E. Durkheim, one of the co-founders of sociology, emphasized that realities can be understood as constructs of individuals and social systems. This individual and at the same time social construction of knowledge is the topic of this article. At the analytic level of individuals, reality constructs emerge as the result of individual processes of perception and thought. But these individuals were necessarily social because of their shared evolutionary past. Therefore they construct broadly similar ideas of what they see as “the” physico-chemical reality. In addition, they show evolved cognitive mechanisms that are socially important as behavioral dispositions (the ability to develop language and symbol manipulation, the capacity to deal with complex relationships of reciprocity, the ability to imitate and thus to organize teaching / learning contexts, or linking emotionality and sociality, etc.). Social systems can be understood as more or less stable units of interacting participants. This requires a relatively large and structured set of reality constructs shared by the members of the systems. These constructs of reality include at the level of societies descriptions both of the respective social reality and of the natural environment. However, this fundamental distinction between “social” and “natural” is to be understood as a secondary differentiation. It was necessarily created under the influence of the same evolutionary processes in which the first societies were formed. With the formation of societies, what unavoidably implies the “establishment” of shared reality-constructs as a necessary prerequisite for communication and cooperative action, the “overall reality” distributed via the plurality of individual cognitive processes also had to be included in this context. This “total reality” attains an existence independent of the individual knowledge of the members of a given society. Thus a level is created that is specific to human societies, the level of culture (especially the transmission of cognitive and behavioral knowledge through observation, non-verbal and verbal communication up to writing and finally to electronic media). The level of culture should be separated analytically from other levels (individuals, components of social systems, system organization) in socio-cultural systems, since its importance is similar to biological inheritance. In the course of differently triggered and more or less self-organized processes of social differentiation functionally specialized social subsystems appear. At the same time, the socially conditioned individualization of the members of societies is driven forward. These processes of social change are therefore accompanied by changes in the production of reality: a plurality of social realities arises. At the same time, older constructs of reality are disappearing or are generalized, together with knowledge generated in specific areas of society. To cope with the socially generated need for coordination (communication!) and stabilization of achieved differentiations, second order systems appear such as e.g. the system of justice, the science system or, of course, the media system. Such second-order systems are not only necessary to assure the functioning of complex societies but they contribute to produce realities which are constructed and not given.

Many scholars in the instructional systems field have addressed the paradigm shift in the field of learning psychology and its implications for instructional systems technology (IST). This article analyzes the philosophical assumptions underlying IST and its behavioral and cognitive foundations, each of which is primarily objectivistic, which means that knowing and learning are processes for representing and mirroring reality. The philosophical assumptions of objectivism are then contrasted with constructivism, which holds that knowing is a process of actively interpreting and constructing individual knowledge representations. The implications of constructivism for IST provide a context for asking the reader to consider to what extent our field should consider this philosophical paradigm shift.

Key words: educational technology, system technology, paradigm shift, knowledge representation, individual knowledge.

Traditionally, Knowledge Management (KM) has focused primarily on the implementation of information technologies, with greater emphasis being placed on technology rather than on information or knowledge, understanding them as epistemological entities. This has had serious consequences, for there is the risk of converting KM in a mere fashion or even a commercial name designed to sell certain Information Technology tools. This paper suggests that authentic knowledge management must start with the study of the cognitive phenomena inside the enterprise. It should not be related only with individual knowledge and learning, but rather mainly to organizational knowledge and learning. This paper also suggests that there is such thing as corporate learning, beyond individual learning, for both – individuals and corporations – are cognitive systems. The scientific arguments supporting that corporations, regarded as systemic wholes, are indeed cognitive systems lie in the understanding of the enterprise as an autopoietic entity. The fact that the enterprise is an autopoietic system implies that not only it has the capacity to acquire knowledge, but also that knowledge itself, understood as effective action, determines the viability and, indeed, the very existence of the enterprise. Hence, Knowledge Management ceases to be an alternative administrative tool and becomes an inherent necessity for the proper functioning of the enterprise.

Key words: Knowledge management (KM), autopoiesis, epistemology, information, Information Technology, cybernetics, cognitive processes, cognition, cognitive sciences, theory of the organization.