Research

As main interests of research, the members of the laboratory explore the organizational dynamics on the background of the accelerate changes induced by globalization. In this broad field of research, the laboratory set the focus on topics as changes in the labour market, teaching methods for building necessary skills for the employees of the future, or the role of crises in organizational learning. Secondly, we initiated sectorial analysis (at a national level) based on functional approach on large systems, as reform in education system, or public communication and acceptance. Finally, other topics of particular interest in laboratory refer to the transformation of public relations in the digital age: changes in reputation management and organizational communication or specialized topics as communication by social media.

Projects

Accelerating low carbon industrial growth through CCUS (ALIGN). The project is financed through ACT/Horizon 2020 and is coordinated at the national level by Professor dr. Diana-Maria Cismaru. The team from NUPSPA Bucharest includes three members of the Organizational Learning Lab. The project, which will be developed during 2017-2020, has as main objectives to change the public conversation and to investigate compensation strategies for increasing public acceptance in case of introduction of technologies for industrial CO2 capture and storage.

External influences and internal strategies of organizational development in the learning economy. The project was an internal grant from SNSPA in the laboratory, developed during June 2014-June 2016, which made an analysis of the factors that influence the organizational learning and their responses to the crises and issues in the external environment. The project placed the organizational learning in direct connection with influence factors as globalization, innovation, quality of internal communication, emphasizing the sociological and communication perspective. Coordinator: Cristina Leovaridis. Members in the project: Valeriu Frunzaru, Diana-Maria Cismaru, Mădălina Vătămănescu, Livia Popa, Carmen Novac, Diana Dumitriu. Among other publications, the final conclusions were included in the volume Trends and challenges in the knowledge economy (coord. Cismaru, D.M., Leovaridis, C., Dumitriu, D., 2016, Lambert Academic Publishing).

Innovation as key for organizational learning in the knowledge-based society. This project was an internal grant of the Organizational Learning Lab at SNSPA (June 2011 -June 2013). It approached the correlation between innovation and organizational learning in Romanian companies as compared to other European countries, from a sociological perspective. The aim of this project was to identify the role of innovation in Romanian countries from distinct economic areas, as well as the relation between innovation and organizational learning as one of the knowledge-based society’s characteristics.Coordinator: Cristina Leovaridis, members: Diana-Maria Cismaru, Diana Dumitriu. Among other publications, the final conclusions were included in the volume Innovation and organizational learning (coord. Cismaru, D.M., Leovaridis, C., 2014, Tritonic, Bucharest).

International Corporate Communication Compass for Europe (ICC Compass for Europe) is an international project developed by EUPRERA and coordinated by Prof. Sievert Holger from Macromedia University, Berlin. The project aims to develop an analytical grid, but even more to offer a kind of “ICC Compass for Europe” that can be used by academics and professionals to tear their attention to important differences within PR in Europe – and beyond between specific European issues and other continents. The project intends to make evident the potential usefulness of interdisciplinary approaches in international comparative PR research and to show examples of European countries where it will be applied. Using the existing knowledge as a key-resource for going much further, it involves an international team, among which we can find Dr. Diana-Maria Cismaru (coordinator), encouraging individual and equal contribution of everyone interested.

“E.H.R. – Entrepreneurship for Human Resources” (2011-2013) is a project developed with EU structural funds by the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration – Bucharest, in partnership with “Junior Chamber International” Federation (JCI), D&D Research and National Association of Editors and Authors of Psychological and Educational Tests. The aim of this project was to sustain business ideas, encourage the entrepreneurial spirit, as well as to raise the performance and competences of those people working in human resources or in managerial positions in small and medium companies. The official site of the project: http://www.ehr-antreprenoriat.ro/. Five members of the „Organizational Learning” (OL) lab’s team were involved in this project, covering several attributions, from projecting and managing the online platform of the project, training and evaluating the participants in the workshops, to contributing to the Romanian collective volume „Entrepreneurship and performance in business. Lessons learned during the E.H.R. Entrepreneurship and performance in business”, edited by Dr. Diana-Maria Cismaru (Comunicare.ro, 2013).

Intelligent Communication is a vocational project using simulation as the main method, which started in 2007 and was addressed to first year students from the College of Communication and Public Relations, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration – Bucharest. In order to bring the content of the Introduction in organizational theory discipline closer to the real dynamics of the organizational field and to raise the applicability of the concepts they are presented with during classes, a structure similar to a real organization was formed. Coordinators of the project in the last three years: Diana-Maria Cismaru, Raluca Ciochină. Students were ‘hired’ based on their CV, a letter of intent and a job-interview to fulfill distinct professional roles and were given several tasks that involved a permanent interaction between all members of the organization. Their activity and performance as organization was made public though simulation sessions during classes, though social media accounts, but mostly on the project’s official blog: http://intelligentcommunication.wordpress.com/.