Organisational Complexity: Organizing through the generation and sharing of knowledge

Abstract

This paper explores the processes of knowledge generation and sharing among the employees of a multinational business organisation. We consider the generation and sharing of knowledge as crucial for the process of organising, especially in situations in which new businesses are being developed. In particular this paper examines the new ways of organising that emerged within the multinational organisation following the creation of a new internet business unit. The paper elaborates on the effects of those changes in the way people make sense of the new working contexts through the stories they share. Considering knowledge as dynamic, generative and emergent; rooted in social practice and (re)produced and shared in social interactions has led us to focus on the study of organisational collectives such as work teams. In interpreting the findings from the empirical study, it is suggested that the interactions among those collectives are the medium through which sense making and knowledge generation occur in the organization resulting from the web of relationships developed, maintained and sustained through the participation of people within different networks. However, it becomes also apparent that the participation in those networks does not only enable but can also inhibit both the generation and sharing of new knowledge as well as the development of new ways of organising.

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