Another viewpoint to be considered in explaining a learning organization
and its entities.
According to Richard Tabor Greene, there are about 21 knowledge types in
the literature on 'knowledge modelling' these days. Each knowledge model
is a set of entities (and relationships among those entities) that is
typically used to express certain areas of knowledge in the world. People
who have mastered one knowledge type and exp[ress their knowledge of the
area of life in its entities and relationships are misunderstood and
argued with by others who agree with them in all the essentials, but
happen to use the entities and relations of a different knowledge
model-type to express the same knowledge.
Green contends that these arguments of model type are spurious yet they
are as damaging as real arguments over knowledge differences. His example
is one of the 'decision tree knowledge model' type causing a restricted
choice of limited alternatives to be chosen from and the consequences that
flow from each choice. Thus, its application has been harmfully applied
to the management function for the past 1,000 years in the west. I have
personally found Greene's research to be on-point and well done (See
*Global Quality* , ASQC Press, for example).
--Frank Voehl FVoehl@aol.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>