journal of organizational change management

Journal of

OrganizationalChangeManagementChange and continuity in writingabout change and continuityGuest Editors: Pauline Gleadle, Nelarine Cornelius, Eric Pezet and Graeme Salaman

Volume 20 Number 4 2007

ISSN 0953-4814

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jocm cover (i).qxd 02/07/2007 11:02

Access this journal online __________________________ 471

Editorial advisory board ___________________________ 472

Guest editorialPauline Gleadle, Nelarine Cornelius, Eric Pezet and Graeme Salaman _____ 473

Freedom and autonomy in the university enterpriseTodd Bridgman ________________________________________________ 478

Managers as lazy, stupid careerists? Contestation andstereotypes among software engineersDariusz Jemielniak ______________________________________________ 491

Knowledge workers in the in-between: networkidentitiesTara Fenwick __________________________________________________ 509

Borders of “the boundaryless career”Julie Sommerlund and Sami Boutaiba_______________________________ 525

Knowledge management in a New Zealand treefarming company: ambiguity and resistance to the“technology solution”Alan Lowe and Andrea McIntosh __________________________________ 539

Journal of

Organizational ChangeManagement

Change and continuity in writing about changeand continuity

Guest EditorsPauline Gleadle, Nelarine Cornelius, Eric Pezet and Graeme Salaman

ISSN 0953-4814

Volume 20Number 42007

CONTENTS

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Responding to crisis through strategic knowledgemanagementDuncan Shaw, Matthew Hall, John S. Edwards andBrad Baker ____________________________________________________ 559

Contested practice: multiple inclusion in double-knitorganizationsIrma Bogenrieder and Peter van Baalen _____________________________ 579

Book review_______________________________________ 596

Call for papers ____________________________________ 600

CONTENTScontinued

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Journal of Organizational ChangeManagementVol. 20 No. 4, 2007p. 472#Emerald Group Publishing Limited0953-4814

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

James BarkerHQ USAFA/DFMColorado Springs, USA

David BarryUniversity of Auckland, New Zealand

Jean BartunekBoston College, USA

Dominique BessonIAE de Lille, France

Steven BestUniversity of Texas-El Paso, USA

Michael BokenoMurray State University, Kentucky, USA

Mary BoyceUniversity of Redlands, USA

Warner BurkeColumbia University, USA

Adrian CarrUniversity of Western Sydney-Nepean, Australia

Stewart CleggUniversity of Technology (Sydney), Australia

David CollinsUniversity of Essex, UK

Cary CooperLancaster University Management School, Lancaster,UK

Ann L. CunliffeUniversity of New Mexico, Albuquerque

Robert DennehyPace University, USA

Eric DentUniversity of Maryland University College, Adelphi,USA

Alexis DownsThe Business School, Emporia State University,Kansas, USA

Ken EhrensalKutztown University, USA

Max EldenUniversity of Houston, USA

Andre M. EverettUniversity of Otago, New Zealand

Dale FitzgibbonsIllinois State University, USA

Jeffrey FordOhio State University, USA

Jeanie M. ForrayWestern New England College, USA

Carolyn GardnerKutztown University, USA

Robert GephartUniversity of Alberta, Canada

Clive GilsonUniversity of Waikato, New Zealand

Andy GrimesLexington, Kentucky, USA

Usha C.V. HaleySchool of Business, University of New Haven, USA

Heather HopflProfessor of Management, University of Essex, UK

Maria HumphriesUniversity of Waikato, New Zealand

Arzu IseriBogazici University, Turkey

David JamiesonPepperdine University, USA

Campbell JonesManagement Centre, University of Leicester, UK

David KnightsKeele University, UK

Monika KosteraVaxjo University, Sweden

Hugo LeticheUniversity for Humanist Studies, Utrecht,The Netherlands

Benyamin LichtensteinUniversity of Hartford, Connecticut, USA

Stephen A. LinsteadDurham Business School, University of Durham, UK

Slawek MagalaErasmus University, The Netherlands

Rickie MooreE.M. Lyon, France

Ken MurrellUniversity of West Florida, USA

Eric NielsenCase Western Reserve University, USA

Walter NordUniversity of South Florida, USA

Ellen O’ConnorChronos Associates, Los Altos, California, USA

Cliff OswickKing’s College, University of London, UK

Ian PalmerUniversity of Technology (Sydney), Australia

Michael PeronThe University of Paris, Sorbonne, France

Gavin M. SchwarzUniversity of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Abraham ShaniCalifornia Polytechnic State University, USA

Ralph StableinMassey University, New Zealand

Carol SteinerMonash University, Australia

David S. SteingardSt Joseph’s University, USA

Ram TenkasiBenedictine University, USA

Tojo Joseph ThatchenkeryGeorge Mason University, Fairfax, USA

Christa WalckMichigan Technological University, USA

Richard WoodmanGraduate School of Business, Texas A&M University,USA

Guest editorial

Change and continuity in writing about change and continuityIntroduction to special issue on “Change, identity and employment: the role ofknowledge”We have six papers in this special issue on “Change, identity and employment: the roleof knowledge”. The first four papers explore identity and change with respect todifferent kinds of knowledge worker ranging from business school academics andsoftware engineers to various types of contract worker and microbiologists. The lasttwo papers address knowledge management in two quite different organizations, aNew Zealand tree farming company and the UK Mortgage Code Compliance Board(MCCB). All six papers are crucially concerned with the role of knowledge, specificallywith issues around change, identity and employment.

Todd Bridgman’s paper on business school academics puts us under the microscopejust as we ourselves do later in this editorial. Todd argues that at the level ofgovernment policy, enterprise is narrowly defined in commercial terms. However,people can be enterprising in different ways, some of which openly challenge thenarrow definition of enterprise put forward by government and affirm the role ofthe autonomous and critical academic. The “enterprise” literature (du Gay, Nik Rose,Barbara Townley and others) notes that enterprise operates at three different butinter-related levels – polity, organisational structures and relationships, employeeidentity an subjectivity, and that the relationships between these levels representimportant focii of analysis and research. Organisations structured in terms of theprescriptions of the enterprise literature may not be enterprising and employees may ormay not be enterprising. Bridgman’s article not only raises questions about theprevalence and implications of enterprising behaviour within academic contexts; italso raises more fundamental questions about the highly problematical nature of thelinks between organisational and individual levels of enterprise and about the nature,origins and implications of pervasive and dominant conceptions of the enterprisingemployee.

The next paper by Dariusz Jemielniak on “Lazy, stupid careerists” stands in thelong tradition of ethnographic writing going back to Donald Roy and Egon Bitner andothers – and more recently Julian Orr. The paper concerns the existence of a workgroup, software engineers, with distinctive attitudes at odds with management.However, despite this apparent stand-off between groups with different even opposedvalue systems and priorities, an accommodation has been found between the twogroups as illustrated in two cameos. In the first, the HR manager is talking to the newrecruits on their first day at the firm and she makes it clear that while company rulesand procedures exist, management does not expect software engineers to spend muchtime worrying about these. In the second cameo, a group of very formal Japaneseclients shows itself to be delighted by the contrariness displayed by the softwareengineers in the study. The software engineers perhaps engage in posturing as despitetheir apparent contempt for management, there is little evidence in the paper that theychoose to leave their organisations. So, while they insist on their own autonomy, thereexists a negotiated order characterised in fact by a lack of change.

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Tara Fenwick’s paper is concerned with the aftermath of the massive organizationalrestructuring in the 1990s in North America and the consequent shuffling and evendissolution of jobs in the professional/middle managerial ranks. As a result of thesechanges, many knowledge workers left organizations to become self-employed, withArthur and Rousseau (1996) maintaining that such workers are revolutionisingemployment relations in bringing about the phenomenon of the boundaryless career.

Julie Summerlund and Sami Boutaiba also address the existence or otherwise of theboundaryless career. According to Arthur and Rousseau, newer thinking on careersemphasizes their unfolding through individuals’ choices in time. However,Summerlund and Boutaiba uncover continuity as well as change, finding that theold ways of understanding the career continue to be useful.

Alan Lowe and Andrea McIntosh in their study of a New Zealand tree farmingcompany contribute to an understanding of knowledge management (KM) issues at theorganizational and work group levels. Specifically, they explore the interaction oforganizational control processes and the nature of resistance in the complexenvironments typical of knowledge work settings. Finally, the last paper by Shaw,Hall, Edwards and Baker contributes in that KM and learning in times oforganizational crisis has attracted little comment to date. In the case study theyprovide of the MCCB, KM is used to manage an impending crisis, the planneddissolution of the organization.

The insights into organisational change generated by the papers will be readilyapparent but it may be useful to point out one interesting feature of this set of papers.This is that by focusing on change they inevitably and necessarily also focus onnon-change – on continuity. Managers involved in advocating or “championing”change frequently focus so emphatically and positively on the necessity for and virtuesof the change in question (sometimes defined as “reform” so as to rule out thelegitimacy or possibility of the rational or moral basis of any questioning or“resistance”) that they in effect disregard or reject what came before the change.By focusing on change they overlook continuity. The authors in this collection,however, avoid this trap. For these papers, in studying when and how organisationschange and the implications and origins of these changes also necessarily and properlyfocus on non-change – continuity. It is as important to know why change does nothappen as to understand when it does. The paper by Julie Summerlund and SamiBoutaiba for example argues that although researchers have argued that a certainchange is occurring in the nature of careers, in fact within their sample, conventionalhistoric forms of career persist. Here the significant finding is that things remain thesame, that change has not occurred: the dog did not bark.

Another variant of this phenomenon is displayed in Dariusz Jemielniak’s paper.Not only does this paper follow a long and valuable tradition of work-placeethnographies, it also explores the nature and implications of work-place processes ofaccommodation whereby disparate and even apparently opposing groups and culturesmaintain their differences but find subtle ways of indicating and achieving anegotiated order. Like the management and staff in the gypsum mine studied byGouldner (1954) in Patterns of Bureaucracy or the prisoners and wardens described inSykes’ (1958) Society of Captives, the two groups in Dariusz Jemielniak’s study, despitetheir widely different rhetorics and values and the almost abusive ways these culturesrelate to each other, nevertheless, find ways to ensure that the basic relationship

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between the two groups remains in a state of equilibrium. A form of symbiosis isachieved – a modus vivendi – not despite the differences but arguably because ofthem. One might argue that the function of the differences and the apparent hostilitybetween the groups is not to generate any momentum for change but actually to enablethings to persist whilst allowing a display (but no more than this) of conflict anddifference. Antipathy is a way of avoiding real change. In “Contested practice: multipleinclusion in double-knit organizations” Irma Bogenrieder and Peter van Baalenare concerned with another aspect of change and continuity, namely with themultiple-inclusion of single individuals in many communities of practice at once. Is ourmembership in those communities a separate chapter in our professional lives or is itbut another link of a smooth continuum? Is this multiple inclusion a blessing indisguise, which allows us to share tacit knowledge and facilitates situated learning oris it asking for trouble (when norms set buy different communities clash)? Be it as itmay, the authors tend to confirm Contu and Willmott’s intuition that communitiesof practice do not fit into a “technocratic tool of organizational engineering”.

However, as well as addressing the nature, sources and implications of differenttypes of change – and continuity – within organisations the papers also allow us aglimpse into how research into organisations (here, into organisationalchange/continuity) is itself characterised by change (or continuity). This is notsomething we expected to find or sought to find. But we think it is a feature of this setof papers and possibly of the field of research into organisational change as a whole.

The papers are interesting and insightful in what they reveal about processes oforganisational change. That’s why they have been included. But they are not onlyabout change, they are also in intriguing ways, themselves manifestations of change.They are revealing about how the analysis of change and research into organisationalchange, have themselves changed – and also how they have retained an element ofcontinuity.

The papers are revealing both about the subject matter: change inorganisations – and about the conceptual and theoretical tools and assumptionsused by researchers in researching this subject matter.

One feature of these papers that struck us was that extent to which the papers didnot draw on or deploy to any noticeable degree concepts, frameworks and models fromsomething that could be called the change literature. We began to wonder if there wassuch a literature. If there is it isn’t used by these authors. Although in their variousways these papers are about change they approach the understanding ofchange/continuity via a range of concepts (identity, enterprise, career, role, culture,etc.) which are not specifically tied to a discrete and identifiable change literature. Forthese authors apparently change is normal feature of organisational life and thereforeneeds to be addressed via the concepts currently in play in analyses of organisationaldynamics and not by the use of specialist change concepts or models. These authorsseem to have accepted the frequently rehearsed assertion that change is normal andthat it must be addressed as such. In other words for these students of change it is notnecessary to change analytical concepts frameworks and models when addressingchange in organisations: change can be analysed and understood via the conceptswhich would be used to explore organisational structures, dynamics and functioning.

The analysis of change also displays another continuity – not only with othercurrent analytical approaches but with traditions of analysis – that is, it displays

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continuity over time. Although many of the concepts used here are modern and reflectcurrent discourses of organisational analysis – enterprise, theories of identity forexample – we were also struck how these papers also displayed in ways which maynot be always apparent to the authors, contemporary manifestations of phenomenawhich have interested students of organisations for many years: relationshipsbetween differentiated groups within organisations, issues of control and commitment,the notion of career and the meaning of work, work group structures and cultures,the nature and role of reference groups, work-based communities, attempts bymanagement to generate legitimacy and impose cultures, and so on.

The paper by Dariusz Jemielniak for example can be seen as part of a tradition ofsociological and ethnographic analysis of workplace relations stretching back to the1940s with the Chicago school. But this is by no means the only paper in this collectionwhich reveals – to those who can take an historic overview – more continuities withclassic concepts in work and organisational analysis than the authors themselves mayrealise. In this respect too then, the papers reveal continuities. All six sets of authorsare exploring issues of change and continuity using tools of modern theory. However,the issues explored themselves are perhaps older, illuminating an enduring paradoxabout academic analysis of organisations (or the pressures surrounding theachievement of success within academic careers) that the analysis of organisationscentres on a set of continuing issues and tensions within work structures andorganisations but that this element of continuity must be addressed through thedeployment of concepts which at least appear to be distinctive and different. So whileanalysis must demonstrate and embrace change and difference it also displayssignificant continuity.

Finally, this collection of seven papers, all addressing issues of change (one of whichfocuses on change within the academy) reveal another and deeper possibility ofchange. Organisations, professions, work structures and processes, all demonstratechange and continuity. This applies no less to academic work and organisations thanto any other, as Todd Bridgman, in this collection illustrates. It may be possible toargue that these papers about change reflect a long term change in the nature ofacademic work itself – not in the choice subject matter, or the tools and debatesemployed to address the subject matter, but in the way in which these papers reflecttacit assumptions about the nature of the standards which apply to high qualityacademic work, about how academic virtuosity can be displayed about what counts ashigh status academic work in 2007 – and specifically about the perceived relativeimportance and value of displaying mastery of theoretical and conceptual materials(often of a somewhat arcane and esoteric nature) compared to achieving empiricalillumination and understanding.

In the this selection of papers most of the authors with the exception of DariuszJemielniak concentrate considerable intellectual resource on impressive theoreticalexegesis but devote relatively less attention to achieving empirical illumination.Furthermore, the links between exegesis and empirical analysis are often not stronglyevident (although in our view this does not weaken the value of the empirical analyses).This suggests that the exegetical sections (which are, as noted often markedlyaccomplished) are seen as valuable in their own right – that they indicate achievement ofacademic values. The balance between conceptual exegesis and empirical illuminationtilts strongly towards the former. An academic Rip Van Winkle awaking after 20 or

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30 years might be struck that during that time an interesting and significant change hadoccurred in the criteria that academics use to evaluate quality academic work in thestudy of work and organisations, might even be surprised that at a time when notions ofenterprise were apparently being imposed on the academy and academics – not leastwithin Business Schools where many of these authors are employed, academicachievement was apparently defined in terms of the accomplishment of a somewhatintroverted form of conceptual exegesis. Is it possible that the nature of these articlesreflects a change in our own world of work and employment, a change that has been sosubtle that we have hardly noticed it? Although we had no Rip Van Winkles on theeditorial board we thought that compared to the 1960s and 1970s, for instance, whenthere was more emphasis on empirical work including longitudinal studies, this sampleof papers could well reflect a long term change and that the articles in this special issuecould be regarded not only as valuable in what they contribute but also as phenomenaworthy of comment in their own right. If this is the case then of course our authors canthemselves be seen as enterprising in recognising and meeting these trends. But sinceour role as academics interested in organisational change includes a concern withunderstanding the changes which impact on us as well as on others this could well be anissue that deserves further analysis and discussion.

Pauline Gleadle, Nelarine Cornelius, Eric Pezet and Graeme Salaman

References

Arthur, M.B. and Rousseau, D.M. (Eds) (1996), The Boundaryless Career: A New EmploymentPrinciple for a New Organizational Era, Oxford University Press, New York, NY.

Gouldner, A.W. (1954), Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy: Case Study of Modern FactoryAdministration, reprinted 1964 by Collier-Macmillan, London.

Sykes, G.M. (1958), The Society of Captives: A Study of a Maximum Security Prison, to bereprinted as Princeton Classic Edition 1 May 2007.

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Freedom and autonomyin the university enterprise

Todd BridgmanVictoria Management School, Victoria University of Wellington,

Wellington, New Zealand

Abstract

Purpose – This paper seeks to explore notions of enterprise as an instance of organizational changewithin university business schools, using a theoretical approach drawn from the discourse theory ofErnesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Their concept of articulatory practice is useful for examining themanagement of knowledge workers across multiple levels of discourse, including policy, practice andprocesses of identification. Specifically, the paper aims to investigate the articulation of enterprisewithin government policy on higher education, management practices of directing, funding,measuring and regulating the activities of faculty in ways that seek to promote enterprise, as well asdemonstrating how agents can resist attempts at top-down managerial control through processes ofself-identification.

Design/methodology/approach – An empirical study consisting of an analysis of governmentreports on higher education along with 65 interviews conducted at six UK research-led businessschools.

Findings – At the level of government policy, the university is recast as an enterprise within acompetitive marketplace where the “entrepreneurial academic” who commercializes research becomesthe role model. However, management practices and identity processes amongst faculty revealinconsistencies within the articulation of the university enterprise, to the extent that this idealisedidentity is marginalised within research-led business schools in the UK.

Originality/value – The theoretical approach captures the dynamism of hegemonic projects acrossmultiple levels, from policymaking to management practice and the constitution of identity. Laclauand Mouffe’s conception of hegemony highlights mechanisms of control, while their assumption ofradical contingency illuminates dynamics of resistance.

Keywords Universities, Business schools, Organizational change, Entrepreneurialism

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionAcademics need not venture far from their campuses to better understand themanagement of knowledge workers during periods of organizational change.Universities meet the most basic definition of knowledge-intensive firm given thatthe work conducted draws primarily on mental abilities rather than craft or physicalstrength and the work is performed by well-educated, qualified employees who expecthigh levels of autonomy and invest heavily in their work identity (Alvesson, 1991;Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2003). It is puzzling therefore, that the literature onknowledge intensive firms has tended to look elsewhere for its empirical work, whetherthat be accountants (Grey, 1998), management consultants (Fincham, 1999), high-techworkers (Kunda, 1992) or the creative minds of advertising (Alvesson, 1994).

The neglect of academic labour as an instance of knowledge work would appear tolie in the association of knowledge work with a particular form of organisationalstructure – the “post-bureaucracy” (Heckscher, 1994). Functional approaches to career,control and commitment stress the importance of rules and standardised procedures in

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at


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Journal of Organizational ChangeManagementVol. 20 No. 4, 2007pp. 478-490q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0953-4814DOI 10.1108/09534810710760036

the form of career planning, targets, incentives, monitoring and rewards. Thesetraditional control mechanisms are held to have less purchase in knowledge-intensivefirms which are increasingly “post-bureaucratic” in their organisation, driven bymarket demands for flexibility. “Post-bureaucracy” is not a label readily applied toeven the most lean and flexible academic institution, yet academics are undoubtedlyknowledge workers who have, in Western democracies at least, historically enjoyedconsiderable autonomy, embodied in the notion of academic freedom.

Higher education is an intriguing sector for studying the management ofknowledge workers because of government initiatives to make universities more“enterprising”. Paradoxically, freedom and autonomy are nodal points in enterprisediscourse (Storey et al., 2005), yet precisely these values are seen to be threatenedby the change to make universities more closely resemble private sectororganizations (Slaughter, 1988; Slaughter and Leslie, 1997). Academic freedom, forinstance, has become a target of managerial and government agencies whoperceive a lack of accountability in the phrase and regard it as a symbol ofresistance against managerialism (Taylor et al., 1998). Unsurprisingly, the literatureon academic freedom is generally pessimistic about its future in an increasinglyprofessionalised and commodified higher education sector (Soley, 1996; Parker andJary, 1995). There is acute tension, therefore, surrounding the nature of academicwork as knowledge work and the desire by these agencies to foster an enterpriseculture within the academy.

In addition to presenting the findings of an empirical study of UK research-ledbusiness schools, this paper seeks to make a theoretical contribution to discourseapproaches for analysing organizational change. The study of discourse has becomewidespread within organization studies but there is criticism that the preoccupationwith language has gone too far, to the extent that all that matters is talk and text(Down and Reveley, 2004). In recent times, it has been argued that to understandidentity processes in organisation we must look “beyond” discourse. Alvesson andRobertson (2006) draw a distinction between discourse, which they define as explicitlanguage use, and a range of strategic and symbolic mechanisms, many of which havea material existence as part of the work process. Motivated by similar concerns,Karreman and Alvesson (2004) distinguish between a technocratic layer of structuralelements such as hierarchies, career paths and work methodologies from asocio-ideological layer which concerns identity and identification.

This paper acknowledges the importance of studying objects and action as well astext. It proposes that we stick with discourse, but via an expanded definition drawnfrom the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe (2001), which has begun to makean impact within organization studies (Bridgman and Willmott, 2006; Willmott, 2005).For Laclau and Mouffe (2001, p. 96) discourse is not reduced to text, nor seen as distinctfrom structures and practices. Rather, discourse is “an articulatory practice whichconstitutes and organises social relations”. Specifically, this paper investigatesenterprise discourse as a set of hegemonic articulatory practices which constituteobjects (e.g. university), practices (e.g. promotion), identities (e.g. academics) and theways in which relations of career, control and commitment are organised.

The outline of the paper is as follows. In the next section, key contributions to theliterature on enterprise are reviewed, followed by a brief introduction to Laclau andMouffe’s discourse theory. Following that is a presentation of the empirical study of

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UK research-led business schools. In the final section, the relevance of the study for themanagement of knowledge workers is considered.

Conceptualising enterpriseDu Gay and Salaman’s (1992) seminal contribution highlights the discourse ofenterprise as being behind a range of organizational reforms that replacesorganizational regulation with market regulation. Enterprise discourse is seen as atotalising and individualising economic rationality, where “patients” “passengers” and“pupils” are reconstructed as “customers”. Enterprise discourse has become hegemonicto the extent that even those cynical of its claims inevitably reproduce it in daily life.Fournier and Grey (1999) argue that by stressing the totalising effects of enterprisediscourse on subjectivity Du Gay “fail[s] to account, or even allow, for resistance oralternatives to enterprise” (p. 117). Rather than implying that enterprise discourse isthe only discursive resource on which employees’ identities will be configured,Fournier and Grey prefer to see enterprise as one discourse amongst others.

Early conceptions of enterprise discourse are also criticised for being insensitive tomaterial concerns. Du Gay (1996) claims it has achieved hegemony over otherorganizational discourses, yet also acknowledges evidence from empirical researchwhich suggests that the discourse, and its associated focus on “excellence” is not beingadopted in most organizations. According to Newton (1998), Du Gay acknowledgesthese material circumstances, but sees no need to modify his argument about thesalience of enterprise discourse, whatever the empirical data might suggest. What isneeded, argues Newton, is “an understanding of subjectivity and organization whichattends to agency and ‘materialism’ yet avoids dualism, essentialism andreductionism” (p. 441).

Recent approaches to understanding enterprise have focused on identity andidentity processes. In their study of freelance and contract workers in the media, Storeyet al. (2005) examine the “enterprising self” from the perspective of worker responses tosystemic attempts to see themselves as enterprising subjects. They found that workers“did not merely absorb passively the discourses and practices to which they wereexposed” (p. 1050) but aspired to some qualities of enterprise while criticising othersand developed a range of enterprising strategies to counter their weak market position.

In sum, the literature shows a movement away from seeing enterprise discourse in asomewhat deterministic fashion as a project that is imposed on workers from above,towards an understanding that is attentive to agency and the possibilities of resistance.What is needed is a theoretical approach that is sensitive to structure without beingdeterministic and that is also sensitive to agency and the possibilities of resistance,without succumbing to voluntarism.

The discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe makes a potentially valuablecontribution to this goal with their distinctive social ontology that distinguishes it fromother forms of discourse approaches that have made an impact within organizationstudies, such as Foucauldian analysis and critical discourse analysis, which is based ona critical realist ontology (Fairclough, 2003)[1]. In discourse theory, all objects andpractices are discursively constituted and therefore meaningful (Laclau and Mouffe,2001). This is not an idealist claim that extra-discursive reality does not exist, as criticsof discourse theory, such as Geras (1987) have claimed. Instead, it dissolves thedistinction between being (ontology) and knowledge (epistemology) by claiming that

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while objects have an existence external to discourse, our knowledge, or understandingof them, depends on the structuring of a discursive field. For example, the businessschool, including its buildings, facilities and programmes of study, exists external todiscourse, but our understanding of what the business school “is” – its distinctiveidentity – is rendered discursively. In asserting the materiality of discourse, Laclaustates that “it is not that discourse produces some kind of material effect, but thematerial act of producing it is what discourse is” (Bhaskar and Laclau, 1998, p. 13).From this perspective, attention is focused on the ways in which the material and thesocial are articulated within discourses that establish relations between them(Bridgman and Willmott, 2006).

Another key ontological assumption of discourse theory is the radical contingencyof all objects and identities, which draws our attention towards the operation ofhegemonic discourses such as enterprise. While these projects offer a partial fixationof meaning, they are penetrated by a radical contingency that prevents closure ortotalisation, since they rely on discursive exteriors that partially constitute andtherefore potentially subvert them. This “undecidability” of the structure becomesevident in moments of dislocation, which induces an identity crisis for the subject and“compels” the subject to act in order to restore or affirm a recognisable sense of identitythrough identification with discourses (Laclau, 1990). This insight that identities andpractices are ultimately contingent facilitates an analysis of the ways in which subjectscan resist the totalising efforts of hegemonic discourses.

MethodologyWhat then, are the implications of this definition of discourse for doing discourseanalysis? The assumption of radical contingency means that while discourses mightappear as natural and uncontested, contingency remains within any social practice.Any discursive articulation is an incomplete system of meaning which brings togetherelements that have inconsistencies when linked together. The task of the analyst,therefore, is to examine not only how discursive articulations come to appear asnatural, but also to highlight the contingent elements of social practices and ways inwhich those moments provide opportunities for political contestation andtransformation.

According to Storey et al. (2005), it is vital to consider enterprise and its relationshipto identity from multiple levels – from top-down attempts to define identity, through toindividuals’ self-identification with these narratives. However, Alvesson andKarreman (2000) note the general failure of discourse approaches to “climb theladder of discourse” – to go from local encounters with talk and text to large-scalediscourses that have effects in constituting the social world. Laclau and Mouffe’s broadconception of discourse is useful here, incorporating an analysis of actual language use(talk and text), strategic and symbolic resources, actions, behaviour as well as “grand”discourses such as enterprise. This paper, in considering issues of career, control andcommitment in higher education, involves an examination of policymaking atgovernment level, managerial efforts to create an enterprise culture within the businessschool, and the ways in which employees identify with and/or resist such efforts.

The data set includes archival and interview data, the former consisting ofgovernment reports and “white papers” on higher education. In addition, a total of 65interviews were conducted at six research-led UK business schools. The study set out

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to explore issues around academic freedom in the changing context of contemporaryhigher education, especially that notion that the university has a democratic functionas a source of social criticism. Respondents were those with significant interactionswith external audiences, such as practitioners, policymakers, journalists andthink-tanks, since it was believed that in these interactions the tensions aroundacademic freedom would be most acute. The choice of schools reflects a mix of factors,including size, the proportion of resource income from external sources (industry,commerce and public corporations) and geographic location. Within each of the sixschools a diversity of respondents were sought on categories of age, gender, specialistfield, faculty rank and type of external engagement.

The findings are presented in the following four sections. The first looks at theconstitution of the university enterprise within government policy documents,followed by the section that highlights the contradictions within the articulation ofenterprise discourse at the level of management practice. The penultimate sectionconsiders implications of enterprise for academic freedom and autonomy, while thefinal section explores identity processes and illustrates possibilities of resistance.

Policymakers’ construction of the university enterpriseThe construction of the university as an enterprise is hegemonic within UKgovernment policy documents. In a familiar narrative, higher education becomes a“global business” (DES, 2003, p. 13) where only the fittest universities will survive.Universities must “play a central role as dynamos of growth” in a knowledge-economybut “they will only fulfil that mission if they match excellence in research and teachingwith innovation and imagination in commercialising research” (DTI, 2000, p. 27).

Of particular relevance to issues around the management of career, control andcommitment within universities is the mistrust of traditional collegial governancestructures. The 2003 Lambert Review on Business-University Collaboration criticisescollegial and collective forms of management for being slow and risk-averse, incontrast with the “strong executive structures” of private sector models (Lambert,2003, p. 6). Lambert acknowledges that while universities are “not businesses” they“need to be business-like in the way they manage their affairs” (p. 14). In thisarticulation, collegiality is incompatible with a commercially focused university, wheremore autocratic, executive styles are needed in an environment of rapid change.Academics might be knowledge workers, but they are not to be afforded the autonomyand respect for their professional expertise which is supposedly characteristic ofknowledge-intensive firms.

Lambert notes a change in organizational culture “with many universities castingoff their ivory tower image and playing a much more active role in the regional andnational economy” (p. 3). In this articulation of the university enterprise, academicfreedom becomes the freedom to be “entrepreneurial” – to be creative in seeking newways to generate revenue. This applies both at the organizational level, where “waysmust be found to give [universities] more room to develop a strategic vision and takeentrepreneurial risks” (p. 102), but also at the level of employee identity:

A new role model, the entrepreneurial academic, has appeared on many campuses and someof them have become rich as a result of their efforts in consultancy, or by creating andsubsequently selling spinout companies (Lambert, 2003, p. 83).

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Although enterprise discourse has become hegemonic at the level of governmentpolicy, as Laclau and Mouffe make clear, any such project is ultimately contingent,since it relies on an “Other” that constitutes and therefore potentially subverts it.Enterprise discourse is constituted by its differential relation to traditional discoursesassociated with university life, such as scholarship and collegiality. In theorizingresistance, there are two possible approaches. One, following Fournier and Grey (1999)is to examine academics’ identification with one of these competing discourses. Thesecond approach, drawn from Laclau and Mouffe and taken here, is to examine thecontingency of enterprise discourse – to explore its constituent elements in search ofcontradictions.

Managing careers and generating commitmentSpecifically, there is a contradiction between the demands to commercialise research,as articulated by Lambert and a desire to make academics more accountable for theirtime spent doing research. The demand for accountability is manifest in the researchassessment exercise (RAE), which provides ratings of research quality. The RAEcommodifies academic labour, with products of academic research (books, journals,etc.) given a weighting and used to inform funding decisions (Willmott, 1995, 2003).It is informed by thinking on new public management, where audit replacesprofessional self-regulation and academics become employees of state capitalism(Jary, 2002; Prichard, 2000). In the RAE, research and its communication to anacademic audience via journals take precedence. It is here that a contradiction emergeswhich problematises Government’s role model of the entrepreneurial academic whoexploits the commercial potential of research. This contradiction is illustrated throughan analysis of reward and recruitment practices.

Several schools have developed new performance indicators that measure and placea greater value on enterprise. One school used to just look at publications and teaching,but has recently added criteria of “inputs” and “impact”. The former measures moneysourced externally, while the latter measures the effect of a person’s work onstakeholders. At another school, “enterprise” has become the fourth promotioncriterion alongside teaching, research and administration.

However, despite the formal recognition of enterprise, respondents believed thatsecuring academic publications for the RAE was still a higher priority than beingcommercially enterprising. One commented that:

It only helps if you’ve still got that research. It’s not an either or. They expect it to be anadd-on. They think it is great and would love you to do more of it, but that’s on top ofresearch, rather than instead of research.

The pressure to “publish or perish” is felt most acutely by junior faculty, who are underpressure to develop a journal publication track record, in order to satisfy therequirements of the RAE. Consequently, there is little time available for them toundertake “enterprising” activities. Even if there is time, such activity is unlikelyto attract the same institutional rewards as scholarly publications. One respondent,a young lecturer in the field of entrepreneurship, is heavily engaged in outreachactivities with industry. In many ways, he represents the role model of the“entrepreneurial academic” as articulated by Lambert (2003). He was a key figurebehind the award of nearly £2 million in public funding to set up a new institute at

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the business school, has been active in policy discussion at a regional and nationallevel, developed a business-to-business networking event with local business andmakes regular appearances in the media. This is work he has enjoyed doing, but sees itcoming at a cost to his chances of promotion.

The biggest problem that I have is that I’ve excelled enormously well in this area in terms oflinkage with local businesses but it’s not something that will help me get onto my seniorlectureship. And that’s my biggest major annoyance at the moment, in order to do thesethings I’ve sacrificed my research output and in doing that I’ve made it more difficult formyself to get promotion.

Recruitment practices can also work against the fostering of enterprise. Manyrespondents suggested that because of the value placed on journal publication,business schools are reluctant to hire people from industry, who are well placed to helpdevelop an enterprise culture but yet usually have no track record of publication. Onerespondent stated that:

It’s extremely difficult for people who have done business to come in and study business andturn out a respectable RAE performance in a faculty like this. It’s extremely hard to doand I know very few people who have succeeded in doing it.

The picture is complicated by the growth of commercial research centres withinbusiness schools. Business schools are becoming increasingly entrepreneurial inturning to external funders to supplement their core funding from the public purse.This can be through direct grants or the sale of research and other consultancyactivities. Clients can include commercial organizations, charities and othernot-for-profit organizations, and government departments. While money from theUK research councils is generally regarded as the most prestigious funding, it is alsomore competitive and the amounts awarded tend to be small compared with sponsoredresearch. Therefore, contract research, conducted through research centres, is apotentially significant revenue stream for business schools.

Several research centre faculty who took part in the study either had no establishedpublication record or were no longer seeking one. These respondents tended to identifywith enterprise discourse in describing their work, as illustrated by the followingquote:

Our entire bias starts with a client orientation and that means we have geared our activitiestowards that practitioner/user community, either industry or policy. What that means inpractice is that we deliberately started to emphasise some things and deemphasise others.I stopped writing academic publications . . . our client base would not regard that sort ofwork as providing legitimation or accreditation for what we do.

However, this respondent felt marginalised by the lecturing faculty within the school:

Once we get out the door here out status shoots up. Come back here and we’re nobody, justdogsbody contract researchers. Go out the door and we’re industry experts worth a fortune.

Similar sentiments were expressed by one contract researcher who has his ownconsultancy business that generates potential clients for contract research, is providingbespoke research that benefits commercial organizations which lack dedicated R&Ddepartments and is generating additional revenue for the business school throughthese activities. Far from feeling like a role model as envisaged by Lambert, he feels

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like a “second class citizen” within the school and “not a proper academic” because heis yet to develop a track record in academic journal publications.

In these research centres, faculty tend to prioritise engagement with externalconstituencies and therefore have little time to publish in academic journals. Theoverall picture is the emergence of a split between high-status RAE contributingfaculty and low-status contract researchers who are expected to generate revenue anddemonstrate the “relevance” of their institutions. One explanation of these phenomenais that business schools want to be both academic departments and commercialenterprises and their reward and recruitment practices reflect this. In other words,it is to argue that there are multiple discourses competing for hegemony over theconstitution of the business school. An alternative explanation, which draws on theinsights of Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, is to suggest there is a contradictionwithin the discursive articulation of enterprise between two of its constituentelements – commercial research and audit. The use of the RAE to increase theproductivity of academics has led to the government’s preferred identity of thecommercially oriented researcher becoming a marginalised figure within UKresearch-led business schools.

Managing academic freedom and autonomyAcademic freedom is legally protected through its incorporation in the UK statute,however the interest here is not the legal status of academic freedom, but how it isenacted in the day-to-day activities of UK business schools. As business schools seekto be more enterprising, they are encouraged to think more strategically about theirengagements with external stakeholders. They become more conscious of their publicprofile which can lead to censorship of faculty whose work is perceived to tarnish theimage of the school and to threaten its relationship with industry and governmentsponsors.

Earlier, it was noted how Lambert (2003) believes that while universities are notbusiness they must act like businesses. The increasing attention given to branding andpublic image by business schools is a “business-like” activity and can be used to justifythe imposition of conditions on academic freedom. This demand for loyalty, of course,contravenes the right of faculty to put forward controversial views without fear oflosing their jobs and in particular, jeopardises the position of potential“whistleblowers”.

One respondent, who manages a school, said he would intervene if faculty weredamaging the school’s brand. When asked to explain what this meant in practice,he said:

I would just say “I forbid you to do it”. And they have a choice then. If I give them a directinstruction and they disobey it then I will fire them. That would be gross . . . it would have tobe quite serious before they did that. It would have to be the equivalent of gross misconduct,but I would certainly do it . . . There’s a point beyond which freedom becomes disloyalty andultimately I see that as one of my responsibilities to make that judgement and defend thatjudgement.

A story told by several respondents at one school concerned a faculty member whowas involved in establishing an “anti-capitalism” discussion group at the university.When the head of the school became aware of this, she ordered him to withdraw fromthe group, because she considered it was not appropriate for a business school to be

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associated with anti-capitalism. She was concerned about the possibility of upsettingpotential sponsors of a new research centre at the school[2]. This story is illustrative ofconcerns about academic freedom, with the fear being that business schools, byentering into “partnership” with industry and government sponsors, lose theirindependence and their capacity for critique.

Censorship can also occur when external sponsors seek to exert their influence onthe work undertaken by faculty, not just in terms of setting the research agenda, butalso by influencing how the research is conducted and how findings are disseminated.One respondent, who works in a research centre, described an incident which occurredwhen he was invited to present a paper at an industry conference. He drafted a paperthat was highly critical of a firm that he had previously provided consultancy servicesto. The company was a significant funder of his university and when it became awareof the criticism, it approached the head of the school and threatened to withdraw itsfunding unless the criticism was removed. The faculty member stood his ground andthe funding was not withdrawn, but he has not been asked to work for the firm again.

While some instances of censorship were reported, there is no indication ofwidespread, overt ideological control in the six business schools studied. However,faculty did report a high incidence of self-censorship, meaning they avoided potentiallycontroversial work that might upset either the business school or key externalstakeholders. While academic freedom has legal status, respondents believedit was usually not worth the fight that would be involved to assert their right tospeak out.

Self-identification with enterprise discourseThese threats to academic freedom cannot be ignored, but the findings also offer somecause for optimism, since there is evidence that the promotion of enterprise discourse isnot uniformly negative for the protection of academic freedom and autonomy.Autonomy and freedom are commodified – becoming objects that give businessschools a competitive advantage and that demonstrate the relevance of the institution,therefore justifying its continued support from the public fund.

An illustration of the commodification of critical thought is the sale of consultingwork undertaken by business school faculty. Lambert (2003), in his review ofuniversity-industry collaboration, is keen to increase the level of consultancy, becauseof the revenue it brings to universities and because it can foster research collaborationbetween the university and industry. For those respondents engaged in consulting, theindependence and capacity for critique that derive from their position within auniversity becomes a major selling point.

One respondent, who is active in consultancy with companies and non-profitorganizations, stated that:

Companies are becoming increasingly sceptical of consultants because they often offer apackaged solution, so in areas where the problem is non-standard that’s not enough. Theyalso want people who are going to look in more depth without an axe to grind and without apre-formulated answer, which is precisely what being critical offers. The willingness to becritical is what some companies want.

Another respondent, who is heavily involved in consultancy, identifies strongly withthe identity of the “academic entrepreneur”:

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On all of our activities we have to meet market demands. And everybody here equally runstheir own business. So for me, gaining money, gaining revenue, dealing with client needs,meeting client needs, doing research, having that research positioned so that it adds value tothem, running a budget, having the academic community as only one particular stakeholdergroup has been my life for as long as I’ve known it. So I can’t even identify with the researchcommunity.

However, while rejecting the identity of “academic” this respondent does identify withthe role of “critic”. He identifies two sets of responsibilities – providing a service to theclient, but also upholding values of academic freedom and autonomy:

The second area of responsibility is that you are a university. And as a university, despite thefact that you are financially, potentially financially constrained by clients, you do have tostand above that and offer an opinion in terms of what’s happening.

These findings suggest that meanings of autonomy and freedom within the universityenterprise are multiple and contested. At the level of government policy, it means thefreedom to generate revenue. This threatens a long-held understanding of academicfreedom which positions university faculty as detached from the corrupting influencesof external stakeholders such as industry and government sponsors. A differentinterpretation comes from faculty member’s self-identification with enterprisediscourse, in which autonomy, freedom and the role of the critic can be accommodated.

ConclusionIt is clear that policymakers in higher education remain infatuated with the discourseof enterprise, as they do in other areas of the public sector. This is problematic for themanagement of academics as knowledge workers, since its articulation by governmentposes a direct challenge to freedom and autonomy. This is ironic given thatknowledge-intensive firms are supposed to be distinctive in the autonomy bestowed onemployees and a greater respect for and reliance upon their expert knowledge.In today’s universities, government’s narrow vision of enterprise as commercialexploitation risks compromising these values and with it the motivation, loyalty andcommitment of university faculty.

It becomes increasingly difficult, even for those cynical about new publicmanagement, to think about, talk about and practice higher education without makingreference to some notion of enterprise (Du Gay and Salaman, 1992). This does not meanthat its effects are total and uncontested and this paper goes further to suggest thatthese effects are not uniformly negative. Resistance to enterprise can be explainedby the existence of competing discourses which subjects can drawn on in constitutingtheir identities (Fournier and Grey, 1999). This findings from this study suggest that inaddition, we should look within the hegemonic discourse itself and in particular theinconsistencies which create opportunities to challenge and subvert it. Government’sdesire for more commercial research is stymied by the RAE, an audit mechanismwhich itself is part of enterprise discourse. A second set of possibilities for resistancecomes from the “over-determined” meaning of enterprise. At the level of Governmentpolicy, “enterprise” is narrowly defined in commercial terms. However, one can be“enterprising” in different ways, some of which openly challenge the narrow definitionof enterprise put forward by government and affirm the role of the autonomous andcritical academic.

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Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, with its distinctive ontology and assumptionof radical contingency, has the potential to make a valuable contribution to ourunderstanding of organizational change. Through its broad definition of discourse asarticulatory practice, it is useful for exploring organisational change across multiplelevels, from the language of policy to management practices as well as processes ofidentification. Laclau and Mouffe’s assumption of radical contingency of objects,identities and practices highlights the contingency of the enterprise project. Even if thisorder appears as “the new reality” there is always opportunity for knowledge workersto exploit inconsistencies with a discursive articulation in order to resist andrearticulate it.

It would be unwise to claim too much for Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory,since its application to organisational analysis is in its formative stage. Much workremains to be done on a detailed comparison of this approach with critical discourseanalysis and Foucauldian analysis, which are more established in the organizationalchange literature. In addition, discourse theory is an abstract amalgam of concepts andits use as a methodological instrument requires further elaboration. Nevertheless, it ishoped that this paper has demonstrated that such undertakings would be worthy ones.

Notes

1. For an excellent account of the ontological differences between discourse theory and criticalrealism see Willmott (2005).

2. Both the head of the school and the faculty member concerned declined my request for aninterview.

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Alvesson, M. (1991), “Knowledge work: ambiguity, image and identity”, Human Relations, Vol. 54No. 7, pp. 863-86.

Alvesson, M. (1994), “Talking in organizations: managing identity and image in an advertisingagency”, Organization Studies, Vol. 11, pp. 373-94.

Alvesson, M. and Karreman, D. (2000), “Varieties of discourse: on the study of organizationsthrough discourse analysis”, Human Relations, Vol. 53 No. 9, pp. 1125-49.

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Alvesson, M. and Sveningsson, S. (2003), “Good visions, bad micro-management and uglyambiguity: contradictions of (non-) leadership in a knowledge-intensive organization”,Organization Studies, Vol. 24 No. 6, pp. 961-88.

Bhaskar, R. and Laclau, E. (1998), “Critical realism vs discourse theory”, Alethia, Vol. 1 No. 2,pp. 9-14.

Bridgman, T. and Willmott, H. (2006), “Institutions and technology: frameworks forunderstanding organizational change – the case of a major IT outsourcing contract”,Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 42 No. 1, pp. 110-26.

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Down, S. and Reveley, J. (2004), “Generational encounters and the social formation ofentrepreneurial identity: ‘young guns’ and ‘old farts’”, Organization, Vol. 11 No. 2,pp. 233-50.

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DTI (2000), Excellence and Opportunity: A Science and Innovation Policy for the 21st Century,Department of Trade and Industry, Office of Science and Technology, HM Government,London.

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Fincham, R. (1999), “The consultant-client relationship: critical perspectives on the managementof organizational change”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 36, pp. 335-51.

Fournier, V. and Grey, C. (1999), “Too much, too little and too often: a critique of Du Gay’sanalysis of enterprise”, Organization, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 107-28.

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Heckscher, C. (1994), “Defining the post-bureaucratic type”, in Heckscher, C. and Donnellon, A.(Eds), The Post-Bureaucratic Organization: New Perspectives on Organizational Change,Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 14-62.

Jary, D. (2002), “Aspects of the ‘audit society’: issues arising from the colonization of professionalacademic identities by a ‘portable management tool’”, in Dent, M. and Whitehead, S. (Eds),Managing Professional Identities: Knowledge, Performativity and the “New” Professional,Routledge, London, pp. 38-60.

Karreman, D. and Alvesson, M. (2004), “Cages in tandem: management control, social identity,and identification in a knowledge intensive firm”, Organization, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 149-75.

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Laclau, E. (1990), New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time, Verso, London.

Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C. (2001), Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical DemocraticPolitics, 2nd ed., Verso, London.

Lambert, R. (2003), Lambert Review of Business-University Collaboration, HM Treasury, London.

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Prichard, C. (2000), Making Managers in Universities and Colleges, Society for Research intoHigher Education and Open University Press, Buckingham.

Slaughter, S. (1988), “Academic freedom and the state: reflections on the uses of knowledge”,Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 59 No. 3, pp. 241-62.

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Soley, L.C. (1996), Leasing the Ivory Tower: The Corporate Takeover of Academia, South EndPress, Boston, MA.

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Taylor, T., Gough, J., Bundrock, V. and Winter, R. (1998), “A bleak outlook: academic staffperceptions of changes in core activities in Australian higher education, 1991-96”, Studiesin Higher Education, Vol. 23 No. 3, pp. 255-68.

Willmott, H. (1995), “Managing the academics: commodification and control in the developmentof university education in the UK”, Human Relations, Vol. 48 No. 9, pp. 993-1027.

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Further reading

Alvesson, M. (2001), “Knowledge-work: ambiguity, image and identity”, Human Relations,Vol. 54 No. 7, pp. 863-86.

About the authorTodd Bridgman is a Lecturer in organisational behavoiur at Victoria University of Wellington,New Zealand. He was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Judge Business School, Universityof Cambridge, where he completed his PhD. His research interests include public sector reform,the role of the university as a civic institution and the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe.Todd Bridgman can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Managers as lazy, stupidcareerists?

Contestation and stereotypes amongsoftware engineers

Dariusz JemielniakKozminski Business School, Warsaw, Poland

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a qualitative study of softwareengineers’ perception of dress code, career, organizations, and of managers.

Design/methodology/approach – The software engineers interviewed work in three Europeanand two US companies. The research is based on ethnographic data, gathered in two longitudinalstudies during the period 2001-2006. The methods used in the study include open-ended unstructuredinterviews, participant observation, collection of stories, and shadowing.

Findings – It was found that the majority of software engineers denounce formal dress-codes.The notion of career was defined by them mostly in terms of occupational development. Theyperceived their own managers as very incompetent. Their view on corporations was also univocallynegative. The findings confirm that software engineers form a very distinctive occupation, definingitself in opposition to the organization. However, their distinctiveness may be perceived not only as amanifestation of independence but also contrarily, as simply fulfilling the organizational role they areassigned by management.

Originality/value – The study contributes to the organizational literature by responding to the callfor more research on high-tech workplace practices, and on non-managerial occupational roles.

Keywords Software engineering, Workplace learning, Managers


Thus, spake the master programmer: “Let the programmers be many and themanagers few-then all will be productive” (James, 1986).

IntroductionAlthough the managerial literature is dominated by the perception of culture as acompany’s integrative factor or even manageable asset (Hofstede, 1980; Ouchi, 1981;Peters and Waterman, 1982; Schein, 1985), many authors show that organizationalrealities are never so simple. In fact these realities abound in conflicting and chameleonsubcultures, quite often challenging the dominant managerial view (Rosen, 1991;Van Maanen, 1991; Martin, 1993). Conflict between managers (basing their power onthe company owners’ mandate and formal structures) and professionals (in turn basingtheir power on knowledge) occurs in many, if not most, organizations (Hall, 1986;Abbott, 1988; Trice, 1993). A good illustration of this tension is given by Pondy (1983),who cites the example of accountants who have a proverb that their job is ‘protectingthe company from the managers’.



The author would like to sincerely thank Davydd Greenwood, Pauline Gleadle, and the anonymousreviewers, whose constructive critique and comments helped in improving this paper.

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Vol. 20 No. 4, 2007pp. 491-508


DOI 10.1108/09534810710760045

Kunda comments that “managers must learn to squeeze the most out of engineers anddevelopment groups” (Kunda, 1992, p. 44). Software engineers are a professional groupthat is particularly subject to constant managerial pressure and a consequent burn-out.They also experience “time famine” having to work to constant deadlines and tightbudgets (Kunda, 1992; Perlow, 1997; Perlow, 1998; Cooper, 2000; Jemielniak, 2005). Thisis perhaps hardly surprising, in view of the finding that high-tech workers are oftensubject to normative control, to an imposition of values and feelings from the “greedy”organization (Coser, 1974; Kanter, 1977; Kidder, 1981; Kunda, 1992; Hochschild, 1997).Viewed in this light, identity shaping, indoctrination, and “creation of emotions” are alltools used by management (Jackall, 1988; Karreman and Alvesson, 2004).

Indeed, it is argued that “managers and professionals (particularly engineers) arethose who most closely identify with the companies for whom they work” (Kunda andVan Maanen, 1999, p. 64). However, as commented elsewhere, software engineers form aquite unique and distinctive (counter)culture (Kraft, 1977; Bucciarelli, 1988; Trice andBeyer, 1993; Garsten, 1994; Kunda and Van Maanen, 1999; Hertzum, 2002; Pineiro, 2003;Vallas, 2003). They manifest their distance from organizations they work for in manydifferent ways (Kidder, 1981; Perlow, 1997). They form also, as some authors claim, theavant-garde of the “brave new workplace of (the) electronic age” (Gephart, 2002).

The current study is an ethnography of a particular work group with distinctiveattitudes at odds with management. The study is interesting for the way it addressesand illuminates the nature and implications of work-place culture and other differenceswhich co-exist within a work setting.

Method and its limitationsA longitudinal ethnographical study was conducted in three Polish and two US ITcompanies. The research method was based on non-participant direct observation,collected written stories (asking interviewees to write a story beginning with a phrase“Once a software engineer met a manager . . . ”), shadowing of the selected actors, andopen unstructured interviews, lasting typically 40-50 minutes (55 software engineers andfive managers in the study). Importantly, all interviewees were salaried workers, notcontractors. However, in the companies studied the majority of programmers wereemployed full-time, the sole exception being the temporary coders. Those were not treatedby the fully employed as really belonging to the group and thus were not interviewed.

To assure anonymity, the interviewees’ names were replaced by a company’sfictitious nickname and a number. The results are performative, not ostensive, as inLatour’s (1986) terminology. In this sense they aim to understand and explain the pointof view of the interviewed, rather than at offering a definitive interpretation of theanalyzed problem, resulting from a preconceived theoretical model. Thus, the choice ofquestions was very much dependent on how the interview progressed and the outcomeis to a large extent under the influence of the interviewees (Whyte and Whyte, 1984).

For structural reasons, carefully selected excerpts are presented frominterviews found particularly representative of what most of the informants said.The title of the paper, on the contrary, reflects the author’s own synthesis of theinterviews. The paper is organized into four sections. The first addresses the mostvisible issue of dress code and software engineers’ perception of this. The secondcovers their view of career. The third is dedicated mainly to their comments aboutorganizations and managers. Finally, the last section sums up and places the findings

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within the framework of professionalization theory. We conclude that paradoxically,the rebellious role programmers play in many organizations may result from thestrong expectations organizations explicitly present them with.

Coders’ dress codeThe way people dress conveys many meanings, sometimes even resulting in the namegiven to an organization group. The Brown Shirts formation is one of many historicalexamples, but organizations commonly have such groups. For example, according toJohnson (1990), “suits” is a term commonly used by blue-collar workers to describemanagers. Similar tendencies can be observed in high-tech businesses. According toKawasaki (1990), a top manager in Apple, calls programmers “T-shirts” and labelspeople from finance or marketing “ties”.

Indeed, software engineers are quite often depicted as dressing very informally (e.g.by this group’s ethnographic pioneer: Kidder, 1981). According to an Australiancorporate stylist, Melanie Moss, IT workers are perhaps the “worst dressed”professionals in all industries (Hearn, 2005). In the current study of five companies, outof 55 software engineers interviewed, none regularly wore a suit or a tie. In contrast, allmanagers and salespeople encountered wore both at all times. The difference was somarked that it was decided to explore reasons behind these differences.

Most of the programmers initially expressed a belief that their profession did nothave any dress-code. They also quite commonly said that the company they worked fordid not impose any rules in this respect. “You can dress however you like” “Anythinggoes” “Wear something, that’s the rule [laughter]” were the recurrent comments.The general tone of the responses is represented by the following excerpt (Wodan2):

I never really liked suits, I didn’t feel comfortable in them, but I don’t know . . . My friendswho are software engineers, too, but work for the big companies, they often have to wearsuits. They have something like a policy or an agreement, about what they have to wear,and so on. But here it’s different.

“Here, it’s different” was what interviewees often repeated, no matter which companythey worked at. Even in the big corporations studied here (American, one of the worldleaders in speech recognition, and Polish, a Central European leader in business softwaresolutions) the programmers not only shared this belief, but also stated that they did notlike “other big companies’ policies” that enforced a strict dress code. Viewed in this lighta suit was described as a symbol of being boring or even uncultured (minicorp4):

[Q:] What about the way software engineers dress? Can you tell me more about this?

[A:] Well, about software engineer’s dress . . . I’m not sure; I’d think what you wear is not thatrelated to any particular job at all. Or it is rather related to some conventions of a firm. I mean,in general I noticed, that in today’s world a white shirt and a suit are like a military uniform of asort, there is some uniformity. I guess it is supposed to suggest working culture, but it suggeststhe lack of it. No offence, but you wear a white shirt for some special occasion, not every day,this is why it’s special. Here, at our company, it is a small one anyway; we don’t have any dresscode whatsoever. It is a fact, though, that when we go to see a client, we do wear a suit, and ourboss asks us to do so. But this is rather obvious, it in a way shows respect for the client (. . .).

This interviewee defined a suit as a “military uniform”; consciously or not recognizingits historical origins, expressing a very negative opinion of dress codes per se.


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However, he did believe, and so did most of the interviewed, in the necessity of wearinga suit for meetings with clients.

Although in general interviewees at first did not recognize that a dress code existed,many of them added that their peers in fact do exert subtle pressure on how to dress.These observations were consistent with the negative perception of formal dress codes(Wodan2):

[Q:] If you wore a suit, how would it be received?

[A:] Well, colleagues would laugh definitely. But it wouldn’t be mean, just friendly comments.You know, we don’t usually wear suits, so if somebody appears in one it somehow causesreactions . . .

This pressure was described by many of the informants. The dialogue typically wentas follows (Minicorp5):

[Q:] Could you tell me more about how software engineer dress?

[A:] Well, in our company you can dress as you like.

[Q:] I understand . . . But in some companies people are not told what they are supposed towear, but they still dress in a particular way, e.g. a suit.

[A:] Sure. You can wear a suit and tie here, if you want, sure. But people prefer not to.

[Q:] Why? What would happen, if you did?

[A:] Well, people would snigger, naturally. I guess it is difficult to describe, it’s specific. . .When somebody has a meeting with a client, people start commenting on it.

[Q:] Really? In what way?

[A:] They make silly remarks, like “ho ho!” and so on . . . comments that you’re in a suit, andthat you look so cute, and that maybe you are going to propose to your girlfriend.

So wearing a suit was accepted only for meeting clients (Sand7):

[Q:] Do you often wear a suit?

[A:] Occasionally, and only if I am told earlier that I have a meeting with a client, then yes.Let’s say a day earlier I am told, so I wear a tie, and go to the client. You know, you have tolook presentable when you meet a client (. . .)

Software engineers described, how they rejected a formal dress-code within theorganization, while observing it outside[1]. When outside the organization programmersfelt they represented the firm and so for this reason they accepted, even if not welcoming,the external dress code. Wearing a suit was a sign of respect for the client. Inside the firm,though, they perceived wearing a suit and tie as being beyond the pale.

The failure to wear a suit is a sign of not belonging to certain organizational groups,usually management, marketing and sales. Crane (1997) views bohemian dress style as anavant-gardist aesthetic practice meaningful mainly in opposition to mainstream fashion.For programmers, a formal dress code was not perceived as a sign of high status, as is thecase in many other contexts (Rafaelli and Pratt, 1993). They did not emphasize their

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independence by common choice of some particular clothes. On the contrary, their statuswas defined rather by their freedom of preference in this respect. They enjoyed theirfreedom from a formal dress code, instead joking about their peers who had to conform.Paradoxically, dressing supposedly carelessly could be viewed here as a sign of power andcompetence. But to understand the meaning of this symbolism, it is necessary to exploresoftware engineers’ views of management, and of organizations.

Organizing and managersMost of interviewees did not mince their words when they spoke of big companies.Many criticized corporations, without prompting (Wodan6):

[Q:] Would you like to work in a bigger company?

[A:] No. I get goose pimples whenever I think about big firms. I mean, well, I don’t really like theidea of them. Even without thinking too much about it, it’s obvious that the bigger theorganization, the less flexible it is. Things take longer, everything has to go through more people.And second of all, I was never really impressed . . . I was never impressed by big companies, allthis paperwork, I think I always associated it with something bad . . . maybe with propaganda.

[Q:] Propaganda?

[A:] Yeah. Just think what happens in these companies . . . They brainwash people: you arethe best, you are a team member, you are . . . you have to achieve something, and thensomething else, and else . . . That’s my impression and this is what my friends, who work inbigger firms, tell me. You are simply a cog in the wheel there.

The programmer described a typical big corporation. He stressed the ideologicalcharacter of managerial rhetoric by labeling it “propaganda”. Many other informantsexpressed a similar distaste for managerial rhetoric (Sand1):

[Q:] What irritates you about the company?

[A:] Oh, occasionally many things. . . I think what I dislike most is when somebody from thehigher echelons, some big boss, comes here and blabs on about how much they care about ourwork and how important we are, and when we ask about the promised raises he behaves as ifwe offended him. Seriously, we had this situation a couple of months ago. And we have thissort of blah-blah on an everyday basis.

The interviewees clearly identified the agitprop character of many of the officialorganizational announcements. “Blabbing” and “blah-blah” was how they saw thebosses’ rhetoric. Programmers stressed their anti-ideological stance. Ideology itselfwas denounced, even if was not particularly striking in organizations they worked for,it constituted the most disliked element of the stereotypical corporation. Whether itwas what they experienced in their organizations or not, managerial indoctrinationwas listed as being exceptionally repulsive.

Correctional officers in Klofas and Toch’s (1982) research often shared a belief thatthe “mainstream culture” of their profession does exist, even though they did notbelong to it. Similarly, interviewees in the current study, even the ones from really bigfirms, unanimously said that even though the companies they work for are exceptionsto the rule, in general big organizations are unfriendly and hierarchical.


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All programmers from two corporations operating in the international markets madesuch statements (Sand18):

[Q:] What attracted you to this company?

[A:] Well, I’d say I came practically in off from the street, I didn’t know anyone here.But I must say, that it is different from what people say, that the company’s big, takesadvantage of people, and so on. The atmosphere here is definitely humane, we’re a separateteam anyway, a separate cell, a bit away from the rest of the firm, so you don’t normally evennotice that the company is big, maybe just occasionally.

For a pretty neutral question about the reasons for working in the firm he worked, theinterviewee was making excuses, questioning “what people say”. He justified hischoice and emphasized that even though the whole company is big, his unit is smalland structurally independent, indeed “definitely humane”; in contrast to elsewhere.Other interviewees, in similar tone, referred to bureaucracy as a typical andparticularly striking flaw of bigger firms (Wodan4):

[Q:] What made you apply for a job in this company, when you didn’t even know it?

[A:] Small size; that for a start.

[Q:] Why is that important?

[A:] Well, its not that being small is important, it’s that being big is a problem. I mean,I, you know, have friends from university, a couple of them at least, who went to workwith big corporations, I won’t give you their names, but there the internal problems aresomehow multiplied.

[Q:] What kind of internal problems?

[A:] For example: a stupid boss. And apart from this there is also another, namelybureaucracy. I mean, in particular, it happens often, that a guy gets an order . . . I mean forexample, gets an order, spends two days on preparing some document, and then a biggerboss comes and throws this away. Says that it’s something totally else. In small firms youcan communicate directly, there are fewer people in general; work is not wasted as much.In big corporations nobody minds that somebody lost two days on some crap, that wasn’teven used after all. And you have to spend lots of time on in-fighting. You have to intrigueand drive people out, so as to prevent yourself from being driven out.

The inevitability of power struggles in bureaucracies was emphasized in manyinterviews. Software engineers criticized the highly political nature of organizationallife and its irrationality, resulting from undue bureaucracy. They also resented the factthat in many companies they have to engage in the game on managerial terms, so asnot to be marginalized.

Negative views of management (stupid boss) were repeated in many interviews.Large company size was associated with inefficiency and in-fighting. There was acommon fear of incompetent bosses in big corporations (Minicorp3):

[Q:] What do you like about the company you work for?

[A:] First of all, that it’s small.

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[Q:] So what’s so important about being small?

[A:] Well, a friend from work, who brought me here, put it nicely: he said there is nodilbertization. I guess you know what I mean. And I think it’s because the company isn’t big,you know.

[Q:] What is dilbertization?

[A:] Well, I mean, it’s not an exact term, ok? But in general, when there is no dilbertization,you’re not talking about big companies and you’re just working faster, without problems.I mean problems . . . From what I hear, in bigger companies people have to do the same jobseveral times, because a manager changed his mind, a company changed its mind, and so on.

A popular cartoon caricaturing corporations’ absurd behaviour, the comic strip“Dilbert” was used as a catch-phrase for big companies. Again, even though thequestions were focused on the companies programmers worked for, rather than onmanagement, the figure of the boss was brought up spontaneously, as an importanticon of the company. The manager was described as somebody who changes his mind,and makes “people” work not only more, but also for nothing. Such negative perceptionwas intensified when I asked about managers directly (Wodan4):

[Q:] So, I have a final question. Could you give some advice to managers, people who leadIT projects? Some dos and don’ts? What would you advise?

[A:] Well, my view of a bad manager is somebody, who knows nothing but pretends to knowa lot.

Software engineers question not only managerial competence in IT projects. They alsochallenge managerial knowledge per se. People who pursue a career in management doso because they cannot do anything else. As a result of their technical ignorance theymake unrealistic demands, the most common complaint of programmers.

Many of the interviewees expressed frustration with the fact that their superiorsperceived software as easily modifiable. A typical example is as follows from Wodan:

Tom, the project manager opens a meeting with the programming team. He refers to adiscussion with a client and describes the list of changes the client asks for. Programmerstake notes, sometimes asking questions for clarification. Occasionally they make remarks like“Will do” “OK, if THAT’S what they want . . . ” However, one of the changes leads to anastonished reaction. Peter, a member of the programming team, says “But it would require amajor revision of the program”. Somebody adds “It doesn’t make any sense; we’ll have tostart all over again”. Tom is very apologetic, he explains that the client is really important,and the change has already been approved by the company. He dismisses all doubts raised.By way of consolation he adds that he was able to negotiate a deadline extension, but twoprogrammers shake their heads, even though they say nothing. Once the meeting is over theteam stays in the room to decide what to do. Mark, one of the programmers, says “It’s justsoftware” and everybody laughs. Later I ask him what it meant. “Oh, you know. They neverwould ask an engineer to rebuild a bridge, or something physical, right? But they thinksoftware is like a couple of written lines, like a document or something, that you can alterwhenever you want and how you want. But it’s like rebuilding a bridge, or worse, as youdon’t really understand what one change will imply elsewhere. Once before we had a similarsituation, and there was some ridiculous revision of the specification almost near the end of


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the whole project, and somebody said Take it easy, it’s just software. It was so absurd, youknow. So since then we say that and everybody knows, what it means”.

The tension described had its roots in managerial misconception of programmers’work. Although interviewees did give some examples of knowledgeable managers,they faced misunderstanding and even disparaging of their own work on daily basis.But managers were criticized not only for their lack of skill. Another issue pointed outby more than a half of the interviewed was a fundamental difference in perception ofsoftware as a final product (Sand17):

[Q:] What could you tell me from your own experience about relations between a softwareengineer and manager?

[A:] Well, it’s not too good, I’d say. I think there are two approaches. I mean, a manageralways thinks about effectiveness. It doesn’t matter how something works, it only has to work.And among programmers, there are two groups, as I said. Some do, excuse the expression,fart around, and follow managerial commands. But there are also programmers, who dosomething real, and they want to do it well, and doing this “well” is a bone of contention. For amanager doing something “well” means that something works. For a programmer it meansthat a program works, is stable, and has additional features, and so on.

Following managerial instructions was compared to “farting around”. It wascontrasted to a stance, in which a programmer really cares about the product, whilea manager only wants it to be workable on basic level. Indeed, it is not unusual formanagers to identify with the organization they work for, and for employees to identifymore with the products they create (Sievers, 1990). Software engineers, however,expressed also a deep contempt for what managers do. Much of it was related to theway managers treated them. As one of the programmers put it (Visualprog3):

[Q:] Could you, based on your own experience, give some advice to IT managers?

[A:] I’d say. . . In general, a good manager does not watch over you the whole time you know. Imean if he knows what I have to do, and I know what I have to do, and we agree more or lesswhen it can be done, what’s the point? Maybe it’s just me, some people like to be led by hand,but in my view the best managers I worked with understood, that ok, I can update them every10 minutes or in real time, but then my job will only consist of describing why I can’t doprogramming at all because of this reporting, you know? Not to mention that if you’re in themiddle of something and somebody comes and asks you to write something immediately, youdrop everything, start doing this report, and can’t return easily to what you did earlier. It’s notthat simple.

What was noticeable was that most of advice interviewees dispensed concerned thethings that managers should avoid doing. In software engineers’ view the bestmanagers were those who intervened as little as possible, and simply followed alaissez-faire principle. In fact, the community of software engineers seemed to definethe managers as redundant at best.

The best manager was one notable by his absence as managers were portrayed asstupid. However, it was recognized that managers were powerful and so programmershave to take part in their games, much as they tried to avoid this. The softwareengineers were unanimously sceptical and even hostile towards formality andprocedures, which they associated with the companies they worked for, or with thegeneral idea of how the firms operate. Whenever their organizations were described in

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a positive way, they were praised for being exceptions to the general rule. Althoughinterviewees admitted the usefulness of organizing per se, they all criticized it first,and only then added disclaimers.

Interestingly, enough, these views were recognized and even accepted by managers.They often made an effort to minimize bureaucracy for programmers. The followingscene from the company orientation program at Visualprog was particularly striking:

Vera, the HRM officer for Visualprog is welcoming two new engineers. One of them will jointhe software group, the other will be supporting the business development department.Even though this is the first day at the company for the two of them, they both wear sweaters.Vera, on the other hand, wears a suit. She spends about 30 minutes describing the history ofthe company. Quite often she emphasizes the uniqueness of the environment they are going towork in (. . .) “You’re part of a small company that was organizationally designed to be agile.People come here and say that everything here is a chaos. But it is just different. We’re reallynot big on org charts . . . ” Both engineers nod and read the company’s employees benefitsfolder. Vera speaks fluently and clearly, quite often repeating herself, probably on purpose.Maybe it’s just an impression, but it seems as though she has delivered this speech manytimes before. She takes a piece of paper out of her folder. “You won’t have to memorize this,it’s funny we have this on the walls, but nobody really takes any notice of it” she says andrecites the company’s mission. Then she goes on to describe the reasons the company had forchoosing ISO quality system several years ago. “Our quality system, all respect due to thecreators, is not very user friendly” she adds with a smile. She hands a procedure chart to bothof them. “You’re welcome to read all of our quality procedures. If you do, let me know – I willbe really impressed. But seriously, you won’t have to do so much paperwork here; we’re kindof sensitive enough to make sure you don’t have to’”.

The company’s agility and “chaos” are presented as strong points for engineers.The ISO system, quite strict about procedures, is depicted as not necessarily inevitable(the engineers are ironically informed that they do not have to read all of theprocedures) and as not entailing much paperwork. Caricatured and selective as thisview of software engineers in the eyes of managers may be, it is still worth noticingthat in the companies studied, managers quite often made allowances forprogrammers, commonly lowering bureaucratic expectations of them.

Deep-seated or just a veneer?The hostility of software engineers to managers may be influenced by groupstereotypes (Gill, 2003). Many of the symbolic gestures described have only surfacemeaning, and performing opposition may be in fact a sort of behavioral artifact.This would be particularly understandable when considered that, in contrast to thespecialists described by Barley and Kunda (2004) in their study, interviewees were notcontract workers and they stayed in the organizations by their own choice, in spite ofavailable alternatives. This could mean that they were not exasperated enough to leavethe organization, but also that they need to channel their negative reactions within thecompany. When knowing how well freelance workforce may be off, and while stillbeing reluctant to leave the relatively safer payroll jobs, their aspirations andemotional reaction towards organizations could just as well be under the influence ofthose “hired guns”. Itinerant programmers, reviving the Wild West archetype (andsimilarly to hackers, another important icon of this profession – Thomas, 2002)cultivate the idea of freedom and criticize “big corporations”. Interviewees might havebeen simply borrowing this language and using it perfunctorily.


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However, even surface actions and stereotypes show the ways in whichorganizational reality is constructed. They constitute nothing more, but also nothingless than a particular kind of stories by which actors organize and make sense of theirworkplace (Boje, 1991; Feldman and Skolberg, 2004).

Software engineers, similar to architects in this respect, have to define theirprofession in relation (or opposition) to the clients and organizations they work for(Larson, 1993, p. 144; Kociatkiewicz and Kostera, 2003). Organizations exist as speechcommunities, sharing an intersubjectively created system of meanings (Barley, 1983).In this light language of the analyzed group, forms reenactment of their roles. Theyreproduce sense and artifacts of daily work (Czarniawska-Joerges, 1992). Moreover,within the current study, the main focus is on actors’ expressions, and the researchershould not judge which of them are deep, and which is a veneer. The power of namingis the power to shape reality. Additionally, within the methodology adopted, it may bequite difficult to discern the veneer from the essence, as the main purpose of the studyis to analyze what the interviewees say, rather than guessing what they may mean(Rottenburg, 1994). Indeed, in this paper surface acting is regarded as equallyimportant to deeply held beliefs. In the following paragraphs we interpret theprogrammers-managers hostility, and the unusual denouncement of traditional careerand organizational values in the context of theories around professionalization.

Professionalization?It may be useful to try to apply professionalization theory to the processes discussed.The tension between managers and software engineers could be understood asresulting from professionalization of engineers currently taking place. In some sensethis tension is understandable in terms of antagonism between the managing and themanaged, based on the old strategy of struggle, resulting in redefining the relations oforganizational power (Foucault, 1982; Latour, 1986).

Originally professions were defined in terms of the altruistic provision of highstandards of service to society (Carr-Saunders, 1966; Wilensky, 1964). Over the last30 years it has been demonstrated, that it is also useful to use this term to describe acommon trend among occupations in search of authority and recognition, and seekingto secure their own interests and privileges (Abbott, 1988; Alvesson, 1993). In thiscontext, questioning managerial competence could be perceived then as a typicalstruggle regarding who should define the product and its standards. In more generalterms it could be seen as an attempt of attaining social position and privileges. Theextent to which a worker has control over the process of production, as well as to whichvocational group is privileged to evaluate the outcome of work, have been emphasizedas important for the advance of professionalization (Johnson, 1972; Trice, 1993).Viewed in this light, software engineers’ dislike of their superiors would be nothingelse but a manifestation of their subculture’s struggle for legitimacy, quite typical formany occupations. In this sense the professionalization approach could be used then asan explanatory metaphor for understanding the interviews.

However, the traditional understanding of professions may be not fully applicablein case of software engineers. In order to be regarded as a profession, they would haveto fulfill many criteria, including long formal and standardized education, barriers toentry, own code of ethics, peers’ fraternities, client orientation, application of scientificmethods, etc. (Abbott, 1988; Brante, 1988). Clearly, software engineers do not meet at

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least some of these requirements. For example, they very seldom unionize (Milton,2003; Jaarsveld, 2004) and rarely belong to professional associations. Indeed,interviewees on many occasions showed that they not only did not fulfill therequirements of the model of professionalization, but also that they could not care lessabout the concepts it emphasized as important.

Something else that was at odds with the model of professionalization was thatsoftware engineering often calls for creativity, intuition and improvising, which are tosome extent in conflict with a strict professional training.

Finally, professionalization theory refers to a process of formalizing the status andorganization of some occupation, and this is not what software engineers favored. In thislight it is also worth mentioning that the software engineers interviewed commonlycategorize their managers, clients, but also their peers by referring to their knowledge,rather than to their formal status as in the following interview extract:

[Q:] Can you give an example of a really good manager?

[A:] Well, once I had a project leader, who was really outstanding. He was a formerprogrammer, but he hadn’t written a line of code for years, and thank God he knew he wasn’table to do this anymore. But he had a good grasp of what is possible and what is not, he reallyunderstood how things work. And he really knew something about projects, it was not that hewent in for micro managing your work.

In describing other programmers the interviewees also often referred to theircompetences, irrespective of formal position or age (“he is quite new to our company,but he really knows the technology well . . . ” “It’s ridiculous that people with such poorunderstanding of the environment are allowed to coordinate the whole team at all . . . ”).Even among the interviewees some programmers were perceived as “just coders” andtheir work was described as purely reproductive, just as a couple of project leaders,although high in the organizational hierarchy, were not respected because of theirsupposed ignorance.

What is certain is that interviewees in general did not particularly like managersshowing up on the horizon at all. As the engineers said, they were able to control theirown work to a large extent, irrespective of managerial interventions and checks.According to software engineers the managers also did not, and even were not able todelve into the process of software creation with any competence, being able onlyto judge outcomes. Moreover, other than simply communicating client’s needs,managers rarely participated in discussions of how particular problems should besolved.

Despite this lack of understanding, management persisted in trying to exert itsauthority. For example, many programmers were subject to some forms of basicpersonal surveillance: in four of the companies researched the time spent at work wastracked (both by the clock and by computer logs). One of the stories recounted byinterviewees at Sand was a particularly good example of how companies try to controlsoftware engineers, and at the same time how they resist it. The story was about aprogrammer, who supposedly:

. . . logged into the network in his cubicle, opened a couple of applications, left his jacket onthe chair, put a cup of water on the table, and just drove with his wife to the mountains tillMonday. The funniest thing is that nobody really noticed he wasn’t there. I mean, probably


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some people knew he’s not around, but nobody said anything and the manager thought he’sjust working hard somewhere else.

Although perhaps apocryphal, this story describes both the resented surveillance, andthe hero outwitting the hated system.

In fact, the use of a professionalization discourse may actually turn out to be amanagerial device used to exert more control over the IT “professional” (Kraft, 1977;Greenbaum, 1979), a sort of ideological device validating a given rhetoric (Prasad andPrasad, 1994).

It has been commented that the importance of organization (and thus managers, inopposition to vocational groups) is historically relatively new (Whalley and Barley,1997; Winter and Taylor, 2001). Thus, currently we can observe trends in theworkplace that restore the former significance of particular occupations. The tensiondiscussed is described then in terms of emerging “knowledge workers” organization orso-called intellectual capital (Bell, 1973, 1989; Mallet, 1975; Hippel, 1988; Senge, 1990;Drucker, 1993; Stewart, 1997; Styhre, 2003). Perhaps, a new culture is developing inrelation to “new specialists” – its distinguishing marks being competence-basedauthority, horizontal flat structures, the demise of management and low formalization(Zabusky and Barley, 1996). These characteristics are true of many IT companies andmay suggest that software engineers exist in opposition to traditional bureaucracies astheir occupational identity is based mainly on knowledge. Thus, they denounce thebureaucracy, the vertical career structures, and formal authority of managers asreinforcing the old system they want to replace. In this sense software engineers couldbe labeled as “organizational professionals” (Freidson, 1986) in that they exercise theircompetence and power within, rather than over organizations, in distinction to theclassic professions.

However, a totally different interpretation is possible, too. Software engineers mayin fact be acting as the passive carriers of organizational roles, only agreeing to assumethe role of a rebel. This view will be discussed in the conclusions.

ConclusionsManagerial power in many organizations can be understood in terms of their ability toimpose their definition of their own cultural terrain on other groups and so to force theadoption of their own vocabulary (Rosen, 1991). Software engineers may constitute amajor threat to managerial rhetoric, to managerial monophony (Hopfl, 1995).As Zabusky (1997, p. 129) observes:

[T]his conjunction does not represent a simple juxtaposition of two complementary forms;instead, it involves a contest for legitimacy, authority and autonomy within contemporaryorganizations. The contest is played out particularly among these technicians who arecoming to work in bureaucratic organizations in increasing numbers.

Czarniawska-Joerges (1988) describes organizational ideology as a system of ideas thatdefine the local reality, including the desired state of matters and ways to reach it.These ideas permeate the organization, imposing norms on the participating actors,who have to react towards them, one way or another. However, these ideas do not comefrom nowhere: organizations follow the ideas their stakeholders consider to beparticularly valid. In this connection Meyer and Rowan (1977, p. 341) comment:

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. . . the formal structures of many organizations in postindustrial society (Bell, 1973)dramatically reflect the myths of their institutional environments instead of the demands oftheir work activities.

According to this perspective, in order to be successful economically, organizationsshould abandon their traditional structure, decrease bureaucracy, and rely onknowledgeable gurus. Whether organizations with the “new specialists” playing majorroles are indeed more effective is another issue.

According to Schon (1983), the myth of finally reaching the stage where organizationswill be knowledge-driven, and knowledge industries will be as important for the economyas were formerly railroad or steel, is an old idea (Mallet, 1975). Indeed, for many yearsfuturologists have proclaimed the era of the technical expert. Managerial functionalliterature has also gradually introduced the idea that specialists in general, and softwareengineers in particular, play a significant role in organizations. This role requires aparticular approach and abandoning older management style, as programmers are toodistinctive and important, to be treated like other employees (Licker, 1983; Prager, 1999).Brante (1988, p. 123) summarizes this point, when commenting that:

In contrast to the old bureaucracy, their positions do not rest on legal authority but onargument, reason, and knowledge. Therefore, they stand in a politically contradictory relationto the “old guardians” which they regard as irrational and ignorant.

This view is arguably applicable to software engineers as they are “professionals”in that they are endowed with high esteem and authority. However, the ideal ofthe software engineer is that of the organizational rebel.

Managers treat programmers as being in the avant-garde of the future workplace,and this way the programmers fulfil this role. Indeed, their rejection of managerialculture is even expected and so required by the environment they work in. Ullman(1995) comments in this connection:

The research is being funded through a chain of agencies and bodies which culminates in theJapan Board of Trade. The head of the sponsoring department comes with his underlings.They all wear blue suits. They sit at the conference table with their hands folded neatly infront of them. When they speak, it is with the utmost discretion; their voices are so soft, wehave to lean forward to hear. Meanwhile, the research team behaves badly, bickers, has theaudacity to ask when they’ll get paid.

The Japanese don’t seem to mind. On the contrary, they appear delighted. They have receivedexactly what their money was intended to buy. They have purchased bizarre and brilliantCalifornians who can behave any way they like. The odd behavior reassures them: Ah! Thesemust be real top-rate engineers!

Similar scenes have occurred in the companies studied. Vera from Visualprog whenintroducing new employees to the company, after describing the organizationalstructure and ISO policies to them, still on many occasions later emphasized they willnot be “required to fill in the paperwork, as elsewhere” or “expected to spend most timeon reporting, rather than actual work”. Software engineers are expected to dislikeprocedures and resist bureaucracy. Indeed, the role they assume of “anarchisticprofessionals” is perhaps necessary for other reasons.

For example, their knowledge can be viewed as standardized, systematic, andimpersonal. Only then it is justifiable and reasonable to provide them with “specifications”


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of the needed “construction” rather than engage them in communication/brainstormingwith the client on what the program should actually do. In such a setting the knowledgeassociated with software development is more likely to be perceived as quantitative,codified, and explicit rather than qualitative, intuitive and tacit. Norm goesbefore creativity, standard education before genius. As a result organizations andmanagers tend to ignore individual aspects of coding, as well as its unique, extremelycontextual character (in most cases advanced IT systems require lots of adjustments andmodifications, if not revisions, for any additional client). For example, companies treatprogrammers as interchangeable and they follow a misleading man-month myth,believing that adding man-power to a project may help in finishing it more quickly (in factusually it is just the opposite – Brooks, 1995). The same approach leads to the “it’sjust software” principle, described by the informants. In fact, these assumptions are,Bryant (2000) shows, a major drawback in understanding programming, and one of themain obstacles in successful communication between managers and programmers. This isexactly what interviewees remarked on in their stories on managerial incompetence.

Another reason is that their understanding of their own role calls for the creationof schedules, division of labor, as well as linear communication with the client.This inevitably results in perceiving software as transferable, with assignableresponsibilities and tasks, and as designed according to an initial specification withjust minor changes introduced later. It also goes without saying that such a definitionof programmers’ position is much more convenient for managers as well. On the onehand, software engineers are heroes of the future, fulfilling the myth ofknowledge-intensiveness. On the other they have to write programs, which areextremely complex and contextual, as if they were easily replicable and modifiable;they are expected to (re)produce rather than to create. No wonder that being treatedthis way, and explicitly persuaded to renounce structures and procedures, they also donot particularly like their superiors whom they regard as lazy stupid careerists.

Note

1. The old debate on the sense or otherwise of defining the boundaries of an organization(Weick, 1979) and on the use of notions such as “outside” or “inside” does not constitute thesubject of this paper.

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Further reading

Burawoy, M. (1991), Ethnography Unbound: Power and Resistance in the Modern Metropolis,University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.

Clifford, J. and Marcus, G.E. (1986), Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography:A School of American Research Advanced Seminar, University of California Press,Berkeley, CA.

About the authorsDariusz Jemielniak is Assistant Professor of Management at Kozminski Business School,Warsaw, Poland. He was visiting researcher at Cornell University (2004-2005), is currentlyvisiting researcher at Harvard University and will have the same appointment at the Universityof California Berkeley in 2008. He is a co-editor of The Handbook of Research onKnowledge-Intensive Organizations (2009) and of Management Practices in High TechEnvironments (2008). He has received scholarships from The Fulbright Foundation, TheFoundation for Polish Science and from The Collegium Invisibile. His areas of interest includeorganizational practices in knowledge-intensive environments and he has done qualitativestudies of engineers including software engineers, and is currently conducting a follow-up studyon lawyers. Dariusz is also starting to undertake action research. Dariusz Jemielniak can becontacted at: [email protected]

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Knowledge workers in thein-between: network identities

Tara FenwickUniversity of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Abstract

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the identities and subjectivities of independent knowledgeworkers who contract their services to organizations. Two questions are addressed: who are theseenterprising knowledge workers, in terms of how they understand and position themselves relative toorganizational structures, practices and social relations in their work as “inside outsiders”? How dothey recognize their own constitution, and what spaces for agency are possible?

Design/methodology/approach – The discussion draws upon a qualitative study of18 self-employed consultants in organizational change, analysing their articulations as ongoingconstitutions within prescribed discourses and cultural technologies. Semi-structured in-depthinterviews were analysed inductively to determine themes and silences among the narratives.

Findings – The argument shows how these subjectivities emerge from in-between spaces, bothinside and outside organizations. As they negotiate these spaces, they exercise agency by resistingcontrol while building connections. These articulations are described as “network identities”.

Originality/value – The paper concludes with implications for organizations employing orcontracting with such individuals. Suggestions for managers involve enabling more project structures,negotiating boundaries and purposes more clearly, providing more flexible conditions and facilitatingmore integration of these knowledge workers with other employees before, during and followinginnovative project activity.

Keywords Knowledge management, Contract workers, Networking


IntroductionWith massive organizational restructuring in 1990s in North America and theconsequent shuffling and even dissolution of jobs in the professional/middlemanagerial ranks, many knowledge workers left organizations tobecome self-employed. These self-employed workers have been described variouslyas consultants, contractors, freelancers, independent professionals, “itinerant experts”(Barley and Kunda, 2004) even “boundaryless workers” or “portfolio workers”: popularwriters such as Arthur and Rousseau (2000) maintain they are revolutionisingemployment arrangements. While this may be overstating the case, numbers ofself-employed workers certainly appear to be rising in North America, Europe and theUK. In Canada, for example, Hughes (2001) reports that self-employment rose sharplyin 1990s and has continued to rise steadily since: 15 per cent of all Canadian workersare now self-employed (Industry Canada, 2006).

At the same time, commentators have drawn attention to the ascendancy ofenterprise as an organizing principle within bureaucracies, which has restructured the



This paper is based on a portion of a three-year project 2002-2005 funded by the Social Sciencesand Humanities Research Council of Canada. The author is grateful to the comments ofanonymous reviewers, whose suggestions have helped strengthen the article considerably.

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DOI 10.1108/09534810710760054

nature of work within organizations and thrown new emphasis on reflexivity asindividuals find themselves compelled to develop identities as innovative, risk-takingentrepreneurial selves (Du Gay, 2004; Storey et al., 2005). Barley and Kunda (2004)argue that the rise in contract-based employment is due to a myriad of pressures andexpectations, not simply demands for flexibility, that guide every actor’s decisions.What constitutes their “knowledge” is particularly complex. As Alvesson (2001) pointsout, knowledge workers tend to use uncertain, shifting knowledge that is essentiallyambiguous in its content, significance, and results. This ambiguity, argues Alvesson,leads to the centrality of securing and regulating identity among knowledge workers.In fact identity – its influences and processes of manufacture – has become animportant site for scrutiny to understand not only particular challenges confrontingcontract workers, but also the changing configurations of knowledge that they bothinhabit and enact in organizational conditions of flexible work (Alvesson, 2001; Barleyand Kunda, 2004; Chappell et al., 2003; Fenwick, 2004).

The work structures of these contractors tend to have in common four maincharacteristics:

(1) their work is typically project-based, defined by individual bounded contractsof varying periods for varying activities;

(2) they contract their knowledge services to a variety of employers, includingorganizations and single clients;

(3) they often juggle multiple projects and contracts simultaneously; and

(4) they remain self-employed and rarely hire other employees except as limitedcontracts to assist with particular projects or maintenance services such as theirown accounting (Fenwick, 2004).

Some of the more exuberant studies of these independent, enterprising knowledgeworkers have suggested that they are mobile and active in designing their careers,exhilarated, able to enjoy personal meaning and personal responsibility for their work(Sullivan, 1999), while contributing to continuous knowledge production (Bird, 1996).Since, such independent workers tend to form multiple networks, argue Gee et al.(1996), they enable wide distribution of learning across social groups and institutions.They supposedly project a positive social vision comprising multiple nodes of learning,and multiple connections among people, tools and environments created through theunconstrained knowledge and unbound identities of boundaryless labour (Gee et al.,1996). Others such as Alvesson (2001) have provided a more “suspicious” perspective,showing that their knowledge tends to rely most upon image impression, rhetoricalintensity, and social connections, leading to a shakiness and vulnerability that makes itdifficult to secure and regulate identity.

Particular interest has centred on these workers’ career identity. How individuals“construct non-organisationally sustained accounts of their working lives” is a focus forGold and Fraser (2002, p. 583), who examined independent workers’ strategies forsuccessful transition. While remaining outsiders to their employing organizations, theircontracted projects require them to infiltrate and become immersed in the networks ofrelations and practices within the organization, becoming temporary insiders(Fenwick, 2003). Yet this is a delicate position, for both they as well as the regularemployees recognize that the independent knowledge worker always remains external,

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and is granted certain privileges and freedoms along with exclusions that otheremployees do not experience. Thus, the independent knowledge worker occupies an“in-between” space: neither a separate enterprise apart from the organization, noran integrated part of the organization, even temporarily.

From an organizational point of view, these independently-oriented knowledgeworkers are attractive as they tend to be enterprising flexible workers who thrive onchallenge and initiative. For organizations, then, two questions are of interest inexamining this phenomenon. Who are these enterprising knowledge workers, in termsof how they understand and position themselves relative to organizational structures,practices and social relations in their work as “inside outsiders”? How do they recognizetheir own constitution, and what spaces for agency are possible? These are questions ofidentity and subjectivity. Certain rather pessimistic accounts of governmentality in theworkplace (Rose, 1998) suggest that worker identities have been shaped bycontemporary discourses of flexibility, enterprise and self-reliance in ways thatgovern their very attachments and desires to produce particular subjects required bycontemporary organizations. However, other accounts (Chappell et al., 2003; Davies,2000; Hey, 2002) contest this rather deterministic reading. They show, through detailedreadings of workers’ negotiations of material and discursive practices in organizations,that these workers exercise agency and manage their various identities to create spacesfor freedom, autonomy and security. In the case of self-employed knowledge workers,these exercises of subjectivity are intimately linked to their relationships and knowledgeservices that constitute their work. Barley and Kunda (2004) show that contractors mustconstantly manage what they know and who they know to survive in the market:a labour of managing one’s self, knowledge, and social capital.

This paper addresses these questions by presenting a recent qualitative study ofknowledge workers who left organizational employment to pursue independent careersin organizational change. What is particularly interesting is that while all of theseindividuals profess the enterprising, innovative characteristics of entrepreneurialidentities, none turned to entrepreneurship until after many years among therank-and-file of organizational employment. Even when they did make the break toself-employment, they structured their career as individuals working with and throughother organizations, rather than setting out to build their own organization ofemployees and production. Their contracts with organizations revolve around theirknowledge which is tied up with their exercises of and influences upon theirsubjectivit(ies), which in turn is closely integrated with their positions, relations andpractices within organizations. For these reasons, an appreciation of these dynamics ofsubjectivity from the perspective of independent knowledge workers is important formanagers in organizations relying on their knowledge provision. The paper closes withspecific implications for managers drawn from the study findings.

Subjectivity and knowledge workThe questions at issue here have to do with what subjectivities are created in thisindependent work, and what processes are involved in their constitution. And what is asubject? The view adopted here is consistent with post-structural perspectives, thatstep away from binaries of the individual as separate from the collective to understandthe subject as discursively constituted, malleable, and positioned at the intersectionof libidinal forces and sociocultural practices (Davies, 2000; Hey, 2002). In this view,


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there is no central authentic “self” who goes forth with agency and intentionality toauthor a life of meaning and accomplishment; there are no transcendental centres ofconsciousness, competence, or freedom. As Butler (1992, p. 13) writes, the “subject isneither a ground nor a product, but the permanent possibility of a certain resignifyingprocess”. That is, the subject is an opening in the everyday flux of practices, discoursesand symbols – seemingly sewn shut in a path-dependent flow – an opening forunexpected action. This action is of course, infused with, even predicated upon, theavailable repertoire of strategies and meanings (including available images of identity),but until it occurs it remains a possibility: there is suspense, hope, and possiblesurprise in the unpredictable uptake that represents the movement of the individual.

In this possibility, in this ongoing constitution, lies the agency of the subject.Quite unlike conceptions of agency as an individual’s internal resource fashioned as will,intention and capacity to act, Davies (2004, p. 4) suggests reading agency as “the capacityto recognise that constitution and to resist, subvert and change the discoursesthemselves through which one is being constituted”. Agency, in such a definition, comesfrom a person’s freedom to recognise multiple openings such that no discursive practice,or positioning within it by powerful others, can capture and control one’s identity. In thisview, autonomy is “the recognition of counterpower and counterforce within power andforce, and the awareness of new life forms capable of disrupting or even overwritinghegemonic forms” (Davies, 2004, p. 4). Such a view departs completely from views ofautonomy bound up with individuation, identity-formation, or emancipation from social“structures”. Instead, this post-structural notion of autonomy focuses on the question ofjust how individuals recognize the multiple forces in which they participate, becomeaware of new life forms, take up existing practices and images while resisting others –all in a process of exercising some freedom within the ongoing constitution andreconstitution of one’s subjectivity.

This process is not about finding or creating a “self”. “Subjectivity” is not about “theself” in this discussion; nor is subjectivity synonymous with identity. Identity is animage, a symbolic code representing something the subject desires to belong to orpossess, to identify with. The subject strives to perform an identity or variousidentities. Identity is ultimately a representation or mental conception that we ascribeto ourselves and to others:

. . . our conception of who we are, our identity, is constituted by the power of all of thediscursive practices in which we speak – which in turn “speak” us (Chappell et al., 2003, p. 41)[italics added]

Some suggest that the striving to perform this or that identity, compelled by desire foridentification with an object, position, community or ideal, is driven by a ubiquitouslack of identity. Further, in the human desire for unity, stability and continuity, weinvent a monolithic, coherent even sedentary story of “self” a Me, based on ourconsciousness and remembrance of identities we have inhabited and performed.Taylor (1989) links this drive with a desire to define and reach the good based on moralideals of self-mastery and self-control. The result is a turn to reflexivity:

The turn to oneself is now also and inescapably a turn to oneself in the first personperspective – a turn to the self as self. That is what I mean by radical reflexivity. Because weare so deeply embedded in it, we cannot but search for reflexive language (Taylor, 1989,p. 175)

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This turn to the “self” with accompanying practices of self-improvement andself-control, energised by a drive for identity, is increasingly viewed as an importantphenomenon by researchers of flexible work. Drawing from Giddens’ theory ofreflexive selves, Brocklehurst (2003) argues that independent or “boundaryless” workdrives people to try to create a concrete and anchored self. This attempt atself-construction is often knit with creating a firmer sense of place: when geographicorganisational boundaries are removed individuals try to fix other boundaries thatthey perceive will enable their very existence.

Yet in its enactment the subject is always in motion, and constantly produced intime and space. Subjectivity has no existence, per se: it cannot be fixed and identified asa continuous self, but is continually constituted and resignified. The subject is derivedfrom and subjugated to practices and cultural discourses, including practices ofidentification and images of identity available in the (limited phallogocentric) culturaldiscourses. It is conjured into presence and then moves according to how it ispositioned in joint activity, its encounters with others, and the gaze of these others –as well as the limits and desires of its own corporeality (Thrift and Pile, 1995). Alwayssubjectivity is produced by power and acted on by power. Usually the subject exercisespower, sometimes to resist the very power that is shaping it, but always from withinthe socio-psychic forces and resources that constitute it.

In the accelerated global competition and increasing flexible employment conditionsof the new capitalism, these meanings are hardly benign. Rose (1998, p. 56) analysedthe new subject of work as “a complex territory to explored, understood and regulated”through “engaging the employee with the goals of the company at the level of his or hersubjectivity”. This notion of governed subjects derives from one particularFoucauldian concept, which explained the individual’s constitution as largely aneffect of “technologies of the self” (Foucault, 1988), cultural discourses internalized asself-regulatory mechanisms by the individual:

One of the first effects of power is that it allows bodies, gestures, discourses, and desires to beidentified and constituted as something individual. The individual is not, in other words,power’s opposite number; the individual is one of power’s first effects. The individual is infact a power-effect, and at the same time, and to the extent that he [sic] is a power-effect, theindividual is a relay: power passes through the individuals it has constituted (Foucault, 2003,p. 30).

In such a view, individuals regulate their own subjectivities through technologies suchas career discourses, modelled images of the good worker/learner, surveillance,mentoring and other explicit guidance within particular social and political contexts.These are wedded to individuals’ own desires for control, belonging, and so forth toproduce their desires to become particular subjects desired by the organisation. Thus,subjection to production and efficiency continues but through complex psychologicalmeans governing how subjects move, speak and manage their own movements andspeech. In an age celebrating entrepreneurial, risk-taking, self-responsible workers, thenew subjectivities are expected to pursue meaningful work and autonomous careersthrough “choices” in a biographical project of self-actualisation.

However, those who contest this formulation argue that subjectivation is theprocess by which one becomes an acting, self-creating subject in work, achievedthrough the will to act and be recognised as an actor (Casey, 2003, p. 629). In a studyof mentorship, potentially a disciplinary process producing particular subjects,


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Devos (2005) found instead a very active self-constituting subject in work, whosecapacity to exercise political and moral agency emerges within the very social,historical and cultural practices and relationships that constitute it. In a study of howfreelance media workers position and make sense of self and subjectivity, Storey et al.(2005) show the strategies workers adopted to respond to enterprising discourses andpower assymetries in the market. These authors employ an analytical approachdrawing from Giddens and Alvesson and Wilmott, delineating three stages in theconstruction of identity: identity regulation or external attempts to shape identity,identity work by the individual, and self identity: the latter consists of precarious andrelatively unstable and shifting narratives of the self (Storey et al., 2005, p. 1037).Overall, they found that independent workers both actively disciplined and protectedtheir identities, using notions of enterprise to judge themselves and theirsuccess/failures, and also to protect their identity when experiencing rejection,declining income or sense of mastery. Alvesson (2001) argues that the ambiguity ofknowledge among such workers leads to space for innovative constructions of identity.

This sort of close analysis begins to reveal that while work identities and theirstrategies of construction are generated through organizational, cultural and marketdiscourses, individuals actively exercise these strategies in idiosyncratic ways toconstitute their everyday subjectivities – ever mobile and contingent. To avoid slidingback into that seductive notion of subject as the heroically agentic autonomous self, weneed to examine more closely the interaction of subjectivity, agency and action. Zizek(1999) conceives subjectivity within the continuous flux of action without dissolvingthe subject’s political agency. Drawing from Hegel, Badiou, Althusser, Butler andLacan, Zizek shows that the disparate chaotic flux of reality becomes events,meaningful actions, and possibilities – a “positive objective order” – precisely throughthe intervention of the subject:

The “subject” is the act, the decision by means of which we pass from positivity of the givenmultitude to the truth-event and/or to hegemony . . . “Subject” is not a name for the gap offreedom and contingency that infringes upon the ontological order, active in its interstices;rather, “subject” is the contingency that grounds the very positive ontological order, that is,the vanishing “mediator” whose self-effacing gesture transforms the pre-ontological chaoticmultitude into the semblance of a positive “objective” order of reality (Zizek, 1999, p. 158)[1].

In this gesture, this act, the subject also comes into presence. Zizek cautions that thisconception does not presume an ontological gap of contingency waiting to be filled bythe subject’s action. Rather:

. . . the subject is both the opening or void which precedes the gesture of subjectivisation, aswell as the gesture itself . . . the subject’s very endeavour to fill in the gap retroactivelysustains and generates this gap (p. 159).

Hence, subjectivity becomes a space of possibilities. A subject is realised at the sametime as a recognisable event. This realisation occurs through the subject’s act or choiceintervening in the multitude of symbols, technologies, ideas and activity available inthat moment. This choice does not originate from outside this multitude but is madeavailable from a range of possibilities within it: from the tightly prescribed andoppressive, to the subversive and resistant. Power presumes counter-power. Thesubject’s agency, the freedom that can be exercised within the action choice birthed inan event, is the recognition and articulation of possibilities that can rupture preceding

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hegemonies and sealed significations to engender the unexpected, the creative, theemergent. Questions of most interest to researchers exploring this subjectivity andagency in work include: How do people recognize and understand the constitution oftheir subjectivity, their articulations of different identities at work? How do theyendeavour to resist, subject and change the discourses within which they are beingconstituted? What different positions do they take up within these discourses?

Study methodsThe study grounding this discussion of subjectivity in independent knowledge workset out to explore the unique rewards and challenges of this work through the narratedexperiences of self-employed individuals who contract their services to variousorganisations and clients. In-depth interviews were conducted in 2002-2003 with a totalof 31 men and women based in large urban Canadian cities representing west coast,prairies, and central Canada. The study used conventional methods of semi-structuredinterviews which were taped and fully transcribed, then validated with participants.Participants were asked to describe forms of work and their reasons for enteringself-employment, their approaches to creating relationships with clients and designingthe work project, their challenges and strategies of working with organizations as anindependent knowledge worker. Transcript analysis was inductive and interpretive,identifying common themes and disjunctures across the participant narratives.Two groups of participants were convened in follow up online dialogues to validateemerging themes and issues identified through the analysis process.

This paper will focus on 18 of these individuals whose contracted knowledge workfocused on facilitating organizational change. They began their careers as health careworkers, educators, human resource professionals, communications specialists,systems analysts and information technologists in small and large organisations.All had completed at least ten years of organizational employment usually enjoyingprogressive responsibilities and scope of authority before changing toself-employment. All had been self-employed for at least four years at the time ofinterviews. Their contracted work embraced a range of consultative activities relatedto organizational change and development: training and development, program designand evaluation, management and team coaching, and change implementation. Allenjoyed at least a moderately comfortable income, and were “mid-life” ranging in agefrom late1930s to mid 1950s. Most were well educated: all held baccalaureate degrees,all but two held master’s degrees, and two held doctoral degrees. Thus, mostparticipants enjoyed a degree of mobility and social and cultural capital.

All participants claimed that they had freely chosen to shift to independentemployment arrangements (Fenwick, 2004). Their reasons are consistent with thosedescribed in self-employment literature, including “push” motives (frustration withrepressive organisational structures or difficulty finding full-time employment in theirpreferred practice), “pull” motives (desires for flexible work schedules, freedom fromsupervision, or urge to create a personal practice), or a push-pull combination(Cohen and Mallon, 1999). However, it is by now well-recognised that the notion of“choice” is problematic, and may more accurately represent received culturaldiscourses emphasising individuals’ responsibility for their own conditions than anindividual’s exercise of agency. Even though some of the interviewees here may havebelieved they freely chose to leave employment, they may in fact have had little choice


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in cases where work conditions were intolerable, no full-time work was available, orfuture staff cuts were inevitable.

Findings: negotiating subjectivity in the in-betweenA consistent motif across all participants’ narratives was awareness of theirsubjectivity being constituted in and as their activity of bringing knowledge toorganizations: their identities are the knowledge that is mobilized in the work. Thisknowledge is often imbued with moral purpose and a sense of integrity and meaningfulwork. As one explained:

I don’t really sell services, I bring myself to the organization. Like I truly have my own visionand mission statement and it’s around organizations being really human places to be, andthat we get productive for sure but it’s through using people’s potential, not at the expense ofpeople . . . Integrity and meaningful work and doing my work in a meaningful way is reallyan anchor for me and so I envisioned change in a way that made sense to me (MM, ll. 692-95).

What is striking about this statement, besides the melding of identity (myself) with theknowledge service, is the foregrounding of values and the strong assertion of anagentic “I” exercising these values as both the core of the knowledge work and the core“anchor” of the “me” or self. Yet they seemed to resist anchoring processes involvingcontrol such as managerial or evaluative activities, integrating or institutionalizingknowledge to help it become routine in a group. Their descriptions of knowledgetended to remain at the level of creating and innovating, as though other forms andprocesses of knowledge generation were not as interesting or valuable to them. So atthe same time as they sought this identity anchor, participants shared a restlessness, adesire for novelty and challenge and a “high need” for continuous change (LH, ll. 293).Feelings of boredom set in with too much repetition or routine work:

. . . a bit suffocating, kind of like being buried alive (ST, ll. 23)

I get bored with things very quickly. So as soon as I feel I’ve mastered them or figured themout I want to move on . . . I need to be on a steep learning curve (TD, ll. 409-14).

If I’m learning, it’s ok, but if I’m not learning . . . or if it’s a tough team or an ineffective team,then you couldn’t pay me $10,000 a day (LH, ll. 590-92).

Partly, this may stem from their capacity and preference, as independent contractors,to design much of their work:

. . . the gains are mental gains, emotional gains . . . interesting work . . . a collage of things, andI pick that collage. I can choose a bit more who I work with . . . I get to say no . . . I like the lackof control over me (ST, ll. 145-50).

Part of it stems from what they describe as the stimulation of the innovative process,seeding new ideas, and a dislike for the management processes required byimplementation over the long-term: “I really get a kick out of creative problem solvingand coming up with a first, something that’s unique” (WC, ll. 395-97);“I don’t want to bein that corporate crap anymore” (GM, ll. 95-96); “Managing people is an energy wasterfor me” (ST, ll.678). Yet while managerial activities of coordination and control aredenigrated, managing clients in an expert-client relation is not, as one anonymousreviewer helpfully pointed out. Remaining positioned in-between an isolated space ofinnovation outside, and the everyday complexities requiring routine and control inside

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the organization, allows these individuals to play out a subjectivity balanced on theedge between ground and flight.

These motifs of both anchoring and restlessness in the constitution of subjectivityin and as a particular form of knowledge work play out in various themes emerging inthe narratives of these organizational change consultants. Two themes in thesenegotiations have been selected for further exploration here: working the in-betweenspace (as both insider and outsider to the organizational employer) and resistingcontrol within connections. These themes were identified through inductive analysis ofthe participant transcripts.

Working the in-between spaceAs described earlier, the “in-between space” here refers to a discursive and relationalspace occupied by the independent knowledge worker that is neither inside nor outsidethe organization. As a non-employee, this worker is apart from the organizational socialnetworks and cultural norms, and is not enmeshed in the everyday joint activity thatcomprises organizational practices. As the “organizational expert” contracted preciselyto become enmeshed quickly within the organization’s knowledge and relations, theindependent knowledge worker is not an outsider, either: “They want you to be part oftheir small group . . . They don’t want you to come in and deliver something and go outand be apart from, they want you to be a part of” (LH, ll. 135-37). This ambivalenceplayed out in being treated differently at different times. The contractor shares days ofintense and intimate planning sessions with employees, after which they go out tocelebrate then go back to their regular activities: “there is no more lonelier feeling in theworld” (FJ, ll.) Or the contractor works alongside employees for weeks, endeavouring tochampion their knowledge above all, but is still treated by management as having“special” knowledge that others do not which is worth more because it is “outside”.

Far from resenting this ambivalent space, however, independent knowledgeworkers appear to appreciate its possibilities: “I have so many communities that whenI disconnect I like to be alone. So independent within a team really works well for me”;(LH, ll 274-75); “I like long-term projects . . . from a distance” (GM, ll 217-20). First, theyliked the distance from organizational “politics” the daily competitive manoeuvringsfor resources and position. Second, they enjoyed some freedom from historicalorganizational practices and prescribed organizational procedures: while respectingthe limits of structures, independent knowledge workers were not shaped by them.They could focus more on what was occurring in the moment:

We didn’t feel as constrained by whatever the frame was that might require some peoplewho... are needing to have things prepared and processed ahead of time and whatever that’sall about, . . . for contract workers it was more created in the moment. So – at this particularperiod of time, for this particular audience (MM, ll. 131-33).

Because they traversed many organizations and communities of practice, and becausethey were constantly reading to keep up with the different and changing knowledgedomains in which they needed to practice, these independent workers could draw uponvaried ideas and models. This allowed them to think differently when they approachedproblems alongside organizational employees:

I think if you’re part of a system sometimes you’re part of the problem. As an external personyou bring in a perspective that maybe the others need to hear (LH, ll 262-64).


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The freedom of their inside outsider status, many emphasized, also allowed them tosay things that employees might self-censor for reasons of long-term consequences:

I ask the question that people want [to but cannot] ask themselves, and being an outsideconsultant you have that luxury . . . it’s my responsibility to affect change within but really. . . as an external person I see my job even more in terms of planting the seed and assistingthem to take responsibility (KT, ll 319-24).

In working this space, independent knowledge workers walk a fine line in asking thetough questions that organizations hire them for, without crossing sacred lines oforganizational authorities and undiscussables. For example, independent contractorssay that they often see from the beginning when a project for which they are beinghired is poorly conceived or grossly short-changed in resources and time, but theymust proceed delicately to determine how to shift management’s thinking withoutjeopardizing the contract or their reputation. This negotiation is nothing new toconsulting firms, but an independent contractor lacks the weight of constructed powerand knowledge authority often wielded by an international firm. Once “inside”contractors must continually scope out employees’ changing reactions to their ownquestions and ideas – sometimes submerging themselves and planting an idea seedin such a way that employees develop it themselves. Employees know the contractor ispaid at a higher daily wage than they receive for similar work, and may observe thecontractor treated as “the second coming” by management.

Independent knowledge workers also negotiate their own identity investment inprojects. As MM said, the “anchor” is “integrity and meaningful work”: “I bring myselfto the organization”. Yet they eventually leave the project and the organizationaltogether, with the hope that the work they started in organizational change will betaken up by management and employees. This is sometimes a thin hope – it is wellknown that many consulting efforts are one-shot temporary efforts that never becomeintegrated into organizational life. So while this ability to leave providesthe independent knowledge worker a “distance” from the politics and employeemanagement that so many dislike, it also endangers their ability to derive meaning andpersonal worth from their work:

The good news about being a contractor worker is you can do your work and you don’t ownall those other pieces and you can go home again! But the bad news is that you’re notconnected to all those other pieces and I think there’s a danger that your work really doesn’thave much impact. So they can hire you, you can come, you can do something, they canignore you (MM, ll 409-12).

This ultimately comes down to identity work, not just in negotiating one’s subjectposition within and without the organization, but coming to terms with the inherentfluidity of self and knowledge that this entails. One who had only been contracting fortwo years (compared to MM, who had been independent for 11 years), admitted:“I’ve been searching to find out where I belong” (KT, ll. 433). Another was delighted tohear herself enunciate her identity:

I can remember the moment when I was in an elevator being introduced to someoneand I actually shook their hand and said, when they said what do you do, “I’m anorganizational development consultant and I have my own business”. I remember thinking,Holy shit! that sounded so impressive, and I don’t know what got me there (GM ll. 949-54).

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For most, a key dynamic in working the in-between space of this knowledge work wasestablishing this security of a well-connected identity invested in relationships thatgenerate knowledge, while resisting the control exercised by these relationships.

Resisting control within connectionsNarratives recalling their former employment as organizational employees areinstructive in understanding independent workers’ need for control over their ownwork, and resistance to others’ control. Organizational control is perceived as a“suffocating” environment, “dealing with barriers, stopping some of the opportunities”(ST, ll. 107-8). Interviewees told stories of petty tyrants: “I had a kind of boss who wasmore intrusive, obnoxious, bully-like” (GM, ll.142-3). They disliked policy restrictionsthat they felt to be petty, such as dress codes. Some complained about structures andpeople not open to innovation, and endless meetings that accomplished little. Severalindicated feeling a “values disconnection” with managers pursuing directions they feltto be unethical or that lacked meaningful purpose.

Yet as independent knowledge workers they sought to insert themselves temporarilyin organizations presumably struggling with the same rigid structures, petty politicsand glacial responses that had frustrated them as employees. So, while they continued toresist organizational control, they designed their work in such a way that intimatelyconnected them with this control. There is some indication that these individuals areattracted to others’ control structures, in a way that is different to entrepreneurs who gooff to build their own organizational structures and design their own products.For example, MM articulates how the organizational controls that can be suffocating toemployees actually helps focus her innovative process within the organization:

I always want to know what the givens are too – so tell me what they are and we’ll work withthose . . . I really want to know intention and I really want to know what we’re trying toaccomplish and what is critical so that it doesn’t morph into something else. Those things areall important to me. And then I want the freedom to create within that (MM, ll.212-15).

The “freedom to create within” seems to be the key to understanding resistance tocontrol. Clear boundaries, both those that are given and those that are negotiated, arenot perceived as controls when they remain inert – as container walls within andaround which the contractor can work. Independent knowledge workers are alwaysnegotiating with organizations the boundaries defining their actual activity, people,location, responsibilities, timelines and deliverables of their work (Fenwick, 2003).When these boundaries start to move, they are perceived to inhibit the fluid flow ofknowledge, social relations and ideas that independent contractors value. Theythreaten control, which the contractor resists:

I worked with people that I really trusted and that had a tremendous amount of integrity andthat I really valued and we were doing some really exciting work and, and then some of theleadership changed and, and it wasn’t working for me . . . I wasn’t being given thesame level of independence and I just thought, you know what? I don’t need this anymore(GM, ll 100-105).

In negotiating boundaries of the work, independent knowledge workers appear able toexercise control. They turn down projects that they believe are not viable or havequestionable purposes (such as a government department wanting to completea small project that would accomplish little but would create “optics” of action).


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Some, depending on personal confidence and security of their business, are openlycritical with potential clients about a project’s design: “People call me and they ask meto do the strangest things . . . Like, why would we do that??” (MM, ll. 696-98). Thisresistance to particular project purposes or designs seems often connected withpersonal values determining what work is worthwhile. Stories about this were toldwith some relish, as though for these individuals, the capacity and opportunity toexercise such values in choosing or refusing work activity was particularly satisfying:

It became very apparent that my values and principal were really critical . . . “You know”I said, “This is great if this is what you want to do but just know that if you do it you’reopening a can of worms and if you’re doing it you need to go the distance because it’s not fairto others” (KT, ll 388-90).

The other main area of resisting control is in client demands. The nature of thesestruggles with client organizations over what are reasonable expectations appears tovary widely depending on the size and resources of an organization, its experienceworking with contractors, its past relationship with a particular contractor, and thecontractor’s own disposition, demeanour, years of experience, power of position andknowledge relative to the organization. However, most independent knowledgeworkers note their clients’ tendencies to expect a contractor’s full commitment to andaccommodation of client needs:

I’ve had to set some boundaries with clients and with myself where historically . . . I wouldmake myself available whenever they wanted or needed me, wanting to accommodate theclients in terms of what the client wanted and needed (KT, ll 242-44).

I had a call recently and someone wanted something like a week later, which was completelyinappropriate. And I was going away and I thought, I could change my plans. And I thought,no. I don’t want to change my plans, and this isn’t long enough notice (GM, ll. 408-416).

This process of learning to set boundaries that exercise control while building strongconnections is a central tension in independent knowledge work.

I’m always out there looking for connections between communities and kind of living on theedge all the time (LH, ll 285-86).

Here, LH was describing how she often bid on a contract opportunity in her field ofhealth service evaluation with little more than a beginning good idea, then mobilizedconnections among groups within the university, government, community agencies,health care system and evaluation associations to conduct the activities. In fact formost contractors interviewed in this study, connection defines their identity:

I link parts of the organization to itself . . . I’m interested in bringing systems thinking andkind of personal awareness, building . . . the link between the broad perspective and who weare individually (DS, ll. 20-24).

I’m a linker. As an outsider you can see the connections, you can link one part of theorganisation to another (MM, adult educator, ll.444-45).

Discussion: network identitiesIndependent knowledge workers describe themselves and their work as immersedin processes of connection: connecting organizations to other groups and ideas,

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connecting people across organizations, connecting the personal to the systemic, andconnecting themselves and their values to the organization’s nets of action andpurposes. In negotiating these connections, contractors could be understood to enactnetwork identities. That is, their presence or image of personal identity appears tothem in the act of connecting and mobilizing networks of actors and knowledge.They see themselves as a connector or link, but a link does not exist until the agents tobe linked emerge. To recall Zizek (1999), the contractors’ intervention causes boththemselves and the agents to come into presence, through “the act, the decision bymeans of which we pass from positivity of the given multitude to the Truth-Event”:here, an act of connection.

As this “connection” their subjectivity is constituted by organizational/culturaldiscourses and regulated through orthodoxies about what comprises organizationalchange, as well as through technologies such as contract arrangements and intensescrutiny of their performance in the project. They are also self-regulated throughparticular desires, such as to remain intimately connected with organizations whileattaining the sense of personal independence and distance accorded to the enterprisingself of neoliberal capitalism.

Yet despite their clear subjection to these discourses and technologies withinwhich emerge their actions, knowledge and identities as “connectors” theseindependent knowledge workers exercise agency in the sense described by Davies(2004). They recognise their own constitution and resist and subvert the discoursesthemselves through which they are being constituted, such as in negotiatingboundaries defining their work and relationships, rejecting work they considerpurposeless, and resisting control of their action by insider politics or “intrusive”managers. At the same time, their in-between work space, neither inside nor outside theorganization, allows them to recognize and leverage the “counterpower andcounterforce within power and force” that Davies (2004) treats as autonomy. Formany organizational developers interviewed in this study, this counterpowercomes partly from connecting to the desires of both managers and employees forsomething new, something meaningful: salvation that reassures even as it providesdeliverance to meaningful work.

These independent knowledge workers created networks and submersedthemselves in these networks, but did not dissolve in them: their sense of identity inboth their knowledge and their modus operandi was linked to a source of values andpersonal purpose located outside the organization. Indeed, they saw themselves asalternative, outside mainstream organizational practices of stagnancy and fragmentedactivity. These values, of course, are constituted within prevailing (some might say,middle-class, western) cultural discourses of “authentic self” and “meaningful work”.However, values are exercised by these knowledge workers in ways that grant them acertain freedom and control over their sense of identity, subject positionswithin/without the organization, and their work activity. It is worth noting thatthese individuals do not challenge fundamental structures of organizations,knowledge, or their own subjectivity. However, even as they embrace constraints,they remain network identities: fluid agents connecting people and ideaswhile resisting control – always moving, always working the “in-between” to avoidcapture.


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Conclusion and implications for organizationsHow can organizations enhance the contributions of these independent knowledgeworkers, informed by an understanding of their subjectivities? This question impliestwo aspects of enablement. On one hand, organizational conditions and managementapproaches might shift in ways more amenable to the working relations and identitiesof independently-minded knowledge workers, to encourage these innovative workersto not leave the organization in the first place. This does not mean locking suchworkers into place, but about conceiving work structures that allow far more open,independent movements and interactions. On the other hand, given increasingorganizational reliance on contracted workers including independent knowledgeworkers, managers might find ways to better facilitate their integration towardenhancing both workers’ satisfaction and their participation in organizational projects,routines and relations.

Presumably, these knowledge workers act in ways that organizations value: initiatinginnovation, creating connections, finding solutions, and adapting easily to change.If organizations do want to keep them from leaving in the first place, and the fact that theseindividuals did not seek independent careers until after many years as employees maywell indicate their amenability to remaining in employment relationships, certainconditions might help. Their professed need for change and creative challenge, their skillin connecting/facilitating people and their preference for “seeding” rather than“managing” ideas suggests temporary project work arrangements. Their predilection toquestion policies, purposes and structures of activities suggests a need for flexiblemanagers open to criticism and change. Their impatience with glacial bureaucraticprocesses and controlling policies suggests a need for managers who will “block” for them:help to champion their ideas, find ways to cut red tape and jump hierarchies to help themlink with appropriate teams. Yet these people are not usually free-wheeling maverickinnovators eschewing organizational policy: they say they appreciate and even preferboundaries, but need these to be clear and transparent. What they resist are managerialattempts to control their work: they need to negotiate the conditions and purposes of theiractivity, a human need which is surely not restricted to knowledge workers. The workpatterns of such individuals no doubt may act upon organizational structures to open themeven further, such that fluid networks, projects and temporary alliances – or at leastorganizational spaces protecting such configurations – characterize connections andactivity trajectories more than structures and classifications.

Organizations contracting with such individuals will enable better workingrelations by articulating clearer project purposes linked to organizational objectives,clear terms of contract activity, clear roles and clear expectations – a clarity thatcontractors say is often lacking. Indeed, this lack of clarity may result from the sorts ofcomplexifying detail that obscures the manager’s view, and that can be relieved in partthrough the outsider’s perspective[2]. Integration of the contracted work with theorganization’s activity needs specific facilitation from managers: assisting the outsiderto build relationships inside, and enabling concrete links between the contractedproject and everyday organizational practice. This means coaching existing employeesand opening their work in ways that allows the insertion and growth of newrelationships and activity. Independent knowledge workers say they want to bepartners with organizations in a development process, but that managers often treatthem as solo solutions contracted to relieve them of an irritating problem.

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Most of all, managers need to understand that knowledge is not a package deliveredby a knowledge worker, whether from inside or outside the organization. Knowledge isdynamic, a moving active unpredictable flow that unfolds through new connectionsand relationships. Independent knowledge workers specializing in organizationalchange understand themselves as connectors, projecting a network identity thatsuggests their activity as generating and linking, not transmitting, knowledge.Organizations that can flexibly respond to and grow with these new connections notonly may enable fuller satisfaction of knowledge workers but also closer integration oftheir participation with existing organizational networks of knowledge.

Notes

1. Thus, neither hegemony nor truth derive directly from any ontological set, but depend on thesubject’s action. A “truth-event” is precise political experience bearing (signifiable andideological) truth for those engaged in it. Multitude may be considered the chaotic excess ofthe situation(s) from which the experience derives.

2. The author is grateful to an anonymous reviewer for this particular point.

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About the authorTara Fenwick is a Professor of Education and Head of Educational Studies Department at theUniversity of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Her research focuses on learningprocesses and knowledge generation in work environments, with particular interest inknowledge workers, the effects of globalising processes on work and learning, and knowledge ofvulnerable workers. Her most recent books include Learning Through Experience: TroublingAssumptions and Intersecting Questions (2003 Krieger), Educating the Global Workforce(Co-editor Lesley Farrell, 2007 Routledge), and Learning, Work and Subjectivity (co-editorsStephen Billett and Margaret Somerville, 2006 Springer).

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Borders of “the boundarylesscareer”

Julie SommerlundThe Danish School of Design, Center for Design Research, Denmark, and

Sami BoutaibaThe State Employer’s Authority, The Danish Ministry of Finance, Denmark

Abstract

Purpose – The paper aims to examine the notion of the boundaryless career, arguing that the notionis problematic, and that simultaneous co-existence of different types of careers makes both “new” and“old” types of careers possible.

Design/methodology/approach – The approach is twofold: a theoretical argument, and aqualitative ethnographic study, involving observations and interviews.

Findings – The theoretical argument questions the underlying premise and promise of the notion ofthe boundaryless career, namely that modern careers amount to a higher level of personal freedom.This empirical study will serve to illustrate the co-constitutive nature of different career stories.

Research limitations/implications – The research is qualitative and thereby limited in thefollowing way: it serves to give a deep understanding of the phenomena at hand, but is not easilygeneralizable. However, the methodology can inspire scholars to explore the findings observed inthis paper.

Practical implications – The idealization of the boundaryless career is problematic, as it posesproblems to those concerned with the career. A more flexible ideal of careers would be preferable toresearchers and organisational actors alike.

Originality/value – The paper gives a practical and empirical input to a debate that has beenlargely conceptual or generalized.

Keywords Sciences, Career development, Interviews


IntroductionMany contemporary voices within the field of careers research have suggested that wenow view careers differently (Sullivan, 1999; Larsen, 1998; Jackson, 1996; Eby et al.,2003; Arthur and Rousseau, 1996; Peiperl et al., 2000; Van Buren, 2003; DeFillippi andArthur, 1994; Bird, 1994). In what follows, we shall outline some of the main thrusts ofthis new agenda.

First, we will present the theoretical debate concerning the new “boundaryless”career. We will point out some inconsistencies and problematics inherent in thisconcept on a theoretical level. Second, we will follow the theoretical debate and thenotions of “old” and “new” careers in a research laboratory that has been a research sitefor observational studies and qualitative interviews.

Through these two lines of investigation, we will conclude that a rigid distinctionbetween old and new types of career is problematic because first, both old and newcareers are still present and secondly, the new and old career types are each others’prerequisites rather than contrasts. Moreover, we contend that both types of careers



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Vol. 20 No. 4, 2007pp. 525-538


DOI 10.1108/09534810710760063

can be successful or unsuccessful depending on other factors, which we will specify inthe empirical analyses.

The boundaryless careerThe traditional definition of career is neatly captured in the following quote byWilensky (1961, p. 523): “let us define career in structural terms. A career is asuccession of related jobs arranged in a hierarchy of prestige, through which peoplemove in ordered (more or less predictable), sequence”. The concept of career presentedhere is one where structure of a spatial character is laid down in advance of theindividual that “makes” career within the structure.

The newer career thinking has found a strong voice in the founding works of Arthurand Rousseau. They argue that it is essential to account for time and its implications inorder to be able to understand the notion of career (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996, p. 3).They define career as “the unfolding sequence of a person’s work experiencesover time” (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996, p. 4). Thus, in Arthur and Rousseau’s (1996,p. 3) text, emphasis is on the individual, and what constitutes “career” is a question thatcan only be answered by the individual. Moreover, career is dependent on theunfolding of time. Thus, whereas Wilensky’s definition puts emphasis on hierarchiesthat exist outside of the individual in a spatial dimension, Arthur and Rousseau putsemphasis on the individual traveling through time.

Arthur and Rousseau exercise great care in emphasizing that we have entered, or areentering, a new organizational era in which concepts such as job security are becomingobsolete. Or as the renowned organizational scholar, Karl Weick, suggests in Arthurand Rousseau’s volume, the stories of boundaryless careers are in effect stories ofshifting identities (Weick, 1996, p. 40). He depicts “zigzag” people ready for multiplefresh starts (Weick, 1996, p. 43), where increasingly fluid boundaries of organizationsmake it imperative that people develop networking skills, think in terms of ongoinglearning, and become focused on enterprising behaviour and pursuing personalopportunities beyond the organizational boundaries (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996, p. 12).According to Gunz et al. (2000, p. 26), “At its very simplest, the boundaryless careerhypothesis holds that careers are no longer constrained by organizational boundaries”.These organizational boundaries can be argued to be parallel to the spatial structurethat constituted careers in the quote from Wilensky (1961). In Wilensky’s view, careersare defined by organizations, while the newer thinking on careers, as presented byArthur and Rousseau and other authors mentioned here, define careers as somethingthat unfolds through individuals’ choices in time.

A common theme in the texts by Arthur and Rousseau, Weick, and Gunz, Evansand Jalland is that the modern career is described as possessing an alertness toopportunities that rise and fade for the individual as moments in time go by. Thus, themodern career is described as placed in a narrative of suspension. It thus appears thatthe newer ways of defining “career” implies a conscious rejection of the traditional,external guides of orientation; the most recognizable signs of which are advancementin the hierarchy and increases in salary (Weick, 1996, p. 40; Sullivan, 1999, p. 457).Hence, it is the foreshadowed (Morson, 1994), predetermined career story of, forexample, Whyte’s (1956) organization man (Larsen, 1998, p. 22; Ellig andThatchenkery, 1996, p. 171) that is questioned by these texts. It is also in this veinthat we should understand what Sennett (1998, p. 32) calls the revolt against routine,

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bureaucratic time, which, supposedly, is now passe. Instead, as Weick (1996, p. 40) goeson to suggest, more reliance is placed upon internal, self-generated guideposts, such asgrowth, learning, and integration. From this, it would appear that modern careerthinking takes recourse to a more romantic sense of inner quest.

Careers in a molecular biology laboratoryIn their view, Baruch and Hall (2004) suggest that the academic career model neatlycaptures some distinct features of the future of career thinking (2004, p. 248). Thus,Baruch and Hall emphasize the academic career model’s professional basis, flatstructure, multi-directional career paths, high degree of lateral movement acrossorganizational boundaries, autonomy of the academic, and strong dependency onnetworks and, we might add, personal networking skills.

Further, Baruch and Hall argue that the scientific career is typical or emblematic ofmodern boundaryless careers. It is precisely in a scientific setting that we have doneour empirical work, upon which we will base our discussion of the distinction betweenthe “old” and the “new” understandings of career. As it will be apparent below, weview the old and the new careers as co-constitutive. Moreover, it is an important pointfor us that the old career understanding cannot be discarded as less successful that thenew one. Rather, as we will point out in our analysis, the success of the career types iscontingent and dependent on the working community in which they unfold. Onecentral characteristic to the performance of successful scientific careers – whether“old” or “new” – in our empirical setting is vocation. This probably distinguishesscientists from many other occupations: thus, both Weber (1946) and Rorty (1991)argue generally that science and scientists are characterized by vocation by beingexclusive, and philosophically that by holding privileged access to truth and reality.Hence, in our study, vocation works as a border to the boundaryless career.

The Molecular Microbial Ecology Group (MMEG) was established about 16 yearsago, as a part of the Danish Technical University (DTU). The work of the group isbased on a combination of experimental tools from molecular biology and microbialecology. The staff at the MMEG generally consists of about 17 researchers who havebeen the objects of observations and interviews: one full professor (tenured), twoassociate professors (tenured), four laboratory technicians, two assistant professors,two post-doctorial research fellows (post docs), seven PhD students, and three researchassistants (see Appendix).

Interviews were conducted after intensive ethnographic studies of the group for onemonth, and attending meetings, conferences and seminars during the next two years.On the basis of field notes from these studies, six interviewees representing differenthierarchical statuses were asked to participate in one-on-one interviews. We havechosen the interviewees to match the relative number of their professional group, sothat each interviewee represents approximately three group members. So for example,the three tenured scientists in the group are represented by one tenured interviewee,and so on (Table I).

The MMEG researchers were asked about their career paths prior to joining theGroup, and their professional expectations for the future, thus prompting careernarratives. The interviews were recorded and later transcribed full length. It is thesetranscriptions that have been the basis of the following analyses.


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In analyzing the interviews, we have chosen to use the terms foreshadowing andsideshadowing, as discussed by Morson (1994). The terms fore- and sideshadowingwere chosen after grouping the statements in the interviews that had bearings oncareers. It was conspicuous that all interviewees narrated their career as eithersomething directed from the outside, most often from the organization and/or theirresearch subject or as something directed by themselves. We argue that it is productiveto use Morton’s terminology to designate these two types of career-stories, as it helpshighlight both the differences in narrative time and the importance given in each typeof story to the individual actor. In the following, we will present these terms in moredepth. Afterwards, we will present the stories analyzed.

Foreshadowing refers to closed narrative time and deterministic, unidirectionalnarrativity. Foreshadowed stories reach closure at the end of the narration, and it isthus the ending that determines the action, not the other way around. Foreshadowingis the narrative style and structure that dominates most traditional and popular novelsas well as classic Hollywood cinema. Translating the term to career theory, thedeterministic narrative also reflects the predictability of the “old” hierarchical careers,where people stay in place, in the hope of climbing the corporate ladder and/or a stableworking life (Wilensky, 1961; Whyte, 1956).

Sideshadowing, on the other hand, is a term offered by Morson to apply to stories inwhich other endings are real alternatives to the one presented, and in which the endingis not the only causally possible conclusion to the story (Morson, 1994, p. 117). Rather,practical choices made by individual actors have practical consequences that influencethe potential courses of action. Morson points to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as examplesof novelists using the device of sideshadowing. As we suggest, numerous devices inmodern career thinking work to the same effect. Thus, we contend that the emphasisupon, for example, networks, shifting identities, lateral career moves (DeFillippi andArthur, 1994; Arthur and Rousseau, 1996; Gunz et al., 2000), share the same basic ideaof human action, namely that of individual freedom. The reader should both take noteof the title of Morson’s (1994) work “Narrative and Freedom” and the manyconnotations of freedom in the literature on career and modern work conceptions, e.g.words like “independence” (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996), “free agency” (Pink, 2001),and “self-generated career guides” (Weick, 1996).

When interviewing MMEG researchers about their careers, we asked them all twoquestions; how did you end up in this group, and where will you go from here? We hadreceived hints, indications, and fragments of narratives from MMEG researchersearlier when doing observational studies. We asked questions in a way that resemblesCzarniawska’s (2001) “narrative interview” and as described earlier in this section, wenoticed two basic ways of telling the story of careers: one directed by the organizationand the research-topic, another directed by the individual protagonist. It is these twobasic story-lines that we have designated as fore- and sideshadowing, respectively.

Number of researchers in group Number interviewed

Three tenured scientists One interviewed scientistFour assistant professors/post doctoral students One interviewed scientistSeven graduate students Three interviewed studentsThree research assistants One interviewed assistantTable I.

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When conducting the interviews, many other narratives were presented to us, such asnarratives of power and gender, to name only a few. Thus, the narratives designated asfore- and sideshadowing were not the only ones present in the interviews, and not allnarratives could be reliably presented as either fore- or sideshadowing. But whenfocusing on career stories, the driving forces were found either within or outside of theprotagonist which also produces different conceptions of narrative time, and hence theconcepts of fore- and sideshadowing were chosen for the evaluation of career stories.

MMEG researchers that presented their work as the natural conclusion to theirprofessional life stories up until now (foreshadowing) neither bend nor break the rulesof being a “normal scientist”. They are not perceived as extraordinary, neither in thepositive nor in the negative sense. In this category, people do as expected of them,submerged as they are in the technicalities and details of their work.

The other category of MMEG researchers presents the group as one ofmany possibilities (sideshadowing). They are either perceived – by themselves andothers – as extraordinary in the sense that they are new-thinkers, or as misfits pushingthe borders of “being a scientist” to the point of breaking them. The sideshadowedstories’ success is dependent on MMEG researchers’ ability to make the differentnetworks of interest complement each other rather than work against one another.For instance, spare time interests is mentioned by those that consider themselvessuccessful as resources for their working life, while those that present themselves as lesssuccessful see such interests as competing with or subtracting from their working life.

We will go on to present stories that represent the styles of fore- and sideshadowing,respectively. The stories from which we quote are selected as examples of typical orexemplary stories, not as individual renderings of each researcher.

Foreshadowing

I started out here [DTU] many years ago, and took the courses you have to take. I started as achemical engineer. And slowly I homed in on microbiology. That was interesting [. . .] andnaturally, I took some more courses at this department, and I wrote my bachelors project here.I talked to the professor and found what he was doing interesting. I was in really good time, ayear and a half years before I actually started, I went around and talked, and we agreed thatI should take his class: molecular microbial ecology [. . .] I did that, and then I started mypreliminary project after that.

So, you’ve been doing microbiology all along?

Yes, only. . . Yes, I have.

Above, a researcher describes his road to the MMEG as quite straightforward andunidirectional. His career route is completely logical, considered from the viewpoint ofhis present. It is difficult to imagine alternative endings to the story. This kind of storyis probably the simplest version of a fore-shadowed story told in the laboratory. In thefollowing, we will render another type of story told by another researcher, in whichthe elements of foreshadowing are subtler, though we will argue, as strong as in thestory-fragment above:

How did you end up working with this?

That goes back to. . . I was a student with [. . .] – that was from 1981 to 1983. We didmicrobiology and nothing else [. . .] And we got the idea that we should look at the enzymes


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that come out of the cell. That was the first cautious attempt at looking at interactionsbetween organisms. We isolated bacteria from fruit and vegetables. I promise you that thatwas unheard of where we were. You used e.coli, and that was it [. . .] I did a PhD about thoseenzymes [. . .] It turned out that they were coupled to the motor apparatus of the organisms[. . .] It is called swarming [. . .] And it turns out that swarming is connected to quorumsensing. That turned out to be important; because we had suddenly moved to a place, wherewhat we were doing was important on an international level [. . .] We have worked togetherfor seventeen years now. Ever since, actually.

This story has more detail than the story above. It holds more surprises, but is stillquite logical and leads directly to the researcher’s current place. Interestingly, theexplanations of the career path concern only details from the subject matter: the subjectmatter leads the researcher in different directions – not vice versa. Coincidences hold aprominent place in this story, but the coincidences concern the object of research – e.g.one enzyme turning out to be connected to the motor apparatus – and not theresearcher himself, as is the case in side-shadowed stories. Or in other words: theproject of the protagonist remains fixed, which is one of the basic characteristics offore-shadowed stories. In this sense, we detect virtually no trace whatsoever of themodern career whose orientation towards the workplace is bound to be a much morestrategic one.

MMEG researchers that tell their stories using foreshadowing, are generally deeplycommitted to one niche of the laboratory’s research. They are distinguished byworking almost exclusively with one type of bacteria, or the development of onespecific method. When asked how they ended up in the group, they usually say thatthey have always been drawn to this specific type of research – ever since theirfirst years as under-graduates. They are very into the science of their work, and do notreadily respond to questions about aesthetics, tactics, emotions, careers or othernon-scientific questions. Questions pertaining to such matters are typically consideredto be questions about science, posed in an awkward manner. Thus, the conception ofcareers presented by these researchers is a very narrow one, as they virtually representthemselves as epi-phenomena to their object of research to which they are devoted andconscientious servants. This group share many characteristics with Weick’s (1989)specialists, and has what Delbecq and Elfner’s (1970) refer to as local orientations.

An important theme traversing the stories employing both fore- and sideshadowingis that of a commitment to science. MMEG researchers that use foreshadowing whentelling their stories can be regarded as very committed, as they explain their interestfrom the inside of science, so to speak; not expressing a need to explain why theyconsider it interesting. The commitment is expressed through one type of interest;interest in the subject matter. This sense of commitment corresponds nicely with ageneral myth about science: that it is a calling or a vocation. These terms echo twoimportant theoretical voices in sociology of science: first, Weber (1946) says in his text“Science as Vocation” that: “In the field of science only he who is devoted solely to thework at hand has ‘personality’”. Second, Rorty argues that contemporary scientists havetaken on the role that priests had before the enlightenment – that of having privilegedaccess to the instance that instigates truth (Rorty, 1991). Both Weber and Rorty thusemphasizes the relation between scientists and the religious term of vocation.

Thus, the type of researcher that has specialist interests, is committed to science,and narrates stories of careers by means of foreshadowing – can be regarded as the

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typical core-scientific stance, both in the MMEG and in science in general, where“career” is defined in terms of an eternal path towards greater knowledge about thesubject matter at hand.

SideshadowingOther researchers tell their stories using the less orthodox narrative style ofsideshadowing. Using sideshadowing as a narrative device in the scientists’ careerstories is a strong indicator of individual freedom in the sense of being somewhatindependent of any specific research objectives and of any specific, narrow researchgroup. However, as will become clear, using sideshadowing is not unequivocallya means of constructing a successful career story. It can also be a way of conveying afeeling of marginality vis-a-vis the scientific community. The difference, it seems toMMEG members, comes down to vocation and whether alternative networks ofinterests support or counteract the science network:

I am a chemical engineer, and when I first started at DTU I thought I was going to work withsulphuric acid catalysts, and that kind of thing. So, I took some inorganic classes. But I gottired of that [. . .] Then I started working with organic chemistry. That didn’t work out either.So, I went into the environmental stuff, which I got really exited about. I went to the States tostudy there for a year [. . .] When I went, it was the idea that I would do some moremicrobiology. I met a teacher over there who worked with biofilms in drinking water [. . .]That inspired me greatly, but I still didn’t think I knew much about microbiology. I got intothe course rather late, because I’d been to the States, and the professor was giving a lecture[. . .] We discussed the biofilm-thing. . . And that led to me wanting to write about drinkingwater and biofilms, and identification of bacteria in drinking water. We launched it as aco-operation between Biocentrum and Department of Environmental Technology [. . .] AndI ended up here – it was coincidence upon coincidence.

Do you have any ideas of what you want to do in the future?

There are many possibilities – there are all the biotechnical companies. Earlier I wanted towork as a consulting engineer, but I don’t want that anymore. Then I’d rather be in thepharmaceutical industries. Research & Development. And I could easily imagine staying onas a researcher.

Here?

I don’t know – maybe for a while.

MMEG members that tell sideshadowed stories akin to the one above, can be observedto speak and behave in line with the theoretical description of the boundaryless career;they express distance to the “nerdy” bench-work in a range of ways: being continuallyunable to find their white coat or other necessary equipment, having to borrow fromother researchers or technicians. They write only sparsely on petri-dishes and in notesand refuse to restreak as many times as the standard requires, as this is “a waste oftime”.

When asked to describe the ideal researcher, these researchers explain thatresearchers should keep themselves informed about the general development ofresearch and science, and stay open to new areas of working. One researcher describeshimself as interested in “working out new methods for developing new knowledge”which is a fairly broad definition of scientific interest, and offers an explicit strategy for


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his work in research: it must be relevant, as research is often too narrow and useless;and there should not be too many researchers doing it already. The self-assurednessand strategic overview expressed in this type of statement mean that such researchersspurn admiration and envy in many colleagues. The statements also indicate aresearcher who performs career as boundaryless in the sense that organizationalborders or even professional borders do not restrict the narrative development in time.It is also a type of researcher that is reminiscent of Weick’s generalist and have whatDelbecq and Elfner (1970) refer to as cosmopolitan orientations.

When side-shadowing researchers are asked how they ended up in the group, theyusually say that it was a coincidence. Broad networks of interests have driven themrather than one specific type of science. They have often worked in different areasduring their training and career. Most of them say that they want a career in research,but they have no specific ideas as to where, and are generally willing to try out newareas.

It is probably important to the perceived success of these researchers, that theymake one traditional choice within the variables that make up a researcher – that ofperceiving science as a vocation. These researchers often downplay vocation whenasked directly, but can be observed to be very committed researchers – usually beingpresent in the lab, and when not there, being on visits to labs abroad or attendingconferences. However, this vocation does not entail the exclusion of other interests.On the contrary, they think of their current work as one possibility among other likelycareer-moves that could be just as attractive. In this sense, these researchers embodysome of the underlying premises of the boundaryless career, namely those ofindependence of any specific employer. Instead, they are always on the look-out forpersonal learning opportunities and other potential career-stories that might, inprofessional and personal terms, be as challenging and rewarding as the present one.As such, the notion of vocation need not be the life-long, foreshadowed typecharacteristic of Weber’s definition of scientific vocation.

In the following section, we will describe stories that use sideshadowing wheredifferent networks of interest are conflicting rather than mutually supportive, givingMMEG members who make this choice a sense of being marginalized, or of beingunscientific:

When I started studying, it didn’t really matter what it was. Whether I studied medicine, law,or engineering. So, I chose DTU because it was far away, and it sounded cool. I roamed DTUfor a couple of years [. . .] I didn’t care at all if I was going to graduate from one or the otherdepartment. One day I took my first course in microbiology [. . .] I’d found genetics interestingbeforehand, but it might as well have been [. . .] biochemistry, biotechnology, there were lotsof possibilities. I didn’t really care what it was. . .

Do you know what are you going to do when you finish your current project?

No – not except that I want to get away. It has become too frustrating to be here. I’m not sureI’ll be able to honour my own expectations. I really like teaching, and that kind of thing [. . .]I’m good with people [which is not what a researcher is expected to be].

This story is an example of a sideshadowed story in which boundarylessness is not aforte, but a disruptive force, threatening to fragment both story and researcher. It can beargued, that what separates the “successful” sideshadowed stories from “unsuccessful”ones, is the part played by vocation. In the story above, the researcher hints at a lack of

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vocation by using wordings as “I didn’t care at all” and by stating that he does not wantto stay in research. Later in the interview, he describes how his “attitude” and lack of“sacred fire” makes him perceive himself as flung to the peripheries of science. But hequickly goes on to ascertain that his lack of vocation to science makes him more of a fullperson. In a certain sense, MMEG researchers make use of sideshadowing and itspromise of a variety of possible endings. Yet, in some cases, like the ones used as anexample above, sideshadowing is used as a means of escape, as a way of denying thepresent work situation any sense of meaningfulness. The “real” scientists – althoughenvied for their commitment – are described as having one-track minds – “going out,and going to work”.

The “one-tracked” mind has been observed in other scientific communities as well.Thus, Sharon Traweek (1988, p. 21) writes that the physicists observed by her hadgenerally been committed to becoming scientists from early adolescence, or evenchildhood, and that they regarded being physicists as a calling, not an occupation or merejob. The same can be said of the microbiologists at the MMEG, who all state that they knewthat they wanted to work with some sort of research from an early age. Or rather, almost allportray their career-path as circumstantial, but the alternatives they mention are otherlabs or research institution, and only seldom completely different areas.

Some of MMEG researchers succeed in balancing the forces of sideshadowedcareers and a sense of vocation. But they also exemplify how the ongoing constructionof a boundaryless career resembles Sisyphean labor. Even though we cannot readilydismiss that the importance of salary and promotion in a hierarchical organization stillremains (becoming a professor with the prestige and salary this also implies), there is asense in which these vertical aspirations have to coexist with the path that Weickrefers to as growth and learning. Thus, researchers that successfully narratesideshadowed stories are open to personal opportunities in quite different workingenvironments, while also being successful performers in their present environment.Contrary to this, researchers that narrate sideshadowed stories to tell stories of lack ofsuccess, show an openness that is somewhat forced; more colored by indifferencevis-a-vis the present work environment than by the appeal of other work environments.

Whether successful or unsuccessful, the sideshadowing career is thrown into anever ending process of self-assessment that ought to enable the individual worker tooptimize their work trajectory in order to become more knowledgeable, morecompetent, and importantly, more marketable. While some researchers seem to thriveon this, others are clearly battling to become able to narrate their career story in anarrative slope that is not regressive (Gergen, 1997). If not, the career story might cometo resemble a tragedy, in which the researcher is reduced to a mere victim ofcircumstances. However, while the successfully sideshadowed researchers’ careerstories seem more robust, a certain fragile aspect also characterizes it. It is thus ourclaim that the boundarylessness conveyed by sideshadowed career narratives, is notnecessarily a sign of success. Whether this sense of narrating careers “works” or notdepend on other contingent factors. In this respect the most noticeable factor isvocation, which traverses the divide between fore- and sideshadowed stories (Table II).

ConclusionIn the beginning of the paper, we stated that we would show that the boundarylesscareer has not replaced the traditional career, and that narrating career as boundaryless,


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does not ensure success. We will begin this synthesis with the last distinction – the onebetween good and bad:

Our researchers’ stories have shown us, that the sideshadowed stories ofboundarylessness can lead to two different results: a “positive” and “negative” one.Again it is important to stress that our aim here is not a normative one: when pointingto “positive” and “negative” result or “successful” and “non-successful” researcherstrategies, we are presenting what MMEG members have pointed to as positive andsuccessful, and negative and non-successful.

The “positive” result implies that multiple foci enable the researcher to draw onseveral networks at one time, thereby constructing a fresh, powerful, and up-to-dateidentity narrative through their careers. Sideshadowing reflects a career-path thatbends rather than breaks the borders between normality and marginality. For theMMEG members in question, this means that peripheral science interests complementand support interests in core science. Likewise, the different networks of interestsupply the researcher with a reserve of ideas and thoughts that can be used in moldingnew concepts and creating new fields of research. It is probably no coincidence thatsciences that are considered truly cutting edge are often combinations of traditionalfields as for instance genetics (biology and informatics) and neurobiology (biology andpsychology).

The “negative” results of sideshadowing imply that the multiple foci result in anunsuccessful construction of the scientists’ story and identity. As shown in thediscussion of sideshadowing, it is contingent factors from the concrete work-place thatmakes or breaks the career. In the laboratory studied for this paper, it is vocation thatis pivotal.

Without the vocation, the multiple interest gives rise to a sideshadowed career-storythat can become a tragic story of a person victim to circumstances. When “career”becomes something that each individual has to construct for him or herself, it is alsothe individual that is at stake when defining and communicating a convincingnarrative of work and career.

Maybe it is not surprising that a critical perspective is rare in the debate on careersin the new organizational era, as the ideal of freedom is a notion so saturated withpositive value that it would appear almost counterintuitive to argue against it.However, there are good reasons to interpret the ideological tone of freedom with somesuspicion, notably as it seems to work upon the individual as an institutionalizedregime of forced and incessant self-reflection (see also Rose’s, 1989, Chapter 18,insightful discussion on the technologies of autonomy).

Fore-shadowing Side-shadowing

Vocation Essential group members. Performscore-work. Produces experiments andpublishable results

Visionary group members. Lays out theground for future work. Does national andinternational networking thus helping thegroup – e.g. with funding

Lack ofvocation

Not present in group Marginal group members. Networks, butdoes not connect networks to groupTable II.

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This demand seems a quite obvious consequence of the shift from organizationalcareers to boundaryless careers, where people no longer gain their work-identity from aspatial reference to the “mother organization” but, on the contrary, have to put moreeffort into the invention and permanent reconstruction of one. No matter what,individuals pursuing the modern career seem obligated to narrate themselves in timeas movers, people who learn, improve and grow as productive beings. Thus, MMEGmembers using the narrative mode of sideshadowing spend a great deal of energy onbecoming or remaining mobile, enabling them to transgress boundaries and move inworlds that lie beyond the petri dish.

As enchanting as this seems, the notion of a boundaryless career, heavilypreoccupied with growth and learning, has incited people to become the kind ofreflective beings who constantly monitor and judge their own moves with the aim ofconstantly improving (Rose, 1989, p. 245). This is not surveillance and control from thetop or the centre, but a sophisticated panopticon (Foucault, 1977) extended in timerather than space, which performs a subtler and more efficient control from within – acontrol that we refer to as freedom. Thus, whatever boundaries there may be, they aremental barriers that need to be disposed of in order for the individual to be able toreinvent himself, use his “metaskill” and cultivate his own adaptability (Thomas andHiggins, 1996, p. 269).

Likewise, it is not empirically relevant to distinguish between old and new careertypes. The group studied in this paper is crucially dependent on both types ofresearchers. MMEG members who tell traditional foreshadowed career-stories, formthe base and ground of the experimental work done in the laboratory. Researcherstelling their stories using the device of foreshadowing are perceived as making thetraditional choice of “proper science”. However, as creativity is also perceived as anessential element of being a truly ground-breaking scientist, MMEG members usingthe device of foreshadowing are sometimes perceived as good analysts, but not as goodat synthesis: bringing new fields together in truly new ideas. They are perhaps moreconcerned with doing things right, with becoming excellent at one particular technique.But without them, there would be no scientific findings to publish.

MMEG members who narrate sideshadowed stories are “the architechts of thefuture” as one researcher told us in a conversation. The multiple-focus that is implied insideshadowing allows room for multiple versions of the story and multiple endings.This conception of different types of scientists is reflected in many types of literature,from the classic concept of Bildung (the romantic ideal of improving one’s self througheducation; includes acquiring knowledge of diverse topics as science, music, arts, andliterature) to Michel Serres’ metaphor of the harlequin-coat (a metaphor of knowledgeoften used in Serres’ later works; the coat is assembled from an infinite number of rags.See for instance Serres and Latour (1995, p. 116). In this view, true science is the abilityto synthesize different interests and fields of knowledge. The sideshadowingresearchers plan and plot, while their foreshadowing colleagues perform experiments.

However, a sense of hierarchy can be detected between the two: while thesideshadowed, “boundaryless” careers are placed at the top (which can be seen fromresearchers pointing to this group as the “architects of the future” and from theirpositions in the academic hierarchy), the specialized, foreshadowed researchers formthe bottom (which can be seen from the tone of envy in statements these researchersmake about sideshadowing researchers). The foreshadowing researchers think that


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they deserve more prestige because of the scientific purity that they claim, whereasthe ability to connect different networks appears to be crucial to the status of thesideshadowing researchers. But the tensions introduced by this status battle does notmake the group less functional.

Rather, the two groups of researchers seem essential to the work and the unity of thegroup, as each type carries out an essential task. Continuity and cooperation betweentypes of researchers is necessary to accomplish work. Different types of researchers areessential to the group, as this means that the repertoire of competences becomes broader.This indicates that the “old” and the “new” the “bordered” and the “boundaryless”the “foreshadowed” and the “sideshadowed” must be seen as co-constitutive, and notas the contrasts they have often been described as in the literature on the boundarylesscareer and the new organizational era.

References

Arthur, M.B. and Rousseau, D. (Eds) (1996), The Boundaryless Career, Oxford University Press,New York, NY.

Baruch, Y. and Hall, D.T. (2004), “The academic career: a model for future careers in othersectors?”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 64 No. 2, pp. 241-62.

Bird, A. (1994), “Careers as repositories of knowledge: a new perspective on boundarylesscareers”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 325-44.

Czarniawska, B. (2001), “Narrative, interviews, and organizations”, in Gubrium, J.F.and Holstein, J.A. (Eds), Handbook of Interview Research, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA,pp. 733-50.

DeFillippi, R.J. and Arthur, M.B. (1994), “The boundaryless career: a competency basedperspective”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 307-24.

Delbecq, A.L. and Elfner, E.S. (1970), “Local-cosmopolitan orientations and career strategies forspecialists”, The Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 373-87.

Eby, L., Butts, M. and Lockwood, A. (2003), “Predictors of success in the era of the boundarylesscareer”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 24 No. 6, pp. 689-708.

Ellig, J. and Thatchenkery, T.J. (1996), “Subjectivism, discovery, and boundaryless careers:an Austrian perspective”, in Arthur, M.B. and Rousseau, D. (Eds), The BoundarylessCareer, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, pp. 171-86.

Foucault, M. (1977), Discipline and Punish – The Birth of the Prison, Allan Lane, London.

Gergen, K.J. (1997), Realities and Relationships, Harvard University Press, London.

Gunz, H., Evans, M. and Jalland, M. (2000), “Career boundaries in a ‘boundarylessworld’”, in Peiperl, M., Arthur, M., Goffee, R. and Morris, T. (Eds), CareerFrontiers – New Conceptions of Working Lives, Oxford University Press, New York,NY, pp. 24-54.

Jackson, C. (1996), “Managing and developing a boundaryless career: lessons from danceand drama”, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 5 No. 4,pp. 617-28.

Larsen, H.H. (1998), “Towards an interactive career model”, Vol. 1, unpublished doctoraldissertation.

Morson, G.S. (1994), Narrative and Freedom, Yale University Press, London.

Peiperl, M., Arthur, M., Coffee, R. and Morris, T. (Eds) (2000), Career Frontiers – New Conceptionsof Working Lives, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

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Pink, D.H. (2001), Free Agent Nation, Warner Business Books, New York, NY.

Rorty, R. (1991), Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Rose, N. (1989), Governing the Soul – Reshaping the Private Self, Free Association Books,London.

Sennett, R. (1998), The Corrosion of Character, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, NY.

Serres, M. and Latour, B. (1995), Conversations on Science, Culture, and Time, The University ofMichigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI.

Sullivan, S.E. (1999), “The changing nature of careers: a review and research agenda”, Journal ofManagement, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 457-84.

Thomas, D. and Higgins, M. (1996), “Mentoring and the boundaryless career: lessons from theminority experience”, in Arthur, M.B. and Rousseau, D. (Eds), The Boundaryless Career,Oxford University Press, New York, NY, pp. 268-81.

Traweek, S. (1988), Beamtimes and Lifetimes, Harvard University Press, London.

Van Buren, H.J. III (2003), “Boundaryless careers and employability obligations”, Business EthicsQuarterly, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 131-49.

Weber, M. (1946), “Science as vocation”, in Gerth, H.H. and Mills, C.W. (Eds), From Max Weber:Essays in Sociology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 129-57.

Weick, K.E. (1989), “Theory construction as disciplined imagination”, Academy of ManagementJournal, Vol. 14 No. 4, pp. 516-31.

Weick, K.E. (1996), “Enactment and the boundaryless career: organizing as we work”,in Arthur, M.B. and Rousseau, D. (Eds), The Boundaryless Career, Oxford UniversityPress, New York, NY, pp. 40-57.

Whyte, W. (1956), Organization Man, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth.

Wilensky, H. (1961), “Work, careers and social integration”, International Social Science Journal,Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 543-74.

Appendix. DataField notes from observations:

Laboratory of the Molecular Microbial Ecology Group:

. September 1-October 1, 1999

. February 1, 2000-April 1, 2001

Notes from meetings, seminars and conversations:

. September 1, 1999-September 1, 2001

Interviews:

. Research Assistant, February 16, 2001

. Graduate Student, February 16, 2001

. Graduate Student, February 21, 2001

. Graduate Student, March 5, 2001

. Post Doctoral Student, March 5, 2001

. Associate Professor, March 6, 2001.


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About the authorsJulie Sommerlund is an Assistant Professor at The Danish School of Design. She works withinthe field of Science and Technology Studies, and has been working on a project about geneticistsand biotechnology. The research presented in the present paper is one result of that research.Other papers based on the same research have been published in Social Studies of Science, Sage,and Configurations, Johns Hopkins University Press. Julie Sommerlund is the correspondingauthor and can be contacted at: [email protected]

Sami Boutaiba currently works as a Principal in the Danish State Employer’sAuthority. Before joining the State Employer’s Authority, he was an Assistant Professor atCopenhagen Business School. Sami Boutaiba has worked extensively with career developmentand HRM, and has published work on time, narrativity and career, for instance in Hjort &Steyart: Narrative and Discursive Approaches in Entrepreneurship, Edward Elgar, 2004.E-mail: [email protected]

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Knowledge managementin a New Zealand tree

farming companyAmbiguity and resistance to the

“technology solution”

Alan LoweAston Business School, Birmingham, UK, and

Andrea McIntoshWaikato Management School, Hamilton, New Zealand

Abstract

Purpose – Managers at the company attempt to implement a knowledge management informationsystem in an attempt to avoid loss of expertise while improving control and efficiency. The paperseeks to explore the implications of the technological solution to employees within the company.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper reports qualitative research conducted in a singleorganization. Evidence is presented in the form of interview extracts.

Findings – The case section of the paper presents the accounts of organizational participants.The accounts reveal the workers’ reactions to the technology-based system and something of theirstrategies of resistance to the system. These accounts also provide glimpses of the identityconstruction engaged in by these knowledge workers. The setting for the research is in aknowledge-intensive primary industry. Research was conducted through observation and interviews.

Research limitations/implications – The issues identified are explored in a single case-studysetting. Future research could look at the relevance of the findings to other settings.

Practical implications – The case evidence presented indicates some of the complexity ofimplementation of information systems in organizations. This could certainly be seen as moreevidence of the uncertainty associated with organizational change and of the need for managers not toexpect an easy adoption of intrusive IT solutions.

Originality/value – This paper adds empirical insight to a largely conceptual literature.

Keywords Knowledge management, Forestry, Control, Case studies, Interviews, New Zealand


Introduction

Knowledge exists in relation to certain practices, which it actively plays a part in organisingand transforming. It is also part of a wider set of processes . . . [and] to an issue, which makes it“useful” (Mouritsen et al., 2001, p. 739).

This paper presents the findings of an in depth case study of an organizationengaged in a high technology service function in the forestry industry. Theorganization unit studied is a subsidiary of a large New Zealand-based forestryand wood products multinational. The study took place over a six-month periodduring the implementation of a “technological solution” to knowledge management.Managers at the company had adopted the idea of an electronic library-based approach



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Vol. 20 No. 4, 2007pp. 539-558


DOI 10.1108/09534810710760072

which they expected to improve the retention of knowledge within the firm. This wouldin turn increase efficiency and provide a platform for better control procedures.

Our emphasis on knowledge as constituted through practice provides a justificationfor the adoption of an intensive style of case research. The use of this approach toresearching organizational experiences of knowledge management is designed:

To show how a practice-based theorizing arises from multiple perspectives and negotiations,and how in so doing delegitimizes a univocal narrative of scientific authority (Gherardi, 2000,p. 219; Engestrom, 2000; Blackler et al., 2000).

The aim of the paper is to contribute to the understandings of knowledge managementissues at the organizational and work group level. Our theoretical frame – adopts aperformative approach (Alexander, 1992; Knorr Cetina, 1999; Pickering, 1995) whichreveals the strategies, interests and interactional accomplishments of individual actors.Improved understandings in this area may be useful in providing more enlightenedconcepts of organizational control in knowledge settings. The use of a single case studyprovides a contextually rich site in which we may collect and interpret the reactions ofindividual organization participants. Our case material provides insights on theconstruction of identity and resistance (Hull, 1999; Knights and Morgan, 1991; Loweand Doolin, 1999; Foucault, 1982) within a specific knowledge setting.

The next section of the paper seeks to provide an understanding of the processualview of knowledge production. This perspective places emphasis on understandingthe nature of practice as it unfolds in its social and organizational context. This isfollowed by a section which reviews relevant themes from the knowledgemanagement literature. The following section of the paper gives a brief context ofthe case organization and provides an outline of the research methods used. Next, twosections based on the case investigations follow: firstly the main case analysis sectionprovides a picture of employee reactions to developments at the company; then adiscussion section provides a brief synthesis and review of the themes which havebeen described in the previous empirical section. The final section providesconcluding comments with a particular focus on the evidence of resistance weencountered.

Organizational knowledge and practiceGherardi (2000) identifies three conceptions of organizational knowledge in the literaturewhich she suggests only became recognized as a topic for organization theorists in the1970s. The areas Gherardi indicates are organization learning, knowledge managementand knowledge as practice. This section seeks to provide an understanding of this thirdview. What might be termed a processual, or practice-based, view of knowledgeproduction. Such a perception places an emphasis on understanding the nature ofpractice as it unfolds in its social and organizational context:

Practice . . . refer[s] directly to those dynamic sequences which are the ingredients of suchmachineries. This notion of practice shifts the focus away from interests or intentions, towardthe conditions and dynamics of the day-to-day actions of collective life (Gherardi, 2000, p. 218).

From an organizational theory perspective knowledge and learning are often seen aslinked. We read of the learning organization and knowledge management. Theseconcepts often entail strong assumptions about the ability and certainly the desirabilityof transferring knowledge through learning. This paper seeks to develop an emphasis on

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the culture and practice of organizations through a practice-based understanding of howknowledge is mobilized in organizational contexts. The distinctive nature ofunderstanding learning through everyday practice is related to a holistic approach toknowledge. In everyday practice, “learning takes place in the flow of experience, with orwithout our awareness of it” (Gherardi, 2000, p. 214). Having noted this Gherardi pointsout that such a view draws from Heidegger (1962) and his followers who used theterm Dasein to denote this “being-in-the-world” whereby subject and object areindistinguishable.

In the phenomenological tradition, pre-reflexive learning, a comprehension thattakes place in situations of involvement in a practice may be closely related to theconcept of tacit knowledge. Reflexive or theoretical knowledge is only called into playwhen breakdown occurs and reflexive activity intervenes. In well understood actswithin ordinary practice we are typically unaware of our actions. Objects involved inour activities, our practice, are “simply present” (Vorhanden), no longer understood asseparate objects but become an implicit extension of our actions. The typist does notthink of the actions necessary to fabricate the printed words anymore thanthe carpenter is aware of the techniques needed to propel the plane across thework-piece. Practice is mediated through social contexts and tacit knowledge whichinfluence the day-to-day activities of organization members. The:

. . . concept of practice reveals how comprehension of situations where one is “thrownheadlong into use” is pre-reflexive and does not draw distinctions among subject, object,thought or context. It also reveals how reflexive understanding arises at moments ofbreakdown (Gherardi, 2000, p. 215, emphasis in original).

Learning is at its heart a participative and usually essentially social activity ratherthan a reflexive or cognitive activity (Blackler, 1993).

Studies of organizational practice must recognize that the sens pratique oforganizing is inscribed in the bodies and in the habitus of the organization participants(Cook and Brown, 1999; McDermott, 1999; Orlikowski, 2002; Tsoukas, 1996). This ismuch more than can be understood in the text of quality guidelines or budget manuals.This aspect of practice is what Polanyi (1962) refers to when he says that we knowmuch more than we know we know. Nevertheless, if studies of organization are totheorize practice they must engage in reflexive thought. In such an endeavor practicemay be changed as:

The logic of practice contributes to its [own] transformation simply by making it explicit.Disembedding knowledge is an act of reflexive logic which betrays the logic of practice. It insertsdistance, reflection and separation between subject and object where previously there was nodistinction between subject and the world; both were totally present and caught up by the“matter in hand” (Gherardi, 2000, p. 216, emphasis added).

Using such conceptions of practice to interrogate our understanding of knowledgeaccepts a view which emphasizes “spatiality” and “facticity”. Knowledge is perceivedas a practical accomplishment of actors within organizations. In this view knowledge isgrounded in a real situation and is presented as based on an accounting for reality evenwhere this reality may be socially constructed. The concept of situated knowledge hasbeen particularly thoroughly developed using a cultural perspective (Cook and Yanow,1993; Cook and Brown, 1999; Tsoukas, 1996). Some of these writers have concentratedon the social construction of organizational knowledge which produces “social worlds


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in which practices assume meanings and facticity” (Gherardi, 2000, p. 217; Star, 1996;Tsoukas, 1996; Cook and Brown, 1999; Gomart and Hennion, 1999; Carter andScarbrough, 2001; Orlikowski, 2002). Others have examined aspects such as theconcept of community of practice (Wenger, 1998) and the concept of practice as work,“situated knowledge” and “social learning” (Brown et al., 1989; Lave and Wenger,1991), or epistemic cultures (Knorr Cetina, 1997, 1999).

The discussion in this section has attempted to clarify the notion of knowledge asconstituted within day-to-day routine. Knowledge in this view must be examined as anoutcome of the performance of the routine practices of knowledge workers and theirinteractions with the systems and/or tools which constitute their knowledge systems.This emphasis on the notion of knowledge as constituted through practice provides thejustification for the adoption of an intensive style of case research the results of whichwill be discussed in the second half of this paper. The next section of the paperprovides a brief review the knowledge management literature.

Conceptions of knowledge managementMuch of the contemporary professional business and academic literature agues thatmanagers are, or certainly should be, looking for new opportunities which may enablethem to develop intellectual capital and control and manage knowledge within theorganization (Civi, 2000; Gupta et al., 2000; Banks, 1999; Sveiby, 1997; Prusak, 1997).This academic and “practitioner” literature is motivated from an implicit or explicitassumption that it is the successful management of knowledge that will be a keysuccess factor in the new “knowledge economy” (Prusak, 1997; Stewart, 1997; Sveiby,1997). Prusak (1997) identifies many of the same issues as Giddens (1990, 1994, pp.vii-viii) though his interpretation of the resulting trend is somewhat different:

. globalization of the economy, which places increasing pressure on firms to adapt,innovate and process at speed;

. increasing awareness of the value of specialized knowledge embedded inorganizational processes and routines in order to cope with pressures such asglobalization;

. increasing awareness of knowledge as a distinct factor of production and its rolein the growing book to market ratios within knowledge-based industries; and

. lowered cost of computer networking which gives a tool to enable us to work andlearn with others.

Many would not argue with the statement that the world is changing at an acceleratingpace. But the thesis that this results in the obsolescence and outdating of knowledgeand that the organizational response should be to look for more sophisticated methodsof managing knowledge (Prusak, 1997) is not so widely accepted.

Some writers argue knowledge can be conceptualized as consisting of both tacitand explicit elements (Gupta et al., 2000; Beckett et al., 2000; Lee and Yang, 2000).This concept was first distinguished by Polanyi (1962). Tacit knowledge is definedas knowledge which is not easily visible and expressible (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995, p. 8):

Tacit knowledge is highly personal and hard to formalize making it difficult to communicateor to share with others. Subjective insights, intuitions and hunches fall into this category ofknowledge . . . Tacit knowledge is deeply rooted in an individual’s action and experience, as

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well as in the ideals, values or emotions he or she embraces . . . the technical dimension.The second dimension is cognitive which consists of schemata, mental models, beliefs andperceptions which are so ingrained they are taken for granted. This dimension is not easilyarticulated as it shapes the way we perceive the world.

Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) define explicit knowledge as that knowledge which iseasily processed by a computer, transmitted electronically or stored in a database. Itis the type of knowledge alluded to in the introduction of this report, such things asreports, projects and generally hard copy documents. Martensson (2000) states“explicit knowledge is the knowledge that can be captured and shared throughinformation technology”.

The increased attention that has been given to the importance of knowledgemanagement initiatives has spawned, two “strategic schools of thought” that nowunderpin much of the conventional literature; knowledge-based theory andresource-based theory (Martensson, 2000; Swan et al., 1999). Both schools are largelyconcerned with utilizing knowledge in some way as a key competitive resource (Storeyand Barnett, 2000). The key assumption of resource-based theory is that knowledge orintellectual capital is a core competence or strategy to achieve competitive advantage.Essentially, this theory recognizes knowledge as a major resource and/or strategiccompetence for the organization and this view is positively advocated by a large body ofliterature (Sveiby, 1997; Prusak, 1997; Skyrme, 2000; Stewart, 1997; Martensson, 2000).

The other “strategic” school of thought is termed knowledge-based theory and likeresource-based theory, this concept recognizes knowledge provides a source ofcompetitive advantage, but this theory goes one step further. Knowledge-based theorysuggests that rather than knowledge being the strategic competence, it is in fact theknowledge management processes and the culture of an organization having theability to foster knowledge creation and knowledge-sharing which is the organizationsmain competence. This concept recognizes knowledge as a living asset requiringnurture and growth.

Swan et al. (1999) characterize the approaches to knowledge managementdifferently. They distinguish between a cognitive and a community-based model of theknowledge management process. Their model has features in common withthe knowledge-based versus resource-based conceptualizations, in which there areclose similarities between resource-based and cognitive. Their community networkingmodel is a carefully developed version of a knowledge-based model which is reliant ona social constructionist conception of the processes of the production and sharing ofknowledge (Swan et al., 1999, p. 273).

Within knowledge management initiatives Hoadley et al. (1998) highlight two keythemes. The first theme centres on how information technology can support thecapture of tacit knowledge held by individuals and its conversion to explicit form(suggesting the use of groupware mediums such as Lotus Notes). The second themeinvolves the use of information technology to electronically publish corporatedocuments on an intranet with the intention of supporting the search for informationby employees. Hoadley et al. (1998) characterizes the critique against these themes asbeing “solution driven” rather than “problem driven” and largely focused on theexplicit form of knowledge (outlined above). This is generally because it is explicitknowledge which is well suited to being stored and retrieved by informationtechnology.


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The above conceptions are relevant to the forest services (FS) project which is thesetting of this research. The project management appear to have adopted the idea thattacit knowledge can be captured, while the essence of the project is its aim to make[explicit] knowledge more widely available among employees. Storey and Barnett(2000) contend that the major problem with the “solution driven” approach, is thefailure to adequately consider the importance of tacit knowledge and its often intimatelinks with explicit knowledge (Carter and Scarbrough, 2001; McDermott, 1999; Newellet al., 2001). Storey and Barnett also argue that the tacit component receives littleattention in the literature because it involves recognition of the importance ofbehavioral and motivational issues rather that simple data and document capture.

Many of the conventional theories discussed earlier in this section adopt anessentially modernist perspective. Such:

. . . theorists tend not to address the question of how the knowledge processes theyincorporate into their arguments work, which structures or principles adequately describethis working, or how the notion of knowledge dealt with in these systems ought to bespecified (Knorr Cetina, 1999, p. 7).

Instead these theorists tend to concentrate on the “transformative effects of thesesystems’ outcomes on other social spheres, on personal life, industrial organization,market expansion, etc.” (Knorr Cetina, 1999, p. 7). Knorr Cetina argues that by contrastwe have a poor understanding of the contexts within which knowledge is produced(Latour, 1987, 1996; Pickering, 1995; Hacking, 1999):

A knowledge society is not simply a society of more experts, more technological gadgets,more specialist interpretations. It is a society permeated with knowledge cultures, the whole setof structures and mechanisms that serve knowledge and un-fold with its articulation(Knorr Cetina, 1999, p. 8, emphasis added).

This section of the paper has identified a number of key themes which have emerged inthe contemporary literature on organizational knowledge. The next section of the paperwill indicate the research methods used and introduce the case organization. The caseevidence that we present in the next section of the paper will address aspects of thefailure of organizations to take appropriate account of the importance of tacitknowledge, the complexity of social settings and the difficulty of managing suchknowledge (Carter and Scarbrough, 2001; Newell et al., 2001; Scarbrough and Swan,2001).

The case organization and issues of research methodRadiata is a New Zealand-based tree-farm entity in the business of supplying solidwood product solutions to selected markets both domestically and globally. Radiataare committed to understanding and meeting their customers’ needs. They seekcompetitive advantage in terms of products, quality, service, safety and costs. Radiataowns and manages purpose-grown sustainable tree farms. The Company breeds andmanages short rotation crop and actively participates in genome research for both Pineand Eucalyptus. Approximately, six million cubic meters of wood are harvested perannum with 1.4 cubic meters processed at ten New Zealand sites[1]. Radiata createdstrategic business units within the organization to take responsibility for key customergroups and their related supply chain segments.

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FS, the strategic business unit for whom this study is being prepared, manageapproximately 316,000 hectares of Central North Island forest estate. This meanshaving responsibility for the establishment, tending, pruning, harvesting and forestinformation for the estate. Since, restructuring, all research undertaken regarding thefuture of the forest and its wellbeing is undertaken by members of FS’52 staff. Theproject which is the setting of this research involved the implementation of anelectronic project based knowledge data base (see Appendix for further details).

The research was based on an intensive, qualitative single case study approach(Alvesson and Skoldberg, 2000; Massey and Meegan, 1985; Sayer, 1997). Datacollection was primarily through interviews, observation and documentary analysis.Documents examined included board minutes, laboratory trials, harvest plans, budgetsand internal procedure manuals. Interviews were carried out with 18 employees from atotal 52 employees. Observation of work practices extended over the period of the sitevisits which lasted for about four months. Over this period at least one of theresearchers was at the organization during normal working hours for two or three dayseach week. Nine employees were selected randomly from each of the two site offices.The tenure of employment for the interviewees varied from 1 to 20 years. Within FSthere are several work teams and interviewees were selected to give coverage ofdifferent work areas. Interviewees included administration staff in addition to thoseworking in the forest on a day-to-day basis, planning plantation of the forests,preparing for plantation, supervising plantation and checking the forests for pests.

The next section presents findings from the research site. In terms of time, the workinvolved in observing work practices was the most intensive. In the followingdiscussion, interview extracts will be used to provide a reflection of the researchers’impressions of the case organization. Clearly these impressions have been formed inlarge part by the significant time spent in the case organization. The evidencepresented will provide the basis of an understanding of the context of knowledgeproduction (Knorr Cetina, 1999) in a business setting. The section is structured topresent a picture of the main themes revealed in the empirical data in regard to theknowledge management project.

Evidence of attitudes to knowledge and work practicesThis section presents the findings of the case research. The intention of this section isto put emphasis on the notion of knowledge as constituted through practice. The use ofan intensive style of case research provides a way to bring out the performative natureof knowledge production (Knorr Cetina, 1999; Law, 1999). The manner in whichknowledge comes to play a role within the organization is theorized to be dependent onthe opportunity of individuals to share know-how in productive situations with theircolleagues (Gherardi, 2000; McDermott, 1999). In this view knowledge is produced andreproduced as part of day-to-day practice. It is actively constructed in the act of doing.As a result the nature and character of day-to-day practice and the attitudes of workersbecomes central to any operationalization of tacit knowledge.

The empirical material is framed within a conception of knowing which seeks toemphasize the complexity of understanding everyday practices. This is in contrastto a mainstream view which might be characterized as follows: employees areidentified as a crucial competitive resource because of what they know; attemptsare made to capture this knowledge so that it can be of benefit to the organization


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as a whole; employees resist attempts to get them to document what they know for avariety of reasons (fear of blame, lack of time, feelings that whatever power they havewill be undermined); therefore a culture supportive of knowledge sharing needs to beencouraged so that “the knowledge” can be released. According to this view, the mainlimitation of codification strategies is a lack of willingness on the part of employees.If only this barrier could be removed, everything would be all right. This is far toosimplistic.

The mainstream perspective leaves the dualism between tacit and explicit knowledgeundisturbed. This is in contradiction to the perspective in practice-based approacheswhich does not accept a simple dualistic perspective of knowledge. Because knowingand practice are crucially inter-related, and some form of tacit background orinterpretative framework is entailed in knowledgeable practice, it makes little sense tospeak of tacit and explicit knowledge in dualistic terms (Gherardi, 2000).

The findings from our case study are presented in sections loosely in accordancewith the themes identified in the previous section. These include: employee attitudes tothe data base knowledge project (the “technological solution”); the reluctance ofemployees to share their knowledge and, to the extent we can discern it, the tacit natureof that knowledge. The discussion will indicate the problematic nature of theseconceptions through the interpretation of the interview accounts.

Ideas of knowledge management at FSInterview material can only provide a rather superficial indication of the underlyingrealities that people experience in their daily work practices. Our interpretation wasbased on the feel for the organization and its members gained during extensiveobservation in addition to the interviews we carried out. Unfortunately in terms ofillustrating the case story we are largely limited to interview accounts. We believe thatthe context of the research at FS is clearly reflective of aspects of the organizationculture and history together with peoples’ assumptions and experiences of thecompany.

FS management had adopted a technological solution (Martensson, 2000; Storeyand Barnett, 2000) to their perceived knowledge management problem. This wasreflected in interviewees’ responses. Employees’ understandings of knowledgemanagement often seemed to reflect back what had been promulgated within theorganization – a management informed perspective of FS’s IT centered project. This isfrom the project manager. She describes the knowledge management project at FS as:

. . . a system developed to track all knowledge [in FS], for example hardcopy files, electronicfiles, reports, manuals etc . . . by subject and location so that information can be accessed andshared without being centralised (manager project library, February 13, 2001).

Another interviewee expressed a conventional but rather sanguine view of the project:

It’s a new opportunity to stop the problem of duplication we have at FS. I’m sure it will haveits pros and cons (plantation supervisor, February 28, 2000).

These quotes display a rather naıve management centered view of the allencompassing nature of such data base knowledge gathering approaches. Not allstaff followed this line consistently as we will relate later. In some cases individualswould make such a strong commitment to a technological solution only to depart laterin the interview to make statements which contradicted such a view. Often these

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later remarks seemed to be somewhat spontaneous and more reflective of theindividuals work experiences and understandings.

The interviewees, as indicated earlier, were spread evenly across two site offices.There was some evidence of a greater negativity toward the project at the larger andless remote of the two locations. It appeared that this may have been a result of thefamiliarity of these staff with previous management “initiatives” which had not alwaysbeen successful.

Some employees reflected more on their concerns about the size and complexity ofthe project – an object coming into the organization that was providing someuncertainty and threat to their environment, an initiative, of management, that wouldsoak up much of their time rather than make their lives easier. In such instancesinterviewees tended to recognize the human side of the knowledge management projectbut also dwelt on the demanding nature they perceived the system would have. Onerespondent noted rather emotively that:

Everyone needs to play a key part in the project library in order to support this. The projectlibrary requires not only a huge organizational commitment but a huge commitment byindividuals if it is to succeed (office administrator B, January 16, 2001, emphasis in original).

Others expressed much more serious concerns and disquiet. It was interesting to seethis theme emerging in the interview responses.

To me the [library] project is just a . . . waste of time (forestry planner, March 1, 2001).

Such comments were not uncommon and indicate some of the misgivings felt bypotential project participants. A significant minority were far from enthusiastic in theirattitudes toward the project. Swan et al. (1999) allude to such problems in an electronicbanking setting, though they do not report the reactions of individuals.

The situated nature of knowledge and information sharingThere was evidence of the importance attached to the situated nature of knowledge andknowledge management practices as interviewees reflected on various aspects of theirreliance on others in the organization. This extended not just to conventional ideas asto the importance and value of information sharing but additionally exhibited featuresof the dependence of management and the organization on the individuals’ use ofknowledge within their work practices. A number of employees involved in theknowledge management initiative gave indications that they are aware of theimportance of their knowledge to themselves, their colleagues and to management(Martensson, 2000; Bailey and Clarke, 2000; McDermott, 1999).

I have a personal interest in my job. I like to observe others efforts in the same area and learnfrom them (member forestry team A, January 19, 2001).

. . . there is more to life than just work, you gain knowledge and skills from working thatyou apply to your personal life in community groups, clubs and personal relationships(forestry planner, February 13, 2001)

. . . this knowledge is crucial to me in seeking employment elsewhere (member forestry team B,January 9, 2001).

Frequently, comments were made which reflected the interviewees’ awareness of theimportance to the management of FS of their skills and knowledge:


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Of course, how else will they [FS managers] grow a forest without the application of our skills(member forestry team A, February 28, 2001).

Its very important to FS, that each of us undertake a particular role which helps the businessunit do what it is supposed to do . . . if none of us knew anything, FS would find it very hardto do business . . . employees are a core part of their business . . . (forestry planner, February16, 2001)

. . . as employees of the same organization, we feed off each other. Many of us produceinformation to be used by others in our SBU [strategic business unit] or in other SBU’s . . . ithas to be right and there is great weight placed on how right it is . . . I think its very importantto other employees and the company (plantation supervisor, March 1, 2001)

The above quotes reflect the majority view expressed by the interviewees. Mostconsidered the knowledge they developed and made use of, in the work environment atFS, as important both to themselves, other employees and to management. Suchresponses appeared to indicate employees placed some genuine value on theknowledge they had gained within their FS work environment and that they wereaware of its significance. Such a view was not universal. Others did not seem to want toprivilege the knowledge gained in their FS work or were dismissive of its value:

Not at all . . . anyone can do my job, I just turn up do what I have to do and leave, I don’t needto know much (member forestry team B, March 1, 2001)

No, I can’t do anything with it its just part of the job (member forestry team A, January 12,2001)

These latter responses again indicate quite a range of attitudes within the workforce.Such views indicate a heterogeneous work culture. In these circumstances it isapparent that a simplistic approach to the implementation of the knowledgemanagement initiative, based on a notion of an extant culture of trust betweenmanagement and workers and even among workers, would be an unrealistic approachto the project.

The accounts provide only superficial indications of the part that knowledge playsin the functioning of organizations. The quotes reveal some of the complexities in howindividuals think about the value of knowledge of the organization to themselves andtheir colleagues. The above reflections and other descriptions of the workingenvironment which the interviewees provided could be seen as supporting thetheorizations of knowing in practice (Orlikowski, 2002). Such understandings mayprovide some indication of what elements within the work situation provide a focusand motivation to workers.

These features may support a way of understanding how individual knowledgeworkers construct “the knowing that is an aspect of their work [which is a] dynamicinteraction of the knowledge (both explicit and tacit) possessed by the actors”(Orlikowski, 2002, p. 270; Cook and Brown, 1999). The attitudes to knowledge form apart of work practices that may be influential in providing interest and motivationwithin specialist groups of knowledge workers. Such understandings may be critical in‘“knowing how” [knowledge sharing] can be seen as a process of enabling others tolearn the practice that entails the “knowing how”. “It is a process of helping othersdevelop the ability to enact – in a variety of contexts and conditions – the knowingin practice” (Orlikowski, 2002, p. 271). In the context of knowledge sharing

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Kogut and Zander (1996) focus attention on the problematic nature of “best practice”.They prefer to talk of “useful practices” and suggest that their “usefulness” isconsequent not on so much on transfer but on people’s capacity to enact these practicesin their everyday action. Consequently, what may be important is the recognition of thecontextual and provisional nature of such practices. Such a view would place someemphasis on an ability to identify aspects of context that might be reproduced. Ratherthan concentrating on the transfer of “best practice” we might look toward transferringelements of the work environment:

. . . “best” . . . practices are, by definition, situationally constituted. They are not discreteobjects to be exchanged or stable processes to be packaged and transported to other domains.Practices are generated through people’s everyday action practice (Orlikowski, 2002, p. 271).

Knowledge, technology and ambiguityA number of comments were made which have implications for the views workers heldof their understandings of practical knowledge. Some employees referred directly to acomplex conception of the knowledge they required by referring to specific situationsin which they would act in specific ways. They would liken their work spaces to filingsystems which could not work separate from their knowledge of the idiosyncrasies oftheir own approach to filing information. They would also refer to knowledge as“resided in their heads”. The following remarks indicate the feelings of a number ofindividuals that such knowledges are different but equally useful to what could becaptured in a database repository. They saw such knowledge as an essential ingredientof a knowledge management system. Others expressed a degree of disquiet:

How will we know what types of information we should include, we can’t include every bit ofinformation we have, it would take forever, where do we draw the line. Over half theinformation I use I only know where it is because of my psychological filing [system]. Thelibrary will need to record the information I have in my head as well as in my cupboard tohave any hope of anyone making any sense of it but me (forestry planner, January 19, 2001).

In the merger of FS and Forestry Corporation of New Zealand, people were only aware of thetypes of projects their respective company had done and you can see this mindset continuingwithin FS today. People are very keen to use the knowledge they already have . . . but how doyou share that information with others . . . that is probably more beneficial to FS than most ofthe stuff on the library database (plantation supervisor, February 9, 2001).

In cases such as these highly skilled workers express clearly the nature of theirknowledge work and their doubts about the ability of the technological solution tohandle the complex nature of their knowledge. The following comment neatly indicateshow this might be understood in relation to the forestry work at FS:

In some cases there is probably too much to write up [in a lessons learned report]. Whatwould you write up about spraying a forest? Its hard enough saying when you spray it,[let alone] what it looks like when you spray it. It would take so much time (member forestryteam A, February 28, 2001).

In this comment the interviewee notes the importance of a highly complex learned onthe job skill. The ability to visualize an aspect of their production process, a visualknowledge (McDermott, 1999; Weick, 1996) is recognized as a key part of knowing inthis work environment. In this instance the experience and knowledge needed involves


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a learned ability to “see” the condition of the forest and how this enables an optimalwork process, of timing of forest spraying, to be achieved. This appears to be a verygood example of practice-based ways of knowing. Ability and skill acquired andre-enacted through practice (Cook and Brown, 1999; Orlikowski, 2002).

Another worker expressed their concerns about the technological solution beingimplemented at FS:

I don’t see any need for a library database. I much prefer the paper trail, being able to locatemy hands on hard copy information and talk to the right person about it. You can only puthard copy documents on a database, you can’t put someone’s ideas or advice on a database . . .I much prefer the paper trail (plantation supervisor, January 16, 2001).

It appears that concerns such as these might be important reasons for employees to bereluctant to commit to the project library, but rather than a conventional explanationbased on a loss of power or fear of blame, these subjects, were concerned at theprospect of physical records being replaced with an electronic library. This may beinterpreted as a general resistance to change but it also evidences an aspect ofthe nature of knowledge work. This is the felt need at times to engage, in a physicalway with knowledge objects (Star, 1996; Brown et al., 1989; Wenger, 1998). This is clearin the case of the craftsmen or designers who express their skill and tacit knowledge inaction (Cook and Brown, 1999; Gherardi, 2000).

Similar aspects of knowledge work have been recognized in relation to engineersand scientists (McDermott, 1999; Knorr Cetina, 1999; Pan and Scarbrough, 1998).McDermott notes the value of interactions among geologists in refining and developingnew models of oil exploration by engaging with each other using maps and otherseismic representations in hard copy as well as electronic form. An important feature ofsuch patterns of knowledge sharing, relate to the familiarity and meaningfulness offorms of representation to different types of workers and experts (Knorr Cetina, 1999).In our case company such interactions take place among employees, trees and theforest as a whole.

Knowledge sharing, organization culture and resistanceIn this section we consider the ways in which our case evidence can be seen asresistance to the knowledge system. We focus directly on resistance here but it mayalso be seen in the themes we discussed previously, particularly in the discussions ofideas of knowledge management and the last section on knowledge, technology andambiguity.

Interviews were structured in order to elicit employee perceptions of theknowledge-sharing culture at FS (Storey and Barnett, 2000). The followingcomments give an indication of employee views on this issue:

Knowledge sharing is important to the effective and efficient functioning of any organization.If you are in a role where you do not need to share information or knowledge with others,I would ask, is there any need for that role? Knowledge sharing makes everyone’s job mucheasier and gives FS as an organization a much better chance of achieving their goals(manager project library, January 16, 2001).

As a team, we all need to use the strength of individual knowledge. We are all members of aorganization who are trying to achieve the same goals, I am always going to be willing toshare my knowledge (plantation supervisor, February 28, 2001).

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Many of these statements appeared positive and displayed the willingness of someemployees to share knowledge. The above rather conventional views might beinterpreted as what workers perceive management wants to hear. On the other handsuch statements do not show an appreciation of the complexity of accessing knowledge(Polanyi, 1962; Cook and Brown, 1999; Gherardi, 2000; Orlikowski, 2002). These writersnote the difficulty of individuals in identifying tacit knowledge in order to share itconsciously. Other workers exhibited rather less positive attitudes to knowledgesharing:

. . . when it comes to reaching targets and competitive type work . . . people tend to fob othersoff and are . . . reluctant to help people out (office administrator B, January 16, 2001).

. . . [people may be reluctant to share knowledge] because of intimidation or a lack ofconfidence but also because they don’t always want to share what they know if they may gainadvantage from being one of the few people who know about that particular area of FS(member forestry team B, January 19, 2001).

I am happy to share my knowledge and put it on the project library, as long as I can take whatis mine when I leave and FS don’t think it belongs to them . . . if that’s what they think then I’lljust keep it to myself (member forestry team A, February 28, 2001).

A clear theme emerges which indicates a level of awareness of the managementproclaimed organization culture and against this the existence of an alternative culture(rather at odds with management’s conception of compliant employees and sharedvalues). Here, we are seeing some evidence of a rather negative view of managementattempts to foster a “positive” organization culture along with the knowledgemanagement initiative. Instead, what is revealed is indicative of a rather heterogeneousset of perspectives within the organization. Some of these interview extracts certainlycould be interpreted as evidence of resistance. Alvesson (2002) argues that suchheterogeneity within organization culture should be considered the rule, rather than theexception. It might be suggested that such diversity of perspectives may be more of aproblem in knowledge intensive organizations. In such an environment members of theorganization might typically be better educated and more aware of their contribution tothe firm. This could mean they would be less accepting of the organizational rhetoricencountered in organization mission statements and other policy documents.

Martensson (2000) argues that evidence of a reluctance by employees to share theirexpertise may be a consequence of too much emphasis on competition in theorganization. Other writers suggest that it is better to see such issues as a consequenceof management attitudes and organization culture (Reed, 2001; Ezzamel and Willmott,1998). The following interview extracts seem to support the existence of problems inrelation to knowledge sharing:

Most FS staff tend to keep their knowledge to themselves . . . this is a cultural hurdle . . . FSstaff are not good at centralised systems . . . they tend to retain it [knowledge] so others arenot aware of its existence or location (forestry planner, February 13, 2001).

FS . . . [does not have] a culture of knowledge sharing. There is an idea among this culturethat a request for information poses threat or raises suspicion. This occurs at all levels and inall business units (plantation supervisor, March 1, 2001).


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These views on knowledge sharing indicate negative reactions to the project. Theyalso indicate a significant lack of belief in the organization culture. Interviewees wereoften unconvinced of the likelihood that colleagues would perform adequately tomaintain the integrity of the system. Not surprisingly they were concerned that theintegrity of the system would be jeopardized and that undermined their confidencethat the system could operate to their benefit. The FS culture perhaps also lead peopleto be wary of taking a position of trust, when their past experience in theorganization may have been more of an emphasis on control (Knights et al., 2001;Maguire et al., 2001; Reed, 2001).

The theoretical ideas which are the focus of this paper, about the importance ofpractice in developing and re-enacting skills and applying tacit knowledge, indicatethat changes which impact strongly to alter work practices should be carefullyconsidered. These theorisations of knowing and knowledge practices imply that thecontext may be crucial to the ability of workers to continue to act effectively andre-enact “useful” practices. Such conclusions are not just only relevant to knowledgemanagement initiatives but also to other technologies of change such as theimplementation of ERP systems and organizational reengineering techniques.The introduction of such technologies of change impact work practices dramaticallyoften requiring workers to put to one side their existing knowledge-practice systemsand replace them abruptly with “best practices”. The evidence as to whose “bestpractices” these are and how applicable they are to all organizations is equivocal(Kogut and Zander, 1996; Orlikowski, 2002; Pollock and Cornford, 2004).

DiscussionThe previous section has focused on the manner in which knowledge workersresponded to a technological solution to knowledge management. Issues relating to thedifficulty of identifying and sharing of knowledge have been considered. Storey andBarnett (2000; see also McDermott, 1999; Pan and Scarbrough, 1998) in describing“solution driven” knowledge management systems, suggest that “‘tacit knowledge’ isneglected . . . this latter form of knowledge is hard to make available through computersystems” (p. 3). Malholtra (1999, p. 2) states “unless you can scan a person’s mind andstore it directly into a database, you cannot put bits into a database and assume thatsome body else can get back the experience of the first person”. Other writers (Tsoukas,1996; Gherardi, 2000; Orlikowski, 2002) doubt the relevance of the implicit, explicitdichotomy. This literature regards a holistic perspective as a more adequatetheorization.

Some employees stressed the importance of the knowledge they had “in their heads”(Gherardi, 2000; Knorr Cetina, 1999; McDermott, 1999). Examples included“psychological filing cabinets” where employees are aware of where their knowledgeresides . . . through to the knowledge felt necessary to undertake the employee’s ownwork and extend also to routine instances where people change jobs or leave thecompany. The employees highlighted the difficulty in capturing what knowledge theyuse in their work. This knowledge was illustrated by how people are able to recallwhere some very specific information is held or recall what the status of that projectmight be. Many of these concerns reflected the perceived difficulty in expressing andcodifying knowledge in other than rather superficial ways (Haldin-Herrgard, 2000;Storey and Barnett, 2000).

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Another illustration from the accounts reported earlier is of the difficulty ofdocumenting, or developing a technique that would enable less-experienced employeesto judge the condition of a plantation. When is the best time to spray in order to ensurehealthy trees and good growth? It is possible to document time intervals in order toplan approximate treatment periods, but the best time to spray is affected by weatherconditions. Changes in weather conditions over a period of months could causeconsiderable variability in the condition of a plantation. Our interviewee maintainedthat under such, difficult to predict, circumstances, it is likely that the knowledge ofwhen exactly various treatment processes should be applied is best achieved by visualinspection and knowledge acquired and refined over many years. This can only begained through experience of how the forest looks at different times, in differingconditions over the seasons. The difficulty in documenting these complex scenariosarises, in part, because some element of tacit knowledge is relied on by the forestryworkers. Haldin-Herrgard (2000) suggests that the intuitive and tacit elements of thisare more than can be reliably captured.

Instances and examples such as these are good indicators of the part played bypractice-based knowledge (Gherardi, 2000; Pan and Scarbrough, 1998; Swan et al.,1999). Knowledge of this nature which is caught up in the intimate relations whichworkers form with their work and the means of their work activity can only beeffectively learned through practice. The linkages among work objects such as tools,machines and the objects which constitute the work space are so difficult to separatefrom work practice. These networked relations (Swan et al., 1999; Knorr Cetina, 1999)are fundamental but difficult, or impossible, to disentangle from day-to-day workpractices in any meaningful way.

Toward the end of the case section we provide an alternative interpretation of someof our case evidence. We suggest that the accounts and attitudes expressed byparticipants can be of theorized as resistance. The interpretations we suggest indicatethat resistance by employees can take a variety of forms. Our interviews provideevidence that some people were refusing to contribute to the system while othersappeared to be following a less confrontational approach using the discursive spaceprovided by the system to frame their resistance (Lowe and Doolin, 1999). Though theindividuals reactions are quite different many of the employees were effectivelyresisting the system by anything short of the compliance anticipated by managers. Thesystem could not be effectively deployed in the organization without strong supportfrom the workers who were being encouraged to contribute to it and of course makeuse of it.

Concluding commentsThe case research we report provides evidence of the difficulties in capturing workknowledge. In addition we identify other lessons about organization change andresistance in knowledge intensive settings. Our interview extracts reveal attitudes tochange and strategies of resistance that knowledge workers have constructed in thecase organization. Though the picture is of a heterogeneous work environment it isclear that many of the workers are uncomfortable with the imposition of the“technological solution” that management have begun to implement. The accounts wereport suggest a range of responses to the new management initiative ranging fromapprehension to distain.


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Our research has placed emphasis on knowledge practice and regards practitionersas actors within the structures, processes, and environment of the organization. KnorrCetina (1999, p. 9) argues that such a performative approach can provide “importantinsights into how agents generate and negotiate certain outcomes” (Pickering, 1995;Alexander, 1992). This frame-work reveals the strategies, interests and interactionalaccomplishments of individuals. In using this approach the paper contributes toan understanding of knowledge management issues at the organizational and workgroup level. Examining these aspects of knowledge work also contributes to ourunderstanding the interaction of organizational control processes and the nature ofresistance in the complex environments typical of knowledge work settings (Lowe andDoolin, 1999).

In the organizational setting we describe control processes are bound up in theimplementation of a “technological solution” to a perceived knowledge managementproblem. Managers at the company regarded the information system “solution” as away to try to avoid loss of expertise and improve control and efficiency within theorganization. The accounts in the case section of the paper indicate a variety ofresponse from the workers . . . some of which are quite negative toward the knowledgemanagement system and its professed objectives. The workers reactions to the systemalso reveal some of their strategies for resisting the technology (Covaleski et al., 1993;Knights and Morgan, 1991; Foucault, 1982).

In many instances our interviewees do not provide evidence of clear-cut resistance.The accounts of our interviewees are not homogeneous indicating the independentnature of these knowledge workers. The interviews could be seen as presenting apicture of inconsistency, ambiguity and tension (Engestrom, 2000; Blackler et al., 2000).The attitudes these responses evidence is of resistance to the system. In manyinstances it is not outright opposition but much more subtle questioning of the aims ofthe technology that unsettles its implementation (Hull, 1999). In effect the knowledgemanagement system we encountered contributed to a new discursive space (Lowe andDoolin, 1999) within which the organizational participants found themselves. In thesecircumstances resistance becomes tied up with the new initiative as managers andworkers engage with the issues that the new system evokes. We would argue thatresistance could be expected to be less clear-cut in the relatively complex environmentstypical of knowledge intensive organizations.

Note

1. Log processing plant, four saw-mills, one plywood mill, two mouldings plants and tworemanufacturing plants.

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Appendix. Database technical detailsThe database was set up using a Compaq Proliant 3000R Server, a Pentium III 500 Processorwith 512MB Ram and four 9 GB Hard Drives. The software being used is Microsoft InternetInformation Server 4.0 with Active Server Pages (ASP), Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Database,Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 and Microsoft Visual Interdev 6.0 commonly used for web pagedevelopment.

The database operates by an administrator entering information about the project includingfile locations into an ASP which passes the information into a database on the server. Extranetusers then retrieve the information via other ASPs which allow users to enter various criteria tosearch within the projects loaded. Both hard copy and electronic copies of the information can beretrieved from the database.

About the authorsAlan Lowe is a Professor of accounting at Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK and atthe Waikato Management School, Hamilton, New Zealand. Alan has published a number


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of research articles in accounting that adopt a socio-technical perspective to examine theimpact of accounting and other information communication technology such as enterpriseresource planning and Casemix systems. Alan’s other research interests include the impacton management accounting systems of changes in management philosophies, methods ofperformance measurement, issues related to the management of intellectual capital, journalquality and the application of qualitative research methodologies. Recent publications haveappeared in: Accounting Organizations and Society, Accounting Auditing and AccountabilityJournal, British Accounting Review, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Journal of OrganizationalChange Management, Management Accounting Research, Organization Studies, and PolicyStudies. Alan Lowe is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]

Andrea Mclntosh was an honours student who was completing a Masters in ManagementStudies at Waikato Management School, New Zealand.

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Responding to crisis throughstrategic knowledge managementDuncan Shaw, Matthew Hall, John S. Edwards and Brad Baker

Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham, UK

Abstract

Purpose – Many managers would like to take a strategic approach to preparing the organisation toavoid impending crisis but instead find themselves fire-fighting to mitigate its impact. This paperseeks to examine an organisation which made major strategic changes in order to respond to the fulleffect of a crisis which would be realised over a two to three year period. At the root of these changeswas a strategic approach to managing knowledge. The paper’s purpose is to reflect on managers’views of the impact this strategy had on preparing for the crisis and explore what happened in theorganisation during and after the crisis.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines a case-study of a financial servicesorganisation which faced the crisis of its impending dissolution. The paper draws upon observationsof change management workshops, as well as interviews with organisational members of a changemanagement task force.

Findings – The response to the crisis was to recognise the importance of the people and theirknowledge to the organisation, and to build a strategy which improved business processes andcommunication flow across the divisions, as well as managing the departure of knowledge workersfrom an organisation in the process of being dissolved.

Practical implications – The paper demonstrates the importance of building a knowledgemanagement strategy during times of crisis, and draws out important lessons for organisations facingorganisational change.

Originality/value – The paper represents a unique opportunity to learn from an organisationadopting a strategic approach to managing its knowledge during a time of crisis.

Keywords Change management, Knowledge management, Strategic planning

Paper type Case study

IntroductionOne only needs to talk to a range of managers to discover that, in many organisations,strategic thinking and strategic planning are often replaced with fire-fighting and thereliance on emergent solutions (Spence, 1999). This can be the case with knowledgemanagement (KM) where organisations sometimes develop capabilities piecemeal,perhaps before adopting a strategic approach (Ruggles, 1998; McCann andBuckner, 2004; Ciabuschi, 2005). However, often the need for a strategic approach(i.e. purposefully aligning initiatives with an organisation’s strategic imperatives) isonly realised when looming crisis forces reconsideration of the organisation’s currentdirection (Collison and Parcell, 2001; Ford and Angermeier, 2004).

The imperatives forcing the need for a strategic approach obviously depend on theparticular context. On the basis of experience of 16 organisations, we have recentlyworked with in developing KM strategy (Edwards and Shaw, 2004; Shaw and Edwards,2005), the crises which encourage their taking of a strategic view included: becomingswamped with data and being unable to forecast accurately as a result; the mergingof three organisations which necessitated the new organisation acting differently;



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Vol. 20 No. 4, 2007pp. 559-578


DOI 10.1108/09534810710760081

needing process change to remain competitive and retaining essential knowledgeduring site relocation.

The organisation which is the focus of this paper, the Mortgage Code ComplianceBoard (MCCB), was faced with a particular kind of crisis – the impending closure of theorganisation, driven by legislative changes in the regulatory environment. MCCB isquintessentially a knowledge organisation and its employees knowledge workers – itsregulatory and advisory function relies upon the codification of professional expertise.The importance of the employees’ knowledge and the need to manage it effectively wasrecognised by MCCB and became a strategic central pillar of its organisational changeprogramme. MCCB was forced to take a strategic view of KM because they were closingtheir operations and a dwindling workforce had to cope with growing stakeholderrequirements, thereby necessitating major changes in order to sustain operationaleffectiveness. Over nearly three years these changes required the balancing of three pillarsof KM: people, process and technology (Ahmed et al., 2002; Massey et al., 2002). The MCCBhas now closed and this paper provides a retrospective analysis of how the organisationmanaged the crisis of closure by undertaking a strategically central programme of KM.

Our work with MCCB has been discussed elsewhere (Shaw et al., 2003, 2006), butthis paper adds to these accounts by providing a more critical assessment of theimplementation of KM strategy from a new perspective both of the senior managerswho designed and implemented that strategy and the staff who were affected by thesechanges.

The structure of the paper is as follows. First, we review the KM literatureand consider what constitutes an effective KM strategy. We ask the question“what happens to knowledge management in a time of organisational crisis?” We thenintroduce the background to the case study and describe the crisis which encouragedMCCB to take a strategic view of KM. We briefly introduce the methodology used todevelop the strategy, before examining the change process and reviewing the actionsimplemented as part of the strategy. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with membersof the KM implementation group, together with observations from workshops andmeetings, we discuss how MCCB made its KM strategy central to the change process,and we draw conclusions about the role of KM in a time of organisational crisis.

Balancing people, processes and technologyOwing to the breadth of KM activities and the scope of KM practice, there are manyconceptions of KM in organisations. Early practice has been criticised for treating KMas the short-term implementation of IT-based projects, with a predominant view ofknowledge as being little different to information (Swan and Scarborough, 2001;Hislop, 2005).

It is now widely accepted that approaches to KM fall into two distinct perspectives:people- and technology-centred (Alvesson and Karreman, 2001; Dueck, 2001;Scarborough and Swan, 2001; Moffett et al., 2003; Handzic and Zhou, 2005). Despiteemphasis on the use of IT to mobilise KM practices, there is widespread acceptancethat knowledge is inherently personal (Fahey and Prusak, 1998; McDermott, 1999;Coakes et al., 2002), and that IT can only play a limited role. This is expressedmost commonly in the concept that knowledge has a tacit dimension (Stenmark, 2000;Connell et al., 2003) and that only part of a person’s knowledge can be made explicitand articulated as information.

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Although IT plays an important role in facilitating the flow of knowledge inorganisations, it should support knowledge processes rather than become thepredominant focus of KM activity (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). As knowledge isinherently personal, KM initiatives need to focus first and foremost on nurturing thepeople who have the knowledge, with technology playing a supplementary role only(Robertson and Hammersley, 2000). Furthermore, the organisation needs to fosterappropriate processes by which the knowledge of its individual members can interactfor the benefit of the whole organisation (Hammer et al., 2004). Maier and Remus (2003)suggest that a process focus is a way of bridging this apparent dichotomy between thepeople- and the technology-oriented approaches. However, the business should notnurture business processes whilst stifling that informal knowledge sharing betweenpeople by which much organisational work is performed (Brown and Duguid, 2000).

A number of organisations have recognised the balance between people, processesand technology as a framework for organising their KM activity. For example,Massey et al. (2002) discuss the case of the telecommunications firm Nortel Networks,while Ahmed et al. (2002) give the examples of the information systems company ICLand the UK’s Post Office organisation. Even if firms do not adopt an explicitpeople-process-technology framework, there is nevertheless a universal recognitionwithin KM case-studies that an important lesson is for firms to nurture an appropriateculture for KM. This is fundamentally a people and process-oriented focus. Black andDecker is one among the many cases in point (Pemberton et al., 2002).

Knowledge management and strategyBecause KM is such a fundamental activity which impacts upon most areas of thebusiness, organisations need to take an overarching strategic approach to align KMwith business strategy, rather than KM existing as random and isolated pockets ofactivity (Zack, 1999; McCann and Buckner, 2004; Snyman and Kruger, 2004).In knowledge-based firms strategy cannot be treated as an exclusively top-downprocess, but knowledge workers should be represented and involved in strategyformulation in order to generate collective ownership of the process (Carlisle, 2002;Shaw and Edwards, 2005). Because of the increasing importance of knowledgeprocesses as the principal activity of knowledge-based organisations, KM should beembedded in the organisation’s working practices and business strategy. Whileongoing senior management support for KM plays a critical role, knowledge sharingshould be everyone’s concern, not just the occupation of an isolated group or project(Liebowitz, 1999; Storey and Barnett, 2000). Nevertheless, there is an importantleadership role to be played in building and sustaining the momentum of any specificKM activity. Jones et al. (2003) refer to this “dual role of expert change agent andknowledge manager” by the term “knowledge champion”.

Knowledge management in times of crisisDespite the ideal of these principles, the reality of creating and sustaining themomentum of KM in business is often difficult. Storey and Barnett (2000) present acase-study of a firm which is forced by an external crisis to drop its KM initiative.Although the initiative is central to the need for cultural change in the organisation,and arguably, reflects a deeper and more embedded form of organisational crisis, thefirm is forced into a mode of fire-fighting for survival, leading Storey and Barnett to

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conclude that KM is often seen as a “nice-to-have” rather than a mission-criticalactivity. That KM is viewed as a luxury which can be so easily “dropped” implies it canbe viewed as an appendage and not as properly embedded into business processes orintegrated into organisational strategy.

Roux-Dufort (2000) defines a crisis as “a process of transformation induced by amajor disruption that forces the restructuring of social, human and natural systems”.He presents case-studies in which the opportunity for the organisation to learn froma crisis is confounded by its attempt to re-establish the status quo, rather than seeingthe crisis as an opportunity to learn and evolve. This is in contrast to Kim (1998),following Pitt (1990), who finds that some firms view crisis as more of an opportunitythan a threat. Kim (1998) suggests that there are two types of crisis; those which areproactively constructed by the firm in order to precipitate organisational change, andthose which are brought about by the external market, technological or regulatoryenvironment to which the firm must reactively respond. Kim views such times of crisisas episodes in which firms can engage in rapid organisational learning, as in the case ofthe Korean car manufacturer Hyundai, which brought about a state of crisis in orderto transform itself from a firm which learned through imitation of foreignmanufacturers, to one which was able to generate its own research-led innovation.Thus, Kim argues that a state of crisis should not be seen merely as a danger whichrenders the firm defensive, but as an opportunity for organisational learning.

While organisational crisis and its management have provoked modest interest inthe academic literature, interest in KM and learning in times of organisational crisishas attracted even less comment. There have been some interesting papers onorganisational learning or the failure to learn from crisis (Roux-Dufort, 2000; Elliottet al., 2000) and learning about how better to manage the crisis process (Simon andPauchant, 2000). However, this paper is not about organisational learning and howorganisations learn or fail to learn from crises. Instead, it is about what happens to anorganisation’s KM agenda in such a period of major restructuring. The literaturereview has suggested that effective KM should be constituted of a balanced focus onpeople, process and technology which features at the core of the firm’s strategy.As such a firm’s strategic approach to KM should survive an episode of crisis ratherthan be dropped from the agenda. However, we have been unable to find any empiricalresearch on firms which have incorporated strategic KM into the process of crisismanagement. While it would appear some organisations are reacting to external criseswhile others are proactively generating crisis in order to learn, in both cases there is theimplication that the aim of crisis management is to ensure organisational survival.Pearson and Clair (1998) characterise an organisational crisis as a short-term episodewhich has a major threat to the survival of the organisation or its stakeholders, but onewhich is nevertheless capable of resolution. In this paper, we examine a case-study ofan organisation facing a type of crisis which has not hitherto been encountered in theresearch literature – an external crisis for which the only resolution is the inevitabledissolution of the organisation.

MethodologyThe paper is based upon a case-study of an organisation in crisis – that of a UKfinancial services organisation known as the MCCB. The data are drawn from anumber of sources collected over a three year period, including:

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. Data from three strategy making workshops (each a day long). More on the aimsof these workshops is discussed below, but the data collected includes: recordsfrom pre-workshop meetings; the model of discussions built during theworkshop; computer logs of who shared which opinions; participant feedback onthe process and strategy; post-workshop de-brief meetings with the client; finalreports of the workshop outcome and a video recording of the third workshop.

. In-depth interviews with five members of the change implementation team(September 2004, MCCB ceased its operations in October 2004). These lookedback at the group’s impact on the organisation.

. Documentation collected from MCCB, e.g. monthly staff newsletters and thestrategy document.

. Details from a web site set up to support communication among ex-stafffollowing closure.

. Observations made by one of the paper’s authors, who worked at executivedirector level within the case-study organisation during the period of the research.

Findings were arrived at by analysing the interview data and allowing themes toemerge through that analysis (Miles and Huberman, 1994). These themes helped usto appreciate and communicate what the participants experienced and felt.

It is important to clarify the role of the authors in the data collection process. Initialcontact between the authors and MCCB was through the facilitation of three strategymaking workshops (described below). These workshops enabled MCCB to generate itsown change management programme, led by a team which became known as the“Aston Group” after the university at which the facilitators of the workshops werebased. (More detail about the team will be given in the section “Organising change inMCCB”.) As such the role of the researchers within the change programme was one offacilitation rather than implementation. Design and implementation of the changeprogramme was the exclusive responsibility of MCCB employees. Included in theAston Group was the third author of this paper, who worked in MCCB for four years atexecutive director level and led the change initiative. Although he was a manager at thetime of the change programme, the role of this manager as author is to reflect post-hocon the change process.

In terms of reflecting on the impact of the actions, there was no use of formal toolssuch as the balanced score card, or specific key performance indicators against whichprogress was measured. Instead, there was extensive reflection on the impact of theinitiative by the managers who were in the Aston Group. Reflection was a fundamentalfeature of MCCB’s strategic approach to KM as, in monthly progress meetings,reflection was used to assess the impact of recent activities. A major reflective eventwas a workshop which brought the Aston Group together to reflect on their progressand agree next steps. The reflection took the form of considering the progress towardseach action and exploring where more effort was needed.

The methodology for this research is therefore case-study based, the authorsdrawing upon this organisation as an example of KM in times of crisis.Moreover, the authors were predominantly passive observers in the change process,rather than the methodology being one of action research in which researchersadopt a proactive role in implementing change in order to observe its effects.

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As Eden and Huxham (1996) suggest, it is important not to confuse passiveengagement in a case-study of change in an organisation with the more purposefulmethodology of action research.

Throughout this paper, we make use of quotes from all members of the changeimplementation team. These quotes are taken from the variety of sources mentionedabove.

The case studyIntroducing MCCBThe UK mortgage market is acknowledged as one of the principal drivers of the UKeconomy. Prior to the implementation of statutory regulation, under the Governmentsponsored body, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the industry was regulated bya non-statutory or “voluntary” code of practice. This was monitored and run by theMCCB – an independent, not-for-profit organisation, funded by registered firms.The MCCB had secured near 100 per cent adoption of the code amongst tradingmortgage firms (lenders and brokers) and had strong powers of enforcement over itsregistered firms.

The MCCB began operations in October 1999 and ceased its activities in October2004 when responsibilities were assumed by the FSA. Since, its inception the MCCBknew that closure was inevitable, but was uncertain of when this would happen until agovernment announcement of December 2001. The date for statutory regulation to beimplemented was then set for October 2004. This uncertainty contributed to theimpact of the crisis, but was also a catalyst for the organisation taking a strategic viewof KM.

The MCCB was led by an executive management team of six people, with the seniormanagement group reporting to it. There were two main departments in MCCB.“Registration Services” (sometimes called “Administration”) managed quantitativedata on firms which was collected and updated through a formal annual registrationand data capture process. The “Compliance Team” was responsible for acquiringqualitative data from market intelligence and visits to firms. Also, a helpline functionwas in place which handled telephone calls about the Mortgage Code from consumersas well as dealing with queries from registered firms.

Framing the crisisThe crisis to which we refer involved an increasing workload with which the existingprocesses would have been unable to cope given the certain gradual diminishing of theworkforce. The pressures of work were painfully complemented with the pressures ofredundancy, as one employee noted, “it’s been described as the longest death-bedscenario in the world. We have known for three years”. The crisis was accentuated byseveral factors within the organisation, including (to save space we have limitedevidence to one quotation from a manager on the Aston Group for each point, but moreare available):

Process. One main factor was the ineffectiveness of processes used in MCCB.Information and knowledge was being regularly lost due to the lack of effectivecapturing processes. It was as simple as telephone calls not being logged, for example:“if we get a call from the public or from Trading Standards or someone, in the past itcould have been lost”. Alternatively, it could be as serious as specialist knowledge not

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being retained by the organisation: “people were leaving [specialist functions] . . .taking knowledge . . . with them – it wasn’t being recorded”. Some processes whichrequired important knowledge were too labour intensive for the dissolvingorganisation: “we would spend an entire day with the firms collecting data . . . halfthe stuff we could do in paper format a month before we go and see the firm”. Otherprocesses lacked coordination across the organisation: “we used to collect data on theunderstanding it would be useful to other people and then we found it actually wasn’tuseful to anybody”. Lack of communication between departments was significant andknowledge was not being shared: “there are cases where Registration were findingthings out about firms and not passing it on to Compliance and vice versa. Knowledgewas being lost”. The processes in MCCB were complicated by the workingenvironment: “20 compliance inspectors working from home . . . and we also have theLondon [Headquarters] office. For a small organization [communication is]quite complex”. In short, the processes were in need of revision which would requirecross-functional team collaboration.

People. The people in MCCB contributed to the looming crisis, in as much as theysuppressed their concerns over their working environment: “we all knew what theproblems were, but it’s difficult to voice them sometimes”. One reason for this was thatdepartments were in competition with each other, rather than cooperating: “personalityproblems with some of the senior management . . . at each others throats . . . didn’t geton terribly well, which affected communication all the way down the line really”.Problems with communication were physical as well as personal/social:

. . . very much [sic] communication problems which were physical because we have anupstairs and a downstairs. Compliance Team is upstairs, Registrations is downstairs and thatcaused some sort of them and us [atmosphere].

All this created a working environment from which “people who were very highlymarketable . . . could be quite easily induced to leave” which would put additionalstrain on the remaining workforce.

Technology. Regarding technology and IT training: “we didn’t do much in theway of internal IT training where someone who was maybe a specialist inMicrosoft Access or Excel, that knowledge wasn’t being shared”.

Overall, the problem was often summarised to be: “about internalcommunication . . . about sharing knowledge within the job”.

Potential solutions to the crisis were unclear, largely because of its effect on mostaspects of the organisation’s people and processes, and less so on technology (discussedlater). It was a wide-reaching problem, as one member of the change implementationteam reflected about KM, “Imagine travelling to the end of the universe. You can thinkabout it for ten seconds and then you go, ‘I can’t do that.’” Instead of following afire-fighting approach of dealing with emerging problems piecemeal, MCCB took astrategic approach to planning and implementing a programme of change.

Organising change in MCCBIn order to implement change, a group of eight key MCCB senior staff was formed,drawn from all functions across the organisation. Members of MCCB’s executivemanagement team suggested suitable members for the group, but all those suggestedreadily volunteered to participate. These eight people “comprised the majority of the

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senior management group, and included 50 per cent of the executive managementteam”. This group was supported by the entire executive team, and was empowered tomake the changes required to achieve its objectives.

Very early in the initiative the group named themselves the Aston Group, after thename of the facilitators’ university. Previously we have described the Aston Group as a“community of implementation” in that it had the aim of “pool(ing) individualknowledge (including contacts and ways of getting things done) to stimulate collectiveenthusiasm in order to take more informed purposeful action for which the membersare responsible” (Shaw et al., 2006). The Aston Group regarded its scope to be“very much that it wasn’t our responsiblity to ensure that [progress] happened. It wasto provide the catalyst for the company to actually achieve those things themselves”.It is clear that, the members of this group therefore met the Jones et al. (2003) definitionof “knowledge champions” since they were acting both as knowledge managers and asagents of change. Jones et al. emphasise the need for knowledge champions to linkvarious groups of people within an organisation, including innovators, opinion leadersand “users” (of knowledge).

Core to the strategic thinking of the Aston Group were three workshops:

(1) Workshop 1 (June 2002) aimed to uncover the magnitude of the crisis andexplore a range of potential high-level solutions as well as begin to get the groupto gel with the view of them being responsible for taking action to address theproblems.

(2) Workshop 2 (September 2002) aimed to: narrow the range of tasks fromWorkshop 1 which would be tackled into those which would deliver mostorganisational benefit; allocate individuals to working on these tasks and getthe group to bond into a tighter working unit.

(3) Workshop 3 (October 2003) aimed to: reflect on progress since Workshop 2;discuss barriers to progress, explore the impact of actions on MCCB andidentify actions for the remaining period.

Between each workshop, the Aston Group held monthly progress meetings. Thesemeetings aimed to: monitor progress of actions against targets; support the members inovercoming problems being encountered; strategise how to have most impact on theorganisation and to agree publicity of the Aston Group and its progress. Members ofthe group volunteered to take actions in specific “project” areas, and all actions had atleast two members being responsible for their delivery to ensure accessible support wasreadily available. As mentioned earlier, all members were senior managers, but itshould be noted that before the formation of the Aston Group they had no priorexperience either of formally carrying out “knowledge management” or of beingresponsible for it.

The actionsThe contribution of this paper is a retrospective assessment of the impact of KM strategyon organisational learning, not a discussion of what was implemented in MCCB.The detail of the actions have been discussed elsewhere (Shaw et al., 2003, 2006), but needto be briefly reviewed here to set the scene for reflecting on their impact.

A limiting feature of the action plan was that actions had to be completed atminimal cost within six months because:

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There is no point in setting out a project which isn’t going to gestate in anything longer thansix months. If we only have a two-year life what’s the point of having a two-year project.We won’t get any benefit from it.

The Aston Group had five main strategic objectives. They were self-defined, but hadexecutive sanction, and included:

(1) To improve employees’ skills with the aim of benefiting MCCB, retaining staffand improving their personal marketability following closure (Rolled out byApril 2003, running to closure).

(2) To build skills contingencies with the aim of retaining key knowledge (In place byNovember 2002, rolling out intensively to April 2003, activities running to closure).

(3) To improve internal communication structures (Start immediately, running toclosure).

(4) To improve the personal working environment with the aim of motivatingpeople not to leave before closure (Start immediately, running to closure).

(5) Process improvement with the aim of reducing input whilst maximising output(Rolled out by April 2003, running to closure).

The first four of these focus on knowledge retention, while the fifth explicitly centreson process efficiency.

To address these five objectives, the Aston Group designed seven projects.The projects were described in MCCB’s staff newsletter as:

. Contingency planning to retain knowledge and skills of staff in key roles (In placeby November 2002, rolling out intensively to April 2003, activities running toclosure).

. A retention strategy to encourage staff to stay to the end and help them toprepare for the future (Strategy in place by November 2002, rolling outintensively to April 2003, activities running to closure).

. Build an open and supportive working environment to encourage teamwork(Start immediately, activities running to closure).

. Improve processes through continuous improvement (Rolled out by April 2003,running to closure).

. Sharing knowledge of each other’s roles (Start immediately, running to April 2003).

. Create a sense of belonging to the same organization (Start immediately, runningto April 2003).

. Using existing software more effectively (Start by November 2002, rolling out toApril 2003).

Each project included a number of inter-linked activities. To give a flavour of theseactivities, we briefly note that these included: audit of computer-skills; arrangement oftailored training sessions (e.g. IT, presentation skills, CV writing); documentation ofwork processes; rationalisation of business processes; organisation of job rotation andtraining in critical roles; provision of “awareness” training of roles across functions;improvement of cross-functional communication through formal meetings andinformal social activities; introduction of new processes for sharing knowledge

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and agreement of service standards between departments. All of these actions aimed toaddress particular components of the seven projects, most addressing a number ofcomponents on a range of projects.

Reflecting on the changeThe paper will now reflect on, from the perspective of members of the Aston Group, thechange implemented in MCCB. These reflections were amassed from individualinterviews with each Aston Group member and are presented below in terms of: theimpact of actions; the implementation of actions; progress since cessation of the AstonGroup.

Reflecting on the impact of actionsIn the third workshop the group felt that 85-90 per cent of the original actions hadbeen implemented (see Shaw et al., 2006 for what this involved). However, thispercentage estimate fails to convey the effect these actions had on the organisation.The following, more insightful reflective account reviews the effect of theseactions, from the perspective of those who implemented the change and who wereaffected by it.

The projects had positive implications with regard to the causes of the crisis –again clustered around process, people and technology.

Process. Considerable attention was given to the processes, by management and theusers of the processes. Part of this focused on reviewing the worth of processes andimproving their usability given a reducing workforce:

. . . people were encouraged to say, “what do you do within your job that we don’t actuallyneed to do”. Right, can we cut one or two of those out? Can we do [that] in a different way? Soit’s certainly continuous improvement but it’s another way of (doing) it.

Streamlining processes has improved . . . [we were collecting useless] data, so why collect it?Why waste our time?

This effort led to a more efficient use of time:

. . . [using our new Intermediate Compliance Questionnaire] you can do an audit within twohours from a desktop, issue a relatively accurate report without the need to [as we used to]spend a day travelling, a day with the firm, a day writing the report.

This also led to sharing knowledge across departments because the process users werebecoming used to talking to each other about business activities:

. . . whilst we have data and they have data, we never used to openly go and ask each otherabout it or share it. The workshops, the Aston Group work has certainly blown that away.

We now say, “Registrations need to be aware of this,” [and] we’ll get some [information] fromRegistrations that helps us.

Another part of process improvement involved a skills audit to:

. . . identify what everyone did, what was the process and who had that knowledge.Then we [built] a matrix to see [what would happen] if that person left . . . and set up atraining course where we want at least three people to have that skill and knowledge.

This exercise also captured key process knowledge:

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. . . we went through the [task] of creating procedure manuals and we almost did acompetency exercise and, as a result of knowing an awful more about ourselves, we decidedto try to do as much cross-training as possible.

The result was the ability to identify key areas of risk and build contingency plans tosustain the organisation if/when key individuals left.

The building of skills contingency had two levels of intensity – awareness trainingand full competence training. Awareness training aimed to show staff how roles fit intothe organisation:

Someone from upstairs would go downstairs for the day. Someone downstairs will goupstairs and [we learned] what they do with information that is passed upstairs or was on thedatabase.

This successfully:

[gave us] a far greater appreciation of . . . what roles were performed in other parts of thebusiness . . . not only what they do [but] why they do it and why they do it in a certain way.

In certain areas MCCB trained individuals to be fully competent in core tasks to retainspecialist knowledge and skills:

. . . they swapped jobs so that they could actually do the job of another person within the samedepartment . . . so that if somebody were to leave then there would be a second and a thirdperson who was actually able to do that one job.

Part of this was done through:

. . . job rotation (which) has been hugely successful, because we are seeing the benefits of thatnow – now people are leaving . . . people are being able to slot into their roles.

This allowed wider recognition of knowledge needs in other parts of the business aswell as helping form closer working relationships across the organisation.

The enhanced personal working arrangements, staff training, and broaderawareness of other processes in the organisation allowed MCCB to begin to shareresources across departments and thus respond to work pressures:

. . . we have been quite seriously understaffed at times. But that has been overcome becausethere has been training undertaken to make sure that the rest of the staff downstairs are ableto . . . give cover [to other functions].

People. Attention to the people dimension was particularly important given the natureof relations in MCCB. The closer working arrangements fostered by a focus on processimprovement began to break down barriers, which was encouraged by openlydiscussing internal relations:

. . . people openly said, yes, there is a problem . . . it was as though (like) a barrier had beenmoved.

. . . we had overcome quite a lot of the problems with communication between the two halvesof the company. I think that was already being broken down having been brought out into theopen and discussed.

Instead of competition, the two main departments began to cooperate, somethingrequiring a change of mindset: “If we interacted better or more fully then MCCB would

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benefit, so once this concept was introduced I embraced it wholeheartedly”; “[theinitiative] certainly enhanced the co-operation within the building here. In the last yearthe relationships between [functions] are so much smoother”.

From meeting colleagues and learning about the roles of others, people uncoveredsome common interests which led to corridor conversation and improvedcommunications:

. . . conversations took place whilst you were making a cup of tea or whilst you were walkingthrough the place. Whereas before that conversation either didn’t take place or there was nowork content in that conversation. So I could ask you how we felt things were going in yourarea, knowing what you did and vice versa.

This helped to unite the workforce: “it brought us closer together, talking more aboutthings”; as well as helping to improve the effectiveness of the organisation becausepeople were talking to each other:

. . . the bookkeeper went down and spoke to the Registration team about the way theyprocessed information that came up to us, and she was able to help the flow of informationbetween the two departments.

Overall, there was a closer working arrangement between the people in MCCB and thisled to additional process improvements: “[an] investigator . . . became very much moreinvolved in the checks that they are doing downstairs and helping them, giving themguidance”.

Another aspect to the people dimension was investing in staff to retain them:“Staff development has been uppermost in the last two or three years. There is hardlyanybody who is not studying for something . . . everybody has grown enormously”.The notion was to incentivise people to stay by increasing their marketability:

. . . we encourage people to acquire more skills . . . We said, you do what you want and we’llpay for it, and a lot of people have taken that opportunity [six examples were provided].

Technology. The focus in MCCB was on people and process, but with regard totechnology the main focus was on identifying IT training needs and then providingthese as required:

We did the IT literacy survey, where we asked people where they felt they were at, in thesense of finding who can do the training and also seeing how good or bad people’s skills inWord, Excel, etc. were.

This led to the targeted provision of IT training: “improving users’ awareness ofavailable software and also improving their skills in a range of applications”.

Many cross-functional social activities were also organised, and an innovativeprivate “networking” web site (an extranet) was developed to allow staff maintaincontact following closure.

Despite the many successes, one member of the Aston Group thought they couldhave achieved more:

I think some would say, yes [we achieved what we aimed to]. Others are aware that perhapsthey didn’t push quite as hard as they might have done. But I would say, on the whole,that people felt that there were positive benefits that came out of the exercise.

Another thought “progress was made. I don’t think it was 100 per cent”.

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Overall, in terms of measuring the effect on the organisation:

. . . it’s softer benefits to come out of it rather than saying we achieved savings of £500,000.It generally improved communications in a sense that we belong to the same organization andwe are trying to achieve the same things.

Furthermore, due to tackling the crisis strategically, the initiative “has enabled MCCBto remain fully effective in its operations despite the impact of change and uncertaintyexperienced in the period to closure”.

Reflecting on the implementationAdoption of a strategic approach was acknowledged as being key to the progress of theAston Group. In addition to the points above which are indicative of the benefits ofadopting a strategic approach, participants commented on the importance of beingprepared by planning ahead:

. . . the fact that we were already thinking about this two years ago was an enormousadvantage . . . “Yes, people are going to leave. What are we going to do? We’re not going tojust tackle [it by] fire-fighting”.

There was a strong need for everyone in the organisation to understanding the aims ofthe initiative and its potential impact on them. Reflecting upon the transfer of skillsproject in the administration department, a senior manager commented on the need tosell the benefits to those affected by change: “12-18 months ago I said to everybody thatthis is what we are going to do and [outlined the] benefits”. The MCCB identified theiraims and actions using our workshop approach, but other forms could be just aseffective: “[as a result of the Aston] exercise, that wonderful tool, helped us actually tounderstand in depth what was needed”. The Aston workshop was a major beginningto closer relationships at a management level:

. . . it was a very valuable experience in communication in actually bringing togethermanagement . . . to discuss issues and actually focus on things that weren’t day to dayoperational matters but more communication and staff development issues.

It also allowed management to build motivation: “just as a result of those twoworkshops a group of people did something about it. It was very, very useful”.This motivation was targeted at implementing agreed actions which would havesignificant impact on the organisation: “we obviously all agreed that these were thingsworth working on”.

Reflecting on progress since the cessation of the Aston GroupThe Aston Group meetings stopped soon after the third workshop. Reasons for thishave been given as “it’s all about plugging the gaps . . . so we can just crawl our wayuntil [closure]” and “redundancy has proved a bit of a distraction”.

This dissolution of the Aston Group brought about an end to the adoption of astrategic approach to KM, “we’ve stopped thinking strategically now, we’re lookingmore at a fire-fight situation. . . operational issues on a daily basis, not even thinkingbeyond that”.

There were varying views as to whether there had been slippage on the issue ofcommunication between the last workshop (September 2003) and the interviews(October 2004). While some thought communication had worsened: “Some things

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have gone backwards probably . . . the, them and us” others thought communicationwas still good: “for the last twelve months we have seen the benefits of people talkingmore openly and being more aware of what is going on in different areas of the firm”;“I think communication is generally better”.

Up to closure, benefit was still being realised from the initiative: “probably without[this change] happening we wouldn’t be in the relatively comfortable position we are.There is still relatively good morale . . . because the groundwork was done”.

Following closure, the extranet web site (which was set-up to facilitatecommunication after closure) was being actively used by a majority of ex-employees,both for group communication and one-to-one contacts. Five months after closure asocial activity was organised through the web site. Feedback was that “both Complianceand Registration [were] well represented”.

DiscussionMCCB was clearly facing a unique crisis which has not hitherto been encountered in theresearch literature. Following Pitt’s (1990) and Kim’s (1998) distinction between crisiswhich is internally or externally evoked, the crisis faced by MCCB clearly falls into thelatter category. The impending closure of MCCB was an externally-evoked (Ditto asabove) crisis driven by statutory changes in the regulation of the mortgage industry.The case is notable for MCCB’s embracing a strategic approach to KM in suchcircumstances. This is in direct contrast to the case presented by Storey and Barnett (2000)of the international consulting firm which abandoned its KM initiative when crisis in theindustry forced the firm to restructure. In contrast, MCCB has used KM as a response tocrisis. The case shows that for knowledge-based firms such as MCCB, the management ofknowledge is essentially what the firm does, and as such, KM and business strategyshould be inseparable (Zack, 1999; McCann and Buckner, 2004; Snyman and Kruger,2004). MCCB took an holistic approach to its KM strategy, identifying the deficiencies inthe attitudes of its people and the processes by which their knowledge interacted and by,then designing a comprehensive and organisation-wide solution.

It is interesting in this respect that when the Aston Group embarked upon thecourse of crisis response, they did not recognise it to be an exercise in strategic KM, butover time realised that what they were doing effectively was KM. In looking at the listof activities and the impact they have had, readers also may not recognise the role ofKM in, for example, more efficient use of time, sharing resources, or training. Takingthe example of training, the Group came to view this as a KM activity because itinvolved:

. identifying critical knowledge-intensive activities for which there couldpotentially be a skills shortage;

. building a skills matrix to find out who could cover these key activities, and whohad the knowledge (and training skills) to train others;

. designing MCCB-relevant training sessions which targeted knowledge-intensiveactivities;

. multi-skilling staff to enable them to cover tasks when people left; and

. using knowledge already in the organisation.

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Thus, it was not that KM was used as an umbrella term under which all the businessesactivities sought refuge. Instead, it was that the Group decided that the core problemand/or solution to these issues depended on better KM. This was an inherentrecognition that MCCB is essentially a knowledge organisation within which allbusiness activities depend upon the effective sharing and managing of knowledge.

What features of the case make this a good example of strategic knowledgemanagement?Carlisle (2002) and Shaw and Edwards (2005) recommend that KM cannot be imposedfrom the top-down, but that a representative group should be mobilised to generatecollective “bottom-up” ownership of strategy formulation. In the MCCB case,a collective understanding of the problems, and a shared sense of motivation to worktowards a common solution, were both critical features of a strategic approach. Therewere, however, limitations to the extent of representation within the Aston Group:Firstly, no on-the-road based member of the Compliance Team was included in theproject team, although an office-based manager represented this community. This mayhave limited ownership and understanding of the project objectives and outputs,despite attempts to address this at regular team meetings and through communicationmethods such as the newsletter and e-mail updates. Secondly, although one of the keysuccess criteria – to overcome the lack of understanding and mistrust between the twomain departments – was achieved at an operational level, conflict persisted betweentwo senior managers.

The Aston Group acted as the “knowledge champions” (Jones et al., 2003)responsible for building and sustaining the momentum of the KM strategy. This wasevident when momentum declined following the disbanding of the project team.Nevertheless, it was clear that some fundamental shifts in attitudes and workingprocesses had been embedded as lasting changes, with the knowledge championshaving helped to institutionalise relevant knowledge. Certainly the effect of the changewas deemed to have prepared the organisation for closure.

According to Storey and Barnett (2000), the effective alignment of KM and businessstrategy requires the support of top management. The importance of CEO-support isparticularly well illustrated in the case of Buckman Labs (Liebowitz, 1999). In theMCCB case, the CEO was very supportive of the project and promoted it at everyopportunity. However, he was not part of the Aston Group and only attended onemeeting and none of the workshops. Arguably, this may have weakened the group asregards the status of its championing KM within the organisation, but there is nosuggestion in the work of Jones et al. (2003) that the CEO personally has to be aknowledge champion.

Effective communication and publicity of the KM initiatives was a key means bywhich the Aston Group were able to have impact on the organisation. Many of theactions were staff-centred and publicity was a means of engaging staff withthe initiatives. This engagement involved encouraging staff to: feed into the design ofthe actions to improve KM; contribute to the initiatives, perhaps as trainers on coursesor helping in action implementation; share good practice and participate in the newesprit de corps which the initiative was building between departments. Publicity wasmainly through staff briefings, promoting activities organised by the Aston Group (e.g.training sessions, social activities), acknowledgments in executive level meetings

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(which fed through to staff via the minutes), and the staff newsletter (which was editedby the leader of the Aston Group).

The features discussed above all illustrate how MCCB recognised the importance offostering a culture for KM to thrive. There are many examples in the literature whichemphasise the need to have an appropriate culture for KM to succeed (Liebowitz, 1999;Hammer et al., 2004). Many of MCCB’s initiatives sought to remove psychological andphysical barriers to communication in order to encourage collaborative sharing ofknowledge and resources. As in the case of Nortel Networks (Massey et al., 2002) andICL (Ahmed et al., 2002), MCCB prioritised initiatives for people to develop and sharetheir knowledge, and developed the working processes by which this could happen.There was, however, a limitation in the linking of project objectives to formal appraisalprocesses and the organisation’s business plan. This was seen as a missed opportunityfor institutionalising a KM strategy within the organisation.

In MCCB, the emphasis on people and process dominated the approach to strategicmanagement, while technology played a supporting role. This is consistent with otherstudies which demonstrate an effective balance between people, processes, andtechnology in KM (Pemberton et al., 2002; Edwards and Shaw, 2004). In the MCCB case,making better use of existing technology through training staff was the main focushere, for two reasons:

(1) MCCB had enough technology that it already did not use well, and it did notwant more; and

(2) buying and implementing new technology would probably fail to satisfy the“within 6 months, low cost” limitation.

Interestingly, rather than source external trainers, MCCB made the strategic decision of“identifying those who can or wish to be trainers in each application and [then]design(ing) the appropriate courses for training”. This aimed to tailor training coursesbetter than would an off-the-shelf provider. Additionally, it gave knowledgeable andwilling individuals the opportunity to develop as trainers.

Reflecting on the impact of strategic knowledge managementAlthough this is not a paper about organisational learning per se, it nevertheless raisessome interesting issues related to organisational learning. The crisis faced by MCCBprovoked the need to engage in strategic KM, and precipitated what we might call“learning by imperative”. Here, a climate of learning about each other – as well asabout processes, customers, department cultures, roles and responsibilities, causes offriction, new tasks and undertaking further training – permeated the entireorganisation.

The prior knowledge base was extensive and immediately available while the staffstill worked in the organisation. In the three years before the initiative began, a wealthof process knowledge had been accumulated, but this could not be fully harnessed untilthe destructive culture was addressed. Improving communication was key. Thisenabled staff across departments to address process weaknesses collectively and workwhile understanding the importance of their task in the wider process. Communication,and developing a more personal feeling of belonging, was critical in addressing thecultural problems, in particular the friction between the two main departments.

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The intensity of effort was apparent through the momentum of the Aston Group,the regard with which the organisation viewed that group’s success, the internalpublicity of the initiative, the effect of the effort on each employee’s working life andthe rapid implementation of a large proportion of the actions. Through intense effort,driven by the looming crisis a few key individuals infected most of the organisationwith a desire to change which had real impact.

Interestingly, much of the reflection on impact was focused on the internal mattersand operational efficiencies. The organisation fully achieved its corporate objectives ofmaintaining robust industry regulation and consumer protection and facilitatingtransition to statutory regulation. This was recognised by the UK government ministerwith responsibility for financial services markets, by senior industry and consumerfigures as well as in the relevant trade and consumer media.

Some Aston Group members perceived that the third workshop marked the demiseof the Aston Group as they believed that they had accomplished nearly all of theirtasks and had avoided a large proportion of the threats of the crisis. After thisworkshop much of the enthusiasm seemed to be turned towards operational mattersand the impact of redundancies rather than furthering the work of the Aston Group.

ConclusionThe lessons from MCCB demonstrate the strategic centrality of KM to an organisationin a time of radical change. There is little precedent for an organisation pursuing such avigorous and successful KM initiative amid the dissolution of the organisation. MCCBreceived widespread praise from industry, trade and consumer media and fromgovernment for maintaining its operational effectiveness and managing a successfultransition to statutory regulation.

Within MCCB:

. . . the effort made in establishing the Aston Group and taking it forward was certainly seenas justified even though a diminishing workforce created additional pressures as theorganisation’s lifespan became ever shorter.

Justification is in terms of improving the effectiveness of the organisation throughinternal communication and process enhancements across all functions – particularlybetween Registration Services and the Compliance Team. This meant that informationon registered firms was more readily captured and shared, and the overall projectenabled MCCB to remain fully effective in its operations despite the impact of changeand uncertainty experienced in the period up to closure.

As the ex-CEO of MCCB said:

In most organisations inevitable closure and full redundancies would have led to major crisis,reduction in organisational standards, loss of morale and possible organisational collapse.I am pleased that such a scenario was avoided at MCCB – indeed operational efficiencies,standards, workloads and staff loyalty and satisfaction all increased over the period. We fullymet our corporate objectives and the expectations of our very diverse stakeholders. Thestrategic approach adopted by the “Aston Group” and its work in focusing on KM, businessprocesses, service delivery, managing change, enhancing internal communications andconcentrating on people issues was undoubtedly one key factor for us during this successfulfinal period.

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About the authorsDuncan Shaw is a Senior Lecturer in Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK. His researchinterests include structuring complex problems, facilitating groups and individuals in theirstrategic decision making, and strategy implementation. He regularly works with managementteams to design and implement manageable actions plans which they are committed toimplementing and which will bring about lasting change. Duncan Shaw is the correspondingauthor and can be contacted at: [email protected]

Matthew Hall lectures in information and knowledge management in the Business School atAston University. He has a particular interest in the social and political dynamics of knowledgein organisations. His current research is looking at technology and knowledge transfer inmultinational corporations. E-mail: [email protected]

John S. Edwards is a Professor of Operational Research and Systems, and Head of AcademicProgrammes at Aston Business School, Birmingham, UK. He has an MA in mathematics and aPhD degree from the University of Cambridge. His doctorate was in human resource planningmodels. His principal research interests now include: investigating knowledge managementstrategy and its implementation; the relevance of technology to knowledge management; andintegrating knowledge-based systems with simulation models. He has published more than 50refereed articles, and two books, Building Knowledge-based Systems and Decision Making withComputers. He is editor of the journal Knowledge Management Research & Practice. E-mail:[email protected]

Brad Baker holds an MBA degree from Aston Business School and retains close workinglinks with that institution. In his previous role as a Director of Communications and Marketingfor the Mortgage Code Compliance Board (MCCB) he led the major internal project referred to inthis paper. Brad currently trades as an independent consultant; working with clients to deliversolutions to a variety of management and media communications issues. E-mail: [email protected]

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Contested practice: multipleinclusion in double-knit

organizationsIrma Bogenrieder and Peter van Baalen

RSM Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract

Purpose – Most people participate in various groups and communities simultaneously. Manyauthors have pointed to the importance of multi-membership for knowledge sharing acrosscommunities and teams. The most important expected benefit is that knowledge that has beenacquired in one community of practice (CoP) can be applied into another CoP or group. This paperseeks to discuss the consequences of multi-membership for knowledge sharing in a CoP.

Design/methodology/approach – The concept of multiple inclusion is used to explain why andhow multi-membership can hold up knowledge sharing between groups.

Findings – This case study shows that knowledge transfer between CoPs and teams can beproblematic when norm sets between these two groups conflict.

Originality/value – This paper concludes that CoPs can sustain when the “practice” remains at asafe distance from the “real” project work in teams that are guided by managerial objectives.

Keywords Community relations, Knowledge transfer, Participative planning, Public relations


IntroductionOne of the most intriguing issues in recent organizational learning research arecommunities of practice (CoP) that have gained enormous popularity since its inceptionin Lave and Wenger’s (1991) seminal study. Part of its success may be explained by itsclose affiliation with the burgeoning knowledge management literature. CoPs areconceived as knowledge resource networks for organizational learning and innovationthat may overcome the constraints of hierarchically structured organizations.According to Wenger et al. (2002), CoPs should not just be seen as auxiliary structures,but as foundational structures on which to build future organizations.

In spite of the enthusiasm about CoPs in the management literature andorganizational practice our understanding of this new concept is still immature(Roberts, 2006). As a consequence, many initiatives to set up CoPs fail within short term.One important issue here is that CoPs cannot be considered in isolation from therest of the organization and groups, or understood independently of other practices(Wenger, 1998). The learning that takes place within a CoP only makes sense to theorganization if it can be shared with or applied in adjacent CoP’s or in the widerorganization. This issue has been addressed for the first time by Brown and Duguid(1991) when they advocated a conceptual reorganization that must stretch from the levelof individual CoPs and the technology and practices used to the level of the overarchingorganizational architecture, the community-of-communities. Similarly, Wenger (2000)views CoPs as basic building blocks of an organization-wide social learning system.This larger system should be conceived as a constellation of interrelated CoP.



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Vol. 20 No. 4, 2007pp. 579-595


DOI 10.1108/09534810710760090

McDermott (1999) differentiates within this constellation by distinguishing betweenCoPs and teams, resulting into what he calls a “double-knit” organization. He discusseshow knowledge creation and learning that takes place in project teams is synthesizedand shared within a community and, then, transferred back to new project teams.According to Wenger et al. (2002), “double-knit” organizations are characterized by amulti-membership learning cycle in which knowledge creation and knowledgeapplication commute between teams and CoPs. The challenge of organizational designthen is not to find one kind of knowledgeability that subsumes all others, but tocoordinate multiple kinds of knowledgeability into a process of organizational learning(Wenger, 1998, p. 247).

One important question then is how these interrelations between different CoPs andproject teams look like. How can the knowledge that is created within one communitybe shared with and applied to a team? Different concepts and theories have beenlaunched (brokering, boundary management, bridging, multiple memberships) to dealwith the interconnections between different communities and teams.

In this paper, we will explore the consequences of interconnectness between variousteams and communities for the contribution and collaboration in CoPs. Our startingpoint is not the CoP or the bridge between CoPs and teams but the consequences forlearning processes when an individual is a member of both – a CoP and a team.Engestrom et al. (1995) have introduced the concept of polycontextuality which doesnot only mean that the individual is engaged in multiple simultaneous tasks andtask-specific participation frameworks but also increasingly involved in multiple CoP.We take this issue one step further by introducing Allport’s concept of “groupmembership manifold” which we will call multiple inclusion (van Dongen et al., 1996).Multiple inclusion is a potential for collaboration from which different communitiesand teams can reap the benefits if collaboration is legitimized in the different CoPs andteams. Following Lave and Wenger (1991) this means that the individual is engaged indifferent and sometimes conflicting processes of legitimate peripheral participation(LPP).

In this paper, we first briefly review recent developments in theorizing on learningin CoPs and teams. Multiple inclusion suggests that partial involvements in differentcommunities and teams are connected and influence each other. Our case study willdemonstrate that multiple inclusion does not lead automatically to knowledge sharingbetween communities and teams and to sustainable learning processes. We applyKrackhardt’s theory on triadic ties and impact of norm sets in groups on individuals’behavior to explain the diverging evolutions of the communities in our case story.We will conclude this paper with some suggestions for further research and generalconclusions.

Communities of practice, teams, and contextDouble-knit organizations combine teams with CoPs. In order to have a goodunderstanding of the working the interrelationships between CoPs and teams, we firstdiscuss the two social groups briefly.

According to Hislop (2003), the CoP concept is based on two central premises:the activity-based nature of knowledge/knowing, and the group-based character oforganizational activity. Although the two premises have been treated in different andoften separate ways, in the original study of Lave and Wenger (1991) both are

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inseparable foundations of their theory of situated learning. Their learning theory hasdrawn attention away from the predominance of individual cognitive learning,decontextualization of knowledge and specific schooling contexts (e.g. classrooms)(Lave and Wenger, 1991; Lave, 1996,) in favor of new ways of learning in interactionlike apprenticeships (Østerlund and Carlile, 2003). Situated learning theory contraststhe conventional learning paradigm by positing that learning is fundamentally arelational process through which meaning is (re-)constructed (Fox, 2000, Handley et al.,2006). Learning occurs through participation in a (in fact any) social practice whichinvolves the whole person (not just cognition) (Lave and Wenger, 1991, p. 53). In laterwork, Wenger (1998, p. 149) emphasizes the idea of the whole person that is engaged ina social practice by discussing how strong identity formation and CoP are connected:“the formation of a community is also the negotiation of identities”. Instead ofseparating knowledge and knowing, abstraction and application, cognition and socialworld, situated learning draws attention to learning as participation in every dayactivities through social interaction in shared practices (Fox, 2000).

Lave and Wenger (1991) have coined the concept of LPP to describe the process bywhich newcomers become part of a CoP. Participation in a cultural practice is anepistemological principle of learning (Lave and Wenger, 1991). By introducing thisLPP-concept they explicitly acknowledge that not only knowing is embedded in powerrelations but also the process through which this knowledge is acquired. Newcomersstart participating in a practice at the periphery and as they gradually master theseperipheral practices their legitimacy increases in the community. They do not learnabout a practice but they become part of a shared practice (Østerlund and Carlile, 2003).Practice is the criterion that provides legitimation. Not every contribution in a CoP islegitimate.

Recent studies have criticized the CoP concept for different reasons. Østerlund andCarlile (2003) argue that CoPs cannot be defined in or of itself, but through the relationsthat are shaped by its practices. They therefore view them as “probabilistic constructs”that should not necessarily be conflated with reality (2003, p. 6). The communityconcept is in fact misleading as it usually refers to particular types of relationships(communal, equalitarian, friendship). The authors warn for emptying the CoP from itsrelational nature which might give rise to overly romantic perspectives on CoPs inwhich they are seen as managerial utopias where employees work withoutsurveillance, generate their own motivation, take full responsibility for theiractivities and innovate without being managed (Østerlund and Carlile, 2003).

Contu and Wilmott (2003) argue that the original critical stance of situated learningtheory with its radical view on the impact of embedded power relations on learning hasbeen muffled into an organizational device that emphasizes consensus, sharedinterests, and shared values of the community (Fox, 2000). They conclude that “theanalytical concept of LPP is recast as a technocratic tool of organizational engineering”(Contu and Willmott, 2003, p. 289). They therefore call for “re-embedding situatedness”into analyses of learning in organizations.

Roberts (2006) points at the limits of CoPs regarding its applicability to broadersocio-cultural contexts which are less conducive to collaborating working practices.Moreover, CoPs probably would not fit into small and medium sized firms,hierarchically controlled structures, and in organizations that work with highly

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standardized production systems. The author states that there is the need fordeveloping a detailed classification of types of CoPs (Roberts, 2006).

Lindkvist (2005) argues that CoPs, as conceptualized by Lave and Wenger (1991)and Wenger (1998), does not fit with how temporary organizations or projectorganizations operate and therefore calls for making a distinction between knowledgecommunities and knowledge collectivities.

Handley et al. (2006) criticize the problematic distinction between participation andpractice as they are used interchangeably. They further argue that individualsprobably participate in multiple communities during their lifetime, each havingdifferent practices and identity structures, resulting in tensions and conflicts asindividuals participate in these communities.

It is interesting to read that Lave and Wenger (1991, p. 42) leave the CoP concept intheir monograph as an “intuitive notion” “. . . which requires a more rigoroustreatment” then is presented in their book, Especially, the unequal relations of powermust be included in a more systematic way as they co-determine the possibilities forlearning. The term community does not necessarily imply co-presence and/orwell-defined group with socially visible boundaries but primarily an activity system inwhich participants share understandings concerning what they are doing and that thatmeans in their lives and for the communities (Lave and Wenger, 1991).

The initial intuitive conceptualization and the attempt to include different social andepistemological dynamics into the CoP leave the CoP to an arbitrary and ill-definedconcept. For this reason some researchers have suggested to distinguish different typesof CoPs (Dougherty, 2001; Roberts, 2006) or distinguish CoPs from other knowledgesocial groupings like networks of practice (Brown and Duguid, 2001) and collectivitiesof practice (Lindkvist, 2005). In this paper, we alternatively argue that CoPs are uniquecombinations of three basic elements: a domain of knowledge, a community of people,and a shared practice (Wenger et al., 2002). This means that CoPs can vary to a largeextent but all share the same basic structure. The domain refers to a more or lessdefined knowledge field which creates the common ground and a sense of identity ofthe community. The community refers to a particular set of relationships between thegroup members that share a domain that is directed towards mutual engagement(Wenger, 1998, p. 73). Practice is conceived as being the community knowledge like aset of frameworks, ideas, tools, jargon, heuristics that develops out of the frequentinteraction between community members. The practice is idiosyncratic as it evolvesfrom the specific community relationships.

The main difference between CoPs and teams is that the former are not “rooted inbureaucracy” (Dougherty, 2001) and hierarchical relationships. People in the CoPunderstand themselves to be responsible for their practice and for developing andcontributing their own expertise that help them to understand their work andprofession (Dougherty, 2001). CoPs are driven by the value they provide to theindividual members who share information and ideas voluntary without beingguarded by managerial objectives (McDermott, 1999; Wenger et al., 2002). The CoP isessentially produced by its members through their mutual engagement and evolves inan organic way (Wenger, 1998, p. 118). In contrast, teams are tightly integrated socialgroups driven by achieving formal objectives, set by upper management, withinstrict time frames. Although teams may be “self-organizing” there are nested in ahierarchical authority structure in which higher levels have the power to determine

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“practices” at lower levels (like teams) to a large extent (Kontopoulos, 1993). In thissense teams reflect the wider, hierarchical structured organizational context whichmight conflict with the communal sharing relationships within CoPs (Roberts, 2006;Handley et al., 2006; Fiske, 1992).

McDermott (1999) argues that double-knit organizations are a solution to theproblem how to coordinate cross-functional products and services and still keepingpeople to the cutting edge of their functional discipline. The main challenge is to“weave” different structures – tightly knit teams and CoPs – into one neworganizations. This weaving might be problematic because of the incongruence andpotential conflict between the value systems that are based on different types ofrelationships (hierarchical) between teams and CoPs (communal sharing). To analyzethis potential conflict empirically we first have to discuss the relationship betweenthese two organizational setting, multiple inclusion.

Multiple inclusionMulti-membership should be conceived as a core concept in theories on CoPs and socialpractice as it reveals “the living experience of boundaries” between different CoPs(Wenger, 1998, p. 161). Multi-membership may put the individual in ambiguoussituation as the different practices can make competing demands that are difficult tocombine. Elements of one repertoire may be inappropriate or incompatible to anotherCoP (Wenger, 1998). Whereas, Wenger recognizes the possible inconsistencies thatresult from multi-membership he does not consider the consequences ofmulti-membership for practice within a CoP.

To stress the notion that the individual is connected to different groups, weelaborate on Allport’s (1962) insights about the relationships between the individualand the collective order. Allport suggests that multiple membership is not just aboutdiverse and separated memberships – a view in which the individual is fragmentedand entertaining separated memberships. Instead, Allport (1962) introduces the notionof partial inclusion. This concept is also discussed by Weick (1979, p. 97), who explainsthe relevance of the notion of partial inclusion as “a person does not invest all in asingle group; commitments and interlockings are dispersed among several groups”.Wenger (1998, p. 159) argues that membership in any CoP is only a part of the identitywhich should be viewed as a “nexus of multimembership”. Allport emphasizes theinterconnection between the various (and partial) inclusions of an individual. He viewsthe individual as a sort of “matrix in which these patterns of collectively organizedsegments meet and affect one and another” (Allport, 1962, p. 25). In more concreteterms:

What the individual does in one group, or merely his relation to that group, may have animportant bearing upon what he does in another group; and the total “group membershipmanifold” of one individual who is a member of a particular group may be widely differentfrom the manifolds of the other members” (Allport, 1962, p. 25).

Allport suggests that group membership in one group has consequences onmembership in another group. The manifold of group membership is interconnected inthe individual person:

Instead of saying that a group incorporates (or is composed of) many individuals, we woulddo almost better to say that an individual incorporates many groups. One group has salience

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for him (that is, he is present in it or acting in terms of it) at one time, and another has salienceat another time. When not salient for the individual, a group to which he belongs could besaid to be represented in his own organism as sets, latent meaning, or stored memories(Allport, 1962, p. 25).

The implication of an individual as a node between diverse groups, then, is not onlypartial inclusion but also multiple (partial) inclusions – a notion which is alsodescribed by van Dongen et al. (1996). These authors insist that multiple inclusionconsists of the simultaneity of partial inclusions. Multiple inclusion serves as aninterpretative background for particular and participation in a community.

Multiple inclusion should be distinguished from multi-membership.Multi-membership assumes an individual participating in different communities andseeking for a balance between participation and legitimation in different communities.Multiple inclusion refers to the relatedness of the individual to different groups and tothe interconnectedness between memberships and practices. The main observationhere is that individual behavior within a group is not an isolated phenomenon but isrelated to other group memberships. The implication of multiple inclusion for learningin a CoP is that engagement within a CoP is interrelated with engagement inalternative groups which may effect participation within a CoP.

Multiple inclusion, legitimation, and boundary objectsMultiple inclusion suggests that the individual engaged in different communities isbridging through participation. Following Lave and Wenger’s theory on LPP, anindividual’s participation in a community depends on the way and extent to whichparticipation is legitimized within a community.

When assuming multiple inclusion, legitimation of participation is also related toand situated in alternative social relations.

This situation is analyzed by Krackhardt (1999). He points to contradictory sets ofnorms that the individual is confronted with when he is participating in differentgroups which may thwart knowledge sharing. Krackhardt’s study is valuable to ournotion of multiple inclusion as he extends the focus of social network analysis ondyadic relationships to triadic relationships (Simmelian ties). Simmelian ties arerelationships that are embedded in several cliques as is the case in multi-membership.Krackhardt argues that being strongly tied to several cliques might constrain theindividual’s behavior as is argued in the notion of multiple inclusion. Furthermore, hemakes a distinction between private and public behavior.

Krackhardt argues that under circumstances of private behavior the various groupsdo not know that a member is also included in other groups. In this situation theindividual can reap the benefits from the bridge position as already argued by Burt(1992). In the case of public behavior, however, the individual becomes observable byother group members from the cliques. As a consequence, the individual behavior,being part of different groups, is less free, less independent, and more constrained(Krackhardt, 1999). Krackhardt puts it as follows:

That is, to the extent that norm-bound behaviors are visible to members of both groups, aperson who is a member of two cliques has fewer permissible behaviors than a person who isa member of just one of them. By extension, the more cliques one is a member of, the moreconstrained are one’s options (Krackhardt, 1999, p. 198).

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Krackhardt’s observations have some important bearings for multiple includedindividuals. Firstly, when behavior is public the multiple included individual isconstrained because both groups do not allow the individual to take all the benefits tohis private interests. Secondly, the limitations in behavior come from the intersection ofthe two norm-sets of the two groups (e.g. teams and CoPs) and the observability(publicity) of these behaviors.

Multiple inclusion refers to the interferential dynamics between partial inclusions.It describes the consequences of participation within a group that originates from thetype of interrelatedness between groups. Alternative relationships influence the salientmembership in a particular community, which becomes visible in the kind ofengagement and the choice of practice. When adopting the notion of multipleinclusion, the concept of LPP has to be broadened. Legitimation now depends onboth – participations in- and outside the community. Shared practice within acommunity is not the only base for legitimating participation. Moreover, practices asrealized in other groups might influence the legitimation. In our case study, we willanalyze how, as a consequence of multiple inclusion, different legitimation regimesconflict and have impact on each other.

Multimembership and multiple inclusion are the “living experiences of boundaries”(Wenger, 1998, p. 161). However, this does not mean that knowledge transfer can beassumed or will be transmitted unproblematically. Knowledge transfer acrossknowledge groups is always mediated through artifacts, tools, instruments andsymbols (Engestrom, 1987; Bowker and Star, 1999). Wenger (1998) distinguishes twotypes of mediation, boundary object and brokering. Boundary objects refer to thereified form (artifacts, documents, terms, concepts) of the knowledge products of apractice, whereas brokering refer to connections by which unreified elements of onepractice are introduced into another practice. In this paper, we will limit ourselves toboundary objects that serve to coordinate interaction between CoPs and teams. Wenger(1998) points to the fact that when boundary objects serve multiple constituencies, eachhas only partial control over the interpretation of the object. However, Wengerconsiders only the use of boundary objects among CoPs. In our case differentknowledge groups (teams and CoPs) are investigated that are based on different typesof relationships. These differences in the relational base of these knowledge groupsmight influence the room for negotiating meaning and generate tensions between thedifferent interpretations of the teams and CoPs.

Case description and methodologyOur case story about a Dutch consultancy firm – which we will call “Proper” – dealswith this type of double-knit organization. Proper is a management consulting andinformation technology services company which employs about 500 people. Ourresearch is conducted in one of the departments of Proper called “business consultancy”which consists of about 80 people. The clients of Proper are often multinationals or otherbig companies. Client assignments are mostly conducted in project teams withprofessionals from the various departments. The Proper employees know each otherrather well as they have worked together in various project teams. Especially, within theconsultancy-department, people are well connected to one another because of pastcooperation in projects. Most of the project teams work on long-term assignments. Theaverage tenure of the consultants is 4.5 years. The composition of the project teams

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varies according to the client’s assignment. Success and failure in projects are the maincriteria for determining career paths of the individual consultants. High demands onquality from the customer’s side and time pressure have created an accountabilityculture which rewards success and hardly leaves any space for publicly discussingproblems or failures in the project teams. The management team of Properacknowledges the problem of high performance and time pressure. Nevertheless, themanagement team also recognizes the need to learn from one another. Therefore, themanagement team has decided to encourage and support the establishment of learninggroups within the firm. These learning groups are thought of as a professional homebase, next to the “hands-on” project teams. Members come from different project teams.These learning groups should support the individual consultants in their learningprocesses in order to benefit for (current or future) projects. However, the managementteam does not prescribe how the learning groups should work.

This exploratory research started about 10 months after the installation of the twoCoPs. The research should provide management with insights in the way the CoPswork and whether they realize organizational learning according to the respondents.

For our research, we conducted 20 semi-structured, explorative interviews withseven senior, 11 junior consultants and two managing consultants (out of fivemanaging consultants in this department). Managing consultants lead functionalgroups of about fifteen business consultants. The members of the functional groups arealso the members of the learning groups with a few exceptions. All the interviewees,except two consultants, are both members in project teams and in the learning groups.The sampling of the interviews started with recommendations from the managementof the department. Management had a vague idea that there exist two different types oflearning groups, but wanted more detailed insights. From here, purposive sampling forinformation-rich respondents was applied by snowballing (Patton, 1987). In most casesthe respondents recommended other persons who they thought might have aninteresting view on the learning groups. “Interesting” was interpreted in multipleways: supporting or denying the own view on how the group functions and how thedevelopment of the group is experienced. We started with questions derived from theliterature. As interviews progressed, additional topics were added. The interviews tookapproximately 1.5 hours and were recorded. We used “triangulation” as a test ofinternal validity, by crosschecking accounts made by different participants in ananonymous form. The interview-questions were designed to elicit information aboutthe course of a meeting in a typical learning group, the interviewees’ explanation forthis course of action and what they think they learn within these groups. In addition,questions seeking information about the respondent’s career path, current projectinvolvement and networks of collaboration with other colleagues were asked. Theinterview transcripts were coded for patterns in how learning group meetings proceedand for respondent’s suggestions as to why. Variations were also noted.

In this case study, we briefly discuss the development of two types of CoPs: theprofessional development group (PDG) and project improvement group (PI). The namesand identification of both types of learning groups took place afterwards by theresearchers. The interviewees just narrated about different groups and, had only avague idea what exactly happened in another group. Eight persons including themanaging consultant were identified as being member of PI. Ten intervieweesincluding the managing consultant were member of PDG. The other two persons were

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not member of any learning group at that moment. They were members of alreadyexisting expertise-groups who discussed the current product-market-mix and theconsequences for project acquisition. The interviews with these two respondents wereabout their wishes and potential purpose of a learning group (Table I).

The domain of both CoPs are more or less the same, they both deal withimprovement of project work. However, the practices between the two CoPs differimportantly. Members of the PDG take their own professional development asconsultant as the practice of the community. The consultants discuss, in a general way,how their own professional skills as necessary in a project can be improved. These“near histories” – “events that almost happened” (March et al., 1991, p. 6) – serve asboundary objects in the PDG-CoP. Members in PI alternatively decide to take their owncurrent client-projects as learning subject. Here, real stories about their projects serveas boundary objects. PI-members discuss how a particular project that they arerunning could be improved. Hence, there is a clear difference between the two groups inthe practice they have chosen. In our case study, we will show that this distinctionbetween the practices of the CoPs has important consequences for the functioning ofthese groups within Proper. This distinction in two types of CoPs is a first result of thisresearch.

Dealing with multiple inclusions – reflections of participantsIn this section, we discuss two types of results that came out of our interviews with themembers of PDG and PI. The first type refers to the functioning of the CoP, while thesecond relates to the content of the practice.

The project development groupThe PDG consists of a mixture of senior and junior consultants that meet regularly onmonthly meeting. There is a slight informal pressure to attend the meeting and whenmembers cannot visit the meetings the group is informed about these:

If you don’t show up or exclude yourself from the group, people start questioning about thereasons for not attending the meetings.

In the course of the time, PDG develops its own set of norms that rules out particularbehavior within the community:

Behavior that is not accepted is for example gossip, backbiting, bragging and frequentabsence.

The members enjoy participating in this group and feel comfortable. The interactionand contribution are high and intensive; critical comments and feed-back areappreciated. Members care about the comments. The main drive for participating inPDG is to help one another”:

Project development group Project improvement group (PI)

Domain of CoP Improvement of project work Improvement of project workPractice of CoP Personal development ProjectRelationships Communal CommunalBoundary object Near-histories Real stories

Table I.Characteristics PDG

and PI

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People judge, but do not condemn contributions.

By talking about ourselves, we enrich each other as group and as individual.

Participants report about high commitment towards each other. Engagement andparticipation are high in the PDG and are found stimulating. Members do not feel urgedto find a consensus within the group and the discussions are vivid. PDG membersthoroughly discuss generic themes like conflict resolution, organizing commitment,giving unsolicited advice to a client, client resistance, ethics in the consultancy practice,interpersonal skills, case studies, which they consider to be important for theirprofessional development. The CoP serves as a “space for experimentation” as they callit, to exchange ideas and to enrich the members’ insights and knowledge:

We use the process in the group as a way to enrich the individual. The insights as learnedwithin the group are always used in the actual project work, for example learning to ask thegood questions.

Participants report that they do not discuss their current projects in which they areinvolved. Instead, they bring in their experiences or questions in a hypothetical form orin the form of “near histories” and describe their experiences or problems in ananonymous way. Members can hide in vague references such as “. . . what oncehappened to me . . . ,” “. . . what I have heard from a colleague . . . ,” “. . .whatI wonder . . . ,” etc. Members report that these stories are considered to be “realistic”experiences that might or might not originate from (current) work in projects. Membersdo not bother whether the stories really happened or not. The near-realistic stories areaccepted as shared practice within the community. They clearly avoid real stories:

I would discuss a project that is not running well with my project leader and would onlydiscuss some aspects of the project in PDG. The group is a space for experimentation inwhich projects with clients can be discussed. It is not allowed trying to achieve commercialtargets within the group.

The project improvement groupThe working of the PI is different. The group has decided to take the current projectsas their practice. The idea is that every member should discuss his/her current projectas it “really” runs and the group should help to improve this project by giving advice,hints and tricks. In contrast to PDG, the PI members expect that their participationcould directly contribute to the commercial process of their consultancy projects bylearning “tips and tricks” concerning project acquisition and project management.

While PDG members stress the importance of helping each other in an almostaltruistic way, some PI members assume a direct reciprocity for exchanging ideas andexperiences:

. . .the added value for one’s own project depends on what one receives in return . . . the groupbecomes more relevant the more I receive in return. . .

PI members are convinced that it does not make sense to discuss important issues onlyin general terms:

It does not work for me talking about a theme in a general way. I want to have the whole morepragmatic in order to being able to apply the knowledge.

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Within PI they exchange experiences and discuss how they could solve real problemsthey experience in their projects:

We really want to hear how somebody’s project is running; not information about severalprojects, but what did we achieve, what does the client think we have achieved, what were theproblems during the project?

In spite of this emphasis on exchanging real experiences, the group members avoid toexchange painstaking and sensitive information about their projects. According to theparticipants, most contributions are rather superficial, not touching the real problemsin consultancy projects:

People don’t dare to show that they are vulnerable. Presenting what you are doing isgenerally not such a big problem. But to show how you do things – individually – that doesnot really happen.

The interviewees indicate that the main reason for the superficial and oftendisappointing contributions is that most members fear that disclosing their projectinformation would threaten their position in the organization as other members withinPI could pass the information outside PI. This could damage one’s reputation and couldhave consequences for involvement in future projects and even for one’s career.According to one managing consultant, people do not feel safe in PI:

In a bilateral conversation the information is kept within the room and safety checks can bebuilt in. This is not the case in the PI group. Some people in the group have ambitions andwant to realize these ambitions. For this reason they avoid making project information publicas long as it can influence careers.

Like the PDG group, the PI group also has monthly meetings. However, absenteeism ishigh and commitment to the CoP is rather low. Members of the PI group report thatthey would leave the group if nothing changes. In their view the meetings are uselessas long as the contributions remain superficial.

Analysis: multiple inclusion and its impact on CoPsThis case about the CoPs illuminates some interesting points with reference to thenotions of multiple inclusion, the choice of a domain of knowledge and the developmentof a shared practice. In this analysis, we show how participation in a CoP is interrelatedwith membership in a team. We argue that a chosen practice can interfere withproject work in a situation of multiple inclusion.

Behavior within both CoPs is to be characterized as public behavior as described byKrackhardt (1999). In the case of PI, several quotations refer to the possiblevulnerability of an individual consultant when getting or asking for feedback becauseinformation may leak outside the CoP. This vulnerability is associated with potentialconsequences outside the CoP as others may come to know about failures in a project.In this configuration of public behavior Krackhardt predicts that the individual ismaximally constrained when he/she has to satisfy two (or more) norm systems.We want to stress in our analysis that – as far as learning is concerned – thisconclusion does not generally hold. Constraints on behavior only take place ifinterference between multiple inclusions exists. We will show that some practices aremore susceptible to interference than other ones. We will then discuss theconsequences for the choice of a practice in CoPs.

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We compare the development of PI and PDG and relate this development to thenotion of multiple inclusion. We consider multiple inclusion as a key notion forexplaining why participation in a particular practice is more legitimated than inanother.

One of the most important differences between PI and PDG is the choice of a sharedpractice. PI has improvement of current projects adopted as shared practice. Theywant to learn for and from their current project work in the teams (“tips and tricks,”“application in project,” “relevant for the project”). Subsequently, current projectfunctions as a boundary object between the team and PI. Members of PI bring in – orbetter: want to bring in – their experiences, questions, problems from the currentprojects. The description of a current project is not reified at that stage since projectwork is still ongoing. Within PI the meaning of that boundary object is renegotiated inthe shared practice as a “problem”. Members commemorate their projects to a certaindegree as “the problems they encounter in the projects”. Almost by definition, learningfor the current project within PI implies negative framing of a project (March et al.,1991, pp. 13-14). The shortcomings in a project are stressed in order to discuss possibleimprovement. Negotiating meaning of a boundary object in opposite norm systemsconstrains an individual’s behavior as Krackhardt (1999) predicts when people aremembers of several groups. Indeed, members in PI report that they are reluctant ofrevealing problems in their current projects as this might damage their reputation asproject-worker. Releasing knowledge in the PI could cause (future) cooperation inprojects to be compromised. Members of PI, therefore, question the possibility oflegitimate participation on the chosen practice as this practice also touches theiralternative memberships in a project team. Their involvement in other organizationalactivities conflicts with legitimate participation in PI. These threats of “outside effects”undermine the legitimate participation within PI. As a consequence, the developmentof a shared practice is hampered. Psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999) within theCoP cannot develop.

The PDG has taken an alternative route and this nicely demonstrates the effects onlegitimate participation. Members of PDG take their professional development asshared practice. Their shared practice is what members generally encounter in aconsultancy process. This practice builds on consultants’ experiences in the projects.However, the real project is not mentioned. In cases that a real project is used as aboundary object, only a part of the project is commemorated. Members are not irritatedabout not knowing the real story. The extent to which an experience has really takenplace does not matter in developing a common practice (“space for experimentation”).A project as boundary object is modified in order to blur any resemblance with the truestory (“telling parts of a project”). In this case, Krackhardt’s result does not hold. Peopledo not feel constrained by multi-membership. Their participation in the learning groupis not hampered by their team-membership – to the contrary. Members of PDGsucceed in developing a shared practice and communal relationships with highpsychological safety (Edmondson, 1999). Members of PDG are concerned with helpingeach other developing into a consultant-practitioner (“enrich each other”). Thediscussions are personally affected. Compared to PI, this shared practice avoids anyinterference with current work. Multiple inclusion does not hinder legitimateparticipation within the adopted practice.

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What is important here is that membership in a CoP is not “neutral” or isolated frommembership in the project teams. Membership in a CoP is influenced by the normsystem in the hierarchical project teams which again has consequences on the nature ofparticipation and development of a shared practice. The notion of multiple inclusionassumes that there always exists an interference between group membership.However, as the case of PDG demonstrates, interferences can also be moderated andcan even be advantageous when the shared practice is distant from their project-work.The distance allows members to be more open and thus a shared practice andcommunal relationships can more easily develop. These insights suggest that it mightbe more useful for a CoPs development to choose a practice more distant from the dailywork. Also in PDG, the constraining effects on legitimate participation in a CoP byalternative membership can be identified (“would not discuss a problematic project”).However, the PDG has in a way circumvented negative consequences of multipleinclusion.

At this point, the explanatory value of multiple inclusions becomes clear. If weconsider a CoP as isolated entity, explanations for the failure of a CoP coulderroneously be located on the individual level (i.e. individual motivation), or on thecommunal level (i.e. trust, psychological safety). When applying the notion of multipleinclusion the failure of developing a shared practice within a CoP, as it happens in PI, isexplained by the interrelationship with the organizational project-context. Theindividual’s behavior in PDG and PI is linked with the individual’s multiple inclusionin the project teams. Before participating in a CoP members also bear in mind theconsequences this might have on their future work in the project teams and their careerprospects. This behavior confirms Allport’s (1962, p. 25) idea of “group membershipmanifold”: “Instead of saying that a group incorporates (or is composed of) manyindividuals, we would do almost better to say that an individual incorporates manygroups.” As the analysis has shown, some type of shared practice is more convenientfor combining multiple membership than others. Multiple inclusion provides theexplanatory framework why membership should match for a prospering CoP.

We believe that such a contextual explanation for the development of a sharedpractice has important implications.

Implications and future researchMembers in both CoPs choose for a specific practice. When conflict with alternativemembership can be avoided, participation is legitimized and a shared practice canprosper. However, when a group chooses a practice which directly interferes withalternative memberships, engagement and participation are declining as we showed inthe case of PI. In our analysis, we showed how multiple inclusion constrainedindividual behavior within a CoP. Our findings have several implications formanagerial practice and research on CoPs.

The first is that multiple inclusion should be viewed as an underlying relationaldynamic in knowledge transfer between different organizational groups (e.g. CoPs andteams). This interrelatedness between membership in a CoP and in a team providessome specific conditions that affect legitimate participation. These relations should betaken into account when setting up or “cultivating” a CoP by management. Contuand Wilmott (2003) call for “re-embedding situatedness”. We now can confirm thisclaim as multiple inclusion directly refers to the embeddedness of interrelationships.

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We can add to this insight that it depends on the choice of a practice in what way theindividual’s behavior is constrained. From our case study, we learned that a practicethat is distant from the hierarchical context of the organization is more easilylegitimated than a practice that is close to “real” projects. This suggests that it isessential for CoPs to maintain a safe distance with “real” organizational work. Such asafe distance from real projects also questions the notion of practice. Practice in a CoPis not necessarily to be equated with (noncanonical) work practice. Practice in a CoPcould and should be modified if interference is threatening. Narrating only parts of aproject in a “near story” as happens in PDG can be one way of modifying practice inorder to avoid interference. There might be other ways. However, it is not mentioned inthe literature, as far as we know, that “modifying” practice can be a way to support thedevelopment of a CoP. Safe distance puts constraints on the “direct” applicability ofknowledge and manageability of CoPs. More distant practice makes multi-membershipcommensurable but the new acquired knowledge is less applicable. This againconfirms Contu and Willmott’s (2003, p. 289) view that CoPs do not fit into a“technocratic tool of organizational engineering”.

Another implication is that CoPs have a choice which practice to adopt. If bothgroups accept a boundary object but adopt a practice within an opposite norm system,failure of a CoP is almost guaranteed as an individual’s legitimacy of participation inone of the two groups is severely questioned. It is, however, the chosen shared practicethat determines whether the boundary object will indeed be interpreted in oppositedirections. Literature often discusses shared practice as something fixed. Our researchsuggests that members in a CoP have a choice in their practice. As our case studyindicates, even in the same starting position CoPs can develop in various directions foradopting a practice.

A third implication is that some practices are more convenient to avoid interferencewith team membership than others. We have not been able to identify precise criteriafor chosing a domain. The optimum lies somewhere between the following extremes:the same domain with contradictory norm sets and a different practice with mutuallegitimation. If CoPs are relevant for organizational learning, the practice of a CoP andother organizational groups should be related in order to support mutual legitimacy.As Hanks states: “If both learning and the subject learned are embedded inparticipation frameworks, then the portability of learned skills must rely on thecommensurability of certain forms of participation.” (Hanks in Lave and Wenger, 1991,p. 20). The notion of multiple inclusion suggests that “the commensurability of certainforms of participation” heavily relies on the mutual legitimation of group membership.It is not clear what the required characteristics and relations for practice are for gaininglegitimacy. Further, research is needed to explore the beneficial combination ofdomains and norm sets for assuring legitimation of a practice also outside the CoP.

Yet, there are some weak indications. First, the practice of a CoP should be at safedistance from the project work in a team. The disadvantage of such a distance is thatknowledge from the CoP cannot be applied directly in the project work. Some kind oftranslation will be necessary. Second, if a boundary object is used, the boundary objectitself can be manipulated for creating a more convenient practice. Not only is it possibleto interpret a boundary object in various direction (we already discussed this issueabove), but the boundary object itself can be manipulated in a way that practice in

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a CoP does not interfere with project work. Management should take care of this spaceof experimentation.

A final implication is that some CoPs cannot operate in the public domain.There could be organizational issues which should be treated in a “private” context asKrackhardt describes it. A CoP then functions in a disjunct zone of collective behavior.In this situation, multiple inclusion puts constrains on knowledge transfer betweenCoPs and teams.

ConclusionWe started our discussion about multiple inclusion by identifying differentinterpretations of CoPs as they are discussed in the literature over time. We haveargued that CoPs can be viewed as collective entities that are embedded in theorganizational context. We focused on the consequences for participating in a CoPwhen the individual is involved in multiple groups. Multiple inclusion indicates thatthe various involvements of an individual do not exist in isolation. They influence eachother. Multiple inclusion is not an artifact that has to be created or a position to whichsomeone can be appointed. It is an interferential dynamic which can be called upon andis moulded through participation and legitimation. From this viewpoint we discuss theconsequences on the development and sustainability of a CoP. Conflicting norm setsbetween communities might thwart knowledge sharing between those groups.

Our research showed that multi-membership can be problematic and that thecross-transfer of knowledge in “double-knit” organizations cannot be taken for granted.Only under specific circumstances participants and organizations can benefit frommulti-membership. This appears to be the case when legitimacy of participations inboth teams and CoP’s are acquired. Boundary-crossing between teams andcommunities is proficient as long as the individual is legitimized for his multiplegroup membership and as norm sets do not contradict each other.

For organizations that want to set up CoPs it is important to take care of congruenceof norm sets between different communities and groups/teams. A CoP is not a neutralzone within the organization in which new and different norm sets can be settled fromscratch. Our discussion on multiple inclusion and the consequences for thesustainability of CoP show some of the intriguing complexities that organizationsare dealing with today.

References

Allport, F.H. (1962), “A structuronomic conception of individual and collective”, Journal ofAbnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 64 No. 1, pp. 3-30.

Bowker, G.C. and Star, S.L. (1999), Sorting Things Out. Classification and its Consequences,The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Brown, J.S. and Duguid, P. (1991), “Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: towarda unified view of working, learning, and innovation”, Organization Science, Vol. 2 No. 1,pp. 40-57.

Brown, J.S. and Duguid, P. (2001), “Knowledge and organization: a social-practice perspective”,Organization Science, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 198-213.

Burt, R.S. (1992), Structural Holes. The Social Structure of Competition, Harvard UniversityPress, Cambridge, MA.

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Contu, A. and Wilmott, H. (2003), “Re-embedding situatedness: the importance of power relationsin learning theory”, Organization Science, Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 283-96.

Dougherty, D. (2001), “Reimaging the differentiation and integration of work for sustainedproduct innovation”, Organization Science, Vol. 12 No. 5, pp. 612-31.

Edmondson, A. (1999), “Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams”,Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 44, pp. 350-83.

Engestrom, Y. (1987), Learning by Expanding: An Activity Theoretical Approach toDevelopmental Research, Orenta-Konsulti Oy, Helsinki.

Engestrom, Y., Engestrom, R. and Karkkainen, M. (1995), “Polycontextuality and boundarycrossing in expert cognition: learning and problem solving in complex work activities”,Learning and Instruction, Vol. 5, pp. 319-36.

Fiske, A.P. (1992), “The four elementary forms of sociality: framework for a unified theory ofsocial relations”, Psychological Review, Vol. 99, pp. 689-723.

Fox, S. (2000), “Communities of practice, Foucault and actor-network theory”, Journal ofManagement Studies, Vol. 37 No. 6, pp. 853-67.

Handley, K., Sturdy, A., Fincham, R. and Clark, T. (2006), “Within and beyond communities ofpractice: making sense of learning through participation, identity and practice”, Journal ofManagement Studies, Vol. 43 No. 3, pp. 641-53.

Hislop, D. (2003), “The complex relations between communities of practice and theimplementation of technological innovations”, International Journal of InnovationManagement, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 163-88.

Kontopoulos, K.M. (1993), The Logics of Social Structure, Cambridge University Press,Cambridge.

Krackhardt, D. (1999), “The ties that torture: Simmelian tie analysis in organizations”,Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 16, pp. 183-210.

Lave, J. (1996) in Chailklin, S. and Lave, J. (Eds), Understanding Practice. Perspectives on Activityand Context, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 3-32.

Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991), Situated Learning. Legitimate Peripheral Participation, CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge.

Lindkvist, L. (2005), “Knowledge communities and knowledge collectivities: a typology ofknowledge work in groups”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 42 No. 6, pp. 1189-210.

McDermott, R. (1999), “Why Information technology inspired but cannot deliver knowledgemanagement”, California Management Review, Vol. 41 No. 4, pp. 103-17.

March, J.G., Sproull, L.S. and Tamuz, M. (1991), “Learning from samples of one or fewer”,Organization Science, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 1-13.

Østerlund, C. and Carlile, P. (2003), “How practice matters: a relational view on knowledgesharing”, in Huysman, M.E.W. and Wulf, V. (Eds), Communities and Technologies, KluwerAcademic Publisher, Dordrecht, pp. 1-22.

Patton, M.Q. (1987), How to Use Qualitative Methods in Evaluation, Sage, London.

Roberts, J. (2006), “Limits to communities of practice”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 43No. 3, pp. 623-53.

van Dongen, H.J., de Laat, W.A.M. and Maas, A.J.J.A. (1996), Een kwestie van verschil, Eburon,Delft.

Weick, K.E. (1979), The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2nd ed., Random House, New York, NY.

Wenger, E. (1998), Communities of Practice. Learning, Meaning, and Identity, CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge.

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Wenger, E. (2000), “Communities of practice and social learning system”, Organization, Vol. 7No. 2, pp. 225-46.

Wenger, E., McDermott, R. and Snyder, W.M. (2002), Cultivating Communities of Practice.A Guide to Manage Knowledge, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.

Further reading

Carlile, P. (2002), “A pragmatic view of knowledge and boundaries: boundary objects in newproduct development”, Organization Science, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 442-55.

Castells, M. (2003), The Internet Galaxy. Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society,Oxford University Press, Oxford, NY.

Contu, A. and Wilmott, H. (2000), “Comment on Wenger and Yanow. knowing in practice:a ’delicate flower’ in the organizational learning field”, Organization, Vol. 7 No. 2,pp. 269-76.

Cox, A. (2004), “What are communities of practice? A critical review of four seminal works”,paper presented at the Fifth European Conference on Organizational Knowledge, Learningand Capabilities, April.

Gherardi, S. (2000), “Practice-based theorizing on learning and knowing in organizations”,Organization, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 211-23.

Gherardi, S. and Nicolini, D. (2002), “Learning in a constellation of interconnected practices:canon or dissonance”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 39 No. 4, pp. 419-36.

Wellman, B. (2002), “Little boxes, glocalization, and networked individualism”, in Tanabe, M.,van den Besselaar, P. and Ishida, T. (Eds), Digital Cities II: Computational and SociologicalApproaches, Springer, Berlin.

Wenger, E. and W, M. (2000), “Snyder Communities of practice: the organizational frontier”,Harvard Business Review, January/February, pp. 139-44.

About the authorsIrma Bogenrieder is an Associate Professor on Organizational Processes in the Department ofOrganization and Personnel at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.She was trained at the Marketing Research Institute, Amsterdam. Currently, she teaches in thearea of organizational dynamics and organizational change. Her current research focuses onorganizational learning, especially on communication rules in team collaboration with cognitivediversity. Another research issue is on routines and change of routines. Irma Bogenrieder is thecorresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]

Peter van Baalen is an Associate Professor of Knowledge, IT and Organization at theDepartment of Decision and Information Sciences, and director of the Centre of e-Learning andKnowledge Management (CELK) of RSM Erasmus University. Peter van Baalen lectures in thefields of knowledge management, e-organizations, new media and communication in business,and open innovation in the knowledge economy. His recent research focuses on knowledgeexchange, IT-adoption, open source software development, the emergence of e-communities, andthe evolution of global knowledge networks. Peter van Baalen published seven books and about75 articles in national and international journals, chapters in books, and research papers andreports.

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Book review

Stumbling on HappinessDaniel GilbertAlfred A. KnopfNew York2006pp. 304$24.95Keywords Behaviour, Individual psychology, Individual perceptionReview DOI 10.1108/09534810710760108

Wizardry and cookery in the human brain“Despite the third word of the title, this is not an instruction manual that will tell youanything useful about being happy” (p. xvi), says Daniel Gilbert of his recent inquiryinto the workings of the human psyche. Gilbert’s (2006) Stumbling on Happiness fondlybut realistically maps out the human psyche in all its fallibility, trying to answer thisburning question: why, if humans possess an imagination that can project anemotional hologram into the future, cannot we envision what will make us happy andmap our day or our lives to it? Despite the disclaimer that his book will not lead tohappiness, and despite his conclusion that we are hopelessly fooled by our brains intoand out of happiness, he sustains an upbeat, playful, and even flippant tone as hedescribes the path we totter along in our search for fulfillment. Our lives, Gilbertclaims, are a series of predictable misperceptions by an imperfect mind; yet somehow,that mind manages to net good feelings when all is said and done. If this book could besummarized by a gesture, it would be one of shrugged shoulders, upturned palms,and a “not bad” exaggerated frown. All things considered, the human species ismanaging well.

Gilbert’s inquiry is highly – sometimes overly – accessible; it condenses anincredible mass of scholarship on the elusive subject of emotional happiness into adisarming series of conversational gestures (“Uh-huh. Right. Are we really supposed tobelieve that people who lose their jobs, their freedom, and their mobility are somehowimproved by the tragedies that befall them? If that strikes you as a far-fetchedpossibility, then you are not alone”) (p. 152). If Gilbert’s asides to the reader aregenerally vexing and overacted, they are nevertheless admissible in light of his last30 pages: a compendium of research on happiness, consisting of 387 endnotes that citeand annotate a history of thinking on the topic. Harvard College Professor ofPsychology at Harvard University, Gilbert clearly knows his stuff. This is a mixedethos, but for those who attended teaching universities, it is not unfamiliar.

In his “Foreword,” Gilbert introduces his claim that humans are hopelesslyineffective at predicting what our future self’s “tastes, preferences, needs, and desires”(p. xiv) will be, thus we are generally stumped when we realize that our plans forhappiness did not hit the mark. Ironically, says Gilbert, our inability to predict ourfuture emotional state tends to follow fairly predictable patterns. Just as we all err in

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Journal of Organizational ChangeManagementVol. 20 No. 4, 2007pp. 596-599q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0953-4814

the same way when we view an optical illusion, “the mistakes we make when we try toimagine our personal futures are also lawful, regular, and systematic” (p. xvi).

So Gilbert has already disoriented us by introducing a concept of happiness that istwice removed, first by placing it in the future, and second, by implying that it will bemisidentified. In “Prospection” (Part I), he explains the concept further: “our brainswere made for nexting” (p. 8), or projecting ourselves into the future and thenimagining how we will feel when it happens (pp. 16-22). The problem is that our powerof “prospection,” or looking into the future, is just as prone to illusion as our eyesightand our memory (pp. 23-24), and can be “explained by the same basic principles ofhuman psychology” (p. 24). His next three sections, “Subjectivity,” “Presentism,” and“Rationalization,” explore those basic principles and apply them to his line of inquiry.

“Subjectivity” (Part II) paints a picture of the human brain as self-obsessed,convinced of its absolute uniqueness, and prone to its own sleight of hand. Because ofthis, happiness is almost impossible to describe, and highly difficult to re-conjure in itsoriginal form once it has passed (pp. 32-33). Unfortunately, some of Gilbert’sexpressions (“Happiness, then, is the you-know-what-I-mean feeling” (p. 33)) are nomatch for the poignancy of his topic, but he effectively outlines the complex apparatusof human perception, using graphic representations of the brain’s processes, filmicmetaphors, and step-by-step tracings over some of the brain’s most stunning, yethidden, work.

In “Realism,” (Part III) Gilbert shows that just as the brain compensates for the blindspot on our retina by supplying an image based on surrounding information, (p. 81),the brain fills in external stimuli with “what we already think, feel, know, want, andbelieve” to construct what we know as reality (p. 85). Though discussion of this conceptdates back to Immanuel Kant’s 18th century theory of idealism and has been echoed bythe likes of Will Durant and Jean Piaget (pp. 85-6), humans remain aloof to their ownbrain’s scams when imagining the future, projecting erroneously every time (p. 89).

Like “Realism,” “Presentism” (Part IV) shows how the human imagination insists onimposing the present on the future. Because imagination and perception share the sameapparatus, and because at any given time the brain will prioritize current feelings overimagined ones (pp. 117-125), we often mistake “reality-induced feelings forimagination-induced prefeelings” (p. 123). When we think we are previewing anemotion in the future, we are simply drawing from what we feel right now andprojecting it into the future.

Gilbert’s depiction of the instantaneous, unsolicited processes that the brainconducts in order to shape our perceptions is disappointingly familiar. The idea thatmy brain is unable to measure without comparing (my old car versus a new one, lastyear’s fashions versus this year’s), and that I am unaware of how my brain will usecomparisons to trick me at any given time, reminds me that my brain is the ultimatesales professional. Yet Gilbert’s theory begs to be applied on a larger scale – the worldmarketplace, the class system, anything.

Part V concerns the brain’s uncanny – and underestimated – powers of“Rationalism,” which depends on the fact that experience by its nature is ambiguousand can be perceived convincingly in a variety of ways. Using the body’s immunesystem as a metaphor for our brain’s psychological balancing act, Gilbert shows thatas “a healthy physical immune system must balance its competing needs and finda way to defend us well – but not too well,” our “psychological immune system” does

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the same when we face an emotionally difficult event: it “strikes a balance that allowsus to feel good enough to cope with our situation but bad enough to do somethingabout it” (p. 162). Interestingly, the less ambiguous the experience, the more difficult itis for the psychological immune system to defend us from the rejection (p. 177). What’smore, our defense system is triggered by traumatic experiences more so than life’severyday annoyances, and therefore does not provide coverage for the latter. Ironically,then, we are likely to have a more contented view of a devastating experience than wewould for a broken pencil (pp. 180-82).

It seems, though, a bit too neat to say that traumatic experiences tend to net greaterhappiness than annoyances – what about the phenomenon of post-traumatic stressdisorder? Gilbert’s “laws” of perception would be more believable, or at least moretextured, if he explored them against the backdrop of trauma, or the readers’ sharedsense of what deep emotional pain feels like.

In “Corrigibility” (Part VI), Gilbert brings home one of the crowning achievementsof the psyche: the manufacture of memory. Our psyche selectively remembers theuncommon and the finale scenes, rather than the workaday elements that make up themajority of experience; so our past tends to look like a string of highly original andstriking events, an “idiosyncratic synopsis” (pp. 197-202). Where there are blanks,memory uses stereotypes as fillers and may completely misconstrue facts based onconjecture (pp. 205-10). To make matters more challenging, the prevalence ofinaccurate beliefs, like the transmission of genes, is possible if those beliefs create anenvironment that supports their continued transmission (p. 215). This holds true for thefalse belief that money buys happiness: it does not necessarily promote happiness,“but it does serve the needs of an economy, which serve the needs of a stable society,which serves as a network for the propagation of delusional beliefs about happinessand wealth” (p. 219). Like Gilbert’s analogy of the immune system with the psyche, thismetaphor is absolutely fitting.

So what are we to do? Gilbert’s proposes that we forego the use of imagination whenpredicting future emotional states, and instead, gather real-time data from actualpeople who experience now the event we are pondering for the future. After all, thismethod has been proven to yield much more accurate results than the unaidedimagination (pp. 224-7). But of course, we categorically reject this conclusion; we arehardwired to believe strongly that we are highly unique. It stands to reason in ourbiased mind, then, that others don’t experience things the way we do, and thatsurrogacy is doomed (pp. 228-32). On reflection, I find using my own imaginationhighly preferable to using someone else’s real-time data. When I consider the latter,I imagine being infected by a contagion or my individuality being compromised insome way. Of course, that is my emotional reaction, and it is utterly wrong, just asGilbert predicts. Yet I would still choose it.

Gilbert concludes that the imagination is an amazing gift, but it is far from perfect:“if our great big brains do not allow us to go surefootedly into our futures, they at leastallow us to understand what makes us stumble” (p. 238). This is an “oh, well”conclusion – not even poignant enough to be disturbing. It’s just flat. In fact, I hopethat the tone of Gilbert’s conclusion is calculated. If it is, Gilbert’s genius lies in hissimulation of the very trickery his book discusses. Not only has the experience ofreading the book simulated the process that it describes – failed predictions aboutemotional wellness in the future – it explains exactly why that is so, and why we

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can’t do anything about it. I entered the reading experience predicting increasedenlightenment and fulfilled purpose by the end, only to find that my predictingequipment had far overestimated the quotient of joy I would experience. If it were notfor the fact that my reaction to his ending proves Gilbert’s point, I would be prettyupset with his anemic conclusion that humans are fundamentally prone toself-deception.

Perhaps the most impressive of Gilbert’s talents is his ability to make accessible avast body of scholarship about the human perception and deliver it to a large readerbase. If only for that reason, his book is a masterful instrument for transmitting ideasand prompting discussion. Like the tamping iron that pierced clean through PhineasGage’s skull and took out his frontal lobe (pp. 12-15), Gilbert’s “in your face” writingstyle, paired with his precise aim, exposes a little-known aspect of our brain and leavesour consciousness changed forever . . . or until our brain makes us forget.

Anne Marie AlbertazziGeorge Mason University,

School of Public Policy,Fairfax, Virginia, USA

Reference

Gilbert, D. (2006), Stumbling on Happiness, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY.

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Journal of Organizational Change Management

Special issue on

Work and play

Since, Huizinga’s (1955) seminal Homo Ludens we were aware ofthe centrality of play to our humanity as manifested in everydaylife, work including. Play, in the form of gaming was responsiblefor some of the largest and most complex organizational feats ofantiquity: the Greek Olympic Games, and bloody Roman circusshows for the masses. But with the progress of the machinery ofthe industrial revolution, work has been split apart from play(and vice versa) in an ever increasing march of efficiency andrationalization (Zuboff, 1988).

Recently, a number of strands have come together to break the‘‘traditional’’ divide between work and non-work. The flexing ofworkplace boundaries (with the impact of new technology andtelephony – the boundaryless organization (Ashkenas et al.,2002), has created virtual offices, virtual teams and even virtualorganizations. The rise of protean (Hall, 1976) and boundaryless(Arthur and Rousseau, 1996) careers; and the correspondingdemand for maximizing flexibility have affected the traditionalbinary divide between work and extra-work domains. The work-family balance debate (and the EU legislation on working hoursand related initiatives, such as the 35-hours week in France), hasforced a re-examination of time and space at home and at work,withworkspaces incorporating leisure elements (suchas cafeteriaand gyms),while the ‘‘homeoffice’’ is rapidly becomingan integralpart of the post-modern habitat, with pertinent health and safetyregulations extending to cover eventualities such as accidents.

The ever expanding consumer society (having fun as a divine right)and the search for authentic experiences (living a real life as anideal) – all combine to put forward the relationships betweenworkand play (in linewith the American colloquial: wework hard andwealso play hard) as a critical aspect of contemporary working lives.Companies such as Google and Du Pont encourage employees tofreely use up to 20 per cent of their formal working time to ‘‘play’’with ideas (Mainemelis and Ronson, 2006) – a practice which hasbeenaround for a long time (3M, for example, used topride itself asa hotbed of experimental ideas) but not as an institutionalisedprocedure. On the other hand, the use of play as subversion toorganized work has long been noted (Roy, 1959; Fremontii, 1971),and indeed its anti-structural essence (Turner, 1974); as are itsseductive qualities, so fundamental to our consumer culture(Altman, 1998). The roleof play in superior ‘‘peak’’ performanceandas a personality variant is central to the flow phenomenoncharacterized by Csikzentmihalyi (1990) and so it is to developingandmaintaining creativity at work (Mainemelis and Ronson, 2006).

Play as an element of mindfulness is only starting to make inroads

into management practice, with the emergence of ‘‘positive

organizational scholarship’’ (Cameron et al., 2005).

We concur with Mainemelis and Ronson (2006, p. 82) that ‘‘play

as a topic of inquiry is among the least studied and least

understood organizational behaviours’’. This special issue of

JOCM wishes to address this lack by providing the scope andspace to scholars in the fields of management, organization,and the social sciences in general, to comment and enlighten uson this rapidly resurging central aspect of working lives – play inits various manifestations; and in so doing, help define the fieldas a scholarly enterprise as well as a managerial concern. Hereare some suggested topics we want to cover:

. play and its relevance to creativity in work;

. the sacred, spiritual, ritual aspects of play behaviour at work;

. affect and emotions in play and their role in organizationalbehaviour;

. institutionalized play: the organization of space, time andboundaries of work;

. playfulness in organizational behaviour – the role of humour,joking behaviour, relations between the sexes;

. play as a gendered phenomenon at work;

. playassubversivebehaviour: seductive,underminingauthority;

. the work-place (Christmas) party: role, process, implications;

. the ethics of engaging play at the service of work;

. organizational aesthetics as a play phenomenon;

. play and (organizational) history; and

. play and work as documented in the arts and literature.

Guest Editors

Dr Yochanan Altman, Research Professor, London Metropolitan

University, E-mail: [email protected]

Professor Babis Mainemelis, Professor of Organisational

Behaviour at London Business School,

E-mail: [email protected]

Please send your abstracts to the Guest Editors (work-

[email protected]) before October 1, 2007. If accepted, you

will be notified and asked to submit the complete paper for

Call for papers

blind review before December 30, 2007. The ‘‘Work and play’’special issue of JOCM will appear as issue No. 4, 2008.

References

Altman, Y. (1998), ‘‘American ritual drama in action: the Disneytheme park’’, in Deegan, M-J. (Ed.), The American RitualTapestry: Social Rules and Cultural Meanings, GreenwoodPress, Westport, CT, pp. 85–95

Arthur, M.B. and Rousseau, D. (1996), The Boundaryless Career:A New Employment Principle for a New Organizational Era,Oxford University Press, Oxford

Ashkenas, R., Ulrich, D., Jick, T. and Kerr, S. (2002), TheBoundaryless Organization: Breaking the Chains ofOrganizational Structure, Jossey-Bass Publishers, SanFrancisco, CA

Cameron, K.S., Dutton, J.E. and Quinn, R.E. (2005), PositiveOrganizational Scholarship: Foundations of a NewDiscipline, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, CA

Csikzentmihalyi, M. (1990), Flow: the Psychology of OptimalExperience, Harper & Row, New York, NY

Fremontii, J. (1971), La ForteresseOuvriere: Renault, Eyrolles, ParisHall, D.T. (1976), The Career is Dead – Long Live the Career,

Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, CAHuizinga, J. (1955), Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in

Culture, Beacon Press, Boston, MAMainemelis, C. and Ronson, S. (2006), ‘‘Ideas are born in fields

of play: towards a theory of play and creativity inorganizational settings’’, Research in OrganizationalBehavior, Vol. 27, pp. 81–131

Roy, D.F. (1959), ‘‘‘Banana time’: job satisfaction and informalinteraction’’, Human Organization, Vol. 18, pp. 158–68

Turner, V. (1974), ‘‘Social dramas and ritual metaphors’’,Dramas, Fields and Metaphors: Symbolic Action inHuman Society, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY

Zuboff, S. (1988), In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future ofWork and Power, Harvard Business School Press,Cambridge, MA

Call for papers