Summary New Ways of Working
Week 1 – Perspectives on digital transformation of work
Three approaches on the relationship between technology and organizations
1) Technological Determinism
➔ Technology is a neutral, exogenous force, exerts unidirectional, causal influences over
humans and organisations, similar to those operating in nature.
➔ Technology is an object that can exert influence on organisational outcomes, e.g. increasing
productivity, expanding collaboration, or lead to decentralisation or increase of managerial
authority.
2) Strategic choice
➔ Managers make choices about which technologies they will adopt through strategic
alignment of the technology with the organization.
➔ It is this choice that will determine the outcome, not the technology itself.
➔ Assumption is that managers rather than users are the key actors in shaping technology to a
particular organizational or economic end.
3) Enacted View
➔ Ongoing sociotechnical production: technology is the centre stage.
➔ It is as a result of our situated actions (practices) that the outcomes emerge.
➔ By actions we imply not only individual behaviour (and responsibility), but also collective
work practices.
↳ Three implications:
1) Technology is social, dynamic and multiple: Technology consists of multiple
components and is a product and a medium of human action, which is reshaped
over time and thus never fully stabilized.
2) Technology must be used to have effect: espoused technology vs. technology-
in-use.
3) Use of technology has unintended consequences: Longer-term nature (ripple
effects), not anticipated at the start. Change patterns of social action, not only
individuals (we are enacting a “collective system”). Change in norms,
expectations, shared new ideals. Separate from the intentions during design,
use, and immediate context.
, Week 2 – Knowledge and organization
Knowledge = The ability to discriminate and so draw meaning in a particular context, based on some
understanding derived from theory or past experience in interaction with a collection of other actors
(other people and objects like the stethoscope).
Knowledge management (KM) = Approach striving to generate value by improving the ways in which
they create, capture/store, distribute/transfer and effectively use/apply knowledge, because
knowledge is fundamental to both improving efficiency and innovating, the two basic processes that
enable organizations to compete.
Knowledge work = The making of decisions based on discriminations whether founded on
knowledge possessed by an individual, emergence from ongoing practices, the wisdom of the crowd
or the connections observed in a data-set.
↳ More than what’s in the brain;
↳ More than what can be formalized;
↳ Not neutral and can be used politically.
Tacit Knowledge = Knowledge that is impossible or certainly hard to write down and, even if written
down, does not express the knowledge adequately.
Explicit Knowledge = That which can be written down or articulated in language or some other
symbolic form.
Different Approaches for managing knowledge
Week 1 – Perspectives on digital transformation of work
Three approaches on the relationship between technology and organizations
1) Technological Determinism
➔ Technology is a neutral, exogenous force, exerts unidirectional, causal influences over
humans and organisations, similar to those operating in nature.
➔ Technology is an object that can exert influence on organisational outcomes, e.g. increasing
productivity, expanding collaboration, or lead to decentralisation or increase of managerial
authority.
2) Strategic choice
➔ Managers make choices about which technologies they will adopt through strategic
alignment of the technology with the organization.
➔ It is this choice that will determine the outcome, not the technology itself.
➔ Assumption is that managers rather than users are the key actors in shaping technology to a
particular organizational or economic end.
3) Enacted View
➔ Ongoing sociotechnical production: technology is the centre stage.
➔ It is as a result of our situated actions (practices) that the outcomes emerge.
➔ By actions we imply not only individual behaviour (and responsibility), but also collective
work practices.
↳ Three implications:
1) Technology is social, dynamic and multiple: Technology consists of multiple
components and is a product and a medium of human action, which is reshaped
over time and thus never fully stabilized.
2) Technology must be used to have effect: espoused technology vs. technology-
in-use.
3) Use of technology has unintended consequences: Longer-term nature (ripple
effects), not anticipated at the start. Change patterns of social action, not only
individuals (we are enacting a “collective system”). Change in norms,
expectations, shared new ideals. Separate from the intentions during design,
use, and immediate context.
, Week 2 – Knowledge and organization
Knowledge = The ability to discriminate and so draw meaning in a particular context, based on some
understanding derived from theory or past experience in interaction with a collection of other actors
(other people and objects like the stethoscope).
Knowledge management (KM) = Approach striving to generate value by improving the ways in which
they create, capture/store, distribute/transfer and effectively use/apply knowledge, because
knowledge is fundamental to both improving efficiency and innovating, the two basic processes that
enable organizations to compete.
Knowledge work = The making of decisions based on discriminations whether founded on
knowledge possessed by an individual, emergence from ongoing practices, the wisdom of the crowd
or the connections observed in a data-set.
↳ More than what’s in the brain;
↳ More than what can be formalized;
↳ Not neutral and can be used politically.
Tacit Knowledge = Knowledge that is impossible or certainly hard to write down and, even if written
down, does not express the knowledge adequately.
Explicit Knowledge = That which can be written down or articulated in language or some other
symbolic form.
Different Approaches for managing knowledge
