Once the Capacity Development Initiative is Over: Using Communities of Practice Theory to Transform Individual into Social Learning

Abstract

Purpose: Capacity development for agricultural research and development is missing an opportunity. Initiatives tend to focus on developing capacity of individuals and even when the ultimate aim is social change leave the transformation of individual into social learning largely to chance. I use the lens of social learning systems, particularly concepts from Community of Practice theory, to explore how that theory can provide practical insights into transforming individual into social learning and the design considerations that would support this.

Design/methodology/approach: Using as a case study a professional development programme, African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD), I conducted a use-oriented systemic inquiry among 26 AWARD participants, with myself as informed investigator within the system of inquiry. Data from interviews and questionnaires were subjected to qualitative analysis using analytic induction with sensitizing concepts from Community of Practice theory.

Practical implications: I identify strengths and challenges, and provide five design considerations that might enable the individuals participating in a capacity development programme to continue to engage after the programme ends and self-organize for concerted action.

Originality/value: The originality of this research article is the use of the three central Community of Practice concepts of domain, community and practice as analytical tools for understanding individual and social learning among the alumni of a professional capacity development programme. This has value for designers of capacity development initiatives.     

Developing Data Management Services at the Johns Hopkins University

Big data challenges have stimulated national and international initiatives in building inter-connected data repositories and integrated data resources as well as long-term data management and data stewardship to support cross-disciplinary scientific data discovery and reuse. To champion such efforts, Johns Hopkins University (JHU) created and developed a new model of data management services (DMS) encompassing a continuum of Storage → Archiving → Preservation → Curation layers to provide data managing and sharing through the JHU Data Archive (DA). To examine this model of data management services, we contextualized the JHU DMS in a case study drawing upon document analysis and interviews with key stakeholders. Our investigation revealed distinct dimensions of the JHU DMS/DA into environmental responsiveness (see Environmental Responsiveness section for explanation), socio-technical readiness, and marketing and collaboration strategies. We further articulated opportunities, challenges and success determinants of the DMS within its institutional context. We intend for the case study to stimulate further discussion and research on alternative options and extensions of the DMS model in other institutions or contexts.     

The structuration of socio-technical regimes—Conceptual foundations from institutional theory

In recent years, socio-technical transitions literature has gained importance in addressing long-term, transformative change in various industries. In order to account for the inertia and path-dependency experienced in these sectors, the concept of the socio-technical regime has been formulated. Socio-technical regimes denote the paradigmatic core of a sector, which results from the co-evolution of institutions and technologies over time. Despite its widespread acceptance, the regime concept has repeatedly been criticized for lacking a clear operationalization. As a consequence, empirical applications tend to depict regimes as too ‘monolithic’ and ‘homogenous’, not adequately considering persistent institutional tensions and contradictions. These are however crucial for assessing transition dynamics. In this paper, we revisit two concepts from institutional theory that enable an explicit identification of socio-technical regimes and more generally a specification of the ‘semi-coherence’ of socio-technical systems. First, we will show that ‘levels of structuration’ can be conceptualized as degrees of institutionalization, thereby treating institutionalization as a variable with different effects on actors, the stability of the system and thus the potential for change. Secondly, we draw on the institutional logics approach to characterize the content of various structural elements present in a system and to trace conflicts and contradictions between them. We illustrate this approach with an empirical in-depth analysis of the transformation of the Australian urban water sector since the 1970ies.     

美国生物经济政策及其比较性建议

美国发展生物经济有其独特的优势:生命科学与生物技术的创新与综合集成、优越的资本市场和投融资手段、丰富的农业资源与农产品优势。系统考察美国生物经济发展的缘起、政策演进过程及政策措施,对于中国发展生物经济具有启发作用与借鉴意义。通过中美生物经济发展条件与态势的比较,分别从技术、经济、社会层面提出了技术系统集成、经济绿色转型、社会生态文明等3个方面的启示与建议。重点建议及其基本出发点包括:生物经济的前瞻性强,相关政策管理部门应尽快更新监管制度,以消除不适应时代之需或不必要的技术规制上的障碍;绿色经济为时代发展趋势,新兴的生物经济需要政府采购、税收减免等市场准入方面的优惠政策的扶持,从而促进农业、健康医疗、生物制造及生物能源、环保及生态服务等众多领域的绿色转型;生态文明是社会文明进步新的发展阶段,创新生物经济发展理念,并实施生物经济发展战略,依托与生态和民生最为密切的生物科技手段,从而促使生物经济成为改善民生与构建生态文明的内生驱动力。     

The pre-industrial energy crisis and resource scarcity as a source of transition

The historical British ‘timber famine’ of the 18th century is re-examined in the light of contemporary concerns about transitions in energy use. The alternatives of scarcity-induced and opportunity-led transition are considered in relation to the economics of sustainable fuel timber production for industrial uses. The paper finds that the production of timber was an economically sustainable use of land and that observations of timber shortages may have therefore either been claims made by interests favouring the use of coal or the consequence of abandonment of fuel timber cultivation in favour of coal use. The longer-term sustainability of domestic UK sources for industrial timber fuel timber is shown to be problematic. The consequences of the alternative views of the ‘timber famine’ for contemporary policies attempting to promote transition to low carbon or sustainable energy use are examined. In particular, if the present is an echo of the past, opportunity rather than crisis may be the more powerful lever of change.     

Legitimizing research, technology and innovation policies for transformative change: Combining insights from innovation systems and multi-level perspective in a comprehensive ‘failures’ framework

The recent policy debates about orientating research, technology and innovation policy towards societal challenges, rather than economic growth objectives only, call for new lines of argumentation to systematically legitimize policy interventions. While the multi-level perspective on long-term transitions has attracted quite some interest over the past years as a framework for dealing with long-term processes of transformative change, but the innovation systems approach is still the dominant perspective for devising innovation policy. Innovation systems approaches stress the importance of improving innovation capabilities of firms and the institutional settings to support them, but they are less suited for dealing with the strategic challenges of transforming systems of innovation, production and consumption, and thus with long-term challenges such as climate change or resource depletion. It is therefore suggested to consider insights from transition studies more prominently in a policy framework that is based on the innovation systems approach and the associated notion of ‘failures’. We propose a comprehensive framework that allows legitimizing and devising policies for transformative change that draws on a combination of market failures, structural system failures and transformational system failures.     

What is protective space? Reconsidering niches in transitions to sustainability

The transitions literature emphasises the role of niches, defined as a protective space for path-breaking innovations. Surprisingly, the concept of protection has not been systematically interrogated. Our analysis identifies effective protection as having three properties in wider transition processes: shielding, nurturing and empowerment. Empowerment is considered the least developed in current niche literature. It can be understood as either processes that make niche innovations competitive within unchanged selection environments (fit-and-conform) or as processes that contribute to changes in mainstream selection environments in ways favourable to a path-breaking niche innovation (stretch-and-transform). Adopting a more constructivist perspective, we subsequently argue that analysis of these properties needs to be complemented with particular attention for the politics involved in their construction. Attention to empowerment confirms the view that niche actors need to link to wider processes of social change, and suggests how this arises. The paper ends with an outlook upon two promising research avenues: (1) the reconstruction of niche development in light of the present framework; (2) analyses of the diverse (political) narratives seeking to empower niches across time and space.     

Skills development,employment and sustained growth in Ghana: Sustainability challenges

Against a backdrop of some two decades of sustained economic growth in Ghana, this paper argues that there are a series of sustainability challenges related to technical and vocational skills development (TVSD) that need to be addressed. This paper analyses several sustainability dimensions of TVSD related to: promoting the sustainability of education-for-all achievements through expanding post-basic education and TVSD; identifying sustainable financing mechanisms for an expansion of TVSD; promoting and sustaining equitable access; ensuring that expansion in quantity does not lead to a compromise on the achievement and sustainability of quality and relevance issues; promoting the sustainability of TVSD expansion by widening opportunities for lifelong learning; creating an enabling environment for skills utilization through sustainable employment growth.     

可持续视角下重污染企业绩效评价研究——基于COWA算子和云模型

针对重污染企业绩效评价问题,首先,基于可持续理论,从经济、社会和环境视角建立重污染企业绩效评价指标体系;然后,基于COWA算子构建重污染企业绩效指标赋权模型;最后,基于云模型构建重污染企业绩效评价模型。应用案例表明：该绩效评价指标体系、赋权及评价模型,能较好地对重污染企业绩效进行评价,对重污染企业绩效提升,具有一定参考借鉴意义。     

Policies,actors and sustainability transition pathways: A study of the EU’s energy policy mix

Policies and politics are crucial elements of sustainability transitions. Transition pathways unfold as a result of continuous struggles of actors over policy goals and instruments. Taking a policy mix perspective, we study policies and policy preferences of key industry actors in the ongoing energy transition at the level of the European Union. We introduce two central analytical dimensions for transition pathways: the degree of sustainability (here: renewable energy ambition) and the degree of disruption (here: whether to pursue centralized or decentralized energy system configurations). We find that the current EU energy policy mix is heterogeneous with respect to the issue of (de-)centralization, whereas most policies and actors express high or moderate ambitions for renewable energy. Our paper makes three contributions. It demonstrates how actors and policy preferences can be explicitly included in the study of policy mixes. To the literature on transition pathways, we introduce sustainability as another key dimension in addition to disruption. Lastly, we propose a novel methodology for analyzing the politics of transition pathways.