How to Overcome the Knowledge Paradox: Activate Knowledge Identity, Not Just Organize Information.

A paradox appears to thwart traditional knowledge sharing efforts in organizations: the greater the benefit of a piece of knowledge to an organization the less likely that it will be shared. This paper suggests that in order to mobilize knowledge where there is demand for it, it has to be activated. This paper considers the knowledge identity of the person whose knowledge is to be activated and uses these identities to analyze a case study in which highly distributed knowledge is activated. The analysis reveals activation effects needed to mobilize each of the knowledge identities.