SOCIAL NETWOK,COP AND ORGANIZATION

SOCIAL NETWORK
Social network is a social structure made of nodes which include individuals or organisations that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas, financial exchange, friendship, , dislike, or trade.Social network mainly focuses on people who shows interests in exploring of interests an activities of others.It has created a new way to communicate and for sharing useful information Social network analysis views social relationships in terms of nodes and ties. Nodes acts as the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. There can be many kinds of ties between the nodes. Research in a number of academic fields has shown that social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals. In its simplest form, a social network is a map of all of the relevant ties between the nodes being studied. The network can also be used to determine the social capital of individual actors.

COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
The knowledge which is learned and shared in community of practice is of social type.when a group of people meet they can share the information among themselves.there are a lot of benefits in COP.Some of them include: increase in individual knowledge,time will be saved,new capabilities will be developed,we can also avoid mistakes.

The concept of a community of practice (often abbreviated as CoP) refers to the process of social learning that occurs and shared sociocultural practices that emerge and evolve when people who have common goals interact as they strive towards those goals. “Negotiation of meaning” is how we experience the world and our engagement in it as meaningful(Wenger;1999). If all change involves a process of learning, then effective change processes consciously facilitate negotiation of meaning. The idea of CoPs was first introduced by Lave and Wenger in the year 1991. It is now considered as the most influential concept in the field of education (Lea,Nicoll; 2002). Many commercial organisations have adopted the concept and put strategies in place to foster CoPs(for ex:IBM and NationalSemiconductor).

knowledge and intelligence are highly context dependent and socially situated( Lave ,Wenger;1991). According to them knowledge can be seento be distributed through social practices. CoP can be described as “...a set of relations amongpersons, activity, and world, over time and in relation with other tangential and overlapping CoPs”(Lave,Wenger;1991).
Lave and Wenger (1991) described this process of acquiring knowledge through sociocultural interaction within the community—Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP). The concepts of CoP and LPP are grounded in the notion of situated learning “…Implied emphasis on comprehensive understanding involving the whole person rather than ‘receiving’ a body of factual knowledge about the world”(Lave & Wenger 1991). In situated learning ‘meaning’ is only given through the socio-cultural practice of the community just as language is only given meaning by its use within a particular culture (Morgan,Welton;1986). Learningcannot be separated from the sociocultural practice, and by inference “all engagement in social practice involveslearning” (Lea & Blake 2002).Jonassen (1994) defines situated learning as occurring when people work on authentic and realistic tasks thatreflect the real world.

Cop can exist within, between and outside organisations.CoPs are not ‘formed’—rather they evolve out of members’ usage (Liedka 1999). Wick (2000) also defines CoPs as being composed of people who share similar responsibilities and roles.A key feature of CoPs is community knowledge, where the sum of this community knowledge is greater thanthe sum of the individual knowledge of members (Gheradi , Nicolini; 2000).
It is important not to combine the traditional team with community of practice.Distinction between teams and CoPs had made.(Kimble,Hildrith;2000). They suggest that legitimation is the key to genuine CoPs. In a team,legitimation is drawn from the formal hierarchy imposed by some form of management. Whereas in a genuineCoP, legitimation is more informal—members earn their status in the community which comes from theircontributions.
Learning communities,whether face-to-face or virtual are brought closer through commonality and interdependence(Mentis etal;2001).Virtual communities use ICT to establish and maintain collaboration across spaceand time.
The issues which we can quote from the initial collection are:
1. NATURE OF PROJECT :If a project is more conceptual, the more face-to-face communication is needed and by this everybody concerned fully understands.•The shorter the pro ject timescale, the greater the need for ‘real time’ communication. This allows for a morerapid response to any issues arising.
2. NATURE OF RELATIONSHIP:It is essential to have face-to-face contact at the start of a project with new clients. With new client’s, formal communication etiquette is needed at the start to help portray a familiar, professionalimage of the design company.
3. STAGE IN THE DESIGN PROCESS:
- Engineering speciations
- Face-to-Face communication is essential at critical decision stages.
-Frequent information needs to be supplied regularly throughout the process.
- Process needs to be developed according to the project needs.
- Cost/value analysis
- A shared vision is required at outset.
4. COMMUNICATION
-Secure access to documentation is essential.
-All work must be archived appropriately
- Offline communication is important. E.g. photocopier/water cooler discussions
- Tools need to be simple.

REFERENCE:::
http://www.ub.es/5ead/PDF/13/Pemberton3.pdf


ORGANIZATION
An organization is a social arrangement which pursues collective goals, which controls its own performance, and which has a boundary separating it from its environment. The word organization is derived from the Greek word.Organizations are the social units which are constructed and reconstructed inorder to achieve specific goals. Organizations are characterized by:1) Divisions of labor, power, and communication responsibilities, divisions, which are not random or traditionally patterned, but deliberately planned to enhance the realization of specific goals.2) The presence of one or more power centers which control the concerted efforts of the organization and direct them toward its goals 3) Substitution of personnel (i.e, persons whose work is insatisfactory can be removed and others assigned their tasks). The organization can also recombine its personnel through transfer and promotion. Organization has many synonyms like bureaucracy, but it has two disadvantages. 1)Bureaucracy often carries a negative connotation for the layman. 2)Bureaucracy implies that the unit is organized according to the principles specified by Weber, which is not the case with many organizations. The approach which includes the theory of motivation and one of organization is classical approach. The central contribution to the motivation theory is known as Scientific Management(Fredrick Taylor). The central tenet of the approach is that if material rewards are closely related to work efforts, the worker will respond with the maximum performance, he is physically capable of.Scientific Management has some prepositions.they are:-1) The two hands should begin and complete their motions simultaneously.2) Smooth, continuous motions of the hands are preferable to zigzag or straight line motions involving sudden and sharp changes in direction.3) Proper illumination increases productivity.4) There should be a definite and fixed place for all the tools and materials.
Knowledge is one of the most valuable commodities any organisation possesses.(Wick ,Hildreth and Kimble; 2000).
Based on the management science, most of the human organizations fall into four types: (1)Pyramids or hierarchies,(2)Committees or juries,(3)Matrix organizations and (4) Ecologies
(1)Pyramids or hierarchies:this hierarchy explains that it is an arrangement with a leader who leads leaders. "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence"(peter principle,1969).
(2)Committees or juries:These consist of a group of peers who decide as a group, perhaps by voting. The difference between a jury and a committee is that the members of the committee are usually assigned to perform or lead further actions after the group comes to a decision, whereas members of a jury come to a decision.Sometimes a selection committee functions like a jury. For example,Parliamentary procedure, such as Robert's Rules of Order, helps prevent committees from engaging in lengthy discussions without reaching decisions. There is a need to put emphasis on areas such as individual/group processes, functionality, and overall structures of institutions in order to maintain a proper organization(Stephen John).
(3)Matrix organization: This organizational type assigns each worker two bosses in two different hierarchies. One hierarchy is "functional" and it assures that each type of expert in the organization is well-trained, and measured by a boss who is super-expert in the same field. The other direction is "executive" and tries to get projects completed using the experts.
(4)Ecologies:This organization has intense competition. Bad parts of the organization will starve. Good ones get more work.
There is also a kind of organisation called hybrid organisation.It operates in both public and private sector,fulfilling the duties of public and developing commercial market activities.

REFERENCES:::
http://hrfolks.com/knowledgebank/Future%20of%20Mgmt/Modern%20Organisations.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizations