Technology and The Courtroom: An Inquiry into Knowledge Making in Organizations

Abstract

Recent theories of knowledge management have offered a functionalist understanding of knowledge creating dynamics in organizations. Their focus is on the role of knowledge assets as a determinant of competitive performance. However, the presupposition that knowledge can be managed or treated as an objective commodity seems to overlook the highly interactive, provisional and controversial nature of knowledge-oriented phenomena in organizations. By deviating from the mainstream, we conduct a phenomenological inquiry into knowledge making within the setting of courtroom trials. Evidence is provided by in-depth case studies carried out in six Italian courtrooms adopting videocassette recording (VCR) technology as a tool for recording and storing the proceedings of criminal trials. The behavioural responses of courtroom actors confronted by the intrusion of an alien technology in a highly institutionalized and resilient setting are particularly relevant for the study of knowledge in organizations. They reveal the highly controversial, pasted up and medium-specific features of organizational and professional knowledge systems. Rather than being the product of smooth conversion processes, knowledge in organizations is the outcome of inquiry, controversy and bricolage, resilient as a whole, but subject to local disputes, experiments and reassembling. Based on the findings of the cases, our account points towards a view of organizational knowledge as a dynamic, heterogeneous 'assemblage' characterized by ongoing transformations and reconfigurations.

The A-Z of Creative Technologies

“…Lanzara and Patriota [13] further describe an assemblage: "An assemblage is neither a unity nor a totality, but a multiplicity, a collection of heterogeneous materials that are mutually but loosely interrelated. In other words, the notion stresses the importance of relations over the elementary parts, i.e.…”

Knowledge management and the vision machine: Paul Virilio and the technological constitution of knowledge

“…In the following two cases will be invoked. First, a study of Lanzara and Patriotta (2001) of the use of VCR recording in Italian courtrooms during sessions will be discussed. Second, the use of High Throughput Screening (HTS) in the pharmaceutical industry will be examined.…”

“…Second, the use of High Throughput Screening (HTS) in the pharmaceutical industry will be examined. Lanzara and Patriotta (2001) argue that the knowledge management tend to take the very production of knowledge for granted. In the previous terminology, there is thus a preference for conceiving of knowledge as a stock rather than a flow: 'Knowledge is mostly thought of as coming and circulating in canned packages.…”

“…On the contrary, there is no such a fixed and ready-made knowledge to apply in the courtroom; instead, all the personnel and experts in the juridical domain have a number of scripts guiding what are appropriate actions, a secondary socialization into the profession, and a number of ceremonial and ritualized performances stabilizing and fixing the day-to-day work. Lanzara and Patriotta (2001) examine how the use of VCR recording during the session affected the production of knowledge and use of knowledge in the courtroom work. They found that the use of VCR recording did no serve as a neutral and transparent filter capturing the activities but that the technology in fact influenced and determined the courtroom performances:…”

Grasping the Discrete Link between Filming and Videoconferencing in the Courtroom. Reflections from the French Case*

“…Many countries have adopted it, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Italy and the Netherlands (Lanzara and Patriotta, 2001;Lederer, 2005;Wallace, 2008;Henning and Ng, 2009). Some publications (Babcock and Johansen, 2011;Biolley, 2013;Bossan, 2011;Braun, 2013;Danet, 2010;Diamond et al, 2010;Dumoulin and Licoppe, 2013;Gertner, 2004;Garofano, 2007;Henning and Ng, 2009;Kodek, 2012;Rowden, 2013;Salyzyn, 2012;Wallace, 2008) have identified several major areas of concern with the use of videoconferencing, in particular in the field of criminal law (Dumoulin and Licoppe, 2016: 315-318).…”