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Purpose – The study examines the roles of external facilitation in the internationalization process of high-tech firms.

Methodology/approach – The study elaborates on the roles of external facilitation through a case study of two small high-tech firms that took part in a partly governmentally financed facilitation program.

Findings – The study illustrates the internationalization of a high-tech firm as a process that includes actions of both the facilitating actors and the high-tech firm. It defines the primary roles of external facilitation over the facilitated internationalization process of firms.

Research limitations/implications – The internationalization was followed only during the time that the firms participated in a facilitation program. The external facilitation under study is of a program type; therefore the process followed is not a spontaneous one but the facilitation has certain planned phases. Future research should be conducted on the entire internationalization processes of these firms and on the utilization of various types of external facilitation.

Practical implications – The study shows how high-tech firms can benefit from external facilitation in their internationalization. It gives insight into how the type of the company and its background are related to the roles of external facilitation.

Originality/value – The study extends the existing research on the internationalization of small high-tech firms by focusing on the roles of external facilitation in their internationalization. There are numerous institutions and actors who aim to facilitate the internationalization of small firms, but there is a limited amount of research on the roles of these facilitators.

The purpose of this paper is to examine an essential component of enacting an improvement network: facilitation. In it, the author surfaces synthesizing as a core, power-laden facilitation practice that brought together network members from disparate institutions to converge on a shared network aim and theory of improvement.

This study is situated within a teacher preparation improvement network. Forty-four teacher educators from seven university-based teacher preparation programs participated in the network. Guided by practice theory (Feldman and Orlikowski, 2011), the author collected and analyzed network meetings and artifacts to unveil facilitation practices and their relation to power.

Synthesizing emerged as a central facilitation practice. Facilitators' engagement in this practice produced power by constraining and enabling how network members participated. Finally, facilitators were systematically and advantageously positioned to prioritize some network members' perspectives while peripheralizing others'.

This paper offers a concrete, detailed window into a core facilitation practice in a network and problematizes it to enable network leaders to be deliberate about facilitation decisions.

Facilitation is a central component of effective networks (Rincón-Gallardo and Fullan, 2016) and is considered central to the work of networked improvement (Bryk et al., 2015), but there exists a dearth of research that offers insights into how facilitation comes to be enacted in practice. This study offers detailed insights into one such facilitation practice.

Describes a 15‐year learning journey, working with clients to develop skills facilitation. Set against the backdrop of the changing role of facilitation in UK business – from the domain of the training room, via use of designated facilitators working with quality groups, to a central place in leadership and management practice. Case studies and details of competence research illustrate different approaches to skills development. Suggests that the influence of context on the facilitation role is crucial, and needs to inform the type of development process suited to a particular situation. Anticipates that facilitation will be acknowledged increasingly as a central process of organization change rather than limited to designated positions. Facilitating in “unknown territory” will require people to discard pre‐prepared scripts, dispense with the safety of “facilitator neutrality” and be open to profound processes of change.

Facilitation activities support implementation of evidence-based interventions within healthcare organizations. Few studies have attempted to understand how facilitation activities are performed to promote the uptake of evidence-based interventions in hospitals from resource-poor countries during crises such as pandemics. This paper aims to explore facilitation activities by infection prevention and control (IPC) professionals in 16 hospitals from 9 states in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Primary and secondary data were collected between March and December 2020. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 IPC professionals in Brazilian hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public and internal documents were used for data triangulation. The data were analyzed through thematic analysis technique.

Building on the change response theory, this study explores the facilitation activities from the cognitive, behavioral and affective aspects. The facilitation activities are grouped in three overarching dimensions: (1) creating and sustaining legitimacy to continuous and rapid changes, (2) fostering capabilities for continuous changes and (3) accelerating individual commitment.

During crises such as pandemics, facilitation activities by IPC professionals need to embrace all the cognitive, behavioral and affective aspects to stimulate positive attitudes of frontline workers toward continuous and urgent changes.

This study provides unique and timely empirical evidence on the facilitation activities that support the implementation of evidence-based interventions by IPC professionals during crises in hospitals in a resource-poor country.

The study describes the implementation of a novel strategy, entitled the Action Learning Set Facilitation Model, to develop internal facilitation capability to lead change. The Model incorporated the Novice-Experienced-Expert pathway, a facilitation development approach underpinning the integrated-Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services Implementation Framework, with action learning methodology.

A mixed-methods descriptive approach reports the results of 22 interviews, 182 Action Learning Sets and 159 post program survey data sets to explore facilitator experiences, strengths and potential application of the Model.

At program completion, five novice (of 174) and one experienced (of 27) facilitator transitioned to the next facilitation level. The three groups of facilitators described positive change in confidence and facilitation skill, and experience of action learning sets. Inconsistencies between self-report competence and observed practice amongst novices was reported. Novices had decreasing exposure to the Model due to factors related to ongoing organisational change. Internal facilitators were considered trusted and credible facilitators.

There are practical and resource implications in investing in internal facilitation capability, noting proposed and real benefits of similar development programs may be compromised during, or as a consequence of organisational change. Further research describing application of the facilitation model, strategies to enhance multisystemic support for programs and evaluation support are suggested.

The Action Learning Set Facilitation Model offers promise in developing internal facilitation capability supporting change in organisations. Critical success factors include building broad scale internal capability, stable leadership and longitudinal support to embed practice.

This is the first application of the facilitation component of the integrated-Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services implementation framework embedded to action learning sets as an implementation science strategy for leader development supporting organisational change.

Building on the work–home resources model, the purpose of this paper is to test the mediating role of employee self-efficacy in the relationship between job crafting and work–self facilitation. The paper further explores the moderating role of the quality of leader–member exchange (LMX).

A sample of 204 employees from a European country was used to test the proposed moderated mediation model. The analysis was performed using Hayes’ Process Macro.

The findings indicate that job crafting is positively associated with self-efficacy which, in turn, is positively associated with work–self facilitation. In other words, self-efficacy mediates the relationship between job crafting and work–self facilitation. Furthermore, LMX moderates the relationship between job crafting and self-efficacy.

The results of this study offer guidelines for human resource (HR) professionals interested in grasping how organisations can assist employees in experiencing work–self facilitation.

This study advances the existing literature by investigating the antecedents of work–self facilitation, which is an understudied variable in the work–family and HR literature, thereby responding to calls to include aspects of self in the discussion on different life domains in order to obtain an all-inclusive view of how employees function. Furthermore, it demonstrates how LMX and job crafting promote the fulfilment of an employee’s own personal interests and hobbies. Such information is relevant to HR practitioners as it might help them boost employees’ work performance.

The purpose of this paper is to advance understanding about the facilitation process used in complex implementation projects, by describing the function of novice clinician facilitators, and the barriers and enablers they experience, while implementing a new model of care for managing hospital malnutrition.

Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with local facilitators (n=7) involved in implementing The SIMPLE Approach (Systematised Interdisciplinary Malnutrition Pathway Implementation and Evaluation) in six hospitals in Queensland, Australia. Facilitator networks and training supported the clinicians acting as novice facilitators.

Key functions of the facilitator role were building relationships and trust; understanding the problem and stimulating change through data; negotiating and implementing the change; and measuring, sharing and reflecting on success. “Dedicated role, time and support” was identified as a theme encompassing the key barriers and enablers to successful facilitation.

When implementing complex interventions within short project timelines, it is critical that novice clinician facilitators are given adequate and protected time within their role, and have access to regular support from peers and experienced facilitators. With these structures in place, facilitators can support iterative improvements through building trust and relationships, co-designing strategies with champions and teams and developing internal capacity for change.

This case study extends the knowledge about how facilitation works in action, the barriers faced by clinicians new to working in facilitator roles, and highlights the need for an adapt-to-fit approach for the facilitation process, as well as the innovation itself.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the role of organizational culture in governing the dynamics of resistance and facilitation of change by explicating the operational mechanisms underlying the Model of Organizational Change in Cultural Context (OC3 Model).

A conceptual definition of facilitation is introduced that parallels the psychosocial construction of resistance, while departing from traditional views that cast these constructs as polar opposites. Within the context of the OC3 Model, a multifaceted perspective on organizational change is advanced in which facilitation takes place alongside of, rather than in the absence of, resistance.

Two sources of resistance and facilitation are delineated, both stemming from the degree of cultural alignment of the content (strategic initiatives) and process (implementation strategies) elements of strategic change. The dynamic interplay of these independent sources of resistance and facilitation is explored within the context of the OC3 Model where the consequences of cultural alignment or misalignment are considered with respect to change implementation and linked to established theory and empirical evidence. Four interaction effects emerge from this analysis: augmentation, undermining, prevailing and immunity. A visual model illuminating the countervailing effects of facilitation on resistance is provided, along with illustrative examples derived from multiple ethnographic field studies.

Theoretical and practical implications of these interaction effects for advancing scholarship and leading organizational change are explored.

Articulating this theoretical extension of the OC3 Model provides a valuable corrective to extant theories of change that afford equal importance to all culturally embedded sources of resistance and fail to account for the counter balancing effects of facilitation.

Improvements in the facilitation of foreign direct investment (FDI) through institutional quality play a significant role in the establishment of an open economy. However, the impact of institutional quality on the facilitation of FDI along the Belt and Road countries is not well explored. This study aims to empirically investigate the influence of institutional quality on the degree of FDI facilitation and explore the impact mechanism using national-level panel data from countries along the Belt and Road.

For the data set, all variables have been normalized, and principal component analysis has been used. For the empirical models, robust standard errors and dynamic GMM method have been used to alleviate heteroscedasticity and endogeneity.

The empirical results indicate that institutional quality has a significantly positive effect on the degree of FDI facilitation. Furthermore, the impact mechanism involves the mediating mechanism. In other words, the effect of institutional quality that promotes FDI facilitation is influenced by factors such as laws and regulations. In addition, the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has significantly enhanced the promotional effect of institutional quality on the facilitation of FDI.

Policymakers should focus on improving the institutional quality and the influence of mediating mechanisms, such as policies and regulations, in the institutional environment.

This study contributes to extant literature on the impact of institutional quality on FDI facilitation of significance to China, the BRI countries, and other countries to facilitate openness in international investment. This study also contributes to the extant literature on the influence of the BRI on the development of BRI countries. This will inform policy makers, investment institutions and enterprises about the development of effective policies to aid the development of BRI countries and improve the efficiency and the returns on FDI.

Reflects on the impact of politics on facilitation. The aim of facilitation is to establish and maintain an environment in which learning is created. Central to this aim is the need to work with power relations between organisations, groups and facilitators. Facilitation may be thought of as a part of the political dynamics at play in systems. Discusses three propositions: that organisations are political, facilitation is political and facilitators are political. Proposes a framework showing four positions of awareness about the politics of facilitation. Offers the framework to those who wish to learn more about being a facilitator, and to those who wish to teach others about facilitation. Aims to add to understanding about how facilitators may act more confidently, authoritatively and ethically in the complex, dynamic and unpredictable role of facilitator.