creators_name: Clancey, William J.
editors_name: Bagnara, S.
editors_name: C., Zuccermaglio
editors_name: Stucky, S
type: bookchapter
datestamp: 1998-06-16
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:53:49
metadata_visibility: show
title: Practice cannot be reduced to theory: Knowledge, representations, and change in the workplace.
ispublished: pub
subjects: comp-sci-art-intel
subjects: phil-epist
subjects: phil-metaphys
subjects: soc-psy
full_text_status: public
keywords: practice, anthropology, knowledge level, organizational learning, representations, organizational change, soci-technical systems, corporate memory, situated cognition
abstract: Changing views of the nature of human knowledge change how we design organizations, facilities, and technology to promote learning: Learning is not transfer; using a plan is not executing a program; explanation is not reciting rules from memory. Such rationalist views of knowledge inhibit change and stifle innovate uses of technology. Representations of work (plans, policies, procedures) and their meaning develop in work itself. Representations guide, but do not strictly control human behavior. Every perception and action involves new, nonlinguistic conceptualizations that reground organizational goals and values. This essay explores how the epistemology of situated cognition guides business redesign.
date: 1995
date_type: published
publication: Organizational Learning and Technological Change
publisher: Springer, Berlin
pagerange: 16-46
refereed: FALSE
citation:   Clancey, William J.  (1995) Practice cannot be reduced to theory: Knowledge, representations, and change in the workplace.  [Book Chapter]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/322/1/137.htm