Reflexiones sobre el pluralismo metodológico para el abordaje de estudios sobre democracia y participación

El desafío de generar participación ciudadana y con esto fortalecer la democracia es cada vez mayor en los países de América Latina. En el Ecuador, a partir de la Constitución vigente aprobada en el año 2008, la participación ciudadana se constituye en un eje fundamental para la función pública, y para ello su institucionalización toma forma tanto por vía jurídica, como a través de la formulación de políticas públicas para el efecto. Sin embargo, la institucionalización no ha sido garantía en sí misma de una participación ciudadana efectiva, por ello, el Grupo de Investigación Acompañamiento Organizacional al Desarrollo – ACORDES del Departamento Interdisciplinario de Espacio y Población de la Universidad de Cuenca, se propuso analizar cómo se ha materializado la participación ciudadana en el Ecuador a partir de la Constitución de 2008, en tres casos de estudio: Cuenca, Cañar y Nabón.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Reflexiones sobre el pluralismo metodológico para el abordaje de estudios sobre democracia y participación

El desafío de generar participación ciudadana y con esto fortalecer la democracia es cada vez mayor en los países de América Latina. En el Ecuador, a partir de la Constitución vigente aprobada en el año 2008, la participación ciudadana se constituye en un eje fundamental para la función pública, y para ello su institucionalización toma forma tanto por vía jurídica, como a través de la formulación de políticas públicas para el efecto. Sin embargo, la institucionalización no ha sido garantía en sí misma de una participación ciudadana efectiva, por ello, el Grupo de Investigación Acompañamiento Organizacional al Desarrollo – ACORDES del Departamento Interdisciplinario de Espacio y Población de la Universidad de Cuenca, se propuso analizar cómo se ha materializado la participación ciudadana en el Ecuador a partir de la Constitución de 2008, en tres casos de estudio: Cuenca, Cañar y Nabón.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Leading change in higher education. The role of transformational and stakeholder management

Summary…iii Samenvatting . iv Resumen . vii Acknowledgments ix Table of Contents. xi List of tables xiii List of figures . xiii CHAPTER I General Introduction 2 CHAPTER II Transformational leadership and stakeholder management in library change . 47 CHAPTER III Successful change: the role of transformational leadership and stakeholder management in universities ... 73 CHAPTER IV Transformational leadership and stakeholder management: A multiple case study in Latin American universities . 111 CHAPTER V General Discussion 149 APPENDIX . 169 REFERENCES . 179Summary…iii Samenvatting . iv Resumen . vii Acknowledgments ix Table of Contents. xi List of tables xiii List of figures . xiii CHAPTER I General Introduction 2 CHAPTER II Transformational leadership and stakeholder management in library change . 47 CHAPTER III Successful change: the role of transformational leadership and stakeholder management in universities ... 73 CHAPTER IV Transformational leadership and stakeholder management: A multiple case study in Latin American universities . 111 CHAPTER V General Discussion 149 APPENDIX . 169 REFERENCES . 179Doctor of PsychologyLeuve

Incidencia de las perspectivas de los actores en los procesos de implementación y adopción de la tecnología de manejo y conservación de la fertilidad de los suelos de la parroquia Jima

Licenciado en Desarrollo SocialCuenc

Life cycle sustainability assessment-based tools

This chapter establishes a baseline of ideas of what Life Cycle Thinking means: going beyond the traditional focus, understanding and including the whole environmental, social, and economic implications of decision-making processes to identify potential conflicts, synergies, and trade-offs. The life cycle methodologies for sustainability assessment are described, providing an overview of the tools and criteria currently applied, available software and databases, and ongoing challenges. While Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a consolidated tool, based on the ISO standards, Life Cycle Costing (LCC), the tool aimed at the assessment of the economic domain using a life cycle perspective, has not been widely integrated into sustainability assessment until the last decade. Concerning the social dimension, Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) is still at an early stage of development, but it is a promising methodology to face the challenge of integrating the social aspects towards a holistic approach to sustainable development

Reflexiones sobre el pluralismo metodológico para el abordaje de estudios sobre democracia y participación

El desafío de generar participación ciudadana y con esto fortalecer la democracia es cada vez mayor en los países de América Latina. En el Ecuador, a partir de la Constitución vigente aprobada en el año 2008, la participación ciudadana se constituye en un eje fundamental para la función pública, y para ello su institucionalización toma forma tanto por vía jurídica, como a través de la formulación de políticas públicas para el efecto. Sin embargo, la institucionalización no ha sido garantía en sí misma de una participación ciudadana efectiva, por ello, el Grupo de Investigación Acompañamiento Organizacional al Desarrollo – ACORDES del Departamento Interdisciplinario de Espacio y Población de la Universidad de Cuenca, se propuso analizar cómo se ha materializado la participación ciudadana en el Ecuador a partir de la Constitución de 2008, en tres casos de estudio: Cuenca, Cañar y Nabón.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Integrating text mining and citation analysis in the decision-making process for library collections

In recent years, the scientific production in Ecuador has registered a considerable increase, due to the implementation of government policies designed to improve the quality of education. Higher Education Institutions (HEI) have also tried to stimulate research and scientific production to even higher quality standards with the pressure to rack up publications in high-impact journals. However, research and scientific production can flourish only in an environment where access to scientific knowledge is easily available. Consequently, Ecuadorian universities have increased their budget by approximately five times in order to provide access to digital databases and other electronic resources. Unfortunately, these efforts have not yielded the expected results to cover the minimum level of access to knowledge, due to the high costs of subscriptions to scientific journals. Therefore, decision making in library collection development becomes a very important process that needs to get the attention deserved. In general, at the University of Cuenca, funds for library collection development are allocated by faculties; each faculty decides what to subscribe or unsubscribe, generally following historical spending patterns, electronic journal usage data, and in some cases, based on their own finances and priorities. Nevertheless, these indicators have been subject to recurring debates, due to their unclear relation with the current and future library needs of information. More research is required for the construction of accurate indicators regarding the library collection performance and the growing needs of collection development. The aim of this article is to have a deep insight of the local use of the collection, contextualised to the references cited in scientific articles published by authors affiliated to the University of Cuenca. To achieve this goal, a set of the last 10-year publications were analysed. The full article and reference list were extracted using text mining methods. Text parsing and text filtering techniques were used for data extraction of each text corpus. Each word was classified as a text tree; in which, through the recognition of identities and the extraction of relationships, a data structure was constructed. This structure allowed the application of data mining techniques, such as clustering, decision trees and classification methods. By integrating text mining and citation analysis in the decision-making process for library collections, the authors aim to provide a dynamic solution that assists library managers to make economic decisions based on an “as realistic as possible” perspective of the users' needs.In recent years, the scientific production in Ecuador has registered a considerable increase, due to the implementation of government policies designed to improve the quality of education. Higher Education Institutions (HEI) have also tried to stimulate research and scientific production to even higher quality standards with the pressure to rack up publications in high-impact journals. However, research and scientific production can flourish only in an environment where access to scientific knowledge is easily available. Consequently, Ecuadorian universities have increased their budget by approximately five times in order to provide access to digital databases and other electronic resources. Unfortunately, these efforts have not yielded the expected results to cover the minimum level of access to knowledge, due to the high costs of subscriptions to scientific journals. Therefore, decision making in library collection development becomes a very important process that needs to get the attention deserved. In general, at the University of Cuenca, funds for library collection development are allocated by faculties; each faculty decides what to subscribe or unsubscribe, generally following historical spending patterns, electronic journal usage data, and in some cases, based on their own finances and priorities. Nevertheless, these indicators have been subject to recurring debates, due to their unclear relation with the current and future library needs of information. More research is required for the construction of accurate indicators regarding the library collection performance and the growing needs of collection development. The aim of this article is to have a deep insight of the local use of the collection, contextualised to the references cited in scientific articles published by authors affiliated to the University of Cuenca. To achieve this goal, a set of the last 10-year publications were analysed. The full article and reference list were extracted using text mining methods. Text parsing and text filtering techniques were used for data extraction of each text corpus. Each word was classified as a text tree; in which, through the recognition of identities and the extraction of relationships, a data structure was constructed. This structure allowed the application of data mining techniques, such as clustering, decision trees and classification methods. By integrating text mining and citation analysis in the decision-making process for library collections, the authors aim to provide a dynamic solution that assists library managers to make economic decisions based on an “as realistic as possible” perspective of the users' needs.Valenci

Leading change: a multiple-case study of leadership practices in Latin American universities

Universities have to develop in a highly complex environment, which shapes their structural and organisational characteristics. In this context, academic leaders not only have the challenge to forecast future trends but also to implement the changes needed to achieve this future. The specific causes of change success or failure have been a topic of much debate in the organisational literature. One of the lessons learned by researchers related to effective change is that leadership is a key element to achieve successful change. Although the effects of leadership on the results of change initiatives are still not well understood, research provides support for a positive link between leadership and effective implementation of change. In fact, some researchers posited that good management is a sine qua non condition to get a successful change, but leadership is what really makes the difference between the success and failure of change. However, more empirical research is needed to understand the actual practices performed by leaders.Universities have to develop in a highly complex environment, which shapes their structural and organisational characteristics. In this context, academic leaders not only have the challenge to forecast future trends but also to implement the changes needed to achieve this future. The specific causes of change success or failure have been a topic of much debate in the organisational literature. One of the lessons learned by researchers related to effective change is that leadership is a key element to achieve successful change. Although the effects of leadership on the results of change initiatives are still not well understood, research provides support for a positive link between leadership and effective implementation of change. In fact, some researchers posited that good management is a sine qua non condition to get a successful change, but leadership is what really makes the difference between the success and failure of change. However, more empirical research is needed to understand the actual practices performed by leaders. The article analyses what leadership practices perform the leaders and which of them contributes to successful leadership in university change processes. To this end, a qualitative multiple-case study was utilised. A multiple-case study design has all the advantages of a single-case design; but using several case studies, this replication enhances the validity and credibility of the findings. Six change processes in two universities were analysed. Data collection, in each case, was accomplished through direct observation, analysis of secondary documents and in-depth semi-structured interviews. Data analysis was carried out in two steps: first, a within-case analysis, and then a cross-case analysis. Matrixes were built in order to organise and summarise the data. To ensure the quality of the research, member checking, and data and researcher triangulation were performed. The results showed three important aspects of successful leadership. Firstly, leaders have to maintain good relationships with the stakeholders, which could be achieved by transformational leadership behaviours. Secondly, they have to be able to manage the administrative aspects. And finally, they have to hold the capacity to implement changes that solve the “wicked problems” of the university. Nevertheless, it was also found that leaders, most of the time, have ‘no room to lead’ and/or to learn how to make desired changes work. They are so busy complying with bureaucratic procedures that they have little time left to lead. Besides, most of the time, they are appointed without having the leadership qualities required and are rarely trained in the management of change in complex organisations such as universities. Taken together, these findings contribute to a better understanding of the leadership role to promote successful change in Latin American Universities.Valenci