Benefits-Led IT: Building The Organisational Capability – A Longitudinal Perspective

Although the enterprise-wide benefits realisation capability has been touted as the most robust way in which organisations can counter the still too common incidence of information systems failing to deliver their promised value, there has been no research to explore the validity of this claim. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to present the results of a three year, action research study, which explicitly sought to establish just such a capability, within an Institute of Higher Education. The project commenced, in 2010, with a series of workshops, through which staff were introduced to the core components of this capability, namely a range of benefits-oriented competences and practices. This paper provides a longitudinal perspective, critically reviewing the adoption and impact of these competences and practices, over the past three years. The study has demonstrated that certain practices are enthusiastically embraced, as they are perceived to make a positive contribution to the realisation of benefits. However, it would be difficult to claim that a benefits realisation capability has been successfully created, as it is clear that there is still some reluctance to apply benefits practices in a consistent and extensive manner, across all areas of organisational activity. This paper concludes by exploring the lessons learned for organisations wishing to establish their own benefits realisation capabilities

The effect of local political deliberation on the publicity of reason

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Inferring urban polycentricity from the variability in human mobility patterns

The polycentric city model has gained popularity in spatial planning policy, since it is believed to overcome some of the problems often present in monocentric metropolises, ranging from congestion to difficult accessibility to jobs and services. However, the concept 'polycentric city' has a fuzzy definition and as a result, the extent to which a city is polycentric cannot be easily determined. Here, we leverage the fine spatio-temporal resolution of smart travel card data to infer urban polycentricity by examining how a city departs from a well-defined monocentric model. In particular, we analyse the human movements that arise as a result of sophisticated forms of urban structure by introducing a novel probabilistic approach which captures the complexity of these human movements. We focus on London (UK) and Seoul (South Korea) as our two case studies, and we specifically find evidence that London displays a higher degree of monocentricity than Seoul, suggesting that Seoul is likely to be more polycentric than London

No such thing as a free lunch? Exploring the consistency, validity, and uses of the 'Free School Meals' (FSM) measure in the National Pupil Database

This working paper discusses and synthesises existing literature on correspondences between attribution of Free School Meals (FSM) status in the National Pupil Database (NPD) and family income-level and other circumstances. It then presents new descriptive comparisons of FSM status as recorded in the Reception year of primary school, and other recorded child, national, and area-level factors. Compounding known issues with patterns of under-recording in the NPD of FSM-entitled children, changing criteria for entitlement to FSM, and fuzziness in definition and usage – in terms of what recorded FSM status is assumed to represent – findings here indicate that the compositions of the FSM vs non-FSM-ascribed groups have changed over time. They suggest moreover that the relationships between area-level factors and FSM attribution may also have altered over the past decade, and point to increased under-ascription of children from low-income families / families living in poverty. The potential consequences of these findings for mapping of ‘gaps’ in time series comparing FSM and non-FSM-attributed children and for evaluation (and perhaps formulation) of targeted policies and interventions are discussed. Implications of differential attributions of FSM status within a system where ascription is not straightforward nor entirely ‘accurate’ but where it is deterministic of experiences and outcomes begin to be explored, laying the foundations for further research

Conservation tourism and the citizen scientist

Parallel paper session 1- Theme: Hospitality, Tourism and Sustainability program, http://eurochriebudapest2016.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Parallel1.pdfThis paper shares findings from an ongoing ethnography of an Australian conservation organisation that manages volunteers in a number of settings. It explores a program of volunteer tourism operated in a single publically owned park and draws on the idea of citizen science to conceptualise the tourists’ activities there. Initial findings suggest that this citizen research is seen as relatively effective by management, employees and volunteers (tourists) alike, though a number of challenges have been identified, not least associated with differing perceptions and expectations of the tour ‘breaks’ offered by the organisation.Peter John Sandifor

Exploring definitions of food insecurity and vulnerability: time to refocus assessments

Recent high food prices and changes in the world food situation are exacerbating the conditions of households that are vulnerable to food insecurity, especially those with weak livelihood strategies. To address the impact of these and other stressors it is necessary to develop a deeper understanding of concepts such as ‘vulnerability’ and ‘food insecurity’. This is challenging as both concepts are used rather loosely in the food security literature, despite both having at least two dimensions. Vulnerability has an external and internal dimension, and food insecurity has a temporal and intensity dimension. However, assessments are often only concerned with one dimension at a time. An exploration of the two concepts suggests that in both cases the dimensions need to be combined in order to understand the different interactions and the interconnections between different dimensions and the multiple levels of the systems in which they are embedded. This combination of dimensions is important for understanding the significant role that livelihoods play in the accumulation of assets and for accessing food. It makes the understanding of the multiple causes and consequences of vulnerability and food insecurity for different households clearer. Those households and individuals considered chronically poor or food-insecure are likely to experience severe food insecurity in the long-term, as a result of their weak livelihoods and minimal assets. Consequently, future studies on vulnerability to food insecurity should focus on these chronically food insecure households in order to determine the multidimensional nature of the stressors they experience and their ability to cope and adapt to these stressors. This would contribute to our understanding of the contexts in which the data from larger quantitative studies are embedded.high food prices, livelihoods, vulnerability, food insecurity, multidimensional stressors, Consumer/Household Economics,

Who are Non-Resident Fathers?: A British Socio-Demographic Profile

Despite international growth of, and policy interest in, divorce and separation since the 1970s, there is still surprisingly little known about non-residential fatherhood. This paper presents a ‘father-centric’ analysis and provides one of the first profiles of non-residential fatherhood in early millennium UK. Using data from Understanding Society Wave 1, a nationally representative survey of over 30,000 households in the UK, we found 1,070 men self-identifying as having a non-resident child under 16 years old (https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk). We estimate a prevalence of 5 per cent of British men having a non-resident dependent child. Through latent class analysis, four distinct groups of non-resident fathers are identified: ‘Engaged’ fathers, ‘Less Engaged’ fathers, ‘Disengaged’ fathers and ‘Distance’ fathers. Our analysis finds that non-resident fathers form a heterogeneous group in terms of their socio-demographic profile and family behaviour. It is recommended that legislation and policy concerning fathers in post-separation families are sensitive to variation as well as commonality in socio-economic conditions and family lives and situations