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Research Group on Collaborative Work in Virtual Environments - GROUPNIT

Changes due to globalisation, the technological revolution and digitalisation are encouraging organisations to develop new forms of collaborative work through virtual teams and communities. These collaborative tools are relevant business strategies as they allow for improved learning and knowledge management and, therefore, contribute to making organisations more innovative, more visible and more competitive.

 

The characteristics of collaborative work have recently changed as users of geographically dispersed virtual teams or communities have the possibility of combining different technological applications to respond to the demands of the project or task they are carrying out (e.g. wiki, forum, social/corporate network, etc.). In this sense, important changes occur in the nature of the relationships between users, in the processes related to the resolution of the task and its performance (e.g. identification, sense of community, trust, leadership, conflict, productivity, quality of knowledge...) that need to be addressed.

The aim of our research group is to create ‘frontier knowledge’ about the effects that collaborative technologies have on individual and collective well-being from a basic perspective, which is then transferred to the applied context of businesses. This way, we analyse the functioning of virtual teams and communities that work in dynamic environments with complex tasks with a double purpose: a) to develop training strategies and improve their effectiveness, and b) to offer guidelines for the efficient design of these collaborative tools.

Virtual teams (VTs). During the last decade, the study of VTs has consolidated as an extensive area of research with important results and relevant heuristic models have been developed to explain the key aspects of the successful functioning of these groups. The research carried out in recent years by different research teams, including ours, has focused on the differential study of these teams with respect to those that communicate in a conventional way, i.e. "face to face". However, it is now known that these virtual teams have their own idiosyncrasies and, therefore, from a psychosocial and positive perspective, it is advocated to analyse the aspects that influence their well-being and performance. The specific way in which the virtual team is structured (emergence of subgroups according to the processes of social categorisation) as well as having emotional skills to optimise its resources (training in emotion management) are shaped as areas of interest when developing our research.

Furthermore, the cooperation of teams in today's organisations extends to the exchange of knowledge in virtual communities, interest groups in professional social networks or in internal company networks, which extends our research towards the analysis of the process of sharing knowledge in virtual communities. In this research context, the efficient design of virtual communities of practice with a view to improving their sustainability is of particular interest. These can be defined as groups created by the organisation, with visibility of its members, with common purposes and oriented towards sharing knowledge on web platforms. In this sense, our research group aims to investigate the factors that favour their effective and appropriate use for social innovation and knowledge management.

Research Group on Communication, Innovation and Branding: A Consumer Behaviour, Culture and Gender Focus - COMINBRAND

The COMINBRAND research group is an intercultural and interdisciplinary group that develops lines of research focused on communication, innovation and the latest marketing trends. Faced with the arrival of the 5.0 marketing stage, the research group contextualises itself in a highly interconnected and digitalised world, where communication plays a key role, and studies consumer behaviour and its connection with the brand, passing through different stages of brand creation. This process of developing a brand through its various assets is called branding. From there, communication, innovation, branding and consumer behaviour are COMINBRAND's main lines of research. To these are added two transversal lines of research, one focused on the study of the impact of culture, and more specifically national culture, which will allow us to obtain a cross-cultural vision of the problems addressed and another that includes the analysis of gender in current scientific research, with the aim of responding to a greater awareness of the importance of including the gender perspective in consumer behaviour studies. 

The priority sectors of the analysis are tourism and education, both of which are subject to major processes of change and digital transformation. The analysis of the tourism sector encompasses both various tourist destinations and the hotel and hospitality companies that operate in them. The study of the education sector focuses on higher education institutions and focuses its analysis on teaching innovation and new teaching-learning methodologies. 

The quality of the group's research is endorsed by the strong international collaboration of its members, their participation in multiple R&D projects financed by public calls, in educational innovation projects and in relevant R&D contracts with companies and/or administrations. In addition to this, there are numerous publications in journals of high international prestige indexed in the SSCI and SJR databases, participation in international conferences, including those oriented towards teaching innovation, participation in editorial boards of prestigious journals, acting as editors and a high degree of involvement in the field of tourism and education in general.

Research Group on Corpus Linguistics: developments and applications - CORPLING

Corpus linguistics (CL), with its decidedly empirical approach to language research, has greatly enriched previous paradigms to the point of becoming an obligatory methodological reference in the current landscape of linguistic studies. 

We are interested in highlighting two strands, one dealing with developments in corpus linguistics and the other focusing on its applications. Like other empirical research within linguistics, LC research straddles the humanities and the social sciences, on the basis of computational linguistics. From the humanities it takes its primary interest in the study of language in its multiple aspects, from the social sciences it has taken a large part of its methodology based on quantification (mathematics, statistics, etc.), and from computer science, the development of increasingly sophisticated analytical tools. In this respect, the methodologies used in LC, far from being static, continue to evolve and incorporate important developments, whether through the creation of increasingly sophisticated software packages in ad hoc corpus research, the creation of specific portals, or the creation of tools focused on a variety of research tasks.

Research on LC developments is related to qualitative analysis methods, to textual annotation and to the use of quantitative analysis. In addition, some recent computer science developments, such as so-called sentiment analysis or opinion mining, have turned their interest to the analysis of large amounts of data on the web (big data).

In terms of applications, corpus linguistics has no limits, its great strength being the investigation of large databases that the analyst cannot manipulate effectively through manual analysis. LC is now being applied to any area of linguistic research, be it digital genres of any kind or non-digital genres. In the case of non-digital genres, the solution necessarily involves digitisation, since LC necessarily operates on digitised texts. However, although LC is the fundamental methodology for many researchers, it does not dispense with qualitative or manual analysis, and in its scientific production it is articulated in synergies with other approaches. It is very difficult today to conceive of a dictionary or a grammar without corpus research. But beyond lexicography and phraseology, which have grown hand in hand with the corpus, we find applications in all types of linguistic analysis, whether pragmatic or discursive, including, more recently, stylistic analysis. Not forgetting applications to the acquisition and teaching of second languages, or research into specialised languages. Nor should we forget the invaluable contribution of LC to translatology, given that the corpus is a fundamental tool for translators. There are real networks of researchers working on specific aspects. 

However, returning to the starting point, we are interested in focusing our research on those aspects that evaluate the strength of proposals based on techniques developed within corpus linguistics in research on different fronts.

Research Group on Digital Disconnection at Work - DESC.LABOR

Multidisciplinary analysis of the impact of digital disconnection within the framework of labour relations. The technological transformations that the current labour market is undergoing are causing significant changes in the sphere of workers and in business management. Without a doubt, this is a challenge for the agents involved in the workplace (workers, employers, Governments, trade unions and business associations) to strengthen the protective spirit of labour regulations and guarantee basic labour rights such as rest, health and safety at work, privacy, work-life balance, secrecy of communications and data protection. In this sense, the research group analyses the worker’s right to digital disconnection, as well as its possible impact on people management and business competitiveness. All this always pointing out that it is a labour right whose effectiveness ultimately comes both from a mechanism to enhance the freedom and self-determination of the worker’s plan, as well as a guarantee of effective, free and equal business competition within the framework of a social market economy. In this context, the research group clarifies a basic and fundamental labour right today, but with many edges that need to be polished. To this end, in line with its multidisciplinary nature, it deals with the legal assets protected in labour law: to a greater or lesser extent and directly or indirectly, health (art. 15 EC); freedom (art. 1.1 EC) - including freedom of enterprise and productivity (art. 38 EC) -; dignity and free development of personality (art. 10 EC); equality (arts. 1.1; and 9.2 EC); confidentiality and privacy (art. 18.1, 3 and 4 EC); honour (art. 18.1 and 4 EC); and family (39.1 EC). Succinctly, the group intends to deal with the exercise of the right, its legal-practical implications in labour relations (with special emphasis on telework), its current state in the world (with international studies of the law in other countries), its relationship with the prevention of occupational risks (computer fatigue and hyperconnectivity), as well as with gender perspective, diversity, confidentiality and privacy, work-life balance, video-surveillance and corporate control (the need for all kinds of digital software means that the control of workers is growing considerably) and the technological side of it, among other aspects: the BYOD ("bring your own device") study, internal protocols on the use of digital devices and work time management software available to private and public companies.

Research Group on Digital and Communication Systems Design - DSDC

The Digital Systems Design and Communication Group (DSDC) is a consolidated research group attached to the Escola Técnica Superior d'Enginyería of the Universitat de València since 1996. It is currently made up of four teachers and researchers with doctorates and four pre-doctoral researchers. It has two 100m2 laboratories fully equipped for the design and development of electronic demonstrators.

He has extensive scientific experience, with more than 70 articles in high-impact international journals and more than 90 participations in scientific congresses. It also has an extensive track record in the development of research projects, having participated in more than 15 projects funded by public calls for proposals, and has a long tradition in technology transfer, having collaborated as a scientific partner in matters related to electronics, computing and telecommunications through more than 30 contracts and agreements with major players in different sectors and business areas. 

Areas of research:

  1. Customised electronic design (hardware and firmware). Reconfigurable Logic (CPLDs, FPGAs, PSoC). Microcontrollers (AVR, ARM, 8051, etc.). RTOS.
  2. Sensor networks (WSN). Wireless communications technologies (Wifi, Zigbee, CyFi, Bluetooth, Sigfox LoRA, etc.)
  3. Applications for mobile devices (IOS, Android)
  4. High-speed electronic design (Altium, etc.).
  5. Internet of Things (IoT). Motes. Concentrators. Embedded electronic developments, with special emphasis on aspects such as low power consumption, energy harvesting and miniaturisation.
  6. Project management. Development of pre-commercial prototypes, including cost analysis and CE pre-certification.

Sectors of application:

  1. Energy (smartgrids, smartmetering, renewables).
  2. Environment (climate change, smartcities, smarthome and building automation).
  3. Industry (process analytical technologies - PAT).
  4. Biomedical engineering (implantable devices, nuclear medicine PET).
  5. High-energy physics detectors (ATLAS-CERN).
  6. Consumer Electronics (wereables).

Collaborating organisations, associations and foundations in the areas of interest (excluding RTD, LI, SME):

Climate-KIC. European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Spanish Technological Platform for Energy Efficiency. Spanish Geothermal Technology Platform The Valencian Association of Energy Sector Companies (AVAESEN). InnDEA Foundation (Valencia City Hall). Spanish Home Automation Association (CEDOM). Multisectoral Association of Electronics, Information and Communication Technologies, Telecommunications and Digital Content Companies (AMETIC). Spanish Association for the Internationalisation and Innovation of Spanish Electronics Companies (SECARTYS). Building Institute of Valencia (IVE). Valencian Association of Habitat Technologies (AVATHA). Professional bodies and associations (COIT, COITT, FENITEL, FENIE). TECMA-RED communication group.

Research Group on Human Resources Strategy, Knowledge Management and Innovative and Entrepreneurial Behaviour - RRHHCIRO

This Research Group focuses on the analysis of the strategic decision-making process and human resources strategy, relating it to organisational knowledge management, innovative employee behaviour, entrepreneurial behaviour and corporate sustainability. In particular, it studies how HR policies serve as key factors in facilitating the implementation of knowledge management processes (acquisition, creation, storage, sharing, application and distribution) in organisations, generating innovation and entrepreneurship-oriented behaviours of individuals.

The analysis of how HR policies and their joint or systemic consideration become a catalyst for the individual's creativity and interest in developing innovations (new products, new processes or even new business projects) at the organisational level, which can contribute to the achievement of sustainable competitive advantages. In addition, the implementation of sustainability-oriented HR practices will, at the same time, enable the development of individual and collective behaviours that meet the current challenges that organisations face in terms of social responsibility and business sustainability. Likewise, the fact that knowledge has recently become a strategic resource for organisations has highlighted the need to manage it actively and with a clear strategic orientation. Therefore, the study of all knowledge management processes and how they are affected by the organisation's HR strategy is a subject of study for this Research Group. In turn, these knowledge management processes are essential to create the necessary climate for employees and groups within organisations to develop innovative and entrepreneurial behaviours.

The research projects developed within the framework of the team have an academic and applied orientation, and focus on collaboration with companies and managers to improve their management, with special emphasis on the problems of SMEs.

Research Group on Information and Communication Systems - GSIC

The information and communication systems group (GSIC) was founded in December 2005. The group is currently working in the field of wireless and mobile communications, including advanced multi-antenna solutions with cooperation and coordination, cognitive radios, channel estimation algorithms, etc. The group has participated in numerous national and European research projects, such as: 

  1. CONSOLIDER Project: Foundations and Methodologies for Future Communication and Sensor Networks (COMONSENS).
  2. Collaborative processing and Self-organized communications for Wireless Sensor Networks (SOFIWORKS).
  3. Thematic Network: Information & Communication Theory and Technologies (INFOCOM).
  4. Cooperative and Cognitive Interference Management Strategies for Wireless Communication Networks (COSIMA).
  5. Radio-access techniques for heterogeneous wireless networks (RACHEL).
  6. Radio-access techniques for improving urban mobility in beyond 5G networks (RAMONET).
  7. FP7-ICT-2011-7.3.3, Autonomous Control of Large-scale Water Treatment Plants based on Self-Organized Wireless BioMEM Sensor and Actuator Networks (HYDROBIONETS).
  8. FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF, Wireless Sensor Networks for Cognitive Software Radios (WISERNETS).
  9. FP6 D2002-Mobility-3, Collaborative Signal Processing for Efficient Wireless Networks (ASPIRE).
  10. FP6 NoE-IST-4-027738, Creating Ubiquitous Intelligent Sensing Applications (CRUISE).
  11. FP7-ICT-2007-1-1.1 (Network of the Future), Sensor Network for Dynamic and Cognitive Radio Access (SENDORA). The group has also led the Valencia5G agreement (2019-2021).
Research Group on Support for Research in Language Variation Analysis - SILVAGroup

The concept of “language variation” is key for the study of the evolution of languages and of social, professional and educational communicative systems. Social, cultural, health, economic, technological and educational transformations are developed, conveyed and reflected through their linguistic and communicative manifestations. The aim of the group is to study the progress that current society is undergoing through the analysis of the essential linguistic variables that are involved and interact in human communication. These variables depend on the profiles of speakers (e.g. idiolectal, dialectal variation, according to gender, age, social status, level of education, etc.) and on the uses they make of language according to the interpersonal identities they adopt (i.e. register variation), the codes they use to communicate (i.e. variation of mode), the different textual platforms they use (i.e. variation of discursive genre) and the different persuasive strategies with which they convey their intention and image (i.e. stylistic variation). The analysis of these variables requires approaching the study of communication at different scales, from its macro and hyper discursive aspect (e.g. interrelation between the variables that interact in business or academic communication, or the complexity of multimodal communication of social media and digital platforms) and also of its micro discursive components (e.g. variation of phonetic, morphological, lexical and syntactic units). As highlighted by experts in language variation (Bayley, 2013; Chambers and Schilling, 2018), in order to address comprehensive and innovative studies in this field, it is necessary to keep up to date the methodology needed to define and classify the categories, criteria and parameters essential to understand and analyse these variables and their interrelation.

Some of these have been extensively studied (e.g. dialectal variation) and others are currently being studied (e.g. variation of discursive genre), but there are still many ambiguous and controversial aspects of other relevant variables, such as those involved in communicative register variation. This type of interpersonal and contextual variation covers the whole spectrum of human interaction, from that which takes place in the most sophisticated and conventional contexts to that which takes place in the most intimate and familiar settings. There are different degrees of dependence and interrelation between various registers in the same communicative act, which has posed a difficult challenge for experts, particularly when it comes to accessing real data and compiling large and representative corpora. Moreover, throughout history, its study has been approached from many different perspectives, including heterogeneous, ambiguous and confusing variables that have generated controversy within this field of research. This theoretical heterogeneity and methodological complexity have hindered the development of in-depth and wide-ranging studies on this language variety, which could effectively transfer their results to society and the labour market, offering practical methods and tools for understanding, learning and mastering it. There are other variables in a similar situation (e.g. idiolectal variation, stylistic variation, genolects, chronolects, etc.). 

With the aim of contributing to the advancement of this field, the main objectives of the SILVAGroup are the following:

  1. To delve into the fundamental categories, criteria and parameters for the study and analysis of language variation, and the factors involved in its current behaviour in the English language and other majority languages, such as Spanish and German.
  2. To investigate language variation from a comprehensive pragmatic approach, highlighting its interpersonal and multimodal dimensions in its fluctuation throughout everyday communication from public to private settings.
  3. To work from emerging technologies, corpus linguistics and other multidisciplinary fields of human communication, contrasting advances and results between languages.
  4. To design methodologies for the study of language variation, useful in the search and detection of distinctive features that shed light on definition and typology of its parameters of analysis, and also practical for learning and mastering them, especially at a social and professional level.
  5. To participate in platforms and projects for the dissemination of research, especially in international conferences and impact publications, in order to encourage further study of RV and to publicise the results of the group’s activity.
  6. To constitute a national and international support platform for research in this field and for its dissemination.

The group’s research activity will be structured from the IULMA, based at the Universitat de València, to which most of the members of the group belong, and is made up of a multidisciplinary team of both young and experienced researchers from the UV, UPV and UA.

All the members of the group share the essential research lines for the study of RV: language variation, corpus linguistics and contrastive linguistics. The group also has experts in other relevant research lines. This multidisciplinary nature provides this team with the advantage of approaching language variation from different but complementary areas of knowledge and research lines, allowing an innovative depth and perspective and results that can really bring a significant advance in the field.

Research Group on the Constitutional Legal Regime of Freedoms, Open Government and the Use of New Technologies - clrfoguit

Cotino (Director) has been the PI for three consecutive national projects on these issues, one focused on e-government (2005-2008), another on freedom and participation in the social web (2010-2012) and the current one on Open Government (2013-2015), a subject on which continuity is sought. The new R&D&I project of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness is pending resolution. It is entitled “The progress of Open Government. Constitutional legal regime of the implementation of transparency policies, access to information, open data, collaboration and participation, especially through ICTs and e-government” DER2015-65810-P (pending resolution). Cotino is also PI. The results are more than evident, both on the web and in hundreds of publications and papers. Besides some readjustments, this time the internationalisation is boosted by strengthening the foreign team. All the members of the team have worked and cooperated actively in recent years.

 

This UV group also includes two members who are not part of the Ministry’s project, two point researchers in Spain, Fernández Salmerón and Valero Torrijos, from Administrative Law.

The legal treatment of contents and freedoms on the Internet, liability of providers, hate speech, limits, censorship, etc. will continue to be addressed. On the other hand, given the relatively ethereal concept of open government and the predominance of other disciplines, a constitutional legal treatment is needed to legally decant, sediment and distil all these changes and advances that have just taken place in the last few years with respect to the contents of the concept of Open Government (transparency, participation, collaboration, open data, etc.) and its projection in the legal framework as well as the fundamental rights that are involved. Continuity is sought as we are at a crucial moment in the development of the Open Government. We are on the culmination of a process of fundamentalising the right to transparency and access to public information. This process has not been completed neither by the ECHR, nor the CJEU, nor, especially, by our Constitutional Court and Supreme Court. It is going to be especially important to analyse the interpretation by data protection authorities, transparency authorities, ombudsmen with jurisdiction over this area, and, of course, the ordinary and constitutional courts.

 

The aim is to analyse and monitor both the application of the transparency law and new administrative laws and reform of the law on re-use, the decree implementing the law on transparency, 2015, as well as the wave of regional laws in the 2013-2015 period in the autonomous community.

Beyond the mere normative analysis, it is a matter of taking into account the practical implementation and policies of open government policies, especially in Spain at the different town, region and state levels. It is a booming issue in 2015-16 in Spain. However, given the transnational nature of the phenomenon, it will also be monitored from a comparative and supranational European and Latin American perspective.

The aim is not only to analyse the constitutional legal development of open government, but also, as far as possible, to influence it on the different legal operators.
It has a solid experience in the dissemination of high quality legal content in classic formats (more than nine collective works and ten congresses), partly through www.derechotics.com or the Cyberlaw clinic and highly visible Twitter profiles of some of the members. In addition to generating and disseminating academic knowledge, it will be conducted an observatory of e-administration 2.0, an analysis of websites of Spanish and international reference; a document of practical legal recommendations and precautions.

e-MAKRETING Research Group - eMARKETING

e-MARKETING, as a research group of the UV, develops activities in line with methodological innovation and thematic study in Marketing and New Technologies, trying to understand consumer behaviour in social media and mobile marketing and paying special attention to viral marketing. The group’s work addresses calls for research in these fields by choosing retailing, tourism and the education sector as priority application sectors. These topics make up its main lines of research.

The e-MARKETING experience and its consolidation as a team is endorsed by the participation of its members in more than 20 different R&D contracts of special relevance with Companies and/or Administrations in which trust seals in e-commerce, analysis of the implementation of ICT in retail trade, value creation through mobile applications, etc. have been proposed.

The quality of the group’s research and the importance of its results can be seen in its many contributions to conferences (more than 150). More than 100 research papers have been published in indexed journals, many of them in the JCR (i.e. Online Information Review, Journal of Services Management, Industrial Management and Data Systems, etc.) in ISI databases, in the SJR or in databases such as ABI INFORM, EMERALD Reviews, etc. The coordinator of the group, Dr. Ruiz, is accredited as professor by ANECA, has 2 six-year research periods, has supervised 6 doctoral theses in the core research lines of eMARKETING and is Associate Editor of the Electronic Commerce Research and Applications (ECRA) and member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Product and Brand Management, Online Information Review and Electronic Commerce Research and Applications. She as been a member of the Board of Directors of the Spanish Marketing Association (AEMARK). She has been the main researcher of 6 research projects related to the group, one of them (not completed) of the Spanish National Plan (eWOM: neuroscientific and experimental analysis in services); she is also director of 5 educational innovation projects, one of the consisting of the creating of an international network of universities for the exchange of teaching experiences. Research areas:

  • Information processing To study the determining variables in the processing of advertising information and the exchange of commercial information between individuals on social media and their impact on purchase, loyalty and recommendation.
  • Mobile marketing. To analyse the perceived value drivers in mobile communications as well as the drivers of mobile commerce. To identify the motivation and brakes in viral marketing through mobile devices (smartphones and tablets).
  • Complaint behaviour in social media. Research on the motivations for complaints, switching suppliers, anti-brand communities, boycotts and negative word-of-mouth communications in social networks Educational innovation and ICT.
  • Study of new collaborative learning methodologies that incorporate new technologies (Ted lessons, gamification, etc.) and their impact on student satisfaction, perceived quality and relational variables. Viral marketing.
  • Study of the background and consequences of viral marketing in digital channels with special emphasis on influencers. Influence of viral marketing on consumer perceptions, attitudes and purchasing behaviour. Analysis of the elements that generate a viral impact in communication campaigns.