Managing of Knowledge with the

Aid of Communication Technology

Learning Networks at the Countryside Agency

from

Nadejda Ognianova Loumbeva

Project report submitted in part fulfillment of the requirements for the

degree of Master of Science (Human-Computer Interaction with

Ergonomics) in the Faculty of Life Sciences, University College London,

(2002).

Note by the University

This project report is submitted as an examination paper. No responsibility

can be held by London University for the accuracy or completeness of the

material therein.

II

I would like to thank Malcolm Ballantine, whose help has been

invaluable for the accomplishment of this thesis.

I would also like to thank Barney Smith at the Countryside Agency,

whose initiative made the present work, and the process of it, possible.

I would also like to wholeheartedly thank my sister, Mira Loumbeva,

who, with great patience and care, typed the whole thesis for me

because I had tendonitis. We sat together for days until all of it had

been typed up. Had it not been for her, this thesis would not have seen

the day. Not many people would willingly go through that kind of a

sacrifice, but Mira did. For this, and all else, I will always remember

her.

Last, but not least, I would like to thank all the facilitators of the three

Pilot Learning Networks at the Countryside Agency: Kate Jopling and

James Hatcher, Carolyn Cadman and Simon Michaels. Their insights

and opinions have been of great help to my understanding of the

Countryside Agency Learning Networks. In addition, I would like to

thank Ian Bilsborough at the Countryside Agency for his help and

enthusiasm for my project.

III

ABSTRACT

The present work is concerned with the effectiveness of managing knowledge

using Communication Technology to support this. The main purpose is to

evaluate three initiatives of managing knowledge, using Communication

Technology in this process, at the Countryside Agency, a public sector body in the

UK.

Evaluation is conducted in the following way: After introducing the purpose of

the present work in Part I, a literature review is outlined in Part II, in order to

derive recommendations for successful managing of knowledge using

Communication Technology. These recommendations specify the importance of

ensuring a healthy community-of-practice using the technology, as well as

recognizing that knowledge is different from and superior to information.

Knowledge exists only within interpersonal contexts.

The recommendations also emphasize the importance of tacit, explicit, individual

and organizational knowledge, in a process of dynamic development of this within

social practice. In this way, these recommendations are used as criteria against

which to evaluate the knowledge managing initiatives at the Countryside Agency

in Part III of this work.

These initiatives (called Learning Networks) are in terms of optimizing a

community, by making available a technological solution for use to community

members. This is so that members can optimize the interpersonal interactions

among them, thus increasing the value of the community knowledge discourse.

The evaluation of the three Learning Networks revealed the importance of a social

context necessary for knowledge creation, in order for technology supporting

knowledge processes within a community to be effective, and not only efficient,

in fulfilling its purpose as a knowledge managing tool.

In addition, it was revealed that socially accepted ways of working within the

public sector can inhibit the natural process needed for managing knowledge

within a community. This can make technology used for managing knowledge

within such community largely ineffective in its purpose, even though its

technological usability may be adequate.

IV

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part I ...………………………………………………………. 1 - 7

1. Introduction to the present work ……………………………….. 2

1.1. Overview of the subject of the present work ……………………….. 2

1.2. Overview of the process behind the present work …………………. 2

1.3. The host organization: The Countryside Agency …………………. 3

1.4. Knowledge Management at the Countryside Agency …………….. 4

1.5. Learning Networks at the Countryside Agency:

What are they? …………………………………………………………… 4

1.6. Learning Networks: the stakeholders ……………………………... 5

1.7. The problem: Are Learning Networks effective for the

managing of knowledge within a community of people? ……………….. 6

Part II ……………………………………………………… 8 – 55 1. Introduction …………………………………………………….. 10

1.1. Summary of the this literature review …………………………….. 11

1.2. Purpose of the literature review …………………………………… 12

2. Situated learning in communities-of-practice ………………... . 13

2.1. Ordained practice and actual practice …………………………….. 15

2.2. Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) ……………………….. 19

2.3. A socio-technical architecture for Communication Technology

and communities-of-practice ……………………………………………. 20

2.4. Conclusions ……………………………………………………….…. 23

3. The ‘real world’ problem: Is Communication

Technology at present useful to human knowledge creation? …. 25

3.1. Information is not knowledge ………………………………………. 25

3.2. Information can not effectively yield knowledge,

unless within the context of practice …………………………………… 27

3.2.1. How knowledge is enabled, but not optimized with

Information Technology ……………………………………………...…. 27

3.2.2. Optimizing knowledge by increasing the value

of social exchange with Communication Technology …………………. 29

V

3.3. Conclusions ………………………………………………………….. 30

4. Explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge ……………………… 31

4.1. Polanyi’s view on the acquisition of knowledge ………………... … 31

4.2. Understanding information to learn new knowledge …………….. 33

4.3. Communication Technology design

for emerging cultures …………………………………………….….…... 36

4.4. Conclusions ………………………………………………………….. 37

5. Individual and organizational knowledge …………………….. 38

5.1. Why is organizational knowledge important? ……………………..

39

5.2. Nature of organizational knowledge:

explicit heuristics and tacit genres ……………………………………… 40

5.3. Organizational knowledge and individual action ………………… 42

5.4. Conclusions ………………………………………………………….. 43

6. Knowing in practice ……………………………………………. 45 6.1. Knowledge as possession and knowing as practice ……………….. 45

6.2. Productive enquiry ………………………………………………….. 47

6.3. Dynamic affordance ………………………………………………… 48

6.4. Conclusions ………………………………………………………….. 49

7. Recommendations for approaches to

Communication Technology use for managing knowledge …….. 51

8. Conclusions to Part II ………………………………………….. 54

Part III …………………………………………………… 56 – 90

1. Introduction ………………………………………………….… 57 1.1. The problem behind managing knowledge

in the UK public sector ………………………………………………..… 57

2. Methodology …………………………………………………….. 59 2.1. Level of response from each network ……………………………… 59

2.2. Interviews with facilitators of each

Learning Network ………………………………………………………... 60

2.3. Questionnaire emailed to members ……………………………….... 60

2.4. Personal style/preference measures ………………………………... 61

2.5. Rationale behind using the EPQ in the present evaluation ………. 62

VI

2.6. Rationale behind using the MBTI

in Learning Network evaluation ………………………………………….63

2.7. Data obtained from the personal style/preference instruments ….. 64

3. Learning Network Evaluation …………………………………. 65 3.1. Market Towns Learning Network …………………………………. 65

3.1.1. Background to the Market Towns Learning Network …………. 65

3.1.2. Evaluation preview ……………………………………………….. 66

3.1.3. Conclusions …………………………………………………….….. 72

3.2. Equipping Rural Communities Learning Network ………………. 73

3.2.1. Background to the Equipping Rural Communities

Learning Network ……………………………………………………….. 73

3.2.2. Evaluation preview ……………………………………………….. 73

3.2.3. Conclusions ………………………………………………………... 78

3.3. Rural Affairs Forum for England Learning Network …………… 80

3.3.1. Background to the Rural Affairs Forum for England

Learning Network ……………………………………………………….. 80

3.3.2. Evaluation preview ……………………………………………….. 81

3.3.3. Conclusions ………………………………………………………... 86

4. Learning Network Evaluation: Limitations …………………... 87

5. Learning Network Evaluation: Conclusions ………………….. 89

References …………………………………………………….. 91

Appendices ………………………………………………….… 99

VII

LIST OF TABLES

Market Towns Learning Network Evaluation:

Table 1 …………………………………… p. 111

Table 2 …………………………………… p. 112

Table 3 …………………………………… p. 113

Table 4 …………………………………… p. 113-114

Table 5 …………………………………… p. 115-116

Table 6 …………………………………… p. 117-118

Graph 1 ………………………………….. p. 120

Graph 2 ………………………………….. p. 121

Graph 3 ………………………………….. p. 121

Equipping Rural Communities Learning Network Evaluation:

Table 7 …………………………………… p. 122-123

Rural Affairs Forum for England Learning Network Evaluation: Table 8 …………………………………… p. 124-125

Part I

Introduction

2

1. INTRODUCTION TO THE PRESENT WORK

1.1. Overview of the subject of the present work

The present work was set out with the aim to evaluate three technological

attempts at managing knowledge within an organization.

These attempts are in terms of providing an electronic extranet for use to a

community of people brought together by their interest in a domain of practice, a

topic or a shared activity. The extranets, also called ‘dynamic extranets’ by the

organization, were designed and delivered with the assumption that the shared

electronic space they offer will serve to bind the people participating in the

communities together, in order for them to elaborate on their knowledge. This

would be by improving the quality of the interactions among them and thus

making the knowledge possessed by individuals readily available to all

community members. Therefore, the extranets were endowed with functionality of

communication potential, in terms of: member log-in, subgroups, discussion

forums, member expertise search facilities, chat rooms, documents loaded for

member use, automatic notification of members concerning contributions posted

on the network, member database, who’s logged on feature and brainstorming.

This was aiming to provide opportunities for online communication among

individuals and between them and the entire community.

The present work is the result of the evaluation of these three technological

attempts at managing knowledge, in terms of their effectiveness at delivering the

values they were planned and designed to fulfill. Because these technological

initiatives were conceived as essentially knowledge managing initiatives, they

were evaluated against general criteria for managing knowledge within

organizations. This is in terms of the benefits technology can bring into this

process and its limitations at making it effective, should it be regarded as the only

means for creating a cohesive community where knowledge is regarded as a

public good and is thus readily available to all community members for the

fulfillment of desired aims and objectives.

1.2. Overview of the process behind the present work

The evaluation consisted of conducting informal unstructured and semi-structured

interviews with the managers of each extranet (facilitators), as well as distributing

3

a general questionnaire to members of the communities that the extranets were

deemed to support. These interviews and questionnaire were designed to

investigate the assumptions behind managing and using the extranets, as well as

the perceived benefits of members from not only using the extranets, but also

being part of the communities that these extranets support. In this way, the

effectiveness of the extranets at supporting general knowledge managing

strategies, thus being appropriately used according to the nature of optimization

potential they can offer, was verified.

In parallel to this, a literature review, drawing upon literature exploring the

opportunities that technology offers to make knowledge managing more effective,

was carried out to inform the evaluation process. On the basis of this literature

review, recommendations for managing knowledge within communities and

organizations, with the help of the potential offered by Communication

Technology, were derived. These recommendations were used as criteria against

which to evaluate the extranets (described below), following on the relevant

material obtained from the interviews and questionnaire responses.

The results of the literature review are outlined in Part II of this work. The results

of the evaluation of the three extranets are outlined in Part III. Both of these aim

to establish an understanding of learning and the nature of knowledge that will

inform the effective planning, design and carrying out of knowledge managing

within organizations strategically supported by Communication Technology.

1.3. The host organization: The Countryside Agency

The organization hosting these technological attempts at managing knowledge is

the Countryside Agency in the UK. The Countryside Agency (from now on

referred as ‘the Agency’) is a non-departmental public sector organization

concerned with the preservation of the English countryside and the development

of rural areas within this country. Its responsibility within the public sector is to

advise central and local government on ways forward through practical projects

and take action on issues affecting the social, economic and environmental well

being of rural areas and communities. Within their role and function, the Agency

aim to influence other organizations with similar purposes by conceiving and

developing projects, thus creating a unified strategy to rural development. The

Agency resulted from the merger of the Countryside Commission and the Rural

Development Commission in April 1999.

4

1.4. Knowledge Management at the Countryside Agency

About a year ago (June 2001), following on the Modernizing Government White

Paper (1999), the Agency began to invest resources in knowledge management.

The White Paper constructed a vision of electronic public services, moving the

UK to a knowledge-based economy. The aim was to move towards a modern,

joined up government, by sharing ‘best practice’, in order to learn from this for

the sake of future developments.

In relation to this, a Knowledge Management Team was assembled at the Agency,

which purpose is to design initiatives making knowledge within the Agency, as

well as among this and other big and small organizations concerned with rural

development and preservation within England (most frequently Agency partners

and contractors), readily accessible to those who need it. In this way, the

Knowledge Management Team works alongside all other teams within the

Agency, as well as organizations with purposes similar to this, towards a better

state of the English countryside.

In order to explore the potential of technology for making knowledge within a

community of, frequently very busy, people more effective towards achievement

of desired objectives, the Knowledge Management Team, following on the idea of

the Countryside Agency Chief Executive, set out to develop three pilot knowledge

management initiatives. They called these initiatives Learning Networks, which

the present work aims to evaluate in terms of their success at bringing people

together to collaborate and learn from each other, in order to make their individual

and collective work practices more effective.

1.5. Learning Networks at the Countryside Agency: What are they?

A Learning Network, as is viewed by the Agency, is either a ‘community of

purpose’, composed of people who share knowledge and information in working

together towards a ‘smart’ objective, or a ‘community of practice’, composed of

people performing similar tasks and having similar roles, helping each other by

sharing knowledge of their practice. In both cases, the aim is to manage

knowledge within the group in order to benefit a specific objective or a more

general work practice.

This process is primarily enabled by web technology, also called a ‘dynamic

extranet’, although it is not unusual for the community to pre-date the Learning

5

Network. Learning Networks provide a web-based space, specifically designed to

project Agency messages and views on creating policies.

The people participating on the network are brought together to collaborate on a

project, theme or issue, in order to produce a successful, more or less defined,

outcome. In this process, these people are always managed in their collaborative

activity by a ‘facilitator’, who aims to bring their efforts at the successful

fulfillment of the desired objective.

In this way, Learning Networks aim to engage various stakeholders in a project

from the very earliest stages of this project development, in order to implement

their views within executive decisions. Learning Networks are not expected to

completely replace face-to-face meetings in these processes, but merely save

precious time often lost in travelling across distant geographical locations.

1.6. Learning Networks: the stakeholders

Within the process of planning, delivering and fulfilling a Learning Network,

there are a number of stakeholders involved, each having different conception of

what makes a successful network.

First of all, there is the view of the Knowledge Management Team within the

Agency, which is essentially concerned with the effective branding of the Agency

throughout Learning Network participation. In particular, it is important that each

network, by engaging participants in a purposeful community process, succeeds in

influencing strategies and practical projects for countryside development.

Then, there are the views and expectations of Learning Network participants.

These are essentially concerned with their ability to effectively participate on the

network, so that they can derive practical benefits from their participation that

they can use to improve their work. Effective participation, in their terms, is being

able to connect to others in the way they want to, using technology, or not, and

respecting public sector role assumptions, values and beliefs, or not. In order to

do this, members need to be drawn to the network community out of genuine

interest in its shared activities and not be forced or obliged to participate, thus to

fulfill their ordained role within this sector. In any case, they want to learn more

about the issue being discussed and benefit from networking opportunities. Thus

network members are concerned with having free access to other members, in

order to elaborate on each other’s knowledge and build relationships. They also

want to have sufficient time to do so from their general work commitments, i.e.,

6

for them, their work practice must allow for the execution of a knowledge practice

within it, so that it can be effective.

Finally, there are the views of Learning Network facilitators, concerned with

managing member participation and, when necessary, leveraging this towards the

achievement of desired objectives. In order to do this, facilitators need to have

sufficient knowledge of the area subject of member discussions and also be

committed themselves to enriching the knowledge and expertise contained within

the community, regarding this area of interest. They will also want to be given

sufficient freedom to facilitate the network as it seems best to them at any one

time, according to their commitment to its purpose and their interest in benefiting

all members, not limited by contextual pressures to make network facilitation the

exclusive arena for Agency branding.

1.7. The problem: Are Learning Networks effective for the managing of

knowledge within a community of people?

Despite the potential dynamic extranets offer to the managing of knowledge

within a community of people, the three pilot Learning Networks at the Agency

have presented some problems with their use. Precisely, there seems to be not

enough participation and involvement from members as would be expected form a

vibrant community where knowledge is dynamically exchanged among people

and thrives in continuous renewal.

In particular, one of the pilot Learning Networks, the Rural Affairs Forum for

England network, has been used very poorly. From an overall of 66 members, 13

have never logged on the network since its launch in November 2001 until July

2002 (20% of members). 33 members have logged on less than 10 times for the

duration of this time and the majority of log-ins for this period have in fact

originated from network facilitators (48%). Only 6% (4 members) have made

active contributions to the network by creating dialogues and 15% of members

have contributed to these dialogues (10 members). Countryside Agency members

initiated the main part of these active contributions, although there are only 6

Countryside Agency members on the Forum. The maximum total number of

logins per member was estimated at 42, which is less than once each week since

the Network was made available for use to Forum members.

The situation with another of the pilot networks, the Equipping Rural

Communities Learning Network, is similar, although not so extreme at first sight.

7

Interviews with the facilitator and material provided by some of the participants

indicated that contributions on the network are not genuinely driven by learning

interest and are proportional to facilitator input. In other words, members do not

seem to engage enough with the community purpose and contribute to it for the

sake of being part of an initiative introduced by an influential organization and not

for the sake of participating in a learning experience intimately valuable to their

interests and concerns.

Finally, the last of the pilot Learning Networks, the Market Towns Learning

Network, has been used very little at the beginning of its initiation, seemingly

because there were too many members on the whole, not knowing each other

sufficiently to engage in discussion. Although the network has since gained a lot

of speed and is much better used by its members at the moment, these being

generally interested in its purpose, there seems to be lack of focus of the issues

being discussed. In this way, using the network has little perceived benefits to

members and the Agency, despite the fact that it has generated reasonable public

sector interest.

This outline of Agency Learning Networks’ effectiveness problems is not

exhaustive and is meant to merely introduce the issue of interest, which is social

and organizational aspects of using Communication Technology.

In other words, the nature of the Countryside Agency pilot networks’

effectiveness problems is, in the body of this work, shown to arise from

insufficient emphasis on the people using the networks, the latter as only one

means for developing dynamic relations among them, in order to collaborate and

renew their knowledge.

Precisely, even though the Learning Network websites appear to be mostly good

and adequate in their usability, they appear to be insufficient in enabling

communication among people, aiming to bring desired benefits to a specific

purpose or general practice. Appropriate facilitation of the community using the

network, in terms of enabling social conditions for development of vibrant

interpersonal relationships, appears to be of much greater importance to what

makes a Learning Network, in terms of the technology that it uses, effective.

Part II

Literature Review

9

LEARNING AND THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE

How to Optimise Human Knowledge by Using Communication Technologies

as Part of a General Knowledge Managing Strategy

“If managing knowledge is the solution, then what is the problem?”

Zack, 1999

“If companies are going to compete on knowledge, and manage and design

structures and technology for it, they need to base their strategy on an

understanding of what the knowledge challenge is.”

Wenger, McDermott and Snyder, 2002

“We can know more than we can tell.”

Polanyi, 1966

10

1. Introduction

Within the recent five years, there has been a growing interest in the nature of

knowledge, in terms of its generation, transfer and application within firms and

organisations. Knowledge has been regarded as the most important asset for

competitive advantage, unlike the nature or amount of financial or technological

resources that organisations possess, especially for organisations competing in

uncertain environments (Miller and Shamsie, 1996; Penrose, 1959; Winter, 1987).

In effect, knowledge is what harnesses the financial and technological potential of

an organisation towards the realisation of its mission.

Theorists have argued that knowledge is the firm’s most important resource

because it represents intangible assets, operational routines and creative processes

that are hard to imitate (e.g. Spender, 1996). Through understanding the nature of

knowledge, organisations have been looking to inform the process of managing

this knowledge within, and among, them, in order to assure themselves

competitive advantages. These advantages are viewed as the successful adoption

of organisations within sectors, industries and markets, as well as their ability to

induce changes into these areas (Brown and Duguid, 1991).

However, Birkinshaw (2001) notes that although managing knowledge ‘promises

very much, often it delivers very little.’ (p. 11). He further notes that this is

because managing knowledge has focused on managing information propagated

via IT systems, rather than managing social relations that use this information as

knowledge.

Indeed, within the present work, it is shown that, in an effort to initiate and sustain

competitive advantages, organizations have concentrated on ‘knowledge

management’, rather than ‘knowledge managing’ (these terms are arbitrary in

making the desired distinction).

‘Knowledge management’ regards knowledge as a commodity, i.e. an entity that

can be removed from people and transferred among them like an object. This is

equal to information, which is of little use in practice (i.e. Davenport and Prusak,

1998) and is observed in organisations investing resources in developing IT

repositories for ‘codified knowledge’ (Birkinshaw), such as ‘best practice’

databases. These databases in fact remove knowledge from its original context of

creation that enables its effective meaning. In this way, ‘knowledge management’

in such organisations is no more than information management, of little use to

employees in the context of their inherently social day-to-day practices.

11

‘Knowledge managing’, in contrast, recognises the continuous social construction

of human knowledge via the dynamic nature of community discourse (e. g.

Lanzara and Patriotta, 2001). In this way, there is recognition that knowledge is

part of society and not produced by technology. Organisations adopting such an

approach invest in facilitation of social communities-of-practice as vibrant

contexts for knowledge creation and aim to support, but not ordain, these

communities by Communication Technologies (CT).

The above distinction makes clear that, to effectively engender ‘knowledge

managing’, rather than ‘knowledge management’, organisations need above all to

enable and support the social contexts that yield knowledge. They need to

optimise human processes within these contexts by Communication, rather than

merely Information Technologies.

1.1. Summary of this literature review

In the present literature review, the reasons why adopting a strategy about

knowledge, rather than information, brings benefits to organizations are explored.

It is argued that this is because social contexts nurture personal commitment and

beliefs in their members that endow information delivered by, amongst others,

Information Technology, with significance generating knowledge (e. g. Nonaka

and Takeuchi, 1995, p. 59). Knowledge processes are above all socially enabled,

before they can be supported and effectively optimised by technology. These

processes happen during communication among people, therefore development of

social relations is far more important than development of digital information

(Tsoukas, 1998). Optimising social relations by Communication Technologies is

far more effective in managing knowledge than merely investing in information,

because all knowledge, as a personal phenomenon, happens within collective

contexts of interpersonal interaction (Tsoukas and Vladimirou, 2001). These

contexts allow for knowing what to do within particular circumstances, which is

far better than having the information without knowing what to do with it. And

knowing what to do happens within communities-of-practice.

Optimising such collective contexts of interpersonal interaction is possible by

using Communication Technologies. Designing multi-user systems aiming to suit

group and organisational requirements for effective knowledge creation, rather

than aiming to solely suit individual users, is necessary. Within the literature, this

has been referred as a socio-technical system interaction between social practices

12

and technology tools (Kling, 1993), where organisational analysis embraces

computer science, and can be seen as a superior form of human-computer

interaction that should be enabled to continuously develop over time. In this way,

organisations’ knowledge potential would be increased because knowledge, as the

most valuable asset organisations have, would be optimised.

1.2. Purpose of the literature review

The purpose of this review is to specify recommendations for enabling and

supporting social contexts within organisations, in terms of an approach to

Communication Technologies (as part of Socio-Technical systems) design and

use for managing, and not merely management, of knowledge. These

recommendations are subsequently used to evaluate the effectiveness of three

knowledge-managing initiatives at the Countryside Agency, a non-government

organisation in the UK. In such a way, the validity of these recommendations is

verified against the success of these initiatives at managing human knowledge and

not information.

The derivation of recommendations is attempted after reviewing literature

discussing the situated learning within communities-of-practice, shown to

effectively use and generate human knowledge (2). The reasons why situated

learning within communities-of-practice is effective in sustaining knowledge

processes are explored in reviewing additional literature about technology

usefulness to human knowledge (3), the nature of learning and knowledge as both

an explicit and tacit process (4) and an individual and group/organisational

process (5), as well as the notion of practice (6).

13

2. Situated learning in communities-of-practice

In their work based on ethnographic observations, Lave and Wenger (1991) and

Wenger (1998) conclude that knowledge is a social phenomena dynamically

constructed as part of practice. This practice takes place within self-selected

communities (Rheingold, 1993), defined to embody the purpose of knowledge

creation. In this way, learning of knowledge and knowing how to use this

knowledge within these communities is an integral part of the community

practice, i.e. learning within these community contexts is situated within the

particular circumstances that the practice presents, demanding the application and

derivation of knowledge. These circumstances have also been described as

essentially different from those in the classroom, where absorption of abstracted

heuristics is encouraged without reconnecting these to their original sources in

actual practices (Brown, 1998).

Wenger and Snyder (2000) describe communities-of-practice as ‘groups of people

informally bound together to share expertise and passion for a joint enterprise’

(italics added). This description is reminiscent of Polanyi’s view of spoken

communication as:

‘the successful application … of the linguistic knowledge and skill acquired by … (an)

apprenticeship, (when) one person (is) wishing to transmit, the other to receive, information.’

(Polanyi, 1962, p.206, italics added).

Polanyi regards spoken communication as enabled by the ‘intelligent effort’ of

individuals within groups unified by a common practice, such as an

apprenticeship (also referred by him as a ‘common complex culture’1). These

individuals are willing to share their expertise with the group and actively use in-

1 Polanyi (1962) argues that such communities are found within ‘common complex cultures’.

Similarly to ‘infocultures’ (Newell et al., 2001, later described in this review), these cultures

are communities where ‘a network of confidence’ and mutual trust makes possible the

generation of ‘systems of facts and standards’ (i.e. systems of explicit heuristics and tacit

knowledge for applying heuristics in practice) (Polanyi, 1962, p. 375). Such systems of facts

and standards are created in the process of elaboration on the personal knowledge of

members of these cultures, by them sharing in the ‘intelligent effort’ of other individuals,

such that ‘one person wishes to transmit and the other to receive, information’ (p. 206).

Polanyi further describes these ‘systems of facts and standards’ as ‘superior’ (i.e. beyond

personal) knowledge, upheld by people mutually recognizing each other as a community and

thus perceiving their knowledge to be of social value. Such superior knowledge is closely

reminiscent of community knowledge found within communities-of-practice (as described by

14

coming information to elaborate on their knowledge. The presence of shared

intelligent efforts follows from the joint passion to learn about an enterprise as the

subject of common interest, and creates conditions for collective learning in

action. The application of existing knowledge in action is what allows not only the

sharing of tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge within the community-of-

practice, but also the development of new ways of knowing this knowledge and

applying skills in combinative ways, during the development of multiple

interpersonal relations. Communication Technologies should aim to optimize

social processes within these communities, rather than exclusively focus on what

is seen as developing the knowledge these processes generate. This is because

knowledge is socially constructed and cannot possibly exist outside of the

interpersonal context of its creation.

Knowledge creation within these communities is distributed throughout multiple

‘actors’ (Araujo, 1998) by the development of interpersonal relations, which

acquire a ‘routine’ status over time, as they become social platforms for

knowledge creation (Nanda, 1996). Supporting these social platforms by

technological infrastructure in order to optimize their development is by

collaborative technologies such as listservs, electronic discussion and chat (Wasko

and Faraj, 2000), which can bring novel aspects to the debating processes within

the community and keep track of the progression of the interpersonal interactions.

Von Krogh (1998) further points out that the motivation behind the creation of

these social platforms is not self-interest, but care for the community, where

knowledge creation is engaged in for the public good of all members. As a result,

knowledge is viewed as a process that collectively benefits the community and is

thus the moral obligation of all members. Similarly, Wasko and Faraj (2000) and

Rheingold (1993) observe that for long-standing electronic communities, the main

motivation behind participation is generalized reciprocity, where help given to one

person is reciprocated by someone else in the future, in a common expectation

that community interaction is on-going and self-fulfilling. Technological support

designed to optimize these social processes must consider their spontaneous and

unconstrained nature, by using technological platforms flexible enough to co-

evolve with the life within the community.

Lave and Wenger, 1991) and organizational knowledge found within organizations (e.g. as

described by Tsoukas and Vladimirou, 2001).

15

Thus communities-of-practice, through the cultivation of social bonds, offer the

conditions enabling not only knowledge, as existing and newly acquired, but also

knowing this knowledge in actual practice. Schultze (1999) points out that

knowledge within such communities is ‘the social practice of knowing’, where

learning new knowledge, knowing this in practice and innovating by applying

existing knowledge and knowing in novel ways are inexorably connected in

practice. This is because, by their informal, continuously evolving and enacting

nature, these communities are vibrant fields for active experimentation and

innovation. In this way, within communities-of-practice, there is a purpose of

learning about being a practitioner and not merely learning about practice (Brown,

1998). Knowledge and knowing are thus continuously intertwined in a ‘generative

dance’ (Cook and Brown, 1998), which ensures the success of these communities

as ‘knowledge communities’. Technological support for this generative dance

should be designing for optimization of the social context, in order to benefit the

purpose of action learning. When a community of people engage in action

learning they, without realizing this, manage their knowledge and knowing

throughout their practice.

2.1. Ordained practice and actual practice

Importantly, Brown and Duguid (1998) note that ‘conventional communities are

not necessarily communities-of-practice’ (italics added), thus observing the

difference between formal communities imposed ‘from above’ and informally

fluid communities-of practice. In this way, attempts at managing knowledge and

knowing by bringing people together using formal obligations, expressed by the

institutionalization of over-structuring ‘knowledge’ databases and other IT tools,

will not be successful for the purpose of managing knowledge within this

community.

Wasko and Faraj (2001) note the prominent conservative approach to applying IT

through the automation of existing processes in industry, based on the assumption

that ‘design of the original process is satisfactory’ (p. 6). Such an approach

focuses on processes creating operational efficiency rather than people

participating in them (in the terms of Business Process Reengineering) and

reinforces existing management practices investing in efficiency, rather than

effectiveness, this by bringing people together to fulfil ordained roles rather than

collaborate. Such an approach is also expressed by statements of ‘computers being

16

everywhere except in the productivity statistics’ (Solow, 1987), ignoring that the

way to productivity is indirect and passes by ensuring healthy social relations

first, before (and no doubt importantly) ensuring efficient computer systems.

Therefore, because of the already discussed social and inherently voluntary nature

of human knowledge, cultivated by developing strong interpersonal relations

stimulated by shared interest, management practices should focus on knowledge

rather than mechanistic notions of efficiency (Brown, 1998). Managing

knowledge, in itself, is about informally facilitating emerging social relations and

stimulating development of moral obligation behind participation in communities-

of-practice. It is not about imposing a rigidity on the flexible reality of actual

practice.

Orr (1996) further illustrates the gap between ordained practice and actual

practice. In his detailed ethnographic studies of service technicians, he observed a

marked distinction between the practice imposed on the technicians by the

organization (in terms of impoverished instruction manuals for repairing copiers

at customer sites that top management considered sufficient in doing the job), and

actual practice that the technicians found most comfortable and fulfilling in the

process of their jobs. Actual practice of the service technicians took place within

informal communities-of-practice, rather like social ‘organisms’ thriving with

knowledge and knowing processes. Orr describes these communities as:

“ Occupational communities…have little hierarchy; the only real status is that of a member…are

often non-canonical and not recognized by the organization. They are more fluid and interpretative

than bounded, often crossing the restrictive boundaries of the organization to incorporate people

from the outside (and that can include both suppliers and customers).” (Orr, 1990a).

In this way, within service technicians’ informally interpretative actual practice,

there were conditions for the social derivation and construction of knowledge, this

by the production and dissemination of stories telling and interpreting work

experiences. Within these stories, the technicians organized seemingly unrelated

events into coherent discourse artifacts, connecting cause and consequence to

inform the understanding of their jobs, in terms of the insufficiency of formal

instruction. By accumulating socially distributed insights in the process of their

social discourse, they actively engaged in constructing a collectively explicit

memory as a summary of their practice, as well as a collective tacit understanding

of what the spoken and material practice artifacts mean. This is reminiscent of

17

case studies described by Tsoukas and Vladimirou (2001) and Lanzarra and

Patriotta (2001), where communities-of-actual-practice invented ways for

applying ordained practice artifacts (in terms of technology imposed ‘from

above’) to suit their purposes, because these artifacts failed to account for the

contextual demands of actual practice2.

Therefore, actual practice, in terms of engaging in and caring for a community-of-

practice, provided a context where the ordained practice, in terms of impoverished

work manuals, was actively reconnected to the situated demands of specific work

cases. In other words, actual practice presented conditions for ‘situated learning’

from events occurring and actions initiated in this practice (Lave and Wenger,

1991), as opposed to the practical deficiencies of instruction manuals, formally

telling what to do in this practice. Actual practice, in terms of the community that

the technicians had defined for themselves, in fact compensated for the rigid

deficiency of the ordained practice (despite the existence of the community having

been opposed by top management on multiple occasions, until its strategic

importance was recognized).

In this way, Orr shows the importance of communities-of-practice as contexts

where knowledge applicable in practice is actively constructed; therefore these

contexts should be encouraged to develop. Brown (1998) further notes the

importance of communities-of-practice as contexts where leveraging of ordained

practices is made possible in order to assure organizational competitive

advantages in accordance with the purpose behind the organization. It is clear

therefore that creating conditions for emergence of common practices is crucial to

successful managing of knowledge within and among organizations. Furthermore,

optimizing processes of actual practice by Communication Technology (from now

on referred to as CT) must consider their autonomous self-fulfilling nature that

2 Lanzara and Patriotta (2001) illustrate the effect of this in a case study on organizational

knowledge in the courtroom. These authors show the highly ‘interactive, provisional and

controversial nature’ of knowledge found within courtroom communities struggling to find

a meaning for novel technology introduced within the community process (i.e. videotape

recording of Mafia trials as a more efficient means for trial documentation). In effect, the

courtroom communities were faced with a novel artifact, the need for which was not

naturally derived by them in the process of its practice (as it should be in effective cultures;

Schein, 1985), but considered to be necessary by outside parties. The authors adopt a socio-

constructivist perspective to knowledge formation, arguing that knowledge can only be

understood in its practice, therefore optimizing this practice via technology must

successfully ‘integrate’ the technology within the community. Within the courtroom

described by them, “actors keep designing local solutions and arrangements in order to

integrate the VCR into the activity system.” (p. 963). In this way, there was a struggle

between actual and ordained practice that ended by integrating the technology in

knowledge processes in only a few cases.

18

resents over-structuring designs in attempts at other than facilitating their

development.

The above makes clear the opposition that may exist between ordained practice

and actual practice in organizations, when management ignores that adults tend to

learn in the multiple contexts of their work by attending to situated demands from

specific circumstances, rather than by following institutionalized abstractions of

work practice (e.g. Burgoyne and Hodgson, 1983).

Such contradictions are often reinforced by the very design of information

technology implemented within organizations. This technology is designed with a

view of over-structuring the learning-while-and-in-working of employees, in order

to control for accountability, rather than foster initiative; in order to define

responsibility, rather than genuine interest; in order to enhance competition, rather

than rivalry; and in order to maintain secrecy and privacy, rather than openness to

external perspective (Brown, 1998).

Ordained practice is thus an abstract ‘modus operatum’3 that removes practice

from a situated context of taking place, ignoring the importance of action learning

in managing knowledge. In contrast, actual practice is an ‘opus operandi’4, where

practice exists only within concrete circumstances in reconnecting the abstract

knowledge of group heuristics with the reason for their existence, i.e. to inform

individual action (Bourdieu, 1977). This Brown (1988) described as ‘reconnecting

the map with the mapped’. In other words, ‘modus operatum’ sees action as a

finished task, whereas ‘opus operandi’ within communities-of-practice sees action

as a process of doing a task that is constantly tuned and tuning to the context of

the physical and social environment.

In relation to opus operatum and opus operandi, Brown (1998) notes:

“ Work on expert systems suggests that technologies whose representation of the complexities of

practice are misleadingly partial may make that practice difficult or even impossible. Any

decomposition of the task must be done not with an eye to the task or the user in isolation, but to

the learner’s need to situate the decomposed task in the context of the overall social practice.” (p.

233)

This observation thus emphasizes the need for considering technology-supported

tasks in the contexts of their social and physical environments, without removing

3 In Latin, ‘modus operatum’ means ‘mode of use’. 4 In Latin, ‘opus operandi’ means ‘the part (entity), which is being used’.

19

them from contextual demands in order to facilitate the design process (i.e. in the

tradition of classical Ergonomics; this also questions the validity of Hierarchical

Task Analysis as a technique for mapping system structure). An approach to

technological design aiming for optimization of knowledge creation must agree

with the contextual characteristics of human actions, particularly social actions as

they happen in practice, and aim for minimally supporting these actions in their

dynamic development.

2.2. Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP)

To further illustrate this point, let us look at Legitimate Peripheral Participation

(LPP) in Communities-of-Practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991).

In Communities-of-practice, learning is not primarily about the subject of practice

as such, but about being a member and functioning within the community.

Members of communities-of-practice acquire above all the ‘embodied ability to

behave as community members’ (Brown, 1998) within the shared complex

cultures that characterize the development of interpersonal dynamics within the

community. These developments make knowledge possessed and knowing

engaged in by the community accessible to all members.

In their ethnographic studies, Lave and Wenger observed that when novice

members join a community, they are implicitly given legitimate access to the

periphery of communication unfolding among expert members. That is, novice

members are allowed to observe experts until they have learnt enough to feel

comfortable with active community participation. During their seemingly passive

residence in the periphery of communication, novice members pick up valuable

tacit knowledge of the community practice, by acquiring knowledge of

community rituals and routines that enable circulation of stories and other forms

of negotiation of meanings (Deal and Kennedy, 1982). In this way, novice

members are gradually ‘enculturated’ (Brown and Duguid, 1991) within the

community, allowed to move from the periphery to the center of communication.

Eventually, they actively join into the knowledge discourse.

In relation to this, Brown (1998) describes ‘stealing knowledge’ as picking up

knowledge from the informal periphery of on-going practice, this being a most

effective way for novices to learn from actions that others undertake within

situated contexts. Stealing knowledge of peripheral members from ‘central’ expert

20

members in fact assures the community a challenging, whilst an informally

productive, vibrancy.

Expert members of communities-of-practice find processes in the periphery

thoroughly stimulating to the derivation of new knowledge. In relation to this,

Brown and Duguid (1998) note, the importance of continuously incorporating

‘new elements’ into existing structures in order to ensure adaptability to

continuously changing markets. This is at strong play within communities-of-

practice, who define themselves not only by their knowledge, but also by knowing

how to use this in new ways. Their openness to new experience assures

themselves a vibrant interpretative potential and constant fitness to outside

challenges, as expressed by continuously evolving collectively accepted ways for

doing the work.

This LPP development generalizes across all particular knowledge communities;

however, LPP is also unique to each separate community, according to the domain

of theory and practice within which the community develops, deriving their

knowledge. The personal styles of members and the socially accepted

assumptions, values and beliefs (Schein, 1990) are also important to community

development. Therefore, the particular dynamics of LPP are hard to predict for

each separate community-of-practice and community development is created by

community members. Designing technology to optimize this creative process

must offer a minimal structure, as a flexible technological platform co-evolving

with the community.

Therefore, CT for managing of knowledge and knowing within communities must

allow for processes of LPP to develop, as these are necessary to community

healthy existence. CT must be designed to allow for the different preferences of

members to use technology at any one time. Its use must also ensure that the

knowledge discourse is well supported both by active and passive, but rather vocal

and silent members (no member is a passive member within a community). CT

offers the potential for doing this by, for example, copying peripheral members in

emails that are part of central knowledge discourse and giving these members

access to discussion forums.

2.3. A socio-technical architecture for CT and communities-of-practice

The above sections conclude that, prominently, CT within organizations is not

designed with a view of the informal networks that bind people together, driven

21

by ‘intelligent efforts’ to elaborate on their expertise. Rather, it is usually

‘imposed’ on employees, following on an unrealistic notion inherent in its design

of the organization as a mechanistic, rather than an organic body (Morgan, 1986).

In this way, in terms of, for example, knowledge managing efforts at Hewlett-

Packard Laboratories, people still recur to ‘informal networks’ despite over-

abundance of IT tools designed with the aim of managing knowledge

(Birkinshaw, p. 12).

Tsoukas and Vladimirou (2001) point out the need for recognizing the informal

practices for managing of knowledge, thus turning these practices from

organizationally unreflective into organizationally reflective. Once these informal

practices are appropriately recognized as important sources of organizational

knowledge creation, there will be conditions for open integration of ‘minimal

support’5 technology within them, to optimize the knowledge processes taking

place.

A socio-technical architecture enabling the systematization of such an approach is

described by Brown (1998) and is displayed on the table below:

5 Hansen et al. (1999), distinguish between codification and personalization IT strategies to

managing knowledge. Whereas the codification ‘database’ approach confuses knowledge with

information, the personalization approach recognizes that knowledge is shared, used and created in

the process of interpersonal communication. This approach seeks to support knowledge processes

by providing minimal ‘structure’ for their development (Hahn and Subramani, 2002), thus

encouraging the autonomous and informal existence of knowledge communities as a recognized

prerequisite for healthy knowledge formation (Wenger et al., 2002). These technologies thus

possess a potential flexibility to mimic, and systematize, the discursive nature of human

knowledge, exemplified by problems of uncertainty, equivocality, ambiguity and complexity faced

by organizations (Zack, 1999).

‘Minimal structure’ technologies can be electronic discussion boards, electronic chat and meet

rooms and electronic brainstorming, provided that their use is part of a general knowledge

managing strategy. These tools engender the existence of ‘virtual’ communities complementing

the existence of face-to-face communities by providing media where alternative perspectives on

the face-to-face knowledge discourse are created, thus enriching the dynamics of knowledge

generation towards full realization of knowledge resources (Nanda, 1996). The use of ICT has

been widely and successfully explored in informal, self-selective on-line communities where

social exchange is the main incentive for participation (e.g. Rheingold, 1993). Therefore, their

potential for increasing the value of the social discourse generating knowledge in organizations is

to be inferred.

22

Table 1. : Shift in thinking and practice experienced by Xerox, which offers an organizational

model for managing communities-of-practice as complex adaptive systems within organizations

and communities-of-communities as organizations themselves. (in Brown, J. S., (1998): Internet

technology in support of the concept of communities-of-practice., Mgmt & Info. Tech, 8, 227-236)

Old paradigms New paradigms

Technology push/pull Co-evolution of technology and organization

Products

Product platforms

Authorized work structures

Emergent/authorized work structures

Teams Communities-of-practice

Strategy specified from the top Generative strategy specified from the top

Managing for efficiency Managing for knowledge

Brown hypothesizes that, within an organization that is reflective about its actual

and not merely ordained practices, there is a socio-technical architecture that

allows for community-of-practice formation supported by technology platforms.

These platforms, if correctly designed, can probe the tacit knowledge within the

community and provide for its latent needs for knowledge creation, by product

variants rapidly evolving from them, or by evolving of the platforms themselves

(Brown, p. 234). This architecture thus overtly recognizes the importance of

communities-of-practice, in terms of their potential for innovation and fosters a

‘healthy autonomy’6 for their development. It also links among communities

within and among organizations to create an intra- and inter-organization

knowledge discourse, in order to establish an overall social platform of

communities-of-communities that facilitates managing of knowledge.

Such a socio-technical architecture defines organizations in addition to formal

definitions of organizational practice, and assures them an enactive quality of

‘knowledge organizations’. Within such socio-technical architectures, there is

recognition of both ‘modus operatus’ and ‘opus operandi’. In other words, the

formal organization recognizes the informal within it and there is appropriate

6 Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002) list three elements to the knowledge process: a

knowledge domain (i.e. physics), a community of people and a common practice to unify the

domain with the community. In order for the knowledge process to be effective, the community

of people needs to be autonomous in order to explore the knowledge domain according to their

interest and thus create their own practice.

23

facilitation of knowledge communities. The stories disseminating the knowledge

acquired within communities-of-practice are allowed to circulate via email,

bulletin boards and home pages, supporting narration and social construction of

knowledge. Therefore, both type of organization ‘work together and leverage each

other where possible’ (Brown, p. 245).

In this way, at the organizational level, as well as community and individual level,

there is re-connection of abstract heuristic knowledge with tacit codes for its

application and interpretation in practice7. This reconnection, when

institutionalized by facilitating and not ordaining technology for managing

knowledge, ensures an appropriate synergy between organization and technology

and creates conditions for optimization of ordained via the existence of actual

practices. This reconnection also happens during the development of socio-

technical systems that optimize human knowledge creation within and among

organizations.

In the language of Brown, such organizations are ‘complex adaptive systems’

between forces driving technology and forces driving markets. In other words,

they are socio-technical systems influenced and influencing technology and

markets by adapting to conditions created by these, as well as enabling their own

conditions for development, naturally synchronized with the nature of technology

and market development. Within such systems, Internet and the Web can provide

a medium for innovation in terms of flexible technological designs to suit the

dynamic evolution of communities-of-practice, thus enabling conditions for co-

evolution between the social dynamics of communities and technology.

2.4. Conclusions

To conclude this section, managing knowledge aiming for its optimization by

technology should approach knowledge as above all a socially constructed

discourse by people. This discourse will serve people’s needs only in actual and

not ordained practices, ensuring competitive advantages. Therefore, organizations

need to recognize the importance of actual practice within knowledge

7 Cook and Brown (1998) point out that organizational/community knowledge is both

explicit (i.e. heuristic) and tacit (which is also referred to as ‘genre’ by Oravec (1996), in

terms of a socially constructed communication medium where people learn to use a common

set of interpretation codes for making sense of information). Polanyi (1962) argues that

knowledge is not possible without combining explicit and tacit components in its creation.

Tsoukas and Vladimirou (2001) further point out the importance of heuristic and tacit group

knowledge to individual action within a group, where both types of group knowledge inform

individual action.

24

communities. Designing technologies with facilitating and not ordaining

assumptions will stimulate the development of actual practice and create

conditions for successful synergy between social and technological systems in

order for competitive advantages to be cultivated, and for an optimized process of

human knowledge creation during socio-technical interactions.

25

3. The ‘real world’ problem: Is Communication Technology

at present useful to human knowledge creation?

Within the present section, it is shown that the assumption behind Information

Technology disagrees with the nature of human knowledge and what can

potentially optimise its creation. It is argued that current attempts at managing

knowledge should shift their focus from design of information databases for this

purpose, because information is removed from the social contexts nurturing

knowledge. Instead, there should be a focus on developing social relations, as

these make knowledge readily available to people, and optimising these relations

by Communication Technology.

3.1. Information is not knowledge

Brown and Duguid (in their book ‘The Social Life of Information’, 2000) argue

that knowledge is a social phenomenon existing in human contexts and not

information systems. They note the importance of social interaction between

people at the heart of managing knowledge. Thus, they draw a firm distinction

between information and knowledge, the latter being information acquired

personal significance for individuals, i.e. active ‘knowers’ (Brown and Duguid,

2000) constructing their knowledge within a context of human practice. In this

sense, every knower is attached and committed to what he knows.

The fact that knowledge is not information makes the electronic transfer of

knowledge from people that have originated this, situated within a common

practice, difficult across community and organisation boundaries, because of the

personal character of knowledge that cannot be digitised (Ciborra and Patriotta,

1998). Therefore, knowledge has been defined as ‘sticky’ to the context of its

creation (Szulanski, 1996). Information, in contrast, travels easily along electronic

networks because it lacks contextual properties. The challenge for technology use,

therefore, would be to ensure that information reaches potential ‘knowers’ and not

merely information ‘users’, so that information can fulfil an important role in

human processes of knowledge creation.

Regarding the personal significance of knowledge, Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995)

note:

“ First, knowledge, unlike information, is about beliefs and commitment. Knowledge is a function

of a particular stance, perspective, or intention. Second, knowledge, unlike information, is about

26

action. It is always knowledge to “some end”. And third, knowledge, unlike information, is about

meaning. It is context-specific and relational.” (p.58).

These authors emphasise the importance of a relational context where, through

actions according to beliefs and commitment to defined purposes, information

acquires meanings that give rise to knowledge. In other words, human knowledge

is volitional by nature as a result of contextual reflection; it is enabled by the use

and acquisition of information meanings within the context of purposeful human

actions. Therefore, to Nonaka and Takeuchi, human knowledge is not a static

commodity that can be objectively quantified like information; it is instead a

dynamic contextual process where individuals and organisations alike actively

pursue ‘the truth’ according to their beliefs and according to the types of

information provided to them (Bateson, 1973).

In this way, within the process of knowledge, information provides a commodity

capable of, and necessary, in yielding knowledge, but insufficient within itself to

do so. Knowledge is identified with the information-produced, or sustained, belief

that happens within human heads (Dretske, 1981) and is cultivated within

communities-of-practice (Brown and Duguid, 1991).

In this way, the usefulness of mere information to organisations is minimal.

However, knowledge processes that involve information are very useful. They can

transform a reactive organization into a pro-active, ‘enacting’ body with a

competitive stead (Brown, 1998), by enabling individuals within an organisation

to take important decisions in relation to their work that fulfil the organisation

purpose (Orr, 1996). Managing human knowledge needs to enable the

development of interpersonal contexts, within which information delivered by IT

can be hosted, and which can be optimized by CT8.

8 Within the present work, Information Technology (IT) is seen as substantially different

from Communication Technology (CT). The former is concerned with delivering information

when a request has been made to do so (i.e. databases, yellow pages of experts, expertise

profiles, document repositories and other structured search approaches). In contrast, the latter

is concerned with ‘serving’ social relations and interpersonal communication (i.e.

collaborative filtering tools, intranets and extranets, electronic discussion forums and other

unstructured approaches to human communication). Personal preferences for using

technology may differ between these two types of technology, according to individual

approaches to assimilating new information and learning knowledge.

27

3.2. Information can not effectively yield knowledge, unless within the context

of practice

Efforts to manage the knowledge inside organizations have typically centred on

the creation of ‘knowledge’ databases, i.e. corporate intranets deemed to contain

the ‘knowledge’ that organizational members will need, complemented by tools

such as search engines and intelligent filters to assist ‘knowledge seekers’ locate

requisite knowledge (Wasko and Faraj, 2000).

The very assumption behind these databases of knowledge as ‘need’, rather than

knowledge as ‘creation process’, contradicts the reality of knowledge as a

continuously evolving social construct, not possible to quantify as a static

commodity within an IT database. Therefore, if well designed, such databases

may contain information of strategic value, but not knowledge (Birkinshaw,

2001). The usefulness of these databases for managing knowledge, in terms of the

information that they deliver, will only exist provided that there is a human

context, i.e. a ‘practice’, within which to embed the information, so that it can be

used to yield knowledge through the beliefs and dedication of practitioners9.

These beliefs and dedication are cultivated within the social dynamics found

among practitioners.

Using such databases, however, removes the technology used for managing

knowledge from the very process of knowledge generation (in this way the term

‘knowledge management’, rather than ‘knowledge managing’, is more

appropriate). Thus using information databases can enable knowledge, but can not

necessarily optimize the dynamic processes of its generation.

3.2.1. How knowledge is enabled, but not optimized with IT

Thompson and Walsham (2001) illustrate merely enabling but not optimizing

knowledge in case studies. They evaluated a range of ‘knowledge management’

initiatives in terms of making forms of IT accessible for use in a company they

called A1 software.

One initiative was deemed to disseminate ‘knowledge’ to employees via

information repositories, presentation slides and reports assembled within a large

corporate intranet. In all cases there were not appropriate community contexts to

9 In the context throughout this work, a ‘practitioner’ is a person engaged in a ‘practice’,

which is any practical domain of applying knowledge (e.g. from medical practice, through

software engineering, to philosophy).

28

initiate knowledge-enabling interpretation of information via collective memory

action. The assumption behind this approach was that knowledge is a

‘commodity’ readily captured and electronically delivered to employees.

Knowledge was not recognized a process within which the use of an intranet

database is merely an information-supplying artifact and not a means-to-an-end.

Therefore efforts were not made to contextualise information according to the

relevance of its content to practitioners. In this way, the information delivered was

of too wide of a scope to be applicable to the specific circumstances of

community practices found within the organization.

In contrast, another initiative aimed to enable knowledge processes by providing

specific information support to community practices found within the

organization. The approach was in terms of codifying ‘raw data into more readily

usable forms of information’ (Walsham, 2001, italics added) in providing services

to employees such as decision-making tools, templates intended for individual

customization and ‘technology-push’ reports and news. This initiative was found

useful only partially because it did not always succeed in meeting demands from

particular contexts for sense making of the provided information. In this way, this

approach recognized that appropriate management of information delivered by IT

could have a role in knowledge creation, provided that the information is

delivered within the context of a community actively engaged in information-

relevant collective sense-making. Therefore, only when individual needs were

appropriately anticipated and the information provided was good ‘material’ to

stimulate knowledge processes within the community, was the ‘knowledge’

database found useful. Information made sense only when it fulfilled some

knowledge goal.

In both above described technological initiatives, there is not a consideration for

knowledge as a social phenomenon. Rather, it is regarded as removed from the

very social efforts that generate it and technology supporting it is used

accordingly. A different application of technology for managing knowledge,

however, is to consider the nature of knowledge social discourse10

and to increase

the value of social exchanges. This is illustrated in turn.

10 A ‘discourse’, in this sense, is a social exchange process, where people engage in multiple

interactions by talking about issues of interest.

29

3.2.2. Optimizing knowledge by increasing the value of social exchange with CT

In their work, Thompson and Walsham (2001) considered an additional initiative

of managing knowledge with respect to the ones reviewed above. Within this

initiative, CT was embedded within the context of a ‘community-of-practice’,

supporting knowledge processes as they developed within this community. These

processes were enabled by a ‘continual inter-subjective communication between

individuals’, such as mentor relationships and multiple face-to-face interactions.

Once enabled, these processes were supported, in the way of optimization, by

appropriately managed CT, providing information within special interest groups,

discussion boards, community indexes showing who is most knowledgeable about

a topic and email interaction. This initiative was deemed very successful in terms

of making knowledge within the community readily available to all members.

Within this initiative, there is a mix among complementary forms of human

communication, such as face-to-face interactions and email, each contributing

different aspects to the knowledge process. In addition, the nature of the social

discourse within the community was considered paramount, with technology

deemed to support and not create it all together. CT was used in a general effort to

optimize what was already existing as socially constructed knowledge, thus not

constraining the existing communication process.

Such member autonomy to choose the best communication medium (be it face-to-

face or technological), as well as its content, in each case of interpersonal

interaction is necessary for healthy community development and participation

(Wenger et al., 2002). A study by Maznevski and Chudoba (2000), where the

authors found that most successful ‘virtual teams’ tend to intersperse regular face-

to-face meetings with less intensive electronic interaction incidents, further

supports these conclusions. The nature of human knowledge necessitates above

all an on-going informal discourse for its development, the potential of which can

be increased by CT bridging geographical spaces and time differences. This case

study illustrates how managing knowledge is effective when there is a primary

focus on knowledge as a socially evolving discourse, which process CT can

optimize.

30

3.3. Conclusions

The above section shows that technology is not useful to human knowledge

creation, unless technology supports a well-defined and overtly recognized social

process of participation in a community, this created with a knowledge purpose in

mind. In this way, technology that optimizes communication among people and

not merely delivers information is most effective for managing knowledge.

The next sections elaborate on the nature of knowledge as it unfolds in the process

of community participation. This is in order to show the ways in which CT can

and cannot support communication among people and how its use can optimize

managing knowledge as a unified strategy for organization development.

31

4. Explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge

The purpose of this section is to provide a thorough account of the nature of

knowledge that plays a part in its acquisition. Within this work, it is considered

important to understand, both tacitly and explicitly, what human knowledge is, in

order to plan, deliver and carry out optimal ways for managing it within

communities and organisations. These ways would be according to the benefits

that CT can bring to knowledge processes and its limitations in optimising these

processes. The aim is to assure an effective co-evolution between knowledge and

technology media, in terms of a socio-technical system.

4.1. Polanyi’s view on the acquisition of knowledge

Knowledge is not only used, but also acquired in practice. Michael Polanyi (1962)

makes one of the greatest contributions to our understanding of knowledge and its

acquisition.

Polanyi states that all knowledge is above all ‘personal’, i.e. it is the result of

processes happening within ‘individual heads’ (quote from Cook and Brown,

1999). Personal knowledge is both tacit and explicit, and is neither subjective nor

objective, but lies between individual passions and acknowledged requirements

(Polanyi, p. 300). Using one’s personal knowledge is exemplified by human

judgement, which is similarly neither a subjective nor an objective act.

In knowledge processes, there is a constant interaction between explicit and tacit

components of personal knowledge possessed by the individuals involved in these

processes. Such processes are not merely about knowledge exchange. When they

happen within a defined community context, there is also generation of new

knowledge that is the possession of the community, i.e. what Polanyi calls

‘superior knowledge’.

Regarding the acquisition of knowledge, Polanyi draws the important distinction

between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge11

. He states that it is the tacit

11

Tacit knowledge, associated with ‘tacit power’ and ‘tacit knowing’, when this knowledge

is used in practice, is beyond human conscious awareness (Polanyi). Tacit knowing is what

enables us to ‘make sense’ of novel experiences as we encounter them by integrating them

within a framework created by previous experiences. In other words, tacit knowledge is the

‘outcome of an active shaping of experience performed in the pursuit of knowledge’ (p.6). It

is the result of the application of ‘tacit power by which all knowledge is discovered and

when discovered is held to be true’ (p. 6).

In contrast, explicit knowledge is within human conscious awareness and can be spoken and

found within books and databases. It is the knowledge that can be expressed through

symbols, such as letters or formulas, as the result of intended explication. Explicit

32

knowledge shared by individuals that makes possible the perceived

meaningfulness, exchange and acquisition of explicit knowledge12

. Exchange of

explicit knowledge, in turn, makes it possible for tacit powers within a domain of

practice to be developed by the individuals involved in this practice, thus

increasing their potential for learning within this field of practice. In this way,

situated learning within a context of practice is about a constant shifting between

explicit and tacit knowledge acquisition, in terms of a self-fulfilling cycle.

Polanyi illustrates the process of knowledge acquisition with an example from

medical training (p. 101):

“Think of a medical student attending a course in the X-ray diagnosis of pulmonary diseases. …

At first the student is completely puzzled. … The experts seem to be romancing about fragments

of their imagination; … Then as he goes on listening for a few weeks, looking carefully at every

new picture of different cases, a tentative understanding will dawn on him: he will gradually forget

about the ribs and begin to see the lungs. And eventually, if he perseveres intelligently, a rich

panorama of significant details will be revealed to him: … He still sees only a fraction of what the

experts can see, but the pictures are definitely making sense now and so do most of the comments

made on them.”

This example illustrates the mechanism of knowledge acquisition, where personal

knowledge, both tacit and explicit, is exchanged and elaborated in the context of

practice. This practice makes possible learning by generation of new knowledge

in the process of interpersonal communication 13

.

knowledge, within itself, is always abstract as it uses a more or less commonly agreed code

for expression. It is never independent of tacit knowledge, because all forms of explicit

knowledge will ‘make sense’ and be understandable only when there is tacit power to deem

them with personal significance (p. 203). In this way, there is no such thing as ‘objective

explicit knowledge’ that will exist independently of individual tacit power to endow it with

personal meaning though interpretation. 12

All knowledge is personal in that it simultaneously has explicit and tacit components

being used for interpretation. Polanyi states: “An exact mathematical theory means nothing

unless we recognize an inexact non-mathematical knowledge on which it bears and a person

whose judgement upholds its bearing.“ (Polanyi, p. 195). Therefore, it is not possible to

make sense of explicit knowledge unless we hold and apply tacit power through which we

can incorporate this knowledge within a framework of personal experience. 13 In fact, Polanyi sees learning to be more complicated than this. In the process of

interpersonal interaction, there can be primary development of ‘subsidiary awareness’ of the

subject of this interaction, starting with an awareness of the whole and only then gradually

discovering particular details about it. Alternatively, there can be primary development of

‘focal awareness’, where a person learning about a subject starts by developing an awareness

of the details and only after beginning to appreciate the whole that these details constitute

(e.g. students of anatomy usually develop focal awareness of the body organs, but initially

experience great difficulty to spatially relate them in their natural positions within the body).

Polanyi further argues that subsidiary awareness and focal awareness are two opposing

33

Cook and Brown (1999) also discuss the tacit-explicit knowledge dimension in

terms of knowledge acquisition:

Precisely, tacit knowledge is what, for example, a bicycle rider knows how to do

but can’t say (e.g. say which way to turn in order to avoid a fall on the left or the

right). In contrast, explicit knowledge is what, for example, a person trained to

teach bicycle riding can say about which way to turn in order for a trainee to

avoid a fall on the left or the right14

.

Cook and Brown further point out that each type of knowledge is distinct from the

other, ‘doing work the other cannot’, and that one form of knowledge can not be

made or changed into the other’ (p. 73). In other words, tacit cannot be

‘converted’ into explicit or vice versa, as some theorists argue (most prominently

Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). This is because, as far as explicit or tacit knowledge

components can be helpful in the acquisition of new knowledge, these remain in

individual possession while and after new knowledge is acquired. Learning about

which way to turn in order to avoid a fall does not mean that tacit knowledge

about riding a bike is lost. Thus new knowledge does not lie ‘hidden’ or dormant

in old knowledge, but is generated during the activity of practice with the aid of

old knowledge.

In this way, explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge are both ‘tools’ for acquiring

new personal knowledge. They are both needed to make sense of and learn

information. Understanding how this happens is important for realising the

potentials and limitations of CT when used to optimise human knowledge.

4.2. Understanding information to learn new knowledge

To understand how information is used to form new knowledge, we need to think

about the nature of tacit and explicit dimensions of knowledge, used in knowledge

formation.

As outlined above, if we do not possess tacit power to interpret an explicit

concept, we cannot effectively understand and learn the meaning of this concept.

processes in the acquisition of knowledge. Effective learning requires both in a constant

switching back and forth between them. 14

The tacit skill possessed by the individual in the first case can be helpful in him avoiding a

fall while riding. In addition, it can be helpful in discovering which way to turn in order to

avoid a fall while riding, thus drawing on his tacit knowledge in order to acquire a new

explicit concept of personal knowledge. In the second case, the explicit concept possessed by

the cyclist trainee case can be helpful in preventing him from falling off when riding, as well

as helpful in him ‘getting the feel’ for staying upright on the bike. In this way, he would be

using his explicit knowledge to acquire a tacit skill.

34

We can learn such meanings by getting involved in the context (e.g. a community-

of-practice) from which the explicit concept has been originated, because these

contexts hold the tacit powers and knowledge necessary to explicit concept

interpretation and understanding.

Therefore, the usefulness of CT for managing knowledge is limited. Precisely,

explicit texts found within reference databases, on-line discussion boards and

email won’t make sense to individuals, unless these individuals hold relevant tacit

powers to enable their sense reading15

of these texts. Tacit powers are acquired

and used within communities-of-practice, endowing individuals with an

interpretative code for understanding these texts. For example, having a personal

relationship with the person posting a comment or sending an email produces a

context within which to embed the generated text (Walsham, 2001)16

.

Thus any process of knowledge creation is not a straightforward activity, but

rather a negotiation of intended meanings within particular contexts. For this

process to be successful there needs to be sufficient overlap among the tacit

knowledge and skills of the individuals communicating, in terms of them sharing

a common cultural background, or a work practice. The value of technology in

this process is in enhancing the benefits from social communication to elaborating

on and generating socially produced knowledge. Technology cannot be used as

merely an information provider, but must be included within a community context

15

In his work, Polanyi further argues that it is not only the ‘making sense’ of explicit

knowledge that is ‘personal’, according to the nature of the tacit powers used by the

individuals in this process (i.e. ‘sense-reading’). So is the ‘endowing with sense’ of any

explicit construction of knowledge that an individual produces (i.e. ‘sense-giving’) in an

effort to communicate intended meanings dependent on his tacit understandings. In this way,

in any knowledge discourse, there are at least three different sense-making processes: one

where an individual sense-reads an event, second where he gives sense to this within a

constructed explication and a third where another individual sense-reads this explication and

interprets this according to his tacit knowledge (Walsham, 2001). 16

This is discussed by Antonelli (1997), who points out the limited potential of CT to the

distribution of knowledge, in terms of it being a conductor for explicit (also called by him

‘codifiable’, this in reminiscence to descriptions of information in the literature), but not tacit

knowledge. Johannessen et al. (2001) further argue that unilateral investment in CT may lead

to a de-emphasising of tacit knowledge, hindering the development of sustainable

competitive advantages; these authors additionally point out that, for tacit knowledge to be

re-established for organisational sense-making, there is a need for continuous development of

a sensitivity towards innovation, by “learning by doing, using, experimenting and

interacting” (p. 13). This would be within apprenticeship groups and larger communities, in a

way such that organisational knowledge is both explored for tacit meanings and exploited for

practical applications. Neither Antonelli, nor Johannessen and his colleagues, however, seem

to understand the complex mechanisms of human knowledge formation, in terms of its

impossibility to be removed from ‘human heads’ and contexts. Such an understanding is

nevertheless necessary in order to develop ways for managing knowledge in terms of general

knowledge managing strategies. These strategies would optimise knowledge with the help of

the communication potential that well designed CT offers.

35

of knowledge creation. This point is illustrated within the case studies by

Thompson and Walsham (2001) described earlier within the present review.

In relation to this, Walsham concludes:

“…the challenge is to design systems and approaches to their use which recognize the tacit basis

of all sense-reading and sense-giving activities, and try to make these activities more meaningful

and valuable to all parties.” (Washam, p. 601, italics added)

In other words, for the managing of knowledge, there must be primary concern for

shared practice as ‘common ground’ among people. The concept of ‘common

ground’ was introduced by Clark in relation to constant referral to shared artefacts

in successful communication (Clark, 1992). In the present case, these shared

artefacts can be understood as explicit forms of communication enabled to exist

effectively by tacit codes for their meaningful interpretation, created by the

community using the artifacts. An approach to CT use, where knowledge is

effectively managed within the context using the technology, would consider

people, as knowers and not information users, to come first. In other words, the

value of interpersonal communication would be seen as crucial to knowledge

generation and, in this way only, to effective use of CT for managing knowledge.

Hayes and Walsham (2000) additionally illustrate this point by describing a case

study from a pharmaceutical company, where use of a shared database for

recording experiences, views and advice was introduced to salesmen to share

‘best practice’ on the job. The purpose of the database was to optimize the

knowledge of practitioners in distributed geographical locations of the company

and enable them to take better decisions in approaching specific projects.

However, the company did not recognize the need for establishing a ‘common

ground’ among the salesmen, so that they can effectively learn information

provided by the database by bridging across each other’s knowledge. There was

not a recognized approach to enable communities-of-practice before or in parallel

to using the database, in order for the salesmen to develop tacit knowing as a way

for sense making of database information17

. The use of the electronic database

was thus ineffective for managing knowledge because of the non-coordinated

sense-reading and sense-giving processes underlying the interpretations of

individuals. The entering of information to communicate a meaning, and the

17

The role of context in tacit knowledge sharing is pointed out by Augier et al., (2001).

36

reading of information to understand and apply this understanding in practice,

were not unified by a socially integrated purpose within a common practice. Thus

explicit knowledge entered into the database was not more than useless

information, as it could not acquire significance for individuals reading it and be

learned by them to effectively apply on their jobs18

.

4.3. CT design for emerging cultures

Newell, Scarbrough and Swan (2001) illustrate the points raised above in a case

study, showing the importance of designing CT for managing knowledge with the

assumption of it fitting a wider organizational context. They describe a global

bank with numerous decentralized branches in a structured attempt to manage IT

knowledge among IT divisions and ultimately coordinate the IT infrastructures

throughout the bank. The solution to this was seen in designing a corporate

intranet and introducing this for shared use among all IT divisions. The intranet

was inefficient and ineffective, which the authors consider to be because of lack

of recognition for the highly ‘context-dependent pattern of usage’ of the

technology and ‘not enough effort put into coordination’ among the IT divisions

within the bank. In this way, they point out the need for creation of a sufficiently

common human context to guide and stimulate knowledge sharing and generation

among the IT divisions, with or without using the intranet.

Therefore, designing technology for knowledge managing must operate in

synergy with the context of the practice/practices that are to use the technology,

for it to be effective. If this practice is not existent, then it should be allowed to

emerge, so that the designed technology has a practical reason for its creation to

assure its effectiveness19

.

18

In the language of Polanyi, conditions were not created for the salesmen to ‘find the same

set of symbols manageable for the purpose of skillfully reorganizing their knowledge’ (p.

205). 19 Newell et al. further point out that adequate technological ‘infrastructure’ and

‘infostructure’ (Bressand and Distler, 1995) of the intranet were altogether insufficient in

making the intranet effective. Whereas the meaning of the term ‘infrastructure’ is clear,

‘infostructure’ for them means the rules that bind a common language, in terms of the explicit

jargon and terminology connected by syntactic and semantic relationships, together

(Vygotski, 1986). Infostructure is explicit group knowledge, also referred to as ‘heuristics’

(Tsoukas and Vladimirou, 2001). The authors hypothesize that the technology serving the IT

divisions could have been effective if there was a common ‘infoculture’ (Bressand and

Distler, 1995) as a human context to embed usage, additional to the above-described levels of

technology existence. An ‘infoculture’ is the social relations’ context within which the

‘infostructure’ is embedded, this by the negotiation of meanings to agree a code for

infostructure tacit interpretation. An infoculture thus allows interplay between tacit and

explicit components of personal knowledge within a community and the related generation of

superior, i.e. collective, knowledge (Polanyi, 1962).

37

4.4. Conclusions

Using CT for effectively managing knowledge aims to optimize the knowledge

activities organized within communities-of-practice. As described above, the

existence of community interactions other than via CT, e.g. face-to-face, is

important to the healthy existence of the community and for the effectiveness of

CT in supporting already existing interpersonal processes with view of knowledge

creation. This is because community processes provide a ‘common ground’, in

terms of an explicit language and a tacit code for its interpretation, to which CT

can be adapted, and flexibly adapting to, in order to optimize the knowledge

processes already defined within the community20

. The dynamics between

knowledge possessed by separate individuals and knowledge possessed by all of

them together as being part of a community is discussed in the next section.

20

Once these processes are defined and social prerequisites exist for elaboration on

knowledge, effective use of CT for managing knowledge could happen in terms of a socio-

technical interaction (Kling, 1993). The CT infrastructure would be tailored to the

community infoculture and infostructure, in order for co-evolution among the three to

continuously take place; thus technology flexibility would allow the community to discover

new ways of using the knowledge it has. In this way, knowledge within these cultures would

not be merely enabled or effectively supported by technology, but optimized, in terms of

allowing for synergistic co-evolution between social groups and technology. Such a socio-

technical system can happen with adequate social and technological ‘platforms’ allowing for

interplay between tacit and explicit knowledge among community members to take place and

yield coherent ‘superior’ knowledge (Brown, 1998).

38

5. Individual and organizational knowledge

To illustrate the importance of organizational, i.e. collective, knowledge and its

relationship to individual knowledge, we will go back to the case study by Orr

(1996) of the Xerox Parc technical representatives.

Rather than relying solely on information provided by training courses or

instruction manuals to address machinery problems and repair failure, the

technical representatives found relying on each other’s personal knowledge far

more helpful. Knowledge exchange happened as they gathered together for

breakfast, lunch or coffee and discussed their experiences on the job, in this way

turning their personal knowledge into collective knowledge bound within their

community-of-practice. This informal exchange helped them reach beyond the

limitations of their individual expertise and mere information provided to them by

training courses and instruction manuals, and create a collective practice. In this

way, they could transfer the knowledge of their collective practice to their

individual practices in order to provide effective client service.

In this way, knowledge is not merely comprised of tacit and explicit components.

Knowledge is a valid social, as well as individual, construct, each having tacit and

explicit elements in its entirety.

To illustrate the nature of knowledge in its entirety, knowledge taxonomy

proposed by Cook and Brown (1999) is displayed on the table below. This

taxonomy bears a close resemblance, while also being an extension, to Polanyi’s

work.

Table 1. Four forms of knowledge according to a taxonomy provided by Cook, S. & Brown, J.,

1999. (In ‘Bridging Epistemologies: the Generative Dance Between Organizational Knowledge

and Organizational Knowing’, Organization Science, 10, 381-400.).

INDIVIDUAL GROUP

EX EXPLICIT

CONCEPTS

STORIES

TACIT

SKILLS

GENRES

39

Cook and Brown differentiate between knowledge possessed by individuals and

knowledge possessed by groups. Furthermore, these authors argue that individuals

and groups each do epistemic work that the other cannot, in terms of tacit and

explicit knowledge possessed and used by them to generate new knowledge

within individual and group practices21

.

Therefore, according to these authors, organizational (i.e. group) knowledge, as

interplay between explicit and tacit knowledge components in its development

and generation, is an entity in its own right that must be accounted for when

attempts at managing knowledge within groups and organizations are made. The

nature of collective cognitions and collective practices in the process of

organizational knowledge formation is thus important in attempts to optimize

these by using CT systems for managing knowledge.

5.1. Why is organizational knowledge important?

The above emphasizes the importance of taking organizational knowledge into

account when attempts at managing knowledge within organizations are made, to

enable and sustain competitive advantages.

This is because, whereas individual knowledge formation has a direct impact on

actions undertaken within the organization, organizational knowledge informs

these actions indirectly, being the result of individual understandings that have

evolved collectively throughout connected individual experiences (Tsoukas and

Vladimirou, 2001). Within organizations, what is deemed important to individuals

is the result of ways of thinking and practices evolved on an organizational and

much less individual level.

Understanding the nature of collective thought and practice is thus important in

order to be able to leverage these, as well as the individual thoughts and practices

comprising them, towards achievement of the organizational mission. Such

21

In this way, individual medical practitioners possess explicit knowledge of what

exemplifies a type of pathology and ‘know-how’ to apply this knowledge when making

diagnoses in specific cases in their practice. All medical practitioners’ explicit knowledge,

however, as a collective (i.e. group) possession, constitutes the heuristic definitions and

contents of the medical profession. This is a common language to use in communication, to

bind all medical practitioners together in the context of their collective practice, as the

ensemble of all individual practices. It has a collectively agreed tacit ‘know-how’, in terms

of tacit ways for interpretation of particular heuristic examples found in practice (e.g.

knowing what constitutes an acceptable and unacceptable basis for a diagnosis) and tacit

ways for approaching new medical cases (Cook and Brown, 1999).

40

understanding calls for an awareness of group processes and how the nature of

these processes changes according to types of individuals partaking.

Finally, understanding group and organizational knowledge calls for designing

systems to suit the dynamic evolution of organizations as collections of people

who use knowledge together, and not individually, to leverage resources.

Designing systems to merely suit individuals, interacting with individual

interfaces, is in the very least insufficient to suit organizational needs and

optimize organizational processes. Here, issues of CT usability go beyond

individual interfaces towards design of multi-user systems that take organizational

activity into account (Kling and Elliott, 1994).

5.2. Nature of organizational knowledge: explicit heuristics and tacit genres

Cook and Brown (1999) further argue that the process of organizational

knowledge is the same as the process of individual knowledge described earlier,

but on a scale where this is a collective, rather than just an individual phenomenon

of cognition and practice22

. It follows from here that design and use of CT to

optimize the managing of organizational knowledge must account for

organizational knowledge in its entirety, as having explicit and tacit

components23

.

Explicit group knowledge summarizes group culture within ‘stories’ about how

work is done, as well as famous successes and failures (Orr, 1996). It is also

contained within metaphors and analogies that serve to convey special meanings.

Explicit group knowledge is heuristic, in that it is a summary of group practices

(Collins, 1990). Tsoukas and Vladimirou consider heuristics to reside both in the

minds of separate individuals and within collectively produced stories shared

across the community. These heuristics they describe as:

22

Explicit knowledge in groups does work that tacit knowledge in groups cannot. Both

explicit and tacit knowledge within groups generate the learning of new group knowledge

when at interplay, while still remaining within group possession after new knowledge has

been learnt (Cook and Brown, 1998). 23

It was already discussed that CT is limited to transfer of information and not knowledge

in its entirety, unless contextual processes, where tacit negotiations of meanings take place

among individuals, happen additional to technology use by these individuals. This is

because information does not make human sense unless embedded within a meaningful

context of human practice. Therefore, for CT aiming to optimize organizational knowledge

creation, there must be a consideration for the nature and needs of organizational practices,

as well as the relationships between these practices that make the organization a coherent

knowledge body.

41

“…a conceptual matrix woven by the organization. Such a conceptual matrix contains generic

categories (e.g. ‘service quality’, ‘happy customer’ …) and their interrelations (e.g. ‘high quality

service makes customers happy’)”. (p. 989). 24

Tacit group knowledge is contained within the implicit approach of groups and

organizations towards collective interpreting of information. It is also exemplified

by their efforts at conveying meanings within heuristic cultural statements.

Tacit group knowledge are group ‘genres’ (a little bit like literary genres):

discursive frames enabling the collective creation and understanding of stories,

metaphors and analogies, as well as mission statements.

In this way, genres are group-negotiated approaches to sense making that can not

be articulated (Cook and Brown, 1999) and are an important part of organizational

culture in terms of its underlying assumptions (Schein, 1990). These genres are

created in the process of common practice within and among communities and

organizations and provide a tacit code for successfully communicating knowledge

messages among practitioners from different organizational and organization

contexts25

.

Genres in organizations can be frames for interpreting the continual meaning of

various physical and social artifacts, such as objects and tools in organizational

practice (this can also extend to technology ‘tools’). Genres can also be unspoken

ways of approaching and carrying out meetings, in terms of widely agreed cultural

expectations (e.g. Gonzales and Antonia, 2002), or frames for composing and

interpreting texts, in terms of meanings implicit to different media carrying the

texts (e.g. a note, a memo, a letter, an email)26

.

24 If formally captured, heuristics are turned into propositions (i.e. ‘if’ statements describing

practice rules) to form organizational memory guiding individual action. In this way,

heuristics are not more than an explicit abstraction of the rules governing the practice of an

organization. They are incomplete in capturing the entirety of organizational knowledge and

insufficient in enabling the practice that they effectively summarize (Tsoukas, 1996).

Practice can only be done by improvisation re-arranging existing heuristics into knowledge

of personal and group significance (Bell, 1999). Such improvisation involves tacit group

knowledge used in actions of human judgement. 25

Such tacitly agreed collective codes for sense making happen over the course of ‘practice

among practices’. This should be inherently informal (in terms of ‘healthy autonomy’

considered an important characteristic of successful communities-of-practice; Wenger and

Snyder, 2000) and develops continuously over time. To facilitate a common organizational

practice among communities found within an organization, efforts must be made to develop

genres to continuously assure accurate sense making and unambiguity within the

organization. In this way, managing organizational knowledge should stimulate the

development of social practices fostering communication among communities and ensuring

that knowledge within the organization is coherent. 26 For example, email communication of a text can be interpreted differently in different

organizations according to the tacitly agreed status of this type of communication media,

42

Therefore, genres and heuristics are essential to coherent knowledge dynamics

within an organization, where all knowledge is effectively harnessed to serve the

purpose of the organization. This happens by widespread heuristic rules that are

made practically possible within existing community genres.

5.3. Organizational knowledge and individual action

As outlined above, a number of explorations in the literature on ‘organizational

knowledge’ and ‘organizational epistemology’ (e.g. Krogh and Roos, 1995) have

treated knowledge possessed and generated by groups in its own right, as a

distinct category from knowledge possessed and generated by individuals.

Nevertheless, organizational knowledge is also described in constant interaction

with knowledge possessed by individuals. This is because it is discursively

formed in the process of socially constructed heuristics, by drawing on

experiences in individual practices (Yakhlef, 2002; Tsoukas, 1998; Tsoukas and

Vladimirou, 2001). Some theories consider organizational knowledge as the result

of an ‘organizing process’, where collectively derived assumptions, values and

beliefs guide organizational sense-making and integration of meanings, all in the

process of individual practices (McPhee and Zaug, 2001).

Within the present section, it is shown that organizational knowledge, both in

terms of heuristics and multiple genres for their interpretation, informs individual

actions in specific cases in practice. Therefore, managing knowledge necessarily

affects the effectiveness of an organization by indirectly influencing individual

actions of organizational members.

Tsoukas and Vladimirou (2001) illustrate the importance of group knowledge to

individual actions undertaken within the organization within a case study. They

describe operators within a call centre of a mobile telecommunications company

in Greece, having to use an electronic database of information plus paper

instructions to assist them when answering customer calls. The most valuable help

that operators had in the process of their work was not the information provided

by these sources, but the knowledge existing within the call centre community-of-

practice. This knowledge effectively bounded the information provided by these

sources within a strong framework of cultural assumptions, values, heuristic

which is deemed appropriate, trustworthy and valuable for certain but not other types of

text (e.g. Schwartz, 1999). Therefore the effectiveness of email, although this is an efficient

type of CT technology, will be undermined if the technology is not appropriately used in

accordance to organizational genres.

43

propositions and tacit skills to orient operator actions within the confusing

circumstances of their practice27

.

From their observations, Tsoukas and Vladimirou conclude that ‘human action in

organizations necessarily draws on organizational knowledge, namely on sets of

generalizations underlain by collective understandings (i.e. tacit ‘genres’) and

activated in particular contexts.’ (p. 984, brackets added).

In this way, they fuse Polanyi’s notion that all knowledge is personal with

Wittgenstein’s notion that all knowledge is fundamentally collective, thus

emphasizing that all personal knowledge is made possible by knowledge

possessed and developed within a larger group or organization. Group knowledge

is created by people discoursing about the particularities of their practice. This

group knowledge, in turn, serves communities-of-practice to ‘make sense’ of

information provided by electronic and paper sources in the context of practical

cases. It also guides individual actions in an effort to successfully transform

information into propositional heuristics. As McCarthy (1994) points out:

“What gives organizational knowledge its dynamism is the dialectic between the general and the

particular. Without the general no action is possible. And without the particular no action will be

effective.” (McCarthy, 1994, p. 68).

5.4. Conclusions

In this way, organizational knowledge, as a common culture unifying ways of

thinking and practices serving a particular mission, makes all individual action

possible and effective. Managing knowledge aims above all to optimize the social

relations by which organizational knowledge is made possible, by developing

explicit and tacit aspects of this knowledge that impact individual ways of

thinking and acting within organizations. Optimization of organizational

knowledge naturally leads to organization effectiveness by enhancing the strategic

value of individual member actions within a community or an organization. As

Tsoukas (1998) points out:

27

It is also important to note that this knowledge happened ‘in operator heads’, where the

provided technology was adapted to the particular demands of cases constituting their

practice. Knowledge was exemplified in operator continuous judgements of the meaning of

different case circumstances, a skill that they had developed by discursively elaborating on

their individual experiences in the context of their common practice, similarly to the

technicians described by Orr (1996).

44

“… the management of the heuristic aspect of organizational knowledge implies more the sensitive

management of social relations and less the management of corporate digital information”.

(Tsoukas, 1998, italics added).

In this way, Communication Technology used for managing knowledge should be

designed with a view of these informal and dynamic social relations, to effectively

support them by a flexible technological infrastructure designed to suit the

autonomy that they need in order to flourish. In other words, using CT for

managing knowledge must consider the nature of organizational knowledge in

terms of its heuristics and genres. It must successfully implement the technology

within a wider context of knowledge creation, at a place where the technology can

effectively co- exist with and support tacit and explicit processes generating

purposeful interpersonal interactions.

The next section discusses the nature of practice and how, through the dynamics

of social relations, it nurtures and generates human knowledge, on the one hand,

and new ways of acting this knowledge out in practice, on the other.

45

6. Knowing in practice

As already pointed out, human knowledge is, by its nature, a process, not a

commodity that is codifiable within an IT repository of information (Wenger et

al., 2002). The reason for this is that human knowledge is useful only when found

and applied in ‘practice’.

The term ‘practice’ was originally coined by MacIntyre (1985) and has received

multiple other definitions: a ‘form of life’ (Wittgenstein, 1958), a ‘consensual

domain’ (Maturana and Varela, 1988, a medium for the engenderment of

‘meaning’ (Gadamer, 1989) and a ‘sustained domain of action’ (Tsoukas and

Vladimirou, 2002). A ‘practice’ is essentially a context where human knowledge

can be applied and new knowledge can be generated. This is following the

principle of ‘dynamic affordance’28

as an on-going interaction between ‘knowers’

and environmental and/or social properties (Cook and Brown, 1998). Without

such a practice, knowledge possessed by individuals and organizations is deemed

useless, i.e. without any value in the generation of new knowledge.

The dynamic nature of human knowledge is pointed out by Tsoukas and

Vladimirou (2001), who define knowledge as the acquired ability to draw

distinctions and exercise judgment within a domain of action as a concrete context

of practice. Lanzara and Patriotta (2002) also point the ‘interactive, provisional

and controversial’ nature of knowledge within organizations, where this emerges

as the outcome of inquiry, local disputes, experiments and reassembling of

opposing views within the context of particular practice. Thus knowledge is a

discursive social phenomenon useful only when found and applied in practice,

where it can be used as its nature demands.

6.1. Knowledge as possession and knowing as practice

The above sections make clear the importance of entering existing knowledge in

interaction with environment and other knowledge, in order to derive new

knowledge. In this way, knowledge in action makes possible not only exchange of

knowledge among the people involved in the interaction, but also generation of

new knowledge over the course of this interaction, within the context of a

common practice. In addition, there is exchange and generation of ways of

knowing this knowledge over the course of this practice.

28

The notion of ‘dynamic affordance’ is further explained later in this section.

46

Cook and Brown (1998) illustrate the dynamics of knowledge by distinguishing

between ‘epistemology of possession’ and ‘epistemology of practice’.

Epistemology of possession is ‘what is known’, i.e. ‘possessed in the head’, in

terms of individual, organizational, tacit and explicit knowledge. This has an

essentially static character and does not capture the nature of knowledge in its

entirety. It is knowledge used in action.

Epistemology of practice is action carried out to apply, use and elaborate on

knowledge (as what is possessed in ‘human heads’) by practicing old and

acquiring new ways of ‘knowing’ knowledge (as what is part of human practices).

Knowing is knowledge as part of action, i.e. things we are doing and can only

know as part of practice. It is hard to understand what knowing is, unless one has

ever been a practitioner.

Furthermore, knowing is not, for example, tacit knowledge, because knowing

requires present activity, whereas tacit knowledge does not. Knowing is about

relation and interaction between the knower and the world using knowledge as a

tool, whereas knowledge is about possession of this tool.

To give an example, to say that ‘the government are writing a policy for rural

development’ calls for an understanding of the entirety of the epistemic work

being done by this group. This is both in terms of the knowledge that they possess

of rural development and how policies are created, and the particular group

actions they engage in to be able to pull their knowledge together (i.e. during

interactions with the context of their work and each other). In the process of these

actions they not only use and elaborate on existing knowledge, but also participate

in old and new ways of ‘knowing’ this knowledge, in order to fulfill a practical

goal. In this way, ‘knowing’ is distinct from knowledge, in that knowing is what

enables us to put our knowledge to work, in order to use it. By engaging in

collective knowing, we acquire new knowledge and new ways of knowing as part

of our practice.

Cook and Brown consider knowledge and knowing, although distinct from each

other, to be complementary and mutually enabling in a potentially generative

phenomenon, i.e. ‘a generative dance’. This is illustrated in the quote below:

“ … for human groups, the source of new knowledge and knowing lies in the use of knowledge as

a tool of knowing within situated interaction with the social and physical world.”

47

Using knowledge that we possess in known and new ways of knowing makes

possible the situated learning, within the context of practice, of new knowledge

and new ways of knowing our knowledge. The epistemology of knowing unifies

already possessed and to-be-generated knowledge, as well as knowing how to use

knowledge as part of actions in known and unknown practices. In other words,

knowing is this part of action that does ‘epistemic work’, in terms of putting

knowledge at work and practicing old and new ways of knowing knowledge, in

order to derive new knowledge and ways of knowing this knowledge.

In this way, for CT to optimize the managing of knowledge, it must support the

epistemic work that people within communities and organizations do in its

entirety. This is in order for knowledge to be effectively used and renewed.

Alternatively, if CT is not of right technological potential, it must (in all cases) be

part of a general knowledge managing strategy aiming to fully develop the

knowledge potential of communities/organizations and use CT in this process

according to the potential that it offers.

For knowledge managing, it is in fact ‘knowing’ that is of interest, rather than

merely knowledge as the tool and product of knowing. Knowing allows for

generative dynamics among individual and organizational knowledge, both in

terms of tacit and explicit components, by continuously informing individual

actions within the organization. In this way knowing makes knowledge useful to

communities/organizations. The dynamics of knowing must therefore be

considered when designing systems for knowledge optimization and planning

knowledge-managing strategies as a whole. Cook and Brown break down

knowing in terms of ‘productive inquiries’ with the world that happen during

‘dynamic affordances’ between knowers and world properties. The nature of these

is considered in turn and thorough understanding of knowing is attempted.

6.2. Productive enquiry

Engaging in productive enquiry is motivated by the existence of a problem, a

question, a troublesome situation or a provocative insight that is actively being

sought an answer, a solution or a resolution. Productive enquiry is systematic and

not a ‘random search’, because it is informed, or ‘disciplined’, by the nature of

knowledge that we already possess. In this way, productive enquiry is not merely

about asking questions, but also engaging in a process of investigation with other

people participating (directly or indirectly). Thus the idea behind productive

48

enquiry is similar to Polanyi’s notion of ‘intelligent efforts’ that individuals

engender among themselves when they share an ambition to learn about a topic.

Existing knowledge is rather like a tool in the process of enquiry. Knowing in

enquiry respects the demands and constraints of the knowledge that we possess, in

order to be successful in achieving a practical goal.

To return to the above example of the government group creating a policy,

knowledge that government members possess of rural development won’t help

them create a policy, unless they engage in a shared activity to use their

knowledge as tool. Over the course of this activity, they will be interacting with

each other’s personal styles and preferences, which will shape the process of their

multiple interactions, as will also the practice context within which they interact.

These interactions will be effective in producing the desired policy, provided that

existing knowledge of government members is intelligently used in the process of

their collaborative activity, according to assumptions, values and beliefs shared

within the public and civil sector. Therefore, for any knowledge to be used and

new knowledge to be generated, thus optimized, there must be knowing to make

this possible.

In this way, CT designed to support and optimize knowledge managing must

account for the importance of members of a group to engage in a process of

knowing, in order to use and generate knowledge as they work together. This

process of knowing could be technologically enabled within a CT infrastructure

that allows for continual interpersonal interactions among members. However,

provided that such an infrastructure exists for use, it must be part of a general

knowledge managing strategy that above all enables knowing in a social and

organizational plan, by creating conditions for interpersonal communication

(Walsham, 2001).

6.3. Dynamic affordance

Cook and Brown further define the conceptual way in which productive enquiry,

once enabled, unfolds in practice. This they call ‘dynamic affordance’.

Following on Gibson’s (1979) work on perception, they point out that affordance

is not primarily about perception, but about relationships between perceived

characteristics of the world and issues of inherent concern to people emerging in

human practices (Gaver, 1991). These relationships are on going and dynamic, in

the sense that the world’s perceived characteristics evolve as properties of

49

‘facility’ or ‘frustration’ over the course of our interactions with them. Facilities

and frustrations emerge according to what we already know that constrains the

nature of our interactions, as well as what we want to achieve and what we learn

in the situated context of these interactions (Ortega, 1961).

Cook and Brown point out that there is no such thing as affordances that can be

reliably predicted in order to, for example, define technological design

requirements. Rather, accounting for affordances needs to consider the particulars

of the interaction over which these affordances emerge, as the situated context of

human action.

To give a simple example, we don’t know how our interaction with clay in order

to manipulate it will develop, until we engage in this interaction within a

particular context. Without the dynamic affordances of our interaction with the

tensile strength of this material, within the particular context, we cannot learn to

manipulate it in the way we want or enact what we already know about such

manipulations. The only way for us to use our knowledge to achieve what we

want is by engaging in a knowing interaction, which process allows us to

elaborate our knowledge.

In this way, for CT to support knowing processes in their entirety as collections of

people’s productive enquiries and dynamic affordances between them and the

environment, it needs to be sufficiently flexible in its design to suit the dynamic

and particularly dialectic interactions happening among people over the course of

their practice. Optimization of knowing, be it via technology and/or other aspects

of a general knowledge managing strategy, will naturally enhance the knowledge

used in the process of this knowing, throughout collective practice.

6.4. Conclusions

Using Communication Technologies to support the managing of knowledge has to

account not only for knowledge and how people organize this over the course of

interaction and practice, but also for ways of knowing this knowledge as part of

practice. During practice, inter-personal relationships unfold, in order to make

collective knowing possible. This collective knowing is of vital importance to the

generation of new knowledge in the context of practice. Therefore, if CT is used

as part of a general knowledge managing strategy, it must be implemented within

the context of practice, as much as its technological potential allows. If CT proves

inadequate to support the dynamics of practice, then compensatory efforts must be

50

made to continuously develop and sustain this practice in its entirety, so that new

knowledge can be derived from knowing knowledge in practice. The aim is to

plan, deliver and carry out an effective knowledge managing strategy, according

to the exact range of available CT potential for optimizing knowledge as part of

practice.

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7. Recommendations for approaches to Communication Technology

use for managing knowledge

The above literature review serves to derive recommendations for approaching

the use (according to Walsham, 2001) of Communication Technology for

managing knowledge, in order to ensure that technology is not only efficient but

most importantly effective in this process. These recommendations can also be

used as criteria for evaluating knowledge-managing initiatives using

Communication Technology in their process. The recommendations are:

� Allow for situated learning within communities-of-practice

� Aim to optimize social processes within these communities, rather than overtly

focus on developing existing and newly generated knowledge as a commodity that

exists outside of people

� Consider the informal, spontaneous and autonomous nature of social relations

within these communities and aim to optimize these by ‘minimal support’

technological platforms

� Ensure there is learning about being practitioners and not about practice, i.e.

facilitate shared activity

� Focus on informal facilitation of emergent social relations

� Aim for development of such a sense for the community where knowledge is

regarded a ‘public good’

� Avoid imposition of roles or tasks on members but allow them to naturally find

and purchase their interests within the community

� Do not impose restrictions on types of issues that would be of concern

� Allow for constant ‘fresh blood’ into the community by giving novices legitimate

peripheral access to communication and creating conditions for them ‘stealing’

knowledge

52

� Understand the distinction between information and knowledge

� Understand that information is not of use to people, unless serving a purpose of

enabling human knowledge within shared contexts of practical activity

� Design technology with personalization, rather than knowledge codification

assumptions behind it

� Understand that information can enable human knowledge if delivered into a

context where it is relevant to contextual activities

� Understand that information in itself can not optimize human knowledge, but

processes of social construction of knowledge, where there is continuous

development of interpersonal relationships, can

� Recognize the distinction between explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge in

terms of equally important components of personal knowledge

� Recognize that explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge are both needed for

understanding information, therefore assure that information carried by

technology reaches knowledge contexts and not decontextualized environments in

terms of the content of the information

� Recognize that tacit knowledge, needed for understanding explicit knowledge, is

not manageable by Information Technology but within commonly grounded

groups

� Assure development of social groups where tacit knowledge is used and generated

to make sense of explicit knowledge by regular face-to-face incidents interspersed

with electronic communication

� Design systems for emergent cultures where tacit and explicit knowledge are

naturally created as common cultural grounds defining the structure and type of

technology to suit them

� Avoid designing systems without considering the importance of having defined

social contexts first, in terms of tacit interpretative powers and explicit knowledge

emerging in the process of informal discourse construction

53

� Recognize the distinction between group/organizational knowledge and

individual knowledge and their equal importance for knowledge creation

� Enable use of multi-user systems that take organizational activity and not merely

individual behaviors into account

� Assure that any technology has an agreed status as part of group development and

has not been imposed on use

� Approach organizations as communities-of-communities, by enabling social and

technological channels linking among communities to co-evolve in a knowledge-

creating synergy

� Approach communities and groups as collections of individuals where social and

technological channels linking among individuals co-evolve in a knowledge

creating synergy

� Recognize that electronic systems are limited to provision of explicit text removed

from context for interpretation, therefore encourage parallel development of such

contexts as communities-of-practice, by facilitating intelligent efforts at

collaborative learning among people

� Encourage the development of community knowledge in order to assure sensitive

management of social relations that will inform individual actions, whether or not

involving use of the technology

� Consider knowledge as part of action and not merely as a possession

� Ensure that there is a social group or community engaged in a shared activity, in

order for them to use their knowledge in practice and generate new knowledge as

part of the development of this practice

� Allow for continuous self-fulfilling interaction and building of social relations to

stimulate knowledge creation

� Admit the impossibility of predicting what the course of the interpersonal

interactions among group and community members will be, or what the outcomes

of their productive enquiries with the social and physical environment will be:

knowledge is a self-fulfilling process, not a project that team members work on

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8. Conclusions to Part II

Within this review, it was attempted to outline factors in the nature of human

knowledge use, formation and application in practice that are to be considered in

Communication Technology (CT) design and use for managing of knowledge.

These factors pertain to knowledge acquisition in terms of tacit and explicit types

of knowledge possessed by individuals and organizations and applying knowledge

in practice, as the most important resource people and organizations have.

It was shown that knowledge is an informally dynamic process of social

construction within communities-of-practice, that CT can optimize if its

infrastructure is sufficiently flexible in order to provide adequate ‘minimal

support’ to host but not constrain the dynamic interpersonal relationships

unfolding within these communities. Consideration for the self-fulfilling and

resistant to ordaining from the outside nature of human knowledge will ensure

that knowledge is understood as a phenomenon involving managing of people and

not information. In this way, design and approaches to the use of CT for managing

knowledge in practice will accommodate knowers and not users. Furthermore, the

technological potential that an organization has will be appropriately harnessed to

make most of its knowledge resources, where use of effective knowledge, and not

efficient technology, is a primary concern.

It was concluded that knowledge is above all distinct from information, because

knowledge resides ‘in the heads’ of human knowers and is not a commodity that

can be transferred by electronic means. In addition, knowledge does not only

exclusively reside within people, but is also part of the actions they undertake.

This is because human knowledge is a discursive social phenomenon that is

constructed as part of human practice and is found useful only when applied in

practice or contexts derived from practice. Therefore, CT designed to optimize

human knowledge processes should aim to support human practices in terms of

the continuous development of interpersonal relations found in practice, rather

than focus on knowledge as a definable entity. In addition, CT used for optimizing

human knowledge should in fact ensure that such knowledge processes are

existent in the first place, in terms of conditions, found within communities-of-

practice, that facilitate knowledge formation.

Within this review, the nature of practice, as a medium where human knowledge

thrives within cultivated interpersonal relationships, was examined. Practice is

55

distinct from knowledge as such, because practice involves ways of knowing

knowledge possessed by individuals and organizations. In this way, practice is

this part of human activity that ‘does epistemic work’, in terms of using existing

knowledge in known and new ways of knowing, to generate new knowledge and

ways of knowing, so that members of the community undertaking the practice

become more and more competent on what is the nature of their interest. Practice

is thus a dynamic inherently social process where knowledge is found to be of

practical use. It is concluded that, for optimization of knowledge, it is the

phenomenon of human practice that is of interest, which is essentially different

from activities existing within over-structured environments found within

typically mechanistic organizations.

Finally, it has been argued throughout this literature review that use of CT for

managing knowledge should adopt a socio-technical perspective rather than a

‘technology as a tool’ perspective. This is because, according to some researchers

(e.g. Kling, 1993), the potential that technology offers can be maximally used in

efforts at optimization, only when there is a synergy between technology and

society.

Ways for achieving socio-technical systems is by thoroughly considering the

nature of human processes that these systems are meant to optimize. With

knowledge, it was shown that these processes are socially constructed and

inherently ambiguous, unless found within the context of human practices.

Therefore, the achieving of appropriate meanings in order to discard ambiguity is

the result of processes of human search for knowledge within communities-of-

practice that can not be ordained by inflexible and impersonalized technology, but

rather facilitated by flexible technological platforms.

In such a way, for socio-technical systems, the nature of human processes within

groups and organizations must be considered. This is towards developing of a

notion of organizational usability, rather than mere desktop interface usability, in

order to optimize human processes in their dialectic entirety, without constraining

them in models inapplicable in actual organizational practice. Human-Computer

Interaction, or Socio-Technical Interaction, must strive to achieve a vision of a

more effective and self-fulfilling society.

Part III

Learning Networks at the

Countryside Agency

Market Towns Learning Network

Equipping Rural Communities

Learning Network

Rural Affairs Forum for England

Learning Network

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1. Introduction

Within the present part, three Learning Networks at the Countryside Agency are

evaluated against the criteria for effective managing of knowledge using

Communication Technology derived from the literature review outlined in the

previous part II of this work.

In this way, the aim of this final part is to illustrate managing of knowledge within

an organization, according to derived criteria. These criteria will be practically

validated, by being used to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in the knowledge

managing process observed in the real life examples at the Countryside Agency.

Using these criteria will also importantly help to understand the barriers to

effective knowledge managing existing in the public sector within the UK.

1.1. The problem behind managing knowledge in the UK public sector

By describing knowledge managing practices within a real life public sector

organization, the difficulties that work structures and practices in the public sector

impose on effective managing of knowledge within this sector are illustrated. This

is in terms of the need for knowledge to thrive in autonomous flexible cultures,

where interpersonal communication is driven by interest and not by status

accorded to person-fulfilled roles, these roles imposed culturally, technologically,

or both. Public sector communication, in terms of the culture prevalent in this

sector, may sometimes be over-dependent on role-delivered messages and not

people themselves.

It is considered that, because of this, the potential of technology to optimize

knowledge managing can be greatly misperceived in public sector executive

circles (as well as some private sector practices, but this is not the purpose of the

present work).

Typically, knowledge managing technology is designed, and approached,

according to what managers see as the right way for knowledge managing to

proceed. This is in terms of generally accepted structures and roles ordained on

the way things actually happen within organizations29

, which is in terms of

informal networks of people. Technology is not always designed and approached

29

According to Brown (1998), there is a marked difference between ordained practice in an

organization (in terms of ways top management sees that work should proceed) and actual practice

in an organization (in terms of how employees actually proceed with their work, by forming

essentially informal communities-of-practice). The research by Brown is described in Part II of

this work.

58

with the assumption that it cannot be a substitute for this spontaneous face-to-face

communication, aiming to build human relationships and expand network of

contacts.

What needs to be recognized is that technology cannot create this process, but can

make it more efficient, once this has been made effective by facilitatory

management. This can happen by bridging geographical distances and offering

novel ways for communicating with people that are already known, in order to

spontaneously elaborate on knowledge.

In this way, because of the frequently possible emphasis on ordained and not

actual practice within the UK public sector, the various views of principal

stakeholders, other than central and chief executives, may not always be taken

into account in knowledge managing practice and designing technology for it.

This would result in low effectiveness of knowledge managing initiatives and the

systems that they use within organizations.

The evaluation of the three knowledge-managing initiatives (Learning Networks)

at the Countryside Agency indeed shows that the lack of consideration for actual

practice within the organization and the public sector at large can be the greatest

problem behind ineffective Communication Technology used for managing

knowledge.

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2. Methodology

The Learning Network evaluation consisted of conducting informal unstructured

and semi-structured interviews with the managers of each Learning Network

(facilitators), as well as distributing a general questionnaire to members of the

communities that the networks were deemed to support. This questionnaire was

distributed to Learning Network (from now on referred as LN) members via

email.

The interviews and questionnaire were designed to investigate the assumptions

behind managing and using the networks, as well as the perceived benefits of

members from not only using the networks, but also being part of the

communities that these networks support. In this way, the effectiveness of the

networks at supporting general knowledge managing strategies, thus being

appropriately used according to the nature of optimization potential they can offer,

was verified.

Once data from interviews and questionnaire were obtained, these were subjected

to qualitative analyses according to the criteria derived from the literature review

(Part II of this work).

2.1. Level of response from each network

The questionnaire generated a varied response from the networks, with Market

Towns LN generating 33 responses from approximately 200 members, Equipping

Rural Communities LN generating 7 responses from approximately 200 members

and Rural Affairs Forum for England LN generating 4 responses from 64

members.

The varied response from the LNs is attributed to the fact that responses were

seeked at a time when most network members would be on holiday. In addition,

different degrees of commitment to network purpose within each community

could also have influenced the number of responses.

In other words, the comparative amount of response from each network would

speak of how active this network is, in terms of genuine interest of its members

into the benefit of the community they represent. According to this, the Market

Towns LN is the most active of all three LNs. However, it could also be that the

nature of membership of the Market Towns LN presupposes more free time of

these members to respond to the questionnaire.

60

2.2. Interviews with facilitators of each LN

For each network, one informal semi-structured interview was conducted with the

facilitator of this network, which was followed by additional questions by

phone/email where necessary. Opportunity for an informal unstructured interview

to probe the issues of interest, in order to target critical areas of concern during the

main semi-structured interviews, was available and used accordingly only for the

Rural Affairs Forum for England LN.

During each interview, facilitators were asked questions concerning their

association with/position within the Agency, as well as how they came to

facilitate their networks. Their views on their roles as facilitators were solicited

and how well circumstances allow them to pursue and fulfill these roles. In

addition, facilitators were asked about their knowledge of the issue subject of

network discussions. Their opinions on commitment and contributions to this

issue from the part of network members were outlined, in terms of how well the

network is being used, according to them, and why there are problems with its

use. Finally, the motivation behind facilitating was investigated and propositions

for change were put forward. The question format used for each semi-structured

interview is given in the Appendices. Facilitator responses were recorded in

writing over the process of the interviews.

2.3. Questionnaire emailed to members

The questionnaire emailed to members consisted of questions about member

involvement with the LN, in terms of their professional practice and concerns,

relationship to the Countryside Agency, ways of beginning membership and

interest in the network purpose of existence. In addition, questions were asked

about member use of the LN, in terms of features that they find most/least

effective and factors stopping them on their way to actively using the network, in

order to derive relevant benefits. Members were asked about the technological

aspects of their use of the network, in terms of nature of the functionality and

infrastructure supporting this. Finally, member opinions of the community behind

the network, as well as of network facilitation and future potential, were solicited.

The questionnaire format, as it was used to email to LN members, is given in the

Appendices.

As it was designed, the questionnaire was described as too long by some members

in their responses. This must be taken into account when considering the amount

61

of overall response the questionnaire generated from LN members, these generally

being very busy people with a range of work commitments.

The questionnaire was emailed to members from my personal email account at

UCL. Each member emailed his response directly to me at this email account,

therefore there were no intermediary parties involved in me receiving member

responses. In addition, all members were assured of the complete anonymity and

confidentiality of their responses. After deriving data from each response, the

proforma for this was destroyed. No names or other information that could serve

for member identification was used in data analyses.

2.4. Personal style/preference measures

Within the LN evaluation, two measures of personal style/preference were used.

The rationale behind this is given in the section following this, whereas here the

measures are briefly introduced to the reader.

One measure was the EPQ questionnaire (Eysenck et al., 1985). The EPQ consists

of 48 yes-no questions concerning typical ways of feeling and behaving. There are

four scales to this questionnaire. Extraversion, Neuroticism, Social Desirability,

Psychoticism. The Psychoticism scale was not used in the present study of the

LNs, because of its lack of relevance to the subject of LN evaluation. The 12-item

extraversion scale assesses sociability and the tendency to seek out stimulation.

The 12-item neuroticism scale assesses tendencies to experience anxiety, distress

and emotional sensitivity. The higher the score on each scale, the more

extraverted/emotionally sensitive the person is. Finally, the 12-item social

desirability scale assesses individual propensities to consider other people when

acting in social and interpersonal contexts. The higher the score on this scale, the

higher the personal tendency to perform actions that are socially desirable.

The other measure was the Myres-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI). The MBTI is a

self-report questionnaire designed according to Jung’s theory of human

personality types, applying this to human interaction. According to Jung’s theory,

predictable differences in individuals are caused by the way people prefer to use

their minds. Precisely, when the mind is active, individuals are taking in

information, i.e. perceiving, and organizing this in order to come to conclusions,

i.e. judging (the J-P dimension). Jung further observed that there are two opposite

ways of perceiving, which he called sensing and intuition (the S-I dimension), and

two opposite ways of judging, which he called thinking and feeling (the T-F

62

dimension). These four processes are used in daily life in both the internal and

external world, according to individual preference for experience. People who

prefer to experience things externally to themselves are extroverts, and people

who prefer to experience things by focusing on processes within themselves are

introverts (the E-I dimension). According to these dimensions, the MBTI provides

a description of 16 personality types, each a combination of personal preferences

for either end of each dimension. For example, a person with the ESTJ type

(extraverted thinking/introverted sensing) has a preference for focusing his

attention on the outer world (the E end of the E-I dimension) and looking at the

logical consequences of a choice or action when making decisions (the T end of

the T-F dimension). He also has a preference for focusing on the practical

immediate details of a situation when taking in new information (the S end of the

S-N dimension) and orient towards the outer world in a planned, orderly way (the

J end of the J-P dimension).

2.5. Rationale behind using the EPQ in the present evaluation

Within the present work, the role of personal style in/preference for

communicating with people was investigated. This role is within the style of LN

facilitation, as well as nature of use and engagement within the community behind

the network by members.

This is according to views expressed in the literature of the insufficient

consideration for the personality of technology users by Internet designers,

deciding the future development of the Internet and the type of extranet

technology here considered.

For example, Hamburger (2002) suggests the main reason for this to be the heavy

emphasis placed by designers on technological advancement to the detriment of

‘user needs’. In addition, Hamburger and Ben-Artzi (2000) demonstrated the link

between personal style and the nature and pattern of use of the Internet. Precisely,

they showed that Extraversion and Neuroticism, as these variables were defined

by Eysenck et al. (1985), are related to the pattern of use of Internet services. For

men, extraversion was positively linked to the use of leisure services and

neuroticism was negatively related to the use of information services. On the other

hand, for women, extraversion was negatively related and neuroticism positively

related to the use of social sites.

63

In this way, it is obvious that personal style variables exert an influence on

approaches to using technology and behaviors displayed online. Since the impact

of Eysenckian Extraversion and Neuroticism has been widely investigated in

relation to interpersonal dynamics and development (e.g. Organ, 1975; Kirton &

Mulligan, 1973), it can be expected that these variables will play a role in

interpersonal communication via an electronic tool, provided by Communication

Technology. In other words, it can be expected that extraversion and neuroticism

will influence the nature of participation within the community of practice or

purpose that the LNs at the Countryside Agency support.

Therefore, network members were asked to fill in, if they wish, the Eysenckian

EPQ questionnaire (Eysenck et al., 1985), which was emailed to them together

with the evaluation questionnaire.

2.6. Rationale behind using the MBTI in LN evaluation

In addition, a similar line of research into the impact of personality types on

organizational behavior, using the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI), was

taken to inform the design of the here reported evaluation of LNs.

Precisely, the MBTI has been used in research on the relationship between

personal preference and leadership strengths and weaknesses, as well as personal

management and decision making (Cunnyngham, 2002). In this study, it was

shown that personal management was a strength for sensing, thinking and judging

types (ISTJs and ESTJs), whereas decision making was a strength for people

having a preference for extraverted thinking with introverted sensing (ESTJs; the

nature of the described types is outlined above). Also, extraverted

thinking/introverted sensing types (ESTJs) had a strength for exerting power and

influence over others and introverted sensing/extraverted thinking types (ISTJs)

had the skill to continuously pursue results oriented projects.

The MBTI has also been used as part of research showing the relationship

between personality perception and innovation approach preferences in computer

professionals (Pope et al., 1997). Finally, the MBTI function of Intuition (I) has

been shown to positively relate to higher level of Emotional Intelligence for

managers (Higgs, 2001), which is in turn related to their success on the job.

On the basis of these findings, it can be expected that the nature of MBTI personal

preference type, derived for an individual, will bear a relationship to his willing to

influence others and leverage them towards achievement of desired objectives or

64

more general fulfillment of purpose. In addition, the nature of MBTI type could

also relate to individual willingness to take creative and unstructured approaches

to managing people when the situation necessitates this, in order to enable

conditions for a knowledge community freely discoursing topics of interest.

Therefore, the MBTI was used to evaluate LN facilitation, in view of the impact

of facilitator personal preference for communicating with people on the

effectiveness of the community behind each network. Facilitators were asked to

go through a personal preference assessment with an Occupational Psychologist,

administering the MBTI.

2.7. Data obtained from the personal style/preference instruments

EPQ Extraversion and Neuroticism scores were obtained for 25 out of 33

respondents to the Market Towns LN evaluation questionnaire, 5 out of 7

respondents to the Equipping Rural Communities LN evaluation questionnaire

and 3 out of 4 respondents to the Rural Affairs Forum for England LN evaluation

questionnaire.

MBTI personal preference types were obtained only for facilitators of the Rural

Affairs Forum for England LN. This was because of practical limitations to meet

with facilitators of the other LNs, in order for them to go through a session with

an Occupational Psychologist for MBTI administration purposes.

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3. Learning Network Evaluation

3.1. Market Towns Learning Network

The purpose of this section is to outline results from the evaluation of the Market

Towns Learning Network (MTLN).

3.1.1. Background to the Market Towns Learning Network

This network is concerned with supporting the Market Towns Program, the

overall goal of which is to offer a range of retail and professional services, leisure

and cultural opportunities, training and jobs to market towns serving rural

communities within England. In this way, the purpose of the Market Towns

Program is to help communities examine the economic, social and environmental

health of market towns. The Program is being run primarily by the Countryside

Agency in partnership with regional development agencies.

According to the Agency proforma, the purpose of the Learning Network

supporting the Market Towns Program is to achieve a higher profile for the

program and the Agency who is providing and, for the most part, running the

network. It is important that the network conducts the effective exchange of

knowledge and good practice between the Agency and its partners, as well as

establish Agency brand values in high levels of Government. This exchange of

knowledge between the parties involved in the program is aimed to lead to the

development of Regional Development Agencies to support market towns, allow

for the circulation of important information, speed up project management,

influence external policy and provide a forum for exchanging ideas, action plans

and experience.

In terms of managing of knowledge within the community involved in the Market

Towns Program, the LN is concerned with providing technological support to the

community for the effective exchange of ideas, action plans and experience. In

other words, the LN is aimed to help members bridge geographical distances and

overcome time pressures. This is in order to be able to effectively access

important others within the community, when necessary to their practice, thus

make the process of knowledge generation within the community maximally

effective towards achieving desired social, economic and environmental

developments in market towns.

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3.1.2. Evaluation preview

The evaluation was conducted according to the effectiveness of the network as a

knowledge managing support to the Market Towns Community. This

effectiveness was investigated through the scope of the recommendations for

effective managing of knowledge using Communication Technology, a

framework derived as a result of the literature review in Part II of this work and

used as a set of criteria for LN evaluation purposes.

The data obtained from the facilitator interview and the email questionnaire,

which generated 33 responses from network members, were qualitatively

analyzed for MTLN fulfilling of these criteria. Results are reported separately for

each criterion whilst no allusion is being made at any one time as to their specific

source (i.e. whether results emerged from facilitator interview or member

responses to the email questionnaire). The results follow below.

CRITERION 1:

� Allow for situated learning within communities-of-practice

Effective fulfilling of this criterion is according to the LN efforts to bring its

people together to collaborate, by developing healthy social relations within the

community, not by exclusive technological development of the LN web site.

Data obtained from the facilitator interview and member responses to the MTLN

evaluation questionnaire revealed that network facilitation is generally equally

divided between providing technical help and encouragingly engaging in

discussions. Thus it is unobtrusive to community development and rightly fulfills

the notion of facilitation, where help is given when needed, but no direct

intervention into community development is ever initiated. There is informal

facilitation of emergent social relations, where the incentive behind community

participation is that knowledge within it belongs to everyone within the

community.

In other words, the facilitator is taking an approach where he is actively

encouraging people to use the network as an information source, without

structuring the interactions among members any further. The result of this is that

most members indeed find the network a very useful information tool, promptly

delivering documents and case studies, which have the important potential of

making their practice more effective. Having the right information appears to be

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stimulating knowledge exchange among them, by giving them a solid base on

which to build interpersonal relations.

An implication of the facilitation approach is that, in avoiding direct intervention

into member communication, by, for example, specifying topics for discussion or

making the communication style terribly formal, members have found themselves

searching for ways to effectively communicate with each other. In other words,

members have been autonomous in initiating community development. Group

processes within the community have stormed according to the way members

have been learning to tap on each other’s knowledge. Their enthusiasm for

making the network an effective means for communication stems from their deep

interest in the nature of the Market Towns Program. There is a solid common

ground to unify them in their searching for an effective language.

In this way, members are actively creating the communication process among

them and continuously structuring the best pattern, according to which

interpersonal relations develop. They can decide when and how to contribute to

the purpose of the community and reveal what they know to others, in order to be

understood. Because of the very large size of the community (200 members), this

process is lengthy and cumbersome. Nevertheless, it can be seen as effective,

especially in the long term.

The above makes clear that the evaluation of the MTLN established very good

prerequisites for the continuous development of a community-of-practice, unified

by an interest in benefiting English market towns. However, there are a few

obstacles to this:

� There appears not to be enough face-to-face interaction among members,

so that they can base their attempts at knowledge generation when using the

network on, above all, personally knowing each other.

Most respondents indicated that the only way for them to get to know someone in

whose expertise they take an interest, thus enlarge their network of contacts, is by

sending them a ‘cold email’ to introduce themselves and outline their concerns.

This is unlikely to be sufficient in interpersonal relation development, because of

the very busy work schedule of MTLN members and the impossibility to convey

tacit knowledge (critical to interpersonal relations development) via email.

� The very busy workload of most members is another obstacle to the LN

becoming an effective tool for knowledge creation, because it is not sufficiently

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part of member individual practices, in order to evolve into an effective collective

practice unifying the Market Towns community.

� Finally, there is an imposition on each member to actively contribute to

network discussion threads at least once every two months, in order not to be

removed from the membership list. This did not appear to greatly threaten the

spontaneous development of interpersonal dynamics, by introducing a notion of

obligation to the community and not allowing it to develop naturally out of

community participation. However, it can prove inhibiting to some members in

the long term, especially to those who have recently joined and are learning form

the periphery of community processes.

Indeed, most members indicated a preference for primarily reading discussion

threads and contributing when they think they should and when they want to. Just,

or primarily, reading discussions and documents is being found of great use and is

beneficial to action learning within the context of legitimate peripheral

participation, this by picking up ‘stolen knowledge’ from those members who are

competent in an issue of interest.

The EPQ scores available for MTLN respondents in terms of other findings from

their responses are displayed on Tables 3, 4, 5 & 6 (displayed in Appendix 3). It is

seen from the table that these scores appear to have no relationship to the personal

styles of member participation. It is suggested that this is because the network is

not sufficiently integrated into the practices of individual members and because

other social and organizational factors of working in the public sector are more

structuring to participation than individual preferences.

CRITERION 2:

� Understand the distinction between information and knowledge

Effective fulfilling of this criterion is according to the LN emphasis on delivering

opportunities for knowledge creation and not mere information exchange.

The evaluation revealed that most members find the network an efficient and

effective means of keeping informed. Precisely, the network web site is seen as a

good tool for accessing important documents and examples from other areas

relevant to the Market Towns Program. Some members use the network primarily

as a source of information and reference to their practices, which can often be

central to their work. A few members indicate that sometimes documents are of

69

no interest to them and do not apply to rural areas they work in. This is displayed

on Graph 2 in Appendix 3.

Regarding the potential of the LN for knowledge creation within the community,

there seems to be no realization of the difference between delivering information

and enabling knowledge. Moreover, there is a confusion between the two, with

some members evaluating the network as very effective because it ‘delivers the

right information’, not realizing its potential as a knowledge communicating tool.

In other words, although the technological aspects of the network have been

designed with ‘personalization’ assumptions behind them (e.g. in terms of

immediate notification of network events happened since last member log-in,

opportunities to form special interest groups etc.), there is insufficient

understanding of the importance of a coherent community context, within which

to embed relevant information, in order for it to be used for knowledge

generation. In this way, the potential of the network for optimizing community

knowledge processes is not used in its entirety, by ensuring a vibrant knowledge

discourse, which the network can effectively supplement.

This lack of understanding for the social foundations of knowledge resides both in

members and facilitator. Precisely, most of them seem to assume that commitment

to the purpose of the MTLN community is a property that members possess on

joining the community. Members are not seen as having to acquire this, in the

process of community participation, by getting to know their peers with their

concerns and beliefs. Acquiring knowledge of co-members is, however, the first

and most important step towards sharing knowledge of one’s personal practice

with them, therefore using the network as a knowledge tool and not merely an

information resource. The general lack of recognition for this step means that the

network is not currently helping in transforming the geographically dispersed

MTLN community into a coherent knowledge discourse.

In this way, although the technological aspects of the network are well developed,

in terms of providing adequate support for web-based interaction, these won’t be

effectively used unless the network is endowed with a vibrant social community

behind it.

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CRITERION 3:

� Recognize the distinction between explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge

in terms of equally important components of personal knowledge

Effective fulfilling of this criterion is according to the recognition behind

managing and using the LN, for a social context, in terms of communities-of-

practice, needed to give meaning to all material found on the network web site.

This is by developing tacit knowledge, making possible the understanding of

explicit knowledge and the acquisition of new knowledge.

For MTLN, the evaluation process revealed insufficient understanding of the

nature of knowledge, as outlined above, in terms of insufficient development of

the social aspects of the network. In this way, there is not a well-defined social

framework, within which material found on the LN can be implemented and made

sense of, thus used for knowledge creation and fulfilling a dynamic process of

community discourse. The interpersonal aspect of the network is underdeveloped

because of the large number of members, which make it difficult for posting

personalized comments, in order for them to initiate empathic responses and

generate tacit knowledge. This is despite the fact that the community behind the

network is strongly bound by a shared purpose to benefit the welfare of market

towns.

Therefore, there is prerequisite for effective on-line communication via the LN

that is not supported by well-developed interpersonal relationships. These are

necessary in order to put both explicit and tacit knowledge components at work

towards knowledge creation.

CRITERION 4:

� Recognize the distinction between group/organizational knowledge and

individual knowledge and their equal importance for knowledge creation

Effective fulfilling of this criterion ensures the agreed and not imposed status of

the LN within the Market Towns community. This is so that the LN is willingly

implemented in the communication process among members, in order for them to

use its potential for knowledge optimization. By using the technology in the

process of combining individual knowledge to produce collective understandings,

members would find the network helpful in their individual practices.

Results relevant to this criteria are displayed on Table 1 in Appendix 3. It is clear

that there are a number of members who have been asked to join the network

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membership, because of the organization they work for (notably the Countryside

Agency) or because of the nature of their work. Since this membership is

accorded and not elected, it creates prerequisites for insufficient commitment to

the network purpose.

Indeed, it was revealed that the majority of Countryside Agency employee

members have been asked to join, in order to represent the Agency on the

membership list. Not surprisingly, these members were found to contribute by

posting discussions on the network much less than it would be expected of them

as representatives of the leveraging organization, having a strong interest in

initiating discussion and leading by good example.

In this way, the MTLN is not sufficiently integrated into the work practice of the

Agency, who created the network and made this available to the Market Towns

community. There are no conditions for creating a coherent collective practice

within the community by leading with good example. This collective practice

cannot inform individual practices of all LN members, thus practically influencing

the nature of the activity of the Market Towns community.

As none of these processes are existent, the MTLN is not very effective in

fulfilling its purpose of influencing individual practices of network members, all

to the benefit of market towns. To support this conclusion, members did not

indicate that material posted on the network is particularly useful to them in their

practice, as indicated on Tables 1 &2 in Appendix 3.

CRITERION 5:

� Consider knowledge as part of action and not merely as a possession

Effectively fulfilling this criterion is about recognizing that knowledge is a self-

fulfilling process and not a project to complete. Knowledge is continuously

generated within a community-of-practice and can be optimized in its ways by

LN.

Data from the evaluation process indicate that the MTLN has been conceived to

terminate after desired objectives have been achieved. In this way, the

technological solution supporting the Market Towns community will cease to be

seen as valuable once there is no practical reason for community existence.

The assumption behind this state of affairs is that the Market Towns community is

unified by a common project, rather than by a continuous practice. This

undermines the success of the community at generating new knowledge about

72

preservation of market towns, because there is pressure to achieve objectives

ordained from ‘above’ and not self-initiated. This lowers the effectiveness of the

network, because using it may not be seen as valuable to a long-term knowledge

discourse.

3.1.3. Conclusions

The evaluation of the MTLN reveals that the network has great potential to be

successful. This is because of member commitment to its purpose, which is

preservation and development of market towns. However, what is also needed is

member commitment to the community, with the help of which the purpose is to

be fulfilled.

At present, there are great efforts from the part of MTLN members to form a

cohesive community within which they can share and generate new knowledge, so

that they can find the LN more effective to their work. Appropriate facilitation

from the part of their work practices and the public sector, within which they

work, is needed. This is to allow them to meet more often, in order to develop the

interpersonal aspect of the network, as well as dedicate more time to using it when

they want to. In this way, the LN technological solution, supporting the Market

Towns community, would be very effective in optimizing knowledge processes

within this community.

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3.2. Equipping Rural Communities Learning Network

The purpose of this section is to outline results from the evaluation of the

Equipping Rural Communities Learning Network (ERCLN).

3.2.1. Background to the Equipping Rural Communities Learning Network

The ERCLN has been conceived to unite the program objectives of three

Countryside Agency branches: Local Governance and Housing, Vital Villages and

Rural Services. In this way, the LN aims to bridge among these branches in order

to create a collective forum for them to function more efficiently and effectively.

Precisely, ERCLN is to provide a common electronic space enabling Parish

Councils to network more effectively among each other and with various national

bodies, Community Councils, residents and stakeholders.

According to Agency proforma, this would be by communicating knowledge and

circulating important information, in order to support project conception and

implementation. This would be by facilitating open debate with invited members

on seven topic areas, by linking members through the Internet and organizing

workshops across the country to discuss problem solutions. These discussions are

defined by Countryside Agency pre-set topics (by the facilitator), the results of

which are to be summarized and published. The network aims to eventually

disseminate recommendations on the most effective ways of equipping rural

communities.

The ERCLN project is also meant to promote the Countryside Agency branding,

so that the Agency is seen at the forefront of providing practical solutions for

effective networking to the welfare of the English countryside. In this way, the

Agency is also seen as successfully developing the White Paper notion of a

modernized, electronically joined up public sector.

In terms of managing knowledge, the purpose of the ERCLN is to organize a

forum for individuals interested in the future of rural communities, for them to

share, learn and develop ideas and recommendations for action. This would be so

that they can enrich their individual work practices by sharing in the experience of

others.

3.2.2. Evaluation preview

The evaluation was conducted according to the effectiveness of the network as a

knowledge managing support to the Equipping Rural Communities initiative. This

74

effectiveness was investigated through the scope of the recommendations for

effective managing of knowledge using Communication Technology, a

framework derived as a result of the literature review in Part II of this work and

used as a set of criteria for LN evaluation purposes.

The data obtained from the facilitator interview and the email questionnaire,

which generated 7 responses from network members, were qualitatively analyzed

for ERCLN fulfilling of these criteria. Results are reported separately for each

criterion whilst no allusion is being made at any one time as to their specific

source (i.e. whether results emerged from facilitator interview or member

responses to the email questionnaire). The results follow below.

CRITERION 1:

� Allow for situated learning within communities-of-practice

Effective fulfilling of this criterion is according to the LN efforts to bring its

people together to collaborate, by developing healthy social relations within the

community, not by exclusive technological development of the LN web site.

For ERCLN, it was revealed that facilitation focuses on developing the ERC

community to a great extent, by directly soliciting contributions from members on

relevant topics via email and phone. In addition, the facilitator appeared to

dedicate at least as much time on maintaining the LN web site and dealing with

technological issues and hassles of member use.

However, the nature of facilitation did not appear to focus on developing social

relations within the community, but exclusively on fulfilling LN objectives. In

this way, although facilitation of the network has been very thorough and

persistent, it has perhaps succeeded in making the community overly structured

for healthy knowledge processes to develop.

The evaluation revealed that the community behind the ERCLN had been brought

together artificially, in order for the LN to formally support project fulfillment

purposes. The project initiative behind the network is in terms of assembling and

publishing recommendations for developing rural communities, following on a

learning process structured within seven topics, chosen and presided by the

facilitator. In this way, managing the community is more about project

management rather than knowledge managing.

Because members do not have the freedom to choose the issues to be discussed,

according to their interest, there is no attempt from them to interpersonally

75

interact with each other, in order to elaborate on knowledge. Indeed, those

members who responded to the evaluation questionnaire did not appear to have

much knowledge of other members and how much of them there are in total.

In this way, since the network process is too dependent on the facilitator, the

community is not coherent, autonomous, inherently informal and spontaneous.

Also, the amount of generated activity on the network is proportional to how

much effort the facilitator puts in directly prompting members to contribute on the

network. This indicates lack of member commitment to a unified knowledge

creation purpose. It would have been different if the community had been given

autonomy for development, after assuring that members have a genuine passion

for the topic of equipping rural communities and are willing to ‘storm’ together in

order to establish a common ground for communication. For a successful

community-of-practice, the facilitator should be almost ‘invisible’, by

encouraging but not leading.

In this way, the ERC community is not self-sustained. On the other hand, a self-

sustained community naturally manages the knowledge within it via minimal

facilitation.

Therefore, although the ERCLN is efficient, it is not effective for the managing of

knowledge within the community behind the network. This is because there is not

sufficient focus on facilitating shared activity and enabling social relations within

the community, but on delivery of recommendation objectives each two months.

In this way, the community behind the network is a community of purpose

(according to Agency definition), but not of common practice, which is not an

effective medium for the managing of knowledge among people, because of its

lack of focus on interpersonal dynamics.

During the evaluation process, it appeared that the reason for the facilitation

approach is not because of facilitator lack of interest in the purpose of the ERC

community; to the contrary, the facilitator appeared remarkably dedicated to

equipping rural communities and to making the LN successful. The reason behind

the facilitation approach, in contrast, was the insufficient training and awareness

of the facilitator in managing knowledge and its processes. Therefore, making the

LN effective has not considered the importance of social and individual factors in

its management, where facilitator awareness of healthy social processes is

necessary.

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CRITERION 2:

� Understand the distinction between information and knowledge

Effective fulfilling of this criterion is according to the LN emphasis on delivering

opportunities for knowledge creation and not mere information exchange.

As outlined above, there is insufficient emphasis on developing the social and

interpersonal aspect of the ERCLN. In this way, the knowledge potential of the

network is limited, because of the non-existent common ground for sharing

knowledge using relevant information.

Most members who responded to the evaluation questionnaire appraised the

network as a useful information source. Nevertheless, they also expressed the

need for more interaction on the network, to make it more dynamic and increase

its potential for knowledge generation. In this way, there is sufficient

understanding among members of the limited use of the network as a knowledge

tool and not merely an information resource at present. As one member put it, the

contributions posted on the network are generally pretty useless, without any

relevance to his particular practice. This is because social cohesion does not exist

within the community, in order to bind individual practices into one vibrant

collective practice.

CRITERION 3:

� Recognize the distinction between explicit knowledge and tacit

knowledge in terms of equally important components of personal

knowledge

Effective fulfilling of this criterion is according to the recognition behind

managing and using the LN, for a social context, in terms of communities-of-

practice, needed to give meaning to all material found on the network web site.

This is by developing tacit knowledge, making possible the understanding of

explicit knowledge and the acquisition of new knowledge.

Evaluation of the ERCLN revealed that the network is currently not fulfilling a

role in knowledge generation within the community. This creates a situation,

where material produced from member contributions assembled together by the

facilitator is not directly relevant to individual member practices, because they

have not engaged themselves in the process of producing this document, other

than by contributing when they have been asked to do so (the proportion of

respondents who have been asked to join the network is given on Table 7 in

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Appendix 4). This lack of interpersonal interaction in the context of issues raised

by the network makes it impossible for members to establish common ground for

communicating, with relevant tacit knowledge to enable collective understandings

of core problems.

In this way, as already explained above, the network has been created with an

emphasis on purpose and not practice, where the importance of collective social

contexts enabling the exchange of meaningful messages, comprised of both

explicit and tacit knowledge components, to generate new knowledge, is not

recognized.

CRITERION 4:

� Recognize the distinction between group/organizational knowledge and

individual knowledge and their equal importance for knowledge creation

Effective fulfilling of this criterion ensures the agreed and not imposed status of

the LN within the ERC community. This is so that the LN is willingly

implemented in the communication process among members, in order for them to

use its potential for knowledge optimization. By using the technology in the

process of combining individual knowledge to produce collective understandings,

members would find the network helpful in their individual practices.

The evaluation revealed that, similarly to the MTLN, there is not enough and

purposeful involvement of Countryside Agency members on the network, in order

for dynamic discourse between them and other members to form, thus creating a

collective knowledge practice useful to individual practices of members.

Respondents to the evaluation questionnaire indicated their wish for more

contributions from the part of Agency employees, so that there is practical

opportunity for influencing opinions within this organization. In this way, the LN

could be implemented within a communication process among members, driven

by genuine interest to contribute.

Other members, however, raised issues of disproportionately high number of

Agency employees on the network, which created an unbalance within the

network membership, thus raising issues of anonymity of contributions. From this

point of view, the disproportionately high number of Agency employees inhibits

the development of a healthy community atmosphere, where individual

experience is generously offered to the benefit of collective understandings of

78

topical issues. In this way, having less Agency members on the network would

create better opportunities for the development of a knowledge discourse.

The above points make it clear that, there is not enough recognition of the

importance of enabling coherent group knowledge within the community using

the network, so that they can have a common culture to unify them.

CRITERION 5:

� Consider knowledge as part of action and not merely as a possession

Effectively fulfilling this criterion is about recognizing that knowledge is a self-

fulfilling process and not a project to complete. Knowledge is continuously

generated within a community-of-practice and can be optimized in its ways by LN

use.

As already outlined in relation to the above criteria, there is not sufficient

realization of the importance of knowledge as part of action and not merely a

possession within the ERCLN community. The evaluation revealed that organized

attempts at initiating shared activity among network members during workshops,

or by using relevant facilities on the LN, have been unsuccessful. This is due to

insufficient commitment from members because of workload, on the one hand,

and insufficient emphasis on developing social practice within the community, on

the other.

In addition, the functionality of the network was also appraised as cumbersome

and problematic on several occasions, thus making contributing on the network a

tedious process that discourages members from using it as a knowledge tool to

initiate shared activity.

3.2.3. Conclusions

The above points make it clear that the assumption behind creating the community

to use the ERCLN is defeating to what makes managing of knowledge successful

within a community of practice and not purpose.

Precisely, ‘making’ a community is in itself an artificial approach that creates an

emphasis on ordained and not actual practice within this community, which in

turn discourages members from collaborating, in order to generate knowledge

among themselves. In this way, the ERCLN has potential for project management,

to which it is excellently suited. Its potential for knowledge management,

however, is here considered to be limited.

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Furthermore, if organizations wish to invest in knowledge managing initiatives

supported by technology, such as the LNs here described, they should take great

care in gently facilitating healthy communities developing and not merely

providing good technological solutions to support them.

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3.3. Rural Affairs Forum for England Learning Network

The purpose of this section is to outline results from the evaluation of the Rural

Affairs Forum for England Learning Network (RAFELN).

3.3.1. Background to the Rural Affairs Forum for England Learning Network

The RAFELN has been conceived to support the activity of the Rural Affairs

Forum for England community, comprised of the Rural Taskforce (originally set

up to tackle the effects of the outbreak of foot and mouth disease for the rural

economy) and civil servants and chief executive officers. The Taskforce itself is

comprised of members of the Cabinet, Chairs of major Non-Departmental Public

Bodies and Non-Governmental Organizations. Originally, the Taskforce was

offered a Learning Network by the Countryside Agency. This was to support and

expand their activity, by increasing opportunities for discussion, debate and joint

working among members of the Taskforce and including civil servants and other

public sector officers in this activity, to increase the potential for knowledge

exchange and generation.

In this way, the aim behind the network is to make the Taskforce activity

accessible to senior civil servants and officers who have an interest, in terms of

the organizations that they represent, in the issues discussed by the Taskforce.

Widening the expertise of the Taskforce, through including further stakeholders in

its process and thus optimizing their shared activity, is a major concern of the

network. These stakeholders are given the opportunity to monitor discussions held

by Taskforce members, in order to provide expert answers to questions asked by

them and be involved in government executive decisions.

The RAFELN project is also meant to promote the Countryside Agency branding,

so that the Agency is seen at the forefront of providing practical solutions for

effective networking to the welfare of the English countryside. In this way, the

Agency is also seen as successfully developing the White Paper notion of a

modernized, electronically joined up public sector.

In terms of managing of knowledge, the purpose of the network is to support the

willingness of its members to optimize their shared activity, by having a private

electronic space to use between Forum meetings.

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3.3.2. Evaluation preview

The evaluation was conducted according to the effectiveness of the network as a

knowledge managing support to the Rural Affairs Forum for England community.

This effectiveness was investigated through the scope of the recommendations for

effective managing of knowledge using Communication Technology, a

framework derived as a result of the literature review in Part II of this work and

used as a set of criteria for LN evaluation purposes.

The data obtained from the facilitator interviews and the email questionnaire,

which generated 4 responses from network members, were qualitatively analyzed

for RAFELN fulfilling of these criteria. Results are reported separately for each

criterion whilst no allusion is being made at any one time as to their specific

source (i.e. whether results emerged from facilitator interviews or member

responses to the email questionnaire). The results follow below.

CRITERION 1:

� Allow for situated learning within communities-of-practice

Effective fulfilling of this criterion is according to the LN efforts to bring its

people together to collaborate, by developing healthy social relations within the

community, not by exclusive technological development of the LN web site.

It should be noted that the perspective here outlined is primarily influenced by

evaluation carried out with help from the Countryside Agency. Therefore, views

and opinions of Forum members have not been solicited other than by the email

questionnaire, which nevertheless generated very few responses.

The evaluation revealed that the community using the RAFELN is split between

the organization, providing the network facilitation (the Countryside Agency) and

the Forum.

It was made clear that social relations within the community revolve around

regular meetings of the Forum, where facilitators are not present. The social

communication during these meetings is very formal and structured, which may

make it hard for genuine communication to develop, in order to spontaneously use

the LN between meeting to elaborate on shared knowledge.

Using the network is even harder in terms of not allowing facilitators to be

integrated within the community, thus provide informal encouragement to

discussions. This, in addition to the very busy work schedule of Forum members,

makes the network largely unused. As one member put it, although the potential

82

of the network is very powerful, there is a need to have a strong community of

interest, as a physical community supporting a virtual community. Therefore, the

community behind the network is largely symbolical and not practical (i.e. a

community-of-practice), concerned with fulfilling an important role within the

public sector and not development of a community practice, in order to enrich a

number of member organization practices.

Since there is no informal, autonomous and spontaneous development of social

relations, the potential of the Forum, and the LN deemed to support its activity, is

very limited for the managing of knowledge. Knowledge is a social discourse and

not an ordained procedure for development of interpersonal dynamics. It must be

allowed to emerge and not constrained within rigid procedures. Therefore, the

knowledge discourse within the Forum is currently not using the potential of the

LN supporting it.

CRITERION 2:

� Understand the distinction between information and knowledge

Effective fulfilling of this criterion is according to the LN emphasis on delivering

opportunities for knowledge creation and not mere information exchange.

As outlined above, it is clear that there is not an emphasis on knowledge

generation within the Forum community. Rather, there is an emphasis on fulfilling

an important role within the public sector, which has symbolical and not practical

significance.

In this way, there is not awareness of the distinction between information and

knowledge, because knowledge is not a primary concern to this community. It

cannot be concluded for sure whether documents on the network are useful to

members in their practice. It is, however, known for sure that discussion threads

on the network are very rare. One member indicated that he passes important

documents on to departments, which deal with issues that the documents discuss,

whereas all members indicated that the network is useful to their work by giving

important information.

Therefore, the network appears to be relatively useful, as long it is at all used by

its members, as an information resource. It is not useful as a knowledge tool,

using the information provided by it. This would be if the culture within the

Forum was sufficiently vibrant and informal to stimulate knowledge generation.

83

In addition, there seems to be insufficient thrust within the Forum in the

organization providing the network technological solution (the Agency), in order

for members to confidently start using the network for creative knowledge

exchange.

CRITERION 3:

� Recognize the distinction between explicit knowledge and tacit

knowledge in terms of equally important components of personal

knowledge

Effective fulfilling of this criterion is according to the recognition behind

managing and using the LN, for a social context, in terms of communities-of-

practice, needed to give meaning to all material found on the network web site.

This is by developing tacit knowledge, making possible the understanding of

explicit knowledge and the acquisition of new knowledge.

As already outlined above, the community using the LN is not socially enabled,

but rather enabled out of a necessity to fulfill an important role within the public

sector. Therefore, social processes within the community are constrained by

public sector formalities. The development of tacit knowledge in the process of

these formalities is not impossible, but greatly limited by the ordained nature of

the interaction. Furthermore, members do not seem to accord great potential for

communication to the LN, which could at least in part be due to the cumbersome

functionality of the network web site. The potential of the network as a knowledge

tool, supporting vibrant knowledge discourse between meetings, seems to be

under appreciated by members.

CRITERION 4:

� Recognize the distinction between group/organizational knowledge and

individual knowledge and their equal importance for knowledge creation

Effective fulfilling of this criterion ensures the agreed and not imposed status of

the LN within the RAFE community. This is so that the LN is willingly

implemented in the communication process among members, in order for them to

use its potential for knowledge optimization. By using the technology in the

process of combining individual knowledge to produce collective understandings,

members would find the network helpful in their individual practices.

84

The evaluation revealed that the LN has been ‘delivered’ for use by the

Countryside Agency to the Forum, together with the suggestion for using it in a

way that imposes a novel practice on the Forum community. This novel practice is

in terms of including stakeholders other than central government representatives,

in the proceedings of the Forum in order to enlarge its potential for knowledge

creation.

However, the result of this is that the Forum does not appear to have integrated

the use of the network within their practice. The network has an imposed, and not

agreed status on them, which discourages use. Additional to this is the very busy

work schedule of government members, which makes it difficult for them to

implement the network successfully in the Forum activity, in order to make this

more effective between meetings and as a whole.

These barriers to effective use of the network are not the only ones on the way of

effectively managing knowledge using it.

Additional to these is that facilitators of the network (who are Countryside

Agency employees) do not have an established role within the Forum, so that they

can successfully encourage participation from members. As one member put it,

facilitation is more linked to an organizational agenda of the host organization,

rather than being independent for the network as a whole.

MBTI scores for both facilitators of RAFELN were also obtained. According to

these scores (ENTP and INFP), the personal styles of facilitators, in terms of their

preferences for using their minds and approaching others in communication, are

oriented towards others and willing to consider other people’s welfare. In

addition, one facilitator has the T element in the personality type, indicating

potential for leadership and exertion of power, whereas the other has the F

element, indicating person-centered decision-making. Therefore, the potential of

these facilitators for effective facilitation of the LN is certainly present. If it is not

well used as is currently obvious, is not because of their lack of a spontaneous

approach to facilitation, but for other public sector social and organizational

reasons.

Therefore, there are critical organizational and social limitations, resulting from

public sector characteristic assumptions, values and beliefs that are in the way of

effective facilitation. Importantly, there seems to be no trust from Forum members

within Countryside Agency facilitators. This can result in potential discomfort

85

between them, creating a community where knowledge is frozen, rather than

dynamically generated.

In this way, there is not a coherent collective practice to make possible the

effective communication among government members, civil servants and chief

executive officers, within the context of the community, supported by the here

evaluated LN. This is what makes the LN introduced for collaborative managing

of knowledge ineffective.

CRITERION 5:

� Consider knowledge as part of action and not merely as a possession

Effectively fulfilling this criterion is about recognizing that knowledge is a self-

fulfilling process and not a project to complete. Knowledge is continuously

generated within a community-of-practice and can be optimized in its ways by

LN.

The evaluation revealed that there is insufficient knowledge discourse happening

within the Forum community, in terms of vibrant communication between

government members and other Forum members.

This lack of recognition for the importance of a socially enabled discourse, to

generate new knowledge and make the Forum practice effective, means that

Forum members do not collectively engage in joint action, concerned with the

domain of practice within which the Forum is situated.

In other words, Forum members meet formally at meetings, not exploring the

potential for engaging together in informal enterprises. They may have knowledge

about their practices, but not know how to use this in their collective practice,

because may not have acquired common understanding of this practice in the

course of joint action.

The value of the LN as a knowledge-communicating tool is thus limited for the

Forum community, because there may be nothing to communicate among them.

This is since there are no common actions, from which to draw collective tacit

knowledge to be used as a code for effective message delivering on-line.

86

3.3.3. Conclusions

The RAFELN evaluation revealed that although the learning network has great

potential for optimizing the activity of the Forum in theory, this is currently of

very limited use in practice. The reason for this is that the LN is not sufficiently

implemented into the practice of the Forum members. In addition, there is a split

between community and facilitators, which makes using the network even more

discouraging for members.

The effective realization of the LN for the RAFE community can happen by,

above all, realizing the potential of the network as a knowledge tool, provided that

a knowledge discourse is already existent within the community. Also, it can

happen by involving facilitators in Forum meetings, in order to overcome the lack

of mutual thrust currently existing between these two parties.

87

4. Learning Network Evaluation: Limitations

When considering results from the here reported LN evaluation, the following

limitations of this evaluation, in terms of design and process, should be borne in

mind.

Above all, the interviews and questionnaire were not designed with special view

of evaluating the LNs according to the criteria derived from the literature review

outlined in Part II of this work. Instead, the interviews and questionnaire aimed to

provide an overall idea of LN use and effectiveness, in this they being very

exhaustive. In this way, using the interviews and questionnaire gathered a lot of

data that was subsequently not used for qualitative analyses purposes.

This is because the conduction of the literature review and the composition of the

results for it took place in parallel to conducting the practical evaluation of the

LNs, in terms of gathering data using interviews and questionnaire. This is why

the evaluation approach to the LNs was clear only after obtaining the data for it, at

the same time as completing the literature review.

The implications of this are that data were hard to analyze and there was lack of

an overall systematic approach to the evaluation process. Nevertheless, once the

criteria for effective managing of knowledge using CT were obtained as a result of

the literature review, the drawing of according conclusions relevant to each

network was not too difficult, because of the very wide applicability of the criteria

to knowledge-managing circumstances.

Another limitation to the here reported evaluation is that it did not use a structured

method for qualitative analysis of the data obtained from interviews and

questionnaire, such as content analysis. This is because of the short time at

disposition to carry out and write up the work involving the LN evaluation.

It is recognized that, would a more structured approach to data analysis have been

possible, it would have made the reported results of much greater significance and

value to improving Learning Networks. Still, the evaluation of the LNs has been

comprehensive and it is hoped that it represents good guidance on how to

approach and manage Communication Technology as part of general knowledge

managing strategies.

Finally, the fact that very few members responded to the evaluation questionnaire

for the ERCLN and the RAFELN greatly reduces the value of conclusions drawn

from member responses for these networks. That is why evaluation of these

88

networks considers data obtained from interviews more important when drawing

conclusions about network effectiveness relevant to evaluation criteria. Also, this

is why data obtained for EPQ extraversion and neuroticism variables for the

ERCLN and RAFELN is not considered for evaluation conclusions, because it is

unreasonable to generalize it to the whole communities, in view of the small

samples size. These data are, however, outlined in the Appendices, as part of

summary tables for these two networks.

89

5. Learning Network Evaluation: Conclusions

Within this final Part III of the present work, three Learning Networks at the

Countryside Agency (a public sector organization in the UK) were evaluated for

their effectiveness at managing knowledge using Communication Technology.

The evaluation was conducted following on interviews and an email questionnaire

and data obtained from the evaluation process were analyzed according to criteria

for managing knowledge using Communication Technology, derived in Part II of

the present work.

The evaluation revealed that attempts at knowledge managing in the public sector

tend to be relatively impeded by widely accepted public sector practices and ways,

in terms of which social interaction and collaboration is structured within this

sector.

Precisely, the assumption behind all networks was that by providing adequate

technological support, without sufficiently considering the importance of shared

social contexts, to make the technological solution not only usable, but also useful

to a practice shared within a community, is sufficient to make knowledge

managing effective.

However, as it was made clear in the present work, knowledge is a socially

constructed phenomenon that thrives in the process of interpersonal

communication. Technology used to support the managing of knowledge won’t be

seen as effective from the people using it, unless they are also part of a vibrant

knowledge discourse, making the knowledge possessed by a community-of-

practice readily available to all community members.

The evaluation of the Learning Networks at the Countryside Agency was

exemplary of how widely accepted social ways of working and communicating

while working can inhibit the natural process of human knowledge. Overly

structuring the process of knowledge (as was seen in the ERCLN) can be

detrimental to knowledge being generated as a result of this. Precisely, in such

cases, there is no managing of knowledge within a community, but rather

managing of a project that has already been conceived, or managing of

information. Therefore, the Learning Networks designed to support such

communities, essentially deprived of autonomy and informal relationship building

(as it was conceived to be in the RAFELN), are perceived as ineffective and of

little or no use to individual work practice.

90

The widely accepted social ways of working in the public sector that constrain

attempts at managing knowledge within public sector organizations, are in terms

of the widely shared assumptions, values and beliefs within this sector. In other

words, the evaluation revealed that all members are struggling for time in order to

effectively participate in the Learning Network initiative. This is indicative of the

public sector culture, where individual initiative does not go a long way towards

genuinely collective practice.

Nevertheless, the here evaluated Learning Networks are only pilots. In this sense,

they are meant to be informative learning experiences for the Agency, so that

networks following them are better conceived, designed and facilitated.

In the present evaluation, the MTLN (Market Towns Learning Network) was

considered the most successful initiative, because it went the longest way towards

building a successful community-of-practice behind the learning network. In this

initiative, however, there was lack of recognition for the social foundations of

knowledge. In other words, there was a need for more frequent and regulated face-

to-face meetings among members, apart from them communicating on-line, so

that these members can get to know each other, in order to be able to use the

network as a knowledge tool and not mere information resource.

The potential for Communication Technology to optimize the knowledge

discourse within a community-of-practice is enormous. For it to work, however, it

is important to recognize the superiority of knowledge over information and the

impossibility of this to be used and generated, unless found within and among

people and not within any technological tools.

91

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APPENDICES

1. Appendix one: Interview format used for the interviews with Learning

Network facilitators

1. What is your position within the Countryside Agency?

2. In this position, please tell us about your:

a) main activities (e.g. practices):

b) main concerns (e.g. assumptions, values and beliefs):

3. How did you become facilitator of this LN?

4. How would you define the purpose of the Learning Network (LN) you are

facilitating?

5. How many members does this network have?

6. How would you define your role as facilitator?

7. How much time each week do you dedicate to the facilitation of the Learning

Network (LN)?

(please tick)

a. less than 5 hours

b. 5-10 hours

c. more than 10 hours

8. Would you like to have more time to facilitate the LN? Please explain why:

9. Please list the TEN most characteristic activities that you perform as part of

LN facilitation:

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

9)

10)

100

10. Next to each of the above listed activities, please place a letter according to

the following key:

a. less than once per month

b. between 1-5 times per month

c. between 1- 5 times per week

d. between 5-10 times per week

e. more than 10 times per week

11. Please explain what the aims and objectives of the LN you are facilitating are:

12. Please explain how these objectives are being achieved:

13. How would you characterize the participation of members into the LN? (e.g.

active, moderate, intensive, structured, friendly, strictly professional or semi-

personal, what is the level of involvement etc)

14. What proportion of this participation happens on-line, e.g. via the electronic

medium?

15. What are the processes and practices that members most often engage within?

(please list five or more, e.g. face-to-face meetings, discussion groups,

synchronous chat, asynchronous forums)

16. What proportion of these processes and practices happens electronically via

the extranet?

17. Please tell us about the functionality of the software that supports the LN you

facilitate:

18. Please explain how this functionality is being used by members:

19. What is your opinion of the software?

20. Within the electronic medium, how do members engage in processes and

practices and what do they engage in most often? (i.e. how do they connect,

synchronously or asynchronously, please supply a statistics summary, if these

is one)

21. What are the goals of these processes and how well are they met?

22. How do you know the LN members? Please explain the nature of interaction

among members: (e.g. dynamic or structured etc, by phone, face-to-face,

electronically, pub, what would be the preferred mode).

23. What proportion of members are active contributors and what ‘lurkers’?

(please provide statistics if possible)

24. Tell us what you think about the pattern of participation and communication

of members within the electronic medium that you have just described:

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25. How would you describe the motivation behind members’ participation?

26. Please explain what you enjoy most about LN facilitation:

27. Please explain what you enjoy least about the LN facilitation:

28. Is there anything that you would like to change about the way facilitation is

performed? What is it and why?

29. Regarding the above, is it within your power to change it, and if not, please

explain what stops you?

30. How comfortable are you with the facilitation of this LN?

a. extremely comfortable

b. very comfortable

c. comfortable

d. not very comfortable

e. not at all comfortable

31. Please explain the reasons for your response:

32. Tell us about the future of this LN:

32. Please explain anything else you would like to add:

2. Appendix two: Questionnaire format used to email to Learning Network

members. The format contains the EPQ questionnaire at the end.

Evaluation of Learning Networks

INTRODUCTION

Dear Member of (Market Towns/Equipping Rural Communities/Rural Affairs

Forum for England/) Learning Network,

My name is Nadia Loumbeva and I am a MSc student in Human-Computer

Interaction at University College London (UCL). I am conducting a qualitative

evaluation of your Learning Network. You may remember that this was recently

notified to you via email by …… (the Network Facilitator) and Barney Smith

(Knowledge Manager at the Countryside Agency). In addition, they solicited your

responses to the evaluation questions I am about to ask you within this email.

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This is because your responses are central and invaluable to the evaluation of the

Learning Network, as this is your Learning Network. Only by you responding will

we know what we are doing well and what we need to improve in the Learning

Network process, therefore what needs to be retained and what needs to be

changed in this process. Your responses will also help me complete my MSc

thesis.

Please take some time to respond to the questionnaire included within the body of

this email. It consists of 8 short sections and has been designed to be easy and

straightforward to complete. It should not take more than 45 minutes of your time.

PLEASE ALSO SEND YOUR REPLY BY EMAIL AT n.loumbeva@ucl.ac.uk

BY THE 5th

OF AUGUST 2002. Your responses are greatly appreciated.

The following questions concern the efficiency and effectiveness of the Learning

Network and your benefit from it. Please note that all responses will remain

absolutely ANONYMOUS, with all member email addresses destroyed and not

used for analysis purposes.

To assure you of the confidentiality of your responses, please email these back at

my university email account: n.loumbeva@ucl.ac.uk. I will be the only person

who has access to and analyses your responses and no one will be able to

personally identify you in documents that I will produce for my MSc thesis.

In addition, I will produce a summary report of the results that I will obtain from

the evaluation of your Learning Network. I WILL SEND THIS SUMMARY TO

EVERY MEMBER WHO PARTICIPATES IN THIS EVALUATION BY THE

15TH

SEPTEMBER 2002, provided that they indicate an interest in receiving it by

replying to the final question in the attached questionnaire.

Thank you ever so much for your participation.

Yours faithfully:

Nadia Loumbeva

******************************************************************

103

LEARNING NETWORK EVALUATION QUESTIONNAIRE

For all questions, please send your responses via email to my email address

(mailto: n.loumbeva@ucl.ac.uk) BY THE 5th

OF AUGUST 2002.

To do this, please send your responses by including them within this questionnaire

(i.e. ‘Learning Network Evaluation Questionnaire’). You can do this by ‘replying’

to this email to me and typing your responses below each question as these

questions appear within this questionnaire.

Please type the name of your Learning Network:

Please type your sex:

Please type your age:

For the following questions, please record your responses by typing into the

spaces left blank after each question.

Section 1: ABOUT YOURSELF AND YOUR INVOLVEMENT WITH THE

LEARNING NETWORK

1. What is your professional practice?

2. Please describe your current aims and concerns as part of your professional

practice:

3. What is your relationship to the Countryside Agency? Please select one or

more of the following alternatives that is/are most right for you by typing in

‘YES’ in the blank space after the alternative.

a) I am employed by the Agency

b) I am or have been working on a project/projects in partnership with the

Agency

c) I am or have been contracted by the Agency

d) I have no relationship to the Agency apart from that we work in the same

sector

e) Other (please indicate the exact nature of your relationship):

4. How did you become a member of the Learning Network? Please select one

or more of the following alternatives that is/are most right for you by typing

in ‘YES’ in the blank space after the alternative.

a) I was asked to become a member because of the organisation that I work for

104

b) I was asked to become a member because of the nature of my work

c) I asked to become a member because of the nature of my work

d) I was elected to be a member as a result of an application procedure that I

initiated

e) Other (please explain how otherwise you became a member of the Learning

Network):

5. What is the purpose of the Learning Network you are a member of?

6. What is the value of this purpose to your work?

7. How can you contribute to this purpose?

Section 2: HOW OFTEN YOU USE THE LEARNING NETWORK

8. How often do you log onto the network? Please select one of the following

alternatives that is most right for you by typing in ‘YES’ in the blank space

after the alternative.

a) less that once per month;

b) 1-5 times per month;

c) 1-5 times per week;

d) 5-10 times per week;

e) more than 10 times per week

9. Would you like to log onto the network more often than indicated?

a) If YES, please indicate what stops you:

b) If NO, please explain why you think your time of using the network is

sufficient:

Section 3: YOUR INTEREST IN USING THE LEARNING NETWORK

10a. Which feature of the Learning Network is of most interest to you? Please

select one or more of the following alternatives that is/are most right for you

by typing in ‘YES’ in the blank space after the alternative.

a) Discussion threads posted on the network

b) News

c) Events

d) Announcements from the Agency

e) Documents loaded for member use

105

f) Links

g) Chat

h) Electronic meeting

i) Teleconferences

j) Contacts

k) Brainstorming

l) Search

m) Other (please indicate what other feature is most use to you):

10b. Please explain why this/these particular feature(s) is/are of most interest to

you (i.e. regarding your response to the above question):

11. Are discussion threads on the network of interest to you at all?

a) If YES, please explain why:

b) If NO, please explain why:

12. Are documents loaded for use on the network of interest to you at all?

a) If YES, please explain why:

b) If NO, please explain why:

13a. How often do you make an active contribution to the network (e.g.

participate in discussion threads by putting up points for discussion or

comments to other members’ points)? Please select one of the following

alternatives that is most right for you by typing in ‘YES’ in the blank space

after the alternative.

a) every time I log on

b) every time (or almost) when the discussion is directly relevant to my work

c) from time to time because I think I should without this being of direct

relevance to my work and/or experience

d) from time to time because I have been asked

e) I never actively contribute

f) Other (please indicate an alternative that is not listed here):

13b. Please give reasons for the answer that you have indicated to the previous

question:

Section 4: HOW USEFUL YOU FIND THE LEARNING NETWORK

14. How is the learning network generally useful to you and your work?

106

15. If your use of the network is primarily to ACTIVELY CONTRIBUTE to

discussion threads and documents, please explain whether active contribution

from your part is useful and helpful to you in your work:

16. If your use of the network is primarily to READ discussion threads and

loaded documents on the network, but not necessarily actively contribute to

the network, please explain whether this in itself is useful and helpful to you

and your work:

17. How can the network become more useful and valuable to you?

Section 5: TECHNOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF YOUR USE OF THE NETWORK

18a. How would you describe the functionality of the network (i.e. does it let you

do what you want it to do for you)? Please select one of the following

alternatives that is most right for you by typing in ‘YES’ in the blank space

after the alternative.

a) Insufficient

b) Adequate

c) Good

d) Excellent

18b. Please give reasons for your answer to the previous question:

19a. How much does the technology infrastructure (e.g. the quality of the internet

connection) that you have access to impede your use of the network? Please

select one of the following alternatives that is most right for you by typing in

‘YES’ in the blank space after the alternative.

a) not at all

b) a little

c) not very much

d) to a great extent

e) to an extreme extent

19b. Please explain your answer to the previous question:

Section 6: YOU AND OTHER NETWORK MEMBERS AS A COMMUNITY

20a. Are you comfortable with the membership rules of the network?

20b. Please give reasons for your response to the question above:

107

21. How many other members do you know on the network? Please select one of

the following alternatives that is most right for you by typing in ‘YES’ in the

blank space after the alternative.

a) 1-10 members

b) 10-20 members

c) 20-30 members

d) 30-50 members

e) 50-100 members

f) more than 100 members

22. What is the nature of your relationship with those members?

23a. Would you like to know more people on the network? Please type ‘YES’ or

‘NO’.

23b. Please give reasons for your response to the question above:

24. How would you describe the interaction between members?

25a. Would you describe yourself as a committed member?

25b. Please give reasons for your response to the question above:

26a. Please comment on the size of the member community:

26b. Is the size of the member community TOO BIG for you to (Please select one

or more of the following alternatives that is most right for you by typing in

‘YES’ in the blank space after the alternative):

a) draw value from your participation (please specify how):

b) communicate with as many members as you would like:

c) initiate novelty and creativeness within the community:

d) other (please specify):

26c. Is the size of the community TOO SMALL for you to (Please select one or

more of the following alternatives that is most right for you by typing in

‘YES’ in the blank space after the alternative):

a) draw value from your participation (please specify how):

b) communicate with as many members as you would like:

c) initiate novelty and creativeness within the community:

d) other (please specify):

Section 7: YOUR OPINION OF NETWORK FACILITATION

25. Please describe your thoughts about the facilitation of the network:

108

26. How would you define the importance of the facilitator to the network?

27. Are you happy with the network facilitation?

a) If YES, please explain why:

b) If NO, please explain why:

28a. Is there anything that you would like to change about network facilitation?

28b. Please explain your response to the previous question:

29. Please explain how the facilitator has been helpful to you:

Section 8: YOUR OPINION OF THE LEARNING NETWORK POTENTIAL:

30. What would you like to change about this network?

31a. How much of the information received via the network do you apply/draw

upon in your practice? Please select one or more of the following alternatives

that is most right for you by typing in ‘YES’ in the blank space after the

alternative.

a) I draw upon/apply everything that can be found on the network in my practice

b) I draw upon/apply most of what can be found on the network in my practice

c) I draw upon/apply a moderate amount of what can be found on the network in

my practice

d) I draw upon/apply a little of what can be found on the network in my practice

e) I do not draw upon or apply anything that can be found on the network in my

practice

31b. Regarding the above, please explain what it is that can be found on the

network that you draw upon/apply in your practice:

32. In your opinion, what additional information currently not provided by the

network should be available for use by members?

33. What is the most useful aspect of the network?

34. Do you enjoy participating?

a) If YES, please explain why:

b) If NO, please explain why:

35. What is your motivation behind using the network?

FINAL POINT

36. Please add any further comments that you may think are useful to this

evaluation:

109

Thank you very much for your responses so far. Here follows a group of short

questions that describe your personal style and temperament. They should not take

more than 10 minutes. By completing these questions, you will make a great

contribution towards the evaluation of your Learning Network. Your responses to

these questions will also greatly help my research towards completion of my MSc

thesis.

Please answer each question by typing in ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ in the blank space that

follows it. When answering the questions, please choose the alternative that is

most right for you without thinking too much about your answers.

1. Are you a talkative person?

2. If you say you will do something, do you always keep your promise no matter

how inconvenient it may be?

3. Do you ever feel ‘just miserable’ for no reason?

4. Are you rather lively?

5. Were you ever greedy by helping yourself to more than your share of

anything?

6. Does your mood often go up and down?

7. Are you an irritable person?

8. Do you enjoy meeting new people?

9. Have you ever blamed someone for doing something you knew was really your

fault?

10. Are your feelings easily hurt?

11. Can you usually let yourself go and enjoy yourself at a lively party?

12. Are all your habits good and desirable ones?

13. Do you often feel ‘fed-up’?

14. Do you usually take the initiative in making new friends?

15. Have you ever taken anything (even a pin or button) that belonged to

someone else?

16. Would you call yourself a nervous person?

17. Can you easily get some life into a rather dull party?

18. Have you ever broken or lost something belonging to someone else?

19. Are you a worrier?

20. Do you tend to keep in the background on social occasions?

21. Have you ever said anything bad or nasty about anyone?

110

22. Would you call yourself tense or highly strung?

23. Do you like mixing with people?

24. As a child were you ever cheeky to your parents?

25. Do you worry too long after an embarrassing experience?

26. Do you like plenty of bustle and excitement around you?

27. Have you ever cheated at a game?

28. Do you suffer from ‘nerves’?

29. Have you ever taken advantage of someone?

30. Are you mostly quiet when you are with other people?

31. Do you often feel lonely?

32. Do other people think of you as being very lively?

33. Do you always practice what you preach?

34. Are you often troubled about feelings of guilt?

35. Do you sometimes put off until tomorrow what you ought to do today?

36. Can you get a party going?

Please indicate whether you are interested in receiving by email a summary report

of the results that will be obtained from this evaluation (please indicate by typing

‘YES’ or ‘NO’):

There are no more questions. Thank you very much for participating!

111

3. Appendix three: Tables and Graphs summarizing member responses to the

email questionnaire for the Market Towns Learning Network

Table 1

Nature of membership of the Market Towns Learning Network (Countryside Agency staff,

partners, contractors and members having no relationship to the Agency other than working in the

same sector) according to the way in which membership was acquired for use and the amount of

information found useful that is received via the network. Thirty-two of all the thirty-three

members who responded to the evaluation questionnaire answered these questions.

CA

staff

CA

partners

CA

contractors

No

relationship

TOTAL

I was asked to become a member

because of the organization that I

work for

6

2

1

1

10

I was asked to become a member

because of the nature of my work

3

8

3

2

16

I asked to become a member

because of the nature of my work

1

1

0

0

2

I was elected to be a member after

an application procedure that I

initiated

0

0

0

0

0

I was automatically assigned

membership

1

0

1

2

4

TOTAL

11 11 5 5 32

I draw upon/apply everything that

can be found on the network in my

practice

0

0

0

0

0

I draw upon/apply most of what

can be found on the network in my

practice

2

3

0

0

5

I draw upon/apply a moderate

amount of what can be found on the

network in my practice

2

4

3

2

11

I draw upon/apply a little of what

can be found on the network in my

practice

4

1

1

3

9

I do not draw upon or apply

anything that can be found on the

network in my practice

0

2

1

0

3

TOTAL 8 10 5 5 28

112

Table 2

Usefulness appraisals according to the way in which membership was acquired. All usefulness

appraisals were qualitatively obtained as answers to the question: “ How is the Learning Network

generally useful to you and your work?”. They were classified in four categories: 1. Very useful

(e.g. “Extremely!”, “…find the network an efficient & effective means of keeping informed &

motivated”), 2. Reasonably useful/more active members needed (e.g. “It is, but it would be much

more useful if more people contributed.”, “Reasonably useful but has potentially more use if used

actively by all.”, “…but it could be better – it’s simply not used enough by the bulk of the

members”), 3. Somewhat useful/not central to my work (e.g. “Generally helpful”, “Of limited

usefulness, because much of my work is in large towns rather than market towns”, “…of some

importance but not crucial” ), 4. Not useful (e.g. “Not really”, “Not at present. Information is hard

to find, and responses to items posted are erratic and irregular.”). Thirty-one of all thirty-three

members who responded answered this question.

Very

useful

Reasonably

useful/more

active

members

Somewhat

useful

/not central

to work

Not useful TOTAL

I was asked to become a member

because of the organization that I

work for

0

2

5

2

9

I was asked to become a member

because of the nature of my work

3

3

8

1

15

I asked to become a member

because of the nature of my work

2

0

0

0

2

I was elected to be a member

after an application procedure

that I initiated

0

0

0

0

0

I was automatically assigned

membership

1

1

1

0

3

Members not providing a

response about their way of

getting involved with the network

1

0

0

1

2

TOTAL 7 6 14 4 31

113

Table 3

Extraversion, Neuroticism and Social desirability scores available for 25 of the 33 respondents to

the Market Towns Learning Network evaluation questionnaire. Average scores are given for all 25

respondents, as well as for 11 males and 14 females. Standard deviations from the average are

given in brackets. Average age for each group is displayed. Females appear to be much more

extraverted than males and much more stable in their scores as a group. In contrast, males appear

to be less neurotic than females and more stable in their scores on this variable as a group. Finally,

males score higher on Social Desirability than females, both groups being equally stable in their

scores on this variable.

Number Age Extraversion Neuroticism Social

desirability

All

respondents

25

30,08

7,92 (2,83)

3,64 (2,43)

4,48 (2,58)

Males

11 34 6,9 (3,08) 3,7 (1,9) 5 (2,7)

Females

14 41,3 9,2 (1,9) 4,4 (2,9) 3,8 (2,4)

Table 4 (on the next page)

Frequency of logging onto the Market Towns Learning Network and reasons for

considering the time allowed sufficient/insufficient according to EPQ

Extraversion score (max 12). The majority of respondents (17 members as

opposed to 7) are extraverted rather that introverted. This, however, has no

apparent effect on their frequency of logging onto the network and using the

material provided because of other more powerful factors related to their working

practice: time pressures and work structuring in terms of generally accepted

routines and practices, as well as their need for face-to-face communication.

114

Extraversion

(EPQ score)

Sex Age

range

Frequency of logging onto the network

website

Reasons for wishing to log/not log more

often

10 – 12

(3 members)

1 M

2 F

32 – 41 less than once per month (2 members)

1-5 times per month (1 member)

Work pressures and time constraints (1 member); I

get all I need in the time I devote (2 members)

8 – 10

(9 members)

3 M

6 F

22 – 62 less than once per month (2 members)

1-5 times per month (2 members)

1-5 times per week (4 members)

more than 10 times per week (1 member)

Have to type e-mail every time/discussions difficult

to follow (2 members); Lack of time/forget about it

(4 members); A couple of times per week/every other

day is more than enough to contribute effectively to

the network (2 members); 1 member not given

reasons

6 – 8

(5 members)

3 M

2 F

24 – 49 less than once per month (2 members)

1-5 times per month (2 members)

1 member not responded

Human contact/face-to-face personal networks can

help me get the support I need (2 members);

Currently not great deal on of value (1 member); I

get all I need into time (1 member); Time constraints

(1 member)

4 – 6

(4 members)

3 M

1 F

27 – 36 less than once per month (1 member)

1-5 times per month (2 members)

1-5 times per week (1 member)

Time constraints (3 members); Information does not

suit individual needs/sterile environment in which to

gather ideas/ technology cumbersome (1 member)

2 – 4

(2 members)

2 M 45 – 57 1-5 times per month (both members)

Time constraints (2 members)

0 – 2

(1 member)

1 M 40 1-5 times per week Lack of time/need for a fundamental change in

working practice (1 member)

115

Table 5 (on the next page)

Frequency of adding to discussion threads, approximate number of other members known as part

of participating in the Market Towns community and appraisals of self-commitment to the Market

Towns community purpose, all according to EPQ Extraversion scores. Number of members

indicating pre-specified responses are indicated in brackets after each type of response. Age and

sex of respondents is also given. There is no apparent relationship between these variables and

Extraversion. This is because, according to members’ responses, time and direct relevance of

discussions posted on the network to present work commitments, as well as particular interest in

the topic, are most powerful factors in posting comments on the network. As one member put it:

“This can be a sporadic process and I can go several weeks without commenting on anything and

then be caught up in a flurry of activity the week after.” (E=10).

In this way, for personal style differences to influence the rate of active contribution of individuals

on the network, there need to be conditions for on-going communication and discursive community

development, so that personality can be found at work in a dynamic process of community building

and knowledge creation, by probably influencing the number of people indicated as known on the

network and the nature of relationship to them. Such conditions exist in the direct relevance of

discussion matter to the on-going work (provided that there is genuine interest in this work), as

well as social structure facilitations in terms of time sufficiently allowed to participate and means

for direct, face-to-face communication.

Although a fair amount of respondents indicated commitment to the Market Towns community

purpose, they also explained in answers to an additional question that the network is a good

information source, but has limited value as a communication tool, and that there is very little

interaction, mainly because people don’t really know how to approach each other. Some members

indicated that they are enthusiastic for the principle of having a community supported by the

network, rather than committed to it as it is currently, expecting that it will get better. One member

also said in her responses: “I will commit to going to meetings and have offered time to help

organise future meetings.”

116

Extraversion

(EPQ score)

Sex Age

range

Frequency of active contribution

(adding to discussions)

Other members

known on the

network

Commitment

(“Are you a committed

member?”) 10 – 12

(3 members)

1 M

2 F

32 – 41 Rarely (2 members); Never (1) 1-10 members known (2

respondents); 10-20

members (1);

Yes – 1 member

No – 2 members

8 – 10

(9 members)

3 M

6 F

22 – 62 Every time I log on (1 member); Every time

when the discussion is directly relevant to my

work (2); From time to time because I think I

should without this being of direct relevance

to my work (1); From time to time because I

have been asked (1); Occasionally (2); Not

active ye but plan to become so (1); I never

actively contribute (1)

1-10 members (3

respondents); 10-20

members (4); 20-30 (1);

30-50 members (1); 50-

100 members (1)

Yes – 2 members

Getting there! – 2 members

No – 4 members

1 member not responded

6 – 8

(5 members)

3 M

2 F

24 – 49 Every time when the discussion is directly

relevant (1 member); Rarely (1); Not active

but plant to become so (1); Never (2)

1-10 members (3

respondents); 10-20

members (2)

Yes – 1 member

To team yes. To Learning Network

as much as time allows – 1 member

No – 2 members

1 member not responded

4 – 6

(4 members)

3 M

1 F

27 – 36 Every time the discussion is relevant (1

member); From time-to-time because I think I

should (1); Rarely (1); Never (1)

1-10 members (2

respondents); 10-20

members (1); more than

100 members (1)

Yes, willing to be more so – 1

member

Fair – 1 member

I would, because of considerable

merits – 1 member

No – 1 member

2 – 4

(2 members)

2 M 45 – 57 Every time when the discussion is directly

relevant (2 members);

1-10 members (both

respondents)

Yes – both members

0 – 2

(1 member)

1 M 40 Every time when the discussion is directly

relevant (1 member)

10-20 members Yes in so far as workload permits

117

Table 6 (on the next page)

Appraisals of the functionality of the Market Towns Learning Network website and the extent to

which the technology infrastructure available to members for access to the website impedes their

use of the network, according to EPQ scores for Neuroticism (max 12). The majority of

respondents are situated in the lower end of the Neuroticism dimension (22 as opposed to 3).

Appraisals of website functionality are according to respondent choices for pre-specified answers

(insufficient, adequate, good, excellent) to the question: “How would you describe the

functionality of the network?”.

Appraisals of technology infrastructure are according to respondent choices to pre-specified

answers (not at all, a little, not very much, to a great extent, to an extreme extent) to the question:

“How much does the technology infrastructure impede your use of the network?”. Website

functionality was described as easy to use and accessible by some members; others note that the

search function is little use, that the site is generally slow, difficult to navigate and read, that you

often get timed out and loose what you have entered, that “we have had no training in its use”, that

“having passwords to access is extremely frustrating and gets in the way” and that “it needs to be

more sophisticated, e.g. show you which items you’ve not read in the sub-sections”. Technology

infrastructure has on the overall been described as “decent” and facilitatory (high speed,

broadband connection etc.); however, some members describe the system as slow at some times

and one member notes that “folks in rural areas do not have access to broadband technology so

navigation can be extremely slow”. Some members also noted problems with composing

discussion comments and answers, where “you are supposed to compose a word document and

then attach this”. Neuroticism appears to be generally unrelated to the extent to which technology

is experienced as a problem to online communication. This is probably because, as already noted,

the network is not central to the majority of respondents’ work.

118

Neuroticism

(EPQ score)

Sex Age range Functionality appraisal

(“How would you describe the

functionality of the network?”)

Technology infrastructure

appraisal in terms of impeding use

of the network

10-12

(0 members)

-

-

-

-

8-10

(1 member)

1F

26

Adequate Not very much

6-8

(2 members)

2F

24-36

Insufficient (1 respondent)

Good (1)

A little (1 respondent)

Not very much (1)

4-6

(5 members)

2F

3M

32-51

Insufficient (1 respondent)

Adequate (2)

Good (1)

Excellent (1)

Not at all (4 respondents)

A little (1)

2-4

(9 members)

3F

6M

28-57

Insufficient (2 respondents)

Adequate (3)

Good (4)

Not at all (6 respondents)

A little (2)

To a great extent (1)

0-2

(8 members)

3F

5M

22-42

Insufficient (1 respondent)

Adequate (2)

Good (3)

2 not responded

Not at all (3 respondents)

A little (3)

Not very much (1)

1 not responded

120

Graph 1

Graph depicting the popularity of functionality features provided by the Market Towns Learning

Network web site with those members who responded to the evaluation questionnaire. Each

functionality feature is related to the number of members expressing an interest in using this

feature and finding it useful.

LN functionality features plotted against most

interest expresed by members of MTLN within their

responses

0

5

10

15

20

25

Discu

ssion

thre

ads

Doc

umen

ts

New

s

Con

tacts

Eve

nts

Link

s

Brainstor

ming

Annou

ncem

ents

Sea

rch

Electro

nic m

eetin

gsCha

t

New

item

s

Res

earc

h ite

ms

Telec

onfe

renc

es

Functionality

Use (

No

of

mem

bers

exp

ressin

g a

n in

tere

st)

121

Graph 2

Appraisals of network functionality, according to pre-specified responses chosen by members who

returned completed evaluation questionnaires.

Member responses to the question: "How would you

describe the functionality of the network (i.e. does it

let you do what you want it to do)?

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Insufficient Adequate Good Excellent

Functionality appraisals

Nu

mb

er

of

res

po

ns

es

pe

r

typ

e o

f a

pp

rais

al

Graph 3

Appraisals of the infrastructure enabling the use of the Learning Network for those members who

responded to the evaluation questionnaire, according to pre-specified responses that they chose.

Member responses to the question: "How much does

the technology infrastructure (e.g. the quality of the

internet connection) impede your use of the

network?"

02468

10121416

Not at all A little Not very

much

To a great

extent

To an

extreme

extent

How much technology infrastructure constrains network

use

Nu

mb

er

of

res

po

ns

es

fo

r

ea

ch

ca

teg

ory

122

4. Appendix four: Table summarizing data obtained for the Equipping Rural

Communities Learning Network

Table 7 (on the next page)

Relationship to the Countryside Agency (CA) according to Equipping Rural Communities

Learning Network membership acquisition, rate of using the network website, rate of adding to

discussions and perceived benefit from participating in the network. Data were obtained for 7

respondents to the evaluation questionnaire (age range between 27-50). 5 respondents were males

and 2 females. EPQ scores are available for 5 of these respondents. For Extraversion (max 12): 0-

2 (2 members), 4-8 (2 members), 8-10 (1 member). Therefore the respondent population is

relatively introverted rather than extraverted and this conclusion cannot be generalized across the

whole Learning Network community because of the very small number of respondents. For

Neuroticism (max 12): 0-2 (1 member), 2-4 (2 members), 4-8 (1 member), 8-10 (1 member),

respondents are relatively low on this personal style variable and again the small number of

respondents makes impossible the generalizing of this observation to the whole community and

the drawing of conclusions regarding the influence of personal style on member participation and

community development. Discussion threads posted on the network were indicated as the most

useful feature, followed by documents loaded for member use. Time was revealed as the main

constraint to logging on the network website more often and actively contributing, as well as

“forgetting that it is there!”, which indicates the low integration of the network within the working

culture of members and the non-existent conditions for community of interest to develop and then

be supported by the network. 1 member referred to the network as mainly “an information

gathering exercise”, where it is hard to put views across if they have not been approved by line

management (again this indicates that members are not allowed a healthy autonomy to foster,

engage and create the community process to generate knowledge). Most members indicated that

there are not enough contributions to the network and 1 member said that contributions are just

opinions with no impact on policy development (“discussions are mainly just gossip and daft

opinions”), thus describing the community process as defeating its original purpose. Regarding the

benefit of network participation to members, most of them indicated that they are not interested in

the purpose of the network as a whole, but rather in some and not other of the specific topics set

by the facilitator over time; this removes member opportunity for action learning.

123

CA staff

2 members

CA

partners

2 members

CA

contractors

1 member

No

relationship

to CA

2 members

TOTAL

7

members

Membership

acquisition

I was asked because of

the organization that I

work for

1(“I felt I was

helping out a fledging

project”)

1

2

I was asked because of

the nature of my work

1

1

1

2

5

Use

Less than once per month

1 1 1 3

1-5 times per month 2 (“for the topic

I was involved

in”)

1

3

1-5 times per week

1 1

Active contribution

Every time the discussion

is directly relevant to my

work

1

1

2

From time to time

because I think I should

1

1

2

4

From time to time

because I have been

asked

1

1

Benefit

I apply most of what can

be found on the network

in my practice

1

1

I apply a moderate

amount of what can be

found on the network in

my practice

1

1

I apply a little of what

can be found on the

network in my practice

2

1

1

4

124

5. Appendix five: Table summarizing data obtained from email questionnaire

responses for the Rural Affairs Forum for England Learning Network

Table 8

(on the next page)

Relationship to the Countryside Agency (CA) according to the Rural Affairs Forum for England

Learning Network membership acquisition, rate of network website use, rate of active contribution

and perceived benefit from network community participation.

Data were obtained for 4 members: Extraversion (max 12) = 4, 8, 12, 1 member not available;

Neuroticism (max 12) = 1, 2, 5, 1 member not available; age range = 36-73. Personal style data

cannot be generalized to the whole network community because of the very small number of

respondents to the network evaluation questionnaire.

Time was indicated as the main factor impeding network use and active contribution, as well as the

network not currently working in the way originally intended. Documents loaded for member use

appeared to be most popular with the respondents and 1 member indicated that he uses the network

to “pass these documents onto the departments that deal with those topics”, thus revealing the

usefulness of the network as an information, rather than knowledge, source. Apart from

documents, information on government policy and minutes and statements from interested groups

were also indicated of practical use.

In addition, another respondent expressed an expectation of the network to become more useful for

knowledge, rather than information, purposes, when the Rural Affairs sub-groups start their work

(this could be because of the greater cohesion among community members that would be brought

about by them sharing very similar concerns in terms of their belonging to the same geographical

region). Interaction among members was described as limited and minimal where people are just

acquaintances and not relations and where the size of the community is too big in order to bridge

across different opinions during network meetings.

Finally, one member expressed the view that the network has the potential to be very powerful,

provided that there is a “strong community of interest to be the virtual embodiment of a strong

physical community”, where conditions for “physical” community development, in terms of

effective development of interpersonal relations, need to exist in order for the virtual community to

be perceived as optimizing the “physical” process of knowledge creation.

125

CA staff

(none)

CA partners

(3 members)

CA

contractors

(none)

No

relationship

to CA

(1 members)

TOTAL

(4

members)

Membership

acquisition

I was asked because of

the organization that I

work for

2

1

3

I was asked because of

the nature of my work

1

1

Use

1-5 times per month

2

1

3

1-5 times per week

1 1

Active contribution

Every time the discussion

is directly relevant to my

work

1

1

From time to time

because I think I should

1

1

I never actively

contribute

1

1 2

Benefit

I apply most of what can

be found on the network

in my practice

1

1

I apply a moderate

amount of what can be

found on the network in

my practice

1

1

2

I do not apply anything

found on the network in

my practice

1

1