”A confessional account of an ethnography about knowledge work, 2000”

Ulrike SchultzeTheory

by

Minh Ho Quang

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What is ethnography?

• a invaluable research method

• a specific type of account of cultural and social life

• involves participating, observing peoples lives and social context

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Agenda

• Role

• Generation

• Choice

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What was the role of Schultze theory?

• producing informational objects

• activity central to knowledge work

• focus on what people do on work practices, rather than what they know

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What was the role of Schultze theory?(cont.)

3 groups of knowledge workers

• Computer System Administrators

• Competative Intelligence(CI) analysts

• Librarians

• ex. Schultze joined fieldwork at a US Company

• Group’s identity

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How Schultze theory was generated?

• Review the literature on knowledge work• Establish the production and reproduction of

informational objects• Drawing distinctions between information

and knowledge• Looking at the characteristics of

ethnographic research and confessional writing

• Ending with the research results

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How/why was this theory choosen?

• More understanding of the knowledge work

• Identify: ex-pressing, monitoring, translating

• The knowledge worker’s endeavor to balanse the subjective nature of the information they produced with activities that will enhanced its objectivity

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Comments/Critique

• Intresting paper!