33,145 research outputs found
A strategic approach to making sense of the âwickedâ problem of ERM
Purpose â The purpose of this paper is to provide an approach to viewing the âwickedâ problem of electronic records management (ERM), using the Cynefin framework, a sense-making tool. It re-conceptualises the ERM challenge by understanding the nature of the people issues. This supports decision making about the most appropriate tactics to adopt to effect positive change.
Design/methodology/approach â Cynefin was used to synthesise qualitative data from an empirical research project that investigated strategies and tactics for improving ERM.
Findings â ERM may be thought of as a dynamic, complex challenge but, viewed through the Cynefin framework, many issues are not complex; they are simple or complicated and can be addressed using best or good practice. The truly complex issues need a different approach, described as emergent practice. Cynefin provides a different lens through which to view, make sense of and re-perceive the ERM challenge and offers a strategic approach to accelerating change.
Research limitations/implications â Since Cynefin has been applied to one data set, the findings are transferrable not generalisable. They, and/or the approach, can be used to further test the propositions.
Practical implications â The resultant ERM framework provides a practical example for information and records managers to exploit or use as a starting point to explore the situation in particular organisational contexts. It could also be used in other practical, teaching and/or research-related records contexts.
Originality/value â This paper provides a new strategic approach to addressing the wicked problem of ERM, which is applicable for any organisational context
Risk Management in the Arctic Offshore: Wicked Problems Require New Paradigms
Recent project-management literature and high-profile disastersâthe financial crisis, the BP
Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the Fukushima nuclear accidentâillustrate the flaws of
traditional risk models for complex projects. This research examines how various groups with
interests in the Arctic offshore define risks. The findings link the wicked problem framework and
the emerging paradigm of Project Management of the Second Order (PM-2). Wicked problems
are problems that are unstructured, complex, irregular, interactive, adaptive, and novel. The
authors synthesize literature on the topic to offer strategies for navigating wicked problems,
provide new variables to deconstruct traditional risk models, and integrate objective and
subjective schools of risk analysis
Beyond tools: building learning organisations to adapt to a changing climate
Executive summary: The focus of this VCCCAR Visiting Fellowship was participation in the project âImplementing tools to increase adaptive capacity in the community and natural resources management sectorsâ. This project aimed to improve understanding of the adaptation capabilities and needs of three types of government service providers and funded agencies (catchment management authorities, community sector organisations and primary care partnerships). The intention was to draw on my experience of working at the UK Climate Impacts Program (UKCIP) and with projects in Europe to inform the development of this project and the way it might support adaptation efforts in Victoria.UKCIP was a small organisation, varying in size over its life from 2 to a maximum of about 25 people. Given such limited capacity there was a tension between trying to address the need for tailored adaptation support and the capacity to deliver it. One response was to provide widespread support through downloadable tools and other web resources. However, it was quickly discovered that downloading a tool only gets you so far. Similarly, having access to accurate climate data and information about future climate projections was also seen as the obvious place to start in responding to a changing climate. However, it soon became clear that even with access to accurate, reliable, salient information there could still be no assumption that decision makers would take action to adapt and there was frequently a gap between the quite high general awareness of climate change within an organisation (and an understanding of how it could affect their core business) and the implementation of actions to respond to it. This raises key questions about availability of usable information and extent of agreement on potential responses to climate risks.To be usable, information should relate to existing decision making processes and the key priorities of the organisation. It should also be locally relevant. In discussions with Victorian organisations, people wanted to know how to translate more general information about climate change into useful messages for everyday practice and service delivery. It is clearly important to start with current concerns and overlay on these the likely impacts of changing climate. Most future climate impacts are often not yet seen as urgent or important and there is a need for better coordination of users, demonstration projects, activities that bridge the gap between providers and users, and demonstration of how climate information can improve decision making. 
Place-based approaches to child and family services
This paper synthesizes the conceptual and empirical literature on place-based approaches to meeting the needs of young children and their families. A specific focus of the paper is on the potential contribution of place-based approaches to service reconfiguration and coordination.
Outline
The paper begins by outlining the sweeping social changes that have occurred in developed nations over the past few decades and their impact on children, families and communities. It explores the âjoined upâ problems faced by families and communities in the contemporary world, and highlights the need to reconfigure services to support families more effectively. The paper then focuses on âjoined upâ solutions, on what we know about how to meet the challenges posed by the complex problems that characterise our society. Next, the paper explores what a place-based approach involves, and what role it can play in supporting families with young children.
The rationale underpinning place-based approaches is outlined and the evidence for the effectiveness of the approach is summarised. The paper then looks at what can be learned from efforts to implement place-based initiatives in Australia and overseas, and explores the issues that need to be addressed in implementing this strategy. The ways in which the early childhood service system might be reconfigured are also considered, and the paper ends with a consideration of the policy and implementation implications. 
Sustainability science graduate students as boundary spanners
Graduate training in sustainability science (SS) focuses on interdisciplinary research, stakeholder-researcher partnerships, and creating solutions from knowledge. But becoming a sustainability scientist also requires specialized training that addresses the complex boundaries implicit in sustainability science approaches to solving social-ecological system challenges. Using boundary spanning as a framework, we use a case study of the Sustainability Solutions Initiative (SSI) at the University of Maine to explicate key elements for graduate education training in SS. We used a mixed-methods approach, including a quantitative survey and autoethnographic reflection, to analyze our experiences as SSI doctoral students. Through this research, we identified four essential SS boundaries that build on core sustainability competencies which need to be addressed in SS graduate programs, including: disciplines within academia, students and their advisors, researchers and stakeholders, and place-based and generalizable research. We identified key elements of training necessary to help students understand and navigate these boundaries using core competencies. We then offer six best practice recommendations to provide a basis for a SS education framework. Our reflections are intended for academic leaders in SS who are training new scientists to solve complex sustainability challenges. Our experiences as a cohort of doctoral students with diverse academic and professional backgrounds provide a unique opportunity to reflect not only on the challenges of SS but also on the specific needs of students and programs striving to provide solutions
Messy supply chains
Extant research has made many advances in our understanding of how relatively stable, repetitive supply chains (SCs) can be run effectively. This study focuses on the less researched SCs that are not stable or repetitive. To capture the management challenges of this type of SC, a definition of "messy supply chains" (MSCs) for SCs presenting "wicked" (Rittel and Webber, 2007) or "messy" problems (Ackoff, 1981) is proposed. A conceptual framework is explored in the context of the literature on humanitarian operations. This framework will form the foundation of an in-depth examination of MSCs to aid research and managerial practice.
Keywords: suppl
Soil Governance: Accessing Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives
Soil provides the foundation for agricultural and environmental systems, and are subject to a complex governance regime of property rights and secondary impacts from industry and domestic land use. Complex natural resource management issues require approaches to governance that acknowledge uncertainty and complexity. Theories of next generation environmental governance assume that inclusion of diverse perspectives will improve reform directions and encourage behaviour change. This paper reports on a qualitative survey of an international workshop that brought together cross-disciplinary perspectives to address the challenges of soil governance. Results reveal the challenges of communicating effectively across disciplines. The findings suggest that strategies for improved soils governance must focus on increasing communications with community stakeholders and engaging land managers in designing shared governance regimes. The need for more conscious articulation of the challenges of cross-disciplinary environments is discussed and strategies for increasing research collaboration in soils governance are suggested. The identified need for more systematic approaches to cross-disciplinary learning, including reporting back of cross-disciplinary initiatives to help practitioners learn from past experience, forms part of the rationale for this paper
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21st Century Managers and Intuition: Evaluating the learning achieved from an Example of Pedagogic Change for Business Undergraduates
A key requirement for effective research on pedagogy and course redesign is a credible measure (or measures) of student learning on completion of individual modules or even specific teaching initiatives. This has proved difficult to achieve for business courses for some subjects - in particular for the teaching of soft skills such as team working. Traditional methods such as examinations are inappropriate. This paper reports on a novel approach to the evaluation of an exercise, designed to develop business studentsâ skill of managerial intuition. Changing business conditions are placing a greater value on managersâ ability to deal with open-ended complex (wicked) problems. One academic stream of work has identified that managerial intuition is the key to handling such problems effectively. This, like all skills, can best be acquired through practice. An exercise designed to give small teams of students experience of such a problem was designed for a module delivered during the 1st year of a business degree at Business SchoolX. In parallel students were required to carry out both team and individual reflections that focused on the learning achieved on this exercise. Since the reflective practice was required and marked this ensured that we obtained a comprehensive response from almost all students on the course. Reflective practice can be anonymised and draws on an individualâs most deeply held thinking. This year (2015/16) is the first attempt at carrying out an evaluation exercise of this type. The paper reports on the preliminary results from the Autumn Term module
Framing the UKâs counter-terrorism policy within the context of a wicked problem
Terrorist attacks can be seen as the ultimate wicked problem. After 9/11, terrorists moved
from so-called âspectacularâ events to relatively low-intensity attacks against individuals and
groups. The emergence of what has become known as the âhome-grownâ terrorist has added a
further dimension to the âwickedâ nature of the problem. This paper considers the UKâs
CONTEST and PREVENT strategies as a policy response to the threats from terrorism
and the impact that the policies themselves can have on the radicalization of individuals.
The author highlights some of the limitations of the PREVENT strand of the overall
strategy and the constraints that are imposed on government policies by failing to take a
holistic perspective on the nature of the problem
Observing Environments
> Context ⢠Society is faced with âwickedâ problems of environmental sustainability, which are inherently multiperspectival, and there is a need for explicitly constructivist and perspectivist theories to address them.
> Problem ⢠However, different constructivist theories construe the environment in different ways. The aim of this paper is to clarify the conceptions of environment in constructivist approaches, and thereby to assist the sciences of complex systems and complex environmental problems.
> Method ⢠We describe the terms used for âthe environmentâ in von UexkĂźll, Maturana & Varela, and Luhmann, and analyse how their conceptions of environment are connected to differences of perspective and observation.
> Results ⢠We show the need to distinguish between inside and outside perspectives on the environment, and identify two very different and complementary logics of observation, the logic of distinction and the logic of representation, in the three constructivist theories.
> Implications ⢠Luhmannâs theory of social systems can be a helpful perspective on the wicked environmental problems of society if we consider carefully the theoryâs own blind spots: that it confines itself to systems of communication, and that it is based fully on the conception of observation as indication by means of distinction
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