Exploring Community Collaborations: Social Network Analysis as a Reflective Tool for Public Health

Social network analysis is a potentially useful reflective tool that could be used by public health practitioners to assess the overall composition of their networks, strengthen collaborations with other community partners, and evaluate network function. The purpose of this paper is to report on public health practitioners’ experiences with social network analysis. Thirteen public health practitioners, each associated with their own advocacy-oriented community collaboration, participated in the study. Specifically, the intervention consisted of social network analysis output (social network analysis measures and sociograms) and a facilitated discussion to stimulate reflection on the respondents’ professional networks. Semi-structured interviews were conducted two weeks later to solicit participants’ reactions to the sociograms and the accompanying measures, and elicit thoughts about how social network analysis might have an impact on their work. Participants commented on ways in which social network analysis could be applied in practice, such as using sociograms to raise awareness of the nature of current networks, as a planning and evaluation tool, to identify gaps, and to assess the degree of sustainability of current networks.     

Creating Action Research Quality in Organization Development: Rigorous,Reflective and Relevant

The purpose of the paper is to present a framework that enables action researchers to create quality action research projects within the organization development (OD) domain using the broad criteria of being rigorous, reflective and relevant and so contribute to the realm of practical knowing. What constitutes good quality action research within OD is a difficult question, given the broad range of approaches that operates in a wide variety of settings and with great diversity. It advances specific dimensions by which action researchers can create, review and assess quality in action research work. This integrative framework and criteria are practical tools to enable action researchers to create quality action research in OD.     

Developing Reflective Practice in Information Systems Development: Further Progress on the Gestation of an Evaluative Framework

It is argued in this paper that evaluative activities in relation to systems development have traditionally focussed on the financial worth of the product. This approach has excluded the appraisal of important issues such as the process for building the product, the performance of the systems development team, the methods used and the organisational impact of the implemented System. In response to the traditional approach, which is skewed towards quantification techniques, a three stage framework is proposed. The three stages are iterative. The first being concerned with establishing an appropriate focus and resolution level for the evaluation, the second uses a control model to identify relevant outputs, appropriate sensors and comparators and performance criteria. The third is about selecting more sophisticated paradigms for assessing processes and their outputs. It is contended that although the specific focus of this paper is systems development, the framework could be used in any organisational context where products and services are developed and produced.     

Appreciative Inquiry: A Field Study of Community Development

The meaning of race, ethnicity, social class, and culture has rapidly changed within the last two decades. In addition to the tremendous growth of diverse populations in our neighborhoods, administrative policy changes have pushed community leaders to approach organizational engagement with diversity more comprehensively. Using Appreciative Inquiry method to achieve a high level of participation and to transform inner dialogue between the participants, this study is about doing systemic thinking and practice in a diverse inner-city setting in the United States. The results of this study indicate that Appreciative Inquiry method is an appropriate model for systemic practice in community development.     

Development of Six-sigma Capability Indices in Modern Quality Management Practices

This research work based on the development of 6σ capability indices in the Modern Quality Management Practices in the world level companies is briefly introduced. The process performance index （when a process indicated by control charts is under control） and the percentage of defective products are calculated and compared with kσ. Finally, compared 6σ with 3σ, when process is on nominal （nominal - mean）, the process has 1.5σ shift from nominal.     

Systemic Research Practices Towards the Development of an Eco-Community in Vietnam: some Joint Post-Facto Reflections

In this article we discuss how an interdisciplinary research team partnered with a variety of stakeholders concerned with and/or affected by the impacts of climate change in the Red River Delta of Vietnam. The research, undertaken from 2016 to 2018, drew upon a wide range of methods to investigate systemically these impacts – with a view to the research inputting into the development of (more) sustainable ways of living. The research solicited various accounts of the experience of climate change in the community, set up learning processes in community meetings, and created an interface with government officials positioned at commune, district, provincial, and national levels. The intention was to offer support towards developing a learning process (broadly defined as including learnings/systemic inquiry across organizational levels of the society) to pursue options for sustainable living. The article offers our post-facto reflections which render more explicit (to ourselves and for the benefit of audiences) how the research team, with Hoang as lead researcher, facilitated the inquiry process towards developing a synthesis which underscored the assets for resilience to climate change and supported interventions to strengthen such (defined) assets.

     

数据赋能驱动制造企业服务化的机理——基于探索性多案例扎根分析

现有研究多集中于从“供给侧”剖析数据赋能通过技术支撑对制造业服务转型的影响,但赋能后的企业能否获得施展机会则依赖于同被赋能的其他主体为焦点企业塑造的市场环境;同时,数据赋能驱动制造企业服务化的多样性实践则表明,数据赋能驱动制造企业服务化还依赖于相关因素对数据赋能与制造企业服务化两者关系的影响。面向不同情境下数据赋能驱动制造企业服务化的差异化实践,纳入数据赋能通过市场需求影响制造企业服务化的驱动途径,以动态能力与市场环境两者适应性匹配为核心动力,分别借助内在机制捕捉数据赋能驱动制造企业服务化的不变性和外在机制捕捉相关因素塑造数据赋能驱动制造企业服务化的差异性,构建内在、外在机制交互影响制造企业服务化的理论框架。运用质性研究的扎根理论方法,选取3家制造企业进行案例研究,探讨了数据赋能驱动制造企业服务化的机理。研究发现：内在机制“数据赋能-动态能力与市场环境适应性匹配-服务化”刻画了数据赋能与制造企业服务化两者关系的不变性;外在机制“企业家精神-数智型服务化战略导向-服务试错-动态能力与市场环境适应性匹配-服务化”则捕捉了数据赋能与制造企业服务化两者关系的情境依赖性;借助于典范模型所涉及到的范畴,服务资源重组、数智型服务化战略导向、服务试错是数据赋能驱动制造企业服务化的关键环节。本研究扩展了数据赋能同时通过企业动态能力与市场环境两条途径影响两者匹配驱动制造企业服务化转型的作用机理,利用内在机制/外在机制协调了数据赋能驱动制造企业服务化的关系不变性与实践多样性之间的张力,为制造企业服务化提供了管理框架和理论工具。     

Triple Task Method: Systemic, Reflective Action Research

This brief article introduces a new methodology for systemic action research—Triple Task (TT)—and sets out its rationale and initial progress in becoming an embedded method for group working. Arising from the authors previous work with soft systems approaches, the Imagine method for sustainable development assessment and action research in a variety of global locations, TT provides a means for groups to engage together in purposive work and, at the same time, for facilitators to understand how the dynamic of the group influences the groups output. TT is based on an ambitious concept and at the time of writing the results of TT applied in the context of an EU Framework 7 funded project are in their early stages but importantly, significant insights are already arising including the answers to some puzzling questions:

• Do purposeful groups always produce the most insightful outcomes?
• Do conflictual groups produce incoherent results?
• What makes a ‘good’ group?

     

Designing a Management System for a Rural Community Development Organization Using a Systemic Action Research Process

This paper describes the first phase, 'finding out', of a systemic participatory action research intervention in the management systems of a rural community development organization in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The aims of the intervention were to (a) improve the management system of this organization, and (b) evaluate the usefulness of particular systems methodologies for the improvement of management systems of organizations involved in community development in under-resourced rural contexts. The second phase, "implementation," needs to be completed and thoroughly evaluated before any final conclusions can be drawn about the suitability of the chosen systems framework for Third World type rural contexts. However, the second phase is, at the time of writing, underway and all indications are that an interpretive ('Soft') Systems Methodology, combined with insights from a more functionalist ('hard') approach (with methods chosen through a Critical Systems Thinking framework) holds much promise for participatory systemic interventions in these contexts.     

Community Development and Renaissance Social Humanism: Some Lessons for Systems Science

Starting from the crisis in our communities—research has indicated it to be widely spread—the author explores the scientific tradition preceding the rise of modernism in order to draw out a more humane way of thinking that may help our contemporary societies. He discerns between two types of Renaissance humanism, one characterised by its cleverness, the other by its compassion and desire to restore dignity to the lives of people struggling to escape the clutches of medievalism. The father of the latter is Erasmus of Rotterdam and we follow the development of his conception of a social humanism as it branches out, through the work of his successors, into every scientific discipline, both natural and human. These disciplines are united by an embracing systemic idea of philosophy that unites the mind with the heart and which Erasmus called “Philosophia Christi”. We examine the two main pillars upon which this philosophy is built, love for our neighbour and education as the only legitimate instrument to change society, and the extraordinary impact it had on science and on communities living in the seventeenth century. We contrast this with the idea of power, the chosen instrument of modernity to transform society, and trace some of its tragic outcomes. We conclude by discussing the incorporation of an Erasmian type of social humanism into systems education and the future development of such programmes.     

Sustainable Community Development: A Brief Introduction to the Multi-Modal Systems Method

There is still no agreement on the concept of sustainable development but, what was initially only seen as an equation of economic growth and protection of environment resources, has now began to include several other dimensions, such as the social, cultural, ethical, legal and political. However, this requires a scientific perspective capable of dealing with ethical and normative questions. The Multi-Modal Systems Method intends to tackle the sustainable issue in a total manner, based on a trans-disciplinary approach and on a method that makes possible practical applications in empirical contexts. This article presents an introduction to this method in the context of the sustainable development of communities.     

基于聚类分析的复杂网络中的社团探测

社团结构是复杂网络中普遍存在的一种特征.本文应用改进了的谱分法将网络的社团探测问题转换为聚类分析问题,并将Girvan和Newman提出的模块度函数概念应用到聚类分析的4类算法中进行社团结构的探测,特别提出了一种新的结合模块度的聚类遗传算法.然后用3种类型的网络实验算例验证了本文算法的有效性,并对实验结果进行了比较分析,得出本文提出的新算法在初始化敏感性和准确性方面效果较好.最后指出本文算法的进一步研究方向.     

The Emergent Properties of SSM in Use: A Symposium by Reflective Practitioners

Two careers, in industry and in university teaching at postgraduate level, have led to the development of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) in a 30-year program of action research. The most cogent comments on SSM come from reflective practitioners, and in this symposium I have asked eight such users of SSM to reflect on their experience and to address the question of what it is that happens when the approach is used in real-world problem situations. Their responses reflect their different backgrounds, experience, and ways of working, but a broad general picture emerges. This suggests that SSM (whose process does not necessarily have to be made explicit to participants in a study) can engender a process of on-going (cyclic) coherent structured learning which feels natural, and which can surface previously unexamined assumptions, thus creating an arena in which accommodations can emerge which enable and motivate "action to improve" to be taken.     

Internet拓扑的社团结构分析

对Internet AS级拓扑的社团结构进行了分析,发现其模块度在0.38和0.48之间,表明Internet拓扑具有一定的模块特性.社团分解结果表明,处于同一社团内的AS许多都是相同或邻近国家的AS,表明了地理因素是Internet社团结构形成的一个重要原因.对Internet国家级拓扑的社团结构的分析,更明显地表明了地理因素对Internet互联所产生的影响.PFP模型所生成的网络的模块度仅有0.30左右,与真实Internet有一定差距,因此提出了一种考虑了地理因素的Internet模型--GeoPFP模型,在包括小度值节点聚类特性等诸多性质上,新模型都能准确模拟Internet,同时新模型的模块度在0.42附近,与真实Internet一致.     

A Systemic Indicators Framework for Sustainable Rural Community Development

Systemic Practice and Action Research - Community indicators have been of special interest to scholars worldwide, because of their vital role in community development. Nevertheless, the best way to...     

啤酒花产业链的系统分析与产业化经营实践

运用农业系统工程的原理,对我国西部特色作物啤酒花产业链,在系统辨识的基础上进行系统分析,浅述啤酒花链的系统分析及产业化经营实践和体会,达到促进我国西部特色作物——啤酒花农业产业化经营的发展,实现农民增产增收,加快新农村建设。图1,参7。     

The Acceptance and Progress in Argentina of Multi-Modal Systems Thinking for Community Development

This article describes the acceptance and development of multi-modal systems thinking in Argentina in the last 5 years, both in theory and in practice. On the theoretical side, we show the efforts made to provide compatible epistemological doctrines for different modalities, starting with ethics and aesthetics. This took place first through the phenomenology of values and more recently in the context of Christian existentialism and continuing later on with the study of the relationship among other modalities. On the practical side, we describe the applications of this framework to study the so-called “crisis of the Argentine countryside”. This is a conflict between the community of farmers, the national government and the present situation with cattle producers. Other applications include a programme to teach action-research and projects related to abandoned children and education in indigenous communities.     

探讨复杂系统中的群体结构

为探讨恰当划分复杂系统群体蛄构的新方法，提出了改进边介数法。在对网络实例空手道俱乐部的研究中，将谊方法与传统社会学聚类方法和GN算法进行了对照比较。其实证结果表明了谊方法对于正确分析系统的群体结构的有效性。     

Coproduction in Practice: Participatory Action Research to Develop a Model of Community Aged Care

Coproduction has become synonymous with innovative approaches to public service delivery in European Union countries as well as in Australia. Coproduction has the potential to bring together individuals, communities, and organisations in a process to collaboratively develop new models and services which improve public services. Yet, Australian policy makers and practitioners who would like to deploy coproduction within the context of older adult social care can only draw on a handful of papers and reports that could guide implementation. This paper fills this gap by reporting on the implementation of a multi-stakeholder coproduction approach to the development of a consumer directed care model for older people with complex health issues. The paper describes and critically highlights methodological challenges encountered during the 12 month-long participatory action research phase of a larger project involving older people with complex care needs, their carers, and government and non-government stakeholders. The paper outlines key considerations regarding (1) the involvement of older people with complex needs, (2) collaboration with industry partners, (3) engagement of government representatives, and (4) reflects on implementing participatory research projects within a context of outsourcing and interlinked supply chains. While not all challenges encountered could be resolved, the coproduction approach was successful in bringing together a wide range of stakeholders with competing agendas in an iterative process geared to resolve a plethora of concerns raised by older people, carers and services providers. This paper provides an example for others seeking to use coproduction and participatory methods to provide person-centred care services for older people.