Knowledge-Based Network: the Key Is the Solution of Dilemmas

Defining knowledge-based network is not easy because of the polysemous meanings of this concept (Antonelli 1995; Kogut 2000). Indeed, we think that this kind of network requires more rupture, instability, and disequilibrium, that is dilemmas (Cohendet et al. 1999; Nonaka 1990). This dual need also corresponds to the two hemispheres of the brain. The left hemisphere is related to rationality, consciousness, and logical reasoning, while the right hemisphere is more concerned with creativity and imagination. In this article, we formalize the knowledge-based network using organizational mutations governed by non-deterministic dynamics and viable constraints. In our model, network is viewed as a locus where knowledge is continuously built, managed, combined, tested, and selected between all of the participants of the network. This continuous process of creation and shaping of knowledge is driven by problem-solving activities. Action and knowledge deeply interact within the network. The knowledge-based network must constantly create, maintain, and resolve dilemmas. In that, the network undergoes evolutions that it must manage by preserving a viable behavior as solution between many dilemmas. We want to express here the idea that, in this logic of viability, the network does not seek an optimal structure but tries rather to preserve coherence between differences. Our assumption is that a network evolution is viable if it checks a constraint (called viability constraint) related to the dilemmas.