Trust realisation in multi-domain collaborative environments

In the Internet-age, the geographical boundaries that have previously impinged upon inter-organisational collaborations have become decreasingly important. Of more importance for such collaborations is the notion and subsequent nature of trust - this is especially so in Grid-like environments where resources are both made available and subsequently accessed and used by remote users from a multitude of institutions with a variety of different privileges spanning across the collaborating resources. In this context, the ability to dynamically negotiate and subsequently enforce security policies driven by various levels of inter-organisational trust is essential. In this paper we present a dynamic trust negotiation (DTN) model and associated prototype implementation showing the benefits and limitations DTN incurs in supporting n-tier delegation hops needed for trust realisation in multi-domain collaborative environments

The Semantic Grid: A future e-Science infrastructure

e-Science offers a promising vision of how computer and communication technology can support and enhance the scientific process. It does this by enabling scientists to generate, analyse, share and discuss their insights, experiments and results in an effective manner. The underlying computer infrastructure that provides these facilities is commonly referred to as the Grid. At this time, there are a number of grid applications being developed and there is a whole raft of computer technologies that provide fragments of the necessary functionality. However there is currently a major gap between these endeavours and the vision of e-Science in which there is a high degree of easy-to-use and seamless automation and in which there are flexible collaborations and computations on a global scale. To bridge this practice–aspiration divide, this paper presents a research agenda whose aim is to move from the current state of the art in e-Science infrastructure, to the future infrastructure that is needed to support the full richness of the e-Science vision. Here the future e-Science research infrastructure is termed the Semantic Grid (Semantic Grid to Grid is meant to connote a similar relationship to the one that exists between the Semantic Web and the Web). In particular, we present a conceptual architecture for the Semantic Grid. This architecture adopts a service-oriented perspective in which distinct stakeholders in the scientific process, represented as software agents, provide services to one another, under various service level agreements, in various forms of marketplace. We then focus predominantly on the issues concerned with the way that knowledge is acquired and used in such environments since we believe this is the key differentiator between current grid endeavours and those envisioned for the Semantic Grid

Designing Institutional Infrastructure for E-Science

A new generation of information and communication infrastructures, including advanced Internet computing and Grid technologies, promises more direct and shared access to more widely distributed computing resources than was previously possible. Scientific and technological collaboration, consequently, is more and more dependent upon access to, and sharing of digital research data. Thus, the U.S. NSF Directorate committed in 2005 to a major research funding initiative, “Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery”. These investments are aimed at enhancement of computer and network technologies, and the training of researchers. Animated by much the same view, the UK e-Science Core Programme has preceded the NSF effort in funding development of an array of open standard middleware platforms, intended to support Grid enabled science and engineering research. This proceeds from the sceptical view that engineering breakthroughs alone will not be enough to achieve the outcomes envisaged. Success in realizing the potential of e-Science—through the collaborative activities supported by the "cyberinfrastructure," if it is to be achieved, will be the result of a nexus of interrelated social, legal, and technical transformations.e-science, cyberinfrastructure, information sharing, research

TOWARDS INSTITUTIONAL INFRASTRUCTURES FOR E-SCIENCE: The Scope of the Challenge

The three-fold purpose of this Report to the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Research Councils (UK) is to: • articulate the nature and significance of the non-technological issues that will bear on the practical effectiveness of the hardware and software infrastructures that are being created to enable collaborations in e- Science; • characterise succinctly the fundamental sources of the organisational and institutional challenges that need to be addressed in regard to defining terms, rights and responsibilities of the collaborating parties, and to illustrate these by reference to the limited experience gained to date in regard to intellectual property, liability, privacy, and security and competition policy issues affecting scientific research organisations; and • propose approaches for arriving at institutional mechanisms whose establishment would generate workable, specific arrangements facilitating collaboration in e-Science; and, that also might serve to meet similar needs in other spheres such as e- Learning, e-Government, e-Commerce, e-Healthcare. In carrying out these tasks, the report examines developments in enhanced computer-mediated telecommunication networks and digital information technologies, and recent advances in technologies of collaboration. It considers the economic and legal aspects of scientific collaboration, with attention to interactions between formal contracting and 'private ordering' arrangements that rest upon research community norms. It offers definitions of e-Science, virtual laboratories, collaboratories, and develops a taxonomy of collaborative e-Science activities which is implemented to classify British e-Science pilot projects and contrast these with US collaboratory projects funded during the 1990s. The approach to facilitating inter-organizational participation in collaborative projects rests upon the development of a modular structure of contractual clauses that permit flexibility and experience-based learning.

Managing collaborative processes for natural resources

A new style of natural resource decision-making is under development in the United States that has evolved from the approach that dominated the last hundred years. The historical implementation of natural resource policy has been characterized as top down where a highly compartmentalized bureaucratic structure dominated the management of natural resources through policies focused on outputs and guided by scientific management. The historical implementation of natural resource policy frames the resolution of conflicting goals as mutually exclusive, which has led to fierce competition for the power necessary for one goal to dominate over another. Collaboration and ecosystem management policy approaches were largely born out of the recognition that the historical implementation of natural resource policy has been ineffective at resolving conflict due to the narrow approaches available in the courts and administrative appeals. Collaborative policy processes have been characterized as bottom up, rather than top down, recognizing that no one group is the dominant decision maker in the current reality of a shared power world. Collaborative policy processes are comprehensive in addressing multiple natural resource values and interests, have socially defined goals and objectives, include more voluntary than regulatory policies, and rely on integrated holistic knowledge. Given the monumental differences between the historical implementation of natural resource policy and the current shift to collaborative policy processes, this change is often referred to as a paradigm shift. The goal of this research was to more fully understand this new style of decision making, collaboration, through examining the growing literature base and case analysis of participants\u27 experiences in collaboration. Collaborative process principles identified in the literature coupled with participant experiences of those principles in collaborative processes provided lessons learned to help inform our society on how to make the transition from our past adversarial, split the stakes processes and our future with collaborative processes. The collaborative process principles identified in the literature focused on who was involved and how (process) people were involved in two specific areas of collaboration: how decisions are negotiated, and data and information management. Eleven principles to guide negotiations in collaborative policy processes were identified. Six principles to guide data and information management in collaborative policy processes were identified. Together these principles comprise a template to guide how an effective collaborative process needed to be managed, and provided a lens through which to analyze the cases. This template was compared to real life participant experiences in collaboration and several lessons learned were gleaned from the combination of theory and empirical evidence. Perhaps the most important lesson learned in this research was the importance of process management. A rigorous application of the principles of the collaborative process was important to provide procedural due process and a legitimate process that was perceived as fair and just to all interests involved. Collaboration required the balancing of tensions of several inherent paradoxes, and to do this effectively required process management of the collaborative principles. Involvement shaped real life collaboration, and while participants\u27 perceived inclusive involvement as beneficial, it was no panacea for the complexities of involving the variety of interests engaged in natural resource issues. In real life, a productive role was the true measure of involvement and while this was difficult there were ways, such as the structured use of subgroups, to balance the tensions between inclusive involvement and role efficacy. The involvement of scientists in collaboration must be done carefully because the credibility of scientists in the cases analyzed in this research was compromised. Collaboration required considerable time and skills, but as we continue to practice collaboration the time it takes may be reduced through the improved skills and relationships of participants. Relationships were improved and trust was built between very divided interests in the majority of the cases analyzed in this research and continued experimentation with collaboration may help to build a foundation that will make future collaborative efforts even more positive and successful. Facilitation can also help participants get through the unfamiliar process of collaboration and help develop the people skills necessary for effective collaborations. The incentive to participate in collaboration appeared to be largely born from the conflicts created by the historical implementation of natural resource policy. Collaboration may not be so much of a paradigm shift as it is an evolution since it often depends upon a government role of fostering sustainable natural resource use by establishing standards and targets that result in being the incentive to collaborate. Even though this government role provided the biggest incentive to participate in collaboration, participants in all the cases analyzed in this research recognized the reality of a shared power world. Participants recognized that there were many legitimate and powerful interests that needed to be involved in order to achieve a successful collaboration

Cross-Sector Models of Collaboration for Social Innovation

This dissertation consists of three studies that collectively examine the genesis and dynamics of collaborative cross-sector partnerships between nonprofit and for-profit organizations. The overarching question that frames the papers is how cross-sector partnerships organize across sectoral interfaces to advance social innovation. This thesis makes three contributions: 1) the standpoint of the beneficiaries needs to be explicitly discussed when exploring social innovation in cross-sector partnerships; 2) neither success nor failure are absolute but rather cross-sector partners deliberately and iteratively adjust their roles to sustain momentum towards success or rebound from temporary failure in pursuit of social innovation; and 3) despite largely non-overlapping sectoral frames, social innovation is possible when partners learn how to negotiate and fuse their value frames. In the first paper, we develop a critical theory of social innovation in cross-sector partnerships by recasting value creation from the standpoint of the beneficiary. We review and contrast the principles, relations and relational processes underpinning the Marxist, pragmatist and Frankfurt schools of thought to unpack the role the beneficiary may (or may not play) in value creation. Such critical theorizing enriches the conceptual foundation of the Resource Based View by reinstating the beneficiary as an essential contributor to value creation through voice-receiving, voice-making and/or voice-taking. This paper concludes that beneficiaries are essential to social innovation in cross-sector partnerships: they create and sustain generative tensions within each value creation cycle. In the second study, we explore the relational processes that underpin social innovation within cross-sector partnerships. Using four longitudinal narratives in healthcare, we explain how partners navigate the duality of success and failure: deliberate role (re)calibrations help the partners sustain the momentum for success and overcome temporary failure or crossover from failure to success. Three factors moderate the relationship between role recalibrations and the momentum for success or failure: relational attachment, partner complacency, and partner disillusionment. The third and last study uses the same four longitudinal narratives to explore how cross-sector partners come to recognize and reconcile their divergent value creation frames in order to co-construct social innovation. We argue and find that partners initially contrast their sector-embedded diagnostic frames and then work together to deliberately develop partnership-specific prognostic frames. The study develops a four-stage grounded model of frame negotiation, elasticity, plasticity and fusion which unpacks the relational process of value creation in cross sector partnerships. Taken together, the three studies advance the cross-sector partnership project by fleshing out the (largely neglected) role of relational processes in social innovation

Collaboration between unions in a multi-union, non-exclusive bargaining regime: What can Canada learn from New Zealand?

The Canadian union certification system guarantees workers rights to organise, bargain collectively, and strike only when a majority of co-workers favours unionisation. This contravenes International Labour Organisation standards, in which the freedom to associate is unqualified by majority support. In recent years, the Supreme Court of Canada has drawn on ILO principles to interpret constitutional rights as covering organising and collective bargaining activities related to freedom of association under section 2(d) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, it has not as yet ordered Canadian governments to enact labour relations laws consistent with these new constitutional rights. Neither has there been a general call for such legislative change. Instead, many fear that statutory support for non-majority unionism would lead to multi-union representation and intensified inter-union competition, but fail to consider that sharing the workplace might actually promote inter-union cooperation against a common adversary in management. This study addresses this shortcoming by looking at the extent and nature of inter-union collaboration in New Zealand, where non-majority, non-exclusive representation exists already. Collaboration was found to be common, not only over bargaining and lobbying, but also in organising. Implications for Canada are explored