Good Organizational Practices Research Articles

The Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Development of Mortars

The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) repeatedly showed itself to be one of the most inventive and adaptive of all the violent non-state actors who operated in the latter part of the twentieth century. Among its most innovative exploits was the PIRA’s successful development and fielding – spanning almost its entire operational lifetime – of improvised mortar systems. This chapter will trace the sustained development of mortars, including the underlying motivations for pursuing mortars as a complex engineering effort, the process by which the development took place and the underpinnings of its success. The discussion will show that the PIRA’s mortar development program was born out of tactical necessity but enabled by good organizational practices and the organization’s access to materials, expertise and places in which to leverage these. Disclaimer Editor’s Note: This article forms part of a series of related case studies collected in this Special Issue and should be viewed in the context of the broader phenomenon of complex engineering by violent non-state actors. Readers are advised to consult the introductory and concluding papers for a full explanation and comparative analysis of the cases. Acknowledgements This case study was excerpted and abridged from Gary Ackerman, More Bang for the Buck (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation: King’s College London, 2014). This work was supported by Sandia National Laboratories, Contract #1525332. Any opinions, findings, conclusions and recommendations in this issue are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect views of Sandia National Laboratories or the U.S. Department of Energy. This article is available in Journal of Strategic Security: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol9/iss1/4 This article is available in Journal of Strategic Security: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol9/iss1/4

Measuring Social Return on Investment

Strategic decision making and evaluation in philanthropic giving and social investment requires good‐quality information about the social impacts of that investment. One way to meet this need is by calculating a social return on investment (SROI) measure, akin to the return on investment (ROI) approach used in business analysis. Despite much buzz in the field, SROI measurements are rarely used, in part because of the complexity of the calculations but also because of a number of thorny and often expensive organizational challenges associated with implementing an SROI process. This article explores these implementation challenges by comparing four social venture organizations in the health care field—two in the Netherlands and two in the United States—that have utilized some sort of SROI measurement. We summarize the SROI process and identify the specific organizational challenges in each case. Lessons learned from this analysis include the value of process versus product and the importance of fitting the type of measurement to the organizational context. We conclude with a summary of best practices for organizations and social investors who might try to make effective use of SROI measures.

Perspectives on Whistleblowing: Faculty Member Viewpoints and Suggestions for Organizational Change

Given the prevalence of unethical behavior in research, whistleblowing may serve an important policing function. Despite this potential value of whistleblowing to organizations, engaging in this type of activity often has negative ramifications for those who choose to blow the whistle. Organizations may fail to provide adequate support for these individuals. In order to help inform best practices for organizations in terms of whistleblowing support infrastructure, the present effort content analyzed interviews with university faculty members regarding ethical decision making in which whistleblowing was a topic. Relevant themes in these interviews are discussed.

Developing a Social Media Strategy: A Professional Association Perspective

Relationship engagement is the cornerstone of social media, hence the word “networking” in social networking sites. Social media sites can make excellent communications vehicles for many not-for-profits since building and maintaining relationships are fundamental to their existence. This social media strategy audit and case study examines the best practices for organizations, in particular, non-profit professional associations, and proposes a social media strategy for a national Canadian professional association. The study found that while many professional associations are using social media to engage with their members and other stakeholders, there are a number of key elements that need to be considered when associations develop social media strategies including: implementing a social media policy for staff and members; allocating proper staff resources, including training; tying social media activities back to the strategic plan of the organization; ensuring consistency of messages and content across platforms; and finally making sure social media activities are measured with both quantitative and qualitative measures.

A Roadmap and Best Practices for Organizations to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care

Over the past decade, researchers have shifted their focus from documenting health care disparities to identifying solutions to close the gap in care. Finding Answers: Disparities Research for Change, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is charged with identifying promising interventions to reduce disparities. Based on our work conducting systematic reviews of the literature, evaluating promising practices, and providing technical assistance to health care organizations, we present a roadmap for reducing racial and ethnic disparities in care. The roadmap outlines a dynamic process in which individual interventions are just one part. It highlights that organizations and providers need to take responsibility for reducing disparities, establish a general infrastructure and culture to improve quality, and integrate targeted disparities interventions into quality improvement efforts. Additionally, we summarize the major lessons learned through the Finding Answers program. We share best practices for implementing disparities interventions and synthesize cross-cutting themes from 12 systematic reviews of the literature. Our research shows that promising interventions frequently are culturally tailored to meet patients' needs, employ multidisciplinary teams of care providers, and target multiple leverage points along a patient's pathway of care. Health education that uses interactive techniques to deliver skills training appears to be more effective than traditional didactic approaches. Furthermore, patient navigation and engaging family and community members in the health care process may improve outcomes for minority patients. We anticipate that the roadmap and best practices will be useful for organizations, policymakers, and researchers striving to provide high-quality equitable care.

Engaging the public and the private in global sustainability governance

Negotiators preparing for Rio+20 are missing an important opportunity. Private sustainability governance (PSG) is thriving: organizations created by business and civil society groups, as well as public‐private partnerships, adopt and apply significant regulatory standards and undertake valuable operational activities, including pilot projects and financing. However, even though reforming the institutional framework for sustainable development is a central part of the Rio+20 agenda, negotiators are focusing almost exclusively on inter-governmental organizations such as the UN Environment Program (UNEP), the Commission for Sustainable Development and the Economic and Social Council. This public‐private engagement gap isolates international governance from the energy and innovation of PSG, and impedes efforts to coordinate the bifurcated and decentralized system of sustainability governance. This article argues that states, and especially international organizations, should actively support PSG as part of the institutional framework for sustainable development, while steering private and public‐private schemes towards good organizational practices and the pursuit of public goals. Engagement with PSG would help international institutions pursue their sustainability missions more effectively, promote the emergence of effective and legitimate private schemes, manage fragmentation, promote experimentation and learning, and enhance citizen participation. The article outlines two fruitful modes of engagement pioneered by UNEP: regulatory cooperation, in which international authorities engage directly with business firms, industry groups and other ‘targets’, influencing them to adopt more sustainable behaviors; and orchestration, in which authorities engage with intermediary organizations, such as multi-stakeholder private governance schemes, catalyzing, supporting and steering them as they seek to influence the ultimate targets of policy.

Recruiting and Selecting Leaders for Innovation

The problem. As organizations strive to compete in their respective markets during this time of economic recovery, human resource (HR) professionals are progressively being tasked with recruiting and selecting innovative talent to help keep their organizations ahead. This is especially true when it comes to innovative organizational leaders as they are increasingly difficult to source and select into an organization. The solution. There are a variety of strategies HR professionals should consider to ensure that their organization is able to compete for innovative leaders. In this review, we discuss several approaches for identifying and selecting innovative candidates into an organization, including best practices for organizations of all sizes and budgets. Updated recruiting strategies, behavioral assessments, behaviorally based interviews and innovation-targeted succession planning are discussed. Stakeholders. This article is relevant to HR and HRD professionals who are engaged in defining or executing the recruitment and selection strategy in their organization. It will be especially important for those involved with recruiting mid- to high-level innovative leaders and professionals.

VolunteerMatch.org: balancing mission and earned‐revenue potential

PurposeThis case investigates how a nonprofit can analyze its earned revenue potential. What changes would be required for the organization's current business units to start making a positive financial contribution? What other opportunities to expand its earned‐income efforts exist, and how should they be prioritized? What would it take to implement the new ventures, and how could the nonprofit guard against undertaking initiatives that would subtract more from the organization – in dollars and staff time – than they could possibly add?Design/methodology/approachA team of consultants from Bridgespan worked with VolunteerMatch, the largest web‐based volunteer‐matching service in the country, to study how to make its earned revenue ventures generate income for the organization and support its mission.FindingsVolunteerMatch's work on earned income helped it to move forward with its financial goals, and also to strengthen its social mission.Research limitations/implicationsVolunteerMatch is a small, talent rich nonprofit with a staff that is comfortable innovating internet‐based products and services. Expanding the study to include a variety of nonprofits would provide a better indication of the viability of an earned income strategy in this sector.Practical implicationsVolunteerMatch now derives 38 percent of its revenue from its earned income activities, decreasing its reliance on contributions.Originality/valueFew detailed studies exist of the development of earned income operations in nonprofits. This one serves as a guide to best practices for organizations considering this strategy.

Integrating new media and old media: Seven observations of convergence as a strategy for best practices in media organizations

This study examines convergence as both a concept and a process. It examines the current state of convergence, various definitions of convergence, convergence practices, and it identifies Seven Observations of Convergence to be used as a strategy for best practices for organizations to integrate new and old media. Everett Rogers (1995) diffusion of innovations and the five stages of the innovation process in organizations, coupled with innovation management research are theoretical foundations used to examine the infusion of technological changes into business practices in the media industry. The study is based on research conducted during the summer of 2002 that included in‐depth interviews, participation‐observation, and archival documents from three leading corporate media groups and convergence pioneers‐Tribune Company, Media‐General, and Belo Corp at their integrated business units in Chicago, Dallas, and Tampa, Florida. The three organizations were selected for field study because they are convergence pioneers that fell under the grandfather clause of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission 1975 cross‐ownership rule and were allowed to maintain ownership of their television broadcast and newspaper business units in the same market.