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Three projects awarded New Economy research funding
by Robie Liscomb
UVic researchers have been awarded $574,935
in research funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council’s Initiative on the New Economy.
In the results of the research grant competition,
UVic researchers attracted more funding than those at any
other B.C. post-secondary institution. “This is a wonderful
result for UVic that shows the strength and leadership of
our researchers in areas of vital importance for understanding
the new economy in Canada,” says UVic vice president
research Dr. Martin Taylor.
Business professor Dr. A.R. (Elango) Elangovan,
who specializes in organizational behaviour, and the University
of Toronto’s Dr. Jia Lin Xie will receive $126,181 for
their project entitled “Managing Knowledge Integration
and the Knowledge Worker in Organizations.”
“Up to 80 per cent of critical knowledge in any organization
is tacit knowledge that resides in individual members —
the insight, judgment or wisdom one has acquired over the
years that’s hard to teach somebody else,” explains
Elangovan. “The challenge is to figure out how to tap
into this knowledge and maximize its usefulness so that the
whole organization benefits.”
Elangovan and Xie will study the qualities
of teams within companies, especially the issue of trust,
to see if there’s a link with knowledge management and
integration.
The B.C. Institute for Co-operative Studies
will receive $219,000 for a three-year project entitled “British
Columbia in the New Economy: The Role of Co-operatives in
Rural and Remote Communities.”
The project will involve Dr. Ian MacPherson,
director of the institute, Drs. Eric Morse and Anna Maria
Peredo (business), student researchers, and participants at
other post-secondary institutions and new co-operatives in
three distinct regions: Northern Vancouver Island and adjacent
islands; West Kootenay; and the Peace River. Project goals
include ascertaining the foundations upon which new co-ops
were created and determining what factors facilitate or obstruct
the sustainability of co-ops.
Dr. Carol Harris (educational psychology
and leadership studies) and her team will receive $229,754
for a project entitled “Technologies of the New Economy
in Five Coastal Settings: A Participatory Assessment of Impacts
on Small Business, Health Care and Education.”
The study involves an assessment of information
and communication technologies — as well as community
development focusing on girls and women — in coastal
communities in Newfoundland. Also involved are Drs. Darlene
Clover and Budd Hall of UVic’s faculty of education,
research assistants at Memorial University, and a women’s
council, education network and school district in Newfoundland.
The SSHRC announcement involves 57 projects
at 23 Canadian universities for a total of $8.1 million. The
overall goal of the initiative is to help Canada adapt successfully
to, and reap the benefits of, the new economy. It will focus
on four major areas of research: general new economy issues;
management and entrepreneurship; education; and lifelong learning.
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