Knowledge governance to create socially understanding communities

This chapter discusses the knowledge governance mechanisms and approaches in formal and informal group settings, with a particular focus on the motivation structures that can make knowledge sharing and creation successful. Physical and virtual settings are reviewed as part of this discussion because the work procedures have increasingly become remote, and geographical isolation is growing. It is proposed that the knowledge work and its governance should be about achieving a good for the community at large even in virtual and geographically dispersed work settings, and this can be done by inducing appropriate desired incentives within group members. Along with those incentives, ethical working procedures should encourage moral principles to help build trustworthy relationships among group members, and with community stakeholders, as the latter are recognized and consulted. Inducing such pro-social extrinsic or intrinsic motivations as part of knowledge governance procedures will help build a socially understanding community,
or communities, leading to wise decisions and creating a world worth
living in.