A Feedback Learning and Mental Models Perspective on Strategic Decision Making

This study aims to be a contribution to a theoretical model that explains the effectiveness of the learning and decision-making processes by means of a feedback and mental models perspective. With appropriate mental models, managers should be able to improve their capacity to deal with dynamically complex contexts, in order to achieve long-term success. We present a set of hypotheses about the influence of feedback information and systems thinking facilitation on mental models and management performance. We explore, under controlled conditions, the role of mental models in terms of structure and behaviour. A test based on a simulation experiment with a system dynamics model was performed. Three out of the four hypotheses were confirmed. Causal diagramming positively influences mental model structure similarity, mental model structure similarity positively influences mental model behaviour similarity, and mental model behaviour similarity positively influences the quality of the decision.

A Feedback Learning and Mental Models Perspective on Strategic Decision Making

This study aims to be a contribution to a theoretical model that explains the effectiveness of the learning and decision-making processes by means of a feedback and mental models perspective. With appropriate mental models, managers should be able to improve their capacity to deal with dynamically complex contexts, in order to achieve long-term success. We present a set of hypotheses about the influence of feedback information and systems thinking facilitation on mental models and management performance. We explore, under controlled conditions, the role of mental models in terms of structure and behaviour. A test based on a simulation experiment with a system dynamics model was performed. Three out of the four hypotheses were confirmed. Causal diagramming positively influences mental model structure similarity, mental model structure similarity positively influences mental model behaviour similarity, and mental model behaviour similarity positively influences the quality of the decision

Research based design: competition proposal for the Cyprus news agency

The paper attempts to explore the interrelation between a) the architects’ individualism and “pre-structures” b) research- based findings during the design process through experimentation and c)an integrated design approach, where morphology, construction and bioclimatic design are integrated from an early design stage. Through a thorough presentation and analysis of a competition proposal for the Cyprus News Agency, we discuss a number of important findings in relation to the present and possibly future form of the design studio. We suggest that the designer’s “prestructures” may not only be the basis for creative action, but also the basis for understanding and interpretation. Design informed and enriched at every stage by a research-based process, might well be the transmission and transformation of “prestructures”, a process of elaboration and discovery which facilitates and enhances design creativity and possibly allows for a multiplicity of approaches through a range of possibilities. Furthermore, an integrated approach from the early stages of the design process facilitates innovation in materials and systems.

Preservar e desenvolver em museologia, contributo para o estudo do objecto e do processo museológico

Este trabalho procurou uma resposta para a aparente contradição entre os actos de preservar e de desenvolver no trabalho museológico. E desejava, com essa resposta, obter uma compreensão mais profunda sobre a Museologia. Utilizando a metodologia de investigação “Grounded Theory” (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Ellen, 1992; Mark, 1996; Marshall & Rossman, 1999) adoptou a definição de museu dos Estatutos do ICOM (2001) como ponto de partida conceptual para o desenrolar da pesquisa. A - Com o esforço necessário à obtenção da resposta inicial o trabalho pôde alcançar os seguintes resultados: i) Discerniu as fases e a racionalidade do processo museológico, através do qual os objectos adquirem a “identidade patrimonial”. ii) Formulou o conceito de “objecto museológico” numa acepção distinta do de Património ou de “objecto patrimonial”, permitindo confirmar que a contradição formulada na hipótese inicial só poderia desaparecer, ou ser conciliada, num paradigma de trabalho museológico concebido como um acto de comunicação. iii) Propôs, em consequência, um diferente Programa para a orientação do trabalho museológico, demonstrando que garantiria ao património uma maior perenidade e transmissibilidade, sendo ainda capaz de incluir o património referente à materialidade, à iconicidade, à oralidade e à gestualidade dos objectos. iv) Propôs um Léxico de Conceitos capaz de justificar essas novas propostas. v) Sugeriu um índice de desenvolvimento museal (IDM = Σ ƒξ [IP.ID.IC] / CT.CR) para ser possível avaliar e quantificar o trabalho museológico. B – Para o objectivo de uma compreensão mais profunda da Museologia o trabalho alcançaria os seguintes resultados: vi) Verificou a necessidade de se dominarem competências de Gestão, para o trabalho museológico não se restringir apenas a um tipo de colecções ou de património. vii) Sugeriu, para ser possível continuar a investigar a Museologia como um novo ramo ou disciplina do saber, a necessidade estratégica de a ligar ao estudo mais vasto da Memória, apontando dois caminhos: Por um lado, considerar a herança filogenética dos “modos de guardar informações” entre os diferentes organismos e sistemas (Lecointre & Le Guyader, 2001). Por outro lado, considerar os constrangimentos ocorridos durante a ontogenia e a maturação individual que obrigam a ter em consideração, no processamento da memória e do património (codificação, armazenamento, evocação e recuperação, esquecimento), a biologia molecular da cognição (Squire & Kandel, 2002).

Transformative museology

“…we have to take into account the fact that museology and museums are two completely different things.” Martin R. Shärer[1] In the 20th century, growing populations produced a growing body of heritage. The transmission of this heritage to succeeding generations coalesced into three major modern institutions: universities, library/archives and museums. Traditional systems of social and cultural memory had become overloaded and therefore evolved conceptually. This evolution took place within the primary context of a naturally occurring museology through the process I call museogenesis. The term museogenesis refers to the origin and development of museological thought in a specific cultural context. By museological thought, I refer to ideas and theories surrounding the parameters of “the natural and cultural heritage, the activities concerned with the preservation and communication of this heritage, the institutional frame-work, and society as a whole” (Mensch 1992). This broadly inclusive definition relates museology to another broadly defined concept: cultural context. By cultural context, I refer to the “webs of significance and systems of meaning which is the collective property of a group” (Geertz 1973). [1] ICOFOM Study Series – ISS 34, 2003, ISS 34_03.pdf, p.7