Measuring the Unmeasurable? Toward a Transformative Knowledge Balance Framework for Spiritual Knowledge Management

Abstract

Spiritual Knowledge Management (SpKM) extends conventional Knowledge Management by understanding knowledge not merely as a resource to be captured, stored, shared, and applied, but as part of a transformative process through which individuals, teams, and organizations move from a current version toward a future best version. This creates a fundamental methodological challenge: if SpKM is concerned with meaning, resonance, responsibility, practical wisdom, psychological safety, and future-oriented transformation, how can it be assessed without reducing it to conventional performance indicators or superficial measures of spirituality? This conceptual paper addresses this question by developing first ideas toward a non-reductive assessment logic for SpKM. Building on the Joching Manifesto of Spiritual Knowledge Management, the paper argues that the assessment object of SpKM is not yet sufficiently clarified. Possible objects include progress toward the future best version, knowledge practices and enabling conditions, the tension or resonance between current and future versions, and the observable traces of transformation. To frame this problem, the paper introduces the viticultural concept of physiological balance as a heuristic. In viticulture, physiological balance refers to the relationship between vegetative growth and yield performance. Translated into SpKM, this metaphor suggests two analytical axes: the development–impact axis and the capacity–demand axis. The paper further discusses the limits of empirical measurability and identifies psychological safety as an enabling condition for making relevant SpKM signals communicable. The contribution of the paper is not a validated measurement instrument, but a conceptual direction for future SpKM assessment.