Analysis of the interplay between knowledge and performance management in industrial clusters

The concept of industrial clustering has been studied in-depth by policy makers and researchers from many fields, mainly due to the competitive advantages it may bring to regional economies. Companies often take part in collaborative initiatives with local partners while also taking advantage of knowledge spillovers to benefit from locating in a cluster. Thus, Knowledge Management (KM) and Performance Management (PM) have become relevant topics for policy makers and cluster associations when undertaking collaborative initiatives. Taking this into account, this paper aims to explore the interplay between both topics using a case study conducted in a collaborative network formed within a cluster. The results show that KM should be acknowledged as a formal area of cluster management so that PM practices can support knowledge-oriented initiatives and therefore make better use of the new knowledge created. Furthermore, tacit and explicit knowledge resulting from PM practices needs to be stored and disseminated throughout the cluster as a way of improving managerial practices and regional strategic direction. Knowledge Management Research & Practice (2012) 10, 368-379. doi:10.1057/kmrp.2012.23

La professione docente tra rappresentazioni e progetto formativo. Un'analisi pedagogica della competenza degli insegnanti secondari

This thesis deals with the professional characteristics of secondary school teachers, with particular regard to their competence and their education. The topic will be approached starting from the characteristics and trasnformations social research has identified concerning Italian teachers, focusing on secondary teacher training. After a brief look at Europe, the attention will be directed to Italy, with particular regard to the Postgraduate Schools of Specialisation for Secondary School Teachers (SSIS); hence the need for an analysis that focuses on teaching per se and its concrete pratice. For its nature to be fully grasped, teaching must be reconsidered as an independent object of study, a performance in which competence manifests itself and a form of action involving a set of tacit and personal knowledge. A further perspective opens up for analysis, according to which the professional characteristics of teachers are the result of an education in which the whole history of the subject is involved, in its educative, formative, professional and personal aspects. The teaching profession is imbued with implicit meanings which are inaccessible to conscience but orient action and affect the interpretation of experience. Through the analysis of three different empirical data sets, collected among teachers-in-training and teachers qualified at SSIS, I will try to investigate the actual existence, the nature and the features of such implicit knowledge. It appears necessary to put the claims of process-product approaches back in their right perspective, to the benefit of a holistic conception of teaching competence. The teacher is, at the same time, “he who is teaching” and offers a concrete receiver the fruit of an endless work of study, reflection, practice and self-update. To understand this process will mean to penetrate more and more deeply into the core of teaching and teaching competence , a competence that in some respects “is” always “that” teacher, with his or her own story, implicit knowledge and representations.

From core rigidities to dynamic capabilities: the role of external knowledge. A multiple case study

This study focuses on the processes of change that firms undertake to overcome conditions of organizational rigidity and develop new dynamic capabilities, thanks to the contribution of external knowledge. When external contingencies highlight firms’ core rigidities, external actors can intervene in change projects, providing new competences to firms’ managers. Knowledge transfer and organizational learning processes can lead to the development of new dynamic capabilities. Existing literature does not completely explain how these processes develop and how external knowledge providers, as management consultants, influence them. Dynamic capabilities literature has become very rich in the last years; however, the models that explain how dynamic capabilities evolve are not particularly investigated. Adopting a qualitative approach, this research proposes four relevant case studies in which external actors introduce new knowledge within organizations, activating processes of change. Each case study consists of a management consulting project. Data are collected through in-depth interviews with consultants and managers. A large amount of documents supports evidences from interviews. A narrative approach is adopted to account for change processes and a synthetic approach is proposed to compare case studies along relevant dimensions. This study presents a model of capabilities evolution, supported by empirical evidence, to explain how external knowledge intervenes in capabilities evolution processes: first, external actors solve gaps between environmental demands and firms’ capabilities, changing organizational structures and routines; second, a knowledge transfer between consultants and managers leads to the creation of new ordinary capabilities; third, managers can develop new dynamic capabilities through a deliberate learning process that internalizes new tacit knowledge from consultants. After the end of the consulting project, two elements can influence the deliberate learning process: new external contingencies and changes in the perceptions about external actors.

The Failure of Silence and the Manipulation of Memory: How Spain's pact of oblivion has failed to rid the country of its troubled past

This thesis is an analysis of Spain’s development from dictatorship to democracy in light of the trauma that it endured during the Spanish Civil War of 1936 – 1939 and the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, which lasted until 1975. Drawing from the work of Maurice Halbwachs and Pierre Nora, this thesis seeks to use the concepts of collective memory and lieux de mémoire to analyze what role memory has played in Spanish society from 1939 to the present day. Theanalysis begins with an overview of the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s ensuing dictatorship in order to establish an understanding of the trauma endured by Spain and its people. Of importance will be the manner in which the presentation of history became manipulated anddistorted under Franco as the dictator sought to control the country’s collective memory. With this background in mind, the thesis then turns to analyze how the memory of Spain’s past has affected the country’s development in two eras: during its transition to democracy in the 1970s and in the present day. Of central importance is the pact of silence that was established during the transition to democracy, which was a tacit agreement among the Spanish people to notdiscuss the past. This pact of silence still clouds Spain’s memory today and affects modern discourse concerning the past. Yet it is clear that Spain has not been reconciled to its past, as the provocation of history inevitably results in tension and controversy. The central contention of this thesis is that the pact of silence that surrounds Spain’s past has not eliminated the trauma of the Civil War and dictatorship, as demonstrated by the controversy stirred up by people, groups and places in the present day. This contention has repercussions for the study of history as a whole, as it indicates that the past cannot be muted in order to achievereconciliation; rather, it suggests that we must engage the past in order to be reconciled to it.

Multimembership and Identity in Writing Centers and in Industry: Examining the Work of Reconciliation in the Michigan Tech Multiliteracies Center and at Kimberly-Clark Corporation

Writing center scholarship and practice have approached how issues of identity influence communication but have not fully considered ways of making identity a key feature of writing center research or practice. This dissertation suggests a new way to view identity -- through an experience of "multimembership" or the consideration that each identity is constructed based on the numerous community memberships that make up that identity. Etienne Wenger (1998) proposes that a fully formed identity is ultimately impossible, but it is through the work of reconciling memberships that important individual and community transformations can occur. Since Wenger also argues that reconciliation "is the most significant challenge" for those moving into new communities of practice (or, "engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor" (4)), yet this challenge often remains tacit, this dissertation examines and makes explicit how this important work is done at two different research sites - a university writing center (the Michigan Tech Multiliteracies Center) and at a multinational corporation (Kimberly-Clark Corporation). Drawing extensively on qualitative ethnographic methods including interview transcriptions, observations, and case studies, as well as work from scholars in writing center studies (Grimm, Denney, Severino), literacy studies (New London Group, Street, Gee), composition (Horner and Trimbur, Canagarajah, Lu), rhetoric (Crowley), and identity studies (Anzaldua, Pratt), I argue that, based on evidence from the two sites, writing centers need to educate tutors to not only take identity into consideration, but to also make individuals' reconciliation work more visible, as it will continue once students and tutors leave the university. Further, as my research at the Michigan Tech Multiliteracies Center and Kimberly-Clark will show, communities can (and should) change their practices in ways that account for reconciliation work as identity, communication, and learning are inextricably bound up with one another.

Learning Software-Maintenance Tasks in the Transition Phase of Offshore Outsourcing Projects: Two Learning-Theoretical Perspectives

The increasing practice of offshore outsourcing software maintenance has posed the challenge of effectively transferring knowledge to individual software engineers of the vendor. In this theoretical paper, we discuss the implications of two learning theories, the model of work-based learning (MWBL) and cognitive load theory (CLT), for knowledge transfer during the transition phase. Taken together, the theories suggest that learning mechanisms need to be aligned with the type of knowledge (tacit versus explicit), task characteristics (complexity and recurrence), and the recipients’ expertise. The MWBL proposes that learning mechanisms need to include conceptual and practical activities based on the relative importance of explicit and tacit knowledge. CLT explains how effective portfolios of learning mechanisms change over time. While jobshadowing, completion tasks, and supportive information may prevail at the outset of transition, they may be replaced by the work on conventional tasks towards the end of transition.

Combining Bottom-up and Top-down Generation of Interactive Knowledge Maps for Enterprise Search

Our research project develops an intranet search engine with concept- browsing functionality, where the user is able to navigate the conceptual level in an interactive, automatically generated knowledge map. This knowledge map visualizes tacit, implicit knowledge, extracted from the intranet, as a network of semantic concepts. Inductive and deductive methods are combined; a text ana- lytics engine extracts knowledge structures from data inductively, and the en- terprise ontology provides a backbone structure to the process deductively. In addition to performing conventional keyword search, the user can browse the semantic network of concepts and associations to find documents and data rec- ords. Also, the user can expand and edit the knowledge network directly. As a vision, we propose a knowledge-management system that provides concept- browsing, based on a knowledge warehouse layer on top of a heterogeneous knowledge base with various systems interfaces. Such a concept browser will empower knowledge workers to interact with knowledge structures.

Morphological ripening of fluid inclusions and coupled zone-refining in quartz crystals revealed by cathodoluminescence imaging: Implications for CL-petrography, fluid inclusion analysis and trace-element geothermometry

Cathodoluminescence (CL) studies have previously shown that some secondary fluid inclusions in luminescent quartz are surrounded by dark, non-luminescent patches, resulting from fracture-sealing by late, trace-element-poor quartz. This finding has led to the tacit generalization that all dark CL patches indicate influx of low temperature, late-stage fluids. In this study we have examined natural and synthetic hydrothermal quartz crystals using CL imaging supplemented by in-situ elemental analysis. The results lead us to propose that all natural, liquid-water-bearing inclusions in quartz, whether trapped on former crystal growth surfaces (i.e., of primary origin) or in healed fractures (i.e., of pseudosecondary or secondary origin), are surrounded by three-dimensional, non-luminescent patches. Cross-cutting relations show that the patches form after entrapment of the fluid inclusions and therefore they are not diagnostic of the timing of fluid entrapment. Instead, the dark patches reveal the mechanism by which fluid inclusions spontaneously approach morphological equilibrium and purify their host quartz over geological time. Fluid inclusions that contain solvent water perpetually dissolve and reprecipitate their walls, gradually adopting low-energy euhedral and equant shapes. Defects in the host quartz constitute solubility gradients that drive physical migration of the inclusions over distances of tens of μm (commonly) up to several mm (rarely). Inclusions thus sequester from their walls any trace elements (e.g., Li, Al, Na, Ti) present in excess of equilibrium concentrations, thereby chemically purifying their host crystals in a process analogous to industrial zone refining. Non-luminescent patches of quartz are left in their wake. Fluid inclusions that contain no liquid water as solvent (e.g., inclusions of low-density H2O vapor or other non-aqueous volatiles) do not undergo this process and therefore do not migrate, do not modify their shapes with time, and are not associated with dark-CL zone-refined patches. This new understanding has implications for the interpretation of solids within fluid inclusions (e.g., Ti- and Al-minerals) and for the elemental analysis of hydrothermal and metamorphic quartz and its fluid inclusions by microbeam methods such as LA-ICPMS and SIMS. As Ti is a common trace element in quartz, its sequestration by fluid inclusions and its depletion in zone-refined patches impacts on applications of the Ti-in-quartz geothermometer.

De lectores y prácticas lectoras : la multiplicidad de pactos de lectura en los albores del tercer milenio

En este trabajo nos proponemos analizar el fenómeno de la lectura en el actual escenario sociocultural. Para poder dar cuenta de la complejidad de la problemática encarada, trabajaremos desde un enfoque que combina básicamente dos focalizaciones: la explicación sociohistórica y la reflexión conceptual sobre la temática, proveniente de distintas tareas semióticas. La lectura es la interacción de un sujeto con un texto entendido éste en un sentido que excede lo meramente gráfico-verbal-, con el objeto de interpretarlo, elaborando una representación mental de su significación. Toda lectura presupone un pacto tácito: el contrato de lectura. Este pacto es dinámico y cambiante, por ello analizaremos las modificaciones producidas en las modalidades de lectura de los textos escritos y la vinculación de éstas con los pactos de lectura generados por los textos audiovisuales y multimediales.

Extrañamiento : una inmersión en el mundo de la vida

¿Quién prohíbe a un hombre perseguir su sombrero, llevado por el viento durante un funeral? Todos. Es decir nadie. Nadie explícitamente. Pero indudablemente hay reglas que lo prescriben, las que son ejercidas mediante una conciencia práctica: un saber tácito, compartido, que orienta a los actores, sobre cómo comportarse en la vida diaria. La antropología brinda herramientas cognitivas y metodológicas para explicar ese mecanismo, muchas veces naturalizado, que presenta soluciones prefabricadas para los problemas de la interacción.

Health care providers' opinions on abortion: a study for the implementation of the legal abortion public policy in the Province of Santa Fe, Argentina

Background: In Argentina, abortion has been decriminalized under certain circumstances since the enactment of the Penal Code in 1922. Nevertheless, access to abortion under this regulatory framework has been extremely limited in spite of some recent changes. This article reports the findings of the first phase of an operations research study conducted in the Province of Santa Fe, Argentina, regarding the implementation of the local legal and safe abortion access policy. Methods: The project combined research and training to generate a virtuous circle of knowledge production, decision-making, and the fostering of an informed healthcare policy. The project used a pre-post design of three phases: baseline, intervention, and evaluation. It was conducted in two public hospitals. An anonymous self-administered questionnaire (n = 157) and semi-structured interviews (n = 27) were applied to gather information about tacit knowledge about the regulatory framework; personal opinions regarding abortion and its decriminalization; opinions on the requirements needed to carry out legal abortions; and service’s responses to women in need of an abortion. Results: Firstly, a fairly high percentage of health care providers lack accurate information on current legal framework. This deficit goes side by side with a restrictive understanding of both health and rape indications. Secondly, while a great majority of health care providers support abortion under the circumstances consider in the Penal Code, most of them are reluctant towards unrestricted access to abortion. Thirdly, health care providers’ willingness to perform abortions is noticeably low given that only half of them are ready to perform an abortion when a woman’s life is at risk. Willingness is even lower for each of the other current legal indications. Conclusions: Findings suggest that there are important challenges for the implementation of a legal abortion policy. Results of the study call for specific strategies targeting health care providers in order to better inform about current legal abortion regulations and to sensitize them about abortion social determinants. The interpretation of the current legal framework needs to be broadened in order to reflect a comprehensive view of the health indication, and stereotypes regarding women’s sexuality and abortion decisions need to be dismantled.

"Sin falcones e sin adtores mudados" : La cetrería en el Cantar de Mio Cid

La referencia a las aves de caza presente en el comienzo del CMC opera a modo de "anclaje" que nos anticipa que los eventos y sucesos del poema se desarrollarán en un entorno exclusivamente nobiliario. Asimismo la ausencia de halcones y azores nos habla de una situación de privación que afecta no sólo al Cid en cuanto a sus bienes, sino también, teniendo en cuenta el valor simbólico de las aves, a su honor en todos sus aspectos. En cuanto al por qué de la ausencia de escenas de caza en el Cantar, podemos aventurar tres razones concomitantes: a) funciona como una tácita crítica dirigida contra los usos de la nobleza cortesana y asimismo indica el alejamiento del Cid respecto de dicho entorno; b) señala la clausura del ocio estamental del Cid y los suyos; c) es un índice de la paulatina incorporación de prácticas y restricciones monásticas por parte del estamento nobiliario, en el marco de la "monaquización" de los bellatores.

La construcción social de productos agroalimentarios típicos en procesos de desarrollo territorial local : Disputas entre saberes teóricos y saberes prácticos

Nuestro trabajo parte de proyectos de Extensión Universitaria en el territorio costero de Berisso, a 15 km. de la Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestales de La Plata. La finalidad del proceso de intervención fue mejorar las condiciones socio-económicas de productores familiares en un contexto de recuperación de oficios, prácticas y saberes. El camino iniciado de revalorización de los oficios de viticultor y vitivinicultor, durante los últimos doce años, ha dado como resultado un incipiente resurgimiento de la actividad agroalimentaria en Berisso. Nacen así adaptaciones, innovaciones propias de la interacción social y como resultado del propio proceso de intervención. Las propuestas que se plasmaron en proyectos compartidos por Ciencias Exactas y Agronomía (2006, 2007 y 2010), en los que uno de los ejes trabajados fue la construcción participativa de prácticas en la producción primaria (viñedos y montes de ciruelos) y agroindustrial (vinos, fermentados) permitieron contribuir al mejoramiento y puesta en valor de productos agroalimentarios típicos. En el propio proceso educativo surgen conflictos que presentan obstáculos a la construcción conjunta de saberes, dificultando la incorporación de conocimientos que contribuyen al aseguramiento de la calidad de los productos. Esta construcción conjunta de conocimientos no ha sido armoniosa y ha generado, tanto en los productores como en los técnicos involucrados, un proceso de reflexión acerca de lo que es una "buena práctica agrícola o de manufactura" y lo que no lo es. Así, el debate se inscribe en la valorización de distintos tipos de saberes: los saberes codificados versus los tácitos, que son encarnados por diferentes personas: técnicos y productores respectivamente

"Sin falcones e sin adtores mudados" : La cetrería en el Cantar de Mio Cid

La referencia a las aves de caza presente en el comienzo del CMC opera a modo de "anclaje" que nos anticipa que los eventos y sucesos del poema se desarrollarán en un entorno exclusivamente nobiliario. Asimismo la ausencia de halcones y azores nos habla de una situación de privación que afecta no sólo al Cid en cuanto a sus bienes, sino también, teniendo en cuenta el valor simbólico de las aves, a su honor en todos sus aspectos. En cuanto al por qué de la ausencia de escenas de caza en el Cantar, podemos aventurar tres razones concomitantes: a) funciona como una tácita crítica dirigida contra los usos de la nobleza cortesana y asimismo indica el alejamiento del Cid respecto de dicho entorno; b) señala la clausura del ocio estamental del Cid y los suyos; c) es un índice de la paulatina incorporación de prácticas y restricciones monásticas por parte del estamento nobiliario, en el marco de la "monaquización" de los bellatores.