICIPATE & INFLUENCE
OBSERVE, TEST & MAKE SENSE
KNO
W
LEDG
E
FLO
W
S
&
EXCHANG
ESIFK
(W2)
FK
CK
EK
}Semantics of explicit
knowledge are only
available via World 2
processes
Code:
EK – Explicit Knowledge
CK – Common Knowledge
FK – Formal Knowledge
IFK – Integrated Formal
Knowledge
For the purposes of this diagram
CK and FK are expressions
of explicit knowledge (EK)
WORLD 1
WORLD 2
PERSONAL
KNOWLEDGE
WORLD 3
KNOWLEDGE
BUILDING
PROCESSES
KNOWING
ORGANIZATION
(including organizational tacit knowledge)
ENVIRONMENTAL
CONTEXTS
SEMIPERMEABLE
BOUNDARY
●
●
DRIVE & ENABLE
ANTICIPATE & INFLUENCE
OBSERVE, TEST & MAKE SENSE
KNO
W
LEDG
E
FLO
W
S
&
EXCHANG
ES
Vines, R., Hall, W.P. 2011.
Exploring the foundations of
organizational knowledge.
38

39. Turning personal into explicit knowledge
39

40. 40
Organizational knowledge from personal knowledge
Error reduction in new knowledge claims
Knowledgequalityassurancethroughcriticismandrealitytesting
WORLD 3
Formal
knowledge
WORLD 3
Explicit
knowledge
WORLD 3
Common
knowledge
Knowledgeexchange
Review
processing
Error reduction in new knowledge claims
Knowledgequalityassurancethroughcriticismandrealitytesting
WORLD 3
Formal
knowledge
WORLD 3
Explicit
knowledge
WORLD 3
Common
knowledge
Knowledgeexchange
Review
processing
Personal
Accessible and
shared in group Organizational