This thesis reports on the results of a quantitative study of various barriers to knowledge sharing in a virtual community of practice within Sigma Kudos, a Swedish multinational organization. The study was undertaken to investigate the under-utilization of a virtual "teamroom". Members' views showed that the biggest barrier involved the way in which people chose to share their knowledge; the respondents preferred sharing knowledge in their existing face-to-face networks. Face-to-face sharing mainly seemed to occur between individuals who had a common ground and shared experiences, and between individuals who were in convenient proximity to each other. Time constraints in combination with perceived lack of intranet site structure implied a redundancy of the teamroom as yet another internal site. Another prominent set of barriers that emerged from the findings was related to aspects of uncertainty and unfamiliarity with the teamroom. Additionally, survey comments revealed the use of teamroom features to be a barrier. To enable co-evolved knowledge structures to occur via the community, it is necessary for management to understand face-to-face sharing behavior in terms of implicit and tacit knowledge. It is vital to change the perception of teamroom sharing as an extra task requiring more time. Moreover, the teamroom needs to be distinguished in context of the greater intranet structure, as well as when it comes to the different sections of the community itself. To foster knowledge sharing in the teamroom, it is also important to define and communicate the strategic meaning of it.

Chatroom conversations often elicit an initial impression of chaos. This is probably chiefly due to disrupted adjacency sequences, but also a result of the language being rich in non-standard linguistic forms and grammar. This study explores chatroom conversations with reference to Grice’s (1975) cooperative principle and the maxims that accompany it, and compares them to real life conversations. The aim is to see whether they differ from real life conversations to the extent expected, and whether these differences give rise to any compensational strategies to ensure successful communication. The results reveal a slightly higher amount of maxim undermining in the chat room than in the real life conversations, but not as high as expected. Accordingly, few compensational strategies need be adopted. It is suggested that the main explanation for these findings is that chatroom users have adapted their conversation patterns to the medium.

Submitted by Nadir Basilio (nadirsb@uninove.br) on 2016-06-16T20:28:29Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Eduardo Dantas Soares.pdf: 1292986 bytes, checksum: e3e215ddc6c65d8ed554ce165fb334fe (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-16T20:28:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Eduardo Dantas Soares.pdf: 1292986 bytes, checksum: e3e215ddc6c65d8ed554ce165fb334fe (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-25 / The growing discussion about what are the forms of communication that will dominate the organizational structures in modern companies is gaining many academic contributions, but they seem to be entering a conflict as its organizational function. Many authors argue that virtual communications will replace the face-to-face communication with all-sufficiency. Another line of research states that virtual communication is used only for simple contacts, as marking a meeting, but the serious business decisions will only be taken face-to-face. Based on this assumption was investigated three schools in the ABC Paulista to know how was working internal communication of these schools and how its notification is performed. The main result of this research, it was identified that friendship is a phenomenon that drives the virtual contacts and that, even in environments where employees are not always present, face-to-face communication is still used as the primary means of notification. / A crescente discussão sobre quais serão as formas de comunicação que irão dominar as estruturas organizacionais nas empresas modernas vem ganhando muitas contribuições acadêmicas, porém elas parecem estar entrando em um conflito quanto a sua função organizacional. Muitos autores defendem que as comunicações virtuais irão substituir a comunicação cara-a-cara com plena suficiência. Outra linha de pesquisadores afirma que a comunicação virtual é utilizada apenas para contatos simples, como a marcação de uma reunião, porém as decisões sérias das empresas somente serão tomadas cara-a-cara. Com base nessa premissa foi investigada três escolas no ABC Paulista para saber como estava funcionando a comunicação interna destas escolas e como é realizada a sua comunicação formal. Como principal resultado dessa pesquisa, foi identificado que a amizade é um fenômeno que impulsiona os contatos virtuais e que, mesmo em ambientes onde os colaboradores não estão sempre presentes, a comunicação cara-a-cara continua sendo usada como principal meio de comunicação formal.

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected the world globally and the way humans conduct their work today. Face-to-face meetings have since before the pandemic been the most standard and effective way to do business, but due to the recommendations from the Swedish Public Health Agency workshops conducted by ERP-consultants does now have to be executed digitally. The transition from physical to digital meetings has imposed major challenges for consultants such as replicating the communication, lack of engagement and a higher risk for becoming fatigued. However, there is little to no research from an ERP-consultant's perspective on how to facilitate and conduct workshops as well as how it has now been affected by the ongoing global pandemic. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to gain an understanding of workshops conducted by ERP-consultants, comparing the process of a traditional workshop to digital workshops. In addition, understanding which strengths and weaknesses can be found with traditional and digital workshops. The study also aims to create guidelines that will help ERP-consultants to achieve higher quality in digital workshops. The data was gathered via semi-structured interviews with five ERP-consultants and was split into two stages; first stage aimed at identifying strength and weaknesses, further the second stage of interviews aimed at evaluating the created guidelines. From the interviews several strengths and weaknesses were identified, and the weaknesses acted as a foundation for the creation of the five guidelines. In conclusion, 1) there are strengths in traditional workshops that are lost in digital workshops, and 2) there are added strengths in digital workshops that could not be fulfilled in traditional workshops.  Lastly, the study found that the traditional workshop and the face-to-face communication can not be fully replaced by the digital as it is human nature to connect and socialize with other people.

Från och med 1 april 2022 klassas inte längre Covid-19 som en allmänfarlig- eller samhällsfarlig sjukdom och restriktionerna som tidigare tvingade fram digital vägledning i skolor gäller inte längre.Studiens syfte och frågeställning är att undersöka hur studie- och yrkesvägledare förhåller sig till digital vägledning efter covid-19 pandemin och vilka fördelar- samt nackdelar de upplevt med digital vägledning.I denna kvalitativa studie intervjuades sex studie- och yrkesvägledare där alla informanterna var verksamma på olika grundskolor. Intervjuerna har gjorts med utgångspunkt i en semistrukturerad intervjuguide.Genom att analysera intervjuerna med hjälp av Malténs kommunikationsteori och Egans The Skilled Helper Model har vi besvarat vårt syfte och frågeställning. Egan och Maltén beskriver bland annat att icke-verbal kommunikation är en viktig komponent i kommunikation då denna utgör en stor del av samtal.Resultaten i denna studie visar att digital vägledning missar en del av den icke-verbala kommunikationen då parterna till viss del inte kan se varandras kroppsspråk.Det framkommer även att samtliga informanter har uppfattningen att den digitala vägledningen aldrig kan ersätta det fysiska mötet face-to-face men att det finns fler fördelar än nackdelar med digital vägledning.I studien lyfts också att vissa särskilda grupper, till exempel elever med NPF-diagnos och hemmasittare gynnas av digital vägledning.

Recent developments suggest that the need for contact between parents and adult children is expected to grow, while paid labour is re-organized to include more flexible work schedules and locations. In parallel we view a pressure to increase sustainable mobility through reducing car driving. Against this background, this paper addresses the question: to what extent the frequency of contact between parents and their adult children living out of home is associated with time allocated to work, including commuting time, and with automobility? Face-to-face and telecommunication based contact is considered. Regression analysis of survey data collected in the Netherlands was performed and results suggest that face-to-face contact was significantly associated with work and commute duration, car ownership, car commuting and distance. Telecommunication based contact was mainly associated with work duration, degree of urbanization and distance. Automobility seemed to be more important for women than for men. The policy implication is a potential trade-off between policies that aim at strengthening sustainable mobility behaviour and policies that lead to an increase in the reliance on informal care.

In order to minimize the effects of COVID-19 on teaching and learning, educational institutions around the world moved quickly to transfer education from traditional classrooms to an online learning environment. The main objective of this study was to determine the effects of COVID-19 on students and instructors of several world languages at Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah), highlighting the viability or possible limitations of online learning in university teaching and learning during COVID-19. Thus, this study investigated the effects this transition had on students' learning as well as instructors' teaching practices. Using the thematic analysis described by Braun and Clarke (2013) to analyze which factors influenced the instructors' and students' adaptations to a new online teaching and learning environment during this period of transition from the traditional classroom to online learning, ensured a comprehensive study of the qualitative data. Using survey data, I was able to make conclusions derived directly from the data collected. Results of this study indicated that most learners and instructors felt that the following factors are necessary for online learning to be successful and beneficial: A well designed, rigorous curriculum; technological and emotional support before and during the transition; constant feedback from instructors; opportunities for student-to-student collaboration; and opportunities for instructors and students to build relationships. These results support previous research, which has also shown that the online environment requires more than simply transferring content from a traditional to an online setting. Instructors must be organized and know how to implement the course curriculum and use the right methods for the new environment to avoid factors that trigger stress and anxiety, thus blocking their learning. Therefore, appropriate training from the institutions as well should be ensured before transitioning to an online environment.

The diploma thesis investigates the measurable progress in the ability of upper-secondary school students to form and use the passive voice after having been exposed to two online lessons on this grammar item. The theoretical part describes distance education, its varieties, and the tools that are assumed to make it effective. The empirical part of the thesis is based on the analysis of the two online lessons,the analysis of the students' development based on short pre- and post-tests developed to evaluate the students' knowledge, and an interview with two of the students.The thesis will attempt to reach a conclusion on whether there is a measurable development in students' understanding of the subject matter when taught in an online environment.The thesis proved that despite the distance form of education of the two lessons, the acquisitionof the grammar item was successful.

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RESEARCH AIM The aim of this study is to provide a deeper understanding in how leadership competencies are perceived to be important for hybrid team members team performance in both, a virtual and face-to-face setting. This, to investigate how different leadership competencies could be used by a hybrid team leader to manage the hybrid teams performance. RESEARCH METHOD This study uses qualitative research method and is conducted by using exploratory research. The data for this study was collected through 10 semi-structured interviews with hybrid team members. The collected data was analysed by using a thematic analysis approach. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE Previous literature has been examined, where three concepts have been chosen for this study: Hybrid teams, hybrid team leadership and leadership competencies. Based on the examined literature, a conceptual framework was constructed by the authors. RESULTS Interpersonal sensitivity as a leadership competence was fundamentally important for all hybrid team members, as a strong socio-emotional relationship was required to create a desire for other competencies. The complexity of hybrid teams was evident in how virtual team members perceived leadership actions, as they felt misunderstood by the hybrid team leader and alienated from the hybrid team. CONCLUSION The hybrid team leader needs to carefully consider the virtual team members needs to mitigate their negative perception of team performance. It could be done by allowing more autonomy by practising a supportive leadership role, use one-to-one meetings for relationship building, and by giving clear guidelines. KEYWORDS Hybrid team, Virtual team, Face-to-face team, Hybrid leadership, Leadership competencies, Team performance.