Developing health systems research capacities through north-south partnership: An evaluation of collaboration with South Africa and Thailand

BACKGROUND: Over the past ten years, calls to strengthen health systems research capacities in low and middle income countries have increased. One mechanism for capacity development is the partnering of northern and southern institutions. However, detailed case-studies of north-south partnerships, at least in the domain of health systems research, remain limited.This study aims to evaluate the partnerships developed between the Health Economics and Financing Programme of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and three research partners in South Africa and Thailand to strengthen health economics-related research capacity. METHODS: Data from programme documents were collected over five years to measure quantitative indicators of capacity development. Qualitative data were obtained from 25 in-depth interviews with programme staff from South Africa, Thailand and London. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Five years of formal partnership resulted in substantial strengthening of individual research skills and moderate instituonalised strengthening in southern partner institutions. Activities included joint proposals, research and articles, staff exchange and post-graduate training. In Thailand, individual capacities were built through post-graduate training and the partner institution developed this as part of a package aimed at retaining young researchers at the institution. In South Africa, local post-graduate teaching programs were strengthened, regular staff visits/exchanges initiated and maintained and funding secured for several large-scale, multi-partner projects. These activities could not have been achieved without good personal relationships between members of the partner institutions, built on trust developed over twenty years. In South Africa, a critical factor was the joint appointment of a London staff member on long-term secondment to one of the partner institutions. CONCLUSION: As partnerships mature the needs of partners change and new challenges emerge. Partners' differing research priorities (national v international; policy-led v academic-led) need to be balanced and equitable funding mechanisms developed recognising the needs and constraints faced by both southern and northern partners. Institutionalising partnerships (through long-term development of trust, engagement of a broad range of staff in joint activities and joint appointment of staff), and developing responsive mechanisms for governing these partnerships (through regular joint negotiation of research priorities and funding issues), can address these challenges in mutually acceptable ways. Indeed, by late 2005 the partnership under scrutiny in this paper had evolved into a wider consortium involving additional partners, more explicit mechanisms for managing institutional relationships and some core funding for partners. Most importantly, this study has shown that it is possible for long-term north-south partnership commitments to yield fruit and to strengthen the capacities of public health research and training institutions in less developed countries

Firsthand Experience and The Subsequent Role of Reflected Knowledge in Cultivating Trust in Global Collaboration

While scholars contend that firsthand experience - time spent onsite observing the people, places, and norms of a distant locale - is crucial in globally distributed collaboration, how such experience actually affects interpersonal dynamics is poorly understood. Based on 47 semistructured interviews and 140 survey responses in a global chemical company, this paper explores the effects of firsthand experience on intersite trust. We find firsthand experience leads not just to direct knowledge of the other, but also knowledge of the self as seen through the eyes of the other - what we call “reflected knowledge”. Reflected and direct knowledge, in turn, affect trust through identification, adaptation, and reduced misunderstandings

Action observation can prime visual object recognition

Observing an action activates action representations in the motor system. Moreover, the representations of manipulable objects are closely linked to the motor systems at a functional and neuroanatomical level. Here, we investigated whether action observation can facilitate object recognition using an action priming paradigm. As prime stimuli we presented short video movies showing hands performing an action in interaction with an object (where the object itself was always removed from the video). The prime movie was followed by a (briefly presented) target object affording motor interactions that are either similar (congruent condition) or dissimilar (incongruent condition) to the prime action. Participants had to decide whether an object name shown after the target picture corresponds with the picture or not (picture–word matching task). We found superior accuracy for prime–target pairs with congruent as compared to incongruent actions across two experiments. Thus, action observation can facilitate recognition of a manipulable object typically involving a similar action. This action priming effect supports the notion that action representations play a functional role in object recognition

Examining the strategy development process through the lens of complex adaptive systems theory

The development of strategy remains a debate for academics and a concern for practitioners. Published research has focused on producing models for strategy development and on studying how strategy is developed in organisations. The Operational Research literature has highlighted the importance of considering complexity within strategic decision making; but little has been done to link strategy development with complexity theories, despite organisations and organisational environments becoming increasingly more complex. We review the dominant streams of strategy development and complexity theories. Our theoretical investigation results in the first conceptual framework which links an established Strategic Operational Research model, the Strategy Development Process model, with complexity via Complex Adaptive Systems theory. We present preliminary findings from the use of this conceptual framework applied to a longitudinal, in-depth case study, to demonstrate the advantages of using this integrated conceptual model. Our research shows that the conceptual model proposed provides rich data and allows for a more holistic examination of the strategy development process. © 2012 Operational Research Society Ltd. All rights reserved

On the Importance of Complaint Handling Design : A Multi-Level Analysis of the Impact in Specific Complaint Situations

Given the large investments required for high-quality complaint handling design, managers need practical guidance in understanding its actual importance for their particular company. However, while prior research emphasizes the general relevance of complaint handling design, it fails to provide a more differentiated perspective on this interesting issue. This study, which is based on an integrative multi-level framework and a dyadic dataset, addresses this important gap in research. Results indicate that the impact of a company’s complaint handling design varies significantly depending on the characteristics of the complaining customers with which the firm has to deal. Further, this paper shows that, contingent on these characteristics, a company’s complaint handling design can shape complainants’ fairness perceptions either considerably or only slightly. Overall, findings suggest that companies should apply an adaptive approach to complaint handling to avoid misallocation of attention, energy, and resources