Summing It Up

EMM having EM_ont as its core has been discussed in quite some detail. The key characteristics are recapitulated here to give a concise picture.

Expertise Management ontology (EM_ont):

• The PQR formula is placed in context and applied recursively:
  • P-R: the what and the why, i.e., the reason of being, or what we are;
  • Q: the how, a particular way of doing things, i.e., what we do;
  • The PQR formula reads as a sentence, for instance: being there (P) by supporting our relatives, friends and neighbors (Q) in order to have an acceptable quality of life (R);
• The ontological category Context unifies situation and roles in a situation. They are the same when viewed from a different perspective. A hierarchy of contexts can be created in which situations and roles can be part of many situations and roles to match real life situations;
• Conditions represent the system’s state. They reflect how well roles in situations are facilitated. Activities in different roles are decoupled by conditions to model Luhmannian kind of communications. Conditions irritate a PQR cluster, but it is up to the cluster itself to select a particular Q;
• A belief is a condition that cannot be changed within the system, for example, legislation or fixed ideas;
• Practices define good and bad practices. A practice can be seen as a selection mechanism to reduce complexity by decreasing degrees of freedom in PQR clusters. A practice can be used to focus the attention on future actions based on the current and past conditions of a system.
• A system in execution leaves a trace consisting of alternating actions and updated conditions. This allows past conditions to be used in a current computation;
• EM_ont is a so-called foundational ontology. It provides a basis for defining more application specific ontologies, such as:
  • Human cognition and behavior model supporting reflection, emotions and mental condition;
  • Identity model based on self-perception, presentation and attribution;

Expertise Management Methodology (EMM):

• EMM is a methodology rooted in critical realism that acknowledges a real world on the one hand and self-constructed worldviews on the other hand;
• A Body of Knowledge and Skills (BOKS) can be constructed systematically through a process of abduction. This is an iterative process of induction and deduction to theorize from case studies;
• EMM supports a process of mutual understanding stakeholder’s worldviews by means of guided conversations and interpretations.

In conclusion, EMM/EM_ont and the accompanying theoretical concepts make a powerful tool for assessing the possibilities of change. The role of EM_ont in EMM is to guide conversations and interpretations to investigate room of change in problematic situations, and to translate the outcomes into EM_ont models. By means of the EMM process of abduction, a BOKS of a particular domain can be developed systematically.

EMM is rooted in systems thinking (hard, soft and critical) and first-order and second-order cybernetics. For instance, the influence of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) can be recognized in the key role of the PQR formula. The second-order cybernetic principles of self-referential, self-production, autonomy and closure can be applied in EM_ont to model operationally closed and structurally open systems in terms of PQR clusters in context.

EMM supports a process of mutual understanding, which may already paves the way to accommodation of worldviews. The Social Theory (ST) of a sustainable, collaborative learning society takes this to the level of shared meaning.

• Lees hiervoor:
  Implementation of the Body of Knowledge and Skills
• Lees hierna:
  Social Innovation Applications