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With the aim to support offshore production line replication, the specific purpose of this paper is to explore the use of templates and principles to transfer expansive productive knowledge embedded in a production line and understand the contingencies that influence the mix of these approaches.

A total of two case studies are introduced. Empirical data were collected over a period of two years based on interviews and participating observations.

The findings show that knowledge transfer within the replication of a production line is a stepwise expansive process; and rather than being viewed as alternative approaches, templates and principles should be seen as complementary once the transfer motive moves beyond pure replication.

The concepts introduced in this paper were derived from two Danish cases. While acceptable for theory exploration, the small sample size is an obvious limitation for generalisation.

A roadmap for knowledge transfer within the replication of a production line is suggested, which, together with four managerial suggestions, provides strong support and clear directions to managers.

Research in replication to date has mostly focused on templates and has mainly taken an organizational perspective. This paper shows its potential contribution on bridging the relevant theoretical gaps by addressing the effects of principles; and exploring how to use templates and principles to transfer productive knowledge in a specific context, which, in this paper, is a production line.

Rolling out lean operations practices in MNCs’ plants is a complex knowledge transfer process whose design and implementation, though critical to operations performance, to date has not been investigated by operations management, international business, strategy, and organizational design research. Applying conceptual tools drawn from various theoretical approaches to knowledge management, transfer and diffusion, this exploratory study: (a) classifies and interprets lean roll-out processes in MNCs, framing them in terms of (i) knowledge replication strategies (template vs. principles-based), (ii) decentralization of decision making (degree of plant autonomy), and (iii) type of organizational ambidexterity (structural vs. contextual) underlying the process; (b) develops, through seven case studies of lean roll-outs in MNCs’ plants, three testable propositions about what might enhance the lean roll-out process performance, arguing about the individual and combined effect of the three above mentioned dimensions on lean roll-out effectiveness and efficiency. We posit that an approach characterized by principles-based knowledge replication, larger decentralization, and prevalence of contextual ambidexterity positively impacts on roll-out process performance.

Adopting a knowledge-based perspective, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the roll-out process of lean production systems and explores the dimensions that might enhance or hinder its performance. It develops a framework to understand and design lean roll-out processes, identifying the research dimensions/design variables to classify and interpret such processes.

This exploratory multiple case study analyses seven lean roll-out processes in multinational companies’ plants. An original data set, developed on the basis of a purposely design research protocol, was built through two rounds of plant visits and structured interviews. The cross-case analysis compares and contrasts the lean roll-out processes according to the research dimensions constituting the framework.

The effectiveness and the efficiency of the lean roll-out processes: first, negatively co-vary with the degree of lean knowledge codification; second, positively co-vary with the degree of autonomy of the plant; third, positively co-vary with the degree of contextual ambidexterity. Moreover, lean roll-out processes characterized by principles-based knowledge replication strategy, plant autonomy and contextual ambidexterity are comparatively more effective and efficient.

This is an exploratory qualitative study that develops propositions potentially testable in larger scale, more analytical research.

This study provides a tentative roadmap to successfully approach the roll-out of lean production systems in complex organizations.

This study challenges the current theory and practice which implicitly assumes that lean roll-outs take place linearly, cascading a set of predefined lean operations practices. Instead, the authors show that a less codified, more decentralized and contextually ambidextrous approach might be more effective.

This paper aims to develop a procedure for preparing production transfers based on risk management principles. The procedure should help companies reduce the amount of supply chain disruptions during transfers and achieve their outsourcing/offshoring objectives.

The procedure was developed during a three-year Design Science study. First, a literature review and case studies were conducted to frame the research problem. Second, a preliminary procedure was developed based on preventive risk mitigation actions from the production transfer literature. Third, the procedure was implemented during an electronics-offshoring case and refined during workshops with the sender and receiver’s transfer personnel. Fourth, during a seminar, transfer practitioners verified the procedure by applying it to outsourcing/offshoring cases with which they had experience.

Most of the preventive actions were evaluated as relevant for the transfers the procedure was applied to, regardless of industry and relocation type. Moreover, the electronics-offshoring case showed that the success of a production transfer not only depends on the physical, knowledge and supply chain transfers, as presented in earlier research, but also on the administrative transfer and on the organisation, project and quality management actions. This paper also attempts to enhance the production transfer literature by clarifying transfer risk management.

The procedure can be used during the production transfer phase as a preparation procedure. Moreover, it informs the decision-making process during the relocation-decision and supplier-selection phases.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first production-transfer-preparation procedure based on risk management principles.

The author, who works in the field of health care, identifies the development of an innovative best practices psychosocial rehabilitation principles template, which provides both a conceptual framework and some core dimensions for rehabilitation practice and focused patient care. The steps and process in the development of the template are documented and reflect both staff and patient input in its formulation. There is an articulation, from an integrated perspective, of a patient‐centred, complementary, empowering and interdependent rehabilitation principles framework. There is also a delineation of the rationale for the template’s inception, literature review, conceptual composition, inherent challenges and potential applicability for enhancing rehabilitation care, outcomes and quality management.

The resources needed to develop assessments of the twenty-first century skills, such as problem solving and collaboration, are huge, and require the introduction of cost-effective methods (Griffin and Care, 2015). The intention of the design template is to identify whether the presented approach to game development is viable for measuring collaborative problem solving (CPS) and if so, by using the template the same measures can be captured regardless of the specific task context. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper demonstrates a design template which utilises learning analytics and applies a measurement model to transform games into the twenty-first century assessments. The design template provides parameters for game design that provide sufficient data capture in which a measurement model can be applied. The learning analytics approach allows for capture of student behaviours in game play. By applying the measurement model, inferences can be made about demonstrated behaviours that are indicative of student ability.

Following the task design template, it is evident that games can be designed taking into consideration the requirement for generalizability and measurement principles. In turn, tasks developed using a defined set of common characteristics and structure allow consistent measurement processes to be applied in an efficient and sufficient manner. In summary, this paper identifies a viable task design template in regards to design principles and scoring protocols for games generating measures of CPS.

This approach combines various fields of research to present an approach that is a feasible, effective and efficient method for capturing data that are useful for understanding complex social and cognitive skills. The design template presents a method by which games can be designed in a way that assesses cognitive and social skills and provides a platform on which additional games can be readily created.

This chapter outlines potential steps to take in designing active learning experiences based on several theories underlying the learning process. The chapter examines theories of learning and instruction including information processing, schema acquisition, and cognitive load theory. Next follows an explanation of how these theories support problem-centered learning as well as a rationale for the need to help learners develop domain-general, flexible problem-solving skills that will transfer to future needs and contexts. The second half of the chapter focuses on designing active learning experiences based on the selection of real-world problems as the foundation for learning, activating prior knowledge, demonstration of the process or concept, multiple opportunities for practice with relevant scaffolding, and the chance to integrate that knowledge into the learners’ own context based on M. D. Merrill’s (2002) First Principles of Instruction. Examples of assessments, strategies, and activities to foster active, problem-centered learning drawn from the literature are also provided.

Working conditions on many digital work platforms often contribute to the grand challenge of establishing decent work. While research has examined the public regulation of platform work and worker resistance, little is known about private regulatory models. In this paper, we document the development of the “Crowdwork Agreement” forged between platforms and a trade union in the relatively young German crowdworking field. We find that existing templates played an important role in the process of negotiating this new institutional infrastructure, despite the radically new work context. While the platforms drew on the corporate social responsibility template of voluntary self-regulation via a code of conduct focusing on procedural aspects of decent platform work (i.e., improving work conditions and processes), the union contributed a traditional social partnership template emphasizing accountability, parity and distributive matters. The trade union’s approach prevailed in terms of accountability and parity mechanisms, while the platforms were able to uphold the mostly procedural character of their template. This compromise is reflected in many formal and informal interactions, themselves characteristic of a social partnership approach. Our study contributes to research on institutional infrastructures in emerging fields and their role in addressing grand challenges.

This paper aims to conceptualize the role of leadership in organizational learning processes in multinational companies (MNCs). The authors present a model describing how managers in an MNC facilitated transitions between sub-processes of organizational learning at several organizational levels.

The authors collected data from the plants of a global process company in Norway, Brazil and China. Observation, in-depth interviews and archival material enabled one to reconstruct the organizational learning process over a period of 30 years as the company developed its own tailor-made improvement programme.

Based on the data, the authors describe the role of leadership in linking the sub-processes of organizational learning as orchestration, sponsoring and persistence. Orchestration included creating faith and optimism and designing the organization to allow close cooperation between operators and managers in the sub-process of experimenting. This eased transferring and institutionalizing in the global organization. Sponsoring included structural changes to support transferring and the demonstration of dedication to improvement programme values. These factors were important for institutionalizing. Persistence involved the continuous focus on adjustment of the improvement programme, which then facilitated further experimenting.

Firstly, this study suggests that activities and decisions in one sub-process have important implications for the following sub-processes. Secondly, this study indicates that leaders’ role in facilitating the transitions between sub-processes extend beyond their individual traits and behaviour, which previous research had focused on, and includes decisions concerning organizational structure and culture that help link social and organizational learning.

In this chapter, the authors enter the world of ballet to be inspired by artistic teams. This original point of view proposes a complementary understanding of the dynamics of routines replication where preserving the authenticity of the project’s intent is emphasized over economic efficiency considerations.

The authors propose that analyzing the remounting of a ballet as an in-depth extreme case study provides an opportunity to learn more about other aspects that can be relevant in transfer stories: the importance accorded to the intent of the routine to be transferred; the existence of a dialogical dynamic that engages artifacts and memories of this intent; the existence of a meta-routine that structures and enables the transfer of sub-routines across geographical distance in another context. The authors will see that, in this case, routines replication is also made possible through sharing of a routine’s ostensive aspect which is embedded in a professional culture.

The overarching priority in remounting a show is strict respect for the choreographer’s original intent. As replicator and imitator teams encounter the consequences of a new location and its characteristics, the authors will examine how they face the replication dilemma, coordinate themselves, and use innovation to achieve replication.