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Article
Publication date: 1 February 1995

Nandish V. Patel

Much educational practice taught at teaching colleges regarding theprocess of teaching and learning is derived from a theoretical base.Less is based on lessons learned from the…

3774

Abstract

Much educational practice taught at teaching colleges regarding the process of teaching and learning is derived from a theoretical base. Less is based on lessons learned from the observation of the actual process of teaching and learning. Undergraduate teachers and mature practitioners are left with unstructured and unsystematic personal reflections of the process of teaching and learning for meeting any deficiencies they may have perceived. Soft systems methodology is an approach that can fill this lacuna. It provides a structured and systematic as well as systemic, approach for analysing actual practices in organized human activities, or human activity systems, such as the institution of education. The methodology is of particular benefit for analysing the process of teaching and learning because it does not require starting the process as an identified and precisely defined problem requiring a commensurate solution, yet it is still capable of generating recommendations for improving the process. The methodology is applied to this process to discover whether it can reveal hitherto unrecognized teaching and learning activities which can be used to improve the process in question.

Details

International Journal of Educational Management, vol. 9 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-354X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 29 July 2020

Gianluca Brunori, Tessa Avermaete, Fabio Bartolini, Natalia Brzezina, Terry Marsden, Erik Mathijs, Ana Moragues-Faus and Roberta Sonnino

To analyze more deeply and in a systemic perspective food system outcomes, and the contribution that small farming can give to the achievement of those outcomes, a detailed…

Abstract

To analyze more deeply and in a systemic perspective food system outcomes, and the contribution that small farming can give to the achievement of those outcomes, a detailed analysis of food systems is required, which highlights its components, activities and dynamics. Thus, this chapter deepens the analysis of the food system. We first reflect on the complexity of the concept of food system, discussing the abundance of different conceptualizations proposed in the scientific and political debate on the base of different disciplines and perspectives. Then, a comprehensive representation is shown, which is then unpacked. The food system actors, assets and functions are explored, with an eye on power relations among actors and on the main drivers of change. Governance (that also includes actors external to the food systems) is called ‘reflexive’, as long as it characterizes a system that is able to reflect upon the conditions and the forms of its own functioning, to detect and analyze threats and to change accordingly, with the involvement of actors external to the food systems. This analysis, which represents the focus of this section, provides the base for the description of the food system vulnerability developed in Chapter 4. Drivers of change and governance emerge as key categories to consider.

Article
Publication date: 1 August 1999

Guohua Bai and Lars‐Åke Lindberg

A principal problem of information systems (IS) development today is how to integrate the work activity and social context of users into the IS which is being designed. This paper…

Abstract

A principal problem of information systems (IS) development today is how to integrate the work activity and social context of users into the IS which is being designed. This paper aims to delineate a sociocybernetic approach which enlightens the relationship between IS design activity, use activity, and the embedded social context. First and second order cybernetics are employed as a general skeleton or structure for conducting the sociocybernetic approach. Approaches from social autopoiesis theory and activity theory are introduced respectively to provide the skeleton of cybernetics with flesh and blood elements of real problems. An emerging conceptual body resulting from an organic integration of the cybernetic structure and social‐psychological elements which demonstrates the relationship between IS design activity, use activity, and embedded social context is presented.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 28 no. 6/7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 October 2013

Khaled El-Akruti and Richard Dwight

The role of engineering asset management (AM) system as a controlling element within organizations is not well defined or understood. The purpose of this paper is to include the…

4010

Abstract

Purpose

The role of engineering asset management (AM) system as a controlling element within organizations is not well defined or understood. The purpose of this paper is to include the role of AM in the organizational strategy making, an issue that has not received sufficient attention. The focus of the paper is on how such role is maintained by the AM system activities, relationships and mechanisms over the asset-related activities of an organization.

Design/methodology/approach

As an approach, a reference framework is required that allows research of this area. By combining a number of possible views of an organizational management system a comprehensive view can be established. A review of literature was used to establish a framework identifying the AM system as an integrated part of the organization's management system.

Findings

A framework is established that focuses on planning and controlling asset-related activities by involving a set of activities, relationships between these activities and feedback mechanisms. A system functional model is proposed integrating the established framework as part of the control of the enterprise system.

Research limitations/implications

The framework and system functional model are established on a theoretical basis and practical experience requiring applicability to be proven by further research.

Practical implications

Asset managers in capital intensive organizations can utilize the framework and the system functional model in order to study their AM system, its relationships and to consider how it may be improved.

Originality/value

Exploring a holistic and relatively new concept.

Details

Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, vol. 19 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2511

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 May 2016

Silvio Carlo Ripamonti and Laura Galuppo

The purpose of this study is to introduce the Human Resources (HR) module of the SAP suite in the Italian branch of a leading multinational pharmaceutical company. This study can…

1083

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to introduce the Human Resources (HR) module of the SAP suite in the Italian branch of a leading multinational pharmaceutical company. This study can be re-conducted within the interpretive tradition of information technology studies focusing on the attempt to understand and describe how software users in the HR department interpreted the enterprise resource planning (ERP) technology, how they changed their work practices and the changes that occurred in organizational discourses and meanings alongside the process.

Design/methodology/approach

The case study/intervention took start with the impulse of the Italian HR department manager, who was struck by the way that the ERP system technology implementation was affecting work life of the employees in the department. This research/intervention used interviews, focus groups and internal documents as sources of data. The authors conducted and analyzed 20 narrative interviews and 3 focus groups with middle managers, and they analyzed about 120 pages of internal memos.

Findings

The implementation of ERP systems is almost invariably accompanied by great expectations of increased process rationalization, efficiency and cost-effectiveness, and upper managers’ discourses make large use of what Engeström et al., 2010 have called process efficiency rhetoric. But the ERP technology, most likely, will neither revolutionize management nor will it become a “complete calculation machine” that runs an entire work organization (Quattrone and Hopper, 2005, p. 731).

Originality/value

The implementation of the ERP system has caused conflicts and disturbances, aggravating contradictions that already existed between activity systems and introducing new types of contradictions. Pre-existent contradictions become clearer; there is a stronger interconnection between activity systems. The individual agents could experiment an expansion in their activities if only they will initiate a movement of expansive learning and if they are not prevented from doing so by coercive control. The natural expansion of the subjects’ scope of activity and horizons of possibilities could be sustained by the ERP technology if it is not used as a tool for domination and if the upper management does not try and separate what cannot in actuality be separated: The actors’ capabilities of improvised learning, which makes the institution of a new mode of the activity possible, and their capacity to assume collective control of the meaning and direction of the transformation of the activity. ERPs are technologies that can naturally bring transformations in the activity system and networks where they are introduced, but in some cases, they can easily and in a non reflective manner be intended as tools for oppression by the upper management.

Details

Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 28 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1366-5626

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 August 2019

Denis Dennehy and Kieran Conboy

The purpose of this paper is to examine contradictions (specifically tertiary and quaternary contradictions) that can disrupt the flow of work in contemporary systems development…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine contradictions (specifically tertiary and quaternary contradictions) that can disrupt the flow of work in contemporary systems development methods.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses Activity theory (AT) as a theoretical lens to: examine ISD flow as an interrelated activity system; and identify contradictions. AT is pertinent in the context of this study as rather than view contradictions as a threat to prematurely abandon the use of flow tools and metrics, it shows how contradictions can act as a motor for change and continuity. This study adopts a longitudinal single case study approach including face-to-face interviews with management and software development project teams, as well as direct observations and document analysis.

Findings

This study identifies tertiary and quaternary contradictions, and highlights the influence of contradictions on flow-based systems development.

Social implications

This study provides a set of contradictions for researchers and practitioners. It shows that contradictions can be culturally or politically challenging to confront, and even when resolved, can have intended or unintended consequences.

Originality/value

This paper fulfils an identified need to study ISD flow from the perspective of interrelated activity systems and beyond its initial implementation phase.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 33 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 October 2014

Jenny Waycott, Rens Scheepers, Hilary Davis, Steve Howard and Liz Sonenberg

The purpose of this paper is to examine how pregnant women with type 1 diabetes integrate new information technology (IT) into their health management activities, using activity

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how pregnant women with type 1 diabetes integrate new information technology (IT) into their health management activities, using activity theory as an analytical framework.

Design/methodology/approach

The research is a multiple case design, based on interviews with 15 women with type 1 diabetes who were pregnant, considering pregnancy, or had recently given birth. A thematic analysis, sensitised by activity theory, was used to analyse the data.

Findings

Health management in this setting involves negotiations and contradictions across boundaries of interacting activities. Participants play an active role in managing their health and using new IT tools in particular ways to support their health management. Using new technologies creates both opportunities and challenges. IT-enabled healthcare devices and other information systems open up new treatment possibilities, but also generate new contradictions between interacting activity systems.

Research limitations/implications

The research was conducted with a small sample in a specific context of health management. Further research is needed to extend the findings to other contexts.

Practical implications

Healthcare providers need to accommodate a bottom-up approach to the adoption and use of new technologies in settings where empowered patients play an active role in managing their health.

Originality/value

The findings highlight opportunities to further develop activity theory to accommodate the central role that individuals play in resolving inherent contradictions and achieving alignment between multiple interacting activity systems when incorporating new IT tools into health management activities.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 27 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 6 February 2015

Jack Andersen

This chapter offers a re-description of knowledge organization in light of genre and activity theory. Knowledge organization needs a new description in order to account for those…

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter offers a re-description of knowledge organization in light of genre and activity theory. Knowledge organization needs a new description in order to account for those activities and practices constituting and causing concrete knowledge organization activity. Genre and activity theory is put forward as a framework for situating such a re-description.

Findings

By means of genre and activity theory, the chapters argues that understanding the genre and activity systems, in which every form of knowledge organization is embedded, makes us capable of seeing how knowledge organization, as a genre, both can be a tool and an object in genred human activities.

Originality/value

In contrast to much research into knowledge organization, this chapter does not emphasize techniques, standards, or rules to be the sole object of study. Instead, an emphasis is put on the genre and activity systems informing and shaping concrete forms of knowledge organization activity. With this, we are able to understand how knowledge organization activity also contributes to construct genre and activity systems and not only aid them.

Details

Genre Theory in Information Studies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-255-5

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 June 2020

Ngoako Solomon Marutha

The paper sought to investigate the landscaping of electronic system through the use of the functional patient’s records management activities. The rationale is to share views and…

5210

Abstract

Purpose

The paper sought to investigate the landscaping of electronic system through the use of the functional patient’s records management activities. The rationale is to share views and guide organisations that are struggling with providing specification for a functional records management system.

Design/methodology/approach

The study used qualitative approach to apply the literature in supporting the views about landscaping electronic system using functional patient’s records management activities.

Findings

The study revealed that without consideration of records management activities the likelihood is that the system may be not properly functional. The best way to landscape electronic system for records management is using records management activities. This will assist in avoiding critical omission for inclusion of all records management system operational activities.

Originality/value

The paper is proposing a new way of landscaping the electronic system by using the records management functional activities. It also provides a framework to guide the implementers or electronic system developers. The paper was partially extracted from the author’s Ph.D. thesis completed in 2016, to develop a framework for landscaping the electronic system by using the records management functional activities.

Details

Collection and Curation, vol. 40 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2514-9326

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Servitization Strategy and Managerial Control
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-845-1

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