The "Social-cognition" Analysis On Knowledge Production

Knowledge production has become a focused theme in industry and management academe. Existing researches on the knowledge codification, the organizational learning, the knowledge transfer, the knowledge sharing and the knowledge creation have gained far more achievements. But they just explore the knowledge production laterally and partly . Further, they have to give the phenomenological illuminations and interpretations of the knowledge generation mechanisms because they ignore the social construction essential of knowledge. Therefore the researches on knowledge production are not perfect enough either as a whole or in depth. In contrast with these early researches, this paper discusses the knowledge production from a social-cognition angle.At the beginning, taking that all kinds of knowledge activities should and could belong to the knowledge production as the starting point, the paper redefines the concept of knowledge production from the knowledge static and dynamic aspects based on the delicate analyses on the existing concepts of knowledge production. From static aspect, knowledge production can be classified as knowledge using and knowledge innovation according to the differences of its inputs and outputs. From dynamic aspect, knowledge production can be regarded as a social-cognition process depending on individuals' interactions in particular environment. This definition forces the dominate interest of knowledge production research shifts to describe the group consciousness and behavior which are functioned by their knowledge and to probe the knowledge effects on enriching group mental models and making group behavior more agile.Subsequently, the contrastive analysis on tacit knowledge and codified knowledge motivates reconsidering the relationship between tacit knowledge and codified knowledge. By dint of the knowledge continuum hypothesis and the SECI knowledge spiral theory, it demonstrates that tacit knowledge and codified knowledge are inseparable whether they are in static state or dynamic use. This inseparability is very important in understanding and managing knowledge problems.Later, based on the idea that the mental operations can be understood and analyzed on the group level, the paper defines the new concept of shared mental models, which include both the homogeneous parts and heterogeneous parts of individuals mental models. Thereupon the shared mental models can be considered as a typical representation of the group cognitive structures. The sustainable improvement of group cognitive structures implies that the knowledge is being produced and even the problem is being solved, thus discussing the formation and development of shared mental models is equivalent to portraying the processes of knowledge production. Along this thought, it describes the group member's reflections, interactions, actions and their relations, and points out that individuals' mental models and shared mental models affecting the interactions and actions and vice versa must rely on the reflections. Ulteriorly, it outlines the group social cognition processes and establishes a model of the formation and development of shared mental models in order to diagram the knowledge production. The model argues that the knowledge overlapping among individuals and the occurrence of group visions indicates the formation of shared mental models. While they strongly direct the group decision-making and behavior, the shared mental models synchronously obtain sustaining development. However, the formation and development of shared mental models does not always lead to the emergence of solution to the problem within a given time limit. The reason is that the formation and development of shared mental models only gradually increase the possibility of problem solving, but this does not mean the inevitability of problem solving.In the end, this paper makes a case study on a knowledge codification project that develops a ultrasonic auto detective system for the motor back axle CO₂ welding circle seam. The case study on the one hand exemplifies the rationality of the social-cognition model of knowledge production in question, on the other hand it tries to make clear how to establish the common knowledge(collective rules, common language and models, messages, etc.) to achieve consonant understanding of the problem.