| Ordinary Theorists in the Chocolate Industry |
| | Calori, Roland Georges | EM LYON | calori@em-lyon.com | 33-478337929 |
| | In this paper practitioners are viewed as ordinary theorists and their narratives are considered as useful contributions to theory building . individual ordinary knowledge expressed in narratives has theoretical value when it fulfils several conditions : the author is sincere , his/her story respects the rules of logic , concepts and relationships between concepts are identified , and the argument is falsifiable . Cognitive mapping technique can help translating a story into a theoretical framework . The aggregation of contextual individual frameworks into a collective knowledge base forms an organic theory , which has integrative qualities . These propositions are based on an empirical study of managerial collective knowledge about the international dynamics of the chocolate industry and a comparison with mainstream economic and strategic theories of globalization . Epistemological implications are briefly discussed , particularly the role of researchers who select ordinary theorists , tap their ordinary knowledge , translate their stories into cognitive maps ,aggregate them , and return the synthesis to the business community . |
| | Keywords: Collective knowledge; Theory; Expertise |
| Organizational Dynamics, Issue Importance, and Creativity in Problem Solving |
| | Palmer, Jennifer L. | U. of Tennessee, Knoxville | jlpalmer@utk.edu | (423)-690-8794 |
| | Shaver, Kelly G. | College of William and Mary | kgshaver@ibm.net | 757-221-3885 |
| | Organizations have long recognized the value of cultivating employee creativity. This value has found expression in a variety of creativity training programs, assuming that an individual's inherent creative potential can be enhanced through training. On the other hand, the idea that individual creativity can be affected by situational influences has suggested to some that organizational constraints, disinterest, and overemphasis on the status quo can reduce the level of novel and appropriate solutions offered.
The present role-playing study tested the hypothesis that organizational dynamics and issue importance would affect the level of creativity. Organizational climate was operationalized through differences in (a) prior history of a company's support for innovation, (b) the expressed level of confidence in the particular employee, and (c) a clear willingness among top management to entertain new and even radical proposals designed to solve the organizational problem. Issue importance was varied through the degree of threat the problem posed to the future of the company.
Fifty-eight undergraduates read detailed scenarios that described the organizational problem, the level of importance of a solution, and the employee's (subject's) perceptions of the situation. Participants were then asked to generate ideas that could lead to a solution. Responses were scored for novelty and usefulness by two independent raters. Solutions were also evaluated for their distinctiveness. Analyses of variance on the resulting creativity scores revealed significant differences based on organizational climate, as well as an interaction between climate and problem importance.
|
| | Keywords: creativity; cognition |
| Knowledge Conceptualisation as a Determinant of Organisational Unlearning Goals: An Empirical Study |
| | Andrews, Kate M. | Queensland U. of Technology | kandrews@ozemail.com.au | + 61 7 3356 1112 |
| | Delahaye, Brian L. | Queensland U. of Technology | b.delahaye@qut.edu.au | + 61 7 3864 3738 |
| |
This paper reports a segment of our case study research investigating organisational learning and organisational knowledge in a medical research and development organisation. The current study focuses on how knowledge is conceptualised in an organisational setting, and how organisational unlearning occurs.
The critical factor which emerged was the interrelatedness of two research areas : Theories of Knowledge, and Models of Unlearning. In the present study, the characteristics ascribed to knowledge surfaced as a determinant of how unlearning goals were themselves conceptualised. Unlearning therefore was not analysable separately from knowledge conceptualisations, because how scientists thought about unlearning was tightly interwoven with the way they thought about knowledge itself. Scientists conceptualised knowledge as partial, tentative, subjectively interpreted and dynamic; and consistent with these characteristics, usefulness of knowledge was seen as extremely context-sensitive. Flowing from this, scientists rejected a model which defined unlearning as permanently discarding knowledge. Instead, they thought of unlearning as preserving access to not-presently-useful knowledge by moving it to one side, because it may be useful immediately to someone else, or in some other way in the future.
The interrelatedness of characteristics ascribed to knowledge and organisational processes suggests that corporate conceptualisations of knowledge are worthy of study. Building adequate models of organisational processes may depend on understanding the way people in organisations think about knowledge.
|
| | Keywords: Theories of Knowledge; Unlearning; Corporate Epistemology |