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from
Nadejda Ognianova Loumbeva
of
Master
of
Science
(Human-Computer
Interaction
with
II
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.
III
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
3.3. Conclusions .. 30
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
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
V
References .. 91
Appendices . 99
VI
LIST OF TABLES
VII
Part I
Introduction
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.
6
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
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 firms 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.
10
12
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 (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
13
Lave and Wenger, 1991) and organizational knowledge found within organizations (e.g. as
described by Tsoukas and Vladimirou, 2001).
14
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 communitiesof-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 communitieshave little hierarchy; the only real status is that of a memberare
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).
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-ofpractice, 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 socioconstructivist 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.
17
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 learners need to situate the decomposed task in the context of the overall social practice. (p.
233)
18
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.
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
19
21
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
Products
Product platforms
Teams
Communities-of-practice
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 autonomy6 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
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.
22
and
interpretation
in
practice7.
This
reconnection,
when
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 peoples 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.
23
24
25
action. It is always knowledge to some end. And third, knowledge, unlike information, is about
meaning. It is context-specific and relational. (p.58).
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.
26
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.
27
10
A discourse, in this sense, is a social exchange process, where people engage in multiple
interactions by talking about issues of interest.
28
29
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.
30
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
31
knowledge
shared
by
individuals
that
makes
possible
the
perceived
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.
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
32
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 cant 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.
33
We can learn such meanings by getting involved in the context (e.g. a communityof-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 wont 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.
34
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 others 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).
35
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).
36
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 sociotechnical 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 sociotechnical 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).
37
EX
EXPLICIT
TACIT
INDIVIDUAL
GROUP
CONCEPTS
STORIES
SKILLS
GENRES
38
21
39
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).
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.
40
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,
41
42
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 Polanyis notion that all knowledge is personal with
Wittgensteins 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).
43
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).
44
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 affordance28 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.
28
45
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.
46
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.
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 dont 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
peoples 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
49
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.
50
as
criteria
for
evaluating
knowledge-managing
initiatives
using
51
52
53
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-ofpractice, 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
54
55
Part III
Learning Networks at the
Countryside Agency
Market Towns Learning Network
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.
57
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.
58
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).
59
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).
62
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
63
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.
64
65
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
66
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.
67
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
68
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 ones 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 wont be
effectively used unless the network is endowed with a vibrant social community
behind it.
69
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-ofpractice, 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
70
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 selffulfilling 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
71
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.
72
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
74
75
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-ofpractice, 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
76
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
77
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 selffulfilling 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.
78
79
80
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
81
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.
82
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-ofpractice, 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.
83
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 peoples 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
84
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 selffulfilling 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.
85
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.
86
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.
88
phenomenon
that
thrives in
the
process of
interpersonal
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 faceto-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.
90
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Massachusetts
98
APPENDICES
1. Appendix one: Interview format used for the interviews with Learning
Network facilitators
99
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 semipersonal, 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:
100
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.
e.
101
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
******************************************************************
102
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.
1.
2.
Please describe your current aims and concerns as part of your professional
practice:
3.
a)
d) I have no relationship to the Agency apart from that we work in the same
sector
e)
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
103
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.
7.
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)
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:
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)
b) News
c)
Events
f)
Links
g) Chat
h) Electronic meeting
i)
Teleconferences
j)
Contacts
k) Brainstorming
l)
Search
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
14. How is the learning network generally useful to you and your work?
105
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)
d) to a great extent
e)
to an extreme extent
20a. Are you comfortable with the membership rules of the network?
20b. Please give reasons for your response to the question above:
106
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)
25. Please describe your thoughts about the facilitation of the network:
107
26. How would you define the importance of the facilitator to the network?
27. Are you happy with the network facilitation?
a)
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)
FINAL POINT
36. Please add any further comments that you may think are useful to this
evaluation:
108
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.
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!
110
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
I was asked to become a member
because of the organization that I
work for
CA
partners
CA
contractors
No
relationship
TOTAL
10
16
11
11
32
11
TOTAL
10
28
TOTAL
111
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 its 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
TOTAL
Reasonably
useful/more
active
members
TOTAL
15
14
31
112
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.
113
Extraversion Sex
(EPQ score)
Age
range
Frequency of logging onto the network Reasons for wishing to log/not log more
website
often
10 12
(3 members)
1M
2F
32 41
8 10
(9 members)
3M
6F
22 62
68
(5 members)
3M
2F
24 49
46
(4 members)
3M
1F
27 36
24
(2 members)
2M
45 57
02
(1 member)
1M
40
114
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 dont 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.
115
Extraversion Sex
(EPQ score)
Age
range
Other members
known on the
network
Commitment
(Are you a committed
member?)
10 12
(3 members)
1M
2F
32 41
Yes 1 member
No 2 members
8 10
(9 members)
3M
6F
22 62
1-10 members (3
respondents); 10-20
members (4); 20-30 (1);
30-50 members (1); 50100 members (1)
Yes 2 members
Getting there! 2 members
No 4 members
1 member not responded
68
(5 members)
3M
2F
24 49
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
46
(4 members)
3M
1F
27 36
1-10 members (2
respondents); 10-20
members (1); more than
100 members (1)
24
(2 members)
2M
45 57
02
(1 member)
1M
40
10-20 members
116
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 youve 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.
117
Neuroticism
(EPQ score)
Sex
Age range
10-12
(0 members)
8-10
(1 member)
1F
26
6-8
(2 members)
2F
24-36
4-6
(5 members)
2F
3M
32-51
2-4
(9 members)
3F
6M
28-57
0-2
(8 members)
3F
5M
22-42
Functionality appraisal
Technology infrastructure
(How would you describe the appraisal in terms of impeding use
functionality of the network?)
of the network
-
Adequate
Insufficient (1 respondent)
Good (1)
A little (1 respondent)
Not very much (1)
Insufficient (1 respondent)
Adequate (2)
Good (1)
Excellent (1)
Insufficient (2 respondents)
Adequate (3)
Good (4)
Insufficient (1 respondent)
Adequate (2)
Good (3)
2 not responded
118
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.
Functionality
120
C
Ne hat
w
R
it
es
ea em
s
Te rch
ite
le
co
m
s
nf
er
en
ce
s
isc
us
si
on
th
re
ad
oc
s
um
en
ts
N
ew
s
C
on
ta
ct
s
Ev
en
ts
Li
Br
nk
ai
ns
s
An
to
r
no
m
in
un
g
ce
m
en
El
ts
ec
Se
tro
ar
ni
ch
c
m
ee
tin
gs
Graph 2
Appraisals of network functionality, according to pre-specified responses chosen by members who
returned completed evaluation questionnaires.
Adequate
Good
Excellent
Functionality appraisals
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.
A little
Not very
much
To a great
extent
To an
extreme
extent
121
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): 02 (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.
122
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
helping out a
fledging
project)
Use
Less than once per month
1-5 times per month
Active contribution
Every time the discussion
is directly relevant to my
work
From time to time
because I think I should
From time to time
because I have been
asked
Benefit
I apply most of what can
be found on the network
in my practice
I apply a moderate
amount of what can be
found on the network in
my practice
I apply a little of what
can be found on the
network in my practice
1
1
123
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.
124
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
I was asked because of
the nature of my work
Use
1-5 times per month
2
1-5 times per week
Active contribution
Every time the discussion
is directly relevant to my
work
From time to time
because I think I should
I never actively
contribute
Benefit
I apply most of what can
be found on the network
in my practice
I apply a moderate
amount of what can be
found on the network in
my practice
I do not apply anything
found on the network in
my practice
125