Reflections on Knowledge and Knowledgeintensive Firms

Abstract

Knowledge in organizations and, more particularly, in knowledgeintensive firms is an important topic. However, some contemporary approaches tend to over-use the concept of tacit knowledge leading to mystification and magification. Knowledge creation, storage and transmission in organizations may be rationalized and foster bureaucratization, consonant with the Weberian tendency towards formal rationality. The ideationalist nature of certain theorizing may lead to unrealistic accounts of knowledge in organizations. Antithetic positivist theory can offer illumination on some aspects of organizations and so analysts should not confine themselves to ideationalist theories. Arguments for the importance of knowledge in organizations can become enmeshed in claims that society is post-capitalist, which are best avoided. Future researchers would do better to follow the lead of the articles in this special edition and analyse knowledge in organizations in a careful empirical and skeptical fashion.