Exploring Knowledge Management Using Network Theories: Questions, Paradoxes and Prospects

This paper investigates knowledge management (KM) activities in communities and networks of practice and information and communication technologies' role and use in these knowledge networks. We develop five research questions based on network models and the existing literature. We then investigate these research questions using a case study of a university information technology (IT) department. While our findings confirm extant KM understandings, we also develop several new insights and contradictions. Our study reveals several KM research and practice paradoxes and proposes a pluralistic/paradoxical view of KM and its related concepts such as networks, knowledge sharing, learning, and information and communication technologies. We suggest that recognizing simultaneous opposites and contradictions can improve an organization's KM efforts and can explain conflicting research findings.

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