Studies of Work: Achieving Hybrid Disciplines in IT Design and Management Studies

We explore the relationship between ethnomethodology (EM), ethnography and the needs of managers and designers in industry, considering both ethnomethodological and industrial criteria of adequacy and explicating their relationship through the concept of “audience.” We examine a range of studies in this light, with a view to their possible candidacy as hybrid studies and identify three types of application of EM studies of work: market research, design, and business improvement. Application in the first of these fields we dub “anthropological,” in that it consists in studying and reporting back on the ways of exotic people (customers). This is the application most commonly found in studies of computer supported co-operative work (CSCW). A second CSCW application, “technomethodology,” involves the introduction of EM concepts into the design process. A further application, dubbed “holding-up-a-mirror,” involves reporting back to members of a setting upon their own activities. We argue that technomethodology and holding-up-a-mirror both offer the possibility of creating hybrid disciplines. We consider the objection that improvement and design involve the introduction of value judgements that threaten the practice of EM indifference, arguing that action research can serve as a guarantee of unique adequacy (UA) by testing the researcher’s understanding as analysis in action in the setting. Furthermore, the standard of reporting required by the UA criterion contributes to the effectiveness of proposed solutions

Why Black Hole Information Loss is Paradoxical

I distinguish between two versions of the black hole information-loss paradox. The first arises from apparent failure of unitarity on the spacetime of a completely evaporating black hole, which appears to be non-globally-hyperbolic; this is the most commonly discussed version of the paradox in the foundational and semipopular literature, and the case for calling it `paradoxical' is less than compelling. But the second arises from a clash between a fully-statistical-mechanical interpretation of black hole evaporation and the quantum-field-theoretic description used in derivations of the Hawking effect. This version of the paradox arises long before a black hole completely evaporates, seems to be the version that has played a central role in quantum gravity, and is genuinely paradoxical. After explicating the paradox, I discuss the implications of more recent work on AdS/CFT duality and on the `Firewall paradox', and conclude that the paradox is if anything now sharper. The article is written at a (relatively) introductory level and does not assume advanced knowledge of quantum gravity.Comment: 26 pages. Corrected error in one diagram; other minor revision

Analyzing equivalalences in discourse: are discourse theory and membership categorization analysis comptatible

Facing a crucial leap from political philosophy to empirical analysis, the approach to discourse analysis that arose in the aftermath of Laclau and Mouffe (1985), and that is currently known as the Essex school of discourse theory (DT), has in recent years repeatedly been accused of suffering from a methodological deficit. This paper examines to what extent membership categorization analysis (MCA), a branch of ethnomethodology that investigates lay actors' situated descriptions-in-context as practical activity, can play a part in rendering poststructuralist DT notions such as articulation and equivalence analytically tangible in empirically observable discourse. Based on a review of Laclau and Mouffe's foundational text as well as on Glynos and Howarth's recent exposition of the framework (2007), it is argued that MCA empirically substantiates many poststructuralist claims about the indeterminacy of signification. However, MCA consistently falters - and willingly so - at the point where DT would articulate emerging equivalences between identity categories as part of a second-order explanatory concept, such as Glynos and Howarth’s notion of political logic. Nevertheless, MCA also contains the kernel of an "endogenous" notion of the political that comes fairly close to DT’s all-pervasive understanding of the concept. To support these arguments, a variety of empirical sources are mobilized, ranging from the transcript of a political talk show, a newspaper report regarding a discrimination case in a dance class, to data drawn from earlier research on the way that minority members are treated by the Belgian criminal justice system

Transcendental Pragmatics and Hermeneutics

Abstract: In which sense could transcendental pragmatics combined with a hermeneutical approach provide the social sciences with a critical oriented approach? This essay aims at giving an answer to that question by elaborating the critical intent of Apel"s approach to transcendental pragmatics and hermeneutics. Hermeneutics itself is considered to have critical potentials by its explicit focus upon the normative presuppositions of the social sciences. Hermeneutics does not, however, provide the sciences with any clear-cut criterions of critique. Nor does hermeneutics escape from a certain relativistic strain, due to the contextual, i.e.; socio-historically relative basis of the normative presuppositions of any hermeneutic approach. The meta-normative conditions of transcendental pragmatics are counterpoising the relativism as well as lack of normative criterions inherent in hermeneutical thinking. The meta-normative conditions of symmetry and reciprocity are meant to be a meta-normative standard for critique as well as functioning as conditions of a valid consensus within a community of scientists. Thereby, Apel is giving a solution to the validation-problem, as well as a compensation for the lack of criterions of criticism within hermeneutics. I will divide the essay into three main topics, and i) start with explicating the transcendental-pragmatic approach of Apel, ii) continue by dealing with his criticism of as well as positive appropriation of hermeneutical thinking, and iii) work out examples of a critical-hermeneutical approach in the last parts of the essay. The main example used will be from contemporary Norwegian sociology, dealing with the possibility of a unitary critical approach. The closing part (iv) will have clarifying purposes

Frequently Observed Grammatical Errors of Japanese EFL Learners: Their Theoretical Implications

This preliminary study investigates what grammatical errors are most frequently observed in Japanese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners even after the six years of English learning. By a series of free writing tasks, 2691 English sentences were collected from 28 Japanese EFL learners. We identified 882 grammatical errors in the dataset with respect to five major types: determiner, preposition, subject-verb agreement for be-verbs, subject-verb agreement for general verbs, and number agreement within a noun phrase. The ratios of the number of grammatical errors to that of obligatory contexts in which those particular grammatical items must occur were 61.1%, 10.9%, 2.6%, 5.7%, and 18.2%, respectively. There are three major findings: (i) Japanese EFL learners make errors in the determiner most frequently, (ii) they make errors in subject-verb agreement more frequently for general verbs compared to be-verbs, and (iii) they make errors in the determiner more often compared to agreement. Their theoretical implications are discussed

Incommensurability and rationality in engineering design: the case of functional decomposition

In engineering design research different models of functional decomposition are advanced side-by-side. In this paper I explain and validate this co-existence of models in terms of the Kuhnian thesis of methodological incommensurability. I advance this analysis in terms of the thesis’ construal of (non-algorithmic) theory choice in terms of values, expanding this notion to the engineering domain. I further argue that the (by some) implicated threat of the thesis to rational theory choice has no force in the functional decomposition case: co-existence of different models of functional decomposition is rational from an instrumental point of view. My explanation covers cases in which different models are advanced as means for the same objective. Such cases cannot be explicated with the explanatory construct of variety in objectives, as advanced in other analyses of co-existing conceptualizations in engineering

Cross-border Market Co-creation, Dynamic Capabilities and the Entrepreneurial Theory of the Multinational Enterprise

The concepts of asset co-specialization and dynamic capabilities have been instrumental in furthering the organization and strategy scholarship agenda, but have so far had limited impact to the theory of the MNE and FDI. In addition, the role of entrepreneurial management in orchestrating system-wide value creation through market and eco-system creation and co-creation, in order to advance private appropriation, has been all but ignored. We claim that these ideas can help explicate the nature of the MNE in the knowledge-based, semi-globalized economy. The nature of the MNE in its turn should not be seen as separable from either the objectives of the agents (entrepreneurs) who set them up or its essence – the employment of strategy to capture co-created value.Asset Co-specialisation; Dynamic Capabilities; Cross-border Market and Ecosystem Co-creation; Theory of MNE and FDI; Entrepreneurial Theory

The (new) nature and essence of the firm

Extant explanations of the nature and scope of firms, such as transaction costs, property rights, metering and “resources” can be integrated into a more general (capability based) theory of the nature and essence of the firm that recognizes the importance to the firm of creating (and capturing) value from innovation. We note that the appropriability of returns from creative and innovative activity often requires the entrepreneurial creation and co-creation of markets. Accordingly, market failure and transaction costs approaches need to be revamped to capture the essence of entrepreneurial and managerial activity that extends beyond the mere exercise of authority. We suggest that the nature and objective of the firm in an economy with innovation and incomplete markets is to capture value (profit) from its advantages and actions; and that the way in which the firm tries to achieve this (by establishing quasisustainable competitive advantage) is its essence. This is non-separable from its nature and objectives.firm, nature, essence, innovation, dynamic capabilities

The virtue of curiosity

ABSTRACTA thriving project in contemporary epistemology concerns identifying and explicating the epistemic virtues. Although there is little sustained argument for this claim, a number of prominent sources suggest that curiosity is an epistemic virtue. In this paper, I provide an account of the virtue of curiosity. After arguing that virtuous curiosity must be appropriately discerning, timely and exacting, I then situate my account in relation to two broader questions for virtue responsibilists: What sort of motivations are required for epistemic virtue? And do epistemic virtues need to be reliable? I will sketch an account on which curiosity is only virtuous when rooted in a non-instrumental appreciation of epistemic goods, before arguing that curiosity can exhibit intellectual virtue irrespective of whether one is reliable in satisfying it