Carrying on \u27Korematsu:\u27 Reflections on My Father\u27s Legacy

Climate change and the sea level rise that it contributes to is an ever more pressing issue for costal municipalities around the world. Today there is a great deal of scientific reports and projections on what these changes could entail. However, resent studies on south Swedish costal municipalities have shown great discrepancies when it comes to how these scientific projections are implemented in the municipal planning and adaptation strategies. In an effort to understand the underlying reasons for this lack of concurrence, this paper has applied Rolf Lidskogs theory of the hetrogenity of science. The theory gives an explanation to the complications in the science-policy interface, by describing complicating factors in the communication between these actors. Furthermore this paper present one alternative on how these complications can be addressed, by using another one of Lidskogs theories, the theory of boundary organizations. This theory presents a framework on how science-based policy and policy-relevant science can be produced more efficiently through boundary organizations and the implementation of portable representation.  This study shows that it would be beneficial to most actors involved with adaptation strategies if permanent boundary organizations were established. Boundary organizations would create a forum for science and policy actors to interact and enable a greater understanding and communication between the different actors involved in defining, understanding and combating these challenges.

Caring or not caring for coworkers? An empirical exploration of the dilemma of care allocation in the workplace

Organization and management researchers praise the value of care in the workplace. However, they overlook the conflict between caring for work and for coworkers, which resonates with the dilemma of care allocation highlighted by ethicists of care. Through an in-depth qualitative study of two organizations, we examine how this dilemma is confronted in everyday organizational life. We draw on the concept of boundary work to explain how employees negotiate the boundary of their caring responsibilities in ways that grants or denies care to coworkers. We argue that the possibility of an ethics of care for coworkers requires boundary work that suspends the separation of personal and professional selves and constitutes the worker as a whole person. We contribute to research on care in organizations by showing how care for coworkers may be enabled or undermined by maintaining or suppressing the care allocation dilemma

Non-governmental organizations and multi-sited marine conservation science: A case study

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are now major players in the realm of environmental conservation. While many environmental NGOs started as national organizations focused around single-species protection, governmental advocacy, and preservation of wilderness, the largest now produce applied conservation science and work with national and international stakeholders to develop conservation solutions that work in tandem with local aspirations. Marine managed areas (MMAs) are increasingly being used as a tool to manage anthropogenic stressors on marine resources and protect marine biodiversity. However, the science of MMA is far from complete. Conservation International (CI) is concluding a 5 year, $12.5 million dollar Marine Management Area Science (MMAS) initiative. There are 45 scientific projects recently completed, with four main “nodes” of research and conservation work: Panama, Fiji, Brazil, and Belize. Research projects have included MMA ecological monitoring, socioeconomic monitoring, cultural roles monitoring, economic valuation studies, and others. MMAS has the goals of conducting marine management area research, building local capacity, and using the results of the research to promote marine conservation policy outcomes at project sites. How science is translated into policy action is a major area of interest for science and technology scholars (Cash and Clark 2001; Haas 2004; Jasanoff et al. 2002). For science to move policy there must be work across “boundaries” (Jasanoff 1987). Boundaries are defined as the “socially constructed and negotiated borders between science and policy, between disciplines, across nations, and across multiple levels” (Cash et al. 2001). Working across the science-policy boundary requires boundary organizations (Guston 1999) with accountability to both sides of the boundary, among other attributes. (Guston 1999; Clark et al. 2002). This paper provides a unique case study illustrating how there are clear advantages to collaborative science. Through the MMAS initiative, CI built accountability into both sides of the science-policy boundary primarily through having scientific projects fed through strong in-country partners and being folded into the work of ongoing conservation processes. This collaborative, boundary-spanning approach led to many advantages, including cost sharing, increased local responsiveness and input, better local capacity building, and laying a foundation for future conservation outcomes. As such, MMAS can provide strong lessons for other organizations planning to get involved in multi-site conservation science. (PDF contains 3 pages

E-exchange and the Boundary between Households and Organizations

The new information and communication technology, ICT, induces households to take over tasks from firms and government agencies, using tools and systems provided by these very same organizations. The result is often joint production activities. We argue that the importance of ICT for the exchange process between households and organizations is underestimated by only considering the consequences for the last stage of the process, i.e., the final purchase of goods and services. Our analysis of household behavior utilizes a modified version of Gary Becker’s model of the household as a combined producer-consumer.internet information, e-exchange, household production, co-production, household power, exit/voice

BOUNDARY ORGANIZATIONS: AN EFFICIENT STRUCTURE FOR MANAGING KNOWLEDGE IN DECISION-MAKING UNDER UNCERTAINTY

Modern environmental issues imply that decision-makers take into account opinions from experts of different spheres. Boundary organizations are institutions able to cross the gap between different areas of expertise and to act beyond the boundaries while remaining accountable to each side: by encouraging a flow of useful information, they permit an exchange to take place while maintaining the authority of each side, in order to provide a better knowledge and understanding of a situation characterized by uncertainty. Though never formally proved, this hypothesis is widely accepted based on the observation of existing boundary organizations. Through a multi-agent simulation, it is possible to assess their impact on the diffusion of opinions among experts. This virtual interaction of heterogeneous agents based on a model of continuous opinion dynamics over two dimensions, shows that boundary organizations have a significant quantitative impact on the diversity of opinions expressed and the number of experts agreeing to each emerging position.boundary organization, opinion, knowledge diffusion, multi-agent system, Agribusiness, Labor and Human Capital, Public Economics,

Boundary objects, power, and learning: The matter of developing sustainable practice in organizations

This article develops an understanding of the agential role of boundary objects in generating and politicizing learning in organizations, as it emerges from the entangled actions of humans and non-humans. We offer two empirical vignettes in which middle managers seek to develop more sustainable ways of working. Informed by Foucault’s writing on power, our work highlights how power relations enable and foreclose the affordances, or possibilities for action, associated with boundary objects. Our data demonstrate how this impacts the learning that emerges as boundary objects are configured and unraveled over time. In so doing, we illustrate how boundary objects are not fixed entities, but are mutable, relational, and politicized in nature. Connecting boundary objects to affordances within a Foucauldian perspective on power offers a more nuanced understanding of how ‘the material’ plays an agential role in consolidating and disrupting understandings in the accomplishment of learning

Organisational niche boundaries in the n-space

The paper investigates organizational boundary spanning from the point of view of neighborhood relations. Neighborhood is defined with the closeness of organizations' resource utilization patterns. The key resource is the clientele's demand for organizational outputs (products, party programs, membership, etc.). Demand is characterized qualitatively by n taste descriptors that span an n-dimensional resource space. Organizational niche boundaries may take different forms and size. To avoid niche overlap over boundaries, organizations can configure in the resource space in different clusterings. Which are the densest arrangements that allow for the coexistence of maximal number of organizations? How can these coexisting neighborhoods build up? How do competition, new entry and the number of immediate neighbors change around the niche boundary with space dimension? The paper applies results of the sphere packing problem in n-dimensional geometry to answer these questions.

The impact of boundary organizations on decision-making under uncertainty: a multi-agent simulation

Modern environmental issues imply that decision-makers take into account possibly conflicting information from distinct domains, such as science and economics. Boundary organizations, institutions that cross the gap between two different domains, are able to act beyond the boundaries while remaining accountable to each side. The goal is to simulate boundary organizations to assess their impact on the diffusion of experts' opinions. The hypothesis tested is whether the existence of a boundary organization eases the decision-making process by reducing the number of opinions expressed. The methodology relies on a multi-agent system based on a model of continuous opinion dynamics extended over two dimensions. Agents are described by credibility and conviction: the credibility represents how much other agents may be influenced by an agent, and the conviction represents the resistance of an agent to changing its position. Two kinds of agents are left free to interact, modifying their position through one-to-one exchanges. Agents called borgs are introduced: open to trans-disciplinary discussion, they are able to exchange on both dimensions. The results show that the range of expressed opinions is significantly reduced, even at low levels of experts involved in the boundary organization.

Images of coordination : how implementing organizations perceive coordination arrangements

A crucial challenge for the coordination of horizontal policy programs those designed to tackle crosscutting issues is how to motivate government organizations to contribute to such programs. Hence, it is crucial to study how practitioners in implementing organizations view and appreciate the coordination of such programs. Assisted by Q-methodology, this inductive study reveals three significantly different "images" centralframe setting, networking via boundary spanners, and coordination beyond window dressing Most surprisingly, different images show up among respondents within the same organizations and horizontal programs. The authors find that the images reflect elements of the literature: the resistance to hierarchical central control, the need for local differentiation and increased incentives, and a collaboration-oriented culture. Most importantly, practitioners of implementing organizations perceive top-dawn mechanisms as ineffective to achieve coordination and ask for adaptive arrangements, involvement, and deliberative processes when designing coordination arrangements and during the collaboration

Narrowing the gap between climate science and adaptation action: The role of boundary chains

AbstractBoundary organizations play a critical role at the interface between science and decision making. They create, protect and sustain an interactive space for co-production of science and decision-making while simultaneously bridging the two domains. In this special issue we advance the concept of boundary chains, whereby two or more boundary organizations link together synergistically to influence one another and to leverage each other’s resources and strengths to achieve shared goals. In this process both the level of complementary and embeddedness between these organizations is critical for achieving these goals. Through a series of case studies focusing primarily but not exclusively on climate information use in the United States, we aim to advance scholarship in the field by examining innovation among boundary organizations and testing the boundary chain concept. In doing so, we focus on boundary chains both as a theoretical construct to re-think the structure, function, and adaptability of boundary organizations and as a practical strategy to further increase the usability of climate knowledge for adaptation action across a wider range of users