Jul 2026· Journal of Research Management and Administration· 0 citations· 17 references
Abstract
What is new?
As financial pressures intensify and research becomes more complex and interdependent, universities are increasingly prioritising collaborative work within and beyond academia. This shift has revealed a significant gap in co-production and collaboration and a critical need for professional support in identifying stakeholders and developing and facilitating partnerships across disciplines and sectors. This paper addresses that gap by combining an evidence base grounded in academic literature with insights from practice to create a transferable framework for research-enabling staff. The framework provides the tools needed to drive the culture shift essential for universities to navigate complexity, strengthen collaboration, and remain competitive in a rapidly changing landscape.
What was the approach?
This work combines systems thinking, stakeholder theory, and qualitative, practice-based insights. The conceptual framing draws on a literature review of stakeholder theory from business and management, particularly Freeman’s foundational research, alongside Meadows’ concept of leverage points for systemic change, Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner’s systems convening as a leadership practice, Wheatley’s work on leadership in complex systems, and the UCL Co-Production Collective model for inclusive stakeholder engagement.
The framing is further informed by 33 facilitated conversations conducted in summer 2024 with a diverse cross-section of the UK research ecosystem, including technicians, research managers, professional services staff, and others in research-enabling roles. These in-depth discussions explored power, leadership, recognition, and cultural dynamics in collaborative environments and illustrate emergent patterns that informed the theoretical framing and practical examples presented in this paper.
What is the academic impact?
Effective stakeholder engagement for co-production requires a systematic approach underpinned by the often-invisible infrastructure of research enablers. Achieving this frequently requires a culture shift within the institutions in which we operate. Universities therefore need to design and sustain systems that actively facilitate this culture shift. This paper gives evidence, a transferable framework, and applied examples to equip research enablers to participate fully in this structure by providing a framework and embedding co-production principles in theory and practice.
What is the wider impact?
Behind every successful collaboration is an invisible architecture: research enablers who build trust, connect systems, and create the cultural conditions for co-production. This research makes that architecture visible and actionable, driving a culture shift as institutions design and sustain the infrastructure needed to embed collaboration and co-production at scale.
Collaboration across the ‘siloes’ of government is key to unlocking a transformative paradigm shift in climate change adaptation (CCA), yet such ‘mainstreaming’ efforts have been unsuccessful to date. This paper argues that these shortcomings are rooted primarily in the mainstreaming literature’s neglect of people’s worldviews as an integral component of successful collaboration. For an individual’s internal dimensions to be recognized alongside disciplinary knowledge requires inclusiveness and expansiveness in both organizational spaces and in people. This paper presents a novel framework aiming to facilitate inclusiveness and expansiveness in both areas: the CCA Worldview Map. The CCA Worldview Map unpacks the idea of transformation into five dimensions, each with three levels of complexity, which represent distinct phases of the public planning process: When and What, relating to the input; Who, relating to the process; How, relating to the output; and Why, relating to the outcomes and impact. Using interview data from sixteen managers and practitioners at the local government level across Norway, I show how the CCA Worldview Map can be used to map understandings of CCA, unearthing a plurality of worldviews within Norwegian public administration. I discuss the framework’s utility along three lines: as a vocabulary for articulating differing interpretations of CCA and their relationships, thus identifying complementarity instead of conflict; as a tool that consolidates a breadth of ideas from the CCA literature into a single framework; and as an aid in uncovering cognitive dissonance and expanding personal transformative awareness.
This systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis examines the evolving landscape of Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) and its impact on individual employee performance. While empirical studies in this domain have expanded rapidly, the literature remains conceptually fragmented. This study addresses this gap by mapping the intellectual structure of the field and synthesizing divergent findings into a unified conceptual framework. Utilizing the PRISMA guidelines and an extensive search of the Scopus database, this review synthesizes evidence from 68 high-impact, peer-reviewed articles. The results reveal that GHRM functions as a “dual-performance” engine, simultaneously fostering voluntary employee green behavior and enhancing traditional task efficiency. These outcomes are mediated by critical psychological mechanisms, such as moral identity and meaningfulness of work, and are further moderated by leadership styles and digital infrastructure integration. The analysis culminates in a unified conceptual model that offers a robust blueprint for future research. Practically, this study urges organizations to transition from treating sustainability as an isolated initiative toward embedding it into core HR functions, supported by ethical leadership and AI-driven systems. By bridging the divide between human capital capability, psychological well-being, and technological integration, this review provides a strategic roadmap for cultivating a workforce that is both high-performing and ecologically responsible.
Robert Sarjaka, Kadarisman Hidayat, N. Nuzula et al.· F1000Research· 0 citations
Systemic change across the digital research landscape is required to reduce the environmental impact of digital research, but while many researchers and technical professionals are motivated to act, they often lack the skills required to translate motivation into lasting organisational change. We present an open-access course that teaches the foundations of advocacy and organisational change to researchers, research software engineers, and research technical professionals. Structured around the UNICEF five-step advocacy cycle, the course covers stakeholder analysis, power mapping, coalition building, storytelling, framing and messaging, and evaluation. It is grounded in the UK policy landscape, including the Concordat for Environmental Sustainability and the UKRI Environmental Sustainability Strategy, and uses a fictional case study to make concepts concrete. The course is designed as a dual-layer resource in which workshop slides and extended self-study notes are contained in a single source material. A short pilot was delivered at the NetDRIVE Net Zero DRI Summer School in June 2026. The course is freely available under a CC BY 4.0 licence.
Kirsty Pringle, Lorna Smith, Erinma Ochu et al.· 0 citations
Organizations seeking to improve performance, customer experience, and remain competitive in a rapidly changing and technology-driven environment must undoubtedly implement digital transformation initiatives. Despite large investments, many digital transformations do not achieve their goals, with human capital–related factors frequently identified as critical constraints. Human capital encompasses a broad and interrelated set of factors, making its evaluation in digital transformation contexts particularly complex, yet essential. Although prior research recognizes human capital as a pivotal resource in digital transformation scenarios, a systematic and integrated understanding of how it is conceptualized, assessed, and empirically examined remains limited. Using the SPAR-4-SLR protocol and TCCM framework, this systematic literature review addresses this gap by synthesizing and structuring prior research on human capital assessment research in digital transformations implementation. It systematically analyses the theoretical frameworks adopted, the organizational contexts in which empirical research is conducted, the variables and levels of analysis used to operationalize human capital and related outcomes, and the methodological approaches applied. The findings provide an integrated overview of current scientific knowledge and highlight gaps in research across different industries and levels of analysis, suggesting future studies should explore less digitally advanced sectors and include individual, unit, and organizational level perspectives.
Vaida Petrauskaitė-Jocienė, Renata Korsakienė· International Scientific Con...· 1 citation
This study explores how strategic management and leadership are reshaping organisational success in the era of digital transformation. The aim of the study is to understand how leaders can guide their organisations through the complexity of technological disruption while building resilience and creating long-term value. To achieve this, a systematic literature review SLR was conducted, drawing on seventy-seven peer-reviewed articles published between 2020 and 2026 across sectors such as banking, healthcare, manufacturing, education, public services, and SMEs. The review shows that digital transformation is not merely a technical process but a profound organisational shift that demands alignment between strategy, culture, and people. Strategic management is moving away from rigid, efficiency-driven models toward approaches that build dynamic capabilities and foster ambidexterity balancing the need to exploit current strengths while exploring new opportunities. Leadership stands out as a crucial enabler, with transformational and participatory styles shown to enhance employee engagement, build psychological safety, and inspire innovation in hybrid and remote work environments. The findings also emphasise the importance of strategic agility and innovation ecosystems in enabling collaboration and co-creation across organisational boundaries. Despite these opportunities, the study highlights ongoing challenges, including cultural resistance, skill gaps, and misalignment between digital investments and organisational readiness. Addressing these issues calls for leaders who can communicate transparently, invest in continuous learning, and embed sustainability and ethics into their digital agendas. In doing so, strategic leadership becomes not only the driver of digital transformation but also the safeguard that ensures it delivers enduring value for organisations, employees, and society.
Misheck Musaigwa, I. Nojiyeza· International Journal of App...· 0 citations