A Dialogical Approach to the Creation of New Knowledge in Organizations
Despite several insightful empirical studies on how new knowledge is created in organizations, there is still no satisfactory answer to this question. The purpose of this chapter is to address the question by focusing on direct social interaction. By reinterpreting several organizational examples, as well as findings from organizational knowledge research, the chapter illustrates the process by which new knowledge in organizations originates and develops using a dialogical perspective. When productive, dialogue leads to self-distanciation, namely to individuals taking distance from their customary and unreflective ways of acting as practitioners. Dialogue is productive depending on the extent to which participants engage relationally with one another. When this happens participants are more likely to actively take responsibility both for the joint tasks in which they are involved and for their relationships with others.