Managing Knowledge: Perspectives on Cooperation and Competition

Divided into two parts, Managing Knowledge reflects a fundamental conceptual distinction between two world-views. The first part is characterized by representationism, or traditional approaches to viewing knowledge, knowledge transfer and cooperative strategies. The contributors provide a clear overview of the current research on knowledge management, and bring together studies on the sociology of knowledge, strategic management and learning theory. The second part focuses on anti-representationism, or new perspectives on knowledge and knowledge transfer in organizational cooperation. These perspectives, based on autopoiesis theory, go far beyond conventional ways of perceiving and managing knowledge and their implications for management theory and practice are fully examined.