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on Project, Program and Portfolio Management |
| By: | Thomas Gillier (MTS - Management Technologique et Strategique - Grenoble École de Management (GEM)); Akin Kazakçi (CGS - Centre de Gestion Scientifique - Mines ParisTech); Gérald Piat (EDF R&D - EDF) |
| Abstract: | Purpose - Scholars and practitioners have both emphasized the importance of collaboration in innovation context. They have also largely acknowledged that the definition of common purpose is a major driver of successful collaboration, but surprisingly, researchers have put little effort into investigating the process whereby the partners define the common purpose. This research aims to explore the Generation of Common Purpose (GCP) in innovation partnerships. Design/methodology/approach - An action-research approach combined with modeling has been followed. Our research is based on an in-depth qualitative case study of a cross-industry exploratory partnership through which four partners, from very different arenas, aim to collectively define innovation projects based on micro-nanotechnologies. Based on a design reasoning framework, the mechanisms of GCP mechanism are depicted. Findings - Regarding GCP, two main interdependent facets are identified: (1) the determination of existing intersections between the parties' concept and knowledge spaces ('Matching'); (2) an introspective learning process that allows the parties to transforms those spaces ('Building'). Practical implications - The better understanding of the GCP and the specific notion of "C-K profiles", which is an original way to characterize each partner involved in a partnership, should improve the capabilities of organizations to efficiently define collaborative innovation projects. Originality/value - This article explores one of the cornerstones of successful collaboration in innovation: the process whereby several parties define the common purpose of their partnership. |
| Keywords: | Innovation ; Partnership ; Design ; Generation of common purpose ; Innovation partnerships ; Shared objectives ; C-K design theory ; Cross-industry exploratory partnership |
| Date: | 2012–07–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:gemptp:halshs-00718287&r=ppm |
| By: | Lant Pritchett, Matt Andrews, and Michael Woolcock |
| Abstract: | Many reform initiatives in developing countries fail to achieve sustained improvements in performance because they are merely isomorphic mimicry—that is, governments and organizations pretend to reform by changing what policies or organizations look like rather than what they actually do. In addition, the flow of development resources and legitimacy without demonstrated improvements in performance undermines the impetus for effective action to build state capability or improve performance. This dynamic facilitates “capability traps” in which state capability stagnates, or even deteriorates, over long periods of time even though governments remain engaged in developmental rhetoric and continue to receive development resources. How can countries escape capability traps? We propose an approach, Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA), based on four core principles, each of which stands in sharp contrast with the standard approaches. First, PDIA focuses on solving locally nominated and defined problems in performance (as opposed to transplanting preconceived and packaged “best practice” solutions). Second, it seeks to create an authorizing environment for decision-making that encourages positive deviance and experimentation (as opposed to designing projects and programs and then requiring agents to implement them exactly as designed). Third, it embeds this experimentation in tight feedback loops that facilitate rapid experiential learning (as opposed to enduring long lag times in learning from ex post “evaluation”). Fourth, it actively engages broad sets of agents to ensure that reforms are viable, legitimate, relevant, and supportable (as opposed to a narrow set of external experts promoting the top-down diffusion of innovation). |
| JEL: | O10 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:299&r=ppm |
| By: | Okello, Julius Juma; Kirui, Oliver K.; Gitonga, Zachary |
| Abstract: | Smallholder farmers’ access to markets has traditionally been constrained by lack of market information. The need to facilitate farmers’ access to markets has seen the emergence of many projects that employ electronic tools in the provision of market information services (MIS). This study used a triple hurdle analysis to examine the factors influencing farmer awareness of electronic based (e-based) MIS projects, the decision by smallholder farmers in Kenya to participate in such projects and the use of services they provide. It finds that the drivers of awareness, decision to participate in e-based projects and use of the use of e-based MIS various farmer, farm and location-specific characteristics as well as endowments with physical, financial, human, and social capital. It specifically finds that education, distance to market, membership to farmer organizations, household income and cell phone ownership affect both the decision to participate in e-based projects and the use of MIS services such projects offer. The study concludes that transaction costs and social, financial and human capital endowments play an important role in smallholder farmer participation in e-based projects and the use of e-based MIS. The study discusses the implications of these findings for policy and practice. |
| Keywords: | Smallholder farmers, e-based projects, use of MIS, Kenya, Marketing, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae12:126804&r=ppm |
| By: | Rojas Lara, Teresa |
| Abstract: | Globally, land use changes and deforestation contribute with around 20% of the green house gases emissions. Payments for Environmental Services (PES) schemes constitute a way to cope with these problems and promote the conservation of natural resources using market-based incentives. Through empirical evidence from Peru, this study assesses the impact of payments for carbon reductions and analyzes factors which can contribute to the adoption of these projects. Household behavior is analyzed with a linear programming model. The preliminary results indicate that carbon payments would increase the income of the farmers, thus could contribute to increase the adoption of these projects. |
| Keywords: | Climate Change, Peru, Payments for Environmental Services (PES), Mathematical Programming, Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae12:126807&r=ppm |
| By: | Christian K.M. Kingombe (Overseas Development Institute / Graduate Institute of International Studies) |
| Abstract: | Remarkably little is known about the long-term impacts of project aid to lagging poor areas (Chen, Mu et al. 2006, 2008). This paper contributes to the debate about the role of rural transport infrastructure development in explaining the long-term rural development. In line with Grimm and Klasen (2008) we agree that there is value-added to consider this debate at the micro level within a country as particularly questions of parameter heterogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity are likely to be smaller than between countries. Moreover, at the micro level it is possible to identify more precise transmission mechanisms from rural transport infrastructure to socio-economic development outcomes. This is done empirically by analyzing a UNDP&UNCDF financed rural development project in Zambia’s Eastern Province running from 1997-2002. The secondary datasets consist of respectively a series of repeated cross-sectional living conditions monitoring surveys (LCMSs). The LCMSs were collected in 1998 (baseline) and 2004 (follow-up), that is both prior, during and after the project implementation. Our aim is to assess the ability of the parametric and semi-parametric models as well as using a time- series of cross-sections to provide an adequate description of the logarithm of per adult equivalent consumption of rural household conditional on few covariates, including an infrastructure treatment dummy variable. Although, the mean cotton sales share of household income has more than doubled despite the fact that the mean distance to the input market remained unchanged from 1998 to 2004, the parametric and semi-parametric estimation results are only small and statistically insignificant in terms of gains to mean consumption emerged in the longer-term. The main results are robust to corrections for various sources of selection bias. |
| Keywords: | Parametric and Semi-parametric Regression Models; Time-series Model from Successive cross sections; Cohort Data; Poverty Measures, poor rural area development projects, feeder roads, household surveys, impact evaluation, Zambia. |
| JEL: | C14 C21 D12 I32 O1 Q1 |
| Date: | 2012–07–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gii:giihei:heidwp10-2012&r=ppm |
| By: | Perretti, Biagio; Favia, MariaFara |
| Abstract: | CBC programmes are a key pillar of the current neighbourhood policy of the EU, and will play an even stronger role in the next future. In this note a simple framework for the assessment of the relevance and impact of these programmes was proposed, and some preliminary findingswhere discussed, for the ENPI MED CBC and the Italy –Tunisia programme The neighbour regions were classified on the basis of structural heterogeneity and strength of interactions. In this framework, the Mediterranean neighbourhood, could be classified as “ separated” or “isolated” with a strong structural diversity, that generates a potential for intensive interaction, and strong risks of tensions and open crisis. Agriculture and rural areas are among the sectors where these features appear with the strongest intensity. In this scenario, CBC actions could contribute to the generation of a virtuous process of convergence, in the direction of declining structural dualisms, and increasing synergic flows. This role is not played, or at least is not significantly appearing yet in the ENPI CBC programmes. The ENPI CBC strategy doesn’t explicitly identify rural development issues as main priority. The only two programmes activated in the Mediterranean Basin MED and Italy Tunisia, show quite different focus on Rural Issues. In the ENPI MED, rural issues are still marginal, per quality and quantity of projects. The smaller, programme Italy-Tunisia seems much more focused on the theme, with a majority of projects directly targeting agro-food topics. A stronger impact of CBC programmes on rural development seems opportune, specially after the structural changes brought by the Arab Spring, that demand a new model of integration, and sustainable development in the Mediterranean Basin. |
| Keywords: | ENPI CBC Programmes, Rural development, Mediterranean Basin., Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade, O19, R58, |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaa126:126219&r=ppm |
| By: | David R. Mann; David Wittenburg |
| Abstract: | This issue brief summarizes short-term impacts from four large scale- demonstration projects by the Social Security Administration designed to increase the economic self-sufficiency of Supplemental Security Income recipients and Social Security Disability Insurance beneficiaries. Results from these rigorous assessments include modest improvements in employment. |
| Keywords: | SSA, Employment Demonstrations, People with Disabilities, Back to Work |
| JEL: | I J |
| Date: | 2012–06–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:7485&r=ppm |
| By: | Beath, Andrew; Christia, Fotini; Enikolopov, Ruben |
| Abstract: | In areas afflicted by civil conflict, development projects can potentially serve an important counterinsurgency function by redressing grievances of marginalized groups and reducing violence. Using a large-scale randomized field experiment in Afghanistan, this paper explores whether the inclusion of villages in the country's largest development program alters perceptions of well-being, attitudes toward government, and violence in surrounding areas. The results indicate that the program generally has a positive effect on all three measures, but has no effects in areas with high levels of initial violence. These findings demonstrate that development programs can buttress government support and limit the onset of insurgencies in relatively secure areas, but that their effectiveness is more constrained in areas where insurgents are already active. |
| Keywords: | Post Conflict Reconstruction,Housing&Human Habitats,Labor Policies,Subnational Economic Development,E-Business |
| Date: | 2012–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6129&r=ppm |