This study focuses on SME networks of design and high-tech companies in Southeast Netherland. By highlighting the personal networks of members across design and high-tech industries, the study attempts to identify the main brokers in this dynamic environment. In addition, we investigate whether specific characteristics are associated with these brokers. The main contribution of the paper lies in the fact that, in contrast to most other work, it is quantitative and that it focuses on brokers identified in an actual network (based on both suppliers and users of the knowledge infrastructure). Studying the phenomenon of brokerage provides us with clear insights into the concept of brokerage regarding SME networks in different fields. In particular we highlight how third parties contribute to the transfer and development of knowledge. Empirical results show, among others that the most influential brokers are found in the nonprofit and science sector and have a long track record in their branch.
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Governance of inter-organizational networks: a systematic literature review and qualitative meta-synthesis
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A major challenge for disaster scholars and policymakers is to understand the power dimension in response networks, particularly relating to collaboration and coordination. We propose a conceptual framework to study interests and negotiations in and between various civic and professional, response networks drawing on the concepts of “programming” and “switching” proposed by Manuel Castells in his work on the network society. Programming in disaster response refers to the ability to constitute response networks and to program/reprogram them in terms of the goals assigned to the network. Switching is the ability to connect different net-works by sharing common goals and combining resources. We employ these concepts to understand how the US Federal Emergency Management Agency organized its response in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. Our conceptual framework can be used both by disaster scholars and policymakers to understand how networked power is constructed and utilized.
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Business is changing from an industrial- to a knowledge-based environment, building more from professionals and their expertise. Corporations need to create internal organizations in which there is more emphasis on human capital and creating/sharing knowledge and talents. Talent management and knowledge creation should be new foci to create sustainability and long-term success. On the whole, organisations are working too much on an ad hoc basis, focusing on technology instead of creating an environment in which talents reinforce each other. In this review article we explore knowledge circulation, link knowledge, and talent to innovation, and discuss optimum circumstances for corporations to benefit from these assets.
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Conclusion and general discussion regarding brokers in the SME network across Design and High-tech industries
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IT-based networking trends such as the rise of social media, crowd sourcing, open innovation, and cloud computing enable a profoundly different way of working and collaborating that challenges significantly traditional approaches of companies towards governance, i.e. the mechanisms a company employs to achieving business results and safeguarding information. Standard practices developed with a hierarchical model of the company in mind, are inadequate for providing sufficient correlation between governance mechanisms deployed and results achieved. Popular literature on the subject states that dealing effectively with such new technologies in a business environment requires relinquishing control and subverting to trust. This paper makes the case that deploying successfully new IT-based networking tools rather involves shifting one’s trust from a well-established and well-known governance system based on hierarchy and control towards another governance system, termed in the literature as network governance. This paper assesses when network governance is the better suited governance system. The presented theoretical model helps to understand how companies should use arising new technologies and which tasks are suited for network-driven IT-applications. Furthermore, the model enables to understand how network governance works to achieve business results and to safeguard information exchanges.
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Bedrijven bevinden zich tegenwoordig vaak in een keten. Een keten kan worden beschouwd als een verzameling organisaties die een virtueel netwerk delen waar informatie, diensten, goederen of geld doorheen stroomt. Hierbij staan ICT-systemen veelal centraal. Deze afhankelijkheid werkt in de hand dat cyber-gerelateerde risico’s een opmars maken binnen ketens. Niet elke ketenorganisatie beschikt echter over de middelen en kennis om zichzelf te beschermen: om tot sterke ketens te komen is informatiedeling tussen ketenorganisaties over actuele dreigingen en incidenten van belang. Een doel van dit verkennend onderzoek, dat is uitgevoerd in opdracht van het Nationaal Cyber Security Centrum (NCSC), is om inzicht te bieden in de succesfactoren van informatiedeling-initiatieven op het gebied van cyberveiligheid. Met deze kennis kan het NCSC haar accounthouders en adviseurs helpen om de doelgroepen positief te motiveren om actie te nemen ter versterking van ketenweerbaarheid. Tevens wordt met dit onderzoek beoogd om aanknopingspunten voor vervolgonderzoek te identificeren. Het identificeren van succesfactoren vond plaats op basis van een literatuurstudie en gestructureerde interviews met in totaal zes leden uit drie verschillende bestaande informatiedeling-initiatieven rondom cybersecurity: het Managed Service Provider (MSP) Information Sharing and Analysis Centre (ISAC), Energie ISAC en de securitycommissie van de Nederlandse Energie- Data Uitwisseling (NEDU). Alle respondenten zijn informatiebeveiligingsexperts die hun organisatie vertegenwoordigen in de samenwerkingsverbanden. In totaal zijn 20 succesfactoren geïdentificeerd. Deze factoren zijn vervolgens gecategoriseerd tot vier thema’s die bijdragen aan een succesvolle informatiedeling. De thema’s zijn samen te vatten als teamfactoren, individuele factoren, managementfactoren en faciliterende factoren. De vier meest genoemde succesfactoren zijn: ● Expertise: Leden met onderscheidende en gespecialiseerde kennis bevorderen de informatiedeling en zijn ondersteunend aan het individuele leerdoel van de leden. ● Vertrouwen: Vertrouwen is een essentiële voorwaarde voor de bereidheid om samen te werken en informatie te delen. Tijd is hierin een cruciale factor: tijd is nodig voor vertrouwen om te ontstaan. ● Lidmaatschapseisen: Expliciete en impliciete lidmaatschapseisen zorgen voor een selectie op geschikte deelnemers en faciliteren daarmee het onderling vertrouwen. ● Structurele opzet: Een samenwerking dient georganiseerd te zijn volgens een structuur en met een stabiele bezetting van voldoende omvang. Vervolgonderzoek zou zich kunnen richten op het identificeren van strategieën voor het opstarten van samenwerkingsverbanden en het over de tijd behouden van enthousiasme onder de leden in de informatiedeling-initiatieven rondom cybersecurity. Ook onderzoek naar de eigenschappen of kwaliteiten van de voorzitter en hoe deze bijdragen aan het succesvol initiëren en onderhouden van een samenwerkingsverband zijn genoemd. Ook is nog onvoldoende duidelijk hoe gedeelde of juist onderscheidende expertise van de leden bijdraagt aan succes van de informatiedeling-initiatieven. Verder is er behoefte aan kennis over hoe de samenwerking tussen ketenpartners op het gebied van cyberveiligheid buiten bestaande samenwerkingsverbanden is ingericht. Denk hierbij aan een uitbreiding van de huidige studie, maar met een focus op kleinere bedrijven die deel uitmaken van ketens, maar waarbij IT niet de corebusiness is, aangezien die volgens respondenten als risicovol worden gezien voor de keten.
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De transitie van het onderwijs in de foodsector in de Rotterdamse regio
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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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