Goals and Tactics on the Dark Side of Knowledge Management

Abstract

The knowledge management literature focuses on the bright side of KM; it barely mentions the dark side, in which knowledge is distorted, suppressed, or misappropriated due to personal or organizational motives. This paper presents a framework for categorizing dark side examples, and uses it to organize 30 examples culled primarily from recent news accounts. The paper’s contributions include its method for exploring the dark side of KM, its initial categorization of dark side goals and tactics, and its demonstration that dark side manipulation may occur throughout processes of knowledge creation and use.

Full text

Goals and Tactics on the Dark Side of Knowledge Management
Steven Alter
University of San Francisco
alter@usfca.edu
Abstract
The knowledge management literature focuses on
the bright side of KM; it barely mentions the dark
side, in which knowledge is distorted, suppressed, or
misappropriated due to personal or organizational
motives. This paper presents a framework for
categorizing dark side examples, and uses it to
organize 30 examples culled primarily from recent
news accounts. The paper’s contributions include its
method for exploring the dark side of KM, its initial
categorization of dark side goals and tactics, and its
demonstration that dark side manipulation may occur
throughout processes of knowledge creation and use.
.
1. Introduction
The Call for the HICSS-39 mini-track on the Ethics
of Knowledge Management (KM) says, “In the real
world, politics is often the dominant influence and
knowledge manipulation, the dark side of knowledge
management, is its prime weapon. In the world of
politics we are accustomed to the notions of spin,
deception, and propaganda. The business world is no
different.”
Although a great deal has been written about KM
(e.g, [8], [32]), the dark side of KM is largely ignored.
Most discussions of KM take a utopian view that the
goal is to capture essential knowledge and make it
available wherever needed. Further, that knowledge
will be collected and distributed accurately and with
the best of intentions, leading to efficiency, better
decisions, and protection of intellectual property. Not
mentioned is the possibility that KM activities could
be motivated by inappropriate goals or intentions to
commit crimes. A Google search on “dark side of
knowledge management” found only eight results, one
of which is the abstract of an ETHICOMP 2004 paper
[18] that contained the same description of the dark
side of KM that was in the Call for Papers. In other
words, the dark side of KM appears to be a largely
unexplored area where there is no theoretical material
and almost no descriptive material.
The importance of the exploring the dark side of
KM is evident from the many recently publicized
government and corporate scandals. The fallacious
stories of weapons of mass destruction that were used
to justify the current Iraq war can be viewed as an
example of KM gone astray. In the corporate realm,
aspects of KM permeate stories of criminal activities
at Enron, MCI, Tyco, HealthSouth, Parmalat, AIG,
and Adelphia. In each of those situations, people
conspired to enrich themselves and mislead investors.
The perpetrators needed to keep track of their own
knowledge of these situations while falsifying other
knowledge. These stories were publicized widely
because of their impact and venality, but even the
many organizations that are run ethically often
encounter gray area situations that border on the dark
side of KM because they involve selective disclosure
of information or slight misrepresentations in order to
produce better impressions or avoid embarrassment.
To develop a basic understanding of the goals and
tactics associated with the dark side of knowledge
management, we adopt an exploratory stance [15, 19]
rather than a theory-testing stance that would be more
appropriate in an established area. We use recent news
articles to identify dark side KM tactics that seem
motivated by attempts to further political, economic,
or personal goals. The paper’s contribution includes
its method for exploring the dark side of KM, its
initial categorization of dark side KM tactics, and its
realization that dark side manipulation may occur
anywhere in the process of creating and using
knowledge (not just in the presentation of existing
knowledge). Future research could improve or extend
the categories, could generate formal methods for
identifying examples of dark side KM, and could lead
toward a KM framework that encompasses the light
side, the gray areas, and the dark side.
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0-7695-2507-5/06/$20.00 (C) 2006 IEEE

This paper distinguishes between light and dark
goals related to KM. It presents a 3 x 3 framework for
categorizing actions reflecting the dark side of KM,
and then identifies dark side tactics in each cell. It
validates the framework by presenting 30 examples,
mostly from news reports, illustrating dark side
tactics. It concludes by describing a next step for
development of ideas about the dark side of KM.
2. Definition of knowledge management
This paper defines KM as a conscious activity of
making and implementing decisions related to the
acquisition, refinement, maintenance, and use of
information and knowledge. This definition bypasses
the endless debate about the difference between
information and knowledge. Following Wilson [32], it
assumes that anything that is made explicit enough to
be managed must be expressed as some form of
information such as facts, concepts, beliefs, images,
messages, formulas, and procedures.
Figure 1 illustrates the domain of KM. The core is
the information and knowledge that is being managed.
Essential facets include the people who perform the
activities, the culture within which the activities occur,
the processes that are performed, and the technology
that is used. Different KM approaches emphasize the
facets to differing extents, but ignoring any facet
completely will result in an incomplete view of KM.
Information
and
Knowledge
People Culture
Processes Technology
Figure 1. Facets of knowledge management
The KM literature typically implies that the goal of
KM is to capture knowledge and make it available in a
form that is accurate and useful. KM nirvana occurs
when everything in Figure 1 is in alignment: The
knowledge exists, the people are motivated, the
culture supports KM, and appropriate processes and
technology are used to achieve happy outcomes. The
dark side of KM looms when motives are impure. We
define the dark side of KM as KM activities that
directly reflect unethical motives. Hovering between
the dark and light is the gray side of KM, which
reflects ethically ambiguous motives. Categorization
of motives as ethical, ethically ambiguous, or
unethical is obviously important, but this is a much
broader topic than KM and has been discussed in
various guises for centuries using a variety of value
systems and definitions of ethics.
3. Dark and light goals
Assume that KM takes place within a world of light
or dark goals of the people involved in KM and
related activities. There are three groups of actors:
• Knowledge providers
perform activities related
to creating and disseminating knowledge. They
include knowledge creators, refiners,
maintainers, and communicators.
• KM decision makers
design and guide activities
related to creating or disseminating knowledge.
• Knowledge recipients
use knowledge based on
their personal and corporate motives.
In the dark side of KM, unethical motives engender
at least three types of goals in decisions related to
capturing and using knowledge:
• Distortion:
Introduction of biases by selecting,
combining, and/or manipulating specific
knowledge in order to represent that knowledge
in a way that is favorable to particular interests,
viewpoints, or beliefs.
• Suppression:
Creation of obstacles and
prohibitions that make it difficult or impossible
to create, access, or use knowledge that might
be contrary to particular interests.
• Misappropriation:
Theft, modification, or
inappropriate revelation of knowledge.
These dark side goals are reverse images of light
side goals. Distortion is the dark side of shaping
knowledge so that it can be used effectively.
Suppression is the dark side of controlling access to
achieve legitimate purposes. Misappropriation is the
dark side of making appropriate use of knowledge.
Table 1: Interplay of light and dark motives in KM
Dark
motives by
knowledge
recipients
Goal:
Misappropriation of
knowledge
Result: A web of
distortion,
suppression, and
misappropriation
Light
motives by
knowledge
recipients
Underlying
assumption of most
of the KM literature
Goal: distort and/or
suppress knowledge
Light motives by
knowledge
providers and KM
decision makers
Dark motives by
knowledge
providers and KM
decision makers
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Table 2: Tactics on the dark side of knowledge management.
Creation,
acquisition,
and
refinement
of
knowledge
* Purposeful failure to collect
relevant knowledge.
* Coding of knowledge with
the intention of misleading
* Analysis performed in a way
that purposefully introduces
bias.
* Failure to allocate funds or
personnel needed to collect relevant
knowledge
* Coercion by implying or
threatening personal consequences if
an analyst or other individual’s work
does not represent specific biases.
* Theft of knowledge as it is
being created or refined.
* Modification or sabotage of a
knowledge refinement process.
Storage and
retrieval of
knowledge
* Storage of knowledge in a
way that is likely to cause
distortion
* Retrieval of knowledge using
methods that distort the
knowledge.
* Destruction of existing knowledge
* Refusal to allow access to existing
knowledge
* Storage of knowledge in a form or
location that purposefully impedes
legitimate access.
* Failure to retrieve knowledge that
should be possible to retrieve.
* Modification or sabotage of
existing knowledge.
* Insertion of inappropriate
content into knowledge that is
being retrieved.
Distribution
and
presentation
of
knowledge
* Use of euphemisms or
inaccurate characterizations
that misrepresent the essence of
specific knowledge.
* Distribution of knowledge
biased by omission or
rewording of relevant material;
exaggeration or overemphasis
of less relevant knowledge
* Misrepresentation of facts,
motivated by personal,
economic, or political benefits
* Suppression of distribution by
declaring existing knowledge a secret.
* Coercion by implying or
threatening personal consequences if
specific knowledge is divulged.
* Establishing deniability for decision
makers by making sure they never
learn about details that might be
embarrassing or illegal.
* Failure to present relevant facts,
motivated by personal, economic, or
political benefits
* Failure to distribute important
knowledge that is needed.
* Inappropriate, unethical, or
illegal distribution of
information, thereby harming
individuals, groups, or
organizations.
* Fraudulent or otherwise
inappropriate sale or transfer of
knowledge
Distortion of knowledge
Suppression of knowledge
Misappropriation of knowledge
Table 1 illustrates the interplay between light and
dark motives in KM. The KM literature typically
assumes light motives by knowledge providers, KM
decision makers, and knowledge recipients. Three of
four cells of Table 1 identify dark side possibilities.
The knowledge providers or decision makers may try
to distort or suppress knowledge. The knowledge
recipients may try to misappropriate knowledge. Dark
motives by several sets of actors can lead to a web of
distortion, suppression, and misappropriation.
4. Categorizing dark side situations
The two dimensions of Table 2 provide a framework
for categorizing situations in which the dark side of
KM is enacted. The first dimension is the three dark
side goals mentioned above. Each of these goals may
be expressed and achieved throughout the process by
which knowledge is acquired and disseminated.
The second dimension is a simplification of Zack’s
five-step process for producing knowledge products
[35]. Zack’s steps include acquisition, refinement,
storage/retrieval, distribution, and presentation. On
the dark side of KM some of these steps seem to
merge. For example, it is sometimes difficult to say
whether dark goals appear in acquisition, in
refinement, or both. The same can be said about
whether dark goals appear in distribution or
presentation. Accordingly, the framework in Table 2
reduces Zack’s five-step process to three steps:
• Creation, acquisition, and refinement of
knowledge
• Storage and retrieval of knowledge
• Distribution and presentation of knowledge
Table 2 shows the 9 cells created by combining the
two dimensions. Each cell contains one or more
tactics that are part of the dark side of KM
management. Entries in Table 2 were produced by
reviewing news articles published between 2003 and
2005, identifying examples of dark side tactics, and
trying to match the examples with the most applicable
cell in the framework. Trial and error iterations
produced the current table. Future reinterpretations
based on a larger sample of articles might use
different categories to do a better job of classifying
dark side tactics.
The next section presents examples, mostly from
current news articles, that represent instances of
distortion, suppression, and misappropriation,
respectively. Each example is a very brief attempt to
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summarize one of many issues mentioned in a full
article. Each example is presented only to identify
instances that illustrate specific dark side tactics.
There is no attempt to represent spirited pro and con
arguments that are presented in some articles. The
reader should assume that some of the examples might
misrepresent the actual situations. Also, many
examples are related to current American politics. It is
assumed that parallel examples with different content
probably existed during previous presidencies.
Also notice that many situations involve what
might seem to be a web of distortion, suppression, and
misrepresentation (see Table 1). For example, John
Bolton, a nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the United
Nations, was accused of “vastly understating his role
in seeking to oust a CIA analyst in a dispute over
Cuba,” (suppression), seeking to deliver overstated
testimony to Congress about Syria’s nuclear,
chemical, and biological weapons programs
(distortion), and improperly sharing highly classified
information – the names of certain agents - with a
subordinate (misappropriation). The National Security
Agency refused to share those names with two
Senators trying to analyze the situation (suppression).
Bolton’s supporters argued that the criticisms were
misrepresentations (distortion) because they vastly
over-emphasized several incidents in Bolton’s 20-year
career. [13,14]
5. Examples of dark side tactics
This section identifies examples of dark side tactics
that were found in news articles, several web searches,
and articles previously archived for teaching and other
purposes. Given the exploratory nature of trying to
find and categorize dark side examples, there was no
reason to restrict the examples, other than requiring
that they were published in reputable publications.
The examples are organized using the framework
in Table 2, first by motive (distortion, suppression,
and misappropriation) and then by step a KM process.
The relative frequency of examples in the various
categories may be related to the relative frequency of
dark side activities, but the ad hoc nature of the data
collection precludes such inferences from the data.
5.1 Distortion during creation, acquisition, or
refinement
This may include purposeful failure to collect
relevant knowledge or purposeful miscoding of
information/ knowledge that is being created,
acquired, or refined.
5.1.1 Non-reporting of patient intoxication by
emergency rooms. In 38 states of the United States,
“insurers have the option of denying medical
reimbursements to patients under the influence of
alcohol or narcotics. Most U.S. “emergency rooms
and trauma centers don't routinely run blood-alcohol
tests or ‘tox screens’ on patients thought to be
intoxicated” because that information might affect
their reimbursements. Analysis of the resulting
emergency room data would understate the incidence
of alcohol- and drug-related problems. [37]
5.1.2. Other manipulation of clinical information.
In December 2003 the British Medical Journal
published an article [36] that reviewed “strategies to
optimize data for corrupt managers and incompetent
clinicians.” Unethical methods for meeting waiting
time targets include:
• Add staffing during the single week of the year
when audits occur.
• Schedule appointments during vacation time for
the patient; when the patient does not appear,
the counter goes back to zero.
• Delay registering ambulance patients until the
staff is ready to see them.
• If the hospital is full, remove the wheels of a
trolley to make it a bed.
Other areas for manipulating results include:
• Upcode diagnosis to increase reimbursement.
• Upcode patient risk factors to make medical
results seem more impressive.
• Transfer patients to reduce hospital deaths
• Upcode the type of operation.
• Provide insurance to patients with least need.
5.1.3 Predetermined rulings on mercury. “The
Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general
charged that the agency's senior management
instructed staff members to arrive at a predetermined
conclusion favoring industry when they prepared a
proposed rule last year to reduce the amount of
mercury emitted from coal-fired power plants. …
Citing anonymous agency staff members and internal
e-mails, [the report] said the technological and
scientific analysis by the agency was "compromised"
to keep cleanup costs down for the utility industry.”
Republican Senator Inhofe “lashed out at the inspector
general, a Democrat, saying, "This is another example
that Nikki Tinsley has politicized the office.” [2]
5.1.4 Quick, but inaccurate field service reports. A
field service representative explained what he called
“pencil whipping” the data submitted after each
repair. Since providing a specific code for each repair
step would take too long with the voice response
system he was using, he simply gave a vague blanket
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code that applied to the entire visit. He understated
the actual repair time for one visit by about half
because he “got beat up last month” when repairs of
this type took too long. To make sure his labor
utilization rate would not be too low, he then
overstated the hours on installations or preventive
maintenance calls. Analysis of field service data
would yield inaccurate results. [25]
5.1.5 Biased articles in medical journals. The editor
of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine
became concerned that pharmaceutical companies
exert too much influence on reports of research they
sponsor. “A survey of 107 medical-school research
centers, shows that half would allow sponsors of their
research to draft manuscripts reporting the results
while limiting the role of the investigator to
suggesting revisions.” In a relevant instance,
“regulators forced several drug companies to add
strong warnings about a link between antidepressants
and suicidal tendencies among young people to
medication labels. … Some unflattering findings
about the antidepressants hadn't been published,
potentially creating an overly positive portrait of some
of the drugs.” [38]
5.1.6 Circumventing internal controls in an
insurance company. The large insurance company
American International Group (AIG) admitted “that
accounting problems are likely to cut its net worth
3.3%, or by $2.7 billion.” … It noted that “former
executives at times had been able to ‘circumvent
internal controls over financial reporting.’” The press
release noted, “in certain instances, improperly
booked transactions ‘may also have involved
misrepresentations to management, regulators and
AIG's independent auditors.’” [11]
5.1.7 Fabrication of a biological weapons threat.
“One of the most painful errors concerned Iraq’s
biological weapons programs. Virtually all of the
Intelligence Community’s information on Iraq’s
alleged mobile biological weapons facilities was
supplied by a source, code-named ‘Curveball,’ who
was a fabricator … Defense Department collectors …
abdicated their responsibility to vet a critical source;
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysts … placed
undue emphasis on the source’s reporting because the
tales he told were consistent with what they already
believed; and, … Intelligence Community leaders
failed to tell policymakers about Curveball’s flaws in
the weeks before war.” [9]
5.2 Distortion during storage and retrieval
This might occur if storage or retrieval methods were
designed to introduce bias.
5.2.1. Internet search engines. At various times the
order of answers from search engines have depended
on whether merchants paid to be listed first. The user
may not be aware of this practice or the way it
introduces bias into the retrieval process.
5.3 Distortion during distribution and
presentation
Distortion during distribution occurs with the
introduction of biases such as omission or pruning of
knowledge that should be included, or exaggeration of
less relevant or misleading knowledge. Distortion
during presentation is misrepresentation of facts,
motivated by personal, economic, or political benefits.
5.3.1 News segments produced by the U.S.
Government. “In all, at least 20 different federal
agencies, including the Defense Department and the
Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds
of television news segments in the past four years,
records and interviews show. Many were subsequently
broadcast on local stations across the country without
any acknowledgement of the government's role in
their production.” [4]
5.3.2 Government spokesmen posing as
newscasters. “The comptroller general has issued a
blanket warning that reminds federal agencies they
may not produce newscasts promoting administration
policies without clearly stating that the government
itself is the source. Twice in the last two years,
agencies of the federal government have been caught
distributing prepackaged television programs that
used paid spokesmen acting as newscasters and, in
violation of federal law, failed to disclose the
administration's role in developing and financing
them.” [16]
5.3.3. Health claims by Kentucky Fried Chicken.
The US Federal Trade Commission investigated TV
commercials in which KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken)
“implied its products could help consumers eat more
healthfully and lose weight.” The ads “tout KFC
chicken breasts as less fatty than a Burger King
Whopper and say that KFC's Original Recipe chicken
can work well in a low-carbohydrate diet. … The
Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer
group, sent a letter to the FTC complaining that the
ads were ‘outrageous’ because KFC's fried-chicken
meals are ‘unhealthful and clearly difficult to fit into a
healthy, balanced diet.’” Disclaimers in the ads were
small and hard to read. [20]
5.3.4. Fabricated report about Niger uranium
purchase. In his Jan. 28, 2003 State of the Union
Address, President Bush said, "The British
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government learned that Saddam Hussein recently
sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Later it was revealed that most of the intelligence
community believed the Niger uranium purchase was
a fabrication. In early 2002 the CIA had sent Joseph
Wilson to Niger to check out rumors. He concluded,
“there was little chance that any such transaction
transpired.” It is unclear how the discredited
information made its way into the speech. … “Did the
president know that on January 28? If not, who failed
to tell him? Why did he cite the Brits rather than our
own government? Did Dick Cheney know about Mr.
Wilson's findings? If not, what staffer kept them from
him? Why did National Security Chief Condoleezza
Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld make
the same baseless charges on a Saddam-Niger
connection? In contrast, why did Secretary of State
Colin Powell omit any such reference in his key
United Nations presentation in early February?” [12]
5.3.5. Measure progress against past prediction
instead of current reality. To make budget goals
easier to reach, “administration officials have decided
to measure their progress against a $521 billion deficit
they predicted last February rather than last year's
actual shortfall of $413 billion. By starting with the
outdated projection, Mr. Bush can say he has already
reduced the shortfall by about $100 billion and claim
victory if the deficit falls to just $260 billion. …
Administration officials are also invoking optimistic
assumptions about rising tax revenue while excluding
costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as
trillions of dollars in costs that lie just outside Mr.
Bush's five-year budget window.” [1]
5.3.6. Sugar reduction to be downplayed in diet
guidelines. Although obesity is an increasingly
serious problem in the U.S., the Report of the Dietary
Guidelines Advisory Committee “lacks any direct
recommendation that added sugar should be reduced.
… In the previous five sets of guidelines, sugar
consumption was addressed among the specific
recommendations, which are what most people see. In
1980, it was, ‘Avoid too much sugar.’ In 2000, the
guidelines said, ‘Choose beverages and foods to
moderate your intake of sugar.’ …. The chairman of
the Nutrition Department at Harvard School of Public
Health, sees no shades of gray. ‘It's very clear now
that soft drinks and sweetened beverages do
contribute to obesity,’ he said. ‘The government can't
allow those to be promoted to children.’” [7]
5.3.7. White House aide repeatedly edited
government climate reports. “A White House
official who once led the oil industry's fight against
limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited
government climate reports in ways that play down
links between such emissions and global warming,
according to internal documents.” … [He] “removed
or adjusted descriptions of climate research that
government scientists and their supervisors … had
already approved. In many cases, the changes
appeared in the final reports.” … One sentence
originally read, “‘Many scientific observations
indicate that the Earth is undergoing a period of
relatively rapid change.’ … [He] modified the
sentence to read, ‘Many scientific observations point
to the conclusion that the Earth may be undergoing a
period of relatively rapid change.’” [24]
5.4 Suppression during creation, acquisition,
or refinement
Suppression during creation and acquisition involves
prohibiting creation or collection of relevant
knowledge and/or failure to allocate funds or
personnel needed to collect relevant knowledge.
Suppression during refinement involves coercion by
implying or saying directly that people will suffer
personal consequences if their analysis does not
conform to specific biases.
5.4.1 Amazingly low high school dropout rates.
Dropout rates in urban U.S. high schools are 20% to
40%, but a dozen of Houston’s poorest schools
reported dropout rates less than 1%. School principals
were under intense pressure to minimize dropouts. A
deputy superintendent sent a memo “warning
principals to ‘make sure that you do not have any
students coded ‘99,’ whereabouts unknown.’ Too
many ‘unknowns,’ she wrote, could prompt a state
audit — the last thing Houston leaders wanted.” The
whistleblower who reported the situation to a local
television station “was reassigned, for four months, to
sit in a windowless room with no work to do.” [33]
5.4.2. Scientists instructed not to use latest
scientific knowledge. “The southwestern regional
director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service
has instructed members of his staff to limit their use of
the latest scientific studies on the genetics of
endangered plants and animals when deciding how
best to preserve and recover them.” … [These
decisions] “must use only the genetic science in place
at the time [a species] was put on the endangered
species list - in some cases the 1970's or earlier - even
if there have been scientific advances in understanding
the genetic makeup of a species and its subgroups in
the ensuing years.” [3]
5.4.3. Censorship of chat rooms. While in China, a
New York Times reporter posted a message in a China-
based chat room on sohu.com calling for multiparty
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elections and said, “If Chinese on the other side of the
Taiwan Strait can choose their leaders, why can't we
choose our leaders?” [That message] “went on the site
automatically, like all other messages. But after 10
minutes, the censor spotted it and removed it.” [17]
5.5 Suppression during storage and retrieval
Suppression during storage includes destruction of
existing information or knowledge, refusal to allow
access to existing knowledge, and storage of
knowledge in a form or location that makes it very
difficult to retrieve. Suppression during retrieval
involves failure to retrieve information or knowledge
that should be possible to retrieve.
5.5.1 Lost email messages. “In June 2004, a Morgan
Stanley technology executive signed a court document
certifying he had handed over all emails the firm had
agreed to produce in a suit filed against his firm. But
according to a deposition quoted in court papers, two
weeks earlier he had told Morgan Stanley lawyers,
‘The storage folks found an additional 1,600 backup
tapes in a closet.’ … To the Florida judge overseeing
the case, [the] certification was false and one of many
instances in which Morgan Stanley ‘deliberately’
violated her orders to turn over documents, including
some embarrassing to one of the firm's bankers.” [10]
5.6. Suppression during distribution and
presentation
Suppression during distribution may include
declaring that existing knowledge is a secret; failing to
disclose relevant knowledge; threatening personal
consequences for divulging existing knowledge; and
establishing deniability for decision makers by making
sure they never learn about details that might be
embarrassing or illegal. Suppression during
presentation involves failure to present relevant facts,
motivated by personal, economic, or political benefits.
5.6.1 Failure to disclose a flaw in pacemakers. “A
medical device maker, the Guidant Corporation, did
not tell doctors or patients for three years that a unit
implanted in an estimated 24,000 people that is
designed to shock a faltering heart contains a flaw that
has caused a small number of those units to short-
circuit and malfunction. The matter has come to light
after the death of a 21-year-old college student ….
Guidant acknowledges that [the student’s] device,
known as a defibrillator, short-circuited.” [21]
5.6.2. Revealing bad news is a career-limiting
move. “An obscure government actuary … rocked
Washington with accusations that the Bush
administration had muzzled his economic forecasts for
overhauling Medicare. [He] calculated that it would
cost more than $500 billion to provide a prescription
drug benefit over the next 10 years, but says his boss
threatened to fire him if he shared the information
with Congress. Lawmakers passed the bill relying on a
much lower - and politically palatable - figure of $400
billion. … [His] boss, who has since left government
to become a health industry lobbyist, denied making
any threats.” [28]
5.6.3. Revealing bad news is a career-limiting
move. “The jury in the criminal fraud trial of the
former HealthSouth chief executive Richard M.
Scrushy …[asked] to hear playback of conversations
secretly recorded by federal agents and a former chief
financial officer who was cooperating with the
government. ‘If you want to go public with all of this,
then you might as well get ready to get fired,’ Mr.
Scrushy was heard telling the financial officer … on
March 17, 2003, the day before federal agents raided
HealthSouth headquarters.” [29]
5.6.4. The right to suppress certain information.
Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force “met
in 2001 and produced pro-industry recommendations
for sweeping energy legislation now before Congress.
The Bush administration fought hard to keep the
panel's workings secret, arguing that public disclosure
would make it difficult for any White House to solicit
candid advice on important policy issues.” … In an
8-0 opinion, an appeals court ruled that “two private
groups that sued failed to establish that the
government had a legal duty to produce documents
detailing the White House's industry contacts.” [34]
5.7. Misappropriation during creation,
acquisition, or refinement
This includes theft of knowledge as it is being
created and modification or sabotage of a knowledge
creation or refinement process.
5.7.1. Call Center Workers Steal Information and
Money. “Former employees of a call center in Pune,
India, were arrested this week on charges of
defrauding four Citibank account holders in New
York, to the tune of $300,000.” … They “obtained
personal identification numbers from these account
holders in the course of their work.” … and
transferred “funds from these accounts to their own
accounts and fake accounts that were created for this
purpose in Pune.” [26]
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5.8. Misappropriation during storage or
retrieval
This includes theft, modification, inappropriate
access, or sabotage of existing knowledge while it is
being stored or retrieved.
5.8.1. ChoicePoint sells personal data to identity
thieves. The data broker ChoicePoint has 19 billion
data files “full of personal information about nearly
every American adult. In minutes, it can produce a
report listing someone's former addresses, old
roommates, family members and neighbors. The
company's computers can tell its clients if an
insurance applicant has ever filed a claim and whether
a job candidate has ever been sued or faced a tax
lien.” In October 2004, ChoicePoint discovered that
files had been accessed by an identity thief. Months
later they estimated that personal information about
145,000 people had been compromised. [22]
5.8.2. Personal information compromised at nine
universities. A Wall Street Journal article identified
nine incidents in early 2005 in which a university
either discovered or announced that stored
information about students, applicants, alumni, or
faculty had been comprised or stolen by hackers. [36]
5.9. Misappropriation during distribution or
presentation
This includes:
• fraudulent or otherwise inappropriate sale or
transfer of knowledge,
• harming individuals or groups by identifying
them under circumstances that require secrecy.
• misrepresentation of facts, motivated by
personal, economic, or political benefits
5.9.1. Army covers up friendly-fire death of
athelete. Pat Tillman, formerly a professional
football player, “was killed in a barrage of gunfire
from his own men, mistaken for the enemy as he got
into position to defend them. Immediately, the Army
kept the soldiers on the ground quiet and told
Tillman's family and the public that he was killed by
enemy fire while storming a hill, barking orders to his
fellow Rangers. After a public memorial service …
the Army told Tillman's family … that he had been
killed by his own men.” … Tillman’s father “blames
high-ranking Army officers for presenting ‘outright
lies’ to the family and to the public.” [30]
5.9.2. Identity of undercover CIA agent divulged
by columnist. “The investigation into who at the
White House leaked the name of an undercover C.I.A.
officer has become much more intense in the last few
weeks. … At least a handful of White House aides
have had to appear before a federal grand jury.” …
“The goal of the inquiry is to determine who told the
syndicated columnist Robert Novak that Valerie
Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C.
Wilson IV, was an undercover C.I.A. officer. In a
column that appeared in The Washington Post on July
14, Mr. Novak attributed the information to two
‘senior administration officials.’ Disclosure of an
undercover officer's identity can be a crime.” [27]
5.9.3. Report about Italian death in Iraq posted
after censoring was nullified. “Italian media have
published classified sections of an official US military
inquiry into the accidental killing of an Italian agent in
Baghdad.” … A student at Bologna University
“found that with two simple clicks of his computer
mouse he could restore censored portions of the
report.” … The previously censored information
includes names of US military personnel and
recommendations about rules of engagement. [31]
5.9.4. Web site sells virus-writing tools – legally.
The Web site of American Eagle Publications sells
virus writing sells a CD containing source code for
14,000 viruses. “It also includes virus-writing tools,
newsletters about “destructive code” and a database
describing how different viruses work. …. There is
little law-enforcement officials can do to fight back.
The reason lies in the law: Publishing source code that
can be used to construct viruses isn't illegal. What is
illegal, according to the U.S. Computer Fraud and
Abuse Act of 1986, is to release a virus with the
knowledge that it will harm others.” [6]
6. Conclusions
This paper defined the dark side of KM as KM
activities that directly reflect unethical motives. It
explored the dark side of KM by:
• identifying three types of dark side goals
• proposing a framework for categorizing dark
side tactics
• categorizing relevant examples, most of
which were found in recent news.
This concluding section reflects on:
• the completeness of the framework
• the importance of gray areas
• a next step for future research.
6.1 Completeness of the framework
The distribution of 30 numbered examples across
the nine cells in Table 2 illustrates that the dark side
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of KM is not just about “spin, deception, and
propaganda,” terms mentioned in the Call for Papers.
Rather, it involves the impact of dark motives on
activities that occur across the entire process of
creating, refining, storing, retrieving, distributing, and
presenting knowledge.
Of the 30 examples, 15 were categorized under
distortion, 8 under suppression, and 7 under
misappropriation. The categorization was highly
subjective, but the summaries of the 30 examples were
included to illustrate that real world examples fall into
each cell.
The relative frequency of the different types of
dark side tactics among these examples is of little
significance for two reasons. First, the examples were
mostly whatever attracted one person’s attention in the
several months since reading the Call for Papers for
the HICSS mini-track on the Ethics of KM. Other
relevant examples were identified but not included
because they weren’t as striking or because they
couldn’t be summarized in a few sentences. Second,
and more important, in many cases it was unclear
where a particular example belonged. Some examples
involved a combination of distortion and suppression.
In other cases it wasn’t clear whether the distortion or
suppression was best associated with creation/
refinement or distribution/ presentation. Zack’s [35]
definition of the steps in KM is clear, but the motives
that drive dark side examples often affect several
different activities in a KM process.
The framework in Table 2 is based on a definition
of the dark side of KM that emphasizes dark goals
rather than dark results. A framework based on dark
results would probably include something about
mistakes, accidents, and incompetence. Thus, a
revised version of the framework in future research
could include competence as a third dimension and
could attend to the nature of the outcomes (even
though outcomes will not be known in examples
involving situations that have not yet been resolved).
Also, notice that the framework is based on KM
activities, rather than use of information that results
from KM activities. Many examples of dark side
outcomes occur because people do not use the
information they have. An example is the prescient
1977 report of the Cabinet Committee to Combat
Terrorism. [5] This paper’s framework for the dark
side of KM ignored the disuse of relevant information.
Future research might include that issue.
6.2 Importance of gray areas
The boundary between the dark side of KM and
gray areas of debatable ethics is quite broad because
many ambiguous situations involve a multiplicity of
self–serving and altruistic motives. For example,
American doctors sometimes shade or misrepresent
diagnoses either to increase their own income or to
help patients receive reimbursement from insurance
companies. Separating the financial incentives from
the altruistic motives is sometimes difficult, and in
either case, an insurance company would consider the
doctor’s response as a dark side example. Similar gray
areas exist in many of the other types of situations.
Gray areas apply to all three of the roles mentioned
earlier, KM decision makers, people who perform KM
activities, and knowledge recipients. Issues related to
knowledge recipients were not fully addressed in
Table 2 because many of those issues appear at the
intersection of the dark side and the gray areas. In
relation to each of the three types of motives, areas
that are often gray, especially when the spotlight is on
knowledge recipients, include the following:
• (distortion) Willingness to accept distorted
knowledge without questioning; for example,
willingness to accept exaggerations and
omissions in statements by corporate and
political leaders.
• (suppression) Willingness to have important
knowledge suppressed; for example, willingness
to accept forced silence about topics that should
be discussed, such as the incompetence of
leaders or the sleazy ethical choices by one’s
employer.
• (misappropriation) Willingness to accept
misappropriation of knowledge; for example,
willingness to accept and not challenge
improper acquisition of trade secrets or
unethical spying.
A final gray area involves situations in which
knowledge in the heads of specific employees is de-
valued by encapsulating that knowledge in software,
thereby making it available to less skilled employees
and de-skilling employees who originally had the
knowledge. Trends toward outsourcing and
globalization rely to some extent on transferring
knowledge work to low-wage foreign countries or to
contractors. The result is de-valuing knowledge and
skills that employees may have acquired over many
years, sometimes making those employees redundant.
6.3 A next step for future research
A Google search before writing this paper found
only one previous paper [18] that discussed KM’s
dark side. This paper provided a framework, identified
dark side tactics, presented examples, and identified
relevant issues that [18] did not cover.
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The most direct step forward starts with alternative
definitions of the dark side of KM addressing:
• whether the use, misuse, and disuse of KM
products is relevant
• whether mistakes and accidents are relevant
• whether incompetence is relevant
• whether legality or illegality is relevant
• how to handle gray areas.
• treatment of conflicting, but legitimate
motives
Each alternative definition should be used to propose
a categorization framework that should be applied to
categorize (or exclude) examples, goals, and tactics.
At minimum this would support an interesting
dialogue about the meaning and significance of the
dark side of KM. Ideally, it would lead to greater
awareness of the dark side issues and incorporation of
that awareness into future discussions of not only of
KM, but of the ethics of creating and using
information in organizations.
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[7] Burros, M., “Added Sugars, Less Urgency? Fine Print
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[9] Commissions on the Intelligence Capabilities of the
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[14] Jehl, D., “Democrats May Slow Bolton Nomination in
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