title: Understancding ICT based advantages: A techno savvy case Study

authors: Rastrick, Karyn Christine

subjects: information communication technologies

abstract: Information and communication technologies (ICTs) increasingly are being linked to organisational value. However, current research tends to examine these resources in an uncoupled way despite numerous calls for work which examines ICTs in a more integrated way. This research addresses this gap by investigating how ICTs are successfully combined with other resources in the context of an exemplar organisation. The resource based view (RBV) is used as a framework to guide this research. The RBV is an appropriate lens due to its focus on resources and capabilities as sources of advantage. This research employs an interpretive case study design based in an organisation with a long history of innovation and success with regard to ICTs. An integrated model of advantage is presented based on two distinct groupings of capabilities. In essence, this research demonstrates how the total ownership of ICTs, within the case studied, presents a potential advantage. The advantage is realised through the combination of capabilities and the inclusive approach to ICT development employed in the case organisation. This research has important implications for theory and practice. While many individual sources of advantage have been empirically examined, this research provides one of the first in-depth case studies that identify integrated capabilities. Understanding such sources of advantage will help practitioners better understand and protect key organisational capabilities to sustain or extend competitive advantages.

text: Understancding ICT based advantages: A techno savvy case Study Information and communication technologies (ICTs) increasingly are being linked to organisational value. However, current research tends to examine these resources in an uncoupled way despite numerous calls for work which examines ICTs in a more integrated way. This research addresses this gap by investigating how ICTs are successfully combined with other resources in the context of an exemplar organisation. The resource based view (RBV) is used as a framework to guide this research. The RBV is an appropriate lens due to its focus on resources and capabilities as sources of advantage. This research employs an interpretive case study design based in an organisation with a long history of innovation and success with regard to ICTs. An integrated model of advantage is presented based on two distinct groupings of capabilities. In essence, this research demonstrates how the total ownership of ICTs, within the case studied, presents a potential advantage. The advantage is realised through the combination of capabilities and the inclusive approach to ICT development employed in the case organisation. This research has important implications for theory and practice. While many individual sources of advantage have been empirically examined, this research provides one of the first in-depth case studies that identify integrated capabilities. Understanding such sources of advantage will help practitioners better understand and protect key organisational capabilities to sustain or extend competitive advantages.

year: 2010

title: A challenge to Marshallian orthodoxy on industrial clustering

authors: Akoorie, Michèle E.M.

subjects: medieval guilds

abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the antecedents (the medieval guild) of modern day industrial clustering. The paper challenges the notion that work of Alfred Marshall provides the intellectual underpinning of cluster thinking.
Design/methodology/approach – The source material uses archival research on medieval guilds and historical texts. In tracing the development of forms of co-operative association this paper employs the technique of genealogical spanning. The prism of forms of co-operative association is used to examine the rise and fall of the medieval guild.
Findings – Medieval guilds have been largely ignored by modern proponents of cluster theory and Italianate industrial districts. Guild activity in technological invention and innovation, in skills transfer and knowledge (both codified and tacit) had many of the same positive attributes that are found in neo-Marshallian industrial districts. The long history of cooperative behaviour in geographically concentrated firms in industrial districts had its genesis in the medieval guild.
Research limitations/implications – The paper suggests that collaboration (in craft guilds) and clusters (cooperation and relationships) have been a dominant paradigm since the Middle Ages; a viewpoint which is commonly ignored by the dominant US-centric view of individualism, competition and arms lengths relationships in business. Cooperation and relationships have attracted significant scholarly attention and most recently the studies in the cluster literature have tended to favour the social and knowledge-based approach. This phenomenon suggests that the future social, political and economic dynamics in Europe will remain firmly rooted in the creation of areas of regional specialization, as has been the case in the past.
Originality/value – This paper contributes to our understanding of the embeddedness of cooperation by comparing the characteristics of the medieval guild with the characteristics of modern day (Porterian clusters). Cooperation rather than competition is the dominant paradigm of industrial activity. The competitive divide between employers and employees was an aberration of the Industrial Revolution and promoted by political economists as a means of facilitating the mobility of labour by diffusion.

text: A challenge to Marshallian orthodoxy on industrial clustering Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the antecedents (the medieval guild) of modern day industrial clustering. The paper challenges the notion that work of Alfred Marshall provides the intellectual underpinning of cluster thinking.
Design/methodology/approach – The source material uses archival research on medieval guilds and historical texts. In tracing the development of forms of co-operative association this paper employs the technique of genealogical spanning. The prism of forms of co-operative association is used to examine the rise and fall of the medieval guild.
Findings – Medieval guilds have been largely ignored by modern proponents of cluster theory and Italianate industrial districts. Guild activity in technological invention and innovation, in skills transfer and knowledge (both codified and tacit) had many of the same positive attributes that are found in neo-Marshallian industrial districts. The long history of cooperative behaviour in geographically concentrated firms in industrial districts had its genesis in the medieval guild.
Research limitations/implications – The paper suggests that collaboration (in craft guilds) and clusters (cooperation and relationships) have been a dominant paradigm since the Middle Ages; a viewpoint which is commonly ignored by the dominant US-centric view of individualism, competition and arms lengths relationships in business. Cooperation and relationships have attracted significant scholarly attention and most recently the studies in the cluster literature have tended to favour the social and knowledge-based approach. This phenomenon suggests that the future social, political and economic dynamics in Europe will remain firmly rooted in the creation of areas of regional specialization, as has been the case in the past.
Originality/value – This paper contributes to our understanding of the embeddedness of cooperation by comparing the characteristics of the medieval guild with the characteristics of modern day (Porterian clusters). Cooperation rather than competition is the dominant paradigm of industrial activity. The competitive divide between employers and employees was an aberration of the Industrial Revolution and promoted by political economists as a means of facilitating the mobility of labour by diffusion.

year: 2011

title: Māori education as justice and reckoning

authors: Hemi, Keakaokawai Varner

abstract: Hypothetical musings on what constitutes justice have been taking place at least since the ancient Greek philosopher Plato recorded the above debate between Socrates and Cephalus in Republic circa 380 BCE. Modem philosophical notions of justice have also often been heady stuff relying on heuristic "device[ s] of representation"², "thick and thin"³ theories and other abstract conceptions to untangle real-world inequalities. In comparison, current questions of access to justice are earthy, grunty and real. Increasingly vociferous access to justice claims cite the actual injustice-laden histories of particular groups, speak in terms of harm already inflicted and call for reparative, restorative or healing justice. Indigenous peoples, African-Americans and other disenfranchised, excluded and oppressed groups quote dates, casualty numbers and the legislative section or treaty responsible. For many indigenous people, any single incident is always just one among many in the collective memory; there are always more dates, cases,⁴ facts and figures in the "litany of injustices"⁵ which evidence denial of justice. Gritty statistics in one area of well-being flow into another and over generations. This is justice in the trenches, a place where numbers and statistics are what they are.

text: Māori education as justice and reckoning Hypothetical musings on what constitutes justice have been taking place at least since the ancient Greek philosopher Plato recorded the above debate between Socrates and Cephalus in Republic circa 380 BCE. Modem philosophical notions of justice have also often been heady stuff relying on heuristic "device[ s] of representation"², "thick and thin"³ theories and other abstract conceptions to untangle real-world inequalities. In comparison, current questions of access to justice are earthy, grunty and real. Increasingly vociferous access to justice claims cite the actual injustice-laden histories of particular groups, speak in terms of harm already inflicted and call for reparative, restorative or healing justice. Indigenous peoples, African-Americans and other disenfranchised, excluded and oppressed groups quote dates, casualty numbers and the legislative section or treaty responsible. For many indigenous people, any single incident is always just one among many in the collective memory; there are always more dates, cases,⁴ facts and figures in the "litany of injustices"⁵ which evidence denial of justice. Gritty statistics in one area of well-being flow into another and over generations. This is justice in the trenches, a place where numbers and statistics are what they are.

year: 2017