More than a cognitive experience: unfamiliarity, invalidation, and emotion in organizational learning

Literature on organizational learning (OL) lacks an integrative framework that captures the emotions involved as OL proceeds. Drawing on personal construct theory, we suggest that organizations learn where their members reconstrue meaning around questions of strategic significance for the organization. In this 5-year study of an electronics company, we explore the way in which emotions change as members perceive progress or a lack of progress around strategic themes. Our framework also takes into account whether OL involves experiences that are familiar or unfamiliar and the implications for emotions. We detected similar patterns of emotion arising over time for three different themes in our data, thereby adding to OL perspectives that are predominantly cognitive in orientation

Psychological Safety and Norm Clarity in Software Engineering Teams

In the software engineering industry today, companies primarily conduct their work in teams. To increase organizational productivity, it is thus crucial to know the factors that affect team effectiveness. Two team-related concepts that have gained prominence lately are psychological safety and team norms. Still, few studies exist that explore these in a software engineering context. Therefore, with the aim of extending the knowledge of these concepts, we examined if psychological safety and team norm clarity associate positively with software developers' self-assessed team performance and job satisfaction, two important elements of effectiveness. We collected industry survey data from practitioners (N = 217) in 38 development teams working for five different organizations. The result of multiple linear regression analyses indicates that both psychological safety and team norm clarity predict team members' self-assessed performance and job satisfaction. The findings also suggest that clarity of norms is a stronger (30\% and 71\% stronger, respectively) predictor than psychological safety. This research highlights the need to examine, in more detail, the relationship between social norms and software development. The findings of this study could serve as an empirical baseline for such, future work.Comment: Submitted to CHASE'201

Psychological climates in action learning sets: A manager’s perspective

Action Learning (AL) is often viewed as a process that facilitates professional learning through the creation of a positive psychological climate (Marquart, 2000; Schein, 1979). An psychological climate that fosters an environment in which learning set members feel psychologically safe enough to reflect upon both the successes, and failures in their professional life without any form of repercussion. However, there has been little attention given to the ways that that psychological climate develops, and the differing facets that create that climate. In response to such deficit, this paper reports the outcomes of interviews with eleven managers, all of whom are former AL set members on their experiences of action learning set membership. Drawing upon an interpretivist philosophy, the paper explores the key themes that emerged from the analysis of those interviews. The analysis serves to illustrate the differing facets that collectively contribute creation of a positive psychological climate that is conducive for learning. Analysis points to the relative importance of such facets as: trust, honesty, vulnerability, reciprocity, confidentiality and personal disclosure, all of which have the capacity to lead to a positive psychological climate in action learning sets. This paper is useful for developing an understanding of the differing facets in AL sets that create a psychological climate conducive for learning. As such, it has utility for action learning facilitators, set members, academics and educational consultants

Temperature and Field Dependence of the Mobility in Liquid-Crystalline Conjugated Polymer Films

The transport properties of organic light-emitting diodes in which the emissive layer is composed of conjugated polymers in the liquid-crystalline phase have been investigated. We have performed simulations of the current transient response to an illumination pulse via the Monte Carlo approach, and from the transit times we have extracted the mobility of the charge carriers as a function of both the electric field and the temperature. The transport properties of such films are different from their disordered counterparts, with charge carrier mobilities exhibiting only a weak dependence on both the electric field and temperature. We show that for spatially ordered polymer films, this weak dependence arises for thermal energy being comparable to the energetic disorder, due to the combined effect of the electrostatic and thermal energies. The inclusion of spatial disorder, on the other hand, does not alter the qualitative behaviour of the mobility, but results in decreasing its absolute value.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

The information sources and journals consulted or read by UK paediatricians to inform their clinical practice and those which they consider important: a questionnaire survey

Background: Implementation of health research findings is important for medicine to be evidence-based. Previous studies have found variation in the information sources thought to be of greatest importance to clinicians but publication in peer-reviewed journals is the traditional route for dissemination of research findings. There is debate about whether the impact made on clinicians should be considered as part of the evaluation of research outputs. We aimed to determine first which information sources are generally most consulted by paediatricians to inform their clinical practice, and which sources they considered most important, and second, how many and which peer-reviewed journals they read. Methods: We enquired, by questionnaire survey, about the information sources and academic journals that UK medical paediatric specialists generally consulted, attended or read and considered important to their clinical practice. Results: The same three information sources – professional meetings & conferences, peerreviewed journals and medical colleagues – were, overall, the most consulted or attended and ranked the most important. No one information source was found to be of greatest importance to all groups of paediatricians. Journals were widely read by all groups, but the proportion ranking them first in importance as an information source ranged from 10% to 46%. The number of journals read varied between the groups, but Archives of Disease in Childhood and BMJ were the most read journals in all groups. Six out of the seven journals previously identified as containing best paediatric evidence are the most widely read overall by UK paediatricians, however, only the two most prominent are widely read by those based in the community. Conclusion: No one information source is dominant, therefore a variety of approaches to Continuing Professional Development and the dissemination of research findings to paediatricians should be used. Journals are an important information source. A small number of key ones can be identified and such analysis could provide valuable additional input into the evaluation of clinical research outputs

Impact of culture towards disaster risk reduction

Number of natural disasters has risen sharply worldwide making the risk of disasters a global concern. These disasters have created significant losses and damages to humans, economy and society. Despite the losses and damages created by disasters, some individuals and communities do not attached much significance to natural disasters. Risk perception towards a disaster not only depends on the danger it could create but also the behaviour of the communities and individuals that is governed by their culture. Within this context, this study examines the relationship between culture and disaster risk reduction (DRR). A comprehensive literature review is used for the study to evaluate culture, its components and to analyse a series of case studies related to disaster risk. It was evident from the study that in some situations, culture has become a factor for the survival of the communities from disasters where as in some situations culture has acted as a barrier for effective DRR activities. The study suggests community based DRR activities as a mechanism to integrate with culture to effectively manage disaster risk

Rotating traversable wormholes

The general form of a stationary, axially symmetric traversable wormhole is discussed. This provides an explicit class of rotating wormholes that generalize the static, spherically symmetric ones first considered by Morris and Thorne. In agreement with general analyses, it is verified that such a wormhole generically violates the null energy condition at the throat. However, for suitable model wormholes, there can be classes of geodesics falling through it which do not encounter any energy-condition-violating matter. The possible presence of an ergoregion surrounding the throat is also noted.Comment: 15 pages, harvmac; 1 figure in PicTeX; minor changes; to appear in Phys. Rev.

Gender, age and the MBA: An analysis of extrinsic and intrinsic career benefits

Against the background of an earlier UK study, this paper presents the findings of a Canadian based survey of career benefits from the MBA. Results indicate firstly that gender and age interact to influence perceptions of career outcomes (young men gain most in terms of extrinsic benefits of career change and pay), and secondly that both men and women gain intrinsic benefits from the MBA. However, intrinsic benefits vary by gender: men in the study were more likely to say they gained confidence from having a fuller skill set while women were more likely to say they gained confidence from feelings of self worth; men emphasised how they had learned to give up control while women argued that they had gained a ‘voice’ in the organization. The role of the MBA in career self- management and the acquisition of key skills are examined as well as the implications for the design of programmes in meeting the varied need of men and women in different age groups