The knowledge-stream model: a comprehensive model for knowledge circulation in communities of knowledgeable practitioners

In this paper we present an original position on how knowledge is created and shared in organizational domains. We propose a metaphor of diffusion, borrowed from genetics, and a four phase model, which aims to be as simple as the SECI model proposed within the OKCT, but also more comprehensive and sociologically-informed. Our model takes into account the individual, social and cultural dimensions of knowledge (what we denote as co-knowledge) to account for the various ways knowledge is “circulated” among people (i.e., members of any social structure); we also propose ancillary concepts like that of “Knowing Community” and “Knowledge Artifact”, as analytical constructs to represent, respectively, the environment hosting such a circulation and the technological driver that either enables or supports it.