In the know: Perspectives on the spiritual dimensions of knowledge management (KM)

In the know is a regular roundup of knowledge management (KM) topics of discussion and the articles, events, videos, and podcasts that are grabbing the attention of people across our community.

Drawing on a paper¹ presented by Raysa Rocha and Paulo Pinheiro at the 20th European Conference on Knowledge Management (ECKM 2019), a 2022 RealKM Magazine article² asks, “Is there a role for spirituality (as distinct from religion) in knowledge management?”

New initiatives are answering “yes” to that question. Twelve collaborators³ have launched the Joching Manifesto of Spiritual Knowledge Management⁴ and associated Research Institute for Spiritual Knowledge Management. Separately, the Global Think-Tank of Organizational Tacit Knowledge Management (GO-TKM) has announced the establishment of the Spiritual Quotient (SQ) in Leadership Research Center.

Hanna M. Koskinen, author of the thesis⁵ The Emerging Concept of Responsible Knowledge Management (rKM): Identifying and Formulating the Core Principles of rKM, which we’re presenting in RealKM Magazine, has responded to the Joching Manifesto. I provide evidence in support of the thoughts she puts forward.

1. The Joching Manifesto of Spiritual Knowledge Management

The 12 collaborators introduce the Joching Manifesto of Spiritual Knowledge Management⁶ in a “Viewpoint” paper in the academic journal The Learning Organization. The paper is the primary outcome of the 4th International Symposium on Spiritual Knowledge Management held in June 2025 in Joching, Austria.

They state that:

This manifesto aims to redefine knowledge management by integrating spiritual, ethical, cognitive and aesthetic dimensions to address the complexities and challenges of a volatile and complex (VUCA) world. It seeks to move beyond instrumental and technological paradigms to foster human flourishing, organizational resilience and sustainable societal well-being by establishing the field of Spiritual Knowledge Management (SpKM).

They then list and describe the 12 core principles of SpKM, which are:

2. Hanna M. Koskinen responds to the Joching Manifesto

In a LinkedIn post⁷, Hanna M. Koskinen puts forward her thoughts on how the Joching Manifesto connects with her responsible knowledge management (rKM) thesis’ answers⁸ to the questions that the 12 collaborators pose.

She responds that the rKM discourse has surfaced the very dimensions the Joching Manifesto points to. She add “others” to the “who” in addition to “self” – inclusivity and epistemic pluralism as essential pillars, not as an afterthought to personal transformation. She also alerts that while the Joching Manifesto frames our moment as VUCA, she would argue⁹ that we’re already in Cascio’s BANI¹⁰ – brittle and nonlinear rather than just complex and ambiguous. This distinction matters.

In summarising her post, she advises that:

I read SpKM as a compelling sibling to my own rKM synthesis – strong on the normative/spiritual and Ba/Ma dimensions, and further along than most of the literature I reviewed in answering the ‘how does transformation happen’ question. It might, however, benefit from engaging more explicitly with epistemic pluralism as structural a concern, and from testing whether VUCA is still the right diagnosis of our operational environment.

3. Evidence for BANI and the need for epistemic pluralism

From my 11 years of work with RealKM Magazine tracking and comprehensively analysing the evidence base across all aspects of KM, I find much to support Hanna M. Koskinen’s thoughts:

• The KM community itself suffers from, as Cascio describes¹¹, “illusions of system strength, control, predictability and certainty” and “Systems that appear strong but can fail abruptly and catastrophically.” A stark example of this is USAID being wiped off the face of the earth in what Sarah Cummings, Nancy White, and I have suggested is an act of epistemicide¹² when it had a leading KM program that was assumed would continue well into the future.
• Epistemic pluralism is a foundation of KM for sustainable development (KM4SD), reflected in the “multiple knowledges” approach¹³. This was advocated in the campaign I led to influence the United Nations (UN) Pact for the Future, as discussed on page xiii of the Agenda Knowledge for Development¹⁴, and now included in the references¹⁵ for the forthcoming 2027 edition of the Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR).
• However, preventing an awareness of that knowledge is that the KM community itself is not inclusive. KM4SD is one of the various aspects of KM¹⁶. Another is organisational KM, which, as I’ve alerted¹⁷ is very knowledge siloed, with many organisational KM practitioners unaware that KM4SD even exists. In this regard, both organizational KM’s Joching Manifesto of Spiritual Knowledge Management and KM4SD’s Agenda Knowledge for Development have emanated from the relatively very small geographic area of the country of Austria, yet the clear synergies between these initiatives appear to not have been explored.
• BANI and the need for epistemic pluralism are also very clear in current political disruptions¹⁸ which are an essential consideration in societal KM¹⁹.
• Different cultures have diverse approaches to spirituality and different related concepts, but the Joching Manifesto is currently biased towards approaches from only some cultures, including a heavy emphasis on Ba and Ma from Japanese culture. The KM community needs to better recognize and value linguistic and conceptual pluralism²⁰ as part of addressing the continuing problem of coloniality in KM²¹.
• Epistemic pluralism includes the need for the KM community to consider knowledge from fields other than KM²², and when we do this, we can find that others have been working with aspects of the 12 core principles of the Joching Manifesto for some time. For example, one of my early experiences of relational thinking²³ was around 30 years ago with the deep ecology movement. In another example, there are clear relationships between the core principles and psychology’s Light Triad^24,25.
• In their 2019 conference paper²⁶ referenced at the beginning of this article above, Raysa Rocha and Paulo Pinheiro assert a strong distinction between spirituality and religion, referencing that “While there may be the former in religions, there is no religion in spirituality as there are neither dogmas nor rites in spirituality.” However, if we include a wider range of KM community perspectives, we can find the helpfulness of this avoidance being questioned²⁷ by Patrick Lambe as part of an SIKM Leaders Community discussion of faith-based KM. An example of faith-based KM is Islamic Knowledge Management (IKM)^28,29, where all “knowledge” is seen as being God-given, with important implications for how knowledge is managed. IKM is significant in KM, with the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Foundation (MBRF)³⁰ and Knowledge Oman both being KM leaders that have engaged very large numbers of people in their communities.

References and notes: