Isabel Pinho

Barriers and Facilitators to Knowledge Management in University Research Centers: An Exploratory Study

This study shows how 152 researchers from several research centers of a Portuguese university perceive the facilitators and barriers to knowledge management. Three domains are considered – knowledge gathering, creation, and diffusion. Three dimensions of barriers and facilitators were considered – individuals, socio‐organizational processes, and technology. Regarding both barriers and facilitators, but mainly barriers, the findings suggest that researchers are more sensitive to the “soft” aspects of knowledge management (i.e., individuals, socio‐organizational processes) than to the “hard” ones (i.e., technology). This suggests that, although technology is an important facilitator, it is people and their interactions that create knowledge and promote the knowledge flow.

Avaliação de redes de pesquisa e colaboração

O setor academico brasileiro vive um momento de estresse quantitativista. Docentes e pesquisadores sao avaliados pelas metricas individuais de sua producao bibliografica. Apesar de sua importância, a colaboracao no trabalho de pesquisa em grupo, nas redes de pesquisa, ainda nao constitui objeto de avaliacao sistematica. Medem-se os produtos, mas os processos que os geram permanecem desconhecidos. Este estudo objetivou construir marcadores para a avaliacao de processos interativos de trabalho em redes de pesquisa. Entendemos que este tipo de rede se estabelece quando um grupo colabora com a intencao de produzir conhecimento. A literatura consultada apontou que, embora tal interacao possa ser representada graficamente, ha ainda numero reduzido de trabalhos sobre o tema da avaliacao de redes de pesquisa e colaboracao ou de parceria em pesquisa. A partir da teoria, desenvolvemos uma metodologia de analise de curriculos de pesquisadores com uso de softwares para construcao de planilhas de dados, contagem de coautorias e analise de redes sociais. Estas tecnicas permitiram a elaboracao de planilhas da producao bibliografica dos pesquisadores, de grafos representando suas redes e a construcao de um protocolo de avaliacao de redes de colaboracao e pesquisa. Os sujeitos investigados foram pesquisadores 1A do CNPq, lideres de grupo de pesquisa nas areas de Educacao, Engenharia de Producao e Fisica. Os resultados identificam 10 marcadores/indicadores quali-quantitativos para avaliacao de processos de pesquisa em rede que foram testados e validados em contexto de aplicacao.

Theoretical Approaches to Research Collaboration Networks

This chapter presents a pertinent literature review about theoretical approaches to research collaboration networks. Research networks are the object of study in the new science of networks. In this science domain, research network can be conceptualized as a web of connections among scientists and collaborators whose relations on creating coauthorship interaction produce knowledge circulation and innovation. Collaboration processes, during research networks’ life cycle, converge to the acquisition of individual and collective scientific and social capital. We also introduce the notion of group theory and the importance of considering social and psychological relations inside a network research group. Searching for specific studies on the collaboration, we describe the learning component of collaboration, for example, the contribution of shared cognition to makeup a productive agency inside a research network.

Through the gender looking-glass: Brazilian tourism entrepreneurs

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the ways in which gender influences entrepreneurial motivations and barriers in the Brazilian tourism sector. As an economic process, tourism entrepreneurship is widely spread in Brazil, with tourism development programs promoting it as a strategy to empower women, however limited research exists on how gender roles influence entrepreneurial ideals. This nationwide study aims to provide a contemporary insight into how tourism entrepreneurs in Brazil are situated within current entrepreneurship theorizing by questioning the complexity caused as gender roles influence entrepreneurial conceptualizations of what constitute motivations and barriers. Design/methodology/approach This study uses online questionnaires aimed, for the first time, at a large variety of tourism sub-sectors in Brazil. Having nation-wide scope, the questionnaires produce knowledge on what motivates and what constrains Brazilian tourism entrepreneurs through a gender lens. Quantitative analysis using SPSS statistical software tests the statistical significance of results and is complemented by the integration of feminist economic theories into the analytical framework. Findings The current study’s findings highlight the invisibility of gender’s workings, as the majority of participants did not conceive gender as playing a role in their entrepreneurial experience. Entrepreneurial motivations and barriers show a departure from past literature, such as the fact that similar numbers of male and female tourism entrepreneurs perceive networking as a significant entrepreneurial barrier. This and other interesting findings prompt for alternative conceptualizations of discourses surrounding women’s involvement in tourism entrepreneurship. Originality/value This study consists of an original contribution to knowledge on tourism entrepreneurship in Brazil as this is the first time an empirical study has been made on a nation-wide scale regarding the role of gender in Brazilian tourism entrepreneurs’ motivations and constraints.

Research Collaboration Networks: What Do Researchers Say and What Networks Show?

This chapter focuses on the researcher, the knowledge worker. Relevant information emerges from two approaches to the study of research networks: (1) in the context of consolidated research groups from leading universities and (2) within the context of a new university, geographically isolated, but connected both nationally and globally, a new network. Researchers from different disciplinary fields—Physics, Engineering, Social Sciences and Humanities, and Education—give their perceptions about networks issues, such as working in networks. We ask: what do researchers from two different countries say about networking? And, what does the analysis of their networks graphs show as an answer? The chapter ends by presenting a special case study, the biodiversity network.

Limits and Frontiers to International Collaboration

This chapter discusses the difficulties, limits, and frontiers to international collaboration in emerging countries. The management of networks and research groups, and dealing with international collaborators are the functions that require new leadership skills. There seem to exist an international division of research labor, hard frontiers, tensions and limits marked for language expressions, publications of results, scarce resources to maintain international circulation, and hard access to the core journal in each area of knowledge. In addressing these issues, we do not intend to present an all-around theorization on the functioning of the knowledge disciplinary fields of research but to combine the critical considerations from contemporary educational theory with research-based evidence to elicit the discussion of alternatives for the improvement of strong research networks.

What Do We Measure by Evaluating Research Collaboration Networks

This chapter departs from the idea that collaborative processes must be diagnosed and monitored. Here is an introduction to evaluation tools, some of them very well known, such as rankings or bibliometric measures. We introduce the new metrics, the altmetrics. Here, we present answers to some questions: What do we measure when we intend to evaluate universities and higher education systems? Are we evaluating research collaboration networks? In an ultimate analysis, are we not measuring just researcher productivity? So in this chapter, we question a critical view on the way indicators can even be a factor of system corruption. In another way, we assume the relevance of ethical principles to guide the selection of indicators and research work.

Science Geography and International Research Collaboration

In this introductory chapter, we start by discussing the main changes in knowledge production at some established and emerging economies. Next, we focus on research networks and international collaboration factors and excellence in knowledge production. There are changing roles of world regions in the science context. A science geography map of international collaboration is presented in four research major fields: life sciences, fundamental sciences, applied sciences, and social sciences. International collaboration is accepted as a source, a copious source, to scientific productivity. It is an important driver of science dynamics around the world. Following the focus of the book, we provide a conceptual research performance framework in order to address, evaluate, and monitor collaboration and international networks, a tool for excellence in scientific production.

What Is RNPE Evaluation? Does Metrics Mean the Same?

In this chapter, we directly approach the contemporaneous evaluation formula centered on the use of metrics to evaluate the research and researchers’ productivity. We tell the reader a partial history of evaluation stating its role and importance in transmitting values and cultures and being nowadays a global imperative for higher education. In this context, we defend research networks participatory evaluation as a useful and necessary asset and being a competitive advantage to those organizations and institutions whose mission includes improving and valuing knowledge production. For networks research groups interested in micro-level evaluations, we suggest a protocol and qualitative and quantitative indicators to carry out a participatory evaluation. We also present some exogenous evaluation indicators for meso- and macro-level research networks evaluation. Finally, we conclude the chapter by reviewing the advantages of evaluating in a participatory manner with or without the most common metrics.

Concluding Remarks: Evaluation and Collaboration

In this chapter, an overview of the book is provided. We understand that both evaluation and collaboration are drivers for excellence in knowledge production, given that they are appropriated by the research factors. First, knowledge production processes involve thinking and rethinking what we do, how we do, and what we get; such is the role played by evaluation. Second, knowledge production processes are enriched and potentiated by the collaboration of multiple researchers, creating networks that integrate diverse backgrounds and abilities. The same holds true for the dissemination of knowledge and education of researchers. Thus, the development of evaluation of collaboration networks process can change how researchers perceive and manage knowledge production, imparting new layers of quality.