Changing paradigm for knowledge metaphors from dynamics to thermodynamics

The aim of the paper is to analyse dominant metaphors in knowledge management thinking, show their limitations by analysing their source domains, and then offer a better alternative. It has been demonstrated that metaphors play an important role in defining the concept of knowledge. In knowledge management important ideas incorporated into the SECI model and other extended knowledge dynamics models are based on the metaphors that have their source domain in Newtonian dynamics. These metaphors have limitations coming from some characteristics of the source domain that cannot be mapped onto the target domain, like the conservation law and linearity. The other limitation is that these metaphors hide the fact that knowledge and emotion go together. In order to integrate emotion into the knowledge concept we need a different set of four metaphors that have as a source domain the paradigm of thermodynamics. Copyright # 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.