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Collaboration is an important way for scientific research. It attracts a large number of researchers, and forms a series of measurement evaluation indicators. The purpose of this study further enriches the evaluation system of collaboration and provides new indicators to measure collaboration ability at author level in order to identify the most appropriate potential partners.

The papers published during the period 2006-2015 and collected from Web of Science Core Collection in library and information science (LIS) are regarded as data source. And it defines and measures the collaborative rate, collaborative breadth and collaborative depth at author level.

The authors’ research shows that collaboration is an important way in the scientific research activities in LIS. Unfortunately, most author’s collaborative breadth and the collaborative depth are lower than mean. Therefore, the author’s scope and stability of collaboration is further strengthened in future. Authors can identify the most appropriate potential partners according to author’s research purpose and the region of the collaborative breadth – the collaborative depth.

It further enriches the evaluation system of collaboration and provides new indicators to evaluate collaboration ability at author level. Authors can identify the most appropriate potential partners according to author’s collaboration ability.

This study examines challenges to cross-sector collaboration in disasters. The authors use Malaysian flooding as the context for the study and offer a framework to understand different types of collaborators in disaster settings.

Data were collected with semi-structured interviews, complemented with secondary data from government documents and news reports. The authors interviewed a total of 30 participants including six disaster aid recipients and 24 strategic and operational participants from 12 disaster management organizations. Thematic analysis was conducted including two cycles of coding, memoing and constant comparisons.

The authors present two key theoretical contributions: key barriers to cross-sector collaboration and a typology of collaboration in disasters. Key barriers include leadership approach and central vs local decision-making, differing levels of motivation to collaborate and the organizations' ability to collaborate in disasters. Despite these barriers, collaboration does occur in disaster settings. The authors suggest that the forms of collaboration may be driven primarily by differing motivations to collaborate and differing perceptions of others’ ability to collaborate, resulting in four types of collaboration: (1) enthusiastic, (2) mandate-driven, (3) reluctant and (4) non-collaboration.

The authors show that although the command-and-control model was dominant, organizations also attempted to improve disaster management efficacy through collaborative approaches. Central institutional agencies and their wider external partners are capable of using cross-sector collaboration as a strategy to tackle the complex problems post-disaster. However, pre-disaster relationship building will likely help organizations to collaborate more effectively when a disaster occurs.

The purpose of this research is to enhance understanding of the sources of relational rents in supply chains and the nature of their relationships with performance. Using the relational view framework and contingency perspective, the study develops a model and hypotheses to understand the nature of the relationships of collaboration and resource specificity with operational performance under technology context contingencies.

Data for testing the hypothesized relationships in the conceptual model were collected through a survey of managers in the Hoover’s database of manufacturing firms. The survey sample included 115 responses from a wide variety of manufacturing forms.

Findings support the conventional wisdom relating collaboration and operational improvements. Notably, technological turbulence has a differential interactive influence on collaboration and resource specificity in predicting operational performance. In the former, the strength of the performance relationship is enhanced, while in the latter, it diminishes. Product complexity enhances the collaboration–operational performance linkage. The results, however, have to be further corroborated by more confirmatory analysis in future research.

The research findings are not conclusive but of an exploratory initial evidence, as stepwise regression analysis has its limitations. Additionally, while the study specifically focused on demand-side collaboration aspects, supply chain management envelops upstream and internal collaboration as well. Investigating the performance implications and the interactive dynamics among all three partnerships in the supply chains provides a richer understanding of supply chain partnerships. Besides, more comprehensive insights could be obtained by modeling the interactive effects of other factors in the operating context.

Firms derive performance benefits from close collaboration with downstream partners because the operational enhancements from such relationships have customer service implications. Besides, the results provide a framework to managers for understanding the technology context conditions that may be best suited for leveraging collaborative initiatives and idiosyncratic investments in pursuit of operational performance improvements.

Much of the evidence on the rent generation capabilities in supply chain partnerships is still anecdotal and extant empirical research lacks adequate explanation. Another critical shortcoming in extant literature is research on the disentangled interactive influence of operating context factors on the supply chain sources of rent (i.e. capabilities)–performance relationships. The study contributes by addressing these issues.

The purpose of this study is to explore the key challenges of academic libraries in times of changing nature of higher education system and how library leaders can manage the challenges when effective leadership is highly required for academic libraries today. As the time is changing, the kinds of challenges that library leaders face have also changed. Author of this study explores the methods and approaches, which are more effective ways of managing challenges in the reshaping environment of academic libraries. At the same time, change has become a permanent part of academic libraries and they need leaders who are able to lead and manage change efficiently, bring theories into practices, find innovative solutions to challenges, creative thinkers, effective communicators, collaborative mindset and self-motivators.

The selective publications have been reviewed to find the best ways to leading changes and managing challenges in academic libraries. The approaches and methods in this study are based on personal experiences of author as director of the university libraries and experiences of library leadership worldwide are conversed.

Academic libraries are facing similar challenges around the world. The author found that academic library leadership needs innovative skills and competencies, effective communication abilities and a new way of thinking to deal with challenges and create willingness to adapt the changes. Kotter’s leadership manage change model may apply for creating and implementing organizational change in academic libraries.

Literature on this topic is comparatively limited. Consequently, this manuscript adds value to the publications of library and information sciences and offers the literature in the field of leadership challenges and manage change in the academic libraries. It also provides guidelines to academic library leadership universally, and how can leaders work with change effectively.

The purpose of this paper is to adopt “whole network” perspective and analyzes the governance and control mechanisms in the Universal Postal Union (UPU), one of the oldest and largest inter-governmental networks, through the lens of institutional entrepreneurship theory. The purpose is to introduce a typology of network governance forms to the accounting literature and to analyze the governance and management control mechanisms within the UPU, a “participatory federation” (Provan, 1983) type of network that has managed the challenges of collective collaboration since 1875.

The study benefits from unlimited access to all archival materials of the UPU such as minutes of Congress and committee meetings since 1875 as well as secondary documents and market studies related to the postal sector. The data reported in this study are derived from the archives of the UPU in Berne, Switzerland and interviews conducted with senior officials.

Drawing on the work of Provan (1983) and Provan and Kenis (2008) the authors identify five “ideal type” network governance forms based on such variables as differences in the relative power of network participants and whether these networks have arisen spontaneously or due to external coercion, the authors classify the UPU as a “participatory federation.” Within the theoretical boundaries of this typology the authors identify the multi level governance structures and the use of management control mechanisms by each level of governance. The authors introduce a distinction between the “network constitutional organization” that focusses on the socialization of network members and strategy-level orchestration of the overall network and the “network administrative organization” (NAO) that mobilizes management accounting and control mechanisms to monitor, encourage and facilitate member collaboration. The authors propose that control within a participatory federation is enacted through collective entrepreneurship by governance bodies using management accounting and control mechanisms as institutional carriers.

The paper is focussed on the current state of the UPU’s network structure and processes and did not explore the dynamics around the emergence of the different network governance and control mechanisms. An exploration of the collective construction by network participants of the need for these mechanisms would provide insights into how they emerge and might lead to a better understanding of the role of NAOs in networks.

The paper highlights the challenges faced by collaborative networks and identifies enabling characteristics of a participatory federation’s governance bodies. The empirical observations within the context of the UPU contribute to the theoretical understanding of the desirable characteristics of participatory federations that might be applicable to similar public and private collaborative networks

This study expands the knowledge of management accounting and control systems in networks. It bridges a gap in the accounting literature by adopting a “whole network” perspective and by differentiating types of network governance structures that use management accounting and control systems. This contributes to the understanding of accounting and control across the full range of organizational forms.

Insufficient productivity development in the global and Finnish infrastructure sectors indicates that there are challenges in genuinely achieving the goals of resource efficiency and digitalization. This study adapts the approach of capability maturity model integration (CMMI) for examining the capabilities for productivity development that reveal the enablers of improving productivity in the infrastructure sector.

Civil engineering in Finland was selected as the study area, and a qualitative research approach was adopted. A novel maturity model was constructed deductively through a three-step analytical process. Previous research literature was adapted to form a framework with maturity levels and key process areas (KPAs). KPA attributes and their maturity criteria were formed through a thematic analysis of interview data from 12 semi-structured group interviews. Finally, validation and refinement of the model were performed with an expert panel.

This paper provides a novel maturity model for examining and enhancing the infrastructure sector’s maturity in productivity development. The model brings into discussion the current business logics, relevance of lifecycle-thinking, binding targets and outcomes of limited activities in the surrounding infrastructure system.

This paper provides a new approach for pursuing productivity development in the infrastructure sector by constructing a maturity model that adapts the concepts of CMMI and change management. The model and findings benefit all actors in the sector and provide an understanding of the required elements and means to achieve a more sustainable built environment and effective operations.

The aim of this paper is to identify the main social competencies that future engineers need to become recognized professionals. In the paper the key competencies for contemporary engineers are examined and the focus is given on the importance of social competencies for professional development. A competency research model is developed taking into consideration the current research published in scientific papers, gathered opinion of students from Technical University of Sofia and early‐aged operating engineers.

The raised research questions are: “Which social competencies do future engineers need to possess in order to be successful and self‐efficient in their personal and professional development?” and “Does the set of essential social competencies vary in different scenarios of engineering practice?”

The received results after detailed analysis of university students' vote and opinion of the operating young engineers about what kind of social abilities are important for a reliable and effective engineering practice point to social competencies like: communication, teamwork, networking and adaptability are among the competencies with highest priority. These competencies are pointed out by engineers from Philips ETG as very important for successful social behavior too. Among the highest scored ability according to the students' ratings is self‐management of social activities. That means that they wish to know how to manage their behavior and what kind of tools to use in order to be successful persons in their career development. The performed investigation about the key competencies for engineers results in a social competency research model that could support the building of a reliable engineering profile together with the required specific technical competencies.

Successful professional realization requires not only specific technical competences of engineers, but also suitable social behavior. In this work the essential social competences for engineers are investigated and a social competency research model is proposed after comparison of preliminary students' vote, rating of students working on projects and gathered opinion of early‐aged engineers.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the concept of supply chain resilience (SCRES) within a concept mapping framework to seek conceptual clarity, with an emphasis on SCRES definitions, essential elements and managerial practices.

A systematic literature review was conducted of 103 peer-reviewed journal articles from the year 2000 to 2015, with the aim of answering a focus review question.

Through analysis and synthesis of the literature, the study revealed three major constructs used to define SCRES: phases of resilience, resilience strategies and the capabilities needed to be resilient. Emerging from the capabilities construct are five core SCRES capabilities: the ability to anticipate, to adapt, to respond, to recover and to learn. Also, given the need to consolidate the various constructs of SCRES, the study identified 13 essential elements and 84 managerial practices that support firms to achieve the five capabilities, which are then linked to SCRES strategies and phases to establish the connections that provide an integrated view of the concept.

The explorative nature of this study and the role of the concept mapping framework, which does not empirically test the relationships in the model, are considered as limitations, to be addressed by the authors in future research.

The originality of this paper lies in the classification of different features of SCRES through a comprehensive concept mapping framework that establishes relationships and interactions between them. This study, therefore, lays a foundation for testing these connections in future empirical studies. The paper brings together fragmented literature from multiple studies to create a solid body of knowledge that addresses the need for conceptual clarity in SCRES literature.

To provide a reference paper for managers responsible for procuring services, advocating the use of strong relationship models, based on co‐dependency and collaboration between the supplier and purchaser of services.

Based on a combination of research into this topic coupled with the authors empirical knowledge through consulting case studies. The theory, as derived from the research supports, reinforces the authors' findings from dealing with client projects.

Acknowledges that the burden of transaction cost economics encourages aggregation of the services supply chain which in turn, when managed carefully facilitates an improved working/partnering opportunity with a few select suppliers. The suppliers benefit in turn by increasing volumes, allowing them to protect margins and the purchasers benefit through overall lower total cost of service, more attentive suppliers and potentially a much enhanced working relationship.

Practical guide for both practitioners (facilities/property/technology managers) as well students involved in procurement/logistics, supply chain studies.

This paper fulfils an identified area of research and offers practical guidance on how to implement a programme that achieves enhanced service supplier relationships.

The concept of entrepreneurship in platform enterprises has evolved and developed. The purpose of this paper is to explore how entrepreneurship in platform enterprises can be transformed into the sustainable innovation capability of enterprises based on knowledge integration.

This study adopts a questionnaire survey. The research samples are mainly from well-known domestic platform enterprises, EMBA students and professional online websites, 389 valid questionnaires were collected.

The results show that entrepreneurship has a positive impact on the sustainable innovation capability of platform enterprises, knowledge integration plays a partial mediating role between entrepreneurship and sustainable innovation capability of platform enterprises. Shared leadership plays a moderating role between entrepreneurship and knowledge integration and knowledge-sharing atmosphere plays a moderating role between knowledge integration and sustainable innovation capability of platform enterprises.

This paper emphasizes the key role of entrepreneurship in platform enterprises on the sustainable innovation capability and discusses the realization path of the sustainable innovation capability of platform enterprises from the perspective of knowledge integration, which is of great significance for developing the research system of entrepreneurship and promoting the construction of sustainable innovation capability of platform enterprises.