scholarly journals Requirement Engineering Challenges for Social Sector Software Development: Insights from Multiple Case Studies

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Varun Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Requirement Engineering ◽  
Social Sector ◽  
Exploratory Case Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Software Engineers ◽  
Multiple Case Studies ◽  
Tools And Techniques ◽  
Representative Samples

Diversity is a great challenge for software engineers in the social sector context. The objective of this paper is to contribute to the identification of the RE processes and associated challenges in releasing the software in the social sector markets for which an exploratory case study is conducted. The outcome of the case study indicates that the diversity limits the ability to involve the representative samples of user populations using the same set of RE tools and techniques as one size fits all solution for all segments. The diverse user base must be partitioned into different segments, with each segment triggered using a suitable set of RE techniques i.e., traditional and crowd-based RE. The diverse perspectives learned as a result of the interaction with each segment, must be merged together into a single perspective about the software meant to be used in the social sector. There is a need for a new RE process specially designed for handling the complexities of the social sector, which this paper terms as Social Sector Requirement Engineering (SSRE). There is an increased need for collaboration between government social sector institutions and software engineers to get access to diverse customers to improve software quality.

How to effectively manage knowledge in the construction industry

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 57-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Bigliardi ◽  
Francesco Galati ◽  
Alberto Petroni
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Management Tools ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Construction Companies ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Multiple Case Studies ◽  
Tools And Techniques

Purpose – The aim of this paper is twofold: to understand if it is possible to find similarities and dissimilarities among the construction companies in terms of knowledge management (KM) process, identifying the main tools and techniques adopted by the same companies within this process; second, to emphasize and study more in depth the best KM techniques that emerged from the cases in the context of the Italian construction industry. Design/methodology/approach – On the basis of available studies on KM within the industry investigated, multiple case studies were developed to reach the aforementioned objective, involving 14 Italian construction companies. Findings – The outcomes obtained from the case studies allow drawing some conclusions on the KM process adopted by the companies investigated, as well as on the type of tools and techniques adopted by the same companies in the KM process. Research limitations/implications – The case study is based on 14 single cases and, therefore, we must keep in mind that there may be significant differences between industries, companies, departments and individuals regarding how management tools and technological systems are used in practice. Originality/value – Very few papers are available on the KM process within the Italian construction landscape. This study is expected to encourage future studies in this field.

Case Study

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Susanna Tardi
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Data Gathering ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
Document Management ◽  
Case Study Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Multiple Case Studies

Case studies have been widely used across a number of disciplines including health, business management, education, law, and in the social sciences. The purpose of this chapter is to define and differentiate types of case studies, discuss the pros and cons of single versus multiple case studies, explore the necessary processes for engaging in this technique, and explain how data is collected and analyzed. A variety of data gathering methods are discussed to identify the challenges to be confronted, and the skills necessary to engage in this methodology. The author identifies how qualitative and quantitative techniques are used in case study analysis. Methods to maximize researcher objectivity, reliability and validity are examined by focusing on data collection, document management, and data analysis.

Music Therapy Intervention with Autistic Children

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-95
Author(s):  
Zuzana Vlachová
Keyword(s):  
Music Therapy ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Research Activity ◽  
Case Study Design ◽  
Qualitative Empirical Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Therapy Interventions ◽  
Therapy Intervention

The paper presents a qualitative empirical research project, research design and research methods used in the preparation of a dissertation which deals with music therapy interventions in children with autism. The reason for examining this issue is a considerable lack of research activity in this area, and thus also a lack of relevant results on which clinical practice could rely. The results of future investigations should bring answers to the question of how children with autism receive and experience music therapy intervention and also what the effect of music therapy intervention in the social interaction of children is; research will be directed to a deeper understanding of this influence and its characteristics using the multiple case study design.

Value co-creation in the B2B context: a diagnosis of knowledge management based on multiple case studies

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrei Bonamigo ◽  
Camila Guimarães Frech ◽  
Ana Carolina Custódio Lopes
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Multiple Case Studies ◽  
Knowledge Asymmetry ◽  
Business To Business ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose This study aims to empirically investigate how organizations delivering services in business-to-business relations deal with the boundary paradox and knowledge asymmetry in value co-creation. Design/methodology/approach This study adopted a qualitative multiple case study strategy. Datas were gathered through 13 semi-structured interviews that were then analyzed through the content analysis. Findings The authors identified three mechanisms that organizations use to deal with the boundary paradox and two strategies to handle the knowledge asymmetry. Research limitations/implications First, no opportunities were afforded to involve more participants. Second, owning to confidentiality reasons, not all organizations provided us documents to be analyzed. Practical implications The findings guide managers in balancing the use of contracts and trust in inter-firm collaborations and fostering the learning of customers. Also, insights to protect knowledge based on the paradox of openness in value co-creation. Originality/value This study’s findings address the gap in value co-creation literature concerning the lack of empirical studies.

scholarly journals Guarantee of the social rights of children with chronic conditions: reinventing care towards civil rights

2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (suppl 4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatiana Silva Tavares ◽  
Kênia Lara Silva ◽  
Regina Garcia de Lima ◽  
Elysângela Dittz Duarte
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Chronic Conditions ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Public Health Education ◽  
The Social ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Children With Chronic Conditions

ABSTRACT Objective: To analyze the experiences of families in the exercise of the rights of children with chronic conditions in public health, education and social assistance institutions. Method: ethnographic multiple case study, with qualitative approach, following the theoretical approach of Boaventura Santos. Experiences of the families of these children in a city were studied through interviews with family members, managers and professionals from social institutions (35), participant observations in social spaces (13) and creation of eco-maps (3). Critical Discourse Analysis was performed. Results: the offer of services is lower than the demand, and exclusion processes persist. Given the hegemony of neoliberal and normality ideologies, meetings between family members and professionals revealed obstacles to civil rights; however, when these ideologies were challenged, the realization of their rights was enhanced. Final considerations: the care to promote civil rights requires family members, managers and professionals to develop subjectivities that overcome neoliberal and normality ideologies, recognizing these children as subjects of law.

scholarly journals Classroom assemblage: the vibrant setting of the schooling process

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 580
Author(s):  
Paula Cristina Lameu
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Classroom Environment ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
The Social ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Social Realm ◽  
Schooling Process ◽  
Matter Energy

Some scholars and researchers have been claiming we are in a New Materialist and Posthumanist era. It means that for the ones who are researching in Social Sciences, the focus is not only the human as the centre and the cause of what happens in the social realm. For human, nonhuman and inhuman are attributed the same importance in research once all of them are components of reality, inserted in nature.Reality is regarded as complex, not simple straightforward isolated cause and effect processes. This is how the classroom is supposed to be observed in educational research: not only teaching and learning, but these two processes and policy making, and identity construction, and emotional flows, and curriculum, and schooling, and…, and…The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon the complexity of the classroom environment regarded as an assemblage. The hypothesis is that all the components of the assemblage are equally vital, although some components are more vibratory than others. The theory of Vitalism from Driesch (1914) and the Vital Materialism from Bennett (2010a, 2010b) are used as the theoretical tools for analysis. Assemblage Ethnography (YOUDELL, 2015; YOUDELL and MCGIMPSEY, 2015) is the methodology of data collection. A multiple case study was developed in three different schools in United Kingdom: one Primary, one Secondary and one Post-secondary. The results suggest that teacher and students are the components who most influence on the classroom assemblage composition, decomposition and recomposition orienting the flows of matter-energy once they are change-creating agents.

scholarly journals Purchasing in service triads: the influence of contracting on contract management

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 1188-1204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manda Broekhuis ◽  
Kirstin Scholten
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Contract Management ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Relational Structures ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
The Social ◽  
Source Data ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Formal Contract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate purchasing practices in service triads by exploring the link between ex ante contracting and ex post contract management and how these practices influence the satisfaction of buyers and suppliers (in concessionary arrangements) with their relationship in terms of meeting the needs of the buyer’s customers. Design/methodology/approach An in-depth exploratory multiple case study was carried out in a shop-in-shop context. Multi-method and multi-source data collection included interviews, documents and the contracts between buyer and supplier, providing evidence of the formal and relational structures in both the contracting and contract management stages. Findings The case findings provide evidence that behavioural standards established in a social contract are important prerequisites for the establishment and subsequent management of a formal contract. Second, this study shows that, when outsourcing core services in a service triad, a combination of performance-oriented and behavioural-oriented contract terms, covering a mix of topics related to both the customer-experience and to buyer-supplier-oriented aspects, contribute to aligning the buyer’s, suppliers’ and customers’ interests. The main findings are presented in a causal model and formulated as propositions. Originality/value This paper is one of the first studies to explore how core services are outsourced in a service triad. It provides evidence that the social contract between buyer and supplier influences the establishment of the formal contract as well as contract management, and a mix of contract topics, some related to the customers’ experience and others purely buyer-supplier oriented, contribute to the alignment of buyer’s, suppliers’ and customers’ interests.

scholarly journals Analysis of Sustainability in Hospital Laundry: The Social, Environmental, and Economic (Cost) Risks

Resources ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Catia Lopes ◽  
Annibal Scavarda ◽  
Mauricio de Carvalho ◽  
Guilherme Vaccaro ◽  
André Korzenowski
Keyword(s):  
Economic Cost ◽  
Environmental Aspects ◽  
Design Data ◽  
Sustainable Operations ◽  
Chemical Hazards ◽  
Physical Injuries ◽  
The Social ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Social Environmental

Personal and physical injuries are two of the most relevant costs to hospitals. Hospital laundries are sources of these costs due to the physical and health risks present in the clothes and the activities performed. Energy and environmental risk and infrastructure issues also incur operational costs to these organizations and to the health system. This research analyzes the social, environmental, and economic risk in the hospital laundry process, through a multiple-case-study design. Data collection methods include interviews regarding three hospital laundry services in Brazil. The processes of these laundry services have a high consumption of resources (water and energy) and a substantial generation of solid and liquid wastes. Cost reduction actions include pooled laundry services and material substitution. There are also social and environmental risks, the most frequent being ergonomic, biological, and chemical hazards, and injures from sharp devices inadequately disposed. Hospital laundries need more sustainable operations, not only in the infrastructure, but also mostly in the awareness of leaders and teams about the importance of their engagements to resource management and waste reduction in laundry. It is opportune to convince professionals and users about changing habits that do not prioritize sustainability, especially its social and environmental aspects.

scholarly journals Framing quality improvement tools and techniques in healthcare

2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross Millar
Keyword(s):  
Quality Improvement ◽  
Service Improvement ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Healthcare Settings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health And Social Care ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
Tools And Techniques ◽  
Social Act

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a study of how quality improvement tools and techniques are framed within healthcare settings.Design/methodology/approachThe paper employs an interpretive approach to understand how quality improvement tools and techniques are mobilised and legitimated. It does so using a case study of the NHS Modernisation Agency Improvement Leaders' Guides in England.FindingsImprovement Leaders' Guides were framed within a service improvement approach encouraging the use of quality improvement tools and techniques within healthcare settings. Their use formed part of enacting tools and techniques across different contexts. Whilst this enactment was believed to support the mobilisation of tools and techniques, the experience also illustrated the challenges in distributing such approaches.Originality/valueThe paper provides an important contribution in furthering our understanding of framing the “social act” of quality improvement. Given the ongoing emphasis on quality improvement in health systems and the persistent challenges involved, it also provides important information for healthcare leaders globally in seeking to develop, implement or modify similar tools and distribute leadership within health and social care settings.

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