External Expertise Research Articles

The Irish Newspapers and the Residential Property Price Boom

ABSTRACTThere has already been some academic discussion of the role of the Irish newspapers in fuelling the country's residential property boom that crashed in 2008. Several academic commentators have argued that the newspapers intentionally talked up the Irish market because of the conflicts of interest that they faced, particularly arising from advertising and their organisational linkages. This paper argues that these factors have only limited explanatory value, and that the key determinant in the economics sections of the newspapers was their reliance on external expertise to augment their analyses. The article presents quantitative data demonstrating the enormous prevalence of articles written by and citing private-sector economists from organisations with direct stakes in the property market. These commentators were very unlikely to issue unreserved warnings about a crash, and in many cases made unduly positive forecasts with little empirical justification. The article argues that the key fault of the newspapers therefore lay in the failure of management to prevent the tone and coverage of the market from being skewed by external interests. The article contributes to the broader international literature on media bias and the role of external experts.

Implementation Plan in Response to the Board-Endorsed Recommendations for the IEO Evaluation Report-"The IMF and Fragile States"

This management implementation plan (MIP) proposes actions to advance the Board-endorsed recommendations of the IEO evaluation “The IMF and Fragile States.” The actions outlined below would have resource implications. While some can be covered by reallocating resources or are already in the Work Program, others may require temporary funding; a review of staffing allocations to countries in fragile and conflict situations (FCS) might call for new permanent resources. The actions are broad in scope and self-reinforcing in effect if adopted as a package. They include: - Message of high-level commitment: Reflecting the actions of this MIP, a Management statement underscoring a strengthened institutional commitment to support FCS accompanies the MIP for Executive Board and IMFC endorsement. - An effective institutional mechanism: A high-level interdepartmental FCS Committee that reports to and seeks guidance in a formal meeting with management twice a year, will be established. The Committee will be tasked to analyze internal and external coordination issues in FCS and propose new ways tostrengthen engagement. An interdepartmental Technical Taskforce will support the Committee and report on progress in implementing this MIP, including through a Board paper on Review of FCS Engagement at end-2020. - Country engagement strategies: FCS teams will develop country engagement strategies that, drawing on relevant external expertise, will explicitly allow for thesocial and political context and the factors underpinning fragility; and lay the basis for full integration of capacity development (CD) with surveillance and lending. - Providing more sustained financial support: Staff is reviewing the lending toolkit for low-income countries to provide more tailored and flexible support, including for FCS, while ensuring uniformity of treatment. Staff will report on efforts to support FCS with protracted arrears to the Fund in the upcoming reviews of overdue financial obligations. - Practical steps to increase the impact of its CD support: Measures already in train will be complemented by the forthcoming Capacity Development (CD) Strategy Review’s assessment of initiatives to better integrate CD and Surveillance, including in FCS. Staff will also review the experience with provision of statistical and financial CD in FCS. And consideration will be given to establishing a FCS multi-donor trust fund or another suitable financing vehicle to address unmet needs for long-term experts. - Human Resources (HR) issues: The forthcoming phase of the HR Strategy will look into strategic workforce and career planning, including recruitment, and will consider actions to ensure that the Fund has appropriate staff expertise and experience to work effectively in fragile states. This will include the introduction of a “career” playbook that provides incentives for staff to be more responsive to the needs of the Fund in FCS. Adequacy of staffing allocations to FCS missions will be reviewed to ensure evenhanded treatment of the membership. Staff training on FCS will also be stepped up.

Hacking with NPOs

Recently Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are adopting more and more data-driven approaches to their work, yet NPOs often lack appropriate tools and expertise in such data related works. To compensate, many NPOs are using a new form of collaboration, civic data hackathons, to leverage on external volunteers' data expertise. In this paper, we sought to understand how civic data hackathons could generate impactful data analytics for NPOs' data-driven work, and how to support collaborative data analytics during hackathons. We collected various types of data (observations, surveys, and interviews) from two civic data hackathons with 9 NPOs and over 300 data volunteers in a Midwestern city in the U.S. Our results describe the collaboration activities and the types of actionable collaborative analytics outputs generated from these activities. We also identify a unique social group (i.e., client teams), who help with preparing and coordinating the event, perform brokering activities to support the collaborative analytics through the civic data hackathons. This broker role is vital for the success of the collaboration between domain experts and data experts. Our findings contribute to the CSCW research on the collaborative work of interdisciplinary hackathons, and to a broader understanding of civic data collaborations.

Lead Learning: Lessons from Successful Superintendency Teams

This collective case study provides insights into the ways that superintendents lead learning in six highly successful and learning focused school districts. Themes from our cross-case analysis generated five major assertions offered as lessons for superintendency teams: framing leadership research in action, leading learning through superintendency teams, building purposeful professional relationships, accessing external and internal expertise, and travelling the pathways of collaborative leadership learning. Evidence was collected through 23 focus groups and 16 individual interviews. In total, 114 educational leaders participated: 53 principals, 33 central office leaders, and 28 superintendency team leaders. Data from documents, artifacts, field notes, and an online survey were also gathered in pursuit of transferable insights for district leaders practicing in other settings.

Leadership Reflections: Advisory Bodies

ABSTRACTAn important component of librarianship is the connection between a library and its community. Advisory committees or boards are a valuable tools for a leader to manage this connection and provides a leader with external expertise that can make a significant impact on a library community. However, advisory bodies need to be established for specific purposes and require a significant time commitment to ensure that members are contributing in a meaningful way. There are cautions in working with advisory bodies but the benefits of tapping into the potential benefits are worth the time and effort in working with community volunteers.

A systematic review of future research challenges and prospects of organizational learning research in small medium size enterprises

This paper is a systematic review of studies on the implementation of organizational learning (OL) in small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). The review demonstrates the need for a flexible but inclusive approach which accommodates nuances and complexities of SMEs’ dynamic operating environment and multiple stakeholders. Key findings from the study include recognition of the important role of informal and formal learning strategies, the need for a participatory approach towards learning and development of learning networks as part of communities of practices within SME clusters. Practical implications that emerge include the need for E-learning innovations that are relevant for SMEs, importance of context compatibility, the need for inclusive management practices and alignment of external training expertise with SMEs’ life cycle stage. A key research implication that emerges is the need for development of measurement scales to measure the various OL themes. Future research direction opportunities are also identified.

Policy Infusion Through Capacity Building and Project Interaction: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading in China

Capacity-building projects can be a vehicle for fostering policy diffusion. They should not, however, be considered as exclusively externally driven; the receiving jurisdiction’s receptiveness and leverage to steer the design of those projects can be crucial factors, shaping the process of infusing different external policy expertise and experiences into domestic policy design and implementation. This article shows that the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has played a key role in steering the capacity-building efforts of external financiers in the case of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading. The focus here is twofold: analyzing, on the one hand, the interaction among capacity-building projects financed by different external financiers, and on the other, the role that central actors and brokers can play in the complex structure of interacting projects.

Developing a Cultural Protocol for Evaluation

Evaluation is understood to be important for ensuring programs and organisations are effective and relevant. Evaluation findings, however, can be potentially inappropriate or not useful if those who have an in-depth understanding of the context are not involved in guidance, direction or implementation. The Fred Hollows Foundation's Indigenous Australia Program (IAP), with more than half of its employees identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, has developed a cultural protocol for evaluation to strengthen the quality of its program evaluations, whether they are carried out by internal staff or external evaluators. The development of the protocol was initiated after an evaluation capacity building appraisal identified the potential benefits of increased external support to undertake evaluation activities, and the requirement for this external support to be undertaken in a culturally appropriate manner. The protocol was developed by combining IAP's experience and knowledge with contemporary evaluation and research approaches, particularly those developed for use in cross-cultural settings, with the aim of producing a meaningful and locally relevant resource. The protocol aims to assist staff and external evaluators to ensure that evaluation activities are undertaken with the appropriate respect for, and participation of, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals and communities. Consistent with IAP principles, those involved in the process of developing the protocols sought to ensure that engagement between staff, evaluators and evaluation participants occurs in culturally-appropriate ways. IAP believes that the protocol will contribute to stronger evaluation practices, deeper understanding and thus, more useful outcomes. This article describes the process of engaging IAP staff with contextual evidence and the literature around cultural protocols to create a meaningful tool that is useful in our particular context. The process of development described will be useful for: organisations undertaking initiatives that source external evaluators; internal evaluators engaging with external expertise; or evaluators linking with organisations working in a cross-cultural setting.

Making the most of youth development

There is a growing international emphasis on the use of research-based evidence to inform youth program policy, practice and funding priorities, and on involving young people as subjects and actors in gathering this evidence. Youth development organisations and programs increasingly are expected to engage in research that informs their program development and illustrates their effectiveness. Research partnerships that provide community access to external research expertise are one way by which youth organisations and programs can strengthen their internal research capacity. This article explores the youth-inclusive community–university partnership underpinning the Queensland Youth Development Research Project, and examines some of the multifaceted methodological and ethical dimensions of this approach across three dimensions of research: planning, doing and finishing. Successful youth-inclusive research requires paying attention to the diversity of challenges characteristic of youth research. These challenges, influenced by the complexity of child, young adult and older adult relationships, highlight the fundamental importance of understanding how power is expressed and mediated in youth research. Overall, the article argues that youth-inclusive research can be shaped to bring broader benefits to research, scholars, young people and the wider community beyond the aim of simply improving the research process itself.

NCI Breast Cancer Steering Committee Working Group (WG) report on meaningful and appropriate endpoints for clinical trials (CT) in metastatic breast cancer (MBC).

1073 Background: There is significant heterogeneity in the natural history of MBC. Several recent randomized CT have yielded statistically significant advantages for the experimental arm, but neither led to regulatory approval nor practice change. Formal guidance for industry on CT endpoints provided by the US FDA in 2007 was not disease-specific. Patient-focused drug development is mandated by Prescription Drug User Fee Act V. Our WG sought to create specific consensus on endpoints for MBC CT focusing on subtype and line of therapy, with sensitivity to various stakeholders. Methods: A WG composed of medical oncologists, statisticians, advocates, FDA and NCI liaisons performed a systematic literature review of MBC natural history, CT endpoints by subtype (HR+/HER2-, HR+/HER+, HR-/HER2-, HR-/HER2+), and line of therapy (n = 146 papers). External expertise was obtained on industry perspectives, big data and real world evidence (RWE), and patient reported outcomes (PROs). WG members voted anonymously on statements and positions generated from deliberation. Results: The WG reached consensus on definitions relevant to contemporary CT endpoints. WG recommendations on the appropriate choice of OS or PFS are sensitive to expected post progression survival (PPS), and proportional and absolute gains. Currently, for HR-/HER2- MBC, OS is preferred as the optimal primary endpoint regardless of line of therapy; PFS is preferred in settings where expected PPS is longer. Toxicity can outweigh modest gains in PFS; scant data exist to gauge how patients value PFS gain vs toxicity. Where new agents may prolong PFS without impacting OS, exploring/validating graphic approaches that capture grade and timing of toxicity and PROs is warranted. An overview of WG Consensus Statements will be presented in detail. Conclusions: CT design for MBC should be sensitive to natural history (PPS), availability of other effective agents, PROs and toxicity burden. As unique subtypes (e.g. AR+) and novel therapies (e.g. immunotherapy) emerge, reassessment of relevant benchmarks is indicated. Rigorous big data approaches providing insights from RWE may inform CT endpoints in the future.

Open Region: Creating and exploiting opportunities for innovation at the regional scale

The starting point of the article is the observation of an increasing convergence of regional development and innovation policies. These policies are heavily influenced by territorial innovation models that have been extensively revised since they first came about over 30 years ago. Yet, more recent trends towards digitalisation and conceptual advances towards a time-spatial perspective on innovation processes require a more fundamental re-thinking of the nexus of development, innovation policies and territoriality. This paper therefore aims to advance an agenda for reconceptualising region-based innovation policies beyond the assumptions of territoriality implicit in territorial innovations models and related policy schemes. “Open Region” is a heuristic way of thinking about proactive policy measures for redesigning the dialectic interplay between territorial openness and closure. These measures, in essence, aim at creating and exploiting opportunities for innovation within a region by mobilising external expertise and establishing local anchors for innovation. Finally, we address the limitations of applicability and discuss incentives for regional actors to embark on Open Region strategies. The suggested measures can work together, yet it is also possible to utilise them in an eclectic manner or to selectively recombine them in order to address different local conditions.

Water system hardware and management rehabilitation: Qualitative evidence from Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia.

Sufficient, safe, continuously available drinking water is important for human health and development, yet one in three handpumps in sub-Saharan Africa are non-functional at any given time. Community management, coupled with access to external technical expertise and spare parts, is a widely promoted model for rural water supply management. However, there is limited evidence describing how community management can address common hardware and management failures of rural water systems in sub-Saharan Africa. We identified hardware and management rehabilitation pathways using qualitative data from 267 interviews and 57 focus group discussions in Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia. Study participants were water committee members, community members, and local leaders in 18 communities (six in each study country) with water systems managed by a water committee and supported by World Vision (WV), an international non-governmental organization (NGO). Government, WV or private sector employees engaged in supporting the water systems were also interviewed. Inductive analysis was used to allow for pathways to emerge from the data, based on the perspectives and experiences of study participants. Four hardware rehabilitation pathways were identified, based on the types of support used in rehabilitation. Types of support were differentiated as community or external. External support includes financial and/or technical support from government or WV employees. Community actor understanding of who to contact when a hardware breakdown occurs and easy access to technical experts were consistent reasons for rapid rehabilitation for all hardware rehabilitation pathways. Three management rehabilitation pathways were identified. All require the involvement of community leaders and were best carried out when the action was participatory. The rehabilitation pathways show how available resources can be leveraged to restore hardware breakdowns and management failures for rural water systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Governments, NGOs, and private sector actors can better build capacity of community actors by focusing on their role in rehabilitating hardware and management and to ensure that they are able to quickly contact external support actors when needed for rehabilitation. Using qualitative and participatory methods allows for insight into rapid rehabilitation of hardware and management.

A decision support system based on multisensor data fusion for sustainable greenhouse management

The sustainable exploitation of natural resources is nowadays an important challenge for governments and institutions, considering the expected increase of the world population. In order to respond to this emergent criticality, the principles of green economy have been introduced in the European policy discussion to achieve a good compromise between the sustainability and the profitability of productions by increasing the efficiency of farming operations. Such approach poses some technical and financial challenges for small-sized enterprises because they generally do not possess adequate internal knowledge, nor they can acquire external expertise due to their budget restrictions. Decision Support Systems (DSS) can be an effective solution to overcome such difficulties, since they can involve experts’ knowledge and complex mathematical elaborations on contextual data, thus helping managers in taking more effective decisions. Based on these motivations, the paper proposes a methodological approach to the development of a DSS in the specific context of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) applied to intensive (greenhouse) production, and an experimental validation based on real data. The DSS involves a rule-based decision approach based on referenced mathematical models applied to the information gathered by a sensor network. The multi sensor decision fusion methodology proposed represents an innovative contribution to the literature and an easy-to use and low cost solution to reduce the use of pesticides and fertilizers in protected crops.

CHALLENGES OF IMPORT LOGISTICS OUTSOURCING BY MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN NAIROBI COUNTY

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate challenges of import logistics outsourcing by manufacturing firms in Nairobi CountyMethodology: The research design of this study was a sample survey of the importers in the manufacturing industry as per the Kenya Association of Manufacturers. The total population of the companies in the manufacturing industry in Nairobi was 455 manufacturing firms. Primary data was collected via self-administered questionnaires with both open ended and closed questions that were designed to elicit specific responses for qualitative and quantitative analysis respectively. The data was analyzed by use of descriptive statistics.Results: The results indicated that the important reasons of outsourcing were satisfactory in explaining the decision by manufacturing companies to outsource. The reasons of outsourcing are a key determinant in deciding to outsource import logistics. The extent of challenges the importers face when importing services also determined the decision to outsource in the firms.Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study recommends that the manufacturing firms should put more focus on core business functions and ensure reduction of overhead costs. They should take advantage of external expertise and experience and put measures to improve internal capabilities and expertise. The firms should reduce the total overall costs and where third party logistics providers provide a better service contract them. They should also emphasize on improved customer focus put measures to enable them compete effectively in the market.

CHALLENGES OF IMPORT LOGISTICS OUTSOURCING BY MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN NAIROBI COUNTY

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate challenges of import logistics outsourcing by manufacturing firms in Nairobi CountyMethodology: The research design of this study was a sample survey of the importers in the manufacturing industry as per the Kenya Association of Manufacturers. The total population of the companies in the manufacturing industry in Nairobi was 455 manufacturing firms. Primary data was collected via self-administered questionnaires with both open ended and closed questions that were designed to elicit specific responses for qualitative and quantitative analysis respectively. The data was analyzed by use of descriptive statistics.Results: The results indicated that the important reasons of outsourcing were satisfactory in explaining the decision by manufacturing companies to outsource. The reasons of outsourcing are a key determinant in deciding to outsource import logistics. The extent of challenges the importers face when importing services also determined the decision to outsource in the firms.Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study recommends that the manufacturing firms should put more focus on core business functions and ensure reduction of overhead costs. They should take advantage of external expertise and experience and put measures to improve internal capabilities and expertise. The firms should reduce the total overall costs and where third party logistics providers provide a better service contract them. They should also emphasize on improved customer focus put measures to enable them compete effectively in the market.

From regime protection to urban resilience? Assessing continuity and change in transnational security governance rationales in Guatemala

This article analyzes changing forms of transnational security governance and security expertise in Guatemala. It is argued that the dynamics of transnational security governance in Guatemala are directly related to the local appropriation of knowledge promoted by external security experts. As an expertise-based form of “intervention by invitation,” local political and economic elites engage in securitization strategies in order to invite external experts to intervene. In turn, through their intervention these experts provide resources that are “captured” and exploited by local actors to pursue their own interests. As a consequence, transnational security governance fails as it deviates from the original plans and programs experts try to implement. The analysis of these processes sheds light on how and why failure in the context of transnational security governance is productive. Failure, we argue, triggers a self-reinforcing interventionary feedback loop that aims at “fixing” the shortcomings of previous interventions by mobilizing new forms of external security expertise. In tracing the dynamics of this interventionary feedback loop over time, this article contributes to understanding of the role of experts and policy failure in the (re)making of transnational security governance.

External Expertise in EU Policy-Making: The Quest for Transparency

External expertise plays an important role in European Union (EU) policymaking. In an increasingly complex multi-tiered environment, EU policymakers are requested to provide timely responses on a variety of issues in which several interests are at stake. External expertise provides the EU institutions with a way to address these issues efficiently and build political consensus.Attempts to regulate the role of external expertise in EU policymaking date back as far as the early 2000s, when the European Commission released the first guidelines for the use of expertise and advice in policymaking. In 2005 a register of expert groups was established. By June 2016, a total of 27 199 members were recorded on that register. These members made up 820 'Commission expert groups'.The role of experts and external advisers in EU policymaking remains controversial. Concerns include the neutrality, transparency and balance of external expertise. Following a 2014 European Ombudsman investigation, the European Commission announced that a revised register of expert groups would be operational by the first quarter of 2016. Revised rules for the expert groups were adopted at the end of May 2016. Further changes have been introduced by the Interinstitutional Agreement on Better Law-Making between the European Parliament, Council and Commission. The own-initiative report being drafted by the Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control may also influence the way the system evolves.

Desiring the data state in the Indus Basin

The distribution of water between co-riparian regions in the Indus Basin has been an extremely contentious issue since at least the early 20th century. The reliability of water measurements, in particular, has caused much controversy at multiple scales. This hydropolitical tension has catalysed a key social group – the hydraulic bureaucracy or ‘hydrocracy’ – to enact strategies of depoliticisation. These strategies aim to suppress political contest by calling on external expertise and/or technology to assure the objectivity of water measurement data. This paper draws on archival data and interviews with water engineers to argue that technocratic depoliticisation operates in distinct but related ways at different scales. Further, I argue that to analyse the technocratic desire for a data state – a state that governs primarily or exclusively by number and calculation – a multi-scalar theoretical framework that connects the politics of technocracy, territory and nationalism is needed. The paper develops such a framework by situating hydrocrats and their strategies in the broader context of state formation. This framework is offered as a way for critical scholars of resources, development and expertise to engage with depoliticisation and repoliticisation of resource governance as complex geographic processes.

Corporate Rebranding: An Employee-Focused Nonprofit Case Study

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this paper was to examine the process by which a nonprofit organization conducted corporate rebranding and to assess the relevance of the principles of corporate rebranding originally developed by Merrilees and Miller (2008) in relation to for-profit organizations. A community-owned nonprofit organization that recently introduced corporate rebranding was examined. Semistructured in-depth interviews with employees from all organizational levels explored the rebranding process and employee feelings toward the process. Findings revealed that, while ultimately successful, rebranding did not progress smoothly. Problems related to initial management attempts to utilize minimal external expertise and to low levels of employee involvement and buy in. Findings suggest that all six principles of corporate rebranding proposed by Merrilees and Miller (2008) should be used by management as a guide to increase efficiency of the rebranding process and extends these principles to a nonprofit context. The paper also pioneers examination of corporate rebranding from a change management perspective.

Implementing Knowledge Translation Strategies in Funded Research in Canada and Australia: A Case Study

There is an emerging literature describing the use of knowledge translation strategies to increase the relevance and usability of research, yet there are few real-world examples of how this works in practice. This case study reports on the steps taken to embed knowledge translation strategies in the Movember Foundation's Men’s Mental Health Grant Rounds in 2013–14, which were implemented in Australia and Canada, and on the support provided to the applicants in developing their knowledge translation plans. It identifies the challenges faced by the Men’s Mental Health Program Team and how these were resolved. The strategies explored include articulating knowledge translation requirements, ensuring a common understanding of knowledge translation, assessing knowledge translation plans, methods of engaging end users, and building capacity with applicants. An iterative approach to facilitating knowledge translation planning within project development was rolled out in Australia just prior to Canada so that lessons learned were immediately available to refine the second roll out. Implementation included the use of external knowledge translation expertise, the development of knowledge translation plans, and the need for internal infrastructure to support monitoring and reporting. Differences in the Australian and Canadian contexts may point to differential exposure to the concepts and practices of knowledge translation. This case study details an example of designing and implementing an integrated knowledge translation strategy that moves beyond traditional dissemination models. Lessons learned point to the importance of a long lead-up time, the use of knowledge translation expertise for capacity building, the need for flexible implementation, and the need for efficiencies in supporting applicants. Having knowledge but lacking the power to express it clearly is no better than never having any ideas at all. Pericles (495–429 BC) General, statesman, and orator