The interorganisational influences on construction skills development in the UK

The UK construction skills shortage problem is well documented. To alleviate this, there is a political shift of emphasis in the UK towards employers and employees/ learners playing a more proactive role in skills development. This research seeks to examine the mechanisms that can enable such a demand-led skills development system to materialise. A desktop review and key-stakeholder analysis were undertaken to identify who participates in skills development in the construction industry in the North East of England. Exploratory interviews adopting an interpretive approach were undertaken with a sample of the key stakeholders to examine the pluralistic nature of skills development provision and the implications for the learner negotiating this environment when trying to develop skills. The interim findings suggest that whereas organisations consider skills development to be important, specific training for “upskilling” can be difficult to recognise and even more difficult to gain funding for. The complexity and fragmentation of the existing framework consequently subjects vocational skills development to the initiative and goodwill of employers, thereby reinforcing the voluntarist nature of skills development that is typical in the UK. The findings also suggest that skills development practices, at times, occur informally at the workplace and enabled through a network of local organisations. These findings highlight a need for further investigation into the efficacy of the inter-organisational dynamics and informal practices that could potentially make a demand-led skills development system a reality

Software acquisition: a business strategy analysis

The paper argues that there are new insights to be gained from a strategic analysis of requirements engineering. The paper is motivated by a simple question: what does it take to be a world class software acquirer? The question has relevance for requirements engineers because for many organisations market pressures mean that software is commonly acquired rather than developed from scratch. The paper builds on the work of C. H. Fine (1998) who suggests that product, process and supply chain should be designed together, i.e., 3D concurrent engineering. Using a number of reference theories, it proposes a systematic way of carrying out 3D concurrent engineering. The paper concludes that the critical activity in supply chain design is the design of the distribution of skills and the nature of contract

Integration and continuity of primary care: polyclinics and alternatives - a patient-centred analysis of how organisation constrains care co-ordination

Background An ageing population, the increasing specialisation of clinical services and diverse health-care provider ownership make the co-ordination and continuity of complex care increasingly problematic. The way in which the provision of complex health care is co-ordinated produces – or fails to produce – six forms of continuity of care (cross-sectional, longitudinal, flexible, access, informational and relational). Care co-ordination is accomplished by a combination of activities by patients themselves; provider organisations; care networks co-ordinating the separate provider organisations; and overall health-system governance. This research examines how far organisational integration might promote care co-ordination at the clinical level. Objectives To examine (1) what differences the organisational integration of primary care makes, compared with network governance, to horizontal and vertical co-ordination of care; (2) what difference provider ownership (corporate, partnership, public) makes; (3) how much scope either structure allows for managerial discretion and ‘performance’; (4) differences between networked and hierarchical governance regarding the continuity and integration of primary care; and (5) the implications of the above for managerial practice in primary care. Methods Multiple-methods design combining (1) the assembly of an analytic framework by non-systematic review; (2) a framework analysis of patients’ experiences of the continuities of care; (3) a systematic comparison of organisational case studies made in the same study sites; (4) a cross-country comparison of care co-ordination mechanisms found in our NHS study sites with those in publicly owned and managed Swedish polyclinics; and (5) the analysis and synthesis of data using an ‘inside-out’ analytic strategy. Study sites included professional partnership, corporate and publicly owned and managed primary care providers, and different configurations of organisational integration or separation of community health services, mental health services, social services and acute inpatient care. Results Starting from data about patients’ experiences of the co-ordination or under-co-ordination of care, we identified five care co-ordination mechanisms present in both the integrated organisations and the care networks; four main obstacles to care co-ordination within the integrated organisations, of which two were also present in the care networks; seven main obstacles to care co-ordination that were specific to the care networks; and nine care co-ordination mechanisms present in the integrated organisations. Taking everything into consideration, integrated organisations appeared more favourable to producing continuities of care than did care networks. Network structures demonstrated more flexibility in adding services for small care groups temporarily, but the expansion of integrated organisations had advantages when adding new services on a longer term and a larger scale. Ownership differences affected the range of services to which patients had direct access; primary care doctors’ managerial responsibilities (relevant to care co-ordination because of their impact on general practitioner workload); and the scope for doctors to develop special interests. We found little difference between integrated organisations and care networks in terms of managerial discretion and performance. Conclusions On balance, an integrated organisation seems more likely to favour the development of care co-ordination and, therefore, continuities of care than a system of care networks. At least four different variants of ownership and management of organisationally integrated primary care providers are practicable in NHS-like settings. Future research is therefore required, above all to evaluate comparatively the different techniques for coordinating patient discharge across the triple interface between hospitals, general practices and community health services; and to discover what effects increasing the scale and scope of general practice activities will have on continuity of care

Networking Innovation in the European Car Industry : Does the Open Innovation Model Fit?

The automobile industry is has entered an innovation race. Uncertain technological trends, long development cycles, highly capital intensive product development, saturated markets, and environmental and safety regulations have subjected the sector to major transformations. The technological and organizational innovations related to these transformations necessitate research that can enhance our understanding of the characteristics of the new systems and extrapolate the implications for companies as well as for the wider economy. Is the industry ready to change and accelerate the pace of its innovation and adaptability? Have the traditional supply chains transformed into supply networks and regional automobile ecosystems? The study investigates the applicability of the Open Innovation concept to a mature capital-intensive asset-based industry, which is preparing for a radical technological discontinuity - the European automobile industry - through interviewing purposely selected knowledgeable respondents across seven European countries. The findings contribute to the understanding of the OI concept by identifying key obstacles to the wider adoption of the OI model, and signalling the importance of intermediaries and large incumbents for driving network development and OI practices as well as the need of new competencies to be developed by all players.Peer reviewe

Inter-organisational learning in project based organisations: Perspectives on reciprocity

This developmental paper discusses early research findings on the role that reciprocity plays in fostering or hindering inter-organisational learning in networks. Reciprocity as a social norm in knowledge creation and sharing networks is the main theme of this research. The paper uses two case studies of networks in UK. The qualitative case studies were developed through a mixture of participant observations, semi-structured interviews and casual conversations with network administrators and participants. Reciprocal exchanges were evident in networks. However, variations in what reciprocal exchanges meant for the participants were observed. Consequently, our findings suggest that the taken-for-granted idea that reciprocity is always good should be critically challenged. Often, we have observed asymmetrical reciprocal exchanges in participants tend to expect more from the networks than they would give. Therefore, this research suggests the need for remaining circumspect about the positive outcomes of networks that are often implicitly assumed

Interorganisational collaboration in the public sector

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The research applies the contextual context, content, and process (CCP) framework to explore the contextual and processual factors that are associated with implementing interorganisational collaborative arrangements in the public sector. Collaborative arrangements in the public sector are found to be complex, difficult to implement, and liable to failure when not fully explored and recognised. Background theory reveals the absence of a multilevel lens that can embrace the multifaceted nature of interorganisational collaborations, the multiple contextual levels, the process stages and micro-actions, and the interplay between the process and the context. By identifying the need to explore contextual and processual factors, the background theory informs the focal theory which proposes an extended CCP framework as a useful multilevel lens to elucidate the research problem. The framework is developed and validated through multidisciplinary literature synthesisation, the pilot stage, and the main fieldwork which applies qualitative methods based on multiple case studies from the public sector in Oman as data sources’ techniques. The originality of this study stemming from developing and validating a novel multilevel contextual framework. The emerged multifaceted CCP framework, used to explore contextual and processual factors when implementing collaborative arrangements in the public sector, is found to be an applicable, feasible, and useful analysis tool. It can help public policy-makers, public management, academics, change agents, and collaborating organisations in identifying the inhibitive, supportive prerequisites, and in general influencing contextual factors. It helps also in elucidating and minimising uncertainty about the nature and micro-actions of the processual stages

Local enterprise partnerships: Socialisation practices enabling business collective action in regional knowledge networks

This article identifies and theorises the interorganisational socialisation mechanisms that facilitatethe knowledge dynamic capabilities of organisations brought together within the applied contextof a U.K. Local Enterprise Partnership. Focusing on the Sheffield City Region's Creative and Dig-ital Industries Sector Group, the data for this study were messages posted to the Creative andDigital Industries Sector Group's online consultation platform. Data analysis proceeded throughinductive thematic analysis. It is revealed that collaborative workspaces, business networksresources, and pathways to internationalisation are perceived to play an important role in facili-tating interorganisational learning. These knowledge socialisation mechanisms are essential toavoid regional competency traps. The article identifies and discusses knowledge socialisationmechanisms that are perceived to play a key role in transferring knowledge between membersof the regional system of innovation. In identifying and discussing knowledge socialisation mech-anisms, this paper offers knowledge management theorists and practitioners—more specifically,regional knowledge brokers and regional development managers—actionable insight into a rangeof strategies that reinforce social ties and increase the flow of knowledge with a view to improv-ing innovation outcomes