Understanding Organisational Morphology for Knowledge Management

A semiotic approach with a set of methods has introduced a new paradigm into knowledge management by emphasizing the notion of norms as knowledge. The norms will govern how the members of a community behave, think, make judgments and perceive the world. Most importantly, such an approach makes sense of the concept of knowledge itself so that practitioners are able to apply the knowledge practically in the real world. This paper shows the use of organizational morphology, a way of studying an organization by separating substantive norms from communication and control norms. The study will then reveal the extent to which knowledge should be managed as well as indicate substantial improvements that can be made in order to achieve a `healthy´ organization. This correlates closely with the ways in which the norms are implemented, i.e. informally, bureaucratically or through technical means.