Browsing by Subject "social learning"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study of Black Professionals in Employee Networks: Critically Exploring Social Interests and Participatory Learning at Work
    (2019-02) Sisco, Stephanie
    Although there are human resources policies, federal legislation, and workforce protection agencies that seek to minimize racial issues in the workplace, social issues are still a part of the lived experience of all employees, whether they are victims, oppressors, or bystanders of the social imperfections around them. Through the application of a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, this study explores the complexities of this time in American history by looking at how Black professionals experience and witness the enigma of racial tension outside of the workplace, as they work in a predominantly White corporate environment and maintain an affiliation to a Black employee network. When examining this phenomenon, Black professional development emerged as an overarching concept that is informed by Black-consciousness, social and participatory learning, and social networks. Additionally, critical race theory (CRT) was used as the primary framework during the data collection and analysis process, which helped to identify the lack of Black representation in leadership as a chief concern and issue in corporate America. Implications from these findings are discussed to challenge human resource development (HRD) and similar fields to be more inclusive and responsive to the needs of social groups, social interests, and alternative learning approaches in organizations.
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    The Information Economics of Social Interactions
    (2019-02) Heinen, Virginia
    When animals should attend to information is a diverse and fascinating topic, with answers ranging from neurological mechanisms to evolutionary forces. The broad theme of this thesis is examining learning and information use and social interactions from a game theoretical perspective, but I use this framework to address two distinct topics. The first half of my thesis is a fairly traditional investigation hypotheses about animals’ use of social information in uncertain environments, and how social information use fits within the broader interaction of environmental certainty and information reliability. The second half introduces the more novel topic of behavioral conventions, or coordination problems with multiple equilibria, and how topics in behavioral ecology can benefit from a conventions perspective. Through investigating conventions in general, and conventional communication specifically, I develop a novel laboratory system for investigating learned conventional communication.
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    Using participatory scenarios to stimulate social learning for collaborative sustainable development
    (2012) Johnson, Kris A; Dana, Genya; Jordan, Nicholas R; Draeger, Kathy J; Kapuscinski, Anne; Schmitt Olabisi, Laura K; Reich, Peter B
    Interdependent human and biophysical systems are highly complex and behave in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways. Social and ecological challenges that emerge from this complexity often defy straightforward solutions, and efforts to address these problems will require not only scientific and technological capabilities but also learning and adaptation. Scenarios are a useful tool for grappling with the uncertainty and complexity of social-ecological challenges because they enable participants to build adaptive capacity through the contemplation of multiple future possibilities. Furthermore, scenarios provide a platform for social learning, which is critical to acting in the face of uncertain, complex, and conflict-laden problems. We studied the Minnesota 2050 project, a collaborative project through which citizens collectively imagined future scenarios and contemplated the implications of these possibilities for the adaptability of their social and environmental communities. Survey and interview data indicate that these participatory scenario workshops built and strengthened relationships, enhanced participants’ understanding of other perspectives, and triggered systemic thinking, all of which is relevant to collective efforts to respond to social-ecological challenges through sustainable development activities. Our analysis shows that participatory scenarios can stimulate social learning by enabling participants to engage and to discuss options for coping with uncertainty through collaborative actions. Such learning can be of value to participants and to the organizations and decisions in which they are engaged, and scenario processes can be effective tools for supporting collaborative sustainable development efforts.