Oriol Miralbell's_research

Este es parte de un post hecho en mi blog de la COMUNIDAD HOSTELTUR, una comunidad muy activa e interesante del scetro turístico. Hago mención aquí de este post porqué está generando un debate muy interesante en dicha comunidad. Podeis leer más en: Se genera conocimiento colectivo entre las empresas turísticas?

Llevo unos años trabajando en ello pero no había realizado ninguna pregunta abierta a la comunidad Hosteltur. Creeis que entre las empresas turísticas se genera conocimiento de forma colectiva?

Me explico: las comunidades de práctica son concidas por su importancia a la hora de generar conocimiento de forma colaborativa. Dichas comunidades pueden existir por muchos motivos, sin embargo las dinámicas que se generan, si funcionan de manera normal, suponen unas condiciones de colaboración ideales para la generación colaborativa de conocimiento.

Continuar leyendo aquí

I’m working in my PhD research and after two years of rambling through the immense world of scientific and academic literature dealing with Social Networks, Knowledge Management, Virtual Communities and Informations Systems, I discovered last year the CCK08 course which impressed me so much that I’ve decided to follow it this year again. I must give up that this is something completely different of the course last year,and it’s because of the people taking part on it. The act different, react differenr. In other words we all are different, which makes connective leanring something unique depending on the moment it’s done and the group.

I’m working on a model that wants to understand what factors inmpacta positively in generating knowledge in a virtual community that uses online social apps to communicate. My research wants to study a specific VC, that is a VC on Tourism Professionals,. because this is an Industry where professionals seldomexchange knowledge and thus where innovation is scarce among the small and middle sized companies, qhch are de huge majority of the industry. Only big oturism companies (groups or chains) are using internal knwoeldge management tools and innovate.

So I decided that Connective learning could be also a way to learn outside the classroom. Professionals could use it and I wwanted to see if these professionals use Connective leraning as means to generate knwoeldge, or at least if they are aware (or recognize) that they’re using connective knowldge inside their VC.

I asked to Stephen Downes on the factors that would be determinant to consider that a VC is achieving a coonnective learning. A sort of success factors for connective leanring communities. I must thank Stephen for his quick and generous answer. The fundamental factors like Autonomy, Diversity, Openness and INteractions / connectivity have been integrated in my analysis model tha I will use ion a survey to the members of these VCs.

Todau, though I got a mail from another participant to the CCK08 last year (Dolors Reig) and great  expert in participatory communities of knowledge who sent me her feedback to my research proposal and suggested two new issues to be considered in my research: Find relations in benefits for thr organization vs. benefits to the individual; and the second: learning vs. knowledge sharing. I will have to work on those comcepts to integrate them in my model.

Finally I knew over Twitter about the Post of Prof. Valdis krebs about the Connections of the Chicago 2016 Commitee and the reasons of the failure. And after thinking his conclusions (he could proove after a SNA, that there were two different clsuters with different interests) that this showed a lack of leadership in the Chicago Commitee which probably influences he decision of the CIO.

So it comes to my mind a questions: do connective learning communities leed any kind of leadership? What do you think?

Sorry for making it so long.

Unfortunately, we cannot say that we don’t know what corruption is or that in our country or city, we don’t know any recent crime commited by corrupted people. We can imagine that it is because today crimes are more easily publicized and reported than in the past, but, we also can believe that this kind of economy where we livie in, is a better framework where unscrupulous people can make much money using illegal means that can be easily hidden to the public eyes, and that what we get to know is only a minimum part of the real corruption that is hitting our society.

Criminals do seldom work alone. There are always groups. that in form of social networks, are giving support and taking advantage from their crimes. Social networks do not only function for good means, but also for bad ones.

In mids of this globalized world, there exist many people that can easily get tempted to delinquish. The amount of legal rules that are functioning in our countries is high and we do not always know them, though, many “smart” experts know how to break them, and they know,who to convince or tempt to act in name of others.

I could go further and talk about how criminal organizations have extremely complex networks of complices and how these networks often reach very important people, often politicians, who should refuse to take part in such illegal actions. This is how people think that corruption works. My interest on this issue was stronger after some scandal that this week has been on the title page of the newspaper of Barcelona and affects one of the most prestigious cultural institution of the city: the Palau de la Musica.

There is an interesting study published last july (Jamie D. Collins, Klaus Uhlenbruck, Peter Rodriguez. (2009) Why Firms Engage in Corruption: A Top Management Perspective. Journal of Business Ethics 87:1, 89-108) where the authors conclude that there is a strong relation between corrupted firms and their relations to the administration.

Social relationships exert their influence on firms
through the actions of managers and others within
the firm (Adler and Kwon, 2002; Scott, 1995).
Through a history of interaction, individuals develop
personal relationships with others, which Nahapiet
and Ghoshal (1998, p. 244) describe as an individual’s
‘‘personal embeddedness.’’ One’s personal
embeddedness within a family, organization, or
other relationships creates identification with the
group that leads to shared norms, develops trust, and
creates the expectation or obligation to support
others in the group (Coleman, 1990; Uzzi, 1997).

The relation between individuals (nodes) and the “personal embeddednes” within the firm and the group of these firms determines strongly the compromise of individuals with the firm’s principles, or culture. In the case of small societies, firms can, thus, gain a relatively tacit tolerance with corruption and this can easily spread a culture of corruption. Collins et al. state in their paper:

The social context in which crime
takes place shapes attitudes as well as propensities
toward criminal behavior (Canter and Alison, 2000;
Maguire et al., 1997). Social relationships shape our
views of what constitutes appropriate behavior,
including our view of the duties and obligations
inherent to social relationships (Greenwald and
Banaji, 1995). Indeed, our frameworks of comprehension
are formed by our social environments,
including one’s family, membership in organizations,
etc (Berger and Luckmann, 1967; Blau, 1964;
Levine and White, 1961).

Networked corruption is an interesting field for research where criminal departments should work on, and that should also be taken in account when designing rules to scanction- and policies to prevent corruption.