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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

organisations, people, social, social network, communities, networks, forum, social network analysis, virtual, persons, group, common, shared, processes, forums, communication, events, existing, culture, belong

SPEAKERS

Speaker 1 

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Speaker 1

0:00

Okay okay, I would say let’s start for today during the last weeks, we had a short introduction into what psychology is and and what organisational psychology is, and then we thought about or we just discussed about organisational theories and organisational change and but up to now, we dealt with a particular kind of organisations, let’s say traditional traditional understanding of organisations. And in the today’s lecture, I would like to introduce some new forms of organisational systems or social systems that we are facing more of during the recent years during the last years. So, if we are information systems, researchers, if we are consultants, if we are dealing with technology development for organisations, we very often deal with business companies. But, as you know, business companies have changed their shape their structures, their forms during the last years and more often even more of we have to do with non business organisations, so, not traditional companies, but different kinds of organisations and they are represented by a different set of structures of processes and so on. And especially with the uprising of social media platforms, social, social media and technologies, we see different kinds of social systems arising. So, the today’s lecture deals with virtual organisations with social networks or communities and we will just discuss about the differences between this traditional organisations and these kinds of new forms or different forms of organisations. So, maybe as the first as a as a as a first step of this lecture, I would just ask you, what would you understand under this term of for example, virtual organisations, what does it mean to you, when the term virtual came up, it was just in this context of science, it was in the context of science fiction as well. So, virtual worlds and so, on you know, so, that main understanding in the broad public I think is that virtual things are not existing in reality, they are only existing in the World Wide Web in the internet. So, many people are most people would understand that the virtual organisation if you if you transfer it to this term, a virtual organisation would be non existing in the physical world, but only existing in the, in the technological world or in the worldwide web. And this is not true. This is a misunderstanding. Virtual organisations for example, as it was said, they might not have one particular building, like the main building of the Deutsche Bank. So, there’s one place I can go and I find this organisation but that doesn’t mean that virtual organisations doesn’t have buildings at all. They maybe have 20 buildings, or 50 distributed over a lot of places. So there is a physically existing organisations and it’s true they are using technologies for interacting with each other for communicating with each other. But We will

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Speaker 1

5:03

have a brief look on definitions of virtual organisations where we go a little bit more into detail, what a virtual organisation would be. Another question is, what is in your opinion? What would you think is the difference between networks, social networks and social communities would be what would be the difference between a social network and a social community? Okay. Let’s let’s discuss about that or let’s let’s have this question in mind with our next slide. So, today, I will just start up with these kinds of definitions. So, what are characteristics of these new kinds of virtual organisations or very often we speak about hybrid organisations as well. So, we find a lot of organisations today that are half physical existing you can see it in buildings and meet real people and half of them are located anyhow in neurological infrastructures. So, they are half virtual half physical that what is meant by a break organisations. So, what are characteristics of these virtual organisations? Then we talk a little bit about what’s the difference between these networks and communities and how does it differ from this general term of groups, social groups, I mean, both are kind of social groups, but what is the difference between these different types of social groups and then I will just give you one example that we have empirically investigated very deeply during the last let’s say five or six years and this is the European Social Forum, we have looked upon the the social forums in Europe, we have investigated into their structure into the processes, I tell you a little bit about the history about the organisation, the technological infrastructure, about the empirical work, we have done and some present you some selected findings, but then I try with these selected findings with regard to these selected findings, I try to work out some differences in challenges for technology for technological support for these new forms of organisations in comparison to traditional organisations.

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Speaker 1

7:43

Okay, so, now, virtual organisations are organisations that use technological networks technological infrastructure to temporary connect people skills, resources, ideas and so on to produce something but without being limited to physical locations, so, to particular space or traditional organisational boundaries. So, what does that mean? That means virtual organisations, they are existing in the real world, they are physically existing organisations, but they are distributed space especially. So, the location is distributed and temporal. So, the time that people are not at the same time at the same place, they are located at many different places and they are not working at the same time. So, as you can imagine that people are a big company that is distributed over different continents and many companies are that today. So, that people in Asia for example, have completely different day and night times than we have in Europe or in the United States. So, the people are working on the same tasks but very different times a day the organisational boundaries are much more fluid than in traditional organisations. So, there is very often there is no formal membership of these kinds of organisations and the peoples are, there’s a higher fluctuation of persons within these organisations, the organisations are consisting of different maybe different groups, different companies, different groups of people, and these people are changing. We have Assam grani of cooperative processes. So, they are processes that are going parallel to each other are existing parallel to each other, but other processes that are completely as in Chrome and the organisational development So, the development of change in these kinds of very fluid are very flexible of very indifferent and fuzzy organisations, this speed of of develop of development and change is is going very often this is much more rapid than in traditional organisations. So, if you’re looking into different kind of textbooks dealing with virtual organisations, you will find different definitions, but in nearly all definitions, you will find these four or five points that I presented here on this on this slide. So, if we if we are looking into what is this kind of what is an organisation? What is kind of a social group, what is a social community, what is the social network I just suggested some years ago together with a an American friend, this kind of differentiation between these different these different social groups. So, what you can find is that a social group is a very broadly defined term in literature. This is a very broad concept of social system or social agglomeration aggregation of people in social psychology, for example, or in sociology, for example, so, to belong to group just means that you have something in common if you’re waiting at a bus stop, for a bus station, at a bus station for the for the incoming bus, and there’s standing, let’s say, 15 people waiting for this bus, then this is a group of 15 people waiting for this bus. There is no real membership, the people are not really aware that they are a group. But if I’m I’m pass pass by as an as an outsider, I would

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Speaker 1

12:21

I would perceive them as a group. And if, for example, they would, they would be happening something for example, an accident, so that people are involved at this specific bus stop, then the people suddenly would perceive themselves as I am belonging to that group that was hit by the car, or something. So a social group is not very well defined, it’s just an agglomeration of people that have something in common that are that are just at the same place at the same time or they’re they share something like maybe we are a group of academics here are three persons with black hair belong to a group of black haired people or something. So, this is let’s say, the most generic term of of social groups or or social systems. And then there are different kinds of groups. And what we tried here was, we tried to, to identify these very different terms like experts, a group of experts or teams, a work group or a specific team, like communities or social networks, we try to categorise these different social systems by the dimensions of do they have a shared culture? Do they have shared interactions or how close are they together? How many? How How, how much communication interaction test is taking place in these different kinds of groups. And the time the history they are sharing they are belonging together. And what we can see here in this suggestion we made in this particular publication is that a community is a social group. A community can be characterised as a social network as well. So it’s a specific kind of social network. But we can see here is that our community is a social network with some specialities is a social network plus plus. So social network is just people coming together sharing a specific interest in something for example, or if I’m, if I’m a member of a of a social web platform and have some contacts to other people with whom I sometimes exchange some opinions, some emails or some chats or whatever, then I belong to this social network. But this social network does not necessarily have kind of a real common identity. A social network does not necessarily share a culture, a common culture with each other. But this is exactly the definition of a community. To make a community out of a social network, you have to add identity and you have to call I have to add culture that binds the people really together that makes them part of a community. What we can find in literature in research is that researchers are analysing communities, and they use different methodologies, different methods and tools for it. And what we can find very, very often is they use a method that is well known from sociology. And this method is called social network analysis. They are using the social network analysis to investigate in communities. And this differentiation between networks and communities would tell you that yes, you can use this methodology of network analysis for the analysis of, of communities, you can do it, because it’s kind of a social network. But the social network analysis is not sufficient, it’s not enough

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Speaker 1

17:13

to analyse communities, because communities have something in common that is called a culture or an identity a collective identity. And this is not what a social network analysis would analyse, would look on. Okay, so in my opinion, social network analysis is not a sufficient instrument is not a sufficient tool. For analysing communities, we need more qualitative methodology, more qualitative methods to investigate really investigating communities to identify the culture, the identity that keeps them together, or holds them together. Okay? To summarise a team, if we have a team or workgroup in a company or in any organisation that needs a common task, that’s a main definition of a team or of a workgroup that I need a common task, they have a self perception, they have an awareness of the team membership. So I know that I belong to this working group, or to this team, they have a common understanding of the task of the goals and sub goals and so on. So this is defined in the process of communication and negotiation. They have a personal commitment to work for these goals. So if I’m part of the team, I have to commit myself, I have to say, Okay, I’m part of the team, we are working together, we are partners, okay. And then when the task is fulfilled, usually the team disappears. So, there is no reason any longer or the existing of a team or a workgroup, if the task is done. A social network is defined by social ties, that sociologists speak about ties. And the members are linked, the members of these social networks are linked by these social ties. And these social ties represent social contact and communication. So what you can, what you can do, what you can measure with social network analysis, for example, is how often does a person X talk to a person epsilon? How often how long and so on? And then you would analyse how often does he or she talked to anybody else? And then you can draw a big picture. And some of the people are more in the middle of a social networks. Some of them are more at the periphery of a social network, so you can get kind of this network picture, and you can identify special points in this network, and these are persons that are communicating with other persons. And this this connection between persons is called social ties. So, the frequency of communications of communication between two people between two dots in this net are the main indicator for the strength or for the weakness of a social type. And when I say communities need a shared culture, then they are forms of a social network as well, they are their social networks to bat their social networks that are defined by the quality of their social ties, not by this strength or weakness of social ties in, in, in words of frequency, just frequency, how often do we talk to each other, but about the quality of our connection of our social tie we have. So, what it means that communities need a shared culture means they need a set of shared norms, conventions, meanings, rules, regulations, they have a set of common things, they believe in structures of beliefs, attitudes, assumptions, a set of common practices or symbols that create a shared semantic space, they need or use, shared shared or common common tools, and they have a common understanding of what they are doing and so on. So, for example, if I have very frequent contacts to a specific person, doesn’t mean that this is my best friend. That could be communication of hate, for example, I hate this person, I wouldn’t find out with social network analysis, whether this is my best friend or whether or whether this is an enemy I hate

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Speaker 1

22:11

just by counting the number of contacts you have to find out something about the quality of contacts the quality of communication to distinguish between particular culture or a quality of communication and the quality of a contact that people have. And this is the main difference between a community and a network. A network is quietly maybe loosely coupled, loosely coupled. And a community is much more heavy sticking together.

22:51

That clear for me. Okay. So then, let’s look at the example I introduced before. Has anyone Have you heard of this movement of social forums?

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Speaker 1

23:14

before? Have you ever heard this term or read in newspapers or watching TV or whatever? Okay, so when we are talking about social forums, we are talking about social forums on quite different levels of organisation. There is a World Social Forum. There is a European Social Forum and American social forum and Asian Social Forum, there is an African Social Forum and so on. And there are national and regional social forums. But what does that mean what is a social forum? A Social Forum first is a series of events, meetings that are taking place, here you can see a picture of a meeting taking place at a particular place at a particular time. And a lot of people are meeting together and doing common activities. These activities include protest marches in streets against particular political developments. These are seminars, talks given by experts or just represent representatives of different countries, regions have different problems, pressure groups and so on. We have workshops, we have cultural events, like music shows, or like like I dance events and so on to Yatra events and so on a flash mob could be part of a social forum and was a social forum in the past. So what I’m saying here is not that each of these of these kinds of activities is a social forum, what I say here is a Social Forum is a meeting where all these activities happen at the same time the Social Forum was initiated the first one really large one was initiated in 2001 as a counterpart to the World Economic Forum. So that means these global activities have very little chuffed skip for international payments for one’s Vita. So what it was is, it is the kind of focus of the anti globalisation movement worldwide. And so the first World Social Forum took place in 2001 in Brazil, and they were meeting a large number of people from all the parts of the world from all the countries of the world and it’s the largest communication space for this globalisation, critical people or for for all the globalisation movement for global justice. And the first motor was another word as possible. So, it’s a political and cultural event or it was a political cultural event, attracting people from from all the world. So today, we have local, national, regional and global forums with very independent organisation processes. And the members, the participants in this social forums are networks of single persons, political activists, cultural activists, authors, artists and so on. networks of nongovernmental organisations, Labour organisations, trade unions, social movements, grassroots people, journalists and so on.

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Speaker 1

27:24

They have a completely they are characterised by a complete absence of hierarchical structures, there are no bosses. Yeah, it’s a very democratic process. There are no bosses, there are no managers, we have an absence of central leadership or well organised institutions, there is no formal structure in this kind of process, not No well defined formal structure. And mainly they are decision making, they are making decisions these people gathering together in this in this forum events, they are they could be characterised by decision make decision making by consensus. So they are discussing about about different problems, they are discussing about different things. And if they want to go to the public with a with a public explanation or our public statement, then they would need this consensus, they would need an agreement of a formulation of this public position. Okay, the history of the Social Forum is that we have up to now or up to two years ago, we had nine annual social forums, and World Social forums with central locations, there were polycentric events that were distributed over a two or three cities, even continents. So one Social Forum took place in Africa, Brazil, and Europe at the same time, at the same week, the same days. They are, they have global calls for action for a particular problems, for example, environmental problems or peace, politics. And the path between the smallest one had 12,000 participants, the largest one had 155 55,000 or 160,000 participants from all over the world, from 1000s of different organisations from more than 130 countries and so on. So, just some numbers to imagine what this means. Just that the people come together. It’s not the problem. The problem is how do you get the people come together? How do we announce the event how to organise, how do you organise the event? How do you organise the different events that are taking place in a week in a particular week you are meeting, let’s say 160,000 People are meeting in a particular week in Brazil. How do you organise this kind of strange process, the people have to be perfect. The people have to sleep anywhere the people have to, to organise their transport and so on. On the European level, we had five, in the meantime, six B annual sorts of forum events since 2000, and C 2002. With central locations that are moving. So that means each time every two years, the European Social Forum takes place in a different country in a different city, and is organised by completely different people. And before that we used before, but every time it’s completely new structures completely new. And they had up to 60,000 participants from hundreds of organisations all over Europe, including Eastern Europe, that doesn’t mean only the European Community countries, but all the Eastern European countries as well. The fifth European Social Forum took place in September 2008, in Malmo, Sweden, with 30,000 participants, and here you can see a small history of the European Social forums taking place in Italy, France, UK, Greece, Sweden, then Turkey was the last one, and so on. So how are they organised? We have this city social forums where people come together on a on a local, on a very local level. We have state and provincial social forums, we have two Matic social forums just dealing with a particular topic like human rights or green politics and environmental politics or health care issues and so on. And we have these social forums on the national on the regional and on the world. So global level,