Informal Partnerships Research Articles

The coexistence of tourism and mining: a strategic framework for cross-sectoral interaction

The tourism and resources sectors are often observed to come into conflict. Yet little research has examined the complex interactions between the two sectors, specifically the strategies for building resilient rural regions. Consequently, this research explores the coexistence of the tourism and resources sectors in the Gladstone and Roma regions in Queensland, Australia. A total of 78 in-depth interviews revealed a complex network of interactions between the tourism and resource sectors, outlining deficiencies in previous theoretical premises on sectoral interaction. Key findings revealed three key synergies including resources sector investment, resources sector multipliers and induced travel, and formal and informal partnerships. Strategies to enhance the coexistence also emerged focused on reducing the negative impacts of the co-evolution process, improving industrial tourism products and developing trust, partnerships and a joint vision between the two sectors. A theoretically informed management framework for future interaction is subsequently proposed for testing and application in other contexts.

Integrated watershed management and Ontario’s conservation authorities

In Ontario, integrated watershed management has evolved into a fragmented, multi-agency environment that has made effective management difficult. In the 1990s, two approaches emerged – a local voluntary approach based on informal agency partnerships, and a regulatory approach established in provincial legislation. This paper describes the successes, challenges and lessons learned by drawing upon the experiences of Ontario’s conservation authorities. Key lessons learned include the need for an interactive planning cycle and a multi-stakeholder decision-making process. While significant progress has been made in the practical application of integrated watershed management, significant challenges remain including the lack of a comprehensive policy and inadequate resources.

Highlights from the Ocean Sciences Session: “Impacting Policy by Communicating and Incorporating Ocean Science Through Ecosystem‐Based Management”

Highlights from the Ocean Sciences Session: “Impacting Policy by Communicating and Incorporating Ocean Science Through Ecosystem‐Based Management”

Finding effective pathways to sustainable mobility: bridging the science–policy gap

ABSTRACTThis overview paper examines three areas crucial to understanding why, despite clear scientific evidence for the growing environmental impacts of tourism transport, there is large-scale inertia in structural transitions and a lack of political will to enact meaningful sustainable mobility policies. These include the importance of addressing socio-technical factors, barriers posed by “technology myths” and the need to overcome “transport taboos” in policy-making. The paper seeks pathways to sustainable mobility by bridging the science–policy gap between academic research and researchers, and policy-makers and practitioners. It introduces key papers presented at the Freiburg 2014 workshop, covering the case for researcher engagement using advocacy and participatory approaches, the role of universities in creating their own social mobility policies, the power of social mechanisms encouraging long-haul travel, issues in consumer responsibility development, industry self-regulation and the operation of realpolitik decision-making and implementation inside formal and informal destination-based mobility partnerships. Overall, the paper argues that governments and the tourism and transport industries must take a more cautious approach to the technological optimism that fosters policy inertia, and that policy-makers must take a more open approach to implementing sustainable transport policies. A research agenda for desirable transport futures is suggested.

Transition management towards sustainable mobility in Alpine destinations: realities and realpolitik in Italy's South Tyrol region

ABSTRACTSustainable mobility, including public transport and human-powered slow mobility is a priority for the sustainable development of tourism destinations, but it is a complex challenge to devise, implement and manage. This paper explores the mechanisms and conditions governing transition towards sustainable mobility in destinations, using a complexity-based approach. Destinations are understood as complex adaptive systems where social-ecological, socio-technical and socio-political subsystems interact dynamically with the tourism subsystem. These subsystems are interwoven and undergo significant, and inter-related, changes during transition towards more sustainable mobility. Three examples from the tourism intensive Alpine destination of South Tyrol (Italy) illustrate subsystem interactions during the transition process. Key player interview-based qualitative research indicates that the complexity of transition management is rooted particularly in the paired presence of risk aversion among local stakeholders and the unpredictability of visitor flows. Mitigating risk aversion through collective knowledge creation and offering answers to unpredictability by developing a strong adaptive and (re)organisation capacity seem to be required to adjust sustainable mobility solutions to continuous market changes, to convince stakeholders and to guarantee incremental and durable success. The public sector's special role is noted, as are the time demands of transition management, and the value of both formal and informal partnerships.

A State-Level Analysis of Maternal and Child Health Partnerships among Indiana Local Health Departments

Background: As one of many organizations within a system of networks, numerous U.S. local health departments (LHDs) use partnerships as a structural intervention to address physical, mental, social concerns of women and infants. Purpose: This state level study examines current levels of maternal and child partnerships among Indiana LHDs and sectors in the public health system. Geography and organizational readiness (infant mortality listed as a goal in the strategic plan) were used as proxy measures to examine how likely LHDs work with these sectors. Methods: An eighteen-item online survey was administered to 93 LHDs collected between March and June 2014. Descriptive and Pearson Chi-Square analyses were conducted using SPSS 23.0. Results: LHDs reported having more formal (coordinating, cooperating, collaborating) partnerships with hospitals, the state health department, and physician practices/medical groups. LHDs less frequently reported partnerships with transportation, midwives, and parks and recreation. Furthermore, LHDs in nonmetropolitan LHDs were more likely to have both informal and formal partnerships with non-public health sectors than LHDs in metropolitan jurisdictions. LHDs that did not have infant mortality as a goal in their strategic plan were more likely to have informal partnerships with health care, health insurance, and quasigovernmental organizations. Implications: This study presents opportunities to further explore the influence of contextual and functional characteristics in existing LHD partnerships that focus on women and infants.

Entrepreneurial firms in traditional industries. Does innovation matter for international growth?

This research analyzes the impact of innovation in the internationalization process of small-medium enterprises in traditional Italian industries. Particular attention is paid to the role played by the typologies and sources of innovation in export performance, in order to detect which innovation drivers mostly impact on the export activity of Italian traditional small-medium enterprises. An exploratory investigation followed by an inferential analysis based on a sample of small and medium enterprises is developed in this study. The analysis highlights the positive impact of design innovation for these firms in their internationalization process, while other typologies of innovation do not play a significant role. Among the sources of innovation, our findings highlight important differences with literature findings for other types of firms. For example, among external sources of innovation, both formal and informal partnerships are not significant. This is also holds for some internal sources, like research and development, which usually play a major role in other firms. The findings seem to suggest that small firms in traditional industries follow different innovation logics in relation to their international growth opportunities.

Da pedagogia à política e da política à pedagogia: uma abordagem sobre a construção de políticas públicas em educação ambiental no Brasil

A educação ambiental brasileira demonstra uma evolução que se reflete no nível de organização da mesma dentro do país, passando de um contexto de ações pontuais espacial e temporalmente, para o estabelecimento de parcerias não formais (redes) e organização de projetos e programas. Considera-se aqui, no entanto, que é necessário que se produza um novo momento, no qual as diversas iniciativas desenvolvidas consigam instigar, em seu território, a consolidação de políticas públicas de educação ambiental. O presente trabalho aproxima a educação ambiental das teorias de políticas públicas e propõe um modelo que visa colaborar com a construção de políticas públicas em educação ambiental a partir do viés da participação e do diálogo, conforme sugerem vários documentos da educação ambiental brasileira e internacional.

Implementation of collaborative governance in cross-sector innovation and education networks: evidence from the National Health Service in England.

BackgroundIncreasingly, health policy-makers and managers all over the world look for alternative forms of organisation and governance in order to add more value and quality to their health systems. In recent years, the central government in England mandated several cross-sector health initiatives based on collaborative governance arrangements. However, there is little empirical evidence that examines local implementation responses to such centrally-mandated collaborations.MethodsData from the national study of Health Innovation and Education Clusters (HIECs) are used to provide comprehensive empirical evidence about the implementation of collaborative governance arrangements in cross-sector health networks in England. The study employed a mixed-methods approach, integrating both quantitative and qualitative data from a national survey of the entire population of HIEC directors (N = 17; response rate = 100%), a group discussion with 7 HIEC directors, and 15 in-depth interviews with HIEC directors and chairs.ResultsThe study provides a description and analysis of local implementation responses to the central government mandate to establish HIECs. The latter represent cross-sector health networks characterised by a vague mandate with the provision of a small amount of new resources. Our findings indicate that in the case of HIECs such a mandate resulted in the creation of rather fluid and informal partnerships, which over the period of three years made partial-to-full progress on governance activities and, in most cases, did not become self-sustaining without government funding.ConclusionThis study has produced valuable insights into the implementation responses in HIECs and possibly other cross-sector collaborations characterised by a vague mandate with the provision of a small amount of new resources. There is little evidence that local dominant coalitions appropriated the central HIEC mandate to their own ends. On the other hand, there is evidence of interpretation and implementation of the central mandate by HIEC leaders to serve their local needs. These findings augur well for Academic Health Science Networks, which pick up the mantle of large-scale, cross-sector collaborations for health and innovation. This study also highlights that a supportive policy environment and sufficient time would be crucial to the successful implementation of new cross-sector health collaborations.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-014-0552-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Role of Culture in Leaders Leading

Leadership today and in the foreseeable future consists of multiple relationships, a variety of partnering with each having its distinct characteristics: unique demands, values, and tensions. In many organizations, such informal partnerships based on converging ideas would have been considered disruptive of the basic power structure, illegitimate given the chain of command and initiatives made a commitment to the strategic objectives or culture of the organization. National culture influencing choice of leadership style. Leadership in organizations has a specific focus on managerial leadership in organizations and must be an attempt at bridging the gulf between culture and management. Leading by culture are making work, productions and projects which show different ways of thinking, feeling and experiencing the world - bringing dynamism to the economy and wider society. In this paper, we have tried to describe leadership and culture. And explain the leading in content of culture. For this purpose, we have expressed leadership component and culture components and the role of culture in leaders leading.

Using Social Network Analysis to Evaluate Health-Related Adaptation Decision-Making in Cambodia

Climate change adaptation in the health sector requires decisions across sectors, levels of government, and organisations. The networks that link these different institutions, and the relationships among people within these networks, are therefore critical influences on the nature of adaptive responses to climate change in the health sector. This study uses social network research to identify key organisational players engaged in developing health-related adaptation activities in Cambodia. It finds that strong partnerships are reported as developing across sectors and different types of organisations in relation to the health risks from climate change. Government ministries are influential organisations, whereas donors, development banks and non-government organisations do not appear to be as influential in the development of adaptation policy in the health sector. Finally, the study highlights the importance of informal partnerships (or ‘shadow networks’) in the context of climate change adaptation policy and activities. The health governance ‘map’ in relation to health and climate change adaptation that is developed in this paper is a novel way of identifying organisations that are perceived as key agents in the decision-making process, and it holds substantial benefits for both understanding and intervening in a broad range of climate change-related policy problems where collaboration is paramount for successful outcomes.

Settling In: A Comparison of Local Immigrant Organizations in the United States and Canada

This article examines the effects of national policies and institutional contexts on local immigrant organizations in US and Canadian cities. Drawing on Goldberg and Mercer’s comparative framework, the analysis traces the impacts of three factors on immigrant settlement organizations: divergent national immigration and integration policies, subnational roles, and traditions and understandings of racial and ethnic diversity. Drawing on case studies of Ottawa, Ontario, and Newark, New Jersey, the article illustrates two quite different settlement sectors. A professionalized and federally funded set of non-governmental organizations in Ottawa provides an array of settlement services to newcomers, whereas the Newark sector includes a wide range of organizations from volunteer to professionally run, which carry out activities ranging from legal and political activism to service provision. Formal and informal partnerships mark Ottawa’s settlement sector, whereas collaboration is infrequent and ad hoc in Newark. In Ottawa, a politics of bureaucratic consultation with diverse groups contrasts with a competitive electoral race-based politics in Newark. This study suggests that divergence marks Canadian and American cities at least in the policy arena of immigrant settlement.

What Would Your Parents Say? The Impact of Cohabitation Among Young People on Their Relationships with Their Parents

Most European countries have seen a retreat from marriage, which is increasingly preceded or replaced by cohabitation. A question that arises in light of this trend is how the diffusion of non-marital cohabitation may affect the quality of family relations. This article investigates how cohabitation among young people affects their level of satisfaction with their relationship with their parents. We analyse data from the recently released Generation and Gender Survey for Poland, a country with a limited degree of social acceptance of cohabitation, a high degree of attachment to the institution of marriage, and a familialistic culture. Since young adults who choose to cohabit are a rather specific group, we use statistical methods that allow us to control for both the observed and the unobserved characteristics of cohabiters. We find that young people who cohabited in their first union rated their level of satisfaction with their parental relationship lower than their peers who were married. Thus, at least in the context of a country where informal partnerships are not yet fully socially accepted or institutionally supported, the role of cohabitation in intergenerational relations may not be neutral.

Senior Managers’ Perspectives of Leading and Managing Effective, Sustainable and Successful Partnerships

Formal and informal partnerships have become key features of education policy and practice in many countries and managing such collaborative arrangements is an important dimension of the role(s) of leaders of educational organizations. Recent research has shown both the tensions and conflict that can develop in partnerships as well as the opportunities and benefits of partnership working for organizations and individuals. This article focuses on the characteristics of partnerships that contribute to their effectiveness, sustainability and success, filling a gap in the literature on educational partnerships. The research data emanate from a qualitative study of partnership working in England. The study used a grounded approach and inductively linked characteristics of partnerships found in the partnership literature with empirical data from a case study of a sub-regional partnership of education and training organizations. This combined evidence is used to conceptualize partnership as a continuum of weak to strong forms of partnership and to develop a table of characteristics which underpin such partnerships. The findings reveal the extent to which trust, networks, norms and values support effective, sustained and successful partnerships. These characteristics are differentiated and may fluctuate during the lifecourse of a partnership but remain fundamental features of partnership working and significantly contribute to the strength and effectiveness of partnerships.

Evaluation of partnership working in cities in phase IV of the WHO Healthy Cities Network.

An intersectoral partnership for health improvement is a requirement of the WHO European Healthy Cities Network of municipalities. A review was undertaken in 59 cities based on responses to a structured questionnaire covering phase IV of the network (2003-2008). Cities usually combined formal and informal working partnerships in a pattern seen in previous phases. However, these encompassed more sectors than previously and achieved greater degrees of collaborative planning and implementation. Additional WHO technical support and networking in phase IV significantly enhanced collaboration with the urban planning sector. Critical success factors were high-level political commitment and a well-organized Healthy City office. Partnerships remain a successful component of Healthy City working. The core principles, purpose and intellectual rationale for intersectoral partnerships remain valid and fit for purpose. This applied to long-established phase III cities as well as newcomers to phase IV. The network, and in particular the WHO brand, is well regarded and encourages political and organizational engagement and is a source of support and technical expertise. A key challenge is to apply a more rigorous analytical framework and theory-informed approach to reviewing partnership and collaboration parameters.

From carats to karats: explaining the shift from diamond to gold mining by artisanal miners in Ghana

Over the course of the past half-decade, artisanal miners in Ghana’s major alluvial diamond fields of Akwatia have shifted to gold mining or a combination of gold and diamond mining. What accounts for such an unprecedented transition in the country’s artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector? Drawing upon in-person interviews and observations conducted in Ghana’s mining regions, the article identifies two primary explanatory factors for this shift. First, the cessation of large-scale diamond mining in the country has witnessed the transformation of Akwatia’s small-scale diamond miners into small-scale gold miners. Second, the temporary ban upon Ghanaian exports of diamonds in late-2006 and the implementation of more stringent production and export regulations under the auspices of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme have increased the costs of small-scale diamond mining. Moreover, several abetting factors such as favourable geological terrain, the increasing number of informal partnerships struck among customary land owners and illegal artisanal miners, soaring gold prices, and the rising input costs of diamond mining have accelerated this change in Ghana’s artisanal small-scale mining sector. Unable to obtain alternative employment, artisanal miners have successfully adapted to the changes in the regulatory and economic environments and, in doing so, have set in motion self-sustaining dynamics that have significantly transformed the political economy of mining in Ghana. Specifically, the changing patterns of mining have resulted in an increased use of mercury by artisanal workers and concomitant environmental degradation; the weakening of the regulatory framework of the Kimberley Process that oversees diamond mining in Ghana; the modest recovery of the livelihoods of mining communities; an increase in the net migration into the mineral-rich region of Akwatia; and the development of innovative artisanal mining technologies.

Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects. Management, Partnerships and Effects in the Netherlands and the UK

Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects. Management, Partnerships and Effects in the Netherlands and the UK

Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects. Management, Partnerships and Effects in the Netherlands and the UK

Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects. Management, Partnerships and Effects in the Netherlands and the UK

Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects. Management, Partnerships and Effects in the Netherlands and the UK

Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects. Management, Partnerships and Effects in the Netherlands and the UK

Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects. Management, Partnerships and Effects in the Netherlands and the UK

Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects. Management, Partnerships and Effects in the Netherlands and the UK