Moving Universities: A Case Study on the Use of Unconferencing for Facilitating Sustainability Learning in a Swiss University

Wolf, Patricia; Troxler, Peter; Hansmann, Ralf

doi:10.3390/su3060875

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Building on our elaboration of the concepts of temporal boundedness and interactional openness, further research could investigate how elements of creativity and spontaneity could be reinstalled even in highly complex and fragmented decisionmaking processes. Events such as "unconferences" or "barcamps" (e.g., Ingebretsen, 2008;Wolf, Troxler, & Hansmann, 2011), for instance, have been used in other contexts to generate new solutions and ideas. Such event formats could be integrated into a field-configuring event series to better balance coordination with the creativity needed to imagine possible futures (Mische, 2009).…”

Section: Limitations and Further Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Melting Summits: The Limitations of Field-Configuring Events as Catalysts of Change in Transnational Climate Policy

Schüßler

Rüling

Wittneben

2014

AMJ

164

158

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Although field-configuring events have been highlighted as catalysts of institutional change, scholars still know little about the specific conditions that allow such change to occur. Using data from a longitudinal study of United Nations climate conferences, we analyze how regular and high-stakes events in an event series interacted in producing and preventing institutional change in the transnational climate policy field. We uncover variations in event structures, processes, and outcomes that explain why climate conferences have not led to effective solutions to combat human-induced global warming. Results in particular highlight that growing field complexity and issue multiplication compromise the change potential of a field-configuring event series in favor of field maintenance. Over time, diverse actors find event participation useful for their own purposes, but their activity is not connected to the institutions at the center of the issue-based field. In discussing how events configuring a field are purposefully staged and enacted but also influenced by developments in the field, our study contributes to a more complete understanding of field-configuring events, particularly in contested transnational policy arenas. The worst-case scenario for me is that climate becomes a second World Trade Organization. Copenhagen, for me, is a very clear deadline that I think we need to meet. And I'm afraid that if we don't, then the process will begin to slip. And like in the trade negotiations, one deadline after the other will not be met, and we sort of become the little orchestra on the Titanic. (Y. de Boer, UNFCCC executive secretary, 2008 interview) Less than two years after he made the above statement, the United Nation's (UN's) climate chief Yvo de Boer resigned, taking the blame for the chaos and breakdown for which the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit will go down in history. After almost two decades of transnational policy efforts, the summit ended without the promised new binding agreement to fight global warming. It was one of a series of meetings of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international treaty aiming at transnational solutions to stabilize "greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system" (article 2, UNFCCC [United Nations, 1992]). A decisive early-1997-UNFCCC

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Section: Limitations and Further Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Melting Summits: The Limitations of Field-Configuring Events as Catalysts of Change in Transnational Climate Policy

Schüßler

Rüling

Wittneben

2014

AMJ

164

158

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…While there is a small body of literature concentrating on the various methods for facilitating short‐term collaboration in terms of creative problem solving, such as future workshops (Troxler & Kuhnt, ) and unconferences (Wolf, Troxler & Hansmann, ), these studies tend to focus more on the underlying philosophies and arrangements of such events, and do not directly address the issue of how the perceptions of the created contexts impact resulting creative outcomes achieved by the problem‐solving groups. What remains an open question is how participants in various types of innovation events perceive the given group social situation (place, time, number of people) subjectively, and how this impacts the resulting group outcomes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Group Climate and Creativity in Temporary Innovation Camp Settings

Nisula

Kianto

2016

Creat Innov Manage

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This study examines how perceived group climate shapes the creativity of groups in temporary, collaborative and non-virtual innovation setting. As no previous studies have examined antecedents of group creativity in temporary non-virtual innovation settings, this study takes as a starting point the findings of the current studies in conventional ongoing groups to examine the conditions of temporary group innovation camp settings. Through a survey study and partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), the paper sheds light on the antecedents of group creativity in temporary conditions. According to the results, task orientation was the only significant antecedent of group creativity, supporting the assertion that temporary work settings tend to be more task oriented than relationship oriented. The results indicate that many aspects of the social working environment that have been found to affect group creativity in ongoing and stable settings do not exert a similar influence in temporary settings.

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“…In 2011, Wolf et al [13] used the concept of unconferencing, a method for organizing social learning, which could be suitable for triggering sustainability learning processes. They also presented a case study on the application of unconferencing in a large Swiss University (namely, in Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich), where an unconference was conducted to engage students, academics, staff and external experts in a mutual learning process aimed at the development of project ideas for reducing its CO2 emissions.…”

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confidence: 99%

Attitudes toward Sustainability and Green Economy Issues Related to Some Students Learning Their Characteristics: A Preliminary Study

et al. 2014

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The present paper proposes and describes a new method, called L2A (listen-to-apprise), conceived of in order to improve the commitment of all the participants involved in an educational process specifically dedicated to sustainability and the green economy. The first stage consists in listening to the students and, when possible, in listening to the environment, the people, and the territory, while, in the second stage, the acquired information is used to exploit everyone's talents and to achieve the maximum advantage and satisfaction for all. The first phase of L2A is mainly dedicated to listening to the students via the submission of an on-line questionnaire that measures their learning preferences, self-efficacy and sensitivity to the themes of sustainability and the green economy. The investigation has been extended from Italy to Honduras, where the authors are involved in the development of major projects concerning sustainability. The results of the survey have been analyzed by means of standard significance and correlation analysis, and therefore, significant differences among the groups and correlations within each group have been detected. The results have been discussed in order to explain how the L2A method Sustainability 2014, 6 3485 works and how useful and powerful a tool it could be to improve teaching, learning and practical activities.

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Moving Universities: A Case Study on the Use of Unconferencing for Facilitating Sustainability Learning in a Swiss University

Cited by 4 publications

References 51 publications

On Melting Summits: The Limitations of Field-Configuring Events as Catalysts of Change in Transnational Climate Policy

On Melting Summits: The Limitations of Field-Configuring Events as Catalysts of Change in Transnational Climate Policy

Group Climate and Creativity in Temporary Innovation Camp Settings

Attitudes toward Sustainability and Green Economy Issues Related to Some Students Learning Their Characteristics: A Preliminary Study

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