Ole Hanseth, Informatik, Oslo Universitet: Kunskap som infrastruktur

The presentation will explore the infrastructural character of knowledge in large distributed (”global”) organizations. This implies a focus on learning and change processes with knowledge at the center and technology more peripheral. Seeing knowledge as infrastructure implies that it (i.e. knowledge) is seen as shared by the members of larger communities, that different pieces of knowledge are interdependent and linked together into large standardized networks. Further, knowledge is embodied by humans and it is embedded into work practices and technologies and other material and immaterial structures. This view on knowledge implies that it is undergoing similar processes as other standardized infrastructures. The value of a piece of knowledge increases as the body of knowledge it may be combined with grows, and a body of knowledge tends to grow along path-dependent processes (where only new pieces of knowledge compatible with what exists can be “included”) often leading to lock-ins. This view on knowledge is in contrast to the more common one, seeing knowledge as basically cognitive elements which are independent of each other and accordingly any element may be added to the exiting ones. On the other hand, this “infrastructural” view on knowledge is quite close to Thomas Kuhn’s definition of scientific paradigms. This perspective on knowledge is then relevant to study what we can call paradigm changes in organizations like transforming an existing organization to the “new” global and networked “economy.” Joan Fujimura has analysed an example of such a paradigm change using terms and concepts close to those mentioned here: the transformation of cancer research from virology to genetics. (Key concepts in here narrative are “standardized packages” and “bandwagon effects.”)

In the case of large IT networks, a new version of a standard (which is incompatible with the existing one) has no value for an individual user as long as the “other” users have not adopted it. Accordingly, everybody wait for the others and they are all trapped in a lock-in situation. The same may be the case for new organizational paradigms. One piece of knowledge has value only within its paradigm. To work according to a new paradigm we need vast amounts of knowledge, new working practices where everybody know what to do and how, tools, and organizational and managerial structures supporting this. Large parts of the knowledge needed must be generated in form of experience gained working within the paradigm. But as long as we work within one paradigm, we are not able to build up knowledge related to another. Accordingly, some organizations will be in a lock-in situation with regards to their knowledge about running their business, and they will not be able to obtain the knowledge needed to change to another one. And just as in the case of large scale IT networks, the most efficient way of changing paradigm is to design a transition process where backward compatibility is maintained to a large extent for each single step.

These hypotheses will be explored in two areas. The first is software organizations changing form the development of (more or less) isolated systems by project teams located at the same (or just a few) sites to the development of software for large (global) infrastructures by a community of developers distributed globally. The second case is the transformation of a telecom operator from a national monopoly organizations (and a public agency) into one running a “global” mobile phone service “organization” in an extremely competitive and unpredictable environment.

Välkommna!
John Cumberbatch