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In Want of Information: A Case Study of Engineers in the South Pacific
Abstract
This paper is primarily concerned with information networks and their significance to the development of technological knowledge in Pacific Island engineers. Essentially, the paper addresses a research agenda outlined by Cooper, who argues that studies of innovation in industrialised countries have relevance to technological capability development in developing countries. More specifically, the paper picks up on the theme of ‘technological knowledge development as a communication process’ where studies reveal the contribution that communication linkages within and between organisations make towards the development of this form of knowledge. Using Macdonald's ‘information perspective’ as an analytical tool, the paper identifies a number of organisational-related factors which constrain the access that these engineers have to problem-solving information. The paper argues that the organisation, and the social milieu in which it interacts, is influential in determining access to problem-solving information. This analysis provides support for Cooper's arguments and points to a broader set of challenges than is often accepted in development commentaries: that is, of information being widely available and easy to transport by communication technologies.
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Author and article information
Notes and References
The author would like to thank his research supervisors, Joan Cooper and Tim Turpin, for their advice and encouragement. Thanks also to Don Lamberton and Richard Joseph for their assistance and helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper, which was presented at the XIX Pacific Science Congress, University of New South Wales, 4–9 July, 1999.
N. H. Reddy and L. Zhao, ‘International technology transfer: a review’, Research Policy, 19, 1990, pp. 285–307.
C. Cooper, ‘Innovation studies and developing countries’, in C. Cooper (ed.), Technology and Innovation in the International Economy, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK and United Nations University Press, Tokyo, Japan, 1994, p. 1.
Ibid, pp. 6–9; see also R. R. Nelson (ed.), National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 1993.
S. Macdonald, Information for Innovation: Managing Change from an Information Perspective, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998.
See, for example, C. Antonelli, ‘Localized knowledge percolation processes and information networks’, in D. M. Lamberton (ed.), The Mew Research Frontiers of Communications Policy, Elsevier B.V., Amsterdam, 1997, pp. 71–88; M. Bell and K. Pavitt, ‘Technological accumulation and industrial growth: contrasts between developed and developing countries’, Industrial and Corporate Change, 2, 2, 1993–94, pp. 157–210; D. E. Forsythe, ‘Engineering knowledge: the construction of knowledge in artificial intelligence’, Social Studies of Science, 23, 1993, pp. 445–77; J. E. Orr, Talking about Machines: an Ethnography of a Modem Job, Cornell University Press, New York, 1996; John M. Staudenmaier, Technology Storytellers: Reweaving the Human Fabric, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1985.
Forum Communication Policyhttp://pidp.ewc.hawaii.edu/pireport/1999/April/04-28-20.html
Robert K. Yin, Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 2nd edition, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1994.
Cooper, op cit., pp. 13–4.
K. E. Boulding, ‘The economics of knowledge and the knowledge of economies’, American Economic Review, LVI, 2, 1966, pp. 1–13, reprinted in D. Lamberton (ed.), Economics of Information and Knowledge, Penguin Books, Ringwood, Vic., 1971, pp. 26–7.
M. Fransman, ‘Technological capability in the Third World’, in M. Fransman and K. King (eds), Technological Capability in the Third World, St. Martins Press Inc., New York, 1984, pp. 5–6.
S. Hill, The Tragedy of Technology: Human Liberation Versus Domination in the Late Twentieth Century, Pluto Press, London, 1988; A. Marjoram (ed.), Island Technology: Technology for Development in the South Pacific, Intermediate Technology Publications Ltd, London, 1994; P. P. Streeten, ‘The conflict between communication gaps and suitability gaps’, in M. Jussawalla and D. M. Lamberton (eds), Communication Economics and Development, Pergamon Press, New York, 1982, pp. 16–35.
R. R. Nelson, Innovation and Economic Development: Theoretical Retrospect and Prospect, 1978, cited in Fransman, op. cit., p. 5.
D. M. Lamberton, ‘The growth of codified knowledge’, in 1998 Communications Research Forum, Vol. 1, Old Parliament House Canberra, Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, 24–25 September 1998, pp. 188–9.
T. Turpin, Yanhua Lian, Jian Tong and Xin Fang, ‘Technology and innovation networks in the Republic of China’, Journal of Industry Studies, 2, 2, December 1995, p. 64.
Lamberton, op. cit., p. 188.
Ibid, p. 189.
Bell and Pavitt, op. cit., p. 168.
Antonelli, op. cit.
Ibid, pp. 72–74, 75.
Ibid, pp. 74–75.
Staudenmaier, op. cit., p. 107.
Ibid, pp. 119–20.
Ibid, pp. 110–1.
Ibid, pp. 114–20.
Ibid, p. 110.
Forsythe, op. cit., p. 453.
Ibid, pp. 448–9.
Ibid, pp. 448, 449.
Orr, op. cit.
Ibid, pp. 2, 125–43.
Ibid, pp. 105–13.
Ibid, p. 107.
See, for example, B. Higgins, ‘Technology and economic development’, in Marjoram, op. cit., pp. 29–38; Streeten, op. cit.; P. Streeten, ‘The special problems of small countries’, World Development, 21, 2, 1993, pp. 197–202.
Higgins, op. cit., p. 32.
Macdonald, op. cit.
D. M. Lamberton, ‘Information: pieces, batches or flows’, in S. C. Dow and P. E. Earl (eds), Economic Organisation and Economic Knowledge: Essays in Honour of Brian Loasby, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, 1998, pp. 209–224.
Macdonald, op. cit., pp. 12–27.
S. Macdonald and C. Williams, ‘The informal information network in an age of advanced telecommunications’, Human Systems Management, 11, 1992, p. 79.
Forsythe, op. cit., p. 448.
Macdonald, op. cit., p. 15.
Staudenmaier, op. cit., pp. 105–6. The point at which a question is able to be formulated represents to Staudenmaier a decisive stage in beginning to describe the data which answers a particular problem. Hence the formulation of a question represents an important contribution to technological knowledge development.
Macdonald, op. cit., pp. 23–7.
Ibid, pp. 20–3.
Ibid, pp. 23–27.
S. Macdonald, ‘Learning to change: an information perspective on learning in the organization’, Organization Science, 6, 5, September-October 1995, pp. 563–4.
See, for example, K. Dickson, ‘How informal can you be? Trust and reciprocity within co-operative and collaborative relationships’, International Journal of Technology Management, Special Issue on Informal Information Flow, 11, 1/2, 1996, pp. 129–39; C. Maguire, E. Lovelace and R. Kench, The People you Know: an Investigation of Information Transfer among a Group of Australian Social Workers in a Hospital Agency, School of Librarianship, The University of New South Wales, 1976, p. 60.
Macdonald, Information for Innovation: Managing Change from an Information Perspective, op. cit., pp. 18–23.
Ibid, pp. 15–7.
Ibid, p. 16.
Cooper, op. cit.; Macdonald, Information for Innovation: Managing Change from an Information Perspective, op. cit.
South Pacific Forum Secretariat, op. cit.
Ibid, p. 4.
P. Hinds and S. Kiesler, ‘Communication across boundaries: work structure, and use of communication technologies in a large organization’, Organization Science, 6, 4, July—August 1995, pp. 388–9.
S. Hilderbrand, ‘Bridging the information gap: a 21st century challenge’, Pacific Islands Monthly, June 1999, pp. 32–3.
S. Macdonald, ‘Notions of network: some implications for telecommunications of differences of perception’, in S. Macdonald and G. Madden (eds), Telecommunications and Socio-economic Development, Elsevier B.V., Amsterdam, 1998, p. 301.