From Teams to Knots: Activity-Theoretical Studies of Collaboration and Learning at WorkTeams are commonly celebrated as efficient and humane ways of organizing work and learning. By means of a series of in-depth case studies of teams in the United States and Finland over a time span of more than 10 years, this book shows that teams are not a universal and ahistorical form of collaboration. Teams are best understood in their specific activity contexts and embedded in historical development of work. Today, static teams are increasingly replaced by forms of fluid knotworking around runaway objects that require and generate new forms of expansive learning and distributed agency. This book develops a set of conceptual tools for analysis and design of transformations in collaborative work and learning. |
Contents
Disturbance Management and Masking in a Television | 22 |
Coordination Cooperation | 48 |
Displacement and Innovation in Primary Care Medical Teams | 64 |
Crossing Boundaries in Teacher Teams | 86 |
Knowledge Creation in Industrial Work Teams | 118 |
Teams Infrastructures and Social Capital | 169 |
From Iron Cages to Webs on the Wind | 182 |
Knotworking and Agency in Fluid Organizational Fields | 199 |
| 235 | |
Author Index | 253 |
Other editions - View all
From Teams to Knots: Activity-Theoretical Studies of Collaboration and ... Yrjö Engeström No preview available - 2008 |
From Teams to Knots: Activity-Theoretical Studies of Collaboration and ... Yrjö Engeström No preview available - 2010 |
Common terms and phrases
ABC Sports activity system activity theory Alma’s analysis analyzed Ancona Beyerlein boundaries broadcast Chapter co-configuration cognitive collaborative communication complex concept constructed contradictions cooperation coordination create crew cross-aged Curtis cycle Dana Dana’s Danny discussion disturbances emerging Engestr¨om example excerpt expansive learning Figure force field analysis formation framework Global Education gonna Hillerman historical idea individual infrastructures interaction issues conference Jim Chee Joe Leaphorn judge knotworking knowledge creation knowledge representation laboratory lean production Manuelito mass customization mass production mediating artifacts modes motives mycorrhizae Nonaka and Takeuchi’s notion nurse object Okay organization organizational participants patient perspective phases physician practitioners principle problem question responsibility Roger scrap script Shawn sidebars Sinister Pig social capital sociotechnical solution structure Takeuchi talk teacher teams team members team’s tension there’s tion transcripts typically Uddevalla workers Yeah Zone
Popular passages
Page 2 - Simply bolting and screwing together a large number of parts in a long cycle rather than a small number in a short cycle is a very limited vision of job enrichment.