The nature and prevalence of inter-organizational project ventures : evidence from a large scale field study in the Netherlands 2006-2009

There has recently been noted a rapid increase in research attention to projects that involve outside partners. Our knowledge of such inter-organizational projects, however, is limited. This paper reports large scale data from a repeated trend survey amongst 2000 SMEs in 2006 and 2009 that focused on inter-organizational project ventures. Our major findings indicate that the overall prevalence of inter-organizational project ventures remained significant and stable over time, even despite the economic crisis. Moreover, we find that these ventures predominantly solve repetitive rather than unique tasks and are embedded in prior relations between the partnering organizations. These findings provide empirical support for the recent claims that project management should pay more attention to inter-organizational forms of project organization, and suggest that the archetypical view of projects as being unique in every respect should be reconsidered. Both have important implications for project management, especially in the area of project-based learning.

Contemporaneous correlations within individuals in an automated web-based walking program (Walk@Work) over a six week period (three phases) of time

Introduction: Participants may respond to phases of a workplace walking program at different rates. This study evaluated the factors that contribute to the number of steps through phases of the program. The intervention was automated through a web-based program designed to increase workday walking. Methods: The study reviewed independent variable influences throughout phases I–III. A convenience sample of university workers (n=56; 43.6±1.7 years; BMI 27.44±.2.15 kg/m2; 48 female) were recruited at worksites in Australia. These workers were given a pedometer (Yamax SW 200) and access to the website program. For analyses, step counts entered by workers into the website were downloaded and mean workday steps were compared using a seemingly unrelated regression. This model was employed to capture the contemporaneous correlation within individuals in the study across observed time periods. Results: The model predicts that the 36 subjects with complete information took an average 7460 steps in the baseline two week period. After phase I, statistically significance increases in steps (from baseline) were explained by age, working status (full or part time), occupation (academic or professional), and self reported public transport (PT) use (marginally significant). Full time workers walked more than part time workers by about 440 steps, professionals walked about 300 steps more than academics, and PT users walked about 400 steps more than non-PT users. The ability to differentiate steps after two weeks among participants suggests a differential affect of the program after only two weeks. On average participants increased steps from week two to four by about 525 steps, but regular auto users had nearly 750 steps less than non-auto users at week four. The effect of age was diminished in the 4th week of observation and accounted for 34 steps per year of age. In phase III, discriminating between participants became more difficult, with only age effects differentiating their increase over baseline. The marginal effect of age by phase III compared to phase I, increased from 36 to 50, suggesting a 14 step per year increase from the 2nd to 6th week. Discussion: The findings suggest that participants responded to the program at different rates, with uniformity of effect achieved by the 6th week. Participants increased steps, however a tapering off occurred over time. Age played the most consistent role in predicting steps over the program. PT use was associated with increased step counts, while Auto use was associated with decreased step counts.

Access To Justice In The ASEAN The Key Role Of UNCITRAL

UNCITRAL’s operation as a subsidiary of the UN General Assembly, tasked to unify and harmonise international trade law is a necessary and indispensable element of the UN’s mandate to maintain international peace and security. Strong legal frameworks which are compatible with those of international trading partners often accompany accelerated growth in economic capacity and stability. Over time, access to markets and resultant growth in economic and human development creates a disincentive for instability as incomes and standards of living rise. Human and economic development, facilitated by a modernised and just legal framework that is available to the broadest range of recipients goes hand in hand with the maintenance of domestic and regional peace, particularly in regions such as the ASEAN , one of the fastest growing in the world covering approximately 30% of global population and with a number of strong global economic neighbours including Japan, Korea, China (to the north), Australia (to the south) and Singapore (to the west). In an increasingly interconnected world, the ability of government, enterprise and individuals to participate in the global supply chain offers opportunities for economic growth and development. Over its almost 50 years of operations, UNCITRAL has produced a range of important texts that are designed to underpin world trade. A key implicit assumption underpinning the development of UNCITRAL texts is that the texts, once adopted can and will be applied in adopting states.

Knowledge channelization and innovation

This paper examines knowledge management and innovation in the Australian Construction Industry. A conceptual model is presented, based upon analysis of the literature and a series of preliminary construction industry interviews. Extensive knowledge management (KM) research has focused upon types of knowledge contained within specific organizational settings. However, we argue that a crucial missing link in KM research concerns the interface between flows of knowledge from external sources of innovations and its channelization in and out, and between organizations. This interface, regulating and facilitating knowledge from external sources of innovation into the organisation, operates under the influence of two main forces visualized as “pulling” and “pushing” forces in the model presented in this paper. The premise of the model lies in a hypothesis that as an organization changes itself into a more mature, learning organization (LO) over time, knowledge flows into it through “pull” rather than “push” forces. We conclude that a successful knowledge management initiative installs a learning and knowledge sharing culture, which is easily adaptable to new learning offering little resistance to new knowledge that flows into the organisation. The model bridges the gap between research and its application in construction practice.

A time-variant medical data trustworthiness assessment model

Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems are being introduced to overcome the limitations associated with paper-based and isolated Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems. This is accomplished by aggregating medical data and consolidating them in one digital repository. Though an EHR system provides obvious functional benefits, there is a growing concern about the privacy and reliability (trustworthiness) of Electronic Health Records. Security requirements such as confidentiality, integrity, and availability can be satisfied by traditional hard security mechanisms. However, measuring data trustworthiness from the perspective of data entry is an issue that cannot be solved with traditional mechanisms, especially since degrees of trust change over time. In this paper, we introduce a Time-variant Medical Data Trustworthiness (TMDT) assessment model to evaluate the trustworthiness of medical data by evaluating the trustworthiness of its sources, namely the healthcare organisation where the data was created and the medical practitioner who diagnosed the patient and authorised entry of this data into the patient’s medical record, with respect to a certain period of time. The result can then be used by the EHR system to manipulate health record metadata to alert medical practitioners relying on the information to possible reliability problems.

Early land grants and reservations : Any lessons from the Queensland experience for the sustainability challenge to land ownership

Environmentalists have called for a new property paradigm premised on the idea of land ownership as a delegated responsibility to manage land and resources for the public benefit. An examination of Crown freehold grants from the beginnings of settlement until the 1890s in Queensland shows that fee simple titles were granted subject to express conditions and reservations designed to reserve useful natural resources to the Crown, and to promote public purposes. Over time, legislative regulation of landowner’s rights rendered obsolete the use of express conditions and reservations in grants. One result of this change was that the inherently limited nature of fee simple ownership, and the communal obligations to which it is subject, are less transparent than in colonial times.

Who is publishing in the Journal of Sociology? an analysis of author trends 1965–2008

This paper presents the author characteristics of papers published in The Australian Sociological Association (TASA) journal, the Journal of Sociology (formerly the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology) between 1965 and 2008. The aim of the paper is empirically to identify trends in authorship. The review examines all articles published in the period (excluding book reviews). The rationale of the study is to reveal trends in who publishes in the journal in terms of authors’ academic rank, gender, institution, and country. A table of those who have published the greatest number of papers is also presented. Findings show that over time the gap between the proportion of males and females publishing has closed; more PhD students and research fellows are publishing in the journal in recent decades; the highest proportion of authors consistently come from the Australian National University and The University of Queensland; and most authors are located in Australia. Information such as this can inform editorial practices and serve to inform the membership and readership on the nature of the journal.

Time series analysis of a Web search engine transaction log

In this paper, we use time series analysis to evaluate predictive scenarios using search engine transactional logs. Our goal is to develop models for the analysis of searchers’ behaviors over time and investigate if time series analysis is a valid method for predicting relationships between searcher actions. Time series analysis is a method often used to understand the underlying characteristics of temporal data in order to make forecasts. In this study, we used a Web search engine transactional log and time series analysis to investigate users’ actions. We conducted our analysis in two phases. In the initial phase, we employed a basic analysis and found that 10% of searchers clicked on sponsored links. However, from 22:00 to 24:00, searchers almost exclusively clicked on the organic links, with almost no clicks on sponsored links. In the second and more extensive phase, we used a one-step prediction time series analysis method along with a transfer function method. The period rarely affects navigational and transactional queries, while rates for transactional queries vary during different periods. Our results show that the average length of a searcher session is approximately 2.9 interactions and that this average is consistent across time periods. Most importantly, our findings shows that searchers who submit the shortest queries (i.e., in number of terms) click on highest ranked results. We discuss implications, including predictive value, and future research.

Towards a model of the institutional logics of climate change

The proliferation of innovative schemes to address climate change at international, national and local levels signals a fundamental shift in the priority and role of the natural environment to society, organizations and individuals. This shift in shared priorities invites academics and practitioners to consider the role of institutions in shaping and constraining responses to climate change at multiple levels of organisations and society. Institutional theory provides an approach to conceptualising and addressing climate change challenges by focusing on the central logics that guide society, organizations and individuals and their material and symbolic relationship to the environment. For example, framing a response to climate change in the form of an emission trading scheme evidences a practice informed by a capitalist market logic (Friedland and Alford 1991). However, not all responses need necessarily align with a market logic. Indeed, Thornton (2004) identifies six broad societal sectors each with its own logic (markets, corporations, professions, states, families, religions). Hence, understanding the logics that underpin successful –and unsuccessful– climate change initiatives contributes to revealing how institutions shape and constrain practices, and provides valuable insights for policy makers and organizations. This paper develops models and propositions to consider the construction of, and challenges to, climate change initiatives based on institutional logics (Thornton and Ocasio 2008). We propose that the challenge of understanding and explaining how climate change initiatives are successfully adopted be examined in terms of their institutional logics, and how these logics evolve over time. To achieve this, a multi-level framework of analysis that encompasses society, organizations and individuals is necessary (Friedland and Alford 1991). However, to date most extant studies of institutional logics have tended to emphasize one level over the others (Thornton and Ocasio 2008: 104). In addition, existing studies related to climate change initiatives have largely been descriptive (e.g. Braun 2008) or prescriptive (e.g. Boiral 2006) in terms of the suitability of particular practices. This paper contributes to the literature on logics by examining multiple levels: the proliferation of the climate change agenda provides a site in which to study how institutional logics are played out across multiple, yet embedded levels within society through institutional forums in which change takes place. Secondly, the paper specifically examines how institutional logics provide society with organising principles –material practices and symbolic constructions– which enable and constrain their actions and help define their motives and identity. Based on this model, we develop a series of propositions of the conditions required for the successful introduction of climate change initiatives. The paper proceeds as follows. We present a review of literature related to institutional logics and develop a generic model of the process of the operation of institutional logics. We then consider how this is applied to key initiatives related to climate change. Finally, we develop a series of propositions which might guide insights into the successful implementation of climate change practices.

Innovation and learning for sustainable competitive advantage : preliminary findings

Achieving and sustaining competitive advantage is a major challenge for firms in today’s dynamic global marketplace. The notion of sustained competitive advantage has been investigated through a number of paradigms, from the resource based view of the firm to dynamic capabilities. This paper reports preliminary findings from research which investigates the characteristics of innovative firms that have demonstrated competitive advantage over time, targeting factors that contribute to the firm’s performance. Key factors to sustaining competitive advantage include working with demanding customers, team based organizational cultures, engaging in challenging projects to make new to the world products, and using projects to generate the necessity for learning by doing, learning by using and learning by interacting in new product and process development.

Complexity and learning behaviors in product innovation

Successful product innovation and the ability of companies to continuously improve their innovation processes are rapidly becoming essential requirements for competitive advantage and long-term growth in both manufacturing and service industries. It is now recognized that companies must develop innovation capabilities across all stages of the product development, manufacture, and distribution cycle. These Continuous Product Innovation (CPI) capabilities are closely associated with a company’s knowledge management systems and processes. Companies must develop mechanisms to continuously improve these capabilities over time. Using results of an international survey on CPI practices, sets of companies are identified by similarities in specific contingencies related to their complexity of product, process, technological, and customer interface. Differences between the learning behaviors found present in the company groups and in the levers used to develop and support these behaviors are identified and discussed. This paper also discusses appropriate mechanisms for firms with similar complexities, and some approaches they can use to improve their organizational learning and product innovation.

Forecasting time-varying value-at-risk

In this thesis we are interested in financial risk and the instrument we want to use is Value-at-Risk (VaR). VaR is the maximum loss over a given period of time at a given confidence level. Many definitions of VaR exist and some will be introduced throughout this thesis. There two main ways to measure risk and VaR: through volatility and through percentiles. Large volatility in financial returns implies greater probability of large losses, but also larger probability of large profits. Percentiles describe tail behaviour. The estimation of VaR is a complex task. It is important to know the main characteristics of financial data to choose the best model. The existing literature is very wide, maybe controversial, but helpful in drawing a picture of the problem. It is commonly recognised that financial data are characterised by heavy tails, time-varying volatility, asymmetric response to bad and good news, and skewness. Ignoring any of these features can lead to underestimating VaR with a possible ultimate consequence being the default of the protagonist (firm, bank or investor). In recent years, skewness has attracted special attention. An open problem is the detection and modelling of time-varying skewness. Is skewness constant or there is some significant variability which in turn can affect the estimation of VaR? This thesis aims to answer this question and to open the way to a new approach to model simultaneously time-varying volatility (conditional variance) and skewness. The new tools are modifications of the Generalised Lambda Distributions (GLDs). They are four-parameter distributions, which allow the first four moments to be modelled nearly independently: in particular we are interested in what we will call para-moments, i.e., mean, variance, skewness and kurtosis. The GLDs will be used in two different ways. Firstly, semi-parametrically, we consider a moving window to estimate the parameters and calculate the percentiles of the GLDs. Secondly, parametrically, we attempt to extend the GLDs to include time-varying dependence in the parameters. We used the local linear regression to estimate semi-parametrically conditional mean and conditional variance. The method is not efficient enough to capture all the dependence structure in the three indices —ASX 200, S&P 500 and FT 30—, however it provides an idea of the DGP underlying the process and helps choosing a good technique to model the data. We find that GLDs suggest that moments up to the fourth order do not always exist, there existence appears to vary over time. This is a very important finding, considering that past papers (see for example Bali et al., 2008; Hashmi and Tay, 2007; Lanne and Pentti, 2007) modelled time-varying skewness, implicitly assuming the existence of the third moment. However, the GLDs suggest that mean, variance, skewness and in general the conditional distribution vary over time, as already suggested by the existing literature. The GLDs give good results in estimating VaR on three real indices, ASX 200, S&P 500 and FT 30, with results very similar to the results provided by historical simulation.

Adapting to the work-life interface : the influence of individual differences, work and family on well-being, mental health and work engagement

Bronfenbrenner.s Bioecological Model, expressed as the developmental equation, D f PPCT, is the theoretical framework for two studies that bring together diverse strands of psychology to study the work-life interface of working adults. Occupational and organizational psychology is focused on the demands and resources of work and family, without emphasising the individual in detail. Health and personality psychology examine the individual but without emphasis on the individual.s work and family roles. The current research used Bronfenbrenner.s theoretical framework to combine individual differences, work and family to understand how these factors influence the working adult.s psychological functioning. Competent development has been defined as high well-being (measured as life satisfaction and psychological well-being) and high work engagement (as work vigour, work dedication and absorption in work) and as the absence of mental illness (as depression, anxiety and stress) and the absence of burnout (as emotional exhaustion, cynicism and professional efficacy). Study 1 and 2 were linked, with Study 1 as a cross-sectional survey and Study 2, a prospective panel study that followed on from the data used in Study1. Participants were recruited from a university and from a large public hospital to take part in a 3-wave, online study where they completed identical surveys at 3-4 month intervals (N = 470 at Time 1 and N = 198 at Time 3). In Study 1, hierarchical multiple regressions were used to assess the effects of individual differences (Block 1, e.g. dispositional optimism, coping self-efficacy, perceived control of time, humour), work and family variables (Block 2, e.g. affective commitment, skill discretion, work hours, children, marital status, family demands) and the work-life interface (Block 3, e.g. direction and quality of spillover between roles, work-life balance) on the outcomes. There were a mosaic of predictors of the outcomes with a group of seven that were the most frequent significant predictors and which represented the individual (dispositional optimism and coping self-efficacy), the workplace (skill discretion, affective commitment and job autonomy) and the work-life interface (negative work-to-family spillover and negative family-to-work spillover). Interestingly, gender and working hours were not important predictors. The effects of job social support, generally and for work-life issues, perceived control of time and egalitarian gender roles on the outcomes were mediated by negative work-to-family spillover, particularly for emotional exhaustion. Further, the effect of negative spillover on depression, anxiety and work engagement was moderated by the individual.s personal and workplace resources. Study 2 modelled the longitudinal relationships between the group of the seven most frequent predictors and the outcomes. Using a set of non-nested models, the relative influences of concurrent functioning, stability and change over time were assessed. The modelling began with models at Time 1, which formed the basis for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to establish the underlying relationships between the variables and calculate the composite variables for the longitudinal models. The CFAs were well fitting with few modifications to ensure good fit. However, using burnout and work engagement together required additional analyses to resolve poor fit, with one factor (representing a continuum from burnout to work engagement) being the only acceptable solution. Five different longitudinal models were investigated as the Well-Being, Mental Distress, Well-Being-Mental Health, Work Engagement and Integrated models using differing combinations of the outcomes. The best fitting model for each was a reciprocal model that was trimmed of trivial paths. The strongest paths were the synchronous correlations and the paths within variables over time. The reciprocal paths were more variable with weak to mild effects. There was evidence of gain and loss spirals between the variables over time, with a slight net gain in resources that may provide the mechanism for the accumulation of psychological advantage over a lifetime. The longitudinal models also showed that there are leverage points at which personal, psychological and managerial interventions can be targeted to bolster the individual and provide supportive workplace conditions that also minimise negative spillover. Bronfenbrenner.s developmental equation has been a useful framework for the current research, showing the importance of the person as central to the individual.s experience of the work-life interface. By taking control of their own life, the individual can craft a life path that is most suited to their own needs. Competent developmental outcomes were most likely where the person was optimistic and had high self-efficacy, worked in a job that they were attached to and which allowed them to use their talents and without too much negative spillover between their work and family domains. In this way, individuals had greater well-being, better mental health and greater work engagement at any one time and across time.

Alcohol expectancy changes over a 12-week cognitive–behavioral therapy program are predictive of treatment success

This study examines if outcome expectancies (perceived consequences of engaging in certain behavior) and self- efficacy expectancies (confidence in personal capacity to regulate behavior) contribute to treatment outcome for alcohol dependence. Few clinical studies have examined these constructs. The Drinking Expectancy Profile (DEP), a psychometric measure of alcohol expectancy and drinking refusal selfefficacy, was administered to 298 alcohol-dependent patients (207 males) at assessment and on completion of a 12-week cognitive–behavioral therapy alcohol abstinence program. Baseline measures of expectancy and self-efficacy were not strong predictors of outcome. However, for the 164 patients who completed treatment, all alcohol expectancy and self-efficacy factors of the DEP showed change over time. The DEP scores approximated community norms at the end of treatment. Discriminant analysis indicated that change in social pressure drinking refusal self-efficacy, sexual enhancement expectancies, and assertion expectancies successfully discriminated those who successfully completed treatment from those who did not. Future research should examine the basis of expectancies related to social functioning as a possible mechanism of treatment response and a means to enhance treatment outcome.

The mediating effects of the time structure on the relationships between time management behaviour, job satisfaction and psychological wellbeing

This article examined the relationship between time structure and Macan's process model of time management. This study proposed that time structure—‘appraisal of effective time usage’—would be a more parsimonious mediator than perceived control over time in the relationship between time management behaviours and outcome variables, such as job satisfaction and psychological well-being. Alternative structure models were compared using a sample of 111 university students. Model 1 tested Macan's process model of time management with perceived control over time as the mediator. Model 2 replaced perceived control over time by the construct of time structure. Model 3 examined the possibility of perceived control over time and time structure as being parallel mediators of the relationships between time management and outcomes. Results of this study showed that Model 1 and Model 2 fitted the data equally well. On the other hand, the mediated effects were small and partial in both models. This pattern of results calls for reassessment of the process model.