Professor Lorna Uden 2009

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Activity theory for knowledge Management

Professor Lorna Uden

.Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Technology, Staffordshire University,

Beaconside, Stafford, ST18 OAD. UK. Email: l.uden@staffs.ac.uk

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Talk

• Introduction

• Problems with current knowledge management

• Proposed ideas – Activity theory– Distributed knowledge system (DKS)

• Conclusion

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Knowledge Management• Knowledge is a key resource in organisations.• Knowledge is defined as dynamic human process of

justifying personal belief towards the truth.• Knowledge management is the process of creating,

codifying and disseminating knowledge for wide range of knowledge intensive tasks. (Harris et al 1998).

• Knowledge Management Systems (KMSs) are tools to effect the management of knowledge and are manifested in a variety of implementations including:– Repositories, expertise databases, discussion lists and

context-specific retrieval systems incorporating collaborative filtering technologies.

(Davenport et al 1998)

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Limitations of current approaches to knowledge management

• Current knowledge management approach

• Related to the capacity of ICT to store, manipulate and distribute large quantities of information in real time for competitive advantages.

• Most managers see KM as knowledge repositories that collect and store knowledge in the same way as databases manage data.

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• Traditional KM systems are often deserted by users (Bonifacio and others (2002)

• Problem is not technical, but inadequate epistemological model that is in contradiction with the deep nature of knowledge.

• Traditional KM systems embody an objectivist view of knowledge independent of all subjective and contextual elements that are typical of raw knowledge.

• Knowledge is not a simple picture of the world, it always presupposes some degree of interpretation.

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Effective KMS must build on a genuine representation of real, distributed work and business that can be implemented in ICT without loss of context.

• Inadequate epistemological model that is in contradiction with the deep nature of knowledge.

• Objectivist view of knowledge

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The origins of activity theory

• Cultural-historical tradition & the Vygotskian school of psychology

• The philosophical tradition which includes Kant, Hegel, Marx & Ilyenkov

• The concept of activity in Russian psychology

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Activity Theory• Is an evolving theoretical framework which is

used to inform the analysis and implementation of systems that are used in the workplace.

• Originated within Soviet psychology, but today there is an emerging multidisciplinary and international community of scientific thought united by the central category of activity - a community researching far beyond the original background.

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• Activity theory is a philosophical and cross-disciplinary framework for studying different forms of human practices as developmental processes, with both individual and social levels interlinked at the same time” (Kuutti, in Nardi, 1996, page 25).

• A minimal meaningful context for individual actors called an activity must be included in the basic unit of analysis.

• Activity is driven by various needs in which people want to achieve a certain purpose (or goal).

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The Structure of an Activity• Activity is a form of doing directed to an

object and activities are distinguished from each other according to their objects.

• An individual can participate in several activities at the same time.

• An activity has an object and activities can be distinguished according to their objects.

• Transforming the object into an outcome motivates the existence of an activity.– an object can be a material thing, less tangible things

(plan) or totally intangible (a common idea) as long as it can be shared for manipulation and transformation by the participants of the activity.

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• It is possible that the object and motive themselves will undergo changes during the process of an activity; the object and motive will reveal themselves only in the process of doing.

• An activity is a collective phenomena.

• An activity has a subject (actor) who understands the motive of the activity.

• An activity exists in a material environment and transforms it.

• An activity is a historically developing phenomena.

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• Contradictions are the force behind the development of an activity.

• An activity is realised through conscious and purposeful actions by participants.

• The relationships within an activity are culturally mediated.

• Kuuti (1996), inspired by Engeström (1987), represents the structure of an activity in the following diagrams* where the relationships are mediated by artifacts:

[Kuuti, K. (1996). Activity Theory as a Potential Framework for HCI Research. In ‘Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human-Computer Interaction.’ B.A. Nardi (ed). pp 17-44. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA]

[Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by Expanding. Orieta-Konsultit, Helsinki]

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Mediated relationship at the individual level.

Tools

Subject Object Outcome

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Tools

Rules Community

Subject OutcomeObject

Division of

Labour

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Levels of an activity• Objects are transformed into outcomes through a

process that typically consists of several steps or phases. Activities consist of actions or chains of actions, which in turn consist of operations.

Activity - Motive

Action - Goal

Operation - Conditions

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• There is construction and renegotiation within the activity system.– coordination between different versions of the object

must be achieved to ensure continuous operation.– tasks are reassigned and redirected , rules are bent and

reinterpreted.• There is incessant movement between nodes of the

activity – what initially appears as object may soon be

transformed into an outcome, then turned into an instrument, and perhaps later into a rule. e.g. an unusual medical case first appears as a problem, is transformed into a successful diagnosis and treatment, the account of which is used instrumentally as a prototype or model for other similar cases, and is gradually sedimented and petrified into a rule requiring certain procedures in all cases that fit the category

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Contradictions

• Contradictions manifest themselves as problems, breakdowns, clashes.

• Activity theory sees contradictions as sources of development, activities are virtually always in the process of working through contradiction.

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Why activity theory?• Activity theory is deeply contextual and oriented at

understanding historically-specific local practices, their objects, mediating artefacts and social organisation (Cole & Engeström 1993).

• Activity theory is based on a dialectical theory of knowledge and thinking, focused on the creative potential in human cognition.

• Activity theory is a developmental theory that seeks to explain and influence qualitative changes in human practices over time.

(Hasan 1999; McMichael 1999; Kuutti 1999).

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• Activity theory provides a comprehensive unit of analysis.

• The use of mediating instruments. This mediating instrument makes it possible for an instrument to mediate and change a supporting activity as subjects’ invent their activities context.

• Activity theory helps to maintain adequately the relationship between the individual and social levels in the objects to be studied, especially in situations where there is a need to grasp emergent features in individual and social transformation.

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• Activity theory, by its nature, is multidisciplinary.

• Activity theory enables the study and mastering of developmental processes.

• Activity theory is interventionist in its methodological approach.

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Implications of AT for KM

• The hierarchy of activity structures

• Activity should be the unit of analysis in the study of KMS. This is a conceptual level about the KM Design

• Internalisation and Externalisation

• Knowledge sharing

• History

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Activity Theory Methodology• Activity theory does not offer ready-made

technologies and procedures for research (Engeström 1993)

• Engeström (1990) recommends three methodological principles for activity theory.

• A collective activity system is taken as the unit of analysis, giving context and meaning to seemingly random individual events.

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• Historically analyse the activity and its constituent components and actions.

• Inner contradictions of the activity systems shall be analysed as the source of disruption, innovation, change and development of that system.

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A Distributed ApproachDistributed Knowledge Management (DKM)• Knowledge is considered local, deriving from

continuous negotiation within organisational units. (Wenger 1998).

• Is managing the processes of creating local knowledge within autonomous groups and exchanging knowledge across them (Bonifacio, Bouquet & Traverso 2002).

• A distributed knowledge management architecture, of an organisation is viewed as a constellation of knowledge nodes (KNs) that are autonomous, locally managed knowledge sources, which represent organisational and social units at a technical level (Bonifacio, Bouquet & Cuel 2002).

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Problems of applying Activity Theory to Knowledge

Management• The researcher involved in it must have a complete

understanding of the activity system under observation, including the dynamic interplay of all the units of the activity system (McMichael 1999).

• Researchers must understand and account for all history, actions, rules, tools, and divisions of labour that at play in the activity systems and these obviously cannot be assumed to exist in all activity systems.

• The difficulty faced by researchers in unravelling activity systems.

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• The difficulty of distinguishing between the levels of activity, actions and operations.

• The research time frame must be long enough to understand user’s objects, including where appropriate, changes in objects over time and their relation to the objects of others in the setting being studied.

• Some activities cannot directly result in the desired outcome, only indirectly. This would mean that there should be multiple data collection methods to achieve a convincing research result.

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Conclusion• For effective KMS, it is necessary to understand the

interrelationship of cultural, technical and organisational elements.

• Activity theory principles are ideal for making visible the structure and dynamics of work situations, especially with respect to contradictions.

• Contradictions provide a systematic way of modelling and reasoning about breakdowns and opportunities for KM design. The strength of the activity theoretical perspective is the recognition that work systems are inherently dynamic.

• More research is needed.