4.
INTERPRETATION OF THE CASE
In this
chapter I interpret the case by asking these questions:
• 4.1. What was the role of
knowledge in processing information?
• 4.2. How did the dichotomy between Professional and
Organisational knowledge traditions develop?
• 4.3. What was the role of knowledge transfer in
organising?
• 4.4. What was the role of knowledge in the relation
with markets?
• 4.5. What was the role of knowledge in strategy?
4.1.
The Infoduction Process.
What was
the role of knowledge in processing information? I regard the core process to
be the journalist writing an article.
The world
of business can be regarded as a chaos of physical objects, people, empirical
data, facts, other people´s knowledge, theories, etc. The task of the
journalist is to first translate this chaos into something that he or she
understands himself. This tacit understanding is then to be articulated via a
text to a number of readers.
The work
usually starts with reading other journalists´ articles. There is thus an
ability to read texts filled with "economic jargon". This
.i.intellective ;.i.skill ;involves one part that comes from vocational
training, (perhaps an academic degree). To be a fast reader (glancing through a
text at high speed and still grasping the content) and to know how to read
foreign languages are intellective skills that probably are partly personality
traits but which can be improved a lot by practise. To be receptive, fast
absorbing relevant facts are very valuable skills for a journalist.
Much of
the journalistic .i.know-how; is to interpret the context in which other
texts have been written and to interpret the answers from the interviewees. The
"suspicious mind" is a know-how almost entirely acquired by
experience. When was the text written? Why, for what purpose? By whom (what
vested interest)? Also the ability to write texts is similar. We learn the
rules of writing at the age of six and spend a lifetime to master them.
There is
also a social agentive know-how involved. The best journalists develop
sensitivity and empathy as tools for understanding as well as creating an
atmosphere of trust. They listen much more than they talk and the senior
business journalists therefore often become trusted confidants (!) to top
managers who are very lonesome in their roles and in need of neutral advice.
The ability to entertain a network of good and friendly sources in the right
places is important and the personal network is guarded as the most valuable
asset of any journalist.
The
journalist tacitly knows many of the elements involved in the article. This is
focused during the process. Many of the facts about the companies involved,
their track record, perhaps their latest forecasts, who their managers are etc.
are probably already tacitly known. This knowledge is first used as a
subsidiary tacit knowledge in the focusing process preparing for gathering more
information. The tacit knowing guides the search for new information and the
questions for gaining new knowledge.
The
outcome of the information gathering is an abundance of information. The
information is reduced and structured into as short texts as possible
using the journalistic techniques. The techniques are intended to help the
writer to penetrate noise and to reach the reader´s eye through information
chaos. One of the tools for this is "the .i.peg;" or the angle.
Metaphors, which might capture a lot of meaning in only one word, are also used
as tools. People skilled at producing "sound bites" or catchy
metaphors therefore receive more attention, because they help the journalist in
making the text more interesting both to write and to read.
The
article must be written so there is a manual .i.agentive ;skill involved:
typing, i.e. how to move the fingers on the key board as fast as possible.
Practise is the only way to improve the skill. The typing skill becomes tacit
knowledge "sitting in the fingers". The tacit typing skill improves
reflection. Many journalists "think with their fingers".
There is
an element of .i.creation ;- and thereby inevitably emotion - involved. The
ability to bend the rules of the language is an aesthetic art; a combination of
the technique of the hand, the rules of the grammatics and the disobedience of
the mind. The outcome is not given on beforehand and this gives the journalist
something like a "creative kick", perhaps comparable to an artist´s
or a scientist´s. The most .i.competent ;journalists are even able to
articulate their tacit knowledge in such a way that the readers are emotionally
moved.
The structured
text in the article however contains less knowledge than the writer knows, less
information than the writer acquired and less information than the real world.
The words of the final text do not contain the full tacit knowing of the
writer, only an inaccurate reduced structured version (articulation) of
it. (C.f. the discussion about information in Chapter 2.1.3.1).
I call
this process Infoduction. The metaphor has an intentional double meaning
derived from Information plus both reduction and production.
The production of articles in magazines or texts in other media can thus be
seen as an infoduction process.
.i.Infoduction
:definition of;= Information chaos is being reduced to structure by an
individual´s process-of-knowing.
The notion
of infoduction therefore gives a plausible interpretation of the common
conflict over the difference between the journalist´s version and the actor´s
version of the same event. The two versions can never be the same.
This is because
the reader reads the words, but since he/she can not read the writer´s mind,
the reader´s tacit knowledge will blend with the writer´s .i.articulated
knowledge; and form the reader´s own individual tacit knowing. The reader´s new
.i.process-of-knowing; can never be the same as the writer´s, not even if they
were present during the same event. How close their knowing will be, depends on
whether they share the same tradition, language, education, etc. This
difference has nothing to do with the technical communication, the noise level
etc. - the difference occurs because of the limitations of our language to
convey reality.
Texts are
thus not very efficient vehicles for transferring knowledge. It also follows
that facts, news etc., conveyed in a text are not objective since they have
been mixed through two tacit processes, the writer´s and the reader´s. The
reader must reconstruct the meaning in a tacit process and since the writer and
the reader are not in direct contact much of the writer´s intended meaning gets
lost.
Most of
the work that .i.journalists ;do is connected with acting with their minds
rather than acting with their bodies. It is intellective doing rather than
agentive doing. Of course the Affärsvärlden journalists and analysts talk a lot
with other people. But for most of the time their body presence is not crucial
even when talking or listening.
Another
ability is to ask questions that the interviewee dislikes or to be persistent
against people who try to conceal facts. This agentive "hard-headedness"
is partly acquired through training into the journalistic tradition, partly a
personality trait. The journalist also develops the natural human curiosity
into a (fine?) art, thriving on the unusual, the extreme, the conflicts and the
accidents.
To be a
financial journalist is to try to master two professions: a
financial/business analyst profession and the .i.journalistic profession; with
overlapping but different traditions and values.
The
financial journalist is therefore not fully socialised into any of the two
traditions. In addition, the interaction between the top managers of the
companies and the financial journalists are often very close. The financial
journalists become very dependent on some of them. Friendship has corrupted
many journalists. For the financial journalists there is also money corruption
involved. A piece of information received a little earlier than the stock
market can be worth gold. The journalistic ethics should in principle hinder
abuse but there are always weaklings. The financial analyst is even further
away from the journalistic ethics and may thus more easily fall victim to the
temptation of insider trading.
4.1.1. Productivity
in Infoduction.
A simple
measure of productivity in .i.infoduction:productivity; is the number of
written pages per person (See Chapter 3.7).
Why was
Affärsvärlden´s journalists productivity twice that of Veckans Affärer´s
through out the whole period of 15 years?
One factor
was the lean format of the magazine (see chapter 4.5.1) which, compared to
.i.Veckans Affärer;, used less input of human effort into design, pictures etc.
I estimate that about one third of the difference in productivity was due to
this difference (measured as the difference in numbers of people involved in
such work).
What role
could knowledge have? One obvious factor was the high academic level of the
Affärsvärlden journalists compared to those of Veckans Affärer. (See further
Chapter 4.4.2). One of the aims of academic education is to improve the
individual´s ability of infoduction. The academically trained
journalist/analyst in Affärsvärlden was able to ask more penetrating questions,
to move faster towards the critical issues and to make more work at home
through reading and analysing the figures, than the less educated journalist in
Veckans Affärer who had to rely on finding the right persons to ask.
Given the
academic level of the staff, Affärsvärlden´s focus on analysis rather than news
therefore paid off. An third factor behind the difference in productivity was
therefore Affärsvärlden´s focus on analysis, which the academically trained
journalists were able to do much easier than Veckans Affärer´s.
It is more
difficult to estimate the effect of such knowledge on productivity, but I
assume that about half the difference was due to the higher education level of
the Affärsvärlden journalists/analysts.
During the
Founder Phase this advantage in productivity was further enhanced by the long
hours put in by the Affärsvärlden staff.
4.1.2. Technology
Impact on Infoduction Process.
The rapid
development in computer .i.infoduction:technology during the 1980s impact;had
profound effects on the infoduction process and affected both the journalistic
and the analytical process-of-knowing.
4.1.2.1. Impact on
Journalistic Process-of-Knowing.
The
.i.journalistic process-of-knowing; was influenced by the computer in two major
ways.
• 1. The computer replaced the
typewriter as the individual tool. Many of the journalists found to their surprise
that the word processing program liberated their .i.creativity;. They were no
longer restricted by the sheet of white paper in the typewriter and the need to
produce a clean manuscript. Since structure could be introduced afterwards,
writing turned into an interactive reflective process within an seemingly
unlimited space.
• 2. Page make-up is the process by which full
pages are designed from material like texts, advertisements, pictures, lines,
logotypes etc. The first ".i.Gutenberg;" generation of this
technology was based on physical material like wood, later metal and physical
tools for handling the material.
Affärsvärlden changed into the second generation paper
based phototype setting in 1978 which was late compared to the larger
competitors. The most important tools were physical, wax and knife. The process
was speeded up and there were no more trips to the printing plant Katrineholm.
But the articles were still typed twice.
The third generation arrived in the mid 1980s. The
page make-up was now entirely made by the computer. The text could be entered
straight into the computer and transferred into the typesetter. The tools were
now entirely abstract and had to be mastered intellectively, not agentively.
Printing
had never been considered a strategic issue at Affärsvärlden until the third
generation. A "strategic line" between the editorial staff and the
printer had been drawn already in the early 1970s, partly probably because the
board of the Foundation did not want to bring the conflicts with the graphic
profession into the house, partly because printing was an entirely different
knowledge and very far from journalism.
Other
magazines and the big newspapers switched over into the new page make-up
technology as soon as it was available after some fighting with the graphic
trade unions. But despite the opportunities offered by the new technique
Affärsvärlden kept the line. Management knew that they did not master the
graphic .i.process-of-knowing; and they did not want to recruit it in order not
to bring in a new professional knowledge with its potential .i.dichotomy;.
It was not
until 1990, after the merger with Ingenjörsförlaget that Affärsvärlden acquired
the fourth generation of the page make-up program, now in the personal computer
and with the "mouse" as the tool.
The transition
was not felt as a major step. The main reason why the decision was not
difficult and why it went so well was probably that the latest technology had
become very well suited for the intellective capabilities of the Affärsvärlden
staff. The technological development had turned the demand for .i.agentive
knowledge; transferred into a demand for .i.intellective knowledge;. Almost all
of the agentive knowledge of the graphic profession was now handled by the
computer.
This
transfer in kind of the demand for knowing made it possible for Affärsvärlden
to move the editorial room closer to the printing shop without moving people
physically. (Affärsvärlden still had the same printer in Katrineholm). The
Affärsvärlden journalists were able to increase their graphic knowledge with
the aid of the computer and they were able to do things that they were unable
to before with the texts. The lay-out of the magazine was also improved and
speeded up since the graphic work was now made in conjunction and integrated with
the page make up.
It is also
possible to distinguish an age difference in how the new computer tools were
accepted. That the older seemed to be more reluctant than the younger was no
surprise. But I think today that the reason was not simply that the younger
generation were more "computer literate".
The new
word processors, took time to master and some of the experienced in
Affärsvärlden journalists avoided them because they sensed a reduced
efficiency. They already knew how to type fast and they knew how to write an
article "in their mind". They had developed a number of personal
rules and patterns of action that worked very efficiently for them. To change
this tacit knowledge involved a great effort, which they naturally avoided. The
young reacted differently to the computerisation, because they had no .i.tacit
knowledge; that hindered them.
For the
same reason the new databases were also used very little by the older
journalists because the efforts of learning the commands were not considered
worth the time compared to phoning the well established network.
4.1.2.2. Impact on Analytical
Process-of-Knowing.
The
.i.analytical process-of-knowing; was partly computerised already in 1978 with
the assistance of Findata. The computerisation process can be illustrated by
the .i.Investment Indicator;.
The
Investment Indicator began with one journalist subordinating to the rules of a
competent "master" analyst in the mid 1970s. The apprentice
transformed the rules into an articulate system of tables, the Investment
Indicator. The inventors of the Investment Indicator had the legitimacy of
.i.competence ;to change the tables at will (and often did in the beginning to
"fit reality") but the analysts after him made more and more strict
categorisations. When the companies did not publish figures in suitable format,
the analyst had to call them and ask for the numbers or make own assumptions,
"fill the empty cells".
When they
computerised the rules of calculating (in a mini-computer 1978) it reduced the
time they had to spend on calculations but they also lost the power to change
the rules without calling in additional professional assistance. They found
that the computer and the computer specialists became involved in their
analytical process-of-knowing. The table had begun to rule the analyst rather
than the other way round.
The
PC-technology (from 1984 onwards) gave the power over the
.i.process-of-knowing; back to the analyst and also made it possible to open up
the analytical models for individual experiments. The spread sheet technology
enabled Affärsvärlden analysts to cover much larger infoduction volumes. This
in its turn gave rise to new applications of the analytical models and new
business opportunities (analytical supplements), which generated new revenues.
However,
during periods when the analytical competence of Affärsvärlden was weakened,
no-one existed to question the categories and the Indicator was felt to loose
in relevance. During periods when the categories met internal challenge from
competent analysts the categories were changed, i.e. it was by changing the
rules of knowledge formation that the process-of-knowing was changed. This
could only be done by competent analysts.
4.1.2.3. Impact on
Productivity.
The
productivity of Affärsvärlden´s journalists went down by 15% between 1983 and
1990, that of Veckans affärer by 13%. The two magazines increased their volume
of pages, but the staff increased even more. This was a period of most
intensive technological change in the graphic industry. One would therefore
have expected a .i.productivity ;improvement. Why did this not take place?
The main
reason is probably that the writers used the new technology for processing more
information than before, i.e. their infoduction level increased. The
journalists of both Affärsvärlden and Veckans affärer were thus reducing more
information in 1990 than in 1983 in order to write the same amount of
articulated text. Productivity measured as the volume of reduced information
per hour therefore probably increased, whereas the output of structured text
per person remained the same or went down.
Financial
journalists today say that the competitive climate has hardened, they have to
work harder in order to come up with interesting pieces that not have been
covered by someone else. I.e. just as the other actors on the financial
markets, the journalists/analysts had to reduce more information for the same
(or even less) output as before.
There is
no evidence that the .i.effectiveness ;of financial information (how well did it
fulfil its purpose to depict reality for its readers) improved during the
period.
4.1.2.4. Summary of Technology
Impact.
The
infoduction process in Affärsvärlden was affected:
• The individual writer
experienced a creative liberation in text processing.
• The processing of numbers, calculations of key
ratios etc., was vastly improved.
• The demand for agentive skills was replaced by
demand for intellective skills.
• New page make-up technology made Affärsvärlden
independent of print supplier.
• New business opportunities and threats were created.
• Productivity improvement was used for
processing/reducing more information, while the output in pages per person was
unaffected or went down.
• There is no evidence that the output of financial
journalists improved in effectiveness despite the larger amounts of information
being processed.
The
computer first took over more and more of the jobs that demanded .i.agentive
skills;. The computer then took over some of the jobs demanding .i.intellective
skills;. It thereby increased the pressure on the level above, intellective
know-how. In the 1970s a financial analyst could make a unique analysis by just
being able to do the calculations. In the late 1980s every analyst had at least
one PC on the table filled with programs that in no time could make any
conceivable chart or calculation.
The
influence from technology in Affärsvärlden´s journalistic
.i.process-of-knowing:journalistic ; was slow in the page make-up area compared
to other media because of the long tradition of playing down the design and
because Affärsvärlden bought page-making from the printer. Therefore other
magazines computerised their page make-up several years ahead of Affärsvärlden.
On the other
hand, Affärsvärlden was probably one of the first actors on the Swedish
information market to use computerised technology for text and number
processing. The area was considered a key strategic area and the intention was
to keep the lead by investing in the joint venture with Findata. The computer
also increased demand for intellective individual skills in the
.i.marketing;/sales area. The computer technology forces further introduced new
competitors in advertising and forced the publishing industry to respond by
creating own address banks. The loss of Findata in 1988 meant a set back in the
ambitions but the magazine still benefited from the new technology.
There was
thus a difference in how the development in technology was regarded:
• Technological development in
the .i.agentive ;area was considered as potential cost decreases.
• Technological development in the .i.intellective
;area was considered as potential revenue increases in the form of new
business opportunities.
Thus, when
the computer directly changed the .i.infoduction ;process it also changed the
conditions for doing business in the information sector and thereby affected
the strategy. See further Chapter 4.5.
4.2.
The Dichotomy Profession - Organisation.
A conflict
between a more commercially oriented (organisational) tradition versus a more
journalistic (professional) tradition is common in publishing companies. How
did it develop in Affärsvärlden?
4.2.1. Professional
Knowledge in Affärsvärlden.
The
concept "professional knowledge" depicts knowledge used in the
infoduction process aimed at the readers. In Affärsvärlden there were two kinds
of such professional knowledge: Journalistic and Analytical.
Journalistic
.i.process
of knowing:journalistic; is generally based on a number of rules which are
aimed at penetrating information noise and at receiving attention. Young
journalists learn the rules by practise. The specific rules-of-thumb of the
journalistic profession are learned when entering the profession and then
applied irrespective of the magazine that the journalist happens to work for.
These rules are universal, even global. They can be identified at the Wall
Street Journal or the Times as easily as at Affärsvärlden, Expressen or
Östersunds Posten. Here are three:
1. The
"angle" or the "peg" is often contained in the first few
lines of the article and should also be visible in the headline. The peg is
intended to catch the reader´s attention. It is therefore often linked to a
current issue. It must also tell the reader what the journalist wants to say
with the piece.
2. Making
abstract events personalised increases attention.
3.
Dramatising events by concentrating the article on conflicts increases
attention.
Affärsvärlden
has never been admired for its journalistic finesse among journalists. At
Affärsvärlden the rules 2. and - to some extent - rule 3. were not followed
during the period. Other journalists often criticised the Affärsvärlden writers
for not even following rule number 1. Affärsvärlden´s style of .i.journalism
;was regarded as more solemn and the journalistic profession would often
criticise it for being boring and old-fashioned. The articles have always been
considered hard to read and incomprehensible for readers outside of business.
Affärsvärlden
also developed a number of own local .i.journalistic rules;. They covered a
broad spectre of topics, like "never use the word ´shall´", "a
headline must not consist of more than four words", "a table with the
latest four year´s profits must accompany all articles about companies",
etc.
The rules
were once invented by someone who was energetic and persistent enough to
persuade a number of the other journalists to follow. The editor then added
this rule to the others on the list of .i.rules;. The list was mostly tacit and
was transferred to the newcomers by means of tradition. It thereby became an
element in their tacit knowing. The list changed all the time. Some of the
rules were just forgotten, others were focused from time to time and brought up
for reflection among the staff. There was no institutionalised routine for
this. Anyone felt free to focus and reflect on the rules. However, some felt a
closer kinship to some of them, observed "his/her" rules more closely
and even watched how the other writers complied.
In
addition to these rules we must add a number of .i.values ;of a higher order.
They are often referred to as ".i.ethics;" by the journalists
themselves. These values are elements of the professional tradition and tell a
journalist what general attitude he or she should take, they are widely
known and they change very slowly. Some important universal values are:
"You
must have high personal integrity".
"You
shall be independent" (of the owner of the newspaper, of the readers, of
the advertisers).
"You
shall be the reviewer, not the actor".
"You
must always be suspicious of all information", (because everyone wants to
use your pen to convey his or her meaning).
Below are
some of the universal journalistic .i.values:universal; that have been
observed. They express how journalists assumed they ought to work in 1990:
|
Has
great importance in job |
Ought to have |
Has today. |
Diffe-rence. |
|
Uncover power misuse. |
94% |
38% |
56% |
|
Be a
broad source of information to public. |
82% |
26% |
55% |
|
Put events
into a larger context
|
77% |
10% |
67% |
|
Lend a
voice to the weak. |
77% |
15% |
62% |
|
Be an independent critic. |
74% |
11% |
63% |
|
Give a
neutral picture of events. |
69% |
17& |
51% |
|
Depict
the unusual and the sensational. |
17% |
73% |
-56% |
|
"Set
the agenda" for the political debate. |
13% |
30% |
-17% |
The ideal
of the journalist seems to be the independent chivalrous knight who uncovers the
misuse of the powerful and like a Robin Hood helps the poor. (The reality is
however that they feel they are forced to do the opposite).
Polanyi´s
notion of .i.values ;is primarily tied to a professional .i.tradition;,
independent of organisation. But it is useful to distinguish also local
.i.values. Theylocal; are tied to a local tradition but not independent from
the more universal tradition. There thus exist local written and unwritten
values of a particular magazine or subsegment of newspapers. Some might be:
"We
defend the small people". (Most tabloids i.e. Expressen or Aftonbladet).
"We
have a positive bias towards business". (Business magazines, i.e.
Affärsvärlden or Veckans Affärer).
The journalists
at Affärsvärlden usually tried to obey the universal rules. By doing so they
felt like journalists. They also knew that if a journalist broke one of the
universal rules or values, he/she was often chided publicly by his/her
colleagues, There also exists a formal procedure, Pressens Opinionsnämnd, which
however is not as strict as among lawyers.
The
universal values could also be translated into more specific rules for a
specific purpose. Here is one that translated the value of integrity into an
articulated rule of action (maxim) for Affärsvärlden´s financial journalists:
"You
must not trade in shares in the company that you are writing about until after
the article has been published".
i.Journalists
usually form a professional group that have a lot in common, irrespective of
nationality or private interests. In every big city in world, there is a press
club which gives assistance to newcomers, serve cheap meals and runs a bar in
which one meets colleagues for socialising and gossiping. Journalists feed on
information so this is one of the .i.information markets; where you trade
gossip. Journalists thus tend to form a breed of their own, which reinforces
tradition. The tradition is further reinforced by the fact that many
journalists prefer the company of other journalists also in their free time.
The
financial analyst in Affärsvärlden had an even more .i.intellectively
;oriented profession than the journalist. The job demanded skills that were
close to the scientist´s. The financial journalist covered a narrow segment of
society: the companies, the stock exchange, the other financial markets and the
macro economics. It was a world where one must be a specialist in finance or
business. At the same time he or she must be able to write as a journalist.
Many of
the .i.financial analysts; in 1994 consider databases, archives, tables and
analytical tools on computer screens more efficient than talking when they wish
to process large amounts of data. They spend most of their working days
interpreting the movements of stock prices, currency rates, interests rates,
the news and the GNP-figures that they see flickering on their screens. And in
the evenings they like to meet their professional colleagues because they are
the only ones who really understand them. Unless they have a healthy
relationship with other worlds, their reality is the information flow.
Twenty
years ago it was a different world. The small financial world of
• First, Affärsvärlden had
already in 1921 developed a .i.General Index; based on all shares on the
.i.Stockholm Stock Exchange;. It was Sweden´s oldest stock price index with
data available from 1901.
• Second, the magazine had a long track record of being
the only magazine to publish all the accounts and financial reports of the
listed companies. One might say that this "publishing duty" was the
main editorial idea of the magazine at that time. This duty had forced the
previous editors to develop a set of standard definitions, i.e. .i.rules ;that
were applied to the figures in the annual accounts. The definitions covered balance
sheet items and profit & loss items, like "adjusted equity",
"profit" etc.
• Third, Affärsvärlden "possessed" a
.i.stock evaluation model; which distinguished the analysis from that made by other
magazines. The model turned out to be very successful in the inflation years of
the 1970s and Affärsvärlden got a reputation for being good at stock price
evaluation. The image was strengthened by the yearly portfolio which beat the
General Index every year 1978-1993 except for one year.
The unique
feature of the analytical Affärsvärlden .i.rules ;were their public status. The
weekly publication of tables, indices and definitions therefore influenced the
way of thinking in the financial community, an example of the power of
journalistic/analytical knowledge. The public status also made it difficult for
other media to use the "Affärsvärlden model", without quoting the
competitor Affärsvärlden, (which they disliked). Thereby the model got a protection
similar to a trade mark.
During the
Founder Phase the analytical .i.knowledge:analytical; was developed further by
the four most competent members of the team in co-operation with their network.
Many long hours were put into this development out of pure personal interest.
They were also active in the Society of Financial Analysts affecting the rules
of the .i.profession:analytical;. They were thus .i.competent;, since they were
able to affect the rules of the analytical system of both Affärsvärlden and of
the profession outside.
In 1982,
when two of them founded Consensus and the third left, Affärsvärlden suffered a
great loss in terms of financial analytical competence. As an example, nobody
in the editorial staff knew how to calculate the General Stock index anymore;
it had been delegated to an outside analyst. Affärsvärlden staff had become
unable to develop their own analytical tools.
The
intention with the Findata project in 1983 was an infusion of new analytical
.i.competence;. With Findata´s assistance the computerised version of the
Investment Indicator was developed in 1984. New young analysts were also
recruited. However in the years to come, the lack of analytical competence was
deeply felt.
But the
most important reason for Affärsvärlden´s weakened relative position in the
analytical knowledge area of
Still, the
original stock evaluation model, served very well during the whole period as
evidenced by the success of the yearly portfolio.
As I see
it today, Affärsvärlden was able to transfer the know-how to use the rules of
the analytical knowledge but the competence to change them seemed impossible to
transfer, so new rules had to be rediscovered by new competent individuals.
4.2.1.1. Tradition of Knowing.
According
to the journalistic tradition journalists should sit in one big room in order
to improve transfer of .i.information ;from one person to another. The
journalists are thus exposed to a constant dim of voices, sounds and a chaos of
sensory clues. The .i.tradition ;thus fit the financial restrictions during the
Founder Phase.
I think
today that the most important function of the open space was not the
.i.information flow; but the .i.tradition ;of knowledge. The one-room space
improved the tradition of rules, beliefs and values, since the juniors learnt
from observing how the more prestigious and experienced of the editors talked,
moved and behaved. It was also easy to get a quick response to questions or
problems. The team was thus exposed to a daily intensive transfer of
.i.knowing:transfer of;, without being aware of it.
The
editorial room with its intense atmosphere was probably one of the prime forces
during the first years behind the creation of the Affärsvärlden tradition with
its very strong .i.values;.
Several of
the new Affärsvärlden recruits in the first years were inexperienced as
writers. The milieu and the strategic situation of being vulnerable and small
encouraged the writers to involve each other, especially with longer articles.
This created a shared knowledge.
Another
more managed knowledge transfer method might be called the
".i.pickabacking ;method". It implied that more than one journalist
went to interviews or important press conferences than just the journalist who
was on duty. The pickabacking method had several advantages: One was that the
infoduction technique was learned on-the-job, another that the network improved
fast for the new staff, a third that the article could be discussed among more
well-informed people.
Pickabacking
is thus a practical and quite efficient way to transfer a
.i.process-of-knowing:transfer of;. It was (and still is) however not common in
the media industry. It often came as a surprise to the interviewees that the
little Affärsvärlden arrived with two or three reporters, rather than with just
one, which was the normal case for other journals. The trend towards building
up images of individual journalists instead encourages competition and reduces
willingness to share knowledge in this way.
The
pickabacking idea was articulated into a .i.maxim ;and during the Expansion
Phase 1980-86, the young and new recruits were introduced to both the
Affärsvärlden style of writing and to the most important top managers in this
way.
Training
in how to write was also considered very important so the manuscripts of the
new recruits were "washed" down to the smallest comma sign in a very
personal and intense way by one of the seniors.
There was
tradition of .i.knowledge:tradition of; in all areas, also in .i.marketing;.
The team developed their own rules (Chapter 4.3) which were transferred in a
social interaction from master to apprentice.
The
partners involved in marketing had to combine both intellective and agentive
abilities. The intellective abilities were needed in order to make the
information interesting for the readers, the agentive abilities were needed in
order to build a surviving business. This combination was very rare, however,
and the problem to find individuals with the necessary combination of
.i.intellective;/.i.agentive ;knowing for being managers of .i.information
;products/projects was perceived as very difficult to solve and as impeding
growth.
Direct
psycho-social tradition of .i.knowledge:tradition of; thus dominated entirely
during the Founder Phase in all areas. It was perceived as very effective but
it was also time consuming, and its main drawback was that it made the
organisation vulnerable to changes in staff. The problem of how to transfer the
professional knowledge from one individual to another therefore became a very
important managerial issue during the Expansion Phase, when the pace had to be
speeded up.
A more
structured approach to training was perceived necessary and was introduced
1984. A .i.Trainee System; covering two years of on-the-job training in
the Group, (Consensus, Findata, Ledarskap and Affärsvärlden), was introduced.
The .i.AFV-School; was instituted. It was a program of courses open to
all employees of the Group. Staff from all the companies in the group
functioned as teachers and mentors and the system thus functioned as a part of
Affärsvärlden´s knowledge tradition.
The
effectiveness of the more structured approach was never tested at length,
though. In 1986, .i.Consensus ;crashed and 1987 the .i.Findata ;crisis got
acute. The need for rapid addition of new staff and for building cross border
understanding disappeared and both systems were folded in 1987.
4.2.1.2. Power of Professional
Knowledge.
The power
of Affärsvärlden´s journalistic knowledge was (and is) a .i.power ;of
.i.symbolism ;and it was of great importance in the whole period. The power was
used both professionally in the articles and organisationally for the internal
power play.
Professionally,
journalists tend to be rather naive participants in what might be called
"the .i.reification ;game". The importance of being the first (see
Chapter 1.1.4) puts a high premium on time, which speeds up the pace on the
information markets and reduces time available for the necessary process of
knowing. i.Catchy metaphors become objects with a life of their own and, once
invented, they tacitly steer the work of the journalists until a newer concept
is invented.
The
.i.journalist ;has one predominant desire: to be read, seen or heard,
preferably by as many as possible. In order to secure this desire, the journalist
tacitly subordinates to the competitive factors (see above Chapter 2.3.3).
These factors can be seen as forces which drive the journalist to subordinate
to well-known people, to "fall for" funny metaphors or to seek fame.
Receiving attention might become more important than conveying a relevant
message, the form might take over the content.
At least
on the financial .i.information markets; I think this tendency has to do with
the present overload of information and the readers´ growing unwillingness to
allocate time for reading, which make many journalists feel that they have to
raise their voice in order to be heard.
Because of
the Affärsvärlden tradition, the magazine did not take very active part in this
game
Affärsvärlden
was (and still is) an organisation where the actors lived by producing words.
The journalistic skill in using the language is a professional ability which
can be used for infoduction directed outwards as well as for internal power
games. The skill was frequently used in the years I have studied and one
protocol is analysed in detail. There the symbolic powers come to surface. The
leaders were very skilled in using the semiotic powers of language and they
were fast thinkers. The conferences during the Founder Phase were a kind of
"battle ground" on which the professionals fought over the
organisational power.
The power
of symbolism was greater in periods when the profession decided the agenda.
Later, when the management troika had taken over, the "battle" disappeared
as well as the perceived purpose of the conferences. The powers of symbolism
seemed to have followed a cycle between the professional and organisational
knowledge.
The power
of analytical .i.knowledge:power of; is also a power of symbolism, although
with numbers rather than words. Analytical models influenced the behaviour of
investors. Affärsvärlden´s legitimacy in this area made the Affärsvärlden
version of fundamental analysis more used in
During the
period I am analysing in this thesis, the scarcity value of financial
analytical knowledge evolved rapidly, from being close to zero in the early
1970s to a peak in the late 1980s and down again in the 1990s. During the peak
years some of the actors were able to considerably affect the strategy of
Affärsvärlden. The "Power of Knowledge" was a reality in those years
both in the inner and outer contexts.
. 4.2.1.3. Journalistic vs.
Analytical Knowledge.
Affärsvärlden´s
editorial idea was to blend financial analysis and news. This idea was
represented in the editorial staff as two sets of knowledge traditions, two
sets of values and two modes of working, one more deep and reflecting, one more
fast-moving and superficial. A .i.dichotomy ;therefore existed within the
professional knowledge tradition, between those editors who were more
.i.knowledge:analytical ;in their approach and those who were more
.i.knowledge:journalistic;.
The
dichotomy did not cause any severe internal conflicts within the editorial
staff. One reason was probably that the editors-in-chief were able to balance
them. The most important reason might have been that the first analysts were
recruited from industry and therefore more biased towards the organisational
tradition.
However,
the most important aspect of the dichotomy was that it affected the strategy.
See below Chapter 4.5.
4.2.2. Organisational
Knowledge in Affärsvärlden.
The
Affärsvärlden I first met in 1979 tended to focus on the .i.infoduction
;process. The team often translated (a demand for) .i.agentive; action into (a
supply of) .i.intellective ;action. They were good analysts and writers but
"simple" agentive actions necessary to get projects going seemed very
difficult to accomplish for most of them.
It seems
as if the case confirms that one individual rarely possesses both
.i.intellective ;and .i.agentive ;knowledge. However, two of the founders plus
one of the recruits in 1978 proved by their action that they were able to
combine both intellective and agentive action. They therefore affected
organising and business strategy more than others.
The
organisational knowledge .i.tradition ;in 1975 contained very little of
organisational knowledge. That was the main reason for recruiting an
administrative manager in 1979.
On the
other hand, some of the team members had begun to develop a unique general
management .i.knowledge:management; in the media industry. This knowledge was
growing organically in an almost complete freedom from formal systems of
control and with few financial restrictions after the two first tough years
(because the markets developed favourably).
4.2.2.1. Marketing and Sales
Knowledge.
Affärsvärlden´s
advertising sales .i.knowledge:sales; in the Founder Phase 1975-1980 consisted
of two former editors, probably the most unusual sales "department"
in the publishing industry. They were both individualists and they had no means
of and no interest in developing the organisational .i.know-how; necessary for
running a sales department.
Despite
the growth in advertising, advertising sales knowledge was thus the weak point
in Affärsvärlden and the team perceived that they were living with a high risk,
since the knowledge .i.tradition ;was tied only to the individuals.
Nor was
subscription marketing .i.knowledge:marketing; abundant in the start. The first
campaign in 1975 involved some luck. The tricks of the trade were later learned
by trial and error. A number of experience based .i.rules ;were developed like,
"an ad in a daily newspaper never sells more than 50 subscriptions",
"a direct mail-shot to a narrowly defined target group should yield
minimum 1% response".
Most of
the rules were not unique to Affärsvärlden; any experienced marketer from the
publishing industry would probably know them too, but the rules got a distinct
"Affärsvärlden flavour" from the .i.values ;that infused them. An
example is that the "USP´s" (Unique Selling Propositions) in most of
the ads and the campaigns were the content of the articles, i.e. a journalistic
value. Also, the Affärsvärlden values would never allow them to use "cheap
tricks" like pens as give-aways, rules which were taught in marketing
courses, (c.f. recipes, see Ch. 2.1.4.). The image of the articles in
Affärsvärlden was thus reconfirmed by the marketing since the same people were
writing both the articles and the copy in the ads.
The
overall implicit strategy of cost control by doing-it-ourselves thus existed
also in marketing. Being writers, they wrote their own copy and often also designed
their own ads. One effect of the do-it-ourselves .i.value; was thus that
Affärsvärlden developed its own knowledge .i.tradition ;also in the
organisational .i.knowledge:organisational; area (see also Ch. 4.5.1).
The cost
efficiency of the Affärsvärlden marketing .i.know-how; was later proved in
connection with the Financial Weekly project. An estimate made by UK-based
independent marketing managers in 1986 was that an English approach to
marketing would have cost about three times the money that Financial Weekly
spent but would have yielded no more subscribers. In 1989 Eurexpansion spent as
much money on marketing in one year as Affärsvärlden had spent in four years
but received no more subscribers.
4.2.3. A Hierarchy of
Values Develops.
During the
Founder Phase 1975-1979 there was no strong formal .i.power ;structure since
the board of the Foundation accepted to be kept at a distance. The prime
question of power therefore concerned how the team were to manage themselves
independent of the Foundation and - most important - by whom?
Several of
the leading team members regarded Affärsvärlden primarily as a tool for
self-fulfilment, i.e. the space of individual freedom (= power) was very
important. Therefore no one could accept any of the others as the "Boss".
In such an atmosphere power became a question of who had (or could achieve) the
.i.legitimacy ;in the eyes of the others to extend his (no woman achieved high
legitimacy in Affärsvärlden´s organisation during the whole period) particular
space of individual freedom. The values of the individuals with the highest
legitimacy became more influential, so a kind of hierarchy of values was
established.
The
strains of the first two years made it natural to demand very high loyalty
among the original team members and hard work was seen as a necessary
prerequisite. (Journalists not working long hours became outcasts.) One of the
.i.values ;was also influenced by the environment, the collective
"all are equal" value.
Also the
journalistic values were visible, the pride of being independent and the
demands for high personal integrity.
Because of
the general lack of analytical .i.knowledge:analytical; in
.i.Intellective
;.i.know-how;, being a necessary prerequisite for good analysis and working
capacity also ranked high.
The
members were personal friends and shared many of the .i.values ;but they were
individuals. Between them they held several conflicting strong values. There
were many potential conflicts. Should for instance the company be a vehicle for
individual fulfilment or should the individuals subordinate to the goal of long
term commercial success for the company? The more individually oriented
often found themselves against the more collectively oriented.
The
.i.tradition ;of the organisation is therefore probably best described as a
system of individual value .i.dichotomies ;within a hierarchy. The hierarchy of
.i.values:hierarchy of; decided who among the actors were allowed to decide the
agenda of the discussion.
If the
individual values are clustered into the .i.dichotomy;, a kind of dual
hierarchy emerges. The dichotomy goes between those among the staff who were
more ".i.journalists;" and those who were more of
".i.businessmen;" here called the dichotomy of the professional
.i.values:professional; versus the organisational .i.values:organisational;.
A
subjective ranking of the values during the Founder Phase looks like this:
Values with:
|
Professional bias |
Both |
Organisational bias |
|
3. Intellective knowing |
1. "Hard work" |
4. Loyalty towards organisation |
|
4. Individual Independence |
2. "All are equal" |
4. Organisational independence |
|
6. Loyalty towards profession |
3. "Make money" |
5. Agentive knowing |
One would
perhaps have thought that fights over each one of these dichotomies would have ground
the small organisation to a halt. Especially if one considers the fact that no
outside power or formal authority really existed.
But the
team kept together and the ranking above gives one interpretation of the reason
why. The .i.values ;that were influenced by an organisational
.i.tradition:organisational ;were higher ranked than journalists normally tend
to do. The Affärsvärlden journalists (especially the analysts) were also
businessmen and the managers were journalists as well. Therefore the values
that emphasised "keeping it all together" overruled the other values
in the discussions. The team was thus never split between a management with
primarily organisational values versus a team of journalists with mainly
professional values, which is the .i.dichotomy ;so common in publishing. One
other reason was of course that the dichotomy was not as clear-cut as it looks
in the table.
The
dichotomies were in fact never solved. During the first years most conflicts
drowned in the hard daily work. Some dichotomies were re-solved (= solved over
and over again), others were "kept under the carpet". The way to
.i.re-solve; was via discussions, or other .i.intellective ;acts like
committees, research etc. A kind of "coffee table .i.democracy;"
developed organically with .i.consensus ;as both the informal and the formal
basis for decision making. In the .i.conferences ;the formal agenda covered the
days, the informal agenda was discussed during the nights. Sometimes the two
procedures collided and then no decision could be made.
Today I
believe that the open .i.editorial room; had a very important moulding
function. It created an feeling of intense teamwork which overruled the
dichotomies and contributed in keeping the organisation together. It functioned
as an "non-managed" .i.knowledge: transfer of; system (See further
Chapter 4.2.1.1.). The editorial room of the magazine Affärsvärlden functioned
as the organisational and the professional core, both in terms of knowledge and
pow.i.;er.
One might
therefore regard the editorial room as a metaphor for the whole Affärsvärlden
.i.tradition;. For instance, the .i.marketing department; was much later (1990)
organised as en editorial room with the marketing manager sitting in an open
space while the sales staff occupied their own rooms around him. (See further
Chapter 4.2.3.2.3. Sales Department).
However,
later during the Founder Phase the team more and more established a .i.value
;structure that incorporated the dichotomies by not discussing them in the
open. This was how conflict avoidance evolved into an important shared
assumption of how to deal with conflicts.
In this
kind of atmosphere taking the .i.initiative ;became an important tool of power.
Initiatives could be both .i.intellective ;and .i.agentive ;oriented. If the
initiative was taken within the hierarchy of values a team member could be
rather certain that no one would stop it. But this also implied that in order
to achieve the .i.legitimacy ;one had to accept the hierarchy of values and be
seen by the others as "living the .i.values;".
In the
first implicit power ranking the level of individual intellective knowing
ranked high. However the power shifted depending on the current issue. If the
issue was about the layout of the magazine, one of the team had legitimacy. If
it was about marketing, another had the highest legitimacy, etc. The salesman
had a lower informal power rank but in questions regarding advertising .i.sales
;he was indisputably very important and he achieved legitimacy by being the
best salesman in the organisation. The power of .i.intellective knowingpower
of; was most clearly noticed during the conferences. Those with the highest
legitimacy in a certain issue found that the others accepted their authority
and they could steer the discussion. Those with no intellective legitimacy at
all often perceived that their contributions were neglected in most
discussions.
Still,
during the Founder Phase everybody felt the individual power that accompanies
scarcity. Everybody felt as (and often indeed was) a key-person and felt an
ability to influence at least some of the discussions. This feeling changed
during the Expansion Phase, especially after 1984 when the management troika
was formally installed.
4.2.4. Organisational
Knowledge Takes Over the Agenda.
The
.i.professional knowledge; thus determined the agenda during the Founder Phase
and as mentioned in Chapter 1.1, Affärsvärlden in 1979 had become a very odd
creation indeed.
There were
no outer pressures for a change, because the company prospered and was
perceived as a success both internally and externally. Still, the members
carried the seed of change within themselves. Is it because they could not
resist the norms of the environment and the publishing industry?
Today I
regard the
The
Dialectic shifted over to the agenda of Organisational Knowledge via three
forces:
• The .i.Partner System;.
• The .i.Management Troika;.
• The .i.Sales Department;.
4.2.4.1. The Partner System.
Owning
one´s own company was an idea that felt very natural and tempting for many
reasons:
• The Swedish tax system taxed
income at marginal rates of 75-90% but "only" 40% on capital gains.
• The fluid power structure was assumed to be clearer.
• It would improve the competitive edge on the markets
for recruiting financial and journalistic know-how.
• International trends influenced the revival of the .i.entrepreneur;.
For the first time since the early 1960s it felt nice to regard oneself as an
"entrepreneur".
The
Partner System that was created had a threefold objective.
• 1. To keep the growing group
of companies together by allocating .i.added value; fairly among the owners
(most important).
• 2. To be attractive as a tool for .i.recruitment;.
• 3. To keep .i.personnel turnover; at a minimum.
The formal
Partner System added legal stability to the organising efforts. But it was
gradually challenged by the changes in the environment. In 1987-1988 a number
of partners felt it was time to change the system. Five of them offered to take
over the company in a management buy-out, an attempt that failed.
4.2.4.2. The Management
Troika.
With the
decision in 1979 to recruit the first full-time administrative "real"
manager, the Affärsvärlden team entered a route that was a challenge to the
existing organisational structure.
A
management "troika" grew into power during the first years of the
Expansion Phase. In the beginning it was an entirely organic process but the
troika was formally elected in the autumn 1984 when the Partner System also
came into function. The .i.management troika; was to remain in power all until
the merger with Ingenjörsförla-get in 1990 and the formation of E+T Förlag. The
three members of the troika were collectively functioning as a "Joint
Chief of Staff" and divided the work load accor-ding to a very informal
and fluid order by which they stepped in for each other depending on the issue
and the work load of the others. Profit responsibility was divided between the
three. The other managers within the organisation, like accoun-ting and
marketing, reported to the troika.
However,
the installation of the management troika changed the information pattern. The
change in the .i.information flow; was of utmost importance in the inner
context of Affärsvärlden for two reasons. First, because journalists feed on
information. Second, because "to be informed" had a great symbolic
value in an organisation, in which no formal hierarchy existed and where the
actors were both owners and employees at the same time. Therefore, access to
the inner core of information also became an important symbolic measure of
one´s .i.power ;ranking.
The
conferences were thus regarded as very important during the Founder Phase and
the first years of the Expansion Phase. At the .i.conferences ;every piece of
information was shared so everybody - also the most powerless - could feel
close to the inner core. In case of a conflict issue, the inner core of course
made up in the wings afterwards, but that was often so late in the night that
only those with a burning interest were able to be awake. The most significant
feature of the conferences thus was that most team members sensed that they
were informed and that they at least had an honest opportunity to join the
power game, at least as spectators.
The troika
was however, perceived by the partners as keeping more and more information to
themselves. The conferences were no longer perceived as real decision making
events but they evolved into forums for information.
4.2.4.3. The Sales Department.
The
advertising revenues had rapidly become the single most important source of
income and scarcity of knowledge in this area was considered a risk. The
recruitment of the marketing manager in 1984 was a critical decision because it
was again a challenge to the hierarchy of the Founder Phase.
The
decision was not accompanied by so much conflict as the recruitment of the
ad-ministrative manager in 1979 since the organisational knowledge now
determined the agenda. The sales staff thus protested heavily but they were
ignored by the partners.
Over a
period of five years the new marketing manager created a professional
advertising .i.sales department;. In 1986, after three years, it had grown into
a department of 11 people, comprising one third of the total Affärsvärlden
magazine staff. It was a very strong department compared to the competition.
The value of the sales department was shown later when the competitive climate
moved into full depression in the beginning of the 1990s.
However,
in 1986 the .i.sales department; employed an increasing number of young and
hungry sales people who dressed differently, looked differently and had different
.i.values;. Some of the editorial partners did not like the difference in
climate between the editorial staff and the sales department and they
complained about both their manners and the unaccustomed .i.management ;style.
If the
editorial staff was characterised by its analytical and intellectual
discussions and freedom, the sales department was young, hungry, competitive,
and very target oriented. The editorial .i.partners ;liked the money and their
target orientation but they regarded the climate quite vulgar and the
management style far too "authoritarian". Some of the partners feared
that this style might contaminate the editorial room.
Figure 17. Affärsvärlden Group experienced a rapid growth in staff
employed in part-owned joint ventures during the Expansion Phase. Numbers are
not comparable after the creation of E+T Förlag in 1990.
The growth
if the sales department was accompanied by the growth of other non-editorial
employees as well. Employees with an organisational bias in their .i.process of
knowing ;(administration including the management troika, accounting, marketing
and sales), had thus grown into 50% of total staff in 1986. The hierarchy of
values:hierarchy of , based on the .i.values ;of the first editorial staff, was
thus gradually challenged by the rapid growth of other employees.
In 1986
the partners amounted to only 27% of the total number of employees in the Group
as against 90% in 1980. The core (= the editorial staff of the magazine
Affärsvärlden) was even smaller, around 20%.
Today I
interpret this rapid growth of employees with an organisational bias as one of
the reasons behind the crisis in 1987. The hierarchy of values from the Founder
Phase (Chapter 4.2.3.1) was no longer in accordance with how the new ranking
looked like.
4.2.4.4. Summary.
It is
possible to distinguish a .i.cycle ;between two .i.traditions ;of knowledge,
.i.professional ;and .i.organisational ;in Affärsvärlden. During the transition
periods there were conflicts over which values were to determine the agenda of
discussion. The transition periods were also marked by increased personnel
turnover (except 1990-1991 when the depression held it back). Conflicts of
values arose when the values of the previous tradition were no longer deciding
the agenda of discussion and new values and symbols marking the other tradition
had to be invented.
The
Founder Phase was as an era when the professional .i.values ;determined the
agenda of discussion. The dialectic also changed slowly at first so the first
transition period was long. For instance, when the Partner System was first
suggested in 1982, it was still the values of professional knowledge that
decided the agenda of discussion. The formal symbols of power in the new
company formed in 1983 could not challenge the existing hierarchy of values.
Therefore the new management team was called "Sub-committee with
responsibility for getting thing done" and despite the new company being a
limited company, no .i.Managing Director; was appointed.
In 1985
the organisational values were entirely deciding the agenda, i.e. the
manage-ment troika and the non-editorial staff. One example is that the small
business magazine (.i.Affärer & Företag;) was initiated by the marketing
manager. Another is that Affärsvärlden appointed a formal editor in chief for
the first time.
Later, the
pace speedened up. The crash of .i.Consensus ;in the autumn 1986 and the loss
of the close link with the two partners employed there, came as a chock to the
partners of Affärsvärlden and triggered off something like a chain reaction.
The partners had up till then felt immune to the turbulence on the financial
markets. The crash added to the disappointment with Affärer & Företag and
the growing worry about the risks in .i.Financial Weekly; and the
discontentment in .i.Findata;. Affärsvärlden was still very profitable and
still growing, but not as fast as before. The slower growth was now perceived
as a problem by the Partners and the Partners lost confidence in the management
and the diversification strategy. The newly recruited young generation added to
the crisis by questioning the .i.Partner System;.
The road
towards a greater influence of the .i.organisational knowledge; suddenly halted
and reversed. See more about the crisis in Book 2: Chapter 8.1. The
professionals dominating the Partner Group took back the initiative and set the
agenda for the strategy. "Save the core" and Retreat became
the new strategy.
The same
.i.management troika; were in power but they no longer set the agenda for
discussion. The vision that had carried the troika as a joint management
disappeared. They felt that they were back to square one, in charge of an
organisation positioned in a strategic corner and still with Bonniers as the
dominant player, more powerful than ever.
Figure 18. The dialectic between professional and organisational
knowledge determined the agenda for discussion.
The third
transition period was short. The failure of the management buy-out eventually
led to the invitation of .i.Eurexpansion ;as minority shareholder and the
merger with Ingenjörsförlaget into the new .i.Ekonomi + Teknik Förlag; AB in
1990. In E+T Förlag a new organisational hierarchy took over the agenda, now
firmly based in an institutional ownership. The conflict over values was not so
strong this time, perhaps because the depression cast its shadow over the
period and perhaps because the old partners were still owners. Therefore, the
inherent conflict between the two traditions of knowledge is probably still to
come in E+T Förlag.
4.3.
Knowledge in Organising.
What was the
role of knowledge transfer in organising?
The
Founder Phase was characterised by the work in one editorial room. There were
daily individual double interacts as .i.Weick ;suggests, because the
organisation was small. Most of the organising was thus tacit and interactive.
A direct individual to individual tradition of knowledge took place in all
areas (see above 4.2.1, 4.2.2) much in the way described by .i.Polanyi;´s
theory in Chapter 2.1.3. The main ingredients were:
• Values that encouraged
non-competitive behaviour.
• Open office spaces with few walls.
• Management sitting in the offices in which
infoduction took place.
• Small teams.
• "Pickabacking". (I.e. doubling of people
in situations which were "learning intensive", even if it meant short
term efficiency loss, see Chapter 4.2.1.1.).
• Master-apprenticeship in key knowledge areas.
• New knowledge developed by competent individuals.
• Many meetings and conferences, despite the loss in
short term productivity.
However,
there was also a transfer of knowledge in a more indirect way. I distinguish
four such vehicles or systems for indirect .i.transfer of professional
Knowledge; below:
• The Format of the magazines. The format of any
publication is a very powerful vehicle for .i.indirect transfer; of the process
of "how to make the magazine". The content of Affärsvärlden had to be
new and creative every week but the format remained the same. The same page lay
out, the same table formats, the same article flow etc. were repeated every
publishing day. The .i.format ;remained the same irrespective of the
journalists and functioned as a framework within which the process of knowing
was taking place.
• The Editorial room. The .i.editorial room; itself
had a very important "moulding effect". Its physical existence was a
prerequisite for the direct interactive .i.tradition ;of the whole process of
knowing for infoduction.
• The Computer systems. When a .i.rule;, a table or a
analytical calculation was computerised it transferred the knowledge
irrespective of the individuals. The .i.competence ;in how to change the rules
could get lost, but the transfer of the existing .i.know-how; was secured.
• The Analytical definitions. As mentioned above
Chapter 4.1., Affärsvärlden´s own definitions were articulated in the magazine
and functioned as a transfer in how to do analysis.
Three
vehicles or systems for indirect .i.transfer of organisational
Knowledge; can also be distinguished:
• The .i.Partner
System;. The partnership implied a formal ownership, articulated
rules in a partner agreement and scheduled regular meetings on organisational
matters in a large group of key people. These formal procedures functioned as
transfer of knowledge.
• The Editorial room. As mentioned above the
editorial room itself had a very important "moulding effect". Its
physical existence was also a prerequisite for the constant re-solving of
dichotomies which kept the organisation from exploding.
• The .i.Trainee System; and .i.AFV-School;.
The team installed a number of more structured procedures during the Expansion
Phase. Two examples were mentioned above, the Trainee system and the
AFV-School.
In the
early days of Affärsvärlden a local tradition emerged, largely without
managerial intervention. The Affärsvärlden tradition encouraged individuals
with a high professional .i.competence ;to share their knowledge in a rather
unusual fashion compared to other publishing companies (See Chapter 4.2.1.1.
and also Book 2). Management relied on .i.tradition of knowledge; as the main
element in organising and needed little reporting and other indirect transfer
system for control.
The
ability of Affärsvärlden´s knowledge tradition to keep the organisation from
falling apart was tested on several occasions during the period 1975-1993. The
tradition of professional knowledge seems to have functioned fairly well in
this respect. In the editorial room of Affärsvärlden, knowing was (and still
is) transferred in an open unstructured way. The messy, unorderly and open
space of the editorial office functioned as an non-managed .i.knowledge
transfer; milieu. i.
By holding
on to the strategy of Affärsvärlden magazine as the core, the Affärsvärlden
magazine was working efficiently, despite the changing environment. Today I
believe that it was the well functioning transfer of professional knowledge
that kept the organisation intact and the magazine competitive.
The
knowledge transfer systems were however less successful when they were tested
in the .i.diversification strategy;. As a slight exaggeration one might say
that Affärsvärlden was left with the failures whereas the successes were lost
(as was evidenced in both the Consensus case, see 4.7.2, and the Findata case,
see below).
A
conclusion I draw today is therefore that the Affärsvärlden organising depended
to quite a large extent on how well the tradition of the
process-of-knowing:tradition of functioned. The organisation was built on
tradition of knowledge, the roles were designed according to the people, not
the other way round. It contained in itself the processes of change;. It was
therefore able to survive the whole investigated period, despite the rapidly
changing environment and the large number of various activities.
It was
productive (4.1.1.) and it was also quite .i.creative. A number of new
solutions, both organisationally and professionally were invented as
"Affärsvärlden-specific" approaches.
The
drawback was however that it became very dependent on the people. It was also
very difficult to move outside the core. When they became aware of this
drawback, the partners tried to find a balance by traditional organisational
measures. They tried to reduce .i.uncertainty ;by introducing an amount of
structure and appointing managers. i.harmony;. However, measures, rational or
irrational, "worked" for a period but they never ended in the desired
stable situation. Some examples:
• Conflict avoidance emerged
as a belief of how to solve conflicts during the Founder Phase, but the
inherent .i.value ;conflicts emerged on the surface as soon as the environment
changed in the mid-1990s.
• The implicit assumption of .i.re-solving; conflicts
worked well on the individual level, but it also encouraged a
.i.diversification strategy; that later caused disharmony.
• The .i.partnership system; "solved" many
of the disharmony problems on individual level when it was created, but
partnership was soon felt to prevent necessary change and was abandoned few
years later.
• The .i.Findata ;team achieved periods of internal
harmony at the cost of creating a conflict with the mother organisation. The
same happened in .i.Financial Weekly; during periods when the venture was
perceived as moving towards success.
• The management´s efforts to create a balancing structure between