This paper reports fieldwork from the electrical utilities industry, examining the suitability of current knowledge management perspectives to the day-to-day work of mobile staff. Reporting the results of the empirical study, we make a distinction between four aspects of local and mobile "knowledge management" as it took place in the mobile work setting: sharing, i.e., several parties exchange knowledge; indexing, i.e., one party explains to another what knowledge to retrieve; diagnosing, i.e., two parties make sense of how to interpret a situation, and; foreseeing, i.e., one party (or more) uses knowledge to project the future. We compare and contrast the empirical findings with current knowledge management perspectives, and outline an initial sketch of a framework for "practical knowledge management."

Research on judgment and choice has been dominated by functionalist assumptions that depict people as either intuitive scientists animated by epistemic goals or intuitive economists animated by utilitarian ones. This article identifies 3 alternative social functionalist starting points for inquiry: people as pragmatic politicians trying to cope with accountability demands from key constituencies in their lives, principled theologians trying to protect sacred values from secular encroachments, and prudent prosecutors trying to enforce social norms. Each functionalist framework stimulates middle-range theories that specify (a) cognitive–affective–behavioral strategies of coping with adaptive challenges and (b) the implications of these coping strategies for identifying empirical and normative boundary conditions on judgmental tendencies classified as errors or biases within the dominant research programs. Once an esoteric specialty of a small cadre of cognitive psychologists, experimental research on judgment and choice has—to judge just by citation counts—become psychology’s leading intellectual export to the social sciences as well as to a host of applied fields. The influence of this research program has spread (critics might say “metastasized”) into such diverse domains as

The work reported in this thesis is motivated by the belief that knowledge-based systems (KBS) research needs to focus more on users ’ needs and cater for the various decision situations in which users will find themselves. To build individual systems that cater for all the activities that may be needed is not feasible or desirable. The problems associated with capturing knowledge are well known and the ability to capture knowledge once and access and manipulate the knowledge in multiple ways is highly desirable. It adds value to the original knowledge and offers all the benefits associated with the reuse of resources. Thus, the problem becomes one of knowledge reuse. The research question pursued in this thesis is “can knowledge captured for one purpose, such as consultation, be reused to support a wide range of alternative purposes, such as critquing or tutoring, allowing the user to answer different types of questions according to their current circumstances”? Further, this question was to be answered in a situated cognition, dynamic knowledge framework. The system developed in this thesis is based on the Multiple Classification Ripple Down Rule (MCRDR) knowledge acquisition and representation technique. MCRDR is a form of casedbased

For the current youth generation, the Internet has always existed. Online technologies have profoundly contributed to a dramatic techocultural shift in contemporary society, transforming how we learn, work, play, and socialize. Information from multiple sources on everything from Athabascan birch bark baskets to the calculation of z-scores is there for the googling. Global social networks – made visible, designable, and searchable via services such as “Friendster ”

Abstract: In this manuscript we describe our “empowerment design ” work. Instead of simply building an artifact to help an individual accomplish a particular task, the focus of empowerment design work is to develop socio-technical structures that empower individuals and societies more generally. Essentially, empowerment design is designing with heart. It is a complex work that involves bringing together multiple and even opposing agendas, acknowledging different voices, and even working through unintended consequences and confusing struggles that have no one clear answer. Here, we describe an empowerment design initiative that overtly attempts to transform a culture and empower those it serves by way of a technology-rich educational innovation called Quest Atlantis. While the project is currently situated in various informal and formal learning environments, much of the data in this account is focused on our collaboration with a local Boys and Girls Club that serves disadvantaged children. However, empowerment design requires going beyond the initial site of innovation, and therefore we also bring in data based on our work with teachers and additional sites so as to communicate the complete cycle of empowerment design.

Abstract. This paper presents preliminary results from a narrativeethnographic field study of a small mobile software development company. Initial ethnographic findings are presented, and further narrative analysis is proposed in the areas of stories relating to programmer stereotyping, war stories, and humour. It is expected that the study will form the first case-study for a broader comparative investigation into how stories are used and told across software development methodologies.

The reorganization of the local material order, brought about by economic development efforts in the so-called developing world, is, to a large extent, dependent on how efficient these efforts are in reorganizing the symbolic order. In this transformational process, the creation of new institutions and with them new institutionalized rituals, is a widely employed resource. This research uses sociosemiotic theories to study the transformations of meanings that characterize these moments of social change. I describe, through three case analyses, the major elements of the microphysics of the meaning transformations that take place during institutionalized rituals. On the theoretical side, this research had the purpose of showing how a body of theory, that became known as metapragmatics, can be fruitfully applied to domains broader than verbal communication- in this case the analysis of the key role of institutionalized rituals as arenas in which semiotic transformations enable political change to take place. This research focuses on how economic development efforts bring with them new ways of conceptualizing and making use of the environment. This is particularly relevant in areas in which the climate is seen as a main constraint for development, as in semi-arid

Education in the United States is becoming increasingly standardized, with the standards being initiated at the national level and then trickling down to the state level and finally the local level. Yet, this top-down approach to educational standards carries with it significant limitations, such as loss of local autonomy and restrictions on the creativity of educational software designers. This paper reports findings from a study of the design and use of frog dissection simulations used in middle school and high school biology classes. The paper builds on the existing literatures on science and technology standards in education, using interviews, participant observation, and content analysis guided by grounded theory. The results highlight the ways that top-down educational standards constrain science teachers and software designers. The discussion presents an alternative to the topdown regime of educational standards, namely, a bottom-up approach of standardization from below. Finally, the conclusion argues that local control of educational experiences in the form of standardization from below can improve upon the traditional regime of top-down standards.

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In this paper, we discuss what appears to be one critical variable in successful organizational transformation: the ego development stage of the CEO and his or her senior advisers. In ten longitudinal organizational development efforts, the five CEOs measuring at the late Strategist/Leader stage of development supported 15 progressive organizational transformations. By contrast, the five CEOs measuring at pre-Strategist stages of development supported a total of 0 progressive organizational transformations (no change in two organizations; a three stage regression in one organization; and three stages of progressive development in two organizations). The progressively transforming organizations became industry leaders on a number of business indexes. The three organizations that did not progress developmentally lost personnel, industry standing, and money as well. (Since the publication of this article, another major study of ego development has been conducted and reported by