Developing Practice-Oriented Theory on Collaboration: A Paradox Lens

Collaboration is present throughout public administration as a means to address social issues that sit in the inter-organizational domain. Yet research carried out over the last three decades concludes that collaborations are complex, slow to produce outputs, and by no means guaranteed to deliver synergies and advantage. For these reasons, this article explores whether a ‘paradox lens’ can aid the development of practice-oriented theory to help those who govern, lead and manage collaboration in practice. It draws on a long standing research program on collaboration and a synthesis of literature on paradox of relevance to collaboration. The article develops five propositions on the application of a paradox lens that explicitly recognizes the context of collaboration as inherently paradoxical; acknowledges the limitation of mainstream theory in capturing adequately the complex nature of and tensions embedded in collaborative contexts and uses the principles of paradox to develop practice-oriented theory on governing, leading and managing collaborations

How collaborative are quality improvement collaboratives:A qualitative study in stroke care

BACKGROUND: Quality improvement collaboratives (QICs) continue to be widely used, yet evidence for their effectiveness is equivocal. We sought to explain what happened in Stroke 90:10, a QIC designed to improve stroke care in 24 hospitals in the North West of England. Our study drew in part on the literature on collective action and inter-organizational collaboration. This literature has been relatively neglected in evaluations of QICs, even though they are founded on principles of co-operation and sharing. METHODS: We interviewed 32 professionals in hospitals that participated in Stroke 90:10, conducted a focus group with the QIC faculty team, and reviewed purposively sampled documents including reports and newsletters. Analysis was based on a modified form of Framework Analysis, combining sensitizing constructs derived from the literature and new, empirically derived thematic categories. RESULTS: Improvements in stroke care were attributed to QIC participation by many professionals. They described how the QIC fostered a sense of community and increased attention to stroke care within their organizations. However, participants’ experiences of the QIC varied. Starting positions were different; some organizations were achieving higher levels of performance than others before the QIC began, and some had more pre-existing experience of quality improvement methods. Some participants had more to learn, others more to teach. Some evidence of free-riding was found. Benchmarking improvement was variously experienced as friendly rivalry or as time-consuming and stressful. Participants’ competitive desire to demonstrate success sometimes conflicted with collaborative aims; some experienced competing organizational pressures or saw the QIC as duplication of effort. Experiences of inter-organizational collaboration were influenced by variations in intra-organizational support. CONCLUSIONS: Collaboration is not the only mode of behavior likely to occur within a QIC. Our study revealed a mixed picture of collaboration, free-riding and competition. QICs should learn from work on the challenges of collective action; set realistic goals; account for context; ensure sufficient time and resources are made available; and carefully manage the collaborative to mitigate the risks of collaborative inertia and unhelpful competitive or anti-cooperative behaviors. Individual organizations should assess the costs and benefits of collaboration as a means of attaining quality improvement

Neutron Scattering at FRJ-2: Experimental Reports 2003

The article seeks to make sense of the choices facing the public leadership development facilitator, in design and in-the-moment programme decisions. The challenge is posited as one of situating knowledge of facilitation practices in a critical relationship with the public sector leadership literature and the critical leadership development literature. The article positions public leadership development facilitation as sitting within three pressing dilemmas, or crossroads, concerning public leadership theory, critical leadership development scholarship and facilitation scholarship. A narrative ethnographic methodology is adopted to explore the constructions of a specific public sector leadership development facilitator as a means of analysing facilitator choices in action. An interpretation of how the facilitator frames and constructs public leadership in relation to the constructions of participants is offered. The article situates facilitator choices as highly political, sitting contextually between the idealism of the public sector literature and the social identifications of participants. The authors offer two dominant forms of facilitation choices (framing and adaptive) as a heuristic for facilitators, practitioners and scholars who wish to reflect further on the role of leadership development in the public realm

Entomopathogenic Fungi as Bioinsecticides

As early as 900 A.D., it was known in the Orient that fungi could grow in insects (Steinhaus, 1975). The pioneering work of Bassi with Beauveria bassiana in silkworms in 1834 proved that fungi could actually cause infectious diseases in insects. From the 1880s through the early 1900s, the spectacular epizootics caused by entomopathogenic fungi—fungi-infecting insects—led to studies of their potential use for pest control. Interest in fungi as pest control agents waned, however, as chemical insecticides were used more frequently. More recently, owing to the myriad difficulties that have been gradually encountered in the development and use of chemical insecticides, the field of biological control has been undergoing a renaissance. In particular, our knowledge of entomopathogenic fungi is at present increasing rapidly