Incentives For Collaboration Research Articles

Are collaborative challenges barriers to working together? – A multi-level multi-case network analysis

Public and nonprofit organizations often face various challenges when collaborating with others. The existing literature emphasizes the danger of collaborative challenges, and an implicit assumption is that collaborative challenges will affect inter-organizational relationships and network structures. Using data from three different purpose-oriented networks, this study explores the relationship between perceptions of collaborative challenges and network structure across the node, dyadic, and whole network level of analyses. The multi-case, multi-level analysis indicates that there is no pattern between perceived challenges and network structures. Organizations that perceive more challenges are not necessarily more resistant to work with other organizations. This counterintuitive null finding offers important implications for theory and practice. Network managers should be encouraged to embrace the complex or even paradoxical nature of collaboration. Emphasizing collaborative incentives may have greater impact than focusing on clearing challenges that are inherent in collaboration.

The case for metagovernance: The promises and pitfalls of multisectoral nutrition service delivery structures in low‐ and middle‐income countries

AbstractWhile cross‐sector collaborations can create effective governance mechanisms for multi‐sectoral issues, little attention has been paid to how these arrangements operate in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs), where state capacity is weak and the international donor sector is influential. A case study of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) collaborative governance platform in Senegal is presented to explore how tensions between actors can be managed and how power is exercised through metagovernance. Through in‐depth interviews with policy actors (N = 30), network mapping of ties and activities among actors and document review, the study identifies challenges and opportunities for multi‐sectoral nutrition governance. The study identifies several challenges specific to scaling up multi‐sectoral policies including the relative power of non‐state actors, duplication of efforts and a lack of incentives for multisectoral collaboration across different sectors within government. The article concludes that to ensure democratic governance, government must be capable of metagovernance.

University-Industry Collaboration in a Cross-Border Iberian Regions

This study sought to understand how the differences in university-industry (U-I) dynamics in two cross-border regions act on their research and innovation performance. Surveys were administered to academics from research centres or units in Portugal’s Northern Region and Spain’s Castile and Leon. Data were also collected from the Community Innovation Survey (CIS2014) conducted in Portugal and Spain, to obtain a broader perspective on the topic and regions under analysis. A comparison could thus be made between the researchers’ perspective (i.e. micro) and the companies’ perspective that answered the CIS questionnaire (i.e. meso) on U-I collaboration dynamics. The questionnaires were analysed using Partial least squares structural equation modelling, and the data from CIS survey using logistic regression. The results show that U-I cooperation is associated with (i) time spent on research and development, (ii) budgets based on direct contracts with industries, (iii) companies’ location and (iv) incentives for collaboration. However, the researchers’ age and academic field are the only factors affecting which incentives for collaboration are significant. The results also reveal that U-I collaboration influences regions’ innovation profiles. These findings contribute to a fuller, more empirical understanding of U-I cooperation, demonstrating that encouragement of this type of collaboration can be a driver of innovation in any region. This article contributes in policy terms to a better understanding of the necessary incentives for both U-I collaboration and the internationalisation of this collaboration.

Cross-domain collaboration: the Dutch Combined Lifestyle Intervention

Abstract Background In the Netherlands, the policy-making process to realize funding for the Combined Lifestyle Intervention (CLI) by health insurance lasted twelve years. Since January 2019, the health care components of the CLI are covered by the Health Insurance Act. We aimed to identify policy design decisions, processes and implementation willingness and capacity of stakeholders. Methods We conducted an institutional policy analysis using backward mapping. We composed a timeline (2007-2019) based on public documents and interviewed 22 key stakeholders, representing policy-making institutions, care professions, health insurers and CLI-owners. Results Three main design decisions (out of 15) are: 1) including lifestyle coaching in the CLI.; 2) excluding the physical activity component for funding by health insurance and 3) health insurers and municipalities having own policies, resulting in a variety of contracts with health care providers and local differences in the CLI offer. Decision-making was mainly based on scientific evidence. However, not all stakeholders were represented in policy-making. The CLI requires collaboration between care professionals and lifestyle coaches, a new profession linking the medical and social domain. Vested and new stakeholders faced competing interests, which tempered their willingness and capacity to implement the CLI. Conclusions The CLI sets a new standard - at the interface of indicated and selective prevention - by incorporating (non-medicalised) lifestyle coaching. Although the CLI is embedded in a single insurance-based scheme (instead of across domains), it institutionalizes cross-domain collaboration without providing the necessary resources. Collaborative prevention requires cross-domain trusting implementation networks, including vested stakeholders, field innovators and citizens, to avoid conflicts, and build adaptive and responsive prevention policies. Key messages Interventions in the field of prevention require incentives for collaboration based on cross-domain trusting implementation networks. Politics around collaborative prevention requires a balanced stakeholder level playing field to avoid conflicts around vested interests and to facilitate stable responsive prevention policies.

Putting the watering can away –Towards a targeted (problem-oriented) cluster policy framework

In view of the undisputed promising effects of regional clusters and spurred by lighthouse examples such as Silicon Valley, cluster policies have been popular in many countries worldwide. However, in recent years the complaints have become louder about the actual economic relevance and efficiency of such regional innovation policies. In particular, the high degree of standardization in the so far applied cluster policies, focusing primarily on collaborative incentives to strengthen the relational density in clusters, have been criticized as being rather ineffective and costly to society. In order to solve this one-size-fits-all problem, it has been proposed that cluster policies should instead focus on the concrete conditions and needs within regional clusters. The aim of this paper is to respond to this call by considering firm-, cluster- and market-/industry-specific particularities. Based on an extensive systematic review of the empirical literature about the relationship between clusters and firms’ performances, an overview about relevant conditions is elaborated. By integrating such an overview with the general policy rationales it becomes possible to identify potential problems, e.g. in terms of missing absorptive capacities, which cluster policy can purposefully address. For each identified problem, a potential targeted (problem-oriented) policy intervention is therefore suggested. The corresponding result of this procedure is a policy-framework that offers an increased practical value in terms of bringing forth specific adaptive cluster policies rather than one-size-fits-all policies and thereby contributing to a more sophisticated understanding of the design of cluster policies.

Resource mobilization and contributing resources to a collective task by emergency responders: an experimental study on collaboration in crisis response

PurposeTwenty-first century crises reaffirm the need of faster mobilization of resources during crises. Without interorganizational collaboration and resource mobilization, organizing efficient response is not possible. Resource mobilization is an essential aspect of response. It ensures a faster and better response. Collaboration between teams of emergency responders may include commonly known boundary spanning activities such as resource sharing, information sharing and communication. The purpose of this paper is to contribute our knowledge of how to organize a better crisis response through collaboration. More precisely, what strategies work as drivers for emergency responder teams during collaboration in crisis scenarios.Design/methodology/approachThrough design of experiments, using tabletop exercises and online surveys, this study investigates the drivers of collaboration during a crisis scenario. Participants of this study are decision makers and emergency responders from various public actors in crisis management from Sweden.FindingsCollaboration is essential to manage cross-functional services in normal times, as well as meet the growing needs during crises. In absence of collaboration, boundary spanning activities such as sharing resources or information to provide any kind of service will not be possible. For teams to survive in fast-changing environment, they must be able to adapt to the changing demands accordingly. This paper demonstrates which factors are drivers for emergency responders to mobilize resources, especially during crises. It captures the tension between individual and collective goals in crisis response and highlights the drivers that affect decision-making during crises.Originality/valueThe novelty of the paper lies in its methodology using tabletop exercises, design of experiments as part of Six Sigma toolbox and online surveys in combination with weightage of agreements and disagreements and free text answers. Although scientific research so far has demonstrated the need for collaboration during crises, however, which factors act as drivers for emergency responders to collaborate, is lacking scientific evidence. Incentives for collaboration have not been studied enough. These can tell us which strategies can improve collaboration during crises. This research paper is a scientific contribution in that direction.

When politics trumps strategy: UK–EU security collaboration after Brexit

Both the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) have significant incentives for close collaboration in foreign, security and defence policies, given their shared strategic interests, the clear potential for efficiency savings in working together, and the intensity of prior working relations. That the recently negotiated EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement contains no provisions in this area is thus puzzling for followers of European security, who predicted prompt agreement, and for theories of international cooperation, which emphasise the importance of shared threats, absolute gains and prior interaction. We argue the failure to reach such an agreement stemmed from the politics of the withdrawal process itself, which resulted in acute problems of institutional selectivity, negotiating dynamics that polarised the relationship, institutional change that made an agreement less likely, and distributional scrabbling to supplant the UK. Our findings show that the dynamics of moving away from existing forms of cooperation are highly distinct from those motivating cooperation in normal times.

Large Questions, Small Questions, and Leaky Ones Too

An examination of the kinds of questions we ask ourselves provides a window through which to interpret our history and imagine our future. I suggest that there are three kinds of questions—large ones, small ones, and leaky ones. Those that are identified as large and small map onto the value structures we have created for ourselves in higher education. I call these structures caste systems in which some subdisciplines are valued over others, and theoreticians stand above both practitioners and skill teachers. Leaky questions are those that cross boundaries because they cannot be effectively answered by those residing in any one area or at any one level. I argue that leaky questions generate humility, mutual respect, and incentives for collaboration. I trace my own attempts to address all three kinds of questions as a sport philosopher and conclude that our brighter future in kinesiology, including our attempts to address the harms created by the caste system, requires us to see that most of the questions we find interesting are, in fact, leaky in nature.

Analysis of Green Technology Upgrading Strategy Based on Collaborative Incentive of Environmental Policy and Green Finance

Abstract With the continuous development of economy, the bottleneck problem of environmental resources has become increasingly prominent. Enterprise environmental governance technology innovation incentive has become an important issue for the development of government, society and enterprises. Under the control of enterprise’s expected economic target, this paper discusses the synergistic incentive effect of environmental policy and green finance on enterprise’s environmental governance technology innovation decision by using nonlinear programming model. The results show that when the funds for environmental governance technological innovation are insufficient, there is an optimal decision space to use green financial loans to implement technological innovation and upgrade, and then achieve the expected economic goals; Under a given level of environmental governance technology, environmental policies affect whether enterprises can make decisions on technological innovation and upgrading of environmental governance; Green financial mechanism will not. However, when the enterprise makes the decision of environmental governance technology upgrading, it will affect the enterprise’s decision on green financial loan amount. The results of the study have guiding significance for the formulation of environmental policy and green financial policy, as well as the decision-making of enterprise environmental governance technology innovation and upgrading.

Does participation in knowledge networks facilitate market access in global innovation systems? The case of offshore wind

This article explores how knowledge networks function as structural couplings in global innovation systems (GIS). Based on a unique dataset we investigate the effects of Norwegian offshore wind firms' participation in different knowledge networks on international market access. The results show that international knowledge networks facilitate access to market resources in a GIS under certain conditions. First, participating in pilot and demonstration projects positively affects firms’ access to international markets. Second, participation in R&D projects has only a positive effect on international market access when R&D collaboration involves international partners. This effect is stronger when collaborators come from countries with a domestic market. Our results show that knowledge networks can function as one type of structural coupling (between a country and the GIS), which can facilitate another type of coupling (between knowledge and markets). The extent of coupling depends on the innovation mode and geographic scale of the knowledge networks. An implication for policy is that knowledge resources can be leveraged through incentives for international collaboration, and support for pilot and demonstration activities.

Deep decarbonization in Northeastern North America: The value of electricity market integration and hydropower

In several countries, electricity systems are under strong decarbonization pressure. In particular, the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario as well as the states of the northeastern United States have committed to cut their greenhouse emissions by more than 70% (with respect to emission levels of 1990). Increased collaboration and integration between jurisdictions could decrease such decarbonization costs, especially when important hydropower resources are available.Using a capacity expansion and dispatch model of the Northeastern North American electricity sector, we analyze the impact of emission reduction targets, load levels and availability of power technologies in a range of scenarios, in order to assess the benefits of regional cooperation. Our results show that for deep decarbonization, the electricity system costs can be significantly reduced through integration, especially by adding more interconnection capacity. These costs savings and benefits are however not evenly allocated between jurisdictions, creating potentially difficult collaboration incentives.

A Blockchain Framework for Secure Task Sharing in Multi-Access Edge Computing

In the context of Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC), the task sharing mechanism among edge servers is an activity of vital importance for speeding up the computing process and thereby improving the user experience. The distributed resources in the form of edge servers are expected to collaborate with each other in order to boost overall performance of a MEC system. However, there are many challenges to adopt global collaboration among the edge computing server entities and two of them are especially significant: ensuring trust among the servers and developing a unified scheme to enable real-time collaboration and task sharing. In this article, a blockchain framework is proposed to provide a trusted collaboration mechanism among edge servers in a MEC environment. In particular, a permissioned blockchain scheme is investigated to support a trusted design that also provides incentives for collaboration. Finally, Caliper tool and Hyperledger Fabric benchmarks are used to conduct an experimental evaluation of the proposed blockchain scheme embebbed in a MEC framework.

Platform-Based Collaborative Routing using Dynamic Prices as Incentives

Over the last decade, platforms have emerged in numerous industries and often transformed them, posing new challenges for transportation research. Platform providers such as Uber, Uber Freight, Blackbuck, or Lyft mostly do not have immediate control over the physical resources needed to move people or goods. They often operate in a multi-sided market setting, where it is crucial to design clear incentives to motivate a third party to engage in collaboration. As a consequence, collaboration incentives become an integral part of decision support models for platform providers and they need to be developed at the operational level and applied dynamically. Naturally, this involves a trade-off between the interests of platform providers, shippers, and carriers. In this work, we investigate the real-world case of a platform provider operating as an intermediary between shippers and carriers in a less-than-truckload (LTL) business. We propose a new mixed-integer programming (MIP) formulation for the underlying collaborative pickup and delivery problem with time windows (PDPTW) that minimizes the price the platform pays to the carriers and enforces collaboration incentives for carriers through individual rationality constraints. This is facilitated by a dynamic pricing approach which ensures that carriers are better off collaborating than working on their own. The pricing is bounded by the costs and market conditions to keep the price range reasonable. We explore possible policies to be implemented by the platform and find that their business remains profitable when individual rationality is enforced and the platform could even guarantee increased profit margins to the carriers as incentives.

Organizational Policies and Personnel Factors That Are Incentives for and Challenges to Collaboration as Identified by Statewide Transition Supervisors

In the United States, the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004) and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended in the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (2014) require special educators and vocational rehabilitation counselors to plan and coordinate transition services for students with disabilities. Regardless of the legislative mandates, major challenges remain for effective collaboration. The purpose of this study was to investigate statewide special education and vocational rehabilitation counseling transition supervisors’ insights on the policies that promote or present barriers to effective collaboration. Forty-eight statewide transition supervisors wrote a total of 175 comments that were analyzed using inductive content analysis. Organizational and personnel factors were identified, and specific examples of noteworthy indicators of collaboration are presented. Recommendations are offered to address the lack of policies and incentives for transition collaboration.

Energy and Social Cost Minimization for Data Dissemination in Wireless Networks: Centralized and Decentralized Approaches

We study multi-hop data-dissemination in a wireless network from one source to multiple nodes where some of the nodes of the network act as re-transmitting nodes and help the source in data dissemination. In this network, we study two scenarios; i) the transmitting nodes do not need an incentive for transmission and ii) they do need an incentive and are paid by their corresponding receiving nodes by virtual tokens. We investigate two problems; P1) network power minimization for the first scenario and P2) social cost minimization for the second scenario, defined as the total cost paid by the nodes of the network for receiving data. In this paper, to address P1 and P2, we propose centralized and decentralized approaches that determine which of the nodes of the network should act as transmitting nodes, find their transmit powers and their corresponding receiving nodes. For the sake of energy efficiency, in our model, we employ maximal-ratio combining (MRC) at the receivers so that a receiver can be served by multiple transmitters. The proposed decentralized approach is based on a non-cooperative cost-sharing game (CSG). In our proposed game, every receiving node chooses its respective transmitting nodes and consequently, a cost is assigned to it according to the power imposed on its chosen transmitting nodes. We discuss how the network is formed in a decentralized way, find the action of the nodes in the game and show that, despite being decentralized, the proposed game converges to a stable solution. To find the centralized global optimum, which is a benchmark to our decentralized approach, we use a mixed-integer-liner-program (MILP). Simulation results show that our proposed decentralized approach outperforms the conventional algorithms in terms of energy efficiency and social cost while it can address the need for an incentive for collaboration.

Földrajz – Társadalomtudomány – turizmus: elméleti és módszertani áttekintés

The geographical, regional approach, network research, and the focus on sustainability in scientific analysis is a strong incentive for scientific collaboration across disciplines. Providing a theoretical overview of the relationship between geography, social science, and tourism, this study argues that the combination of geographic, economic, and social science knowledge can make a significant contribution to the development of tourism as a scholarly field, and that beyond this it can also be useful to central and local governments in their efforts to develop tourism. Geography has a long tradition of integrating the results of other sciences, both prior to 1990 and after. The mutual exchange between geography, economics, and social sciences has been particularly pronounced since 1990 in Hungary. This does not mean, however, that the ‘geographical idea’ has been included sufficiently within the multidisciplinary field. Today, scientific work in which geographic approaches to social science and economics are integral is rare. Tourism may be one of the areas of analysis where this is perhaps most easily achieved. Therefore, in the future, interdisciplinary approaches in the field of tourism research need to be given much broader scope.

The Study of the Incidence of Metabolic Syndrome and its Indices in Welders in Rafsanjan in 2018 (A Descriptive Study)

Background: Welders are exposed to different chemical damaging factors such as fumes, gases and dusts caused by welding. Some studies have referred to a possible association between occupational exposure and engaging with metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a set of factors such as abdominal obesity, high blood pressure (hypertension), high blood sugar, high triglycerides and High-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels that are a fundamental risk factor for diabetes, cardiac disease and stroke. Hence, we accordingly decided to investigate the incidence of metabolic syndrome among welders in Rafsanjan. Methods: This is a cross-sectional descriptive study performed on 78 door and window welders in Rafsanjan in 2018. Data collection was carried out at two stages, first stage was based on a checklist containing demographic information and the second one included laboratory tests, and finally by recording data in SPSS software, quantitative data was reported as “mean ± standard deviation” and qualitative data was reported as “number (percent)”.Results:43 out of 78 welders were tested by anthropometric and blood tests, 29 (67.4%) had central obesity. Of these 29, 15 (51.7%) had at least two of four conditions, indicating their metabolic syndrome. After central obesity, the most common factors among these 43 patients respectively were hypertension (55.8%), high triglyceride (37.2%), and high fasting blood sugar (20.9%).Conclusion: The findings of the present study revealed that about half of the studied welders had at least two metabolic syndrome indices. In future studies, implementation of partnership building strategies and increased collaboration incentives to achieve a larger sample size are recommended.

Economic statecraft at the frontier: Korea’s drive for intelligent robotics

East Asian countries come most to mind when considering the role of governmental institutions in the contemporary economy. Specifically, it is widely assumed that the openness of economies, the maturation of companies, and their participation in global production chains have created extraordinary pressures that erode opportunities and incentives for government-business collaboration. We test this assumption in the South Korean context, with a focus on the case of robotics. This case is fruitful because it highlights the multiple challenges that face South Korean policymakers. These include the capacity to deliver cutting-edge technologies, to create new industry, to address potential downsides with novel solutions, and to engage the private sector in a relationship of ‘governed interdependence’. In examining Korean strategies for grappling with the pressures they face, we seek to illuminate a pattern of state activity that existing concepts fail to capture. By refocusing the concept of geo-economic statecraft to encompass domestically deployed initiatives at the techno frontier, we intend to breach the impasse in the developmental/post developmental state debate and to open up a new research agenda. That agenda should probe the conditions that might motivate states to craft techno-economy building initiatives, and the relationships of governed interdependence which they must forge to achieve them.

Protection of digital health information: Examining guidance from the physician regulatory colleges in Canada.

The use of information and communication technology (ICT) has tremendous potential to enhance communication among physicians, leading to improvements in service delivery. However, the protection of health information in digital/electronic format is an ongoing concern. The purpose of this study was to examine guidance for the protection of health information when using ICT from all 10 of Canada's provincial regulatory colleges for physicians and to discuss the potential policy and service delivery implications. A search of the regulatory college websites was conducted, followed by a document analysis (content and thematic). The college website search identified 522 documents; 12 of these documents (from 8 of the 10 colleges) met the study criteria. These documents were notable for the considerable variation in the scope and detail of guidance provided across the colleges. While the federal-provincial division of powers in Canada enables different jurisdictional approaches to health service delivery and, thus, opportunities for policy learning, this governing structure may also contribute to a lack of incentive for collaboration, leading to an absence of standardised guidance for health information protection when using ICT. This, in turn, may result in unequal and inequitable protection of health information across the provinces. Therefore, a macro-level approach to policy development in this area may hold the greatest promise for enhancing the protection of health information and doing so in a more standardised manner in countries with federal systems of governance.

Postoperative opioid prescribing is not my job: A qualitative analysis of care transitions

BackgroundPersistent opioid use is common after surgical procedures, and postoperative opioid prescribing often transitions from surgeons to primary care physicians in the months after surgery. It is unknown how surgeons currently transition these patients or the preferred approach to successful coordination of care. This qualitative study aimed to describe transitions of care for postoperative opioid prescribing and identify barriers and facilitators of ideal transitions for potential intervention targets. MethodsWe conducted a qualitative study of surgeons and primary care physicians at a large academic healthcare system using a semi-structured interview guide. Transcripts were independently coded using the Theoretical Domains Framework to identify underlying determinants of physician behaviors. We mapped dominant themes to the Behavior Change Wheel to propose potential interventions targeting these behaiors. ResultsPhysicians were interviewed between July 2017 and December 2017 beyond thematic saturation (n = 20). Surgeons report passive transitions to primary care physicians after ruling out surgical complications, and these patients often bounce back to the surgeon when primary care physicians are uncertain of the cause of ongoing pain. Ideal practices were identified as setting preoperative expectations and engaging in active transition for postoperative opioid prescribing. We identified 3 behavioral targets for multidisciplinary intervention: knowledge (guidelines for coordination of care), barriers (utilizing support staff for active transition), and professional role (incentive for multidisciplinary collaboration). ConclusionThis qualitative study identifies potential interventions aimed at changing physician behaviors regarding transitions of care for postoperative opioid prescribing. Implementation of these interventions could improve coordination of care for patients with persistent postoperative opioid use.