Bridging Diversity across Time and Space

2011 ◽  
pp. 136-158
Author(s):  
Violina Ratcheva
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Multidisciplinary Teams ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Social Communities ◽  
Knowledge Diversity ◽  
Geographic Separation ◽  
Multidisciplinary Teamwork

The uniqueness of multidisciplinary teamwork is in its potential to integrate different bodies of knowledge into a new synergy. However, previous empirical studies have shown that member heterogeneity and geographic separation hinder effective sharing and use of team knowledge. The chapter explores how such teams interact to overcome the barriers and take advantage of their “built in” knowledge diversity. The findings indicate that often teams lack common background knowledge at the beginning of the projects, and in order to resolve differences members rely on their external intellectual and social communities. The reported research establishes a positive correlation between team members’ participation in multiple professional and social networks and teams’ abilities to successfully build on their knowledge diversity. The findings also suggest a need to reconceptualize the boundaries of multidisciplinary teams and to consider the processes of sharing diverse knowledge in a wider social context.

Bridging Diversity across Time and Space

2008 ◽  
pp. 146-161
Author(s):  
Violina Ratcheva
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Multidisciplinary Teams ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Social Communities ◽  
Knowledge Diversity ◽  
Geographic Separation ◽  
Multidisciplinary Teamwork

The uniqueness of multidisciplinary teamwork is in its potential to integrate different bodies of knowledge into a new synergy. However, previous empirical studies have shown that member heterogeneity and geographic separation hinder effective sharing and use of team knowledge. The chapter explores how such teams interact to overcome the barriers and take advantage of their “built in” knowledge diversity. The findings indicate that often teams lack common background knowledge at the beginning of the projects, and in order to resolve differences members rely on their external intellectual and social communities. The reported research establishes a positive correlation between team members’ participation in multiple professional and social networks and teams’ abilities to successfully build on their knowledge diversity. The findings also suggest a need to reconceptualize the boundaries of multidisciplinary teams and to consider the processes of sharing diverse knowledge in a wider social context.

Welfare tradeoff psychology is present in children and adults

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rhea M Howard ◽  
Annie C. Spokes ◽  
Samuel A Mehr ◽  
Max Krasnow
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Opportunity Cost ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Contextual Features ◽  
Limited Experience ◽  
The Individual

Making decisions in a social context often requires weighing one's own wants against the needs and preferences of others. Adults are adept at incorporating multiple contextual features when deciding how to trade off their welfare against another. For example, they are more willing to forgo a resource to benefit friends over strangers (a feature of the individual) or when the opportunity cost of giving up the resource is low (a feature of the situation). When does this capacity emerge in development? In Experiment 1 (N = 208), we assessed the decisions of 4- to 10-year-old children in a picture-based resource tradeoff task to test two questions: (1) When making repeated decisions to either benefit themselves or benefit another person, are children’s choices internally consistent with a particular valuation of that individual? (2) Do children value friends more highly than strangers and enemies? We find that children demonstrate consistent person-specific welfare valuations and value friends more highly than strangers and enemies. In Experiment 2 (N = 200), we tested adults using the same pictorial method. The pattern of results successfully replicated, but adults’ decisions were more consistent than children’s and they expressed more extreme valuations: relative to the children, they valued friends more and valued enemies less. We conclude that despite children’s limited experience allocating resources and navigating complex social networks, they behave like adults in that they reference a stable person-specific valuation when deciding whether to benefit themselves or another and that this rule is modulated by the child’s relationship with the target.

PLAYING WITH FIRE COLLECTIVELY: CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL RITES AS DEVISERS AND OUTCOMES OF COMMUNITY NETWORKS

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alba Colombo ◽  
Jaime Altuna ◽  
Esther Oliver-Grasiot
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
Community Networks ◽  
Mutual Dependence ◽  
Community Solidarity ◽  
Symbolic Content ◽  
The Relationship

Popular festivities and traditional events are important moments in which symbolic content, deep emotions and community solidarity are developed. However, there has been little research on the relationship between such events and their social networks and the power relations within these networks. This paper explores the ability of community events and networks to reflect and strengthen social context. Rather than observing the capacity of the event to generate a network, we focus on identifying how the event network is constructed, and how it creates relationships between the different groups, or nodes, within broader social networks. The case analysed is the Correfoc de la Mercè, a traditional firework event in Barcelona involving the Colles de diables, or Catalan popular fire culture groups. Our findings show that there is a bidirectional link or a mutual dependence between the groups (or nodes) and the event, which also support the development of shared social and symbolic capital.

scholarly journals The switching mechanisms of social network densification

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Teruyoshi Kobayashi ◽  
Mathieu Génois
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Regime Switching ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Social ◽  
Switching Property ◽  
Distinctive Type ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractDensification and sparsification of social networks are attributed to two fundamental mechanisms: a change in the population in the system, and/or a change in the chances that people in the system are connected. In theory, each of these mechanisms generates a distinctive type of densification scaling, but in reality both types are generally mixed. Here, we develop a Bayesian statistical method to identify the extent to which each of these mechanisms is at play at a given point in time, taking the mixed densification scaling as input. We apply the method to networks of face-to-face interactions of individuals and reveal that the main mechanism that causes densification and sparsification occasionally switches, the frequency of which depending on the social context. The proposed method uncovers an inherent regime-switching property of network dynamics, which will provide a new insight into the mechanics behind evolving social interactions.

Doctors’ functional leadership in psychiatric healthcare teams – a reversible leadership logic

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 159-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan M. Berlin
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Style ◽  
University Hospital ◽  
Multidisciplinary Teams ◽  
Leadership And Management ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Healthcare Teams ◽  
Medical Teams ◽  
Difficult Situations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to study how psychiatric doctors practise leadership in multidisciplinary healthcare teams. The paper seeks to answer the question: How do psychiatric doctors lead multidisciplinary teams during treatment conferences? Design/methodology/approach – Six psychiatric teams were studied at a university hospital. Each team was observed over a period of 18 months, and data were collected during four years (2008-2011). Data were collected through interviews with doctors (n = 19) and observations (n = 30) of doctors’ work in multidisciplinary psychiatric teams. Findings – Doctors in a multidisciplinary team use either self-imposed or involuntary leadership style. Oscillating between these two extremes was a strategy for handling the internal tensions of the team. Research limitations/implications – The study was a case study, performed during treatment conferences at psychiatric wards in a university hospital. This limitation means that there is cause for some caution in generalising the results. Practical implications – The results are useful for understanding leadership in multidisciplinary medical teams. By understanding the reversible logic of leadership, cooperation and knowledge sharing can be gained, which means that a situation of mere peaceful coexistence can be avoided. Understanding the importance of the informal contract makes it possible to switch leadership among team members. A reversible leadership with an informal contract makes the team less vulnerable. The team’s professionals can thus easily handle difficult situations and internal tensions, facilitating leadership and management of multidisciplinary teams. Originality/value – Doctors in multidisciplinary psychiatric teams use reversible leadership logic.

Development of Potentially Better Practices for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit as a Culture of Collaboration: Communication, Accountability, Respect, and Empowerment

PEDIATRICS ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 111 (Supplement_E1) ◽  
pp. e471-e481
Author(s):  
Judy Ohlinger ◽  
Mark S. Brown ◽  
Sue Laudert ◽  
Sue Swanson ◽  
Ona Fofah ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Intensive Care ◽  
Quality Improvement ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care ◽  
Care Quality ◽  
Care Group ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Leadership Management ◽  
Standards Of Conduct ◽  
Year 2000 ◽  
Multidisciplinary Teamwork

Objective. The Vermont Oxford Network (VON) CARE Group was formed in response to the need to create organizational cultures supportive of change and quality improvement. Methods. The CARE Group consisted of team members from 4 participating neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). All CARE Group members chose to work on multidisciplinary teamwork for the duration of the Neonatal Intensive Care Quality Improvement Collaborative Year 2000. A questionnaire was developed by the CARE Group and administered to the 4 focus group NICUs. The survey focused on 6 domains of the organization: unit coordination, working in the NICU, leadership, management of disagreements, authority, and unit culture. Benchmarking visits were completed to supplement the information found in the survey and the literature. Results. Seven potentially better practices (PBPs) were developed on the basis of the surveys, benchmark visits, and literature reviews. The PBPs include 1) a clear, shared NICU purpose, goals, and values; 2) effective communication among and between teams and team members; 3) leaders lead by example; 4) nurture a collaborative NICU environment with trust and respect; 5) live principled standards of conduct and standards of excellence; 6) nurture competent and committed teams and team members; and 7) commit to effective and positive conflict management. Conclusions. The CARE Group successfully used quality improvement methods and collaboration to delineate principles and practices of multidisciplinary teamwork.

Team Knowledge Diversity and Team Creativity: The Moderating Role of Status Inequality

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (10) ◽  
pp. 1611-1622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Won-Woo Park ◽  
Joon Yeol Lew ◽  
Eun Kyung Lee
Keyword(s):  
Team Creativity ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Task Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Diversity ◽  
Status Inequality ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Organizational Tenure ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Moderating Role

We examined the relationship between team task knowledge diversity and team creativity, and the moderating role of team status inequality, with a focus on organizational tenure and rank inequality. By adopting an input–process–output framework, we hypothesized that teams would achieve high levels of creativity when they have a large pool of task-relevant expertise that is differentiated and specialized among team members, but the relationship would be weakened when team members have different statuses. We tested our hypotheses using data from 325 teams of employees at 10 companies in South Korea. Results showed that task knowledge diversity was positively associated with team creativity and a team's status inequality in terms of organizational tenure moderated the relationship in a negative way. Our findings contribute to the literature on team creativity by providing new insights regarding how status inequality, which is almost ubiquitous in workplaces, plays a role in a dynamic team process for creativity.

Handling Ethical Dilemmas in Multidisciplinary Teams

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Thistlethwaite ◽  
Wendy Hawksworth
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Interprofessional Collaboration ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Multidisciplinary Teams ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Secondary Health Care

This chapter explores the concept and practice of teamwork and interprofessional collaboration in the support and treatment of clients with mental health problems. Mental health care provision is complex, ethically challenging, and frequently delivered via mental health care teams (MHCT) in both primary and secondary health care settings. We consider how such teams may work together optimally using values-based and client-centered approaches. We discuss the nature of and reasons for conflict arising in multidisciplinary MHCTs, focusing on ethical dilemmas that occur where there is diversity amongst team members in respect of personal, professional, and/or organizational values. The specific ethical issues discussed are: boundary issues; receiving gifts; confidentiality, and involuntary treatment and restraint. Three case studies are used to provide examples of values in action.

Designers in Organisations

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. M. Wognum
Keyword(s):  
Social Skills ◽  
Professional Education ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Major Focus ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Engineering Research

Design processes in current industrial contexts require integration between different disciplines and functions, not only within an organisation but also across organisational and even national borders. Many barriers to integration can be observed, however, in multi-disciplinary and multifunctional design projects. One of these barriers is the lack of organisational, management, and social knowledge and skills, on the level of team members as well as on the level of project management. To achieve a sufficient level of integration technical knowledge and skills are necessary but not sufficient. Organisational, management, and social skills are necessary too. In our research on organisation and management of business processes we have found that this last category of knowledge needs improvement for the largest part of design team members and managers. As designers are professionals who have been employed because of their knowledge and skills, gained through prior academic or professional education, the question can be asked to what extent organisational, management, and social knowledge is included in this education. One way to answer this question is by studying the knowledge and skills deemed important for performing design tasks. An important source of this knowledge can be found in journal articles in the area of engineering design. The authors of these articles are in most cases also the ones transferring this knowledge to future designers. In this paper, a study of 94 recently published journals articles is described, which reveals, that organisational, management, and social skills are not yet a major focus of attention. In particular the number of empirical studies on the organisational, social, and managerial behaviour of designers in practical contexts is scarce in the engineering research community. These results will be confronted with results from management and social sciences research. We argue that the gap between these two fields of research needs to be bridged to better prepare designers for their task in current industrial contexts.

scholarly journals Negotiating ‘Normal’: The Management of Feminine Identities in Rural Britain

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Gill
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Coping Mechanisms ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Identity Performance ◽  
Team Identity ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Private Lives

This paper examines the management of feminine identities in a women's rugby team in a rural British community. In so doing, the issue of new, and potentially problematic, forms of femininity are explored, with their attendant social consequences. The team, known as the Jesters, is situated in a social context which is dominantly masculine and heterosexist, with rigidly enforced gender roles. Due to their participation in rugby, a ‘man's game’, the Jesters are threatened with marginalisation for their apparent failure to conform to, and potential disruption of, established gender norms. This threat is managed through the performance of certain ‘inauthentic’ feminine identities (hyper-femininity and heterosexuality) on the part of the entire team. It is this ‘team identity’ which lies at the heart of this paper. This paper therefore examines the group dynamics of identity performance and negotiation. In negotiating ‘normal’ the Jesters are forced to confront changing gender norms and social contexts within the team itself. This paper also examines the difficulties faced by individuals when their own interests are opposed to the interests of the group of which they are a part. Although largely uncaring about the private lives of team members, the heterosexual members of the Jesters refuse to tolerate the performance of alternative versions of femininity when it may result in the exclusion of the team as a whole. This paper therefore examines the differing interests of heterosexual and lesbian femininities within a potentially marginalised group and some of the coping mechanisms adopted by both groups to develop a coherent team image.

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