Professional knowledge is (also) knowledge about errors

Abstract

The eminent role of knowledge for successful professional performance is beyond dispute. Many modern professions, however, include a multitude of complex activities, so that even highly skilled professionals meet ambiguous demands and are prone to errors. This is particularly true for rapidly developing professions in which interaction with other people plays a central role, like in company consultation. On one side, ambiguity and errors pose challenges for the validity of one’s domain of knowledge, because this knowledge has to be conditionalised according to professional constraints, and on the other ambiguity and errors define a new area of knowledge, that is, knowledge of errors, that has to be considered as relevant part of expertise. In professional practice, too little attention has been paid to knowledge about errors as part of professional knowledge. In this chapter, the underlying theoretical approaches are discussed, from which educational conclusions as well as guidelines for organisational error management are drawn.