This is what the fuss is about: a systemic modelling for organisational knowing

Purpose – This paper presents a system‐based approach to action‐directed knowledge management. This approach, known as system‐based knowledge management (SBKM), allows one to respond to the observations made by previous writers that knowledge management should be cognisant of the complexity of knowledge in organisations and of the limitations of codification of that knowledge. Starts with a taxonomic analysis of the nature of organisational knowledge, dividing this critical resource into four: knowing what, knowing how, knowing why, and knowing who. Each of these requires recognition of the system in which it is created and used. Design/methodology/approach – SBKM is an accessible systems analysis tool based on the techniques of qualitative system dynamics. Its fundamental representational technique (the influence diagram) is that of causal mapping and its novel element is the explicit representation of the use of knowledge by human actors in fulfilling their specific system roles. Practical implications – The method has been used successfully in practice; the study reports on its use in a professional services firm. Research limitations/implications – With SBKM one can now map the usage and, indeed, the utility of knowledge on to an operating context. This has profound implications for practice, leading potentially into more diagnostic applications of resources for knowledge development and into improved understanding of how knowledge is used within an organisation. Originality/value – The ability to examine that usage and utility of knowledge on a declared system basis constitutes an additional research instrument for examining how knowledge is used within organisations.