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This thesis explored the development of organisational capabilities in managing and participating in strategic alliance networks. Firms develop capabilities in successful alliance use by acquiring and leveraging knowledge about alliance management (Draulans, deMan & Volberda, 2003). This study investigated two distinct subsets of alliance capabilities: those developed by the network broker, who established and managed the network's operation, and those developed by the network members. Building on concepts from the strategic alliance and organisational learning literatures, the research explored capability development as an adaptive learning process. It examined the learning conditions and learning-assessment-action cycles which underpinned alliance development and alliance partners' learning experiences. Doz's (1996) adaptive learning model of dyadic alliance development conceptually framed the investigation of the following research questions: Research Question One: How does a network broker learn through alliance conditions to manage an alliance network? Research Question Two: How do network members learn through alliance conditions to operate under the broker's network management? The study addressed the research questions through a longitudinal case study of the Aurora Preferred Suppliers alliance network, which operates in the Tasmanian residential electric heating market. The Aurora Preferred Suppliers network is a hub-and-spoke network of alliances between Aurora Energy, Tasmania's only electricity retailer, and fourteen retailers of residential electric heating appliances. The study examined the network's history from its formation in 1992 until 2005. The study combined secondary data from the company and from news archives with primary data collected through interviews with the entire Aurora alliance management team and representatives from every network member organisation. N-Vivo, a qualitative data analysis software program, was used to undertake a systematic, transparent and comprehensively-recorded analysis of the network's history and of participants' network experiences. A chronological timeline and historical narrative of the network's history was developed, and then participants' motives for establishing and adapting to network conditions were explored. The broker's learning about network management and network members' learning about network participation were analysed, and the adaptive learning cycles that underpinned network evolution were graphically modelled. The study identified the adaptive learning cycles which characterised the broker's and network members' learning through the creation, adaptation, development and escalation of the alliance network. The findings expanded co-evolutionary approaches to alliance development by identifying that alliance partners' learning experiences co-evolved over the course of their collaboration. The broker's learning was mediated by network members' learning about network participation. Members' learning was mediated by learning about the broker and about other network members. The study also extended adaptive learning perspectives of alliance development by adapting Doz's (1996) adaptive learning model of dyadic alliance development to an alliance network context. The learning conditions, learning topics and evaluative criteria identified by Doz (1996) were found to characterise the development of the alliance network, and to be complemented by additional conditions, learning topics and evaluative criteria. As expected, broker and member learning was facilitated by the conditions of task definition, partner routines, interface structures, expectations about alliance performance, expectations about partner motives, and expectations about partner behaviour. The additional conditions of the network's environment, design, resource pool and capacity also facilitated broker and member learning. As anticipated, broker and member learning was informed by learning about the environment, the collaboration task and process, and the skills and goals of alliance partners, and was also informed by learning about additional characteristics of their alliance partners, and about their own organisations. Consistent with Doz's (1996) model, adaptations to alliance conditions were informed by evaluations of equity, efficiency and adaptability, and were also informed by evaluations of network performance, network effectiveness and collaboration value. The study findings established two future research areas: exploring the learning processes and outcomes associated with different collaborative forms, and exploring the interactions between network conditions and learning outcomes under competitive and non-competitive network contexts.

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jlo-10.1177_15480518221107998 for The Comprehensive Meta-Analyses of the Nomological Network of Psychological Capital (PsyCap) by Saeed Loghman, Michael Quinn, Sarah Dawkins, Megan Woods, Sumeet Om Sharma and Jenn Scott in Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies

Each year thousands of workers experience a serious illness or injury that necessitates time off work and a subsequent re-engagement with the work environment. In Australia, workers’ compensation legislation mandates the return-to-work (RTW) process is formal, structured, and negotiated between the worker, their employer, health care professionals and their RTW coordinator. How this is executed by those parties directly influences whether the RTW process is supportive and successful, or exacerbates the suffering of returning workers by causing them to feel ostracised, exposed, and vulnerable in their workplace. In this article, we examine how the RTW process can cause physical, emotional, social, and existential suffering for returning workers. We then discuss how the suffering that workers experience can be mitigated by five key factors: clarity of roles in the RTW process, alignment of worker and employer expectations, the advocacy provided by the RTW coordinator, the support provided for the worker’s psychological wellbeing, and the RTW literacy of supervisors and colleagues.

The Effect of BAFF Inhibition on Autoreactive B-Cell Selection in Murine Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Scholars investigating Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS) have noted that we know relatively little about how researchers use packages such as ATLAS.ti in their practice. We report findings of a content analysis of 321 empirical articles, published between 1994 and 2013, on the use of data analysis software. The purpose of this analysis was to characterize both who is reporting the use of CAQDAS tools, and how they are reporting that use in their publications. Studies were analysed for subject discipline and researcher country of origin, overall methodological approach, and use of the software in different phases of the research process. We found that researchers were predominantly from the health sciences (69%) and published in health sciences journals (66%). Forty-eight percent of corresponding authors were from the United States, with 43 countries represented. Interview and focus groups were the most common data sources used; most studies did not identify a particular methodology beyond “qualitative”. Few studies (13%) provided any details on their use of ATLAS.ti beyond mentioning that it was used, and 97.5% of the articles used it only for data analysis. We encourage researchers to provide more detail as to their use of ATLAS.ti and explore the potential for ATLAS.ti to support aspects of their study beyond data analysis.

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is the leading cause of death for preterm infants resulting from gastrointestinal disease. This review will focus on several components of human breast milk that may be beneficial in the prevention and treatment of NEC. The severe pathological features of NEC include inflammation, mucosal ulceration and disruption of the intestinal barrier. Despite maximal neonatal intensive care, the incidence and mortality rate of the disease remains high. Administration of breast milk, as well as donor breast milk, to preterm infants has been shown to reduce the incidence of NEC. Beyond this, there is no disease specific treatment for NEC. The immunomodulatory and protective properties of human breast milk have been evaluated in search of key components that may be utilized for the effective prevention and treatment of NEC., {"references":["Grave GD, Nelson SA, Walker WA, Moss RL, Dvorak B, Hamilton FA, et al. New therapies and preventive approaches for necrotizing enterocolitis: report of a research planning workshop. Pediatr Res 2007; 62: 510-14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1203/PDR.0b013e318142580a","Lucas A, Cole TJ. Breast milk and neonatal necrotising enterocolitis. Lancet 1990; 336: 1519-23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0140-6736(90)93304-8","Walker A. Breast milk as the gold standard for protective nutrients. J Pediatr 2010; 156(2 Suppl): S3-7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2009.11.021"]}