From contracts to culture: Exploring how to leverage local, sustainable food purchasing by institutions for food systems change

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-21
Author(s):  
Jennifer Reynolds ◽  
Beth Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Food Service ◽  
Systems Change ◽  
Service Operations ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Food Procurement

In recent years, certain hospitals, schools, and campuses across Canada have shown that they can transform their practices to serve more local and sustainable food. These changes have often been led by visionary champions, and in some cases aided by supportive public policies or programs. Yet the presence of these isolated success stories has so far not proven sufficient to tip a critical mass of institutions towards sustainability. There is great potential in leveraging institutional foodservices, with an estimated $8.5 billion market sales in Canada in 2016 (fsStrategy, 2016), to shift systems towards greater sustainability. In 2014, Food Secure Canada and the McConnell Foundation launched an action-research project and embarked on a learning journey to explore two key questions: how can food service operations and procurement practices be changed to increase local, sustainable institutional procurement; and how can this work be scaled. In 2014–2016, eight institutional food projects across Canada came together as a national Learning Group. Drawing from their experiences working in different contexts and scales, our action research project identified program and policy innovations to leverage systems change. This article explores how institutions currently buy food, and reveals the systemic barriers to increasing local, sustainable food procurement. We share lessons learned about the interplay of menus, food service operations, contracts, institutional demand, and food culture that helped to overcome these barriers. We identify enabling, peer-based learning and support as particularly relevant in a national context for the scaling out, up, and deep of local, sustainable food procurement.

scholarly journals Teaching for autonomy: what do the students think?

2010 ◽  
pp. 107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Research Project ◽  
La Mancha ◽  
Second Year ◽  
The University

The following paper describes an action research project which was carried out with a class of second-year students following the Degree of English Philology at the University of Castilla la Mancha. The aim of the project was to raise students’ awareness of the need to be less dependent on their teachers and to provide the reflective and interactive scaffolding necessary to enable them to take greater responsibility for their own learning. The current paper describes the measures taken, and how students reacted to this process. It concludes by examining the lessons learned and by proposing a number of guidelines to be taken into account when attempting to promote autonomy in a similar context.

Exploring the Fourth Order

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Barend KLITSIE ◽  
Rebecca PRICE ◽  
Christine DE LILLE
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Fourth Order ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Building Trust ◽  
Current Business

Companies are organised to fulfil two distinctive functions: efficient and resilient exploitation of current business and parallel exploration of new possibilities. For the latter, companies require strong organisational infrastructure such as team compositions and functional structures to ensure exploration remains effective. This paper explores the potential for designing organisational infrastructure to be part of fourth order subject matter. In particular, it explores how organisational infrastructure could be designed in the context of an exploratory unit, operating in a large heritage airline. This paper leverages insights from a long-term action research project and finds that building trust and shared frames are crucial to designing infrastructure that affords the greater explorative agenda of an organisation.

Wonder-inspired leadership: Cultivating ethical and phenomenon-led healthcare

2021 ◽  
pp. 096973302199079
Author(s):  
Finn Th Hansen ◽  
Lene Bastrup Jørgensen
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
Ethical Leadership ◽  
Authentic Leadership ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Research Project ◽  
New Type ◽  
Danish Hospital ◽  
Sense Of Wonder

Three forms of leadership are frequently identified as prerequisites to the re-humanization of the healthcare system: ‘authentic leadership’, ‘mindful leadership’ and ‘ethical leadership’. In different ways and to varying extents, these approaches all focus on person- or human-centred caring. In a phenomenological action research project at a Danish hospital, the nurses experienced and then described how developing a conscious sense of wonder enhanced their ability to hear, to get in resonance with the existential in their meetings with patients and relatives, and to respond ethically. This ability was fostered through so-called Wonder Labs in which the notion of ‘phenomenon-led care’ evolved, which called for ‘slow thinking’ and ‘slow wondrous listening’. For the 10 nurses involved, it proved challenging to find the necessary serenity and space for this slow and wonder-based practice. This article critiques and examines, from a theoretical perspective, the kind of leadership that is needed to encourage this wonder-based approach to nursing, and it suggests a new type of leadership that is itself inspired by wonder and is guided by 10 tangible elements.

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