Knowledge: Climbing the Learning Ladder to a ‘Phenomenological’ View

Abstract

Attempts to summarise Claudio Ciborra's work through a single theme cannot succeed due to its breadth and the ease in which he moved between subjects. This paper is a tentative attempt to discover a common theme in his work, with the notion of knowledge identified as an appropriate starting point. Encompassing learning and rationality, the theme of knowledge has been persistent and evolving in Ciborra's work, with three knowledge combinations reflecting its development: knowledge-rationality, knowledge-learning and everyday-knowledge. The first combination depicts rationality as a catalyst in the pursuit of specific objectives that determine knowledge. Ciborra continued his exploration of knowledge by theorising that background knowledge structure objectives were the basis of sense-making and organisational action, while short-term knowledge structure was required to address developing situations. This introduced and provided the foundation for the knowledge-learning combination. Ciborra's final knowledge combination was predicated on the interpretation of reality as created by the experiences of the individual, including participation in organisational life where feelings, moods and the totality of existence is expressed, delineating the everyday-knowledge combination in the process. Ciborra utilised these and other approaches like the learning ladder in his investigation of complex multilayered subjects like information systems, undertaken from among others, a phenomenological vantage point that shaped many of his key contributions.