Marketisation of UK employment programmes: the impact on a third sector organisation

Since 1999 UK employment programmes (known as welfare-to-work programmes) have been delivered through the procurement of services from organisations outside of the public sector. Managed by contractual arrangements and arranged in a quasi-market system controlled by the state, private and third sector organisations compete to secure contracts predominantly based on payment-by-results and competitive tendering processes. This thesis used an instrumental case study to analyse the impact of the welfare-to-work quasi-market on a third sector organisation based in Scotland. Using a qualitative mixed-methods research strategy including 20 in-depth interviews, 150 documents, an ethnographic study and financial analysis of the organisation’s accounts, the thesis presents an in-depth insight into the development of the welfare-to-work market and its changes over time and the impact this had on instigating organisational change in a third sector organisation. Drawing on transaction cost theory, neoinstitutional theory and resource dependency theory the study found that activities, structure, and management processes changed in line with changes in its organisational field in order to attract and maintain resources and gain legitimacy. Furthermore, the organisation under investigation faced financial management tensions as it sought to balance its involvement in service delivery with transaction costs associated with market participation. The thesis found that the dependence on resources from complex quasi-markets relations creates new power asymmetries between delivery organisations and the state

Sustainable social (enterprise) entrepreneurship. An organisational and individual identity perspective.

Purpose - to investigate the phenomenon of sustainable social (enterprise) entrepreneurship from both organisational and individual/personal identity perspectives. Two research questions ask: (RQ1) what are the key organisational identity (OI) and governance issues associated with sustainable social enterprises (SEs) and social entrepreneurship?, and; (RQ2) who are the social enterprise (SE) leaders/entrepreneurs (and why are they important from an identity perspective)? Design/methodology/approach – A stage 1 interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) employed 30 semi-structured interviews of social entrepreneurs in the (UK) South East; a macro-level conceptualisation of social enterprise (organisational) identity, sustainability and governance issues being the key deliverable. This was followed by a stage 2 social constructionist and social entrepreneurial identity study; whereby, 16 in-depth interviews, with 3 case study social enterprise leaders were conducted over a period of three years. Stage 3 involved 2 employee and volunteer focus groups to help triangulate data from the previous stages. Finally, stage 4 follow-up interviews with 4 selected informants helped evaluate the impact of the Brexit vote on my thesis arguments. Various third sector and government policy documents were consulted throughout the study. Findings – Firstly, I argue that understanding who organisations are, as well as, what they do, are important for understanding the sustainability of social enterprises, and the third sector. A new conceptual social enterprise grid (SEG) is developed to distinguish who social enterprises are; relative to other third and public-sector organisations. Secondly, a Ricoeurian narrative analysis helps demonstrate the agentic role of social entrepreneurs; how social enterprise sustainability is motivated by personal beliefs, social values and an idem (i.e. almost permanent) sense of identity. Similarly, results demonstrate how social enterprise sustainability could be at least part-attributed, to the lifetime agentic function of social entrepreneurs. Originality/value – This PhD thesis addresses fundamental definitional and theory gaps in the social enterprise and third sector identity literatures. It contributes by offering fresh perspectives on the complex and inter-related issues of (organisational and socio-entrepreneurial) identity, governance and sustainability

Data fusion for human intelligence and crisis management : handling information from untrusted sources

Situation awareness is a key requirement in managing civil contingencies, since major incidents, accidents and natural disasters are by their very nature highly unpredictable and confusing situations. It is important that those responsible for dealing with them have the best available information. The mash-up approach brings together information from multiple public and specialist sources to form a synoptic view, but the controller is still faced with multiple, partial and possibly conflicting reports from untrusted sources. The aim of this research is to investigate how the varying provenance of the data can be tracked and exploited to prioritise the information presented to a busy incident controller, and to synthesise a model or models of the situation that the evidence pertains to. The approach in this research is to develop a system involving novel approach and techniques to allow incident controllers and similar decision makers to augment official information input streams with information contributed by the wider public (either explicitly submitted to them or harvested from social networks such as Facebook and Twitter), and to be able to handle inconsistencies and uncertainty arising from the unreliability of such sources in a flexible way. The system takes in situational data in a structured format, such as the Tactical Situation Object (TSO) proposed by OASIS, a project funded by the European Framework Programme 6 (FP6) and performs an automated logical consistency checking in order to isolate inconsistent and absurd messages, identify the inconsistency between messages and cluster the consistent messages together. Each cluster of consistent messages that gives a possible view of a situation that the evidence pertains to is referred to as a `World View'. The logical consistency checking is performed using Alloy and Alloy Analyzer (sic). Finally, the system presents a set of possible world views, each internally consistent, which are ranked based upon an initial information provenance and quality metric (configured by the user) which is used to score the individual data items. The provenance and quality metric includes those factors that influence trust in information such as identity and location of informant, reputation, corroboration, freshness of information, etc. The result is a set of world views prioritised according to the provenance, trust and information quality metric. This thesis also presents some experimental results as proof of the concept. The experimentation has been carried out with a very small set of data to make the automation (automatic experimentation) feasible. However, a theoretical proof is offered to demonstrate the viability of the concept. Future work includes testing the system in real-life cases, in order to understand the utility of the system

What Ukraine Taught NATO about Hybrid Warfare

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 forced the United States and its NATO partners to be confronted with the impact of hybrid warfare far beyond the battlefield. Targeting Europe’s energy security, Russia’s malign influence campaigns and malicious cyber intrusions are affecting global gas prices, driving up food costs, disrupting supply chains and grids, and testing US and Allied military mobility. This study examines how hybrid warfare is being used by NATO’s adversaries, what vulnerabilities in energy security exist across the Alliance, and what mitigation strategies are available to the member states. Cyberattacks targeting the renewable energy landscape during Europe’s green transition are increasing, making it urgent that new tools are developed to protect these emerging technologies. No less significant are the cyber and information operations targeting energy security in Eastern Europe as it seeks to become independent from Russia. Economic coercion is being used against Western and Central Europe to stop gas from flowing. China’s malign investments in Southern and Mediterranean Europe are enabling Beijing to control several NATO member states’ critical energy infrastructure at a critical moment in the global balance of power. What Ukraine Taught NATO about Hybrid Warfare will be an important reference for NATO officials and US installations operating in the European theater.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1952/thumbnail.jp

Data Spaces

This open access book aims to educate data space designers to understand what is required to create a successful data space. It explores cutting-edge theory, technologies, methodologies, and best practices for data spaces for both industrial and personal data and provides the reader with a basis for understanding the design, deployment, and future directions of data spaces. The book captures the early lessons and experience in creating data spaces. It arranges these contributions into three parts covering design, deployment, and future directions respectively. The first part explores the design space of data spaces. The single chapters detail the organisational design for data spaces, data platforms, data governance federated learning, personal data sharing, data marketplaces, and hybrid artificial intelligence for data spaces. The second part describes the use of data spaces within real-world deployments. Its chapters are co-authored with industry experts and include case studies of data spaces in sectors including industry 4.0, food safety, FinTech, health care, and energy. The third and final part details future directions for data spaces, including challenges and opportunities for common European data spaces and privacy-preserving techniques for trustworthy data sharing. The book is of interest to two primary audiences: first, researchers interested in data management and data sharing, and second, practitioners and industry experts engaged in data-driven systems where the sharing and exchange of data within an ecosystem are critical

Global Perspectives on NGO Communication for Social Change

This book examines the central role media and communication play in the activities of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) around the globe, how NGOs communicate with key publics, engage stakeholders, target political actors, enable input from civil society, and create participatory opportunities. An international line-up of authors first discuss communication practices, strategies, and media uses by NGOs, providing insights into the specifics of NGO programs for social change goals and reveal particular sets of tactics NGOs commonly employ. The book then presents a set of case studies of NGO organizing from all over the world—ranging from Sudan via Brazil to China – to illustrate the particular contexts that make NGO advocacy necessary, while also highlighting successful initiatives to illuminate the important spaces NGOs occupy in civil society. This comprehensive and wide-ranging exploration of global NGO communication will be of great interest to scholars across communication studies, media studies, public relations, organizational studies, political science, and development studies, while offering accessible pieces for practitioners and organizers

Analysing usability and security issues in design and development of information systems

Recent technological advancements and the global economic challenges have meant that, individuals and businesses are constantly seeking new ways to exploit Information Systems (IS) and in manners that not only enhance user experiences and/or improve business processes and productivity, but also protect the individual‟s privacy and business assets for competitive advantage. Therefore, Information Systems need to be designed and developed to meet these challenges and/or other objectives. This thesis will delve primarily into the history of IS as a basis for establishing where the problem(s) lie or emanate from. It will focus on critically analysing existing Information Systems, and investigating the conflicting issues of usability and security, from an Information Systems Design and Development perspective by analysing various approaches. An in-depth review of literature and critical analysis of requirements necessary for the design and development of a usable and secure Information System will be carried out and will form the intellectual framework for this research. The premise therefore, is to look for a balanced approach or appropriate trade-off framework for designing usable-secure systems. The research will conclude with a discussion on how an envisaged conceptual framework or model can be developed based on certain influential factors, and how the framework can be experimentally evaluated, and to suggest areas for further improvement or future research