Exploring Expertise: Issues and Perspectives

Abstract

We live in an age where the number and range of specialist fields of knowledge is burgeoning, and where 'experts' from these fields are called on to solve problems and advise in ever more areas of social and economic life. Time and again, however, our reliance on experts and expertise creates dilemmas which strike at the root of modem society-from the practice of democracy and political change to how companies decide on, and implement strategies for, economic growth. Accordingly, the subject of expertise is becoming a recognized 'issue' in a range of scholarly disciplines: not least, science and technology studies, including technology assessment and science and technology policy; gender studies, especially feminist critiques of science and medicine; organizational sociology and behaviour; management , especially strategic management, technology management, and human resource management; and in the various disciplines associated with the development of expert systems and artificial intelligence. This book grew out of our own deliberations on the subject-coming, broadly from the field of science and technology studies, but with concerns extending to management and information technology (IT) as well as wider political and sociological concerns. The book is, as the title implies, exploratory; it explores what is meant by expertise and expert knowledge, especially scientific and technical expertise, and their wider social and economic significance. It does this in two ways. First, it brings together empirical studies that examine a number of issues surrounding expertise. These demonstrate how expertise means different things to different groups (e.g. managers, shop floor workers, IT specialists, etc.), how it is constructed differently in different settings, and the consequences of this process, e.g. for relations between those who have and those who do not have 'expert' knowledge or between those with different expert knowledges. Second, the book seeks to reveal different perspectives on the study of expertise in the research literature, and so highlight areas of 'creative tension' between different approaches and understandings. When we started this project, we held a workshop inviting people from a range 1 R. Williams et al. (eds.), Exploring Expertise