Flexible approach
An approach
emphasising fluidity,
adjustment, lack of
prescribed rule





Modernist approach
An approach
emphasising
standardisation and
rationalisation







Scientific rationality
The understanding of
science, or knowledge,
as bound by standards
of reason presumed to
be universally
acceptable





Disciplinary society
Practices of/in a social
location where
corrective action is
used to obtain and
enforce obedience and
order






Socially constructed
meanings
The meanings that
people use to navigate
social life are
constructed in social
processes. As a result,
they are socially and
historically specific,
rather than either
natural or universal







Governance
Governance concerns
the action or manner
of governing, the
exercising of authority,
or of being governed






Micro and macro
Social scientists often
distinguish between
different levels of social
life: micro – the smallest
scale, often meaning
particular interactions
between people; meso –
an intermediate level
referring to social
organisations or
institutions, or patterns
of behaviour; and
macro – the large-scale
patterns, systems or
structures of social life.







Norms
Shared sets of values or
expectations about how
people will or should
behave

Social science- social order

To understand the making of social order it is important to retain the
idea that human behaviour, like the material components of the world,
has not always been as it is now, nor will it carry on being the same.
Paradoxically, social change is intrinsic to the process of making social
order: social order is constantly having to be remade, even as it
provides the rules, norms and expectations that enable people to go
about their daily life

know how and know that....

Loasby (1991) who distinguishes between the firm’s internal and external organization by differentiating between ‘knowledge how’ (knowing how to do things for yourself) and ‘knowledge that’ (knowing how to get things done for you).

B203 Block 7 session 90 glossary..

price mechanisms

Exchange based on monetary evaluation

routines

Recurrent patterns of functional interaction

Kim et al....

Kim et al. suggest a range of methods: people-based, information-based, formalisation-based and centralisation-based.

Balanced scorecard example from bank...

If we have the right staff and they are well trained and motivated [innovation and learning perspective] and we are doing the right things efficiently [operational perspective] then customers will be delighted and customer loyalty will improve [customer perspective] hence we will keep/get more business [financial perspective].

The balanced scorecard site....

http://www.balancedscorecard.org/BSCResources/AbouttheBalancedScorecard/tabid/55/Default.aspx

Knowledge sharing...

So, if you want to understand an individual’s capacity for sharing knowledge, this is not just related to the type of knowledge they possess, but also related to the community in which that know-how was shaped.

B203 Block 7 session 89 glossary..

boundary objects

Objects (e.g., documents, symbols and other artefacts) which are used to transfer meaning across community boundaries.

legitimate peripheral participants

Novice or apprentice membership within an established community of practice

management fiat

An order or instruction given by a manager

spatial geography

Physical location in geographical space

typology

The study and classification of types

Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture...

Individualism/collectivism. Highly collective societies value cohesion. Societies and organisations where you are expected to look after your own interests score highly on individualism. With the increase in consumerism, some people argue that United Kingdom society, for example, has become more individualistic (Bauman, 2000). While this may be good from a market development point of view, others claim that this makes it more difficult to sustain enduring communities of practice (Roberts, 2006). Relating these distinctions to a business context, Joanne Roberts suggests that:

Communities of practice may be better suited to a harmonious and trusting organisational environment in which workers are given a high degree of autonomy.

(Roberts, 2006, p. 629)

Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture are: power distance, individualism/ collectivism, masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance and Confucian/ dynamism.


n Confucianism, human beings are teachable, improvable and perfectible through personal and communal endeavour especially including self-cultivation and self-creation. A main idea of Confucianism is the cultivation of virtue and the development of moral perfection. Confucianism holds that one should give up one's life, if necessary, either passively or actively, for the sake of upholding the cardinal moral values of ren and yi.^[2]




Dynamism, a term used by Virginia Postrel to describe her social philosophy that embraces cultural change, individual choice, and the open society

Power distance...

Power distance. This aspect characterises the extent to which national members accept an inequitable distribution of power across society. In low power distance cultures, members attempt to minimise inequalities. In high power distance cultures, power differences, like organisational hierarchies, are accepted.

Sources of power...

Table 6.2: Handy’s five sources of power

Sources of power	Definition
Physical power	the power of superior force
Resource (or Reward)	power control and possession of valued resources
Position power	the result of organisational role or position
Personal power	the power of charisma, personality
Expert power	vested in someone because of their expertise

Newcomer trying to make changes..

Pressure from internal sources, such as business directors, may limit the extent to which legitimate peripheral participants are able to influence the practices of communities (Roberts, 2006). You may well have personal experience of this already if, as a newcomer, you have ever tried to change something within an established community. In Charles Handy’s terms, legitimate peripheral participants and full participants possess different levels of positional, expert and maybe social connection power. The concept of power is discussed in Block 1.

Relevant learning information...on how to learn effectively...

In reaching this point, the concept has travelled a fair distance from its early days and bridged some remarkable chasms (Lave and Wenger 1990) … After all, the theory first developed as a theory of learning at the Institute for Research on Learning in Palo Alto [California]. It escaped seminars and personal presentations in a report written by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger published by the Institute in 1990. … Lave in her prior work and Lave and Wenger in ‘Situated Learning’ argued … that learning was not the process of replicating what others think – where what is to be learned and whether it has been learned are judged from the perspective of those ‘others’. Rather, it involved deploying through practice the resources – cognitive, material, social – available to you to participate in society, a process which, Lave and Wenger argued, was inseparable from the development of a social identity through legitimateperipheral participation in particular social forms.

To understand learning from this perspective, attention needed to shift, Lave and Wenger showed … to engagement in practice. Taking into account the learner’s perspective … is not an easy shift to make, particularly in the academy, where teaching is so important and its success judged by intellectual clones. It is also a hard shift for other kinds of formal organization, where learning is assumed to be manifest in the ability to follow rules … If, however, learning is replaced by the idea of engagement in social practice … then communities of practice represent the social loci of that engagement and, as is too often overlooked in discussions of Lave and Wenger’s work (my own included), the site of a continuous power struggle over ‘continuity and displacement’.

(Duguid, 2008, pp. 2–3)

Doing assignments....

To do assignments quickly always answer activities as an adapted question aimed at your organization of choice for your assignment, then you can collect your answers together, neaten them up and send assignment, saving shit loads of time.

Business quotes...

"The best way to kill creativity in a team is letting the boss speak first"

-- Victoria Holtz "The ability to innovate is only as good as how one can accept changes and take risks." -- Franco Paolo Liu Eisma "Managing and innovation did not always fit comfortably together. That's not surprising. Managers are people who like order. They like forecasts to come out as planned. In fact, managers are often judged on how much order they produce. Innovation, on the other hand, is often a disorderly process. Many times, perhaps most times, innovation does not turn out as planned. As a result, there is tension between managers and innovation." -- Lewis Lehro, about the first years at 3M "A focus on cost-cutting and efficiency has helped many organizations weather the downturn, but this approach will ultimately render them obsolete. Only the constant pursuit of innovation can ensure long-term success." -- Daniel Muzyka, Sauder School of Business, Univ. of British Columbia "Beware of the tyranny of making small changes to small things. Rather, make big changes to big things." -- Roger Enrico, former chairman, Pepsico "The most successful people are those who are good at Plan B." -- James Yorke, mathematician "Never innovate to compete, innovate to change the rules of the game." -- David O. Adeife "Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible." -- Frank L. Gaines "If you can dream it, you can do it." -- Walt Disney