Category: PhD

Innovation and Value Chains

Innovation Capacities

Innovation and Value Chains

Abstract

Innovation is frequently obtained through exogenous means by companies inserting themselves within a value chain. Placement within a value chains indicates that businesses are receiving materials to one firm and then handing their products they’ve serviced to another firm. Two examples of this include chip manufacture and metallurgy – the former assemblies parts to be handed to technology firms which insert them into finished hardware components that are then put to market while the later processes raw metals in order to develop products such as steel that is machine lathed into household goods or for use in construction. Firms competitive positionsarepositivelytransformed and capabilities for innovation emerge in these situations as a result of changes in exogenous and endogenous factors. Cooperation and the acquisition of technologyrepresent the former whereas budgetary expenditure on research and developmentis an examples of the latter. Oftentimes government or business sector interests assist in the development of such activities as it provides net benefits to the country and the local capabilities of the industry. This is accomplished through maintaining a balance between these external and internal factors and properly exploiting them.

Keywords: innovation capacities, technological innovation capabilities, organizational congruence, triple helix

Body

Managing Technological Development: Lessons from the Newly Industrializing Countries

When firms decide to invest in a particular technology it represents both a set of engineering norms associated with it, expected costs, benefits and methods as well as capabilities that can be acquired by those gaining experience with that technology. This consideration is important to examine when considering which technologies to upgrade to or abandon. The identification of local needs are important when establishing such a framework, however, to think with an eye to future innovations also requires to think in a less constrained manner. This requires the collection of information on a large number of indicators and openness to looking far outside the domestic borders to determine what is valued by companies within various supply chains.

In this article by Dahlman, Ross-Larson and Westphal, the authors open with a description of how the Brazilian steel company Usiminas first came into being. Prior to its innovation activities, the Brazilian steel industry was not engaged in any of the high-value-added services that firms in more advanced countries did. It was only after agreeing to a period of apprenticeship under those who had already learned the mechanically technical and physically dangerous processes involved in using blast furnaces, basic oxygen converters and rolling mills through experience in Japan and could demonstrate the capability to do it unaided they the keys, to use an American idiomatic expression, were given to them. Due to an unplanned-for economic recession, the company had to readjust its planned operations. Demonstrating how technological development functions in such settings, they managed to improve their operations by stretching their capacities and applying new methods of developing desired goods by setting up an internal research department. This allowed them not only to profit sufficiently as to be able to expand but to spin off its engineering department so as to provide technical assistance to other companies. Usiminas thus showed a capacity to not only exploit its core mission, producing steel according to international industry standards, but to develop a core competence that allowed it to expand and thrive.

Because of the high technical nature of complex industries, it is typical for new industries to be founded in underdeveloped countries with the assistance of foreign companies and domestic governments. To attract foreign companies to already engaged in such activities to, industry associations will pressure governments to adopt technological policies that create incentives for technology transfer and alterations of regulatory environments and penalties for firms that are considered chronic laggards. With this activity, specialized technological agents come into being to either facilitate such activities or to form their own firm related to their specialization. Through their help, more efficient and productive use of the resources occurs and the government can pull back from the role of guaranteeing returns on investments and instead of assisting research institutes. One of the common features of successful technological development policy is a market-positive environment wherein government intervention is limited only to providing assistance during periods of market failure. In such circumstances, the “right” capabilities will emerge on their own as a result of sector-specific needs.

While the Resources to Capabilities to Competencies video is far more simplistic than the examples described in Managing Technological Development: Lessons from the Newly Industrializing Countries, I’ve included the below screenshot from the video as it does show a version of the steps involved in their innovation development activities described therein. Conscientious measurement and strategic planning based on that allows for resources to grow into capabilities and competencies that can create competitive advantages for firms.

Innovative Capability Audits of University Research Centers

Whilst the above provides a number of case studies and theoretical reflections, the findings of this article in the literature on technology audits and other assessment tools which are sourced from a technology management development program for a university research center. It then describes an innovative method developed specifically for that center, communicates that that design’s motivating factors, and analyzes the results acquired from the research process. It is, in short, a granular exemplum of a methodology for how to develop innovation.

Citing David Klein’s 1995 book The Strategic Management of Intellectual Capital, Nystrom shares the general framework within which the subsequent research and development program was structured:

  • understanding the relevant strategic and operational roles in the organization, what is needed today and tomorrow
  • creating an infrastructure for cultivating and sharing it
  • creating the culture that encourages it
  • monitoring, valuing and reporting it

And then go on to Burgelman and Maidique’s 1988 the Innovative Capabilities Audit Framework which describes five categories of variables that influence innovation strategies for a business unit:

  1. Resources available for innovative activities.
  2. Capacity to understand competitor innovative strategies.
  3. Capacity to understand technological developments.
  4. Structural and cultural context of the organization affecting entrepreneurial behavior.
  5. Management capacity to deal with entrepreneurial activities.

In order to develop their assessment tools which comprised of nine criteria which addressed the center’s resource, strategy, and method of implementation through a series of surveys throughout the 5 phases of the innovation process. Since I’ve already quoted extensively from the article in the above description of the framework and categories of influence I’ll skip over what they developed specifically and turn instead to how they used it.

The questions from the audit framework they developed were directed to the stakeholders involved in order to measure the groups capacity to engage in teamwork, their level of technical knowledge and where they believed growth was most appropriate, enthusiasm for the process and final project, barriers to effective actions, perceived resources, most effective communicational protocols, and organizational structure, etc. This provided learning and team-building opportunities for those involved with the development and administration of the Research Center by forcing stakeholders to assess and reflect on what worked well or what did not. Having the capability to compare personal views with other members and then consider those differences during structured discussion sessions meant that external experts were not needed to provide the assessment.

While the context of this is very different from the Professional Learning Communities that I participated in as a History professor at Broward College – we were not trying to build a new center but to merely unify the direction of lesson planning so that there were clear overlaps in instructional material between Parts I – IV of the required History and Political Science curriculum – there are some overlaps as well. Results from our structured surveys and meetings allowed for rapid availability and easy explanations as to how we could all “get on the same page” to improve the learning capabilities and gains of our students.

Methodology for Evaluating Innovation Capabilities at University Institutions Using a Fuzzy System

I love data science and so found the methods described in this article, to use non-engineering terminology, to be really cool. As knowledge is what allows for the transformation of new technologies for industries the authors look to identify Technological Innovation Capacities through quantification and examination of the Triple Helix. This Triple Helix model generates an quantified infrastructure for the articulation of knowledge within the participating institutional entities (firms, educational institutions, and government) and provides the basis for the formulation of strategies for innovation development via surveys which substitute for quantitative market indicators.

The authors use the Model of Organizational Congruence developed by Nadler and Tushman in 1980 to structured to identify inputs, outputs, and the transformation process in line with four congruent components: “the tasks (the work that has to be done;) the individuals (the members of the organization;) the formal organization (the formal agreements at the interior of the organization, the structure and the processes adopted so the individuals execute the tasks;) and the informal organization (that which has not been directly formalized and is related to the culture that surges spontaneously and naturally between people that hold positions in the formal organization.)”

Because of the difficulty in being able to measure technological innovation capabilities – which are after all not operational unto themselves nor directly identifiable, judgments from all of those who’ve been surveyed are placed into a fuzzy logic framework in order to provide a more appropriate form to all of these subjective impressions.

A fuzzy logic system: “allows easy use of the knowledge of subject experts, as a starting point for automatic optimization when formalizing the occasionally ambiguous knowledge of an expert (or of common sense) in an attainable form. Additionally, thanks to the simplicity of the necessary calculations (sums and comparisons), they can usually be performed in comfortable, fast systems” (Martin and Sanz 2002, p. 248). The scorecards allow for the presentation of ranges on a variety of issues that provides the capacity to determine the weight for each set of questions on a high, medium to low scale.

While not directly related to the methodology described above, it’s perhaps worth mentioning here the Theoretical Framework video provides a more simplified example for mapping the relationships amongst a variety of concepts like the one described above.

According to it by writing the general problem, writing a research question, identifying the key concepts, defining these concepts with literature support, identifying the existing or potential relationships between these concepts, and identifying what indicators will be studied one can construct academically and practical studies. Based on this and the above fuzzy logic model, it becomes possible to determine areas in which Serrano and Robeldo’s work could potentially be combined with other data to find meaningful relationships.

Innovative capability and Export Performance of Chinese firms

A broader example of measuring and forecasting innovation than the above two examples is found in Guan and Ma’s article Innovative Capability and Export Performance of Chinese firms. Based on the data provided them from a sample of 213 Chinese industrial firms the authors examine seven innovation capability dimensions (learning, research and development (R&D), manufacturing, marketing, organizational, resource allocating and strategy planning) and three firm characteristics (domestic market share, size, and productivity growth rate) in evaluating their export performances.

After providing a brief literature review of innovation capabilities the authors, per the Theoretical Framework model, then describe what they developed based on that study which would be used in their own research. They produced a very complex modeling formula which divided innovation capabilities into seven dimensions based on a number of specific indexes of measurement:

(1) learning capability (including nine indexes)

(2) R&D capability (including 13 indexes)

(3) manufacturing capability (including eight indexes)

(4) marketing capability (including nine indexes)

(5) organizational capability (including 12 indexes)

(6) resources exploiting capability (including eight indexes)

(7) strategic capability (including 12 indexes).

One of the limits of the analysis which follows based on this model is the lack of cooperation from the companies under study. Guan and Ma state that they were able only to obtain labor productivity growth rates and not the real labor productivity data. This isn’t to say that their research project becomes valueless, just that some of the findings are intuitive to existent literature – such as how firm’s size and its export ratio shows that the competitive advantage of larger firms in exporting and that smaller firms prefer to focus on filling the needs in the domestic market because of the high cost of operation associated with high entry barriers. Other areas of investigation, where more meaningful research emerges, is in the relationship between specific sectors and how if greater process capabilities were matched they’d be able to achieve market requirements in a more timely fashion. This finding is one repeated from the Dahlman, Ross-Larson and Westphal article. In other words when market indicators can more clearly be described and shared with those involved – capacities for innovation amongst firms increase as they have some degree of assurance that their investments will lead to profits. By testing their data they are able both to verify certain relationships, and to determine which are most significant, which is important for determining how to proceed with policy changes necessary to ensure investment in innovation capacity will leads to beneficial results.

Conclusions

Improving innovative capacity requires measurement of numerous variables and the strategic development of them in relation to indicators that are found in the marketplace. By being able to produce goods and services that are valuable, rare, difficult to imitate, and difficult to substitute they develop competitive advantages. Quantitative, qualitative, and multi-dimensional research tools combined with market research provide the methods by which these niches are found, and internal and external knowledge acquisition lead to their development.

Recommendation

Innovation and invention are not possible without a strong base in the knowledge of the work being done. As the above shows, it’s only through extensive training in fields of knowledge does innovation becomes possible. Exogenous and endogenous cooperation and the acquisition of new technology is the precursor for being able to apply capabilities to develop marketable goods and services. Being able to manipulate symbols or materials, organize in a more effective manner, more rapidly and at a better cost market the fruits of labor, etc. are all part of the preconditions which lead to innovation and invention.

Bibliography

Guan, J. M. (2003). Innovative capability and export performance of Chinese firms. Technovation, 23, 737-747.

Nystrom, H. “Innovative Capability Audits of University Research Centers,” Proceedings – 9th International Conference on Management of Technology, Miami, FL, Feb. 2 2000, CD-ROM.

Serrano G., J., y Robledo V., J. (2013). Methodology for Evaluating Innovation Capabilities at University Institutions Using a Fuzzy System. Journal of Technology Management and Innovation. Vol 8.

Sher, P. J., y Yang, P. Y. (2005). The effects of innovative capabilities and R&D clustering on firm performance: The evidence of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry. Technovation, 25, 33-43.

Wang, C., Lu, I. Y., y Chen, C. B. (2008). Evaluating firm technological innovation capability under uncertainty. Technovation, 1-15.

Yam, R. C., Pun, J. C., Guan, J. C., y Tang, E. P. (2004). An audit of technological innovation capabilities in Chinese firms: Some empirical findings in Beijing, China. Research Policy, 33, 1123-1140.

Innovation: Internal and External Drivers and Markers

Abstract

The ability to exploit internal and external knowledge is a critical component of business capability to innovate. It is not sufficient merely to have identified the areas of knowledge to be exploited and transformed them into routines, it’s also important to determine that which isn’t fully known in order to determine whether or not research and development within that region of activity should be pursued. Because there is an ambiguity of scope in the skills and strategies required to innovative, quantitative processes are required in order to ensure that the proper routines and skills are implemented and developed within the firm.

Key Words: Evolutionary Economics, Absorptive Capacity, Tacit Knowlege, Economic Change, Behavioral Theory

 Introduction

Epistemology of human activity and business is a core component of innovation development and optimal functioning of a firm. By better understanding the drivers of interpersonal, cooperative behavior in business settings and how it is that knowledge is developed and operated as embodied knowledge, and how expenditures affect the long-term survivability of firms in competitive conditions it’s possible to develop a behavioral theory to guide evolutionary economic change.

Body

Karl Polyani’s Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy is a beautiful exploration of knowledge and its application. Using Gestalt psychology methods, a form of psychoanalysis that examines the various pieces of a whole in its simplest forms and then constructs a broader picture based on the pattern, Polyani examines the history and practices of scientific knowledge and practical application in a manner that it as times quite poetic. He claims that his work is in the tradition of destructive analysis – in that he seeks to engage in a form of deconstruction of his subjects so that some of the operating presumptions that inform practices related to knowledge can be more clearly seen.

First examined is tradition, whose first formalization with the social sphere occurs via the relationships between master and apprentice. The older practitioner of the art of science, be it of agricultural or mechanical engineering, has internalized the rules of the field to such a degree as a result of their trial and errors such that they are able to embody and transmit a coherent system of conceptions. Polyani says that this diffusion of knowledge is intimately related to human interactions – despite the capacity to capture it in books, journals, and other media – and validates this claim by pointing to the fact that “the regions in Europe in which the scientific method first originated 400 years ago are scientifically still more fruitful today, in spite of their impoverishment than several overseas areas where much more money is available for scientific research.” He relates this fact to the British common law, which is founded on precedents, as it accustomed the people in those regions not to invert ever new cases in but to have a traditional worldview.

Relating this practice to approaching knowledge to connoisseurship, which is a skill that can only be obtained and then transmitted by example rather than rote memorization of precept, Polyani then claims that it becomes possible to understand the level of knowledge and skills related to that a particular person has by placing them on a form of a gradient. To use the example provided by Polyani, wine to provide an illustration of what he means would look as follows – it’s possible that a connoisseur would able to place the region of any French wine and know which goes with what food prepare with one of the five mother sauces, but not able to do the same for Spanish, Californian or Chilean wine and their foods. A different example, more suited to Colombia’s cafeteria, stems from the training I receive on becoming a Shift Supervisor at Starbucks. We spent several hours learning how the soil of coffee beans from each region impacted it’s flavor and were trained to have the proper language in which to explain the differences in taste.

This capacity to articulate is ultimately reflecting the tacit intellectual powers of humans and allows them to strive to explore new fields of knowledge. Our awareness of the lack of understanding in certain areas wherein problems are seen as needing to be solved becomes a form of psychological drive that separates us from the animal world. To see a problem which has not been but can be solved is a discovery, according to Polyani, in its own right. The value that one gets from this is both personal and often if the observation can be applied, market-based. Building on individual psychology model as well as the history of science and technological development since the beginning of the 20thcentury – the strict utilitarian model of Science policy adopted by the Socialist governments is described as inferior.

Where Polyani closes the reading selection on the relationship between scientific thinking, operational principles of technology, standards and invention Cohen and Levinthal describe this in more depth in an applied context, i.e. the operation of a firm.

The capacity to exploit external knowledge is a critical component of firm innovations and a firm’s capacity to recognize and organize in response to new information and competitive pressures is described as being a synergy that is qualitatively different from the net capacity of each individual. The authors view this learning capacity as so adjacent to problem-solving that there is little reason to differentiate their moves of development. Both represent the new-knowledge creating capacity as well as capability of applying it.

Effective absorptive capacity in this socialized setting thus requires a common language. Failures to convey the importance of a market change or how new technology can be profitably adopted for use within production means that opportunities are lost or evolution is delayed. This does not mean that diversity of knowledge is a barrier to absorptive capacity – in fact just the opposite. The capacity for novel associations and linkages to be made is one of the preconditions for innovative development. Instead what is required is a common set of concepts and patterns of behavior that allows for transmission between divergent thinkers as to how innovations can be developed or technologies transferred to improve the metrics of business operations. Absorptive capacity is not just “the acquisition or assimilation of information by an organization but also to the organization’s ability to exploit it.”

Cyert and March’s Behavioral Theory of the Firm is a major referent within professional and academic literature given its deep and practical insight into business operations. By focusing on a small number of important economic decisions made by the firm, Cyert and March develop a process-oriented model based on empirical observations that has a generality that is scalable beyond specific firms.

Describing how it is that firms and organizations manage the limited set of resources in Chapter 3, Cyert and March builds on observations that she’s made in previous chapters. Because organizations are viewed not viewed primarily as being profit-driven, there is lots of personal and emotional investment made by the various entrepreneurial leaders within it, Cyert and March states that it’s best to perceive of organizations as a coalition with moving boundaries. She states that this is not an innovative model – and that this conception of the organization can be found in the theory of teams, game theory, and the inducements-contributions schema – which all presumes that there is some manner for collectively arriving at the enunciation and action upon the goals the organization develops. While the continuation of the organization’s existence is clearly a primary factor, there are numerous other conspicuous choices that lead to a “continuous bargaining-learning process” that does not necessarily product unswerving goals but something like a business ethic approached by habit. These ambitions often make their way into foundational operations documents and one such example that has received much coverage within the business and technology press is Google’s rule to “Do no evil.” While much outside criticism has been made of this in relation to their choice to engage in contract work for China and the United States Department of Defense, the most important debates occur internally wherein the various coalitions form objectives and bargain.

One of the central processes connected to coalition formation and goal specification is the bargaining practice which delegates side payments. Side payments come in many forms such as “money, personal treatment, authority, organization policy, and so forth”. While in the political rather than the business realm the delegation of such benefits in return for policy commitments is called patronage, the same pejorative standard view is not here appropriate as this has the effect of reducing friction between workers and managers whose resentments and interpersonal conflicts can lead to various ill effects on the company. Taking on a client that is known to be overbearing rather than passing, for example,

The formulation of these are imperfectly rationalized and frequently stated in the form of commitments that are constrained by context and are aspirational and thus not-operational. Worded in a less technical manner, the objectives connected to the commitment to various side payments tend to address the emotional concerns between coalition members rather than the day to day and medium to long term operations. This is not to say that the former doesn’t have an impact on the latter, but that the commitments connected to this are of a qualitatively different nature. While these processes are punctuated by specific meetings – quarterly, yearly, or called as needed given a new business or environmental conditions – it is actually a continuing process. Another major mutual control system for the elaboration of commitments and elaboration of functions are budgets.

Budget, job descriptions, organizational charts, and elaboration of specific objectives impose much tighter constraints and the fact that “organizations have memories in the form of precedents” these are considered to be a great bind on the behavioral patterns of individuals and coalitions with the firm. Renegotiation of these are terms are done in a more formal fashion and, depending on the size and intensity of the internal conflicts within a firm, can require that external people are brought in to assist with the smoothing of the decision-making process. While both this and side payments are considered part of a larger arbitrary process to ensure organizational functioning – this aspect is much more determined by prior history.

One of the ways that organizations are able to continue despite there being conflicting goals is the inherently limited attention focus of those engaged in bargaining and organizational slack.

Attention focus refers to the fact at any normal moment there are simply too many considerations in play to let any one of them be the overarching issue-defining inter-organizational coalitions demands while slack refers to the willingness not to allow minor variations in the expectations created by agreements to define and thus destroy peaceable relationships. Another way of summarizing these two aspects is to say that people are adaptable and barring gross violations of expectations are able to adjust as needed in order to ensure the steadiness of operations. According to Cyert and March, “Slack operates to stabilize the system in two ways: (1) by absorbing excess resources, it retards upward adjustment of aspirations during relatively good times; (2) by providing a pool of emergency resources, it permits aspirations to be maintained (and achieved) during relatively bad times.”

With these considerations in mind, it becomes possible to develop predictive theory and strategy for operations that inform the construction of business goals as well as pricing and output decisions. Cyert and March claim that there are normally five different meta-goals that inform the more granular inventory, market share, profit, and production goals. While it is rational from a position in which strategy is determined to separate each of these into differentiated buckets, the truth is that all of them form a living feedback loop wherein each impacts the other. Demands by management are limited by those of the staff, and vice versa. The demands of the markets are limits by the capacities of managers to organize production in a competitive environment, and vice versa.

Nelson and Winter expand upon the research of the above authors by focus on the skills and routines of the business. Constantly facing competition from other firms that seek to extract market share via imitation or outright replication of the services they provide – the authors adopt a quasi-Marxian mode of capitalist analysis that rejects the profit-maximalization of orthodox theory. Their heterodox approach is a manner of appreciative theorizing, meaning that they are less interested in developing a series of formal theories that describe how things operate based on presuppositions as much as they are interested in examining “how things actually work”.

Because of this, they place a high value on the role of routinization within organizations. This they view as more important than skills as it is often the case that certain tasks can be completed via a variety of actions and as routines form the basis of most day to day activity. Skills are, furthermore, programmatic – that is, based on tacit knowledge – and thus of less concern than the routines – that is, based on explicit knowledge – which determines the application of skills. The capability to turn technological knowledge that problem-solves an issue into a novel routine that is one definition of an innovation that has the outcome of benefitting the company.

When an effort is made to incorporate an existing routine as a component of innovative routines, Nelson and Winter state that it is advantageous if two conditions are satisfied.

  1. The routine has been established as reliable – that is, fully under control and without uncertainty as to the results.
  2. The new application of the existing routine be as free as possible from operational and semantic am­biguities of scope, i.e. too dependent on the idiosyncratic application of individual skills.

In Chapter 12 Nelson and Winter continue their deployment of Schumpeter as a model to analyze the benefit obtained from leadership in technological innovations. The relationship between market structure and innovation is a complex one and there are no general rules which determine whether or not . Instead firms must look to their price-cost ratios, measure the short and long term effect of R&D expenditures, and analysis of a variety of other techniques that can lead to greater competitive capacity. After all, these reduce funds available for investment in other areas which can be beneficial, such as that designated for opening up markets elsewhere. As the authors themselves state: “The function of competition is to get-or help to get-the signals and in­centives right. In evolutionary theory, choice sets are not given and the consequences of any choice are unknown. Although some choices may be clearly worse than others, there is no choice that is clearly best ex-ante.”

Conclusions

Economic competition is not always about short term profit maximization but a complex process of navigating a number of different factors. An evolutionary model of economics must recognize the limits inherent in human’s capacities to adapt new languages with which to describe the problems that they face in the market and adopt new technologies and methods. As covered in more depth in the Chapter 5 response, the habits of scientific thinking and practical action connected to it via investigations and firm activities aren’t so transferred and requires extensive application of the scientific method. Technical progress can lead to first-mover benefits, but the returns can also be so marginal and meaningless as not be worth it. In this context, quantitative methods are required to provide a comprehensive assessment as to whether or not the environment is appropriate for such evolutionary activity.  

Recommendations

Properly understanding signals internally and externally requires a series of reflective and consultative processes in order to ensure necessary evolutionary steps are taken by firms. Developing a language for this requires conscientiousness development amongst those managers, administrators and the executive staff in order to ensure competitiveness is maintained via the proper incentives and direction of research and development.

Bibliography 

Cyert, Richard Michael, and James G. March. A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Martino Publishing, 2013.

Cohen, Wesley M., and Daniel A. Levinthal. “Absorptive Capacity: A New Perspective on Learning and Innovation.” Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 1, 1990, p. 128., doi:10.2307/2393553.

Polanyi, Michael. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Nelson, Richard R., and Sidney G. Winter. An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. The Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 2004.

Knowledge Resources and ICT: Internal and External Assessments and Action

Theory of Resources and Firm Behavior

Knowledge Resources and ICT: Internal and External Assessments and Action 

Abstract

Description and analysis of the internal and market operations of a firm takes many forms and yet the resource-based view of a firm has been one that has gained widest adoption within business literature due to its explanatory advantages. One of the primary methods that enables companies to continue operating despite the pressures of competition is the application of strategic management principles based on such a theory to enable firms to develop sustained competitive advantages. By navigating the market and ensuring smooth operation via intra-firm negotiations – adequate resources are able to be maintained and developed such that the firm can continue operations under pressure of competition.

Key Words: Strategic Management, Market Advantage, Firm resources

  1. Introduction

In the United States, there are nearly 28 million small and medium-sized firms and roughly 19,000 firms with over 500 employees competing to provide customers goods and services within local, national, and international markets. A small group of these firms in the ICT field operates alongside the majority in a Business to Business (B2B) fashion assisting these firms with their information. Competitive pressures exist to ensure the replication of profitable activity and to successfully develop and manage innovation internally, as will be discussed below. I also include reflections on ICY firms below given that adoption of particular services providers is a significant choice that leads to path dependency.

Body

Edith Rose’s book has had a major impact in the business world and the field of innovation. The theoretical framework she developed overturned many of the traditional assumptions of neoclassical economics and proposed alternatives explanatory frameworks for how firms operate. By challenging the motivations and cognitive assumptions of firm theory by empirically investigating firms, she produced research that was more accurate in understanding the organizational drives and limits of firms. She viewed firms to be shaped by conscious actions by economic actors, who operate dynamically between induction and deduction while framed within a historic context that has path-dependency elements informing evolutionary change (Penrose 2009).

How firms are now responding to the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic is a good example by which to demonstrate the indicators that must be dealt with in order to ensure survival.

Most firms that rely upon central, physical locations in order to provide their services are pressured to let large percentages of their employees go as operations cannot continue as usual, and yet great damage can be caused to their reputation should they do that. There are pressures to invest in new technologies that can allow for some degree of the continuation of operations, and yet a short length of time of the quarantines can make such expenditures spurious and thus a waste. Edith Rose would likely argue that such considerations – which are deeply informed by culture, ideology, shared moral values and a vision of corporate leadership – are all part and parcel of how a firm is able to survive and grow in the market. These organizational, psychological elements – how work is to be done when forced to do it a new way, how to treat workers in crisis conditions – are part in parcel with understanding how to operate a firm understood to be a pool of resources creating knowledge.

Such claims as this ought not to be interpreted to mean that a behavioralist theory of the firm is advocated within Theory of the Growth of the Firm. Rose states that she is sympathetic to aspects of it, but agnostic in others. While the central operating structure of the firm is its administrative organization, this is does not make it analogous to the heart. Rather it is a place where routine and non-routine managerial decisions are made that affect all of those involved in the profitmaking activities. Developed via the use of resources, these profits provide a means of objectively judging the service performance of those involved. In the interactions between human and material resources knowledge increases about the resources and the consumers of this. It’s in these changes of knowledge that new services become available (Penrose 2009).

To give a trifling example of this, I’ll share a work experience. My first job at 15 was at Taco Bell. I worked as a cashier there and quickly noticed that on the weekends the number of college students was higher than during the week and that they often came in high and ordered cinnamon twists with their order. It was easy for me to discern that the liked the fried sweetness, so it was no surprise to me when shortly after I’d started they launched the Chalupa. This took something that they already sold, flatbread, and threw it in the fryer to make their normal meals taste more savory. I’m certain that they did extensive market and process testing before introducing it – but as my co-workers and I were already doing the same thing before the official launch we liked to joke that we were the true inventors of this treat. This little change from prior operations is an example of diversification that stays within Taco Bell’s core Area of Specialization – Tex-Mex fast food.

Looking at these issues in the context of ICT, it’s apparent that such firms need to have significantly broader research capabilities in order to develop their products. Rather than just market testing within small regions a certain product to see if it will sell or not, they need to plan their diversifications around the features made available by their competitors. This is all the more important as such adoption of such ICT software leads to soft determinism due to the adoption of a specific means of understanding how to engage in technological activities. As will be discussed more later – such choices lead to path dependency that can incur high transfer costs. This incentivizes ICT companies to be on the cutting edge of vigilance, research, and development.

In Wernerfeld’s article A Resource-Based View of the Firm we learn it’s important to view the firm not from the products that it makes, but from the resource side. Doing so allows for a broader analysis of the diversification capabilities inherent with a firm to adapt to external market pressures and to internally innovate. By analyzing the firm from the position that they are a bundle of resources it becomes possible to locate the areas of high-value add, poorly performing activities, and where the barriers and opportunities for expansion are. Some of the

At the end of his article, Wernerfeld shares a series of dynamic resource management practices that have been used by businesses to obtain first-mover advantages – an attractive activity that typically yields high profits in the markets where the resources being deployed operated. The resource-product matrix, diversification via sequential entry, the exploit and develop strategy, and stepping stones process are all means of diversifying offerings and helping to ensure that such actions are successful. All of these are predicated on market research and the consideration of mergers and acquisitions – an imperfect but effective means of obtaining supplementary and complementary resources for the firm (Wernerfelt 1984).

Robert M. Grant sees the key to a resource-based approach to strategy formulation as having a deep understanding as to the relationships between resources, capabilities, competitive advantage, and profitability. For him it is most important to has an understanding of the mechanisms through which competitive advantage can be sustained over time. By designing strategies that exploit to maximum effect each firm’s unique characteristics, the basis for corporate profitability is expanded and more effectively achieved.

Grant makes an insightful statement in the section Resources as the Basis for Corporate Profitability when he states that strategy should be viewed less as a quest for monopoly rents and instead as a quest for Ricardian rents. In the case of ICT, the subscription model over the purchasing model could be seen as a means of encouraging Ricardian rents within companies. While certainly influenced by pirating of software in their choice of having monthly revenues rather than purchases – this also creates an internal incentive to ensure that product improvement is continuous. Because the competitive advantages of companies even like Adobe, Slack, and Firefox are ever fleeting – as evidenced by the recent rise of adoption rates of Microsoft Edge over Firefox- this helps to ensure that the firm’s profit-making processes are not replicated by mimicry, do not become obsolescent or end up depreciating that the value-adding work processed should be identified, appraised and examined for alteration in the framework of strategic capabilities (Grant 1991).

Identification and appraisal of capabilities can be difficult given the personal investment of section-chiefs as well as thinking based in the past successes or future hopes, thus leading to activities beyond or beneath the true scope of its capacities. And yet this analysis combined with the determination of the most effective organizational routines allows for durable marketplace percentages even when faces with an increasing pace of technological change or evolving product demands made by customers (Grant 1991). If firms are able to do this and keep barriers to entry sufficiently high that they discourage competitors from seeking to imitate their business model – then they are reasonably secure in their competitive advantage.

Human capital is one always one of their weaknesses, and employee mobility means that it is risky for firms to be too unduly dependent upon the contributions of the specific skills of a few employees who can bargain to obtain a greater share of the value they contribute and whose transfer to another firm would mean more intense competition and the potential loss of clients. The dynamics implied in this are not fully explored here, but suffice it to say that this fact is evident in the salaries and benefits given to full-stack developers in the ICT field. Because high quality, integrated software developing coding skills are so rare – those with such skills are able to demand greater authority on projects along with recompense. Suffice to say here it is important to fill resource gaps and, once processes are harmonized into an effective strategy it’s important for firms to maintain this “dynamic resource fit”.

Jay Barney’s article develops a framework wherein managers, as human capital, are crucial for reaching higher levels of firm performance. Recognizing that they are limited in their abilities to command and control all of the attributes that compose the characteristics of the firm as well as its place within the market – their analysis is largely what drives its economic performance engine. The three forms of resources that they have control over are organizational capital human capital and physical capital(Barney 1991).

From the standpoint of strategic relevance not all are equally important and sometimes these resources can actually inhibit the implementation of a value-creating strategy. Regarding the first point, it depends upon the type of business the firm is in, i.e. how it is creating value, that this comes into play. For instance, a firm that only requires low skill-levels to operate machines and process materials, i.e. the fast-food service industry, doesn’t need to invest much into the human capital of its front-line employees. Investment in the organizational and strategic workforce is important, however, as it allows them to adequately adjust form operations according to changes in the marketplace or to find new opportunities. For example, a managerial workforce that was agnostic or antagonistic to the new lines of business made possible from the internet revolution could have missed out on a new income stream developed via home delivery or pick up orders.

Firms obtain sustained competitive advantages by implementing strategies that exploit their internal strengths by responding to environmental opportunities. To have the potential for sustained competitive advantage a firm must have four attributes:

  • It might be able to exploit opportunities and/or neutralize threats in a firm’s environment
  • It must be rare among a firm’s current and potential competition
  • It must be imperfectly imitable
  • There cannot be strategically equivalent substitutes for this resource that are neither rare or imperfectly imitable.

If they manage to do all this while also avoiding internal weaknesses – such as employee turnover, which is also a loss of resources – and neutralizing external threats sustained competitive advantages is obtained (Barney 1991).

A path to sustained competitive advantage by harnessing these value-chain attributes. Barney is explicit, however, in his description that sustained competitive advantage isn’t something that once obtained cannot be lost. New knowledge must be constantly sought for in order to continue one’s place at the top and steps taken to maintain customer relations and positive brand recognition. Missteps occur, and there are always other firms looking to expand their percentage of goods or service provision within the market.

 Conclusions

As skills are learned and refined through repetition, skills are automatically developed through the search for the particular strategy, which operates as a push for the company to go a little beyond its limits and constantly renew itself regarding its capabilities and resources, pursuing a dynamic adjustment.

Having the above, the company will be able to build an identity through strategy, which will not strictly depend on market signals, which are not only volatile but also subjective; Due to the permanent changes in customer preferences, but the company can clearly define its identity by identifying its resources and capabilities, to establish what challenges it can face and where to aim in the medium and long term.

The advantages that tourism companies face physical and historical place for some are absolute advantages that when exploited in the proper way can potentially be sources of profitability. 

Recommendations

All in all the picture presented by these authors, to make a somewhat stretched analogy in the sphere of gaming, is that similar to a Go board. Each move changes the larger balance of forces in such a way that while there appears to be clear winners – those with sustain competitive advantages – there is also the need to be forever vigilant in order to keep them. The moves must be complex, and hard to discern by one’s competitor and thus imperfectly imitable from a strategic viewpoint. This means that it is important to know one’s competitors and have deep insight into one’s own operations and where it is that one’s core competencies lie. With the application of resources and strategy, market share is won.

Resource-based theories of the firm supply the concepts required for businesses to flourish as it provides insight on how best to exploit the knowledge that they create it in the marketplace as well as how to develop internally and externally. Strategy formulation along these lines requires a scientific mindset, while implementation strategies require a humanistic one that recognizes the variables involved in firm interactions and personal and group motivations (Penrose).

In the field of Information and Communication Technology, knowledge plays an oversized role as it is imperative in understanding how to frame strategy in such a way that prospective clients are assured that the services and products provided are able to fill business needs in a manner that is superior to that offered by competitors.

  1. Bibliography

Barney, Jay B. Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage. S.n., 1991.

Penrose, Edith. The Theory of the Growth of the Firm. Oxford University Press, 2013.

Grant, R. “The Resource-Based Theory of Competitive Advantage: Implications for Strategy Formulation.” Knowledge and Strategy, 1999, pp. 3–23., doi:10.1016/b978-0-7506-7088-3.50004-8.

Wernerfelt, Birger. A Resource-Based View of the Firm.

Network Analysis Methodology in World Revolutionary Propaganda: A Chicago Study

 

 

At the end of World Revolutionary Propaganda: A Chicago Study by Harold D. Lasswell is an Appendix which describe the author’s network analysis methodology for his research on Socialist and Communist Political Party activities in Chicago. I’ve copied it out below as it is quite informative.

***

Meetings, Demonstrations, Parades, and Social Gatherings of Communist Affiliated Organizations in Chicago

Time period covered by data 1919-34.

Area covered by data Chicago, Cook County, and Chicago Region.

I. SOURCES. The following sources were used in the collection of these data :

A. Official police records (Industrial Squad of Chicago) .
1. File of permits for parades and outdoor meetings, 1931-4.
2. File of reports of all meetings attended by the squad, 1931-4.
3. Record of arrests of radicals in Chicago, 1931-4.
4. File of leaflets, circulars, posters, and other advance notices of meetings, 1930-4.

B. News paper sources.
1. The New York Times, 1919 – 34.
2. The Chicago Daily News(from index in Daily News library), 1919-34.
3. The Chicago Tribune (from index in Chicago Tribune library), 1919-29; (from page by page survey of the newspaper), 1930-2.
4. The Chicago Defender, 1924-6, 1930-4. 5. The Daily Worker, 1930-4.
6. The Hunger Fighter, 1931-4.

II. FORM AND METHOD.
A. Form. The data on meetings, demonstrations, parades, and social gatherings in Chicago sponsored by Communist organizations were collected in the following form:

Type of gathering (e.g., meeting, demonstration, date, parade, or social gathering).
1. Place of meeting.
2. Reason or issue.
3. Name of organization or organizations sponsoring.
4. Number of persons present.
5. Account of violence, if any.
6. Number of persons arrested.
7. Number of persons injured. Number killed.
8. The names of the speakers.
9. Source of the above data.

B. Method.
This information was recorded on 6 x 4 slips of paper, a separate slip being used for each meeting and for each source. The slips were stapled together in cases where more than one report was given about a single meeting (e.g., when the same meeting was reported by the police, by the New York Times, and by the Daily Worker). In such cases the police reports of meetings were placed on top, and the newspaper reports behind, with the more radical publications, like the Daily Worker and the Hunger Fighter, toward the bottom. In some cases of important meetings there are as many reports of the meetings as there are sources. In other cases there are only one or two reports.

The slips were filed in chronological order according to the date on which the meeting was held. This file constitutes the demonstration file which is one of the basic sets of data for this study.

III. ANALYSIS.

The following types of analyses were made of the above data:

A. Analysis of number and types of gatherings per month, 1930-4.

Four categories were used in the classification of types of gathering:

1. Meetings defined as indoor gatherings.
2. Demonstrations defined as outdoor gatherings.
3. Parades street marches.
4. Socials including dances, parties, lectures, moving-picture showings, etc.

In some instances one occasion was classified in more than one way. The rules governing such double or triple entries

1. Parades. In the case of parades, the gathering held at the beginning of the parade (i.e., the point at which the parade formed) was recorded as a demonstration.

2. Parades In the case of parades, the gathering held at the end end of the parade was recorded as a “meeting” or as a “demonstration,” depending on whether it was held indoors or outdoors.

3. Parades. In some instances (notably hunger marches, May Day parades, and City Hall demonstrations) parades were started simultaneously in different parts of the city, merging downtown for a large parade through the Loop. In such instances each parade (including the parade through the Loop) was counted separately. Thus the case of the usual line of march (i.e., parades coming from the north, south, and west sides and parading through
the Loop) would be recorded as four parades.

4. Socials. In some cases meetings were held in connection with socials. In such instances a double record was made.

B. Place of meetings.
The place of meetings was coded as to census tract, census community area, relief district, and police district. This coding appears on each slip. The only record made from this information, however, is that of the number of gatherings occurring each month in each census tract in the city.

c. Issues in the name of which gatherings were called.
An analysis was made of the number and types of issues raised each month at meetings, demonstrations, etc. The major classifications of the types of issues are as follows :

1. Issues protesting unemployment.
2. Issues protesting relief administration.
3. Issues protesting evictions.
4. Issues demanding freedom of action.
5. Issues in the name of major political symbols (War, Im- perialism, Fascism, etc.) .
6. Issues in the name of special days (May Day, Lenin Me- morial, etc.).
7. Issues connected with party organization and activity (party conventions, conferences, etc.).
8. Issues making labor demands.
9. Issues in the name of institutions and groups (the church,
the Jews, the Negroes, etc.).
10. Issues in the name of consumer’s protection.

The number of issues falling under each classification were tallied by months for the years 1930-4. The following rules governed this procedure:

1. The issues recorded on all slips, regardless of source, were included in the analysis. Thus, for example, if the New York Times reported a parade “protesting against unemployment and the same parade was reported by the Communist press as “protesting against evictions,” both of these issues were recorded, the assumption being that since we have no criteria of selection and because of the scantiness of the data, it is most accurate to include all sources.

2. All issues reported by a single source were likewise included in the tabulation.

3. In order that a correlation could be validly run between the number of demonstrations per month and the degree of concentration of attention upon particular issues, a second tally
was made. In this second instance the issues were tallied for as many times as the gathering had been tabulated (cf. above in, A, rules governing double or triple entries of a single event) . Thus, for example, if a parade on “unemployment” had been recorded three times in the analysis of the number and types of gatherings e.g., as a demonstration (gathering at starting- point), as a parade, and as a meeting (indoor meeting at termination of parade) then the issue
“unemployment” would likewise be recorded three times under the month in which it happened to fall.

In addition to this analysis of issues, the following analyses were made:

1. Record of the types of issues raised at meetings held in different census tracts.

2. Record of the types of issues raised at meetings, according to the organization sponsoring the meeting.

D. Sponsoring organizations.

The following analyses were made with regard to sponsoring organizations:

1. Types of gatherings (meeting, demonstration, parade, or social gathering) held by each organization every month, 1930-4.

2. Types of issues (for classifications, cf. in, c, 1-10) pre- sented by each organization every month, 1930-4.

3. Meeting-places of each organization according to census
tract for the years 1930-4.

E. Number present.

A table was drawn up showing all estimates as to number present, listed as to source. The following sources were included :

1. Estimates of police (official).
2. Estimates of the Daily Worker (Communist).
3. Estimates of the Chicago Defender (Negro).
4. Estimates of the Chicago Tribune (city press).
5. Estimates of the Chicago Daily News (city press).

F. Speakers.
Record on each speaker appearing in the demonstration record showing date on which he spoke, the place, and the organization under whose sponsorship the meeting occurred.

Strikes

Time period covered by data 1919-34.
Area covered by data Chicago, Cook County, and the Chicago region.

I. SOURCES.
The following sources were used in the collection of these data:
A. United States Department of Labor.
1. Monthly Labor Review, Vols. 30-39.
2. List of Strikes in Chicago, submitted upon request by the
Bureau of Labor Statistics.

B. Illinois Department of Labor. Annual Reports (Nos. 2-
13), 1910-29.

C. Official police records (Industrial Squad of Chicago).
1. Reports of industrial disturbances (strike meetings, etc.)
attended by the squad, 1931-4.
2. Record of arrest of radicals in Chicago, 1931-4.
3. File of leaflets, bulletins, circulars, etc., distributed in connection with strikes.

D. Newspapers.
1. The New York Times, 1919-34.
2. The Chicago Tribune, 1930-2.
3. The Chicago Defender, 1924-6, 1930-4.
4. The Daily Worker, 1930-4.

II. FORM AND METHOD.
A. Form. The material on strikes in Chicago was collected in the following form:

Strike. Date.

1. Place (name of plant and address).
2. Issue.
3. Organization (union, local number, affiliation).
4. Number out on strike.
5. Account of violence.
6. Number arrested.
7. Number injured. Number killed.
8. How long out on strike. Result of strike.
9. Source of the above data.

B. Method.
This information, as in the case of meetings and demonstrations, was recorded on 6 x 4 slips, a separate slip being used for each strike and for each source. The slips were stapled together in cases where more than one re- port on a single strike was given (e.g., the same strike was reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, by the New York Times, and by the Daily Worker). In such cases, the U.S. Bureau reports were given preference and were placed on top.
The slips were filed in chronological order in accordance with the first date of the strike. The place where the strike took place (i.e., address of plant or factory) was coded according to census tract, census community area, and relief district.

III.

ANALYSIS.
A. Table showing the number of strikes called during each month, 1930-4.
B. Table showing number of strikers out in those strikes called each month, 1930-4.
c. Record of number of strikes each month occurring in each census tract of the city.

Group Complaints – through the Public Relations Bureau

Time period covered by data 1933-4.
Area covered by data Chicago and Cook County.

I. SOURCES.

The following sources were used in the collection of these data:
A. Weekly and monthly reports of the Public Relations Bureau of the IERC, 1933-4.
B. The individual records of complaints filed with the Public Relations Bureau of the IERC, January 1933 to September 1934-

II. FORM AND METHOD.

A. Weekly and monthly reports. The records of these reports contain the following information for 1933 :

1. Name (and local number) of organizations bringing complaints to the Bureau.
2. Number of complaints per week (or per month) per organization.
The records of these reports for 1934 contain the following information additional to that above:

3. Disposition of complaints. Disposition classified as follows: (a) referred to district office, (b) referred to district office after telephone conference, and (c) discussion and/or rejection with direct answer from PRB.

B. Individual records of complaints. From this source the following information was taken:
1. Date of complaint.
2. Name (and local number) of organization registering complaint
3. Address of complainant.
The address of complainant was coded according to census
tract, census community area, and relief district.

III. ANALYSIS.

A. Weekly and monthly reports.
1. Table showing the volume of complaints per month,
2. Table showing the number of complaints submitted each
month by every organization, 1933-4.

B. Individual records of complaints.
1. Table showing the volume of complaints per month, January 1933 to September 1934.
2. Table showing the number of complaints submitted by each organization per month, January 1933 to September I934
3. Table showing the number of complaints made each
month in each relief district, January 1933 to September 1934.
4. Record of the number of complaints each month coming from each census tract of the city.

Arrests of Radicals

Time period covered by data 1931-4.
Area covered by data Chicago.

I. SOURCE.
Arrest books kept by the Industrial Squad of Chicago, 1931-4.
II. FORM AND METHOD.

A. Form. The following information was recorded for each individual arrested:
1. Date arrested.
2. Address of arrested individual.
3. Sex and Age.
4. Nativity.
5. Occupation.
6. Marital status.
7. Police district in which arrest took place. Address of complainant if any. Address of arrest.
8. Charges.
9. Disposition of the case. Date tried. Name of presiding judge.

B. Method. A separate slip bearing the above information was made for each individual arrested. This slip was coded twice – once for the address of the individual, and once for the address of arrest.

III. ANALYSIS.

A. The analyses were made as follows (in each case according to the following classifications: American, Negro, Foreign-Born, Nationality Not Given, and Total) :
1. Table showing the number of arrests per month, 1931-4.
2. Table showing the sex distribution of the total number
arrested each year, 1931-4.
3. Table showing the age distribution (by ten-year intervals), of the total number arrested each year, 1931-4.
4. Table showing the distribution by age (as in 3) and sex of the total number arrested each year, 1931-4.
5. Table showing the distribution according to marital status of the total number arrested each year.

B. Table showing country of nativity, indicating number ar- rested and percentage which this number represents of the total population (in Chicago) of that nationality.

C. The following tables were made regarding persons arrested individually:
1. Nationality number and percentage.
2. Occupation.

D. The following tables were made regarding persons arrested in groups of from two to five persons :
1. Nationality number and percentage.
2. Occupation.

E. The following tables were made regarding persons arrested in groups of over five persons :
1. Nationality number and percentage.
2. Occupation.

F. Analysis of place of arrest.
1. According to police districts.
2. According to relief districts.
3. According to census tracts.

G. Analysis of home address of individual arrested.
1. According to police districts.
2. According to relief districts.
3. According to census tracts.

H. Analysis of disposition of cases. By years, 1931-4.
I. Analysis of presiding judges. By years, 1931-4.

Personnel

Time period covered by data 1919-34.
Area covered by data Chicago.

I. SOURCES.

The following sources were utilized in the collection of this material:

A. Official police sources.
Personnel records of the Industrial Squad on radical leaders in Chicago, 1930-4.

B. Public Relations Bureau of Illinois Emergency Relief Com-mission.
Correspondence and organization files.

C. Demonstration record.

D. Newspapers and periodicals.

1. The New York Times, 1919-34.
2. The Chicago Daily News, 1919-34.
3. The Chicago Tribune, 1919-34.
4. The Chicago Defender, 1924-6, 1930-4.
5. The Daily Worker, 1923-9 (in part), 1930-4 (complete).
6. The Hunger Fighter, 1931-4.

E. Books

1. American Labor Who’s Who, edited by Solon De Leon,
(New York, 1925) .
2. Elizabeth Billing: The Red Network (Chicago, 1934).
3. Joseph J. Mereto: The Red Conspiracy (New York, 1920).
4. Lucia R. Maxwell: The Red Juggernaut (Washington,D.C., 1932).
5. R. M. Whitney: Reds in America (New York, 1924).

II. FORM AND METHOD.

A. Official police sources.
The police personnel record contains the following type of information on individuals :

1. Name.
2. Address.
3. Date (year) when the individual first came to the attetion of the police.
4. Chronological list of party activities, including:
a. Speaking engagements.
b. Membership in organizations.
c. Positions of importance held in the party or in any party
organization. Membership on committees, etc.
d. Articles written for the Daily Worker, if any.
e. Other activities.

5. Dates arrested. For leaders who have been arrested at any time the following information is also available:
a. b.
c. Age.
d. Marital status.
6. Additional comments and information from various sources.

B. Public Relations Bureau.
The information available on the personnel of the movement at this source consists primarily of enlightening excerpts from correspondence with leaders of protest organizations and also comments of social workers and interviewers on particular leaders of these organizations with whom they have come in contact.

c. Demonstration record.
From the demonstration file we have compiled for every individual who has appeared at
any time as a speaker at a radical meeting in Chicago, a
chronological record of speaking engagements bearing the following information :

1. Date of meeting at which speaker performed.
2. Place where the meeting was held.
3. Organization under whose auspices the meeting was held.

From the newspapers, periodicals, and books listed above all possible information on any Chicago leaders has been carefully gleaned. As in the case of the other sources, the information is recorded on 6×4 slips with the source indicated and filed alphabetically under the name of the individual.

Evictions

Time period covered by data January 1932 to August 1933. Area covered by data Chicago.
I. SOURCE. Records of the Bailiff’s Office, City Hall,
II. FORM AND METHOD.
A. Form.
The following information was collected in the case of each eviction :
1. The date on which eviction occurred.
2. Name of individual evicted.
3. Address of eviction.

B. Method.
The above information was recorded on slips – one slip for each eviction case. These were coded as to address of the eviction according to census tract, community area, and relief district.

III. ANALYSIS. A record was made according to the number of evictions occurring in each month. Record was also made of evictions occurring each month in the various census tracts of the

Notes on Fourth Edition of the Commander’s Critical Information Requirements

Fourth Edition of the Commander’s Critical Information Requirements (CCIRs) Insights and Best Practices Focus Paper, written by the Deployable Training Division (DTD) of the Joint Staff J7 and published by the Joint Staff J7.

http://www.jcs.mil/Doctrine/focus_papers.aspx.

Four overarching considerations:

  • CCIRs directly support mission command and commander-centric operations. Incorporate a philosophy of command and feedback in which CCIR reporting generate opportunities and decision space rather than simply answers to discrete questions.
  • CCIRs provide the necessary focus for a broad range of collection, analysis, and information flow management to better support decision making.
  • CCIR answers provide understanding and knowledge, not simply data or isolated bits of information. Providing context is important.
  • CCIRs change as the mission, priorities, and operating environment change. Have a process to periodically review and update CCIRs.

1.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. CCIRs directly support mission command and commander-centric operations (see quote at right). CCIRs, as a related derivative of guidance and intent, assist joint commanders in focusing support on their decision making requirements. CCIRs support two activities:

  • Understanding the increasingly complex environment (e.g., supporting assessments that increase this understanding of the environment, defining and redefining of the problem, and informing planning guidance).
  • Commander decision making, by linking CCIRs to the execution of branch and sequel plans.

This is a necessary and broader view than the legacy role of CCIRs only supporting well-defined decision points. Commander use of CCIR provides the necessary focus for a broad range of collection, analysis, and information flow management to better support decision making.

Insights:

  • CCIRs support commanders’ situational understanding and decision making at every echelon of command (tactical, operational, and theater-strategic). They support different decision sets, focus, and event horizons at each echelon.
  • Commanders at higher echelons have found that a traditional, tactical view of CCIRs supporting time sensitive, prearranged decision requirements is often too narrow to be effective. This tactical view does not capture the necessity for better understanding the environment nor the key role of assessment at the operational level. Further, operational CCIRs, if focused at specific “tactical-level” events, have the potential to impede subordinate’s decision making and agility.
  • Develop CCIRs during design and planning, not “on the Joint Operations Center (JOC) floor” during execution.
  • Consider the role of CCIRs on directing collection, analysis, and dissemination of information supporting assessment activities – a key role of operational headquarters in setting conditions.
  • CCIRs help prioritize allocation of limited resources. CCIRs, coupled with operational priorities, guide and prioritize employment of collection assets and analysis resources, and assist in channeling the flow of information within, to, and from the headquarters.
  • Information flow is essential to the success of the decision making process. Clear reporting procedures assist in timely answering of CCIRs.
  • CCIR answers should provide understanding and knowledge, not simply data or isolated bits of information. Providing context is important.
  • Differentiate between CCIRs and other important information requirements like “wake-up criteria.” Much of this other type of information is often of a tactical nature, not essential for key operational-level decisions, and can pull the commander’s focus away from an operational role and associated decisions down to tactical issues.
  • CCIRs change as the mission, priorities, and operating environment change. Have a process to periodically review and update CCIRs.

“CCIR are not a hard set of reporting requirements limited to specific actions or events, but more a philosophy of command and feedback that can generate opportunities and decision space.” – Former CCDR

 

2.0 UNDERSTANDING TODAY’S COMPLEX ENVIRONMENT. Today’s complex operational environment has changed how we view CCIRs. Operational commanders spend much of their time working to better understand the environment, the decision calculus of potential adversaries, and progress in achieving campaign objectives. We find that this understanding, deepened by assessment, informs design, planning, and decisions.

The strategic landscape directly affects the type and scope of our decisions and also dictates what
kind of information is required to make those decisions. Today’s great power competition, interdependent global markets, readily-accessible communications, and increased use of the cyber and space domain has broadened security responsibilities beyond a solely military concern. The environment is more than a military battlefield; it’s a network of interrelated political, military, economic, social, informational, and infrastructure systems that impact on our decisions and are impacted by them. We regularly hear from the warfighters about the requirement to maintain a broader perspective of this environment.

The information revolution has clearly changed the way we operate and make decisions. We and our adversaries have unprecedented ability to transmit, receive, and disrupt data and it is growing exponentially, both in speed and volume. This has affected our information requirements in many ways. The sheer volume of information can camouflage the critical information we need. We are still working on our ability to sift through this information and find the relevant nuggets that will inform decision making. At the same time, we are recognizing the need for higher level headquarters to assist in answering subordinates’ CCIRs, either directly or through tailored decentralization, federation and common database design of our collection and analysis assets.

The lack of predictability of our potential adversaries complicates our decision requirements and supporting information requirements. Our adversaries are both nation states and non-state entities consisting of loosely organized networks with no discernible hierarchical structure. The Joint Force and our Intelligence Community is focused on better understanding the decision calculus of our adversaries, and what influences their decisions. Lastly, our adversaries no longer can be defined solely in terms of their military capabilities; likewise, neither can our CCIRs be simply focused on the military aspects of the mission and environment.

Many of our decisions and information requirements are tied to our partners. We fight as one interdependent team with our joint, interagency, and multinational partners. We depend on each other to succeed in today’s complex security environment. Likewise our decisions and information requirements are interdependent. We have seen the need for an inclusive versus exclusive mindset with our joint, interagency, and multinational partners in how we assess, plan, and make decisions.

3.0 ROLE OF COMMANDER’S CRITICAL INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS (CCIRs). Many joint commanders are fully immersed in the unified action, whole-of-government(s) approach and have broadened their CCIRs to support the decision requirements of their operational level HQ role. These decision requirements include both traditional, time-sensitive execution requirements as well as the longer term assessment, situational understanding, and design and planning requirements. This broadening of their CCIRs has provided a deeper focus for the collection and analysis efforts supporting all three event horizons.

CCIRs doctrinally contain two components: priority intelligence requirements (PIR), which are focused on the adversary and environment; and friendly force information requirements (FFIR) which are focused on friendly forces and supporting capabilities. We observed ISAF Joint Command (2010) add a third component, Host Nation Information Requirements (HNIR) to better focus on information about the host nation to effectively partner, develop plans, make decisions, and integrate with the host nation and civilian activities.

Operational-level commanders focus on attempting to understand the broader environment and how to develop and implement, in conjunction with their partners, the full complement of military and non-military actions to achieve operational and strategic objectives. They recognize that their decisions within this environment are interdependent with the decisions of other mission partners. These commanders have found it necessary to account for the many potential kinetic, nonkinetic, and informational activities of all the stakeholders as they pursue mission accomplishment and influence behavior.

The CCIRs associated with this broader comprehensive approach are different than those that support only traditional time sensitive, current operations-focused decisions. Commanders include information required for assessments in CCIR to better inform the far reaching planning decisions at the operational level.

Prioritization. We also see the important role of CCIRs in prioritizing resources. This prioritization of both collection and analysis resources enhances the quality of understanding and assessments, and ultimately results in the commander gaining better situational understanding, leading to better guidance and intent, and resulting in a greater likelihood of mission success.

We have seen challenges faced by operational-level commanders and staff that have singularly followed a more traditional “decision point-centric” approach in the use of CCIRs. Their CCIRs are focused on supporting decisions for predictable events or activities, and may often be time-sensitive. This current operations focus of their CCIRs may not correctly inform prioritization of collection and analysis efforts supporting assessment and planning in the future operations and future plans event horizon. Absent focus, these collection and analysis efforts supporting assessment and planning may be ad hoc and under-resourced.

Assessment is central to deepen understanding of the environment. We are finding that many commanders identify their critical measures of effectiveness as CCIRs to ensure appropriate prioritization of resources. This prioritization of both collection and analysis resources enhances the quality of assessments, better situational understanding, and better guidance and intent.

Supporting Subordinates’ Agility. CCIRs can support (or hinder) agility of action. CCIRs should address the appropriate commander-level information requirements given the associated decentralized/delegated authorities and approvals. Alignment of CCIRs supporting decentralized execution and authorities directly support empowerment of subordinates, while retention of CCIRs at the operational level for information supporting decentralized activities slow subordinates’ agility, add unnecessary reporting requirements, and shift the operational level HQ’s focus away from its roles and responsibilities in setting conditions.

The decentralization of both the decisions and alignment of associated CCIRs is key to agility and flexibility. Operational-level commanders help set conditions for subordinates’ success through mission-type orders, guidance and intent, and thought-out decentralization of decision/mission approval levels together with the appropriate decentralization of supporting assets. They recognize the value of decentralizing to the lowest level capable of integrating these assets. Operational commanders enable increased agility and flexibility by delegating the requisite tactical-level decision authorities to their subordinates commensurate with their responsibilities. Decentralizing approval levels (and associated CCIRs) allows us to more rapidly take advantage of opportunities in today’s operational environment as noted in the above figure. We see this as a best practice. It allows for more agility of the force while freeing the operational commander to focus on planning and decisions at the operational level.

Together with decentralization of authorities, operational commanders also assist their subordinates by helping answer the subordinates’ CCIRs either directly or through tailored decentralization, federation, and common database design of collection and analysis assets.

Insights:

  • Broaden CCIRs at the operational level to support traditional, time-sensitive execution requirements and longer term assessment, situational understanding, and design and planning requirements. Seek knowledge and understanding, versus a sole focus on data or information.
  • Use CCIRs in conjunction with operational priorities to focus and prioritize collection and analysis efforts supporting all three event horizons.
  • Many of the operational level decisions are not ‘snap’ decisions made in the JOC and focused at the tactical level, but rather require detailed analysis and assessment of the broader environment tied to desired effects and stated objectives.
  • Delegate tactical level decisions to their subordinates has allowed them to focus their efforts on the higher level, broader operational decisions.
  • Support decentralized decision authorities by helping to answer their related CCIRs. Retaining CCIR at higher level for decisions that have already been delegated to a subordinate adds unnecessary reporting requirements on those subordinates, slows their agility, and shifts higher HQ focus away from its more appropriate role of setting conditions.

4.0 CCIR DEVELOPMENT, APPROVAL, AND DISSEMINATION. Commanders drive development of CCIRs. We have seen successful use of the CCIRs process (see figure). This process lays out specific responsibilities for development, validation, dissemination, monitoring, reporting, and maintenance (i.e., modifying CCIRs). While not in current doctrine, it still effectively captures an effective process…

Operational-level commands develop many of their CCIRs during design and the planning process. We normally see decision requirements transcending all three event horizons. Some decisions in the current operations event horizon may have very specific and time sensitive information requirements, while others are broader, assessment focused, and may be much more subjective. They may also include information requirements on DIME (Diplomatic, Informational, Military, Economic) partner actions and capabilities and environmental conditions.

Branch and Sequel Execution: While many CCIRs support branch and sequel plan decision requirements at all levels, the complexity of today’s environment makes the predictive development of all the potential specific decisions (and supporting CCIRs) that an operational commander may face difficult. However, this difficulty doesn’t mean that we should stop conducting branch and sequel planning at the operational level – just the opposite. We must continue to focus on both the “why,” “so what,” “what if,” and “what’s next” at the operational level to drive collection and analysis and set conditions for the success of our subordinates. The complexity does suggest, though, that some of our branch and sequel planning at the operational level may not result in precise, predictive decision points with associated CCIRs that we may be accustomed to at the tactical level. Additionally, unlike the tactical level, much of the information precipitating operational commanders’ major decisions will likely not come off the JOC floor, but rather through interaction with others and from the results of “thought-out” operational-level assessments. Much of this information may not be in the precise form of answering a specifically worded and time-sensitive PIR or FFIR, but rather as the result of a broader assessment answering whether we are accomplishing the campaign or operational objectives or attaining desired conditions for continued actions together with recommendations on the “so what.”

Most CCIRs are developed during course of action (COA) development and analysis together with branch and sequel planning. We normally see decision points transcending all three event horizons with associated PIRs and FFIRs (and in some cases, unique IRs such as HNIRs) as depicted on the above figure. These PIRs and FFIRs may be directly associated with developed measures of effectiveness (MOE). Analysis of these MOEs helps depict how well friendly operations are achieving objectives, and may result in the decision to execute a branch or sequel plan.

Some decision points in the current operations event horizon may have very specific and time sensitive information requirements, while those supporting branch and sequel execution are normally broader and may be much more subjective. They will also probably include information requirements on “DIME” partner actions/capabilities and adversary “PMESII” conditions. Some examples:

  • Current operations decisions: These decisions will likely require time sensitive information on friendly, neutral, and adversary’s actions and disposition. Examples of decisions include: personnel recovery actions; shifting of ISR assets; targeting of high value targets; and employment of the reserve.
  • Branch plan decisions: These decisions will likely require information from assessment on areas like: the adversary’s intent and changing ‘PMESII’ conditions, DIME partner, coalition, and host nation capabilities and requests, and target audience perceptions (using non- traditional collection means such as polls). Examples of decisions include: shift of main effort; change in priority; refocusing information operations and public affairs messages; redistribution of forces; command relationship and task organization changes.
  • Sequel plan decisions: These types of decisions will be based on broader campaign assessments providing geopolitical, social, and informational analysis and capabilities of partner stakeholders. Examples of decisions include: transitions in overall phasing such as moving to a support to civil authority phase; force rotations; or withdrawal.

Planners normally develop decision support templates (DST) to lay out these kinds of decisions and the associated CCIRs in more detail (see figure). They help link CCIRs to the decisions they support. The adjacent figure depicts some of the information provided to the commander to gain his guidance and approval. These DSTs also help provide the clarity to collection and analysis resources to focus effort and information flow.

Insights:

  • Commanders drive development of CCIRs.
  • Planners help develop CCIR during the design and planning process across all three event horizons.
  • CCIRs at the operational level will likely include information requirements on “DIME” partner actions and capabilities and environmental conditions.
  • CCIRs change as the mission, priorities, and operating environment changes. Have a process to periodically review and update CCIRs to ensure relevance.

 

5.0 CCIR MONITORING AND REPORTING. Proactive attention to CCIRs is essential for JOC (and other staff) personnel to focus limited resources in support of commander’s decision making. To promote awareness and attention to the commander’s information requirements, we recommend prominent display of CCIRs within the JOC and other assessment areas.

Many of the CCIRs precipitating operational commanders’ major decisions will likely not
come off the JOC floor but rather through interaction with others and from the results of operational-level assessment. Much of this information may not be in the precise form of answering a specifically worded branch or sequel oriented CCIR, but rather as the result of a broader assessment answering whether we are accomplishing the campaign objectives together with recommendations on the “so what.”

The senior leadership is provided answers to CCIRs in many venues to include operational update assessments, battlefield circulation, and interaction with stakeholders. This information may be provided in some form of presentation media that addresses the decision requirement, associated CCIRs, and status of those CCIRs as depicted in the figure above. We often see a
JOC chart such as that portrayed in the adjacent figure for selected decision requirements. This “status” of CCIRs enables the commander to maintain situational awareness of the various criteria that the staff and stakeholders are monitoring and get a feel for the proximity and likelihood of the potential decision.

Many of the CCIRs precipitating operational commanders’ major decisions will likely not
come off the JOC floor but rather through interaction with others and from the results of operational-level assessment. Much of this information may not be in the precise form of answering a specifically worded branch or sequel oriented CCIR, but rather as the result of a broader assessment answering whether we are accomplishing the campaign objectives together with recommendations on the “so what.”

 

Insights:
· Prominently display CCIRs within the JOC, other assessment areas, and on the HQ portal to facilitate component and stakeholder awareness of CCIRs.
· Clearly specify what constitutes notification, to whom, how soon it has to be done, and how to provide status of notification efforts and results.

6.0 RELATED INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS. We see JOCs struggle to determine what constitutes a reportable event other than CCIR triggers. Many commands use “notification criteria” matrices (see figure) to clearly depict notification criteria for both CCIR and other events that spells out who needs to be notified of various events outside the rhythm of a scheduled update brief. Notification criteria and the reporting chain should be clearly understood to prevent stovepiping information or inadvertent failures in notification.

Significant events (SIGEVENTs) should be defined, tracked, reported, and monitored until all required staff action has been completed. We have seen some JOCs preemptively remove some SIGEVENTs from their “radar” before required follow- on actions have been accomplished. Once a SIGEVENT has been closed, it should be archived for record purposes and to assist the intelligence and assessment functions.

Notes on “From Skills and Competencies to Outcome-based Collaborative Work: Tracking a Decade’s Development of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) Models”

From Skills and Competencies to Outcome-based Collaborative Work: Tracking a Decade’s Development of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) Models

by Ricky K. F. Cheong and Eric Tsui

Abstract

In the area of knowledge management, existing and past research has tended to focus on the enterprise level. The topic of personal knowledge management (PKM) has only seen growth recently although PKM is not new, as our ancestors sought ways to learn better and to improve their knowledge. However, there are very little empirical researches, or significant conceptual development has been done with PKM, and there is lacking paper to evaluate the previous PKM literatures. This paper aims to provide a critical review of the published literature related to PKM and the PKM models. From the previous literatures, it is clear that PKM is playing an important role at indi- vidual, organization, and social level. PKM has evolved from mere individual activities to something that are more outcome/impact oriented; from information handling skills to personal competencies, sense making, and self- reflection; from individual focused to a community and social collaborative focused. A new PKM model is developed based on the recent research done by the authors. There are four core components in this new PKM model, namely personal information management, personal knowledge internalization, personal wisdom creation, and interpersonal knowledge transferring. At the end of this paper, the Web 2.0-based PKM tools was evaluated and important roles were identified to facilitate the practicing of PKM.

The charts showing various forms of knowledge managment practices speak for themselves.

Notes on Collaborative Knowledge Management

Collaborative Knowledge Management

in Journal of Fundamental and Applied Science

by Manal Abdullah, Monirah Almalki, and Hanaa Blahmer

Faculty of Computing and Information Technology, King Abdul-Aziz University, Jeddah, SA

Abstract– Knowledge plays a critical role in organizational resources that enables organizations to gain a competitive advantage. In the today world, the organizations need to investigate new solutions to remain ahead of the competition. Therefore, organizations endeavor to face the challenges by using technologies to enable an efficient management of the e-collaboration and knowledge management. Many models and techniques have been discussed over years for e-collaboration and knowledge management within organizations. Current changes in Information, and Communication Technology (ICT) have prompted organizations to utilize platforms such as corporate portals for collaborative know ledge sharing. This paper introduces an overview of Knowledge Management (KM) and e-collaboration for the enterprise to gain advantage. The paper is appended by a case study of an organization where it applies KM and e-collaboration to cover the business needs and to improve management of enterprise content with collaboration of knowledge. The organizational structures and processes, standards and values are still the main areas that limit the effectiveness of e-collaboration. This requires changing the organizational focus and culture that remains a challenge for many organizations.

Keywords – Collaboration, E-collaboration, Knowledge Management (KM), Collaborative Knowledge Management Models, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jfas.v10i4s.93

Collaborative Knowledge Management Images

Collaborative Knowledge Management Notes

The organizational structures and processes, standards and values are still the main areas that limit the effectiveness of e-collaboration. This requires changing the organizational focus and culture that remains a challenge for many organizations.

workers inside the organization in today’s economy, who exercise a lot of decisions working on knowledge intensive tasks are very different from the previous generation of employees in the office. The previous generation of employees typically are being trained to perform a particular piece of the task and in a highly repetitive way; no longer the case in the knowledge era, these workers have to work collaboratively, innovatively and often have to make quality and consistent decisions.

sharing knowledge between different units inside the organization will shorten product development cycle and lower risk.

The role of information technology and communications is to encourage workers create, store, use, and exchange of knowledge through common platforms.

Organizational structures and processes, standards and values are still key areas that limit the effectiveness of electronic collaboration, however, groups of individuals, organizations and individuals include the justification to collaborate with colleagues within and across organizations still need to be addressed.

According to Xiaomi, “Knowledge Mangement is about the identification, creation, distribution, utilization and maintenance of organizational knowledge for fulfilling organizational objectives.” Successfully managing organizational knowledge becomes increasingly important for organizations to gain competitive advantages

KNOWLEDGE MANGEMENT is increasingly gaining recognition as the determinant for improving the performance, competitive advantages and innovation

Organizations can generate competitive advantage if they know how to find, collect and harness common knowledge in business. Moreover, knowledge is often considered to be one of the most important factors of enabling better and quick decision-making. The most value from organization’s intellectual assets knowledge must be shared and served as foundation for collaboration. Moreover, improvement revenues by getting products and services to market faster, enhance employee holding rates

Seven key factors were identified to be knowledge management success. These factors include strong relation to business, perspective, and mandatory architecture, knowledge leadership, the culture of creating and sharing knowledge, continuous learning, and developed technology infrastructure, systematic organizational knowledge process

Knowledge management is a set of processes or stages that organizations execute sequentially.

Group Decision Support System (GDSS). GDSS is defined as a computer- based framework which is used to help the cooperative group work. GDSS is typically used in meeting related of the decision-making DM, so it is not necessary to have the decision makers at the same time and place.

There are four key features of collaborative Knowledge management:

scope knowledge

orientation knowledge

evolution knowledge quality

decentralization knowledge.

First, the scope knowledge explains the focus of an e-collaboration system. Second, the orientation knowledge attribute depends on the exploration vs. exploitation dichotomy. Third, the evolution knowledge quality displays the proper development of an e- collaboration system. Fourth, the decentralization knowledge attribute concerns the way an e-collaboration system gives access to its pool of knowledge resources.

Collaboration requires mechanisms for intra- and inter-organizational communication.

understanding differences in thinking are at least as important as understanding technical factors in communication.

The differences of using language, goals, cognitive views, frames of reference, and organizational pressures all contribute to communication difficulties and lack of trust in collaboration.

Trust forms a vital component in bringing together the orientations of communication, collaborative practice, and community within communities of practice

The ideal enterprise information system should be single point of access to one source of information. Otherwise, employees may be forgetting or ignoring relevant information sources.

strengthens the capacity of XYZ as a knowledge-based institution. Its parts involve: First, enabling Environment by implement policies and institutional arrangements. Second, implementation of KM platform and associated business processes that enable staff, also external partners and stakeholders. Third, package knowledge products and services in appropriate formats and diffuse these through different channels. Fourth, improve the creation, application, and reuse of knowledge through various modalities.

 

 

Notes from Inside Collaborative Networks: Ten Lessons for Public Managers

Inside Collaborative Networks: Ten Lessons for Public Managers

by Robert Agranoff

Indina University–Bloomingon

This paper offers practical insights for public managers as they work within interorganizational networks. It
is based on the author’s empirical study of 14 networks involving federal, state, and local government
managers working with nongovernmental organizations. The findings suggest that networks are hardly crowding out the role of public agencies; though they are limited in their decision scope, they can add collaborative public value when approaching nettlesome policy and program problems.

Extended discussions were undertaken in the field on two separate occasions with more than 150 public officials, in addition to field observation and examination of network documentation.

Lesson 1: The network is not the only vehicle of collaborative management.

Lesson 2: Managers continue to do the bulk of their work within the hierarchy.

Lesson 3: Network involvement brings several advantages that keep busy administrators
involved.

Lesson 4: Networks are different from organizations but not completely different.

Lesson 5: Not all networks make the types of policy and program adjustments ascribed to them in the literature.

Lesson 6: Collaborative decisions or agreements are the products of a particular type of mutual learning and adjustment.

Lesson 7: The most distinctive collaborative activity of all of the networks proved to be their work
in public sector knowledge management.

Lesson 8: Despite the cooperative spirit and aura of accommodation in collaborative efforts, networks are not without conflicts and power issues.

Lesson 9: Networks have their collaborative costs, as well as their benefits.

Lesson 10: Networks alter the boundaries of the state only in the most marginal ways; they do not appear to be replacing public bureaucracies in any way.

It is time to go beyond heralding the importance of networks as a form of collaborative public management and look inside their operations.

it is well known (1) that “the age of the network” has arrived (Lipnack and Stamps 1994), (2) that hierarchy and markets are being supplemented by networks (Powell 1990), (3) that public managers are enmeshed in a series of collaborative horizontal and vertical networks (Agranoff and McGuire 2003), and (4) that networks need to be treated seriously in public administration

Public manage- ment networks are, in every sense, collaborative connections like social networks, although they not only comprise representatives of disparate organiza- tions but also go beyond analytical modes. They are real-world public entities.

Agranoff and McGuire define collaborative management processes as “the process of facilitating and operating in multi organizational arrangements to solve problems that cannot be solved, or solved easily, by single organizations”

Although it is certainly true that mutual dependency is leading to an increasing number of horizontal relationships crossing many boundaries, lateral connections seem to overlay the hierarchy rather than act as a replacement for them.

Program specialists frequently (and more naturally) work across agency boundaries. Their work is technical or based on specialized knowledge, and it is geared to solving problems, belonging to epistemic communities, and acting on shared beliefs.

For the line administrator, however, it is largely business as usual most of the time, dealing with internal POSDCORB matters, along with increasing collaborative pressures.

Why do networked accountability bodies persist? Because they deliver different forms of public value to their multiple participants.

Networks can perform a great many public service purposes. They not only bring many parties to the table but also have the potential to expand the resource base. The most important element of the resource base is the potential for knowledge expansion, a function that administrators said was indispensable.

From knowledge comes the possibility of new solutions derived by, owned, and implemented by several parties.

The key to sustained network involvement is performance, and the key to performance is adding public value by working together rather than separately.

The first benefit is the value added to the manager or professional, such as learning new ways to collaborate, intergovernmental skills, and how to network, along with enhanced technical and information and communications technology skills. Second are the benefits accruing to the home agency, such as access to other agencies’ information, programs and resources; access to information and communications technology; cross-training of agency staff; and most important, enhanced external input into the internal knowledge base. Third are the collective process skills that accrue from working together over a sustained period of time—for example, developing interagency planning, piloting an adaptation of a new technology, developing a mutual interagency culture that leads to subsequent problem solving, and experimenting with electronic group decision technology. Fourth are the concrete results accrued, such as an action plan, a capability building conference, new interagency strategies, and multiagency policy and program changes. These types of value-adding performance results sustain administrators’ efforts in collaborative undertakings.

It is an accepted fact that bureaucratic structures have become more flexible and permeable over the past century. Today’s organizations are becoming more conductive—that is, they are continuously generating and renewing capabilities, bearing in mind the alignment between internal forces and external demands, including the importance of creating partnerships through internal–external interaction, building alliances and coalitions, forming and reforming teams across functions and organization boundaries, and collaborating to actively manage interdependencies. In this sense, perhaps bureaucracies and standing networks appear a good deal alike because both need to be concerned with managing complex partnerships, with blurring boundaries. The difference is that one structures and creates rules and strategies under the umbrella of one organization, whereas the other must interorganizationally and collectively create structures, rules, and strategies that fit their multiorganizational needs.

In the 14 public management networks studied, four types of public value were queried, and managers found substantial benefits in each dimension.

  1. The first benefit is the value added to the manager or professional, such as learning new ways to collaborate, intergovernmental skills, and how to network, along with enhanced technical and information and communications technology skills.
  2. Second are the benefits accruing to the home agency, such as access to other agencies’ information, programs and resources; access to information and communications technology; cross-training of agency staff; and most important, enhanced external input into the internal knowledge base.
  3. Third are the collective process skills that accrue from working together over a sustained period of time—for example, developing interagency planning, piloting an adaptation of a new technology, developing a mutual interagency culture that leads to subsequent problem solving, and experimenting with electronic group decision technology.
  4. Fourth are the concrete results accrued, such as an action plan, a capability building conference, new interagency strategies, and multiagency policy and program changes. These types of value-adding performance results sustain administrators’ efforts in collaborative undertakings.

Virtually all of the 14 networks studied operated with some form of council or board, elected by the entire body of agency representatives, very much like the board of directors of a nonprofit organization.

The real work in all of the networks studied was done in either standing committees (e.g., finance, technology transfer, tele-medicine, educational applications, transportation technical review) or focused and usually shorter-term workgroups (e.g., ortho-infrared mapping, bicycle and pedestrian, broadband usage, community visitation, water and wastewater treatment)

Because all networks do not really make decisions, it is prefer- able to refer to many of their deliberative processes as “reaching agreements” rather than “decisions,”

In collaborative bodies, decisions and agreements are necessarily based on consensus, inasmuch as participating administrators and professionals are partners,not superior–subordinates.

they are co-conveners, co-strategists, co–action formulators, co-programmers, and so on. It is also true that public agency administrators possess neither ultimate legal authority (except, of course, within one’s home agency domain) nor control over all technical information. Authority in the network is shared with the many stakeholders at the table: other administrators, program specialists, research scientists, policy researchers, and interest group and advocacy association officials. Among the partners, it is unlikely that any single agency or representative at the table will have the legal authority or financial resources to completely approach a problem.

informational: wherein partners came together almost exclusively to exchange agency policies and programs, technologies, and potential solutions. Any changes or actions were voluntarily taken up by the agencies themselves.

developmental: wherein partner information and technical exchange were combined with education and member services that increased the members’ capacities to implement solutions within their home agencies and organizations.

outreach: wherein the activities of the developmental network were engaged; in addition, however, they also blue-printed strategies for program and policy change that led to an exchange or coordination of resources, although decision making and implementation were ultimately left to the agencies and programs them-selves.

action networks, wherein partners came together to make interagency adjustments, formally adopt collaborative courses of action, and deliver services, along with information exchanges and enhanced technology capability.

Creating a collective power of new possibilities.

The issue is to bring about enough cooperation among disparate community elements to get things done.

In order to open up new possibilities, the networks studied used six distinct predecision or agreement learning strategies.

They prepared for brokered consensus through (1) group discussion or exchange of ideas; (2) political negotiation of sensitive concerns and intensely felt needs; (3) direct applica- tion of technology or preestablished decision rules or formats; (4) application of preestablished, formulaic procedures (e.g., those related to regulations, grants, or loans); (5) data-driven decisions or agreements (e.g., market studies, usage patterns, traffic or accident counts); and (6) predecision simulation or electronic base groupware or other decision techniques.

“Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information”

Whereas data refer to discrete, objective facts, and information is a message in the form of a document or an audible or visual communication, knowledgeis more action oriented, both in process and in outcome. Knowledge management has two dimensions: explicit knowledge, which can be codified and communicated easily in words, numbers, charts, or drawings, and tacit knowledge, which is embedded in the senses, individual perceptions, physical experiences, intuition, and rules of thumb

In the networks studied, the process of knowledge management in many ways defined the major focus of their standing committees and working groups.

First, essentially all of them began by surveying the universe of data and information that their partners had developed or could access, plus external databases of use to them.

Second, this information then used to develop their “own source” explicit knowledge using resources such as libraries, map inventories, strategic plans, fact sheets and policy guides, focused studies, surveys, conferences and workshops, electronic bulletin boards, process reviews, long-range plans, models and simulations, and market studies.

Third, tacit knowledge was rarely formally codified, but it was regularly approached through stakeholder consultations, best practices booklets, workgroups as “communities of practice,” study project report panels, expert presentations, specialized workshops, SWOT workshops, hands-on technical assistance, community leadership development sessions, forums on “what works,” direct agency outreach, help desks, and public hearings.

Fourth, the networks tried to organize the explicit/ tacit interface not through codification but through informal feedback on the myriad of knowledge management activities in which they engaged, usually through some informal post-project assessment or at its board or steering committee meetings.

Fifth, most of the networks directly served some of the knowledge management needs of their partner agencies by producing formal reports, responding to data requests, supplying modeling and planning data, circulating policy reports, sponsoring in-agency forums and report sessions, providing technical expert linkages between the network and specific agencies, and in some cases, providing agency-requested studies.

In the same way that organizations seek structured predictability, networks try to use their open-ended processes of coordinating purposeful individuals who can apply their unique skills and experiences to the local problem confronting the collaborative undertaking

Beyond the formal structure of the governing body and working committees and groups were four elements of power.

First, virtually every network had a champion (and in two cases, two champions)—a visible, powerful, and prestigious public agency head or nonprofit chief executive officer who organizes or sustains the network. The presence of the champion in the network signaled to others in the field to “stay in” and “cooperate.”

Second, there was a political core, normally comprising the primary participating department heads or federal government state directors and chief executive officers of the non- governmental organizations. These managers tended to be part of the governance structure, they sent a message to other participants that the network was important to be involved with, and they were the people who were most likely to be involved in high- level interagency negotiations and resource accommodations.

Third, there was a technical core, primarily workgroup or committee activists who knew the most about a particular topic (e.g., watershed management, planning, geographic information systems, finance, regulation, information and communications technology, and so on). Because a great deal of the work was bound up investigating problems, creating knowledge, and looking for feasible solutions, their work was at the core of network activity, and the most knowledgeable of these individuals held considerable operating power.

Finally, there were paid staff who held the network together through their support efforts, which in the 14 networks ranged from one or two persons who devoted to the network full time to 18 full- or part-time participants in one action network.

This power structure is deep, and the four dimensions overlap in practice—it is every bit as real as those in the organizations from which representatives are drawn.

If managers give up or add to the job of internal operations to engage in cooperation, they obviously do this at some cost.

Many line managers are said to be protective of agency autonomy for one of four reasons: (1) the agency manager knows best, and therefore should carry out its mission and programs; (2) loss of autonomy is associated with the loss of control and guidance of the agency; (3) people place a greater value on losses than on gains; and (4) autonomy reduces uncertainty

 

Real costs associated with network participation that the managers and professionals articulated. Six general cost categories were indicated:

(1) time and opportunity costs lost to the home agency as a result of network involvement

(2) time and energy costs resulting from the protracted decision-making process, based on nonhierarchical, multiorganizational, multicultural human relations processes

(3) agreements not reached because of the exertion of organizational power or the withholding of power

(4) network gravitation toward consensus- based, risk-aversive decision agendas

(5) resource “hoarding,” or agencies’ failure or unwillingness to contribute needed resources

(6) public policy barriers embedded in legislation, coupled with legislators’ or other policy makers’ unwillingness to make needed changes, which, in turn, frustrated collaborative decisions.

All of these appear to thwart progress within networks.

To a degree, the deliberations of the network and the in- volvement of nongovernmental organizations clearly influenced the courses of action taken by government, and in some cases, new programs and strategies emanated from network deliberations.

Three Large Caveats

First, when it comes to policy decisions, it is almost always the public institutions that make the ultimate call, and in the case of implementation, it is the agency.

Second, in virtually every public management net- work, it is government administrators at federal, state, and local levels who are the core or among the core actors in the network. They are able to inject legisla- tive, regulatory, and financial considerations right into the network mix, which hardly marginalizes them.

Third, many collaborative efforts outside the network form are more tightly controlled by the government, in the form of grant expectations, contract provisions, or loan conditions, tying the nongovernmental orga- nization to the public agency in a tighter way.

Today’s wicked policy problems, dispersed knowledge and resources, first- and second-order effects, and intergovernmental overlays guarantee that managers must engage other governments and nongovernmental organizations

 

Business Concepts, SWOT Analysis Matrix A Structured Planning Method for Evaluate Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats Involved in Business Project Diagram.

 

 

Notes from Complexities, challenges and implications of collaborative work within a regime of performance measurement: the case of management and organisation studies

Complexities, challenges and implications of collaborative work within a regime of performance measurement: the case of management and organisation studies

By Emma Jeanes, Bernadette Loacker & Martyna Śliwa

https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018.1453793

ABSTRACT

The current demands on higher education institutions (HEIs) to become more efficient and effective have led to increasing performance pressures on researchers, and consequently on the practices and outcomes of researcher collaborations. In this paper, based on a qualitative study of collaborative experiences of management and organisation studies scholars, we explore the complexities and challenges of researcher collaborations under the current regime of academic performance measurement. Our study suggests that researcher collaborations are underpinned by four main rationalities: traditional-hierarchical, strategic-instrumental, scholarly-professional and relationship-orientated. We find that strategic-instrumental rationalities are the most prevalent and typically infuse other rationalities. Our research demonstrates that there are potential adverse consequences for the quality and purpose of outputs, the effects on collegial relationships and risks of exploitation and reinvoked hierarchies in collaborative relationships. The study reveals some of the problematic implications for academics and HEIs that emerge as a consequence of research productivity measurement.

KEYWORDS

Academic hierarchy; business schools; New Public Management; researcher collaboration; research performance measurement

Critics of academic performance management, and especially research productivity measurement, have highlighted that it gives rise to individualistic behaviours and practices, reinforcing competitive- ness and potentially undermining collegiality (Ball 2012). Lynch (2015, 199) warns that those who have internalised the productivity imperative are likely to develop an ‘actuarian and calculative mindset’, and to adopt a way of relating to the university organisation and to other academics, including collaborators, in purely transactional, career-oriented terms.

This incentivises collaborative publications since both quality and quantity of output matter for assessing research productivity and can even impact global rankings.However, questions have been raised about the quality of outputs produced under the regime of ‘excellence’. For example, it has been argued that as a result of these measurements, academics might be more concerned with producing publications that conform to external quality evaluation criteria rather than striving to produce what they consider their ‘best work’

The increasing predominance of journal lists and rankings as performance measurement tools tends to exert a ‘homogenizing impact’, stifling scholarly diversity and innovation. A specific study of management scholars has further shown a tendency to approach writing for academic publication as a ‘game’ rather than a process of critical inquiry

Collaboration is commonly considered a vehicle for building professional networks, sharing knowledge, ideas, skills, experiences, workload, resources and risks associated with the research process, and for improving future employment prospects as well as attracting research funding for the collaborating parties

A variety of rationalities inform prevalent practices of researcher collaboration. Below we critically discuss these rationalities, which we term as:

(a) traditional-hierarchical

(b) strategic-instrumental

(c) scholarly-professional

(d) relationship-oriented.

Interpersonal Problems:

Even though his name (senior collaborator) is last in the alphabet, he puts his name first … I’ve tried to address it but there’s been no response. So you kind of feel like the hierarchy has been slipping in … I didn’t really know how to handle that.

These ‘less mutually collaborative research teams that come together more because of employ- ment and institutional relationships’ (Louis-MCR-BC) were widely evident. Such tolerance for inequality results in systematic burdens and challenges placed on those lacking an established institutional position, who are compelled to collaborate.

Where seniority-based collaborations have been experienced as problematic, some researchers have developed a ‘calculative mindset’ towards collaborations.

Rather than collaborations achieving greater creativity and pluralism, under the current regime of academic performance measurement, it is likely that collaborative practices foster a scholarly ‘monoculture’ and thus lead to narrow, incremental, often self-referential and superficial projects being embarked upon – i.e. ones that are seen to hold the promise of bringing highly evaluated, quantifiable and thus ‘excellent’ outputs, and contributing to researchers’ career progression.

This output-orientation in relation to the main objectives of collaborations reflects a broader observation stemming from our study in that strategic-instrumental rationalities underpinning col- laborations were the most widespread in our sample of participants. This demonstrates that, in a ‘partnership or perish climate’ (Berman 2008, 167), strategic-instrumental considerations tend to sup- press other collaborative rationalities such as those focusing on scholarly activities, projects and relationships. Even where academics claim a relationship- and friendship-based ‘ethics of care’ and ‘gift giving’ to be core to collaborations, they simultaneously express an instrumental approach to collaboration and, specifically, an underlying need for the creation of ‘added value’ (Macfarlane 2017) through publications.

Problematic collaborative practices and relations are, however, not limited to ‘vertical’ collaborations.

Strong performance cultures in HEIs tend to encourage academic malpractices, delineated by a lack of contributions, reliability, mutual responsiveness, trust and, thus, a lack of collegiality and engagement within collaborations.

Scholarly responsibility appears to be replaced by a sense of institutional accountability, mainly defined by meeting performance targets and metrics.

Our study demonstrates that current performance and research productivity pressures in HEIs ‘crowd out’ some important academic values and ideals, such as the pursuit of research out of scholarly curiosity and an aspiration for critical inquiry, and the cultivation of diverse and mutually supportive collegial relationships – in support of an unquestioning acceptability of demands for strategic, output-oriented and career objectives-driven academic practices.

We see the ascent of the opportunistic, career-driven scholar who cultivates strategic, low-risk high-output collaborations, which may foreclose more interesting, inventive and valuable forms of research and jeopardize collegial relationships informed by critical reflexivity, equality and mutual trust.

While we do not argue against the aspiration to produce high-quality research, our study of researcher collaborations among MOS academics underlines that the (un)intended con- sequences of the prevailing performance management regime and its emphasis on efficiency, excellence, relevance and accountability are far-reaching, for academics and for HEIs.

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Notes from Collaborative Knowledge Management—A Construction Case Study

Collaborative Knowledge Management—A Construction Case Study

doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2009.03.015

by Bhargav Dave, Lauri Koskela
Salford Centre for Research and Innovation, University of Salford

Abstract: Due to the new threats and challenges faced by the construction industry today, construction companies must seek new solutions in order to remain ahead of the competition. Knowledge has been identified to be a significant organisational resource, which if used effectively can provide competitive advantage. A lot of emphasis is being put on how to identify, capture and share knowledge in today’s organisations. It has been argued over the years that due to the fragmented nature of the construction industry and ad-hoc nature of the construction projects, capture and reuse of valuable knowledge gathered during a construction project pose a challenge. As a result critical mistakes are repeated on projects and construction professionals have to keep “reinventing the wheel”. Given the nature of construction projects, collaborative knowledge management seems to be the most appropriate solution to capture project based knowledge. Information and communication technologies offer a number of solutions to implement collaborative knowledge management solutions. This paper discusses a range of these solutions and presents a case study where a collaborative knowledge management solution is implemented across a multi functional construction company.

The work presented in the case study was carried out while the first author was employed by the case study organisation. A social web application was implemented to solve a particular knowledge sharing problem within the organisation’s concrete pumping business. The new solution provided an effective and simple way to create knowledge by taking employees’ ideas through an iterative cycle of discussion.

Keywords:Knowledge management, Social web applications, Construction

The construction industry fails to retain project knowledge for future reuse. Some common factors behind this are; personnel changing companies or industry, teams being separated after completion of a project, lack of a standard platform to capture and share knowledge, lack of motivation, etc. Many companies have documentation processes such as post project reviews, in place to capture such knowledge, however in most instances these are not properly documented, and if documented they remain locked in archives.

During the monthly meetings and general supervision it was observed that the operators in both workshops regularly identified innovative solutions to solve problems of varying complexity. However due to a lack of formal documentation and sharing procedure, this knowledge was not retained and operators kept “reinventing the wheel” on a regular basis. It was also identified that a significant amount of commonly used information could be shared across the depots, however due to the lack of a sharing platform this could not be achieved.

the following issues were identified, which limited its use in this context:

  • Knowledge is only captured in form of documents, which are static in nature and don’t support the knowledge creation lifecycle
  • Operators, other than who created knowledge, can’t comment or update documents
  • Rich content (i.e. picture, multimedia) is not easy to embed or associate with knowledge
  • Searching within the knowledge base is not efficient
  • Multiple versions of same documents exist leading to confusion
  • Social interaction is important aspect of knowledge creation, this is not supported by the existing platform

 

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