Empowerment and local level conflict mediation in Indonesia : a comparative analysis of concepts, measures, and project efficacy

The notion of empowerment has been more often deductively claimed than carefully defined or inductively assessed by development scholars and practitioners alike. The authors define and assess empowerment through an in-depth examination of the extent to which a large community development project in rural Indonesia empowers participants (especially members of marginalized groups) through building their capacity to manage local conflict. Although the project induces conflict through its deployment of a competitive bidding process, the authors argue that, when well implemented, it can also enable otherwise unequal groups to more peacefully, equitably, and effectively engage one another. Using a mixed methods approach, they compare cases from otherwise similar treatment and control villages to shed light on the chief components of villagers'capacity to manage local conflict. They discuss the interdependencies of two major analytical realms-routines of inter-group collaboration, and sources of countervailing power-and their relation to local conflict processes and outcomes.ICT Policy and Strategies,Education and Society,Educational Sciences,Post Conflict Reconstruction,TF054599-PHRD-KYRGYZ REPUBLIC: WATER MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENT PROJECT

Organization Development for Social Change

The field of organization development (OD) has emerged from efforts to improve the performance of organizations, largely in the for-profit sector but more recently in the public and not-for-profit sectors as well. This paper examines how OD concepts and tools can be used to solve problems and foster constructive change at the societal level as well. It examines four areas in which OD can make such contributions: (1) strengthening social change-focused organizations, (2) scaling up the impacts of such agencies, (3) creating new inter-organizational systems, and (4) changing contexts that shape the action of actors strategic to social change. It discusses examples and the kinds of change agent roles and interventions that are important for each. Finally, it discusses some implications for organization development intervention, practitioners, and the field at large.This publication is Hauser Center Working Paper No. 25. The Hauser Center Working Paper Series was launched during the summer of 2000. The Series enables the Hauser Center to share with a broad audience important works-in-progress written by Hauser Center scholars and researchers

When and how to facilitate the introduction of new knowledge processes in organisations

© 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present two case studies hosted between 2012 and 2013 by Woolworths Limited with recommendations to address the question of why has implementing new processes into well-established organisations proved to be problematical. Design/methodology/approach - The research framework used is a novel synthesis of actor-network theory (ANT) with Miller's living systems theory (LST). Systems at each LST level are actors in an actor-network. Higher LST-level actors punctualise lower-level actor-networks, enabling the fine-grained study of dynamic associations within the LST structure. Qualitative measures assess the collaboration's progress. Findings - Gaps were found between teams' capabilities to implement new processes and that required to meet expectations. There were three contributors to the gap: first, knowledge flow was inhibited by social network structural holes; second, a reliance on tacit knowledge made identifying training needs difficult; and third, high utilisation of experts reduced their effectiveness. Research limitations/implications - The nature of logistics means that findings need careful validation before application to other business contexts. Larger studies will benefit from computer mediation for parsing and characterising associations, and computational modelling will be required for validating scenarios that cannot be performed or repeated with human actors. Practical implications - Recommendations for early identification of new ideas that require facilitation will help organisations enhance their adaptability and maintain their competitive advantage in a changing marketplace. Originality/value - The synthesis of ANT with LST provides collaboration researchers with an adaptable framework that combines a focus on dynamic associations within the context of complex social interactions

From the beginning: negotiation in community evaluation

This article focuses on negotiation and discusses its relevance for evaluators. Given the impetus for participatory evaluation, evaluators would benefit from improving skills that enable them to make collaborative decisions and work alongside stakeholders, in particular in community evaluations. Negotiation skills are explored through post hoc reflection of a Sure Start programme evaluation in a UK setting. Literature on stakeholder involvement and negotiation is discussed together with the UK evaluation. Recommendations are made on how to utilize elements of negotiation in community programme evaluation. Key skills are highlighted, including attention to: working with emotional situations, face-giving, rapport and creativity, timing, perceptions and improvisation

Structural elements of coordination mechanisms in collaborative planning processes and their assessment through maturity models: Application to a ceramic tile company

Maturity is defined as a measure to evaluate the capabilities of an organization in regards to a certain discipline. The Collaborative Planning Process is a very complex process and Coordination mechanisms are especially relevant in this field to align the plans of the supply chain members. The objective of this paper is to develop a maturity model and a methodology to perform assessment for the Structural Elements of Coordination Mechanisms in the Collaborative Planning Process. Structural elements are specified in order to characterize coordination mechanisms in a collaborative planning context and they have been defined as key areas to be assessed by the maturity model. The identified structural elements are: number of decision-makers, collaboration level, interdependence relationships nature, interdepen-dence relationships type, number of coordination mechanisms, information exchanged, information processing, decision sequence characteristics and stopping criteria. Structural elements are assessed using the scheme of five levels: Initial, Repeatable, Defined, Managed and Optimized. This proposal has been applied to a ceramic tile company and the results are also reported.Cuenca, L.; Boza Garcia, A.; Alemany Díaz, MDM.; Trienekens, JJ. (2013). Structural elements of coordination mechanisms in collaborative planning processes and their assessment through maturity models: Application to a ceramic tile company. Computers in Industry. 64(8):898-911. doi:10.1016/j.compind.2013.06.019S89891164