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While digital transformation holds immense promise, organizations often fail to realize its benefits. This study aims to address how policies for digital transformation benefits realization are translated into practice.

The authors apply a qualitative, comparative case study of two large, public-sector health care organizations in Sweden. Through document and interview data, the authors analyze the process of translation.

The study finds that practice variation is primarily caused by two types of decoupling: policy-practice and means-ends. Contrary to previous studies, coercion in policy compliance is not found to decrease practice variation.

The limitations primarily stem from the empirical selection of two large public health-care organizations in Sweden, affecting the study’s generalizability. Reducing practice variation is more effectively achieved through goal alignment than coercion, leading to implications for the design of governance and control.

Policymakers should, instead of focusing on control-related compliance, work to align organizational objectives and policies to decrease practice variation for successful benefits realization.

The study contributes to better benefits realization of digital transformation initiatives in health care. As such, the authors contribute to a better functioning and more transformative health care in times of increased demand and decreased supply of health-care services.

The study challenges conventional wisdom by identifying that coercion is less effective than goal alignment in reducing practice variation, thereby enhancing the understanding of policy implementation dynamics in health-care settings.

This paper aims to further our understanding of policy–practice gaps in organizations from an organizational learning perspective. The authors conceptualize and analyze policy–practice gaps in terms of what they label the dual challenge of organizational learning, i.e. the organizational tasks of both adapting ongoing practices to prescribed policy demands and adapting the policy itself to the needs of practice. Specifically, the authors address how this dual challenge can be understood in terms of organizational learning and how an organization can be managed to successfully resolve the dual learning challenge and, thereby, bridge policy–practice gaps in organizations.

This paper draws on existing literature to explore the gap between policy and practice. Through a synthesis of theories and an illustrative practical example, this paper highlights key conceptual underpinnings.

In the analysis of the dual challenge of organizational learning, this study provides a conceptual framework that emphasizes the important role of tensions and contradictions between policy and practice and their role as drivers of organizational learning. To bridge policy–practice gaps in organizations, this paper proposes five key principles that aim to resolve the dual challenge and accommodate both deployment and discovery in organizations.

Because this is a conceptual study, empirical research is called for to explore further and test the findings and conclusions of the study. Several avenues of possible future research are proposed.

This paper primarily contributes by introducing and elaborating on a conceptual framework that offers novel perspectives on the dual challenges of facilitating both discovery and deployment processes within organizations.

Commercial diplomacy within the EU is currently a matter for the individual EU member states (MS). This results in different policies and practices. But to what extent do they really differ? This chapter presents the results of a comparative study on EU MS commercial diplomacy policies and practices. The policy goals and practices of all 27 MS were assessed via document analysis and interviews with commercial diplomats. The findings show considerable differences in terms of the responsible ministry, the policy focus, the network of foreign posts and the work performed at the foreign post. However, countries that entered the EU first seem to have similar commercial diplomacy policy and practices characteristics, as do the countries that entered the EU after 2003. Furthermore, the results of statistical tests show that countries that entered first are similar in size, wealth, share of EU trade, number of embassies inside the EU, number of employees at the foreign post and the activism of the foreign post. These similarities apply as well for the countries that entered the EU after 2003. Overall, this study concludes that home country characteristics (size, culture, government), host country characteristics (institutions, culture, regime) and the relationship between a home country and a host country affect the commercial diplomacy policies and practices.

This chapter will focus on the use of evaluative research in higher education policy analysis. The approach will be illustrated by reference to higher education policy in Scottish higher education, with particular reference to the longitudinal evaluative research of support of teaching and learning (T&L) (the Quality Enhancement Framework or QEF). The chapter will discuss the features of the research process which are shaped by evaluation theory. We adopt a theoretical position on policy research which foregrounds the situated experience of policy as a core research focus. Policy is depicted as being underscored by an implicit theory of change which is used to structure and orientate the research focus. The design of the research is characterised by the involvement of potential users of the research output, with implications on the way in which findings are articulated, presented and ultimately used, along with aspects of the evaluative research design. The case study of the QEF will be contextualised, and the intersection between the design features and theoretical approaches, and the use and usability of research outputs, will be established.

Work–nonwork policies and practices provide support for employee well-being, as well as a competitive advantage that can help differentiate organizations. However, not all work–nonwork policies and practices are effective, utilized, or relevant. In this chapter, the authors introduce “organizational boundary management strategy” as a way to leverage these policies and practices, making them more widely adopted and more effective. Organizational boundary management strategy refers to how an organization as a whole tends to support workers’ work–nonwork boundaries (i.e., via segmentation, integration, or somewhere in between). Although boundary management has historically tended to focus on how individuals navigate distinctions between work and personal life, the authors extend boundary management to the organization to suggest how understanding and aligning the organization’s overall boundary management strategies can support worker well-being. To expound on this, the authors present a model suggesting how organizational boundary management can be used to support worker well-being.

A distinguishing feature of strategic human resource management research is an emphasis on human resource (HR) systems, rather than individual HR practices as a driver of individual and organizational performance. Yet, there remains a lack of agreement regarding what these systems are, which practices comprise these systems, how these systems operate, and how they should be studied. Our goal in this paper is to take a step toward identifying and addressing several conceptual and methodological issues regarding HR systems. Conceptually, we argue that HR systems should be targeted toward some strategic objective and operate by influencing (1) employee knowledge, skills, and abilities, (2) employee motivation and effort, and (3) opportunities for employees to contribute. Methodologically, we explore issues related to the relationships among policies and practices, sampling issues, identifying the appropriate referent group(s), and who should serve as key informants for HR system studies.

This research aims to answer the call for more empirical research on identity theory by exploring the role and impact of human resource management (HRM) policy, and the gap between HRM policy and practice, on organizations and their employees. It looks at the role that soft policy plays in obscuring hard practice and considers the impact of unions and HRM role on policy.

This study uses survey data collected from the senior members of the HRM function in 189 large Australian organisations.

The research found a gap between policy and practice with soft policy being used more often than soft practice. It found that a gap between policy and practice has a negative impact on outcomes. Strategic HRM (SHRM) positively impacts on the implementation of soft practices reducing the gap between policy and practice and impoverished HRM that lacks resources, power and time, has a larger gap between policy and practice. Unions did not improve outcomes by minimizing the gap between policy and practice.

This paper used survey data from HRM managers, who whilst being the best single source of information, may have distorted their responses. Further research is required to confirm these results using several data sources.

Managers and HR functions should increase both soft policy and soft practice and ensure there is no gap between policy and practice. To achieve this, organizations should ensure that the HRM function is both strategic and effectively resourced.

This research makes a theoretical and empirical contribution to debates on the role that HRM rhetoric plays in organizations. It also adds value to SHRM research and practice.

In Flanders, the subventions in the cultural sector are mainly divided and decided upon within the framework of the Arts Decree. Within this policy framework, art organizations may choose in their funding applications for “participation” as one of the five possible functions to describe their artistic and cultural practices. However, questions need to be raised about the different interpretations of the notion of participation within this policy framework. The growing trend of evidence-based policy-making implies that participation risks to become a “target” that needs to be achieved instrumentally, which paradoxically ignores the fact that participatory practices within culture and the arts are very often diverse, multi-layered and context-specific practices. Starting from this paradox, the purpose of this paper is to explore how the current policy framework is translated into different “participatory” art practices by art organizations and specifically how cultural practitioners themselves conceptualize it.

In this paper, the authors discuss the results of a qualitative research based on semi-structured interviews with cultural practitioners about how they grapple with the notion of participation within their organizations and practices.

The results clearly show that practitioners use micro-politics of resistance to deal with different, and often conflicting, conceptualizations of participation in relation to this cultural policy framework.

The implications of the findings are vital for the discussion about cultural policy. These micro-politics of resistance do not only have an impact on the development of individual participatory art practices but also on the broader participatory arts landscape and on how the function of participation is perceived within the renewed policy framework.

The original contribution of this paper is to explore the perspective of practitioners in cultural organizations about the function of participation in the Arts Decree in Flanders and specifically how the notion of participation is operationalized in their practices in relation to this cultural policy framework.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Sustainable construction practice is structured on regulatory and non-regulatory policies in developed and most developing countries. With the gradual uptake of sustainability concerns in the construction industry, this paper aims to identify the strategic need for clear-cut policies to improve sustainable construction practice. Previous studies have harped on the need for regulatory and industrial/organisational policies on improving sustainable construction practice within the Nigerian construction industry.

A questionnaire survey was used to evaluate the perspectives of construction professionals on the policy barriers for sustainable construction practice in Nigeria, and 46 policy barriers were identified. A total of 249 questionnaires were returned and useable for analysis.

Factor analysis revealed four clusters in the policy barriers to sustainable construction practice in the following order of significance: implementation strategies for sustainable construction practice, owners/client inputs for sustainable construction practice, stakeholder’s policy barriers and governmental and regulatory policy barriers.

Mitigating the identified barriers through effective policies will require adequate inputs from all relevant policymaking stakeholders and ensure improved sustainable construction practice among stakeholders and policymakers in the industry. This will in turn set a high standard and promote the practice of sustainable construction.

This study goes a step further in identifying the policy issues needed to ensure a smooth implementation of sustainable construction practice. The research findings will serve as a guide for policymakers in developing countries that through mitigation of the identified barriers, sustainable construction practice will be promoted.