Rooney, D., McKenna, B., and D'Agostino, F. International Conference on Knowledge Management in Asia Pacific (KMAP), College of Management, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, 2004, pp. 118-127.
Bullet Express MIM Study Group (Pennie, Helen, Vijay, Torrance, Ian).
Audience: Academics, Knowledge Management professionals
Theme: Orthodox management practice is based on objective knowledge management, but is set to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of knowledge available to business decision makers. That is, unless wisdom is incorporated into the organizational decision making process.
Summary:
The knowledge economy is characterized by an excess of information and knowledge. Contemporary management practice is heavily influenced by neo-liberalism, rational managerialism, and positivist science, which espouse methodological reductionism. These ideologies are referred to as technocratic rationality, and the authors argue that such an ideology leaves decision makers vulnerable to knowledge overload. Wisdom, they suggest, can be used to overcome this. They also question why wisdom has not been afforded the same status as technocratic rationalism in management science. Further, they suggest that it is essential for wisdom to be incorporated into contemporary management practice, if organizational decision makers are to make optimal business decisions.
The following points capture some of the key ideas in this paper:
- The world is more connected, better informed, and has more expertise than ever before.
- This has lead to knowledge overload, resulting in increasing complexity and uncertainty.
- Decision making is bounded by the limits of human cognition and imperfect knowledge.
- The increasing complexity of decision making is a failure of the knowledge economy. The antidote, is wisdom.
- WISDOM - characterised by good judgement, is ethical, prudent and practical. It applies imagination, insight / foresight (transcendent forms of knowing).
- WISDOM is the catalyst for reducing knowledge overload.
- Competitive advantage from organisational learning can be driven by leveraging WISDOM.
- Little literature exists regarding wisdom in management theory.
- Current management practices embodying technocratic rationality are short-sighted, and need to incorporate more people oriented and humanistic practices.
- WISDOM is a mental shortcut to trying to apply rational method and technique to all of the knowledge present in a problem domain.
Review:
The article was interesting and made valid points regarding current management decision making practices in an environment of knowledge overload. It made a good case for incorporating wisdom into management practice. The paper offered practical advice, although it was often buried in dense, technical text, that I found difficult to read, and follow. For example, while interesting, it is difficult to see the relevance of Superstring Theory to a discussion of aesthetics in a management paper. I also though that in trying to support their argument, the authors focussed too much on subjective measures and not enough on objective measures. To some extent however, this is consistent with the theme of the paper.
