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Verna Allee's The
Future of Knowledge, published by Butterworth-Heinemann,
September 2002, lays out a conceptual framework for the use and value
of knowledge in a networked economy. In her view knowledge is a
social process that emerges in and travels through networks,
communities, and webs of conversations. The foundation she builds
on is systems thinking as put forward by Peter Senge in The Fifth
Discipline: The Arts & Practices of The Learning Organisation.

Allee points out that success in
business is all about relationships: "business is about
exchanges and transactions that happen between real people."
It is also built on intangibles: "enduring business
relationships are rarely built solely on tangible transactions,
especially when dealing with sophisticated or complex products and
services."

Respect, integrity and trust are all
part of Allees' vocabulary. Systems thinking leads to a recognition
of the need for respect. No individual part can function in
isolation. It needs the other members of the system in order to
funtion. Trust is an integral part of respect: "Knowledge and
other intangible exchanges become richer and more frequent where
there is trust. Trust widens the pipeline. " The converse is
certainly the case in organisations short on trust in which knowledge
is seen to be power. This can apply to colleagues in the same office
as well as to relationships with customers. In order for knowledge to
be shared it must be seen as strengthening the value chain, or
rather, the value network. Here it is a lack of systems thinking that
prevents people from seeing their own value gain in sharing
knowledge.

Allee herself recognises that it is
controversial to apply living systems and complexity theory to
business practice, but it is a controversy that is at the crux of
current battles over copyright, software patents, intellectual
property and digital protection.

I wonder whether for some the
conceptual and philosophical divide is to great to be bridged.

Other
books recommended by Verna Allee in the area of knowledge and
business.