Managing and leveraging action knowledge: The case of front-line operators in the petrochemical industry
Open Access
- Author:
- He, Jingwen
- Graduate Program:
- Information Sciences and Technology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- December 10, 2014
- Committee Members:
- Sandeep Purao, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Eileen M Trauth, Committee Member
Heng Xu, Committee Member
Timothy William Simpson, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Action knowledge
knowledge management
process industry
design science
grounded theory method - Abstract:
- In the petrochemical industry, improvements in the technology and in production processes over the last few decades have led to a reduction in accidents. However, the resulting processes have also created the need for large numbers of highly skilled operators. The anticipated wave of retirement of operators in the next few years means that the industry will experience a significant loss of senior expert operators. Establishing ways to effectively leverage and manage knowledge about refinery operations is, therefore, a critical concern. This research conceptualizes knowledge that operators in the petrochemical industry possess as “action knowledge,” that is, as a basis for action—both as tacitly stored in operators’ heads and explicitly written as codified procedures; and examines the problem as well as proposes solutions following this conceptualization. The research reported in this dissertation is organized in three essays. Essay 1 develops and describes an innovative approach and a software tool for analyzing operator procedures into chunks of explicit action knowledge. This approach uses design science as the research method. Essay 2 evaluates the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach based on an empirical evaluation of the software tool. Essay 2 uses empirical analyses based on use of authentic procedures obtained from multiple refineries, and feedback from expert operators. Essay 3 develops a new framework to understand tacit action knowledge in the context of operators working in the petrochemical industry. Essay 3 uses a modified iterative grounded research methodology to analyze work practice descriptions gathered from operators following the critical incident technique. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of findings across the three essays for managing action knowledge in the petrochemical industry, and contributions to the stream of research on knowledge management along with directions for future work.