Reflexive Organizing for Knowledge Sharing: An Ethnomethodological Study of Service Technicians

Abstract

This study examines how organizing is done reflexively through practice in the context of knowledge sharing. Organizing concerns reduction of equivocality and sensemaking so that actions can be interpreted and coordinated. Reflexivity refers to the fact that this organizing is done through talk, and that talk is an action that requires organizing. To examine how this reflexive organizing is accomplished, detailed analysis of video-recorded interactions among photocopier service technicians revealed various interactional methods to make actions of requesting and offering assistance understandable and relevant. To explain these methods, Goffman's concept of embedding is applied. By embedding other social situations in the current talk, one can project a certain sense of one's talk. This reflexive organizing clarifies that organizing is part of, not separate from, any practice and that knowledge sharing is accomplished not through a retrospective narrative but through reflexive construction of the situation in which talk is made possible.