The soaring popularity of business practices in the social sector has elicited numerous calls from academics and practitioners to adopt appropriate methodologies to quantify and compare social value ...creation. Contributing scholars consider it a great if not impossible challenge to compare social value creation of different unrelated heterogonous interventions. We help bridge this research gap by developing a conceptual framework that allows us to compare the effectiveness of social interventions serving the different needs of different treatment groups in different socioeconomic and institutional contexts. We do so by bringing insights from both the literature on subjective well-being and the literature on organizational effectiveness theory into not-for-profit and social entrepreneurship research, as well as into the literature on program evaluation.
This research investigates patterns of knowledge governance practices in project-based organizations (PBOs). Five propositions about knowledge governance in PBOs were deductively and empirically ...tested using qualitative data from 82 interviews. The results were triangulated with those of prior studies. Results indicate that knowledge governance practices in PBOs are impacted by structural and situational factors, such as being a subsidiary or standalone PBO, a PBO striving for excellence or not, as well as some preconditions, such as the executives' competence in project governance. The results show that informal governance mechanisms are more useful than formal when it comes to knowledge creating processes. Governance of informal knowledge creating mechanisms appears to be complex for executives and their preconceptions showed either to be enablers or barriers to productive knowledge governance practices. Executive's competence and preconditions, concerning aspects like human capabilities and attitudes to professional ethos, seems to impact knowledge governance strategies. In subsidiary PBOs knowledge governance provides practitioners with proper assistance to avoid unbeneficial situations of having knowledge silos among loosely coupled islands.
► Patterns of knowledge governance practices in PBOs are investigated. ► Knowledge governance in PBOs is impacted by structural and situational factors. ► Informal governance mechanisms are vital for creating knowledge processes. ► Executives' preconceptions highly impact knowledge governance practices. ► Knowledge governance provides managers support in reducing knowledge fragmentation.
The Organization of American States (OAS) Herz, Mônica
The Organization of American States (OAS),
2011, 20110425, 2011-04-25, 20110101, Volume:
50
eBook, Book Chapter
The Organization of American States (OAS) is the world's oldest regional multifunctional organization. This work provides a clear and comprehensive discussion of this important body, dealing with ...security, technical cooperation, and the construction of democratic institutions.
Providing an incisive analysis of the history, decision making procedures, relevance, functions, and operations of the OAS, this book also examines the organization in the context of the web of international and regional institutions that deal with global governance and international politics in the Western Hemisphere. In this accessible and concise text, Mônica Herz seeks to move beyond the well-studied roles of the OAS as a tool of foreign policy and assess the increasing significance of its independent normative and operational activities.
Providing an important resource to those seeking to fully understand the activities and impact of the OAS, this work will be essential reading for all students of Latin American politics, international organization, and global governance.
International Organizations (IOs) are a most striking phenomenon in contemporary international law. Many complex issues have arisen since the emergence of these organizations due, in part, to their ...increasing prevalence, ever-changing nature, and nuanced diversity. This volume aims to explore new solutions to some of these issues and focuses specifically on problems derived from recent legal developments in IO praxis.
Community‐based organisations (CBOs) are important for eliminating health disparities globally and translating research findings to inform interventions. Engagement is an integral part of ...partnerships between CBOs and community health researchers and impacts the quality and quantity of any desired outcome. Despite the acknowledged benefits of community‐based organisation engagement (CBOE), there are variations in its operationalisation and paucity in the understanding of its use in community‐scientific partnerships. To further understand CBOE, the aim of this study was to synthesise published literature relevant to the definitions and applications of CBOE and identify its key components. A systematic search was conducted in March 2017, and updated in June 2017. Keywords were varied to account for international differences in spelling and word usage. Five major databases, MEDLINE, PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO and Google Scholar, were used to identify potential research studies. A total of 32 studies were included in this review. Following the analysis of the literature, four salient themes emerged as components of CBOE: (1) Need (a consensus between all the parties in a partnership on the importance of a specified project and its proposed benefits to a target community); (2) Partnership Dynamics (the workings of a relationship between a CBO and a scientific/academic stakeholder); (3) Resources (include but are not limited to: personnel, money, work space, expertise and equipment); and (4) Outcomes (products of the partnership). This review provides a foundation for future research in applying CBOE to translational research and interventions. This analysis will assist community health researchers in planning partnerships with CBOs, and make necessary adjustments to improve study outcomes. Appropriate application of the components of CBOE in partnerships will assist researchers in addressing health disparities.
•A new theoretical framework of blockchain technology adoption is presented.•We employed a mixed-methodology for blockchain technology adoption.•Studies how the volatility of technology impacts ...organisational adoption decisions.•A scale is built to assess an organisation’s perception of technology’s volatility.
This study examines the factors influencing blockchain’s adoption intention as a whole, relying on an organisational perspective and the Technology-Organisation-Environment Framework (TOE). To organise and investigate the factors and to study blockchain technology adoption intention, this research employs a mixed-methodology. After an extended literature review, first, a qualitative approach is used to discover the factors from primary data collected from 25 interviews. Second, a quantitative survey is employed directly relating the factors to blockchain adoption intention and empirically testing them with 146 employees from 71 North American organisations. A total of 15 factors are discovered, seven are tested, and six are significant. In particular, the technology factors perceived interoperability and perceived data quality have a positive impact upon blockchain adoption intention, while the effect is negative for perceived technological volatility, regulatory uncertainty, standardisation uncertainty and the perceived lack of technological knowledge.
Research on organizational paradox has been burgeoning in recent decades. While consensus is growing on the definition of organizational paradox as persistent contradictions between interdependent ...elements, its ontology continues to be contested. The inherent and constitutive views of organizational paradox adopt competing ontological positions on organizational paradox as existing irrespective of, or only through, organizational members' discursive construction. In this paper, we develop a novel ontological approach that conceptualizes paradox as both inherent and socially constructed, thereby highlighting the paradoxical nature of the ontology of paradox. To develop our approach, we mobilize the ontological underpinnings of quantum mechanics and reconceptualize the ontology of paradox with regard to its latency, salience, and persistence. As per our quantum approach, paradox is coconstituted by latency-the inherent but indeterminate potential of paradox; salience-the concrete enactment of paradox in a sociomaterial context; and persistence-the repeated enactment of paradox in similar sociomaterial contexts. Thereby, we explain how inherent material factors and socially constructed meaning coconstitute paradox. Our quantum approach to the ontology of paradox transcends the standoff between the inherent and constitutive views and provides a theoretical account for the dual nature of paradox as being both inherent and socially constructed.
People with stroke conventionally receive a substantial part of their rehabilitation in hospital. Services have now been developed that offer people in hospital an early discharge with rehabilitation ...at home (early supported discharge: ESD).
To establish if, in comparison with conventional care, services that offer people in hospital with stroke a policy of early discharge with rehabilitation provided in the community (ESD) can: 1) accelerate return home, 2) provide equivalent or better patient and carer outcomes, 3) be acceptable satisfactory to patients and carers, and 4) have justifiable resource implications use.
We searched the Cochrane Stroke Group Trials Register (January 2017), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL 2017, Issue 1) in the Cochrane Library (searched January 2017), MEDLINE in Ovid (searched January 2017), Embase in Ovid (searched January 2017), CINAHL in EBSCO (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature; 1937 to December 2016), and Web of Science (to January 2017). In an effort to identify further published, unpublished, and ongoing trials we searched six trial registries (March 2017). We also performed citation tracking of included studies, checked reference lists of relevant articles, and contacted trialists.
Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) recruiting stroke patients in hospital to receive either conventional care or any service intervention that has provided rehabilitation and support in a community setting with an aim of reducing the duration of hospital care.
The primary patient outcome was the composite end-point of death or long-term dependency recorded at the end of scheduled follow-up. Two review authors scrutinised trials, categorised them on their eligibility and extracted data. Where possible we sought standardised data from the primary trialists. We analysed the results for all trials and for subgroups of patients and services, in particular whether the intervention was provided by a co-ordinated multidisciplinary team (co-ordinated ESD team) or not. We assessed risk of bias for the included trials and used GRADE to assess the quality of the body of evidence.
We included 17 trials, recruiting 2422 participants, for which outcome data are currently available. Participants tended to be a selected elderly group of stroke survivors with moderate disability. The ESD group showed reductions in the length of hospital stay equivalent to approximately six days (mean difference (MD) -5.5; 95% confidence interval (CI) -3 to -8 days; P < 0.0001; moderate-grade evidence). The primary outcome was available for 16 trials (2359 participants). Overall, the odds ratios (OR) for the outcome of death or dependency at the end of scheduled follow-up (median 6 months; range 3 to 12) was OR 0.80 (95% CI 0.67 to 0.95, P = 0.01, moderate-grade evidence) which equates to five fewer adverse outcomes per 100 patients receiving ESD. The results for death (16 trials; 2116 participants) and death or requiring institutional care (12 trials; 1664 participants) were OR 1.04 (95% CI 0.77 to 1.40, P = 0.81, moderate-grade evidence) and OR 0.75 (95% CI 0.59 to 0.96, P = 0.02, moderate-grade evidence), respectively. Small improvements were also seen in participants' extended activities of daily living scores (standardised mean difference (SMD) 0.14, 95% CI 0.03 to 0.25, P = 0.01, low-grade evidence) and satisfaction with services (OR 1.60, 95% CI 1.08 to 2.38, P = 0.02, low-grade evidence). We saw no clear differences in participants' activities of daily living scores, patients subjective health status or mood, or the subjective health status, mood or satisfaction with services of carers. We found low-quality evidence that the risk of readmission to hospital was similar in the ESD and conventional care group (OR 1.09, 95% CI 0.79 to 1.51, P = 0.59, low-grade evidence). The evidence for the apparent benefits were weaker at one- and five-year follow-up. Estimated costs from six individual trials ranged from 23% lower to 15% greater for the ESD group in comparison to usual care.In a series of pre-planned analyses, the greatest reductions in death or dependency were seen in the trials evaluating a co-ordinated ESD team with a suggestion of poorer results in those services without a co-ordinated team (subgroup interaction at P = 0.06). Stroke patients with mild to moderate disability at baseline showed greater reductions in death or dependency than those with more severe stroke (subgroup interaction at P = 0.04).
Appropriately resourced ESD services with co-ordinated multidisciplinary team input provided for a selected group of stroke patients can reduce long-term dependency and admission to institutional care as well as reducing the length of hospital stay. Results are inconclusive for services without co-ordinated multidisciplinary team input. We observed no adverse impact on the mood or subjective health status of patients or carers, nor on readmission to hospital.
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