INTEGRATING CONSTRUCTIONIST AND MANAGERIAL PERSPECTIVES: ORGANIZATIONAL INTERACTIONAL EXPERTISE IN A KNOWLEDGE BASED COMPANY by Julie Ann Williamson B.B.A., James Madison University, 1990 M.B.A., University of Denver, 1993 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Communication 2011 This thesis entitled: Integrating Constructionist and Managerial Perspectives: Organizational Interactional Expertise in a Knowledge Based Company has been approved for the Department of Communication Michele H. Jackson Tim Kuhn Matt Koschmann Pamela Shockley-Zalabak Karen Tracy Date The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we Find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards Of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. IRB protocol # 11-0015 iii Williamson, Julie (Ph.D., Communication) Integrating Constructionist and Managerial Perspectives: Organizational Interactional Expertise in a Knowledge Based Company Thesis directed by Michele H. Jackson The paradigm in business of tacit and explicit forms of knowledge and movement between these two forms leaves a gap in our understanding of the practices of knowledge as active and emergent rather than static. Work practices and related knowledge accomplishing activities that evidence organizational interactional expertise provide a way of seeing emergent, socially embedded knowledge enacted as expertise as an asset within a business world where the static construct of “knowledge” as an explicit, tangible object is privileged. The practices and related knowledge accomplishing activities identified in this study provide a way of seeing knowledge in action—the ways in which knowledge is continually constructed and reconstructed as related to interactional expertise in problem and solution definition—jointly developed between consultants and clients. This is a qualitative study based in participant observation, interviews, and document review to build accounts of knowledge accomplishing activities within a site where establishing expertise is important. These data sets provide a view of organizational interactional expertise as knowledge in action. The site for this research is a multi-national mid-sized private management iv consulting company. Three practices related to the development of organizational interactional expertise are established, together with seven related knowledge accomplishing activities. This research establishes a basis for shifting the focus of organizational knowledge from an object to an action orientation in business. At the same time it extends theoretical work in the connections between knowledge and expertise, and the construction of knowledge through communication. It suggests ways of integrating constructionist theory into managerial-business approaches to organizational knowledge. Organizational interactional expertise is the basis of the action oriented focus and the practices identified, and the object-oriented knowledge asset focus of management today is considered as a component of the identified practices and activities. v CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 Introducing Interactional Expertise ............................................................................................. 4 Research Questions ..................................................................................................................... 6 Purpose Statement and Contributions ......................................................................................... 8 Theoretical Contribution .......................................................................................................... 9 Practical Contributions .......................................................................................................... 11 Summary ................................................................................................................................... 13 CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ....................................................................... 15 Organizational Knowledge in Business .................................................................................... 15 The Introduction of Organizational Interactional Expertise ..................................................... 17 The Managerial Perspective ...................................................................................................... 22 Knowledge Activation............................................................................................................... 25 Organizational Knowledge Transfer ......................................................................................... 27 The Systemization of Knowledge ............................................................................................. 28 Systems and Expertise ............................................................................................................... 36 Work Practices as Informative .................................................................................................. 38 In Summary ............................................................................................................................... 39 CHAPTER 3 METHODS, SITE, AND DATA ............................................................................ 43 Methods and Data Overview ..................................................................................................... 48 Participant Observer Considerations ..................................................................................... 50 Narrative Interview Considerations ....................................................................................... 52 Document Review Considerations ........................................................................................ 54 Informed Observer Discussions............................................................................................. 55 Site Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 55 Research Site Access ............................................................................................................. 58 Participants and Data Protection ............................................................................................... 59 Limitations of the Methods and the Data .................................................................................. 60 CHAPTER 4 DATA SUMMARY................................................................................................ 62 Data Collection – Overview ...................................................................................................... 63 General Data Collection Processes ........................................................................................... 63 vi Data Summary ........................................................................................................................... 64 Data Variety .............................................................................................................................. 67 General Data Observations........................................................................................................ 68 Credentialing ......................................................................................................................... 68 Deconstructing Expertise ....................................................................................................... 71 Debates over “Generalist” versus “Specialist” and POCs ..................................................... 72 Client Requests ...................................................................................................................... 73 Data Coding............................................................................................................................... 75 Initial Data Pass ......................................................................................................................... 75 Coding 1 – Signifiers and Discursive Moves ............................................................................ 76 Coding 2 – Constructing Episodes ............................................................................................ 78 Episodes in the Environment ................................................................................................. 80 Coding for Episodes .............................................................................................................. 82 Episodes Constructed ............................................................................................................ 83 Coding 3 – Practices, Knowledge Accomplishing Activities, .................................................. 87 and Organizational Interactive Expertise .................................................................................. 87 Coding for Knowledge Accomplishing Activities ................................................................ 88 Overall Data Assessment .......................................................................................................... 91 CHAPTER 5 ANALYSIS ...........................................................................................................