Actor-networking engineering design, project management and education research: a knowledge management approach [chapter]

Jose Figueiredo
2010 Knowledge Management  
With this research we invest in the integration of four important areas of knowledge interweaved within the sphere of engineering management research: Actor-Network Theory, project management, engineering design and engineering education research. Each of these areas represents a pole of a tetrahedron and they are all equidistant. Our approach has the ability and concern of putting them all at the same distance and with equivalent value, taking advantage of cruising fertilization among them.
more » ... s entails a research in the frontiers of the engineering and the social where other elements emerge. In fact any technological system is a sociotechnical system and design and development must take this fact into account, which surprisingly enough doesn't seem to be completely accepted. This research is on the integration of knowledge and blurring of frontiers within these four areas. The actor-network embodies the change of settings and facilitates negotiations among heterogeneous actors, translating ideas and meanings and constructing innovations. Actor-Network Theory helps viewing the integration of these different areas as a fruitful integrative process of trade-offs and translations. This integrative process is intended to manage knowledge creation and serve as a context to a reflexive process of organizational learning and engineering academic learning. Narrative is a strategy we intend to use to facilitate the understanding of contexts and the circulation of common and emergent meanings.
doi:10.5772/9536 fatcat:rxmftjhx4jdvdo2mpsordtxpsi