In 2005 and 2006, almost sixty Dutch National Sport Federations (NSFs) participated in a special program for creating a marketing strategy for the next four years. This program was initiated and organized by NOC*NSF (the Dutch Olympic Umbrella Sports Organization). The NSFs had to joint the project to receive funds. For most of them it was the first time they seriously analyzed the market with the aim of developing new programs. The purpose of this paper is to explore to what extent Dutch NSFs are capable to change their structures to become more market oriented and more market responsive in order to write strategic plans. The changed structures are investigated using the "institutional theory" (Tolbert & Zucker, 1996) and are explained by exogenous (market context and institutional context) and endogenous (interests, values, power dependencies, and capacity for action) dynamics from the neo-institutionalist framework (Greenwood & Hinings, 1996). In 2005 NSFs were expected to be in a pre-institutionalized stage, i.e. they were supposed to develop new organizational structures in response to specific problems (Kikulis, 2000). Now, approximately 1½ years after finishing their strategies, the question arises whether they have reached the semi-institutional stage, i.e. whether the new structures or actions are diffused across organizations, yet still subject to change and whether old structures are yet eroding (Kikulis, 2000). Methods Studying the intended structural change of NSFs requires an in-depth study of their social reality and the reactions and interpretations of involved actors, including their applied meanings to certain situations. Greenwood & Hinings (1996) plead for detailed comparative case-studies when studying institutional changes. Therefore three NSFs has been selected: The Royal Dutch Korfball Federation (KorfFed); The Royal Dutch Billiards Federation (BillFed); and the Dutch Jeu de Boules Federation (JeuFed). These three federations differ on size, amount of housed sports, number of associated clubs, sorts of intermediary decision making bodies, employed FTE's, and more. Therefore it is expected that the tempo of institutionalization of the new, market oriented, structures, will differ among them. Sugden & Tomlinson (2002) developed a multi-method style of qualitative research for making sense of the deep, inside information below the surface of everyday life. They call it the "Brighton method. Applying the Brighton method for this research implies that the three cases will be studied with respect to their history, their present marketing actions, their results and the changes in their organization. In-depth interviews, document analysis (policy plans, marketing plans and more), and where possible observations and participations are used to create a critical and investigative view of the organizations in change. Results The KorfFed used the marketing program to further develop existing programs. Although the outcomes of these programs were not new, the program has opened the eyes of the president, director and staff members. They are now conscious of the urgency of a market orientation, and a marketing orientation (a marketing position has already been introduced), and they see opportunities in attracting non-competition playing korfball players. They have, however, not yet reached the phase of semi-institutionalization of the market oriented structures. This can be concluded from the following: - The organization still has an ad-hoc character; - Some board members still make decisions based on their own insights rather than on information from the professional part of the organization; - Decisions to start programs are still grounded on subsidy possibilities rather than on market possibilities. Interest dissatisfaction and power dependencies are the main dynamics that form barriers in the planned organizational change. The BillFed is a federation that covers four disciplines, i.e. pool, snooker, carom, and billiard 3 cushions. The federation used to act upon these four disciplines. The marketing program has made clear that the BillFed should act upon target groups instead of on these disciplines. Therefore, the federation created a vision to reach youth, young adults, as also elderly people. Carrying out this new vision requires a market orientated structure (focus on target groups) instead of an internal orientated structure (focus on discipline groups). This new vision is created on an upper level (general board together with professional staff) in the organization. This federation also introduced a professional marketing position. Unfortunately, the underlying layers remain slightly passive and are not willing to work along the new structures, which mean that the new structures have not been diffused across the whole organization. Interest dissatisfaction, value commitments and power dependencies are the problematic dynamics. The JeuFed used to have a strong competition and tournament (internal) orientation, while many jeu-de-boules players play the game just for fun. The marketing program has created the insight that the just-for-fun players are also an important target group. Hence, 3 projects are developed to make club membership more attractive for all jeu-de-boules players. Since the federation never worked with projects before, they just found out that implementing projects such as these requires new structures. The JeuFed has just arrived in the pre-institutionalized phase, still far away from the semi-institutionalized chapter. Power dependencies and a lack of capacity for change are influencing dynamics in this case. Discussion Although it is already 1½ years ago that Dutch NSFs finished their marketing program, in none of the described cases the new structures have reached the semi-institutional stage. These new structures or actions are not yet diffused across the organizations, and the old structures are not eroding. In all three cases another combination of endogenous dynamics are influencing the process of organizational change. Continuing research is needed to find out whether these federations will ever reach the next stage of institutionalization and which dynamics will play an important role.
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This paper consolidates the fragmented literature and evidence by highlighting the three important lenses on the institutional antecedents of sustainable development agenda in cultural heritage tourism. Our study, therefore, identifies three distinct institutional antecedents olensesf sustainable development in cultural heritage tourism such as governance mechanisms, community agency, and the influence of supranational institutions. It demonstrates that sustainable cultural heritage tourism is multidimensional as it spans institutional and sectoral domains. This study brings to light the interplay of these elements and further evaluates their efficacy in embedding the sustainable development agenda in cultural heritage tourism. It also contributes to the literature by bringing to light the current state of the literature on institutional antecedents of sustainable development in cultural heritage tourism. This allows our study to attempt to show the scope of the current knowledge about institutional antecedents and their relationship with sustainable cultural heritage tourism. Most importantly, the study identifies gaps in the research on institutional antecedents and sustainable cultural heritage tourism—the basis on which future research directions have been identified and suggested.
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Whereas social entrepreneurs in developed economies operate in the predictable and supportive institutional environment, their counterparts in the developing world often face hostile institutional conditions. This paper sheds some light on how social ventures that operate within the Malawian tourism and hospitality industry use institutional bricolage in order to address institutional constraints they face in pursuit of social value. Using qualitative-based case study approach involving four social founders/ventures, our study highlights the three specific institutional bricolage processes that serve as antecedents of social value creation in a developing country context. It further illuminates the significance of engendering a multilevel analysis of institutional voids. The paper finally provides implications for practice and research.
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Research suggests that construction clients, as building owner-occupier, are struggling to implement smart maintenance. This thesis assumes that this is due to a failure to fully understand the institutional complexities of smart maintenance. Hence, the aim of this thesis was to improve our understanding of these complexities and to develop theoretical and practical knowledge on the professionalization of construction clients in commissioning smart maintenance through stewardship. Stewardship theory portrays managers and employees as collectivists, pro-organizational and trustworthy, and can be used for designing collaborations based on intrinsic motivation and trust. A first insight from this thesis relates to how institutional complexity in smart maintenance management (SMM) can be understood (study 1). Institutional complexity is defined as the combined effect of 15 interorganizational and intraorganizational tensions that are active simultaneously. A second insight from this thesis relates to the capabilities that construction clients need to address the institutional complexities of SMM and connect various institutional fields (study 2). Using data collected from four cases involving two construction clients, a framework with eight maturity dimensions, involving 23 sub-dimensions, has been developed and validated. The third insight from this thesis relates to the role of the purchasing function in commissioning smart maintenance and emerged from considering the service triad concept (study 3). The findings indicate that the service triad concept fails to provide sufficient detail to adequately describe the construction client’s role in SMM. Hence, the service triad is extended to a service hexad. Our fourth insight relates to intrapreneurial stewardship (study 4). A process model for change implementation through stewardship interventions has been developed and then evaluated in a case study. The process model combines constructs from stewardship theory with intrapreneurship concepts and describes how employees can be coached by leaders during periods of organizational change. Together, the insights from the four studies are synthesized in a framework for client-led innovation in SMM and describe how construction clients can increase SMM maturity in institutionally complex environments through stewardship.
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The literature on how organizations respond to institutional pressure has shown that the individual decision-makers’ interpretation of institutional pressure played an important role in developing organizational responses. However, it has paid less attention to how this interpretation ultimately contributes to their range of organizational decisions when responding to the same institutional pressure. We address this gap by interviewing board members of U.S. and Dutch hospitals involved in adopting best practices regarding board evaluation. We found four qualitatively different cognitive frames that board members relied on to interpret institutional pressure, and which shaped their organizational response. We contribute to the literature on organizational response to institutional pressure by empirically investigating how decision-makers interpret institutional pressure, by suggesting prior experience and role definition as moderating factors of multidimensional cognitive frames, and by showing how these cognitive frames influence board members’ response to the same institutional pressure.
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There are three volumes in this body of work. In volume one, we lay the foundation for a general theory of organizing. We propose that organizing is a continuous process of ongoing mutual or reciprocal influence between objects (e.g., human actors) in a field, whereby a field is infinite and connects all the objects in it much like electromagnetic fields influence atomic and molecular charged objects or gravity fields influence inanimate objects with mass such as planets and stars. We use field theory to build what we now call the Network Field Model. In this model, human actors are modeled as pointlike objects in the field. Influence between and investments in these point-like human objects are explained as energy exchanges (potential and kinetic) which can be described in terms of three different types of capital: financial (assets), human capital (the individual) and social (two or more humans in a network). This model is predicated on a field theoretical understanding about the world we live in. We use historical and contemporaneous examples of human activity and describe them in terms of the model. In volume two, we demonstrate how to apply the model. In volume 3, we use experimental data to prove the reliability of the model. These three volumes will persistently challenge the reader’s understanding of time, position and what it means to be part of an infinite field. http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99709
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In this paper we analyze the effects if two countries, with different settings on the labor market, open their capital markets. To do this we follow the ideas of New Institutional Economics in combination with a new model of economic growth. We will use a Leontief production function, where we derive the distribution of income by using an approach stemming from conflict theory, to highlight some new insights into the question whether an open world capital market enhances the overall welfare. First of all, using conflict theory, we will pay some attention to the micro-economic foundation of a Harrod-Domar model. At least we want to analyze what will happen if for e.g.: China opens the capital market to the EU zone, where the institutions in both regions are very different. We will show that this will always lead a race to the bottom from the view of workers in the former developed region.
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The concepts of metacognitive refection, refection, and metacognition are distinct but have undergone shifts in meaning as they migrated into medical education. Conceptual clarity is essential to the construction of the knowledge base of medical education and its educational interventions. We conducted a theoretical integrative review across diverse bodies of literature with the goal of understanding what metacognitive refection is. We searched PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, PsychInfo, and Web of Science databases, including all peer-reviewed research articles and theoretical papers as well as book chapters that addressed the topic, with no limitations for date, language, or location. A total of 733 articles were identified and 87 were chosen after careful review and application of exclusion criteria. The work of conceptually and empirically delineating metacognitive reflection has begun. Contributions have been made to root metacognitive refection in the concept of metacognition and moving beyond it to engage in cycles of refection. Other work has underscored its affective component, transformational nature, and contextual factors. Despite this merging of threads to develop a richer conceptualization, a theory of how metacognitive refection works is elusive. Debates address whether metacognition drives refection or vice versa. It has also been suggested that learners evolve along on a continuum from thinking, to task-related refection, to self-refection, and finally to metacognitive refection. Based on prior theory and research, as well as the findings of this review, we propose the following conceptualization: Metacognitive refection involves heightened internal observation, awareness, monitoring, and regulation of our own knowledge, experiences, and emotions by questioning and examining cognition and emotional processes to continually refine and enhance our perspectives and decisions while thoughtfully accounting for context. We argue that metacognitive refection brings a shift in perspective and can support valuable reconceptualization for lifelong learning.
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Background: In the Netherlands, most of the academic curricula for teacher training in religious education (RE) focus on shortfalls of students, like a lack of knowledge about the plurality of worldviews and the diversity in interpretations of the Christian tradition. In our research project, the focus is not on the students, but on the university professors and lecturers who teach the subject of RE: professors and lecturers who train and educate students to teach RE. Aim: The main aim of the project was to gain a better insight into the inherent complexity of the professionalism of academics, that is, their own positionality in the plurality of the Roman Catholic traditions they adhere to in relation to their capabilities and commitment to the current curriculum – the ‘old’ one – and the new curriculum to be developed, in the context of the Dutch plural society. Setting: Respondents in this research were university professors and lecturers of the Teacher Training Institute of Tilburg University, located at Utrecht, the Netherlands. Methods: For this investigation, we used a research instrument based on the dialogical self theory and its self confrontation method for organisations to gain insight into professionals’ own and their colleagues’ positionality regarding teaching RE. Results: Preliminary results show that the self confrontation method for organisations has shown itself to be a challenging instrument to invite academics involved in the process of data construction and data analysis. Conclusion: Based on these results, we recommend to include the research population in a validation process to increase the sustainability of the results and to maximise engagement in the implementation phase of the new curriculum.
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In today’s intellectual capital literature, we see a shift from identifying intangibles towards understanding the dynamics of value creation. As it is not clear what “dynamic” stands for, the aim of this explorative and conceptual paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the dynamic dimension of IC. Based on a review of the early IC literature, the dynamic dimension (or dynamics) of intellectual capital seems to refer to the logic that value creation is the product of interaction between different types of (intangible) resources. As the idea of value creation through combination of knowledge resources is closely related to the New Growth Theory (Romer, 1990, 1994), this paper explores the New Growth Theory and its implications for the dynamic dimension of intellectual capital. Based on the exploration of the New Growth Theory, a conceptual model is presented in which the elements that constitute the dynamic dimension of intellectual capital are integrated. These elements are ideas, things, the process of knowledge creation, the process of continuous innovation, and institutions. The main conclusion of this paper is that the concept of knowledge is more closely related to the dynamic dimension of IC, than the concept of intellectual capital. Therefore, further research would probably benefit from approaching this topic from a knowledge management point of view. It is suggested that further research should focus on exploring the metaphors that contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of IC, on the contribution that ideas can make to increase the effectiveness of knowledge management, and finally on the institutional arrangements that support the process of knowledge creation and innovation.
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