Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to bring to the surface in an explicit way the challenge of corporate self-knowledge and the benefits this brings to these corporations(1). We wish to specifically emphasise the importance of the ability of corporations, and the individuals that comprise them, to provide access to authoritative records and information that adequately explains who they are, what they do, how they function and the ways in which important organisational narratives evolve through time. Making public domain information available so as to provide a coherent picture of what has been undertaken in the recent and more distant past, including the ability to relate records to simple descriptions of the context of organisational initiatives requires new types of capabilities and mindsets. For Government departments, these capabilities and mindsets are not easily developed, because there is a parallel need to design systems and infrastructures that are truly client facing. Thus the need is to integrate records and archival management activities with marketing and service delivery systems along with coherent service narratives of interest to next users, clients and citizens. These types of problems represent endemic public-policy challenges in Australia, and this issue very likely extends to similar Western democratic nations. This paper reports on a case study project completed in December 2011, for a Division within a Government agency within the State of Victoria, Australia, the Department of Primary Industries (DPI). The hypothesis of the study was that the information required for functional corporate self-knowledge and service profiles was already held in knowledge assets that were (or should be) in the public domain but were inadequately managed. What the study has highlighted is that the design, implementation and integration of contemporary knowledge support systems is a responsibility for all knowledge workers. Failure to develop these systems can erode and threaten the coherence of the corporation itself and its ability to provide effective and efficient services to next users, clients, citizens and the community at large in viable and sustainable ways. (Jones et. al. 2011). Design/methodology/approach - The study utilised a research and analytical methodology called Context Entity Analysis (CEA). The methodology had been articulated in a 2002-2007 study for the International Atomic Energy Agency looking at the long-term preservation of information about radioactive waste (McCarthy 2006). CEA provided a means through which knowledge resources generated using narrative techniques, such as reports, journal articles, books, news items or websites can be utilised to create open complex networks of entities that more closely mirror the multiplicity of what actually happens, both within corporations and at the intersection between corporations and the citizenry. CEA has been shown to be a powerful tool in action research projects which endeavour to not only provide an evidential fabric to understand the past but wish to remediate short-comings in established practice. In Australia, this has been demonstrated in the area of child and family welfare (Kertesz 2012). Originality/value - The study for the Department of Primary Industries rigorously implemented the CEA methodology and was able to show where the failures of knowledge preservation and information flow occurred within the organisation. In one case, the knowledge necessary to comprehend data relating to long-term environmental and agricultural monitoring was the personal experiential domain of two individuals. Furthermore the data gathered as a part of CEA, which was formulated according to international archival documentation standards and practices (Vines et al 2010), was used to create sustainable knowledge assets that began to remedy the situation. In this case, rather than taking the view that corporate self-knowledge is best understood as an internal challenge to address, it needs to be seen as an attribute relevant for all stakeholders, not only the farmers and land-holders but also next users of information and the citizenry as a whole who have an intrinsic reliance on agricultural and food industries. CEA was used to create knowledge assets that could be placed in the public domain and were primarily derived from knowledge that was or should have been available to the public. This approach is in stark contrast to both analyses and methodologies previously used to understand this problem. The focus on the public knowledge space and the blending of narrative and network based information architectures is in alignment with the idea that knowledge is an emergent property of evolutionary systems (Vines, Hall and McCarthy, 2011), that knowledge arises from the coincidence of a number of complex effects and events and as part of a large distributed cognition environment (Yakhlef, A. 2008). These underlying assumptions add to the originality of this approach. Practical implications - The study noted the pervasive habit of increasingly frequent corporate restructure to deal with perceived failures to effectively deliver on expectations and goals. However, rather than these corporate restructures helping to solve this problem, it seems they act to further compound the problems associated with the corrosion of corporate self-knowledge. We will argue that the utilisation of information technologies without due consideration of long-term knowledge asset preservation exacerbates the problem further. Thus, possibilities for productivity gains and innovation seem also to be diminished and the inability of individuals to understand their role within the larger organisational system appears also to be negatively affected. The project has revealed how Context Entity Analysis and the public knowledge outputs made available from this analysis have the potential to readily and radically change this situation. It is expected that this approach will deliver significant benefits for enabling both corporate marketing, innovation and public knowledge objectives. For example, it creates an opportunity for both corporations and their citizenry to develop more collaborative and productive partnerships. From this new foundation new relationships can emerge and the technologies that support the co-creation of knowledge can be effectively utilised in ways that allows for on-going innovation and reform over time, with active involvement of end users, citizens and technology innovators in new forms of public knowledge management.
