Changing institutional research strategies

University research strategies make statements about research ambitions, but rarely speak directly about scholarly communications. At the same time, communication of all sorts has become central to a university, whether to support recruitment, present a public profile, or to respond to events. This chapter seeks to explore the relationship between institutional research strategies and scholarly communications, and to see how each may have affected the other and how they might do so in the future. It describes the purpose and structure of an institutional research strategy, and how these are changing. It highlights the linkages between strategy, implementation plans, and policies, where the latter encourage desired behaviours. In the context of scholarly communications, the research strategy is the public document in which an institution states its commitment to such forms of communication: that discovering new knowledge and sharing that discovery in meaningful ways are at the heart of the institution. The discussion then moves to the changing nature of scholarly communications, including the Open agenda, and questions how scholarly communications fits into the wider spectrum of institutional communications. The chapter concludes that there has probably been little direct connection between research strategies and approaches to scholarly communications, but that this is changing. Both institutions and individual researchers wish to demonstrate the quality, relevance and accessibility of their research, in order to be attractive to collaborators, funders, and employers. Successful institutions will ensure that strategy and scholarly communications activities are mutually supportive, to the benefit of their researchers and the organisation

Communicating the Value of Waste Management to Customers: Focus on Website Content

Understanding waste management processes and their role in positive environmental changes is significant at various levels. Among members of the public, awareness can be fostered by communicating the benefits of waste management and responding to the needs of individuals. The web is one of the communication channels that is easily accessible to many users and managed by waste management organisations. Therefore, this study aims to explore the combinations of content ideas, forms, and customer value dimensions in communication with society about the value of waste management through a website. Theoretical analysis showed that purposeful communication of customer value can be implemented by utilising different customer value dimensions using content marketing principles. Quantitative content analysis of waste management organisation websites was conducted and directed toward the current state of communication and its patterns. The results revealed that current content focuses on the repetitive communication of functional value through informative articles. Thus, a lack of more diverse content presenting the emotional and social values of waste management was identified. The waste management field can benefit by integrating various customer value dimensions and content marketing theory to identify new opportunities and ways to involve society and achieve the scale of impact needed

Communication technologies at work : organizational cultures and employee narratives

This thesis provides an extensive analysis of new communication technologies (NCTs), which includes email technology, the Internet, intranets, NetMeeting, video-conferencing and audio-conferencing, within an organisational context. These technologies have become ubiquitous in organisational life and work. The implementation, integration and application of NCTs in this setting have both innovative possibilities and negative consequences. Consequently, we need to understand the implications of these technologies on organisational cultures and structures. This is achieved throughout this thesis by focusing upon the context of technology implementation, the transformation of communication and information lines through and within the organisation, and the changing social networks and interactions. 'Communication Technologies at Work' will explain and critically explore the effects of NCTs whilst developing an understanding of the implications for its employment in the work and the training settings of an organisation. It is based upon the ethnographic study of a hi-tech organisation and draws upon the narratives of the organisational members collected through in-depth interviewing. Further data was collected utilising observational and survey methods. The research methodology of this study is distinctive because NCTs were used as methodological tools for carrying out the observations and distributing the surveys. Although a traditional methodological stance was adopted the study will further develop this tradition. It will analyse the relationship between NCTs and organisational cultural responses, by studying and interpreting the personal narratives of organisational employees. This study offers an original understanding of NCTs through the narratives of the organisational members and this forms the basis for its substantive contribution to existing research in this subject area. The importance of the narrated experiences of organisational employees negotiating the introduction of NCTs will be emphasised throughout and will be used to create the framework for the analysis. This thesis will conclude that organisational cultures have been 'technologised' through the application of NCTs. This is characterised by 'the ethos of technology enthusiasts' and 'the ethos of technology sceptics'. These positive and sceptical subcultures are embedded in the dominant organisational culture. Furthermore, this study will demonstrate that organisational communication and information flows have been altered, extended and interrupted with the advent of NCTs in the work setting. Finally, the discussion of the role of these technologies in the work and training settings of the case study organisation suggest that the consequences of their implementation and use vary in these different contexts

The people dimension of change management for small-to-medium organisations in the New Zealand business environment : a 90 credit research report presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Masters of Business Studies at Massey University, Albany

Change occurs recurrently in business organisation. Change Management (CM) is the instrument that guides how the organisation formulates, prepares and supports employees to effectively accept changes in order to drive organisational accomplishments and results. The aim of this research is to explore the people dimension of CM. This study took a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews with 10 employees from a small-to-medium enterprise (SME) and three employees from a large-sized organisation. Whilst there is a range of literature on CM, this research seeks to address gaps within that body of literature relating to the importance of including people when making changes within an organisation. It highlights the necessity of giving thought to people for any successful change implementation. People are at the core of an organisation and without them collectively on board with the change, the implementation of the new process could be put in risk of failing. The key findings identified six major themes regarding the people dimension of CM: communication, culture, resistance, conflict, change leadership and empowerment. Communication is a key component in the change process. Many participants in the study reported that the change plan was communicated to them by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who they felt was open and transparent through the whole process. Organisational culture comes in the form of shared beliefs and values. It is the commonly accepted behaviours in an organisation and the way one behaves and conducts oneself. Some participants felt that the culture of the organisation has changed however, they felt that it still needs to progress to being one of change ready. Resistance can come in many forms and this brings with it a lot of emotional reactions to change. If left unchecked, resistance to the change process can put the whole programme at risk and therefore potentially damage the organisation. Conflict can happen when a person feels that they have not been heard or feel unsupported through the process. The idea around conflict is to not make it about personal issues and focus on what is best for all concerned. However, conflict can also be seen as being important in that it is a pointer for detecting faulty processes and therefore become an indicator for corrective action to be taken by change leaders and senior management. Change Leadership findings were that managers were aware of the need to be supportive of employees and transition them into the change plan thereby valuing open and clear communications with everyone involved. Employee feedback is an integral part of the change process as employees can feel empowered in that they feel heard. It was also found that empowerment can come through social interactions at work situations and not just through the pay and reward systems. This report focuses on how to successfully implement change, not only through leadership but also employee empowerment and targeting behaviours as an effective driver for reconfiguring the organisation. It will discuss the theoretical implications as well as the extent to which the study addresses some identified research questions. Then it will discuss workplace policy implications on CM and if there are any learning for CM and Human Resource (HR) professionals. These implications predominantly relate to an increased awareness to value people when designing and implementing a change process in today’s SMEs in New Zealand (NZ). It also discusses the methodological implications arising from to the semi-structured interview design used in this study. This report concludes with a summary of the people dimension of CM for SMEs in the NZ business environment

Choosing an organisational form: the case of collaborative procurement initiatives

This paper deals with different organisational forms of collaborative procurement and provides insight into when to use which form. Different forms from the literature are compared with empirical examples to give an overview of forms, which are then described in terms of strategy, skills and organisation. Whilst acknowledging variations, the paper distinguishes between two main forms: virtual networks and third-party organisations. Using empirical data and four theoretical perspectives (transaction cost economics, resource-based view, contingency theory, agency theory), the paper reflects on when which form can be used and presents an overall framework to help choose an organisational for

Alter ego, state of the art on user profiling: an overview of the most relevant organisational and behavioural aspects regarding User Profiling.

This report gives an overview of the most relevant organisational and\ud behavioural aspects regarding user profiling. It discusses not only the\ud most important aims of user profiling from both an organisation’s as\ud well as a user’s perspective, it will also discuss organisational motives\ud and barriers for user profiling and the most important conditions for\ud the success of user profiling. Finally recommendations are made and\ud suggestions for further research are given

A Multilevel Analysis of Implicit and Explicit CSR in French and UK Professional Sport

Research question: This paper examines the ways in which French and UK professional sports clubs implement and communicate their CSR policies. In addition to identifying similarities and differences between CSR practices in the two countries, our analysis extends and adapts the implicit-explicit CSR framework to the field of sport. Research methods: We used a mixed methods approach to analyse qualitative and quantitative data on the CSR strategies of 66 professional rugby union (Top 14, Aviva Premiership Rugby) and football (Ligue 1, Premier League) clubs over the 2017-2018 season. Results and findings: We found major differences in CSR communication between France and the UK. Communication by French clubs tends to highlight sport’s values, involve few media channels, whereas communication by UK clubs explicitly vaunts their social responsibility and involves numerous channels. In the case of CSR implementation, there are similarities between French and UK clubs, especially in the fields their CSR initiatives cover (e.g., health, diversity), as well as differences. However, the scope of initiatives varies more between sports than between countries, with football demonstrating a more international outlook than rugby. Implications: This article expands Matten and Moon’s (2008) implicit-explicit CSR framework by identifying the influence of interactions between sectorial/field-level factors and national/macro-level factors on CSR practices, and by distinguishing between CSR communication and CSR implementation. Our results throw light on the shift from implicit to explicit CSR in French professional sport