Using Actor-Network Theory to Facilitate a Superior Understanding of Knowledge Creation and Knowledge Transfer

Abstract

Given today’s dynamic business environment it becomes essential for organisations to maximise their intellectual assets in order to ensure that they are able to support flexible operations and sustain their competitive advantage. Central to this is the ability to extract germane knowledge to enable rapid and effective decision making. At present, knowledge creation techniques tend to focus on either human or technology aspects of organisational development and less often on process-centric aspects of knowledge generation. However, to truly understand knowledge creation and transfer, thereby enabling an organisation to be better positioned to leverage the full potential of its intellectual capital, it is important to view knowledge creation and all socio-technical organisational operations that result in knowledge generation through a richer lens. Actor-network Theory is proffered in this article as such a lens.