Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University.

Organizations are faced with competitive and changeable environments which demand more prepared employees to successfully cope with these current and future challenges (Oswick, Grant, Michelson, and Wailes, 2005). Organizations, as a way to cope with more hostile environments, may foster individual learning, intrapreneurship, and organizational learning within their employees in order to potentially increase the organizational level of competitiveness. In other words, individual learning, intrapreneurship, and organizational learning may help organizations increase their levels of productivity and be better prepared to face uncertain scenarios. The purpose of this study was to examine the path of relationships among Environmental Hostility, Individual Learning, Intrapreneurship, and Organizational Learning for two selected mining companies in Chile. A survey instrument was applied to 383 participants who worked in the mining companies. Structural Equation Modeling was the statistical technique utilized to examine if the collected data supported the researcher?s proposed model. None of the models - the researcher?s proposed model, a proposed model based on Exploratory Factor Analysis, and a proposed model based on AMOS; were considered as confirmed models. For this reason, four possible arguments were elaborated to explain why the data did not fit any of the models. First, there is a lack of empirical support of the potential relationships among the construct/variables of the proposed model. Second, this study is a pioneering work in examining Environmental Hostility, Individual Learning, Intrapreneurship, and Organizational Learning altogether. Third, previous studies related to the construct/variables of this study were mainly conducted in the United States and Australia. Fourth, and finally, the social and economic scenarios that Chile faced during the last century were very different than the social and economic situations confronted by the United States in the same period.

Community forestry is considered a collaborative governance approach that notionally provides local communities with some decision-making authority about forest management, as well as being promoted as a promising approach for ensuring forest sustainability and encouraging social learning among participants. Based on these potential benefits, this research investigated how collaboration and learning can help in managing community forests sustainably. The research involved a qualitative case study, focused on the Wetzinkwa Community Forest Corporation (WCFC) located in Smithers, British Columbia. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with WCFC participants, forest tours, participant observation, and document review. The results indicate that individual and social learning did occur through collaborating on forest management issues such as sustainable forest management and benefit distribution. Further, the data shows the WCFC was making progress in sustainably managing the forest through efforts such as protecting forest under-story and embarking on a project to ensure forest health and resiliency.

Despite the advancement of research and development on multi-robot teams, a key challenge still remains as to how to develop effective mechanisms that enable the robots to autonomously generate, adapt, and enhance team behaviours while improving their individual performance simultaneously. After a literature review of various multi-agent learning approaches, the two most promising learning paradigms, i.e., cooperative learning and advice sharing are adopted for future development. Although individually these methodologies may not provide a solution, their proper integration will provide a platform that allows for the incorporation of multi-agent learning with social behaviours. These methods are examined in relation to the performance characteristics of single-robot learning to ascertain if they retain viable learning characteristics despite the integration of individual learning into team behaviour. Further, various modifications to the Q-Learning algorithm were tested, and the best performing modification was implemented into the proposed multi robot learning approach.

Despite the advancement of research and development on multi-robot teams, a key challenge still remains as to how to develop effective mechanisms that enable the robots to autonomously generate, adapt, and enhance team behaviours while improving their individual performance simultaneously. After a literature review of various multi-agent learning approaches, the two most promising learning paradigms, i.e., cooperative learning and advice sharing are adopted for future development. Although individually these methodologies may not provide a solution, their proper integration will provide a platform that allows for the incorporation of multi-agent learning with social behaviours. These methods are examined in relation to the performance characteristics of single-robot learning to ascertain if they retain viable learning characteristics despite the integration of individual learning into team behaviour. Further, various modifications to the Q-Learning algorithm were tested, and the best performing modification was implemented into the proposed multi robot learning approach.

The goal of this study is to stimulate dialog in the research community around a model of learning linked to leadership in organizations. It is an attempt to integrate various communities of practice and divergent approaches by placing equal emphasis on developing a model of organizational learning as well as on embedding the development process itself into the context of a scientific dialog. A model of how learning in organizations can be conceptualized as a role negotiated between superiors and their subordinates is developed and investigated. The model postulates that individuals in organizations accomplish learning by specializing in certain learning tasks. This specialization is based on role behaviors and resources that constrain or facilitate learning opportunities negotiated in the workplace between subordinates and their superiors. How this learning may be shared to result in organizational learning and implications for theory development are discussed.

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This study examined the comparative effectiveness of learning of cognitive skills when instruction is presented through computer-based instruction using student-to-computer ratios of one-to-one and two-to-one. Effectiveness was gauged through scores on posttests administered subsequent to completion of each of nine computer-based lessons and on a single composite test score.

As empresas de base tecnológica, especialmente em fase inicial, têm a sua capacidade de criar valor de mercado em função das competências que estão incorporadas nas figuras dos empreendedores. Torna-se importante, portanto, analisar os processos que canalizam sistematicamente a aprendizagem individual para o nível organizacional e que, assim, criam novas estruturas, sistemas, procedimentos e rotinas e estratégias nas startups. O objetivo geral deste estudo foi analisar os processos de mobilização e transferência de competências de empreendedores, para a promoção da aprendizagem organizacional de empresas incubadas de base tecnológica. Para este objetivo geral ser alcançado, foram traçados três objetivos específicos, que determinaram a divisão do estudo em três etapas sequenciais. Os objetivos foram: 1) mapear as competências de empreendedores com startups de base tecnológica incubadas; 2) identificar quais são as competências mais aplicadas no negócio e processos de socialização e codificação mais utilizados em cada uma delas, de acordo com a visão dos empreendedores e, por último, 3) descrever os processos de mobilização, socialização e codificação de competências empreendedoras. Foram definidas 10 dimensões gerais de competências empreendedoras, a saber: planejamento em curto prazo, planejamento em longo prazo, liderança, gestão administrativa, relacionamento, visão empreendedora, aprendizagem empreendedora, maturidade, comprometimento e inovação. Estas dimensões são representativas de empreendedores no contexto de incubação, ou seja, em estágios iniciais, e retratam a relevância da aplicação de algumas (comprometimento, aprendizagem empreendedora e relacionamento) em detrimento de outras (liderança e planejamento em longo prazo). O mecanismo de socialização através de conversas informais foi apontado como o mais utilizado para a transferência de competências para a promoção de aprendizagem organizacional. Por outro lado, na análise dos episódios críticos de aprendizagem foi possível notar que os processos de codificação através de mudanças em práticas e políticas organizacionais também são frequentes, e por muitas vezes estão relacionadas às competências de inovação. Os episódios críticos de aprendizagem foram úteis para analisar o processo de aprendizagem que se dá a partir da aquisição da competência individual até a sua tradução para o nível organizacional da startup. Este estudo contribui para mitigar lacunas no que diz respeito aos processos de aprendizagem em empresas em estágios iniciais / Technology-based companies, especially in the initial phases, have the abilities to create market value according to the entrepreneurs skills. It is therefore important to analyze the processes that systematize the individual learning to the organizational level and thus create new structures, systems, procedures and routines and strategies in the startups. The objective of this study was to analyze the competencies mobilization and transfer processes for the promotion of organizational learning of the incubated technology-based startups. To achieve this general objective, three specific objectives were defined, which determined the division of the study into three sequential stages. The objectives were: 1) to map the competencies of entrepreneurs with incubated technology-based startups; 2) identify which are the competencies most applied by the entrepreneurs and the socialization and codification processes most used for each of them, according to the entrepreneurs\' perception and, finally, 3) describe the processes of mobilization, socialization and codification of entrepreneurial competencies. Ten general dimensions of entrepreneurship skills were defined: short-term planning, long-term planning, leadership, administrative management, relationship, entrepreneurial vision, entrepreneurial learning, maturity, commitment and innovation. These dimensions are representative of entrepreneurs in the context of incubation, that is, in the initial stages, and portray the relevance of the application of some (commitment, entrepreneurial learning and relationship) to the detriment of others (leadership and long-term planning). The mechanism of socialization through informal conversations was pointed out as the most used for the transfer of competences for the promotion of organizational learning. On the other hand, in the analysis of the critical episodes of learning it was possible to note that the processes of codification through changes in organizational practices and policies are also frequent, and are often related to innovation skills. Critical learning episodes were useful to analyze the learning process from the acquisition of individual competence to its translation to the organizational level of the startup. This study helps mitigate gaps in learning processes of early-stage companies