Interorganizational Partnerships Research Articles

Роль ресурсного подхода к стратегическому управлению организацией в условиях межорганизационного взаимодействия

With the development of integration approaches in business, including international, there is a need for a reasonable choice of approach to strategic management of an organization in the context of inter-organizational interaction, analysis of their role in ensuring and increasing the competitiveness of its participants. The relevance of the study of the role and significance of the resource approach is determined by the fact that, firstly, the current conditions for the intensification of crisis phenomena in the economy generate the need to develop partnerships between economic entities, as well as the use of various models of their business cooperation; secondly, the limited availability of resources necessary for normal functioning activates and directs the search for opportunities to obtain complementary resources and achieve balance of business interests of several organizations in the distribution of rights and responsibilities of joint activities. The complexity of applying a resource approach to the strategic management of an organization in the context of using the potential of inter-firm partnership is due not only to the possibility of obtaining unique complementary resources, but also to the need to apply (form, transform, develop) relevant professional competencies that represent a key organizational value. The role and features of the resource approach to strategic management of the organization in the conditions of interorganizational interaction are determined. To determine its advantages and disadvantages, the reasons for choosing and rejecting it, the factors and principles of successful application allowed general scientific (methods of theoretical cognition and empirical research, general logical research techniques) and special methods, as well as methods of systemic, dialectical and dialogical approaches. The study of the strategic potential of the organization – the totality of the available resources and capabilities of the organization (as sources of competitive advantages) – for the development and implementation of the strategy through the prism of inter-organizational partnership with the help of the methods outlined above solves one of the central problems of management, contributes to the substantiation of the significance of the analysis of the role of the resource approach and the development of the resource portfolio.

Leading Resilient, Purpose-Oriented Networks Through Change

Background: Conveners are crucial in coordinating interorganizational partnerships, particularly purpose-oriented networks. However, their roles may shift from initially recruiting organizational partners to overseeing and sustaining a network through periods of change. Extensive research has focused extensively on these early stages of the interorganizational venture, but less scholarship has focused on how conveners respond to critical changes over time and the implications of convener actions in sustaining resilient networks. Purpose: This research explores the convener’s role in purpose-oriented network formation and change management and offers implications for creating resilient purpose-oriented networks. Research Design: The study conducts qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with cross-sector, purpose-oriented networks at two points in time to explore how conveners organize networks and respond to change. Study Sample: This study draws on two waves of interview data collected from the conveners of 26 cross-sector collaborative networks focused on education reform in the United States. Data Collection and/or Analysis: Interviews with conveners of 26 networks were analyzed through attribute and provisional coding to study the network’s composition and activity, perceptions of the problem and reasons for network. A second round of interviews was later collected and analyzed to explore what changes emerged after a network’s initial convening and how conveners responded to those changes through provisional and magnitude coding. Results: Findings reveal different magnitudes of change experienced by the networks (e.g., incremental, radical, and in-between) that influenced convener responses to those changes. Additionally, networks were found to have two founding orientations: problem- and solution-oriented. Networks founded with a problem orientation were more resilient than those founded with a solution orientation, partly because of the repertoire of activities in which their conveners engaged. Conclusions: Conveners play a critical role both in founding purpose-oriented networks and in leading them through change. This study suggests the concept of founding orientations to explore the different frames purpose-oriented networks may adopt and offer insights as to how those orientations influence network reactions to change. Findings pertaining to founding orientation, network change, and convener response offer theoretical and practical implications for building resilient networks.

Modeling Partners’ Behavior in Long-Lasting B2B Supply Chain Relationships

Companies have strengthened their long-term inter-organizational partnerships throughout the supply chain to neutralize competitive pressures and risks in uncertain environments. On this basis, this research aims to propose and test a model of partners’ behavior aimed at the maintenance of long-term collaboration. By using confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and rival model testing, the theoretical model proposed attempts to identify, from a seller’s perspective, the critical variables of partners’ behavior. It also seeks to understand the effect of satisfaction between trust and commitment (as antecedents associated with relationship quality) and sales formalization, sales opportunism, and sales-specific assets (as postcendents linked to relationship efficiency). Our findings verify the nomological framework and demonstrate that the partnership quality variables affect relationship efficiency, through sales satisfaction. However, the results of our research cannot confirm the relationship between satisfaction and specific assets. This research is relevant as it deals with inter-organizational partnerships from a seller-oriented approach, and it is based on a combination of Relationship Marketing Theory and Transaction Cost Theory to demonstrate that the inter-organizational partnership quality variables exert a direct effect on the partnership efficiency variables.

Promotional campaigns in the agri-food sector aimed at reducing meat consumption: A promising leverage for action

Promotional campaigns, usually characterized by inter-organizational partnerships focused on food distribution or restaurant services, aim to increase awareness about various benefits of responsible consumption. This is particularly important for the rural population which is frequently involved in the sectors of economy linked to farming and food distribution. In this context, the objective of this study is to identify the promotional campaigns aimed at reducing meat consumption implemented in many Western countries. A scoping review was conducted to document the characteristics, facilitating factors and challenges of such promotional campaigns. The literature search led to the identification of a total of 25 initiatives that were gathered in a typology involving four types of campaigns: “Meatless Days” movements, contests that recognize companies with vegetarian alternatives, industry development-focused programs, and restaurant referral programs for vegetarian options. The study highlighted that the most impactful campaigns are the "Meatless Day" movements and referral programs. The results of this research are useful to develop and implement durable promotional campaigns aimed at reducing meat consumption.

Strategic investments in entrepreneurial brand ventures by large incumbents

PurposeConsumer product firms renowned for marketing appear to be complementing brand creation, extension and acquisition with minority equity investments in entrepreneurial brand ventures (EBVs) for strategic purposes. Similarly, EBVs are looking for growth and resources that can be accessed via inter-organizational partnerships. This flourishing industry practice and the paucity of empirical research indicates the potential for new studies. The research objective was to examine why and how large incumbents were implementing strategic brand venturing (SBV), and with this understanding to develop a framework useful for descriptive and normative purposes.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative research study comprised in-depth interviews and multiple data sources across seven case studies drawn from US subsidiaries of global firms within the consumer products industry. Grounded in resource theory, the dimensions of strategic brand equity investments are abductively derived.FindingsThe findings delineate 16 process capabilities within four aggregate clusters entailing, the designing of the SBV program, opportunity identification, brand entrepreneur partnerships and venture portfolio management. Prefaced by endogenous and exogenous antecedents, these process capabilities help to contribute strategic and financial value when implemented.Research limitations/implicationsThis qualitative research study yielded analytical rather than statistical generalizations. A range of market and economic factors exist in the United States contributing towards a favorable entrepreneurial and brand incubation climate. This may render the SBV concept as contingent and contextual. Furthermore, the view of brand entrepreneurs' regarding the design of the process model were not explicitly sought but inferred from the discourses of the venturing units interviewed.Practical implicationsThe article outlines several important implementation imperatives for corporations endeavoring to competitively advantage their brand portfolios via adoption of a minority equity investing strategy in EBVs. Practitioners are cautioned against myopically adopting this process alone as a success heuristic given other factors may impact success such as changes in corporate strategy or upper echelon sponsorship.Social implicationsMission preservation for social brand ventures being tethered to a large incumbent may need to be taken into account prior to and during SBV relationships.Originality/valueThe research contributes to the call for greater insights into the investment processes used in venturing relationships as well as coverage of new industry sectors beyond technology industries that often characterize corporate venture capital studies. Several novel findings emerged related to the importance of—the industry ecosystem; symbiosis between the founding brand entrepreneur and brand culture; synchronization of investment strategies with an emerging brand life-cycle model and serendipitous corporate entrepreneurial opportunities.

The Impact of Partner Organizational Structure on Innovation

Interorganizational partnerships can spur innovation, but their value may be diminished by friction in knowledge flows between firms. We consider how a partner’s organizational structure may influence the knowledge that is accessible via partnerships. We focus on how a partner’s structure trades off localized autonomy for its managers, which facilitates timelier decision making, and unified control, which facilitates integration. By shaping this balance, centralization of decision rights within the partner organization shapes access to its knowledge. Centralized structures generate wide-ranging internal knowledge pathways that enable access to a broader array of a partner’s knowledge. However, the reduced managerial autonomy afforded by centralization makes decision making more cumbersome, which constricts the rate of access to a partner’s knowledge. We find evidence of this tradeoff in the context of corporate venture capital relationships between incumbents and startups in the pharmaceutical industry. An increase in the incumbent’s diversity of knowledge or in the knowledge required by the startup enhances the value of a greater breadth of access, whereas the degree to which the startup can leverage social ties (affinity) or hierarchical fiat (authority) alleviates the costs of a reduced access rate. Each of these features makes an incumbent organization’s centralization more valuable to the startup. By highlighting this tension related to centralization, our findings suggest that new firms striving to maximize their partnership benefits may need to carefully consider their partners’ internal structures.

Mate or Menace? Exploring Organizational Identity Threats in Nonprofit-Business Partnerships

Nonprofit organizations frequently engage in partnerships with profit-oriented businesses to fulfill their goals and social mission. Although nonprofit-business partnerships can benefit both parties, they are a potential source of intra-organizational controversy and conflict, especially when social objectives clash with business interests. An increasingly recognized risk of nonprofit-business partnerships lies in organizational identity threats. Adopting a sensemaking perspective, we investigate how nonprofit members make sense of nonprofit-business partnerships and how these appraisal processes influence whether they perceive these inter-organizational partnerships as organizational identity threats. Our qualitative study draws on semi-structured interviews and shows that nonprofit members’ evaluations of partnership congruence (i.e., the perceived fit of a partnership with members’ organizational identity expectations) and partnership relevance (i.e., the perceived meaning of a partnership for an organization’s identity) influence whether they perceive partnerships as organizational identity threats. In doing so, we extend research on organizational identity threats (and opportunities) of nonprofit-business partnerships.

Interorganizational triads for foreign-market entry: Partnerships among Western, bridge-economy, and local VCs in Mainland China

This study introduces the novel construct of bridge-economy partners, which can assist Western firms in learning how to collaborate with local partners when entering unfamiliar foreign countries that have substantially different socioeconomic characteristics. We offer initial empirical evidence regarding the relevance of establishing such interorganizational partnership triads among Western, bridge-economy, and local firms for the entries of Western venture capital firms (VCs) into Mainland China between 1997 and 2008. Venture age, regional legal maturity, and the Western VCs' accumulated local experience are identified as relevant contingency factors for the likelihood of adopting this type of collaboration, which involves partners from three different types of economies. We supplement our quantitative analyses with anecdotal qualitative evidence from interviews with VC executives and fund managers. Executive summaryThis study introduces the novel construct of bridge-economy partners and outlines their potentially beneficial roles in the context of foreign-market entry undertaken by Western firms. The established literature suggests that Western firms consider collaboration with a local firm as an accelerator for learning about and adapting to local conditions. However, the substantial socioeconomic differences that may exist between home and host country can create paramount challenges for collaborations between Western firms and their local partners. Adding a third type of partner from a country with substantial socioeconomic overlap to both firms' home countries can help “bridge the socioeconomic gap” between Western and local firms. The bridge-economy partners can assist Western firms in learning how to collaborate with their new local partners.This study offers initial empirical evidence for the relevance of such interorganizational partnership triads between Western, bridge-economy, and local firms by using the data of Western VC firms and their entries into Mainland China between 1997 and 2008. Venture age, regional legal maturity, and accumulated local experience of Western VCs are identified as relevant contingency factors for the likelihood of adopting this type of triadic interorganizational partnership. Quantitative hypothesis tests are supplemented with anecdotal qualitative evidence.Reported findings extend the emerging entrepreneurship literature that focuses on foreign-market entry and globalization. Our focus on triadic partnerships and the role of bridge-economy firms extends the previous research that has instead nearly exclusively focused on dyadic collaborations between Western firms and local partners. A triadic Western, bride-economy, and local firms (WBL) partnership offers an alternative strategy to use when entering foreign markets that have substantially different cultural, economic, and institutional characteristics. Our findings further highlight that even though such triadic WBL partnerships make intuitive sense, successfully implementing such complex collaborations requires minimum levels of accumulated host-country experiences and can benefit from mature legal environments. For policymakers in emerging economies that are interested in supporting foreign investment, the creation of legal environments conducive to forming such triadic WBL collaborations introduces a promising policy option. Beyond these initial key insights, this study also provides guidance for systematic future research into this promising type of collaboration for foreign market entry.

Inter-Organizational Partnering Strategies in Disaster Response: A Complex Network Perspective

Establishing appropriate inter-organizational partnership in disaster response is of great help to the improvement of disaster relief performance. However, the selection of proper disaster response organizations for government agencies to build partnerships among the numerous relief organizations remains to be addressed. To fill the gap, this paper adopted a complex network modeling method to explain the formation mechanism of inter-organizational partnership in disaster response. Then, based on a numerical simulation method, the paper compared different inter-organizational partnering strategies, and explored the optimal inter-organizational partnering strategy in the disaster response process. Results demonstrate that the optimal partnering strategy is contingent on disaster response conditions, with accurate disaster information and abundant relief materials to choose the material difference principle, and vague disaster information to choose the organizational influence principle. At the same time, frequent information communication and material cooperation allocation can be transformed into low-frequency information communication and government-led material allocation. This study provides practical guidance for disaster relief organizations to choose inter-organizational partnering strategies, and enriches the disaster organization management theory.

Collaborating and co-creating the digital transformation: Empirical evidence on the crucial role of stakeholder demand from Swiss municipalities

Digital-era governance is one of the central challenges of the twenty-first century and marks a fundamental paradigm shift in public administration. Based on the concepts of collaborative capacity and organizational maturity for co-creation, this study explores the factors that determine municipal administrations’ capacity to engage in digitalization-related collaborations. Using unique survey data from 720 Swiss municipalities, this study investigates the relevance of intra-organizational and extra-organizational factors in stimulating local governments’ likelihood of engaging in cross-sectoral and inter-organizational partnerships to implement the digital transformation. It reveals that extra-organizational impulses by digital change agents and stakeholder demand—in contrast to intra-organizational resources—are highly influential factors for municipalities to engage in digitalization-related collaborations. This study presents novel insights into the specific barriers to change and the success factors of co-creation in the process of municipalities’ digital transformation to inform theory, practice, and policy design.

Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program expansion evaluation—A qualitative study

AbstractResearch SummaryWe conducted a multisite qualitative evaluation of the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP) expansion states that received federal funding in 2019 to measurably augment, adopt, and/or use ODMAP in their service areas. Across five states, 11 agencies including law enforcement agencies, county health departments, and local health coalitions were invited to participate in in‐depth interviews to assess their experiences with ODMAP implementation, including facilitators, barriers, and best practices. Guided by implementation science principles and the Practical, Robust Implementation and Sustainability Model framework, we identified 12 key elements impacting progress toward ODMAP expansion, including the importance of leveraging interorganizational partnerships, competing environmental priorities, organizational perspectives on readiness for adoption, usability, and burden, organizational leadership support, and the presence of champions, dedicated implementation teams, and key adopter supports.Policy ImplicationsSince 2016, ODMAP has rapidly expanded in response to the opioid crisis. The system is currently used by a wide range of public safety and public health agencies including multiple state and county jurisdictions funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Overdose Data to Action program. Ongoing, critical, and innovative evaluation of this nascent surveillance system is required.

Organizational model of innovative update of production and marketing program at food enterprise

With tactical planning of production volumes and sales of products of a food enterprise and corresponding loading of its capacities, the developed program is more accurate than the strategic perspective. But during medium-term planning, it is necessary to consider changes in the nomenclature of manufactured products. Updating the range of products (product portfolio) requires planning the change and the receipt and expenditure of the necessary resources to implement these changes. This article aims to study the theoretical and methodological foundations of the organizational model of innovative renewal of the program of production and sale of products of a food enterprise. The model of the inter-organizational partnership of a food enterprise with a research organization involves the formation of a temporary integrated organizational structure of the program-target type, within which a program-target body is formed – a working group, the purpose of which is to develop and introduce new kinds of products to update the assortment. It is necessary to form an appropriate system of evaluation indicators of the efficiency of achieving goals and implementing tasks within the production and sales program management to evaluate the results of inter-organizational cooperation of a food enterprise with a research institution or an educational institution. The inter-organizational partnership of the food enterprise with research institutions and educational institutions allows its participants to solve the scientific and production-economic tasks. The food enterprise gets the opportunity to innovatively update the range of manufactured products, to optimize the costs of all types of resources for producing and selling products. Within the partnership framework, issues of implementation of projects of technical and technological renewal of production, the opening of new business areas (diversification), the performance of new forms of organization of processes at the enterprise, etc., can also be resolved. Keywords: food enterprises, organizational model, innovative renewal, crisis phenomena, product realization.

Family physicians collaborating for health system integration: a scoping review

BackgroundIn Canada, Ontario Health Teams (OHTs) are a new model for integrated healthcare. Core to OHTs are family physicians (FPs) and their ability to collaborate with other FPs and healthcare providers. Whereas the factors for intra-organizational collaboration have been well-studied, inter-organizational collaboration between FPs and other healthcare organizations as an integrated care network, are less understood. This paper aims to explore the structural factors, processes, and theoretical frameworks that support FPs’ collaboration for integrated healthcare.MethodsA scoping review was undertaken based on Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology for scoping review and using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis for Scoping Review (PRISMA_ScR) checklist. A search for academic and relevant grey literature published between 2000–2021 was conducted across databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, EBSCOhost).Thematic analysis was used to identify the key findings of the selected studies.ResultsThirty-two studies were included as eligible for this review. Three structural components were identified as critical to FPs’ successful participation in inter-organizational partnerships: (1) shared vision/values, (2) leadership by FPs, and (3) defined decision-making procedures. Also, three processes were identified: (1) effective communication, (2) a collective sense of motivation for change, and (3) relationships built on trust. Three theoretical frameworks provided insight into collaborative initiatives: (1) Social Identity Approach, (2) framework of interprofessional collaboration, and (3) competing values framework.ConclusionFPs hold unique positions in healthcare and this review is the first to synthesize the best evidence for building collaborations between FPs and other healthcare sectors. These findings will inform collaboration strategies for healthcare integration, including with OHTs.

Community-Based Providers’ Perspectives on Addressing Loneliness and Mental Health Services for Migrant Youth and Emerging Adults

Migrant youth and emerging adults (MYEA), ages 15 to 29, who recently migrated to the United States are vulnerable to experiencing chronic loneliness related to discrimination, social isolation, and stigma. Yet, there is limited intervention research on detecting, mitigating, and addressing the effects of chronic loneliness for MYEA. This study examined community-based providers’ perspectives on the effects of social isolation and loneliness on MYEA, and the availability of social and mental health services for this population. This qualitative study utilized focus groups involving 18 providers serving MYEA in the New York metropolitan area. Data analysis involved double-coding by pairs of trained research team members to generate thematic codes. The main recurrent emerging themes were: (1) the importance of social-emotional wellbeing of MYEA; (2) the ways in which the experience of migration itself facilitated social isolation for MYEA; (3) the barriers to supportive services for mitigating chronic loneliness from an organizational perspective; and (4) the tensions between professional mandates and protections for migrant youth clients. Future intervention strategies, from an organizational perspective, must work through interorganizational partnerships building upon community assets to increase social connectedness to support migrant youth’s social-emotional wellbeing through the transition to adulthood.

EVALUATING AGE-FRIENDLY COMMUNITY INITIATIVES FROM A SOCIAL NETWORK PERSPECTIVE

Abstract Age-friendly community initiatives (AFCIs) as community interventions systematically cultivate inter-organizational partnerships toward making policies, systems, and environments more supportive of healthy aging, aging in community, and aging equity. Building from a multi-year, university-community partnership to spur the development of AFCIs in New Jersey, we drew on social network theory and research methods to examine the networks of AFCI core teams and their key partners across diverse community settings. Data collection involved administering questionnaires to both AFC core teams and their key organizational partners. We report on the presence and strengths of dyadic relationships that comprise the networks, analyzed by sector, organizational function, and geographic service area of each network node. We discuss implications of the findings concerning policies and practices around sustainability planning for AFCIs as well as future directions for using network theory to understand AFC progress at various levels of geographic scope.

Healthcare and Social Care Integration: The COVID-19 Pandemic's Effect on Interorganisational Partnership Working

The International Journal of Integrated Care (IJIC) is an online, open-access, peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes original articles in the field of integrated care on a continuous basis.IJIC has an Impact Factor of 2.913 (2021 JCR, received in June 2022)The IJIC 20th Anniversary Issue was published in 2021.

Complexity of implementing a nationwide advance care planning program: results from a qualitative evaluation.

We evaluated Singapore's national advance care planning (ACP) program to understand challenges to its implementation within multiple clinical settings. We conducted focus group discussions (FGDs) with a purposive sample of health care professionals (HCPs) involved in ACP program delivery within acute care hospitals, primary care clinics and nursing homes. FGDs were stratified into three categories based on HCPs' role within the ACP framework-leaders versus facilitators and advocates versus nursing home heads. Using NVivo 11, we analysed data using thematic analysis and Conceptual Framework for Implementation Research. A total of 107 HCPs from 25 organisations participated in 22 FGDs. Findings revealed wide variation in ACP implementation among organisations and identified 12 themes organized within four domains-outer setting (lack of public awareness, shortcomings in inter-organisational partnerships, performance driven policies), inner setting (lack of commitment from organisational leadership, paucity of dedicated resources, absence of an institution-wide ACP culture, lack of physician engagement), characteristics of HCPs (language barriers) and process (inadequate training, complexity of conversations and documentations, challenges to retrieving ACP documents, absence of comprehensive monitoring and evaluation). ACP program implementation is complex and faces multiple health care system challenges. To integrate ACP within routine clinical care, ACP processes should be simplified, training framework be strengthened, physicians be engaged and an ACP supportive culture be created within and outside organisations. Findings will be used to guide ACP implementation within the country and globally.

Determinants of inter-organizational implementation success: A mixed-methods evaluation of Veteran Directed Care

BackgroundVeteran Directed Care (VDC) aims to keep Veterans at risk for nursing home placement in their communities. VA medical centers (VAMCs) purchase VDC from third-party organizational providers who then partner with them during implementation. Experiences with VDC implementation have varied. Objectives: We sought to identify conditions differentiating partnerships with higher enrollment (implementation success). Methods: We conducted a case-based study with: qualitative data on implementation determinants two and eight months after program start, directed content analysis to assign numerical scores (−2 strong barrier to +2 strong facilitator), and mathematical modeling using Coincidence Analysis (CNA) to identify key determinants of implementation success. Cases consisted of VAMCs and partnering non-VAMC organizations who started VDC during 2017 or 2018. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) guided analysis. Results: Eleven individual organizations within five partnerships constituted our sample. Two CFIR determinants- Networks & Communication and External Change Agent-uniquely and consistently identified implementation success. At an inter-organizational partnership level, Networks & Communications and External Change Agent +2 (i.e., present as strong facilitators) were both necessary and sufficient. At a within-organization level, Networks & Communication +2 was necessary but not sufficient for the non-VAMC providers, whereas External Change Agent +2 was necessary and sufficient for VAMCs. Conclusion: Networks & Communication and External Change Agent played difference-making roles in inter-organizational implementation success, which differ by type of organization and level of analysis. Implications: This multi-level approach identified crucial difference-making conditions for inter-organizational implementation success when putting a program into practice requires partnerships across multiple organizations.

Evidence-based land conservation framework using multi-criteria acceptability analysis: A geospatial tool for strategic land conservation in the Gulf coast of the United States

Strategic land conservation investments that prioritize stakeholder priorities show promise for protection of ecological integrity and associated socioeconomic benefits of land conservation. However, despite many known benefits, decisions on where and what to conserve are often made without effective ecological and socioeconomic considerations. Ideally, multiple measurable attributes relevant to the ecological and socioeconomic priorities of stakeholders should be brought into an efficient, data-driven framework to evaluate areas of interest and help optimize decisions on conservation investments. Planners need to have access to a dynamic, web-based platform that assesses and compares conservation areas based on geospatial, science-based, and stakeholder-driven data. In this work, we provide a co-produced framework for a multi-criteria Conservation Prioritization Tool (CPT) that is based on available geospatial data reflecting stakeholder priorities for land conservation. The framework allows for flexible and hierarchical weighting of goals and data measures by the decision maker and allows for optimization of conservation decisions through a geospatial multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). Geospatial MCDA is a popular approach for evaluating decision alternatives in conservation problems, but the scarcity of functional tools that are widely accessible still limits their breadth of use. In this work, we describe the structure and creation of the CPT and demonstrate its application in the United States Gulf of Mexico coastal region, an area over 700,000 km2 in size. We designed and implemented a dynamic, cloud-based software tool that both considers and ranks user priorities and utilizes geospatial MCDA to evaluate areas of interest for land conservation. This tool improves the effectiveness and efficiency of land conservation actions by reducing the time needed to gather ecological evidence, increasing the transparency of decision processes, and encouraging inter-organizational partnerships. The versatile and open-access nature of the CPT broadens the availability of the geospatial MCDA methodology for conservation planners across large regions. We intentionally developed the CPT framework and procedures therein to be transferable and open-source to other objectives for any desired spatial geography.

A Framework for Introducing Global Health Innovations to the US.

Background:Across the globe, there are successful health innovations that could help improve public health in US communities at lower cost and with higher effectiveness than standard practice. However, which factors should be considered to heighten the likelihood of successful transfer of global health ideas to the US still warrants more empirical investigation.Objective:This study aimed to develop a conceptual framework delineating important factors to be considered for successful introduction of global health innovations to US communities, based on diffusion of innovations literature and case studies of global health innovations that have been adopted in US communities.Methods:Five global health innovations adopted in US communities were selected based on expert panel recommendations and a review of academic and gray literatures. These innovations had diverse origins (Columbia, Mexico, South Africa, Sweden, and Wales) and exhibited various means of achieving desired health outcomes. We conducted archival research and 27 interviews (42 interviewees) with leaders and stakeholders of the five innovations to identify important factors for the transfer of global health innovations to the US.Findings:Six factors were determined to be important for global health innovation adoption in the US: (1) innovation attributes, (2) linking agents, (3) inter-organizational partnerships, (4) scale up strategies, (5) implementation processes and outcomes in US communities, and (6) policy and social context. These factors correspond well to factors emphasized in the diffusion of innovation literature, although the importance of some sub-factors (e.g., stigma regarding the origin of innovations) diverged from the literature.Conclusions:Based on our findings, we developed the Designing for Diffusion Framework for Global Health Innovations. The framework provides a comprehensive picture of factors that can be facilitators or hindrances for moving a global health innovation to the US to help smooth the diffusion process for better adoption and implementation in US communities.