Search results

The term “loose coupling” has been widely employed in higher education research. Building partly on the “garbage can model” of decision-making, it proposed an alternative to rational and linear views on organizing and governing, emphasizing instead ambiguity and complexity. The review of higher education research literature presented in this chapter demonstrates that the concept of loose coupling has frequently been used as a background concept, often taken for-granted either as a point of departure for studies of organizational processes in higher education or as a diagnosis of the complexity of higher education organization that inhibits implementation of reforms. This chapter provides systematization and critical examination of how the term “loose coupling”/“loosely coupled systems” has been employed in journal articles focusing on higher education in the last 40 years. It presents a broad mapping of 209 articles and a more detailed qualitative review of 22 articles, which employed loose coupling as more than a background concept.

This article examines the loosely coupled nature of the US educational system and explores recent systemic reform initiatives designed to improve education through more tightly coupled education policy and practice. The utility and limitations of loose coupling as an organizational construct are examined and critiqued. A number of significant forces are exerting ever‐greater pressure on policymakers to more tightly couple US education, including environmental pressures, the emergence of powerful new institutional actors, an emergent institutional capacity, and institutional isomorphism. After reviewing the effectiveness of systemic reform initiatives in several states, the article concludes that education in the USA is moving toward a system of fragmented centralization in which policymakers have greater opportunity to craft more coherent, systemic education policy amidst competing demands for limited resources.

As monolithic corporations and public agencies seek ways of adapting to the demands of the next century many such institutions, while wishing to retain the benefits of belonging to an identifiable corporation, are recreating themselves as conglomerates of “loosely coupled businesses”. This situation creates new challenges for corporate communications specialists and educators. Corporate communication in devolved systems must involve design of specific solutions for the knowledge management and communication needs of individual businesses based on local knowledge of the systems likely to be affected. This paper presents a case study analysis of a local government organisation undergoing change and from it derives suggestions for the implementation of a communication model involving consultation and education in devolved systems.

The time of tightly coupled transient calculation and the accuracy of conventional loosely coupled algorithm make it difficult to meet the engineering design requirements for long-term conjugate heat transfer (CHT) problems. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new loosely coupled algorithm with sufficient accuracy and less calculation time on the basis of the quasi-steady flow field. Through this algorithm, it will be possible to reduce the update frequency of the flow field and devise a strategy by which to reasonably determine the update steps.

In this paper, the new algorithm updates the flow field by solving the steady governing equations in the fluid region and by calculating the transient temperature distribution until the next update of the fluid flow, by means of solving the transient energy equations in the entire computational domain. The authors propose a strategy by which to determine the update step, by using the engineering empirical formula of the Nusselt number, on the basis of the changes of the inlet and outlet boundary conditions.

Taking a duct heated by an inner forced air flow heating process as an example, the comparison results for the tightly coupled transient calculation by Fluent software shows that the new algorithm is able to significantly reduce the calculation time of the transient temperature distribution with reasonable accuracy. For example, the respective computing times are reduced to 22.8 and 40 per cent, while the duct wall temperature deviations are 7 and 5 per cent, using the two flow update time steps of 100 and 50 s on the variable inlet-flow rate conditions.

The new algorithm outlined in this paper further improves the calculated performance and meets the engineering design requirements for long-term CHT problems.

The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize the attributes of loose and tight coupling in educational organizations. In addition, it is aimed to determine whether this phenomenon has value and strategies to offer for the current educational administration and research.

Integrative literature review and content analysis, assisted by Atlas.ti software, were used as the methods of this paper. Review data included 32 articles from peer reviewed journals.

Conceptual framework of continuum of organizational couplings in educational organizations was generated. Elements of the framework include the features of coupling concepts within the continuum, components of couplings, contributory types of organizational couplings and the elements of leadership and change process with emerging strategies, as well as the element of cultural context. In this paper, elements of continuum of couplings and leadership will be emphasized.

Findings have practical implications for the management and leadership in educational organizations, and for the researchers in the field for future research purposes.

Findings have social implications for both teaching staff and administration in educational organizations, by highlighting the attributes of loose and tight coupling, and their connections with leadership, change process and cultural context.

The paper presents a distinctive synopsis of the educational administration literature, in the context of loose and tight coupling, with the time span of four decades.

The paper aims to look at a joint venture (JV) set up by a Portuguese company and a global corporation (GC) in the hospitality sector. The paper seeks to examine how, and why the JV's managers introduced variations in the management control (MC) rules and procedures in institutionalizing the global MC system imposed by the GC.

The paper relies on qualitative data collected through a case study of the JV over a period of two years. Insights from recent neo‐institutional work in accounting, complemented by the notion of multiple logics and the Orton and Weick perspective on loose coupling, are drawn on to interpret the case findings. The MC literature in GCs is also reviewed to explore whether and how practice variation can occur in these complex institutional settings.

Although institutional and technical criteria were not in dialectical tension, the global MC system was adapted by the JV's managers. They developed loosely coupled MC rules and procedures to satisfy the multiple logics informing it.

More qualitative studies on the adoption of externally imposed practices in other global/local settings are needed to refine the understanding of this phenomenon.

The present study extends the scope of neoinstitutional analysis in accounting by showing and explaining how and why individual organizations, which are dependent on dominant others, can introduce variations in imposed systems and practices. In so doing, the paper also contributes to a fuller understanding of MC practices in GCs.

This chapter adopts a problem-solving perspective to analyze the competitive dynamics of innovation ecosystems. We argue that features such as uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, entail different knowledge requirements which explain the varying abilities of focal firms to coordinate the ecosystem and benefit from the activities of their suppliers, complementors, and users. We develop an analytical framework to interpret various instances of coupling patterns and identify four archetypical types of innovation ecosystems.

In this paper, I argue that ideas about loose coupling can serve a useful purpose in organization theory, but only if they are re‐worked substantially. This re‐working, I argue, will involve merging ideas about loose coupling with ideas found in other lines of work developed contemporaneously, including research on the “new” managerialism, institutional theory, and organizational ecology. Such a re‐working, I hope, will entail closer attention to the elements in educational systems that can be coupled and to an expanded list of coupling mechanisms. Using this expanded list of coupling mechanisms, and thinking more clearly about how educational organizations are embedded in dense and complex webs of couplings calls for a movement away from an exclusive concern with loose and tight couplings among dyadic elements in organizational systems, and toward a concern with “tangled” couplings.

This paper seeks to study maintenance policies on a plant‐wide level. It focuses on the effectiveness of condition‐based maintenance (CBM). It highlights the role of the production context and the importance of using appropriate metrics to assess CBM.

A simulation model was developed to explore the effects of production context using traditional performance indicators (costs and availability of each piece of equipment) and a more comprehensive metric (line efficiency).

The results showed that CBM has the best performance among other PM policies in loosely coupled processes. By contrast, in tightly coupled processes, CBM has a negative effect on the production line efficiency because it increases equipments' blockage and starvation states.

The simulation model was developed to reflect the reality. Nevertheless, some assumptions have been used to develop the conceptual and computerized model, which can be explored further in future research.

The idea of this paper originates from empirical findings of fellow researchers. The findings in this paper provide a better understanding of how CBM affects key performance indicators in different production contexts and therefore help managers to appropriately execute CBM programmes.

This study focuses on CBM from a new angle. The majority of the literatures on condition‐based maintenance either discusses pure technical issues, or focusses on single equipment only. In this research, the effectiveness of CBM for two processes is studied and CBM is compared with block and age‐based replacement policies using a comprehensive performance indicator.

Rapid response is often the cornerstone of success in many industries, especially manufacturing. In the authors’ opinion, organizational structure will also affect the construction of a fast-response supply chain system. The main purpose of this research examines whether different levels of organizational structure have different effects on the relationship between external integration and firm performance.

This study applied questionnaires to collect data. This study collected 818 questionnaires from manufacturers in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan to verify our proposed model using structural equation modeling.

Results show that response speed perfectly mediates the relationship between external integration and firm performance. Different levels of organizational structure will also affect external integration. Strict organizational structure requires customer integration, while loose organizational structure requires supplier integration to quickly meet customer needs.

Companies can probably determine whether their organizational structure is higher or lower than that of their competitors. If firms can determine that their organization structure is high or low, they can adopt suitable external integrations to enhance quick response and operational performance.

In the relationship between supply chain integration and performance, we consider a mediating variable and moderating variable together. Results explain the reason that the relationship between supply chain integration and performance are inconsistent in previous studies. We have addressed external integration in alignment with organizational structure to provide better service and enhance performance by providing empirical evidence.