Monday, January 9, 2012

Structural holes and managerial performance: Identifying the underlying mechanism

Structural holes theory suggests a variety of possible explanations for the empirically observed relationship between structural holes and individual managerial performance. However, little has been done to disentangle one mechanism from another. This paper empirically tests a mediated moderation model that distinguishes between the five different theoretical mechanisms: autonomy, competition, information brokering, opportunity, recognition and innovativeness. The findings suggest that of these five theoretical causal motors, innovativeness plays a key role in linking network structure and network content to performance.

Fuente: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378873309000549

Friday, November 6, 2009

Reensamblar lo social. Una introducción a la teoría del actor-red
Bruno Latour
Manantial

Reensamblar lo social es un texto fundacional en la obra de uno de los principales teóricos sociales de este tiempo, quien se interroga acerca del modo como entendemos hoy la sociedad y lo social. Bruno Latour sostiene que la palabra “social” ha sido una y otra vez cargada con diversos presupuestos, y por lo tanto ya resulta un nombre impreciso, incluso inadecuado. Cuando un fenómeno se nombra de ese modo, se lo usa para indicar un estado de cosas estabilizado, un conjunto de vínculos que en su momento puede usarse para explicar otro fenómeno. Latour considera también que el término es utilizado como si describiera un tipo de material; algo es de madera o como el acero. Es decir, se lo usa de un modo que parte de supuestos respecto de la naturaleza de lo que ya está ensamblado. Lo social se ha convertido en un término que designa a la vez un proceso de ensamblado y un tipo particular de material. Latour señala por qué lo social no debe pensarse de ese modo y rechaza los intentos de dar una explicación social de otros estados de cosas. Retorna al significado original del término para redefinir la noción y permitir, nuevamente, el rastreo de relaciones. Así será posible retomar el objetivo tradicional de las ciencias sociales, usando herramientas más refinadas. A partir de una extensa obra dedicada a estudiar los ensamblados de la naturaleza, Latour nos invita a escudriñar minuciosamente el contenido preciso de aquello que está ensamblado bajo el paraguas de la Sociedad. Este libro es una introducción básica a la teoría del actor-red, una sociología de las asociaciones, que permitirá que quienes desean conocer mejor esas ideas puedan hacerlo de la mano de uno de sus defensores más influyentes.

Reensamblar lo social. Una introducción a la teoría del actor-red «
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Mapple.
Mashup Personal Learning Environments por Mohamed Amine Chatti.
A PLE is a learner’s gate to knowledge. It can be viewed as a self-defined collection of services, tools, and devices that help learners build their Personal Knowledge Networks (PKN), encompassing tacit knowledge nodes (i.e. people) and explicit knowledge nodes (i.e information). Thus, mechanisms that support learners in building their PLEs become crucial.
Mashups provide an interesting solution to developing PLEs. We can differentiate between two types of mashups:
Mashups by aggregation simply assemble sets of information from different sources side by side within a single interface. Mashups by aggregation do not require advanced programming skills and are often a matter of cutting and pasting from one site to another. Personalized start pages, which are individualized assemblages of feeds and widgets, fall into this category.
Mashups by integration create more complex applications that integrate different APIs in order to combine data from different sources. Unlike mashups by aggregation, the development of mashups by integration needs considerable programming expertise.

The figure above depicts an abstract view of PLEF (Personal Learning Environment Framework), a framework for mashup personal learning environments. PLEF leverages the possibility to plug learning components from multiple sources into a learner-controlled space. This ranges from simply juxtaposing content from different different sources (e.g. feeds, widgets, media) into a single interface (mashup by aggregation), to a more complex remixing of different APIs into an integrated application, in order to create entirely different views or uses of the original data (mashup by integration).Other information and definition in  PLEF

Mapple.

Mashup Personal Learning Environments por Mohamed Amine Chatti.

A PLE is a learner’s gate to knowledge. It can be viewed as a self-defined collection of services, tools, and devices that help learners build their Personal Knowledge Networks (PKN), encompassing tacit knowledge nodes (i.e. people) and explicit knowledge nodes (i.e information). Thus, mechanisms that support learners in building their PLEs become crucial.

Mashups provide an interesting solution to developing PLEs. We can differentiate between two types of mashups:
  • Mashups by aggregation simply assemble sets of information from different sources side by side within a single interface. Mashups by aggregation do not require advanced programming skills and are often a matter of cutting and pasting from one site to another. Personalized start pages, which are individualized assemblages of feeds and widgets, fall into this category.
  • Mashups by integration create more complex applications that integrate different APIs in order to combine data from different sources. Unlike mashups by aggregation, the development of mashups by integration needs considerable programming expertise.
The figure above depicts an abstract view of PLEF (Personal Learning Environment Framework), a framework for mashup personal learning environments. PLEF leverages the possibility to plug learning components from multiple sources into a learner-controlled space. This ranges from simply juxtaposing content from different different sources (e.g. feeds, widgets, media) into a single interface (mashup by aggregation), to a more complex remixing of different APIs into an integrated application, in order to create entirely different views or uses of the original data (mashup by integration).
Other information and definition in  PLEF