Virtual hybrid communities show that you don’t have to meet face-to-face to advance great ideas

The Internet and the online experience have become a pervasive and near-essential part of modern society. But many commentators are concerned at the apparent deficiency of online encounters and their ability to produce useful knowledge. Using what they term as a ‘netnographic’ approach Gernot Grabher and Oliver Ibert examined the content of contributions to nine virtual hybrid communities on online forums. They find that even in the absence of physical or relational proximity, these online communities are able to produce economically useful knowledge, and that they can afford unique technical opportunities and social dynamics that foster learning processes that are unattainable in face-to-face contexts

Field-configuring events: Arenas for innovation and learning?

Field-configuring events and their impact upon organizations, networks and organizational fields have become an important focal point for research. Since the coining of the term (Meyer, Gaba, and Colwell 2005; Lampel and Meyer 2008), the body of research on events such as trade fairs, conferences, or festivals has grown in different disciplinary contexts, particularly management and organization studies and economic geography. The general gist of these studies is that interactions at temporally and spatially bounded sites are marked by “predictable unpredictability” (Lampel 2011) and “allow disparate constituents to become aware of their common concerns, join together, share information, coordinate their actions, shape or subvert agendas, and mutually influence field structuration” (Anand and Jones 2008, 1037). Research on organized events more broadly has a longer tradition in the two disciplines. Previous work in management and organization studies has analyzed events such as board meetings, strategy meetings or committees on an organizational level as sites for strategy making (e.g. Jarzabkowski and Seidl 2008). On a field level, Rao (1994) has examined certification contests as a way of legitimization new organizational forms and Zilber (2007) studied conferences as occasions for making sense of disrupted industry. Research on creative industries has perceived events such as festivals or award ceremonies as sites for the negotiation of values (e.g. Moeran and Strandgaard Pedersen 2011). In economic geography, trade fairs have been conceptualized as temporary clusters (Maskell, Bathelt, and Malmberg 2006) and cyclical events (Power and Jansson 2008), playing an important role in structuring global business exchanges. This literature has elucidated that trade fairs not only afford opportunities for acquiring knowledge through face-to-face interaction, but also for obtaining information by observing and monitoring other participants (Bathelt and Schuldt 2010). Trade fairs, it is argued, create a dense ecology of information and communication flows that provides opportunities for the exploration of market trends and the generation and maintenance of networks (e.g. Schuldt and Bathelt 2011)

Internationale Mobilität von Studierenden. Zusatzbericht der Studierenden-Sozialerhebung 2011

aus dem Inhaltsverzeichnis: Internationale Mobilität von Studierenden; Überblick: Studienbezogene Auslandserfahrungen; Auslandserfahrung und geplante Auslandsaufenthalte im Detail; Mobilitätshindernisse; Mit eigenen Worten: Anmerkungen der Studierenden zur internationalen Mobilität in offener Form; Sprachkenntnisse; Zusammenfassung; Anhang; Literatur; Glossar

Pläne zur Aufnahme weiterführender Studien von Studierenden an Universitäten. Eine Analyse des geschlechtsspezifischen Übertrittsverhaltens.

aus dem Inhaltsverzeichnis: Überblick; Übertritt vom Bachelorstudium ins Masterstudium; Übertritt von Master/Diplom ins PhD-Studium; Ausblick; Tabellenanhang; Literatur

Internationale Studierende. Zusatzbericht der Studierenden-Sozialerhebung 2011.

aus dem Inhaltsverzeichnis: Einleitung; Population der ausländischen Studierenden; Soziodemographischer Hintergrund; BildungsausländerInnen im österreichischen Hochschulsystem; Lebens- und Studiensituation von BildungsausländerInnen; Pläne nach Beendigung des Studiums in Österreich; Mit eigenen Worten: Anmerkungen von internationalen Studierenden; Die wichtigsten Ergebnisse im Überblick; Glossar; Literaturverzeichnis

Studierende im Doktorat. Zusatzbericht der Studierenden-Sozialerhebung 2011.

aus dem Inhaltsverzeichnis: Einleitung; Entwicklung der Doktoratsstudierendenzahlen (Hochschulstatistik); Überblick über die Lebens- und Studiensituation von Doktoratsstudierenden (Sozialerhebung); Nähere Analyse der Situation von Doktoratsstudierenden; Mit eigenen Worten: Anmerkungen von Doktoratsstudierenden in offener Form; Zusammenfassung anhand der Typen von Doktoratsstudierenden; Tabellenanhang; Glossar; Literaturverzeichnis

Internationale Studierende. Zusatzbericht der Studierenden-Sozialerhebung 2009.

aus dem Inhaltsverzeichnis: Einleitung; Herkunft der internationalen Studierenden; Soziodemographischer Hintergrund; BildungsausländerInnen im österreichischen Hochschulsystem; Lebens- und Studiensituation von BildungsausländerInnen; Zur spezifischen Situation ausländischer Studierender in Österreich; Pläne nach Beendigung des Studiums in Österreich; Die wichtigsten Ergebnisse im Überblick; Anhang; Literatur; Überblick: BildungsausländerInnen im SS 2009