How to facilitate (knowledge) processes you can not control?

I’m struggling with formulating my PhD ideas. I have a feeling that I know what I want to do and how I want to do, but I’m finding it difficult to explain… Probably, if I formulate them here they will become clearer.

I’m starting from the belief that you can hardly control how people learn or share knowledge. But as a company you want people share knowledge and learn. So I would define my question as:

[broad]

• How to facilitate (knowledge) processes you can’t control?

[more specific]

• What “controls” an organisation can play with to make sure that people share knowledge and learn (in the direction that beneficial for a business)?
• Who, when and how plays with those “controls”?

Then I have some preliminary ideas about: “controls”, players and interventions.

• “Controls” (I call them factors) seems for fall into four groups: motivation/need, time/space, instruments and skills (more about factors).
• Main players are: knowledge workers themselves, their managers, KM teams and HR groups.
• Interventions are established (and emerging) ways to influence “controls”: management, KM, HR, training (…) methods, techniques and tools.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2002/11/12.html#a346; comments are here.

• Learning of knowledge workers
• ALT Spring: Research workshop on lifelong learning
• Links: self-directed learning, meta-learning

Tagged as: learning