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Universities play an increasingly prominent role in shaping regional, social, and economic development. In Canada, however, spatial, economic, and social differences between universities and their host communities continue to challenge positive town--gown relationships and undermine the benefits associated with high concentrations of prospective young, "creative" graduates. The purpose of this article is to identify the factors that lead to positive town--gown relations and, subsequently, encourage graduate retention. Through this research, university and town administrators were found to play a key role in establishing a positive relationship between students and community members. Local employment opportunities were also found to help students build an experiential relationship with their localities and make them more likely to settle there after graduation.

Healthcare organizations are striving to meet legislated and public expectations to include patients as equal partners in their care, and research is needed to guide successful implementation and outcomes. The current research examined the meaning of customer service as related to the culture of care relationships within a Canadian hospital in southeastern Ontario. The goals were to better understand these expectations, develop shared meanings and influence cultural change from the perspective of the organization's employees about their interactions with patients, families and work colleagues, and to generate ideas and groundswell for change. An ethnographic approach within the critical research paradigm was used over the course of a three phase study, where direct care healthcare providers (Phase 1), mid-level leaders (Phase 2) and senior leaders (Phase 3) volunteered to explore their values, philosophies and suggestions for change in the organization's care relationships. This paper describes Phase 2 of the overall research project. A mixed methodology was used where mid-level leaders were individually surveyed and then participated in a focus group and/or interview to discuss these concepts. Mid-level leaders indicated that providing excellent customer service was important in their own work with many customers including staff, patients and their families, students, volunteers and outside agencies. They believed that this in turn led to improved partnerships for care, health service transitions and linkages, customer satisfaction and health outcomes. The majority stated that the organization's culture would support change related to customer service relationships and opportunities for this were explored. (Contains 4 tables.)

Studies have shown that it is fundamentally important for firms to acquire and exploit knowledge outside the firm in order to create new knowledge and innovate. The absorptive capacity literature has extensively documented organisational processes that allow firms to acquire and exploit external knowledge for new knowledge creation and innovation. However, our understanding of absorptive capacity has not been updated to match the reality of the digital world; thus, it remains unclear how advancements in digital technologies have transformed the underlying processes of absorptive capacity (i.e., knowledge acquisition, assimilation, transformation, and exploitation). This article builds on the extant literature on absorptive capacity and digital technologies through interviews with founders of today's entrepreneurial firms, the conceptualisation of digital absorptive capacity, and the development of an instrument to operationalise this construct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research examines factors that enable or hinder knowledge sharing and knowledge seeking in groups. However, individuals also share and seek knowledge outside group meetings, especially if the group is making strategic decisions over time. Therefore, this study examines how, during a longitudinal strategic decision‐making process, the emotions of group members and knowledge sharing within the group affect their knowledge‐sharing intentions and knowledge‐seeking behaviors beyond the group. We focus on a single organization, a hospital, whose board created a citizen advisory panel (CAP) of 28 individuals to gather community input on the restructuring of the hospital's activities to contain costs. The group met in five all‐day sessions to provide their input. We surveyed each member before the CAP process and after each CAP session. The resulting longitudinal data were analyzed using panel‐data techniques, with the findings being complemented by qualitative insights. The results indicate, somewhat surprisingly, that both positive and negative emotions (specifically enthusiasm and anxiety) positively affect both knowledge‐sharing intentions and knowledge sharing within groups in strategic decision‐making contexts. We also find that enthusiasm, anxiety, and perceived relative knowledge within groups positively affect subsequent knowledge‐seeking behaviors. Our findings contribute to the literature on knowledge management and organizational decision making. The study provides insights into how, in groups making strategic decisions over time, emotions as well as knowledge sharing within groups affect knowledge‐related intentions and behaviors beyond the groups. The study also adds to the theory of planned behavior to highlight the role of emotions in influencing intentions and behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although information systems development (ISD) projects are critical to organizations and improving them has been the focus of considerable research, successful projects remain elusive. Focusing on the cognitive aspects of ISD projects, we investigate how and why mutual understanding (MU) among key stakeholder groups (business and information technology managers, users, and developers) changes within and across projects, and how it affects project success. We examine relationships among project planning and control mechanisms; sensegiving and sensemaking activities by, and MU among, these stakeholder groups; and project success. Combining deductive and inductive approaches for theory building, we develop an initial model based on the literature and then modify it based on the results of a longitudinal embedded mixed-methods study of 13 projects at 2 organizations over a 10-year period. The results provide insights into the development of MU within projects, including (1) how MU changes during projects as a result of cognitive activities (sensegiving and sensemaking); (2) how planning and control mechanisms (and the associated artifacts) affect these cognitive activities; (3) how MU, and achieving it early in the project, affects success; and (4) how stakeholder engagement (in terms of depth, scope, and timing) affects the relationships in (1) and (2). The results also indicate that project management mechanisms, stakeholder engagement, and MU may change (either improve or deteriorate) across projects, depending on the disagreements among stakeholders in previous projects, the introduction of new project elements in subsequent projects, and the reflection on previous projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marginalized communities globally encounter grand challenges such as lack of access to education, healthcare, and sustained livelihoods. Several initiatives to address these complex, global problems have resulted in fragmented solutions. Recognizing this, there have been several calls for the study of responsible innovation (RI) to address grand challenges. Digital platforms such as AirBnB, Uber and so forth have now become commonplace and are known to generate economic value but also face criticism for being exploitative and exclusive. Only a handful of studies show how similar platforms can innovate responsibly to serve marginalized communities by generating simultaneous economic and social value. To address this gap, our study examines the cases of two platforms that orchestrated ecosystems consisting of individuals from marginalized communities, government agencies, and other entities to provide physical, digital and societal solutions based on principles of RI. We contribute to the RI and IS literatures to show how RI solutions can be fostered through digital platforms to address grand challenges. The article provides empirical evidence of all four dimensions of the RI framework—anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion, and responsiveness ‐ and their operationalization through digital platforms. This research lays the foundation for future studies at the intersection of RI and digital platforms literature. The study also provides practice insights on developing digital platform solutions for marginalized communities to address grand challenges and is useful to policymakers to formulate appropriate interventions. It pushes the theoretical and practice boundaries of our understanding of RI and digital platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]