In the ambitions to upgrade the teaching profession, much attention is given to Master’s courses for teachers. As such Master’s courses ask for considerable investment in time and money, the question can be raised to what extent the upgrading of teachers to the Master’s level will lead to improvement in teaching and learning at schools. This paper presents the outcomes of a small scale study in which 7 teachers who recently graduated at a Master’s program in the Netherlands were interviewed on the climate and conditions they experienced at the workplace in their schools to apply their newly acquired knowledge, skills and professional attitude in their daily work. This explorative study shows that teachers engaged in a Master’s program can meet considerable obstacles within the organizational culture of the school. There appears to be a considerable misalignment between the teachers engaged in the post-initial Master’s program and their supervisors. While the teachers see the purpose of the Master’s program both in private terms (personal development) and public terms (contributing to school development), they experience an organizational climate that leaves no room for a wider public purpose of their studies, where they use the competences and qualities they have developed outside the boundaries of their own classrooms
This paper presents four research projects on organizational innovation in the Netherlands. These projects are still in a design and theoretical investigation stage, but the authors find it useful to share their findings and insights with the research community in order to inspire them with their ideas and research agenda. In the paper four constructs are explored that focus on the human factor in organizations and that may have a positive influence on organizational innovation. Shared leadership: It is often thought that, for innovation, only one brilliant mind with a break-through idea in a single flash of enlightenment is needed. Recent research, however, shows that most innovations are the result of team-flow and sharing and alternating leadership tasks. Social Capital: through leadership and decision making, by influencing trust, respect and commitment, the organizations social capital and thus its innovative power is increased. External consultancy: deployment of external consultants will add to knowledge and skills necessary for innovation. IT and workflow management: if handled correctly, the human factor can add substantial quality to the design and use of IT in organizations. The paper shows that the way these constructs are managed is crucial in influencing and motivating members of an organization to attribute to innovation and make use of the facilities that are offered to them.
In pursuit of competitive advantage in an increasingly globalized and complex environment, organizations are turning to continuous improvement and digitalization to achieve operational excellence. Viewed through the lens of Dynamic Capabilities Theory, the similarities complementarities, and synergies of continuous improvement capability and data analytic capability are examined. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, continuous improvement routines and practices that can be harnessed to accelerate the implementation of data analytical capability are identified. These include Hoshin Kanri to link digitalization projects to organizational strategic, training to develop organizational knowledge of digitalization, problem solving teams to break knowledge silos, and the use of PDCA-type processes for adopting and monitoring the performance of digital technologies.
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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.
Physical rehabilitation programs revolve around the repetitive execution of exercises since it has been proven to lead to better rehabilitation results. Although beginning the motor (re)learning process early is paramount to obtain good recovery outcomes, patients do not normally see/experience any short-term improvement, which has a toll on their motivation. Therefore, patients find it difficult to stay engaged in seemingly mundane exercises, not only in terms of adhering to the rehabilitation program, but also in terms of proper execution of the movements. One way in which this motivation problem has been tackled is to employ games in the rehabilitation process. These games are designed to reward patients for performing the exercises correctly or regularly. The rewards can take many forms, for instance providing an experience that is engaging (fun), one that is aesthetically pleasing (appealing visual and aural feedback), or one that employs gamification elements such as points, badges, or achievements. However, even though some of these serious game systems are designed together with physiotherapists and with the patients’ needs in mind, many of them end up not being used consistently during physical rehabilitation past the first few sessions (i.e. novelty effect). Thus, in this project, we aim to 1) Identify, by means of literature reviews, focus groups, and interviews with the involved stakeholders, why this is happening, 2) Develop a set of guidelines for the successful deployment of serious games for rehabilitation, and 3) Develop an initial implementation process and ideas for potential serious games. In a follow-up application, we intend to build on this knowledge and apply it in the design of a (set of) serious game for rehabilitation to be deployed at one of the partners centers and conduct a longitudinal evaluation to measure the success of the application of the deployment guidelines.
The Dutch hospitality industry, reflecting the wider Dutch society, is increasingly facing social sustainability challenges for a greying population, such as increasing burnout, lifelong learning, and inclusion for those distanced from the job market. Yet, while the past decades have seen notable progress regarding environmental sustainability and good governance, more attention should be paid to social sustainability. This concern is reflected by the top-sector healthcare struggles caused by mounting social welfare pressure, leading to calls by the Dutch government for organizational improvement in social earning capacity. Furthermore, the upcoming EU legislation on CSRD requires greater transparency regarding financial and non-financial reporting this year. Yet, while the existing sustainability accreditation frameworks offer guidance on environmental sustainability and good governance reporting, there must be more guidance on auditing social sustainability. The hospitality industry, as a prominent employer in the Netherlands, thus has a societal and legislative urgency to transition its social earning capacity. Dormben Hotel The Hague OpCo BV (Dormben) has thus sought support in transitioning its social sustainability standards to meet this call. Hotelschool, the Hague leads the consortium, including Green Key Nederland and Dormben, by employing participatory design to present a social sustainability accreditation framework. Initially, Dr. David Brannon and Dr. Melinda Ratkai from Hotelschool The Hague will draft a social sustainability accreditation framework informed by EFRAG. Subsequently, Erik van Wijk, from Green Key Nederland, the hospitality benchmark for sustainability accreditation, and Sander de Jong, from Dormben, will pilot the framework through four participatory workshops involving hospitality operators. Later, during a cross-industry conference, Dr. David Brannon and Dr. Melinda Ratkai will disseminate a social sustainability toolkit across their academic and industry networks. Finally, conference and workshop participants will be invited to form a social sustainability learning community, discussing their social earning capacity based on the revised sustainability accreditation.
