Discussion: 4.1Theory vs. Practice: Does Theoretical Knowledge Always Work Out? 4.2 Discussion: The Importance of Systems Methodology to Your Job

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PART V METHODOLOGY OF COMPLEMENTARITY

Arbnor, I., & Bjerke, B. (2008). Methodology for creating business knowledge. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from indwes on 2021-03-22 16:01:24.

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13 THE VIEWS AS TRANSFORMATIVEOPERATORS

This chapter is the first of three chapters that conclude this book. One part of our methodological grammar remains. This final part will make our methodology more extensive at the same time as it will make it more advanced. We call this a methodology of complementarity, and it is about how we can, as creators of knowledge, reconcile those methodological views presented previously in this book. This chapter presents this methodology of complementarity and in doing so also introduces some central concepts in this type of knowledge-creating work.

AN INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY

In the twelve chapters so far, we have tried in different ways to illustrate the basis of what might be included in a methodology for creating business knowledge. Some more important subjects of our methodological grammar remain to be discussed. Before treating these subjects, we briefly recapitulate what has been said so far in order to provide a natural transition to the book’s conclusion. This is because the three chapters that constitute the finish of this methodology for creating business knowledge also, in a way, make the beginning of a more personal, conscious application of what has been said so far. Here we present the prerequisites that give creators of knowledge plenty of opportunities to develop our methodological grammar as well as their own activities of knowledge creation, all within the framework of what we have chosen to call a methodology of complementarity (Part V).

Chapter 1 laid the foundation of our language of methodology with a description of our attitude towards research methodology. We claimed, among other things, that conscious development of knowledge in business is far from “just” collecting data and making statements. To be aware of, and reflect upon, the theory of science and the content of methodology is an important task for anyone who wants to understand knowledge-creating studies, and what that knowledge is knowledge about. We made a distinction between tools, techniques and methods. We also presented the concept of paradigm and ultimate presumptions. This led to methodological view and our conception of an operative paradigm, which contains the two main tools/processes: methodical procedures and methodics. Methodical procedures refer to how creators of knowledge arrange, develop and/or

modify techniques into methods in the frame of different methodological views. To adapt and possibly modify previous results, theories, or both is also called methodical procedures. How

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creators of knowledge relate and arrange those techniques-made-into-methods logistically in study plans and conduct these planned activities for creating knowledge is called methodics.

Box 13.1

Methodology in Theory and Practice

When we are talking about methodical procedures and methodics in theory we call the methodological point of departure “view”. When we are applying this view in practice, with its procedures and methodics, we denote it, as said before, “approach”. Hereby we also have a distinguishing language for evaluation and discussion of knowledge-creating works in terms of methodology in theory and practice.

Methodical procedures and methodics are two very important methodological concepts in the book. Chapter 2 paid attention to the fact that critical thinking is associated with imagination and

perspectives. Such real situations of critical thinking are based on deepened thinking as well as on a creative attitude, this in order to build a serious foundation to the “adventure” that is offered by investigative work in general, and by research in particular. In order to illustrate this, we chose a practical theme of entrepreneurship for the chapter. At the end of Chapter 2, our three methodological views were introduced and briefly illustrated in relation to this theme of entrepreneurship as a study area. In Chapter 3, we discussed the basic conditions for the three methodological views, their

similarities and differences. We compared some of the ultimate presumptions of the views; such dimensions as, conception of reality, prerequisites, ambitions and results were illustrated. We also described how the views are focusing relations in reality and how they differ. As the analytical view chooses to look at these relations as causal, the systems view talks about the relations in terms of finality and the actors view sees them as dialectical. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 presented our three methodological views in greater detail. Their order

of presentation is arbitrary. We chose to consider them in chronological order, but this is in no way meant to be an evaluation of their quality. Please keep in mind that there are no objective and general criteria for choosing among methodological views. There are criteria, but these are valid only within a methodological view. It is, to be sure, not uncommon for proponents of the different views to claim that “ours is best”, but this can only be supported philosophically and speculatively. What we tried to show above all in Chapters 4, 5 and 6 was the meaning of the most important basic concepts, their relation to their paradigms, and the goals and ambitions of the views for creating knowledge. In Chapter 7 we took an additional step toward practical fieldwork. That chapter was

devoted to methodical procedures and a number of different techniques were presented, which by the methodical procedures for the different views can be designed as effective methods for creating knowledge. Presented here were also some techniques that are specific to different methodological views as well, techniques that in several respects characterize these

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different views and their actions in the study area. The different opinions of the views about concepts like validity, reliability and objectivity were clarified by going to the origin of the concepts and matching them with the ultimate presumptions of the views. Chapter 8 provided 3 x 6 different examples of arguments and activities that are part of the

methodical procedures applied in language and action in our three approaches (please remember that methodological views in application are called methodological approaches). By the different examples it was possible to follow how thinking and language was growing depending on which view we started from. Alongside this, illustrations also were provided of how the ultimate presumptions in the different views were expressed in different everyday behaviour and action within the domains of creating knowledge. In Chapter 9 we introduced three different study plans, one for analytical studies, one for

systems studies and one for actors studies. The chapter contained a brief description of the way our approaches look at issues of methodics. We saw methodological similarities, but mainly differences, in how our three views are to be applied in general, that is, are seen as operative paradigms. The design process of operative paradigms can be seen as a skill of harmony between ultimate presumptions of a view and a study area. The harmony is a kind of guarantor that those results that are produced are keeping a high knowledge creating quality. The tools/processes of the operative paradigm for this harmony are methodical procedures and methodics. Chapters 10, 11 and 12 showed 3 × 2 different examples of how

researchers/consultants/investigators have applied the methodological views in various studies, as well as the different techniques and study plans that were discussed in Chapters 7 and 9. The reader could see that methodical procedures and methodics are constructed differently for each of the three methodological approaches. The design of the methodical procedures (discursive arguments, etc.) was to a large extent

given earlier in the analytical approach. This meant, for example, that for the two studies reported in Chapter 10 which discussed the application of the analytical view, we referred to a large part of what the view stipulates. Apart from this, we discussed briefly the extent to which the character of the study areas might influence methodical procedures and methodics. This is a natural consequence of the character of the analytical approach because, as has been made clear, it is based on a model borrowed from the traditional natural sciences where the objects under study are considered to be equal in their essential bases and their nature; so the techniques given earlier are also assumed to be generally valid. Then the main point is, by and large, to choose the right technique in relation to the knowledge problem at hand. In the two other approaches the situation is more or less different. The systems approach is happy to talk about systems boundaries and magnifying levels

(sometimes called external and internal delimitations) and a holistic perspective within the systems framework. A fundamental stage for creators of knowledge is to position themselves in these matters of system environment and magnification. Systems creators of knowledge assume that the factive world consists of complex relations and treat the world as if that were true. They therefore regard all limits as arbitrary but know that they have to be present for practical reasons. There are no generally valid rules given a priori for external and internal limitations of real systems that are being studied. When the choice of the extension and content of study

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objects is made, however, certain rules for designing methodical procedures and methodics are given. These rules are based on a somewhat different conception of reality than in the case of the analytical approach. The actors approach is the least formalistic of the three. It is also the approach that most

points out the importance of shaping and creating methods according to the character of the study area (within the framework of its paradigm). Readers unfamiliar with the actors approach will find that it contains many difficult concepts, such as dialectics, intentionality, externalization, ideal-typified language and constitutional ideals. Because the conception of reality of the actors approach is so different from that of the other two, it is necessary for this approach to use a “special” terminology. Otherwise it would be like trying to perform a Beethoven symphony by beating on a drum. On the whole, the actors approach proceeds in a “flow” that allows the study itself gradually to point out possible roads. Although the knowledge creator is in control, this control is not based on the possibilities and limitations of various techniques for creating knowledge, but on a number of metatheories and what is called the creator of knowledge’s preunderstanding – that is, his/her acquired experiences from the construction and ambiguous meaning of social reality.

What has been described so far in this book has been deliberately given in terms to emphasize exactly what distinguishes each view/approach from the others. This point of departure has several advantages:

There are greater possibilities for showing what is specific to the view/approach in question. The presentation becomes clearer. It is possible to discuss the view/approach on its own premises. The understanding of what the view/approach stands for is increased. The possibility of developing the view/approach further is increased. The possibilities for going deeper into the view/approach, philosophically as well as practically, are improved. If the ambition is to supplement an approach, the constituents will stand out more clearly; this leads to a more conscious result.

There are also disadvantages:

The differences among the views/approaches may sometimes be exaggerated. The way to supplementation or reconciliation may seem more complicated than necessary.

We have seen in Chapters 10, 11 and 12 that there are creators of knowledge who perform investigations by keeping more or less strictly, inner-paradigmatically, to one of the methodological approaches. It is also common in practice, however, to approach what we refer to as “a view as transformative operator in a methodology of complementarity”. This is because it is possible when creating knowledge to let the three methodological views as approaches creatively supplement each other and exceed themselves. In order to see how this

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can be done, what it means, and how we look upon it, we have developed a methodological grammar, which we will return to later in this chapter. First we want to present some notes about the continuation of the book and some of the ongoing polemics among the proponents of the different methodological views, as a complementary criticism that the views level against each other and how they respond. We believe that this provides a further contribution to understanding different methodological positions in business.

The continuation

Four more subjects that are a part of our methodological grammar as a whole remain then to be treated:

1. some of the complementary criticism that the different views have addressed against each other – and still do – at both the paradigmatic and at the operative paradigmatic level

2. our reconciliation of the three views to a methodological principle of complementarity as transformative operations (see Figure 13.2 further on)

3. an illumination of this methodology of modifications and possible creative supplements in practice. We denote these view-operations in application “an approach as transformative operator” in line with our earlier statement: “methodological views in application are called methodological approaches”

4. methodology as the ultimate business-creating tool in a society based on knowledge.

These four subjects are interconnected and are treated in the remaining three chapters of the book. By and large, the first two subjects are the concern of this chapters and the remaining two are the concern of Chapters 14 and 15 (see Figure 13.1 overleaf).

Quality and complementarity

We have clarified in this book that we do not think it is possible to straight off combine our three methodological views, because that would lead to an eclectic maze – a lack of consistency, stringency and credibility when creating knowledge. Unfortunately, there are still too many theses, dissertations, public and consultant investigations, papers, and more in which it seems that the creator of knowledge has taken, depending on the taste of the day, one concept from here, another technique from there, and a further model from over there. Being confronted with reports in which a creator of knowledge attempts to prove statements by using results arrived at through methods based on ultimate presumptions that only a few pages back were criticized and refuted as untenable does not feel good.

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Figure 13.1 An Overview

However, by using our methodological principle of complementarity as a concept for a conscious and creative use of methods, all within the framework of one methodological base approach (using some of our three approaches as a transformative operator), from which we can pick out and use techniques/methods from other approaches (we will return later to how this will be done), we are convinced that Methodology for Creating Business Knowledge offers a foundation for the sustainable creation of knowledge.

Box 13.2

The Arbnor/Bjerke Methodological Principle of Complementarity

The potential interdependency in opposite methodological opinions of similar problems is to be used for excellent explanations and/or understanding of them. The principle implies that there are many such problems with this kind of inherent interdependency, which cannot fully be treated by only one of the approaches, in question. Therefore, it is possible and desirable to use complementarity in studies faced with multifaced problems.

Let us start this final phase of our methodological grammar by more firmly clarifying the position of our three methodological views/approaches. This is done by looking at the criticism they have levelled at each other over the years and still do.

COMPLEMENTARY CRITICISM

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As the reader surely understands, it is possible to present only a few fragments of the (often heated) debate that has been, and is still, going on between our three methodological views (and in consequence also between our three approaches). What will become quite clear, however, is that there are semantic complications or a lack of common language among the three, and we do not mean a minor terminological difference of opinions, but a deep grammatical conflict. What will be confirmed from the polemics that will be illustrated here is that it relates to the

ultimate presumptions on which it is based. This means that the full content of concepts like “operationalization”, “finality” and “ideal-type” can only be understood in the context of the paradigm to which each one belongs. In Chapter 8 we tried, with several shorter examples in which language and action constituted each other’s prerequisites, to bring these different worlds of knowledge creation to life. In those practical examples it was possible to follow the deeper grammatical differences that are referred to here. Based on these insights, one of the things we have attempted in our Methodology for

Creating Business Knowledge is to present a methodological language commonality aimed at making a kind of overarching communication possible among proponents of the different views. We call this overarching methodological language commonality thematic. In order for methodology as such to progress, it is important that a thematic language commonality is both established and improved (see thematic language of methodology in the Glossary at the end of this book).

Back to the future

A critical polemic among proponents of different scientific thoughts shows most clearly, according to Thomas Kuhn and his description of scientific revolutions, when “conceptual argumentations” run the hottest; that is, before the thoughts are mixed with each other, before they have refined their defense for the sake of refinement alone, and even before they have gained broad experience from participating in theoretical scientific discussions. In the case of our three methodological views, the conceptual argumentations were the clearest in business when the methodological thoughts behind our systems view were “teenagers” and the methodological thoughts behind our actors view, “children”. So, at the end of the 1960s and throughout virtually all of the 1970s, the systems view

levelled serious criticism against the analytical view. Yet at the same time, the actors view levelled crushing criticism against both of the others. The criticism among the proponents of our three different methodological views continues

today, though in a less aggressive form. This criticism is equally important, but not equally obvious because most experienced creators of knowledge have learned the rhetoric and the arguments. We think, however, that the reader benefits the most if we, in a fashion similar to the presentations of our methodological views, present the criticism that the views level against each other in a kind of purified, absolute form. This is best achieved by reporting on some of the criticism “already” levelled when the conceptual argumentations were started within business as argumentation among these opposite schools of thought. Besides, it is also our

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experience and conviction that it is not possible to fully understand any of our views – analytical, systems or actors – without tracing the history of the polemics between them. It is our hope that the reader, through the reported criticism from “the old days” (which can

often still be heard today), will assess the present with an inquiring mind, to unmask, if possible, fellow-travellers lurking, not only in the margins of most study reports, but between the words and the lines of the reports, consciously or unconsciously to hide ultimate presumptions.

A warning for the road

What follows should be seen more as an “invitation” to one’s own work than as a “menu” for a comprehensive description of the polemics that has continued for decades (sometimes for centuries), a polemics that is still kept alive by proponents of the three methodological views. When reading on, it is important to appreciate the fact that in this matter, nobody, including the authors of this book, can place him/herself outside him/herself. We have said this before and we say it again. There is no neutral position, no fourth methodological view from which we can objectively scrutinize the other three described in this book. We consequently cannot remain “neutral” and cannot “objectively balance” the criticism. An attentive posture from the reader is therefore in order here.

Criticism of the analytical view

In general

The general criticism that is usually levelled against the analytical view is related to what has come to be known as “dataism” and determinism. Dataism is characterized by a reduction of all knowledge to only that knowledge that can be codified and placed in more or less pre- constructed categories of data. It becomes a “naive” empiricism for classifying what is observable; in it, definitions of problems are based on existing techniques for collecting and arranging data. Because the orientation of the analytical view is to reproduce only what is factive but not what is potential, its critics say it conserves and extrapolates what exists. This goes hand in hand with determinism, which is a philosophical concept of nature and

human behaviour and action where every event is causally determined by a chain of cause– effect relations. This scientific thought will reduce human beings’ freedom over their future to a question of dependency on the present and the past. According to some critics, this is reinforced by the fact that analysts look for general

knowledge without situating this knowledge in time or space or in the idea of human freedom.

Criticism from the systems view

The systems view claims that a basic mistake is made by the analytical view when it tries to Arbnor, I., & Bjerke, B. (2008). Methodology for creating business knowledge. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from indwes on 2021-03-22 16:01:24.

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isolate a number of variables (parts) from several different (larger) contexts in which these variables – because of the different composition of these contexts – mean different things. The systems view is therefore critical of the alleged objectivity of the creator of knowledge

within the analytical view, because he/she in reality is the one who gives the variables their empirical content. This is consequently not determined by the complexities and totalities from which they are taken, which would have been the case if empirical relevance were the goal. By means of the analytical view we do not, according to the systems view, reach real

knowledge of the parts in their temporal and spatial context, a knowledge that is necessary for solving, say, problems in various businesses. The systems view claims that the analytical view, due to its idea of additivity, is not able to handle the complexity and the interconnectedness of modern business. According to the systems creator of knowledge it is necessary to analyse the characteristics of companies as systems in order to be able to explain and understand serious aspects of problems in industry that are easily neglected when analysing them by the analytical approach. An analytical creator of knowledge might claim that such procedures would not develop

general and objective knowledge. The systems creator of knowledge, however, would respond that organizations are unique and should be studied as such. To reduce organizations and social phenomena to superficial generality by general concepts and ideas is no better as an excuse for the analytically oriented creator of knowledge than the drunk in the anecdote who looked for his watch under the lamppost where there was light instead of in the dark alley where he actually lost it (based on the general theory that the better the light, the more we can see).

Criticism from the actors view

Because the actors view is placed “further away” from the analytical view than the systems view is, its criticism is more comprehensive. The following seven statements about what studies conducted according to the analytical view really mean can summarize the general criticism from the actors view:

1. Things are studied in isolation and not in their meaning context. 2. What exists is studied, but not its origin and its disappearance, that is, not its history and

not what is potential. 3. Things are studied at rest, not in a dynamic state. 4. A distinction is made between knowledge subject and knowledge object, instead of

studying them as a given meaning context. 5. The individual is deprived of free will, by thinking in terms of causality, instead of having

the potential of being emancipated. 6. There is an inherent guarantee of being right even if one is wrong, by formulating

conditions under which a result is valid but which may never have existed in social life. 7. There is no awareness of the phenomenon of self-reference that exists in all forms of

social science studies. That means the a priori representation of existing social science knowledge of generality, normality, clichés, uniformity, etc. in individual human beings.

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The actors creator of knowledge asserts here, as in other contexts, that there is a decisive difference between explaining something statistically (causally) and understanding something dialogically (dialectically). Statistical pictures are not the ambiguous courses of events out of which social life forms itself. This perception of social life is like understanding a text by studying its individual words and analysing the frequencies with which they are related to each other, but without considering the fact that the text in its entirety (social life) is an expression for a meaning context. By looking for explanations of various social phenomena – not for understanding – we make ourselves outsiders. We do not admit that as creators of knowledge we are actually an active part of the flow of life. The analytical view, then, by means of its statistical method, presents the future as a repetition of the past instead of as a transformation of the past. This is related to the presumption of reality made by the analytical view and what follows

from it: never waver in the ambition of discovering unambiguous and general relations. The opinion of the actors view is that this is completely wrong and that it leads to a distorted understanding of social reality, an understanding in which people are presented as deterministic and totally objectified, and in which they become things in the conceptual hands of the analyst. The actors view sees this as giving birth to knowledge that attracts and is attracted by alienation, passivity, emptiness and meaninglessness in social life and business, instead of being attracted by needs and wants to attract nearness, engagement, creativity and meaningfulness. In the analytical view, what might be called a totalization has taken place. By this the actors

view means that the connection between, (a) a person’s (a creator of knowledge or not) inescapable interest in interpretations (e.g. based on previous knowledge – view of life, people, business and society – as a living individual in a social context), and (b) the result of the process of creating knowledge as such, has been lost, has vanished. The techniques are applied in a manner that is taken for granted. They justify their own existence. The actors view therefore claims that the result of the analytical view’s process of creating knowledge cannot be anything but trivial – and consequently without subjective (actors-based) meaning; in other words, it is meaningless. Presuming that “reality is what it is”, that is, factive, can, according to the actors view, have

very unfortunate consequences for the development of society and business. This is because the analytical view, precisely because of this presumption, is, and remains, unaware of how its procedures for creating knowledge produce in self-reference its own reality instead of the one which is meaningful to us as human beings in everyday life.

The response of the analytical view to this criticism

Creators of knowledge dedicated to the analytical view would be bewildered by the above criticism from the systems and actors views. They would definitely claim that it gives a completely misleading picture of the analytical view. This is because the criticism presented is based mainly on the specific premises on which the other views are based; an analytic creator of knowledge can therefore not answer in the same language. This is a natural reaction, something that will also apply later when we look at the reverse situation (compare with our

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previous statement that it is not possible to find criteria for choosing the best view – we are reduced to using a philosophical and a speculative reflection). The analytical view would reject most of this criticism as metaphysics and would respond

in its own language. A devotee of the analytical view would claim that all science starts with finding out how things really – causally – are related; then theories can be constructed. These theories can then be refined at the same time that new ones are constructed. The best way to find the truth of the factive reality is to quantify and operationalize as far as possible. Facts are important because reality in itself is basically factive and independent of our thoughts about this reality. Based on the analytical view it is not enough, as it would be in the systems view, to be

satisfied with only describing and analysing various mutually related processes and then using this to classify social phenomena against the background of their construction, course and external situation. This does not explain anything. Certainly, no science can progress without using categorizations only, such as systems. Science also needs general theses concerning the relations among these classes and categories, because without such theses no explanations are possible. Creators of knowledge should not quit after putting different behaviours in various theoretical pigeonholes. The analytical approach maintains that if the mutual connections and finality relations that systems creators of knowledge operate with are broken down, it will be discovered that they are basically related causally – and explanation is placed in the causality. The talk about complexity and totality from the systems view is no problem for the analytical

view to deal with. If one breaks down the factive reality’s complexity into its parts the opinion of the analytical view is that this will enable the creator of knowledge to study even systems complexity in general terms of cause/effect. To the criticism from the actors view, the analytical creator of knowledge would answer by

brushing most of it aside as “nonsense” that has nothing to do with a science of the factive world. To try to incorporate subjective meaning, ambiguity and various life-philosophical and artistic ways of expression, which the actors view does attempt, is not compatible with a knowledge that tries to explain general relations. In order to do this, science must instead resist what the actors view wants to do. As a matter of fact, this is just what the analytical view for its entire existence has worked hard to keep outside its domains, in order to become a respectable science. It would therefore be senseless, according to the analytical view, to enter this kind of metaphysics, arbitrariness and unclear relations.

Criticism of the systems view

In general

The criticism most commonly levelled against the systems view is that it “cannot see the trees for the forest”. Through the spread of the systems view, expressions like “you are a victim of the system” have become common. This may in turn lead to a tendency for people to experience themselves as “systems components in the process of solving problems, having information relations among themselves”, that is, being defined by the system. This is

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reinforced, so the critics say, by the fact that the business concepts and operative ideas of organizations are often formulated in systems terms, which define possible actions among individual members of the system. People may believe that the systems that exist on paper exist as such in the factive reality. Another general criticism of the systems view and its holistic thinking is that a concept that

in itself tries to include everything at one and the same time, will finally become empty and void of content, or, alternatively contain so many conflicting conceptions that it becomes useless as a methodological view.

Criticism from the analytical view

According to the analytical view, systems theorists have in no way shown what is operational in the concept of synergy. The concept is not uniquely “systemic”, so the analysts say. It is easy, using analytical techniques like mathematical set theory or statistical covariance analysis, to present situations in which “the totality” deviates from “the sum” of its parts. The analytical view claims that the concept of synergy is just a polemic expression that creates confusion among creators of knowledge. The systems view does not contain anything new just because it talks about “synergy”. The goal of science cannot be to look for what is specific and in all situations to emphasize

differences in order to maintain the image that everything can be described as systems. Its goal, instead, must be to look for general statements, to determine the similarities among various phenomena and the relations among the parts of these phenomena. Where would science be if it had not, by using the means of the analytical view, aimed for (and found) general statements and causality relations? The fact that it has succeeded less well in social science contexts is only because the phenomena being studied there are so much more complex in nature. Its proponents say that this does not in any way reduce the value of the analytical view. The analytical methodological view asserts that systems theories are too loose and that their analogical discussions are misleading, and that too much is left to the gullibility of the creator of knowledge. Furthermore, to claim that everything can be seen as systems brings as little analytical edge

as claiming that everything has a relationship with everything else. Many proponents of the analytical view therefore claim that systems researchers/consultants/investigators basically are analytics (in the sense of the analytical view) even if they (probably without knowing it) try to deny this in order to appear as something in their own right.

Criticism from the actors view

The actors view claims that the actions of the actors cannot be derived starting from the system. The systems view contributes, by its focus on systemic characteristics of human activities, to developing theories that tend to force upon the individual act more and more of the logic derived from the system. In all fields of life, from systems companies to systems soccer, the systems view employs its systems eye – a one-eyedness in which individual

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operators (and the entrepreneurs) are given ever less space of action. According to the actors view, the systems view fits the “bureaucratic constructors of industry” like a hand in a glove when they, lacking imagination of their own, claim that they are “developing business by structuring the economy”, something that usually means merging companies into larger units with less innovative vitality. The proponents of the systems view never ask which forces they support through the use of their theories. In this respect they are of the same old stamp as the proponents of analytics, this according to the actors view. This thing about explaining an individual’s way of functioning as conditioned by external

circumstances is just as objectifying as the analytical view’s reduction of the individual to a few measurable variables. To claim, say, that “business concepts or the psychological needs of the members determine their behaviour” or that “the system reacts to the changes in the environment” leaves no room for the meaning and significance that individuals place on their own fields of knowledge creation. Yet this meaning and significance are the source of all acts. So, the actors view asserts that we cannot develop any real knowledge on the basis of

systemic principles. Instead, we must understand aspects in our environment in terms of the meaning that we bring to them. Otherwise they will become, in the right sense of the word, rather meaning-less. Basing our business models on knowledge generated by the systems view leads, so the

actors view claims, to actors becoming strangers to models and therefore unable to act accordingly. The logical base is wrong. Basing our understanding of an organization on the functions that it (as an organization) fulfils in its environment would mean that the “organization” has a “life” of its own, which is reification. This excludes not only those finite provinces of meaning by which the actors of the organization orient themselves, but also the opportunities (and the interest) the actors have in developing the real potential of the organization.

The response of the systems view to this criticism

The proponents of the systems view would claim that the supporters of the other two views have completely misunderstood the ultimate presumptions, the design and the ambitions of the systems view. They would claim that history has proven the systems view right. The development that took place after its launch was that more and more creators of knowledge adopted this view. It has been successfully implemented in an increasing number of areas. Its terms have even become part of everyday language. Systems proponents, furthermore, would take the pragmatic stance as usual. They would

assert that not all problems need to be solved by the methodical equipment of the systems view. Many social problems can also be solved without looking at them in terms of systems. There is also room for analytical explanations. In one respect, however, they would claim the advantages of the systems view. When a

researcher/consultant/investigator faces a complex problem, it might be dangerous to simplify things (both for the understanding of the problem and the usefulness of developed solutions) by trying to reduce it to what it is not. Sometimes one has to consider unique aspects, deny the possibility of going for representativity, and sacrifice generality in favour of specificity.

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Responding to actors creators of knowledge, they would further assert that systems creators of knowledge do not in any way deny that the people in an organization must be considered. They would also state that there is sometimes a reason to look at systems at such a low level of magnification that individual, subjective conceptions enter the picture, but sometimes not. They would claim that approximations are deliberately made in their models; this claim is made by all constructors of models. These approximations often mean that organizations/companies are seen as “living” systems; actors creators of knowledge can call this “objectification”, “instrumentalization” or “reification”, or whatever they like.

Criticism of the actors view

In general

If we can formulate the general criticism of the systems view as “not being able to see the trees for the forest”, then the reverse would be valid for the actors view: that this view “cannot see the forest for the trees”. The actors view tends, so its critics say, to look at all social phenomena starting from the subjective conceptualizations of individual actors. This can bring only subjective knowledge, which is of lesser value for solving more complete problems. How is something like scientific knowledge supposed to be taught under such circumstances? The criticism claims, among other things, that it is not worthwhile to engage intimately with

single actors when we need more general knowledge. Of what use is it that individuals become aware of their situations, if they are subordinate to structural systems conditions that their “conscious” acts cannot change?

Criticism from the analytical view

The analytical view opposes the actors view on a number of points: a. Actors creators of knowledge can never provide general results. All actors creators of knowledge can do is to collect a lot of data and then not know what to do with them. They have neither real theories nor logically formulated hypotheses in which to place these data and treat them in a process of scientific quantification.

b. Actors creators of knowledge are not nearly as unconditional as they claim. Under the pretext of being “like a sponge”, they absorb everything that comes their way. Analytical creators of knowledge can instead come up with facts by deducing their starting points from established theory, using well-known techniques, and conducting thorough validity controls.

c. If dialectics is broken down into its single variables (i.e. analysed), one can find causal relations. Causal relations, furthermore, do not exclude contemporaneity between dependent and independent variables.

d. Besides, why should something be good just because it’s a little bit newer?

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Criticism from the systems view

The systems view, by and large, supports the criticism that the analytical view levels against the actors view. The systems and the analytical views are, as we know, similar in several respects. As far as the criticism in point (d) above is concerned, the overlap is total. On points (a), (b) and (c), the systems view lowers its voice a bit. The systems view talks rather about analogies than “real theories” and “logically formulated hypotheses”; it does not rely that much on deduction, the value of techniques in themselves or the control of validity; and it does not speak of causal relations. Furthermore, the systems view asserts that it really is possible to speak of totalities and

their lives. This is a deliberate and useful approximation. It is often impractical to go down to the individual level. It is of course true that the goals of a company are formulated by its members, not by the company per se, but this does not mean that the goals of a company are identical with those of its members. The most important perspective in social studies of complex organizations is therefore that of totality, and here we also find the most obvious weakness of the actors view. The systems view also claims that the actors view tries to establish delimitations that do not

exist. The systems view has also not been standing still. Several of its followers assert that the systems view really does consider (for instance) dialectic relations, and that there is no subjectivity that cannot be situated within the systems view. It is even a common method in organization theory (for example) to work with subjective ideas held by (for instance) business leaders and to be part of modifying these to make them more purposeful, as seen from the point of what is best for the total system (and consequently best for “the actors”). That something is “factive” and includes subjective facts. The actors view just complicates the discussion by trying to establish artificial boundaries. “Actor’s conceptions” (if it is necessary to operate with single individuals) are often transferred to a systems frame of reference.

The response of the actors view to this criticism

An actors creator of knowledge would probably respond spontaneously to this criticism by saying: No answer is really necessary. The two other views have, entirely on their own and in an elegant way, shown that they do not make understanding possible. They do not know the deep difference between explaining and understanding. They try to understand by explaining. They treat and try to explain the actors view in the same way they treat and – under the pretext of “science” – try to explain social phenomena. First the phenomenon is objectified so that it fits into well-known categories, then an attempt is made to explain the objectification as a result of “scientific” activities. The actors view does not even have to answer the criticism from the analytical view, because analysts choose to criticize the actors view because it does not use techniques that will legitimise their conception of reality.

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The systems view talks about totality and the occasional need to consider dialectic relations, but at the same time it is completely incapable of seeing the development of the actors view as a dialectic totality. It is very revealing to hear that a view that claims a holistic approach seems to reduce another view (or another conception of the world) to what it calls “actors conceptions” – that it also claims to consider in its own view.

After this, the actors creator of knowledge would probably, as a second thought, take up the so- called “scientific quantification” by the analytical view, and this view’s, according to the actors view, almost religious faith that the truth is resting here, in the quantification of social life. Trying to measure on a cardinal scale, for instance, the intensity in a feeling or an experience is not possible on the whole, according to the actors view. The reason is that the intensity of this human life feeling/experience is then seen as equal to a tone, which might become stronger or weaker. But our emotional life is richer than that. Its intensity is not even the same as a tone rising in pitch; its intensity is rather comparable with a whole symphony, where one instrument after the other comes in. The qualitative complexity is here continuously rising. If we would measure music as the analytical approach measures human experiences, knowledge and emotional life, it would be reduced. There is something in the interface between tones and instruments that could be called the inner quality of music and can be compared with our emotional life. So if the quality of music is reduced by measuring it – which few people would deny – what would then happen to our emotional life if it were exposed to the same simplification? Furthermore, to look at the qualitative complexity of different people’s emotional life on a par is not only illogical; it is unethical as well. Somebody grading his/her experience as a four does not in any way include somebody else grading his/her experience as a three and, somebody grading his/her experience as a four does not mean twice as much as somebody grading his/her experience as a two, which is the very idea in the world of numbers – that every higher number includes the lower ones. Our experiences are in content as well as in intensity completely different. Even if two persons put their numbers on the same grading, so the feelings will remain different for each and every one of the participants, except for the analytical knowledge creator who treats them as equal. Finally, as the actors view looks at it, if we claim that statistics has proven its ability to describe, explain and forecast human life, this might consequently be a result of the fact that the population – the lonely crowd – has been reduced to becoming Xerox copies of each other as a “factive” matter through the self-reference phenomenon. The question is whether we can oppose the thesis: the simpler mind, the easier it is to describe, explain and forecast for an analytical view looking for the regular in what is irregular and for similarities in differences. Maybe we can, according to the actors view, look at statistically good explanations and forecasts of human social life as a proof of human flight from the values of freedom in thoughts and life?

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THE IDEA OF RECONCILIATION

After this cannonade of criticism among proponents of different methodological views, we can, in spite of everything, realize their mutual potentiality of complementary opportunities (see Box 13.2). We need to reconcile them, that is, getting these opposing thoughts to correspond in one way or another. As mentioned earlier, it is also common in practice to approach what we, for our further

methodological development in this book, refer to as “a view as transformative operator in a methodology of complementarity”. Does this mean that the views in application, i.e. as approaches, in their “pure” forms, are of value to only “ascetic creators of knowledge” (such as those presented in Chapters 10, 11 and 12), and, apart from those scarce situations, that the approaches can be combined without any extra complications? In our opinion, this is not the case! Compare with Chapter 3 and the discussion on criticism above and our opinion will become obvious. Just as an example, what would it look like if a researcher/consultant/investigator combined

belief in a factive reality that is independent of the observers and built up by, say, causal relations, with belief in a socially constructed reality built up by dialectic relations? Even if there are some researchers, consultants and investigators who without further ado pick concepts, models, techniques and ideas from different methodological orientations, the creator of knowledge (the conscious researcher, consultant or investigator, for whom this book is written) maintains that this is not possible. The serious choice of any methodological view is associated with ultimate presumptions that create knowledge in the community as well as among separate individuals. This not only has a bearing on, but also an importance for, all methodological activities. To claim that different methodological approaches can be easily combined is, in the meaning

of methodology proper, not only naive but directly misleading. Going back to our metaphor about whether the Earth is a sphere or a disk, it cannot be reasonable for one and the same person to claim at one moment that Earth is round like a globe and that we can travel around it in all directions, and at the next moment to claim that the Earth is flat like a disk and that we run the risk of falling over the edge. We are convinced this way of thinking is logically unreasonable and not compatible with efforts to create knowledge. For example, it would make no sense in the presentation of the results of a study to put

causal relations into a system – that is, to let the system no longer be a system; or to place producer–product (finality) relations in the finite province of meaning of an actor – and not to allow this finite province of meaning to be based on dialectical relations, in other words, no longer be actors-based. Even worse, when presenting the results of a study, would be to come up with, say, a conception of a company as three parts, one of which is explained causally, one described in terms of finality, and the third understood as dialectic. On the contrary, we would like to claim that, starting from a view as transformative

operator, based on concepts proposed earlier in this text (which then could be seen as thematic), it is not only possible, but in many situations desirable, to let the different views be included in our principle of complementarity (to paraphrase the physicist Bohr, 1928); that is, no language in itself and by itself can capture reality in its entirety. According to Bohr, the

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richness of reality is too great and too sensitive to be captured in a single logical structure. No matter how hard we try with words to describe a musician and his/her instrument, that

description is unlikely to come even close to audibility. Nor can we find the piano music through searching around in the piano. And how are we going to answer the question: does the music exist if no one is listening? Yet, by means of a complementarity among the methodological approaches, aspects like those above can be researched and made figuratively visible (audible). Like Bohr we don’t use the term “complementarity” in its ordinary everyday meaning of two

different parts of an entity that make up a whole. Bohr gave “complementarity”, according to Stent (2002: 244) “a special, esoteric meaning, namely the relation between two rationally irreconcilable … descriptions of the world whose factual irreconcilability no experiment can ever demonstrate. Bohr’s prime example of complementarity was the description of electrons in terms of both waves and particles.” To be able to comprehend this we present the idea of reconciliation through our

methodological principle of complementarity (see Box 13.2). The whole concept of complementarity is illustrated in Figure 13.2 and will be thoroughly exemplified below, especially by the three research cases in Chapter 14.

Figure 13.2 Methodology of Complementarity

To summarize, thinking, concepts and techniques/methods in one methodological approach can be used in another methodological approach, but they are reshaped on the way, they change form and content with context. They are, in a term we want to use, transformed. What takes place (and should take place) is that one view is then used as a transformative operator; that is, the creator of knowledge confesses to one of the methodological views and its ultimate presumptions. Some methodical – primary – procedures (and part of the methodics) are conducted accordingly. Within the framework of the view as transformative operator,

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techniques, methods, results, etc. from other methodological views can be used at the same time and as the study proceeds. What happens is that a special form of methodical – complementary – procedure is used, one in which researchers/consultants/investigators try to consider circumstances based on the point of departure of another methodological approach, against their own ultimate presumptions. What do the circumstances mean, where do they lead, what are the consequences for the creation of knowledge as a whole, and more. The circumstances will then be creatively reshaped and reconfigured; they will take on another character and meaning. The view/approach as transformative operator thereby exceeds itself, so to speak. Through this form of thematic language of methodology, we claim that it becomes possible,

again using our illustrative example from Chapter 1 and above, to “navigate” with methods that are based on the perception that “the Earth is flat” after a reshaping/reconfiguring – a contextual transformation – when travelling around a “sphere”, and vice versa. This requires, however, that we truly know the presumptions on which these “methods of navigation” are based; otherwise we can run into trouble. The same thing goes for using our methodological views as transformative operators. If the creator of knowledge does not know the overall ultimate presumptions on which the views in question are based, the risk is obvious that the researcher/consultant/investigator will sally forth and fall over the edge – he/she will not come up with a good outcome by approaching the view as a transformative operator in an attempt to create knowledge (see Figure 13.6 on page 347). A view as transformative operator, in the meaning of methodology, does not lead to a

separate and independent methodological approach but is instead seen as excellent knowledge-creating work and another set of thematic concepts alongside those that already exist inner-paradigmatically. The difference between primary and complementary procedures is that the “material” to be

treated by complementary procedures must be transformed (reshaped and reconfigured) against the ultimate presumptions of the methodological view used as transformative operator, in which the primary procedures are naturally arranged.

Some principles of complementarity

We will thoroughly illustrate the language and action within the frame of complementary procedures with three extensive illustrations in Chapter 14. Below, we will give the necessary background for comprehending these examples. The starting point is always the same: that we examine a study area with a methodological view as transformative operator, as in Figure 13.2. We can find complementarity possible in three areas:

A. adapting existing concepts and theories B. collecting data C. modeling and interpreting data.

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Let us look at these three, when moving from one methodological view to another, illustrated by a few examples. We start with the principal case A.

Adapting of existing concepts and theories

In principal case A (Figure 13.3) we may for example imagine that a systems creator of knowledge borrows the conceptual idea of subjective denotation of meaning from the actors view. Maybe he/she wants by this to deepen the systems own conceptual meaning of a specific

systems structure. The transformative operator in this example is the systems view, and this means that the complementary procedure has to deal with the questions: what will happen with the traditional systems language when doing this conceptual displacement, and how should the borrowed conceptual idea be interpreted/treated in its new context. All this has to be examined also in relation to the study area in question.

Figure 13.3 Principal Case A

These different kinds of questions and thoughts and their concrete answers are what we call a “complementary procedure”. The total amount of such procedures, including the primary, in connection with the methodics will form the operative paradigm, and the overall concept for all these operations is thus transformative operations.

Collecting data

In principal case B (Figure 13.4) we may for instance envision how an analytical creator of Arbnor, I., & Bjerke, B. (2008). Methodology for creating business knowledge. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from indwes on 2021-03-22 16:01:24.

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knowledge tries to run an actors-based experiment in order to get material for hypotheses before an extensive survey. In line with the discussions according to principal case A above, we can ask ourselves quite

a lot of questions here. This case will be a very complicated project, as it has to reconcile two of the most opposite directions of thinking. Probably, the analytical creator of knowledge will take advantage of the normally processual and creative approach of the actors-based ideas of experiment and transform these into a model of cause–effect relations and then try to explain by that, the human actions in the experiment. Out of this he/she will formulate hypotheses and questions for the questionnaire. The knowledge creator may even, as a possible exceeding result of the complementary

procedure, test the self-reference of the survey in the sense of the actors view.

Figure 13.4 Principal Case B

Modeling and interpreting data

In principal case C (Figure 13.5) we may, in line with the two others, imagine, say, an actors creator of knowledge analysing data through the analytical view.

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Figure 13.5 Principal Case C

He/she wants perhaps to collect a large number of actors’ opinions on a specific theme in order to be able to contextually interpret some important actors’ proceedings. The actors view is the transformative operator in this case. What will now be transformed in a complementary procedure? Presumably, the selection process of the actors will become a creative mix of the two views’ selection techniques. The operator (the actors view) will also influence the questions and the construction of the questionnaire. Perhaps, every question in the questionnaire will have an attendant question about the actors’ (respondents’) conceptual meaning of it. This will then affect the statistical treatment in a way we don’t know before the result is available – all in accordance with the operator’s dialectic process of knowledge creating.

Exceedance as a methodological result

We have now presented three separate principal cases that can exist within the framework of a methodology of complementarity. Combining all of our principal cases into a single study will not create any obstacles (see Chapter 14). What has to be done, in each case, is simply to make use of a complementary procedure in relation to one’s methodological base approach, used as a transformative operator. The ever-present question about complementary procedures is: What happens? How will

data be changed (reshaped, transformed), when something is placed in a construction of explanation/understanding that is different from the methodological approach through which it was developed, analysed, and so on? All methodological procedures are contextual, but in the case of complementary procedures it is particularly important to reflect on how form and

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content are changed by the context (as determined by the area under study and the ultimate presumptions of the operator). The most interesting methodological issue in this kind of creating knowledge is that the

transformative operator must also constantly exceed its own proper limits. This means that there will be an inherent seed of development in the methodology. Methodology of complementarity is thus, over all, the idea about how to continuously take the methodology of creating business knowledge to new levels of excellence.

CREALIABILITY OF COMPLEMENTARITY

Having a methodological insight does not guarantee a high quality of knowledge, however, because without creativity any insight can harden into an instrumentalism as simple as the construction of rules in general, which does not make the exceedance possible. Excellence in knowledge creating is an act of ingenious pregnancy in maintaining an eligible

mix of the four core elements of crealiability during a whole process of conducting a project. In Chapter 9 we introduced this concept of crealiability (see Figure 9.5) and now we want to supplement it and make it even a little bit more sophisticated (see Figure 13.6. and compare with Figure 9.5), in order to make it suitable for assessing knowledge of complementarity.

Figure 13.6 The Cores of Crealiability of Complementarity

The relative importance of the four different core elements of crealiability of complementarity must, when planning and assessing knowledge work, be launched on a case by case basis, but the essence is that excellence in work of complementarity means the highest possible crealiability of complementarity. The substantial thing in the concept is the intrinsic “conflict” between the core elements, which will secure the inherent seed of development in our methodology of complementarity.

THE THEMATIC LANGUAGE OF METHODOLOGY Arbnor, I., & Bjerke, B. (2008). Methodology for creating business knowledge. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from indwes on 2021-03-22 16:01:24.

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Our intention throughout the book has been to develop what we call “a thematic language” that we hope will make it possible to bridge some of the problems in the various contexts of knowledge creation and will allow an ongoing discussion on methodology and the quality of knowledge. These thematic (or generic) concepts are intended to be “neutral” themes in the sense that proponents of the methodological views can use them – even in dialogues between them. In our Glossary we briefly bring together the most important concepts in this thematic

language (see “Thematic language of methodology”).

This chapter has presented the final part of the construction of our methodology for creating business knowledge. It started by further clarifying the position of our three methodological views by summarizing the criticism they level at each other. We continued by providing a possibility for reconciliation between these three views. In order to visualize this possibility we drew up three different principal cases of complementarity. At the end of the chapter we presented our conceptualization of excellence in knowledge-creating work by using the concept of “crealiability” and its core elements in a new configuration of complementarity.

POINTS OF REFLECTION

1. We make a distinction between methodological view and methodological approach. Why?

2. Give two good reasons why it may be a really bad idea to straight off combine our three methodological views!

3. What do we mean by our methodological principle of complementarity? 4. Try to find a situation in your own learning life of business, where the abovementioned

principle may be applied successfully. 5. In the text we have mentioned the concept of “operationalization”, “finality” and

“ideal-type” as examples of concepts which can only be fully comprehended in the context of their alleged own paradigm. Come up with three more concepts in the same situation!

6. Do you find any criticism of our three base methodological views more interesting and/or worthy of note than any other? Which one(s)? Why?

7. We have told the reader to have an attentive posture when reading the criticism presented in this chapter, which the different methodological views level at each other. To what should the reader have an attentive posture?

8. If somebody asked you to clarify what you mean by transformative operations and complementary procedures when conducting a study, what would your answer be?

9. Give some examples of what a creator of knowledge must keep in mind when applying a view as transformative operator!

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10. Excellence in knowledge-creating work can be described as reaching high crealiability. How would you describe the elements of crealiability of complementarity in relation to crealiability in Figure 9.5? Which are the essential differences?

RECOMMENDED FURTHER READING

See the end of the Appendix and visit the website below.

Become a worldwide partner as a knowledge creator in the development of Methodology for Creating Business Knowledge by visiting the website: www.knowledge-creator.com. Here you can contribute by asking your own questions and you will also find answers to the most frequently asked questions. The website has been developed alongside this third edition of the book and the questions posted there will be used to provide input for future editions.

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http://www.knowledge-creator.com

14 THREE CASES – KNOWLEDGE OFCOMPLEMENTARITY

In this chapter we present three different applications of the methodology of complementarity, all related to research. We follow the same order as earlier in the book, which means that we start with the analytical approach as transformative operator, then continue with the systems approach and finish with the actor approach. The different cases enlighten very clearly the complex structure that exists in this kind of methodology. They also illustrate the solid need for critical and creative thinking from the researcher/consultant/investigator. Conducting projects of complementarity with high crealiability commonly provides unexpected and rich, as well as exceeding, answers.

INTRODUCTION

To approach complementarity in knowledge creating work requires, as shown in Chapter 13, a knowledgeable combination of creativity and methodological awareness. To reconcile opposite techniques, methods and so on under one methodological approach as a transformative operator is not an easy task. When this is done in a study, it means that the creator of knowledge must not only have a good knowledge of his/her own view but also of the other two. Because, what is happening in transformative operations is that one’s own base approach is

exceeded in a complex and positive way, which at the same time asks for responsibility. The creator of knowledge takes on a responsibility of development in relation to the different methodological views as well as to the study area to create a transformative edge, guided by consistency, stringency, etc. (see Figure 13.6), which, from a complexity perspective, goes beyond the skills that are required when he/she carries out the study without complementarity. Below we present three different studies, where all of them show high crealiability of

complementarity. The three cases, where each of our three methodological approaches acts as a transformative operator, are naturally of a very different character, not the least for reasons of complexity just mentioned. We have, as much as possible, without violating the material, tried to come up with pedagogically interesting narratives related to our methodological grammar. In a similar fashion as it is not possible to describe the views with the same structure and content, precisely because they represent different ways of looking at reality, it is also not possible to follow one given design when presenting research done which furthermore uses the principle of complementarity and which touches upon completely different study areas. We have therefore focused on bringing up the methodologically interesting issues, which are rather

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extensive in themselves because all our three principal cases from Chapter 13 are used in each of the three studies.

CASE I: THE ANALYTICAL APPROACH AS TRANSFORMATIVE OPERATOR

Background

This case is based on a thesis and a consulting report where the doctoral candidate, through his supervisor, came in contact with a company which wanted ideas around improved business and product development as well as production management for one of its departments. The company had no objections to letting the work be a section in the empirical part of an academic product. The doctoral candidate decided to say “yes” and travelled, together with the supervisor, to the company to discuss the project, which was to be conducted as a combination of consultation and research in business.

First meeting with the study area

The company FoodEx Co. is in the food industry and has a department that develops, produces and markets poultry products for different kinds of consumption. Already at the first meeting the company makes clear the relevant circumstances for the project and what is required:

The poultry department is a rather separate part of the company. Poultry products are, however, seen as strategically important to the range of products of the company and have a key position in launching and marketing food. The profitability of the department is not considered as satisfactory; it is seen as a contribution margin compared with the rest of the company. The department is also not generating enough new product ideas and has bad contacts with the market. The purpose of the project is to be seen to “develop a model for business and product development in the poultry department of the company, which makes it possible to cost- effectively develop and produce profitable products with better contacts with the market”.

Consequently, the doctoral candidate accepts the task and sees possibilities to combine his ambitions of writing a doctoral thesis with gaining experiences from industrial development work. Our description below combines results from what we might call “the consulting part” of

the doctoral candidate’s project with the more extensive “research part”, as both contain interesting complementary methodological aspects.

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The researcher’s thoughts in the beginning

From the background of his knowledge of business theory as well as of knowledge-creating analytical methods the doctoral candidate sees several interesting possibilities with the project:

1. He sees a challenge in learning how to work with biological material in an industrial process as well as in production development and customer contacts.

2. He perceives the project as a good platform for focusing on best practice in innovation, which is his research interest.

3. He sees possibilities in one and the same project to take into consideration a whole spectrum of methodological issues, which also touch upon other methodological views than his own, which is the analytical one. He knows that this is called “creating knowledge of complementarity” and is happy to develop and illustrate such a conduct as an essential part in his struggle for academic qualifications.

Determining the problem

As a first step in the design of an operative paradigm, the doctoral candidate begins by determining the empirical basic problem in the project that he aims to start from. He does this by first walking around at FoodEx Co. (the company) for a couple of days and, in an unbiased fashion, talking with the people concerned. Through this introductory probe he gets a relatively good picture of what people want and what they do not want. Some products are not attractive enough and some processes are not cost-effective enough. However, above all, people are disturbed by all those demands which are directed at the department, and dissatisfied by the existing creative climate which is not generating new product ideas to the extent asked for. He then continues with expert interviews and studies of secondary information (see Figure

9.1). After the first fourteen days he is more and more convinced of the need to conduct the research part of the study as a larger investigation of several other companies and looking there for common variables explaining “best practice in innovation”. In the consulting part he intends to present a decision and explanatory model for FoodEx Co. to work with. As one of his first methodical (primary) procedures he is drawing the following simple model of possible influencing factors for the poultry department (see Figure 14.1 overleaf). After probing interviews and discussions with experts and after studying secondary material

he has come to experience more and more that the department he is studying is under all sorts of pressure. He looks at these pressures as partly direct causes of the low level of achievement in the department. The consulting problem appears clearer to him as a problem of reaction. The department in question is lacking, as he sees it, suitable tools with which it can respond to all the different sorts of pressure to which it is exposed. According to that theory and those expert discussions which the doctoral candidate has taken part in, the result of such a strong pressure overall (the effect of several causes working together) is widely spread passivity and lack of creativity.

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Figure 14.1 External Pressures

He can now clearly see how the combination of the consulting and research part will enrich each other. Starting from his hypothesis about lack of tools to manage different pressures, he believes that he, by, in the research part, focusing on best practice in innovation, shall be able to supply those response tools which the department is lacking today. He also believes that he can mitigate the effects from several different pressures by, in the consulting part, developing a decision and explanatory model that in a clear fashion illustrates various cause–effect– conditions ruling. His idea is that this model then is to be implemented in FoodEx Co. after he has finished the project.

Transformative operations

The study area in theory – primary procedures

Beginning by studying and adapting earlier theories and research results to one’s own study area is one of the most basic methodical procedures contained in the analytical approach. As this case is about methodology of complementarity, these procedures are referred to as “primary” in order to differentiate them from the complementary ones. For a few weeks the doctoral candidate searches through that literature which he sees as

relevant for the project. He does not intend to read it all before he starts as he has already made himself a preliminary picture of the research object “best practice”. As an orientation, we present below, very briefly, some short extracts from what became his relatively extensive mapping of the research object in theory. He writes and quotes from some selected works in relation to his literature study:

From the book cover of The R&D Workers: Managing Innovation in Britain, Germany, Arbnor, I., & Bjerke, B. (2008). Methodology for creating business knowledge. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from indwes on 2021-03-22 16:01:24.

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Japan, and the United States by Shapira (1995) we can read: “Of critical importance is how these R&D workers are selected, trained, and managed, and how their activities are linked to other aspects of production.”

There are seven categories in the Baldrige award of relevance for best practice, writes Zairi:

Leadership: senior executives’ personal leadership and involvement in creating and sustaining a customer focus and clear and visible quality values. Information and analysis: the scope, validity, analysis, management and use of data and information to drive quality excellence and improve competitive performance. Strategic quality planning: the planning process and how all key quality requirements are integrated into overall business planning. Human resource development and management: the key elements of how the company develops and realizes the full potential of the company’s quality and performance objectives. Management of process quality: the systematic process the company uses to pursue ever higher quality and company performance. Quality and operational results: the company’s quality levels and improvement trends in quality, operational performance and supplier quality. Customer focus and satisfaction: the company’s relationship with customers and its knowledge of customer requirements and the key quality factors that determine marketplace competitiveness. (1998: 460–1)

Under the head of “Benchmarking innovation management for best practice,” Zairi continues: “Despite the thousands of publications, research studies, books and reports that have been written on innovation, there are still big differences in the levels of understanding among companies managing innovation and the activities surrounding it” (Zairi, 1998: 132).

According to Ashworth (2005: 256): “Best practice is the adoption and development of ideas, systems or methods in a way that measurably improves a business or enterprise so that it continually offers or secures best value for money.” One real interesting observation is the following from Matheson & Matheson (1998:75):

“One of the important findings of our survey is that the best practices are the same across industries. … This finding supports what many understand; R&D decision makers face the same types of issues in many industries; thus the best practices for addressing them are similar. … The fact that the best practices are the same across industries means that a company can adopt a practice being successfully applied in a completely different industry.” If we relate this assertion by Matheson & Matheson to the following statement from

Mertins et al. (2003: 282) we get some very important research issues to reflect upon: ‘… current approach in 2000 to best practice exploitation is balanced on recognizing that sharing ideas and creating new knowledge is as much about behaviours and cultures as it is about process and databases”.

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Back to Zairi again we can read in his book Best Practice: Process Innovation Management (1999: 88) the following: “Every team that is created must be developed according to its own characteristics. They must play to their strengths and think through how they are going to build this strong sense of team identity … To facilitate this, there are some best practice rules which should be considered by any team.”

At the same time as he is studying the very research object “best practice” the doctoral candidate also runs into critical analyses which lead to deepened methodological thoughts. When he reads in Kunde’s book Unique Now – Or Never (2002), for instance, that “Companies have defined so much ‘best practice’ that they are now more or less identical”, he gets the following methodological eye-opener which he formulates in his report like this:

When I read this in Kunde’s book and think of Matheson & Matheson and their findings “that the best practices are the same across industries” and relate this to what is referred to as self reference in actors view – that is, that social science studies also indirectly study the result of one’s own influence on society – then I start to think whether these findings may be a result of such influence as well. The global spread of research results and consulting activities in this area may also have such consequences. Or may this possibly be hidden in the ultimate presumptions about the factive world in my methodological view as well?

As he also has a number of other theoretical references as well where, like in Zairi’s later work, there is talk about development teams and their possibilities from having unique and not just general characteristics, it becomes, as he writes himself “clearer to me that the road to success in this study goes through a methodology of complementarity”.

The study area in theory – complementary procedures

In the same way as the doctoral candidate earlier selected literature in the area of “best practice”; he now starts more actively to look for complementary research results and critical views in order to broaden his base of methods. However, in principle, he follows his own analytical methodology view’s plan for studies. What is starting to interest him more and more is how, in his planned study of what

characterizes particularly successful cases of so-called best practice projects, he is able to pay regard to what is specific, at the same time as coming up with what is general. He therefore starts to study the case study method of the systems view and the selection methods and the ideal-typified descriptions of the actors view as a way to collect information also from the unique characteristics of the factive reality in order to come up with general conclusions in the sense of the analytical view. We present below, only as a short orientation, some few excerpts of what became the relative extensive mapping by the doctoral candidate of complementarity in theory. Here are two direct quotes from his study:

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According to the Foreword by Day in Blumer’s (1979, p. xxxii–xxxiii) Critiques of Research in the Social Sciences we have to be aware of the fact that there are certain qualities we risk to miss by general selections: “If one is studying the formation of social action, the data that one needs have to refer to how the actors approach, see, define, and handle the situations in which they have to act. The representativeness of the data yielded by human documents has to be determined by considering the question of whether the data cover what is involved in the formation of the given action; representativeness must be sought, not in getting a representative sample of a given demographic population, but instead, in making sure that the authors of the human documents were knowledgeable about the formation of the given action under study. Half a dozen individuals with such knowledge constitute a far better ‘representative sample’ than one thousand individuals who may be involved in the action that is being formed but who are not knowledgeable about that formation.”

In The Handbook of Information Systems Research by Whitman and Woszczynski (2003: 217) we can read about something that, perhaps, may be regarded as a thought of complementarity. The researchers call this a constitutive analysis: “Constitutive analysis is necessary to discover how social systems and the variables and relationships that compose them are constructed through human interaction. Constitutive analyses reveal the interpretive processes that figure in the operation of causal relationships. For example, task is commonly used as a causal variable in systemic studies of work. However, it may not be task per se, but actors’ interpretations of work tasks that influence organizational processes. These interpretations may be included in a functional analysis as ‘perceived task,’ but this transforms an interpretive process into a static variable. It does not fully capture the role of interpretation in the actor’ approach to their work. Underlying every variable and relationship in a causal analysis is a process of social construction responsible for making it an active force in the social system. A constitutive analysis takes the functional analysis as a starting point, shows how the system operates in terms of actor-structure interaction, and then adds additional rich detail from the actors’ viewpoints about these processes. A constitutive analysis is a useful supplement to functional analysis because it reveals the ‘whole picture’ behind seemingly deterministic facts.”

Note that the doctoral candidate in the latter reference writes “perhaps, may be regarded as a thought of complementarity” about those thoughts which Whitman & Woszczynski present around what they call “Constitutive analysis”. And the question is whether we can call their analysis complementary. They mix here a number of methodological conceptions with directly contradictory paradigmatic references without clarifying these relations in some transformative operation. Then it is easy to run the risk of losing scientific stringency in a kind of eclectic maze. Some examples of contradictory concepts in relation to the context in Whitman & Woszczynski’s short text above are: constitutive, variables, discover, interpretive, causal relationships, system, actor–structure interaction, social construction and deterministic facts. All of these concepts are discussed in this book and have then been related to their

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scientifically relevant ultimate presumptions (see the Glossary). The doctoral candidate shows, however, awareness as well as self-reflection in this

connection but is nevertheless inspired to find his own interesting reconciliations which can present methodologically stringent, valid and reliable results within the framework of the analytical view as transformative operator. He is now planning to conduct a major survey of several companies around best practice as a study of a limited number of cases, where he knows that they have, as far as best practice is concerned, a representativeness according to Blumer above. Now he aims to use some of the selection procedures of the actors view in combination with the case study thinking of the systems view within the framework of an extensive survey study.

The study area in practice – primary procedures

Starting from those experiences he gains in FoodEx Co. and what he learns in his literature studies of best practice, he comes up with a questionnaire containing sixty-five questions in total. In his construction he is also using some well-tested surveys measuring leadership style, cooperative style, innovation culture, suggestion activities and customer relations. His purpose is to use the questionnaire answers to get a quantitative base material for his development of theories around best practice. This research ground he aims himself to concretize in different consulting proposals to the poultry department. His ambition with the survey he describes like this in a research report: “The questionnaire aims at providing analysis material for what are the characteristics of successful – so-called ‘best practice’ – projects/ways of working. The objective is to look for common factors explaining excellence.” In the research part of the project the doctoral candidate uses some more analytical techniques, which through primary procedures are made into methods in his relatively extensive study. Furthermore, he is combining these with specific techniques-made-into-methods for the problem at the company in question. As part of his consulting part he develops a number of well-structured interviewer guides in order to depict those cause–effect relations he is looking for to be able to construct a decision and explanatory model for FoodEx Co. His purpose is, within the consulting part, to explain as well as to provide material for a

decision as far as the very complicated technical and biological conditions that dictate the material flow of the poultry department are concerned. As a mathematical basis to build an optimization model for this flow he starts from the following formula: V = f(Xs;Ps), where V (the objective) is the “highest possible contribution margin”, Xs (the decision variables) are to be the points in time for slaughtering different broods of poultry being raised and Ps (the parameters) are to be different factive circumstances. Via new work conditions (best practice) in the poultry department, his idea here is to make

it possible through product development and market contacts to unite the different requirements from the marketing and productions sectors. These thoughts lead in turn to the reflections of the doctoral candidate on presenting some kind of a model where the often irreconcilable demands from the decision makers’ point of departure can be illustrated. His thoughts go here complementarily to the guiding principles from the systems view about totality, complexity and relativity.

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The study area in practice – complementary procedures

As the first and most important complementary procedure, the doctoral candidate comes up with a kind of bifurcated criteria for selecting those case study companies which are to be asked to participate in the research related study of best practice. He establishes a number of factors as such criteria for the selection process. These factors include concepts like: “leadership/leadership style”, “way of project planning”, “controlling resources”, “creativity methods”, “principles for coordination” and “type of technical aids”. Starting from a selection technique taken from the actors view – recommendation selection

in combination with a problem/opportunity oriented selection – he aims at coming up with some twenty different case companies with interesting and different connections to best practice. He wants with this to try to reflect what is different in what is similar. He is very clear about the fact that his questionnaire questions will look for what is similar (“to look for common factors explaining excellence” – see above). At the same time, in his research report he wishes to be able to explain the importance of difference for excellence, even if he is using the questionnaire to look for similarities – hence his interest in the methodology of complementarity for exceeding his own analytical approach. He also intends to incorporate the actors view’s idea about ideal types in order to create

those developmental tools that he wants to come up with. This he plans to establish in dialogues with some leading person in each of the case companies in combination with a larger number of concerned actors in the poultry department of FoodEx Co. As he has not used dialogues before as a method he enrols in a methodology course in order to learn about dialogue in the sense of the actors view. In order to interpret the results of those irreconcilable demands among decision makers in

the poultry department, and to be able to illustrate the consequences of this for the decision makers in question, he constructs a systems model, as shown in Figure 14.2. The doctoral candidate looks at the decision system as consisting of three subsystems: the

Marketing system, the Production system and the Finance system. Their relations to each other he describes in terms of information and trust (or lack of it). The formula in the center symbolizes a kind of mechanism for reducing conflicts. In order for the decision system to work the best way, according to the doctoral candidate,

the different subsystems must consider each other’s demands, adapt and fit each other and, by this, create synergy.

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Figure 14.2 The Decision System

The demands (partly irreconcilable) that the different subsystems wanted to satisfy were:

Production

To produce poultry from a purely biological point of view so that it is possible to slaughter all those units of poultry which are one brood at the same time (broods are called “feeding sites” and constructed in a large number in the neighbourhood of the poultry department of FoodEx Co.; for rational as well as sanitary reasons all poultry units in one brood have to be slaughtered at the same time). Even and full employment at the slaughter house (which was owned by FoodEx Co).

Marketing

To come up with poultry products in the sizes and qualities that the market wants. To come up with new varieties more often.

Finance

To have as few days as possible without poultry on the “feeding sites”. Not to let the “products” grow too big. Increase the speed of breeding and use “the waste” from poultry as much as possible.

Methodics

After the doctoral candidate had initially probed the study area, determined the basic problem Arbnor, I., & Bjerke, B. (2008). Methodology for creating business knowledge. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from indwes on 2021-03-22 16:01:24.

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with which he was to work and conducted a large number of transformative operations (primary as well as complementary procedures) most of the material was ready to design the rest of the methodics of the study. He chooses to create an exciting and, for him, developing interaction between being at the poultry department and being involved with the case companies, one by one from, the point of departure of the selection techniques, he has transformed from the actors view. At every case company five persons related to best practice are selected to answer the

questionnaire containing sixty-five questions. In total, twenty-three middle-sized companies are to participate in the study. At the same time as the five persons answer the questionnaire, the doctoral candidate is conducting a longer dialogue with somebody in a senior position in the chosen company. The methodics that follows is by and large the same as that logical flow which was

presented in Figure 9.2, “Plans for Analytical Approach Studies”. When coding and arranging data the doctoral candidate notices several interesting

connections between the different methods for collecting data, for instance, how parts of the answers to the questionnaire are deepened by the dialogues, and in some cases he even changes his original thoughts around that definition that he himself, using the literature and well tested questionnaires (see above “The study area in practice – primary procedures”), had come up with in some of the questions.

Results

In his reports the doctoral candidate is describing best practice as well as those tools that are a result of his study. He is providing a number of common factors, which are direct causes of successful and innovative business actions in project work. Below we can see some of the factors on his long list with notations to indicate with what frequency they existed in the twenty-three studied companies.

Effective coordination (18) Well established objectives (16) Integrated team (15) Proactive thinking (12) Leadership (12) Good communication (12)

From working with his statistics he established a number of personal characteristics for best practice in innovation. He transformed these in his consulting reports to a number of typical individuals of importance in best practice. Part of the transformation was “spicing” them further with favourable characteristics, which he found in his dialogues in order to create an even higher degree of excellence. At the same time he constructs a few different systems models in order to illustrate, as he

writes in his report, “all those different relations that exist in a kind of mutual dependence”. He Arbnor, I., & Bjerke, B. (2008). Methodology for creating business knowledge. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from indwes on 2021-03-22 16:01:24.

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also solves the optimization model for the material flow, which is the basis for his decision and explanatory model (the mechanism for reducing conflicts – see Figure 14.2). To the FoodEx Co. senior management group he later hands over, for subsequent

implementation in the poultry department, the different models and tools for best practice in innovation.

CASE II: THE SYSTEMS APPROACH AS TRANSFORMATIVE OPERATOR

Introduction

In this case we will take look at a research project where the researcher was approaching the systems view in a project of methodological complementarity. The project was very extensive and only central parts of the study’s transformative operations will be commented on briefly. As the construction of public housing continued in Sweden, more and more voices were

raised for a direct user influence on the construction process. It was claimed that the consumers of public housing should be part of making decisions as early as the planning stage. In the same way that customer focus was increasing in other parts of the business world the time was ripe for such a focus in the relatively conservative construction industry. Yet this co- determination demanded, at least in part, a new kind of technology; experiments of some sort would therefore be necessary to develop both the technology and the planning. A number of such experiments had taken place over the years. One such experiment – or rather, a small part of an investigation that studied and assessed such an experiment – is described below. The study was conducted by an independent researcher.

Transformative operations

The independent researcher’s evaluation study is an excellent example of a constructive creation of knowledge based on a methodology of complementarity. A large number of procedures, both primary and complementary, were made using techniques and earlier results from the analytical approach as well as from the actors approach. These techniques-made-into- methods were reconciled during the course of the study and were subordinated to a methodics that, by and large, tried to “live” its own “life” based on conditions set down by the planners, the building constructors, the architects and the users. The researcher remained true to the systems approach as her transformative operator. Being true to a methodological base approach, as we have pointed out, is the most fundamental prerequisite for a methodology of complementarity to lead to good quantitative as well as qualitative results. Several of the discussions that the researcher recorded in her report often contained, for

purposes of formation, actors concepts placed against a systems base. In this way, the researcher hoped to create a feedback mechanism for the language games that took place in

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this specific study area (planning public housing; building public housing) of the factive reality in Sweden, and to combine systems and actors concepts within different forms of holistic discussions. Examples of how the researcher conducted discussions and acted in a complementarity sense when she constructed a questionnaire and placed actors concepts against a systems base are given below.

Primary procedures

The researcher’s primary procedures are directly related to the five principles of the systems view: the principles of totality, complexity, relativity, mutuality and unpredictability (see Chapter 5). Consequently her knowledge interest is related to trying to describe this experiment in a structural overall construction-technology perspective, as well as in a processual perspective close to the user. Through this combination of systems perspectives she wishes to reflect the totality and the complexity at the same time as the shift between the magnifying levels would point out the relativity in this kind of systems descriptions (see “Systems view in the twenty-first century” in Chapter 5). By systems models she wanted to illustrate how the activities of the different subsystems are intimately interrelated and at the same time almost impossible to predict. After some introductory interviews the researcher attempts to clarify the overall purpose

with the experiment in question around user influence. Through a first primary procedure she illustrates the study area in a systems model where existing and desirable relations between what is social and what is technological are described, that is, between the two systems “Social (user) system” and “Technology system” (see Figure 14.3).

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Figure 14.3 Systems Relations in the Experiment

The researcher notes at the same time that the study area consists of another dominating system – “the bureaucratic system” – that may come to play a decisive role. It is the local representatives, mainly from the estate agency, which are to approve the plans and the processes in the experiment. She makes the assumption, however, that it will not cause any problems, as the bureaucratic system has taken the initiative on the whole thing. The only aspect that is added is another open system involved in what she refers to as mutual conditional relations. A preliminary outline of this wanted and ideal systems condition is shown in Figure 14.4. As a systems oriented researcher she tries in this project to explain important factors at the

same time as creating an understanding for them. In order to deepen this understanding in the metaphoric meaning of the systems view, the researcher chooses, furthermore, to supplement this with central concepts from the actors view (see below). The researcher also wishes, early on, to be able to follow the whole experimental group of users out of a processual perspective, and within its framework, through questionnaires, to conduct a census of all 260 participating users. She wants in connection with these questionnaires to conduct an analytical quantification and testing of hypotheses (see below).

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Figure 14.4 Systems Relations for Energizing the Processes

Complementary procedures

After an introductory problematization the researcher is formulating the following two hypotheses of five all together, which she intends to define quantitatively and test in the study using an interval scale:

1. A real user influence requires that every planning and construction issue in the process starts from the everyday level of the actors in order to be relevant and create meaning for them.

2. User influence requires extended flexibility in the planning, as well as in the construction process in order to also include the users’ learning as the process goes on.

In order to test these hypotheses the researcher must also be able to quantify the results of her planned surveys. In order to create as valid results as possible she is of the opinion that her questionnaires, as an instrument, also must satisfy what she has written herself about creating meaning and about relevance in the first hypothesis above. For the purpose of coming up with relevant questions creating meaningful finality relations, the researcher goes beyond traditional analytical ways in her construction of the questionnaires. Here she turns transformatively to the idea in the actors approach about first hand expressions as a point of departure for relevance and creating meaning. In a number of complementary procedures she develops what became her method in order to test the hypotheses and also, partly, to contribute

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to evaluating the process. Before every new survey (4 of them over time) she applies the following three steps procedure:

1. Dialogues with a varying number of four to six users in order to come up with structural and process oriented phenomena, which are felt to be important to them.

2. A random sample of twelve users out of the total experimental population containing 260 users, to whom she presents the phenomena. Together with these twelve she develops the questions to the actual questionnaire.

3. At moments where all the users participate in order to be informed about the project managers’ plans and acquaint themselves with site descriptions, the researcher is given an opportunity at the end of these occasions to present the coming questionnaire and to denote the conceptual meaning of the questions in a plenary meeting together with all 260 users.

After this three-steps procedure all 260 users are given the actual questionnaire, which is then answered. Beginning with a quantitative analysis of the questionnaire answers, the hypotheses are tested, and the researcher writes in her report: “Through actors-complementary procedures at these questionnaire constructions I wished to reach beyond superficiality and approach profundity.” Besides these complementary procedures the researcher is working with basing her systems

descriptions with the actors. She thinks this is the best way to compound and energize the five principles of the systems view (see below), which she is not leaving behind during the project but uses as her platform here and in other projects, being a systems oriented researcher.

Some results

The project, which the researcher followed and evaluated, did not become exactly what the involved local representatives (bureaucratic system), the planners (technology system) or the consumers (user system) had in mind. The desirable forces between the two systems (user and technology) were never realized. The relation was rather tightened between the bureaucratic and the technological systems to such a degree that the users were left outside without these two systems noticing it. The researcher’s two hypotheses above were also strongly confirmed, but unfortunately then in a negative direction for the experiment. The users never entered, so to say, any relevant interrelationship with the dominating forces in the different processes where meaning was intended to be created. The researcher starts one of her systems descriptions in the report like this: “The ‘one-

dimensional’ theory states that bureaucracy and ordinary technology develop according to each other’s conditions. The user – consumer – system finds itself on the outside, which means that the connection to consumer influence is crashing” (see Figure 14.5). In the experiment discussed here a systems constellation was constructed – on a local level

– in which the bureaucratic and technological systems should open themselves and establish bilateral conditional relations with the user – consumer – system.

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So, what is the content of these conditional relations? In the interest of developing a descriptive edge in the systems language, conditional relations will refer to the conditions for a social and technical fit (see Figure 14.4). It is therefore with these conditional relations that the actors who are part of the systems constellations aim for a technical and social fit. Now that we understand how relations were constructed in this particular experiment, it is

no longer, according to the researcher, appropriate to talk only about systems as such (i.e. the “bureaucratic system, technology system and user system”); we must also talk about their representatives: the actors. For this reason the systems denotations are changed to actors denotations.

Figure 14.5 The Codetermination Act as a Crash

Now that there are “living” actors in Figure 14.5 it is, according to the researcher, natural to look at the development of conditions for a social and technical fit as a language game (language game relations). The reason it is more appropriate to talk about language game relations as a kind of investigating instrument is because the actors in the experiment use everyday terms to express their opinions about the conditions for the social and technical fit. Nevertheless, the contents of these terms – the concepts – must be continuously reinterpreted so they suit the situation in which an actor is placed at any given moment. A magnificent language game takes place. The researcher provides the following example in her report:

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At the start of the project the head planner directs his version of the story to (representatives for) the local authorities to gain their interest. The authorities in question formulate objectives, and invite users/consumers. The architects present the conditions in a way that interests the users. The users become interested, but find out later that the conditions were not as they had perceived them. Now the head planner explains to the users that they must somehow have misunderstood, and the conditions are reinterpreted. The local authorities then find it necessary to change their opinion about the conditions, at least partly. Now, the users begin to ask questions and the local authorities ask why. This explanation is relayed to the building constructors, who, in turn, specify some conditions and changes others. And then …

An institutionalizing and legitimizing pattern is established in this continuous process of externalized reinterpretation, which means that some aspects of the experiment within the systems constellations become cemented; that is, they become accepted and no longer questioned. As the experiment continues, more and more aspects are cemented until, at the end, we can talk about the specific factive reality to the experiment. Put together, this makes it possible, according to the researcher, to better describe the construction of the systems and their relations to the experiment; this is done based on the conditional relations for a social and technical fit interpreted as language game relations (the constitution of actors). In order to assess this experiment it is important to keep this aspect in mind. To be able to

understand the social game and to translate the experiences into planning instruments, the conditional relations mentioned above must be anchored in the different meaning constructed contexts of the systems.

A comment on complementarity

One important aspect of this description is how the researcher used actors concepts within the framework of the development of illustrative languages in the systems approach, to be better able to communicate the phenomena that she attempts to make explicit. The researcher also sometimes deliberately used actors concepts (not illustrated above) in her description in order to “puncture” what she referred to as “the planner’s levelling systems-eye”. The planner and the representatives of the local authorities usually spoke in fairly extreme technological/bureaucratic systems terms to the users, who, on their side, usually picked up their language images from totally different social contexts. On some issues, especially among the planners, this led to seeing the participating users/consumers as nothing but components of the system, lacking meaning contexts of their own, in relation to the totality as defined by the planner. Another important aspect of the researcher’s investigation is how she, actors-wise, created

meaning around the construction of the questionnaires and the analytical testing of hypotheses. The result of these complementary procedures strengthened the evaluation and gave further material to the researcher in giving weight to her critical systems descriptions and

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language comments. The researcher proceeded as mentioned and looked for understanding (see Figure 9.3) by introducing a number of metaphors, out of which we have here reported what is possibly the most important one. The researcher’s critical metaphor – “the planner’s levelling systems-eye” – and certain

systems concepts surrounding it were consequently used in the report to make visible the problems that arose through the very real difficulties the planners and people from the local authorities had in overcoming their superior and patronizing attitude, in which the other “actors” (users) were constantly to be helped and formally placed in a technological system for co-determination. The metaphor, in this context, is built around the middle concept of “leveling”. The first phrase (the planner) indicates the active part, and the final word (systems-eye) is the tool for the activity. Levelling means dominating, ruling and controlling the context, based on the fact that the word is taken from the planner’s own technical vocabulary and refers to the activities that planners normally engage in – levelling the terrain’s natural broken ground and thereby rationalizing the technical fit. In a transferred sense, therefore, “levelling” stands for the social insensitivity that constantly “levels” the users’ personal ideas about how they want to live. In spite of the fact that this was only an experiment, the planners often experienced the users’ subjective plans as just as hopeless and disturbing for the expansion of the technical – industrial – construction of the housing, as the hard formations of the terrain for a rational allocation of foundations and roads in the physical area. So researchers, in their studies, frequently use various systems concepts and, furthermore,

do so for varying reasons. Sometimes systems concepts are used to create a higher level of understanding for various holistic discussions. Sometimes they are used in order to criticize what they think is an exaggerated use of these concepts. Overuse of the concepts can lead to the construction of a systems-eye – an eye that looks at everything in terms of systems, subsystems, relations and components – that, according to the researcher in this experiment, leads to “fitting like a glove those individuals who want to plan and structure other people’s lives”. What we have seen in this example is how the construction of questionnaires and testing of

hypotheses, together with actors concepts, are used creatively and consciously by the systems approach as a transformative operator. What made this exciting use possible is the fact that the techniques and concepts are placed against a base other than their own; this, in turn, led to their transformation in an interesting way in the process of creating knowledge. Yet our presentation shows only one of several sections of a study based on a methodology of complementarity.

CASE III: THE ACTORS APPROACH AS TRANSFORMATIVE OPERATOR

Starting point

This case is an action-oriented research case (in future called the research project) where the Arbnor, I., & Bjerke, B. (2008). Methodology for creating business knowledge. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from indwes on 2021-03-22 16:01:24.

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actors-oriented researcher has been given the mission, in cooperation with a world leading multinational firm, to develop new forms of work for its machinery development for the firm’s company for research and development (R&D). The firm wants employees in its R&D company, more trans-functionally on a dialogical

basis, to match different professional skills against those problems that are at hand in various research and development projects. At the time, for this research project trans-functional dialogues were rare. The researcher therefore chose, at an early stage, to call his project “an industrial jam session”. This metaphor for creative development work he picked up from a book by Kao, Jamming – The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity (1997). With the metaphor he wanted to illustrate the improvisation’s demanding exercise to empower a person to emancipate himself/herself and reach higher creative levels in trans-functional cooperation. That cooperation which the firm wanted was, after all, to take place within an existing relatively strict control system, which the senior management of the firm did not want to waive. In his first contacts with the firm’s R&D company the researcher quickly found out that

present work was organized completely linear-functionally, and trans-competent contacts were seriously obstructed. People consequently worked almost completely within their own professionally homogenous departments. When some specific competence was missing in their own group, they passed well-defined problem specifications to other equally skill-homogenous groups. The constructors called this way of working somewhat jokingly “the container model”, which also pointed at how they looked at the existing lack of trans-contacts between people themselves. This way of working was in operation in spite of the requirement that most projects at that time demanded cross-boundary work from a cost effective as well as from a conceptual perspective. As a dialogical multiprofessional “creative jamming” did not exist in the firm to the extent asked for, in spite of the strong need for such a way of working, the researcher was asked to come up with proposals for new forms of organization of, and work in, a new innovation system: forms which could satisfy the senior management’s desires, but which could at the same time function within the present control system. Furthermore, the firm had previously engaged consultants, the outcome of which had been rather pouring more concrete into already established forms. The work of these consultants had, for instance, resulted in a number of project management

programmes being set up to handle what was already there (= already known). In order to reduce the costs for developing new machinery, the consultants had recommended that this should, to an increasing extent, be done by assembling already known “building bricks” (technical solutions). The innovation process had therefore been divided into phases with strict rules for moving from one of these phases to the next. There were also carefully developed technical specifications for these moves. “Key technologies”, “docking in” and “process flow” were key words in this innovation system. The goal of the consultants’ model was to use that knowledge which already existed, and minimize the risk by auditing at every phase. Some of this had made the innovation process to substantially lose creative height compared

with the competitors. The senior management of the firm at large, therefore, experienced to an increasing extent that its R&D company was characterized by reactive behaviour and that it was no longer the proactive company it had once been. The senior management of the firm at large had self-critically asked itself if it would be

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possible, with the existing innovation system of the R&D company, to come up with a world leading multinational firm similar to the present one, which had been built on those basic innovations which were generated eighty years ago. Its answer had been a clear “no”. It would not be possible: Present working order was designed to take care of a mature system, not handle radical innovation and high-risk projects. Another major problem was how new projects were initiated. The researcher also

discovered early in his dialogues how the present way of working reinforced “the container model”. From their own range of competencies the project managers chose that competence they thought was needed in the different phases of the course of innovation. This resulted in too narrow perspectives. The problem was, furthermore, that they had little knowledge of what skills were actually obtainable (almost non-existing knowledge of what skills other colleagues had) or even what skills might be necessary. The senior management of the R&D company was here of the opinion that their project managers were very little aware that it was not only about knowing where the competence was; the real problem, as this senior management saw it, was that the project managers often did not even know which general competence was needed to find out what specific competence was lacking. “The container model” and the formalized innovation process were in fact effectively de-organizing an effective initial and chaotic cross- competence search (jamming) when starting a project. This was also quickly discovered by the researcher in his introductory problematization.

The complementary ambitions of the researcher

The researcher saw early in the project a possibility to develop a theory for MultiProfessional Dynamics (MPD) in innovation processes, containing descriptive language, models and concrete instruments for this MPD work as innovative structure and process. He realized after a number of exploring dialogues with actors from both senior management groups (the firm at large and the R&D company) as well as with individual researchers/constructors, that the project could also offer exciting possibilities for complementary methodological creations. Using the actors approach the researcher takes on the project. As a first instrument he is

thinking of putting together a new kind of personality test, which is focuses on the personal characteristics that are necessary from an MPD perspective. Using analytical tests and questionnaires of this type is not something that is normally part of the actors approach. Nor is it common to use systems terms, as these, according to the actors view, do not consider the dialectics of being a creator of relations and an actor as an inviolable whole. These thoughts are triggering the researcher to transform analytical techniques, as well as systems oriented terms, to become methods in the project in question. So, for the researcher, it is about developing a personality test (MPD test) which is based on

the basic idea of the actors approach to search for first hand expressions, which cannot normally be caught in questionnaires and personality tests. Through these latter exercises, second hand expressions are obtained instead, that is, expressions about expressions around experiences which somebody has already given expression to in the very moment of experiencing. The researcher also has to try to describe the innovation process in a systems

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model which builds further on the jamming metaphor and which can show that multidimensional complexity which the actors view attempts to vivify through its structurally and dialectically based denotation of conceptual meaning. The researcher is consequently applying his methodological view in practice (approach) as a transformative operator to achieve a, for him, desirable complementarity in his project.

Transformative operations

Primary procedures

The researcher is planning, as primary procedures, to conduct a number of dialogues and draw actors’ maps on those he conducted initially in order to understand the actors’ intentions with the project. In these dialogues he aims, as an antithesis, to bring up his own ideas as well around how he looks at what previous consultants have done. He is looking at the selection of actors as a recommendation selection as well as a

problem/opportunity oriented selection. Through experiments and personality tests (MPD tests) of a complementary nature (see

below) he wants to create a research foundation, which can later be condensed, in order to come up with a number of ideal types in the primary meaning of the actors view. These are to focus the essences in a theory of multiprofessional dynamics (MPD) as an innovative process on the vision of an industrial jam session as a metaphor. The researcher wants to show that multiprofessional development is not only about mixing different professional skills but increasingly about using the personalities of participating actors in relation to their creating of meaning in inventive group processes. This whole thing requires keeping in mind the different actors’ finite provinces of meaning in all aspects of the social reality’s dialectical process structure of subjectification, externalization, objectification and internalization.

Complementary procedures

The researcher is interpreting the present senior management’s description of the innovation system of the firm and is converting, with the actors view as operator, important systems concepts in their present model. He is trying to create an alternative more dynamic and process oriented model where the relation-searching actor is put in the centre. The systems model also builds on those first hand expressions that the senior management team in the firm has used when describing the R&D company innovation process. Through this the researcher is able to catch the leadership’s intention in a systems language which they recognize, at the same time as it is shaped so that it shows itself, in a dialectical sense, as the second in the relation to their first, that is, as an antithesis (see “Dialectics” in Chapter 6). The researcher’s knowledge ambition (see Figure 6.2) is, in fact, to let this model (see Figure 14.6 overleaf) participate as a step in a field of procreative tension – a field that he aims to establish as an experimental research basis for his theoretical development and modelling of an MPD-oriented innovation process. In this field of procreative tension a vital interplay is to take place as seen in living

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processes and the imaginative triggering of ideas. He is very anxious to use his operations to deliver what is potential in what is factual as one part of his own theoretical development around MPD. At the same time he wishes to illustrate this theory in an action-oriented way. The next extensive complementary procedure he is facing is how a personality test of an

MPD type is to be constructed. This is not done by simply focusing the personal characteristics that according to different theories are prominent in similar developmental contexts. He has to create a test which is based on the actors principle of first hand expressions, while at the same time creating one that it is possible to quantify to a certain degree. The researcher, therefore, cannot just use some analytical test (technique) which asks the actors questions about how they have acted or believe they would act in a specific situation, he has to develop an action- oriented test which in principle lets the actors arrive at their answers through their own first hand expressions of what they have been exposed to. That is to say, instead of asking the actors how they think they would act facing a specific situation they are now to assess for themselves how they did act in such situations.

Figure 14.6 The Innovation System

Consequently, he is exposing, for an experimental purpose, chosen actors (forty-eight selected researchers and constructors from the firm’s R&D company) to a number of development situations. All these situations are related to the present systems model as well as to the new one, built on the metaphor of an industrial jam session as innovation process. The development situations initiate in different ways actors oriented subjectifications and externalizations as direct first hand expressions, which then immediately provide the actors with answers in the MPD test to questions about how they act in a specific situation. The actors are only to read how they just have acted and provide that answer. A number of questions and situations with cross-references are created to increase the validity as well as the reliability of the test (see “Methodics” below). The test material then provides a basis together with conducted dialogues for his condensation of the results to those different ideal types that are mentioned above under “Primary Procedures”.

Methodics

That methodics which the researcher designs as a kind of logistical flow of those activities he intends to implement is planned in detail – almost as an analytical project would proceed. It is,

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however, supposed to be really chaotic within the different partial steps in order to vivify what the researcher sees as decisive constitutional factors for creative innovation processes. Another basic actors principle with which the researcher is working is that research/consulting/investigation and implementation are not to stand in a kind of before–after relationship, which is often the case within the systems approach where new systems solutions are implemented at the end of a knowledge-creating process. The researcher has seen this leading to problems too often. He therefore wants to show that it is possible, as with practical (approaching) methodics in research and action oriented projects, to let implementation be a part of the on-going experimental process of thesis–antithesis–synthesis. The researcher’s initial round of dialogues leads into a first session of three days of

experiments (the main thesis) where personality tests of the MPD type are conducted. Those development situations that the researcher has designed are based on a large number of realistic and on-going real development projects in the firm. In the main thesis the constructors are now in traditionally composed groups according to the so-called “container model”, confronting those realistic and on-going real projects mentioned according to the R&D company’s way of working – also traditional. The actors are to provide as individual answers to the test questionnaire that was constructed how they react personally and express themselves in such situations. After analysis of personalities and a condensation of these into a number of ideal types, which the researcher asserts is supporting the dynamics of multi-professionalism according to the metatheories of the actors view (see Figure 6.7), he feeds back the results to the senior management of the firm. After one month the researcher confronts the forty-eight researchers/constructors again in a

three-day session of activities (the main antithesis). The development situations are the same as before in the main thesis, but now the actors are divided into MPD teams. They are composed by skills as well as by how the individual actors match those different ideal types which the researcher has condensed out of the test material. The researcher is, so to say, composing ideal MPD teams as a starting point for this main antithesis. Here the chosen actors are now to meet different ways of working as well (see under “Results” below) which match the metaphor of an industrial jam session. This means that the researcher in experimenting action is presenting what he sees as the road to a new innovation system. This time the actors are once more answering questions in the constructed questionnaire as a reliability control of the MPD test being developed. Furthermore, the researcher conducts a number of dialogues after these tests and experiments

to come up with a deepened understanding around how the groups have attacked the problems in the first format (“container”) and in the second MPD format. All this had as a purpose to make it possible as a main synthesis to give shape to the whole experimental process through a model and a language for a new innovation system, a system where all actors, through creative actions, have been allowed to give their personal prints as complete and authentic human beings. The synthesis then becomes the natural implementation. Which means, in turn, that no implementation is needed, as the new system, materially as well as intentionally, has been delivered by the actors themselves as what is potential in what is factual. The actors have, through their creative actions, in experiments and dialogues externalized a new social reality together with the researcher. The researcher illustrates his dialectical methodics in the

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Figure 14.7: Please compare Figure 14.7 with Figure 3.15. Here it is possible to see how the

researcher’s applied methodics follows the basic principles for the dialectical thinking in the actors view.

Results

Having come to the result of this operative paradigm with the researcher’s procreative report as its end product (see “The procreative report” in Chapter 7), we want to point to some important matters from the researcher’s complementary perspective. Within the framework of this book it is, however, not possible to describe those theories and ways of working for MPD processes which the researcher developed. Nor is it possible to illustrate all those different parts that went into the new innovation system. This is outside the methodological ambitions of this book.

Figure 14.7 The Dialectic Methodics of the Actors Apporach as Transformative Operator

The basic idea of the researcher, as presented in his report, was the importance of procreative tension to combine and confront different skills with different ideal types in one and the same MPD team. And in order to do this he constructed an MPD test, which made it possible for him and management to get a good picture of the profiles of the participating actors from an ideal typified perspective. He also presented a putting together of this for the whole participating group. We are, below, examine, in a shortened version, some of these ideal type descriptions and parts of that descriptive and symbolic language developed by the researcher. He started his report with the following:

MultiProfessional Dynamics as an innovation system is not a new collection of boxes, Arbnor, I., & Bjerke, B. (2008). Methodology for creating business knowledge. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from indwes on 2021-03-22 16:01:24.

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arrows and models to learn for cooperation and construction in the engineering sense. MPD is a multi-complex totality and by this a way of thinking and acting as researcher/constructor. The moment somebody attempts to describe and bring analytical order to such a totality, the totality easily disappears. A work of art is not presenting itself to the person who attempts to separate and describe it in terms of colour chemistry, construction of forms or size and weight. Complex phenomena (such as your machinery and like a work of art) have the peculiarity to lose their construction potential identity at such analytical attempts. These phenomena are like pictures – genuine wholes. MPD should therefore be reflected out of a large number of aspects, which is enriching the insight of the potential totality in what is factual. Otherwise it becomes as if one is tearing a picture into pieces, and by that act, hoping to see what it represents.

The researcher condensed ten different ideal types out of the material and chose in his feedback to every individual actor to denote that ideal type which was most prominent with him/her – their “dominant ideal type” – and characteristics of others as “secondary ideal types”. He also presented a quantified picture of the collected group’s profiles in relation to dominant and secondary ideal-typified characteristics. The reason was that this was necessary as a basis for being able to match suitable MPD teams in relation to the different projects of machinery that the firm’s R&D company was working with. Before the researcher presented his different ideal types he reminded the individual actors of the meaning of the ideal type as a notion “loaded with energy”, with procreative words as follows:

No single actor represents any of the ideal types in full. Rather a person is seen as “gliding” somewhat between them in his/her ambition to create technological development. However, the ideal types have a meaning by enlightening what can be seen as necessary triggers (instruments) in order for an MPD team to start “swinging”. All the participants in such a team are informed of this necessity, and that no ideal type is worth more than any other. It is therefore possible to act safely within the framework of these ideals in one’s conviction that the intonation, the sensitivity, the dialogue and the dialectics between them all create synergy of an unexpected kind. Without this insight the process runs the risk of ending up in too much of a “solo play”, which will not entice that improvisation which is a quality of a “jamming” MPD team. “Ideal type” therefore becomes a metaphor for delivering what is potential in what is factual. When an MPD team is put together one has consequently to see to it that the group has the necessary professional set-up as far as the mission is concerned and that the members of the group have personal qualities that are matching the different ideal types for an ideal MPD team.

In a reduced version we reproduce six of the ten ideal types that the researcher presented:

The down-to-earth project maker

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The practical creative seeker (technically/economically/marketwise), who easily loses the totality and the overriding objectives. An “inventor” who understands the importance of listening but who is at the same time exclusively focusing on each part of a creative process in isolation.

The process guide The empathical leader who understands the group process on its own terms. Tries to create preunderstanding and “tone up”. Has understood that leadership for technical development is about leading human development in multi-professional teams, with the differences in the ideal types as an inspiration.

The development therapist The methodically constructive person who asks questions rather than generates answers and ideas. Is able with his/her questions to point at similarities and differences. Is no direct leader, however, rather a kind of development therapist, which is keeping the “safe” rhythm in the MPD team.

The visionary project maker The imaginatively creative seeker (technically/economically/marketwise), who is focusing on the totality and the overriding objectives. A visionary who understands the importance of listening but who is, at the same time, devotedly focusing on the major issues in an MPD process.

The equilibrist The actor who is technically structuring the process as it moves on. Brings a necessary aspect of structure/analytics into the MPD process and contributes by this to strategic balance/feeling of objectives. Is the person who continuously and purposefully is running a project toward completion and production.

The image interpreter The actor who is likely to see technical solutions as images without any limited technical look. Is experimental and lively with his/her own thinking, as if it was a collage of images which can be cut and pasted in any combinations.

The researcher also designed a complete systems language with symbols for the whole innovation process. This constituted the foundation of the company’s new innovation system. Some shortened examples of this work of language and symbols are illustrated in Figure 14.8.

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Figure 14.8 MultiProfessional Dynamics

We have in this chapter, with pedagogic care, tried, in a practical way, to illustrate the potential interdependency in opposite methodological opinions of similar problems which is described in Box 13.2 “The Arbnor/Bjerke Methodological Principle of Complementarity”. With high crealiability in knowledge-creating work we can reach surprising and highly interesting results – that is, when research/consulting/investigation is at its best. The three different cases described also show clearly that it is not only possible to conduct studies using this methodology of complementarity but that it is also very desirable.

POINTS OF REFLECTION

1. What is it that the doctoral student in Case I is doing as a first step in designing an operative paradigm with the analytical approach as a transformative operator?

2. The ultimate presumptions of the analytical approach, for example, that knowledge is seen as something cumulative, is quickly shown in Case I. Give two examples of this!

3. The doctoral student in Case I chooses to combine his consulting mission with a research oriented study of so-called “best practice”. In this way of searching (looking for “best practice”) there is an important starting point for the analytical approach.

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What is it? 4. The doctoral student also makes a discovery in Kunde’s book which makes him deepen

even further his complementary way of thinking. What was it that he started to reflect on?

5. In order to, through complementary procedures, compensate for those shortcomings the doctoral student thinks he can see with “best practice”, he brings up, inspired by the actors approach, what he refers to as “typical individuals”. Point out in which way his treatment here exceeds normal analytical/statistical acting by what he refers to as “typical individuals”.

6. With respect to one of the literature references which the doctoral student in Case I is using he feels hesitant about whether it concerns complementarity. Study the quote he leaves in the report and come up with your own opinion of what is said by Whitman & Woszczynski (2003).

7. In Case II the researcher is conducting a number of primary procedures in relation to the five principles of the systems view. These principles you know from before (Chapter 5), together with those two perspectives that might exist in systems studies. How does the researcher think concerning the issue of perspectives? And why?

8. In Case II with the systems approach as operator, the researcher is conducting complementary procedures in relation to the actors approach as well as to the analytical approach. Point out the two most central concepts/techniques/methods that she is looking to use as complementary.

9. The systems oriented researcher in Case II is conducting a questionnaire study in three steps using complementary methodology. Apply this thinking to an optional business case where you perceive that it would provide added interesting aspects and results.

10. The researcher in Case II is also talking about a language game, which she wants to illuminate. What does this mean and how does it come out in the case, and from which view does it originate?

11. In Case II there is also talk about creating understanding in the meaning of the systems view. Among other things, the researcher presents a critical metaphor. Why does she refer to it as “critical”? And in what way is she constructing an eye-opener in the metaphor?

12. Case III starts from an actors oriented researcher who is developing a new type of mode of working for the R&D activity of the company. Early on the researcher is setting up a metaphor of “an industrial jam session” as a kind of prototype. What is the idea behind having a metaphor as a guide in a project like this one?

13. When the researcher in Case III is to find out what the consultants have done earlier, he discovers that the company, instead of having increased its comparative creative height, has actually lost it. If you study how the consultants were thinking, can you conclude which view they started from when they talked in such terms as “key technologies”, “docking in”, etc.?

14. If you had worked with Competitive Intelligence and run into something similar, that is, if a company had organized its innovation activities in the same way as the researcher faced in Case III, what would you then have reported to your employer

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about the competitive position of this company? 15. The systems oriented researcher in Case II is using, through a complementary

procedure, the concept of first hand expressions from the actors view when conducting a questionnaire study. In Case III, which starts from the actors view as a transformative operator, this is a logical outcome. But here a transformation in relation to the analytical approach is taking place instead. What is the researcher aiming at then? And how does he solve this problem of testing personality in a creative way?

16. In Case III the researcher is presenting his view on implementation and creates, according to the dialectical methodics of the actors view, an “implementation process” which differs completely from the one in Case I. Describe the difference and how this difference can easily be derived from the ultimate presumptions of the various views.

17. The researcher conducts a reliability assessment of his MPD test in Case III. What is he assessing then?

18. In a fair way judging the degree of crealiability of complementarity in the different cases is not possible, of course, with the material that has been presented here. But for the sake of a pedagogical exercise we want you independently, but at the same time as others, to make an evaluation of the three cases. After having done so, compare your evaluations and argue for how you have weighted the different core elements and why, as well as how you have actually judged the cases.