Facilitating the formation of common-interest clubs among MBA students of DLSU-Manila

• Main Author: Tensuan, Rafael Gerardo S.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2014
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/4748
• Institution: De La Salle University

I explored and pursued opportunities for facilitating the formation of connections and creating conditions that will nurture social capital among students of the Master of Business Administration program of De La Salle University. By not restricting my study to alumni networks, I and my selected group of DLSU MBA students realized greater potentials for both networking and acquiring social capital within the highly-conducive business school setting. We pursued these opportunities by providing the necessary structures, processes, and resources to form what is currently the only accredited common-interest student club for MBA students. I performed insider action research, guided by Coghlan and Brannicks (2010) Doing Action Research in Your Own Organization. My group completed a single main cycle of the four-step action research process of constructing, planning, taking action, and evaluating action. I used Boeck and Flemings (2005) social capital framework to complement action research and aid in the understanding of the concept of social capital and its release, enhancement, and leveraging. In this paper, I and my colleagues in the MBA Program identified issues encountered in forming the new club and discussed the strategies adopted to resolve them. We generated knowledge about personal learning and inquiry processes, about students of DLSUs MBA Program, about experiential learning and the actual performance of action research, about social capital, and about forming a student organization for graduate students. I and my MBA colleagues also identified potential inputs for a second cycle of action research. Finally, I identified five key factors that must be considered in forming new common-interest student clubs in the near future.