In the modern socio-economic scenario, knowledge dissemination has turn out to be an essential topic. Effective knowledge dissemination is significant for the organizations as knowledge is shared not only with people working within the organizations but with a long list of stakeholders attached with the organization. Dissemination of knowledge has drawn a wide attention to related ethical considerations, as sometimes information shared in unregulated and subversive ways or unreliable or false information is shared with people. To understand the role of ethics in knowledge dissemination in organizations this chapter provides a discussion of implications of the questions of relevance, predicament and systems of ethical knowledge diffusion. Further the author illustrates distortion of information or knowledge for self-interest, their causes and effects with relevant examples. The chapter identifies the ethics of “informal” and unauthorized transfer of information, and proposes solutions and approach to deal with the problem.
TopKnowledge
According to Merriam- Webster dictionary knowledge is, “the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association”. Basically the knowledge is information that a person has already and new information he/she assimilates. In order to have a good understanding of knowledge we must look upon how different researchers tried to define it.
Foskett (1982) defines knowledge by making a distinction between knowledge and information, “Knowledge is what I know, and information is what we know”.
Davenport, De Long, and Beers (1998) argue that knowledge is a “high-value form of information.”
Zeleny (1987) said that, “Knowledge refers to an observer’s distinction of objects through which he brings forth from background of experience a coherent and self -consistent set of actions.”
Davenport and Prusak, (1998) defined it as, “A fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the minds of knowers.”
Recently Gorgens and Kusek (2010) said that, “Knowledge is the capacity to use information, which requires learning and experience.”