Strategic and operational risk in an international collaboration agency: a knowledge management solution

The International Cooperation Agency (identified in this article as IDEA) working in Colombia is one of the most important in Colombian society with programs that support gender rights, human rights, justice and peace, scholarships, aboriginal population, youth, afro descendants population, economic development in communities, and environmental development. The identified problem is based on the diversified offer of services, collaboration and social intervention which requires diverse groups of people with multiple agendas, ways to support their mandates, disciplines, and professional competences. Knowledge creation and the growth and sustainability of the organization can be in danger because of a silo culture and the resulting reduced leverage of the separate group capabilities. Organizational memory is generally formed by the tacit knowledge of the organization members, given the value of accumulated experience that this kind of social work implies. Its loss is therefore a strategic and operational risk when most problem interventions rely on direct work in the socio-economic field and living real experiences with communities. The knowledge management solution presented in this article starts first, with the identification of the people and groups concerned and the creation of a knowledge map as a means to strengthen the ties between organizational members; second, by introducing a content management system designed to support the documentation process and knowledge sharing process; and third, introducing a methodology for the adaptation of a Balanced Scorecard based on the knowledge management processes. These three main steps lead to a knowledge management “solution” that has been implemented in the organization, comprising three components: a knowledge management system, training support and promotion of cultural change.

Institutional work taken literally: How logics shift as banking lawyers 'get the deal done'

The role of interest and agency in the creation and transformation of institutions, in particular the “paradox of embedded agency” (Seo & Creed, 2002) have long puzzled institutional scholars. Most recently, Lawrence and Suddaby (2006) coined the term “institutional work” to describe various strategies for creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions. This label, while useful to integrate existing research, highlights institutionalists’ lack of attention to work as actors’ everyday occupational tasks and activities. Thus, the objective of this study is to take institutional work literally and ask: How does practical work come to constitute institutional work? Drawing on concepts of “situated change” (Orlikowski, 1996) I supplement existing macro-level perspectives of change with a microscopic, practice-based alternative. I examine the everyday work of English and German banking lawyers in a global law firm. Located at the intersection of local laws, international financial markets, commercial logics and professional norms, banking lawyers’ work regularly bridges different normative settings. Hence, they must constructively negotiate contradictory meanings, practices and logics to develop shared routines that resonate with different normative frameworks and facilitate task accomplishment. Based on observation and interview data, the paper distils a process model of banking transac-tions that highlights the critical interfaces forcing English and German banking lawyers into cross-border sensemaking. It distinguishes two accounts of cross-border sensemaking: the “old story” in which contradictory practices and norms collide and the “new story” of a synthetic set of practices for collaboratively “editing” (Sahlin-Andersson, 1996) legal documentation. Data show how new practices gain shape and legitimacy over a series of dialectic contests unfolding at work and how, in turn, these contests shift institutional logics as lawyers ‘get the deal done’. These micro-mechanisms suggest that as practical and institutional work blend, everyday work-ing practices come to constitute a form of institutional agency that is situated, emergent, dialectic and, therefore, embedded.

English in a global voluntary work context:a case study of spoken interaction and its implications for language pedagogy

This study analyses a sample of spoken interaction between a Japanese volunteer working for JICA (Japan International Co-operation Agency) and one of her co-workers in Jamaica. Details of the research context are provided, followed by a theoretical grounding of the project, which relates to publications in English as a Lingua Franca and related fields. In terms of methodology and epistemology, the research aligns with discourse analysis, specifically linguistic ethnography and interactional sociolinguistics. After presenting an an analysis of the spoken interaction based on these approaches, the resulting implications for language pedagogy are considered. This includes recommendations for specific aspects of language teaching and testing practice based on the research findings, which could be incorporated into a needs-driven localized pedagogy for future Japanese volunteers. These findings also carry significant implications for other contexts of language education, not only in terms of specific pedagogical practices but also regarding broader conceptions of language and communication.

Reconstructing institutional complexity in practice:a relational model of institutional work and complexity

This article develops a relational model of institutional work and complexity. This model advances current institutional debates on institutional complexity and institutional work in three ways. First, it provides a relational and dynamic perspective on institutional complexity by explaining how constellations of logics - and their degree of internal contradiction - are constructed rather than given. Second, it refines our current understanding of agency, intentionality and effort in institutional work by demonstrating how different dimensions of agency interact dynamically in the institutional work of reconstructing institutional complexity. Third, it situates institutional work in the everyday practice of individuals coping with the institutional complexities of their work. In doing so, it reconnects the construction of institutionally complex settings to the actions and interactions of the individuals who inhabit them. © The Author(s) 2013.

The power of the powerless:neighbourhood based self-help networks of the poor in Istanbul

Recent poverty research focuses on the household responses to poverty through structure vs. agency perspectives. The human agency perspective, however, provides us important insights for looking beyond these simplistic tendencies which assume poor people as inherently passive, or envision them as helpless victims. In Turkey, politicians view poverty as a temporary and manageable problem which can be dealt with the provision of more charity or community support. Migrant networks, informal sector work and social assistance are considered to be important mechanisms that would provide resources for the poor. This paper argues that for some of the poor households none of these mechanisms provide sufficient resources. Instead, neighbourhood-based small-group solidarities and self-help networks enable those poor to develop collective capabilities and make ends meet. The paper also reveals that in Turkey, the implementation of social policies for poverty reduction could bring about relationships of patronage and in some cases contribute to existing inequalities.