This paper describes emergent learning and situates it within learning networks and systems and the broader learning ecology of Web 2.0. It describes the nature of emergence and emergent learning and the conditions that enable emergent, self-organised learning to occur and to flourish. Specifically, it explores whether emergent learning can be validated and self-correcting and whether it is possible to link or integrate emergent and prescribed learning. It draws on complexity theory, communities of practice, and the notion of connectivism to develop some of the foundations for an analytic framework, for enabling and managing emergent learning and networks in which agents and systems co-evolve. It then examines specific cases of learning to test and further develop the analytic framework.The paper argues that although social networking media increase the potential range and scope for emergent learning exponentially, considerable effort is required to ensure an effective balance between openness and constraint. It is possible to manage the relationship between prescriptive and emergent learning, both of which need to be part of an integrated learning ecology.

Purpose -The purpose of this article is to revisit the key terms in knowledge management (KM), particularly tacit and explicit, to develop a better framework for a theoretical and practical understanding of KM.Design/methodology/approach -With the help of concepts like articulation and discourse, borrowed from applied linguistics, the relationships between data, information, the components of information in its various forms, knowledge and narrative are explored, to develop an integrated framework for the understanding of the complexities of the domain of knowledge management.Findings -This study rovides a detailed assessment of the contribution of the tacit/explicit distinction to the KM debate. Develops new distinctions between formal and ante-formal information, procedural information and contextual analysis, a model of the process of developing objective information, and a model of knowledge as an articulation of procedural information and contextual analysis.Research limitations/implications -The usefulness of the framework will only be tested when it is applied in research and in management practice. This will depend on whether the concepts and terms introduced here find their way into more common usage.Practical implications -The study provides a useful framework and set of tools for understanding and managing the various different aspects of information, knowledge, intellectual capital, and competitive intelligence.Originality/value -The paper brings together concepts and analytical tools from different disciplines (KM, applied linguistics, semiotics) to develop a new framework for analyzing how the component elements of KM articulate with each other. In more detail, the paper unpacks the relationships between ante-formal and formal information, procedural information and contextual analysis, the processes of objectification of information and the formation of knowledge, and the notion of knowledge as inherently narrative.

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to critique current epistemologies of knowledge and intellectual capital, and provide a way forward within an integrated framework.Design/methodology/approachThe principles of linguistic philosophy and semiotics provide the basis for a rigorous analysis of the production of signs and of knowledge. The Knowledge Process Cycle is used to explore this further, to analyse how different types of communities produce a range of different kinds of information and knowledge, and to formulate a more coherent, theoretically rigorous epistemology.FindingsThe current epistemological confusions can be resolved, by taking into account the arbitrary and conventional nature of signs, and the different epistemological requirements of the different phases of the Knowledge Cycle.Research limitations/implicationsThis research focuses on the confusions around “objectivist” and “interpretivist” epistemologies, and on how an analysis of the articulations of the various phases of the knowledge process cycle can resolve these confusions. A more detailed analysis of strategic knowledge and communities of practice will be explored in further research.Practical implicationsBoth knowledge management (KM) and intellectual capital (IC) will benefit from a resolution of the confusions surrounding the roles of “objectivist” and “interpretivist” epistemologies, and from a more nuanced understanding of the production of knowledge. Reporting on IC would benefit from finer distinctions, and from a more rigorous epistemology.Originality/valueThe paper brings together concepts and analytical tools from different disciplines (KM, IC, applied linguistics, linguistic philosophy, and semiotics) to develop a new approach to the epistemology of knowledge and intellectual capital.

This paper is a response to debates on Foucault's articulations of power and regimes of truth, particularly in the recent work of Derek Hook. It is also a response to the specific issue of Latour's 'crisis of objectivity'. It deals with the issues of objectivity, subjectivity, subjects, discourses and communities of practice, and develops the concept of 'metasemiotics' to help explore and analyse some of the articulations of power and knowledge, particularly in modernism. This should help us to achieve the goals of Latour's 'political ecology', or what we call a 'practical epistemology', which allows us to escape from being trapped in the reification of objectivity that characterized modernism, without rejecting the considerable advances that modernism has made.