 |
Contact
|
|
|
|
I received my Master's Degree (Diplom) from the University of Oldenburg, Germany in 1990. In my Diplom thesis I investigated "Social Accentuation and Psychophysics". My doctoral degree (Dr. rer. nat.) I received from the University of Goettingen, Germany in 1993. The dissertation research was on how social interaction influences mental models of people who work in groups to solve a problem. Title of the thesis was "Social Interaction and Mental Models". It was published by Waxmann in 1994. From 1993 until 2002 I worked on a non-tenure track position as Assistant Professor at Humboldt-University in Berlin where I finished my Habilitation on "Transactive Knowledge Systems in Groups and Organizations" in January 2003 and received the venia legendi for Psychology. Since Fall 2003 I am Associate Professor for Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Brooklyn College. Since Spring 2005 I am also Head of the Experimental Psychology Doctoral Program at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Research
My work in the past years has been both basic and applied. I believe that we can study different research questions with different participants, research settings and methodologies, but that there is no general advantage of settings or methods. I am doing research with laboratory groups to investigate basic group processes, knowledge acquisition in social situations, and the role of stereotyping in knowledge acquisition. I also do applied research in cooperation with firms and organizations to study the role of transactive knowledge systems in work relationships.
Much of my research focuses on the communicative processes during which knowledge about other people's knowledge is acquired. Through elaborating the theory on transactive knowledge acquisition in my Habilitation, I could show that most of these processes during communication will take place implicitly rather than explicitly. Thus, one of my major interests is to look more thoroughly at these implicit processes. Although many studies have examined implicit cognitive processes, no attempt has been made so far to investigate implicit cognition during communication.
In my previous research on transactive knowledge systems I have investigated how knowledge about other people's knowledge is acquired and enhanced through perspective-taking. In a further study, I manipulated individual metacognition in group processes. Although perspective-taking can be seen as an interpersonal instance of metacognition, results showed that perspective-taking did have a positive effect on the development of transactive knowledge, whereas metacognition did not. This may have been due to cognitive overload through the metacognition manipulation. In my further research, I will pursue this question using different kinds of manipulations of metacognition.
The research on implicit knowledge acquisition is not only valuable to understand the basic (social) psychological processes of cognition during communication, but it can also provide a bridge between social and cognitive psychology and knowledge management in organizations. Many researchers in knowledge management claim that organizational members' implicit knowledge has to be made explicit in order to render a competitive advantage to an organization. Research on implicit and explicit processes in social situations can advance this understanding. I cooperate on these questions with Prof. Dr. Albrecht Becker (University of Innsbruck, Austria), Dr. Stefan Duschek (Free University Berlin), and with Prof. Dr. Marcus Spies, Dr. Rudolf Kerschreiter (both Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Germany), Dr. Andreas Mojzisch (University of Goettingen, Germany).
In cooperation with two of my former Diplom students, Denise Sommer (University of Jena) and Margit Jochmann (Washington, DC) I designed a questionnaire that assesses transactive knowledge systems in work groups in organizations. The German version of the questionnaire has been validated recently and consists of 37 items in five dimensions. Currently, we are collecting data for the validation of the English translation. After validation, the questionnaire shall be administered to work groups in German and in English speaking countries to examine the quality of transactive knowledge systems with respect to diverse work tasks, group composition, leadership styles, and communication means and techniques. It shall also be assessed how transactive knowledge generation is subject to factors such as trust, social relations between members, social identity of members, group cohesion, and emotional climate in the group. Furthermore, no research to date exists on the quality of transactive knowledge systems in groups prone to groupthink. The questionnaire provides a means to study this research question as well.
Becker, A., Brauner, E., & Duschek, S. (in press). Transaktives Wissen, Ressourcen und Wettbewerbsvorteile: Eine Rekonzeptualisierung von organisationalem Wissen im Knowledge-based View. "Transactive knowledge, resources, and competitive advantage: A reconceptualization of organizational knowledge in the Knowledge-based View" (submitted to Managementforschung (peer reviewed journal)
Brauner, E. (in press). Kodierung transaktiver Wissensprozesse (TRAWIS). Ein Verfahren zur Erfassung von Wissenstransfer in Interaktionen. Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie. "Transactive Knowledge Coding System (TRAWIS): A schema for the assessment of knowledge transfer in interactions" "Journal of Social Psychology" (peer reviewed journal)
Brauner, E. & Becker, A. (in press-a). Beyond knowledge sharing: The management of transactive knowledge systems. Knowledge and Process Management. (peer reviewed journal)
Brauner, E. & Becker, A. (2006). Knowledge management in interaction: Transactive knowledge systems and the management of knowledge. In B. Renzl, K. Matzler, & H. H. Hinterhuber (Eds.), The future of knowledge management. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Brauner, E. (2006). Lernen in Netzwerken. In S. Ernst, J. Warwas & E. Kirsch-Auwärter (Eds.) WissensTransform. Wissensmanagement in Gleichstellungsorientierten Netzwerken (p. ). Hamburg: Lit Verlag. "Learning in networks" in "KnowledgeTransform. Knowledge management in equality oriented networks".
Brauner, E., Becker, A., & Jordan, S. (2005). Organizational learning: The interplay of routinization and crisis in practices. In S. Gherardi, D. Nicolini (Eds.), The Passion for Learning and Knowing. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Organizational Learning and Knowledge (2 vols.) University of Trento e-books, Trento. (ISBN 88-8843-100-X)
http://eprints.biblio.unitn.it/archive/00000828/
Brauner, E. & Becker, A. (2004). Wissensmanagement und Organisationales Lernen: Personalentwicklung und Lernen durch transaktive Wissenssysteme. In G. Hertel & U. Konradt (Hrsg.), Electronic Human Resource Management: Personalarbeit unter Einsatz des Inter- und Intranet. Göttingen: Hogrefe. "Knowledge management and organizational learning: Personnel management through transactive knowledge systems."
Brauner, E. (2003). Informationsverarbeitung in Gruppen: Transaktive Wissenssysteme. In A. Thomas & S. Stumpf (Hrsg.), Teamarbeit und Teamentwicklung (S. 57-83). Gottingen: Verlag fur angewandte Psychologie. "Information processing in groups: Transactive knowledge systems"
Brauner, E., & Orth, B. (2002). Strukturen von Argumentationssequenzen in Gruppen. Zeitschrift fur Sozialpsychologie, 33, 65-81. "Analysis of structures of argumentation in the group process"
Brauner, E., & Becker, A. (2001). Wormholes to organizational expertise: The management of metaknowledge. In M. Crossan & F. Olivera (2001). Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management: New Directions (pp. 31-48). London, ON: Richard Ivey School of Business.
Brauner, E. (2001). Wissenstransfer in Projektgruppen: Die Rolle des transaktiven Gedachtnisses. In R. Fisch, D. Beck & B. Englich (Hrsg.), Projektgruppen in Organisationen (S. 237-248). Gottingen: Verlag fur Angewandte Psychologie. "Knowledge transfer in project teams: The role of transactive memory."
Brauner, E., & Scholl, W. (2000). Editorial: The information processing approach as a perspective for groups research. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 3, 115-122.
Brauner, E. (1998). Die Qual der Wahl am Methodenbuffet - oder: Wie der Gegenstand nach der passenden Methode sucht. In E. Ardelt, H. Lechner & W. Schloegl (Hrsg.), Neue Gruppendynamik. Theorie und Praxis, Anspruch und Wirklichkeit (S. 176-193). Gottingen: Verlag fur Angewandte Psychologie. "Hard choice at the buffet of methods - or: How an issue is searching for an appropriate method" (Methods for analyzing group structures and processes)
Brauner, E. (1994). Soziale Interaktion und mentale Modelle. Planungs- und Entscheidungsprozesse in Planspielgruppen. Munster: Waxmann. "Social interaction and mental models. Planning and decision making in groups".
|
