Concluding reflections and presentation of an EBOCD conceptual process model

This chapter begins by presenting a synopsis of insights on EBOCD practice gleaned from the Section 2 chapters, and a range of extant and emergent generalized (common) insights and lessons about evidencebased initiatives for OCD that have resulted from a multiple cross-case comparative analysis of the 33 reflective case histories presented in Section 3. It then offers a response to the skepticisms expressed by McLean and Kim, the authors of Chapter 52, about the reality of EBOCD ever existing beyond what they suggest could be outlier case history examples of OCD by drawing attention to the wide range of extant best evidence that informed them. The chapter concludes with an EBOCD Conceptual Process Model which offers a pathway forward for bridging the reputed research-practice gap in the field of OCD and HRD, and for generating new bodies of best evidence and practice-to-theory research opportunities.Chapter 5

Collective empowerment through information and communication technologies: co-creation processes in underserved communities in Cape Town

This research investigates the potential of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to provide opportunities for groups of people to improve their lives and their communities. Further, the study explores innovative methodological approaches which could be conducive for collective empowerment. Grounded in current ICT4D research, the thesis tries to resolve the gap related to how to include collective approaches and participation in design. The study is framed by critical social theory and the capability approach but with special attention to collective and relational dimensions of agency, capabilities and empowerment. The analysis is based on three digital co-creation case studies which unfolded over a four-year project in underserved settlements in Cape Town, South Africa. The study employed a qualitative methodological approach and followed abductive logic. The research evolved through cycles of ethnographic studies; co-design; and theoretical phases. Each cycle built on the previous one in theory and practice. The initial inductive approach employed open coding followed by content analysis to reflect on the discourses and meanings of ICTs originating from the focus groups in the communities. In the design phase, three case studies were analysed using strategies suitable for research involving cultural differences between researcher and participants. The processes were further evaluated during their development from the theoretical lenses of participatory design, frugal innovation and social capital theory. Five papers provide an analysis of the research project highlighting its evolution, from the creation of digital storytelling until the development of social businesses, and discussing how social relations and group actions determine uses of ICTs and encourage collective ways for information access, information production, creativity development and networking. These concepts supported the analysis of the findings to deepen the use of the theories and to develop a process model for ICT4D projects. The outcome of the research are four propositions and three principles for a sensible emergent approach for ICT4D projects. Their chances of success and sustainability increase if based on grassroots, collective, socially engaged co-creation initiatives. Theoretically, the process model has the potential to improve our understanding and support our way of operating to make ICT4D initiatives more inclusive, more empowering to participants, including the researchers, and to become oriented towards community development and people’s emancipation

The process of discursive institutional work in creating an innovative degree development practice: an institutionalisation approach to innovation

Developing sector-specific university degrees is a challenging process for universities and sectoral members. The development of these degrees needs to incorporate industry-specific resources whilst satisfying the universities’ institutional degree requirements. The process is particularly problematic when there has not previously been a degree devoted to the sector and when there has not been sector-wide communication about the need for a degree. This study provides an empirical investigation of the development of Canada’s first retail management degree and examines how discursive processes constituted an innovative practice of sector-specific degree development in a fragmented, occupational field. These processes were innovative because they involved a corporate-university partnership, multiple collaborations of institutional and corporate embedded actors, and particular forms of legitimating discursive work. Given the institutional nature of the university, this practice represents a process of institutionalisation, whereby the innovative practice becomes a legitimate means of degree development. By examining this unique case, this study develops an analytic framework to analyse discursive institutionalisation through archival documentation and qualitative interviews. The discursive work performed through the data is characterised by the prominence of generalised issues, and by the nature of its synchronicity, recursiveness and convergence. The resulting institutionalisation processes perform discursive institutional work that is purposive, synchronised, recursive and convergent. This study therefore provides an understanding of how discursive processes institutionalise an innovative practice of retail management degree development

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

A Method to Define Requirements for System of Systems

The purpose of this research was to develop and apply a systems-based method for defining System of Systems (SoS) requirements using an inductive research design. Just as traditional Systems Engineering (TSE) includes a requirements definition phase, so too does System of Systems Engineering (SoSE); only with a wider, more over- arching, systemic perspective. TSE addresses the design and development of a single system with generally a very specific functional purpose enabled by any number of subcomponents. SoSE however, addresses the design and development of a large, complex system to meet a wide range of functional purposes enabled by any number of constituent systems, each of which may have its own individually-managed and funded TSE effort in execution. To date, the body of prescriptive guidance on how to define SoS requirements is extremely limited and nothing exists today that offers a methodological approach capable of being leveraged against real-world SoS problems. As a result, SoSE practitioners are left attempting to apply TSE techniques, methods, and tools to address requirements for the more complex problems of the SoS domain. This research addressed this gap in the systems body of knowledge by developing a method, grounded in systems principles and theory, that offers practitioners a systemic, flexible method for defining unifying and measurable SoS requirements. This provides element system managers and engineers a SoS focus to their efforts while still maximizing their autonomy to achieve system-level requirements. A rigorous mixed-method research methodology, employing inductive methods with a case application was used to develop and validate the SoS Requirements Definition Method. Two research questions provided the research focus: • How does the current body of knowledge inform the definition of a system theoretic construct to define SoS requirements? • What results from the demonstration of the candidate construct for SoS requirements definition? Using Discoverers \u27 Induction (Whewell, 1858), coupled with coding techniques from the grounded theory method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), a systems-based method for defining SoS requirements was constructed and applied to a real-world SoS requirements definition case. The structured systemic method advances the SoSE field and shows significant promise for further development to support SoSE practitioners in the area of SoS requirements engineering

Implementing Smart Specialisation Strategies: A Handbook

Smart Specialisation represents the most comprehensive industrial policy experiment being implemented in Europe. Conceived within the reformed Cohesion policy of the European Commission, Smart Specialisation is a place-based policy promoting economic transformation and investment in innovative activities in selected areas of the socio-economic system in order to achieve a smart, inclusive and sustainable growth. Drawing on empirical evidence, the Smart Specialisation Implementation Handbook is targeted at policy-makers and regional development professionals who are crafting their innovation policy according to a common set of principles and methodologies. The handbook aims at taking stock of the Smart Specialisation experience and presenting its current state of the art, both in terms of conceptual developments and practical implementation. It addresses five key milestones of the implementation process: 1) The Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP) cycle: from priority selection to strategy implementation 2) Good governance: principles and challenges 3) From priorities to projects: selection criteria and selection process 4) Transnational cooperation and value chains 5) MonitoringJRC.B.3-Territorial Developmen

Communicative patterns in organizational (healthcare) teams

As team processes are often consigned to a ‘black box’, this dissertation contributes to unpacking team-level communicative processes as drivers for organizational team functioning. Both conceptually and empirically, we aimed to untangle how communicative processes unfold during collaboration periods in organizational teams. In the first part of this dissertation, we contributed to a more process-oriented understanding of team-based collective intelligence. In addition, we developed a comprehensive framework to study communicative patterns from various aspects (i.e., content, structure, and temporality) and showed how patterned communication may relate to team and organizational-level outcomes. In our own empirical work, we found fine-grained evidence for more back-and-forth communicative patterns underlying the decision-making process in multidisciplinary healthcare team meetings, which seems to be rooted in insufficient orientation of the patients’ background problems. In addition, we observed that team members respond with emotionally laden communication after naturally occurring workflow interruptions, together with more conversational clarification. In sum, both scholars and practitioners benefit from understanding patterned communication because these insights offer sound foundations to reflect on improvements regarding organizational team functioning

Communicative patterns in organizational (healthcare) teams

As team processes are often consigned to a ‘black box’, this dissertation contributes to unpacking team-level communicative processes as drivers for organizational team functioning. Both conceptually and empirically, we aimed to untangle how communicative processes unfold during collaboration periods in organizational teams. In the first part of this dissertation, we contributed to a more process-oriented understanding of team-based collective intelligence. In addition, we developed a comprehensive framework to study communicative patterns from various aspects (i.e., content, structure, and temporality) and showed how patterned communication may relate to team and organizational-level outcomes. In our own empirical work, we found fine-grained evidence for more back-and-forth communicative patterns underlying the decision-making process in multidisciplinary healthcare team meetings, which seems to be rooted in insufficient orientation of the patients’ background problems. In addition, we observed that team members respond with emotionally laden communication after naturally occurring workflow interruptions, together with more conversational clarification. In sum, both scholars and practitioners benefit from understanding patterned communication because these insights offer sound foundations to reflect on improvements regarding organizational team functioning

Understanding performance measurement from a social systems perspective

This thesis was previously held under moratorium from 3 December 2019 to 3 December 2021.Performance measurement (PM) systems fail to predict organisational outcomes reliably because organisations face futures so inherently unknowable that it is impossible to comprehend the full range of potential outcomes open to them. Organisations are complex, adaptive, social systems whose distinctive activity is decision-making. They are heterogeneous entities whose capabilities, behaviours, and circumstances are unique, emerging from their histories and previous decisions. Organisational reality is a social construct delivered through practice. This thesis investigates whether considering PM from a social systems perspective improves PM’s effectiveness. The argument made is organisations connect through social systems and operate through practice with people, processes, and their interactions fundamental to how they perform. A middle-range management theory is presented aimed at making organisations the best they can be with the resources available to them and in the economic circumstances they find themselves. It does this by understanding and reconfiguring the organisation’s social system using a structured approach to optimise business processes and performance measures based on a combination of emergent behaviour and practice. Given the reality of radical uncertainty the focus is not on predicting outcomes but on uncovering the explanatory mechanisms behind events caused by specific managed improvement interventions. Understanding the behaviour of dynamically interacting components is done using realist evaluation based on social interactions, emergent powers and social intervention mechanisms. This approach changed behaviours and performance outcomes in case study organisations. The use of an ‘inside-out’ social systems perspective, coupled to critical realism with its focus on explanation, enabled the causal relationships of importance to be identified and the performance ‘black box’ to be opened up. This research contributes to closing the PMM theory-practice gap by proposing the performance focus needs to be on the social system rather than the measures, that is, on the ‘means’ rather than the ‘ends’. It also offers a competing theoretical framework to organisational control theory for PMM, one grounded in social systems and practice theory. The social systems perspective is not considered specific to PM and potentially can be applied to all other business processesPerformance measurement (PM) systems fail to predict organisational outcomes reliably because organisations face futures so inherently unknowable that it is impossible to comprehend the full range of potential outcomes open to them. Organisations are complex, adaptive, social systems whose distinctive activity is decision-making. They are heterogeneous entities whose capabilities, behaviours, and circumstances are unique, emerging from their histories and previous decisions. Organisational reality is a social construct delivered through practice. This thesis investigates whether considering PM from a social systems perspective improves PM’s effectiveness. The argument made is organisations connect through social systems and operate through practice with people, processes, and their interactions fundamental to how they perform. A middle-range management theory is presented aimed at making organisations the best they can be with the resources available to them and in the economic circumstances they find themselves. It does this by understanding and reconfiguring the organisation’s social system using a structured approach to optimise business processes and performance measures based on a combination of emergent behaviour and practice. Given the reality of radical uncertainty the focus is not on predicting outcomes but on uncovering the explanatory mechanisms behind events caused by specific managed improvement interventions. Understanding the behaviour of dynamically interacting components is done using realist evaluation based on social interactions, emergent powers and social intervention mechanisms. This approach changed behaviours and performance outcomes in case study organisations. The use of an ‘inside-out’ social systems perspective, coupled to critical realism with its focus on explanation, enabled the causal relationships of importance to be identified and the performance ‘black box’ to be opened up. This research contributes to closing the PMM theory-practice gap by proposing the performance focus needs to be on the social system rather than the measures, that is, on the ‘means’ rather than the ‘ends’. It also offers a competing theoretical framework to organisational control theory for PMM, one grounded in social systems and practice theory. The social systems perspective is not considered specific to PM and potentially can be applied to all other business processe