Page 76 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

Cross-Disciplinary Scientific Foundation for Sustainability Chapter j 3 53

also the social situations and the relations that the actor has with other actors
“from outside the firm.” This is understood as a broad spectrum of relations
and is the actors’ involvement in interaction connected with knowledge and
understanding of reality such as friendship, family, etc., or seeing reality as a
“multiple reality.” In other words, the actors not only create their under-
standing of reality at work between nine and five but also have a history and
life beside their involvement in the firm.
The organizational context is the actors. Their organizing and intersub-
jectivity are the organizational paradigm or their organizational identity. This
includes the circumstances that involve the actors, their situation, problems,
and possible solutions. Interpretations and understanding in this context
influence the way in which the actors construct the experiential space and
interact, and also the way in which the development of knowledge occurs, and
to what extent it influences actions. It is the actors who interpret and have
influence on the organizational development through their knowledge and
experiences from different situations. The actors interpret others’ actions in the
experiential space or changes in it and construct an understanding, a moving
picture of the connections between them and the experiential space.
In the process, actions and knowledge are seen in the actors’ attempt to
improve their capability to act in the experiential space, in other words, in the
actors’ construction and extension of the experiential space. This is constituted
in the organizing and in the actors’ attempt to thinking-in-future. The attempt
to implement the thoughts depends on the action and interaction processes, and
“success” in the situation is seen in the organizational actions or as an attempt
to act in relation to new situations and moving pictures of reality. The back-
ground for this is in the actors’ intentions with the actions and the development
of the actor’s knowledge. Success should also be understood as the actors’
motives and expectations, and in their experiences of the results of the actions.
The important issue in the actors’ attempt to improve their situation is
therefore the connection between the organizing and thinking-in-future, and
the foundation for development; the connection between knowledge and
action. Thinking-in-future should be understood in relation to processes of
interaction and to intersubjectivity, and as a formulation of the project and the
future actions. Therefore internationalization can be seen as construction and
extension of the experiential space and development of knowledge in the
experiential space.
The differences between the actors’ interaction on the home market and
interaction on the international market are exactly the confrontation of
different moving pictures of reality and typifications between the actors
involved. The actor’s knowledge, typifications, and scheme to interpretation
are confronted with foreign actors with another moving picture of reality
deriving from the fact that they have a different context and everyday
of life, and thus have developed their understanding and interpretations.
This is, for instance, what some regard as differences in culture