Last week, Dr. Tanya Kelley and Dr. Chul Hyun Park of Arizona State University’s Center for Policy Informatics (CPI) successfully defended their dissertations. Both students worked under the guidance of CPI director and Network member Erik Johnston.
About Dr. Kelley’s dissertation:
“Dr. Kelley’s dissertation, Open Innovation Implementation in a Public University: Administrator design, management, and evaluation of participatory programs & platforms, is a case study of how Arizona State University has adapted its organizational structure and created unique programming to incorporate open innovation in its work. Arizona State University has made innovation, inclusion, access, and real world impact an organization priority in its mission to be the New American University. The research focuses on the experiential knowledge of administrative leaders and intermediaries who have managed open innovation programming at the university for the past five years. Dr. Kelley’s research expands understanding of the task facing administrators in an organization seeking to integrate open innovation into their work.”
About Dr. Park’s dissertation:
“Dr. Park’s dissertation, Toward a Better Understanding of Complex Emergency Response Systems: An Event-Driven Lens for Integrating Formal and Volunteer-Based, Participatory Emergency Responses, developed an “event-driven” lens for integrating both formal and volunteer-based, participatory emergency responses. Dr. Park then conducted a deeper analysis of one aspect of the event-driven lens: relationships between participatory online groups and formal organizations in crisis or disaster situations. Specifically, he explored organizational and technical determinants and outcomes of forming such relationships. As a consequence, he found three determinants (resource dependence, shared understanding, and information technology) and two outcomes (inter-organizational alignment and the effectiveness of coordinated emergency response) of the relationship between participatory online groups and formal organizations and suggested seven hypotheses. His dissertation is expected to contribute to bridging the disconnect between the emergency management literature and the crisis informatics literature. The theoretical insight from inter-organizational relations (IOR) theory provides another contribution.”
