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The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of the World Health Organization’s Global Healthcare Workforce Alliance (GHWA). Based on a commissioned evaluation of GHWA, it applies network theory and key concepts from systems thinking to explore network emergence, effectiveness, and evolution to over a ten-year period. The research was designed to provide high-level strategic guidance for further evolution of global governance in human resources for health (HRH).

Methods included a review of published literature on HRH governance and current practice in the field and an in-depth case study whose main data sources were relevant GHWA background documents and key informant interviews with GHWA leaders, staff, and stakeholders. Sampling was purposive and at a senior level, focusing on board members, executive directors, funders, and academics. Data were analyzed thematically with reference to systems theory and Shiffman’s theory of network development.

Five key lessons emerged: effective management and leadership are critical; networks need to balance “tight” and “loose” approaches to their structure and processes; an active communication strategy is key to create and maintain support; the goals, priorities, and membership must be carefully focused; and the network needs to support shared measurement of progress on agreed-upon goals. Shiffman’s middle-range network theory is a useful tool when guided by the principles of complex systems that illuminate dynamic situations and shifting interests as global alliances evolve.

This study was implemented at the end of the ten-year funding cycle. A more continuous evaluation throughout the term would have provided richer understanding of issues. Experience and perspectives at the country level were not assessed.

Design and management of large, complex networks requires ongoing attention to key issues like leadership, and flexible structures and processes to accommodate the dynamic reality of these networks.

This case study builds on growing interest in the role of networks to foster large-scale change. The particular value rests on the longitudinal perspective on the evolution of a large, complex global network, and the use of theory to guide understanding.

This paper seeks to describe the exploration of human resource issues in one large‐scale program of innovation in healthcare. It is informed by established theories of management in the workplace and a multi‐level model of diffusion of innovations.

A realist approach was used based on interviews, ethnographic observation and documentary analysis.

Five main approaches (“theories of change”) were adopted to develop and support the workforce: recruiting staff with skills in service transformation; redesigning roles and creating new roles; enhancing workforce planning; linking staff development to service needs; creating opportunities for shared learning and knowledge exchange. Each had differing levels of success.

The paper includes HR implications for the modernisation of a complex service organisation.

This is the first time a realist evaluation of a complex health modernisation initiative has been undertaken.

The purpose of this paper is to share interdisciplinary ideas about the purpose of social theory in empirical research.

The formal interview took place in front of an audience at the Strong Structuration Theory and Management Research workshop at IAE de Paris, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, on 10 May 2016. A recording was made, transcribed, and then edited. Elements from a recorded lecture on the same day are also included. A conversational format is retained to enhance the sense of interdisciplinary dialogue that characterises the research project.

The use of SST as a conceptual methodology is explained, and the use of agent’s conduct and agent’s context analyses is elucidated providing pointers regarding how accounting research can be developed further by basing the analysis in an understanding of the status and adequacy of knowledge on which people act to produce and reproduce structure.

The value of the interview is to provide insights into the process of empirical research and conceptualisation, which are likely to be particularly helpful for early career researchers.

Despite many calls to strengthen connections between health systems and communities as a way to improve primary healthcare, little is known about how new collaborations can effectively alter service provision. The purpose of this paper is to explore how a health authority, municipal leaders and physicians worked together in the process of transforming primary healthcare.

A longitudinal qualitative case study was conducted to explore the processes of change at the regional level and within seven communities across Northern British Columbia (BC), Canada. Over three years, 239 interviews were conducted with physicians, municipal leaders, health authority clinicians and leaders and other health and social service providers. Interviews and contextual documents were analyzed and interpreted to articulate how ongoing transformation has occurred.

Four overall strategies with nine approaches were apparent. The strategies were partnering for innovation, keeping the focus on people in communities, taking advantage of opportunities for change and encouraging experimentation while managing risk. The strategies have bumped the existing system out of the status quo and are achieving transformation. Key components have been a commitment to a clear end-in-view, a focus on patients, families, and communities, and acting together over time.

This study illuminates how partnering for primary healthcare transformation is messy and complicated but can create a foundation for whole system change.

The aim of this research is to analyse the impact of relative advantage, compatibility, ease of use, visibility, voluntariness, image, result demonstrability and trialability on intention to use internet security software using a model developed based on perceived characteristics of innovation by Moore and Benbasat (1991) among undergraduate students.

Using an intercept survey method, 425 responses were collected from a Malaysian public university using a closed questionnaire which was gotten from the literature. The authors used the SmartPLS software which is a second-generation structural equation modelling software that can be used to model latent variables with negligible requirements.

The results show that relative advantage, compatibility, visibility, voluntariness, result demonstrability and trialability had a positive effect on use of internet security software while ease of use and image was not significant.

The most important predictor was trialability which sends a clear signal to software developers that users would like to be able to try the software before making a decision to purchase and use. However, the research is limited to students only. Therefore, future research can be extended to wider population.

The result of this paper provides beneficial information to the internet security software developers about what factors affect users’ intentions to buy their products.

The authors used the comprehensive innovation diffusion theory to test the security behaviour of under graduate students from a developing country’s perspectives. Many other similar studies have been done in the developed country’s context. Thus, this paper adds to the literature from a developing country’s perspective.

This study assessed the relevance of Vroom’s expectancy motivational framework in a cross-cultural context. Differences in attitudes for task investment, preferences for work related achievements, and the reward potential of outcomes was assessedwith Australians and Malaysians who were employed in similar work contexts of the beauty care industry. Reasons why the Australian employees reported significantly higher job motivation than the Malaysian respondents were identified by examining the three main components of expectancy, instrumentality and valence, of Vroom’s framework. The study findings are discussed in terms of the implications they have for the necessary organizational development with Australians and Malaysians who were employed in similar work contexts of the beauty care industry. Reasons why the Australian employees reported significantly higher job motivation than the Malaysian respondents were identified by examining the three main components of expectancy, instrumentality and valence, of Vroom's framework. The study findings are discussed in terms of the implications they have for the necessary organizational development of businesses in the competitive Asia-Pacific region.