Technology,social services and organizational innovation or how great expectations in London and Cardiff are dashed in Lowestoft and Cymtyrch

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate important aspects of the policy implementation process in UK welfare organizations. We draw on two evaluations in which we were each involved — those of the Integrated Children's System and the Children's Fund. Our interpretive frameworks share a concern to foreground the significance of the local, informal, and ground level, but do so in ways that acknowledge the encompassing governmental and policy contexts. We illustrate and assess the significance of multiple policy aspirations, the significance of local implementation contexts, the diverse ways in which practitioners gain and subsequently develop knowledge of how policy works, and how such knowledge moves about in organizations. We indicate the kinds of expertise that social service workers bring to and achieve as actors within policy innovations, and how they may manage and in some cases seek to control knowledge shifts between providers and users of services. We infer the inadequacy of conventional top-down models of implementing policy innovations.     

‘The Castaways of Life’: A study of organizational remembering within the context of a Chilean Geriatric Hospital

This paper explores the phenomenon of organizational memory within the context of a Chilean Geriatric Hospital that has undergone profound institutional transformations during the last 40 years. The effects of such transformations have reinforced an emphasis on progress at the expense of remembering and integrating the past of the institution as a hospice. The study reveals that this institutional past reverberates in the hospital's working dynamics, which contributes to generating confusion in collective identity, as well as to affect the accomplishment of primary tasks and people's well-being. Access to organizational memory is carried out by the registration of some members' remembering practices about the hospital's past, which are analysed through a hermeneutic method. The study is ethnographic and interpretative, and the recollection of data combines interviews, methods of observation, and the revision of documents.     

Leader–member exchange and organizational dehumanization: The role of supervisor’s organizational embodiment

This research examined the negative relationship between leader–member exchange (LMX) and organizational dehumanization (i.e., employees’ perceptions that their organization treats them like tools), and specifically the consequences of this LMX–dehumanization relationship on employees’ emotional exhaustion, affective commitment, and voice behaviors. Further, given that supervisors act as representatives of the organization, we argued that these relationships would be stronger for employees identifying their supervisor with the organization (i.e., high supervisor’s organizational embodiment). Across two samples, results showed that high-quality LMX was negatively associated with organizational dehumanization. Further, organizational dehumanization was found to mediate the relationships between LMX and outcomes (i.e., emotional exhaustion, affective commitment, and voice behaviors). Finally, the mediation model was moderated by supervisor’s organizational embodiment. More specifically, the negative effects of LMX on organizational dehumanization and its subsequent outcomes were stronger when leaders were perceived as sharing many characteristics with their organization. This research expands the recent and scarce knowledge on the determinants, boundary conditions and outcomes of organizational dehumanization. Our findings suggest that interpersonal relationships at work and, in particular, very common supervisor-related perceptions should be considered when examining organizational dehumanization.     

How organizational research can avoid the pitfalls of a co-optation perspective: analyzing gender equality work in Austrian universities with organizational institutionalism

The concept of co-optation offers vocabulary to discuss how concerns and demands of feminist movements are transformed on their way to, and within, mainstream organizations and policymaking. However, applications of this concept can have problematic implications, failing to grasp the complexity of social change efforts and contributing to divisions, rather than alliances, between different groups that work and fight for gender equality. This article argues that conceptual tools from organizational institutionalism can help to avoid these pitfalls by capturing the ambivalence of organizational change initiatives, and allowing us to identify not only counterintentional effects, but also subtle and unexpected opportunities of organizational gender equality work. I illustrate my arguments with empirical examples from research on gender equality work in Austrian universities.     

An extensive power evaluation of some tests for the inverse Gaussian distribution

Many applications of the Inverse Gaussian distribution, including numerous reliability and life testing results are presented in statistical literature. The paper studies the problem of using entropy tests to examine the goodness of fit of an Inverse Gaussian distribution with unknown parameters. Some entropy tests based on different entropy estimates are proposed. Critical values of the test statistics for various sample sizes are obtained by Monte Carlo simulations. Type I error of the tests is investigated and then power values of the tests are compared with the competing tests against various alternatives. Finally, recommendations for the application of the tests in practice are presented.     

Strategy frames in coopetition: An examination of coopetition entry factors in high-tech firms

Collaboration with competitors offers unique advantages such as increasing market, innovation, and financial performance. However, the degree of coopetition adoption varies between firms, as does the ability to achieve intended outcomes. We address this variety through the lens of strategic frames, essential for understanding business environment interpretations that managers develop, interactions with other actors that they engage in, and the subsequent performance firms may achieve. We examine associations between external and internal coopetition factors as perceived by coopeting managers.To single out the coopetition factors seen by respondents as the most relevant and to evaluate their mutual associations, we apply traditional regression analyses on survey data collected from 352 high-technology firms in Poland. To fully embrace the causal complexity, we advance our regression-based insights by using a complementary necessary condition analysis (NCA) and bottleneck analysis.Our results suggest that coopeting managers place higher importance on customer-driven rather than on resource-driven coopetition factors when considered as sufficient leveraging factors. Still, the complementary NCA reveals internal resources as critical factors for the perception of external factors of coopetition. Finally, we identify external technological development as the most limiting bottleneck for the perception of most internal coopetition factors, highlighting coopetition as a technology-driven strategy.     

由军事制度探究里坊制起源

里坊制度从来就不是一个孤立的存在,最初的里坊制度不仅是指供人居住的聚落,更重要的是为了满足编户建军的需要。文章通过对里坊编户与军事组织制度的比较分析,揭示里坊制度与军事组织在早期存在的一一对应关系。并通过进一步比对,分析社会生产力的发展,工商业人口的增多,致使血缘聚落逐渐向地缘聚落转化,人不再依附在土地上。由于战争规模的扩大和募兵制的实行,最终导致里坊制度与军事组织制度走向分离,逐步发展成为各自独立的体系。     

A Robust Approach to Risk Assessment Based on Species Sensitivity Distributions

The guidelines for setting environmental quality standards are increasingly based on probabilistic risk assessment due to a growing general awareness of the need for probabilistic procedures. One of the commonly used tools in probabilistic risk assessment is the species sensitivity distribution (SSD), which represents the proportion of species affected belonging to a biological assemblage as a function of exposure to a specific toxicant. Our focus is on the inverse use of the SSD curve with the aim of estimating the concentration, HCp, of a toxic compound that is hazardous to p% of the biological community under study. Toward this end, we propose the use of robust statistical methods in order to take into account the presence of outliers or apparent skew in the data, which may occur without any ecological basis. A robust approach exploits the full neighborhood of a parametric model, enabling the analyst to account for the typical real‐world deviations from ideal models. We examine two classic HCp estimation approaches and consider robust versions of these estimators. In addition, we also use data transformations in conjunction with robust estimation methods in case of heteroscedasticity. Different scenarios using real data sets as well as simulated data are presented in order to illustrate and compare the proposed approaches. These scenarios illustrate that the use of robust estimation methods enhances HCp estimation.     

Strategizing in a digital world: Overcoming cognitive barriers,reconfiguring routines and introducing new organizational forms

As digital technologies such as cloud and edge computing, machine learning, advanced artificial intelligence (AI), and the internet of things (IoT) unfold, traditional industries such as telecoms, media, entertainment, and financial services are being reconfigured and new sectors are emerging. In this new competitive landscape we observe new organizational forms and new business models, including the emergence of platforms and multi-sided markets. This emergence has required a strategic response from incumbent firms, including both well-established firms and some first-generation digital enterprises. With these advances in digital technology, the very nature of strategy is changing. Fundamentally, the use of digital technologies may provide new opportunities for efficiency gains, customer intimacy, and innovation. However, without the right mindset for change, appropriate digital routines, and structural changes, digital transformation efforts will fail. We therefore present a framework for strategizing in this new digital competitive landscape that underscores the importance of the interplay between (1) the cognitive barriers faced by managers when trying to understand this new digital world and envision new digital business models, (2) a need to reconfigure and extend digital routines, and (3) new organizational forms that are better equipped to creating value and gaining competitive advantage. From this framework of essential pillars, we derive four journeys of digital transformation for companies that were formed in the pre-digital economy. We also describe the management roles required by top, middle, and frontline managers, depending on whether the digital migration is evolutionary or transformative and whether the firm is responding to or attempting to shape the ecosystem. Although digital transformation is technically all about technology, the more important issue is how companies make their way through this strange new digital world in which they find themselves. Ultimately digital transformation is as much about strategizing as it is about technology.     

论我国行政组织结构的优化

优化行政组织结构对于深化行政体制改革、提高行政效能及促进行政组织法的完善等具有重要意义。优化行政组织结构,应当从行政组织的三维结构入手,以政府职能的有效履行和精简、统一、效能为判定标准,扩大横向管理幅度,缩小省级行政区划;减少行政层级,推行省直管县;合理调整机构设置,控制行政组织规模;避免部门林立,实行大部制;防止大部专权,按照行政决策、执行和监督三分原则设置行政机构;打破职责同构,整合条块管理以建立伙伴关系。这些改革措施需要协同配套、同步推进并有相应的法制保障才能取得预期的成效。