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Team cohesion and other team processes are inherently dynamic mechanisms that contribute to team effectiveness. Unfortunately, extant research has typically treated team cohesion and other processes as static, and failed to capture how these processes change over time and the implications of these changes. In this chapter, we discuss the characteristics of team process dynamics and highlight the importance of temporal considerations when measuring team cohesion. We introduce innovative research methods that can be applied to assess and monitor team cohesion and other process dynamics. Finally, we discuss future directions for the research and practical applications of these new methods to enhance our understanding of the dynamics of team cohesion and other processes.

This chapter aims to enrich knowledge about cluster initiatives acting as intermediaries primarily between members in a cluster or in regional context. This is a practically oriented manuscript written to contribute to refinement of existing policies by proposing recommendations based on recent empirical studies regarding funding, actors’ and activities’ content, as well as cluster initiatives’ assessment. It is proposed that public support should be balanced, targeting new as well as established, well-functioning cluster initiatives. Furthermore, regional authorities should encourage multifaceted collaboration (e.g., Triple Helix), stimulate variation in activities to maximize the benefit of cluster initiatives as well as define and communicate success factors that make it possible to evaluate cluster initiatives from a holistic perspective. These recommendations are primary aimed for regional authorities and reflect a bottom-up perspective where both logic of initiatives’ actions and their development are captured. Yet, even national authorities can make use of the recommendations in this chapter to improve governance of cluster initiatives and to determine further directions of regional policies.

Team cognition research continues to evolve as the need for understanding and improving complex problem solving itself grows. Complex problem solving requires members to engage in a number of complicated collaborative processes to generate solutions. This chapter illustrates how the Macrocognition in Teams model, developed to guide research on these processes, can be utilized to propose how intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) could be developed to train collaborative problem solving. Metacognitive prompting, based upon macrocognitive processes, was offered as an intervention to scaffold learning these complex processes. Our objective is to provide a theoretically grounded approach for linking intelligent tutoring research and development with team cognition. In this way, team members are more likely to learn how to identify and integrate relevant knowledge, as well as plan, monitor, and reflect on their problem-solving performance as it evolves. We argue that ITSs that utilize metacognitive prompting that promotes team planning during the preparation stage, team knowledge building during the execution stage, and team reflexivity and team knowledge sharing interventions during the reflection stage can improve collaborative problem solving.

This article provides a summary of the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) work over recent years to address occupational exposure to particulates during the manufacture and use of coating powders. It contends, in particular, that many users of coating powders are not controlling exposure to total inhalable particulate (TIP) (i.e. the total inhalable dust in the air from all sources), and that these control issues would exist even if TGIC (triglycidyl isocyanurate) was not being used. TGIC is a curing agent for polyester coating powders which is classified as a Category 2 mutagen. HSE is raising awareness that control of exposure is generally poor whatever powders are being used.

Cultural and creative industries (CCIs) have been argued to play an important role in achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs). However, the mechanisms through which CCIs contribute to the attainment of SDGs remain underexplored. In this study, the authors adopt a network perspective to examine how the structure of a local CCI network relates to its local sustainability performance. By examining a database of 210,182 networked firms out of 1.34 million CCI firms across 294 cities in China, the authors conclude that both the scale and the density of a local CCI network improve the city’s performance in terms of attaining SDGs 8–12. The authors discuss the implications of these findings and propose future research avenues in international business.

This paper aims to propose an empirically grounded governance framework based on complex adaptive systems (CAS) principles to facilitate formation of well-connected regional supply chains that foster economic development, adaptability and resilience of mining regions.

This study is an exploratory case study of the South Australian (SA) mining industry that includes 38 semi-structured interviews with the key stakeholders and structural analysis of the regional supply network (RSN).

Findings demonstrate the applicability of the CAS framework as a structured approach to the governance of the mining industry regional supply chains. In particular, the findings exemplify the relationship between RSN governance, its structure and interconnectivity and their combined impact on the adaptability and resilience of mining regions.

The data set analysed in the current study is static. Longitudinal data would permit a deeper insight into the evolution of the RSN structure and connectivity. The validity of the proposed framework could be further strengthened by being applied to other industrial domains and geographical contexts.

The proposed framework offers a novel insight for regional policy-makers striving to create an environment that facilitates the formation of well-integrated regional supply chains in mining regions through more focussed policy and strategies.

The proposed framework is one of the first attempts to offer a holistic structured approach to governance of the regional supply chains based on CAS principles. With the current transformative changes in the global mining industry, policy-makers and supply chain practitioners have an urgent need to embrace CAS and network paradigms to remain competitive in the twenty-first century.

The recent background to the UK market for organic milk is reviewed to establish the background to the Organic Dairy Production: A Sustainable Future for Organic Dairying conference held in March 2002. The presentations given at that conference are critically reviewed. Several of arguably the most important determinants of the sustainable future of organic dairying did not find their full expression at that conference. Issues largely or wholly excluded include: a priori evidence for expecting a higher level of co‐operation among organic than conventional farmers; the distinction between “competitive pricing” and “sustainable pricing”; import penetration and substitution, and post‐conversion subsidies; utilising innovative information technologies to “tell the organic story”; policing organic standards and traceability; and the ownership of the “organic label” and the number of organic standard bodies. The importance of these issues is shown by reference to the current market situation for organic milk in the UK. There is a need for considerable developments in the marketing of organic milk. More distance must be placed between associations that campaign for market growth and an organisation that will need to be appointed to take responsibility for providing reliable and impartial market‐based information.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the concept of innovative performances for science parks as a framework for understanding how effectively human and structural capital (i.e. intellectual assets) are leveraged. The key point is fostering main determinants to investigate and/or make sense of key management activities/factors shaping the evolution and performance of knowledge creating processes.

The study was based on the quantitative and qualitative values, for the period 2000-2011, gathered from a sample of 901 public and private organizations located in the 21 European Union (EU) countries. With regard to the methodology, the hypothesis testing first required an analysis of the correlations between the investigation variables, and then the use of regression analysis to study the relationships between the innovative performance of the research institutions, and the financial, organizational and knowledge characteristics of the science parks investigated.

The empirical research shows that: the allocation of public resources does not influence most of the selected indicators of performance, with the exception of the negative effect seen for the number of patents; the resources provided by venture capitalists have a positive effect on all of the indicators of performance of the science park; the science parks of greater dimensions have better performances; the positive impact of the systemic relationships seems to have an effect that is limited to the increase in the number of contracts stipulated with industry; the number of publications produced by researchers of the science parks seems to have an unclear effect on the innovative performance; and an increase in the number of researchers enhances the innovative performance of the science parks.

It seems appropriate to suggest some research lines that arise from the limits of this work. In particular, it should be stressed that there is a need to enlarge the sample investigated to embrace local innovation systems outside the EU, so as to provide further validation to the empirical results of this research.

This research has some practical implications of notable interest at the level of European policies. Interventions of public policies supporting innovation should not be concentrated on the increase of public funding but on increasing private capital investment.

This paper aims to extend literature about factors explaining the financial, organizational and cognitive performance of science parks in Europe.

The purpose of this paper is to study the human resource management (HRM)–performance linkage by exploring alternative relationships between different HRM practices, categorised as either calculative or collaborative, and employee turnover and organisational and financial outcomes, in Uruguayan multinational companies (MNCs) and domestic companies, to better understand the implications of the Latin American context in this relationship.

The study is performed at the firm level, using data from a representative sample of 274 firms, including both multinationals and locally owned firms in Uruguay, collected through the Cranet 2009 survey. The authors tested the hypotheses of the proposed model using structural equation modelling (SEM) and hierarchical multiple regression analysis.

Empirical results show that collaborative HRM practices are significantly related to lower employee turnover rates, whereas calculative HRM practices are significantly associated with higher organisational and financial outcomes. These findings show the importance of the Latin American context in the relationships between HRM practices and firms’ outcomes.

The use of survey data with single respondents might produce reliability problems. Additionally, the data used are cross-sectional, making it difficult to determine causality.

Managers in MNCs and local firms in the context of developing economies and Latin American cultures must be aware that different types of HRM practices will influence different outputs and impacts on overall outcomes.

The paper examines the extent to which HRM practices have a significant relationship with firm performance. In addition, it identifies the differential effects of calculative and collaborative HRM practices on performance, using data from a Latin American contextual setting rarely examined, in order to determine similarities and differences from results obtained in US and European contexts.

Property investment vehicles are reviewed from a literature perspective drawing upon the experience of real estate investment trusts in the USA and contrasting this with European examples. The primary focus of the paper is upon German funds, using survey evidence to evaluate their structural characteristics. The paper forwards from a theoretical perspective an assessment framework indicating how different types of fund can be matched to product opportunities on the basis of risk, appreciation potential, nature of contract, location and use.