Multi-level Alignment Research Articles

Multi-level strategic alignment within a complex organisation

PurposeThis paper aims to assess the utility of an approach to the design of multiple Balanced Scorecards within large/complex organisations, consider the relevance of “emergent strategising” in this kind of strategy implementation and explore project organisation and wider coordination issues that impact this type of work.Design/methodology/approachA “research-oriented – action research” approach has been adopted, comprising qualitative observations of an ongoing programme within a major organisation in the Middle East. The case is based on feedback obtained from key actors (participants, facilitators) and the analysis of documentation produced by the project.FindingsOver four years, the project engaged directly with over 200 managers from the organisation’s 35 most senior management units. Its purpose was to align the strategic aims of each unit with those of the organisation and introduce a new form of strategic control. The paper shows that consensus-forming and creation of locally relevant strategic agendas can be usefully and successfully embedded in a large-scale strategic control and alignment programme. The paper notes the large resource implications and duration of such programmes, and the challenges of integrating the resulting processes with those already in place. The paper concludes that for the case organisation, the resource investment appears to have generated useful outcomes.Research limitations/implicationsThe project relates to a continuing programme within the client organisation that was not explicitly established before it started as an action-research activity. This has limited and constrained the quality of the information reported.Originality/valueThe scale of the project, the use of design methods that emphasis consensus forming and local relevance provide novel information and insights.

How To Build an Integrated Neighborhood Approach to Support Community-Dwelling Older People?

Background:Although the need for integrated neighborhood approaches (INAs) is widely recognized, we lack insight into strategies like INA. We describe diverse Dutch INA partners’ experiences to provide integrated person- and population-centered support to community-dwelling older people using an adapted version of Valentijn and colleagues’ integrated care model. Our main objective was to explore the experiences with INA participation. We sought to increase our understanding of the challenges facing these partners and identify factors facilitating and inhibiting integration within and among multiple levels.Methods:Twenty-one interviews with INA partners (including local health and social care organizations, older people, municipal officers, and a health insurer) were conducted and subjected to latent content analysis.Results:This study showed that integrated care and support provision through an INA is a complex, dynamic process requiring multilevel alignment of activities. The INA achieved integration at the personal, service, and professional levels only occasionally. Micro-level bottom-up initiatives were not aligned with top-down incentives, forcing community workers to establish integration despite rather than because of meso- and macro-level contexts.Conclusions:Top-down incentives should be better aligned with bottom-up initiatives. This study further demonstrated the importance of community-level engagement in integrated care and support provision.

Social Policies, Attribution of Responsibility, and Political Alignments

This article assesses how the political context shapes policy implementation in decentralized countries. It finds that effective implementation of non-contributory social policies depends on political alignments across different territorial levels. Subnational units governed by the opposition hinder the implementation of national policies, but only if the policy carries clear attribution of responsibility. On one hand, conditional cash transfers have clear attribution of responsibility and thus, pose risks for opposition subnational governments, who, as a result, have incentives to obstruct such policies. On the other hand, in social services, attribution of responsibility is blurred, and therefore their implementation is not shaped by political alignments. By analyzing policy implementation, disaggregating social policies, and incorporating multilevel political alignments, this article contributes to theories of the welfare state and multilevel governance. The empirical foundation includes an analysis of the factors that shape the successful implementation of social policies in Argentina and Brazil through a combination of pooled time-series analysis and extensive field research.

Theoretical Foundations of Efficiently Organizing Production Processes: Using the Example of Combining Organizational Forms of Component Manufacture and Internal Transport

This paper examines the problem of efficient production processes organization down to subprocesses levels. Subtasks of production within subprocesses necessitate a specific set of requirements for production organization. Through particular features and their respective characteristics, these requirements are further systemized and described as process types. The main manufacturing process “component manufacture” and its connected production support service “internal transport” have been chosen as examples to show relevant organizational principles and forms. From this baseline and together with a decision algorithm, selected organizational options and a combination thereof shall lead to theoretically optimized solutions which meet all predefined requirements. A multilevel organizational alignment model lays out interdependencies of combined process type-oriented organizational forms. Methods of comparative organizational profile analysis in support of reengineering approaches are systemized and further developed towards resulting organizational adaptations.

계산속도 및 정확도의 적응적 제어가 가능한 다단계 문서 비교 시스템

Finger printing and sequence alignment are well-known approaches for document similarity comparison. A fingerprinting method is simple and fast, but it can not find particular similar regions. A string alignment method is used for identifying regions of similarity by arranging the sequences of a string. It has an advantage of finding particular similar regions, but it also has a disadvantage of taking more computing time. The Multi-Level Alignment (MLA) is a new method designed for taking the advantages of both methods. The MLA divides input documents into uniform length blocks, and then extracts fingerprints from each block and calculates similarity of block pairs by comparing the fingerprints. A similarity table is created in this process. Finally, sequence alignment is used for specifying longest similar regions in the similarity table. The MLA allows users to change block's size to control proportion of the fingerprint algorithm and the sequence alignment. As a document is divided into several blocks, similar regions are also fragmented into two or more blocks. To solve this fragmentation problem, we proposed a united block method. Experimentally, we show that computing document's similarity with the united block is more accurate than the original MLA method, with minor time loss.

The role of performance measurement models in multi level alignment

Purpose – Market deregulation in the utilities sector has led to increased competition and rising customer expectations in both established and new markets. This, in turn, has forced organisations such as electricity and telecoms to make rapid, enterprise-wide changes on an increasingly frequent basis which in turn has led to problems with alignment. Misalignment can occur at many levels and can result in misused resources, loss of competitiveness, excessive cycle times, higher costs and loss of agility. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Given the lack of overarching theory, the paper begins by borrowing from contingency, dynamic capability and organisational learning constructs, to explore the role that performance measurement models can bring to improve the alignment between business strategy and functional strategy (level 1 alignment). Second, the paper analyses the role of performance measurement models in developing functional practices aligned with supply chain management (SCM) strategies (level 2 alignment). Design/methodology/approach – The study adopts an exploratory theory-building approach using four case studies. These are used as key supply chains in both established and new business areas within two longitudinal university-industry research partnerships (each of three years duration). Data from repeat interviews (n=42), focus groups (n=10), documentation and observations is analysed and forms the basis for the development of a conceptual framework and a set of related propositions. The data analysis followed Radnor and Boaden's (2004) method for analysing interpretive research. Findings – The findings show the role and impact of performance measurement models and methods on alignment at two levels, i.e. level 1 alignment – between business strategy and functional (SCM) strategy, and level 2 alignment – between the functional strategy (SCM) and SCM routines and practices. Originality/value – To date, there are few studies which explore the development of theory and practice in relation to the role and impact of performance measurement models and methods in improving organisational alignment. This exploratory theory building study makes a contribution to this gap through the development of the conceptual framework and propositions.

Computing multi-level clustered alignments of gene-expression time-series

Computing multi-level clustered alignments of gene-expression time-series

MULTILEVEL ALIGNMENT MAINTAINS LANGUAGE SYSTEMATICITY

The question how a shared vocabulary can arise in a multi-agent population despite the fact that each agent autonomously invents and acquires words has been solved. The solution is based on alignment: Agents score all associations between words and meanings in their lexicons and update these preference scores based on communicative success. A positive feedback loop between success and use thus arises which causes the spontaneous self-organization of a shared lexicon. The same approach has been proposed for explaining how a population can arrive at a shared grammar, in which we get the same problem of variation because each agent invents and acquires their own grammatical constructions. However, a problem arises if constructions reuse parts that can also exist on their own. This happens particularly when frequent usage patterns, which are based on compositional rules, are stored as such. The problem is how to maintain systematicity. This paper identifies this problem and proposes a solution in the form of multilevel alignment. Multilevel alignment means that the updating of preference scores is not restricted to the constructions that were used in the utterance but also downward and upward in the subsumption hierarchy.

Multilevel Evaluation Alignment: An Explication of a Four-Step Model

Using the evaluation work on the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Unleashing Resources Initiative as an example, in this article we explicate a general four-step model appropriate for multilevel evaluation alignment. We review the relevant literature, argue for the need for evaluation alignment in a multilevel context, explain the four-step model, discuss the benefits of the model, and address the issues that one should pay attention to when implementing our alignment model.

An efficient algorithm for communication set generation of data parallel programs with block-cyclic distribution

Data parallel programming languages, such as High Performance Fortran, are widely regarded as a promising means for writing portable programs for distributed-memory machines. In this paper, we present a new algorithm for computing the communication sets in array section movements with block-cyclic (cyclic (k) in HPF) distribution. Our framework can handle multi-level alignments, multi-dimensional arrays, array intrinsic functions, affine indices and axis exchanges in the array subscript. Instead of employing the linear diophantine equation solver, a new algorithm which does not rely on the linear diophantine equation solver to calculate communication sets is proposed. We use formal proof and experimental results to show that it is more efficient than previous solutions to the same problem. Another important contribution of this paper is that we prove that the compiler is able to compute efficiently the communication sets of block-cyclic distribution as long as the block sizes of the arrays are set to be identical or the lowest common multiple (LCM) of block sizes is not a huge integer. We demonstrate it by thorough complexity analyses and extensive experimental results.

An efficient algorithm for communication set generation of data parallel programs with block-cyclic distribution

Data parallel programming languages, such as High Performance Fortran, are widely regarded as a promising means for writing portable programs for distributed-memory machines. In this paper, we present a new algorithm for computing the communication sets in array section movements with block-cyclic (cyclic ( k) in HPF) distribution. Our framework can handle multi-level alignments, multi-dimensional arrays, array intrinsic functions, affine indices and axis exchanges in the array subscript. Instead of employing the linear diophantine equation solver, a new algorithm which does not rely on the linear diophantine equation solver to calculate communication sets is proposed. We use formal proof and experimental results to show that it is more efficient than previous solutions to the same problem. Another important contribution of this paper is that we prove that the compiler is able to compute efficiently the communication sets of block-cyclic distribution as long as the block sizes of the arrays are set to be identical or the lowest common multiple (LCM) of block sizes is not a huge integer. We demonstrate it by thorough complexity analyses and extensive experimental results.

Multilevel Evaluation Alignment: An Explication of a Four-Step Model

ABSTRACT Using the evaluation work on the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Unleashing Resources Initiative as an example, in this article we explicate a general four-step model appropriate for multilevel evaluation alignment. We review the relevant literature, argue for the need for evaluation alignment in a multilevel context, explain the four-step model, discuss the benefits of the model, and address the issues that one should pay attention to when implementing our alignment model.

Multilevel nanoimprint lithography with submicron alignment over 4 in. Si wafers

We demonstrate that multilevel nanoimprint lithography (NIL) with submicron alignment over an entire 4 in. Si wafer can be achieved. Average alignment accuracy of 1 μm with a standard deviation 0.4 μm in both X and Y directions was obtained in ten consecutive tests of multilevel NIL. The multilevel alignment was achieved by aligning the wafer and the mask with an aligner, fixing them with a holder, and imprinting in an imprint machine. The issues that are critical to the alignment accuracy, such as relative movement during the press, relative thermal expansion, wafer bending, and resist, are discussed. The alignment accuracy currently achieved on the system is limited by the aligning accuracy of the aligner, instead of the process of multilevel NIL.

Advanced Electron-Beam Lithography - Software System AMDES

In VLSI fabrication, electron-beam systems are increasingly being used to expose a submicrometer pattern directly on the wafer. The authors have already presented the electron-beam lithography system called AMDES. This paper mainiy discusses the computer-controlled advanced-proximity-effect correction and warped-wafer-correction functions of that system. The authors suggest advanced-proximity effect correction techniques, a pattern-shape adjustment technique, a variety of pattern-shape modification techniques, a dot-beans correction method, and a simultaneous-calculation technique based on a consideration of the symmetry of paired patterns. A computational exposure-dose distribution model for rectangular-shaped beams is also discussed. Warped-wafer correction is necessary since the process-induced warpage distortion produces limitations in multi-level pattern alignment. This paper clarifies the necessary and sufficient conditions for determining the minimum number of registration marks needed to guarantee an acceptable error for a given design-pattern size.

Advanced electron-beam lithography—Software system AMDES

In VLSI fabrication, electron-beam systems are increasingly being used to expose a submicrometer pattern directly on the wafer. The authors have already presented the electron-beam lithography system called AMDES. This paper mainly discusses the computer-controlled advanced-proximity-effect correction and warped-wafer-correction functions of that system. The authors suggest advanced-proximity-effect correction techniques, a pattern-shape adjustment technique, a variety of pattern-shape modification techniques, a dotbeam correction method, and a simultaneous-calculation technique based on a consideration of the symmetry of paired patterns. A computational exposure-dose distribution model for rectangular-shaped beams is also discussed. Warped-wafer correction is necessary since the process-induced warpage distortion produces limitations in multi-level pattern alignment. This paper clarifies the necessary and sufficient conditions for determining the minimum number of registration marks needed to guarantee an acceptable error for a given design-pattern size.