Management of Moral Knowledge and Ethical Processes in Organizations

Moral knowledge is necessary for organizational functioning in order to get legitimacy and increase profits. Given Blackler’s assumptions about organizations, the authors discuss managing moral knowledge in organizations as a set of organizational processes with a time point and in a certain environment. They argue that to become ethically competent, organizations have to combine individuals and organizational ethical skills. Instead of on what is supposed to be done, the authors focus on what is done: interactions within the organization and with its environment, structured by practical routines, bearing main responsibility for transferring moral knowledge. The means facilitating this are organizational roles and structures, trainings, formal and informal support systems along with rules and guidelines. Further, the authors suggest two tools to assist managing moral knowledge: Ethical Index ETHIX (questionnaire to describe how ethical issues are handled in the organization) and the IT system ETHXPERT (supports and structures the process o ethical decision making).

From “Connectivism” to “Ethicism”

Distance learning characteristics has been changing dramatically, namely since the fourth generation of distance learning. Moreover, e-learning impressive “evolution” enabled a trade-off between learning outcomes and ethical behaviour, which traditional learning theories do not embrace and that connectivism endeavours to illustrate. Although, two important queries arise: what challenges e-learning 2.0 and 3.0 impose? And, does connectivism promote ethical knowledge? Therefore, this chapter aims to endorse a theoretical debate regarding e-learning, as well as to understand if connectivism will act as 21st century learning theory, or if the quest for an ethical connective knowledge and e-learning fusion with knowledge management itself will require a novel contribution (connethionicism). Despite the assumption that connectivism has been promoting a reasonable debate, the author‘s personal experiences highlight the need for ethicism.

Knowledge Management and Democracy

The main problem discussed in this chapter is the question of compatibility between knowledge management in the knowledge economy and democracy in the ICT-driven global society. The assumption is made that democracy is the dominant form of organizing the global society on a variety of levels; and that it is regarded as desirable and morally superior in comparison with other such forms.

Glocality, Diversity and Ethics of Distributed Knowledge in Higher Education

Global networks through distributed systems technology granted a new meaning to knowledge creation, storage and distribution within higher education context. This global dimension imposes a considerable amount of ethical and social impacts concerning distributed knowledge because it is expressed within local contexts. Nonetheless, main stream literature highlights equity and cultural sensitivity as leading issues, and disregards the existent social dilemmas concerning organizational innovation in higher education. Therefore, this chapter aims to promote a philosophical and empirical argument within contextual determinants, in order to explore the ethical and social key dilemmas of distributed knowledge between global and local diversity in higher education. For that, under scrutiny will be a specific layer regarding first co-author e-University strategic implementation framework which interacts with ethics and culture, in order to, understand e-learning current practices in higher education, as well as, to nominate potential future guidelines concerning these trends.

What Does Knowledge Have to do with Ethics?

In the same way that useful theory in knowledge management systems leads us to rethink the nature of knowledge (Spender & Scherer, 2007) a theory of ethics that is informed by current research in moral psychology will lead us to rethink the nature of ethical action. This chapter introduces a research program that has tracked ethical action among computer professionals and uses the insights from that research to make suggestions about how purposive moral action is undertaken and how it might be supported by knowledge management systems.

Knowledge Creation and Sharing in Japanese Organisations

The Japanese contribution to knowledge management results from the work of Ikujiro Nonaka and his colleagues, who developed an Organisational Knowledge Creation Theory. In fact, throughout the literature the importance of these scholars in knowledge management is evidently recognisable. However, it is important to understand this theoretical contribution in the context of the socio-cultural background that pervades it. For that reason, this chapter explores the relationship between the Japanese school of knowledge management and the socio-cultural systems of Japan. Furthermore, the chapter also demonstrates that this relationship disrupts organisation’s ba (a field of knowledge creation and sharing), and as a consequence some social dilemmas arise, most importantly a degradation of trust.

The Importance of Balancing Knowledge Protection and Knowledge Interchange

Business organisations are aware of the importance of knowledge to keep and acquire competitiveness, so willing to find and keep knowledge holders in their organisations. However, employees in many developed countries have freedom to choose what to do for their living; it is possible a suddenly leave regarding their current jobs and get a new job elsewhere. This is a great loss for the former employer, because it means that not only the knowledge holders themselves but also their knowledge leaves the former business. Moreover, this knowledge would be beneficial for the new employers which are often competitors of the former employers. In order to avoid this kind of brain drain, employers often require that employees sign non-disclosure and non-compete agreements. Nevertheless, this request can cause some trouble in the long run. This chapter shows the structures causing this trouble and how to deal with it using the systems thinking approach.

The Trouble with Digital Copies

This chapter analyzes some of the most relevant ethical issues and social dilemmas in knowledge management and organizational innovation, by focusing on a paramount feature of digital technology, which is “copying.” The new ways in which information is produced, distributed, and shared in digital environments have in fact changed crucial aspects of human life. Whereas, most of the time, scholars consider such transformations in connection with the impact of digital copies on copyright law, the aim of the chapter is to widen this perspective by examining data protection as well as file sharing application systems. The new economical scenarios and business models proposed by this copy-based technology suggest new ways for balancing property rights and “the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community.”

The Emerging Ethics of Knowledge Sharing

A key challenge that is emerging for organizations in nowadays is how to encourage knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing is an activity through which knowledge is exchanged among people, a community or organization. Knowledge constitutes a valuable intangible asset for creating and sustaining competitive advantages. Knowledge sharing activities are generally supported by knowledge management systems. Nevertheless, technology comprises simply one of the several issues that influence organizational knowledge sharing, such as organizational culture, trust, and incentives. So, knowledge sharing entails a key challenge in the field of knowledge management because some individuals tend to resist sharing their knowledge with others (it may be an individual, a group, a community, or an organization). The aim of this chapter is to describe and discuss three emerging ethics of knowledge-sharing, namely: (1) hacker ethics, (2) participatory culture ethics, and (3) proselytization commons ethics. Future research directions are suggested and concluded the chapter.

Utilization of Resources

Anti-Commons Theory is an interesting theme that is being developed in the area of property rights since the 80’s. It intends to explain why an “anti-commons” emerges and why resources may be prone to under-use. In an anti-commons situation there are too many exclusion rights that lead to the under-use of resources. In Portugal, too many people (and institutions) have been involved in the approval processes of aquaculture projects. They may be involved in reaching a decision about the approval of a project which gives rise to the under-utilization of the resources that promoters aimed to exploit. Actually, it takes so long to approve a project that the time required for its implementation may be excessively delayed. This kind of problem results typically from bureaucratic environment. An ethical problem rises with this phenomenon. Projects may not go forward and all the amounts spent in the project will be lost. Besides, a viable project simply can be gone, with all the inherent losses of value.