Organizational Adaptation in Local Stormwater Governance

Much of the past research and policy analysis on issues of western water has focused on inter-basin river agreements, large infrastructure that captures and distributes water, and conflict between agricultural and urban water demands. My dissertation asks a set of different questions: How is water governed and managed within communities of Utah? How are the organizations that manage water responding to changes in population, water availability, and water quality policy? The answers to these questions are essential for understanding the ways in which changes to water quantity and quality will be addressed in the present and coming years. To better understand the ways in which local water management organizations, including irrigation groups and municipalities, manage water in Utah, I conducted three major types of research activities. First, in 2013, I attended 18 meetings of local water management organizations and conducted 18 interviews of organization representatives that managed water within the Heber and Cache Valleys of northern Utah. In 2014, I built upon the knowledge learned in the 2013 observations and interviews, and conducted an online survey of stormwater managers throughout the state of Utah. To build upon survey responses, I then conducted 30 follow-up interviews of stormwater managers that represented municipal stormwater programs. This research was funded with a combination of support from the National Science Foundation’s iUTAH EPSCoR project (iutahepscor.org) and funds from the Utah Storm Water Advisory Committee, a group that represents municipal stormwater programs at the state level. My findings suggest that local water management organizations are already responding to growth and expansion in urban land use, rising uncertainties in water supplies, and shifting responsibilities for stormwater governance and management toward local governments. To cope with these changes, organizations are using a combination of strategies, including working with private consultants and collaborating with one another. With increasing pressures from environmental change and added responsibilities through decentralized water policies, it is expected that these adaptive strategies will persist or even spread to other local water management organizations yet to take on these behaviors

Exploring Shared Leadership and Multi-Organizational Collaboration in Sport for Development and Peace

Although multi-organizational collaborations have become a trend in the Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) sector, existing research remains limited to collaborations between two organizations. Further, researchers continue to report managerial challenges of the multi-organizational collaborations and emphasize leadership as a key component for achieving desired outcomes in SDP collaborations. Thus, the purpose of this research was to explore the role of shared leadership in multi-organizational SDP collaboratives. Three research questions guided this study to explore the role of shared leadership through the lived experiences of SDP practitioners: (a) How is leadership shared between members in multi-organizational SDP collaboratives?, (b) What potential benefits do SDP practitioners perceive shared leadership may have for the multi-organizational SDP collaboratives?, and (c) What challenges may limit the development of shared leadership? Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a total of 30 representatives involved in citywide multi-organizational collaboratives (i.e., Laureus Sport for Good Coalitions). Publicly available organizational documents were also examined as supplemental data source. Four themes emerged in response to RQ1: (a) strategic planning, (b) support from vertical leaders, (c) shared events, and (d) personal characteristics. Further, five elements were identified addressing RQ2: (a) collective impact, (b) capacity building, (c) organizational learning, (d) cohesion, and (e) shared responsibilities. Four elements also emerged concerning RQ3: (a) leadership dynamics, (b) level of information sharing, (c) level of understanding about shared leadership, and (d) quality of engagement. Theoretically, these findings lead to a deeper understanding of development, benefits, and challenges of shared leadership as well as multi-organizational SDP collaboratives. In addition, the findings from this study have important practical implications. A set of specific strategies were identified based on the findings of this study to help guide SDP leaders and practitioners to fully leverage the potential of shared leadership in multi-organizational collaboratives. Overall, findings from this study help practitioners understand that employing shared leadership takes time and leaders need to be mindful of common challenges while being intentional about their actions. A number of ready-now strategies are presented, which SDP organizations and leaders can utilize to develop and support the use of shared leadership

Data Sharing Fundamentals: Definition and Characteristics

The importance of data as a key resource is a universal theme dominating social and business life. In this regard, inter-organizational data sharing shines in a new light prompting businesses to leverage their potential. However, it is still unclear what data sharing actually entails, i.e., what it means, what its potentials are, and what barriers one must overcome. In short, it lacks conceptual clarity and a clear description of its characteristics. The conceptual ambiguity and the synonymous use with data exchange in the literature are particularly problematic, which prevents a targeted conceptualization and use. The paper starts precisely at this point as it proposes a unifying definition and characteristics of data sharing. We report on a systematic literature review characterizing data sharing and delineating it from data exchange

Interim research assessment 2003-2005 - Computer Science

This report primarily serves as a source of information for the 2007 Interim Research Assessment Committee for Computer Science at the three technical universities in the Netherlands. The report also provides information for others interested in our research activities

On the Development and Management of Adaptive Business Collaborations.

Today’s business climate demands a high rate of change with which Information Technology (IT)-minded organizations are required to cope. Organizations face rapidly changing market conditions, new competitive pressures, new regulatory fiats that demand compliance, and new competitive threats. All of these situations and more drive the need for the IT infrastructure of an organization to respond quickly in support of new business models and requirements. This dissertation studies the adaptive development and management of such dynamic business models and requirements. A rule based environment is developed in which the people who develop and manage business collaborations in organizations can do so in a way that is as independent of specific implementation technologies as possible; and where they can take business requirements into consideration, and in which they can respond to changes as effectively as possible.

Facilitating B2B E-business by IT-supported business process negotiation services

Due to the complexity of business transactions and growing business automation demands from the B2B e-business community to swiftly respond to the ever-changing environment, workflow technology has been receiving more attention recently. The increasing popularity and adoption of workflow management system (WfMS) within organisations make workflow-based B2B e-business practically viable since more and more business transactions are implemented as automated processes and executed by WfMSs. Having been viewed as services by many researchers and practitioners, process-driven B2B e-business are conducted through service discovery and runtime execution. However, if there is no existing service provided by a desired business partner that matches the requirement then such a process will have to be negotiated and then created. Unfortunately, direct people-to-people negotiation followed by manual transformation of the negotiation outcome into processdriven services can be very resource consuming. Therefore, it is identified that there is a research gap in computer-aided negotiation approach for process-driven B2B e-business. This paper introduces essentials of workflow technology and negotiation. It then describes ways of capturing elements of negotiation from an operational view point. Finally, it explains how to integrate the IT-supported negotiation services into an overall cross-organisational workflow collaboration (COWCO) supporting framework

Best matching processes in distributed systems

The growing complexity and dynamic behavior of modern manufacturing and service industries along with competitive and globalized markets have gradually transformed traditional centralized systems into distributed networks of e- (electronic) Systems. Emerging examples include e-Factories, virtual enterprises, smart farms, automated warehouses, and intelligent transportation systems. These (and similar) distributed systems, regardless of context and application, have a property in common: They all involve certain types of interactions (collaborative, competitive, or both) among their distributed individuals—from clusters of passive sensors and machines to complex networks of computers, intelligent robots, humans, and enterprises. Having this common property, such systems may encounter common challenges in terms of suboptimal interactions and thus poor performance, caused by potential mismatch between individuals. For example, mismatched subassembly parts, vehicles—routes, suppliers—retailers, employees—departments, and products—automated guided vehicles—storage locations may lead to low-quality products, congested roads, unstable supply networks, conflicts, and low service level, respectively. This research refers to this problem as best matching, and investigates it as a major design principle of CCT, the Collaborative Control Theory. The original contribution of this research is to elaborate on the fundamentals of best matching in distributed and collaborative systems, by providing general frameworks for (1) Systematic analysis, inclusive taxonomy, analogical and structural comparison between different matching processes; (2) Specification and formulation of problems, and development of algorithms and protocols for best matching; (3) Validation of the models, algorithms, and protocols through extensive numerical experiments and case studies. The first goal is addressed by investigating matching problems in distributed production, manufacturing, supply, and service systems based on a recently developed reference model, the PRISM Taxonomy of Best Matching. Following the second goal, the identified problems are then formulated as mixed-integer programs. Due to the computational complexity of matching problems, various optimization algorithms are developed for solving different problem instances, including modified genetic algorithms, tabu search, and neighbourhood search heuristics. The dynamic and collaborative/competitive behaviors of matching processes in distributed settings are also formulated and examined through various collaboration, best matching, and task administration protocols. In line with the third goal, four case studies are conducted on various manufacturing, supply, and service systems to highlight the impact of best matching on their operational performance, including service level, utilization, stability, and cost-effectiveness, and validate the computational merits of the developed solution methodologies

Developing Collaborative Leadership: A Study Of Organizational Change Toward Greater Collaboration And Shared Leadership

Implicit in leadership behavior is the ability to work with others, to be in relationship, and to collaborate. Contemporary theories about leadership have shifted from a focus on the individual “leader” toward the collective act of “leadership.” A concrete understanding of collaborative leadership remains somewhat underdeveloped in the literature and theoretically. This dissertation is a case study of organization\u27s efforts to change from autocratic organizational leadership to a more collaborative working environment. Taking the form of a literary portrait, the study analyzes an example of action learning about collaborative leadership. The portrait will be of the agency\u27s change, with special attention given to the issues facing the leadership team as it wrestles to change from top-down to collaborative leadership practice. The primary research question is: In today\u27s shifting landscape, what practices and conditions will optimize the development of a collaborative working environment? Findings were that the development of a collaborative working environment can be optimized through the careful cultivation of the ten themes that emerged from the study: (1) on-going learning and continuous development, (2) flexibility, (3) trust, (4) respect/esteem/ positive regard, (5) willingness/commitment, (6) facilitative process (establishment of norms, ground rules/agreements, inclusivity, process capability/tacit knowledge of functional group process), (7) realistic optimism/positive personality/resilience/solution/strength/future focus, (8) communication skills, (9) social intelligence (ability to transcend the ego and to self-organize and motivate) and (10) an appropriate level of technical competence. The electronic version of this dissertation is available at the OhioLINK ETD Center www.etd.ohiolink.edu