Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum …, Jan 1, 2008
This article outlines how unconferencing contributes to the vision of a performative social scien... more This article outlines how unconferencing contributes to the vision of a performative social science that aims at stimulating social change. The authors argue that conference participation is an integral part of research and has the potential to support social change by enabling learning processes. They then develop an unconferencing model from the theoretical reflection of different theories from social science which reveals that unconferences support individual and social learning processes through enabling knowledge transformation as well as through creating structural links between societal sub systems. Using the example of an elaborated unconferencing concept called UnBla (i.e., to remove the blah-blah) which has proven to work well, the authors explain how the theoretical principles of unconferencing are applied in reality and what the outcomes of unconferences can be.
This paper presents a reflection and analysis of the similarities and differences in the developm... more This paper presents a reflection and analysis of the similarities and differences in the development process of virtual and face to face Communities of Practice (CoP). A qualitative and quantitative analysis of various CoPs with a total community membership in excess of 300,000 is used as a basis for reflection and understanding. The authors advocate that CoP managers need to appreciate this topic in order to understand in which context they can apply which management tools to enable healthy CoP development. Five main streams of CoP development (domain definition, community building, practice development, support establishment, and reflection, self-assessment, renewal) are considered. The paper concludes with a presentation of some emerging research questions in the light of the findings of the presented research.
Die Zeit, als Wissensmanagement die Hortung von Daten bedeutete, ist vorbei. Wissensmanagement is... more Die Zeit, als Wissensmanagement die Hortung von Daten bedeutete, ist vorbei. Wissensmanagement ist heute ein kreativer Prozess zwischen Menschen und wird damit zum Beziehungsmanagement. Indem Menschen Daten in einen Kontext stellen und das daraus entstehende Wissen mit anderen teilen und aus der Interaktion wiederum neues Wissen entsteht, bleibt das Wissensmanagement im Fluss. Nur auf diese Weise entstandenes Wissen unterstützt ein Unternehmen dabei, wettbewerbsfähig zu bleiben. Seit mehr als zwanzig Jahren wird in der Managementliteratur betont, dass Wissen die entscheidende Ressource für die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit von Unternehmen darstellt [1, 2, 3]. Allerdings haben sich die Bedingungen, unter denen Wissen zur Weiterentwicklung von Unternehmen, ihren Produkten und Services beiträgt, mit der massiven Verbreitung von Informationstechnologien entscheidend verändert: War Expertenwissen früher nur über Experten zu beziehen, kursieren nun im Internet für jedermann leicht zugängliche Daten. Daraus könnte man schließen, dass die Beziehung zum Experten, um an Informationen zu kommen, heute
IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, 2004
There are many interesting articles covering collaboration in Communities of Practices (CoPs) and... more There are many interesting articles covering collaboration in Communities of Practices (CoPs) and in Virtual Enterprises (VEs)/Virtual Organisations (VOs). At the same time, until this moment there is no established literature on differences and similarities of collaboration management in both kinds of working structures. Within the foreseen paper, the authors are aiming to review this topic and provide insights in similarities and differences concerning structure, objectives, roles and collaboration management tools of and for CoPs and VEs/VOs. The underlying assumption is that managers of VEs/VOs can learn a lot from the immense literature and knowledge on CoPs as there is a big potential to challenge VEs/VOs through integrating and using management concepts developed in Communities of Practice. The provided insights will be validated by the results of a study on collaboration in Concurrent Enterprises performed during the IST Project CORMA No 1999-12685, a case study in a successful Brazilian VO (VIRFEBRAS) in the mold and die making industry, management insights from the KnowledgeBoard Community build up and supported by the IST Project European Knowledge Management Forum (European KM Forum) No. 2000-26393 and the results of a PhD study on the implementation of Communities of Practice at Daimler-Chrysler.
Purpose -Communities of practice (CoPs) have been found to support knowledge creation by enabling... more Purpose -Communities of practice (CoPs) have been found to support knowledge creation by enabling knowledge sharing among experts in firms. However, some perform better than others. This paper seeks to explore what incentivizes employees to share knowledge in intra-firm CoPs.
Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, May 31, 2008
This article outlines how unconferencing contributes to the vision of a performative social scien... more This article outlines how unconferencing contributes to the vision of a performative social science that aims at stimulating social change. The authors argue that conference participation is an integral part of research and has the potential to support social change by enabling learning processes. They then develop an unconferencing model from the theoretical reflection of different theories from social science which reveals that unconferences support individual and social learning processes through enabling ...
Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum …, Jan 1, 2008
This article outlines how unconferencing contributes to the vision of a performative social scien... more This article outlines how unconferencing contributes to the vision of a performative social science that aims at stimulating social change. The authors argue that conference participation is an integral part of research and has the potential to support social change by enabling learning processes. They then develop an unconferencing model from the theoretical reflection of different theories from social science which reveals that unconferences support individual and social learning processes through enabling knowledge transformation as well as through creating structural links between societal sub systems. Using the example of an elaborated unconferencing concept called UnBla (i.e., to remove the blah-blah) which has proven to work well, the authors explain how the theoretical principles of unconferencing are applied in reality and what the outcomes of unconferences can be.
This paper presents a reflection and analysis of the similarities and differences in the developm... more This paper presents a reflection and analysis of the similarities and differences in the development process of virtual and face to face Communities of Practice (CoP). A qualitative and quantitative analysis of various CoPs with a total community membership in excess of 300,000 is used as a basis for reflection and understanding. The authors advocate that CoP managers need to appreciate this topic in order to understand in which context they can apply which management tools to enable healthy CoP development. Five main streams of CoP development (domain definition, community building, practice development, support establishment, and reflection, self-assessment, renewal) are considered. The paper concludes with a presentation of some emerging research questions in the light of the findings of the presented research.
Die Zeit, als Wissensmanagement die Hortung von Daten bedeutete, ist vorbei. Wissensmanagement is... more Die Zeit, als Wissensmanagement die Hortung von Daten bedeutete, ist vorbei. Wissensmanagement ist heute ein kreativer Prozess zwischen Menschen und wird damit zum Beziehungsmanagement. Indem Menschen Daten in einen Kontext stellen und das daraus entstehende Wissen mit anderen teilen und aus der Interaktion wiederum neues Wissen entsteht, bleibt das Wissensmanagement im Fluss. Nur auf diese Weise entstandenes Wissen unterstützt ein Unternehmen dabei, wettbewerbsfähig zu bleiben. Seit mehr als zwanzig Jahren wird in der Managementliteratur betont, dass Wissen die entscheidende Ressource für die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit von Unternehmen darstellt [1, 2, 3]. Allerdings haben sich die Bedingungen, unter denen Wissen zur Weiterentwicklung von Unternehmen, ihren Produkten und Services beiträgt, mit der massiven Verbreitung von Informationstechnologien entscheidend verändert: War Expertenwissen früher nur über Experten zu beziehen, kursieren nun im Internet für jedermann leicht zugängliche Daten. Daraus könnte man schließen, dass die Beziehung zum Experten, um an Informationen zu kommen, heute
IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, 2004
There are many interesting articles covering collaboration in Communities of Practices (CoPs) and... more There are many interesting articles covering collaboration in Communities of Practices (CoPs) and in Virtual Enterprises (VEs)/Virtual Organisations (VOs). At the same time, until this moment there is no established literature on differences and similarities of collaboration management in both kinds of working structures. Within the foreseen paper, the authors are aiming to review this topic and provide insights in similarities and differences concerning structure, objectives, roles and collaboration management tools of and for CoPs and VEs/VOs. The underlying assumption is that managers of VEs/VOs can learn a lot from the immense literature and knowledge on CoPs as there is a big potential to challenge VEs/VOs through integrating and using management concepts developed in Communities of Practice. The provided insights will be validated by the results of a study on collaboration in Concurrent Enterprises performed during the IST Project CORMA No 1999-12685, a case study in a successful Brazilian VO (VIRFEBRAS) in the mold and die making industry, management insights from the KnowledgeBoard Community build up and supported by the IST Project European Knowledge Management Forum (European KM Forum) No. 2000-26393 and the results of a PhD study on the implementation of Communities of Practice at Daimler-Chrysler.
Purpose -Communities of practice (CoPs) have been found to support knowledge creation by enabling... more Purpose -Communities of practice (CoPs) have been found to support knowledge creation by enabling knowledge sharing among experts in firms. However, some perform better than others. This paper seeks to explore what incentivizes employees to share knowledge in intra-firm CoPs.
Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, May 31, 2008
This article outlines how unconferencing contributes to the vision of a performative social scien... more This article outlines how unconferencing contributes to the vision of a performative social science that aims at stimulating social change. The authors argue that conference participation is an integral part of research and has the potential to support social change by enabling learning processes. They then develop an unconferencing model from the theoretical reflection of different theories from social science which reveals that unconferences support individual and social learning processes through enabling ...
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Papers by Patricia Wolf