PHRE

From AMI@Work Communities Wiki

By sergio Gusmeroli

In Innovation Networks of Companies, human competency is the main resource available for creativity projects implementation. By competency, in literature it is meant the intangible capability for an individual, a community or an organization to exercise in the concrete practice of a working situation a certain skill, capability or knowledge asset. However, state-of-the-art corporate knowledge management systems, founded on static e-content and e-document rather than on dynamic e-work and e-business disciplines, are currently not able to grasp and capture the real experienced and practiced human competencies which are exercised mainly individually in "working situations". Moreover, they often do not allow creative people to fully express their innovation potential and put it at disposal of the colleagues and of the partners. On the other extreme hand of Innovation Networks, Individual Professionals (self-employees, free-lancers etc.) constitute a considerable share of the total work force, resulting in 16.2% of the active employees in EU - excluding NAS (Y2003). Notwithstanding that it represents, by its own, a significant percentage of the overall workforce, in the EU society we can more and more observe and experiment an ever-increasing trend towards a reinforcement of Individual Professionals position against Corporate Professionals, because of basically two reasons: firstly, the ever-growing trend in industrial organizations to outsource professional services, in particular those with high knowledge content and the consequent need by professionals for a certain social and economical security degree; secondly, the aim by the individual knowledge professionals at a higher freedom in the organization of their professional lives and duties. In conclusion, Individual Professionals, and mainly some 40+, family sustainers and un-voluntary, “forced by situations” independent workers more than youngest “by-choice” self-employees, require new organizational forms which could meet their sometimes conflicting expectations for more freedom and autonomy as well as for social security and guaranteed revenue. The Professional Virtual Community PVC concept is a first answer to meet the above two apparently conflicting exigencies of combating precariousness and working freely and independently. A very interesting evolution of it is the ECOLEAD IP Business-oriented PVC where Knowledge sharing and Social cohesion are deemed to be the most important pre-condition for a successful and remunerative Business project among Professionals: the chromatic KSB (Knowledge-Social-Business) paradigm is expected to be the inspiration principle for any future business-oriented PVCs. However, in spite of the correct KSB ECOLEAD reference model, current implementations and examples of Professional Communities are often positioned along the edges of the KSB triangle and not in the middle: an excess of the Business dimension causes extreme individualism and competition among their members (a simple brokering or job mediation service); an excess of the Knowledge dimension causes the closure of the community to the external world (a sort of sect or of community just for experts and initiators); an excess of the Social dimension causes the impossibility to focus the objectives and achieve concrete results (just for fun, enjoy the life communities). A new organisational form which could merge the security to work of a company, with the freedom to work of an individual and with the creativity to work of a community is needed. If we consider that Biological Ecosystems are defined as communities of interacting organisms plus their physical environment, while Business Ecosystems are defined as networks of buyers, suppliers and makers of products and services, we can try to merge together Innovation Networks of Companies with Professional Communities and with Individuals, by founding the new term Professional Human REsources Ecosystem PHREE, which is a network of individuals, communities and companies evolving symbiotically together linked by common professional competencies and aiming at pursuing innovation and creativity in business. Like any other Business Ecosystem, PHREE encompasses dynamic aggregation of competencies, extensive sharing of knowledge, orientation towards local/regional identity, evolutionary-emergent-bottom-up natural selection and to-the-scope evolution not only of ICT services, but also of finalised and focussed pools of human competencies, either implemented by individuals, communities, companies. In this co-evolving scenario, it is evident that some new emerging competencies profiles better fitting the requests of the market, are able to better meet the new challenges posed by the new business entities. For instance, human profiles emphasising individualism and knowledge excessive protection will be penalised by new organisational forms like VOs and PVCs in favour of emergent human behaviours characterised by collaboration, solidarity and knowledge sharing attitudes. In this context, it is essential to be able to establish a co-evolutive link between the world of business and the world of human competencies with the aim of capturing, promoting, stimulating and rewarding the human profiles more fitting the new KSB models. Research Issues: while the evolution of business systems from static and individualistic forms towards more collaborative and community-based models, like the VOs, the PVCs and the DBEs, have been deeply studied and investigated in the recent past (business processes, ICT systems, Knowledge Assets and Ontology evolutionary models), not so much has been tried in the field of human competencies towards the identification and promotion of emergent behaviours and profiles which could be highly beneficial for the new KSB challenges imposed by new organisational, social and business forms. In particular:

• How to stimulate professional and social competencies dynamic growth and development in a society where individuals, professional communities and innovation networks of companies coexist in a local/regional environment.
• How to synchronize the characteristics of a business entity with emerging business opportunities in order to better satisfy the market, create knowledge, increase effectiveness and efficiency.
• How to match individual motivations/competencies and emerging business interests in order to create more and better jobs, increasing people and company satisfaction, personal and business growth, productivity and innovation.