KNOWLEDGE AND ORGANIZATIONS

Abstract

This paper examines two interrelated questions: Knowledge utilization and organizational learning. Whereas most treatments o f these questions have in mind individuals, “decisionmakers,” who are supposedly the learning agents, or the potential users of social science knowledge and information, my attempt will be to regard knowledge utilization and learning as organizational phenomena. A s such, the question of knowledge utilization, of learning, of knowledge growth in organizations, calls for the notion of organizational epistemology which has been neglected due to the prevailing view of organizational learning a5 experimental learning. The notion of organizational epistemology, or theory of knowledge, is, in turn, helpful in freeing both organizations from the naive empiricism we have attributed to them, and utilization‐minded researchers from the frustration that accompanies the repeatedly documented phenomenon on nonutilization. To better appreciate the role of policy minded social science knowledge and information, my proposal will be to conceptualize learning behavior in terms of “contest” rather than experimentation and verification.

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