SDI Convergence - Nederlandse Commissie voor Geodesie - KNAW

Many of the problems of a non-technical nature are typical only for a specific nation or
a group of nations. This shows that historic background, traditions and nationally
grounded cultures of handling problems in general have also had an impact.
4.2 The second period
The second period can be estimated from a few years before the millennium until today.
This period is dominated by questions concerning:
– Networks, infrastructures, SDI concepts;
– Organisational issues;
– Information standards;
– The importance of words like awareness, trust, culture, benefits to society.
Georgiadou (2006) mentions periods that are socio-technical and multi-disciplinary. In
this context we can, however, call this second period ‘a period where information,
knowledge and coordinated activities dominate the scene’. During this period many
articles and reports have been published covering a broad area of subjects concerning
SDI and even cooperation to some extent.
Questions of techniques, ‘how to do’ instructions and project reports have diminished
in number and instead quite a broad variety of different new subjects has emerged.
This happened parallel to tremendous technical developments – internet, new ways of
organising databases, new media for storage and use and expanding international
standardisation and policy declarations. The first period of technique euphoria and visionary
expectations has turned into a more realistic working phase where many aspects
and societal circumstances are taken into consideration – a growing understanding
that new technical possibilities must have a lot of organisational, societal and other
backup to work properly.
Questions of cooperation appear more frequently in the second period than in the first.
Many authors find cooperation important in many contexts within this field (see Craig,
2005; De Bree and Rajabifard, 2005; Harvey, 2003). Some aspects are described and
one can notice efforts to define cooperation (in contrast to collaboration and coordination)
(see Clausen et al., 2006). However, it is difficult at this stage to find literature
devoted to cooperation and penetrating this subject in depth. Late and interesting exceptions
are Hörnemalm (2008) and Thellufsen (2008).
These findings together indicate that there is a need to study questions of cooperation
specifically in the context of SDI and that this could be valuable in increasing understanding
within this area. However, this should also be seen in the light of what might
happen in the future. In other words, are we now leaving the second period and entering
a third? We believe so and this will call for increased attention to questions of cooperation.
4.3 A third period?
There are indications that we are about to leave the second period and enter a third.
One is that the movement from ‘technical’ questions to a variety of ‘new’, often complex
questions described above is accelerating. Another is an underlying movement in
society itself. A third is the ongoing general development of organisations studied in
organisational research.
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