Narrative, Blogs, and Social Knowledge Management

It is with relief that I learn that it doesn't matter if I call my methodology scholarly personal narrative or autoethnography. My advisor doesn't think either meets the standards of rigor for information systems research.

Is he right? Is anyone doing SPN/autoethnography in information systems research? And if they are, are they being rightfully laughed out of the field?

The latter is a trickier question; I'll focus on the former [stay tuned: this post will, I hope, get long]. First, I'll list researchers who are using autoethnography in information systems. Then I'll expand the focus to take in research that is not specifically autoethnography in information systems but points in the direction for a practical combination of the two. Finally, I'll highlight some information systems researchers and others who offer arguments that support the use of autoethnography in information systems research.

In other words:

1. Our people doing it!
2. Our neighbors doing it... or our people doing something close to it!
3. Our people and others saying, do it!

Our People Doing SPN/Autoethnography

Communication unplugged: A qualitative analysis of the Digital Divide
by Pierce, Joy Y., Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006, 230 pages; AAT 3223691. 

Cunningham, S. J. and Jones, M. 2005. Autoethnography: a tool for practice and education. In Proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGCHI New Zealand Chapter's international Conference on Computer-Human interaction: Making CHI Natural (Auckland, New Zealand, July 07 - 08, 2005). CHINZ '05, vol. 94. ACM, New York, NY, 1-8. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1073943.1073944

I don't like the phrase "ethnography lite" -- Nash and Ellis will have words to say about that -- but there is some overlap here with my position that such a methodology could fit DSU's mission:

ABSTRACT

Ethnographic techniques are useful tools for developing a fine-grained, context-based understanding of user behavior. Because conventional ethnographic studies are time-intensive, interest has grown in techniques that can be applied more rapidly, to fit within the software development cycle---a sort of 'ethnography lite'. One such promising tool is the autoethnography, in which the investigator creates an ethnographic description and analysis of his/her own behavior, attempting to develop an objective understanding of the behaviors and work context under consideration by casting the investigator as both the informant 'insider' and the analyst 'outsider'. We demonstrate the potential of the autoethnography in HCI education through a case study of an HCI assignment in which autoethnography informs requirements analysis and system design. This paper argues that the autoethnography has a role to play in software development and is a useful teaching tool for HCI courses.

Efimova, L. 2009. Weblog as a personal thinking space. In Proceedings of the 20th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia (Torino, Italy, June 29 - July 01, 2009). HT '09. ACM, New York, NY, 289-298. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1557914.1557963

Also available via Efimova's blog Mathemagenic (where newly-doctorified Efimova also presents her dissertation online, which has a good KM model with implications for studying SKM as an outgrowth of personal KM)

ABSTRACT

While weblogs have been conceptualised as personal thinking spaces since their early days, those uses have not been studied in detail. The purpose of this paper is to explore how a weblog can contribute to the process of developing ideas in a long-term complex project. To do so I use autoethnography to reconstruct my personal blogging practices in relation to developing PhD ideas from two perspectives. I first discuss my practices of using a weblog as a personal information management tool and then analyse its uses at different stages in the process of working on a PhD dissertation: dealing with fuzzy insights, sense-making and turning ideas into a dissertation text. The findings illustrate that next to supporting thinking in a way private notebooks do, a weblog might serve similar roles as papers on one's office desk: dealing with emerging insights and difficult to categorise ideas, while at the same time creating opportunities for accidental feedback and impressing those who drop by.

McBride, N. (2008). Using performance ethnography to explore the human aspects of software quality. Information Technology & People, 21(1), 91-111. doi: 10.1108/09593840810860342.

McBride says "This paper offers the first example of performance ethnography applied in information systems research. There is a lack of personalised approaches to presenting management concepts in software development. This paper provides an example of a different approach of value to both researchers and teachers." Oh my.

He also takes "a poetic approach." Double oh my.

Abstract:

Purpose – This paper draws on a recent approach to ethnography in order to explore some cultural issues in the development of software quality procedures within software development. Methodologically, the purpose is to show how performance autoethnography can be effective in highlighting cultural issues. In terms of software quality, the paper intends to contribute towards establishing the importance, even primacy, of human issues in software quality management.

Chumer, M. (2002). Towards an understanding of user-centeredness within information technology diffusion: A self-ethnography. Doctoral dissertation, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey. Advisor, Ronald E. Rice.

ABSTRACT: The main argument of the dissertation is that the end user is important in the IT diffusion process and integral in its success. Couched in my experience and informed by philosophy the suggestion is that Information Technology (IT) diffusion as change and innovation is successful if the users of the innovation are involved as integral components in its implementation and if that implementation results in meeting or exceeding the needs of the user.... The integrated theories were drawn from scholars Everett Rogers (Diffusion of Innovations), Brenda Dervin (Sense-making), and Karl Weick (Organizational Sense-making). The work of these scholars was further integrated with the direction of IT literature and its influence on the end user....

Folks in the Neighborhood

Kien, G.. (2008). Beijing, 2006: International Connectivity the Way It Is Supposed to Be. Qualitative Inquiry, 14(7), 1264.  Retrieved November 3, 2009, from Research Library. (Document ID: 1583648101).

This article appears in QualInq, but it feels really, really close to information systems.

Abstract: This essay exemplifies the methodology of Global Technography, combining elements of autoethnography, photo essay, and actor-network theory to trace performative elements of global citizenship and global community facilitated by wireless mobile communications technology in the context of contemporary China. The result is a documentation of intensely personal and private communications practices even in highly public environments. Likewise, the personal nature of experience is shown to constitute public spaces even as they confuse and disrupt them. Mobile hyper-interconnectivity inspires both absurd and reassuring performances of culture and intimacy, while the reality of everyday life at street level demonstrates the fragility of hyper-mediated global connectivity.

Lee, K.. (2008). A Neophyte About Online Teaching: Almost Done. Qualitative Inquiry, 14(7), 1180.  Retrieved November 3, 2009, from Research Library. (Document ID: 1583648051).

Again, darned close. The article sounds like it is as much about online interaction, an information systems topic as it is about distance education. Lee looks at how technology changes the teaching/learning experience.

Abstract: The following autoethnography reflects a neophyte instructor's obsession with teaching an online graduate course. The experience forces her to move ethnographically forward and backward with students in a novel, and sometimes, more intimate fashion. She struggles to balance a serving of technology with a dollop of human interaction, but finds online teaching can be time consuming. Though students are physically dispersed and isolated, they sustain and bond in new and different ways in an online community. Her narrative reveals how technologies are created, apprehended, and used in everyday life. Online learning has become ubiquitous at all levels of education. Teachers and students need to question whether technology in their lives represents a force for good or evil. In the end, autoethnography becomes transformative as the author gains a heightened awareness of the social, cultural, and personal influences shaping her online teaching experience.

Ljungblad, S. 2009. Passive photography from a creative perspective: "If I would just shoot the same thing for seven days, it's like.. What's the point?". In Proceedings of the 27th international Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Boston, MA, USA, April 04 - 09, 2009). CHI '09. ACM, New York, NY, 829-838. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1518701.1518828

cites Cunningham and Jones 2005,

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to contribute with an understanding of meaningful experiences of photography, to support reflection upon the design of future camera devices. We have conducted a study of a passive camera device called Sensecam, which previously has been investigated as a memory aid, a combination of life-logging and memory tool and as a resource for digital narratives. We take a creative perspective and show that even if a camera is designed to be forgotten in use (i.e. is worn as a necklace and takes pictures automatically) it can still be part of an engaging or active photographic experience. Because Sensecam is different from film cameras, camera phones and other digital cameras, it involves a different type of photographic experience, for example when moving through different social contexts and how the resulting pictures are appreciated. The findings stem from people who used the camera for a week. This is complemented with reflections from the researcher, who has been using the camera for a month. [emphasis mine]

Monica Lee. (2009). Sticks and stones: decision making by rumour. Society and Business Review, 4(2), 123-132. Retrieved November 3, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1882756981).

Note what's said below about questioning and furthering debate. Sparking and inviting conversation is exactly what autoethnography/SPN is supposed to do.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how financial risk is managed and commercial decisions are made within a successful UK livestock market. Design/methodology/approach - An autoethnographic approach is used, in which the researcher is both active participant and reflective observer.

Findings: In contrast to "best practice" described in management texts, commercial risk management and financial decision making in this community are successfully guided by rumour.

Research limitations/implications: The paper is limited to the extent that one believes in the validity of autoethnography, however, it is argued that these findings are a reflection of the wider nature of the agricultural community, immersed as it is in life and death, and that this culture is significantly different to that commonly addressed by textbooks.

Practical implications: This paper highlights a distinction between the tenets of the western world as addressed in textbooks and the agricultural community that exists alongside, and it suggests that following best practice might not lead to success if that best practice is ignorant of the culture in which it is rooted.

Originality/value: This paper provides empirical evidence that the tenets of the rural community are at odds with those of sanitised western management and that successful management of financial risk is culture specific. It questions why such differences exist and furthers debate about the influence of "our common neglect of death".

Matthew Eriksen.  (2008). Leading adaptive organizational change: self-reflexivity and self-transformation. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 21(5), 622-640.  Retrieved November 3, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1550191481).

Change management: IS gets crossover with management here. We design and implemetn systems whose adoption depends on our being able to anticipate and navigate the difficulties fo organizational change. Reframing Gandhi, Eriksen argues through his autoethnography that we must be the change we want to lead.

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to give an account of a self-evaluation process in a change programme within the US Coast Guard. This is an autoethnographical account as form of reflection on a leadership in position facilitating change within the organization. Adaptive organizational change is a human endeavor, not a scientific application of techniques and skills. The authoethnography points mainly only to a change process of the writer and is therefore hardly an abstract model for others. Meaningful organizational transformation does not occur without a corresponding self-transformation, most importantly of the individual leading the change. Changing oneself by managing change process as a leader, one has to become the change process in order to be successful.

Our People (and Neighbors) Saying Do SPN/Authoethnography!

Polanyi, M. (1962). Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. New York: Harper Torchbooks.

Polanyi, M. (1967). The Tacit Dimension. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday & Co.

Polanyi (1967) gave us the concept of tacit knowledge. He finds great value in the tacit knowledge that is transmitted in the kind of evocative, emotional, deeply personally contextual stories told by autoethnography. He sees the sharing of personal knowledge as more than an egocentric exercise. Polanyi says we (all of us, thought-ful humanity) have an "urge to satisfy ourselves" by changing our language, our framework, our interpretation, our selves, to achieve "greater clarity and coherence, both in our speech and in the experience of which we speak." Telling stories isn't just about hearing ourselves talk, but creating reliable solutions, "achieving... closer contact with reality" (1962, pp. 105-106). Polanyi maintains that removing personal judgment, the aim of deductive science, ultimately defeats the purpose of science, as to make something impersonal is to make it unintelligible (p. 119). In Polanyi's view, all knowledge is personal: "...[I]nto every act of knowing there enters a passionate contribution of the person knowing what is being known, and... this contribution is no mere imperfection but a vital component of his knowledge" (p. xiv).

Polanyi, M. (1951). The Logic of Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago.

A Polanyi footnote: prefacing his discussion of intellectual and political liberty, Polanyi writes, "I believe that these comprehensive questions cannot be handled with detachment, but that their treatment requires the full participation of the writer in the issues which form his subject" (p. vi). I wonder if he might say the same about the work we information systems researchers do as we study the liberating and disempowering effects of the Internet. Social knowledge management seeks to create, capture, share, and apply knowledge that will help communities and humanity progress toward greater liberty. We researchers stand to gain as much from that effort as any other member of local and global communities. We participate as fully in that effort as Polanyi did in his construction of the logic of liberty.
 

Schultze, U., & Leidner, D. E. (2002). Studying Knowledge Management in Information Systems Research: Discourses and Theoretical Assumptions. MIS Quarterly, 26(3), 213-242. doi: 10.2307/4132331.

In their discussion of the four different research discourses (normative, interpretive, critical, and dialogic -- per Deetz, 1996), Schultze and Leidner (2002) caution against "intellectual monism" (p. 214). Their analysis of 94 knowledge management articles finds the normative discourse prevailing over the other three possible discourses. In response, Schultze and Leidner encourage us to consider our "implicit assumptions about knowledge" (p. 231). With the predominance of normative discourse, it seems wise to make room for challenges to that assumption. SPN/SDB offers a chance to study socially constructed knowledge from a personally constructed perspective, a double challenge to the conventional approach to knowledge.

Bennis, W. G., & O'Toole, J. (2005). How Business Schools Lost Their Way. Harvard Business Review, 83(5), 96-104.

Bennis and O'Toole (2005) are critquing business schools, but their indictment would resonate in information systems:

Business professors too often forget that executive decision makers are not fact collectors; they are fact users and integrators. Thus, what they need from educators is help in understanding how to interpret facts and guidance from experienced teachers in making decisions in the absence of clear facts.

Our D.Sc. program is training primarily executive practitioners, scholars equipped for CIO challenges. We too will face the problem of interpreting facts and guidance to support decisions we will make in uncertain, volatile business situations. SPN is about reflecting deeply on what we know, accepting that it is not the truth, and then building a workable understanding from it. That's good preparation for what this program aims at.

Clausen, H. (1994). Designing computer systems from a human perspective: the use of narratives. Scand. J. Inf. Syst., 6(2), 43-58. Retrieved September 27, 2009, from http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=203836.203839&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=53796187&CFTOKEN=17514722.

Clausen (1994) discusses using narratives for the design of computer systems. He enunciates a truth about narrative that applies to research in general and to the narrative aspect of autoethnography:

"When we use narratives we are far from simply communicating facts. We are formulating and/or expressing our conceptions about often very complex wholes. We interpret the narratives. Our attitudes, experiences and evaluations are important aspects [of] doing so, which means that the messages given or taken are a very personal matter. We are far from the ideal of an objective description, but we can -- within the spirit of C. W. Churchman -- aim at this ideal by letting people interpret and discuss the phenomenon studied" (p. 47).

Narrative captures meaning in ways that objective facts cannot. Nash (2004) and other constructivists would challenge Clausen's embrace of objectivity as an "ideal." However, Clausen offers those committed to objective knowledge a way to accept narrative, within a framework of open discussion that tests narrative for validity... a sort of conversation that Nash (2004) would say is exactly what SPN should produce.

Karra, N., & Phillips, N.. (2008). Researching "Back Home": International Management Research as Autoethnography. Organizational Research Methods, 11(3), 541.  Retrieved November 3, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1493531781).

Abstract: The challenges facing international management researchers conducting research in foreign contexts are increasingly well understood. However, for a growing group of researchers, the problem is very different: Rather than being foreign researchers researching in an unfamiliar context, they are insiders conducting research in their own cultural context for publication in international journals. In this article, the authors draw on their own experiences and on the literature on autoethnography to illustrate the strengths and challenges of researching "back home." In particular, they argue that autoethnographic approaches have four important strengths - ease of access, reduced resource requirements, ease of establishing trust and rapport, and reduced problems with translation - but at the same time pose three important challenges - lack of critical distance, role conflict, and the limits of serendipity.