Amelia Manuti

Formal and Informal Learning in the Workplace: A Research Review.

The radical economic, social and cultural changes experienced by the labour market within recent decades have helped to highlight the central role played by the learning process in individual career development and organizational success. In such fast-moving working contexts, skills and competencies rapidly become outdated and need to be continuously implemented and empowered as a strategic factor for global competitiveness. Traditional models of learning both inside and outside of the workplace have become unable to explain the complexity of such a process, weaving between and overlapping formal and informal components. Starting with this premise, the aim of the present paper was to analyse the role of knowledge and experience as important learning frames, which allow the acquisition and development of competencies in the workplace. A human resource development perspective was adopted, aimed at reconciling both the organizational and individual stances implied in the process. The methodology of achieving this was to review the most recent literature on workplace learning, with a special focus on its formal and informal dimensions.

The Diatextual Construction of the Self in Short Message Systems

This article extends the use of the personal position repertoire beyond the psychotherapy domain, adopting it as a research method applied to the psychology of communication. The aim is to investigate the features of short message system (SMS) communication in a sample of late adolescents. Across 2 analyses on the same corpus of 3,890 SMS messages, evidence has been presented that a composite index of contents could be related to an overall index of dialogical positions. The results have been supported by diatextual analysis (Mininni, 1992, 2000), so as to better grasp the relations among interlocutors, text, and context; thus recalling the dialectic process of sense construction realized through communicative events. Consistent with the predictions derived from previous research, the study suggests that new media actually emphasize the development of self positions.

Narrating organizational change: an applied psycholinguistic perspective on organizational identity

Abstract According to the traditional mainstream perspective in organizational research, organizations are conceptualized as environments basically oriented toward the production of goods and services and/or to the implementation of the skills mastered by their operators. However, according to a narrative approach to organizations, workplaces – as well as organizations in general – could be conceived of as discursive constructions, that is, as social spaces where a thick network of narrations and discourses are informally produced and “packaged,” thus shaping and featuring the most authentic dimension of organizational identity. Therefore, in order to capture the actual ethos of an organizational context, researchers should be ready to disentangle the network of collective narrations and discourses which is shaped through and by the shared and/or contested/negotiated practices of accounting. In line with such premises, the paper analyzes a corpus of empirical evidence, collected within the organizational context through focus group discussions, in an attempt to show how discursive and narrative cues actually work as yeast for the self, even within a critical moment of transition, such as organizational change, which challenged cohesion and stability of both organizational and individual identities.

How communities can react to crisis: Social capital as a source of empowerment and well-being

Within the post-modern scenario, largely characterized by a sense of diffused social uncertainty and dominated by the ghost of a wide spreading economical and social crisis, social capital, solidarity and social responsibility might represent concrete and efficacious tools to cope with the implications of such cultural drift. The present paper aims at arguing such position by accounting for a repertoire of “good practices” experienced in the south of Italy, which have been read with theoretical and methodological lenses borrowed from social community psychology as well as sociology. The discussion will take into account two case studies (Diffused Guest House and Urban Laboratories) which are both representative in terms of social participation as well as in terms of social capital enhancement. Indeed, all the accounted experiences have shown how the construction of solid and open communities could concretely contribute to enhance social capital as well as to contrast with the diffusion of narrow and conflicting ghetto-communities based on marginality and social uncertainty, which are source for self-segregation, social fragmentation and increasing powerlessness.

The dynamics of sense making: a diatextual approach to the intersubjectivity of discourse

Abstract Psycho-semiotics is a qualitative research perspective aiming at developing the seminal intuition by Peirce (Collected papers, Harvard, 19311958) according to whom man is a complex network of signs. Hence, text and talk-in-interaction are the basic psycho-discursive practices ( Wetherell, Subjectivity 22: 7381, 2008) where the intersubjective nature of sense making is revealed. Peirce is an inspiring point of reference for psycho-semiotics also at a methodological level, since he considered not only deduction and induction as research practices able to characterize the process of scientific knowledge production, but he emphasized an inferential modality labeled abduction. Moving from such assumptions, the aim of the present paper is to introduce the notion of diatext as a reflexive way to enhance the value of this abducing procedure. Diatextual approach is a specific methodological orientation within critical discourse analysis specifically aimed at capturing the dynamics between interlocutors, text, and context which characterize any kind of human interaction. A corpus of empirical data, collected within different social contexts, will allow us to discuss and to understand how diatexts actually work as yeast for human discourses.

Me, myself, and God: Religion as a psychocultural resource of meaning in later life

The present paper addressed the different meanings attached to religion as cultural resource in the course of life. Indeed, abundant cultural research has confirmed that religion could be a powerful symbolic system that shapes people’s beliefs and attitudes. Its significance may depend on contextual factors and may vary over time and place, thus showing different implications across cultures and group cohorts. To better investigate such assumption, this paper involved a group of elderly believers (convinced Catholic believers and converted to Buddhism believers) as to analyze the role played by religion in their life experience. Narrative interview, content, and diatextual analysis helped reconstructing different cultural interpretative repertoires of religion in late life: a source to answer to the essential questions about life, an anchor to face the present and the future, a sociocultural resource for well-being.

Managing Social and Human Capital in Organizations: Communities of Practices as Strategic Tools for Individual and Organizational Development

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of communities of practice in organizations and their most beneficial effects for both individual and collective development. Design/methodology/approach Based on a literature review, from the first authoritative texts by Lave and Wenger until the most recent critiques, the paper has attempted to conciliate the individual and the organizational perspectives about this precious tool for knowledge management and creation. Findings Because of their distinctive features, a joint enterprise, a mutual engagement and a shared repertoire, if strategically managed, might resort to individual and organizational positive outcomes. From an individual perspective, communities could be beneficial in developing professional skills, a stronger sense of identity and finding continuity even during discontinuity and change. From an organizational perspective, communities of practice could help drive the strategy, start new lines of business, solve problems quickly and transfer best practices. Research limitations/implications Many limitations about this conceptualization have been presented. Therefore, future research should try to focus on communities within different socio-cultural contexts and within different kinds of organizations. Practical implications Practical implications about the use of communities of practice within organizational contexts are mainly linked to the enhancement of human and social capital seen as a strategic, although intangible, asset. Social implications The social implications of this paper are connected to the contribution to the discussion on the theme which is quite uncommon in human resource management research. Originality/value The value of this paper is the attempt to connect the communities of practice to human and social capital.

Preliminary Data on the Role of Emotional Intelligence in Mediating the Relationship Between Psychopathic Characteristics and Detention Terms of Property Offenders.

We present preliminary data on the role of emotional intelligence (EI) in mediating the relationship between psychopathy and detention term of authors of property crimes. We assumed that the detention term is an approximation of the severity of criminal behavior. A sample of 24 property offenders were individually administered a brief anamnestic interview, the Psychopathic Personality Inventory—Revised (PPI‐R), and the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). Information concerning the detention term was obtained from prison records. A mediation model was applied to the data showing that offenders high in psychopathic traits (i.e., total PPI‐R score and Self‐centered dimension of PPI‐R) have a low level of ability EI and this is in turn negatively associated with the duration of their prison sentence. Results encourage the investigation of ability EI as a protective factor against the antisocial outcomes of psychopathic disorder.

A rose is more than a rose … the diatextual constitution of subjects and objects

Abstract This paper integrates contributions coming from psychology with a phenomenological and semiotic perspective and focuses on the relationship of reciprocal constitution between “Subject” and “Object.” This relationship is evoked through radically different concepts such as the notions of “experience,” “consciousness” and “embodiment,” focusing attention on “discourse” as a macro-procedure generating the mutual link between Subject and Object. Therefore, the relationship between subject and object is identifiable through the text, namely “diatext.” It will be further argued that human beings act as “diatexters” of their existence in the world. Accordingly, psycho-discursive practices have the performative power to constitute both objects and subjects because they offer a creative solution by interlacing the “Body-Mind-Problem” to the “Mind-Culture-Problem.” In detail, the discursive resource granted by metaphors may be recognized as a modelling matrix embodying thought, as the interweaving of conceptual fields and as reasoning processes.

Old Roots, New Branches: The Shoots of Diatextual Analysis

The present contribution focuses on the discursive perspective, which finds its roots in the several “turns” that animated the previous century. Besides the “discursive” and the “narrative” turns, the “contextual turn” has highlighted that meanings shape themselves in a context, which could be seen both as a “cotext” (the linguistic around) as well as an extralinguistic frame (Slama-Cazacu 1959/1961). Such perspective allows considering texts as diatexts (Mininni et al. 2008), namely as “efforts after meaning,” aimed at manifesting their dialogical correspondence with a specific “context” (Slama-Cazacu 2007). The cognitive engagement and the affective involvement of the interlocutors during an interaction demand a constant monitoring activity on the need for attunement between intentions and situational bonds.