A comparative analysis of the governance mechanisms in two Centres for Inclusive Living that enhance disabled peoples’ life choices

This study examined disabled people’s access to independent living in Scotland and Norway. At the time of the field work for this research in 2012, the literature revealed no comparable social enquiry combining the concepts of citizenship, independent living and governance. Within disability studies, independent living denotes a perspective that recognises the interconnected nature of life areas that affect lived experiences of disablement and inclusion of disabled citizens. From the independent living movement, Centres for Inclusive Living emerged as unique governance structures with full service-user involvement and run by disabled people for disabled people. This study focused upon to what extent the organisational governance structures in the Glasgow Centre for Inclusive Living (GCIL) and Uloba Centre for Independent Living (Uloba) in Norway facilitate or impede disabled people’s access to independent living. The methodology adopted a mixed methods approach. The central method involved organisational case studies with GCIL and Uloba. This enabled an in-depth qualitative exploration through semi-structured interviews with the case study employees, service-user/co-owners and key experts within each country. In addition, an online survey was distributed to other organisations that operated within the disability field. The analytical framework used an integration of the social relational model of disability (Thomas, 1999) and meso level governance analysis (Lowe, 2004). The social relational model of disability provided structural (macro) and agency (micro) level interpretations and an emphasis on psychosocial elements of disability. It also enabled the synergy of a theory of impairment alongside a theory of disability. Meso (organisational) governance analysis focused attention on the connections between organisations in society. This focus revealed the lateral relationships with other meso level bodies, macro institutions and micro individual action. Research participants prioritised the areas of peer support, accessible housing and personal assistance. Peer support was found to take both informal and formal manifestations and acted as a foundation for the other two areas of independent living. The findings highlighted that Centres for Inclusive Living provide facilitation for access to independent living across macro, meso and micro tiers of society. In particular, empowerment, peer support and user led governance formed key strategies that enhanced disabled people’s access to independent living in Scotland and Norway

The Industry and Policy Context for Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion:Market Analysis, Future Prospects and Key Challenges in Videogames, Serious Games and Gamification

The effective use of digital games for empowerment and social inclusion (DGEI) of people and communities at risk of exclusion will be shaped by, and may influence the development of a range of sectors that supply products, services, technology and research. The principal industries that would appear to be implicated are the 'videogames' industry, and an emerging 'serious games' industry. The videogames industry is an ecosystem of developers, publishers and other service providers drawn from the interactive media, software and broader ICT industry that services the mainstream leisure market in games, The 'serious games' industry is a rather fragmented and growing network of firms, users, research and policy makers from a variety of sectors. This emerging industry is are trying to develop knowledge, products, services and a market for the use of digital games, and products inspired by digital games, for a range of non-leisure applications. This report provides a summary of the state of play of these industries, their trajectories and the challenges they face. It also analyses the contribution they could make to exploiting digital games for empowerment and social inclusion. Finally, it explores existing policy towards activities in these industries and markets, and draws conclusions as to the future policy relevance of engaging with them to support innovation and uptake of effective digital game-based approaches to empowerment and social inclusion.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

Employee-Driven Innovation : An empowerment-based view

The participation of employees in the innovation process has become a focus of various research streams. Previous studies show that the assumption that innovation requires specific skills is no longer tenable in today’s modern organizations. This dissertation focuses on the involvement of employees without innovation-specific functions in the framework of employee-driven innovation (EDI) using empowerment as my lens. In most organizations, these employees constitute a significant proportion of the workforce, and understanding how to harness their creative potential should be an advantage to the majority of organizations. The overarching aim of this dissertation is to gain more knowledge about EDI and empowerment-related approaches that can stimulate it. To address these issues, I conducted three empirical studies that resulted in the four appended papers. Paper I focuses on the conceptualization and operationalization of EDI. Paper II examines the link between structural empowerment and EDI and how psychological empowerment mediates this relationship. Paper III concerns how leadership behaviours relate to EDI and the mediating role of leader–member exchange. Paper IV investigates individuallevel antecedents of EDI. Based on the findings, EDI was operationalized as a second-order reflective construct consisting of three dimensions/stages: emergence and search for ideas, idea generation, and idea development and implementation. It was also found that various empowerment approaches, namely structural empowerment, empowering leadership behaviour, psychological empowerment and self-leadership can foster EDI. Therefore, my original contributions to the EDI literature are twofold: (1) the employee-driven innovation scale and (2) empowermentrelated approaches that stimulate EDI. Across all three studies, employee empowerment can be viewed as an approach to stimulate EDI. Through various employee empowerment practices, organizations enable employees to participate in the innovation process. Employees who were not overtly assigned innovation-specific functions are given the licence to venture into a more innovation-specific role through these empowering practices. This dissertation shows that organizations can foster EDI through a range of empowering practices