Academic literature on the topic 'Organisational fluidity'

This article explores the encounter between parkour as an unstructured and culturally innovative practice, challenging both physical as well as organisational spaces, and UISP (Unione Italiana Sport per Tutti/Italian Union of Sport for All) as a sport-promotion body open to organisational and cultural experimentation. Drawing on a multi-method qualitative approach (analysis of documentary material, interviews and focus groups), it looks at the role of UISP in the diffusion and legitimisation of parkour within the Italian context, investigating the interplay between the cultural and organisational logics of both this new practice itself on the one hand, and the organisations that are trying to accommodate it on the other. The incorporation in a sport-for-all organisation like UISP provides traceurs with a safe and legitimised space, which is, however, ‘loose' enough to maintain the fluidity of the practice. Nonetheless, by enabling the coexistence of different and competing definitions and uses of parkour, this fluid organisational space reproduces tensions among traceurs and weakens their voice in UISP's decision-making processes.

The Australian health care industry prior to the 1990s was notable for its relative stability and uniformity in relation to organisational design.Since then, new organisational designs have proliferated and a diversity of approaches is evident.The new fluidity in organisational design is particularly evident amongst the allied health professions. The aim of this paper is two-fold.Firstly,to summarise recent changes in organisational design as they relate to the allied health professions and secondly,to move beyond design issues to focus on service level enhancement in an organisational change context. This later aim is achieved by presenting data from an in-depth study of one institution's experience with wide-ranging organisational reforms. The recent formation of the National Allied Health Organisational Structures Network (NAHOSN) has given energy to the impetus of placing a research-based framework around the change experiences reported by Allied Health groups. An objective of the network is to foster research,rather than rely on commentary and anecdote, in the often highly contested arena of organisational design and reform.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to outline an empirical study of how professionals experience work and learning in complex adaptive organisations. The study uses a complex adaptive systems approach, which forms the basis of a specifically developed conceptual framework for explaining professionals’ experiences of work and learning. Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 professionals from a variety of organisations, industry sectors and occupations in Sydney, Australia. The transcripts were subjected to an adapted phenomenographic analysis, and an analysis using the complex adaptive organisations conceptual framework (CAOCF). Findings The findings indicated that professionals experienced learning mainly through work, where work was experienced as fluid and influenced by varying degrees of emergence, agency, complex social networks and adaptation. Further, the greater the degree of work fluidity, the greater the impetus towards learning through work, empirically indicating that the experience of learning in contemporary organisations is entwined with work. Originality/value This study used the concept of complex adaptive organisations as a conceptual framework, coupled with an adapted phenomenographic methodology, to investigate individual professionals’ experiences of work and learning. The adoption of the concept of complex adaptive organisations provided a rigorous way to adopt a complexity approach. In particular, the concept of emergence provides insights into how organisational complexity influences work and, subsequently, learning and adaptation.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the operating factors influencing a cross-organisational mentoring initiative created to support leadership development. The research provides insight on participants’ views and mentoring practices around planning and preparation of mentoring relationships, to inform future training of leaders. Design/methodology/approach The research is inductive in nature, using an exploratory approach via a two-stage qualitative analysis. The qualitative data were gathered via interviews with the initiative partners and questionnaires distributed to all mentors and mentees involved. Data were gathered at the outset of the initiative and one year later. Findings Emergent themes revealed that centrally driven criterion-based matching was deemed effective, with skills and experience of mentors perceived as more important than seniority. Support from senior management was of paramount importance at all stages. Clear personal and professional objective setting was vital at the outset of the mentoring relationship; however, a degree of fluidity in direction occurred over time. Planned periodic meetings to share experiences, aid reflection and gather feedback from individual mentors and mentees groups was requested. Finally, while the mentees should drive the process, it was recognised that mentors may be required to take the lead initially. Research limitations/implications It is recognised that wider generalisations are limited; the initiative would require replication with a number of different participants to increase validity. However, as the research is exploratory in nature, there is value in the initial research findings with potential for replication within other organisations and for other cross-organisational mentoring initiatives. Practical implications The research provides a number of useful themes which practitioners could use to explore the creation of a cross-organisational mentoring scheme and provides benchmarking indicators for this. Originality/value This is an innovative approach to leadership training that can be seen in the limited literature and theory related to cross-organisational mentoring as a leadership training tool that the design team, a partnership of HR academics and HRD professionals, were able to access.

Digital business ecosystems and platforms have emerged as collaborative tools, but few studies have investigated the competitive value that defines winners in the competition among platforms. This study examines the effects of experiential fit on identification, cocreation reward, and cocreation-supportive behaviours by considering the theories of organisational fluidity, service-dominant logic, and social support. Data collected from 1,090 respondents are analysed using AMOS and SPSS. The service-dominant approach is incorporated with a dynamic view of individual value fit to explore user identification, rewards, and cocreation value. The statistical results reveal that a mobile-based ecosystem may provide value convergence for its users (i.e., experiential fit) and thus enable value reservation (i.e., identification), achievement (i.e., cocreation reward), and value dissemination (i.e., cocreation-supportive behaviours). This study offers a new dynamic approach regarding cocreation-supportive behaviours for the digital business ecosystem literature

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the hospitality workforce in situ between mid-April and June 2020. Design/methodology/approach This is a viewpoint paper that brings together a variety of sources and intelligence relating the impacts on hospitality work of the COVID-19 pandemic at three levels: macro (global, policy, government), meso (organisational) and micro (employee). It questions whether the situations faced by hospitality workers as a result of the pandemic are seed-change different from the precarious lives they normally lead or just a (loud) amplification of the “normal”. Findings In light of the fluid environment relating to COVID-19, conclusions are tentative and question whether hospitality stakeholders, particularly consumers, governments and the industry itself, will emerge from the pandemic with changed attitudes to hospitality work and hospitality workers. Practical implications This raises questions about hospitality work for key stakeholders to address in the future, some of which are systemic in terms of how precarious labour forces, critical to the global economy are to be considered by policy makers, organisations in a re-emerging competitive market for talent and for those who chose (or not) to work in hospitality. Social implications This paper contributes to ongoing debates about precarious work and the extent to which such practices are institutionalised and adopts an “amplification model” that may have value in futures-orientated analysis about hospitality and tourism. Originality/value This paper is wholly original and a reflection on the COVID-19 crisis. It provides a point of wider reference with regard to responses to crises and their impact on employment in hospitality, highlighting how ongoing change, fluidity and uncertainty serve to magnify and exacerbate the precarious nature of work in the industry.

Abstract In this article, the historical circumstances that led up to the 1997 non-binding plebiscite on gender parity in what was soon-to-be Nunavut are considered. Firstly, traditional gender egalitarianism and fluidity in Inuit culture are described and exemplified by the values instilled in language, naming system, gendered roles and sexuality. Then, the political circumstances around the establishment of Nunavut and the way gender is played out on a political level are taken into account. The barriers against women in the electoral system are analysed and the arguments made for and against creating gender parity are evaluated. The vote on gender parity and the reasons why gender parity was finally rejected are reflected on. In the second part, the manners in which various organisations outside of government interact in order to address gender issues are scrutinised. Political and artistic bodies that represent women within Nunavut are contrasted against an organisation that contains Inuit men's voices, but does not represent them. Paradoxically, Inuit men still garner far more representation in the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut while at the social level they suffer more than women who are themselves more economically stable. The article ends with a discussion on the future of gender issues in Nunavut including the views held amongst Inuit youth on the topic.

Purpose Traditional architecture and urban form is a harmonious and interrelated blend of social relations, cultural beliefs and religious principles forming coherent spatial organisation living in harmony despite diversity of religious beliefs, social class or cultural practices of different communities. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the theoretical background of social cohesion and solidarity in the everyday life of the Mahalla with reference to its religious background in Islam. Design/methodology/approach The study of Beit Hadawi and Beit Hammadi el-Hassan as distinct evidences of prominent families within the boundaries of Mahallat El Mahdia in Old Hilla offers an empirical investigation on how values of the past informed and, to some extent, governed the very organic organisation of interlocking residential units in Iraq. Findings It investigates the architecture of home and the spatial organisation of Mahalla’s social activities through highlighting the effect of previous factors in creating a responsive environment that sustained its operational mechanism and fluidity over centuries. Originality/value This paper examines how previous values, traditions and rituals are behind the organic tissue of traditional quarters and thus providing an effective criterion to be considered when discussing sustainable development or creating a responsive environment in societies with exceptional privacy.

Rapid changes in the skill set needed in a profession make it easier to differentiate jobs and employment opportunities by the skills required. From this point of view, people's point of contact with organisations is their skills, not professions. Therefore, what matters is people's skills, competencies needed to get the job done, and people's potential in terms of skills development. In this sense, the present proposal aims to establish a framework to identify congruences between the skills mastered by people and the necessary skills in the work context and how to bridge the gap between them. For this purpose, a set of propositions are made: i) competences are the people’s point of contact with the organisation; ii) skills do not shape people, people shape their skills, iii) professions can be defined through associated skills, iv) people more easily acquire skills that are closer to those they already possess. Based on these premises, a skills model is postulated, which can be named Person-delivery Environment-work Context (PEC). This model is interested in the fluidity of a person's skills and the autonomy over the development of these skills. To put it into practice, this model needs the following five steps: i) identify the most common skills in the labour market, ii) classify the skills identified to make exploration possible, iii) identify the representation and frequency of a given skill in each profession and the labour market, iv) create a methodology for identifying and measuring personal skills, v) create a way to calculate proximity between the person's competences (P) and the work context (C). In the proposed model, there are two observable data: the existence of competence in the universe of the work context and the presence of competence in a person. It is expected that this model will make possible the identification of congruences between people and organisations and the skill development possibilities for a person. Some limitations can be listed, but the main one is that people and work are reduced to skills in this model. However, its applications can only be thought of as part of a broader career development process that considers people and their potential and the means of developing them, obtaining satisfaction, and having decent living and working conditions.

IntroductionLes sociétés gbaya et mkako de l'Est-Cameroun constituent une frontière entre deux mondes. Les Mkako sont à la limite bantoue du nord-ouest du bassin congolais tandis que les Gbaya représentent le monde oubanguien dans les savanes à galeries forestières. Qualifiées autrefois d'anarchiques, ces sociétés partagent des caractéristiques communes: acéphales, dénuées de pouvoir politique centralisé, de règies de succession relatives au rôle de leader, sans hiérarchie lignagère ni organisation segmentaire, sans toujours de référence au territoire, elles reposent sur une organisation patriclanique caractérisée par la fluidité des unités sociales dans une disposition où le clan ne constitue pas toujours à proprement parler un groupe «corporate». Enfin, l'un de leurs traits marquant réside dans l'antagonisme entre l'idéologie égalitaire sans cesse affirmée et la compétition des homines importants, ou bien l'émergence de leaders, qui se fondent sur des rapports d'inégalité, aussi ténus qu'ils puissent être.

Open Innovation (OI) is a new paradigm in innovation suitable for organisations characterised by Research and Development (R&D), and for organisations that are global and operating in high- technology industries. Although exceedingly relevant to Australian businesses due to the location challenge faced by Australia, to date OI is only sparsely researched in the Australian context. The majority of research published on OI is in the European or American context. This qualitative case study therefore, investigated OI in the Victorian Biotechnology Industry, which meets the characteristics of organisations suitable for OI. The aim of this research is to understand the micro-foundations of OI and its implications from individual managers’ perspective in Biotechnology organisations; and to explore how organisations and individuals can manage these implications. The results of this study show how the implications of OI can be managed at an individual level and also at, the organisational level without heavy investment or major changes. Applying the lens of Knowledge Based Theory of the firm, this research examines the perspectives of various stakeholders on OI in the Biotechnology industry. This research explored individual managers’ interpretation of the OI phenomenon based on their overall experience of OI in their organisations. The interpretivist paradigm enabled an understanding into the reality of the phenomenon as seen by the practitioners of OI. It allowed the Researcher to search for patterns of meaning while describing meanings that the managers assigned to OI; their view of the implications of being open for innovation, and examining how OI was managed in their organisations. The data for this study was collected based on the considerations of theoretical saturation which was achieved from eight Biotechnology organisations in the state of Victoria in Australia. A total of twenty interviews were conducted with ten participants from the eight Biotechnology organisations. In addition, for triangulation, six interviews with five participants from: a Contract Research Organisation (CRO), a premier Australian Research Institute (RI), and an Industry Body (IB) for the Biotechnology industry were conducted. By including a variety of stakeholders from the industry this research is able to present a holistic picture of OI in the Victorian Biotechnology industry. Although a small sample, saturation of information was reached from the rich data that emanated from the semi-structured interviews, analysis of documents collected, and from information posted on websites. The data set was so rich that issues of validity and reliability were easily justified from the analysed data. Literature on OI has suggested that one of the implications of OI is that it requires considerable changes in the policies, processes and systems of organisations. The findings of this research suggest that the nature of the Biotechnology industry is such that it is knowledge intensive, participates in R&D, is technology based, and adopts OI without much effort in change management. OI was viewed as ingrained in the nature of scientific work and not an entirely novel phenomenon within the Biotechnology industry in Victoria. The Biotechnology firms investigated did not have to incorporate any major changes to realise OI, nor required implementing any specific systems, processes or procedures for the management of OI. Consequently, the changes experienced by individuals in these organisations for OI were minimal. The findings of this research, vary from earlier studies on OI in the American and European context that suggest that there are considerable implications due to the ‘not-invented-here’ syndrome. This research instead suggests that there are other implications that need more attention. For the Biotechnology organisations in this research OI promoted greater learning, improved staff morale and more team work. OI also required individuals to balance diverse stakeholder demands, learn better time management and communication, be more open to change as well as overcome ego, fear and distrust while attempting to form external partnerships. Additionally, these research findings suggest that entrepreneurial thinking, team work and cross-disciplinary knowledge are major enablers for OI in organisations. The findings on the implications of OI in terms of the benefits and challenges highlight the dichotomy of saving time and money due to OI while also facing the challenge of risking time and money when working with external partners. To realise the benefits of OI these organisations had to harness the advantages of opposing forces such as: revealing and being open, efficiency and innovation, hierarchy and networks, teamwork and individual accountability, maintaining cost control and ensuring quality, as well as a centralised vision with decentralised autonomy. For individuals in the Biotechnology organisations this meant dealing with these paradoxes. The findings highlight that at an individual level OI can lead to a struggle to manage timelines and resource constraints while striving for quality; learning to balance between disclosure and discretion when interacting with external partners; retrieving internal knowledge while gaining new knowledge; working collaboratively internally and externally while being individually responsible. The findings of this study suggest that OI increasingly requires knowledge exchange while contending with dualities and paradox at both individual and organisational level. Importantly this research highlights that Organisational Fluidity and Agility enables balancing and managing these dualities and paradox. The characteristics of Organisational Fluidity and Agility such as: porous boundaries, fluidity in processes and systems, resource mobility and temporary project teams are useful for OI as determined from the Biotechnology organisations. As these organisations were also Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that are generally known to be responsive and flexible, it is deemed that the overall agility and fluidity of these organisations further provided on-going support for OI. This research confirms that OI was facilitated in these Biotechnology SMEs due to their Organisational Fluidity and Agility at an individual and organisational level. At the individual level, Organisational Fluidity and Agility was supported through the use of flexible processes, systems, roles and responsibilities. This allowed employees to better handle the dual demands placed on their time, knowledge and skills for OI. The contribution this study makes is that OI is closely linked to Organisational Agility and Fluidity, both at the individual and organisational levels. Organisations do not necessarily need to undergo major transformation to gain the benefits of OI. The characteristics of agile and flexible organisations (such as: porous boundaries, fluidity in processes & systems, resource mobility and temporary project teams) appear to facilitate OI in the Biotechnology industry. At the individual level, individuals in Biotechnology SMEs are orientated towards collaboration (internally and externally) due to their scientific training and overall nature of knowledge intensive drug development process. Additionally, the small size and resource constraints of these Biotechnology organisations is the reason for individuals to adopt a more collaborative attitude towards innovation to stay ahead of competition. However, these findings are from one industry compromising of SMEs. Future research is required to explore these findings in other industries.

The objective of this paper is to show how the French Royal Navy, faced with multiple challenges of different kinds, has built in the 17th and 18th centuries a particularly complex military-industrial and organisational tool, which foreshadows the most up-to-date industrial and logistical organisations. By reinterpreting this pre-industrial episode, one could not only set out the major principles that constitute the foundations of the logistical and SCM backgrounds (anticipation, reactivity, standardisation, normalisation, productivity, modularity, flexibility, interoperability, fluidity, continuity), but also some logistical archetypes (strategic control of space and strategic control of time, transport infrastructures and accessibility, global sourcing and suppliers' networks, nomenclatures and production ranges, warehouses and stocks availability).