How can collaboration deliver? A structurational approach to understanding collaboration process and effectiveness

This study examines how a collaboration's internal and external factors interact over time and how the interactions affect the collaboration's process and effectiveness. Using a process-oriented case study, we examine how a voluntary collaboration that had made marginal gains over several years demonstrated significant progress during the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest following the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Drawing on strong structuration theory, we explore the collaboration's internal efforts, changes in the broader environment, and the interplay between them. Our findings reveal that collaboration's internal efforts and external environment enable and constrain each other, which shapes the collaboration's process and effectiveness. Based on these findings, we contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the collaboration process and effectiveness by (1) using a strong structurational approach to demonstrate processual mechanics of connecting processes and structures in collaboration, and (2) highlighting the emergent nature of collaboration and the importance of learning and adaptability for an effective and sustainable collaboration.

Living with Pandemics: Places, People and Policy

Providing an integrated and multi-level analysis of the impacts of COVID-19 on people, place, economies and policies, across the globe, this timely book explores how the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic combines failure with success. It focuses on exploring rapid adaptation and improvisation by individuals, organisations, and governments as they attempted to minimise and mitigate the socio-economic and health impacts of the pandemic. © John R. Bryson, Lauren Andres, Aksel Ersoy and Louise Reardon 2021.

A year into the pandemic: Shifts, improvisations and impacts for places, people and policy

This chapter provides an overarching framework for exploring the relationships between people, place and policy and living with the COVID-19 pandemic. It recognises that these three Ps are interdependent;people are embedded in places and local and national policy is developed and applied to places. The chapter starts by exploring the debate on risk societies, non-calculable uncertainty, and the emergence of Jenga capitalism as a precursor for exploring the impacts of Covid-19. It then explores the relationship between globalisation and disease, before outlining national responses to COVID-19, including the emergence of socially distanced economies. The chapter also considers some dimensions of life after the pandemic, including a discussion of the impacts on policy and taxation. In so doing, the Chapter highlights Covid-19 as a cultural inflection point. The Chapter concludes by providing an outline of the contributions to the edited collection of the same name, to which this chapter forms the introduction. © John R. Bryson, Lauren Andres, Aksel Ersoy and Louise Reardon 2021.

COVID-19 and the immediate and longer-term impacts on the retail and hospitality industries: Dark stores and turnover-based rental models

COVID-19 disrupted the retail and hospitality industries. Non-essential retailers were forced to close. Essential retailers had to invest in expanding the capacity of their delivery services. This chapter explores the impacts that COVID-19 has had on the retailing and hospitality industries in different national settings including the UK, U.S., France, Ireland, and India. There are two key points. The first is that retail services have been experiencing the impacts of disruptive innovation based on the development of digital retail models. COVID-19 has intensified this disruption leading to forced rapid adoption but also acted as a tipping point for the failure of retail stores and chains. Second, companies have responded to COVID-19 by furloughing employees, but also converting high street stores into dark stores or online fulfilment centres. The pandemic has also forced retailers to try to persuade landlords to adopt turnover-based rental models. A new geography of consumer behaviour and retailing is emerging which will alter the rhythms of cities. This includes the shift towards homeworking and the impacts this will have on retail geography combined with an increase in online consumption. © John R. Bryson, Lauren Andres, Aksel Ersoy and Louise Reardon 2021.

A regional approach to COVID-19 recovery: lessons from the West Midlands

Recovery from a societal 'shock' should not mean returning to a pre-existing state. Whilst shocks - which range from acute and unexpected to chronic and anticipated - are disruptive, they also provide opportunities to create better societies, places and economies. The COVID-19 pandemic has cut through entrenched ways of living and working, resulting in some positive outcomes, including reduced air and noise pollution, increased active travel and falling carbon emissions (Leach et al., 2020). Many organisations have had to rethink how they operate, with expensive business premises downsized, creating new possibilities for how cities and towns are organised. At the same time, established ways of thinking about places are having to change. For example, car-free cities are predicated upon extensive use of public transport and dense, vibrant streetscapes - neither of which are feasible during a pandemic. Taking a place-based and participatory approach to recovery has the potential for progress beyond what existed before. Societies involve unique combinations of social, technical and institutional elements that work together in particular ways to create socio-technical systems. The systems evolve in response to endogenous drivers (such as the adoption of new technologies), new thinking emerging and behaviours changing. The systems are also affected by exogenous factors, such as COVID-19, that accelerate change: technological developments are incentivised;behaviour change is mandated. As such, all places are engaged in a continual process of recovering from different levels of shock (Deverteuil, 2016). Some changes may be temporary in their full embodiment, but even so they cause ripples that persist across the system, making it impossible to recover to 'what was', or to 'bounce back' (Matyas and Pelling, 2014). Elected representatives and policy makers have promoted the concept of a postpandemic 'recovery' (HM Government, 2020). The nuance, however, is in recognising the transient state of our societies. If there is talk of recovery it should not be in relation to a static point. Rather, 'recovery' should aim for an improved state that also provides better preparedness and a greater ability to respond to shocks. As such, a key focus of recovery should be on developing the tools needed to respond to future shocks.