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This study aims to identify the critical factors contributing to India-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) capacity building and value creation for beneficiaries.

A total interpretive structural modeling technique has been used to develop a hierarchical model of critical factors and understand their direct and indirect interrelationships. The driving force and dependence force of these factors were determined by using cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification analysis.

This study identifies 12 critical factors influencing NGO capacity building in India’s intellectual disability sector across four dimensions. Internal organizational capabilities include infrastructure, staff qualifications, fundraising, vocational activities and technical resources. Second, coordination and stakeholder engagement highlight government and agency collaboration, dedicated board members and stakeholder involvement. Third, adaptability and responsiveness emphasize adjusting to external trends and seizing opportunities. Finally, impact and value creation emphasis on improving value for persons with disabilities (PWDs).

The findings of this study have practical implications for Indian NGOs working for PWDs. The study provides NGOs with a structural model for improving organizational capacity by identifying and categorizing critical factors into the strategic model.

There is a scarcity of literature on capacity building for disability-focused NGOs in India. This study seeks to identify critical factors and develop a hierarchical model of those factors to assist policymakers in India in building the capacity of NGOs.

Purpose – The aim of this chapter is to review the relationship of urban climate governance against the background of sustainability and to identify driving forces in a set of leading cities in the United States and Europe.

Design/methodology/approach – Case-study research indicates that efficient, creative and participatory urban governance is key for the quest for sustainability. It is theorized that dynamic governance is composed of high levels of both institutional and social capital or capacity. Each capacity category is composed of different indicators or ‘success factors’ taken from qualitative data in overall 84 cities in the United States and Europe. By triangulating desktop research, mail surveys and review of existing studies, the role and influence of these success factors is evaluated and compared.

Findings – In both the United States and in Europe, the key driving forces are those related to institutional capacity. Yet, cities tend to be more successful in sustainable development if levels of institutional and social capacity are high. Linkages between institutional and social dimensions can be successfully strengthened by capacity building measures.

Research limitations/implications – As the comparison is based on existing studies on leading cities in sustainability, driving factors likely to play a stronger role in the early phase of urban sustainability measures are underrepresented.

Practical implications – Local authorities are advised to encourage social capacities in order to help them pursue local sustainability over time.

Originality/value – This chapter compares and evaluates underlying success factors going beyond a case-study approach across the Atlantic in order to draw broader conclusions.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on challenges faced by longitudinal quantitative analyses of school improvement processes and offers a systematic literature review of current papers that use longitudinal analyses. In this context, the authors assessed designs and methods that are used to analyze the relation between school improvement processes and student outcomes. Based on this the authors point out to what extent the papers consider different aspects of the complex nature of school improvement (e.g. multilevel structure, indirect and nonlinear effects, reciprocity). The choice of study designs and methods of analysis substantially determines which aspects of this complexity are taken into account.

The authors searched in four international high-impact journals and in ERIC for articles reporting longitudinal school improvement studies. The database of the review consisted of a total of 428 journal articles. In total, 13 of the 428 papers met the selection criteria and were analyzed in detail.

The analyzed papers use a wide range of designs and methodological approaches. They support the assumption that sophisticated quantitative longitudinal designs and methods can be applied effectively in school improvement research. However, considering the complexity of school improvement is accompanied by high demands on designs and methods. Due to this none of the papers met the standards applied in this review completely.

In particular, further research is needed to consider a long period of observation, reciprocal indirect and nonlinear processes in a multilevel structure. Moreover, research is required for a better and unambiguous theoretical foundation and empirical validation of the number of and intervals between measurement points.

If more consideration is given to the complex nature of school improvement in future studies, the broader knowledge base will allow a better understanding of the dynamic relation of school improvement and student learning. It would thus be possible to make more appropriate recommendations for the support of school improvement practice.

The original contribution of the paper is to show which aspects of the complexity of school improvement processes – and to what extent – are currently addressed in designs and methods of analysis applied in quantitative longitudinal studies that investigate the relation between schools’ capacity to managing change and student outcomes. Additionally the authors aim at deriving need for further research and giving guidelines how designs and methods in further studies can reflect the complexity appropriately. It is highly important to consider all aspects of this complexity to describe and understand the dynamic relation of school improvement processes and student outcomes.

There are numerous studies concerning the key success factors for technology transfer performance, but little empirical research has been conducted on technology absorptive capacity. In the real world, firms cannot successfully assimilate and apply external knowledge without greater absorptive capacity. It is worthwhile exploring the critical factors of absorptive capacity through its impact on transfer performance. Results reveal significant associations between technology absorptive capacity and the critical factors – technology diffusion channels, interaction mechanisms, and R&D resources. Organizational cultures impact on interaction mechanisms, R&D resources, absorptive capacity and transfer performance. Different organizations will experience different technology transfer performance. Focuses explicitly on technology absorptive capacity within the field of empirical technology transfer research. The findings are important for management practice, especially for firms carrying out technology transfer in developing countries.

Quality management (QM) principles define the values of the organizational culture that makes people focus on quality assurance and improvement. However, the formulation of the principles of the ISO 9000 standard published in 2000–2015 is more like a list of things to remember that result from the development of QM methodologies, rather than systematic guidelines to follow. Their ambiguity does not facilitate understanding and can lead to activities that do not bring benefits to the organization. The purpose of this paper is to formulate such a system of directives that when implemented allows achieving the desired level of effectiveness of the organization’s processes with increased efficiency, and some measures can be assigned that show the progress of implementation.

The resource capacity reserve was adopted as the main factor ensuring the effectiveness of the planned tasks. A systemic analysis of relationships between the QM principles and the categories of Deming’s system of profound knowledge was carried out. Some factors referred to in the principles have been distinguished. The conditions necessary to achieve their positive impact on the capacity of organization’s resources have been formulated in terms of some directives for management processes. The interaction of the components of variability in organization processes with the factors was discussed.

Eight directives for effectiveness management (EM) have been established. They define independent dimensions in the management tactics for the development of the organization’s resources necessary to ensure and increase the effectiveness of the organization’s processes. The implementation of the tactics defined by EM directives, assuming randomness in processes, consists in the demonstration of care for trust within the organization, organization development and confidence in the organization of external partners.

Two key QM functions, quality assurance and improvement, are implemented in management processes in order to provide a balance between available capacity and tasks allocated to the organization’s processes, and increase the available capacity by eliminating gaps in knowledge used to control resources in the processes. The EM directives show the role of the organization’s knowledge and stakeholder commitment in providing the necessary complement to the capacity available in the organization. The confidence in the organization is shown as a key premise for access to the commitment of stakeholders. They also show that QM functions would be unnecessary or trivial if one could eliminate random variation from processes in the organization.

Transnationalism and transnational concept are extensively researched in many social science areas; however, transnational management and transnational marketing is relatively a less explored research domain. Also, knowledge management for transnational education (TNE) marketing is not well-researched. Capacity building is an established research-stream, with a key focus on socio-economic and ecological development; however, prior research on capacity building from the context of TNE’s knowledge management and marketing is scarce. The purpose of this study is to analyse TNE marketing mix, to understand the influence of transnational stakeholders’ causal scope(s) on knowledge management in TNE to uphold their transnatioalisation processes through capacity building in TNEs’ marketing management.

An inductive constructivist method is followed.

Organisational learning from the context of transnational market and socio-economic competitive factors, based on analysing the transnational stakeholders’ causal scope(s) is imperative for proactive knowledge management capacity in TNE marketing. Following the analysis of transnational stakeholders’ causal scope(s) to learn about the cause and consequence of the transnational stakeholders’ relationships and interactions, an initial conceptual framework of knowledge management for TNE marketing is proposed. Practical insights from different TNE markets are developed in support of this novel knowledge management capacity building framework of TNE, and its generalisation perspectives and future research areas are discussed.

These insights will be useful for TNE administrators to better align their knowledge management perspectives and propositions with their transnational stakeholders to underpin TNE marketing. Academics will be able to use these insights as a basis for future research.

This study proposes a novel conceptual stakeholder-centred capacity building framework for TNE’s knowledge management to uphold TNE marketing and supports the framework, based on practical insights from three different transnational markets.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the identification of the existing capacities of post disaster C & D waste management in developing countries, with a special emphasis on Sri Lanka to determine the capacity gaps and related influencing factors.

Multiple case studies and expert interviews were conducted to gather primary information on the existing capacities of disaster C & D waste management. Three case studies, including 15 individuals and six experts representing government, non-government institutions and others, were selected.

The results revealed the existing capacities, capacity gaps and influencing factors for post disaster C & D waste management in the areas of skills and confidence building, links and collaborations, continuity and sustainability, research and development, communication and coordination, organisational implementation and investment in infrastructure.

This study limited disaster C & D waste to debris generated from totally or partially damaged buildings and infrastructure as a direct impact of natural disasters or from demolished buildings and infrastructure at rehabilitation or at early recovery stages.

The research enabled an analysis of existing capacities and identified capacity gaps in post disaster C & D waste management with influencing factors developing countries.

The public sector seems to have a culture and structure for control and improvement of ongoing activities but lacks the culture and structures for innovation. Thus, capacity development among public sector employees can be an important method for the development of better conditions for innovation. The purpose of this paper is to identify key factors affecting the achievement of good results when municipal and regional organisations carry out capacity development of employees with the aim of creating greater leeway for innovation in their organisation.

The study behind this paper has looked at four different concrete cases, which have applied essentially different methods for capacity building for innovation issues. A qualitative research method was used. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with 39 respondents. The analysis of the information revealed in the interviews was carried out through a thematic analysis in three steps.

The study shows that action learning makes it easier for employees to turn knowledge generated through action into reality. The study also shows that it seems difficult to work from a digital communication platform if the platform is not combined with physical meetings. The study shows that committed and hands-on leadership is very important, that there is a need for strategic communication related to the capacity development effort including clarification and definition of what innovation means in the local context.

This paper shows a number of important aspects to consider when municipalities and regional organisations plan their capacity development initiatives in innovation. By taking these into account increases the ability of public organisations to develop and adapt their operations and deliver high quality and value-adding services to the citizens.

Capacity building is a crucial antecedent for socio-economic development. However, an enhanced capacity that is difficult to develop could quickly be eroded, because of rapid changes in competitive forces in industries and markets. Therefore, this paper intends to analyse the extant strategic management and relationship marketing (RM) literature that deal with competition. Eventually, the purpose of this paper is to develop an alternative route for capacity building process that could sustain competitive advantage in a market or industry, which encounters rapid changes in business competition.

An inductive constructivist approach is followed to support arguments, in order to develop a synthesis from the relevant literature to reinforce the current understandings on capacity building and sustained competitive advantage.

An influence of RM on strategic organisational dynamic capabilities (DCs) is recognised, which appears as significant to sustain DCs and subsequent competitive advantage. Based on this influence, this paper proposes a conceptual framework of capacity building that could survive through the “valuable, rare, inimitability and non-substitutability” test, which is fundamental to sustain competitive advantage. Some empirical insights are developed, in support of this conceptual framework.

For research and practice, these insights will be useful to focus on specific attributes in capacity building to sustain the enhanced capacity’s competitive advantage over time, across industries and markets.

Similarly, the insights will be instrumental to sustain the benefit of capacity building to underpin socio-economic progress.

The paper proposes a much needed initial conceptual framework for capacity building to sustain competitive advantage of a hard-earned capacity for socio-economic development.

This chapter focusses on food systems' vulnerability. In a rapidly and unpredictably changing world, vulnerability of farming and food systems becomes a key issue. The conceptual bases for food vulnerability analysis and food vulnerability assessment are discussed in a systemic perspective with an eye to the transition approach (Geels, 2004) as a perspective capable to analyze how novelties can develop and influence the system capability to fulfil societal functions, and food and nutrition security in particular. A framework for assessing people's food vulnerability is presented together with a simple vulnerability model based on the three dimensions of exposure (the degree to which a system is likely to experience environmental or sociopolitical stress), sensitivity (the degree to which a system is modified or affected by perturbations) and adaptive capacity (the ability to evolve in order to accommodate environmental hazards or change) (Adger, 2006). Then, other sections are dedicated to discuss the general questions that should be answered by a vulnerability assessment exercise, and the specific challenges emerging when the assessment concerns a food system. These elements are then used in the Annex to this chapter as a base for the development of a detailed method based on seven distinct steps for conducting participatory assessments of the vulnerability of food systems.