Multi-actor Context Research Articles

A framework for business continuity management in a multiactor context

AbstractBusiness continuity management (BCM) is an analytic process capable of fostering the resilience of critical societal functions. While previous research on BCM primarily has focused on its applications within individual organizations, today's modern society involves networks of interdependent actors collectively delivering these essential functions to end users. This necessitates an expansion of BCM to accommodate a multiactor context. Critical considerations that need to be addressed in multiactor BCM involve shared use of a common, finite resource by several actors, or situations where an alternative continuity solution is relied upon by more than one actor, but its capacity is insufficient for simultaneous use by all. The aim of this paper is to propose a framework for multiactor BCM. The framework expands upon existing ISO 22301 standards to outline how BCM can be approached for the multiactor context. It diverges from the conventional BCM approach conducted by individual actors and embraces a societal safety perspective, facilitating the definition of a common analytic focus and promoting high conceptual harmonization. While acknowledging potential practical barriers, the framework facilitates the connection of BCM efforts from different actors with minimal additional analytic efforts. The overarching goal of the framework is to provide increased understanding of the continuity of the multiactor system, specifically focusing on its ability to deliver the most critical products or services to end users. Based on this understanding, the aim is to identify ways to further improve the continuity, for example by identifying and ranking critical products or services, identifying resources or alternative continuity solutions that many actors depend on in delivering their critical products and services. Finally, the paper addresses lingering challenges and highlights success factors necessary for the effective application of the framework.

Knowledge co-production for decision-making in human-natural systems under uncertainty

Decision-making under uncertainty is important for managing human-natural systems in a changing world. A major source of uncertainty is linked to the multi-actor settings of decisions with poorly understood values, complex relationships, and conflicting management approaches. Despite general agreement across disciplines on co-producing knowledge for viable and inclusive outcomes in a multi-actor context, there is still limited conceptual clarity and no systematic understanding on what co-production means in decision-making under uncertainty and how it can be approached. Here, we use content analysis and clustering to systematically analyse 50 decision-making cases with multiple time and spatial scales across 26 countries and in 9 different sectors in the last decade to serve two aims. The first is to synthesise the key recurring strategies that underpin high quality decision co-production across many cases of diverse features. The second is to identify important deficits and opportunities to leverage existing strategies towards flourishing co-production in support of decision-making. We find that four general strategies emerge centred around: promoting innovation for robust and equitable decisions; broadening the span of co-production across interacting systems; fostering social learning and inclusive participation; and improving pathways to impact. Additionally, five key areas that should be addressed to improve decision co-production are identified in relation to: participation diversity; collaborative action; power relationships; governance inclusivity; and transformative change. Characterising the emergent strategies and their key areas for improvement can help guide future works towards more pluralistic and integrated science and practice.

Blueprinting construction logistics services for quality improvement

Construction logistics services can, if implemented with high quality, positively impact both efficiency and sustainability of construction projects. However, present quality management frameworks have not been developed for temporary multi-actor contexts, such as construction, which is largely lacking industrialised processes. Still, construction logistics service providers provide service offerings to temporary settings and could thus benefit from a service quality perspective. Applying this perspective, this study supports the quality improvement of construction logistics services by using a service modularity approach to identify the services to prioritise for improvement. Building on interviews, concept mapping, and a service blueprint of a construction logistics setup, a priority matrix for improvements is developed. The first step in using this matrix is to operationalise the construction logistics setup in modules based on blueprinting. Second, the matrix evaluates the modules against nine empirically derived improvement enablers such as practices and forums for learning, and data measurements enabling the comparison and follow-up of construction logistics services. In conclusion, the priority matrix helps focus the improvements on modules with high likelihood of successful improvements. Improvements that can become sustained over time through the reuse of standardised modules in upcoming projects.

GIS-AHP Ensembles for Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Site Selection Processes: Application to Groundwater Management under Climate Change

A possible adaptation pathway for water suppliers in Germany who face a climatically driven increase in water stress is the development of aquifers which are not used at their full potential. However, identifying suitable sites for aquifer development can go along with severe conflict potential due to the great variety of stakeholders who are involved in the decision-making process. We approach this multi-actor and multi-criteria decision-making problem by developing a geoinformation system-based analytic hierarchy process ensemble (GIS-AHP ensemble). As opposed to the classic GIS-AHP method that yields ratings of site suitability based on a single expert evaluation, the here proposed new GIS-AHP ensemble method respects multiple expert evaluations and allows for quantifying the robustness of yielded site ratings in multi-actor contexts, which helps to mitigate conflict potential. The respectively derived GIS-AHP ensemble site ratings for northwest Germany are successfully checked for plausibility in the framework of the study by using long-established groundwater abstraction areas as indicators for good site conditions. The GIS-AHP ensemble site ratings are further tested regarding their usability for long-term water supply planning by integrating a groundwater recharge scenario under climate change for the period 2020 to 2050. The proposed GIS-AHP ensemble methodology proves useful in the given case study for fostering integrated environmental decision-making and exhibits a high transferability to other, thematically differing site selection problems.

Reflexive monitoring in action: setting up a monitoring system for learning effectiveness in agroecological farm innovation

ABSTRACT Purpose We defined a methodological framework to monitor and evaluate farmer’s knowledge exchange and learning processes. Our proposed methodology can help farm advisors during the set-up, facilitation and evaluation of interactive activities with farmers, enabling the learning environment for adopting agroecological measures. Approach We used a monitoring approach to monitor and improve learning effectiveness during project activities. We based our monitoring approach on Reflexive Monitoring in Action (RMA) consisting of alternating stages of observation, analysis, reflection and action. We developed a methodological framework combining several theories on learning processes and behavioral change. Theories were translated into practical monitoring tools. Findings We describe the process of installing these monitoring tools. Qualitative data from interviews and a focus group indicate the challenges we encountered when monitoring learning effectiveness and lessons learnt. The conceptual framework of RMA had added value to strengthen collective learning processes and reflexivity. Practical implications Our study offers a methodology to monitor and reflect on learning effectiveness in a multi-actor context. This will support farm advisors in setting up productive learning environments. Theoretical implications Our study reveals additional insights on how to create a learning environment to support the transition to agroecology. Originality/value We translated the conceptual framework of RMA into a methodological framework and implemented it in a real-life setting. By iterative cycles of monitoring, reflection and adaptation, we enable an adaptive learning environment for the implementation of innovative agroecological practices.

A paradox within the paradox of openness: The knowledge leveraging conundrum in open innovation

Firms’ innovative capabilities and performance increasingly rely on successful search and integration of internal and external knowledge. To this end, firms engage in various open innovation relationships, aiming to create and capture value in multi-actor contexts. This can give rise to a “paradox of openness” due to the contradictory role of knowledge as a key resource that creates value when shared, but also as a source of appropriability challenges. We explore the concept of a “paradox within a paradox;” the knowledge-leveraging paradox embedded within the paradox of openness. We integrate a knowledge-based view with paradox theory and develop a conceptual model to pinpoint core knowledge-related transferability and exposure tensions. We then show how these tensions are inversely moderated by innovation-related knowledge ambiguity. This ambiguity amplifies transferability tensions by making the knowledge more difficult to transfer and integrate across organizational boundaries, while relieving exposure tensions for the same reasons. We discuss potential solutions for resolving these core knowledge-related tensions by identifying separation and restructuring mechanisms that can facilitate simultaneous knowledge transfer and alleviate exposure hazards.

Book review: Combating Poverty in Europe – Active Inclusion in a Multi-Actor Context

Book review: Combating Poverty in Europe – Active Inclusion in a Multi-Actor Context

Capacity Building for Water Management in Peri-Urban Communities, Bangladesh: A Simulation-Gaming Approach

Peri-urban areas in the global south are experiencing over-exploitation and contamination of water resources as a result of rapid urbanisation. These problems relate to the ineffectiveness of the underlying institutions in this dynamic, multi-actor context. Institutions need to be considered during problem solving; however, peri-urban communities have limited insight into their institutional context. This research examines the extent to which problem solving capacity can be improved through gaming-simulation methods. A game-based approach is tested in a capacity building workshop with peri-urban communities in Khulna (Bangladesh). A role-playing game designed from game theory models is used to examine local drinking water problems through an institutional lens. Workshop evaluation shows that through role-play, participants learned about strategies in drinking water supply (in both the current and future scenarios) and about the potential to address water quality issues through cooperative groundwater monitoring. Results also show improved problem understanding with regards to institutions, actor strategies, and problem-solving constraints. Participants valued the interactive medium for comparing and evaluating strategies. This paper highlights limitations in game design and its implementation, and offers ways to address this in future applications.

Risk based framework for assessing resilience in a complex multi-actor supply chain domain

ABSTRACTRisk management frameworks offer excellent tools to identify and manage risks in supply chains. Existing tools can be used to evaluate impacts of countermeasures, however, analysts struggle with modelling how disruptions escalate in complex supply chain systems within a certain amount of time and across several stakeholders. On the contrary, the resilience discipline offers the possibility to understand how a supply chain reacts to disruptions as a function of time. Hence, this paper integrates the concepts of resilience with risk management techniques and develops a risk based resilience assessment framework in a multi-actor context. Further, the framework is operationalized by developing a computer based tool that is tested in case of fruit import in Netherlands.

Territorial cross-border cooperation in higher education. A case study of the eastern Pyrenean border

Aquest article debat sobre les geografies canviants de les cooperacions transfrontereres d’educacio i investigacio superior i proporciona una analisi critica sobre les cooperacions transfrontereres universitaries implantades per la Unio Europea. Basant-nos en la frontera pirinenca, analitzem el paper d’aquesta cooperacio tot tenint en compte les seves multiples escales i la diversitat d’actors que hi participen. En aquest sentit, l’Espai Catala Transfronterer, en el sector oriental de la frontera pirinenca, constitueix un interessant estudi de cas. Aqui, mentre que s’ha desenvolupat un discurs emfatitzant l’existencia d’una unitat cultural, la realitat es que aquest espai continua marcat per les asimetries presents a banda i banda de la frontera. Aquest estudi de cas revela, per tant, les tensions i complexitats en l’establiment d’una col·laboracio transfronterera en l’ambit academic, construida sobre la base d’una retorica de proximitat territorial, pero sacsejada recentment pels requeriments nacionals i regionals.

Making dilemmas explicit through the use of a cognitive mapping collaboration tool

Dilemmas are pervasive in decision making. Although they offer the potential of reflecting on issues at stake from different perspectives, dilemmas often lead to paralysis for those encountering them. This study presents a three dimensional collaboration tool specifically developed to surface dilemmas in a multi-actor context. The assumption is that revealing and debating dilemmas encourage finding solutions that bridge the apparently competing demands that resulted in dilemmas in the first place. Our tool, called the ‘dilemma cube’, is based on cognitive mapping principles and allows a diversity of participants to share their interpreted actions, effects, and connections among different issues at stake. We tested our tool in a collaborative workshop for a multifunctional land use project in the Netherlands. Our results show that the ‘dilemma cube’ guided participants to share their interpretations about the project, revealing the interdependence of issues at stake. Revealing the socially-constructed nature of dilemmas in multi-actor contexts is the stepping stone to explore strategies that stimulate deliberation, and realize the opportunities of exploiting opposites in light of dilemmas.

Canada’s International Education Strategy: Implications of a New Policy Landscape for Synergy Between Government Policy and Institutional Strategy

In 2014, the Canadian federal government announced its first-ever international education strategy. Referencing Cerna’s (2014) typology of interactions between national policies and university strategies, this paper examines the implications of this changed national policy context on institutional level internationalization strategies, particularly on international students’ recruitment and retention. We specifically examine how university strategies acknowledge governmental policies; what organizational changes they make in response to government policy and what opportunities and challenges university staff identify in meeting policy objectives. The paper presents results from a scan of universities’ websites and a survey administered to university staff from a representative sample of Ontario’s universities. It concludes that the government-institutional policies’ synergies are far more complex than Cerna’s (2014) typology suggests, reinforcing the need for newer models examining multi-level and multi-actor contexts within which both higher education and governments operate and develop international policies.

The international business environment: a proposed analytical framework

International business environment (IBE) literature is characterised by the lack of a holistic analytical framework. Drawing on a wide range of perspectives, this study aspires to fill the lacuna by offering a holistic, dynamic analytical framework for the systematic study of the IBE. The IBE is broadly conceived as a spatial-temporally multilayered, multi-actor context imbued and stitched up with ideas, institutions and non-institutional structures wherein international business (IB) actors, activities and processes are constituted and occur. Application of the proposed framework will potentially ensure a better understanding of the IBE, support endeavours that focus attention on the IBE as an object of inquiry in its own right, and ultimately foster better managerial and public policy decision-making.

Structuring fragmented knowledge: a case study

When the need to record and track the point of view of different actors in organizational processes becomes a key point for decision makers, a common representation of knowledge from different perspectives and a map of the situation and the decision and action needs could be useful. A methodology that easily and transparently integrates different ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ tools in a common knowledge structuring approach is proposed to deal with complexities and uncertainties in a socio-technical contest. The purpose of this paper is to show the potentialities of this methodology in a real case, in terms of organizational knowledge acquisition and structuring in a multi-actor public context, a university faculty, in relation to a radical change.

The National Policy-making Process in the Context of the International Economic and Financial Movements

The international movements, known to our current society have a visible impact on national public policies. Therefore, a wise Government should implement a policy mechanism, which takes into account the involvement of various international actors on public arena. Romania by dint of European Commission, International Monetary Fund, World Bank through stand-by arrangement puts into practice a programme of measures that changed the view of public policy-making. The current paper reveals the changes of policy-making process under the involvement of international actors. From methodological view, and taking into consideration the theoretical and normative framework, the research is based on the matrix of interest factors, as well as on the reviews under the stand-by arrangements, achieving an analysis in a multi-actor context.

Collective Entrepreneurship: Towards a Process Model

Collective entrepreneurship (CE) is increasingly utilized as a concept as scholars have realized that entrepreneurship is often a multi-individual phenomenon and occurs in a variety of organizational settings. However, the concept CE is yet used loose of an in-depth elaboration on collectiveness in the entrepreneurial opportunity emergence and exploitation context. Integrating literature on group development and shared mental models with the entrepreneurial opportunity setting, we suggest a contingency-based process model of CE that distinguishes CE from individual entrepreneurship (IE) while embracing variability from the individual to the group-level. We believe that CE emerges to different degrees according to the conditions of collective opportunity emergence and exploitation through entrepreneurial action in which a shared understanding among group members develops. We see that the collective quality of the relationships between the members transit the group into a collective entrepreneur. We propose that CE reinforces or degenerates through shared entrepreneurial action mechanisms along time in a variety of multi-actor contexts. Our model not only offers a clearer delineation of CE but also develops the construct as dynamic and malleable which advances future theory building and empirical work, and improves its utility for entrepreneurship education and practice.

The burgeoning field of transdisciplinary adaptation research in Quebec (1998-): a climate change-related public health narrative.

This paper presents a public health narrative on Quebec’s new climatic conditions and human health, and describes the transdisciplinary nature of the climate change adaptation research currently being adopted in Quebec, characterized by the three phases of problem identification, problem investigation, and problem transformation. A transdisciplinary approach is essential for dealing with complex ill-defined problems concerning human–environment interactions (for example, climate change), for allowing joint research, collective leadership, complex collaborations, and significant exchanges among scientists, decision makers, and knowledge users. Such an approach is widely supported in theory but has proved to be extremely difficult to implement in practice, and those who attempt it have met with heavy resistance, succeeding when they find the occasional opportunity within institutional or social contexts. In this paper we narrate the ongoing struggle involved in tackling the negative effects of climate change in multi-actor contexts at local and regional levels, a struggle that began in a quiet way in 1998. The paper will describe how public health adaptation research is supporting transdisciplinary action and implementation while also preparing for the future, and how this interaction to tackle a life-world problem (adaptation of the Quebec public health sector to climate change) in multi-actors contexts has progressively been established during the last 13 years. The first of the two sections introduces the social context of a Quebec undergoing climate changes. Current climatic conditions and expected changes will be described, and attendant health risks for the Quebec population. The second section addresses the scientific, institutional and normative dimensions of the problem. It corresponds to a “public health narrative” presented in three phases: (1) problem identification (1998–2002) beginning in northern Quebec; (2) problem investigation (2002–2006) in which the issues are successively explored, understood, and conceptualized for all of Quebec, and (3) problem transformation (2006–2009), which discusses major interactions among the stakeholders and the presentation of an Action Plan by a central actor, the Quebec government, in alliance with other stakeholders. In conclusion, we underline the importance, in the current context, of providing for a sustained transdisciplinary adaptation to climatic change. This paper should be helpful for (1) public health professionals confronted with establishing a transdisciplinary approach to a real-world problem other than climate change, (2) professionals in other sectors (such as public safety, built environment) confronted with climate change, who wish to implement transdisciplinary adaptive interventions and/or research, and (3) knowledge users (public and private actors; nongovernment organizations; citizens) from elsewhere in multi-contexts/environments/sectors who wish to promote complex collaborations (with us or not), collective leadership, and “transfrontier knowledge-to-action” for implementing climate change-related adaptation measures.

Coproduction of spatial data from compromise to… argumentative consensus. Conditions and participatory processes for producing spatial representation together

Beyond their original function of base maps diffusion, spatial data infrastructure (SDI) are progressively set up in order to organize thematic data coproduction. Spatial data production in a multi-actor context is a collaborative process in a decisional perspective. That's why the issues are multiple. This paper suggests some elements of reflexion for the design and implementation of concertation and participatory decision process for spatial data production. Finally, a focus on traditional participatory process will be discussed to find an alternative way: beyond consensus or compromise, argumentative consensus.

Combining GDSS and Gaming for Decision Support

Both gaming and group (decision) support systems (GDSS) are frequently used to support decision-making and policymaking in multi-actor settings. Despite the fact that there are a number of ways in which gaming and GDSS can be used in a complementary manner, there are only sporadic examples of their combined use. No systematic overview or framework exists in which GDSS are related to the functions of gaming or vice versa. In this article, we examine, why, how and for what purpose GDSS can be used to enrich and improve gaming simulation for decision support, and vice versa. In addition to a review of examples found in the literature, four games are discussed where we combined gaming and GDSS for complex decision making in a multi actor context: incodelta, a game about transportation corridors; infrastratego, a game about a liberalizing electricity market; containers a drift, a game about the planning of a container terminal, and; dubes, a game about sustainable urban renewal. Based on the literature and these four experiences, a classification is presented of (at least) four ways in which GDSS and gaming can be used in a complementary or even mutually corrective, manner: the use of GDSS for game design, for game evaluation, for game operation and the use of gaming for research, testing and training of GDSS.

The use of multi‐criteria decision analysis to support the search for less conflicting policy options in a multi‐actor context: case study

AbstractPublic resource allocation often requires the management of conflicting objectives of multiple policy actors at different spatial levels. An example is the case study on which this paper is based: the definition of an investment policy in new inter‐municipal road‐links in the Lisbon Metropolitan Region (LMR) for the period 1999–2004. The key regional (inter‐municipal) objective is to choose the sub‐set of proposed road projects that maximizes the quality of LMR's road network for a fixed available budget. Conflict arises, however, if environmental, social and economic impacts at the level of the 18 municipalities involved are significantly unbalanced. This paper describes how multi‐criteria decision analysis' concepts, techniques and software tools were used to analyse spatial conflicts in the LMR case. The study provided the decision‐making body formed by all the municipal mayors with useful information about how much it is necessary to negotiate to reach an agreement on a specific investment policy option. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.