Abstract :
This study focuses on a project, EMPATHY Net-Works, which developed a
learning community as a means of encouraging women to progress into
employment and management positions in the logistics and supply chain
industries (LaSCI). Learning activities were organised in the form of a taught
module containing face-to-face and online elements and e-mentoring with
successful professional women in the LaSCI. In this particular research, we
have used structuration theory, a social theory that concentrates on the relationships
between human agency (micro-level) and social structures (macrolevel).
We used structuration as an analytical tool to help us understand what
happened within the project e-learning and e-mentoring processes. Our analysis
suggests that there were two factors that influenced the way project participants
carried out their learning activities: the first one being the issue of
absence and presence in online environments, and the second one the issue of
time frame changes for online users.
