Trade-offs and synergies in joint knowledge creation for coastal management: insights from ecology-oriented sand nourishment in the Netherlands

In order to successfully inform environmental management, environmental research needs to balance legitimacy, credibility, and salience. This paper aims to identify trade-offs and synergies between these three attributes in collaborative research for environmental management, and draws lessons for organizing such research. Empirically, it draws on a study of a research program on the ecological effects of coastal protection through sand nourishment. Our findings suggest that the legitimacy and salience of knowledge creation, particularly in an interactive governance context, are complementary. At the same time, we found trade-offs between practical relevance and fundamental knowledge creation, as well as between issue diversity and the depth and quality of scientific inquiry. Balancing the legitimacy, credibility, and salience of knowledge may be enabled by interactive knowledge creation involving policy-makers, experts and stakeholders. We conclude that successful management-oriented environmental research, particularly in the case of wicked problems, requires both a careful design of arrangements for stakeholder engagement, and well- established linkages to broader regulatory and institutional contexts.     

Legitimacy for climate policies: politics and participation in the Green City of Freiburg

Cities are crucial to mitigating climate change and can serve as sites for innovations, providing examples of ways to conduct effective politics in transport, energy and land-use. What does it take to become a model for climate politics? This article argues that a few innovative measures will not suffice. A common vision based on broad legitimacy is crucial to achieving this position. Using a theoretical framework on input and output legitimacy with the City of Freiburg as the case, this article explores the political dimensions of the climate innovative city. The study shows that a specific kind of “green conservative” politics and a consensual view on climate issues across parties have been very important to creating political legitimacy. This has been supported by extraordinary and extensive citizen engagement in combination with the actual output, i.e. what environmental policies have delivered. The legitimacy for the Green City model also means that Freiburg is viewed as a highly livable city, in turn, creating self-enforcing dynamics that challenge its innovative potential.     

污水处理厂应用TPM模式优化生产组织结构研究

从污水处理厂的核心需求和TPM模式的内涵分析中,论述了TPM模式应用于污水处理厂的意义和切入点,阐明在污水厂中应用TPM模式,首先应优化的是生产组织结构。并在日处理量2万吨的污水处理项目中,实例应用了TPM模式改造生产组织结构,精简了班组与人员,取得了运营成本低减和设备运行稳定性上升的成效,验证了该模式对于污水处理厂生产管理的显著效益。     

西部地级市环境监测站转型期视野中的环境统计组织体系建设探讨

通过总结西部某地级市“十一五”环境统计组织体系建设中存在的问题,从地级市环境监测站历史性转型期视野出发,提出地级市的环境统计组织建设应该依托于环境监测站的建设与发展,全力推进环境统计工作和环境监测的协同发展。     

组织因素对民航维修人员安全行为的影响

为了减少民航维修人员不安全行为,探讨组织因素对民航维修人员安全行为的影响机理。基于组织行为学理论并结合民航维修人员的访谈分析,确定了影响民航维修人员安全行为的4个组织因素——安全氛围、工作压力、风险感知和安全管理,在此基础上,构建了组织因素与民航维修人员安全行为关系的假设模型。选取国内航空公司维修基地的一线机务维修人员进行问卷调查,采用结构方程模型对假设模型进行验证。结果表明,安全氛围、工作压力、风险感知和安全管理4个维度与安全参与行为、安全服从行为显著相关,其中,安全氛围对安全参与行为的影响最大。风险感知对安全服从行为的影响最小。     

Black swans,cognition, and the power of learning from failure

Failure carries undeniable stigma and is difficult to confront for individuals, teams, and organizations. Disciplines such as commercial and military aviation, medicine, and business have long histories of grappling with it, beginning with the recognition that failure is inevitable in every human endeavor. Although conservation may arguably be more complex, conservation professionals can draw on the research and experience of these other disciplines to institutionalize activities and attitudes that foster learning from failure, whether they are minor setbacks or major disasters. Understanding the role of individual cognitive biases, team psychological safety, and organizational willingness to support critical self‐examination all contribute to creating a cultural shift in conservation to one that is open to the learning opportunity that failure provides. This new approach to managing failure is a necessary next step in the evolution of conservation effectiveness.     

Wrestling with the complexity of evaluation for organizations at the boundary of science,policy, and practice

Boundary organizations are situated between science, policy, and practice and have a goal of supporting communication and collaboration among these sectors. They have been promoted as a way to improve the effectiveness of conservation efforts by building stronger relationships between scientists, policy makers, industry, and practitioners (Cook et al. 2013). Although their promise has been discussed in theory, the work of and expectations for boundary organizations are less defined in practice. Biodiversity conservation is characterized by complexity, uncertainty, dissent, and tight budgets, so boundary organizations face the challenging task of demonstrating their value to diverse stakeholders. We examined the challenges boundary organizations face when seeking to evaluate their work and thus aimed to encourage more productive conversations about evaluation of boundary organizations and their projects. Although no off‐the‐shelf solution is available for a given boundary organization, we identified 4 principles that will support effective evaluation for boundary organizations: engage diverse stakeholders, support learning and reflection, assess contribution to change, and align evaluation with assumption and values.     

Understanding organizational embeddedness and career success: Who and what you know

Integrating job embeddedness theory with the sponsored and contest mobility perspectives, we developed and tested a model linking organizational embeddedness with two indicators of career success within the organization (promotion and career satisfaction), via the mediating roles of employees' organizational sponsorship network and job-related human capital development. Data from 188 employees and their supervisors over a 1-year period showed that, after controlling for employees' initial levels of career satisfaction and job performance, only job-related human capital development transmitted the positive effects of organizational embeddedness on promotion and career satisfaction. Supplemental analyses revealed that organizational sponsorship network's positive effects on promotion and career satisfaction were transmitted indirectly, via job-related human capital development. Our findings illustrate the importance of integrating sponsored and contest mobility perspectives and contribute to research on organizational embeddedness by extending its outcomes to include career success within the organization and specifying the process through which organizational embeddedness is related to career success within the organization.     

Prioritizing species conservation programs based on IUCN Green Status and estimates of cost-sharing potential

Over 1 million species around the world are at risk of extinction, and conservation organizations have to decide where to invest their limited resources. Cost-effectiveness can be increased by leveraging funding opportunities and increasing collaborative partnerships to achieve shared conservation goals. We devised a structured decision-making framework to prioritize species’ conservation programs based on a cost–benefit analysis that takes collaborative opportunities into account in an examination of national and global conservation return on investment. Conservation benefit is determined by modifying the novel International Union for the Conservation of Nature Green Status for Species to provide an efficient, high-level measure that is comparable among species, even with limited information and time constraints. We applied this prioritization approach to the Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo, Canada, a nonprofit organization seeking to increase the number of species it assists with conservation translocations. We sought to identify and prioritize additional species’ programs for which conservation translocation expertise and actions could make the most impact. Estimating the likelihood of cost-sharing potential enabled total program cost to be distinguished from costs specific to the organization. Comparing a benefit-to-cost ratio on different geographic scales allowed decision makers to weigh alternative options for investing in new species’ programs in a transparent and effective manner. Our innovative analysis aligns with general conservation planning frameworks and can be adapted for any organization.     

高风险系统组织因素分类与绩效评价

在收集以组织绩效评价、人的可靠性和人误分析为目的的两类组织因素分类的基础上,结合问卷调查,并依据建立的概念上的组织因素分类框架,从组织的目标和战略、组织结构、资源、规程、管理功能、培训、交流、组织文化等方面确立组织因素分类指标,基本克服了传统的组织因素分类缺陷。同时,依据组织因素的分类,考虑到组织绩效评价的复杂性和不确定性,采用模糊决策方法对某组织的绩效进行评价,识别出该组织现存的主要缺陷:组织管理方面的问题以及组织的结构设计不太合理等问题。