Thanks for the input Duncan.

The Net reference for the Grudin paper "CSCW: History and Focus" (1994)
is:
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~grudin/Papers/IEEE94/IEEEComplastsub.html

Can you think of any particular examples of critical thinking by European
developers as you mention? Perhaps form the Informatics field?
On your other points. the move to knowledge management has been supported
by the empirical demonstration of the need for better knowledge handling but
more problematically (though note that it is not simply the push for a more
successful organization but perhaps more often, the feeling of getting rid of
in-built failure or the potential to fail), the KM discourse is still uncertain
of its own exact character; this particularly true of the more visionary gurus
of KM, who perhaps, as they are increasingly torn between their original
marketing/utopic vision and the more pragmatic/sceptical (and perhaps sometimes
cynical) implementation by practitioners, they are pressured to increasingly
justify their uniqueness against the possibilty of being absorbed into more
common-and-garden discourses. Hence some of these shifting and sometimes
rather flimsy-sounding "special debates" on the "philosophical" definition of
knowledge you might find on certain KM sites. (To clarify my own position, it is
in fact this rhetorical and imaging side of things which I'm most interested in;
I#m not much of a techie, I'm afraid).
On whether KM is more prevalent in America or Europe, I'm not sure but expect
America; it's common amongst globalized and/or hi-tech firms, basically any firm
which employs an executive with "Knowledge" in their title.

Duncan Sanderson wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I thought there were some interesting questions behind this request
> for documents (I identify a few below).  Rather than let them drop through
> the net, perhaps some debate can be sparked?.
> - Duncan Sanderson
>
> >Hi all,
> >I'm currently engaged in research into the ideological underpinnings of
> >CSCW/groupware (in its particular context of the Knowledge Management
> >movement) to corporations.
> >What I'm especially interested in here is how positive conceptions of
> >ICT-mediated interaction and enablement in combination with the utopic
> >moments of the ICT revolution  have been absorbed into the formulation
> >and rhetoric of post-modern business paradigms which often proclaim a
> >version of enhanced freedom/creativity for the post-modern skilled
> >worker
> >Also, Jonathan Grudin (U.California, Irvine) notes in his '94 paper
> >"CSCW: History and Focus" that in contrast to corporation-dominated and
> >empirically-orientated U.S. research, European CSCW research is
> >characterized by being often driven or grounded in philosophy and social
> >theory.
>
> >Zhan Li
> >(London Business School and Cambridge University)
>
> My comments:
> 1)  What is the reference for the Grudin paper?  It sounds like one of
>      the few attempts (are there others?) to identify possible differences
>      in the research in North America and Europe.  Are there differences?
>      If we take the CSCW and ECSCW conferences as one basis for comparison,
>      my impression is that there are some subtle differences in content and
> style.
>      Sticking my neck out, offhand I'd suggest that there have been
> relatively more
>      fundamental  reflections on the nature of group work at ECSCW, and a
> more socially
>      critical and aware examination of the systems being built, by the
> computer scientists
>      themselves.
>
> 2)  The second, different question raised is the nature of the (ideological)
>      underpinnings of groupware development and implementation in
> organizations.
>      There may or may not be differences in the thinking behind
> 'development' and
>       the 'implementation;' there is certainly a tendancy for the two to
> take place in
>      different organizations.
>      None the less, 'knowledge management' is one of the current modes of
> thinking, and
>      I see two strands:  the need for IT systems to allow the creation and
> organization
>      of 'knowledge' within and between groups in organizations; and the
> idea that the
>      flow of, organization of, and access to information is one of the key
> determinants
>      of the  success of the organization.  The questions which can be
> raised are: 1) is
>      there an empirical basis for these ideas, 2) are there other possible
> determinants
>      which are occulted (quality of relationships, org. cohesion, org.
> structure, motivation,
>      training and individual abilities to effectively use information,
> presence or not
>      of a culture of information sharing).
>
> To tie the two comments together, is the mode of thinking of knowledge
> management
> more prevalent in North America or Europe?



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