Faith-Based Institutions and High-Risk Youth

Many of the highest-risk youth in poor communities are not reached by traditional youth programs, but are served by churches and other faith-based institutions that are both well-established and seriously concerned about the welfare of these vulnerable youth and their families. This report, the first in a series from P/PV's National Faith-Based Initiative for High-Risk Youth, provides an initial overview of strategies employed by faith-based institutions in 11 cities, including lessons learned about the distinct contributions of faith-based institutions to the work of civil society, and the challenges of building partnerships between faith-based groups and other institutions -- law enforcement and juvenile justice agencies, foundations and philanthropy, local government and community organizations

Cultural Integration in Organizational Partnership with Statutory and Quasi Implications

The current academic literature is inadequate on the possibility of applying a typological model of effective cultural integration within the context of public-private partnerships, particularly when governments collaborate with multinational corporations. Using Schein\u27s organizational cultural framework as the foundation, the purpose of this case study of a partnership between a West African government and a multinational petroleum corporation is to understand clearly how synergistic cultural integration coupled with statutory requirements could catalyze public-private partnership success. Data for this study came from interviews with American or Nigerian individuals who were familiar with the partnership in the West African country, a review of documents related to the partnership, and observational notes compiled during interviews. The Organizational Cultural Assessment Instrument inspired the interview questions. Data was coded and analyzed using a modification of Strauss and Corbin\u27s 3-tiered analytic procedure. Key findings revealed the need for culturally based positive change dynamics to maximize evolving partnership growth and success. There were also indicators that an effective cultural integration synergistic typology would propel evolving competitive service delivery, efficient policy implementation, workforce motivation, economic and financial profitability, efficient communication channels and technological innovativeness, managerial and administrative expertise. The knowledge of organizational cultural integration dynamics is useful to academicians, public administrators, policy makers, and executives in structuring public and private partnerships in a culturally sensitive way for long-term organizational growth and success

Salford postgraduate annual research conference (SPARC) 2012 proceedings

These proceedings bring together a selection of papers from the 2012 Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference (SPARC). They reflect the breadth and diversity of research interests showcased at the conference, at which over 130 researchers from Salford, the North West and other UK universities presented their work. 21 papers are collated here from the humanities, arts, social sciences, health, engineering, environment and life sciences, built environment and business

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

The future of South American church leadership: images, behaviors, and competencies

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/1450/thumbnail.jp

An aesthetic for sustainable interactions in product-service systems?

Copyright @ 2012 Greenleaf PublishingEco-efficient Product-Service System (PSS) innovations represent a promising approach to sustainability. However the application of this concept is still very limited because its implementation and diffusion is hindered by several barriers (cultural, corporate and regulative ones). The paper investigates the barriers that affect the attractiveness and acceptation of eco-efficient PSS alternatives, and opens the debate on the aesthetic of eco-efficient PSS, and the way in which aesthetic could enhance some specific inner qualities of this kinds of innovations. Integrating insights from semiotics, the paper outlines some first research hypothesis on how the aesthetic elements of an eco-efficient PSS could facilitate user attraction, acceptation and satisfaction

Logistical practicalities for a non-governmental organization : Case study: Empowerment of African Women Organization ry (EOAW)

This thesis is about discovering the practicalities of exporting used items to Africa. The organization involved in this is the Empowerment of African women Organization ry which wants to send humanitarian aid to Africa. The organization has sent some monetary help to Nigeria and DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) as well as minor amounts of items by transporting them themselves by travelling to the country. That was becoming too time-consuming and they wanted to know the practicalities it took to send bigger amounts of items at once. The objective of this thesis was to find the stages of transportation process that they needed to undertake to get the items to Nigeria. Although they also have an office in DRC, Nigeria is the easiest way to enter the African continent and therefore the logical choice. Also the fact that not many companies from Europe transport to DRC due to the instability of the country, made Nigeria an obvious choice. The study was conducted as a basic qualitative study where the aim was to increase the knowledge of this topic and the practicalities. The information was collected through internet sources, literature re-views and interviews. After studying the collected data and information gained, I was able to get a better understanding of the overall process of getting goods from central Finland (Pirkanmaa area) to Nigeria

Faculty open educational practices at a regional university

Open educational resources (OER), which are cost-free, openly licensed educational materials available in a variety of languages and formats, have in recent years accumulated abundant evidence of disruptive potential to surmount barriers to learning. This is certainly good news to the world of education, especially higher education, which has experienced steady growth in its cost to students. Evidence also shows, however, a low uptake of this concept in higher education. A key reason for this is a lack of awareness, understanding, and acceptance of OER and their related practices amongst faculty. If one intent of a higher educational institution, such as is that of the University of the South Pacific (USP), is to provide greater affordability for students through OER, ushering faculty towards OER is thus paramount, for they are the ones who normally choose and assign educational resources. As an initial step toward moving the USP closer to its aspirations, a survey study was undertaken aiming to describe the current status of OER uptake and open educational practices (OEP) by faculty, with the purpose of gathering information for planning future activities in this area. This paper reports results from the survey examining USP faculty: teaching practices, OER awareness, OER use, participation in OEP staff development, awareness of student OER use, barriers to OER adoption, and impact of OER use. The paper concludes with a discussion of current status and expected future steps for propelling faculty towards integrating OER in USP courses