Theme
8BB Teaching and learning: Principles
INSTITUTION
Bradford Districts Clinical Commissioning Group - Leeds Institute of Medical Education (LIME) - Bradford - United Kingdom
University of Innsbruck - School of Management - Innsbruck - Austria
University of Leeds - School of Management Information Systems - Leeds - United Kingdom
With ever shorter cycles of innovation, most healthcare professionals adopt short-term, self-organised ways of informal learning. Compared to more traditional learning settings, the unstructured, creative and expertise-driven informal learning cannot be designed with standardized management approaches and cannot be easily supported by information and communication technologies (ICT).
Network Maturity - Network Dynamics
We identified that network members:
- engage in multiple, overlapping networks
- switch between networks
- create sub-networks
in order to connect to other healthcare professionals and gain timely access to valued knowledge.
Current Tool Usage
Localised Learning
Challenges of Informal Learning
There seems to be a need for work integrated ICT solutions lowering the cognitive load, filtering the most relevant knowledge and ensuring that the high privacy and security demands of healthcare are maintained. The integration of social technologies might enhance a firm’s ability to apply the new knowledge to their products, services, and innovative activities (Roberts et al., 2012) and also reduce the cognitive load for the users.
Perceived challenges of informal learning |
Proposed solutions by our agents |
Information overload |
Cut information push to manageable information of interest |
Communication among distributed members |
Use virtual communication channels effectively and organise more meetings on a regional level |
Interruption of work |
Implement some learning time-outs |
Content and technology complexity |
Support of multiple media types as well as technology that fits to the habits of the agents |
Free-riding and reluctant sharing |
Encourage users to contribute |
Language unfit for target audience |
Language guidelines |
Doubtful quality of shared knowledge |
Balancing moderation and freedom of choice within networks; Repository for quality assured knowledge |
Uncertainties about legal consequences of knowledge sharing |
Keeping records e.g., by filing notes or taking pictures |
Knowledge Protection - the "ends" of knowledge sharing
Open to certain extent |
Open to certain group |
Open to certain topic |
|
Description |
General open, but details protected |
Share with subgroups of network |
Share topical knowledge only |
Trigger |
Reluctance to contribute Fear of imitation |
Uncertainty about sharing behavior and legal issues |
Legal restrictions Collaboration with competitors |
IT |
Forums, blogs -> e-mail, phone |
IPR tool to enforce NDAs |
Collaborative IT for protection awareness |
Protection capability |
ambiguity |
enforcement |
concealment |
Informal learning is the dominant way of learning in healthcare, takes place in multiple, overlapping networks and demands new organisational and technological responses.
The main goal was to improve our understanding of how informal learning and knowledge sharing currently take place in healthcare and how supportive ICT can look like. Therefore, we conducted an exploratory study to investigate the state-of-practice with the help of 23 interviewees representing six healthcare networks.
Our key findings include
- detailed network demographics
- rich descriptions of 13 informal learning and knowledge sharing practices
- in-depth discussions of the results using the lenses:
- absorptive capacity
- knowledge protection
- localised learning
- challenges
- network maturity.
Network Demographics
Overview about the informal learning and knowledge sharing practices
We consider an informal learning practice as any learning activity that, intentionally or unintentionally performed by the learner that is triggered by some event, follows no prescribed process, and ends with an unspecified learning outcome (Clough et al., 2008; Schugurensky, 2000; Vavoula et al., 2005).
In this study, we investigated informal learning practices in the described healthcare networks. Therefore, we use the theory of ACAP (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990) as a reference framework to highlight relationships between the different practices. We found that network members use various practices to identify (acquire), assimilate (integrate), and make use of knowledge (exploit).
The promotion of localised learning is one of the major tasks of networks of SMEs to facilitate learning and knowledge sharing. A well-performed process of localised learning in a network positively affects the ability to absorb, assimilate and apply external knowledge of the member organisations.
Changes in the network (sub-)structures influence the ability to absorb, assimilate and apply external knowledge of the member organisations and demand tools that flexibly serve personal, organisational and social networks complementing each other.
Enhancing organisational IT capabilities for connecting its employees in and beyond the organisational boundaries positively affects the ability to absorb, assimilate and apply knowledge of the member organisations.
The organisations need to effectively balance knowledge sharing and protection. Clear strategies for knowledge protection in a network positively affect the ability to absorb, assimilate and apply external knowledge of the member organisations
The research leading to the presented results was partially funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) and LEARNING LAYERS (project no.318209).
Audretsch, B. (1998). Agglomeration and the location of innovative activity. Oxford review of economic policy, 14(2), 18-29.
Autant-Bernard, C., Fadairo, M., & Massard, N. (2013). Knowledge diffusion and innovation policies within the European regions: Challenges based on recent empirical evidence. Research Policy, 42(1), 196-210.
Boschma, R. (2005). Proximity and Innovation: A Critical Assessment. Regional Studies, 39(1), 61-74.
Clough, G., Jones, A. C., McAndrew, P., & Scanlon, E. (2008). Informal learning with PDAs and smartphones. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 24(5), 359-371.
Cohen, W. M., & Levinthal, D. A. (1990). Absorptive capacity: a new perspective on learning and innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 128-152.
Roberts, N., Galluch, P. S., Dinger, M., & Grover, V. (2012). Absorptive Capacity and Information Systems Research: Review, Synthesis, and Directions for Future Research. MIS Quarterly, 36(2), 625-648.
Schugurensky, D. (2000). The forms of informal learning: Towards a conceptualization of the field.
Vavoula, G., Scanlon, E., Lonsdale, P., Sharples, M., & Jones, A. (2005). Report on empirical work with mobile learning and literature on mobile learning in science. Jointly Executed Integrated Research Projects (JEIRP) D, 33.
Zahra, S. A., & George, G. (2002). Absorptive capacity: A review, reconceptualization, and extension. Academy of Management Review, 27(2), 185-203.