3B- Concepts of the Professional Network.

Cooperation.

The concept of cooperation and its set of ideas may be useful to me within my professional career. Tackling problems in a range of areas including Sociology, economics, international relationships and biology fit quite closely in my lines of work.

Robert Axelrod’s (1984) theory on the benefits of cooperating fully with others until you reach the point of maximum benefit after which a choice emerges is one in which I agree with completely. At one of the places in which I work this theory fits in perfect with how I am currently feeling, taking advantage of networks and training available to me until I reach the point I feel is maximum benefit to me that is when I will move on to further my career.

Thinking about the concept of Axelrod, R. (1984), when should a person cooperate and when should a person be selfish is an ongoing interaction with another person. Prisoners Dilemma is something I found very interesting and even though I think I have fully understood what is meant by the phase and theory, sometimes I find it hard in my professional life to just get up and leave to progress because I have built up such a good working relationship with my current team.    Axelrod, R. (1984) The evolution of cooperation. London: Penguin.         

Affiliation.

This concept is in the field of Social psychology that seeks to explain why humans ‘form close relationships’. The desire and need to form affiliation is partly a social result of a psychological process and need that satisfies us by providing us ‘with a network of support that will help us when we need’. (Crisp & Turner 2007 pp266).

The need for Affiliation differs between us and this theory apparently links to relative and our preferred levels of social stimulation. I will now start to use networking and the need to affiliate as a survival technique within my professional development and try to attract those beneficial individuals into my professional networks which is obviously going to be a challenge to sustain. Now I understand some of the possible motive of people at the top of the companies I work for. I plan to use these professional networks until I get to where I want to be professionally and then move on.

I do understand that a lack of affiliation at a young age could result in a lasting negative impact later on in life and that this may have an effect on their personal, physical and social contact with others and their ability to deal with stress. (Crisp, J & Turner, R. 2007 pp266-268). By providing us with a network of support, Affiliation helps us as humans to survive and reproduce if and when we need.

Social Constructionism.

The concept that networks are large social constructions is something that I am now starting to understand after reading the reader a number of times.

Constructionism is the view that all knowledge, and therefore all meaningful reality as such, is contingent upon human practices, being constructed in and out of interaction between human beings and their world, and developed and transmitted within an essentially social context. (Crotty, M. 2005 pp 42-44)

From reading and studying Crotty, M’s theory and view point Constructionism was made clearer for me to understand but I am still not 100% convinced that I believe in his theories and will not be reliant in putting this into practise within my profession.

Connectivism.

Connectivism was one of the easier concepts for me to take in, fully understand and to actually  learn anything from, Connectivism argues that teachers, experts, books, web sites etc are all in fact points (or nodes) in the learners networks and that each node provides ‘information’ which I completely also agree with.

Gonzalez (2004) explores some significant trends in learning and says ‘ the amount of knowledge in the world has doubled in the past 10years and is now doubling every 18months according to the American society of Training and Documentation (ASTD) and to combat the shrinking half-life of knowledge, organizations have been forced to develop new methods of deploying instruction’

On the other hand an alternative theory is connectivism is the integration of principles explored by chaos, networks and complexity and self-organization theories. Connectivism is driven by the understanding that decisions are based on rapidly altering foundations. New information is continually being acquired and decision-making itself is a learning process.

The concept of Connectivism is another concept that I will have to read over once again for it to completely digest.

Communities of Practise.

The concept of Communities of Practise and the theories surrounding the subject had made me realise certain things about my professional life, my practises and my places of work.

The idea of Communities of Practise has developed within the field of social science to explain learning as a process of engagement in social relationships rather than a process of acquisition of knowledge as an individual.  Communities of Practise are apparent in many professional and other social contexts or situations. Members of a community of practise come together because of mutual interest and generate a shared experience of engagement in the community of practise.

Wenger identified a community of practise as existing on three dimensions:

·         What is about- its joint enterprise as understood and continually renegotiated by its members;

·         How it functions- mutual engagement that bind members together into social entity;

·         What capability it has produced- the shared repertoire of communal resources.

(Lave and Wegner (1991)

This idea of communities of practise interests me greatly and has prompted me to think differently about my professional networks and their importance to me and how I can use other people in my organisations to my best advantage.