Messy Real World Research Articles

Crafting Collective Management Institutions in Messy Real-World Settings: A Call for Action Research

There is considerable interest in collective management as a potential solution to complex environmental problems, but existing research offers little guidance for the messy real-world task of creating new institutions. Research on collective management of the commons has mostly analyzed institutions that already exist, in order to derive and test general design principles to illuminate what makes institutions successful. While such principles are useful, we want to provide guidance to those who are crafting new institutions in contexts that do not conform neatly to these design principles, and to inform this crafting with insights about environmental subjectivity and social justice. We report on a study from New Zealand that applies an action research orientation, involving four case study catchments where farming and indigenous leaders are in dialogue about emerging collective institutions to address declining health of freshwater systems and other shared concerns. We show how these institutional crafters considered, challenged and stretched the general design principles as they assessed the principles’ relevance to their cases, which involve externalities from diffuse pollution and hence are a less-than-straightforward collective management problem. In this dialogue, catchment leaders shared different perspectives, including concepts from indigenous culture, and explored what these mean for their own identities and motivations as farmers and environmental stewards. The dialogue has created conditions in which farmers and indigenous leaders interact as peers and partners in the enterprise of institution-building, providing an opportunity to address issues of social justice as well as environmental sustainability. We argue that commons research can benefit from (i) a theoretical agenda that reorients inquiry to practical issues of crafting institutions as well as (ii) a methodological agenda involving action research as a way of recognizing and working through complexity, while also working in partnership with local actors to achieve change on the ground.

The Rise of Design Dyslexia and How to Overcome It

An intensive three‐week introductory course within Aalto University's International Design Business Management (IDBM) graduate program emphasizes the role of social and cultural context in design, characterized by ambiguous, open‐ended, complex environments. It teaches students that design is more than a simple matter of Post‐it Notes and double‐diamond diagrams.Universities worldwide continue to attempt to integrate “design methodologies” into their curricula. What happens when non‐designers take their newfound knowledge into the messy real world?

Transforming information into supply chain agility: an agility adaptation typology

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediators that occupy the gap between information processing theory and supply chain agility. In today’s Mach speed business environment, managers often install new technology and expect an agile supply chain when they press<Enter>. This study reveals the naivety of such an approach, which has allowed new technology to be governed by old processes.Design/methodology/approachThis work takes a qualitative approach to the dynamic conditions surrounding information processing and its connection to supply chain agility through the assessment of 60 exemplar cases. The situational conditions that have created the divide between information processing and supply chain agility are studied.FindingsThe agility adaptation typology (AAT) defining three types of adaptations and their mediating constructs is presented. Type 1: information processing, is generally an exercise in synchronization that can be used to support assimilation. Type 2: demand sensing, is where companies are able to incorporate real-time data into everyday processes to better understand demand and move toward a real-time environment. Type 3: supply chain agility, requires fundamentally new thinking in the areas of transformation, mindset and culture.Originality/valueThis work describes the reality of today’s struggle to achieve supply chain agility, providing guidelines and testable propositions, and at the same time, avoids “ivory tower prescriptions,” which exclude the real world details from the research process (Meredith, 1993). By including the messy real world details, while difficult to understand and explain, the authors are able to make strides in the AAT toward theory that explains and guides the manager’s everyday reality with all of its messy real world details.

Implementing Peer Learning in Clinical Education: A Framework to Address Challenges In the “Real World”

ABSTRACTPhenomenon: Peer learning has many benefits and can assist students in gaining the educational skills required in future years when they become teachers themselves. Peer learning may be particularly useful in clinical learning environments, where students report feeling marginalized, overwhelmed, and unsupported. Educational interventions often fail in the workplace environment, as they are often conceived in the “ideal” rather than the complex, messy real world. This work sought to explore barriers and facilitators to implementing peer learning activities in a clinical curriculum. Approach: Previous peer learning research results and a matrix of empirically derived peer learning activities were presented to local clinical education experts to generate discussion around the realities of implementing such activities. Potential barriers and limitations of and strategies for implementing peer learning in clinical education were the focus of the individual interviews. Findings: Thematic analysis of the data identified three key considerations for real-world implementation of peer learning: culture, epistemic authority, and the primacy of patient-centered care. Strategies for peer learning implementation were also developed from themes within the data, focusing on developing a culture of safety in which peer learning could be undertaken, engaging both educators and students, and establishing expectations for the use of peer learning. Insights: This study identified considerations and strategies for the implementation of peer learning activities, which took into account both educator and student roles. Reported challenges were reflective of those identified within the literature. The resultant framework may aid others in anticipating implementation challenges. Further work is required to test the framework's application in other contexts and its effect on learner outcomes.

Shared Challenges and Solutions: The Common Future of Comparative Politics and Quantitative Methodology

This essay joins the discussion on “The Future of Comparative Politics” from a perspective of methodology, and argues that the challenges concerned in Schmitter’s essay are not endemic to comparative politics but shared ones in other research fields including quantitative methods. Recent trends and developments in quantitative methods show that quantitative and qualitative methods are increasingly integrated to jointly handle challenges with broad and profound impacts on the social sciences as a whole. This essay presents a brief introduction of the recent three revolutions in quantitative methods. The “Bayesian Revolution”, the “Credibility Revolution”, and the “Big Data Revolution” have fundamentally changed quantitative methods. The paper further displays that the challenges arising from the three revolutions are essentially the same ones with those in comparative politics, such as modeling complex interdependence, dealing with fuzzy concepts and the messy real world, and so on. Finally, the essay uses a few examples of some new analytical tools developed by quantitative methodologists to illustrate that qualitative knowledge and quantitative techniques should be seamlessly mixed to be innovative and powerful methods. All this points to a common future of comparative politics and quantitative methods.

Playware Research � Methodological Considerations

Several sub-disciplines of engineering are driven by the researchers’ aim of providing positive change to the society through their engineering. These researchers are challenged by the traditional research method of experimental research with a waterfall model which demands clearly defined project definition and functional requirements, and impose a sequential processes leading to the final system evaluation, which may lead to solutions which work in the lab, but have little impact in the messy real world. Based on two decades research in developing engineering systems with a societal impact (e.g. in robotics, embodied AI, and playware), in this paper we suggest a cyclic research method based on a mix between participatory and experimental processes. In particular, inspiration from the action research method applied to interdisciplinary technology development becomes a participatory approach characterized by rapid prototyping cycles which allow iterative technology specification and development together with people in their real world environment.

‘Doing it right?’: working with young researchers in Malawi to investigate children, transport and mobility

This paper explores involving children in Malawi in research about young people, mobility and transport, respecting their rights of participation, education, and protection from exploitation. The Malawi study forms one component of a research project taking place in three sub-Saharan African countries. A foundation of the larger project was the conviction that children are experts on their own lives; therefore seeking children's views was essential, thus respecting the UNCRC. We also embraced an ethical approach, that ‘the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration’. We reflect on challenges in putting ethical principles into practice in the inevitably messy real-world.

Translating Environmental Science into Policy and Action

Background/Question/Methods:Many ecologists are skilled at identifying environmental problems and defining solutions, but not at achieving concrete action to implement those insights. The question, then, is how to help ecologists translate environmental science into policy and action. Most ecologists' education and training do not prepare them to be effective in the policy arena, much less in ways to achieve action. Ecologists find disincentives in the form of the academic attitude that somehow the application of science is inferior to so-called "pure science." This ivory tower holdover has been largely discredited in the context of environmental issues, and the discipline of conservation biology exists explicitly to foster applications of science, but the attitude remains a potent obstacle, especially for younger ecologists seeking academic acceptance and tenure. Even when ecologists ignore or overcome this obstacle there are few resources available to provide guidance for achieving action. For example, most textbooks that describe the policy process present an academic picture that bears little relationship to the messy real world process. One approach to providing such guidance has been developed in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. This is a course developed specifically to identify and analyze the basic principles, skills and strategies involved in turning scientific knowledge and information, and the policies derived from them, into action. The course uses a series of actual case histories drawn from experience with local and national U.S. and foreign governments, UN organizations, NGOs and other relevant situations. The approach is to give a case hissory, analyze it and derive from it the principles, strategies and skills that work. The professor describes the setting, background, objective, procedure followed and the result. This is followed by class discussion to analyze the case and identify what lessons can be learned and what specific principles, skills and strategies were responsible for or contributed to the results.Results/Conclusions:While there are some basic principles that hold true in many situations, no single formula for achieving action can be applied in every case. Each situation is somewhat different and to succeed one has to be able to select from an array of principles and skills to fit them to the special needs. This course is a proven way to provide students with a "tool kit" of principles, skills and strategies to guide them effectively to translate environmental science into policy and action.

Translating Environmental Science into Policy and Action

Abstract Background/Question/Methods: Many ecologists are skilled at identifying environmental problems and defining solutions, but not at achieving concrete action to implement those insights. The question, then, is how to help ecologists translate environmental science into policy and action. Most ecologists' education and training do not prepare them to be effective in the policy arena, much less in ways to achieve action. Ecologists find disincentives in the form of the academic attitude that somehow the application of science is inferior to so-called "pure science." This ivory tower holdover has been largely discredited in the context of environmental issues, and the discipline of conservation biology exists explicitly to foster applications of science, but the attitude remains a potent obstacle, especially for younger ecologists seeking academic acceptance and tenure. Even when ecologists ignore or overcome this obstacle there are few resources available to provide guidance for achieving action. For example, most textbooks that describe the policy process present an academic picture that bears little relationship to the messy real world process. One approach to providing such guidance has been developed in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. This is a course developed specifically to identify and analyze the basic principles, skills and strategies involved in turning scientific knowledge and information, and the policies derived from them, into action. The course uses a series of actual case histories drawn from experience with local and national U.S. and foreign governments, UN organizations, NGOs and other relevant situations. The approach is to give a case hissory, analyze it and derive from it the principles, strategies and skills that work. The professor describes the setting, background, objective, procedure followed and the result. This is followed by class discussion to analyze the case and identify what lessons can be learned and what specific principles, skills and strategies were responsible for or contributed to the results. Results/Conclusions: While there are some basic principles that hold true in many situations, no single formula for achieving action can be applied in every case. Each situation is somewhat different and to succeed one has to be able to select from an array of principles and skills to fit them to the special needs. This course is a proven way to provide students with a "tool kit" of principles, skills and strategies to guide them effectively to translate environmental science into policy and action.

Desert Island Column

So, I’m to be marooned on a desert island with a handful of books relating to software engineering? I have two immediate, conflicting, reactions. One is to complete the punchline to a music-hall joke: “Second prize, marooned with two handfuls of software engineering books”. The other is to think, I take a handful of books on a short train journey, because I’m terrified of being caught without reading material: how will I last on the island? This wins over the joke, and I start to compose my list. Ia mrather enamoured of the concept of Patterns. A pattern is a codification of a wellknown solution to a common problem, along with a description of where it is and is not applicable. Good software engineering patterns can increase your analysis and design vocabulary, making it easier to “chunk” complexity, and saving reinventing many kinds of wheels. The emphasis on applicability is a refreshing change: unlike many overhyped methods, a pattern is not given as the wa yt osolve a problem, it is just one possible solution. A simple increase in vocabulary is not enough, however: words need to be strung together in some structure to make sentences: we need a language. This is where many of the more simplistic software engineering patterns fall down: a random bunch of nouns does not a language make. The originator of patterns, architect Christopher Alexander, invented a whole Pattern Language for designing buildings: all the way from the smallest detailing of architraves, through placement of windows, to whole houses, and even whole towns. Reading his books is an aesthetically pleasing experience at several levels: the intriguing concepts, the smooth prose, even the physical feel of each book with its slightly flexible hard covers. So, take Alexander’s AP attern Language and The Timeless Way of Building to the island? But I have already read these. I would more like to find out what he’s been up to in the intervening quarter century. So what I propose to take with me is his latest magnum opus, the four volume The Nature of Order, which I have yet to read. As I understand it, this is a more philosophical look at structure, pattern, and design, both natural and artificial: all concepts very relevant to software engineering. If it is even half as thought-provoking and influential as his previous work, this will be time well spent. I mentioned aesthetics. The aesthetic dimension is of utmost importance in design. The theoretical physicist Paul Dirac could say “it is more important to have beauty in one’s equations that to have them fit experiment”. Engineering is somewhat different: we do have to make our artefacts work in the often messy real world. And that real world is sometimes even messier for software engineers, because much of it comprises our own older, possibly not fully thought through, design decisions. But that unavoidable

From the Ethicist's Point of View: The Literary Nature of Ethical Inquiry

Contra those bioethicists who think that their cases based on events and thus not motivated any particular ethical theory, Chambers explores how case narratives constructed and thus the extent which they driven particular theories. Why do those of us who write about often feel it necessary reassure our readers that the cases which presented or Tom Beauchamp and Laurence McCullough, in the preface Medical Ethics The Moral Responsibilities of Physicians, state that each of the cases they discuss is based on actual events.[1] In Cases in Bioethics, Carol Levine and Robert Veatch note in their introduction that the cases presented are based on events.[2] And in the acknowledgments Mortal Choices, Ruth Macklin mentions that all material taken from actual cases.[3] These declarations of authenticity, I suspect, merely reflect a general distrust in the discipline of the or fictional case. If there any strongly held article of faith within the discipline, it that bioethicists deal with the Aristotelian messy real world and that academic philosophers spend their time in a Platonic domain of unclouded abstraction. Bioethicists confront actual cases; academic philosophers contemplate imagined ones. This distinction has been explicitly considered and justified scholars who analyze how cases should be used in the discipline. Dena Davis, for instance, acknowledges that fiction can provide a useful source for studying ethical problems, but she maintains that the daily bread of bioethics the case.[4] Furthermore she insists that these cases keep the bioethicist honest, for by describing experiences ethicists can make points and draw conclusions while inviting their readers make their own independent judgments (p. 13). Similarly John Arras, in his discussion of the pedagogical value of casuistry, counsels against using fabricated cases because hypothetical cases, so beloved of academic philosophers, tend be theory-driven; that is, they usually designed advance some explicitly theoretical point. Real cases, on the other hand, more likely display the sort of moral complexity and untidiness that demand the (non-deductive) weighing and balancing of competing moral considerations and the casuistical virtues of discernment and practical judgment (phronesis).[5] William Donnelly also cautions against using the hypothetical case, for, Such histories usually constructed illustrate the application of theory concrete situations. The plot and characters begotten of theory, not life, and exist demonstrate and confirm theory.[6] For these ethicists, hypothetical cases biased, theory driven, and constructed, and cases implication impartial, theory-free, and guileless. The danger of made up cases, they suggest, resides in the teller's intentions illustrate a prior theory; cases because of their origin in actual events can question rather than support a philosopher's moral analysis. Real cases from this perspective something akin to what Charles Taylor calls brute data,[7] that is, they objective and empirical. Yet for the ethicist present the data received from life situations, he or she must present those events in a narrative; a story must be constructed. Every telling of a story--real or imagined--encompasses a series of choices about what will be revealed, what will be privileged, and what will be concealed; there no artless narrations. All stories shaped a particular teller for a particular purpose, for narratives infected their situatedness. Consequently the ethics case, even though it may be based on a life event, mediated and thereby interpreted through narrative discourse. In presenting a case, situations must be plotted, people characterized, a narrative persona assumed, and a point of view adopted. …