Knowledge Engagement: The Utilization of Theoretical Resources

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Curativity Center

14 min readJul 12, 2023

Do you use Theory for your Knowledge Projects?

On June 1, 2023, I made the above diagram for writing some notes about the Persona Dynamics Framework. It was part of a long article about the notion of “Themes in the Field” which is the third stage of the “Strategic Thematic Exploration” framework.

On June 23, 2023, I edited a rough Table of Contents for a possible book titled Thematic Exploration: The Early Discovery of Knowledge Engagement (book, v1) and closed the “Strategic Thematic Exploration” framework (phase 1).

Now it’s time to detach the above diagram “Theoretical Resouces for Knowledge Engagement” from the Strategic Thematic Exploration project and attach it to the Knowledge Engagement.

My primary interest is located in the intersection between Knowledge, Creativity, and Adult Development. I roughly use Creative Life to name this focus. It’s clear that I don’t want to develop a general framework about adult development for everyone. I only consider Knowledge Workers and Creators as my target audience.

In the past several years, I worked on connecting THEORY and PRACTICE. I didn’t pay attention to the distinction between academic workers and industry workers. I think it is better to see the landscape of knowledge as a meaningful whole.

I am not an academic worker. However, I read many academic theoretical books in the past years and used theoretical knowledge to reflect on my various work practices. The journey is amazing! I wrote over 18 books in drafts. From my own experiences, I believe that the distinction between Scholars and Practitioners is not useful for knowledge engagement.

If a person like to develop his/her intellectual wisdom, he should not ignore academic knowledge resources if he is an industry professional practitioner.

As professional practitioners, how can we utilize academic theoretical resources for our journey of Knowledge Engagement?

The General Structure of Social Sciences

In a previous article titled TALE: A Possible Theme Called “Methodological Empathy”, I encouraged readers to embrace systematic thinking of knowledge engagement:

Philosophy > Science > Practice

I also recommend two schemas of the general structure of social sciences: 1) Ontology > Epistemology > Methodology (a traditional approach), and 2) Ontology > Realism > Hermeneutics (developed by Ping-keung Lui).

Traditional scholars tend to use the following structure in the field of social sciences: Ontology > Epistemology > Methodology.

Ontology: What’s this?
Epistemology: What’s the knowledge about this?
Methodology: How do we actually know the knowledge about this?

This schema has its root in Western Philosophy, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics.

This is not “the one and the only” approach to building systematic thinking of knowledge engagement.

A Grand Theory for Knowledge Engagement

In 2022, I learned a new schema from Ping-keung Lui’s theoretical sociology.

Lui aims to build a brand new theoretical sociology as a candidate for the paradigm of sociology. According to Lui, “There are three kinds of theories in sociology, namely, social theory, sociological theory, and theoretical sociology. ”

The structure of Lui’s theoretical sociology is a nested structure. See the diagram below. According to Lui, “The realism comprises a subjectivist structuralism and an objectivist stock of knowledge, while the hermeneutics is an interpretation and an analysis. Second, I shall present an ontology that nests the realism within its boundaries.” (p.250, 2016, Aspects of Sociological Explanation)

Source: Aspects of Sociological Explanation (Ping-keung Lui 2016, p.251)

We should see this grand theory as a dialogue between philosophy and sociology because “Ontology” and “hermeneutics” are respectable terms in philosophy, but “realism” — sandwiched between them — is not. Lui emphasizes that Realism is the sociological matter proper (p.251, 2016, Aspects of Sociological Explanation).

It can perhaps be said to be the apple in the scientist’s eye,138 though the term “realism” may sound naïve to the phenomenological ear. It is much closer to “what is” than “what is the meaning of”.
In a certain sense, science is always naïve though not simple. With the freedom of imagination being exercised by the scientist to its fullest, it presupposes in the first instance that there is really a reality out there, at least in the Schutzian sense, that is, the reality is often “taken- for-granted”, “questionable but unquestioned.” The presupposition may be naïve, but its buttresses are not. The sociologist — who should be a scientist more than a philosopher — relies on empirical (or positivistic) investigations to buttress his discipline.

Lui considers the following four realities for the grand theory:

the Weberian course of action
the Giddensian course of action
Social Territory
Symbolic Universe

Realism is determined by Ontology. According to Lui, “I made a distinction between action and its course; that is, action is not a reality but its course is. My justification is based on a fundamental ontology.” (p.251, 2016)

Realism leads to Hermeneutics which considers two parts: the actors’ interpretation and the researcher’s analysis.

The whole structure of the grand theory is represented by the following semiotic system.

Source: Aspects of Sociological Explanation (Ping-keung Lui 2016, p.258)

What’s the value of such a complicated grand theory?

Ping-keung Lui aims to build a brand new theoretical sociology as a candidate for the paradigm of sociology. According to Lui, “There are three kinds of theories in sociology, namely, social theory, sociological theory, and theoretical sociology. ”

Social theories are speculations about the social world. They constitute the speculative project of sociology.
Some social theories are amenable to positivistic investigation under certain specific conditions. I call them sociological theories.
Also, some other social theories, being very ambitious, attempt to recruit as many as they can sociological theories supporting themselves. I call them theoretical sociologies. They compete against each other. The winner becomes the paradigm of sociology, and its supporting sociological theories become exemplars of the paradigm. In this way, theoretical sociologies and sociological theories constitute the scientific project of sociology.

In fact, the term “Social theories” refer to all “Social Thoughts”, “Logs”, and “Ideology”, etc. For example, a political party’s ideology and a professional community’s knowledge framework are “Social theories” too. However, Lui only considers Sociological Theories and Theoretical Sociologies as scientific projects.

As a grand theory, Lui’s theoretical sociology can be used as a frame to curate theoretical approaches and knowledge engagement in general.

For example, I used it as a meta-theory to curate three theoretical approaches (Specific Theories, sTheory) for the Life Strategy Project. See the diagram below.

The diagram below uses Lui’s nested structure to connect my four frameworks. It’s clear that these frameworks are located at different layers.

Ontology: The Path of Creative Life and The Life — History Complex
Realism: The Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) Framework
Hermeneutics: The Creative Life Curation Framework

Lui’s approach also offers a brand-new tool called “Semiotic System Diagram” which is a set of concepts that are connected together. He used the same method of mapping the semiotic system of theoretical sociology to map other sociological theories. By comparing different semiotic system diagrams with the semiotic system diagram of theoretical sociology, he can use his theoretical sociology to support and contain many empirical sociological theories.

Lui’s work focuses on Theoretical sociologies and Sociological theories because these belong to the scientific project of sociology.

From my perspective, Lui’s Semiotic System Diagram and the related method are pretty useful for knowledge creators who are making various kinds of logos as social theories.

Now let’s make a semiotic system for understanding Creative Life Strategy. Since the above diagram shows the basic structure of the map, I collected major concepts from my four frameworks and placed them together.

The final outcome is the following semiotic system diagram.

The above diagram uses three colors to highlight three parts of the framework.

Blue > Ontology: The Path of Creative Life and The Life — History Complex
Green > Realism: The Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) Framework
Red > Hermeneutics: The Creative Life Curation Framework

Each part features several concepts from the original frameworks. The whole semiotic system diagram is quite complicated, however, it is not complex and chaotic.

The first part is Ontology which contains the Path of Creative Life and the Life-History Complex. See the diagram below.

The main content of the Realism of my semiotic system diagram is the Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) Framework. See the diagram below.

The third part of my semiotic system diagram is the Creative Life Curation Framework. See the diagram below.

You can find more details in Slow Cognition: Three Paths of Creative Life and A Semiotic System.

A Systematic Approach to Business Engagement

I also adopted Lui’s “Ontology > Realism > Hermeneutics” to develop a systematic approach to Business Engagement.

Ontology: Business as Engagement
Realism: The Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) Framework
Hermeneutics: The Creative Life Curation Framework

On Feb 7, 2023, I shared a theme called “Business as Engagement”. Now we can use it as the Ontology of Business Engagement. Business is a significant part of individual life and social life. We can use the Project Engagement approach to understand Business. The notion of “Business as Engagement” indicates a solution to understanding Business from the perspective of Project Engagement. You can find more details in TALE: A Possible Theme called “Business as Engagement”.

We can directly use the Anticipatory Activity System framework for the Realism of Business Engagement. The Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework is inspired by Activity Theory and Anticipatory System theory. It aims to offer an abstract model for understanding “Self, Other, Present, Future”. While the traditional Activity Theory focuses on “Exploitative Activity”, the AAS framework is more about “Exploratory Activity”. You can find more details in Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) and A Possible Book.

On March 29, 2023, I shared a multi-level approach called “Expansive Activity Analysis” to Design and Innovation. Now we can use it as Hermeneutics for Business Engagement. You can find more details in TALE: A Possible Theme called “Expansive Activity Analysis”.

Where is the Methodology?

There is no methodology in Lui’s “Ontology > Realism > Hermeneutics”. However, all methods belong to the Hermeneutics section.

What’s the difference between Lui’s “Hermeneutics” and traditional “Methodology”?

Lui considers an important distinction between Actors and Researchers. It means Actors and Researchers have different Hermeneutics. The traditional schema only considers researchers’ methods.

On Nov 21, 2022, I developed a model called Kinds of Actors. See the diagram below.

The above model is developed for the Creative Life Curation project. I made a distinction between Actors and Curators. You can find more details in Creative Life Curation: Kinds of Actors.

For the Business Engagement project, we can use Business Researchers to replace Curators. It is clear that Business Researchers are working on producing Business-related Knowledge.

There are at least three types of Business Studies:

Academic Business Studies: uses the scientific approach to produce public knowledge for the world
Professional Business Studies: uses the practical approach to produce public knowledge for a professional community
Corporate Business Studies: uses the practical approach to produce private knowledge for the business owners

If we connect these three types of business studies and the above seven levels of Expansive Activity Analysis together, then we can face a challenge:

Each particular business study project requires a particular method.

How can we respond to this challenge?

We have to accept the “Methodological Empathy” statement.

On Oct 4, 2022, I develop a new visual language called HITED for the Design Wisdom project. Now we can use it for the Hermeneutics of Business Engagement.

The HITED framework is all about the “Hypothesis — Data” Gap which is a sub-issue of the THEORY — EXPERIENCE (PRACTICE) Gap.

You can find more details in Design Wisdom: The HITED Framework for Methodological Empathy.

Theoretical Resouces for Knowledge Engagement

The above ideas inspired me to develop the following framework for considering theoretical resources.

It’s a simple 4x4 chart that is formed by two dimensions: “Person” and “Knowledge”. The “Person” dimension is divided into four categories:

Knowledge Creator
Knowledge Curator
Knowledge Maker
Knowledge User

The “Knowledge” dimension is divided into four types:

Philosophy
Pure Science
Applied Science
Practice

How to use this chart?

It is designed to make a choice of the utilization of theoretical resources for a particular knowledge project or a knowledge enterprise.

If you start a long-term knowledge enterprise, you can use the chart to decide your position in the landscape of knowledge. For example, the above chart shows a configuration for my “Activity U” knowledge enterprise.

I use the “Activity U” knowledge enterprise to refer to my journey of appropriating Activity Theory which is an established theoretical tradition.

Philosophy: I was a Knowledge User because I didn’t want to create a new philosophy about Activity Theory.
Pure Science: I was a Knowledge Maker because I made a series of diagrams for Andy Blunden’s approach to “An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity”.
Applied Science: I was a Knowledge Curator because I run the Activity U project and host the Activity Analysis Center. These two projects are all about selecting, reviewing, and comparing different knowledge frameworks of Activity Theory.
Practice: I was a Knowledge Creator because I made a set of frameworks for applying Activity Theory to particular tasks (1, 2). Sometimes, I connected Activity Theory with other theoretical resources (3, 4).

If we consider Knowledge Engagement as an Activity, then we can utilize theoretical knowledge as resources for our creative projects. It is just like a normal production activity, we don’t have to make everything for ourselves. There is a Supply Chain in the field of knowledge production.

We also don’t have to worry about our situational role in each project. You don’t have to make the same choice for different knowledge projects.

If you are planning a large knowledge enterprise that is formed by a series of knowledge projects, the above chart is a great tool for your strategic exploration. You could make a chart for each project and put them together to see the whole picture.

Activity Theory for HCI Scholars

HCI stands for “Human-computer interaction” which refers to a field of research with a focus on design and use of computer technology. HCI is also sometimes termed human–machine interaction (HMI), man-machine interaction (MMI), or computer-human interaction (CHI).

In recent years, some authors suggested that it is better to use Interaction Design (ID) to replace HCI. In 2015, Preece, Sharp, and Rogers published the fourth edition of Interaction Design: Beyond Human-computer Interaction. They shared the diagram below with readers.

What a wonderful black box behind our daily digital life!

HCI is a domain with different scale problem spaces. HCI researchers’ knowledge work is informed by diverse types of knowledge resources such as paradigms, theories, models, frameworks, and approaches.

We can see HCI as an Applied Science.

In an analysis of the use of activity theory in HCI research, Bonnie Nardi (2016) and her colleagues collected 109 HCI activity theory papers and found scholars use five strategies in their research work to make use of activity theory:

(1) an object of analysis, focusing on activity theory per se (5 papers);
(2) a conceptual tool for design, applying activity theory to support design (17 papers);
(3) a meta-tool, using activity theory as a guide for developing a new analytical tool (16 papers);
(4) a tool for conceptual analysis, using activity theory for predominantly conceptual analysis of HCI (30 papers); and
(5) a tool for empirical analysis, using activity theory to guide and support empirical analyses of HCI phenomena. (note 3, Making HCI theory work: an analysis of the use of activity theory in HCI research).

Source: Clemmensen, Kaptelinin and Nardi (2016)

In 2020, I used the diagram below to represent the above discovery.

The above diagram shows three categories of these five strategies. It matches the HERO U framework’s three categories of “knowing”.

Theory container: Knowing-for-all
Practice container: Knowing-for-me
Echozone container: Knowing-for-us

The outcome of the “Theory as Object of Analysis” strategy contributes to the development of theory. I claim it as “Knowing-for-all”. The outcome of the “Theory for Design” strategy contributes to the practical work of designers, it doesn’t directly give feedback to the development of the theory. I claim it as “Knowing-for-me”. The outcome of the other three strategies contributes to the development of HCI itself. I claim it as “Knowing-for-us”.

In the paper, Bonnie Nardi asked the following essential question:

Should HCI researchers be considered theory-makers or theory users?

Nardi believed HCI researchers can be both theory-makers and theory-users. She compared the IS (Information Systems) researchers with HCI researchers in the paper: “Kjærgaard and Vendelø (2015) found that IS researchers studying sensemaking theory often used it without explaining it or providing substantial theoretical background or discussion. They concluded that IS research is mainly concerned with empirical phenomena, pays little attention to theory construction and development, and that therefore IS is less likely to gain recognition as a reference discipline for other disciplines. ”

Kjærgaard and Vendelø said in their paper, “…the success and legitimacy of a young academic field depends on its ability to convince more established fields that it has a contribution to make. The reference discipline debate addresses the issue of legitimacy building by a young field, as it examines whether other fields have been convinced that the knowledge it produces is worth referencing.”

Here we see an important structure of “domain-theory-people”.

Any domain can be seen as a platform for career development for people. For academic domains, if people take challenges of building high-level theories, then the domain they belong to will become a reference discipline that can influence other domains. As Nardi says, the HCI domain is in this situation:

In contrast, there are reasons to believe that HCI is in a better situation when it comes to providing theoretical influence on other disciplines. There are indications that HCI acts as a reference discipline; for example, the classic activity theory HCI text Context and Consciousness (Nardi 1996) has been widely cited outside HCI. Instead of theory use as passive consumption of a theory ‘product’, we found numerous cases of theory development. These papers would, for example, alert the reader in the title, abstract, and keywords that the paper is about activity theory; cite the reference HCI activity theory texts; use activity theory deeply and in a substantial way; and reflect core HCI activity theory concerns. We believe that HCI researchers can be described as not only ‘theory users’, but also as ‘theory-makers’.

Nardi also mentions that “However, not all HCI researchers are (or should be) either theory-makers or theory users. Many HCI papers may be better characterized as experience reports (Newman 1994), or as challenging and provocative texts to jog our imaginations (Blackwell 2015) with little or no trace of theory.”

Nardi's term “Theory-makers” inspired me to use the term “Knowledge-makers”.