Healthy Universities: Concept, Model and Framework for Applying the Healthy Settings Approach within Higher Education in England

As part of a Department of Health funded project, the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) – working with Manchester Metropolitan University – was commissioned by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), to: - articulate a model for Healthy Universities whereby the healthy settings approach is applied within the higher education sector - produce recommendations for the development and operationalisation of a National Healthy Universities Framework for England - to ensure effective co-ordination of initiatives and propose next steps for progressing the Healthy Universities agenda. In fulfilment of these objectives, this report provides a background to Healthy Universities, outlines the project implementation process, presents a model, discusses the key dimensions for consideration in formulating a framework, and makes recommendations for taking things forward

Defining the dimensions of engineering asset procurement: towards an integrated model

Procuring engineering asset management is a critical activity of all types of government, with optimal approaches to procurement still in need of identification. This paper advances a novel approach of exploring the procurement of engineering assets across a number of dimensions: Project rules, organisational interaction rules and complexity. The dimensions of project rules are held to include cost, quality and time. The dimensions of organisational interaction rules are held to be collaboration, competition and control. Complexity is seen as in the project itself, in the interaction between organisations or in the business environment. Taken together these dimensions seem salient for any type of engineering asset, and provide a useful way of conceptualising procurement arrangements of these assets

Can processes make relationships work? The Triple Helix between structure and action

This contribution seeks to explore how complex adaptive theory can be applied at the conceptual level to unpack Triple Helix models. We use two cases to examine this issue – the Finnish Strategic Centres for Science, Technology & Innovation (SHOKs) and the Canadian Business-led Networks of Centres of Excellence (BL-NCE). Both types of centres are organisational structures that aspire to be business-led, with a considerable portion of their activities driven by (industrial) users’ interests and requirements. Reflecting on the centres’ activities along three dimensions – knowledge generation, consensus building and innovation – we contend that conceptualising the Triple Helix from a process perspective will improve the dialogue between stakeholders and shareholders

World city network research at a theoretical impasse::On the need to re-establish qualitative approaches to understanding agency in world city networks

From the late 1990s, the establishment of a new relational ‘turn’ in the study of world city connectedness in globalization has run parallel to the wider relational turn occurring in economic geography. Early work, built firmly upon a qualitative approach to the collection and analyses of new inter-city datasets, considered cities as being constituted by their relations with other cities. Subsequent research, however, would take a strong quantitative turn, best demonstrated through the articulation of the inter-locking world city network (ILWCN) ‘model’ for measuring relations between cities. In this paper, we develop a critique of research based around the ILWCN model, arguing that this ‘top down’ quantitative approach has now reached a theoretical impasse. To address this impasse, we argue for a move away from Structural approaches in which the firm is the main unit of analysis, towards qualitative approaches in which individual agency and practice are afforded greater importance

STEPS Centre research: our approach to impact

The ‘impact’ of research has seen a dramatic rise up the UK’s policy agenda in recent years. But what does ‘impact’ really mean? How do researchers and others respond to the new ‘impact agenda’ and how might we best plan, monitor and report on impact? This working paper attempts to provide answers to some of these questions by reviewing various understandings of ‘impact’ and describing the approach used by the ESRC STEPS Centre in its second five-year phase of funding. In particular, we draw on our experience of adapting and employing a down-scaled version of ‘participatory impact pathways analysis’ (PIPA) and reflect on its utility and potential as a tool for planning relatively small-scale social science/ interdisciplinary research projects conducted with partners in developing countries. In using PIPA, the STEPS Centre has adapted the idea of ‘impact pathways’ in line with its broader ‘pathways approach’, which focusses on complex and dynamic interactions between knowledge, politics and ‘social, technological and environmental pathways to sustainability’. In this way, PIPA has been useful in articulating and exploring the potential impact of STEPS Centre projects: it has helped to map out the networks known to the researchers, appreciate different perspectives held by the team members and generate an understanding of the narratives, networks and policy processes under study. Although the possibility for detailed ex ante prediction of impact pathways is limited, using PIPA has helped teams to be ready to maximise communication and engagement opportunities, and to link research across different STEPS Centre projects and beyond. The working paper also describes how PIPA may be used iteratively in a way that enables reflexive learning amongst research teams. Lastly, we speculate on the ways in which PIPA may be further developed and used in ex post impact monitoring and evaluation into the future

"We think that’s the future": curriculum reform initiatives in higher education

This research report, considering curriculum reform initiatives in higher education, explores the nature of whole institutional curriculum reform undertaken by universities in the UK, and beyond, in response to the globalised world and global economy of the 21st Century. The key questions addressed in the report considered: What self-scrutiny, strategies, planning and processes do universities who have successfully reformed the curriculum undertake? How do these universities measure and evaluate the impact of whole curriculum reform in relation to learning and teaching and the student experience? Eighteen universities expressed interest in the research and provided details of their reforms. Each university judged their reforms as successful against their own expectations. An initial in-depth interview took place with ten of these universities and follow-up case study research took place at three universities: Kingston University, London; Curtin University, Perth, Australia and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. The thematic analysis focusses on higher educational leadership, the process and evaluation of curriculum reform initiatives and explores staff and student engagement with curriculum change in higher education. The research concludes that these initiatives can lead to a realignment of the curriculum with a clearly articulated mission for the individual universities taking part in such activities

Learning difficulties: collaborative inter-organisational information system use within UK retail supply networks

Inter-organisational information systems (IOIS) have been introduced to support collaborative retail supply relationships, yet how these systems are used is not well understood. This paper presents analysis of an ideographic case study of a dynamic United Kingdom grocery sector supply network. Using Archer's (1995) social change theory we explore how changes to buyer-supplier relationship structures re-conditioned individual actors' situational logics in a way that created network learning difficulties. Our analysis shows how actors' inter-organisational information system use reinforced pre-existing bargaining positions and improved already powerful actors' relative negotiating strength. This paper demonstrates the value of multi-level analysis in furthering understanding of the complex relationships between processes of network and individual learning

Firms’ Contribution to Regional Economic Development: Unravelling Some Explanatory and Moderating Variables

Drawing on entrepreneurial orientation (EO), family business, strategic decision-making (SDM) and social capital (SC) theories, we investigated whether the family and non-family firms contribute differently to regional economic development (RED) and the moderating role of family involvement in firms. Using survey research design and data from 307 Kenyan firms, the findings of the study showed that: a) Firms’ EO positively influences RED, but the effect of family firms’ EO on RED is twice that of nonfamily firms; b) the relationship between strategic decision-making and RED is negative and this is more pronounced in family firms than nonfamily firms; c) Bridging social capital’s (BSC) influence on firms’ contributions to RED is positive, but nonfamily firms’ BSC effect is twice that of family firms; d) family involvement moderates the effects of firms’ contribution to RED. The overall conclusion of this study is that better understanding of firms’ effect on RED can be achieved by using a range of theories in combination, as such use would help to unpack the underlying mechanisms through which firms influence RED. Finally, theoretical and practical implications are discussed

The Potential of Critical E-Applications for Engaging SMEs in E Business: A Provider Perspective

YesAgainst a background of the low engagement of SMEs in e-business this paper investigates the emergence of, and potential for, critical e-applications defined as `an e-business application, promoted by a trusted third party, which engages a significant number of SMEs by addressing an important shared business concern within an aggregation.¿ By a review of secondary data and empirical investigation with service providers and other intermediaries the research shows that such applications can facilitate the e-business engagement of SMEs. There are three key findings, namely: the emergence of aggregation specific e-business applications; the emergence of collaboratively based `one to many¿ business models; and the importance of trusted third parties in the adoption of higher complexity e-business applications by SMEs. Significantly this work takes a deliberately provider perspective and complements the already considerable literature on SME IT adoption from a user and network perspective. In terms of future research the importance of a better conceptual understanding of the impact of complexity on the adoption of IT by SMEs is highlighted