Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

Monique Lortie and Lise Desmarais
3. OHS point <strong>of</strong> view respecting knowledge
English poet T.S. Eliot cleverly mused as follows: “Where is <strong>the</strong> wisdom we lost in knowledge, where
is <strong>the</strong> knowledge we lost in information?” (cited by E. Morin, 2005, p 144,).
In OHS, knowledge management can be understood only by reverting back to <strong>the</strong> concept <strong>of</strong>
knowledge itself. As previously indicated, researchers have developed a socio-constructivist
approach. A portion <strong>of</strong> researcher know-how <strong>the</strong>refore resides in researcher ability to capture,
decode, organize and structure worker knowledge with a view to activating a process <strong>of</strong> exchange
that will make it possible to develop more complex or better appropriated knowledge in a given
context. From one field to <strong>the</strong> next, research flows from application towards a more generic
understanding. In some ways, it is close to anthropological and ethnographic approaches. In most
areas <strong>of</strong> scientific endeavour, researchers proceed in <strong>the</strong> opposite direction, which is to say from
generic to applied knowledge (Paquette, 2002; Sankaran, 2006). In OHS, a generous share <strong>of</strong>
knowledge is derived through action, <strong>the</strong> object being to generate action-relevant knowledge. The
terminology used to refer to knowledge is sophisticated: declarative, procedural, circumstantial,
conceptual, strategic, tacit, implicit, codified, explicit, <strong>of</strong>ficial, and so on.
In science, knowledge is developed mainly through deductive or inductive approaches. In OHS, an
abductive approach is <strong>of</strong>ten employed. Developed by philosopher Charles S. Peirce (Deledalle,
1990), this approach is an iterative process based on successions <strong>of</strong> observations, interpretations and
cross-checking (Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning)
Lastly, in French, two terms are used to refer to knowledge: connaissance and savoir. The word
savoir is less neutral than connaissance and includes notions <strong>of</strong> understanding, perspicacity,
sapiency. OHS reseachers (in Québec and o<strong>the</strong>r French-speaking regions) resonate more
spontaneously with <strong>the</strong> concept <strong>of</strong> savoir than with connaissance to convey <strong>the</strong> notion <strong>of</strong> knowledge.
This point <strong>of</strong> view naturally tends to place users at <strong>the</strong> centre <strong>of</strong> our topical reflections.
4. Knowledge users in OHS
Three types <strong>of</strong> users are <strong>of</strong> interest to us: users as knowledge end-users, as knowledge cogenerators
and as knowledge brokers or transfer agents. In <strong>the</strong> following section, each will be
illustrated through cases extracted from <strong>the</strong> book prepared by <strong>the</strong> community. These project
examples are typical <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> manner in which way OHS handles knowledge transfer and knowledge
management. The subjects <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> nine cases are summarized in Table 1.
4.1 Users as end-users
Here, ‘users’ refer to <strong>the</strong> targeted group <strong>of</strong> ultimate ‘end-users’. Thus users are active end-users. This
is <strong>of</strong> particular interest in OHS and relates to <strong>the</strong> use <strong>of</strong> guides.
In <strong>the</strong> first instance, researchers sought to ascertain how organizations absorbed, adapted, circulated
and used guidelines. Follow-up showed that guidelines were effectively used to detect and remedy
non-compliant elements, albeit in part by means o<strong>the</strong>r than those foreseen. Final end-users, for
example, were o<strong>the</strong>r than <strong>the</strong> ones prospected (e.g. engineers appropriated guidelines). Many endusers
learned <strong>of</strong>/assimilated <strong>the</strong> guidelines in a manner o<strong>the</strong>r than through <strong>the</strong> OHS board and <strong>the</strong>
latter’s capacity <strong>of</strong> <strong>of</strong>ficial purveyor <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> guidelines in question. Indeed, <strong>the</strong> guide was unexpectedly
used to train operators and was adapted for different uses. Researchers viewed this as an interesting
finding since it contributed to generating an internal flow <strong>of</strong> exchanges on something quite concrete,
namely <strong>the</strong> conveyor belts.
In <strong>the</strong> second instance, eighty-four Occupational Lesion Board (an appeals board) files where carpal
tunnel syndrome was challenged as being or not being work-related were analysed to understand
actual knowledge use. As pointed up in o<strong>the</strong>r studies, <strong>the</strong> most used sources were local documents,
apparently because end-users had more faith in local sources which were seen as better adapted to
<strong>the</strong>ir context (Hayward et al., 1997). Overall, 78% <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> 226 references were quoted only one or two
times. A similar trend was found by Christiaens et al. (2004) where, <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> 205 references appearing
in four guides, only eight were shared by three or four guides. Also, as in <strong>the</strong> previous instance, endusers
were found not to be <strong>the</strong> individuals one might have expected. Workplace specialists such as
ergonomists and occupational physicians were found to be in <strong>the</strong> minority, whereas general and
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