Winsor -Construction of Knowledge
SummaryWinsor lecture called The Construction of Knowledge in Organizations: Asking the Right Questions about the Challenger starts by asking a very important question, "Why did it happen that various people in the organizations involved knew about the faulty O*rings that cause the Challenger to explode but failed to pass on the information to decision makers (7)?" Winsor tells that, " It seemed that personnel from NASA contractors knew about the problem and failed to act or should have know but ignored plain evidence (7)." Then Winsor says that researchers had problems in concluding what the people knew, but they did not act. Then she says, "The object of my discussion is less to throw light on the Challenger explosion as such than to demonstrate the difficulty we have in bringing our theoretical understanding of the uncertain, socially conditioned nature of discourse to bear on concrete incidents (8)." She says that in this reading she will analyze, "The difficulties with knowing and passing on the information (8)." The first question Winsor asks in the lecture is "What does it mean to know something?" She first analyzes that knowledge based on evidence seems, "To be based on evidence in contrast to such necessarily misleading factors as what co-workers thought or what was politically expedient (8)." Second she says, "Knowledge is regarded as certain; if someone is still unsure of an idea, we don't usually call the idea knowledge (8)." Winsor continues arguing about what knowing something is according to this case in which the Challenger fails its mission, and she asks another question, "Why Can't We Pass On the Information?" Winsor answers it by saying, "The passing on of information is a misleading concept because it is part of what might be called the conduit model of communication (13)." By researching Winsor found out that, "It was not primarily mistakes by experts that led to the disastrous decision to launch the Challenger, but rather a policy decision by harassed bureaucrats to ignore the experts (15)." Winsor concluded her writing with this, "The complicated nature of knowledge in organizations suggests that, while ignorance or evil may come into play, these factors are not the only possible explanations for communication failures (18)."
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SynthesisThe Construction of Knowledge written by Dorothy Winsor is very interesting; it explains with much detail the different causes why the Challenger failed the mission. I think it is very important to see the different sides of the situation, like knowing if the engineers knew or did not knew, to know if they wanted to make like they have accomplish something by covering the situation. This lecture was a little confuse because of all the detail in it which it seems to have no order or no structure. I think that Winsor get to a good point when she started asking two different questions to get to a conclusion and answer her initial question. According to the lecture knowledge involves having for certain some information and communicating to others. I also think the same way I think knowledge is knowing something and it does have to involve communication because you may be telling that something can happen or you may transmit your knowledge to someone else.
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