Presentation Slides

Abstract: Building shared mental models and social capital among members and units within a given organization is the key to getting them to see themselves as parts of single whole. The fact that each part or process or unit may be related to one another in fact is not enough to bring about this realization. The essential question becomes how do we get distinct units or groups within an organization to share a common perception or vision and then work in their own respective capacities to achieve it?

We will begin with an exploration of Denzau and North’s Shared Mental Models (SMM) conceptual framework to explore ways organizations can improve informal as well as formal processes and structures to facilitate shared learning and understanding. Effective collective action is most often the product of having strong levels of interpersonal trust among group members.

Biography: Ravi Roy holds a B.A. in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles (College of Honors); an M.A. in public policy from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California; and a Ph.D. in political science (with a concentration in comparative political economy/public policy), also from Claremont Graduate University. He was also a post-doctoral fellow at the Claremont Institute for Economic Policy Studies.

Ravi is also a research fellow at the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Prior to his CSUN appointment, he was director of the Master's Program in International Development in the School of Global Studies at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.

In addition, Ravi has written or co-written three books and was the lead editor on a fourth, which focused on the role of ideas and mental models in shaping people's discrete understandings of the choices available to them and how these, in turn, inform their various policy preferences.

Contact: Ravi can be reached by e-mail at ravi.roy@csun.edu for additional information about this session.

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/pub/ravi-roy/8b/67b/569