Search results

Professional practice doctorates have learning outcomes and capstones that are very different than research doctorates. One type of capstone suited to a professional doctorate is a client-based dissertation in practice (DiP). In this type of capstone, students address a problem of practice faced by an institution or program (the client) in the student’s area of professional practice. Client-based problems of practice have the advantage of being authentic problems whose solution can have a positive impact on the client and those served by the client. For students, the scope of work to be done for the client includes: assessing the current practice; conducting a review of literature to identify best practices; gathering stakeholder perspectives; developing a strategic plan with proposed solutions or interventions; piloting elements of the proposed solution; and maintaining communication with the client. A case is described in which a student work team first authored an invitation to potential clients to propose a problem and then selected a client whose problem of practice was addressed as the DiP.

This study is intended to investigate the current practices and problems in heavy equipment management as well as to identify practices capable of alleviating equipment management problems for highway contractors in Thailand.

Equipment management practices were identified and analysed by SPSS using a questionnaire survey. ANOVA test was used to reveal significant differences in equipment management practices among different contractor sizes. Relationships between equipment management practices and problems were also revealed.

The equipment management practices vary, to some extent, among different contractor sizes. While practices of medium and small contractors tend to be similar, practices of large contractors are different from those of smaller contractors. Large contractors often put more emphasis on outsourcing strategy for equipment management. Moreover, large contractors frequently dispose of or replace equipment as soon as the equipment becomes inefficient before incurring high repair costs. Conversely, smaller contractors tend to mainly emphasise on the company finance and the budget availability as they often rely on purchasing strategy, especially buying used machines. Overall, equipment practices of large contractors were found to be more successful than smaller contractors in minimising equipment management problems, including long downtime duration and cost.

This research is of value for better understanding practices and problems relating to heavy equipment management among different contractor sizes. The study also highlights practices that are capable of reducing problems relating to heavy equipment management for highway contractors.

Increasing constraints on personnel and resources have led to a focus on alternative methods of transmitting knowledge to novices, whether university students or newly hired staff. This chapter focuses on one such alternative through the use of a technology-based educational delivery system (TBEDS). Prior research has addressed individual components of technology-supported systems or performed experiments of limited time and direct external relevance to the participants, but has not addressed the effect of a holistic approach to technology-based learning on users. This study capitalizes on a unique, holistically designed TBEDS to longitudinally examine the impact of systems on novices' procedural knowledge acquisition under conditions of actual usage. The longitudinal data also illustrates the role of user-determined experiential practice on achievement as moderated by comfort with technology. The findings indicate a strong relationship between the use of a TBEDS for repeated experiential practice and procedural knowledge acquisition. Individual components of effort (quantity of problems attempted, frequency of practice sessions, and quality of practice) are examined, with quantity being significantly positively related to performance, as is quality when the user is accountable to an external authority for that quality.

Although management accounting tools and techniques are developed to solve practical problems in organizations, there is a lot of criticism of management accounting research for not having an impact on practice. In interventionist research, the “shaping” of an intervention to solve a practical problem is an important step. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the findings of management accounting research can be reviewed to make them practically applicable in shaping an intervention.

The paper is based on the author’s experiences with an interventionist research project.

Systematic literature reviews, which are common in engineering and medicine, bring together the academic knowledge that can contribute to solutions for a specific practical problem, including a definition of the ways in which this knowledge can be applied. Inspired by the methodology for conducting such reviews, this paper proposes how interventionist management accounting researchers can use existing theoretical knowledge in shaping interventions that aim to solve a practical problem. After an intervention, the analysis of the intervention’s unforeseen effects can provide a basis for the refinement of the theory identified in the literature review.

Such a literature review can be organized according to four approaches to taking theoretical knowledge into practice. Unforeseen effects of the intervention can guide the selection of additional theory that helps to interpret these effects and refine normative and academic theory.

In management accounting it is uncommon to review the literature with the aim of shaping a solution for a practical problem. This paper explores how literature reviews that focus on a specific practical problem can contribute to bridging the gap between theory and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the core dimensions of problem solving of experts in commercial valuation in order to provide a rich stimulus for managing current practice and enabling future development.

The study adopted a cognitive position but emphasised understanding the everyday commercial property valuation practice in a naturalistic context and from the participants’ perspectives. Given this, a grounded theory approach was employed as a research strategy to guide the data collection and surface theoretical interpretations. Data were obtained through in-depth interviews with practicing valuers working in private real estate firms within metropolitan Birmingham, UK.

The interviews uncover four dimensions of experts’ problem-solving practice in commercial valuation: multidimensional, domain-specific knowledge base; cognitive process that is centred on analysis and reflection; collaborative problem-solving venture with colleagues; and professional practice issues awareness. A conceptual model is proposed which integrates these dimensions enabling a clearer understanding of the nature of valuation work.

This study was designed to be descriptive and theory generating, thus, the findings cannot be generalised as the sample was confined to one city and consists of a small number of senior practicing valuers. Therefore, the findings may not be fully applicable to other practicing valuers, other geographical locations or more widely to other types of property valuation. Nevertheless, the findings provide an important cognitive framework which can be verified by other researchers seeking to examine the practice of expert valuers.

The identification of the core dimensions of expert problem solving in commercial property valuation is shown to have implications for valuation practice, education and continued research. The valuation practice environments need to develop mechanisms to provide time that would enable these multi-dimensions of professional competence to be developed. Further work is needed to expand and refine the model across expert practice in other specialty areas of valuation practice.

This study expands the current understanding of valuation process to areas of expertise that have received less coverage in behavioural valuation literature, that is, the central role of knowledge and cognition and how these are integrated for effective valuation problem solving and decision making.

Agribusiness managers oftentimes find it difficult to gain practical experience in an area they have had very little practice. Habitually, they rely on their own business acumen, and tacit knowledge to navigate unfamiliar territory. What does the manager do when the problem is ill-formed, fuzzy and messy? This paper aims to integrate societal stakeholders like agribusinesses and environmentalists by using the Community of Practice (CoP) framework to help analyze and effectively use knowledge and practical experiences on problems facing the food and agriculture industries.

The multi-disciplinary analytical framework suggests multiple research strategies and methods. Because environmentalist-agribusiness collaborations involve complex stakeholder, relationship and social processes, case research may be the most appropriate means for initial investigations of these issues. The authors applied an exploratory approach starting with a search of a water and land stakeholder collaborations followed by the selection of specific cases, the collection of secondary case data, and a systematic qualitative content analysis. For this paper, the authors focused on 13 initiatives in agribusiness involving water and land (e.g. the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative and Global Reporting Initiative Guidelines).

The argument is that firms that use elements of the CoP are better at working through the wicked problems than firms that do not. When elements of the CoP (community, domain and practice) play a significant role in addressing the wicked problem, best practices over a pre-determined time develop. Establishing policies and standards for education and research, technology and research, facilities and operations. More specifically, they relate, in an illustrative manner, how they could quantitatively measure the results that were generated through the use of a specific practice.

This paper has focused only on the land and water constraint aspects. A variety of other stakeholder issues warrant consideration including motivations, contingencies facilitating partnership building, changes in production and consumption and collaborative learning processes. As stakeholder objectives are met, change or diverge, the stakeholders may become less willing to broker and negotiate linkages between the firm and other domain stakeholders, and potentially affect the firm’s competitive advantage. One should also be mindful of the methods of effective engagement, which are able to incorporate and integrate the knowledge, skills, resources and perspectives from many actors are needed to undertake these problems.

To facilitate the discussion on water sustainability between agribusiness firms and environmental groups, it is important for agribusinesses to have some basic understanding of how much water is consumed, evaporated and/or polluted in a given amount of time. Likewise, environmental organizations will need to have a basic understanding of associated physical (freshwater shortages in the supply chain) and financial risks (increase costs or reduced revenues). Both parties need to stay open to challenges and dilemmas of the wicked problem.

Farmers, agribusiness firms and environmentalists are the de facto and principle managers of the most productive land and water resources on earth. Their decisions will shape the surface of the planet in the coming decades. Settling on a common strategy of quality of waters resources, potential land use and land management fundamentally involves the interests of all stakeholders. By considering the divergent values, different perspectives and lived experiences of stakeholders and the inextricable link to land, it is found that managing water resources sustainably is a wicked problem.

The effort it takes to find and implement solutions requires the engagement of internal and external stakeholders (relationships) and access to actionable research (knowledge) to manage through the industry’s prickly challenges. For some, ecological goals are foremost, whereas for others, profit and market objectives are paramount for survival. Their relationships may be a common means for the stakeholders to reach ultimately incompatible agendas. The authors characterize water and land constraints in agriculture as a wicked problem. The wicked problems require a new corporate mindset, involving multi-discipline approach of new collaborations and processes to address them.

This paper aims to present the evaluation results of a practice‐based research partnership to develop and implement a new police organizational model for crime reduction into one police agency which was implemented based on the best practices of problem‐oriented policing, hot spots policing, and Compstat.

A qualitative process evaluation of organizational changes and an impact evaluation examining specific crime types was conducted over seven years to determine increased efficiency, collaboration, and effectiveness of the police department's crime reduction strategies.

The process evaluation found that the agency improved its crime analysis capabilities as well as its coordination and communication, expanded its problem solving activities, and made a significant cultural shift towards incorporating problem solving and accountability throughout the organization. The impact evaluation found that the crimes addressed in the implementation – theft from vehicle – did decrease overall and when compared to other crime types and to neighboring jurisdictions.

The limitations of the research are that these results are from one agency and that the impact evaluation is not conclusive.

The work was carried out over seven years in which the collaboration between the researcher and the agency was seminal. The model developed can be used by other police departments, and a key finding was that strong leadership played the most important role in the implementation of the crime reduction strategies and accountability practices.

This study aims to let researchers sort out the past, look to the future and boost further management research.

This paper takes the exploration of the application of AR in the field of management research as the starting point. Through the combing and induction of AR literature to accurately grasp the essential characteristics of AR, this paper analyzes the application prospects and possible difficulties of AR in the field of management research in China, puts forward specific suggestions and explores the specific path of the transformation of management academic research to practice from the perspective of research methods.

In research methods, empirical research and case studies have become the mainstream research methods, but there is a passive research limitation of “study what happens.” Action research is different from the standpoint of empirical research that is independent of the research object. It no longer simply treats managers as the “object of information acquisition,” but as the subject of participating in the research. Management should be oriented towards the transformation of practice, and action research (AR) that can organically integrate researchers and practitioners is just a “bridge” to break the gap between academia and business circles to establish a cooperative relationship.

This paper takes the exploration of the application of AR in the field of management research as the starting point. Through the combing and induction of AR literature to accurately grasp the essential characteristics of AR, this paper analyzes the application prospects and possible difficulties of AR in the field of management research in China, puts forward specific suggestions and explores the specific path of the transformation of management academic research to practice from the perspective of research methods.

This paper is one of seven in this volume, each elaborating different approaches to quality improvement in education. The purpose of this paper is to delineate a methodology called positive deviance.

The paper presents the origins, theoretical foundations, core principles and a case study demonstrating an application of positive deviance in US education, specifically dealing with the problem of high school dropout prevention in a California school district.

The six phases of this “asset-based” improvement approach are: define the organizational or community problem and desired outcomes; determine common practices relevant to the problem; discover uncommon but successful behaviors and strategies that solve the problem (the positive deviants), through inquiry and observation; design an action learning initiative based on findings; discern (monitor) progress of the initiative by documenting and evaluating regularly; and disseminate results through sharing, honoring and amplifying success stories.

Few theoretical treatments and demonstration cases are currently available on commonly used models of quality improvement from business, manufacturing and other fields that have potential value in improving education systems internationally. This paper fills this gap by elucidating one promising approach. By facilitating a comparison of the positive deviance approach to other quality improvement approaches treated in this volume, the paper provides added value.

This paper examines participants' opinions on whether valuation education and training in Kenya is adequate while comparing it to actual material conditions.

This research is based on a survey of registered and practicing valuers in Kenya, interviews of key informants from professional bodies and the five universities offering real estate degree courses in Kenya, and a review of Kenya's real estate curricula and Institution of Surveyors of Kenya (ISK) training.

It was perceived that while valuer education and training in Kenya is satisfactory, it differs from actual material conditions as it fails to cover practical issues in valuation practice.

The study makes a critical contribution to the empirical literature by introducing new insights in valuation education and training in Kenya.