In the fast-changing world of IT, relevant competencies are getting more important as these determine how successful you can function in practice. As a consequence, organizations are introducing competency frameworks like the European e-Competence Framework (e-CF, 2014) in their IT departments. However, for many organizations it is unclear what good practices and pitfalls are when introducing such a framework. In this paper this topic is studied by analysing 13 interviews with IT- and HR-managers who are (or recently have been) involved in a transition towards the use of competencies with their IT-staff.
Organizations operate in a socio-economic context, and alignment with this context is key for business success. The rate of change and impact of these changes on the operating model of the organization appears to be increasing. Major trends are the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, the “VUCA” aspects (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity), and the Covid-pandemic. The challenge for organizations is to become resilient or even antifragile to survive (unexpected) external stressors. Antifragility refers to a class of systems that do not deteriorate (fragile) or withstand (robust) stressors, but actually improve as a result of stressors. Our objective is to find attributes that are relevant for an organization to be(come) antifragile. The list of attributes found is based on an extensive survey of available literature, and is validated with domain experts and leaders of various organizations. We dub the list of attributes found the Extended Antifragile Attribute List (EAAL). Considering the current economic and social impact on organizations and people of the Covid-pandemic, the EAAL is relevant as well timely. The EAAL turns out to be extensive and holistic. We consider the EAAL to be a stepping stone in setting the scene of the domain of antifragility. We suspect that the EAAL might also be applied to generic system design including technology infrastructure and software systems. This exploration is part of future research.
In my belief the effectiveness of organizations has more to do with managing people in a more ethical, sustainable and effective way than what is common these days. For example employees values like trust, respect and commitment are rarely considered as values that can contribute to social capital in organizations as an important and critical success factor. I will present the hypothesis that social capital in organizations exists and that is formed out of employees values like trust, respect and commitment and the process of creating social capital is influenced by leadership style and the way of decision making. A conceptual model to describe the relationships is shown in chapter 3. Chapter 4 defines social capital as dependent variable and presents important theoretical considerations from Putnam, Bourdieu, Coleman and Fukuyama leading to the conclusion that social capital is about a network sharing values and norms to cooperate freely and therefore effectively. The value of social capital derives from basic values like trust, respect and commitment, so is made clear in chapter 5 where these values are theoretically introduced and commented on. The process from basic value to social capital is influenced by leadership style and participating in decision making as is illustrated in chapter 6, that leads to the conclusion that it is profitable to invest in a proper way of leadership style and a proper way of decision making, causing the best amount of social capital. Another conclusion is that this field is empirically not well explored, but interesting.
The focus of this project is on improving the resilience of hospitality Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) by enabling them to take advantage of digitalization tools and data analytics in particular. Hospitality SMEs play an important role in their local community but are vulnerable to shifts in demand. Due to a lack of resources (time, finance, and sometimes knowledge), they do not have sufficient access to data analytics tools that are typically available to larger organizations. The purpose of this project is therefore to develop a prototype infrastructure or ecosystem showcasing how Dutch hospitality SMEs can develop their data analytic capability in such a way that they increase their resilience to shifts in demand. The one year exploration period will be used to assess the feasibility of such an infrastructure and will address technological aspects (e.g. kind of technological platform), process aspects (e.g. prerequisites for collaboration such as confidentiality and safety of data), knowledge aspects (e.g. what knowledge of data analytics do SMEs need and through what medium), and organizational aspects (what kind of cooperation form is necessary and how should it be financed).
The transition towards an economy of wellbeing is complex, systemic, dynamic and uncertain. Individuals and organizations struggle to connect with and embrace their changing context. They need to create a mindset for the emergence of a culture of economic well-being. This requires a paradigm shift in the way reality is constructed. This emergence begins with the mindset of each individual, starting bottom-up. A mindset of economic well-being is built using agency, freedom, and responsibility to understand personal values, the multi-identity self, the mental models, and the individual context. A culture is created by waving individual mindsets together and allowing shared values, and new stories for their joint context to emerge. It is from this place of connection with the self and the other, that individuals' intrinsic motivation to act is found to engage in the transitions towards an economy of well-being. This project explores this theoretical framework further. Businesses play a key role in the transition toward an economy of well-being; they are instrumental in generating multiple types of value and redefining growth. They are key in the creation of the resilient world needed to respond to the complex and uncertain of our era. Varta-Valorisatielab, De-Kleine-Aarde, and Het Groene Brein are frontrunner organizations that understand their impact and influence. They are making bold strategic choices to lead their organizations towards an economy of well-being. Unfortunately, they often experience resistance from stakeholders. To address this resistance, the consortium in the proposal seeks to answer the research question: How can individuals who connect with their multi-identity-self, (via personal values, mental models, and personal context) develop a mindset of well-being that enables them to better connect with their stakeholders (the other) and together address the transitional needs of their collective context for the emergence of a culture of the economy of wellbeing?
Digital transformation has been recognized for its potential to contribute to sustainability goals. It requires companies to develop their Data Analytic Capability (DAC), defined as their ability to collect, manage and analyze data effectively. Despite the governmental efforts to promote digitalization, there seems to be a knowledge gap on how to proceed, with 37% of Dutch SMEs reporting a lack of knowledge, and 33% reporting a lack of support in developing DAC. Participants in the interviews that we organized preparing this proposal indicated a need for guidance on how to develop DAC within their organization given their unique context (e.g. age and experience of the workforce, presence of legacy systems, high daily workload, lack of knowledge of digitalization). While a lot of attention has been given to the technological aspects of DAC, the people, process, and organizational culture aspects are as important, requiring a comprehensive approach and thus a bundling of knowledge from different expertise. Therefore, the objective of this KIEM proposal is to identify organizational enablers and inhibitors of DAC through a series of interviews and case studies, and use these to formulate a preliminary roadmap to DAC. From a structure perspective, the objective of the KIEM proposal will be to explore and solidify the partnership between Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas), Avans University of Applied Sciences (Avans), Logistics Community Brabant (LCB), van Berkel Logistics BV, Smink Group BV, and iValueImprovement BV. This partnership will be used to develop the preliminary roadmap and pre-test it using action methodology. The action research protocol and preliminary roadmap thereby developed in this KIEM project will form the basis for a subsequent RAAK proposal.
