Modes of Knowledge

In the UK there has been interest in modes of knowledge production as described by Gibbons and others in 1994. ‘In mode 1 problems are set and solved in a context governed by the largely academic interests of a specific community. By contrast mode 2 knowledge is carried out in a contest of application. Mode 1 is disciplinary while Mode 2 is transdisciplinary.’ The issues were explored in an issue of the British Journal of Management in December 2001. One of the articles on ‘aligning stakeholders in the future of management research’ included a diagram similar to this.

This more or less ignores the role that the people taking the action have in creating knowledge. The approach may work for science but needs to be modified for social theory. There is opportunity for dialogue between modes 1 and 2. There seems to be an idea that universities could work at one level for research, another for teaching, and then another level for relating to the local economy. This is not going to work well for a subject such as quality. Maybe one of the problems is that most quality theory has been developed outside of universities. MIT has a role in this dialogue as it has a base for Deming and was the base for early work on learning organisations. Also the project to put course material online shows an awareness of how communication can be shared. My impression at the 2002 conference ‘connecting learning and critique’ was that the paper on Wuwei management was effective as critique of western management but also had a positive direction in application. This has something to do with the MIT connection. As I’ve gone into comment mode, here’s something from the letters page of the Guardian. Dr Simon Buckingham Shum writes Oct 14th to object to a letter from Professor Norman Sheppard who suggested that ‘reference to unreviewed documents in open archives should not be allowed in authentic scientific journals”. What an amazing suggestion to make anyway. On most mailing lists discussion continues till something fairly clear is established. This is a technology Dr Shum is now proposing to make full use of. “Authors and reviewers can now engage in discussion about the merits of a submission”. This seems very sensible. Search of Google reveals a relevant website http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/sbs/