Technological innovation in the context of PPPs: incentives, opportunities and actions

From a construction perspective, Public-Private Partnership projects (PPPs) are often credited as providing real incentives for the actors involved as well as a business environment that is conducive to innovation and improved practices. The validity of four common rhetorical arguments used to promote the PPP procurement route is explored: collaborative working, design freedom, long-term commitment and risk transfer. Particular interest is given to the extent to which espoused intentions correlate with experienced realities in allowing actors involved in the design and construction phases to be presented with, and able to exploit, opportunities for technological innovation. It is argued that there is reason to be cautious in fully accepting the purported benefits of the PPP framework and that the arguments often presented need to be revised. Alternative interpretations are provided.

Technology sourcing, knowledge management and governance in international inter-organizational innovation networks

This conceptual paper aims to improve our understanding of how internationalised firms use outsourcing and offshoring strategies to manage knowledge and information through the life-cycle of integrated product-service solutions. More precisely, we identify the appropriate theoretical framework for this analysis and investigate through in-depth case studies how UK engineering firms organise, coordinate, and incentivise work that is executed in globally distributed teams. Our research focuses on their UK and India offices to study the organisation and governance of distributed teams. The research has several theoretical dimensions - organization; geography; time and knowledge - that it addresses as boundary challenges.

Learning across business sectors: facets of innovation in aerospace and construction

Innovation is notoriously difficult to define and is invariably intertwined with issues of knowledge creation, continuous improvement and organisational change. An extensive literature classifies numerous types of innovation and militates against any simplistic attempt at definition. It is widely accepted that innovation is at least partly dependent upon the surrounding environment. Industry recipes and institutionally embedded practices shape the environment within which innovation occurs. Recent research directions have addressed the diffusion of innovation and its dependence upon social and institutional structures. In this respect, it is highly pertinent to compare the way that innovation is interpreted and enacted in different industrial sectors. The comparison between UK aerospace and construction is especially revealing because the two sectors are so different and therefore constitute radically different climates for innovation. Empirical research is reported based on semi-structured interviews with practitioners from both sectors. Interpretations of innovation are found to differ dramatically between aerospace and construction. Within the context of an ongoing struggle to define innovation, both industries are striving to become more innovative. The aerospace sector is found to emphasise technical innovation whereas the construction sector emphasises process innovation. An overriding cultural bias in Western economies towards technological innovation results in the common perception that aerospace is much more innovative than construction. The experienced realities of practitioners in the two sectors are much more complex.

In-service training needs in an African context: a study of headteacher and teacher perspectives in the Gucha District of Kenya

Improving the quality of teaching is an educational priority in Kenya, as in many developing countries. The present paper considers various aspects of in-service education, including views on the effectiveness of in-service, teacher and headteacher priorities in determining in-service needs and the constraints on providing in-service courses. These issues are examined though an empirical study of 30 secondary headteachers and 109 teachers in a district of Kenya. The results show a strong felt need for in-service provision together with a firm belief in the efficacy of in-service in raising pupil achievement. Headteachers had a stronger belief in the need for in-service for their teachers than did the teachers themselves. The priorities of both headteachers and teachers were dominated by the external pressures of the schools, in particular the pressures for curriculum innovation and examination success. The resource constraints on supporting attendance at in-service courses were the major problems facing headteachers. The results reflect the difficulties that responding to an externally driven in-service agenda creates in a context of scarce resources.

IEPs in mainstream secondary schools: an agenda for research

Providing children with special educational needs with individual education plans (IEPs) was advocated in the 1994 code of practice for SEN, and retained in the 2000 code. Specifically as it relates to mainstream secondary schools, this has proved highly controversial: many SENCos report that the writing and implementing of IEPs is a bureaucratic encumbrance, whilst others, going about the process of writing IEPs in very different ways, report that the process is both manageable and beneficial to the children concerned. Given this contradictory evidence, there is an urgent need for research into this area. Having looked at three case-studies of schools using very different methods to write IEPs in ways with which they feel comfortable, a research agenda is set out with a view to informing policies which ensure that resources spent on SEN are used as productively as possible.

Implementing innovation: designers, users and actor-networks

The role of users is an often-overlooked aspect of studies of innovation and diffusion. Using an actor-network theory (ANT) approach, four case studies examine the processes of implementing a piece of CAD (computer aided design) software, BSLink, in different organisations and describe the tailoring done by users to embed the software into working practices. This not only results in different practices of use at different locations, but also transforms BSLink itself into a proliferation of BSLinks-in-use. A focus group for BSLink users further reveals the gaps between different users' expectations and ways of using the software, and between different BSLinks-in-use. It also demonstrates the contradictory demands this places on its further development. The ANT-informed approach used treats both innovation and diffusion as processes of translation within networks. It also emphasises the political nature of innovation and implementation, and the efforts of various actors to delegate manoeuvres for increased influence onto technological artefacts.