The knowledge-doing gap: how organizational and health studies help understanding of the knowledge-doing gap in sustainability education.

Abstract

Knowledge management seeks to optimize the way organisational knowledge in transferred across the organisation to ensure organizational learning, progress and innovation. Optimising knowledge transfer into action plans is relevant to sustainability, especially in the light of research that shows the reluctance of students putting into practice their knowledge about sustainable use of natural resources and biodiversity. The knowledge-doing gap exhibited by students, through their reluctant application of their knowledge, raises important learning based questions about the knowledge-doing gap and the transformation of knowledge into doable actions. It suggests that no matter how powerful the ideas, translating those ideas into action, beyond classroom and beyond curriculum strategies remains elusive. For this reason, the deconstruction of the space between knowledge and doing is essential to reconsider. How this space is constituted is a multidimensional problem which may be better understood through an examination of organizational learning and through practice based behavioural change theories.