From resources to virtues in the knowing organization

Abstract

This paper comprehensively reviews the substantial body of research, which has evolved over the past two decades in the area of knowledge and organizations. In addition, the paper identifies an important area for future research on the interplay of ethics and epistemology. The paper takes a brief historical look at the development of the literature from within the resource-based theory of the firm and then focuses in detail on some key thematic developments, which have shifted the epistemological emphasis from resources to practices, discourses, and most recently, ethics. The review provides a synthesis and evaluation of this extensive body of research within organization and management studies as well as some of the work which it is influenced by and draws upon in the fields of epistemology (the philosophy of knowledge) as well as the sociology and psychology of knowledge. The paper then identifies potentially valuable directions for new research on the intellectual virtues.