A Look into the Relationship between Knowledge Management and the Knowledge Hierarchies

In 1988, Ackoff made the presidential address to the International Society of General Systems Research and put forth the idea that relationships exist between data, information, knowledge and wisdom and that these relationships are hierarchical in nature. This idea has continued, relatively unchallenged, to the present. This paper suggests that the relationships between data, information, knowledge and wisdom are not hierarchical, nor are they compositional. If the knowledge hierarchies that exist were abandoned, what would be the ramifications? With regard to information systems, such a revision would indicate a great reorganization effort. Yet, in order to maintain current quality of knowledge management systems and achieve future improvement, it would not be amiss to undertake an examination of the knowledge hierarchies. This paper examines what relationships between data, information and knowledge might emerge if the hierarchies were abandoned. It proposes that the nature of knowledge would be understood more clearly, that knowledge is an entity without direct or derived creation from data and especially not from information