Knowledge creation and play. A phenomenological study within a multi-professional and multi-organizational community
| Date | 09 October 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-11-2016-0141 |
| Published date | 09 October 2017 |
| Pages | 1167-1191 |
| Author | Anna Reetta Suorsa |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Knowledge creation and play
A phenomenological study
within a multi-professional and
multi-organizational community
Anna Reetta Suorsa
Department of Information Studies, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to present a framework for empirically studying knowledge creation
(KC) with phenomenological approach and propose that understanding interaction as play conceptualized by
Hans-Georg Gadamer allows examining KC starting from the idea of a human being interacting in the events
of co-creation. The presented framework is used to examine KC in a community of librarians and teachers
collaborating to promote children’s joy of reading.
Design/methodology/approach –An ethnographic approach is applied to investigate knowledge-creating
interaction in a working community. The triangulated data consist of ethnographic observations and video
recordings of the community’s gatherings, its members’interviews and produced documents.
Findings –The phenomenological conceptions of temporality of a human being and play are suitable for
understanding being in the knowledge-creating interaction, as they give means to understand the
meaningfulness of the past experiences, but promote an open attitude toward the future possibilities in a way
which promotes KC. Studying interactive events allows understanding how KC can be examined as a
collective accomplishment. The playful mode of being in the event was seen as a way to use the limited time
available for interaction effectively.
Research limitations/implications –The empirical study was conducted in one community, and further
research is needed to test the developed approach in other contexts.
Practical implications –The results may be utilized to develop organizational circumstances, which
promote KC by acknowledging the meaningfulness of interaction.
Originality/value –The study presents a novel way to conceptualize and examine KC as an experience and
an event with phenomenological approach.
Keywords Interaction, Knowledge creation, Knowledge management, Knowledge processes,
Communication, Phenomenology
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The research into knowledge creation (KC), within the multidisciplinary field of knowledge
management (KM), has focused largely on how to foster an atmosphere for open and
creative interaction in organizations. This is based on the notion that new knowledge is
created in interaction, when people with different backgrounds and knowledge bases
encounter each other (Tsoukas, 2009). A review of the KC research indicates a striving
toward defining a “creative”state of being or atmosphere which promotes creative
interaction (Suorsa, 2015). Studies have focused on the circumstances which promote
employees to engage in open interaction. Additionally, personal relationships, as well as the
behavior and previous experiences have been shown to affect interaction.
A recent study introduced the Gadamerian concept of play as a fruitful starting point for
understanding the complex phenomenon of KC (Suorsa, 2015). According to Hans-Georg
Gadamer, play is a shared state of being together, where profound change can happen.
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 73 No. 6, 2017
pp. 1167-1191
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-11-2016-0141
Received 25 November 2016
Revised 19 April 2017
Accepted 20 April 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
The study is funded by the Strategic Research Council, Finland, Project No. 292854. The author is very
gratefulto the anonymous reviewerswho provided valuablecomments for the improvementof the paper.
The author wants to thank the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture; Professor Maija-Leena Huotari,
Professor Riitta-Liisa Korkeamäki, Project Manager Eeva Kurttila-Matero and Planning Officer Marianna
Junes of the JOR program; and theJOR community for the opportunity to conduct this study.
1167
Knowledge
creation and
play
Playcanthusbeviewedasanactionwherepeopleareinaspecialmodeofbeingtogether.Play
has been of increasing interest in Library and Information Science (LIS) during the last decade.
Play has been studied as means to help in work tasks such as indexing and searching
(Goh and Lee, 2011) or in educating information literacy (Gumulak and Webber, 2011). In the
field of KM, the experiential opportunities afforded by playing have been used for developing
working communities, for example, by encouraging employees to do things differently
(Sukovic et al., 2011), or by simulating interactive events (Chua, 2005).
Gadamer bases his ideas of play and being together on the hermeneutic phenomenology.
In this paper, thebasis of the examination is phenomenological idea of a human being, whose
being is shaped by the temporality of being and the possibility to understand and thus also
change that being (Heidegger, 1985; see Suorsa and Huotari, 2014a). This stud y proposes that
understanding knowledge-creating interaction as a form of play allows researchers to examine
KC starting from the idea of a human being interacting in the events of co-creation (see Suorsa
and Huotari, 2014a). This paper presents a framework for empirically studying KC and reports
the findings of a study which examined KC in a community of librarians and teachers who
were working together on a project to develop new means to encourage children to enjoy
reading. The developed framework is further elaborated based on its empirical testing.
The research questions are:
RQ1. How can we examine knowledge-creating interaction with the Gadamerian
conception of play and the phenomenological idea of a human being?
RQ2. What kinds of phe nomena are revealed by using the dev eloped framework in
studying theknowledge-creating interactionempirically in the contextof this study?
RQ3. What other dimensions emerge through the empirical examination of interaction
in this context and how should the framework be developed based on the
empirical testing?
In LIS, phenomenology has been used to illustrate the nature of the phenomenon studied
(see e.g. Budd, 2005; Budd et al., 2010). Phenomenology has also been seen as vital in
examining KC (e.g. Värlander, 2008; Tsoukas, 2009). This study contributes to this research
by providing a novel way to understand and examine the interactive processes between
human beings with the help of hermeneutic phenomenology. So far, the actual events of
interaction have not been the focus of the research on KC, and furthermore in the field of LIS
this aspect has been overlooked (Epperson and Zemel, 2008; McKenzie, 2009).
2. Theoretical background
Studies on KC in organizations have mostly relied on the models of Nonaka and his
colleagues, based on the idea of tacit and implicit knowledge converted into explicit
knowledge (e.g. Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). However, since the 1990s a
number of studies have challenged these views. The interest has shifted to the event of
knowing and interpersonal relationships in working communities (Cook and Brown, 1999;
Orlikowski, 2002; Küpers, 2005). The social and contextual aspects of knowledge processes
have been studied in LIS, and the importance of collaboration has been emphasized (see e.g.
Ingwersen and Järvelin, 2005). Collaboration requires interaction, which is a necessity
in creating knowledge (Tsoukas, 2009; Morner and von Krogh, 2009; Suorsa and
Huotari, 2014a). Many of the studies examining KC interaction are based on the notion that
during interaction people share their experiences and create new knowledge based on their
previous experiences (Cook and Brown, 1999; Tsoukas, 2009; Morner and von Krogh, 2009;
see also Suorsa and Huotari, 2014a; Suorsa, 2015). Information gained from one person is
always changed as the other person interprets it from his or her own perspective in a certain
situation (Cook and Brown, 1999, p. 393). Human being’s own capacity to be reflective
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