TALE: A Possible Theme called “Business as Engagement”

Oliver Ding

Published in

TALE500

18 min readFeb 8, 2023

How to connect the Project Engagement approach with Business?

Yesterday I shared a possible theme called “Project Engagement” with the following diagram.

There is a sub-theme called “Business as Engagement” under the possible theme of “Product Engagement”. Today I will share more details about “Business Engagement”.

The notion of “Business as Engagement” is inspired by the “Product Engagement” approach and related theoretical resources.

Business is a significant part of individual life and social life. We can use the Project Engagement approach to understand Business.

In the past three years, I worked on connecting Activity Theory and some domains. In the journey of engaging with Activity Theory, I developed several new theoretical approaches and frameworks which are documented in several books (draft). You can find more details about the journey in Appropriating Activity Theory.

In 2021, I edited a book titled Project-oriented Activity Theory and developed the Project Engagement toolkit (v1.0). In 2022, I developed several new modules for the approach and launched the Project Engagement approach (v2.1) in August 2022.

In Jan 2023, I decided to return to the field of business. I am working on connecting the Project Engagement approach and my other knowledge frameworks with various practices in the field of business.

The notion of “Business as Engagement” indicates a solution to understanding Business from the perspective of Project Engagement. Specifically speaking, I will use three keywords, three types of projects, six levels of analysis, and six guiding questions to build the framework.

See the diagram below. The rest of the article will unpack this framework.

Business as “Activity”

Let’s start with the common sense of “Business”. According to Wikipedia, “a business means an organization (company or enterprise, for example) involved in the trade of goods, services, or both, with consumers.”

Now let’s move to the field of management research to find some academic resources for our exploration.

In 1985, Michael E. Porter published Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance and introduced a framework called Value Chain. In fact, the Value Chain framework was based on an Activity-view perspective.

In the Introduction of the book, Porter described his perspective at the beginning of the book:

Competitive Advantage was published in 1985 as the essential companion to Competitive Strategy. While Competitive Strategy concentrates on the industry, Competitive Advantage concentrates on the firm. My quest was to find a way to conceptualize the firm that would expose the underpinnings of competitive advantage and its sustainability. (p.xv)

In the early 1980s, the popular perspective of Firm is “Business System”. Porter mentioned the concept in a footnote (p.36):

The business system concept, developed by McKinsey and Company, captures the idea that a firm is a series of functions (e.g., R&D, manufacturing, marking, channels), and that analyzing how each is performed relative to competitors can provide useful insights. McKinsey also stresses the power of redefining the business system to gain competitive advantage, an important idea. The business system concept addresses broad functions rather than activities, however, and does not distinguish among types of activities or show how they are related. The concept is also not linked specifically to competitive advantage nor to competitive scope. The most complete descriptions of the business system concept are Gluck (1980) and Bauron (1981). See also Bower (1983).

Porter decided to move from functions to activities and developed a new theory of Firm.

At the book’s core is an activity-based theory of the firm. To compete in any industry, companies must perform a wide array of discrete activities such as processing orders, calling on customers, assembling products, and training employees. Activities, narrower than traditional functions such as marketing or R&D, are what generate cost and creative value for buyers; they are the basic units of competitive advantage. (p.xv)

Based on the Activity view, Porter developed the famous concept of Value Chain and a general framework for thinking strategically about the activities involved in any business and assessing their relative cost and role in differentiation.

Porter’s activity-based view is not inspired by Activity Theory or Cultural-historical Activity Theory (CHAT) which is an interdisciplinary philosophical framework for studying both individual and social aspects of human behavior.

The early version of Activity Theory was developed by Soviet psychologists such as Sergei Rubinstein and Alexei Leontev in the 1930s. A major development of activity theory was contributed by Finnish educational researcher Yrjö Engeström who upgraded the activity theory from the individual activity level to the collective activity level with a conceptual model of “Activity System” in order to apply activity theory to educational settings, organizational development, and other fields.

In 1987, Yrjö Engeström published Learning by Expanding: An Activity-Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research. As mentioned above, Michael E. Porter’s Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance was published in 1985. Later, Porter also uses the term “Activity System” to describe Strategic Fit.

Michael E. Porter’s Activity System Diagram

The difference between Michael E. Porter’s Activity-based view and Yrjö Engeström’s Activity System Model is the former only discusses a Firm’s primary activities and support activities while the latter offers a general model for understanding human collaborative activities.

Yrjö Engeström’s Activity System Model (1987)

In other words, we can apply Yrjö Engeström’s Activity System model to understand a particular activity within Michael E. Porter’s Value Chain.

In fact, Yrjö Engeström’s Activity System model has been adopted to study organizational innovation, work, learning, and product development. For example, Clay Spinuzzi adopted the Activity System model to research workplace and organizational networks. He has written four books: Tracing Genres through Organizations (2003); Network: Theorizing Knowledge Work in Telecommunications (2008); Topsight (2013, 2018); and All Edge: Inside the New Workplace Networks (2015).

A major development of Activity Theory during the past decade is Andy Blunden’s account “An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity”. In order to develop the notion of “Project as a unit of Activity” as a theoretical foundation of the new interdisciplinary theory of Activity, Blunden adopts Hegel’s logic and Vygotsky’s theory about “Unit of Analysis” and “Concept” as theoretical resources. The process is documented in four books: An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity (2010), Concepts: A Critical Approach (2012), Collaborative Projects: An Interdisciplinary Study (2014), and Hegel for Social Movements (2019).

Now we have rich theoretical resources to understand “Business as Activity”!

Activity as “Project Engagement”

In 2021, I wrote a book titled Project-oriented Activity Theory and developed the Project Engagement toolkit (v1.0).

The Project Engagement Toolkit is a project-oriented toolkit for theory-based reflection and study. A significant aspect of the toolkit is it connects the following two theoretical approaches of Activity Theory together and offers a series of tools for practitioners in the age of projectification.

The Activity System Model (Yrjö Engeström, 1987)
Activity as Formation of Concept (Andy Blunden, 2010, 2012, 2014)

While Engeström’s model is perfect for dealing with traditional work projects, Blunden’s approach considers collaborative projects as the foundation of social movements and cultural innovation.

By curating the above two approaches together, the toolkit offers a cross-boundary solution for achieving a balance between individual impact and collective impact. In this way, the toolkit could lead us to an innovative way of connecting personal life themes and cultural themes in order to build a sustainable society together.

Three Types of Projects

The Activity System model has been orienting much empirical research since 1987. Clay Spinuzzi’s book All Edge is a great example. Spinuzzi adopts the term “adhocracies” from Alvin Toffler to describe the trend of projectification of works and organizations: “rotating teams of specialists who could come together to swarm a project, disperse at the end of it, and re-form in a different configuration for the next project.” (2015, p.1). Spinuzzi highlights a key organizational principle for differing all-edge adhocracies from bureaucracies: projectification.

The term “projectification” was coined by Christophe Midler who is a management professor in 1995. Midler uses the term to refer to the trend of transformation from hierarchical function-centered organization to cross-functional project-centered organization. According to Spinuzzi, “Projectification is the organizing principle of adhocracies: the organization of work around project teams oriented to defined projects, as opposed to departments oriented to narrow functions (the organizing principle of bureaucracies). The adhocracy is organized around a specific, defined project objective with a specific endpoint.” (2015, p.32)

Spinuzzi also identifies two types of projects. He points out, “…networks are well suited to unique projects that require innovation, flexibility, and creativity, particularly if these projects involve the inexpensive, rapid communication that is necessary for supporting constant mutual adjustment. But they’re not well suited for projects that require repeatability, operating efficiency, or control; those requirements are better fulfilled by an institutional hierarchy.” (2015, p.69)

Andy Blunden’s approach offers a third type of project: a project about the formation of a concept. In order words, the project is a social movement.

If we put these ideas together and connect them with business development, we can roughly define three types of projects. See the diagram below.

Project 1: the project that aims to discover new ideas for business development.
Project 2: the project that belongs to daily work activities of the Business Value Chain.
Project 3: the project that aims to turn ideas behind business into concepts for the development of culture and society.

In my opinion, Project-oriented Activity Theory can be adopted as a theory of radical innovation since the approach covers the whole developmental process of a brand-new concept. Organizational scholars use “Radical innovation — Incremental innovation” to discuss organizational innovation, “While incremental innovations are typically extensions to current product offerings or logical and relatively minor extensions to existing processes, radical product innovations involve the development or application of significantly new technologies or ideas into markets that are either nonexistent or require dramatic behavior changes to existing markets.” (McDermott and O’Connor, 2002)

I’d like to use “Radical innovation — Incremental Innovation” in a broader sense. From the perspective of Project-oriented Activity Theory, “Radical Innovation” can be definitely defined as a project with a brand-new concept while “Incremental Innovation” can be understood as a project with a good idea that is not ready for proposing as a brand-new concept.

Now we can use the three types of projects for Business Development. In this way, we build a framework of Business as Project Engagement.

We can use both Michael E. Porter’s Activity-based view and Yrjö Engeström’s Activity System Model for Project 2, we can use Andy Blunden’s Project-oriented Activity Theory for Project 3.

Finally, we can use “Strategic Discovery” to name Project 1. Moreover, we can use the concept of “Second-order Activity” to understand “Strategic Discovery”. You can find more details about “Second-order Activity” in A Typology for Anticipatory Activity System.

Three Keywords of “Business as Engagement”

In 2022, I developed several new modules for the Project Engagement approach (v2.1).

The keyword “Significance” refers to the “Person — Project” relationship. Why does a person start or join a project? What does a project look like?

The keyword “Complexity” refers to the “Project — Project” relationship. How does a project connect to other projects? How does the network of projects represent the dynamics of individual life and social life?

The keyword “Genidentity” refers to the “Project — Platform” relationship. The term “Genidentity” refers to the transformation from a theme to a project, then a platform. How does a project keep its uniqueness?

These three keywords also lead to six units of analysis and a set of modules.

Significance: Zone, Project
Complexity: Project Network, Platform
Genidentity: Life-History, Multiverse

In the following sections, we will apply these ideas to Business Development one by one.

Significance: Zone, Project

Andy Blunden gives an archetypal unit of “Project” in his 2010 book An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity.

Source: An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity (2010, p.315)

He says, “The rich context of the notion of collaboration also brings to light more complex relationships. The notions of hierarchy, command, division of labor, cooperation, exchange, service, attribution, exploitation, dependence, solidarity, and more can all be studied in the context of just two individuals working together in a common project. And yet almost all the mysteries of social science as well as a good part of psychology are contained in this archetypal unit: two people working together in a common project.” (2010, p.315)

We believe that any business begins with two people working together. Also, two people working together are the basic unit of any business project.

The Project Engagement approach (v2.1) uses “Zone” and “Project” to set two units of analysis.

The above diagram shows a simple structure: Business [Project (Zone)].

A business is a social container that contains several Projects.

Each project contained several Zones. Each zone refers to a social interactive space around a shared theme or a shared object between two people.

There are several related frameworks for understanding “Zone” and “Project”. I’d like to recommend two relevant and promising frameworks.

Cultural Projection Analysis
The ARCH framework

Why does a person start or join a business?

It’s not easy to answer this question. However, we can use Cultural Projection Analysis as a method for research.

On Jan 9, 2021, I published an article titled Activity U (X): Projecting, Projectivity, and Cultural Projection which introduces the concept of Projectivity and the notion of Cultural Projection. This article is an essential part of my 2021 book Project-oriented Activity Theory.

What’s Projectivity? It refers to potential action opportunities of forming a project or participating in a project for people to actualize their development with others.

The concept of Projectivity connects Project, Projecting, and Projection together and it can be used as a foundation for Cultural Projection Analysis.

The diagram below is part of the Cultural Projection Analysis method. There is a social/cultural environment that contains Events. By perceiving and knowing Events, people recognize the Primary Projectivity which is offered by the social/cultural environments, and initiate a Project. For the Primary Projectivity, its sense-maker is Events.

Once a project is initiated, it offers Secondary Projectivity for other people to recognize the potential action opportunities of participating in the project. For the Second Projectivity, its sense-maker is the Identity of an established Project.

Third, the participants of a project could perceive and know the Tertiary Projectivity and initiate a new project which is inspired by the project. For Tertiary Projectivity, its sense-maker is the Themes and Identity of an established Project.

It’s clear that we can use this method to model the dynamics of forming a new business. You can find more details in Activity U (X): Projecting, Projectivity, and Cultural Projection.

How do two people work on a business project?

We can use ARCH framework to answer this question.

The ARCH Framework is a framework for curating several models for Interpersonal Interactions and Collaborative Project Engagement.

The framework identifies five stages of forming a collaborative project.

Stay together
See together
Think together
Work together
Chane together

Each stage has its own unique aspects such as challenges and focuses.

The above diagram is about the third stage of ARCH: “Work Together”.

You can find more details in ARCH: A Visual Language of Interpersonal Interactions and Collaborative Project Engagement.

Complexity: Project Network, Platform

The Project Engagement approach (v2.1) uses “Project Network” and “Platform” as two units of analysis.

We are going to use some related frameworks to answer the above questions.

How does a business project connect to other projects?

We can use Michael E. Porter’s Activity-based view and Value Chain and Yrjö Engeström’s Activity System Model to answer this question.

There is a model called “Activity Network” which is a network of connected several Activity Systems. The diagram below is the basic model of an “Activity Network”.

As mentioned above, Michael E. Porter’s Activity-based view and Yrjö Engeström’s Activity System Model are only about Project 2.

Do we have a model which can represent Project 2 (Work) and Project 3 (Concept) together?

Yes!

We can use the “Project Network” model which is a three-level framework.

The Network of Themes (Concept/Project 3)
The Network of Projects (Work/Project 2)
The Network of People

The above diagram is a case study of “Project Network”. You can find more details in Life Strategy: Moving between Thematic Spaces.

How does a business grow with an ecosystem?

The Project Engagement approach (v2.1) uses the term “Platform” as a theoretical concept. It uses the “Platform (Project)” structure to understand Ecosystem (Business).

In 2021, I developed the Platform for Development (P4D) framework and wrote a book. I proposed a new model called the Supportive Cycle as a heuristic practical tool for the P4D framework. The model considers four types of entities and four movements of their interactions.

The above diagram represents the model of the Supportive Cycle. The four types of entities are Platform, People, Project, and Platformba. The four movements are labeled as 1, 2, 3, and 4 in the diagram. However, these numbers don’t refer to steps or stages. I consider these interactions are parallel development.

Originally, the Platform-for-Development framework and the Supportive Cycle were developed from the perspective of adult development. However, we can use it to understand “Platform (Project)” too.

The Supportive Movement is defined by the concept of Supportance which refers to the potential supportive possibilities for actions. Each movement is divided into two states: the Potential status and the Actual status. The relationship between two entities is roughly considered as “environment” and “organism” from the ecological perspective. One side (as the “environment”) offers Supportances to the other side (as the “organism”).

Environments: Platform (Ecosystem)
Organisms: Project (Business)

Let’s use YouTube (Platform) and Patreon (Project) as an example for our discussion.

YouTube is the largest online video-sharing platform that allows people to publish their videos. Each YouTube user account has a video channel that allows audiences to subscribe in order to receive the newest update from the channel. Patreon is a membership platform that allows artists and creators to launch and maintain their subscription programs for earning a monthly income from their fans by offering rewards and perks.

The above diagram highlights the structure and dynamics of the YouTube(Patreon) case.

Platform: YouTube
People: YouTubers
Project: Patreon
Platformba: All users of YouTube, such as YouTubers, audiences, fans, and sponsors.

We can also identify four primary themes of supportive movements within this case:

Make: YouTubers make videos and publish these videos on their YouTube channels.
Curate: YouTubers create accounts on Patreon and design, maintain and update membership programs with their Patreon accounts.
Sponsor: Fans join membership programs and support YouTubers on Patreon.
Watch: Audiences and fans watch videos on YouTube.

This case is an ideal case for applying the Supportive Cycle model to Business Development.

You can find more details in The Supportive Cycle (v1.0).

Genidentity: Life-History, Multiverse

The Project Engagement approach (v2.1) uses “Life-History” and “Multiverse” as two units of analysis to discuss some issues on a large time and space scale.

As introduced by Kurt Lewin, genidentity is an existential relationship underlying the genesis of an object from one moment to the next.

Though Genidentity was originally developed for discussing the difference between various branches of science and their dynamic development, it is about a “topology of identity” and temporal dynamics from my perspective.

If we apply it to the field of Business, then we can ask the following two questions:

How does a business keep its uniqueness over time?
How does a business contribute to the development of culture?

How does a business keep its uniqueness over time?

I developed an operational definition for the concept of Genidentity: A thing’s Genidentity is defined by Essential Differences with Situated Dynamics. In this way, we turn a philosophical concept into a practical concept for empirical research.

In May 2022, I developed the Platform Genidentity framework. Now we can adopt it for the present discussion.

What’s Platform Genidentity? I use the concept of Platform Genidentity to describe a process of keeping the uniqueness of a platform within a long-term duration. For example, Google.com (a Search Engine), Wikipedia.org, YouTube.com, these three websites keep their original core design without major changes.

In order to understand the complexity of Platform Genidentity, I developed the following two new concepts:

Platform Core: a basic unit of a platform. For example, a Tweet, a YouTube video page, a Q&A page on Quora, etc.
Platform-ba: a platform-based sociocultural field. For example, YouTube-ba is a YouTube-based sociocultural space. You can find more details here.

As mentioned above, we have an operational definition of the concept of Genidentity: A thing’s Genidentity is defined by Essential Differences with Situated Dynamics.

We need to discover the sources of Essential Differences and Situated Dynamics. I think the sources are Platform Core and Platform-ba. However, they don’t work as a one-to-one mapping relationship. See the above diagram.

Finally, we need to add “Platform” back to the framework. The whole structure is a nested whole.

Platform-ba [Platform (Platform-core)]

This structure of Platform-ba can be understood as the following model:

Platform-ba{Project [Zone (People)]} which is the focus of the Platform-for-Development framework.

Since the Platform Genidentity Framework focuses on the perspective of platform owners, we will pay attention to the relationship between Platform-core, Platform, and Platform-ba.

How does a business contribute to the development of culture?

The Project Engagement approach (v2.1) uses a module called “Life-History Topology” to understand the large-scale unit of social life. See the diagram below. You can find more details in Project Engagement (v2): Life, History, and Multiverse.

The pair of concepts of “Event — Project” is part of the Project Engagement approach while the pair of concepts of “Life Themes — Cultural Themes” is part of the “Themes of Practice” framework.

My approach uses “events” and “projects” to present social context and individual biography. The difference between “events” and “projects” is individual involvement. If the person directly gets involved in an activity — it means she is the subject of the activity or part of the community of the activity — then the activity is a project of her biography. If the person doesn’t directly get involved in the activity, then the activity is an event of her biography.

Let’s use the biography of Yrjö Engeström who is a leading Activity Theorist as an example. According to Annalisa Sannino, there are four main phases in Engeström’s development as an activity theorist, “(1) the European student movement of the 1960s and the discovery of activity theory; (2) the study of instruction and the turn from school learning to workplace learning; (3) developmental work research and the theory of expansive learning; and (4) the formation of activity-theoretical communities aimed at changing societal practices.” (2009, p.11) We can use the above diagram to represent Engeström’s biography.

The notion of “Business as Engagement” considers Business as a container of both a person’s life activities and social life events.

While Life is the outcome of the diachronic unfolding of the chain of projects, history is the outcome of the diachronic unfolding of the chain of events.

Since Business is a major part of social life, it was an important contributor to Life and History.