Exploring How the Use of Knowledge Management Technology Makes Communities of Practice More Transparent

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Exploring How the Use of Knowledge Management Technology Makes Communities of Practice More Transparent

Ixchel M. Faniel Ann Majchrzak

Marshall School of Business

University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA

Email: [email protected]

Marshall School of Business University of Southern California

Los Angeles, CA Email: [email protected]

Abstract

Prior research on knowledge management and knowledge management systems has tended to assume one of two perspectives on knowledge – knowledge-as-object (e.g. knowledge is explicit) or knowledge-as-action (e.g. knowledge is tacit). However in the real world the distinction is not that straightforward. Explicit and tacit knowledge are said to be mutually constituted rather than separate and distinct. Thus in this exploratory study we use Lave and Wenger’s (1991) concept of transparency rather than a taxonomy of knowledge types as a means to determine how technology might support knowledge work. We found the conceptualization of transparency to be a useful alternative and hope our findings make way for additional research in the area.

Keywords

Communities of practice, Knowledge management, Knowledge management systems, Knowledge work

1. INTRODUCTION A core competency at Company A (a pseudonym) is the employees’ ability to share and use each other’s knowledge in order to bring expertise to bear on complex problems. In the past much of this had occurred through people-to-people interface, however in recent years management felt that this was no longer the most viable alternative. The employees had become more geographically dispersed. Furthermore the employees that had developed a particular area of expertise during a long tenure with the organization had begun to retire. As a result the use of personal networks were viewed as limiting the future impact of Company A’s core competency while knowledge management (KM) technologies were viewed as improving it. In order to have a better understanding about the KM technologies that might be pertinent for Company A employees, management allowed us to study the KM technologies employees used during problem solving.

The work being done at Company A is characterized as knowledge work. Unlike blue-collar work, which is typically physical and service work, which is frequently scripted, knowledge work is cerebral and non-routine in nature (Schultze, 2000). Being cerebral means that the knowledge work requires formal education during which time individuals are trained to be elite (Quinn, et al., 1996). The non-routine nature of knowledge work is consistent with Simon’s (1977) definition of non-programmed tasks where the work being done is novel and unstructured and the precise nature and structure of the problem is elusive and complex (Simon, 1977). Researchers also have suggested individuals tasked to solve non-routine problems are bounded rationally; not able to solve problems on their own they need to use knowledge from others and often the knowledge is from disciplines unrelated to their own (Simon, 1977, Markus, et al., 2002, Hansen, 1999, Gray, 2000).

Unfortunately information technology (IT) in general and KM technologies in particular have poorly served knowledge work so much so that scholars have called for IS researchers to consider new conceptualizations of IT design, use, and support (Markus, et al., 2002, Alavi and Leidner, 2001). One way to accomplish this is to put more effort into understanding the work practices the IT is intended to support (Orlikowski and Iacono, 2001). Given the limited research in this area we decided to conduct a small exploratory study to serve both our practical and theoretical motivations. From the theoretical side we wanted to understand the KM techniques employees at Company A used to support knowledge work and what this might mean for future

Decision Support in an Uncertain and Complex World: The IFIP TC8/WG8.3 International Conference 2004

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research regarding IT support of KM. From the practical side we wanted to be better informed about how KM technologies might support knowledge workers at Company A. To these ends this exploratory study focused on the following research questions:

What KM techniques do knowledge workers employ to support their use of co-worker knowledge and what implications do these techniques have for the design of supportive KM technologies?

2. BACKGROUND When it comes to describing knowledge, much of the prior research has assumed one of two perspectives – knowledge-as-object or knowledge-as-action. Although knowledge-as-object and knowledge-as-action are often presented as two competing perspectives, research on knowledge work has argued that they are mutually constituted rather than separate and distinct and should be studied as such (Schultze, 2000, Markus, et al., 2002, Tsoukas, 1996, Quinn, et al., 1996, Blackler, 1995). For example Blacker (1995) argues that knowledge work is socially constructed in action and dialogue, but he also maintains that encoded knowledge in the form of signs, symbols, and other abstractions helps form the basis of knowledge work. Similarly Quinn et al. (1996) describe know-what (i.e. knowledge-as-object) as the basic mastery of the discipline that is essential in developing and applying skills and intuition typically associated with knowledge-as-action. In this section we give due consideration to both perspectives by reviewing prior literature to understand the contributions and drawbacks of each in order to determine how they can be brought together in one study.

2.1 Knowledge-as-object

Knowledge-as-object research has been conducted in the management and IS literatures (e.g. Stein and Zwass, 1995, Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). The proponents of the knowledge-as-object perspective have conceptualized knowledge as an entity; as such it has also been referred to as information. This characterization has been beneficial because it has resulted in research that has increased our understanding of how knowledge could be codified, stored, and retrieved for future use.

Even though it has offered these contributions, the IS literature has been criticized for treating knowledge and supporting KM technologies as fixed and settled (Orlikowski, 2000). Much of the research has focused on traditional IT designs that support knowledge in the form of rules, directives, and standard operating procedures (Stein and Zwass, 1995). However IT designed in this manner does not support environments where individuals are tasked to interpret new situations or adjust existing thinking (Boland, et al., 1994). For example a case study on IT enabled customer support has suggested traditional rule and case based expert system design may not adequate in a knowledge intensive organization because it can not readily adapt to the dynamic, unpredictable change occurring in the work environment (El Sawy and Bowles, 1997). Our traditional conceptualization of IT design and use does not adequately support the flexibility to change or meaningfully interpret knowledge to suit the needs of individuals working in different contexts (Boland, et al., 1994, Markus, 2001).

In the management literature, Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) theory of knowledge creation is perhaps the most widely recognized theory that takes a knowledge-as-object perspective. Characterizing knowledge as a dynamic entity, the theory describes the interplay between tacit and explicit knowledge as they move through the KM processes. Despite the theory’s characterization of knowledge as an entity that changes, moves, and grows, the theory has also been criticized for stopping short of considering how knowledge is truly transformed in the context of its everyday use and in the presence of material artifacts (Blackler, 1995). More specifically recent research challenged the theory’s universalistic view on the four KM processes and found the use of the processes depended on the type of work required (Becerra-Fernandez and Sabherwal, 2001).

2.2 Knowledge-as-action

Proponents of the knowledge-as-action perspective believe knowledge is socially organized (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Knowledge is not described as an entity but as an ongoing social accomplishment, constituted and reconstituted everyday in work practice (Orlikowski, 2002). Much of this research has drawn from Lave and Wenger’s (1991) notion of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP). LPP is about gaining access to socially organized knowledge in a community of practice and all that membership entails. This includes the social activities that provide opportunities for participation with community members and the artifacts (e.g. technologies) that are used in practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991).

However much of the knowledge-as-action research has focused on tacit knowledge and the social activities that make for its effective production and reproduction in practice (e.g. Brown and Duguid, 1991, Hutchins,


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1991, Weick and Roberts, 1993). For example in a study of service technicians, Brown and Duguid (1991) focus on the elements of good storytelling that helped resolve machine breakdowns. Findings indicated good storytelling extracted a history that helped diagnose the problem and provided causal accounts related to the particulars of the current machine breakdown (Brown and Duguid, 1991). Similarly Hutchins (1991) highlighted the training quartermasters received. The training consisted of performing all tasks related to ship navigation and emphasized the division and redundancy of labor across each of the tasks. Hutchins (1991) suggested that these training techniques played a role in the quartermasters’ ability to flexibly produced and reproduce their knowledge when adapting to changes they encountered during a crisis on board.

While we have evidence regarding the characteristics of the social activities that can be used to access practice and facilitate the production and reproduction of knowledge, the same cannot be said for the technology. Much of the knowledge-as-action research takes technology as a given and assumes it has no interrelationship with practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991). However recent research that examined six groups of Lotus Notes users found that this was not the case; similar to knowledge-in-practice, technology-in-practice was produced and reproduced in action (Orlikowski, 2000). Moreover the properties of the technology inscribed by the designers and added on by the users were suggested to influence this process (Lave and Wenger, 1991, Orlikowski, 2000).

In sum scholars have argued that the two perspectives on knowledge – knowledge-as-object and knowledge-as-action - are mutually constituted rather than separate and distinct, but much of the prior research has tended to study one at the expense of the other. On the one hand research taking the knowledge-as-object perspective assumes knowledge is an entity. Notwithstanding its contributions to the joint study of explicit and tacit forms of knowledge in the context of organizational memory, knowledge creation, and organizational learning, it has been criticized for treating knowledge, KM processes, and KM technologies as static entities that do not vary across contexts. On the other hand the knowledge-as-action perspective assumes knowledge is socially organized. Unfortunately this assumption has led researchers to focus on social activities as the means to gain access to practice. This has come at the expense of studying the properties of technology that also are expected to provide access to practice and facilitate the production and reproduction of knowledge.

2.3 Research Framework

While scholars have argued that research in knowledge work should address both the knowledge-as-object and knowledge-as-action perspectives simultaneously, not much empirical research has done so, even less has examined how IT might be designed to support the endeavor. An exception is Schultze’s (2000) ethnographic study of knowledge work, which we draw from for definitions of knowledge and knowledge work. Knowledge is defined as the combination of human context and information that makes information actionable, whereas knowledge work is defined as the production and reproduction of co-worker information (Schultze, 2000). In order to emphasize our focus on the use of co-worker knowledge we added the term to the definition.

The research framework for this study draws from Lave and Wenger’s (1991) conceptualization of transparency because the concept does not favor one type of knowledge over another. Instead it describes specific forms of participation that occur within or across communities of practice. The forms of participation are called fields of transparency because they reveal a community of practice such that individuals can connect and participate more directly with it. Lave and Wenger (1991) describe four fields of transparency including the: 1) inner workings of the technology of practice, 2) history of practice, 3) cultural life of practice, 4) meaning of practice. Focusing on technology and people as two methods of accessing knowledge from co-workers our intent is to understand what fields of transparency the technology and people reveal.

3. METHOD Company A is a scientific and technical organization involved in the development of large complex satellite, communication, and weapon systems. It was chosen as our data collection site because the work being done by the engineers (i.e. knowledge workers) met the characteristics of knowledge work: 1) formally educated the majority of engineers had advanced degrees, 2) the engineers were tasked to solve non-routine problems, as such 3) engineers relied heavily on each other’s knowledge to solve these problems and 4) engineers used co-worker knowledge that came from disciplines that were unrelated to their own. Our approach to this exploratory study was to understand the work environment and the KM techniques workers used to support knowledge work. Being that our sample size is small, the crux of the paper is focused on what our learnings from this exploratory study suggest for future research and theory on IT support for KM.


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3.1 Data collection

Data collection proceeded in two phases. First we interviewed management at Company A to learn about the work environment. Then we interviewed engineers to understand the KM techniques and technologies used to support knowledge work.

3.2 Learning about Company A’s Work Environment

We interviewed and observed the KM committee to understand current KM initiatives and issues. The KM committee consisted of vice presidents and general managers across several of Company A’s divisions as well as library personnel. We attended three meetings and conducted informal discussions with five members of the committee over the course of several months. We also reviewed supporting documentation associated with the KM initiatives to learn about the goals, issues, and accomplishments of current KM projects. Next we interviewed managers suggested by KM committee members. The managers were members the two major groups within Company A that have approximately 2,000 engineers. We interviewed one general manager and three subdivision managers from one group and one manager that worked in the other group’s design center. In the interviews we asked about the KM techniques and available technologies. From the interviews, informal discussions, meeting observations, and document review, we learned about the engineers’ work environment including the types of: problems solved, KM techniques used, and technologies made available.

3.3 Learning about the KM Techniques Used During Knowledge Work

To understand the actual KM techniques and technologies engineers employed when using co-worker knowledge we asked the three subdivision managers and the design center manager to nominate engineers for interviews. Each manager was asked to nominate two engineers one that made innovative contributions and one that played a supporting role. The distinction was made to increase the range of knowledge worker behavior and improve our understanding of KM techniques and technologies used. In all we spoke with a total of 8 engineers: four were nominated from the subdivisions and four were nominated from the design center. The focus of our interviews with the engineers was on telling us stories about when they solved a problem by using co-worker knowledge. A list of possible KM techniques (Table 1) was used to prompt interviewees in providing rich, descriptive stories. The prompts probed interviewees about how they located knowledge, what they did with the knowledge once they got it, and what types of technology support were used during the process. The techniques were adopted from the creativity and research and development literatures (Amabile, 1996, Dougherty, 1992, Guilford, 1950, Kazanjian, et al., 2000, Kirton, 1976, Shockley, 1972, Thomke, 1998, von Hipple, 1988).

1. Look at how related or unrelated disciplines might have solved a similar problem 2. Attend to information that is seemingly irrelevant to solution of problem at hand 3. Find problem statements used in other disciplines 4. Receive notification of advances in your own domain or other unfamiliar domains 5. Search a list of people’s names in other disciplines to contact 6. Find past failures and examine them 7. Identify assumptions underlying proposed solutions and question them 8. Find historical examples of assumptions that have been violated in past 9. Generate a list of alternative ideas or problem statements 10. Suggest and carryout thought experiments on solution 11. Use images and metaphors when examining possible problem statement 12. Develop a list of criteria to compare alternative solutions based on past work on the problem 13. Analyze historical data to create better estimates for problem 14. During the design process create or consult a list of: analytic models and input parameters used or

referenced, glossary of terms used, internal and external reference links used, technical questions likely to be asked during design reviews

15. Create a decision tree describing decision rationale for choices made

Table 1. List of KM Techniques Referenced During Interviews. We asked whether the techniques were used, and if so whether there was any electronic support.

To get a comprehensive understanding of the KM techniques used we inquired about the use of co-worker knowledge under various scenarios (e.g. the use of co-worker knowledge from related vs. unrelated disciplines). We also wanted to be able to consider any problems associated with using co-worker knowledge so we asked more general questions related to instances when engineers wanted to but could not use co-worker knowledge, the criteria they used to decide what knowledge to use, and the organizational climate for use. These questions


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provided additional examples of knowledge use and while the examples were not full stories they did provide supporting evidence to the stories the engineers told and were used as such. The interviews lasted from 45 to 60 minutes.

3.4 Data Analysis

To start data analysis the first author read all the interview notes and reviewed the documentation collected from the site to gain a general understanding of the KM techniques engineers employed. Next tables were used to organize the data gathered during the interviews with the engineers according to the KM techniques used; patterns were then identified (Miles and Huberman, 1994). These patterns were organized around methods of access (i.e. people, technology) and the four fields of transparency outlined in the research framework. Analyzing the data was an iterative process and subsequently there were several meetings between the authors during which time the themes, table of evidence, and the literature were reviewed and changes were discussed. After each of these meetings the first author reorganized the interview data based on the agreed upon changes.

4. RESULTS While our findings confirmed some prior research, the findings also offered new insights with regard to what aspects of practice were made transparent. Technology was used as a method of access within as well as across communities of practice. We found the technology’s design made the inner workings of technology more transparent within communities of practice. Across communities of practice it was used to make the meaning of practice more transparent, whereas other artifacts were found to be less successful in this regard. People were also used as a method of access to practice within and across communities of practice. We confirmed prior research that has found people help convey meaning and provide historical accounts (e.g. Brown and Duguid, 1991), however we found people pointed to other artifacts of practice as well.

4.1 Technology as a Method of Access Within Communities of Practice

Knowledge workers tended to describe and understand past problem solutions in terms of knowledge components, component parameters, and component relationships. When accessing co-worker knowledge from their own community of practice, we found knowledge workers shared specially designed and developed software models. Engineer 1 described the technology used in practice by altitude control specialists.

Engineer 1: “[There are] ten different types of hardware with many different vendors [and their technical specs. The model also contains] calculations from parameters into how the satellite behaves [when there are disturbances in space], which determines the kind of hardware [that is needed]. About half of our specialty [knowledge] is in the model and two-thirds to three-fourths of the hardware for orientation of the satellite [is in the model as well].”

While these software models componentized knowledge into discrete objects, the knowledge was not blindly applied in a universal manner across contexts. Engineer 3 described the propulsion model he and his colleagues used in practice. As the designer, Engineer 3 inscribed certain properties in the technology, but these properties were not expected to be taken as a given. Rather the designer intentionally designed the technology to be flexible in practice. This facilitated the production and reproduction of technology, including the knowledge contained in it, across different problem solving contexts.

Engineer 3: “I created the substance [of the model. However] whenever someone wants to change it [to fit his needs] he does. [With the model I use] everything is connected [so I can model] different options. For example [I can calculate] rocket equations by type of propellant. Generally [I get the parameters for the spreadsheet from] simple equations, what’s spectacular about [the model] is the layout, [I can model] six different thrusters, with different propellant [options]. Before the model I did hand calculations. The model allows me to do a bunch more calculations [based on my problem solving needs].”

On the one hand these findings might make a case for the design and use of expert systems to support knowledge work. However unlike traditional expert systems these models were not designed according to a fixed set of rules or cases that are not readily apparent to the user. Instead the technology was intentionally designed to be malleable as such the knowledge was broken down into components, component parameters, and component relationships. Moreover designing the technology in this manner was done to reveal the inner workings of the technology so that the knowledge workers could readily produce and reproduce the technology and its contents on the fly.


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4.2 Using Technology as a Method of Access Across Communities of Practice

We found the software models were also used as a method of access to practice for knowledge workers outside the community. This was a surprising result because prior research has suggested that the use of technology under these circumstances is difficult because the meaning of practice is not transparent (e.g. Alavi and Leidner, 2001). In the quote below Engineer 3 described the specific measures he took to reproduce the technology such that it conveyed meaning to the outsiders.

Engineer 3: “I don’t normally make [the model] available, since [other people] are not interested in the detail [of the models; they] might be used in the wrong ways. I occasionally give them a limited set of the model [but I am] very apprehensive about giving up the full model, since [others usually] need a person [that has used it a lot] sitting there for it to make sense.”

Our findings show that it is not just technology that has difficulty making the meaning of practice more transparent. The engineers discussed other artifacts that had these same difficulties. Take the quote from Engineer 4 as an example. He expressed doubts about knowledge workers outside of his community of practice being able to translate knowledge about a particular space program because he thought it was too specific.

Engineer 4: “I suppose I could foresee somebody doing that [reusing knowledge from the prior concept development studies]. The problem is that the output [from the studies] is so mission specific or program specific that they don’t really [seem to] have any use beyond that one space program.”

It is interesting to compare these comments to a different case where Engineer 5 did not have experience with the models she was accessing. She was an outsider trying to gain access to another community of practice. While she appreciated the general knowledge made available to her, she needed more specific details as well.

Engineer 5: “Our contractor has been looking for models […] that can be used for new sensors but can’t find anything immediately relevant. I don’t think anyone has exactly what we’re looking for. People have the right generic knowledge but not the specific knowledge. We’ve seen people publishing in different wavebands. So general physics is there, but application to our specific waveband is not there, also the effects of winds, atmospheric chemistry [are not there], we need them to play together. [As a result the model may] need to be built [from scratch].”

Comparing these three cases it might be that technology and other artifacts should be designed to make the meaning of practice more transparent when trying to gain access to a practice that is not one’s own. For example Engineer 5 expressed the need for both generic and specific knowledge in order to better understand and apply the models in her context, while Engineer 3 needed to alter the technology so others outside of his community of could make sense of it. This supports prior literature that suggests technology and other physical artifacts be designed to move between abstract and concrete forms of knowledge such that meaning can be translated across different areas of expertise and problems solving contexts (Markus, 2001, Schultze, 2000, Boland, et al., 1994, Carlile, 2002, Henderson, 1991, Star and Griesemer, 1989)

4.3 People as a Method of Access

We also found people were used as a method of access to practice. They made the history and the meaning more transparent. People also pointed to other artifacts of practice. Take Engineer 6 as an example. He needed to solve a satellite processing problem related to power supply, which was not his area of expertise. He went to Bill, a power supply expert, because he remembered the stories Bill used to tell about his own power supply problems. During extensive telephone conversations, Bill was able to provide a historical background on past power supply problems and serve as a translator, which helped Engineer 6 frame his problem in the context of power supply. Bill also pointed Engineer 6 to a specific location for additional artifacts.

Engineer 6: “Bill designed power supplies 20 years ago. When we had a [satellite processing] problem I remembered Bill had problems. I used to meet him for lunch when he worked [here]. I found his notes in a file cabinet with file folders that contain everything about power supplies […] the power grid had changed a bit so I plugged in a new power supply and found [the solution to the problem].”

Engineer 3 used members of his community of practice as knowledge intermediaries. After several attempts one of his colleagues pointed him to a relevant paper that helped solve his problem.

Engineer 3: “I looked at what others were doing [through] individual talking and contacts [but wasn’t finding anything and] gave up. [Then later] in Luxembourg [by chance, I was] reviewing a different satellite design and I asked how to do accuracy estimates and he pointed me to one paper and I incorporated the results into my model […].”


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Based on these findings it might be that people are used for different reasons depending on whether the knowledge worker is trying to gain access to their own or other communities of practice. For example our findings suggest that knowledge workers trying to gain access to practice outside of their own community use people to provide history, convey meaning, and point to other artifacts of practice, whereas knowledge workers trying to gain access to practice in their own community use people to point to other artifacts of practice.

4.4 Joint Use of Technology and People as a Method of Access

While we found technology and people were used as independent methods of access, we also found evidence that knowledge workers readily swapped between the two. For example Engineer 5 used co-workers as well as corporate knowledgebases and communication systems to access co-worker knowledge related to XML.

Engineer 5: “I knew some other people in another organization [that] support satellites and had used XML with telemetry and emailed them. [I also performed] web searches and had discussions [with people] to gather 3 to 4 examples.”

Similarly Engineer 2 used corporate databases and colleagues in the firm to access internal knowledge about optics.

Engineer 2: “[I accessed the corporate] database and pulled down information on optics, talked to Eric about previous [projects] that used optics, and talked to optics [experts].”

From our findings it may be that the joint use of technology and people are complimentary and play off of each other’s strengths with respect to the fields of transparency. Our findings suggest technology makes the inner workings of technology of practice and the meaning of practice more transparent, where as people make both the history and the meaning of practice more transparent. Thus the joint use of these two methods of access might serve to make practice more transparent than either could alone.

In sum our study of knowledge work assumed different types of knowledge are mutually constituted rather than separate and distinct. Thus as an alternative to trying to determine appropriate methods of KM support for explicit knowledge vs. tacit knowledge, we conducted research to determine appropriate methods of KM support for more direct participation in communities of practice. We examined technology and people as two possible methods of support. The design and use of technology made the inner workings of the technology of practice and the meaning of practice more transparent, while people made the history of practice, meaning of practice, and artifacts of practice more transparent. We also found that these methods of access to practice were used together.

5. DISCUSSION In this study we examined knowledge work, which demands that we be open to two competing perspectives on knowledge – knowledge-as-object and knowledge-as-action. Thus the purpose of this study was threefold. Our first goal was to review both literatures to understand the strengths and drawbacks of each perspective and determine how they might be brought together. Our next goal was to understand the KM techniques knowledge workers employed, the mechanisms used to support the KM techniques, and how the mechanisms provided insight into practice via the fields of transparency. Working from our findings our third goal was to provide insight into the theoretical and practical implications as they relate to future IS research and the design of supportive KMS. In the sections that follow we discuss the limitations of our study followed by a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of our research.

5.1 Limitations

There are of course limitations to this exploratory study. First limiting our interviews to one site allowed us to focus on knowledge work, however it also raises questions about the replicability of our research design. Second basing our findings on such a small sample size and focusing exclusively on knowledge work (as defined) raises questions about the generalizability of our findings. Paradoxically, the strength of our study lies in some of these same albeit limiting methodological choices.

In our study of knowledge work we have begun to examine knowledge and KM support in all its complexity rather than examine the false dichotomies of knowledge-as-object vs. knowledge-as-action, explicit knowledge vs. tacit knowledge. In the real world neither knowledge nor KM support is that clear cut. While our findings confirmed some prior research, we believe our openness to both the knowledge-as-object and knowledge-as-action perspectives via the fields of transparency gave us a different view with regard to the theoretical and practical implications. We discuss both of these in the following sections.


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5.2 Theoretical Implications

5.2.1 Using Fields of Transparency to Determine KM Support for Knowledge Workers

Based on our findings, the first theoretical implication is that the fields of transparency can be used to help determine what KM support to provide to knowledge workers and provide a viable alternative to studies that separate knowledge-as-object and knowledge-as-action. Lave and Wenger (1991) offered four fields of transparency including the: 1) inner workings of technology in practice, 2) history of practice, 3) meaning of practice, 4) cultural life of practice. We also found people pointed to other artifacts of practice. This served a dual purpose. First the artifacts served as another method of access that might affect the other four fields of transparency. It also made artifacts of practice more transparent, which brings us to our second theoretical implication. There may be additional fields of transparency that we should consider when accessing practice within and across communities. Future research would do well to investigate this matter further.

5.2.2 Using Technology to Make Meaning of Practice More Transparent Across Communities

We found that treating knowledge as an entity that can be codified, stored and retrieved via technology does not preclude its ability to convey meaning across communities of practice. Thus another theoretical implication might be to consider how technology can be designed to be produced and reproduced in order to convey different meanings to different users. Our findings indicate that technology design might start with the goal of making the inner workings of the technology more transparent. Future research might draw from the literature on boundary objects (Carlile, 2002, Henderson, 1991, Star and Griesemer, 1989) to examine the ways in which this goal might be accomplished. While we did not find evidence that technology made the history or cultural life of practice more transparent, that does not mean it is not possible. Future research would do well to examine how IT might be designed to reveal these two fields of transparency.

5.2.3 Using People and Technology as Complementary Rather than Competing Methods of Access to Practice

Our findings, which indicate that using people as a method of access provide transparency to the history and meaning of practice confirmed prior literature (Brown and Duguid, 1991, Hargadon and Sutton, 1997, Majchrzak, et al., in press, Markus, 2001). However we also found joint use of people and technology. Thus another theoretical implication might be the need to consider when dual rather than independent use of people and technology would be most beneficial. Much of the prior research has examined technology-based mechanisms and people-based mechanisms independently assuming one was better than the other based on type of knowledge being managed (Brown and Duguid, 1991, O'Dell and Grayson, 1998, El Sawy and Bowles, 1997, Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995, Stein and Zwass, 1995). However other research has suggested that both types of mechanisms might be used in a complementary fashion (Goodman and Darr, 1998, Olivera, 2000). Thinking about ways to gain access to practice instead of devising ways to support different types of knowledge might help us reconceptualize the relationship between technology and people in future research as complimentary rather than competing.

5.3 Practical Implications

From a practical standpoint depending on the aspect of practice a knowledge worker wants to tap into – inner workings of technology of practice, history of practice, cultural life of practice, meaning of practice – the KMS design might be different. For example organizations wanting to provide technology that can be flexibly changed to suit changing needs might consider a design similar to the software models used by the engineers in this study. Another practical implication is that organizations must rethink current KM strategies that consist of choosing between people and technology (e.g. Hansen, et al., 1999), because an equally viable approach may be to consider a hybrid solution. Rather than treating people and technology as independent methods of access, figuring out the ways they complement one another within and across organizational boundaries might serve to maximize the benefits of KM.

6. CONCLUSION In our study of knowledge work we assumed knowledge-as-object and knowledge-as-action were mutually constituted. Our research study is one of the few that has tried to bring two competing perspectives on knowledge together in one study. We did so by considering how technology and people could be used to make certain aspects of practice more transparent rather than considering how people and technology could be used to support explicit knowledge vs. tacit knowledge. This allowed us to refocus our efforts and make way for new findings. For example our findings suggest that technology can be used to make the meaning of practice transparent across communities of practice provided that it is designed in such a way that it can be flexibly produced and reproduced in practice. While this is exploratory research we hope our findings help generate additional research that examines knowledge, KM, and KMS in all of their complexity.


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