Human Repository Research Articles

La Teoría de la Organización Requerida de Elliott Jaques: el capítulo faltante en los libros de texto de administración

La administración como ciencia es relativamente reciente en el repertorio del conocimiento humano. Algunos autores la ubican a partir del discurso de Henry Robinson Towne en 1886, titulado El ingeniero como economista, dentro de la corriente de la administración científica (George y Álvarez, 2005). A partir de entonces, los libros de texto de administración dan fe de la obra de numerosos autores y escuelas del pensamiento administrativo, pero han pasado por alto la obra de Elliott Jaques (1917-2003), quien desarrolló la Teoría de la Organización Requerida. En este artículo se presenta un resumen de algunos aspectos importantes de dicha teoría, y se hace una comparación siguiendo el método de Glaser y Strauss (1967) de comparaciones constantes, con modelos previos construidos sobre bases científicas que impactaron el mundo de la administración, concluyendo que la Organización Requerida debe ser difundida en las escuelas de administración y en las empresas, pues es un modelo de actualidad que engloba a toda la organización y que puede ser proyectado hacia el futuro.

Access to Information in Connective and Communal Transactive Memory Systems

This research tested a transactive theory model of how individuals allocate and retrieve task-related information in work teams. It extended prior research by exploring the role of communal information repositories in the context of human information resources. Structural equation modeling of six integrated hypotheses revealed several significant results. First, usage of information repositories was significantly related to individual access to information. However, the relationship between individual direct information exchange with team members (the human repositories) and individual access to information was significant only among average-level users of organizational information repositories. Second, development of individual expertise directories significantly influenced individual direct information exchange with team members. Third, perceived usage of organizational information repositories by team members significantly influenced actual usage. Finally, technology-specific competence in using intranets significantly influenced the actual usage of intranets as organizational information repositories.

Modern psychiatric ethics

Psychiatry has a chequered past in the area of ethics and human rights, arguably always “in the rear and limping” in failing to keep up with societal changes—an accusation that has also been levelled at the law.1 When Phillipe Pinel symbolically unchained insane people during the French Revolution, he heralded a humanitarian change in attitude towards mentally ill individuals that was reflected in the UK by the ideology of moral treatment in the early 19th century. Unfortunately, overtaken by complacency and nihilism, compassionate treatment centres were transformed into little more than human repositories by the end of that century.