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Rating: 
Summary: Journal Review
Review: For those in a hurry: I enjoyed this book; if you're interested in knowledge management, you probably will, too. Those with more time, read on...The 'graffiti' subtitle of this volume indicates its link with an earlier book on sociotechnical systems in the same Springer series on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. (See 1.) This book maintains the sociotechnical viewpoint, this time concentrating on knowledge management. Because of this shared viewpoint, the different chapters are far better integrated than in most contributed volumes. The contributions have also been kept short and to the point, the longest being 17 pages, and taken together these make for an easy but stimulating read. The contributors form a diverse group, with half being based in the UK and the others hailing from Australia, Scandinavia, Singapore, South Africa and the USA. The majority are academics, but there is a sprinkling of practitioners and consultants. There are 14 substantive chapters, plus introductory and concluding chapters by the editors. JORS readers may find some of the material familiar, as several of the authors gave presentations in the Learning Organisations and Knowledge Management streams at the OR42 Conference in September 2000 at Swansea. After the Introduction, Coakes herself succinctly describes how the principles of sociotechnical systems apply to knowledge management in Chapter 2. The succeeding chapters are then divided into four parts: know-why, know-what, know-who, and know-how, although many of the chapters cut across two or more of these headings. Parts 1 and 2 mainly discuss theoretical foundations, while parts 3 and 4 are substantially based on case studies. 'Know-why' (part 1) comprises four chapters. Binney complements Coakes's chapter by explaining the human and organisational significance of his own 'knowledge management spectrum'. Goldkuhl and Braf look at the relationship between the individual and the organisation, and thus at the relationships between individual knowledge and what they term organisational ability and organisational action. Chapter 5 is entitled "managing knowledge in a knowledge business"; the business in question is a university, and unusually the author (Scholtz) is one of the university's IT managers rather than an 'academic'. Yoo and Ifvarsson emphasise the importance of discussing knowledge and learning in organisations as something dynamic, rather than static. They also make the telling point that a 'best practice' approach may sometimes constrain the individual rather than enabling her, echoing Scholtz's view that the academic peer-regulation system may fail to recognise true creativity. 'Know-what' (part 2) is represented by chapters 7 and 8. Phillips and Patrick explain an agent-based model for investigating how cognitive style affects the development of groups, effectively developing a research agenda, while Pemberton and Stonehouse address the situation of the individual in the knowledge-centric organisation. I was a little worried to see the commonly used but unhelpful phrase "extracting individual knowledge" appearing in the latter chapter, despite the book's sociotechnical standpoint. The three chapters in part 3 cover 'know-who'. Chapter 9 by Huang and Pan concentrates on the vital, but relatively under-researched topic of managing knowledge about customers. Their case study of Boots the Chemist illustrates very well the importance of face to face interaction, and the limitations of IT. Yi examines the functioning of a pilot community of practice in Motorola and reports the outcomes from its operation. Ericsson and Avdic develop and justify a simple prototype system to help in managing knowledge relating to errors in the manufacturing process for a Swedish SME. Part 4 contains five chapters, including the Conclusion, grouped under 'know-why'. Here the general JORS reader will find some familiar techniques from soft OR and systems. Cuthbertson and Farrington use Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) in chapter 12 to appreciate a problematic knowledge management situation in one of the Royal Navy's training schools. SSM rich pictures also feature in Chapter 14, by Al-Karaghouli et al, as part of an approach which also advocates the use of group facilitation techniques in requirements elicitation for information systems. The retail sector is the example used here. By contrast, in the intervening chapter, Kazi et al offer something highly unfamiliar: a model of knowledge creation and management based on a palm tree, yielding (eventually) its knowledge coconuts. [This came as somewhat of a surprise to this reviewer, who previously associated Finland more with 'track and field nuts' than coconuts.] This novel image is applied to a Finnish engineering firm, and for this reviewer was perhaps the most thought provoking image in the whole book. Kazi et al also link explicit knowledge to programmable decisions, but it is not apparent that they are aware of the OR/MS heritage here in the work of people such as Herbert Simon. Chapter 15, by Coakes et al, compares the management of tacit (and explicit) knowledge in two consulting companies, with a particular focus on whether there is a role for IT. Overall, there is plenty of material here for both academics and practitioners interested in knowledge management. The book will also serve as useful source material to support knowledge management teaching. One unusual stylistic feature is the highlighting of key points in "speech bubble" call-outs from the main text. It took me a little while to get used to this, but by the end of the book I was finding it helpful rather than intrusive. As I said at the beginning, I enjoyed this book, and I think most people interested in knowledge management will. John Edwards
Aston University Reference
1. Coakes, E., Willis, D. and Lloyd-Jones, R. (Eds.) (2000) The New SocioTech: Graffiti on the Long Wall. Springer Verlag, London.
Rating: 
Summary: Society and technology meet knowledge management
Review: This book is something quite different from the usual text on knowledge management. It is a collection of articles from KM practitioners around the globe whose main desire, but not their only one, is to show that knowledge management is a process that uses and is influenced by both the social and technical. Although I wouldn't recommend it as an undergraduate text there are plenty of really interesting ideas that I will be exploring with my Knowledge Management Technologies class when it runs next year (2003). It will certainly find a place amongst my reference books. If this book isn't near the top of the KM best seller list then it deserves to be.
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