Is interpersonal trust a necessary condition for organisational learning?

Abstract

The organisational behaviour and management literature has devoted a lot attention on various factors affecting organisational learning. While there has been much work done to examine trust in promoting organisational learning, there is a lack of consensus on the specific type of trust involved. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of interpersonal trust in promoting organisational learning and propose a research agenda to test the extent of interpersonal trust on organisational learning. This paper contributes to the existing organisational learning literature by specifying a specific form of trust, interpersonal trust, which promotes organisational learning and proposing a future research direction. The paper is organised as follows: firstly, a common conceptualisation of organisational learning is revisited. Secondly, the existing literature on trust reviewed and salient points on how interpersonal trust enhances organisational learning discussed. Finally, a research agenda to test the extent of interpersonal trust on organisational learning is being set out.     

Innovating adult social work practice—learning from the Named Social Worker for adults with learning disabilities pilots

In 2016, following the publication of the vision for adult social work in England, the Chief Social Worker for Adults at the Department of Health in England announced the intention to pilot a new social work role—that being a Named Social Worker supporting people with learning disabilities. Phase 1 of the pilot has tested a reframing of the social work role as a relational practitioner with an expertise in human rights, freed from transacting the management of care. Phase 2 is now underway testing key knowledge and skills requirements for post-qualifying practice in the field of social work supporting adults with learning disabilities. Heuristic approaches are capturing outcomes from generative learning processes throughout the pilot. The insight emerging from this national pilot is that at its heart, named social work is about qualifying and on-going post-qualifying social work education which promotes and maintains practitioner reflexivity and connection to their social work values. We are finding that self-advocates may be a critical influencing factor, positively affecting the sources of resistance through making explicit the connection between social work values and lived experience of practice from the people social workers are there to serve.     

Named social workers – better social work for learning disabled people?

In 2016, the Department of Health in England announced that it would pilot the role of Named Social Worker. We chose to be part of the pilot because we regularly witness too many people’s lives being defined by restrictions imposed by professionals. Erroneous associations between the concepts of risk and danger have become the norm in how learning disabled people’s decision-making is perceived and managed. However, we believe social workers educated in the social model of disability and grounded more generally in disability studies offer an alternative perspective. The pilot is an opportunity to test our hypothesis that social work practice rooted in social model thinking can successfully challenge oppressive practice and disabling barriers, thus providing the opportunity for social workers to genuinely be ‘servants not masters’ in the lives of disabled people.     

Preparing for ICT enhanced practice learning opportunities in 2010—a speculative view

This paper presents a speculative view of the roles that a practice teacher, student and university may undertake during a practice learning opportunity in the year 2010, based upon predicted advances in information and communication technology (ICT). The article explores the likelihood of such a scenario becoming a reality by examining very briefly current developments in the area of wireless mobile devices and infrastructure. The paper presents an argument drawing on the author’s own experiences that passive acceptance or ignorance through apprehension of ICT developments should not prevent the examination and planning of how this medium may be utilised in the arena of social work in the future. This paper acts as a scenario‐planning device, presenting for discussion some of the issues that may need to be explored if ICT is to become positively integrated into the field of social work education.     

The Social Model of Disability: What does it mean for practice in services for people with learning difficulties?

Does the social model of disability currently inform the delivery of services for people labelled as having profound and complex learning difficulties? What distinguishes practice which draws on the social model from that which is influenced by an individual model or a medical model of disability? This paper draws on the findings of a small scale interpretive research study and some of the current debates within disability studies to illuminate these questions. It concludes that the social model can and does positively impact on some practice and that it should be taught to all providers of services for this group. It further concludes that to include discussion about individual experience of impairment in such training may have negative consequences.     

e—learning网络大学

虽然网站倒闭和裁员的风潮继续席卷全球,但是互联网带来的一种全新教育理念——网络教育(e—Leorning)却开始深入人心。网络教育正在悄然改变着人们的学习内容和学习方式。据InterEd研究机构统计,2000年美国通过网络大学进行各类课程学习的人数为580万,有75％的大学提供在线学习的课程。     

The reflective diary: an experiential tool for enhancing social work students’ research learning

There has been substantial discussion internationally about the need for social work students to integrate research into practice. Little has been written, however, about teaching methods that address the cognitive and emotional challenges students experience in their efforts to develop research competencies. Many students believe that research does not apply to the ‘real’ world of practice and are anxious and fearful when they begin a research course. Using a retrospective review of students’ assignments, this article describes the use of reflective diaries in teaching MSW students from a university in the USA skills for practice-based social work research. Reflective diaries provide a safe forum for students to actively engage with the challenges they experience while taking a research course and take ownership of their learning needs. The diary entries provide instructors with windows into their students’ learning processes that enable them to create scaffolding opportunities that support students in developing confidence in their research skills. This article describes the pedagogical philosophy behind reflective diaries, details of the diaries assignment, and benefits of this learning tool for students and instructors. The authors offer recommendations for incorporating reflective diaries into social work research courses and implications for evidence-based practice.     

Towards an agenda for disability research in Europe: learning from disabled people’s organisations

This paper addresses the challenges of building capacity for collaborative participatory research with disabled people’s organisations in European countries. The paper presents initial findings from the project ‘European Research Agendas for Disability Equality’ (EuRADE), which seeks to build the capacity of civil society organisations to participate in future research collaborations in partnership with academic institutions. The findings draw on survey data identifying the research capacity, needs and priorities of 68 organisations in 25 countries and focuses, in particular, on responses from national or European level representative organisations of disabled people. The findings demonstrate a high degree of motivation and readiness for collaboration in academic research but raise concerns about the readiness of academic institutions to engage disabled people as equal partners within social model and rights‐based approaches. Respondent organisations identified a wide range of research needs that raise challenges for collaborative responses from the academic community. In this way, the findings provide a basis for developing user‐led agendas for European funded research within the emancipatory paradigm, and indentify important opportunities for new international research collaborations between activists and academics.     

Developing intercultural understanding for study abroad: students’ and teachers’ perspectives on pre-departure intercultural learning

This study reports on students’ and teachers’ perspectives on a programme designed to develop Erasmus students’ intercultural understanding prior to going abroad. We aimed to understand how students and their teachers perceived pre-departure materials in promoting their awareness of key concepts related to interculturality (e.g., essentialism, stereotyping, otherising) during an intercultural education course for mobile students. Twenty pre-departure Erasmus undergraduate students from an Italian university, four teachers and one observer participated in the study. Seven hours of audio/video recordings of classroom discussions and teachers’ retrospective narratives were analysed thematically. Although students initially subverted the goals of one of the tasks, they demonstrated foundations of intercultural thinking; followed by movement from self-interest to intercultural awareness of the other; and finally, developing intercultural awareness, supported through opportunities to express emotions/feelings and discussion and application of key concepts of interculturality. Teachers’/observer’s perspectives confirmed the quality and flexibility of the materials in developing students’ intercultural awareness. The findings suggest that pre-departure materials can help students to recognise variety and complexity in self and others in intercultural encounters. But students’ primary needs for practical information should first be satisfied; interactive spaces for expressing emotion and feelings are important for understanding self and others; and scaffolding activities help students to understand intercultural concepts.     

The stress of progression from school to work for adolescents with learning disabilities em leader What about life progress?

Four students with learning disabilities were interviewed about their experiences at work. Two students, one male and one female, were high school seniors and two students, one male and female, were freshmen at a community college. Individual student interviews ranged from 2 to 4 hours. Informal interviews were conducted with students' teachers and parents. At the time of the interview, students had part-time, unskilled jobs in which they had worked for at least 6 months prior to participation in the study. Themes that emerged from analysis of the data included students' reactions to entering the workforce, stress in learning the job tasks, overcoming difficulties by developing coping strategies, learning work values and parental influences. Student interviews underscored the importance of practice runs and real life learning to reduce stress prior to entering the work force.     

Satire as a source for learning? The differential impact of news versus satire exposure on net neutrality knowledge gain

This study considers the effects of exposure to political satire versus traditional news on issue-specific learning and engagement. Using data from an experiment conducted in January 2016 (N?=?296), we employ ANOVA analysis to test the differential effects of exposure to net neutrality coverage from John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight versus ABC News on knowledge gain, issue importance, and perceived issue difficulty. Pairwise comparisons suggest that political comedy is as good a source as news for knowledge gain, but that news exposure is more important for evaluations of issue importance. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings given the increasing size of the political satire audience and the viral reach of these comedy programs.     

Marriage: for love,for money…and for time?

Married couples enjoy meaningful economies in time, often choosing to specialize where one spouse focuses on market work and the other on household production and childcare. Using data from the American Time Use Survey 2003–2008, I estimate significant marriage effects upon time use. Most married women gain 33–34 min of leisure each weekday when compared to single women. While marriage does not lead to more leisure for husbands, it allows them to allocate time away from home and towards market work. Lower-income couples work more at home and for pay, and spend less time in leisure than their single counterparts. The temporal and financial gains from marriage for most people are inconsistent with its declining prevalence.     

How can sociology contribute to integrating service learning into Academic curricula?

This article argues that sociology can make a unique contribution to the integration of service experiences into the academic content of courses across the curriculum. By virtue of its theoretical, conceptual, methodological and pedagogical legacies, sociology contributes to an understanding of the potential and promise of community service for academic inquiry. The article describes a unique venture in which an interdisciplinary team of faculty and students designed a major and minor in Public and Community Service Studies using service learning pedagogy.

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Partially shared objects and the (Elusive) potential of expansive learning: the case of “jury” in community-based citizenship classes for Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugee elders

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on community-based citizenship classes for Bhutanese refugee elders held in central Ohio. As part of a larger longitudinal study centered in the ethnographic and discourse analytic traditions, the article analyzes a classroom moment where the notion of a “jury” is briefly taken up and discussed. This moment is put into dialogue with relevant data from student interviews and teacher playback sessions using cultural-historical activity theory as an analytical framework to argue that the understanding of a “jury” is a “partially shared object” that reveals asymmetrical power relations between activity systems, with implications for expansive learning opportunities.     

‘Can I borrow your glasses?’: a prescription for learning to see the cultural roots of identity terms and implicit categories through others’ lenses

Why is there so much confusion and conflict around common identity labels, a problem that extends well beyond any stereotypes that they may evoke? How do we escape the seeming paradox that we reject racism but still speak frequently of black and white? Who claims the power to determine or name others’ identities? The confusion and conflict about identity that play out on a surface level are often caused by starkly different but implicit understandings that operate beneath the surface. For example, terms like black, Jewish and Muslim may invoke several of our deeper conceptions or categories like race, culture, religion and ethnicity, and to varying degrees in different places. Critically, these categories themselves are culturally rooted. This article shows how our implicit categories can lead to both cross-cultural confusion and problematic misunderstandings in course content. Helping students to recognise and to understand the cultural roots of our implicit categories should be a deliberate learning outcome. This type of cultural understanding can be advanced significantly through guided reflection on experience and explicit instruction; in addition, some subjects and approaches – intercultural education, study abroad and Holocaust education among them – show particular promise for achieving this aim.     

Leading the debate for the business case for gender equality,perilous for whom?

This research examines how the framing of the business case for gender equality (BCGE) in the European Union (EU) translates in the Irish national context and how different actors have engaged with this framing exercise. A central concern is how gender knowledge is mobilized by different actors as they compete to shape discourse, policy and practice on gender equality. We draw upon theoretical work that has interrogated the relationship between neoliberalism, gender inequality and feminist mobilization before reviewing critical assessments of the BCGE. The primary focus of this paper, having mapped this theoretical debate, is to analyse the role different Irish actors and organizations play in reproducing key frames and to examine the ambiguous or ambivalent engagement of different interest groups with this agenda. In turn, we assess the degree to which the agenda enables or disables structural change in access to power. We explore three case studies through which the BCGE in the EU was reinforced, adapted, resisted and rejected in our discussions, and draw out the constraints, opportunities and outcomes in each. Our first case study, which sets the national context for the following case studies, reviews how the Irish state interacts with the EU to frame gender equality and how it partners with key actors (state feminism and femocrats, private actors and feminist actors) to advance the BCGE. The second case study examines the role of the leading Irish feminist civil society organization (CSO) in the Women on Boards campaign that reinforces the dominant instrumental discourse associated with EU and national framing of gender parity on boards, and the ambiguity of feminists about this campaign. The third case study examines how Irish financial elites symbolically engage with gender parity on boards while simultaneously seeking to veto the implementation of gender representation targets proposed in the EU Capital Directive. It is clear that a degree of instrumentality informs most actors’ framing of BCGE. We also find evidence of how power actors and financial elites, while rhetorically engaging in BCGE and employing it when relevant to develop reputational capital, will seek ultimately to protect the status quo rejecting the governance benefits implied in BCGE. Ultimately, our cases illustrate the potential of the BCGE to support the inclusion of women in governance structures yet demonstrate that engaging with BCGE is perilous for some.     

Hope for Education

UNCHICHIGE held firmly to the beam of the tractor while the machine bumped its way deep into the pastures.The local school teacher was on her way to visit Unchige, a 13-year-old girl forced out of school by poverty. Unchichige brought with her the news that the school had decided to remit the girl's schooling fee and grant her a     

Quest for Comfort

As China's economy improves, more and more people have the money and the resources to improve their living spaces, despite the inconveniences to their families, their neighbors and to the buildings themselves.     

Motor-skill learning in older adults—a review of studies on age-related differences

This paper reviews research on motor-skill learning across the life span with particular emphasis on older age. For this purpose, studies that focus on age-related differences in fine and gross motor skills and studies that analyze the further refinement of known skills as well as learning of unknown motor skills are summarized. The reviewed studies suggest that although motor performance tends to decline in old age, learning capabilities remain intact, and older adults are able to achieve considerable performance gains. The extent to which the learning capability varies with age, however, has to be considered very carefully. While most studies revealed that performance gains in fine motor tasks are diminished in older adults, results for gross-motor-skill learning are more contradictory. Additionally, there is considerable agreement on the finding that age-related learning differences are statistically more robust in complex tasks, whereas in low-complexity tasks, the learning of younger and older adults is very similar. This applies to fine and gross motor skills. Relative age differences seem to become enlarged when effortful resources are required for motor performance. Thus, the decline in motor learning that accompanies aging is task specific and not absolute.