This article investigates what it means for a manager to be knowledgeable. It identifies, on the one hand, a rational tendency to sublimate knowledge as something more exact, definitive and logical than mere learning, and, on the other hand, a practical tendency to subjugate knowledge to social conventions. Articulating a third way between these views, the article critically develops the work of those management scholars for whom the objectivity of knowledge claims is perpetually upset by the recurring influence of environmental context, novel use and localized, community agreement. The influence of what Wittgenstein refers to as background conditions is identified and this background is woven into personal, empirical experiences of events as the bedrock upon which knowledgeable conditions rest. It is not profound, or inaccessibly `deep', but right there before us; it is ordinary belief. It is argued that very often it is these everyday settings that are most revealing when it comes to investigating and understanding what goes by the name managerial knowledge.
Ahmadjian, C. and Lincoln, J. (2001) `Keiretsu, Governance and Learning: Case Studies in Change from the Japanese Automotive Industry' , Organization Science12(6): 683—701.
2.
Beckett, D. and Hager, P. (2002) Life, Work and Learning. London : Routledge.
3.
Bohm, D. (1980) Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
4.
Brown, J.S. and Duguid, P. (2001) `Knowledge and Organization: A Social-practice Perspective' , Organization Science12(2): 198—213.
5.
Cavell, S. (1969) Must We Mean What We Say?New York: Scribner.
6.
Cavell, S. (1987) Disowning Knowledge. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.
7.
Chia, R. (1996) Organizational Analysis as Deconstructive Practice . Berlin: de Gruyter.
8.
Chia, R. and Holt, R. (2006) `Strategy as Practical Coping: A Heideggerian Perspective' , Organization Studies27(5): 635—55.
9.
Chouinard, Y. (2005) Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman. New York: Penguin Press .
10.
Cockburn, D. (2002) `Critical Notice: Wittgenstein and the Possibility of Discourse' , Philosophical Investigations25(1): 81—93.
11.
Cooper, R. (2005) ` Relationality ', Organization Studies26(11): 1689—710.
12.
Czarniawska, B. (2003) `Forbidden Knowledge' , Management Learning34(3): 353—65.
13.
De Pree, H. (1986) Business as Unusual. Zeeland, MI: Herman Miller.
14.
De Rond, M. and Thietart, A. (2007) `Choice, Chance and Inevitability in Strategy' , Strategic Management Journal28(5): 535—51.
15.
Dreyfus, H.L. (1991) Being-in-the-World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
16.
Fenollosa, E. (1969) The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry . San Francisco: City Lights.
17.
Ferdinand, J. and Simm, D. (2007) `Re-theorizing External Learning: Insights from Economic and Industrial Espionage' , Management Learning38(3): 297—317.
18.
Ferraro, F. , Pfeffer, J. and Sutton, R. (2005) `Economics Language and Assumptions: How Theories can Become Self-fulfilling' , Academy of Management Review30: 8—24.
19.
Gergen, K. (2003a) `Meaning in Relationships', in M. Gergen and K. Gergen (eds) Social Constructionism: A Reader, pp. 148—55. London: Sage.
20.
Gergen, K. (2003b) `Beyond Knowing in Organizational Inquiry' , Organization10(3): 453—55.
21.
Gherardi, S. (2000) `Practice-based Theorizing on Learning and Knowing in Organizations' , Organization7(2): 211—23.
22.
Ghoshal, S. (2005) `Bad Management Theories are Destroying Good Management Practices' , Academy of Management Learning and Education4(1): 75—91.
23.
Gioia, D. (2007) `Individual Epistemology—Interpretative Wisdom' , in E. Kessler and J. Bailey (eds) Handbook of Organizational and Managerial Wisdom, Ch. 13. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
24.
Goodall, K. and Roberts, J. (2003) `Repairing Managerial Knowledgeability' , Organization Studies24(7): 1153—75.
25.
Guillén, M. (2006) The Taylorized Beauty of the Mechanical. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
26.
Gustafsson, M. (2004) `The Rule-follower and his Community: Remarks on an Apparent Tension in Wittgenstein's Discussion of Rule Following' , Language Sciences26: 125—45.
27.
Handley, K. , Clark, T. , Fincham, R. and Sturdy, A. (2007) `Researching Situated Learning: Participation, Identity and Practices in Client—Consultant Relationships' , Management Learning38(2): 173—91.
28.
Hänfling, O. (2000) Philosophy and Ordinary Language. London: Routledge.
29.
Hänfling, O. (2002) Wittgenstein and the Human Form of Life. London: Routledge.
30.
Heidegger, M. (1962) Being and Time. Oxford: Blackwell.
31.
Herbst, P.H. (1976) Alternatives to Hierarchies. Leiden, The Netherlands : Martinus Nijhoff .
32.
Hibberd, F. (2001) `Gergen's Social Constructionism, Logical Poitivism and the Continuity of Error. Part I' , Theory and Psychology11(3): 297—321.
33.
Hsiao, R. , Tsai, S. and Lee, C. (2006) `The Problem of Embeddedness: Knowledge Transfer, Coordination and Re-use in Information Systems' , Organization Studies27(9): 1289—317.
34.
Janik, A. and Toulmin, S. (1973) Wittgenstein's Vienna. New York : Simon & Schuster.
35.
Kalthoff, H. (2005) `Practices of Calculation', Theory , Culture and Society22(2): 69—97.
36.
Knight, F. (1921) `Risk, Uncertainty and Profit', Library of Economics and Liberty, URL (consulted 6 January 2006): http://www.econlib.org/library/Knight/knRUP1.htm.
37.
Knights, D. and McCabe, D. (2001) `A Different World: Shifting Masculinities in Transition to Call Centres' , Organization8(4): 619—45.
38.
Livingston, P. (2003) `Thinking and Being: Heidegger and Wittgenstein on Machination and Lived-experience' , Inquiry46: 324—45.
39.
Lounsbury, M. (2003) `The Problem of Order Revisited', in R. Westwood and S. Clegg (eds) Debating Organization, pp. 210—19. London: Blackwell.
40.
Lyotard, J-F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge . Manchester: Manchester University Press.
41.
March, J. (1996) ` A Scholar's Quest ', Business School Magazine, URL: http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/community/bmag/sbsm0696/ascholar.htmwebsite .
42.
March, J. (2006) `Rationality, Foolishness and Adaptive Intelligence' , Strategic Management Journal27: 201—14.
43.
Mintzberg, H. (1994) ` The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning ', Harvard Business Review Jan—Feb: 107—14.
44.
Morgan, G. (1983) ` More on Metaphor ', Administrative Science Quarterly28(4): 601—7.
45.
Mulhall, S. (2007) Wittgenstein's Private Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
46.
Nielsen, R. (2002) `Organizational Theory and Ethics', in C. Knudsen and H. Tsoukas (eds) Organizational Theory as Science: Prospects and Limitations , pp. 476—501. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
47.
Polanyi, M. (1969) Knowing and Being. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
48.
Prahalad, C. (2004) `The Blinders of Dominant Logic' , Long Range Planning37: 171—9.
49.
Raff, D. (2000) `Superstores and the Evolution of Firm Capabilities in American Bookselling' , Strategic Management Journal21(10/11): 1043—59.
50.
Reckwitz, A. (2002) `Towards a Theory of Social Practice' , European Journal of Social Theory5(2): 243—63.
51.
Ribeiro, R. and Collins, H. (2007) `The Bread-making Machine: Tacit Knowledge and Two Types of Action' , Organization Studies28(9): 1417—33.
52.
Saussure, F. (1966) Course in General Linguistics. New York: McGraw Hill.
53.
Shingo, S. (1984) A Study of the Toyota Production System from an Industrial Engineering Viewpoint. Boston, MA: Productivity Press.
54.
Shotter, J. (1993) Conversational Realities: Constructing Life Through Language. London: Sage.
55.
Shotter, J. (2005) `Inside the Moment of Managing' , Organization Studies26(1): 113—35.
56.
Shotter, J. (2006) `Understanding Processes from Within: An Argument for “Withinness” Thinking' , Organization Studies27(4): 585—604.
57.
Spencer Brown, G. (1969) Laws of Form. London: Allen and Unwin.
58.
Spender, J.C. (2005) `An Essay on the State of Knowledge Management' , Prometheus23(1): 101—16.
59.
Styrhe, A. (2003) `Knowledge as a Virtual Asset' , Culture and Organization9(1): 15—26.
60.
Tripsas, M. and Gavetti, G. (2000) `Capabilities, Cognition, and Inertia: Evidence from Digital Imaging' , Strategic Management Journal21: 1147—61.
61.
Tsoukas, H. (2005) Complex Knowledge: Studies in Organizational Epistemology . Oxford: Oxford University Press .
62.
Tsoukas, H. and Mylonopoulos, N. (2004) `Knowledge Construction and Creation in Organizations' , British Journal of Management15: S1—S8.
63.
Von Mises, L. (1949) Human Action; A Treatise on Economics. London: Hodge.
64.
Von Wright, G. (1972) `The Problem of Knowledge' in G. von Wright (ed.) Problems in the Theory of Knowledge. The Hague, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff .
65.
Weick, K. (1988) ` Enacted Sensemaking in Crisis Situations ' Journal of Management Studies25(4): 305—17.
66.
Wenger, E. (2000) `Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems' , Organization7(2): 225—46.
67.
Wenger, E. (2005) ` Communities of Practice in the 21st-century Organization ', Guide to the Implementation and Leadership of Intentional Communities of Practice, URL: http://www.cefrio.qc.ca/english/pdf/Guide_Final_ANGLAIS.pdf
68.
Whitehead, A.N. (1926/1985) Science and the Modern World . London: Free Association Press .
69.
Williamson, O. (1975) Markets and Hierarchies. New York: Free Press.
70.
Williamson, O. (1999) ` Public and Private Bureaucracies: A Transaction Cost Economics Perspective ', Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization15(1): 306—42.
71.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Philosophical Investigations, eds G. E. M. Anscombe and R. Rhees, trans. G. E. M Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell.
72.
Wittgenstein, L. (1967) On Certainty, eds G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H von Wright, trans. G. E. M Anscombe and D. Paul. Oxford: Blackwell.
73.
Wittgenstein, L. (1980) Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, eds G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright (Vol. I), G.H. von Wright and H. Nyman (Vol. II) and trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Vol. I), C.G. Luckhardt and M.A.E. Aue (Vol. II). Oxford: Blackwell.
74.
Wood, M. (2002) `Mind the Gap: A Processual Reconsideration of Organizational Knowledge' , Organization9(2): 151—71.
75.
Woodham. J. (1997) Twentieth-century Design. Oxford : Oxford University Press.
76.
Zollo, M. and Winter, S. (2002) `Deliberate Learning and the Evolution of Dynamic Capabilities' , Organization Science13(3): 339—51.
