Katerina Nicolopoulou is a Research Fellow at CALT (The Centre for Advanced Learning Techonologies)

Update: Katerina works now at: University of Southampton, UK

     

 Katerina is in charge of the KNOWLABORATION project (EU IST project)

KNOWLABORATION addresses the need to develop an inter-organisational learning approach. Learning Networks (LN), structures that have formally been established in order to increase the participants’ knowledge and innovative capability, give organizations  the opportunity to benchmark themselves to other organizations and also to support the self-directed learning of their employees. Such an approach has previously been used in the case of regional networks (regional clusters of small firms in Italy are typical examples in such flexible specialization). Such processes are greatly enhanced by the implementation of Information and Communication technologies, which in terms of the particular project, will be allow for supporting decision-making processes, tracking of individual learning processes, accessing the learning sessions and managing the particular knowledge assets. Therefore, the   specific objective of the project is to develop, apply, validate and exploit a dynamic tool-set (software platform and methodological guidelines) that will assist European inter-organisational learning networks empower their members and the involved individuals to define, develop and manage the content and the process of their learning.

The partners of KNOWLABORATION come from all over Europe. They are PC systems (Greece), Planet-Ernst and Young (Greece), CENTRIM (The Centre for Research in Innovation Management, University of Brighton, UK), Astyria Autocluster (Austria), The South Dublin Chamber of Commerce (Ireland) and the Ecole de Paris du Management (FR).

Other activities in CALT  

Katerina is

1)  In charge of the CALT agenda on Virtual Communities (VCs). The CALT approach to VCs contains four elements:  a) facilitation and VC dynamics b)  valorization  c) theory of knowledge creation and d)  design (including technologies like platforms)

2) A core researcher in  the ECAMP project- (EU funded European eCommerce Associate Merchant Program)-  this research focuses on  Virtual Communities (VC) facilitation and dynamics

Output while at  CALT

Katerina attended the Interaction Design Summer School at the Interaction Design Institute, Ivrea, Italy (August-Sep2001). Particularly, the workshop called 'Experience Lab/experiential design'. Input from this experience  led to a paper sent to IVSA (International Visual Sociology Association) Conference (with M. Kostomaj and A. Campos),  ‘Studying social and organisational dynamics in the transition from 'face- to- face' to 'online' community interactions’, February 2002 (awaiting  acceptance). This research also links to the CALT VERDI project.

2001: Paper sent to EGOS  (European Group for Organisational Studies) Conference (with P. Clarkson): ‘Epistemological clarification in Knowledge Management’, December 2001 (awaiting acceptance)

2001: Book Chapter ‘Philosophy for complexity’ (co-authored with Prof. Petruska Clarskson) accepted for publication in edited volume ‘Complexity in Organisations’ Mitleton-Kelly, E (ed), London School of Economics, UK (forthcoming)

2001:  Organizational Capital as a Strategic Field of Corporate Action”. Paper presented at the 5th World Congress on the Management of Intellectual Capital, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, 16-18 January 2002 (with C. Roda and T. Damaskopoulos).

2001: ‘Global Finance, Intangible Assets and Corporate Organizational Dynamics: Implications for Public Administration’. Paper presented at The Sixth International Conference on Information and Communications Technology in Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania 28-31 October 2001 to appear on the official publications of the Romania Academy of Sciences (with C. Roda and T. Damaskopoulos)

Work in progress currently includes:

a) with A.Angehrn: CALT agenda for Virtual communities (ready in WWW version February 2002)

b) with M. Kostomaj: Game scenarios in the virtual space: choosing alternative narrative forms

Katerina's wider research interests include post-modern epistemology in thinking and practice and the implications for management realities in changing organizational, technological and socio-economic conditions; knowledge and the mind, organisational behaviour and learning, epistemologies of learning, phenomenological approaches to organisational studies, learning technologies and e-learning. In her doctoral work (PhD) at the London School of Economics (LSE), she studied experiential and phenomenological approaches to organisational learning and the use of information systems in large scale organizations.  Both her PhD research and her MSc at the LSE were sponsored by grants and studentships.

Katerina is a certified phenomenologist, certified supervisor for individual and group research and organisational consultancy as well as  a  certified  focus group facilitator, trained in integrative psychology and NLP. She has taught courses in  organisational behaviour, systems analysis, information systems and research methodologies at the LSE, The University of Westminster (DAL)/American University, Paris) (both MSc level)  and at the  Ecole Superieur de Gestion et Commerce International (MBA level). Her previous professional experience has been in the field of international development. In a consultant's capacity, she has produced papers related to learning, knowledge sharing, leadership and  complexity for the World Bank (Leadership Development Group)  ('Towards a Leadership and Complexity framework for HRSLD') and for  UNESCO (Division of Cultural Policies) ('Creating the knowledge base of Cities for Peace').

Previous publications and conference presentations:

1999: British Association of Group psychotherapies, London. Workshop title: ‘Group psychotherapies: beyond schoolism’, paper title: ‘Relationship theory applied to organizational research and consultancy'

1998: UK Academy of Information Systems PhD consortium, paper title: ‘Studying the relationship between organizational learning and information systems’

1998: Department of Innovation Studies, University of East London, specialist lecture series: ‘Information society: evidence from international organizations; the case of EU and UNESCO’

1997: 5th European Conference on Information Systems, PhD consortium, Cork, Ireland, ‘What is the impact of organizational learning in the implementation of information systems?’

1997: IFIP WG 9.4 Information systems conference, Florianopolis, Brazil, ‘Education and Training issues in the Information society: the case of Europe’ (with C.Avgerou and T. Cornford)

1996: 9th International conference on Electronic Data Interchange and Interorganisational Information Systems, Bled, Slovenia (with S.Smithson), ‘IOS and medium-sized companies in Greece: opportunities and constraints’)

1996: Organizacija Journal of Management, Informatics and Personnel, University of Maribor, Slovenia, (with S.Smithson) ‘A framework for success studying IOS in medium-sized companies in unfavourable environments’

1995: Synthesis review of Greek Socio-economic issues: Book review of Doukidis and Smithson, ‘Information systems in the national context’