Raysa G. Rocha 

Date/Time: 26.04.2022, 3:30pm 

Location: TC.4.04 

Abstract 

In this lecture, Raysa will give an overview of her PhD research. In particular, she will focus on phronesis, the Aristotelian construct of practical wisdom. Phronesis can be seen as key knowledge that enables companies to be economically successful and committed to creating social progress. The research on phronesis in knowledge management is rising because of the managerial and organizational capabilities needed to build practically wise organizations. However, there is no measurement to evaluate how one perceives practically wise organizations through a knowledge management lens. Addressing this gap, we developed a scale to assess perceptions concerning organizational practical wisdom, i.e., the Organizational Practical Wisdom (OPW) scale. This was a central pillar of Raysa’s research which she will present in detail. 
First, we conducted an Exploratory Factorial Analysis with the support of IBM SPSS Statistics 27 software to instrument purification. Second, we performed a Confirmatory Factorial Analysis with the support of SmartPLS 3 software to examine the scale validity, reliability, and latent structure. For that reason, we collected two samples and performed the analyses. Consequently, we developed and validated an over-identified unidimensional construct model. OPW is a thorough instrument for continued debate and upcoming studies in light of this evolving research area.

Bio 

Dr. Raysa G. Rocha, University of Beira Interior, Portugal

Raysa is a project manager of the University of Beira Interior’s (UBI) team at the ENTRANCE (Enhancing the ENTRepreneurial mindset of non-business Academics in Europe) and RE-START (Reinforcing the circular economy model for START-ups) projects, both financed by Erasmus Plus. In addition, she has been teaching in the Management and Marketing courses (bachelor level) at the Management and Economics Department of UBI.

She received her PhD with distinction in Management from the University of Beira Interior – UBI, Portugal, and holds a master’s degree in Management from Fucape Business School, Brazil. During her doctoral program, Raysa was granted two awards on her PhD thesis project, including the 2021 MSR Promising Dissertation Award granted by Management Spirituality and Religion interest group of the Academy of Management.

Additionally, Raysa has co-organized mini tracks on knowledge dynamics and organizational spirituality toward organizational practical wisdom for the past three years on the European Conference of Knowledge Management – ECKM. Currently, she is working in the validation of the Global Leadership for Sustainability scale with Professor Louis Fry, Texas A & M University-Central Texas, United States. Likewise, together with colleagues from UBI and WU Vienna, she is working on a growing branch of KM, responsible knowledge management, reflecting the idea of evaluating, creating, and applying knowledge with respect to a specific explicit (ethical) purpose.

Moreover, her research focuses on organizational spirituality and knowledge dynamics, emphasizing its potential toward a practically wise organization. She is particularly interested in studying organizational practices that leads to a humanized strategy for a long-term sustainable performance. Furthermore, she is open to collaborations in the areas above and has research in the pipeline that she is willing to discuss.

Her track record of publications can be found at: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6542-1397