Food and Agriculture Related Policies and Practices to Benefit Limited Resource Farmers

This report highlights a variety of approaches for supporting the success of limited resource farmers and ranchers. It features examples from the work of 14 organizations that directly support limited resource producers, and summaries of 36 state and local government policies and practices that support these producers, sometimes indirectly. This publication will be especially valuable to organizations working with limited resource producers (or other local and family-scale farmers), Food Policy Councils, and advocates working on farm policy issues at the local and state levels. It was authored by Martin Bailkey and produced by the Food Policy Council Program of the Community Food Security Coalition, with support from the USDA Risk Management Agency

The role of socio-technical experiments in introducing sustainable Product-Service System innovations

This is the pre-print version of the chapter published in 2015 by Springer in the book “The Handbook of Service Innovation” (edited by Renu Agarwal, Willem Selen, Göran Roos and Roy Green). The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6590-3_18Product-Service System (PSS) innovations represent a promising approach to sustainability, but their implementation and diffusion are hindered by several cultural, corporate, and regulative barriers. Hence, an important challenge is not only to conceive sustainable PSS concepts, but also to understand how to manage, support, and orient the introduction and diffusion of these concepts. Building upon insights from transition studies (in particular, the concepts of Strategic Niche Management and Transition Management), and through an action research project, the chapter investigates the role of design in introducing sustainable radical service innovations. A key role is given to the implementation of socio-technical experiments, partially protected spaces where innovations can be incubated and tested, become more mature, and potentially favor the implementation and scaling up process

A Phenomenological Study On The Lived Experience And Leadership Of Project Managers In An Agile Transformation

This study employed a phenomenological methodology to investigate the shared experiences of project managers of corporations in the United States during a transition to agile project management methodologies. The project managers’ transformation was noteworthy because agile introduces a change in work structures, processes, and leadership. This study sought to understand how eight project managers described their lived experience and leadership during the transition to agile methodologies. Interviews with project managers uncovered identity facets that evolved with their understanding of leadership. The traditional project managers’ common-sense approach to work served as both a barrier and enabler of a change. Project managers who naturally led through control tactics such as documenting and adhering to a detailed plan found agile counterintuitive and challenging. In contrast, project managers who were motivated by serving in the development of others found the transition to agile enlightening and rewarding. The agile transformation afforded project managers the opportunity to serve in a broader leadership capacity. Participants emphasized their role in connecting people and knowledge through a shared understanding of vision and goals. Also noteworthy was the critical role of organizational culture and learning through experimentation and a safe-to-fail environment. Project managers considering a transition to agile would benefit from training to assess the behavioral changes required to adopt an agile mindset. Project managers can use this knowledge to advance their leadership skills and remain relevant in a transformation to agile methodologies

The management of internal transitioning as a necessary function of leaders in the establishment of second-order change in church organizations

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/1760/thumbnail.jp

Moving Towards Performance-Based Specifications in Public Procurement

There are environmental benefits associated with the procurement of services instead of, or in addition to, discrete products. Under the right conditions, transitioning to a more service-intensive purchasing model can reduce natural resource consumption in the production, use and disposal phases of product life cycles. Generally, financial savings can be realized too—even in the short term. In order for public procurers who purchase goods, services, buildings and infrastructure on a significant scale to take advantage of these potential savings and benefits, performancebased specifications are invaluable tools. Performance-based specifications allow public authorities to specify their needs in general terms by describing what general functions they require (e.g. lighting, mobility, information management) rather than specifying the minute details of the inputs and process required to get there. The private sector can then innovate and generate savings in resource use and in operating costs. Generally speaking, suppliers are better suited than public procurers to know what options are available in the market, or to innovate and commercialize towards new products and services in order to meet a required performance level. Performance-based specifications are thus a tool with which, under the right conditions, public procurers can stimulate markets to deliver innovative and environmentally sound solutions

HUBS AND CENTERS AS TRANSITIONAL CHANGE STRATEGY FOR LIBRARY COLLABORATION

Libraries of science and technology universities worldwide are adapting to a changing environment where cyberinfrastructure, eResearch, and new technology-intensive approaches to teaching and learning are transforming the very nature of universities. While many have adopted new technologies and the resources and expertise to manage them, this is only an initial step. Libraries are experimenting with organizational models that will transform their work capacity and expertise. The goal of these libraries is being an entity that feeds and produces collaborative synergies between faculty, students, information professionals, and technologists. Virginia Tech, among the top research universities in the United States, and its constituent libraries are adopting a unique organizational change strategy that implements eScience and cyberlearning roles. This two-part strategy begins with establishing ‘hubs’. The hubs are collaborative, cross-departmental groups in which library employees of varying backgrounds and skills come together on common themes of strategic importance. The hubs act in one sense as a ‘research & development lab’ to explore, imagine, and brainstorm new library initiatives as well as engender deeper understandings of the university’s core academic enterprise. They also are a ‘strike force’ that implements, supports, and assesses emerging library roles in relation to the institution’s academic mission. In these ways, hubs also create learning and scholarship opportunities for their participants beyond the individual task-oriented projects. The second part of this strategy involves the establishment of research and service centers. At Virginia Tech, these are the Center for Innovation in Learning (CIL) and the Center for Digital Research and Scholarship (CDRS). These centers are designed to incubate and sustain new collaborative synergies between libraries, researchers, instructors, and learners by providing expertise, resources, and new infrastructures to address specific academic research-based needs. The centers become focal points for library action, focused on learning and research activities within other university entities. Benefits to library employees come in the form of scholarship and research with potential for collaboration and new initiatives as relationships grow among project participants. The authors will discuss transformational aspects of the change management model, with lessons from their early experiences. They also will discuss how the model can be adapted by other libraries of science and technology-centered universities

Sustainable change: knowledge absorption as a factor of absorptive capacity theory among green industry consultants

2011 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.Researchers and practitioners have been interested in organizational learning as a means to improve performance (Gilley, Dean, & Bierema, 2001; Senge, 1990). The diversity of individuals comprising the context of an organization requires response to change to continue competitive organizational development. When influences and triggers pressure an organization to change, a niche is created for the external consultant. Consultants assist organizations to become more conscious of their own capabilities to successfully address, acknowledge, and use knowledge from internal and external environments. The purpose of this study is to assess the use of knowledge types identified within ACAP theory by consultants guiding clients on a path toward sustainable change. This study enhances existing research regarding absorptive capacity by looking for evidence of new knowledge through the lens of sustainable change. The research goal is to ascertain the active use of key factors of knowledge absorption by green consultants. Findings of this study support a relationship among the consultant's role and the client's capabilities. Utilizing sustainable change strategies and the consultant's complex set of skills the consultant works with a client exhibiting existing strategies supportive of sustainable change. Determining the types of knowledge already present within the organization, green consultant's focus on a customized approach offered through tactics for sustainable change to achieve organizational objectives creating lasting and sustainable change

A Network Perspective on Inter-Organizational Transfer of R&D Capabilities: A Study of International Joint Ventures in Chinese Automobile Industry

Multinational enterprises' transfer of R&D capabilities to their international joint ventures in the less developed countries has been an emerging phenomenon. The purpose of this study is to understand the transfer of R&D capabilities between organizations embedded in drastically different organizational contexts using a network perspective. We identified different networks involved in the R&D capability transfer process from the perspectives of source organization, recipient organization and the interface between them, and analyzed the impact of different attributes of these networks on the effectiveness of R&D capability transfer, based on the notion that R&D capabilities are largely collective knowledge.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39746/3/wp362.pd