Time: 4pm, 11/23
Place: 110 South Hall


                   We're All Knowledge Workers Now
   A social-practice perspective on knowledge and organization
                       Paul Duguid, UC Berkeley

Abstract
The past few years have seen an explosion in literature about knowledge and organization, 
knowledge and information, knowledge and technology.  Who wants to be one of Drucker's 
"information workers" any more?  We're all, it seems, struggling to be "knowledge workers" 
now.  A glance at the organizational literature suggests, however, that knowledge is 
becoming another of those words that create a great deal of buzz but have ever less bite. 
An idea comforting to all people, but too loose to be of real use to many.
From recent work on knowledge and the firm, I outline a "knowledge conundrum."  To try 
to put some bite back into such things as the "knowledge-based" view of the firm, I suggest 
that a worthwhile knowledge-based approach should be able to resolve the apparently 
paradoxical character of organizational knowledge.  I outline three principal approaches to 
resolution evident in the literature: epistemological, cognitive, and socio-cultural.  I 
discuss each before favoring the last and in particular a social-practice perspective.  This 
perspective I argue offers a distinct and powerful view of organization, communication, and 
Marshall's enduring idea of "localization" (more recently known as "clustering").