Known for its dramatic beauty and valuable natural resources, Appalachia has undergone significant technological, economic, political, and environmental changes in recent decades. Home to distinctive traditions and a rich cultural heritage, the area is also plagued by poverty, insufficient healthcare and education, drug addiction, and ecological devastation. This complex and controversial region has been examined by generations of scholars, activists, and civil servants―all offering an array of perspectives on Appalachia and its people. In this innovative volume, editors William Schumann and Rebecca Adkins Fletcher assemble both scholars and nonprofit practitioners to examine how Appalachia is perceived both within and beyond its borders. Together, they investigate the region's transformation and analyze how it is currently approached as a topic of academic inquiry. Arguing that interdisciplinary and comparative place-based studies increasingly matter, the contributors investigate numerous topics, including race and gender, environmental transformation, university-community collaborations, cyber identities, fracking, contemporary activist strategies, and analyze Appalachia in the context of local-to-global change. A pathbreaking study analyzing continuity and change in the region through a global framework, Appalachia Revisited is essential reading for scholars and students as well as for policymakers, community and charitable organizers, and those involved in community development. / https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1152/thumbnail.jpg

Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how to release the potential of industry-university collaborations promoting sustainability-oriented innovation by analyzing the projects between the University of Borås and the Swedish fashion industry. As a result, it is the aim to develop a model which increases the effectiveness of these project collaborations and thus drives forward sustainability-oriented innovations in order to increase sustainable development within universities and companies. In the scope of this model, factors are identified, which if managed correctly, increase the probability of the collaboration. The outcome is a good practice model for successful industry-university research collaborations. Methodology This research follows a qualitative approach, including abductive reasoning. Therefore, a comprehensive literature review is conducted, delivering the basis for semi-structured interviews which provide empirical data. The results of the interviews are coded according to a template discussion, analyzing frequently used words and phrases resulting into focus areas for this research. Findings The results show that the sustainability-oriented innovation projects promote the companies’ strategic sustainable development on a long-term perspective. The industry and the university receive comprehensive knowledge which is created through synergy effects. The investigation discovered that the main driver for industry and university is the development of new sustainability-oriented innovative business models and the obtaining of new valuable knowledge. Out of the findings, a model could be created, presenting factors found to have significant impact on the success of the projects. Contribution This thesis contributes to academia as well as industry by developing a framework for the release of the potential beneficial impact of industry-university collaborations on strategic sustainable development. Further, the findings support and encourage the collaborative work between the fashion industry and universities towards sustainable development in Sweden. Thereby, this thesis supports the interconnection of different sectors by bundling their capabilities and knowledge to create innovation and progress in society.

Face à la forte polarisation des activités d'innovation, une littérature foisonnante s'est intéressée, depuis une vingtaine d'années, à la problématique de la géographie des collaborations pour l'innovation, en se centrant sur un déterminant essentiel, l'échange de connaissances tacites. L'objectif de notre recherche est d'apporter des éléments explicatifs nouveaux en intégrant des déterminants rarement étudiés, qui relèvent de la construction des collaborations. Dans cette perspective, nous développons une grille théorique insistant sur l'existence de contraintes associées à la recherche de ressources complémentaires, d'une part, et de contraintes liées aux possibilités de mise en relation des partenaires (relations sociales, dispositifs de médiation et collaborations antérieures), d'autre part. Nous montrons également comment ces contraintes influencent, à coté des déterminants traditionnels, la géographie des collaborations et son évolution au cours du temps. En nous appuyant sur une analyse qualitative et économétrique de données relationnelles portant directement sur des collaborations pour l'innovation, nous vérifions d'abord le caractère multiscalaire des partenariats d'innovation et révélons son inertie au cours du temps. Nous mesurons ensuite, le poids des différents déterminants de cette géographie. Nous montrons d'une part le rôle important des contraintes de ressources. Nous révélons d'autre part l'existence d'effets de proximité spatiale qui résultent moins de contraintes d'échanges de connaissances tacites que des possibilités de mise en relation. Il s'avère plus généralement que les logiques de contact, mobilisées par les acteurs pour trouver leur(s) partenaire(s), jouent un rôle structurant dans la géographie des collaborations mais variable selon leur nature et les caractéristiques structurelles des territoires.

Knowledge is an asset that can give an organization competitive edge. However, knowledge creation is an expensive activity. One of the reasons organizations form knowledge creation collaborations is to share resources that are needed to create knowledge. This dissertation models the dyadic collaborations as games between the partners and arrives at resource-sharing schemes for them. Specifically, the collaborations are modeled as two games- Stackelberg Leader-Follower game and Partnership game. The types of collaborations are distinguished based on the nature of the marginal return functions with respect to knowledge creation investments for each of the collaborating organizations. Three essays are presented and discussed. In Essay 1, collaborations between organizations characterized by decreasing marginal returns with respect to investments are modeled as a partnership game. In Essay 2, collaborations between organizations characterized by increasing marginal returns with respect to investments are modeled as a Stackelberg Leader-Follower game. In Essay 3, collaborations where the leader organization is characterized by decreasing marginal returns with respect to investment and the follower organization is characterized by increasing marginal returns with respect to investments are studied. The solutions for the game in terms of the participation rate, knowledge creation investments, and the system gain are presented for each essay. The results are analyzed and the observations are stated as propositions. The propositions provide guidelines for collaborating organizations to arrive at a resource-sharing scheme. Additionally, the results suggest conditions under which the potential partners collaborate specifically with respect to the participation rate and the system gain. The results of Essays 2 and 3 provide conditions for participation rate. The results of Essay 3 provide the conditions of expected system gain under which the follower organization will collaborate with a potential leader organization. The results have implications for several stages of the alliance management process such as partner selection, gauging the behavior of potential and current partners, and renegotiation of alliance terms.

Cross-sector  social-oriented  partnerships  which  address  social  or  environmental challenges are increasing in practice and in the literature. Although this is expected to continue  in the  future, management responsibilities are  largely unclear  in this type of cross-sector  collaboration.  Project  management  was  found  to  be  a  relevant  area  for investigation  because  cross-sector  collaborations  and  projects  have  similar characteristics and projects are mentioned separately in the two literature fields.   By joining them in a novel theoretical framework and by collecting empirical data, this thesis aims to explore, describe and analyse the context and use of project management in  the  formation  phase  of  cross-sector  social-oriented  partnerships.  The  study  was undertaken in the belief that project management can be enriched by being researched in collaborative settings and that cross-sector collaborations are interesting to investigate from a managerial perspective. In fact, they offer great potential for knowledge creation and sharing which has been addressed mainly by management research.   This  thesis  study  was  structured  according  to  three  research  objectives.  Firstly,  we analysed the role of contextual elements in cross-sector social-oriented partnerships by comparing cases in different European country contexts, which were selected based on established criteria. Secondly, we conceptualised the formation phase as  it was  found that  the  literature  lacked  an  overarching  understanding  of  this  phase.  Thirdly,  we identified  management  responsibilities  with  a  focus  on  project  and  knowledge management concepts in the formation of cross-sector social-oriented partnerships.    We  investigated  both  partners  in  a  multi-method  qualitative  study  to  get  a  holistic understanding  of  the  research  context.  Primary  data  was  collected  in  semi-structured interviews and supplemented with secondary data. The data was analysed on two levels which allowed for the triangulation of findings. Given the mainly inductive approach, template  analysis  was  deployed  allowing  for  flexibility  to  take  account  of  emerging aspects.   The  empirical  data  shows  that  project  management  is  deployed  differently  in  the formation  of  cross-sector  social-oriented  partnerships,  depending  on  contextual elements  and  the  intention  with  which  they  were  formed.  This  is  reflected  in  the interaction of partners, the level of trust between them, the way knowledge is shared and ultimately in the level of formality in which project management is deployed. In light of the generated findings, the extension of a collaboration continuum from the literature is proposed  by  integrating  project  management  as  a  parameter.  The  findings  and  this proposition have implications on practitioners and for further research in the field.

<p>Although many organizations aspire to be diverse, both in their internal composition and external collaborations, diversity's consequences for organizational outcomes remain unclear. This project uses three separate studies to examine how diversity within and across organizations influences organizational outcomes. The first study uses original data from a national study of organizations to analyze how an organization's internal social composition is associated with its performance. It advances diversity-performance research by demonstrating how the mechanisms of social bridging and social bonding can work together within a diverse organization to improve its performance. The findings suggests that an organization can improve its performance by having socially diverse members who interact often and in ways that engage their social differences. The second study integrates social capital theory and network analysis to explore the relationship between interorganizational networks and organizational action. It uses cross-sectional and panel data from a national study of congregations to analyze the collaborative partnerships congregations form to provide social services. This study demonstrates that a congregation's network ties, net of the effects of its internal characteristics, are significantly associated with the number and types of social service programs it offers. The third study illustrates how an organization's external ties can shape its action by examining black churches and their responses to people living with HIV/AIDS. It uses data from a nationally representative sample of black congregations and draws on institutional theory to analyze congregations as open systems that can be influenced by their surrounding environment. This study indicates that black churches that are engaging their external environment are significantly more likely to have an HIV/AIDS program. Overall, by analyzing how individuals interact within organizations and how organizations interact with one another, these three studies demonstrate how diverse networks influence organizational outcomes.</p> / Dissertation

Local governments often rely on collaborations with nonprofit organizations to serve “underheard” communities. These collaborations are often resource-intensive, but not well-analyzed. I engage a case study of City of Eugene's efforts to create "Welcoming Parks" for its Latino community to analyze the effects of these collaborations on the equity of government services and policy outcomes. My analysis is based on qualitative analysis of interviews and observations conducted with government staff, nonprofit leaders, community advocates, and community members. It demonstrates that local governments' reliance on nonprofit collaborations to address the needs of their “underheard" communities can lead to inequitable service and policy outcomes. Rather, representation of “underheard” communities within government may be necessary to produce outcomes. This research paves the way for further empirical studies of informal government-nonprofit collaborations and provides suggestions regarding how local governments should work with their communities to achieve equitable service and policy outcomes.

The growth of the Internet and social media has led to companies considering the use of influencers in sponsorships and collaborations on Instagram. The subject has been problematized and the gap found is a need for a framework combining different factors when identifying influencers, which resulted in the following research question; From both a company- and consumer perspective, which factors are important to take into account when identifying an influencer for sponsorships and collaborations on Instagram? The purpose is first to identify and incorporate important factors discussed in previous research into a proposed framework, which aims to be used when identifying influencers to sponsor on Instagram. Second, after conducting the empirical research, the framework is extended depending on the new collected information. Background theories and concepts that lay the foundation to influencer marketing are presented. Also, previous frameworks regarding identification of influencers are introduced. The theoretical framework chapter is concluded with a proposed framework alongside introducing the factors. Abductive research strategy is used as well as a method triangulation, using both a qualitative and a quantitative approach. The study is an explorative research due to conducting both a documentary analysis and a questionnaire. The factors studied have shown to be of different importance for companies and consumers. The findings indicate that there are multiple types of influencers. The Updated influencer identification model consists of seven important factors; ideal, trust, popularity, productivity, managing sponsorships and collaborations, information content and visual aspect.

The fashion industry has faced a radical change in how the market has been operating towards a more digitized landscape, and several fashion brands have started developing greater customer experiences as well as engaging the consumers with conveyance of authentic content. Since fashion collaborations can increase awareness and have an immense impact on the consumers’ perception, the concept of creating sustainable collaborations have become an ideal way to meet the needs of the millennial consumers. The topic of sustainable fashion collaborations has started to emerge and the way it is perceived by consumers appears to be unstudied, which makes it very fascinating to analyse. The purpose of this study is to investigate consumers’ response towards sustainable fashion collaborations and how these co-branding projects are marketed to and perceived by millennials. On the basis of this purpose, the following research questions have been formulated: How are sustainable fashion collaborations communicated in the consumers’ eyes? How is the response of millennial consumers towards sustainable fashion collaborations? This study was conducted with an abductive approach, and data was obtained from literature and interviews. A qualitative method was applied, with the definition of four case studies to analyse through semi-structured interviews conducted with twelve millennial consumers. Messages and campaigns can not be superficially developed and need to be explanatory to the eyes of consumers, in order to avoid greenwashing and generating the need to fill in communication gaps. In this sense, storytelling also resulted to be a positive addition to the communication of sustainable fashion collaborations, creating an emotional connection with consumers. Since positive sustainable associations to a brand can only be developed through recognition, this aspect is also fundamental when communicating sustainable products. Moreover, millennial consumers require brands to have a balanced communication in terms of sustainability and fashion content, even when it comes to sustainable fashion collaborations. To conclude, it can be said that millennial consumers are definitely drawn to social media communication, but if brands want to reach a wider audience with their products and sustainability efforts, millennials themselves suggest the use of other communication channels. This study can, in the long-term, contribute to the knowledge and strategies of fashion companies and understanding the needs and expectations of consumers towards the communication of current matters like sustainability.

Research indicates buyer-supplier collaborations in new product development (NPD) can have a positive impact on innovation. From a knowledge based view, it is argued that suppliers add a complementary knowledge base that is combined with the buyer’s knowledge. But what does the supplier contribution actually consist of? And more importantly: How is this supplier knowledge integrated into the NPD process? This is not clear in the literature. Different supplier inputs may imply different knowledge integration mechanisms and practices. The purpose of this licentiate thesis is to investigate how supplier knowledge is integrated into the NPD process. The focus is to explore how knowledge intensive manufacturing firms integrate different supplier inputs in collaborative NPD projects by using different knowledge integration mechanisms. To fulfil the aim of thesis a qualitative approach has been applied and by studying NPD processes in three industrial sectors. An extensive literature review and a focus group meeting are followed by two qualitative case studies that are based mainly on interviews with keyrepresentatives in the buyer-supplier collaborations. The first study investigates different supplier contributions by categorizing different supplier inputs. The second study – which is the largest part of the overall study - investigates how supplier knowledge is integrated in NPD collaborations using different integration mechanisms. Here, six NPD collaborations, representing the automotive, the energy, and the telecom sectors, are studied and compared, in order to understand the integration processes and the different knowledge integration mechanisms. The third study investigates the role of trust in capturing supplier knowledge. Here, two NPD collaborations which can be considered to be polar-cases in terms of scope and depth are compared in order to explore and explain the role of trust in the integration processes. Altogether these studies lay a foundation for a model of knowledge integration between the buyer and the supplier in NPD collaborations. The model identifies two main strategies for integrating supplier knowledge – knowledge absorption and joint knowledge accumulation. Knowledge absorption concerns innovation processes where the contribution from suppliers is focused on product- and process improvements, i.e. incremental input. Here, the development is dictated by clear specifications. Supplier contacts take place during a limited period of time and are restricted to certain phases in NPD projects. Thus, the main knowledge integration mechanism used is sequencing. In these situations, the buyer actually tries to capture and absorb the knowledge of the supplier at a specific point in the process. A basic level of trust, based on the reputation the supplier has for competence is sufficient. Joint knowledge accumulation, on the other hand, is how firms manage more radical input from suppliers, such as new technology or new design. In these cases, knowledge integration strategies extend over a longer period of time, throughout several phases of the NPD project. There is a high degree of interaction between the people involved, to find new solutions. The main knowledge integration mechanism is group problem-solving. Knowledge is jointly accumulated by sharing, combining, and creating new knowledge in open processes. In these cases, a profound level of trust is required. When integrating supplier knowledge in innovation, management has to consider the possible and preferred outcome of the collaboration; it might be a commercial deal to provide for a temporary access to knowledge, or it might be a long-term alliance, where joint learning is an aim. In the first case, a traditional NPD process with clear specifications, using sequencing and technological interfaces, will be adequate. In the second case, focus should be on interpersonal problem solving between trustworthy individuals.