Critique and complexity : presenting a more effective way to conceptualise the knowledge adoption process

The process of ‘knowledge adoption’ is defined as the means through which policy-makers digest, accept then ‘take on board’ research findings. It is argued in Brown, however, that current models designed to explain knowledge adoption activity fail to fully account for the complexities that affect its operation. Within this paper, existing frameworks are explored and critiqued, and an alternative approach is presented. It is argued that this alternative conceptualisation provides a more effective explanation of the knowledge adoption process and significantly improves on extant work in this area

Strategic Alignment: What Else? A Practice Based View of IS Value.

Pour l’essentiel, les recherches traitant des valeurs stratégiques du SI restent dans le paradigme de l’alignement stratégique, et utilisent des notions telles que celles de "processus" ou "d’activités". En s’appuyant sur la perspective offerte par les théories de la pratique, cet article offre une alternative en distinguant trois formes de praxis et des valeurs spécifiques.Literature about IS strategic management or IS strategic value is abundant. Nonetheless, the bulk of existing studies are focused on the concept of alignment. They do not make sense of a strategic value "in practice" and still draw on notions such as activity or process to make sense of alignment. By means of a practice-based view of technology, three praxis are suggested here for the modeling of strategic value: legitimacy-related (based on adoption praxis), assimilative (related to design and acceptance praxis) and appropriative (linked to local adaptation and improvisation praxis). They are introduced by means of a "thought experiment" (a short story about a rifle).Strategic alignment; IS strategic value; Practice-based views; strategic value in practice; thought experiments;

The structural relationships between corporate culture, ICT diffusion innovation, corporate leadership, corporate communication management (CCM) activities and organisational performance

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Corporate Communication Management (CCM) is an important concept within the communication and marketing discipline. The term corporate communication came to the attention of the general public more than 40 years ago, due to changes in global business environments. Although corporate communication received great attention from scholars and the business community, its complex concepts are still unclear. Furthermore, many scholars believe there are influences of corporate culture, ICT diffusion innovations and corporate leadership on corporate communication and its impact to organisational performance, yet there is a paucity of studies on the validation of this theoretical assumption. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to address this gap by providing an elevated understanding of the concept of CCM and its antecedents, and in consequence, focus on organisational performance from the managerial perspectives. This study employs a two tier mixed-method research process involving qualitative and quantitative approaches. The first tier commences with a semi-structured interview (with 12 respondents) to refine a conceptual framework developed based on existing literature. Then, content validity (with 10 expert opinions) and pilot test (with 35 respondents) follow, to develop a measurement scale with good validity and reliability. The second tier involves online survey data (with 223 respondents) and secondary data (from Thomson DataStream) to test the research hypotheses and proposed conceptual model. In this stage, structural equation modelling (SEM) is employed. Results indicate a very good fit to the data, with good convergent, discriminant and nomological validity and reliability stability. The findings of this research show that corporate culture, ICT diffusion innovation and corporate leadership are factors that influence CCM directly. While CCM correlates positively with financial performance, it has no effect on mission achievement. Corporate culture was found to have a positive relationship with mission achievement but negative relations with financial performance. Furthermore, ICT diffusion innovation demonstrates a positive association with mission achievement. Despite corporate leadership having a positive relationship with mission achievement, there was no effect on financial performance. Therefore, this study answered the antecedents and consequences of CCM, and they were found to be influential factors. In addition, the study demonstrates that managers rely on internal factors such as corporate culture, ICT diffusion innovation and corporate leadership to predict and assess CCM. The findings have implications for knowledge of theories and practices, and also contribute in the development of a model that explains the CCM functions and shows that functions have a definite positive impact on financial performance. Furthermore, the research adds an insight to a growing body of communication literature (primarily corporate communication) and makes recommendation for future research directions.Sponsored by Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysi

Socio-economic and scientific challenges of a qualitative design of distance learning: contextualization and interculturation

International audiencePromoted in Europe by the Bologna Process, distance education has increased in recent years. This boom began a major transformation of universities characterized, among others, by a multiplication of exchanges between individuals from different personal, educational and professional backgrounds. However, in this new teaching context, international students and teachers are sometimes destabilized: students in the face of new methods of university work and program content, teachers because they are confronted with diverse student profiles, expectations and needs. The questions raised by the relationship between distance learning and /learners in a FLE/S (French as a Foreign/Second language) perspective are numerous. In the context of this article, we will first consider ODL (Open and Distance Learning) "contextualization"2, which will be discussed in connection with the problems a misguided sense of interculturality in the field of ODL poses. Finally, we will identify what we believe to be fundamentally at the root of these problems: an epistemological continuity in research, which is based on the paradigm of "trace", which can only lead to an essentialized congealing of meaning ... or a solid/culturalist approach of the intercultural (Dervin, 2009a)