=Paper=
{{Paper
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|title=The Role of Reflection in Maturing Organizational Know-how
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-790/paper3.pdf
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==The Role of Reflection in Maturing Organizational Know-how==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-790/paper3.pdf
The Role of Reflection in
Maturing Organizational Know-how
Barbara Kump1, 2, Kristin Knipfer3, Viktoria Pammer2, Andreas Schmidt4, Ronald
Maier5, Christine Kunzmann4, Ulrike Cress3, and Stefanie N. Lindstaedt1, 2
1
Knowledge Management Institute, TU Graz
Inffeldgasse 21a, 8010 Graz
{bkump, slind}@tugraz.at
2
Know Center
Inffeldgasse 21a, 8010 Graz
{bkump, vpammer, slind }@know-center.at
3
Knowledge Media Research Center
Konrad-Adenauer Straße 40, 72072 Tuebingen, Germany
{k.knipfer, u.cress}@iwm-kmrc.de
4
FZI Research Center for Information Technologies
Haid-und-Neu-Str. 10-14, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany
{Andreas.Schmidt, Christine.Kunzmann}@fzi.de
5
Department of Information Systems, University of Innsbruck
Universitätsstraße, Karl-Rahner-Platz, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
ronald.maier@uibk.ac.at
Abstract. The Knowledge Maturing Phase Model has been presented as a
model aligning knowledge management and organizational learning. The core
argument underlying the present paper is that maturing organizational know-
how requires individual and collaborative reflection at work. We present an
explorative interview study that analyzes reflection at the workplace in four
organizations in different European countries. Our qualitative findings suggest
that reflection is not equally self-evident in different settings. A deeper analysis
of the findings leads to the hypothesis that different levels of maturity of
processes come along with different expectations towards the workers with
regard to compliance and flexibility, and to different ways of how learning at
work takes place. Furthermore, reflection in situations where the processes are
in early maturing phases seems to lead to consolidation of best practice, while
reflection in situations where processes are highly standardized may lead to a
modification of these standard processes. Therefore, in order to support the
maturing of organizational know-how by providing reflection support, one
should take into account the degree of standardisation of the processes in the
target group.
Keywords: reflection, knowledge maturing, organizational learning
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The Role of Reflection in Maturing Organizational Know-how
1 Introduction
Organizational learning has been investigated in various disciplines (e.g., [1]), and
from various angles (for overviews see [2], [3]). Researchers from the field of
cognitive psychology have provided conceptualizations of the complex interplay
between individual and collaborative knowledge creation and learning, putting
different concepts in the centre of attention such as the conversion between tacit and
explicit knowledge [4], the mutual dependencies between individual and shared
mental models [5], and the co-evolution of individual and organizational knowledge
mediated through shared artefacts [6]. A more recent theory of organizational learning
and knowledge evolution that strongly focuses on socio-technical interactions is the
Knowledge Maturing Model suggested by Schmidt [7] and further developed in the
course of the MATURE Project (e.g. [8]). Knowledge Maturing is defined as goal-
oriented learning on a collective level, emphasizing that it is always purposeful.
When we consider that an organization's knowledge stock is „mirrored‟ in its work
practice, and organizational practice is one of the main knowledge repositories of an
organization, organizational learning might then be understood as any change in
organizational work practice (including change of existing work practices or the
development of new work practices respectively). While the Knowledge Maturing
Model also relates to the evolution of conceptual or factual knowledge, we will focus
on knowledge maturing related to change of „know-how‟ (i.e. procedural knowledge)
[9]. This process shall be called task-centred organizational knowledge maturing.
Creation of new knowledge is often triggered by changes in an organization‟s
environment that puts new demands. However, it is stressed in the literature that
organizational learning is more than just the adaptation to environmental changes but
includes deliberate reflection on daily work practice and transformation of
organizational routines (e.g., [3]). In line with Hoyrup [10] and Järvinen & Poikela
[11], we argue that reflection is one of the major mechanisms that lead to maturing of
organizational know-how. While the Knowledge Maturing Model implicitly covers
aspects of reflection, it does not provide a comprehensive theoretical rationale on how
reflection and knowledge maturing are interrelated. The aim of this paper is to
examine the relationship of reflection at work and its role for task-centred
organizational knowledge maturing. Moreover, we will examine reflection in settings
with different levels of maturity of organizational know-how based on data from an
interview study in four European organizations. This will be the first step to integrate
work from two large-scale EU projects in the TEL community, namely MATURE and
MIRROR.
In the following, we outline the Knowledge Maturing Model developed within the
context of MATURE, before explaining the specific role of reflection for
organizational learning. We then present the major findings from our interview study
that examined the interrelationship of reflection and knowledge maturing. Finally, we
present our integrative model linking knowledge maturing and reflection.
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The Role of Reflection in Maturing Organizational Know-how
2 The Knowledge Maturing Model of Organisational Learning
The development of the Knowledge Maturing Model of organizational learning
started several years ago by the joint interpretation of empirical evidence gained in
several applied research projects; the first version of the model [7] was refined in [8]
by incorporating results from a large empirical study (described in [12]) as well as
further experience gained in projects on implementing tools for knowledge
management and organizational learning. The model was then subjected to a series of
three empirical studies, an ethnographically-informed study, a representative
empirical study, and an in-depth study conducted within the MATURE project. A
comprehensive description of the Knowledge Maturing Model can be found in [13].
Fig. 1: Knowledge Maturing Model v.3, [14]
The Knowledge Maturing Model outlines the following phases (see Fig.1):
Ia. Expressing ideas (investigation): New ideas are developed by individuals either
in informal discussions or by 'browsing' the knowledge available within the
organization and beyond. Extensive search and retrieval activities result in loads of
materials facilitating idea generation. Knowledge at this stage is subjective, deeply
embedded in the originator‟s context, and the vocabulary used for communication
might be vague and restricted to the originator.
Ib. Appropriating ideas (individuation): New ideas that have been enriched,
refined, or otherwise contextualized with respect to their use are now duly
32
The Role of Reflection in Maturing Organizational Know-how
appropriated by the individual. Contributions are „bookmarked‟ so that an individual
can benefit from its future (re-)use.
II. Distributing in communities (community interaction): This phase is driven by
social motives such as belonging to a preferred social group or the expectation of
reciprocal knowledge exchange within the community. A common terminology for
individual contributions is developed and shared among community members.
III. Formalising (information): Artefacts created in the preceding phases are often
unstructured and still embedded in the community context. They are only
comprehensible for people in this community as shared knowledge is still needed for
interpretation. In Phase III, structured documents are created in which knowledge is
de-subjectified, and context is explicated with the purpose to ease the transfer to
collectives other than the originating community.
From Phase IV on, there are two alternative paths of knowledge maturing:
IV1. Ad-hoc training (instruction): Activities related to creating training materials
out of documents that are typically not suited as learning material as they lack
didactical considerations. Topics are refined to ease teaching, consumption, or re-use.
Learning objects are arranged to cover a broader subject area. Tests help assess the
knowledge level and select learning objects or paths. Knowledge can be used for
formal training in Phase V (V1a. Formal training (instruction)). The subject area
becomes teachable to novices. A curriculum integrates learning content into a
sequence using sophisticated didactical concepts to guide learners in their learning
process. Learning modules and courses can be combined into programs used to
prepare for taking over a new role, for example.
IV2. Piloting (implementation): Experiences are deliberately collected with a test
case stressing pragmatic action trying a solution before a larger roll-out of a product
or service to an external target community, or new rules, procedures, or processes to
an internal target community such as project teams or other organizational units.
Know-how can be institutionalized at the beginning of Phase V.
V2a. Institutionalising (introduction): In the organization-internal case, formalized
documents that have been learned by knowledge workers are solidified and
implemented into the organizational infrastructure in the form of business rules,
processes or standard operating procedures. In the organization-external case,
products or services are launched on the market.
Vb. Standardising (incorporation): This latest phase covers standardization or
certification. Certificates confirm that participants of formal trainings achieved a
certain degree of proficiency or justify compliance with a set of rules that
organizations have agreed to fulfil. Standards also help connecting products or
services or showing that they fulfil laws or recommendations before being offered on
a certain market.
To summarize, so far we have explained (1) the Knowledge Maturing Model that
describes how knowledge is becoming more „mature‟, i.e. more justified,
understandable, committed, legitimated, teachable, or even standardized.
Furthermore, in our view, (2) knowledge maturing was introduced as a type of
organizational learning, and (3) task-centred knowledge maturing is considered to be
a process leading to more justified, understood, committed, legitimated, or even
standardized organizational processes. In the following, we argue that reflection on
work practice is an effective mechanism for maturing organizational know-how.
33
The Role of Reflection in Maturing Organizational Know-how
3 Reflection Processes in Task-centred Knowledge Maturing
Reflection on one‟s own work practice is crucial for learning at work as it leads to
a better understanding of own work practice and can guide future behaviour [11],
[15]. Thus, reflecting on past experiences is an effective mechanism for individual
and collaborative learning [16], [17] and knowledge maturing in the early phases of
the Knowledge Maturing Model.
Theoretical work in the field of reflection can be traced back to Dewey's „reflective
thinking‟ [16], defined as "active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or
supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further
conclusions to which it tends [that] includes a conscious and voluntary effort to
establish belief upon a firm basis of evidence and rationality.” (p. 118). We further
base our work on Boud et al. ([18], p.19) who extend Dewey's conceptualization
adding the notion of learning through reflection: "Reflection in the context of learning
is a generic term for those intellectual and affective activities in which individuals
engage to explore their experiences in order to lead to new understandings and
appreciations.”
We argue that reflection does not occur automatically during the course of daily
work but is triggered by either an external event or critical incidents or by an internal
cue such as a negative affective state, feelings of uncertainty etc. We surveyed
empirical studies examining the initiation of reflection and found that in general, all
known triggers for reflection (such as disturbances, errors, negative feedback,
unexpected success etc.) have in common that they elicit a state of discrepancy. The
awareness of discrepancy leads to instability or dissonance in the cognitive system
[19]. It is experienced as psychological discomfort that leads to a general arousal of
the individual cognitive and affective system. This can be considered to be a
fundamentally motivational state as people aim at minimizing the dissonance to
alleviate psychological discomfort [20] [21]. Reflection is one means to do so by
critical analysis of the experience.
The outcome of reflection can be individual learning, team learning, and/or
organizational learning. In this paper, we focus on the significance of reflection for
organizational learning, i.e. for changing the explicit (i.e. standard procedures,
working routines) or implicit (i.e. best practices, organizational culture) knowledge
base of an organization. Thus, in the following, we present findings from an interview
study that we conducted with the goal to understand individual and collaborative
reflection and how reflection leads to organizational learning. The findings will be
discussed before the background of the Knowledge Maturing Model in Section 5.
4 Knowledge Maturing through Reflection: An Interview Study
4.1 Method
The interview study took place in the context of the MIRROR Project (see
Acknowledgement). During our first visits at four application partner sites, we had the
opportunity to talk to several staff members of each organization. In order to best
possibly seize this opportunity during the site visits, we decided to carry out group
34
The Role of Reflection in Maturing Organizational Know-how
interviews to learn when and how staff reflects about their daily work and what
impact this reflection has on their work practice. Therefore, the interview was focused
on specific examples and personal experiences. In addition, the purpose of the group
interviews was to acquire a deeper understanding of current work practices and
current practices of learning within the organization.
The group discussions were guided by questions tackling the following topics:
Daily work practice, job demands, role of standards and routines (“Could
you please describe a typical work day?”, “When is your boss satisfied with
your work?”)
Learning at work (including formal and informal learning) (“Do you have
opportunities for further education at your workplace?”, “How do you
acquire new knowledge at work?”)
Triggers, content, and outcome of reflection on daily work practice (“Could
you give an example for a situation you reflected on?”; “What was the
outcome of your reflection - what was your lesson learned?”)
Organizational learning through reflection (“After a project has been
finished, do you discuss what went well and what should be improved?”)
During the group interviews, one interviewer asked open questions, another person
observed and took notes. The interviewer encouraged the participants to discuss their
points of view in order to find similarities and differences between individuals. The
group interview took 90 minutes approximately. The participants agreed to audio
recording of the group discussion.
4.2 Sample
Four interviews were carried out in four organizations which are partners in the
MIRROR Project. Prior to the site visits, we asked the management to provide contact
to 2-5 staff members, interdisciplinary participants whenever possible, and with
varying degree of professional expertise. Three of the interviews were actual group
interviews with two, three, and four participants respectively; one of them was an
individual interview due to unexpected time constraints of other participants.
Neurological Clinic.
The neurological clinic is a large, modern hospital in Germany with approximately
400 full-bodied employees dealing with approximately 1000 strokes a year (app. 2000
emergencies all together, including other severe neurological emergencies than
stroke). The staff work in interdisciplinary teams of doctors, care staff, and therapists
(physio therapists, ergo therapists, logo therapists etc.). Work is organized in shifts,
and there are regular well-structured handovers.
The clinic is DIN EN ISO certified, i.e. quality assurance is taken as of paramount
importance: Practically every task is documented in detail in the Quality Management
(QM) Handbook, and practically every task of daily work is standardized. Regular
QM Circles are implemented to continuously evaluate and improve work processes.
35
The Role of Reflection in Maturing Organizational Know-how
We interviewed four employees, all belonging to the stroke unit. The sample
included one assistant doctor (currently in her specialist training, three years of
professional experience), two therapists with five and ten years of experience, and one
head nurse with about twenty years of experience, thereof six years in management.
Nursing Home.
The nursing home where the interview was taking place is a privately run and
managed care home in Great Britain with approximately 43 staff and 70 residents.
Most of the care staff, except for recently qualified nurses, are not educated to
degree level and only have National Vocational Qualifications. This means, staff
without formal training/qualifications is asked to tackle complex situations. Care staff
have a number of tasks that they need to do each day (e.g. waking, bathing, feeding,
etc.) and are often more concerned with getting the task done than accommodating
individual residents‟ moods and behaviour. Work is organized in day and night-shifts
with handovers; protocols document every treatment and activity.
We had the opportunity to talk to three female carers having more than ten years of
professional experience. They all hold a professional exam in caring. Two of them are
also concerned with administrative issues.
Telecommunication Company.
Work at the global telecommunication company (head quarter in Great Britain) is
entirely different: Most employees work from home as teleworkers. They
communicate via Emails, phone conferences, or Instant Messenger. The choice of
media is depending on the content („simple‟ or „complex‟ topics) and the number of
participants (two or many). Teams are dispersed all over the country, and they are
managed virtually. Work is highly standardized on the project level, i.e. there is a
standard business process for contract management. There is a huge range of formal
training opportunities, many of them available in the company's e-learning system.
Performance management is implemented to ensure the quality of work.
Due to time constraints, we could talk to one of the contract managers only. She
had 5 years of experience in her current position and a higher education background.
She works full-time, mostly from home. Her job duties include managing an
interdisciplinary „contract management team‟ of three and more people.
Software Consultancy.
At the German software consultancy, a medium-sized Full Service Customer
Relationship Management Provider, people work in small teams of two to three
people. Altogether, the company holds about 60 employees, most of them based in the
head quarter. However, they have a lot of customer meetings at the customers' site
which require internal preparation and post-processing. Daily work is heavily focused
on customers' needs and requirements which requires some flexibility. However, there
are several standard business consulting processes. Regular job appraisal interviews
allow for continuous evaluation of job performance based on predefined criteria
(business-related criteria mainly).
We interviewed two employees, a sales consultant and a software consultant, both
with about two years of professional experience as consultant.
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The Role of Reflection in Maturing Organizational Know-how
4.3 Results
Individual and Collaborative Reflection.
The original purpose of the study was to find out whether and how reflection takes
place in the different organizations, what typically is the content of reflection, and
how reflection contributes to organizational learning.
We found three different types of situations which typically trigger reflection:
1. Critical Incidents: Spontaneous reflection may be triggered by a critical
incident, such as a contract being lost, or a patient showing unintended reactions
to a certain treatment. At the nursing home, for example, reflection typically
happens "if care is not delivered how it should be, e.g. [...] in a hurry". This kind
of reflection is also often shared within a team of nurses whenever a single staff
member could not find a solution to a challenging situation: "We had a female
checking the windows every day around four, five o‟clock in the evening [...]; it
turned out that she was a head mistress in a big school and one of her jobs, once
everyone had left school was to lock all the windows; So once we found this
out, went with her; she was quite happy then". While of course also positive
incidents (e.g., unexpected success) are conceivable as triggers, the need for
reflection typically was bigger in case of negative incidents.
2. Performance and Team Evaluation: Reflection was also triggered by
performance or team evaluation sessions where finished (project post mortem)
or running projects (project monitoring) are being discussed. For instance,
during the interview at the telecommunication company the participant said that
“if we lose a contract, it may be the case that we have internally a big workshop
trying to analyze why we lost the business”. Similarly, supervision sessions with
a coach or mentor are settings that most likely provoke reflection on own
performance. Typical triggers for reflection include regular performance
appraisal interviews with a line manager, where "personal development goals
are defined together with the supervisor", and "after one year, it is tested
whether the goals were achieved". In general, the participants reported that they
perceive it as "helpful and interesting to have the opinion of the supervisor" on
their work performance. These situations have in common that they are regular
occasions that typically include evaluation of recent task performance.
3. Regular Team Meetings: Regular team meetings provide a further opportunity
for reflection but rather 'on demand'. Such meetings happen frequently at the
neurological clinic, for instance: Three times a week they have x-ray meetings;
the chief physician shows MRT/CT images, the neurologist presents patients'
history, the radiologist shows x-rays; unclear medical evidence is discussed, the
process of diagnosis is reflected upon, and alternative ways of diagnosis are
being elaborated together. Similarly, at the software consultancy, "in the weekly
team meeting, the supervisors are informed about things which work well, or
not so well with customers", and the team discusses how to proceed in the
future. There are also "best practice meetings" to discuss different approaches to
handle projects in order to develop a shared best practice - "but it depends on
the team how this is handled". These team meetings are the occasion to “share
success stories within the organization".
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The Role of Reflection in Maturing Organizational Know-how
Furthermore, we found that reflective thinking often occurs „spontaneously‟, e.g.,
after interaction with a client. One person from the software consultancy reported: “If
two of us have been at a customer, we are discussing on our way back what went
well, how we did things, how the other saw things; The other one serves as a mirror”.
At the neurological clinic, recreation time with colleagues is also a typical occasion to
share experiences and to reflect on work practice: "We talk with our colleagues about
our work during lunchtime". There, the participants reported that "even at private
meetings, we do 'doctors blathering'".
Strong triggers for reflection are evoked in situations where comparisons take
place on an individual or collaborative level (“The monthly company meeting is a
very formal meeting to exchange news and to compare with others”, software
consultancy), or on an organizational level (“There are comparisons with other
hospitals; e.g., if they have a low holding time, we also should reduce our holding
time; these comparisons trigger further improvement of our own processes”,
neurological clinic).
Comparing our interviews, we realized that in these organizations, there are strong
differences in how readily the answers were given by the participants during the
interview: While with participants from the software consultancy and the
telecommunication company, we had no difficulties to explain what we mean by
„reflection‟, and the participants readily gave answers that fit our concept of
reflection, participants at the neurological clinic seemed to be irritated by the term
„reflection‟, and stated that they would not reflect a lot due to lack of time and as they
were “happy not to think about their work too much because there are not many
success stories”. When participants from the nursing home spoke of reflection, they
mostly meant thinking about „challenging behaviour‟ of residents; reflection about
their own work practice was not reported to happen regularly.
Factors Related to Reflection and Reflective Learning within Organizations.
The observation that reflection on own work practice was not a concept that was
readily tangible for all participants, and that reflection was nothing to take place in
each organization to the same extent led us to a further analysis of factors that may
influence whether reflection takes place within a company. We could identify a
couple of characteristics that are candidates for explaining the variance with regard to
organizational knowledge maturing through reflection.
Flexibility vs. Standardization of Work Processes.
Analyzing the differences between the four organizations we realized that one
aspect in which the organizations in our study differed strongly was the degree of
standardization of the work tasks: On one end of the continuum, we have highly
standardized work tasks where every step needs to adhere to quality assurance
regulations or other standards, and must be documented comprehensively. This is the
case at the neurological clinic where “everything is very structured”, and “there are
many standard forms that have to be filled”. This is similar at the nursing home,
however, the care staff seems to have more flexibility in their procedures: “From 8 o‟
clock in the morning, it‟s basically helping people sit up for breakfast; if they do not
want to get up, they do not have to. […] Then, we bring them down to the hall where
we have activities going on; everyone is encouraged to join in”. Obviously, there are
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The Role of Reflection in Maturing Organizational Know-how
standard procedures but the care staff can adapt to a resident's needs in order to
deliver good care.
On the other end of the continuum, workers have quite a lot of flexibility in doing
their work. This is the case, for example, at the software consultancy, where “a typical
work day is an untypical work day”. Clearly, there is some structure (procedures,
meetings, content management systems), but the employees have a lot of freedom in
deciding how to do their jobs. Projects are very much driven by the needs of their
customers and thus, each project is somewhat unique. At the telecommunication
company, there are standard business processes pre-defined (“everything is very much
standardized”), however, the daily work requires a lot of flexibility (“If I ever had a
typical work day”), and days differ much depending on meetings and customer
interaction. The staff can basically decide how and when to carry out their work. The
interviewee at the telecommunication company stated further that she should “not
even need to think about what the team is doing, because it should just happen in the
background; it‟s a standard process".
According to the degree to which daily work is standardized the requirements for
high work performance differ, too. During the interviews, we examined what kind of
behaviour is expected and rewarded within the company and what would constitute a
„good day‟ or a „bad day‟. The answers illustrate the different job demands very
nicely: According to the interviewees at the neurological clinic, a good day is “when
the day plan is working, when I have the feeling that I had time for the patients”.
Asked for performance criteria, the interviewees stated “if we stick to structure and
process; [...] if we adhere to instructions”. Similarly, at the nursing home, employees
are expected to follow the quality standards of care. One of the interviewees with
management responsibility explained: “If we have new policies, I print them out, and
I will ask every staff member to sign a form to say that they have read it, and I put
that policy into their file with that form.” These answers indicate that at the
neurological clinic and the nursing home, the expectation is to show full compliance
to regulations in order to ensure efficiency and high quality.
However, at the nursing home, residents may show „challenging behaviour‟, due to
dementia. Then, the care staff is expected to find out the reason for this behaviour and
to identify a way to deal with the situation, reacting appropriately to the patients‟
needs thereby still adhering to quality regulations.
At the telecommunication company, the staff is expected to carry out pre-defined
business processes. Any disturbances have to be avoided (as they cost time, and "any
additional time needed reduces the margin of a contract"). The interviewee stated that
her team had a really good day “if the processes worked without any intervention
from them”. Nonetheless, the regulations are at a much lower granularity than e.g. in
the neurological clinic (i.e. business process steps are defined, daily task execution is
not regulated), and the staff is expected to solve issues once they occur.
Of the organizations participating in the interview, the software consultancy is the
company where most creativity and creative problem solving is expected from the
employees: “Our customers are changing; thus, we have to move into new topics; our
consulting techniques improve and develop further; we refine what we have, and we
include new topics”.
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The Role of Reflection in Maturing Organizational Know-how
These observations led us to the hypothesis that jobs with a high degree of
standardization mainly require compliance (adhering to standards) whereas jobs with
low degree of standardization require creative problem solving.
Formal Training vs. Informal Learning
Further analysing the situation in the different organisations, we realized that they
also differed with regard to how learning takes place. In the interviews, we found four
ways of how learning and knowledge transfer take place in these organizations:
Courses/eLearning (e.g., MS Excel eLearning course)
On-the-job training (e.g., „shadowing‟ more experienced peers, mentoring)
Learning through Communication (e.g., project monitoring meetings)
Learning by doing (e.g., creative problem solving, dealing with mistakes and
disturbances)
Courses are useful if standard procedures exist that need to be known by many
persons. Such courses have been mentioned by the neurological clinic (“We have a lot
of courses; we can also suggest courses; for example we wanted to have a seminar on
„clusters of symptoms‟ – this was then arranged for us”), by interviewees at the
nursing home (“We have many courses, e.g., on dementia, palliative care, end of life,
medication course etc.”), and also by the telecommunication company (“You go to
the training pages on the intranet, see what training is available, see if it is of interest
to you and then you have to apply to go on it”).
On the job training needs to take place where physical activities are dominant: At
the nursing home, typically novices accompany more experienced colleagues for one
day and observe what they are doing („shadowing‟). Then, on the next day, the
novices try to do it on their own.
Another way of learning is through communication, e.g. in meetings: In the
neurological clinic, they “have a lot of informative meetings. If there are exceptional
events, [they] discuss them. Sometimes also studies are presented”. At the nursing
home, information is shared during the ward meeting or handover. At the software
consultancy, “everyone could talk about everything in the company meeting”.
Learning by doing was named as a way of learning at the software consultancy.
According to the interviewees, acquiring new knowledge and learning sometimes
happens through customer relations. Reflection plays a crucial role here.
Obviously, the more standardized the work processes, and the more compliance is
expected from the workforce, the more formalized is the professional further
education that is offered to the staff. On one side of the informal-formal learning
continuum are courses that teach standard procedures. Here, reflection is not crucial
as a means to learn. Instead, the staff should be able to carry out the standardized
procedure without deviation. On the other side of the continuum, when learning by
doing, reflection about one‟s own experience is essential to transfer learning from one
concrete experience to other similar situations.
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The Role of Reflection in Maturing Organizational Know-how
5 Discussion: Linking Reflection and Knowledge Maturing
The observation that reflection seems not to occur self-evidently in different
organizations raised an important question: Are there factors that determine whether
or not reflective learning is likely to be experienced by persons within an
organizational context? We took a closer look at the interview data and identified a
number of factors according to which the organizations differed and that are strongly
related: The degree of standardization of work tasks (flexibility vs. standardization),
and related job demands for the staff (compliance vs. creativity), and established
learning practice within an organization. These findings shall now be mapped to the
ideas of the Knowledge Maturing Model. It shall be emphasized at this point that
while our interview study has triggered some interesting thoughts about the role of
reflection in different maturing stages, due to methodological constraints (small
sample size, the way how samples were created and composed, heterogeneity of
participants, etc.), the study is only a first step into the direction of combining theories
of reflection and knowledge maturing.
By definition, maturing organizational know-how – if taken to the last phase of
knowledge maturing – by definition results in shared „best practice‟ or even
standardized processes. Standardization typically has the goal to ensure high
efficiency and high quality. We argue that performing „mature‟ processes requires
highly specific knowledge. Vice versa, performing (non-trivial) unstandardized tasks
requires creativity and problem solving capacities, and thus more general skills and
knowledge. As in standardized processes, the associated knowledge is more „mature‟,
i.e., typically more justified, understood, committed, legitimated, and teachable,
formal trainings can be provided to train their workforce which then can rely on this
knowledge in performing their tasks in a compliant way.
As we stated in Section 3, in general, reflection is triggered by the perception of
discrepancy. We argue that in case of performing work tasks, the discrepancy is a
deviation of the employee's actual performance from the expected performance. As
we have found, the expectation may range from creatively solving a task to carrying
out a task exactly as foreseen by the process standard. In the case of high
standardization, discrepancy may occur if the standard process could not be carried
out as expected, or if the outcome did not occur even though the process had been
carried out as prescribed. One of the outcomes of reflection may be in this case that
the employee has to learn an exception of how to carry out a task in a specific
situation; organizational learning may take place as an outcome of the reflection, too,
if the process standardization is modified or extended based on an individual's
reflection process. In non-standardized tasks where creative problem solving is
expected, discrepancy may occur if they do not meet performance criteria. In this
case, reflection either may lead to individual learning, or – in case of organizational
knowledge maturing through reflection – towards sharing experiences and joint
development of best practice.
To put these considerations in a nutshell, in case of low maturity (i.e. high
variability of practices), reflection can be one means to consolidate shared best
practice and to develop standard processes, whereas in case of high maturity (i.e. high
standardization), reflection leads to modification of institutionalized practices and
innovation with regard to processes and routines. Fig. 2 integrates these assumptions.
41
The Role of Reflection in Maturing Organizational Know-how
Fig. 2: Reflection in maturing organizational know-how
The figure shows a simplified version of the Knowledge Maturing Model focusing
on maturing know-how, combined with the characteristics of task support typically
available from [22]. These range from no support (ad-hoc tasks) via informally shared
practices and more formal descriptive task support to prescriptive standards. Carrying
out fully standardized processes (right side of the spectrum in Fig. 2) with pre-defined
outcome may lead to creating new knowledge only if the process cannot be carried
out as described for some reason, if the expected outcome does not occur, or the
standardized process does not cover the situation encountered. Then, reflection may
lead to a modification of the standard process on a fine-grained level: In other words,
there is a strong stable core („sedimented knowledge‟, [23]), and new knowledge is
created around this core, which may result in a further detailed standard procedure.
On the other end of the spectrum, broad and divergent knowledge is needed for
carrying out un-standardized tasks. Here, learning typically „just happens‟ in a self-
directed manner through actively searching for information, experimentation, or
learning-by-doing. Thus, carrying out un-standardized tasks might lead to the creation
of new know-how, and even to new standard processes. Reflection in this case leads
to maturing on a more coarse grained level as not so much „sedimented knowledge‟
exists.
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The Role of Reflection in Maturing Organizational Know-how
6 Discussion
We have started the analysis of our data with the question of what may be the
reasons for differences between organizations with regard to the prevalence of
reflection. Our findings revealed that these companies differ strongly with regard to
the degree of „maturity‟ of their know-how. This difference, as explained above, may
have an impact on the kind of discrepancy that is experienced – „complying with a
standard does not lead to the expected result‟ vs. „own expectations are not met by
carrying out a task‟. This alone, however, does not mean that more or less reflection
occurs in these different contexts, but it implies that reflection has different
characteristics.
One explanation why the participants in the neurological clinic and the nursing
home stated that reflection does not play a major role in their work may be that in the
more standardized settings, (reflective) feedback loops are built into the standards to
ensure continuous improvement. For example, there is a clear process to whom a
deviation from the standard should be reported, or how feedback on standard
procedures can be given. That way, reflection becomes part of standardized work
practice and may not be perceived as 'separate' activity.
Also, the health care staff‟s answers may have been biased by „social desirability‟:
Persons in jobs that require creative problem solving may find it natural to reflect
about their work; persons that are expected to follow standard procedures, when asked
about reflection, may be irritated because good performance in their case would mean
„do as the process prescribes‟. Clearly, our study has the limitation that we only have
subjective answers but no measure of how often reflection actually took place.
The question if the differences that we found are purely due to varying degrees of
„process maturity‟ or if the different institutions or branches (health vs. technology)
also have an impact on whether reflection is perceived to take place remains open to
future work. An alternative explanation may even be that health care staff in general
tends to experience less reflection than technical staff. In our view, however, how
reflection is perceived is not determined by the organization (or branch) but rather by
the level of maturity of their processes. This implies for example that in the same
company different professions may have different perceptions of reflection.
7 Conclusion and Outlook
Reflection is a means to improve „maturity‟ of organizational processes as it
contributes to the development of shared know-how, organizational best practice, and
standardization of work processes. Thus, supporting reflection implies supporting
organizational knowledge maturing.
However, findings from our exploratory interview study led to the hypothesis that
the role of reflection changes throughout the different maturing phases: In early
phases, reflection seems to lead to the implementation and consolidation of shared
work practice; in later phases, reflection may trigger revision and refinement of
described, prescribed, or even standardized processes. Moreover, different causes of
discrepancy seem to trigger reflection in the different phases, ranging from not
meeting own (or a supervisor‟s) expectations to deviating from a standard process. As
43
The Role of Reflection in Maturing Organizational Know-how
a consequence, reflection support in early maturing phases should raise awareness of
own work practice and stimulate re-evaluation of own experiences. Sharing of
individual reflection outcomes should be supported to enable the development of
shared work practice. Reflection support in later maturing phases should make
deviations from standardized processes and outcomes more visible. Feedback loops to
refine established standards should be implemented to enable continuous
improvement of standard processes. Clearly, future work needs to be directed towards
testing these propositions and analyzing which maturing phase requires which kind of
reflection support.
Furthermore, other factors as the ones explained above may have an impact on the
prevalence of reflection. Kelloway & Barling [24] suggest that three different factors
determine whether workers engage in „knowledge work‟: motivation, ability, and
opportunity. We argue that these factors can also explain whether reflection (as a
specific type of knowledge work) takes place. „Opportunity‟ could mean the
opportunity to experience discrepancy. Fully standardized processes may only offer
the opportunity to reflect on these processes if they do not lead to the desired
outcome, while situations where persons are invited to experiment may provide plenty
of opportunities for reflection. Time pressure may reduce the opportunity to reflect
and thus constitutes a barrier to reflection at work. „Ability‟ means that persons need
to have the mental capabilities to abstract from their actual experience and draw
conclusions for future behaviour–this ability cannot be taken for granted for every
person. „Motivation‟ means the motivation of a worker to reflect. Clearly, the
motivation to reflect may be low if the worker does not see the benefit of reflection or
if staff does not have the possibility to improve their work practice on their own.
Moreover, there may be interindividual differences with regard to the need to reflect.
These factors will also be considered in future studies.
Acknowledgement. The Know-Center is funded within the Austrian COMET
Program - Competence Centers for Excellent Technologies - under the auspices of the
Austrian Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology, the Austrian
Federal Ministry of Economy, Family and Youth and by the State of Styria. COMET
is managed by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG.
The Knowledge Media Research Center (KMRC) is an extra-faculty research
institute. Its responsible body is the non-profit foundation under non-public law
"Media in Education". The institute is co-funded by the Federal Republic of Germany
and the State of Baden-Württemberg. The KMRC is member of the Leibniz
Association.
This work has been co-funded by the European Commission as part of the MATURE
IP (grant no. 216346) and MIRROR IP (grant no. 257617) within the 7th Framework
Programme.
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