Developing a sustainability KM strategy for HA planned works

Effective management of sustainability-related knowledge is central to the development of sustainable construction practices. Despite progress In other contexts, existing knowledge management efforts have been of limited value to contexts such as housing association planned works (cyclical replacement of housing components) due to an inability to reflect the specificities of these projects. This paper presents the development of a structured strategy to improve the capture, storage, retrieval and exchange of sustainability-related knowledge within housing association planned works. Knowledge mapping exercises based on semi-structured interviews were carried out within four different sized Scottish housing associations. Sustainability-related knowledge maps were developed for each activity focusing on managerial, economic, social, environmental aspects and overall flow of knowledge providing the basis for recommendations to improve the management of sustainability-related knowledge during planned works. The strategy promotes a structured approach providing housing associations with the opportunity to tailor the strategy to reflect their context and requirements. Practitioners from the case studies confirmed its usefulness especially for housing associations committed to sustainability but struggling to engage with high-level policy and strategies. One case study association has implemented the high-level principles to support its wider sustainability policy and is piloting a strategy for its planned works. </jats:p

Knowledge maping and process modelling to develop a sustainability-related knowledge management strategy for Scottish Housing Association planned works

In the United Kingdom (UK) the social housing sector is mainly managed by Local authorities (LAs) and Housing Associations (HAs), and is at the forefront of the development of sustainable practices. In Scotland, the growing number and financial capacity of HAs places this sub-sector in a privileged position to develop sustainable practices. Furthermore, aging housing stock and limited budgets for new housing or large refurbishment projects places maintenance (and more precisely, planned works defined by the cyclical replacement of internal and external housing components) at the centre of efforts. Although evidence suggests that amongst HA practitioners, awareness of the concept of sustainability is growing, changes in practice remain relatively slow. This research argues that despite governmental initiatives and existing sustainable guidelines and frameworks, insufficient emphasis has been placed on the management of sustainability-related I knowledge held by practitioners. This thesis therefore aims to investigate the nature (explicit, implicit and tacit) and flow of HA planned work sustainability-related knowledge in order to develop a sustainability-related KM strategy improving the exchange, storage and retrieval of knowledge. The research adopts an interpretivist approach to investigate the socially constructed nature of knowledge based on four case studies with different HAs. Prior to the case studies, social housing experts were interviewed to develop an understanding of sustainability awareness amongst HA practitioners. In addition, a Planned Work Process Model (pWPM) was developed through interviews and a survey with HA practitioners to serve as a structure for knowledge mapping exercises across the case studies. The PWPM was contextualised for each of the four case studies and knowledge maps (Kmaps) were used to explore the nature and flow of knowledge around each of the activities. The comparison of the PWPM and the four contextualised case study versions provided the basis for a Generic PWPM (GPWPM) for HA planned works comprised of 6 phases and 30 activities classified as mainstream, occasional and recurrent. From the analysis and comparison of the Kmaps recommendations were developed for the generic HA level and for every GPWPM phase/activity and these formed a sustainability-related KM strategy. In terms of sustainability agenda, the research confirmed the position of planned works as central to future strategy for Scottish HA' s mainly because of the economic downturn limiting new build and large refurbishment projects and the growing governmental pressure for sustainability. The research proposes the integration of KM principles into practitioners' daily activities through practical recommendations considering all sustainability dimensions. The developed GPWPM provides HA practitioners with a process model specific to planned work and a level of detail that is not currently available in the literature. Finally, the knowledge mapping technique developed in this thesis is inspired by existing approaches but builds upon this through a relatively novel practical and systematic way of capturing sustainability-related knowledge from practice.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

How Do Simulated High-Intensity Situations Train Leaders to Maintain Their Ability to Act in Unfamiliar, Unforeseen or Uncertain Environments?

International audienceIn addition to being rooted in an enactive conception of the activity (Durand & Poizat, 2015; Theureau, 2003), one of the originalities of this research is to focus on the learning experienced by cadets while they are engaged in spaces of action that do not encourage their activity, but on the contrary hinder it: the hardening training course. The purpose of this training is to make these officer cadets experience simulated situations of physical, emotional and psychological over-stress, presenting similarities with their future professional life.In order to better understand how, within such a simulation device, officer cadets experiment with their ability to maintain individuals’ dispositions to act, we analysed the engagement modes of the trainees in their learnings to command among aversive environments.The results show that alongside the well-known forms of executory and exploratory engagement, a “conservatory” mode of engagement appears, the aim of which is to preserve the conditions for perpetuating the action and capacities of each officer cadet.This research leads to the formulation of principles for the design of trainings whose aim is to prepare professionals to deal with the unknown, the unexpected and even the unbearable

Se former au sein d’« espaces d’actions empêchées » pour apprendre à commander aux frontières du tenable : le cas des stages d’aguerrissement de l’École Militaire InterArmes

International audienceSome trainings aim at developing operators in a counter-intuitive way: by making them evolve in anenvironment tending to make them unable to act. In the case of the hardening training courses followedby Army cadets, the purpose is to prepare them for theatres of operations in which they will have to facehazards and dangers, where mission success and group survival may depend on their ability to act at thelimits of their capacities.This research shows that these courses break with "protected environments" and simulate, conversely,"spaces of impeded action". Within the latter, the disturbances selected by the trainees take five differentforms: as impossibilities, indispositions, incompatibilities, incongruences or possibilities. Showing that theymust be conceived as indeterminations that can be both generative and depriving individuals ofpossibilities.Certaines formations visent le développement des opérateurs de façon contre-intuitive: en les faisant évoluer dans un environnement tendant à les mettre en incapacité d’agir. Dans le cas des stages d’aguerrissement suivis par les élèves-officiers de l’Armée de Terre, il s’agit de les préparer à des théâtres d’opérations dans lesquels ils auront à faire face à des aléas et dangers, au sein desquels la réussite de la mission et la survie du groupe peuvent dépendre de leur aptitude à fonctionner aux limites de leurs capacités.La présente recherchemontre que ces stages rompent avec les « environnements protégés » et simulent à l’inverse des « espaces d’actions empêchées ». Au sein de ces derniers les perturbations sélectionnées par les stagiaires prennent cinq formes différentes: comme impossibilités, indispositions, incompatibilités, incongruences ou encore comme possibilités. Montrant qu’elles doivent y être conçues comme des indéterminations qui peuvent tout autant être génératives que privatives de possibles pour les individu

Train leaders to preserve their dispositions to act through high-intensity simulated training situations: the case of army officer cadets

International audienc