a case study on resource management

• Technical Support
• Find My Rep

You are here

Cases in Human Resource Management

• David Kimball - Elms College
• Description

Cases in Human Resource Management provides students with insights into common challenges, dilemmas, and issues human resource managers face in the workplace. Using a wide variety of well-known companies and organizations, author David Kimball engages students with original, real-world cases that illustrate HRM topics and functions in action. Each case is designed to encourage students to find new solutions to human resource issues and to stimulate class discussion. Case questions challenge students to think critically, apply concepts, and develop their HRM skills. The contents are organized using the same topical coverage and structure as most HRM textbooks, making Kimball the ideal companion for any introductory HRM course.

See what’s new to this edition by selecting the Features tab on this page. Should you need additional information or have questions regarding the HEOA information provided for this title, including what is new to this edition, please email [email protected] . Please include your name, contact information, and the name of the title for which you would like more information. For information on the HEOA, please go to http://ed.gov/policy/highered/leg/hea08/index.html .

For assistance with your order: Please email us at [email protected] or connect with your SAGE representative.

SAGE 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, CA 91320 www.sagepub.com

Supplements

May adopt as a supplementary Text in the future.

KEY FEATURES

• Original case studies bring concepts to life through a number of well-known organizations, including Apple, Amazon, Google, LinkedIn, and Zappos.
• Case questions require students to think critically about HR issues and apply HR concepts to each case.
• An emphasis on important issues and current trends in HRM brings up key topics in the field such as state and federal minimum wage, succession planning, executive compensation, mindfulness, cyber attacks, CSR, and managing a multigenerational workforce.
• A chapter on international HRM topics examines important issues like that of helping expatriates succeed.

Sample Materials & Chapters

Chapter 7: Training, Leading, Talent Management and Development

Chapter 16: Global Issues for Human Resource Managers

For instructors

Select a purchasing option.

This title is also available on SAGE Knowledge , the ultimate social sciences online library. If your library doesn’t have access, ask your librarian to start a trial .

• Leadership Team
• Our Approach
• PMO Services
• Program & Project Managers
• PM Training & Development
• Case Studies
• Our Culture
• Employee Benefits
• Job Opportunities
• Benefits Realization Management Diagnostic
• Project Management Maturity Guide
• Guide to Agile Project Management
• PM Maturity Assessment
• Project Management as a Service (PMaaS) and Why It’s the Future

About PM Solutions

PM Solutions is a project management consulting firm that helps PMO, project, and business leaders apply project and portfolio management practices that drive performance and operational efficiency.

• Co-Founder & Co-CEO J. Kent Crawford
• Co-Founder & Co-CEO Deborah Bigelow Crawford
• President, PM Solutions & PM College Bruce Miller
• Vice President, Client Success, Eric Foss
• Managing Director, HR & Administration, Karen Alfonsi
• Director, Marketing and Communications, Carrie Capili

With our approach , companies can expect high-value, high-impact solutions, and measurable, sustainable results.

• PMO Deployment, Operation, and Enhancement
• Project Management as a Service (PMaaS)
• Project Review & Recovery
• Project Portfolio Management (PPM)
• Project Management Maturity Advancement
• Organizational Change Management
• Project Management Methodology Implementation
• Demand Management
• Project Management Mentors
• Resource Management
• Vendor Management

Project & Program Managers

We can provide you with highly experienced program and project managers ; experts to help guide, lead, and support high-visibility initiatives.

PM Training & Development

PM College® provides corporate project management training and competency programs for clients around the world.

By Project Initiatives

• Cost Reduction Initiatives (1)
• Data Center Consolidation (1)
• High-risk Capital Initiatives (1)
• Infrastructure Program Management (0)
• Manufacturing Facility Operations (1)
• Mentoring (11)
• Methodology (4)
• New Product Development (1)
• Organizational Change (6)
• PMO Assessment (4)
• PMO Deployment (4)
• Process Improvement (7)
• Program & Portfolio Management (10)
• Project Audits (1)
• Project Management Training (7)
• Regulatory Compliance (1)
• Resource Management (1)
• Strategy Execution (1)
• Systems Integration Deployment (0)
• Troubled Project Recovery (3)
• Vendor Management (2)

By Industry

• Automotive (1)
• Energy & Utilities (7)
• Financial Services (2)
• Human Resources (1)
• Information Technology (5)
• Insurance (5)
• Manufacturing (6)
• Pharma/Biotech (2)
• Professional Services (2)
• Research and Development (1)
• Retail & Merchandise (1)
• Security (1)
• Benefits Realization (4)
• Change Management (6)
• IT Project Management (4)
• Outsourcing Project Management (4)
• Performance & Value Measurement (12)
• Project Management Maturity (23)
• Project Management Methodology (12)
• Project Management Office (58)
• Project Management Training (31)
• Project Management Trends (50)
• Project Manager Competency (18)
• Project Portfolio Management (11)
• Project Recovery (9)
• Resource Management (5)
• Strategy & Governance (14)
• Articles (46)
• Brochures (3)
• eNewsletters (19)
• Research (44)
• Webinars (24)
• White Papers (35)
• contact us get in touch call: 800.983.0388

Home » Case Studies » Resource Management

Understanding the resource capacity and skill sets that exist within your organization gives you the ability to balance demand and apply the right resources at the right time. pm solutions helps you obtain, structure, and analyze your resource management information and practices to use your talent effectively and streamline resource deployment., more resource management case studies, fast-track pmo implementation rescues troubled projects and improves customer satisfaction.

For one of the largest privately-held staffing companies in the United States: PM Solutions implemented a fully-functional PMO including Project Portfolio Management tools after an unsuccessful first attempt at implementing a PMO on behalf of the Company. Value Delivered: The resulting visibility into projects allowed the client to recover 100% of the troubled projects in a portfolio valued at approximately $13M, while significantly improving project manager morale as well as project performance and customer satisfaction. Read More »

• Professional Services
• PMO Deployment
• Program & Portfolio Management
• eNewsletters
• White Papers
• PMO of the Year Award

Connect with Us

The project management experts®.

PM Solutions is a project management services firm helping organizations apply project management and PMO practices to improve business performance.

Toll-free (US): 800.983.0388 International: +1.484.450.0100 [email protected]

285 Wilmington-West Chester Pike Chadds Ford, PA 19317 USA

© 2012-2024 Project Management Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy & Terms

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

Human resource management

• Business management
• Business communication
• Collaboration and teams
• Corporate communications
• Corporate governance

After Your "Daddy Days" End

• Nanette Fondas
• January 20, 2014

How to Pay Your Sales Force

• John P. Steinbrink
• From the July 1978 Issue

Managers Can't Be Great Coaches All by Themselves

• Harvard Business Review
• From the May–June 2018 Issue

Staying Visible When Your Team Is in the Office...But You're WFH

• Dorie Clark
• July 30, 2021

Halting the Exodus After a Layoff

• From the May 2008 Issue

Dehumanization Is a Feature of Gig Work, Not a Bug

• Eric M Anicich
• June 23, 2022

Finding a Job When You've Been Out of Work a While

• January 21, 2014

Sexual Harassment Is Pervasive in the Restaurant Industry. Here's What Needs to Change

• Stefanie K Johnson
• Juan M Madera
• January 18, 2018

Managing Without Managers

• Ricardo Semler
• From the September–October 1989 Issue

Where AI Can - and Can't - Help Talent Management

• Jessica Kim Schmid
• Roshni Raveendhran
• October 13, 2022

Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage

• Robert D. Austin
• Gary P. Pisano
• From the May–June 2017 Issue

Stop Sabotaging Your Workforce

• Steve Glaveski
• May 27, 2021

Missing Women, Empty Talent Pipelines, and CEO Compensation

• Rita Gunther McGrath
• May 22, 2008

Your Board Needs a People Committee

• Reshmi Paul
• Jeff McLean
• May 06, 2021

How IBM Is Changing Its HR Game

• Cathy N. Davidson
• August 18, 2011

Life's Work: Lorne Michaels

• Lorne Michaels
• Alison Beard
• From the September 2013 Issue

Getting Your Team to Buy into a Big Change

• Namrata Malhotra
• Charlene Zietsma
• December 16, 2020

4 Steps to Growth During a Recession

• Michael Roberto
• April 08, 2008

High Cost of Cheap Chinese Labor

• Paul W. Beamish
• From the June 2006 Issue

The Case for Lending Out Your Star Performers

• Ravin Jesuthasan
• David Creelman
• John Boudreau
• January 19, 2015

Ingersoll Rand: Creating Effective Engineering and Technology Centres (B)

• Rahul Chandra Sheel
• Neharika Vohra
• July 13, 2017

Stockbay Partners: Proactive Flexible Work and Talent Retention

• Riya Vinayak
• Jyotsna Bhatnagar
• October 21, 2016

Michael Ovitz and The Walt Disney Co. (A)

• Jay W. Lorsch
• Alexis Chernak
• November 08, 2005

Active Listening

• James G. Clawson
• April 02, 1991

pymetrics: Early Days

• John R. Wells
• Benjamin Weinstock
• September 12, 2019

Aubrey McClendon's Special Incentive Compensation at Chesapeake Energy (A)

• Paul M. Healy
• Clayton Rose
• January 27, 2010

Lady Gaga (B)

• Anita Elberse
• Michael Christensen
• August 16, 2011

Netherlands: A "Third Way?"

• Bruce R. Scott
• Jamie L. Matthews
• December 12, 2001

PremiumSoft: Need for Strategic Human Resource Management

• Neale O'Connor
• Anupriya Goswami
• June 04, 2019

Harvard Business Review Guides Ultimate Boxed Set (16 Books)

• Nancy Duarte
• Bryan A. Garner
• Mary L. Shapiro
• March 19, 2019

pymetrics (B)

Sustaining customer centricity at chateauform'.

• Benoit Leleux
• Kurt Verweire
• Marion Debruyne
• August 25, 2014

The Atchison Corporation (B)

• Joseph L. Bower
• August 23, 2000

DealShare: Social E-Commerce for the Indian Mass Market

• Krishna G. Palepu
• March 14, 2022

CODE2040: Changing the Game

• Robert E. Siegel
• Jackie Bello
• August 01, 2015

FAG Kugelfischer - A German Restructuring

• Stuart C. Gilson
• March 12, 1998

Never Not Working: Why the Always-On Culture Is Bad for Business--and How to Fix It

• Malissa Clark
• February 06, 2024

Incentive Strategy Within Organizations

• Brian J. Hall
• March 12, 2002

Intellectual Ambition at Harvard Business School: Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger

• Jan W. Rivkin
• Amram Migdal
• March 11, 2017

KROHN: A Blue Ocean of Red Fashion

• Andrew Shipilov
• Nathan Furr
• Michael Olenick
• August 07, 2023

The Talent Management Problem: Why We Need to Think Differently About Talent Management

• Peter Cappelli
• April 10, 2008

Popular Topics

Partner center.

Human Resource Management

Browse human resource management learning materials including case studies, simulations, and online courses. Introduce core concepts and real-world challenges to create memorable learning experiences for your students.

Browse by Topics

• Career Advancement
• Career Planning
• Employee Engagement
• Employee Training
• Hiring and Recruitment

New! Quick Cases in Human Resources Management

Quickly immerse students in focused and engaging business dilemmas. No student prep time required.

Fundamentals of Case Teaching

Our new, self-paced, online course guides you through the fundamentals for leading successful case discussions at any course level.

New in Human Resource Management

Explore the latest human resource management learning materials

3274 word count

3295 word count

705 word count

1797 word count

1841 word count

1830 word count

1314 word count

1815 word count

1101 word count

1686 word count

1340 word count

1804 word count

Bestsellers in Human Resource Management

Explore what other educators are using in their human resources management courses

998 word count

Start building your courses today

Register for a free Educator Account and get exclusive access to our entire catalog of learning materials, teaching resources, and online course planning tools.

We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience, including personalizing content. Learn More . By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies and revised Privacy Policy .

• Browse All Articles
• Newsletter Sign-Up

Management →

• 02 Apr 2024
• What Do You Think?

What's Enough to Make Us Happy?

Experts say happiness is often derived by a combination of good health, financial wellbeing, and solid relationships with family and friends. But are we forgetting to take stock of whether we have enough of these things? asks James Heskett. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• Research & Ideas

Employees Out Sick? Inside One Company's Creative Approach to Staying Productive

Regular absenteeism can hobble output and even bring down a business. But fostering a collaborative culture that brings managers together can help companies weather surges of sick days and no-shows. Research by Jorge Tamayo shows how.

• 12 Mar 2024

Publish or Perish: What the Research Says About Productivity in Academia

Universities tend to evaluate professors based on their research output, but does that measure reflect the realities of higher ed? A study of 4,300 professors by Kyle Myers, Karim Lakhani, and colleagues probes the time demands, risk appetite, and compensation of faculty.

• 29 Feb 2024

Beyond Goals: David Beckham's Playbook for Mobilizing Star Talent

Reach soccer's pinnacle. Become a global brand. Buy a team. Sign Lionel Messi. David Beckham makes success look as easy as his epic free kicks. But leveraging world-class talent takes discipline and deft decision-making, as case studies by Anita Elberse reveal. What could other businesses learn from his ascent?

• 16 Feb 2024

Is Your Workplace Biased Against Introverts?

Extroverts are more likely to express their passion outwardly, giving them a leg up when it comes to raises and promotions, according to research by Jon Jachimowicz. Introverts are just as motivated and excited about their work, but show it differently. How can managers challenge their assumptions?

• 05 Feb 2024

The Middle Manager of the Future: More Coaching, Less Commanding

Skilled middle managers foster collaboration, inspire employees, and link important functions at companies. An analysis of more than 35 million job postings by Letian Zhang paints a counterintuitive picture of today's midlevel manager. Could these roles provide an innovation edge?

• 24 Jan 2024

Why Boeing’s Problems with the 737 MAX Began More Than 25 Years Ago

Aggressive cost cutting and rocky leadership changes have eroded the culture at Boeing, a company once admired for its engineering rigor, says Bill George. What will it take to repair the reputational damage wrought by years of crises involving its 737 MAX?

• 16 Jan 2024
• Cold Call Podcast

How SolarWinds Responded to the 2020 SUNBURST Cyberattack

In December of 2020, SolarWinds learned that they had fallen victim to hackers. Unknown actors had inserted malware called SUNBURST into a software update, potentially granting hackers access to thousands of its customers’ data, including government agencies across the globe and the US military. General Counsel Jason Bliss needed to orchestrate the company’s response without knowing how many of its 300,000 customers had been affected, or how severely. What’s more, the existing CEO was scheduled to step down and incoming CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna had yet to come on board. Bliss needed to immediately communicate the company’s action plan with customers and the media. In this episode of Cold Call, Professor Frank Nagle discusses SolarWinds’ response to this supply chain attack in the case, “SolarWinds Confronts SUNBURST.”

• 02 Jan 2024

Do Boomerang CEOs Get a Bad Rap?

Several companies have brought back formerly successful CEOs in hopes of breathing new life into their organizations—with mixed results. But are we even measuring the boomerang CEOs' performance properly? asks James Heskett. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 12 Dec 2023

COVID Tested Global Supply Chains. Here’s How They’ve Adapted

A global supply chain reshuffling is underway as companies seek to diversify their distribution networks in response to pandemic-related shocks, says research by Laura Alfaro. What do these shifts mean for American businesses and buyers?

• 05 Dec 2023

What Founders Get Wrong about Sales and Marketing

Which sales candidate is a startup’s ideal first hire? What marketing channels are best to invest in? How aggressively should an executive team align sales with customer success? Senior Lecturer Mark Roberge discusses how early-stage founders, sales leaders, and marketing executives can address these challenges as they grow their ventures in the case, “Entrepreneurial Sales and Marketing Vignettes.”

• 31 Oct 2023

Checking Your Ethics: Would You Speak Up in These 3 Sticky Situations?

Would you complain about a client who verbally abuses their staff? Would you admit to cutting corners on your work? The answers aren't always clear, says David Fubini, who tackles tricky scenarios in a series of case studies and offers his advice from the field.

• 12 Sep 2023

Can Remote Surgeries Digitally Transform Operating Rooms?

Launched in 2016, Proximie was a platform that enabled clinicians, proctors, and medical device company personnel to be virtually present in operating rooms, where they would use mixed reality and digital audio and visual tools to communicate with, mentor, assist, and observe those performing medical procedures. The goal was to improve patient outcomes. The company had grown quickly, and its technology had been used in tens of thousands of procedures in more than 50 countries and 500 hospitals. It had raised close to $50 million in equity financing and was now entering strategic partnerships to broaden its reach. Nadine Hachach-Haram, founder and CEO of Proximie, aspired for Proximie to become a platform that powered every operating room in the world, but she had to carefully consider the company’s partnership and data strategies in order to scale. What approach would position the company best for the next stage of growth? Harvard Business School associate professor Ariel Stern discusses creating value in health care through a digital transformation of operating rooms in her case, “Proximie: Using XR Technology to Create Borderless Operating Rooms.”

• 28 Aug 2023

The Clock Is Ticking: 3 Ways to Manage Your Time Better

Life is short. Are you using your time wisely? Leslie Perlow, Arthur Brooks, and DJ DiDonna offer time management advice to help you work smarter and live happier.

• 15 Aug 2023

Ryan Serhant: How to Manage Your Time for Happiness

Real estate entrepreneur, television star, husband, and father Ryan Serhant is incredibly busy and successful. He starts his days at 4:00 am and often doesn’t end them until 11:00 pm. But, it wasn’t always like that. In 2020, just a few months after the US began to shut down in order to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus, Serhant had time to reflect on his career as a real estate broker in New York City, wondering if the period of selling real estate at record highs was over. He considered whether he should stay at his current real estate brokerage or launch his own brokerage during a pandemic? Each option had very different implications for his time and flexibility. Professor Ashley Whillans and her co-author Hawken Lord (MBA 2023) discuss Serhant’s time management techniques and consider the lessons we can all learn about making time our most valuable commodity in the case, “Ryan Serhant: Time Management for Repeatable Success.”

• 08 Aug 2023

The Rise of Employee Analytics: Productivity Dream or Micromanagement Nightmare?

"People analytics"—using employee data to make management decisions—could soon transform the workplace and hiring, but implementation will be critical, says Jeffrey Polzer. After all, do managers really need to know about employees' every keystroke?

• 01 Aug 2023

Can Business Transform Primary Health Care Across Africa?

mPharma, headquartered in Ghana, is trying to create the largest pan-African health care company. Their mission is to provide primary care and a reliable and fairly priced supply of drugs in the nine African countries where they operate. Co-founder and CEO Gregory Rockson needs to decide which component of strategy to prioritize in the next three years. His options include launching a telemedicine program, expanding his pharmacies across the continent, and creating a new payment program to cover the cost of common medications. Rockson cares deeply about health equity, but his venture capital-financed company also must be profitable. Which option should he focus on expanding? Harvard Business School Professor Regina Herzlinger and case protagonist Gregory Rockson discuss the important role business plays in improving health care in the case, “mPharma: Scaling Access to Affordable Primary Care in Africa.”

• 05 Jul 2023

How Unilever Is Preparing for the Future of Work

Launched in 2016, Unilever’s Future of Work initiative aimed to accelerate the speed of change throughout the organization and prepare its workforce for a digitalized and highly automated era. But despite its success over the last three years, the program still faces significant challenges in its implementation. How should Unilever, one of the world's largest consumer goods companies, best prepare and upscale its workforce for the future? How should Unilever adapt and accelerate the speed of change throughout the organization? Is it even possible to lead a systematic, agile workforce transformation across several geographies while accounting for local context? Harvard Business School professor and faculty co-chair of the Managing the Future of Work Project William Kerr and Patrick Hull, Unilever’s vice president of global learning and future of work, discuss how rapid advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation are changing the nature of work in the case, “Unilever's Response to the Future of Work.”

How Are Middle Managers Falling Down Most Often on Employee Inclusion?

Companies are struggling to retain employees from underrepresented groups, many of whom don't feel heard in the workplace. What do managers need to do to build truly inclusive teams? asks James Heskett. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 20 Jun 2023

Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover: Lessons in Strategic Change

In late October 2022, Elon Musk officially took Twitter private and became the company’s majority shareholder, finally ending a months-long acquisition saga. He appointed himself CEO and brought in his own team to clean house. Musk needed to take decisive steps to succeed against the major opposition to his leadership from both inside and outside the company. Twitter employees circulated an open letter protesting expected layoffs, advertising agencies advised their clients to pause spending on Twitter, and EU officials considered a broader Twitter ban. What short-term actions should Musk take to stabilize the situation, and how should he approach long-term strategy to turn around Twitter? Harvard Business School assistant professor Andy Wu and co-author Goran Calic, associate professor at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business, discuss Twitter as a microcosm for the future of media and information in their case, “Twitter Turnaround and Elon Musk.”

A Guide to Human Resources Management Case Studies

Human Resource Management case studies provide valuable insights into the challenges faced by HR professionals in diverse workplaces. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore real-life examples of HRM in action, showcasing the strategies and solutions implemented to tackle various HR challenges.

Key Takeaways:

• Human Resources Management Case Studies offer practical insights for HR professionals.
• Real-life examples highlight strategies and solutions for overcoming HR challenges.
• Case studies showcase the importance of effective HR strategies in organizational success.
• Diverse scenarios demonstrate the application of HRM practices in different workplaces.
• Continuous learning and adaptation are crucial for HR professionals to stay effective.

The Changing Landscape of HRM

In the rapidly evolving global business environment, Human Resources Management (HRM) is constantly adapting to new trends and challenges. From the emergence of emerging markets to the digitalization of workplaces, HR professionals have had to navigate through various obstacles to effectively manage their workforce. One of the most significant challenges in recent times has been the global COVID-19 pandemic, which has necessitated swift and innovative HR strategies.

To gain a deeper understanding of how organizations have successfully managed these changes and optimized their HR practices, we will delve into a range of case studies. These case studies provide valuable real-world examples that HR professionals can analyze and apply in their own organizations. By studying these HR case studies , professionals can learn from the experiences of others, gaining insights into successful strategies and approaches.

Utilizing HR case studies for analysis allows us to discover how organizations have leveraged HRM to overcome obstacles and adapt to new circumstances. These real-life examples showcase the diverse ways in which organizations have effectively managed HR challenges, providing valuable lessons and strategies for HR professionals across industries.

Company XYZ, a multinational technology firm, faced challenges in attracting and retaining top talent due to the fast-paced nature of the industry. To address this, they implemented a strategic HR initiative that focused on creating a flexible work environment, providing opportunities for professional development, and offering competitive compensation packages. As a result, the company experienced a significant reduction in employee turnover and an increase in employee satisfaction and productivity.

This case study highlights how HR professionals at Company XYZ were able to adapt to the changing landscape of HRM by implementing innovative strategies. By analyzing such success stories, HR professionals can gain valuable insights into the strategies and practices that drive organizational success.

• HRM is constantly evolving to respond to new trends and challenges in the business world.
• Case studies provide real-world examples of effective HR practices in managing change.
• Successful organizations leverage HRM strategies to optimize their workforce and drive organizational success.

The Importance of Effective HR Strategies

Effective HR strategies are crucial for organizations to attract, retain, and develop top talent. By implementing strategic HR practices, companies can create a positive work environment that fosters employee engagement, productivity, and overall organizational success. In this section, we will explore case studies that highlight successful HR strategies implemented by companies across different industries, providing valuable insights for research and inspiration.

Case Studies: Success Stories in HR Management

Case Study 1: Company X

“Our HR strategy of prioritizing employee well-being and work-life balance has had a significant impact on our organizational culture. Through flexible work arrangements, wellness programs, and regular communication channels, we have seen a remarkable increase in employee satisfaction and productivity.”

Case Study 2: Company Y

“By investing in employee development and career progression, we have been able to attract top talent and retain key employees. The implementation of mentorship programs, training initiatives, and performance feedback systems has led to higher employee engagement and a stronger talent pipeline.”

Case Study 3: Company Z

“Our HR strategy focuses on promoting a diverse and inclusive workforce. Through targeted recruitment efforts, diversity training programs, and inclusive policies, we have successfully created a culture that celebrates and values diversity, leading to improved employee satisfaction and innovation.”

The Impact of Strategic HR Practices

These success stories demonstrate the tangible benefits of strategic HR practices. Organizations that prioritize effective HR strategies are better equipped to attract and retain top talent, foster employee engagement and satisfaction, and drive overall organizational success. By studying these case studies, researchers and HR professionals can gain valuable insights and inspiration to enhance their own HR practices and achieve similar levels of success.

By examining these HRM case studies for research and guidance, organizations can adopt successful strategies and adapt them to their unique contexts. The implementation of effective HR strategies is key to creating a thriving workplace culture that empowers employees, maximizes productivity, and ultimately drives the success of the organization.

Fundamental Concepts of HR Management

Before diving into Human Resources Management Case Studies , it is essential to have a solid understanding of the fundamental concepts that underpin HR management. This section will explore key definitions and concepts to provide a strong foundation for in-depth analysis of the case studies.

Definitions and Clarifications

Let’s start by clarifying some key terms:

• Management : Refers to the process of coordinating and overseeing organizational resources to achieve specific goals and objectives.
• Resources : In the context of HR, resources refer to the individuals who contribute to the organization’s success, including employees, contractors, and other stakeholders.
• Role of a Manager : A manager is responsible for planning, organizing, directing, and controlling resources to achieve organizational goals and objectives. In the HR context, managers focus on effectively managing human resources.
• Difference between Management and Administration : While the terms management and administration are sometimes used interchangeably, it is important to note the subtle distinctions. Management is concerned with the implementation of strategies and the coordination of resources, whereas administration involves the overarching policies, procedures, and regulations that govern the organization.

By understanding these fundamental concepts, we can delve deeper into the case studies and gain valuable insights into the challenges and solutions faced by HR professionals.

Inspiring Quote

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” – Peter Drucker

Key Definitions

Management functions and responsibilities.

Effective management is essential for HR professionals in their role of overseeing an organization’s human capital. Understanding the four basic functions of management – planning, organizing, directing, and controlling – is critical for HRM success. Each function contributes to the efficient and effective management of human resources, ensuring organizational goals are met.

In addition to these management functions, HR managers have specific responsibilities that contribute to the overall success of the organization. These responsibilities include:

• Recruitment and selection of qualified candidates
• Employee onboarding, training, and development
• Creating and enforcing HR policies and procedures
• Ensuring legal compliance in all HR practices
• Managing employee relations and resolving conflicts
• Designing and administering compensation and benefits programs
• Developing and implementing employee engagement initiatives
• Overseeing performance management and evaluation processes

Furthermore, HR plays a vital role in the administrative cycle of an organization. HR professionals are responsible for managing and maintaining accurate HR records, handling payroll and benefits administration, and ensuring compliance with employment laws and regulations.

By effectively executing their management functions and fulfilling their responsibilities, HR professionals contribute to the development and success of an organization’s human resources, driving overall organizational performance and productivity.

Skills and Competencies in HR Management

The success of an HR manager relies on a combination of technical skills and personal qualities. Understanding and mastering these essential skills and competencies is crucial for effectively managing human resources in any organization. Here, we will explore the key characteristics that distinguish an effective HR manager and how they contribute to success in HR management.

1. Integrity

Integrity is the foundation of trust in any HR department. HR managers must demonstrate honesty, transparency, and ethical behavior in all aspects of their work. By upholding high ethical standards, HR managers cultivate a culture of integrity, ensuring fair and unbiased treatment of employees and fostering a positive work environment.

2. Flexibility

Flexibility is essential in an ever-changing business landscape. HR managers must adapt to evolving workplace dynamics, industry trends, and technological advancements. This includes being open to new ideas, embracing change, and continuously updating HR strategies to align with organizational goals and employee needs.

3. Resilience

HR managers often face challenging situations that require resilience and the ability to navigate complex issues. They must stay composed in difficult times, effectively manage conflicts, and find creative solutions to address HR challenges. Resilient HR managers are invaluable assets to organizations, as they can lead teams through change and uncertainty, ensuring continuity and stability.

4. Proactivity

Successful HR managers are proactive in identifying potential issues before they escalate. They anticipate future needs and create proactive strategies to address them. By staying ahead of the curve, HR managers can plan and implement initiatives that support employees’ growth, well-being, and overall job satisfaction.

“Proactive HR managers take a proactive approach to identify potential pitfalls early on, allowing organizations to prevent problems rather than just managing them when they arise.”

In addition to these personal qualities, HR managers must possess a range of technical skills to effectively manage human resources. Some of these skills include:

• Recruitment and selection
• Training and development
• Performance management
• Employee relations
• Compensation and benefits
• HR data analysis

To exemplify these skills and competencies, let’s take a look at a real-life HR case study:

By analyzing such HR case studies , aspiring HR professionals and organizations can gain valuable insights into the practical application of skills and competencies in HR management.

Now that we have explored the essential skills and competencies in HR management, it is clear that successful HR managers possess a unique blend of personal qualities and technical skills. These individuals play a vital role in driving organizational success by effectively managing human resources and fostering a positive work environment.

Employee Motivation and Engagement

Motivated and engaged employees are essential for organizational success. In this section, we will explore the crucial role of HR in motivating employees and fostering a culture of engagement. By examining real-life case studies, we will identify effective strategies and initiatives implemented by organizations to boost employee motivation and engagement.

Motivation through Recognition

Employee recognition is a powerful tool for motivating and engaging employees. Organizations that prioritize recognition programs create a culture of appreciation and reinforce desired behaviors. Case studies highlight the impact of tailored recognition programs on employee satisfaction, morale, and performance.

Professional Development and Growth

Providing opportunities for professional development and growth is another key driver of employee motivation and engagement. Organizations that invest in training, mentorship programs, and career advancement opportunities empower employees to enhance their skills and fulfill their potential. Real-life examples demonstrate how these initiatives contribute to higher employee satisfaction and loyalty.

Well-being Initiatives

Employee well-being initiatives play a vital role in nurturing a positive work environment and enhancing motivation. By offering wellness programs, flexible work arrangements, and promoting work-life balance, organizations prioritize the holistic well-being of their employees. Case studies highlight the positive impact of these initiatives on employee engagement, productivity, and overall satisfaction.

Effective Communication

Open and transparent communication is integral to fostering motivation and engagement among employees. Organizations that prioritize effective communication channels, including regular feedback, town hall meetings, and collaborative platforms, create an environment of trust and inclusion. Real-life examples demonstrate how improved communication positively influences employee engagement and overall organizational performance.

“Effective employee motivation and engagement are the cornerstones of a thriving organization. By examining real-life case studies, HR professionals and organizations can gain valuable insights into successful strategies and initiatives that fuel motivation and foster meaningful employee engagement.”

The case studies above demonstrate how organizations have successfully implemented strategies to motivate and engage their employees. By leveraging recognition, professional development, well-being initiatives, and effective communication, these organizations have created a positive work environment that drives employee satisfaction, productivity, and loyalty.

Strategies for Effective HR Management

HR professionals play a critical role in developing and implementing effective HR strategies. By analyzing real-life case studies, we can gain valuable insights into HR best practices. These case studies highlight successful strategies in key areas such as:

Recruitment and Selection

Training and development, performance management, compensation and benefits, labor relations.

Let’s explore how organizations have utilized these strategies to optimize their HR practices and achieve their business objectives.

“The key to effective HR management lies in understanding the unique needs and challenges of your organization. By analyzing case studies, we can gain valuable insights and tailor our strategies to drive employee engagement, productivity, and organizational success.”

Effective recruitment and selection processes are crucial for attracting and hiring top talent. Case studies in this area often showcase innovative methods used to identify and attract qualified candidates. From leveraging technology platforms for applicant screening to implementing targeted recruitment campaigns, organizations have successfully optimized their hiring processes.

Investing in employee training and development is essential for enhancing skills and fostering long-term growth. By examining case studies in this domain, we can learn from organizations that have successfully implemented comprehensive training programs, mentorship initiatives, and continuous learning platforms. These strategies contribute to a skilled and motivated workforce.

Effective performance management systems align individual and team goals with organizational objectives. Case studies in this area often highlight organizations that have implemented performance measurement frameworks, regular feedback systems, and performance-based incentives. This data-driven approach ensures transparency, fairness, and continuous improvement.

Strategic compensation and benefits programs attract, retain, and motivate talented employees. Case studies demonstrate how organizations have designed competitive salary structures, employee recognition programs, and comprehensive benefits packages. These initiatives contribute to higher employee satisfaction, engagement, and overall organizational performance.

Managing labor relations requires effective communication, negotiation, and conflict resolution skills. Case studies in this area offer insights into organizations that have successfully fostered positive relationships with unions, implemented fair labor practices, and resolved labor disputes amicably. These examples highlight the importance of proactive labor management strategies.

By learning from these case studies and applying the demonstrated strategies, HR professionals can optimize their HR management practices and create a positive impact on organizational success.

These case studies showcase the application of effective HR management strategies in different organizations. They provide practical examples of how organizations have achieved success by implementing various strategies tailored to their unique needs and challenges.

Leveraging HR Technology

HR technology has revolutionized HRM processes, enabling organizations to streamline operations and enhance efficiency. By leveraging the power of technology, HR professionals can optimize their strategic decision-making and ensure a seamless employee experience.

Let’s examine some insightful case studies that illustrate the successful implementation and utilization of HR technology. These examples demonstrate how organizations have harnessed the potential of HRIS (Human Resource Information System), talent management software, and data analytics tools to drive meaningful outcomes and achieve their HR objectives.

Case Study 1: Enhancing Recruitment with HRIS

In this case study, Company ABC implemented an HRIS software to streamline their recruitment process. The software automated job posting, applicant tracking, and resume screening, significantly reducing the time and effort spent on manual tasks. With the implementation of HRIS, the HR team at Company ABC experienced a 40% reduction in time-to-hire and an improvement in the quality of hires.

“The HRIS software has transformed our recruitment process, allowing us to focus on strategic talent acquisition. The automation and advanced analytics capabilities have enabled us to make data-driven decisions and hire top talent efficiently.” – Sarah Thompson, HR Manager, Company ABC

Case Study 2: Optimizing Performance Management with Talent Management Software

In this case study, Company XYZ adopted a talent management software platform to streamline their performance management process. The software offered features such as goal setting, continuous feedback, and performance analysis, empowering managers and employees to take a more proactive approach to performance improvement. As a result, Company XYZ experienced a significant increase in employee engagement and aligned performance goals across the organization.

“The talent management software has revolutionized our performance management process. It has fostered a culture of continuous feedback and empowered our employees to take ownership of their professional growth. The transparent performance analytics have enabled us to identify and reward top performers effectively.” – John Davis, HR Director, Company XYZ

Case Study 3: Leveraging Data Analytics for Strategic Decision-Making

In this case study, Company DEF implemented advanced data analytics tools to gain insights into their HR processes. By analyzing data related to employee engagement, turnover rates, and performance metrics, the HR team at Company DEF could identify trends, patterns, and areas for improvement. This strategic use of data analytics enabled Company DEF to make informed decisions and implement targeted HR interventions, resulting in improved retention rates and increased productivity.

“Data analytics has been a game-changer for our HR department. By leveraging actionable insights from our HR data, we have been able to proactively address employee concerns, enhance our talent acquisition strategies, and design targeted training programs. Our data-driven approach has significantly contributed to our overall organizational success.” – Lisa Johnson, HR Manager, Company DEF

These case studies demonstrate how organizations can harness the potential of HR technology to drive efficiency, improve decision-making, and enhance the employee experience. By leveraging the right combination of HRIS, talent management software, and data analytics tools, HR professionals can transform their HR practices and contribute to the strategic objectives of the organization.

Leveraging HR technology is essential in today’s digital era, where technology continues to shape the future of work. By staying informed about the latest HR technology trends and exploring case studies, HR professionals can identify opportunities for innovation and drive impactful HR initiatives.

Now, let’s explore another critical aspect of HR management – diversity and inclusion.

Diversity and Inclusion in HR Management

In today’s diverse workforce, creating an inclusive environment is essential for effective human resources management. Organizations that prioritize diversity and inclusion benefit from improved employee satisfaction, increased productivity, and enhanced innovation. Let’s explore some real-life examples of HRM case studies that highlight the successful efforts of organizations to foster diversity and inclusion within their workforce.

Case Study 1: XYZ Company

XYZ Company, a global technology firm, recognized the value of diversity and inclusion in driving organizational success. They implemented a comprehensive diversity program that focused on recruiting and retaining employees from diverse backgrounds. By promoting a culture of inclusion through training, mentorship, and employee resource groups, XYZ Company witnessed a significant increase in employee engagement and creativity. This case study demonstrates the positive impact of diversity and inclusion initiatives on overall organizational performance.

Case Study 2: ABC Corporation

ABC Corporation, a leading retail company, recognized the importance of diversity and inclusion in meeting the needs of their diverse customer base. They implemented unconscious bias training for their hiring managers and implemented policies to ensure equal opportunities for all employees. As a result, ABC Corporation experienced improved employee satisfaction, reduced turnover rates, and a boost in customer loyalty. This case study exemplifies the positive outcomes that can be achieved through a commitment to diversity and inclusion in HR management.

By analyzing these HRM case studies , organizations can gain valuable insights into successful diversity and inclusion initiatives. Implementing similar strategies, such as targeted recruitment efforts, inclusive policies, and diversity training programs, can help companies create a more inclusive and diverse workforce, fostering a culture of innovation and success.

Incorporating diversity and inclusion into HR management practices is not only a legal and moral imperative, but it also leads to tangible business benefits. Organizations that embrace diversity and create an inclusive workplace are better equipped to attract top talent, retain employees, and drive innovation. By learning from these HRM case studies , organizations can develop effective strategies to foster diversity and inclusion, ultimately contributing to their long-term success.

Adapting HR Practices in Times of Crisis

In times of crisis, such as economic downturns or natural disasters, HR professionals face unique challenges that require them to adapt their practices quickly and effectively. By analyzing HRM case studies that showcase organizations’ responses to crises, we can gain valuable insights into the strategies and approaches they employed to navigate through turbulent times and emerge stronger.

The Importance of Flexibility

One key lesson we can learn from HR case studies in times of crisis is the importance of flexibility. Organizations need to be agile and responsive to rapidly changing circumstances. HR professionals play a vital role in proactively adjusting HR practices, policies, and procedures to meet the immediate needs of employees and the organization as a whole.

“During the global financial crisis of 2008, XYZ Corporation faced severe economic challenges that threatened its survival. The HR team swiftly implemented cost-cutting measures, including a freeze on hiring and salary reductions, while carefully balancing employee morale and engagement. Through open communication and transparent decision-making, XYZ Corporation managed to weather the storm and emerge with a more resilient workforce.”

By adopting a flexible approach, HR professionals can help organizations navigate through turbulent times, mitigate the impact on employees, and position the company for recovery and future growth.

The Power of Resilience

Resilience is another critical factor in adapting HR practices during a crisis. HR professionals need to demonstrate resilience in the face of uncertainty and guide employees through challenging times. By instilling confidence, providing support systems, and fostering a sense of unity, HR managers can help organizations withstand the pressures of a crisis and emerge stronger.

Resilience can be seen in action through the implementation of employee assistance programs, mental health initiatives, and crisis communication plans. These measures help employees navigate the emotional and psychological challenges brought on by the crisis, ensuring their well-being and enabling them to contribute effectively to the organization’s recovery efforts.

Proactive Planning for Future Crises

The best HR case studies in times of crisis highlight the importance of proactive planning. While crises may be unexpected, organizations can anticipate potential challenges and develop contingency plans to address them swiftly and efficiently. By anticipating various scenarios and regularly reviewing and updating crisis response strategies, HR professionals can position their organizations for success even in the face of uncertainty.

In addition to crisis preparedness, proactive planning involves identifying key skills and competencies that will be crucial in future crises. By integrating training programs, succession planning, and talent management initiatives into their HR practices, organizations can ensure they have the capabilities necessary to navigate through any crisis that may arise.

Table: Strategies for Adapting HR Practices in Times of Crisis

Adapting HR practices in times of crisis requires a combination of flexibility, resilience, and proactive planning to ensure the well-being of employees, maintain productivity, and secure the organization’s long-term success.

Human Resources Management Case Studies provide HR professionals with valuable insights into real-world challenges and innovative solutions. By analyzing these examples, organizations can learn from best practices and optimize their own HR strategies. The showcased case studies highlight the diverse scenarios that HR professionals face and the creative approaches they employ to overcome obstacles.

Continuous learning from these experiences enables HR professionals to enhance their skills and contribute to the overall success of their organizations. These case studies serve as a source of inspiration, demonstrating the importance of adaptability, strategic thinking, and effective HR management.

By embracing the lessons learned from Human Resources Management Case Studies, HR professionals can strengthen their expertise, foster employee engagement, and drive organizational growth. These real-life examples reaffirm the significance of HRM for businesses in today’s dynamic and ever-evolving corporate landscape.

Source Links

• https://www.shrm.org/credentials/certification/educators/teaching-resources
• https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/usd/case-studies-in-work-employment-and-human-resource-management-9781788975582.html
• https://gfoundry.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-human-resources-a-manual-for-managers-and-professionals/

Similar Posts

Calculating Federal Employee Pensions: A Guide for Government Employees

Pondering your federal employee pension? Unravel the mysteries of FERS and CSRS calculations to secure your retirement future.

The Impact of Employee Rights on Workplace Dynamics

Open the door to understanding how employee rights influence workplace dynamics, shaping organizational culture and interactions.

Long-Term Disability in the Workplace: Policies and Employee Support

Kickstart your understanding of how to support employees with long-term disabilities in the workplace with essential strategies and programs.

A Guide to HR Employee Safety Protocols

Welcome to our comprehensive guide on HR Employee Safety Protocols. In today’s rapidly evolving workplace, ensuring the safety and well-being of employees has become a top priority for organizations. HR Employee Safety Protocols encompass a wide range of guidelines and procedures designed to promote workplace safety and comply with Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) policies….

A Guide to HR Strategic Management

Welcome to our comprehensive guide on HR Strategic Management. In today’s competitive business landscape, organizations recognize the importance of strategically managing their human resources to drive success and achieve their goals. HR Strategic Management focuses on aligning human resources strategies and practices with overall business strategies, ensuring that the workforce is equipped to support the…

A Guide to HR Strategic Planning

HR strategic planning is a crucial process that organizations undertake to align their human resources with their overall business strategy. By developing a strategic HR plan, companies can ensure that their HR goals and objectives are directly tied to the organization’s strategic objectives, leading to improved employee performance, workforce development, and organizational success. Strategic human…

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

1.4 Cases and Problems

Chapter summary.

• Human resource management is the process of employing people, training them, compensating them, developing policies relating to the workplace, and developing strategies to retain employees. Three certification exams, which are offered by the Human Resource Certification Institute, can be taken to show HRM skills and become more marketable.
• Human resource management involves seven main areas: (1) staffing, (2) workplace policies, (3) benefits and compensation, (4) retention, (5) training, (6) employment laws, and (7) employee protection.
• Human resource managers need many different types of skills. Being able to organize, multitask, and communicate effectively, as well as having specific job skills, such as how to run a particular computer program, and a sense of fairness and ethics, is crucial to a successful career in HRM.
• There are many contemporary challenges associated with HRM. First, it is up to everyone in the organization to contain costs. HR managers need to look at their individual departments and demonstrate the necessity and value of their functions to the organization. HR managers can also help contain costs in several ways, such as managing benefits plans and compensation and providing training.
• The fast-changing nature of technology is also a challenge in HRM. As new technologies are developed, employees may be able to implement innovative ways of working such as flextime . HR managers are also responsible for developing policies dealing with cyberloafing and other workplace time wasters revolving around technology. Employee stress and lack of work-life balance are also greatly influenced by technology.
• Awareness of the changes in the economy allows the human resource manager to adequately plan for reductions and additions to the workforce.
• The aging and changing workforce is our final factor. As baby boomers retire, there likely will not be enough people to replace them, and many of the skills the baby boomers have may be lost. In addition, having to work with multiple generations at once can create challenges as different expectations and needs arise from multigenerational workforces.

Chapter Case

Changes, Changes

Jennifer, the owner and manager of a company with ten employees, has hired you to take over the HRM function so she can focus on other areas of her business. During your first two weeks, you find out that the company has been greatly affected by the up economy and is expected to experience overall revenue growth by 10 percent over the next three years, with some quarters seeing growth as high as 30 percent. However, five of the ten workers are expected to retire within three years. These workers have been with the organization since the beginning and provide a unique historical perspective of the company. The other five workers are of diverse ages.

In addition to these changes, Jennifer believes they may be able to save costs by allowing employees to telecommute one to two days per week. She has some concerns about productivity if she allows employees to work from home. Despite these concerns, Jennifer has even considered closing down the physical office and making her company a virtual organization, but she wonders how such a major change will affect the ability to communicate and worker motivation.

Jennifer shares with you her thoughts about the costs of health care on the organization. She has considered cutting benefits entirely and having her employees work for her on a contract basis, instead of being full-time employees. She isn’t sure if this would be a good choice.

Jennifer schedules a meeting with you to discuss some of her thoughts. To prepare for the meeting, you perform research so you can impress your new boss with recommendations on the challenges presented.

• Point out which changes are occurring in the business that affect HRM.
• What are some considerations the company and HR should be aware of when making changes related to this case study?
• What would the initial steps be to start planning for these changes?
• What would your role be in implementing these changes? What would Jennifer’s role be?

Team Activities

• In a group of two to three people, research possible career paths in HRM and prepare a PowerPoint presentation to discuss your findings.
• Interview an HR manager and discuss his or her career path, skills, and daily tasks. Present your findings to your class.

Human Resource Management Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Structured Decision Making: Case Studies in Natural Resource Management

Management of our natural resources requires difficult decisions. We balance tradeoffs between water for crops, fish, and people. We choose protected areas when we’re uncertain about the future effects of climate change. We decide how much to invest in the study of potential zoonotic diseases. Each of these decisions has significant consequences for ecosystems, species, and people.

To make it most likely that we’ll achieve the outcomes we want from our decisions, it makes sense to use the best approaches to decision making. Decision analysis, also known as structured decision making, is designed to help decision makers make difficult choices more effectively. Structured decision making helps decision makers develop a cognitive “map” of their difficult decisions and gives them the tools they need to deal with challenges like tradeoffs, risk, and uncertainty.

Over the last 15 years, the four of us—all ecologists and decision analysts with the U.S. Geological Survey—have worked with other natural resource scientists and managers from around the world to develop the theory and practice of structured decision making for natural resource management. Our new book, Structured Decision Making: Case Studies in Natural Resource Management , synthesizes these efforts. We’ve learned several lessons along the way, including: that understanding a decision problem comes before finding an effective solution; that solving a decision problem cannot rely on science alone, although science is a crucial piece of the solution; and that thinking creatively about things we can do is often more important than listing things we can learn.

Every natural resource management problem seems unique at first, complicated in its own special way. But over the last 15 years, as we have worked on difficult decisions with natural resource managers around the world, we’ve seen a few types of decisions come up repeatedly. A decision type, we realized, is determined by what makes a decision difficult. Some decisions are difficult because the structure of the decision is hidden. Others require tradeoffs among things we care about. For other decisions, allocating limited resources or dealing with risk pose the challenge. Many decisions are complicated because uncertainty obscures the best path to take. And finally, difficulty sometimes arises when we need to anticipate how a decision today influences future decisions. While many natural resource decisions are simply hard, recognizing the type of decision can help identify the right tools to solve the problem. We organized the book around six decision types and wrote introductory chapters to lay out the tools appropriate for each type. Case study chapters follow the introductory chapters to illustrate applications on a variety of different decisions.

Michael C. Runge is a research ecologist at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. Sarah J. Converse is the unit leader of the USGS Washington Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit and an associate professor at the University of Washington. James E. Lyons is a research ecologist at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. David R. Smith is a research statistician at the USGS Leetown Science Center. Together, Runge, Converse, Lyons, and Smith are the editors of  Structured Decision Making: Case Studies in Natural Resource Management .

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

14 Case studies: theory and practice in natural resource management

1997, Sustainability and Social …

Related Papers

Sustainability and social research

Frank Vanclay

Sue Kilpatrick

Abstract Agriculture, like all sectors of industry, is operating in a climate of change. Change is occurring in international markets, in domestic markets, in government protection and in consumer requirements. Food processors are implementing Quality Assurance (QA) systems, and demanding that food producers are able to meet QA specifications. In the beef industry, international and domestic markets are demanding quality beef. The Japanese market regularly rejects meat with unacceptable chemical residue levels.

Barbara Chambers

Rural Society

Peter Howden

" With a rural focus

Janice Newton

Sociologia Ruralis

Van der Ploeg's ‘styles of farming’ approach attempts to explain the social nature of diversity in agriculture. For over 10 years we have attempted to apply this concept to a range of farming situations in Australia. This article reviews the issues posed by Vanclay et al. in 1998 and provides insight into what have been the developments in the concept of farming styles. We utilise the results of three studies in Australia: a study of farming styles in broadacre cropping and grazing farmers in the Riverina region of New South Wales; a study of grape growers in the Sunraysia district of Victoria and a separate study of grape growers across south-eastern Australia. While this research was intended to validate the existence of styles and to provide evidence of the usefulness of the concept and its application in rural industries, we were unable to replicate or validate van der Ploeg's original conceptualisation and methodology. We conclude that farming styles are more of an intellectual construction than a social construction. Nevertheless, we believe that the concept of farming styles is a useful heuristic and a new framework for understanding farming styles is presented.

Critical landcare

Stewart Lockie , Frank Vanclay

ALI ALSHAHIBI

RELATED PAPERS

Andrew Docking

Australian Journal of Social Issues

Michael Reid

Agriculture AND Food

Stewart Lockie

Charlene Trestrail

Julie Francis

David Pannell

Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture

Fiona Scott

Australian Journal of …

David Pannell , Frank Vanclay , Graham Marshall

Kym Anderson

Journal of Rural Studies

Chris Cocklin

Australian Forestry

Richard Greene , Lorrae Van Kerkhoff

Agricultural Systems

Peter Hayman

Field Crops Research

Christen Russell

ICT for development in Asia and the Pacific

Stewart Marshall , Angelina Russo

Rural History

Simon Fielke

John Mullen , Geoff File

Peter Murray

International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture …

Geoffrey Lawrence , Frank Vanclay

Kristen Lyons

Jason Alexandra

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers

Ruth Panelli

Rural Sociology

Peter Howden , Frank Vanclay

Geoff Wilson

Culture <html_ent glyph="@amp;" ascii="&amp;"/> Agriculture

Robyn Bartel

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

Assessing Water Management Strategies in Data-Scarce Mountain Regions under Uncertain Climate and Socio-Economic Changes

• Open access
• Published: 13 April 2024

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• R. Muñoz   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6797-3999 1 ,
• S. A. Vaghefi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3061-6493 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ,
• F. Drenkhan   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9443-9596 5 ,
• M. J. Santos   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6558-7477 1 ,
• D. Viviroli   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1214-8657 1 ,
• V. Muccione   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9773-3125 1 , 6 &
• C. Huggel   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9299-2665 1  

Water management in mountainous regions faces significant challenges due to deep uncertainties arising from data scarcity, knowledge gaps, and the complex interplay of climate and socio-economic changes. While existing approaches focused on uncertainty reduction and water system optimization contribute to managing uncertainties, they often require probability distributions that can be difficult to obtain in data-scarce mountain regions. To address these challenges, we demonstrate the effectiveness of Exploratory Modeling and Analysis (EMA) in assessing water management strategies and identifying operational ranges that avoid future water scarcity. Through a case study in the complex and data-scarce Peruvian Andes, we employed EMA to run 12,000 simulations by 2050, incorporating deep uncertainties from climate and socio-economic scenarios, and hydrological modeling parameters. This analysis identified specific policy combinations demonstrating greater robustness across diverse scenarios and uncertainties. EMA explicitly identifies operational ranges of policies to avoid water scarcity but also highlights the conditions that might trigger policy failure. We also delve into the roles of the different factors used in EMA and their significance in water management applications. Our research illustrates that an exploratory hydrological modeling approach based on robust decision-making can foster a more informed decision-making process for long-term water adaptation in rapidly changing mountain regions under data scarcity and deep uncertainties.

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

Mountains play a crucial role as a freshwater source, supporting the livelihoods of nearly two billion people globally (Schneiderbauer et al. 2021 ). At the same time, mountains face complex challenges from climate and socio-economic changes that threaten water supply and other essential ecosystem services (IPCC et al. 2018 ; Hock et al. 2019 ; Shah 2021 ). Despite their importance, mountain regions remain understudied leading to a wide range of uncertainties that challenge the design of adequate adaptation measures (Adler et al. 2023 ; Doblas-Reyes et al. 2023 ). There is an urgent need to develop suitable methods to identify robust and locally tailored adaptation measures that ensure long-term water supply for social-ecological systems under current and future conditions (Poff et al. 2016 ; Hasan et al. 2023 ).

In mountain regions, uncertainties arise from a combination of scarce data, limited understanding of the glacio-hydrological and socio-economic processes, and from the variability in climate and socio-economic projections (Berkhout et al. 2014 ; Hock et al. 2019 ). The limited understanding of glacial meltwater contribution, groundwater dynamics, and the role of wetlands hinders mathematical representations and models (Buytaert et al. 2017 ; Correa et al. 2020 ). Further limited socio-economic understanding is related, among others, to missing data on local economic development, demographic dynamics, and changes in water demand (Berkhout et al. 2014 ; Scott et al. 2021 ). Climate models, though useful globally or regionally, are yet unable to incorporate local variability realistically, strongly influencing projections of hydrological changes (Vetter et al. 2017 ; Kundzewicz et al. 2018 ). Inherent dynamics and uncertainty when projecting long-term social and economic trends limit the ability to assign probabilities to future socio-economic scenarios (Riahi et al. 2017 ; Kundzewicz et al. 2018 ). Furthermore, errors in input data and knowledge gaps can hinder the accuracy of model predictions to conditions beyond those used for model calibration.

The described uncertainties are usually quantified through methods such as uncertainty bounds, error propagation, or sensitivity analysis (Huss and Hock 2018 ; McMillan et al. 2018 ). Beyond these, more sophisticated approaches, such as interval, stochastic, and fuzzy mathematical programming address variability and ambiguity by modeling and optimizing water management systems (Wang et al. 2024 ). However, these methods require probability distributions which can be difficult to obtain in data-scarce regions. This lack of clear probabilities leads to deep uncertainty, a situation where decision-makers deal with unknown probabilities for key factors, making the range of future system states unclear (Lempert 2019 ; Marchau et al. 2019 ).

Most often, the design of water policies relies on historical data, e.g. precipitation or water demand patterns (Cosgrove and Loucks 2015 ). However, using the past to predict the future has limitations given that climate change leads to conditions not observed in the historical record (van Vuuren et al. 2012 ; Poff et al. 2016 ). Recent progress in integrative optimization methods enables identifying optimal water management strategies across multiple criteria and uncertain futures to supports decision-making (e.g. Ucler and Kocken 2023 ; Wang et al. 2024 ).

Currently, management strategies focus on engineering-based increases in water supply, followed by measures to enhance water efficiency, while explicit efforts towards reducing water demand or improving water governance and policies have often been neglected (Shah 2021 ; Drenkhan et al. 2022 ). To increase the water supply side, efforts have long been put into grey infrastructure including large reservoirs and dams (Shah 2021 ). Nonetheless, reservoirs often imply considerable impacts on local and downstream ecosystems, substantial investments, and social feasibility (Haeberli et al. 2016 ). Increasing water efficiency can potentially reduce water losses, particularly in mountain regions where water-intense flood irrigation and low investments in water infrastructure prevail (Cunha et al. 2019 ; Motschmann et al. 2022 ).

Recent studies reveal that adaptation strategies can unintentionally increase vulnerabilities and risks, known as maladaptation, due to an inappropriate project design and future uncertainties (Aggarwal et al. 2022 ; Adler et al. 2023 ). This highlights the value of robust decision-making which focuses on making informed decisions rather than improving predictions, an alternative paradigm to traditional approaches such as predictive or optimization models (Haasnoot et al. 2013 ; Marchau et al. 2019 ). Robust decision-making can be operationalized through Exploratory Modeling and Analysis (EMA) that maps diverse future scenarios without fixed probabilities and, as a result, all future (and potentially contradicting) scenarios are equally assessed (Lempert et al. 2003 ; Bryant and Lempert 2010 ). Through this approach, EMA goes beyond the “what if” question, exploring the circumstances under which a policy would succeed or fail (Kwakkel 2017 ; Moallemi et al. 2020 ). EMA has been successfully applied in the water sector, particularly for assessing urban water management or operational dam plans (cf. Kalra et al. 2015 ; Giuliani and Castelletti 2016 ). While these applications demonstrate EMA’s effectiveness in addressing water management challenges, their focus on specific and data-rich areas limits their ability to capture the complex dynamics occurring across entire catchments. Therefore, applications that show how EMA can contribute to support robust decision-making in data-scarce and complex regions are still missing.

This study aims to illustrate the potential of EMA to design robust water management strategies and define operational ranges at the catchment scale under uncertain climate and socio-economic changes in data-scarce and complex mountain environments. Through a case study in the Peruvian Andes, water management strategies are assessed to avoid potential water scarcity by 2050. Such an approach transcends conventional modeling approaches, offering significant advantages for informed decision-making processes.

2 Study Site

The case study is situated in the headwaters of the Vilcanota-Urubamba Basin in Cusco, Peru, specifically in the glacierized and data-scarce Pitumarca catchment (685 km 2 ) (Fig.  1 -A). The catchment elevation ranges from 3,413 to 6,315 m a.s.l. with a glacier surface of 20.6 km 2 in 2016 which has decreased by about 30% in the last 40 years (INAIGEM 2018 ). The region is characterized by strong seasonality with most precipitation occurring from December to April and a pronounced dry season (June – August) when human and natural systems strongly rely on glacial meltwater (Buytaert et al. 2017 ; Drenkhan et al. 2019 ).

The Pitumarca catchment consists of two districts, Pitumarca and Checacupe, with 7,170 and 4,720 inhabitants, respectively (INEI 2020 ). The catchment covers only 59% of the Pitumarca district and 3% of the Checacupe district. The local economy considerably depends on traditional agriculture of potatoes, wheat, corn, and small-scale horticulture (INCLAM 2015 ). Approximately 45% (5,812 hectares) of cropland in both districts are irrigated, mostly with limited water infrastructure and inefficient practices such as flood irrigation (INCLAM 2015 ; INEI 2020 ).

Panel A Map of the study site including land cover – see Supplementary material S1 (MINAM 2015 ), the change in glacier surface from 1986 (see Sect. 3.1) to 2016 (INAIGEM 2018 ), as well as the lakes (ANA 2014 ) selected to be used as reservoirs (see Sect. 3.2). Panel B Schematic representation of the methods used in the study

3 Data and Methods

In this study, we used EMA to identify the operational ranges of two widely implemented water management strategies to avoid water scarcity, while considering uncertainties from hydrological simulation and climate and socio-economic projections by 2050 (Fig.  1 -B): (i) water reservoirs to increase water availability, and (ii) changes in water infrastructure efficiencies to reduce water losses.

3.1 Historical Glacio-Hydrological Simulation

Here we used the lumped and water balance model Shaman (Muñoz et al. 2021 ) because of its parsimonious approach and its successful application in the region (Muñoz et al. 2021 ). The model integrates surface and subsurface discharge, including a glacier routine that simulates the seasonal meltwater variability of tropical glaciers. The model accounts for sectorial water demand with backflows linked to water supply efficiencies (Supplementary material S2). We conducted calibration (1981–2000) and validation (2000–2016) at monthly time step, using multi-data calibration parameters and assessing runoff components (cf. Vetter et al. 2017 ; Muñoz et al. 2021 ). Glacier meltwater contribution to river discharge was compared to the regional dataset of Buytaert et al. ( 2017 ), while simulated runoff was compared to the national dataset on simulated river discharge by Llauca et al. ( 2021 ) (Supplementary material S3).

The Shaman model calculates water supply as a function of precipitation, potential evapotranspiration, and glacier discharge (Table  1 ). We obtained historical monthly precipitation and temperature data from the Peruvian-wide available 10 km gridded datasets PISCOp v2.1 and PISCOt v1.1, respectively (Huerta et al. 2018 ; Aybar et al. 2020 ). Potential evapotranspiration was calculated with the Penman-Monteith equation using the FAO calculator (Allen et al. 1998 ). Glacier discharge in Shaman is estimated through a sinusoidal function that depends on seasonal melting factors and glacier surface (Supplementary material S2). The latter was obtained by computing the Normalized Difference Snow Index (Hall and Riggs 2011 ) from multispectral satellite imagery of Landsat 5 (1987) and Landsat 7 (1998), and from the two Peruvian glacier inventories in 2010 and 2016 (cf. Muñoz et al. 2021 ).

We calculated historical domestic water demand by multiplying population data (from national censuses) with water allocation per person and day of 120 L/capita/day, an estimate that represents water needs for rural areas and considerable water losses (about 70%) in Peru (Drenkhan et al. 2019 ; Motschmann et al. 2022 ). Likewise, we calculated irrigation needs using irrigated areas (from national censuses) and the average catchment-wise crop water allocation of 18,000 m 3 /hectare/day that considers dominant crops such as potato, wheat, corn, and horticulture (INCLAM 2015 ). Catchment population and irrigated areas were a function of the district fraction inside the catchment because census data is available on a district level only. Environmental flow requirements were calculated as the equivalent of a discharge with 95% persistence (percentile 5%) at the catchment outlet assessed from 1981 to 2016 following an official methodology by the Peruvian Water Authority (R.J. N°098-2016-ANA).

The lumped Shaman model neglects spatial allocation of water, focusing instead on prioritized sectoral demands. Water is allocated first to domestic use, then to irrigation, and lastly to environmental needs.

3.2 Setting the Problem

In EMA all variables are categorized as uncertainties (X), policy levers (L), relationships (R), or metrics (M) using the XLRM framework (Lempert et al. 2003 ; Bankes et al. 2013 ). It structures variables into testable hypotheses to determine the operational range for policy options, while also accounting for uncertainties. In the case study, each input data to the hydrological model was considered as an uncertainty, namely future climate scenarios (X1_sce), future population (X2_pop), future irrigated areas (X3_irr), and backflows from domestic (X4_backd) and agricultural (X5_backi) water systems. We also defined three policy levers as changes in the efficiency from irrigation (L1_irreff) and domestic (L2_domeff) water systems, and water reservoir schemes (L3_res). Next, we defined variability ranges for uncertainties and policies (Table  2 ) based on diverse criteria (see following paragraphs). These uncertainties and policies then served as input data for the calibrated Shaman model, which accounts for the relationships (R) among these factors. Finally, the model output (metric M) is used for further analysis of policy performance. In the case study, this metric measures water sufficiency by counting the number of months in the dry season (May to September, 2022 to 2050) where total water supply exceeds 80% of total water demand including environmental flow requirements. The 80% considers that not all water demands can be fulfilled because of real-world limitations, as documented in local reports (INEI 2018 ).

We used future climate series for precipitation and temperature (X1_sce) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (O’Neill et al. 2016 ), bias-correcting them with the quantile-quantile mapping method (Teutschbein and Seibert 2013 ; Andres et al. 2014 ). Glacier surface by 2050 was estimated according to Schauwecker et al. ( 2017 ) using projected changes in the freezing level heights derived from future temperature data. Future population (X2_pop) and irrigated areas (X3_irr) were calculated by applying rates of change, derived from the SSP database 2.0 (Riahi et al. 2017 ) and governmental projections (INEI 2019 ) at country scale, to historical data. X3_irr was exclusively derived from SSP scenarios due to the absence of local data from governmental reports. As backflows from the domestic and agricultural water systems (X4_backd, X5_backi) are widely uncertain (Cunha et al. 2019 ), an arbitrary range of 10 − 50% was set to represent the efficiency degree in the region (Drenkhan et al. 2019 ; Motschmann et al. 2022 ).

Changes in irrigation (L1_irreff) and domestic water use (L2_domeff) efficiencies were considered in a wide range considering both, currently low efficiencies and future scenarios with high efficiencies driven by new technical development, e.g. drip irrigation (cf. INCLAM 2015 ; Drenkhan et al. 2019 ). We considered four reservoir management schemes (L3_res), ranging from no reservoirs to scenarios that combine one large reservoir with the utilization of multiple smaller lakes. All schemes uniformly released water solely during the dry season. The size of the large reservoir was set to 10 km 2 representing a medium-sized lake in the region. Small lakes were selected according to their proximity to downstream areas where water demands are high (Fig.  1 ). Due to the lack of bathymetric data, small lake volumes were estimated using lake area and an empirical relationship between lake width and mean depth following Muñoz et al. ( 2020 ).

3.3 Operationalization and Scenario Discovery

We used the open-source Python library Exploratory Modeling and Analysis Workbench (ema-workbench) (Kwakkel 2017 ) to systematically run simulations and assess results. First, we integrated the calibrated Shaman model into the ema-workbench to conduct 12,000 simulations from 2022 to 2050 and calculated the water sufficiency metric. Each simulation combined uncertainties and policies from their respective ranges of variability using a Latin Hypercube sampling strategy. Second, we used the feature-scoring algorithm (Guyon 2003 ) to illustrate how uncertainties and policies influence the variability of the metric via a heatmap. Subsequently, we employed the Patient Rule Induction Method (PRIM) algorithm (Friedman and Fisher 1999 ) to explore the uncertainty and policy space and to identify combinations of factors triggering water sufficiency values exceeding or falling below a pre-defined water security threshold. This threshold was set as insufficient water supply, defined as water supply dropping below water demand levels within a specific period, where threshold = 1 (100%) means water supply > water demand every month until 2050. In the domestic water sector, utilities aim for 75 to 90% (0.75 to 0.90) of temporal water supply (Kalra et al. 2015 ; SUNASS 2022 ). For irrigation, temporal water supply varies by crops and weather conditions making it difficult to obtain a single target value (Levy et al. 2013 ). Regarding the environmental flow requirements, no target value is available due to data and knowledge gaps in the Andes. In this context, we applied a unique threshold of 0.8 (80%) for both human and environmental needs at the catchment scale. That means policies where metric < 0.8 are considered unsuccessful in avoiding water scarcity, while those where metric > = 0.8 are considered successful. This approach, known as stress-testing (Moallemi et al. 2020 ), has been commonly applied in other EMA applications.

4.1 Future Hydroclimatic and Socio-Economic Development

The analysis of 15 future climate series reveals significant changes in precipitation, temperature, and glacier dynamics (Table  3 and Supplementary material S5), aligning with other research in the region (cf. Andres et al. 2014 ; Buytaert et al. 2017 ; Drenkhan et al. 2019 ). Between the historical and projected period up to 2050, an increase in total annual precipitation of up to 5% is observed under various SSP scenarios, except SSP1-1.9, which shows no significant change. Mean air temperatures are expected to rise by 1.2 °C to 1.9 °C, contributing to increased freezing level heights by up to 296 m and considerable glacier area reductions of up to 52%. Runoff simulations indicate a wide range across scenarios, with a significant increase at the annual scale under SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5, and a marked decrease in dry season runoff under SSP5-8.5. Overall, glacier contribution to total annual runoff in the Pitumarca catchment is expected to decline reducing its buffering capacity during the dry season.

Calculated environmental flow requirements range between 1.7 m 3 /s in July and 14.7 m 3 /s in February. These estimates correspond to approximately 50% of monthly discharge in all months (Supplementary material S6) and align with global estimates that vary between 20 and 50% (cf. Smakhtin et al. 2004 ).

Overall, 42 lakes were identified in the Pitumarca catchment which range from 0.5 to 10 hectares (total area: 0.91 km 2 ) with an estimated total volume of 4.38 million m 3 (Supplementary material S7). From these, 22 lakes (2.25 million m 3 ) are near the high-demand lower catchment and were selected as potential reservoirs (Fig.  1 ).

Population dynamics show SSP scenarios projecting a decline of up to 10% in contrast with governmental projections that report an increase of up to 30% in comparison with 2016 levels. For all SSP scenarios, an expansion of irrigated areas between 5% and 35% is projected from 2017.

4.2 Scenario Discovery and Exploration

Simulations without policy implementation (Fig.  2 -A and B) show that population changes have little impact on changes in water scarcity due to the low proportion (∼10%) of the domestic sector on overall water demand. However, expanding irrigated areas increases the risk of water scarcity (Fig.  2 -A). In addition, climate scenarios (Fig.  2 -B) potentially exert a strong influence on water scarcity levels. While optimistic scenarios such as SSP1-2.6 can prevent water scarcity, the pessimistic SSP5-8.5 scenario frequently leads to levels below the water scarcity threshold.

When considering all uncertainties and policies, out of 12,000 simulations, in 57% of these metric ≥ 0.8 showing success in avoiding water scarcity, while 43% of simulations failed (Supplementary material S8). The heatmap (Fig.  2 -C) ranks all factors affecting the water sufficiency metric across the 12,000 simulations, showing policies, particularly the reservoir scheme (L3_res) and irrigation efficiency (L1_irreff), as key influencers. This suggests that rather than uncertainties specific policies play a decisive role in water scarcity in the catchment (Poff et al. 2016 ; Drenkhan et al. 2022 ). In 32% of all simulations, policies have considerably improved the metric values. However, in 15% of all cases initially above the 0.8 threshold, policies had contributed to water scarcity. This highlights the importance of identifying operational ranges to avoid unsuccessful cases (Haasnoot et al. 2013 ; Poff et al. 2016 ). Figure  2 -D, based on the analysis of successful against unsuccessful cases from the PRIM algorithm, shows that while factors L1_irreff and L3_res are consistently important in both cases, other factors differ (e.g. X2_pop for unsuccessful cases, X1_sce for successful cases) (e.g. Haasnoot et al. 2013 ; Buytaert et al. 2017 ). Figure  2 -D also shows the operational ranges for each of the factors with their statistical significance, confirming the key roles of L1_irreff and L3_res (Supplementary material S8).

Panel A : metric values from simulations without policy implementation plotted in terms of change in population and irrigated areas with boxplots showing their variability. Panel B : simulations without policy implementation plotted according to the climate scenarios indicating the percentage of simulations from each scenario where the metric is above (success) or below (fail) the threshold. Panel C : heatmap that shows the influence (0 to 1) of each uncertainty (X) and policy (L) on the variability of the metric. Panel D : operational ranges and statistical significance of each of the relevant factors according to successful ( > = 0.8) or unsuccessful (< 0.8) cases. Go to Table  2 for description of variables

Building on results from the PRIM algorithm, Fig.  3 shows the successful (Fig.  3 -A) and unsuccessful (Fig.  3 -B) cases to avoid water scarcity. Scatter plots are a 2-dimensional representation of an 8-dimensional problem (five uncertainties and three policies) that facilitates the analysis. Overall, Fig.  3 highlights specific combination of factors that helps to avoid water scarcity. For instance, in Fig.  3 -A, the combination of X1_sce with L2_domeff does not show a particular region where metrics are below or above the threshold. In contrast, X1_sce with L1_irreff or L3_res shows specific operational ranges to avoid water scarcity (L1_irreff > 0.45 and L3_res > 1).

Scatter plots also show the operational ranges to achieve metric ≥ 0.8 acknowledging overlaps between the analysis of successful and unsuccessful cases from Fig.  2 -D. In Fig.  3 -A, the scatter plot of L1_irreff and L3_res outlines a broad operational range, although much of this range overlaps with water scarcity regions, as shown in the corresponding scatter plot in Fig.  3 -B. Therefore, for this case study, decision-makers should focus on results from Fig.  3 -B where the operational range suggests two water strategies to avoid water scarcity: (i) high irrigation efficiency (> 0.63) with the large reservoir, or (ii) medium irrigation efficiency (> 0.45) with the large reservoir plus lakes as additional reservoirs.

Scatter plots depicting the influence of selected factors (policies or uncertainties) on metric values, grouped by focus on successful (Panel A ) or unsuccessful (Panel B ) cases in avoiding water scarcity. The red rectangle highlights operational ranges. Density functions further reveal trends of each factor. Go to Table  2 for description of variables

5 Discussion

5.1 identifying water management strategies in a data-scarce context.

As for other mountain regions, the Pitumarca catchment illustrates the challenges posed by data scarcity and deep uncertainties that hinder the application of e.g. probabilistic approaches to support water management. Although the lack of hydrometeorological measurements can be increasingly compensated by satellite data, considerable errors and uncertainties persist (Vetter et al. 2017 ; Aybar et al. 2020 ). Similarly, multitemporal and locally available socio-economic data are often lacking and had to be estimated using broader-scale data points. Projections for both climatic and socio-economic conditions by 2050 exhibited variability and partially contradictory results. For instance, while the Peruvian government projects a population decrease by 2060 (INEI 2019 ), SSPs data projects this to occur before 2050 (Riahi et al. 2017 ).

Despite the deep uncertainty context, EMA leveraged the decision-making process by identifying the critical factors that influence the metric (policies L1_irreff and L3_res) and by reducing the analysis to select these factors (Bryant and Lempert 2010 ). While policies proved to be the most influential in the case study, uncertainties might dominate in other cases. The latter could be a signal of a need for model improvements. Alternatively, chosen policies might not perform well due to changing conditions, e.g. historically successful policies failing under changing climate conditions (Berkhout et al. 2014 ; Poff et al. 2016 ). Evaluating policies across many scenarios (e.g. 12,000 simulations) helps decision-makers to identify weaknesses and guide decision-makers to explore new, potentially, more effective policies (van Vuuren et al. 2012 ; Marchau et al. 2019 ).

EMA results highlighted that some policies can unintentionally lead to the risk of increased water scarcity which links to recent concerns about maladaptation (IPCC et al. 2018 ; Kundzewicz et al. 2018 ; Aggarwal et al. 2022 ). Identifying such potential failures is challenging due to the complexity of social-ecological systems. For instance, Fig.  2 -A shows a three-dimensional problem where patterns are identifiable, such as the little influence of population in the metric. However, with an increasing number of dimensions (8-dimensions problem in this case study), it becomes much harder to identify these patterns. While statistical tools, e.g. principal component analysis or cluster analysis, help to understand these multidimensional problems, they do not explicitly identify the related operational ranges.

EMA tackles multidimensionality with the PRIM algorithm by searching for a combination of policies and uncertainties that best cluster cases above or below the water security threshold (Bryant and Lempert 2010 ; Kwakkel 2017 ). The degree of clustering is expressed as coverage, so a high coverage value (like 0.8 in Fig.  3 -B) means more successful cases within the identified operational range, but also a higher risk of including undesired cases (Bryant and Lempert 2010 ). Consequently, EMA does not identify the best or optimal solution rather than a solution that works well in most scenarios (Bankes et al. 2013 ; Kwakkel and Pruyt 2013 ). While selected operational ranges might still include unsuccessful policies, EMA highlights these for further investigation, allowing researchers and decision-makers to refine strategies and identify which conditions will trigger policy failure.

5.2 EMA in Water Management: Key Considerations

5.2.1 uncertainties.

EMA can theoretically handle as many uncertainties as needed (e.g. Kalra et al. 2015 ; Giuliani and Castelletti 2016 ). However, exploring a large set of variables demands time and computing resources that must be considered (Moallemi et al. 2020 ), so users need to carefully select variables relevant to their objectives. While defining ranges for each uncertainty is important, EMA does not require highly accurate values (e.g. Kalra et al. 2015 ). These ranges can be calculated (e.g., climatic projections in this case study) or estimated through sensitivity analysis. Broad ranges are also a viable option, an advantage in data-scarce regions (Moges et al. 2021 ; Motschmann et al. 2022 ). For instance, EMA applications in Peru assessed the vulnerabilities of water plans using future precipitation ranges from − 60% to + 90% without specifying climate scenarios (Kalra et al. 2015 ).

5.2.2 Policy Levers

EMA focuses on testing policies across a broad spectrum of uncertainties, not designing new policies (Lempert et al. 2003 ; Marchau et al. 2019 ). Consequently, results depend on policy details. For instance, EMA might suggest high irrigation efficiencies to avoid water scarcity, but the lack of detailed information hinders policy implementation (Schneiderbauer et al. 2021 ). Maintaining clarity regarding the relationships between policies, uncertainties, and metrics is crucial (Lempert et al. 2003 ; Bankes et al. 2013 ). Infrastructure policies are generally easier to assess in hydrological models, while others like governance might require extra steps for operationalization. Selecting and adjusting policies for EMA demands collaboration between scholars and decision-makers, underscoring a pivotal aspect of effective water management (Cosgrove and Loucks 2015 ; Scott et al. 2021 ).

5.2.3 Metric and Threshold

The selection of the metric(s) and threshold(s) is crucial for EMA, as these determine the criteria to categorize system performance as successful or unsuccessful (Kwakkel and Pruyt 2013 ; Marchau et al. 2019 ). For instance, we focused only on water access, neglecting economic and social feasibility. As a result, EMA suggests the implementation of a large reservoir to avoid water scarcity, but its construction could be socially, environmentally, or financially challenging (Haeberli et al. 2016 ). By considering multiple metrics that address these concerns, potential trade-offs can be identified allowing for an informed selection of policies (Ucler and Kocken 2023 ).

Thresholds should be viewed as points on a gradient rather than fixed tipping points, as a marginal improvement in the system may lead to a shift from unsuccessful to successful cases (Bankes et al. 2013 ; Haasnoot et al. 2013 ). But thresholds can also help to incorporate the IPCC ( 2018 ) risk framework e.g. to identify the acceptable risk to unmet water demands. Changing the threshold can yield different outcomes, prompting users to assess and understand the implications of such changes (Kwakkel and Pruyt 2013 ).

5.2.4 Relationships

Choosing the hydrological model is key in evaluating water management strategies and their effectiveness (Vetter et al. 2017 ; Moges et al. 2021 ). In the case study, a lumped model was used, thus not allowing for a spatial analysis. Semi-distributed models would offer more detailed insights by considering the spatio-temporal distribution of water access and availability (Moges et al. 2021 ). Socio-hydrological models go further, integrating socio-economic factors to assess e.g. governance strategies (Berkhout et al. 2014 ; Scott et al. 2021 ). While the ema-workbench supports the integration with external software, Python-based models offer easier implementation but might have limitations in representing real-world complexities.

5.3 Beyond EMA: Links with Other Tools and Methods

EMA can complement and benefit from existing optimization and uncertainty reduction methods. Optimization methods (e.g. Vetter et al. 2017 ; Ucler and Kocken 2023 ; Wang et al. 2024 ), can identify viable strategies for specific scenarios. Then, EMA evaluates these strategies across uncertainties to identify weaknesses and operational ranges. Additionally, methods such as sensitivity analyses (e.g. Huss and Hock 2018 ; Moges et al. 2021 ) can help to find the ranges of uncertainties for exploration. Furthermore, collaborative approaches (e.g. Muccione et al. 2019 ), can be effective in delineating policies, metrics, and their associated thresholds through the engagement of policy-makers and stakeholders (Schneiderbauer et al. 2021 ; Hasan et al. 2023 ). This comprehensive approach allows practitioners to benefit from the diverse array of available tools in water management to identify robust solutions.

In this study, a stress-testing approach was adopted to implement EMA. However, other approaches are also available, such as the worst-case scenario discovery or the many-objective optimization (cf. Moallemi et al. 2020 ). Finally, the dynamic policy pathways (Haasnoot et al. 2013 ) can further assist policy-makers in adapting strategies based on new information, e.g. adjusting plans if precipitation patterns change.

6 Conclusions

In this study, Exploratory Modeling and Analysis (EMA) is employed to address the challenges of water management in mountain regions under uncertain future climate and socio-economic scenarios. The case study in the Peruvian Andes demonstrates the effectiveness of EMA to identify robust water management strategies that can accommodate a range of uncertain outcomes. Furthermore, EMA can support the identification of operational ranges of water policies. This allows to address deep uncertainties and avoid cases that trigger maladaptation. Although all factors assessed within EMA are important (uncertainties, policies, metrics, and relationship), metrics and their thresholds are key factors as they classify policies as successful or unsuccessful to achieve water security. EMA is suggested to complement existing methods based on probabilistic approaches. Further studies should delve into the integration of semi-distributed socio-hydrological models in EMA to assess non-infrastructural-based policies, such as changes in governance and water culture.

Data Availability

Statistical analysis and others are available in the Supplementary material while time series is available from the corresponding author RM upon request.

Adler C, Wester P, Bhatt I et al (2023) Cross-chapter Paper 5: mountains. In: Pörtner H-O, Roberts DC, Tignor M et al (eds) Climate Change 2022: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, pp 2273–2318

Google Scholar  

Aggarwal A, Frey H, McDowell G et al (2022) Adaptation to climate change induced water stress in major glacierized mountain regions. Clim Dev 14:665–677. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2021.1971059

Article   Google Scholar  

Allen RG, Pereira LS, Raes D, Smith M (1998) ETc - single crop coefficient (kc). Crop evapotranspiration - guidelines for computing crop water requirements, FAO Irriga. FAO, Rome, pp 103–134

ANA (2014) Inventario De Lagunas Glaciares Del Perú. Autoridad Nacional del Agua, Lima, Perú

Andres N, Vegas Galdos F, Lavado W, Zappa M (2014) Water resources and climate change impact modelling on a daily time scale in the Peruvian Andes. Hydrol Sci J 59:2043–2059. https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2013.862336

Aybar C, Fernández C, Huerta A et al (2020) Construction of a high-resolution gridded rainfall dataset for Peru from 1981 to the present day. Hydrol Sci J 65:770–785. https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2019.1649411

Bankes S, Walker WE, Kwakkel JH (2013) Exploratory modeling and analysis. Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science. Springer US, Boston, MA, pp 532–537

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Bryant BP, Lempert RJ (2010) Thinking inside the box: a participatory, computer-assisted approach to scenario discovery. Technol Forecast Soc Change 77:34–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2009.08.002

Buytaert W, Moulds S, Acosta L et al (2017) Glacial melt content of water use in the tropical Andes. Environ Res Lett 12:114014. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa926c

Correa A, Ochoa-Tocachi BF, Birkel C et al (2020) A concerted research effort to advance the hydrological understanding of tropical páramos. Hydrol Process 34:4609–4627. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.13904

Cosgrove WJ, Loucks DP (2015) Water management: current and future challenges and research directions. Water Resour Res 51:4823–4839. https://doi.org/10.1002/2014WR016869

Cunha H, Loureiro D, Sousa G et al (2019) A comprehensive water balance methodology for collective irrigation systems. Agric Water Manag 223:105660. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2019.05.044

Doblas-Reyes FJ, Sörensson AA, Almazroui M et al (2023) Linking global to Regional Climate Change. In: Masson-Delmotte V, Zhai P, Pirani A et al (eds) The physical science basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp 1363–1512

Drenkhan F, Buytaert W, Mackay JD et al (2022) Looking beyond glaciers to understand mountain water security. Nat Sustain 6:130–138. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00996-4

Drenkhan F, Huggel C, Guardamino L, Haeberli W (2019) Managing risks and future options from new lakes in the deglaciating Andes of Peru: the example of the Vilcanota-Urubamba basin. Sci Total Environ 665:465–483. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.070

Article   CAS   Google Scholar  

Friedman JH, Fisher NI (1999) Bump hunting in high-dimensional data. Stat Comput 9:123–143. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008894516817

Giuliani M, Castelletti A (2016) Is robustness really robust? How different definitions of robustness impact decision-making under climate change. Clim Change 135:409–424. https://doi.org/10.1007/S10584-015-1586-9/FIGURES/6

Guyon I (2003) An introduction to variable and feature selection. J Mach Learn Res 3:1157–1182

Haasnoot M, Kwakkel JH, Walker WE, ter Maat J (2013) Dynamic adaptive policy pathways: a method for crafting robust decisions for a deeply uncertain world. Glob Environ Change 23:485–498. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.12.006

Haeberli W, Buetler M, Huggel C et al (2016) New lakes in deglaciating high-mountain regions – opportunities and risks. Clim Change 139:201–214. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1771-5

Hall DK, Riggs GA (2011) Normalized-Difference Snow Index (NDSI). In: Encyclopedia of snow, ice and glaciers. Springer Netherlands, pp 779–780

Hasan N, Pushpalatha R, Manivasagam VS et al (2023) Global sustainable Water Management: a systematic qualitative review. Water Resour Manage 37:5255–5272. https://doi.org/10.1007/S11269-023-03604-Y/TABLES/1

Hock R, Rasul G, Adler C et al (2019) High Mountain Areas. In: IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate. pp 7–22

Huerta A, Aybar C, Lavado-Casimiro W (2018) PISCO temperatura versión 1.1. Lima, Peru

Huss M, Hock R (2018) Global-scale hydrological response to future glacier mass loss. Nat Clim Chang 8:135–140. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-017-0049-x

INAIGEM (2018) Inventario Nacional De Glaciares - Las Cordilleras Glaciares Del Perú, 1st edn. Huaraz, Peru

INCLAM (2015) Evaluación de recursos hídricos en la cuenca de Urubamba. Autoridad Nacional del Agua, Lima, Peru

INEI (2018) Perú: Formas De Acceso Al Agua Y Saneamiento Básico. Lima, Peru

INEI (2019) Perú: Estimaciones Y Proyecciones De La Poblacion Nacional, 1950–2070. Lima, Peru

INEI (2020) Sistemas de Consulta. In: INEI Peru. https://www.inei.gob.pe/sistemas-consulta/ . Accessed 7 Jun 2022

IPCC (2018) Summary for policymakers. In: Masson-Delmotte V, Zhai P, Pörtner HO et al (eds) Global warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, p 32p

Kalra N, Groves DG, Bonzanigo L et al (2015) Robust Decision-Making in the Water Sector

Kundzewicz ZW, Krysanova V, Benestad RE et al (2018) Uncertainty in climate change impacts on water resources. Environ Sci Policy 79:1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2017.10.008

Kwakkel JH (2017) The exploratory modeling workbench: an open source toolkit for exploratory modeling, scenario discovery, and (multi-objective) robust decision making. Environ Model Softw 96:239–250. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2017.06.054

Kwakkel JH, Pruyt E (2013) Exploratory Modeling and Analysis, an approach for model-based foresight under deep uncertainty. Technol Forecast Soc Change 80:419–431. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2012.10.005

Lempert RJ (2019) Robust decision making (RDM). In: Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty

Lempert RJ, Popper SW, Bankes SC (2003) A framework for scenario generation. Shaping the Next one hundred years: New methods for quantitative, long-term policy. RAND, Santa Monica, CA, pp 69–87

Levy D, Coleman WK, Veilleux RE (2013) Adaptation of potato to Water shortage: Irrigation Management and Enhancement of Tolerance to Drought and Salinity. Am J Potato Res 90:186–206. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12230-012-9291-y

Llauca H, Lavado-Casimiro W, Montesinos C et al (2021) PISCO_HyM_GR2M: a model of Monthly Water Balance in Peru (1981–2020). Water (Basel) 13:1048. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13081048

Marchau VAWJ, Walker WE, Bloemen PJTM, Popper Editors SW (2019) Decision making under deep uncertainty. Springer International Publishing, Cham

Book   Google Scholar  

McMillan HK, Westerberg IK, Krueger T (2018) Hydrological data uncertainty and its implications. WIREs Water 5:e1319. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1319

MINAM (2015) Mapa Nacional De cobertura vegetal: memoria descriptiva. MINAM, Ed.; Primera Ed

Moallemi EA, Kwakkel J, de Haan FJ, Bryan BA (2020) Exploratory modeling for analyzing coupled human-natural systems under uncertainty. Glob Environ Change 65:102186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102186

Moges E, Demissie Y, Larsen L, Yassin F (2021) Review: sources of hydrological model uncertainties and advances in their analysis. Water (Basel) 13

Motschmann A, Teutsch C, Huggel C et al (2022) Current and future water balance for coupled human-natural systems – insights from a glacierized catchment in Peru. J Hydrol Reg Stud 41:101063. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2022.101063

Muccione V, Huggel C, Bresch DN et al (2019) Joint knowledge production in climate change adaptation networks. Curr Opin Environ Sustain 39:147–152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2019.09.011

Muñoz R, Huggel C, Frey H et al (2020) Glacial lake depth and volume estimation based on a large bathymetric dataset from the Cordillera Blanca, Peru. Earth Surf Process Landf 45:1510–1527. https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.4826

Muñoz R, Huggel C, Drenkhan F et al (2021) Comparing model complexity for glacio-hydrological simulation in the data-scarce Peruvian Andes. J Hydrol Reg Stud 37:100932. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2021.100932

O’Neill BC, Tebaldi C, van Vuuren DP et al (2016) The scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) for CMIP6. Geosci Model Dev 9:3461–3482. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-3461-2016

Poff NL, Brown CM, Grantham TE et al (2016) Sustainable water management under future uncertainty with eco-engineering decision scaling. Nat Clim Chang 6:25–34. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2765

Riahi K, van Vuuren DP, Kriegler E et al (2017) The Shared Socioeconomic pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: an overview. Glob Environ Change 42:153–168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.05.009

Schauwecker S, Rohrer M, Huggel C et al (2017) The freezing level in the tropical Andes, Peru: an indicator for present and future glacier extents. J Geophys Research: Atmos 122:5172–5189. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025943

Schneiderbauer S, Fontanella Pisa P, Delves JL et al (2021) Risk perception of climate change and natural hazards in global mountain regions: a critical review. Sci Total Environ 784:146957. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146957

Scott CA, Zilio MI, Harmon T et al (2021) Do ecosystem insecurity and social vulnerability lead to failure of water security? Environ Dev 38:100606. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envdev.2020.100606

Shah SH (2021) How is water security conceptualized and practiced for rural livelihoods in the global South? A systematic scoping review. Water Policy 23:1129–1152. https://doi.org/10.2166/wp.2021.054

Smakhtin V, Revenga C, Döll P (2004) A Pilot Global Assessment of Environmental Water Requirements and scarcity. Water Int 29:307–317. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060408691785

SUNASS (2022) Indicadores de gestión de las EPS. https://www.sunass.gob.pe/prestadores/empresas-prestadoras/indicadores-de-gestion/#1600223711840-09ce8705-08d4 . Accessed 10 Aug 2022

Teutschbein C, Seibert J (2013) Is bias correction of regional climate model (RCM) simulations possible for non-stationary conditions. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 17:5061–5077. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-17-5061-2013

Ucler N, Kocken H (2023) A scenario-based interval multi-objective mixed-integer Programming Model for a Water Supply Problem: an Integrated AHP technique. Water Resour Manage 37:5973–5988. https://doi.org/10.1007/S11269-023-03638-2/FIGURES/8

van den Berkhout F, Bessembinder J et al (2014) Framing climate uncertainty: Socio-economic and climate scenarios in vulnerability and adaptation assessments. Reg Environ Change 14:879–893. https://doi.org/10.1007/S10113-013-0519-2/FIGURES/6

van Vuuren DP, Kok MTJ, Girod B et al (2012) Scenarios in Global Environmental assessments: key characteristics and lessons for future use. Glob Environ Change 22:884–895. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.06.001

Vetter T, Reinhardt J, Flörke M et al (2017) Evaluation of sources of uncertainty in projected hydrological changes under climate change in 12 large-scale river basins. Clim Change 141:419–433. https://doi.org/10.1007/S10584-016-1794-Y/FIGURES/3

Wang T, Zhai J, Li H et al (2024) A two-stage Stochastic Water resources Planning Approach with fuzzy boundary interval based on Risk Control and Balanced Development. Water Resour Manage 38:835–860. https://doi.org/10.1007/S11269-023-03673-Z/FIGURES/5

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Associate Editor and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments to improve the quality of this paper.

Open access funding provided by University of Zurich. This study was part of a PhD project funded by the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship for Foreign Scholars and Artists (2018.07.02). MJS was funded by the University of Zurich University Research Priority Program in Global Change and Biodiversity.

Open access funding provided by University of Zurich

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, Zürich, 8057, Switzerland

R. Muñoz, S. A. Vaghefi, M. J. Santos, D. Viviroli, V. Muccione & C. Huggel

Department of Banking and Finance, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

S. A. Vaghefi

Eawag: Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science, Dübendorf, Switzerland

WMO: World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, Switzerland

Geography and the Environment, Department of Humanities, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru

F. Drenkhan

Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland

V. Muccione

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

Randy Muñoz: Conceptualization, Data curation, Methodology, Visualization, Software, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft. Saeid Ashraf: Methodology, Visualization, Software, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing. Fabian Drenkhan: Visualization, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing. Veruska Muccione: Visualization, Writing – review & editing. Daniel Viviroli: Visualization, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing. Maria J. Santos: Visualization, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing. Christian Huggel: Conceptualization, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – review & editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to R. Muñoz .

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval.

Not applicable.

Consent to Participate

Consent to publish, competing interests.

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary Material 1

Rights and permissions.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Muñoz, R., Vaghefi, S.A., Drenkhan, F. et al. Assessing Water Management Strategies in Data-Scarce Mountain Regions under Uncertain Climate and Socio-Economic Changes. Water Resour Manage (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-024-03853-5

Download citation

Received : 02 January 2024

Accepted : 04 April 2024

Published : 13 April 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-024-03853-5

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Climate change
• Socio-economic change
• Deep uncertainty
• Exploratory modeling and analysis
• Water management
• Social-ecological system
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

• Open access
• Published: 09 April 2024

Creating culturally-informed protocols for a stunting intervention using a situated values-based approach ( WeValue InSitu ): a double case study in Indonesia and Senegal

• Annabel J. Chapman 1 ,
• Chike C. Ebido 2 , 3 ,
• Rahel Neh Tening 2 ,
• Yanyan Huang 2 ,
• Ndèye Marème Sougou 4 ,
• Risatianti Kolopaking 5 , 6 ,
• Amadou H. Diallo 7 ,
• Rita Anggorowati 6 , 8 ,
• Fatou B. Dial 9 ,
• Jessica Massonnié 10 , 11 ,
• Mahsa Firoozmand 1 ,
• Cheikh El Hadji Abdoulaye Niang 9 &
• Marie K. Harder 1 , 2  

BMC Public Health volume  24 , Article number:  987 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

184 Accesses

Metrics details

International development work involves external partners bringing expertise, resources, and management for local interventions in LMICs, but there is often a gap in understandings of relevant local shared values. There is a widespread need to better design interventions which accommodate relevant elements of local culture, as emphasised by recent discussions in global health research regarding neo-colonialism. One recent innovation is the concept of producing ‘cultural protocols’ to precede and guide community engagement or intervention design, but without suggestions for generating them. This study explores and demonstrates the potential of an approach taken from another field, named WeValue InSitu , to generate local culturally-informed protocols. WeValue InSitu engages stakeholder groups in meaning-making processes which ‘crystallize’ their envelope of local shared values, making them communicable to outsiders.

Our research context is understanding and reducing child stunting, including developing interventions, carried out at the Senegal and Indonesia sites of the UKRI GCRF Action Against Stunting Hub. Each national research team involves eight health disciplines from micro-nutrition to epigenetics, and extensive collection of samples and questionnaires. Local culturally-informed protocols would be generally valuable to pre-inform engagement and intervention designs. Here we explore generating them by immediately following the group WeValue InSitu crystallization process with specialised focus group discussions exploring: what local life practices potentially have significant influence on the environments affecting child stunting, and which cultural elements do they highlight as relevant. The discussions will be framed by the shared values, and reveal linkages to them. In this study, stakeholder groups like fathers, mothers, teachers, market traders, administrators, farmers and health workers were recruited, totalling 83 participants across 20 groups. Themes found relevant for a culturally-informed protocol for locally-acceptable food interventions included: specific gender roles; social hierarchies; health service access challenges; traditional beliefs around malnutrition; and attitudes to accepting outside help. The concept of a grounded culturally-informed protocol, and the use of WeValue InSitu to generate it, has thus been demonstrated here. Future work to scope out the advantages and limitations compared to deductive culture studies, and to using other formative research methods would now be useful.

Peer Review reports

Although progress has been made towards the SDG of ‘Zero Hunger by 2025’, the global rates of malnutrition and stunting are still high [ 1 ]. Over the past 20 years, researchers have implemented interventions to reduce undernutrition, specifically focussing on the first 1000 days of life, from conception to 24 months [ 2 ]. However, due to both differing determinants between countries [ 3 , 4 ] as well as varying contextual factors, it is clear that no single fixed approach or combination of approaches can be relied on when implementing stunting interventions [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. Furthermore, when external researchers design interventions for local areas in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) they can often overlook relevant local cultural factors that consequently act as barriers to intervention uptake and reduce their effectiveness, such as geographical factors and the levels of migration in certain populations [ 8 , 9 ], or social norms or perceptions relating to accepting outside help, and power dynamics related to gender [ 10 , 11 , 12 ]. The inclusion of cultural level factors in behaviour change interventions has been proposed as a requirement for effective interventions [ 13 ]. However, despite the breadth of literature highlighting the negative impacts from failing to do this, the lack of integration or even regard of local culture remains a persistent problem in Global Health Research [ 14 ], possibly hindering progress towards the SDGs. Thus, there is a need for approaches to integrate local cultural elements into intervention design.

This lack of understanding of relevant local culture, social norms and shared values also has ethical implications. The field of Global Health Ethics was predominantly developed in the Global North, in High Income Countries (HICs), embedding values common in those countries such as the prominence of individual autonomy [ 15 , 16 ]. Researchers from HICs carrying out research in LMICs may wrongly assume that values held in the Global North are universal [ 14 ] and disregard some local values, such as those related to family and collective decision making, which are core to many communities in LMICs. It is therefore important for outside researchers to have an understanding of relevant local values, culture and social norms before conducting research in LMICs so as not to impose values that do not align with local culture and inadvertently cause harm or offence [ 16 , 17 ]. The importance of this is compounded by the colonial history that is often present in relationships between research communities in HICs and LMICs, and the fact that the majority of the funding and leading institutions are still located in the Global North [ 18 , 19 ]. Thus, conscious steps must be taken to avoid neo-colonialism in Global Health Research [ 20 ]. From a health-equity perspective, it is essential to ensure that those in vulnerable communities are not hindered from involvement in interventions to improve nutrition. Encouraging uptake by such communities could be provided if salient local shared values, norms and culture were taken into account [ 21 ].

In a recent paper, Memon et al., (2021) highlight the usefulness of first creating a cultural protocol that can precede and guide subsequent stages of community engagement or intervention design to ensure that salient local values are known to external researchers coming into the community [ 16 ]. We adopt the use of the concept of a cultural protocol, referring to locally-generated guidance about key values, norms, behaviours and customs relevant to working with the local community. However, we prefer the term, ‘culturally-informed protocol’ since this relates to only cultural elements deemed salient by the researchers, and locally, rather than any comprehensive notion of culture, nor extending beyond the research context.

Memon et al. (2021), point out links between the creation of such a protocol and existing codes of practice that have already been created for some cultures such as the Te Ara Tika, a Guideline for Māori Research Ethics [ 22 ]. Currently, research and interventions in Global Health can be informed by a stage of formative research involving one-to-one interviews, focus groups or direct observations, which can sometimes be ethnographic in nature such as within Focussed Ethnographic Studies or Rapid Assessment Procedures [ 23 , 24 , 25 ]. Although these methods can be effective to inform intervention designs, they have disadvantages like: can take long periods to complete [ 26 ], can be resource intensive [ 26 ] and can lack cultural acceptability [ 27 ]. These limitations may account for the frequent neglect of their use generally, highlighted by Aubel and Chibanda (2022) [ 14 ]. Additionally, none of these methods work towards making explicit local values, or towards the creation of a culturally-informed protocol. In brief, the literature suggests a need to develop alternative methods of Formative Research for understanding locally relevant cultural elements, that are less time-consuming and can generate data that is more easily translatable to intervention design. In addition, these approaches must be applicable in different cultures. Additionally, the protocols produced must be actionable and practical not only for guiding interactions between research teams but also for guiding the initial stages of intervention design.

The work presented here aims to address several of these needs. It includes an exploration of the usefulness of the WeValue InSitu ( WVIS ) approach because that has previously been shown, in environmental management domains, to offer a way to gather in-depth values-based perspectives from a target population [ 28 , 29 ] It was first created through action research, and co-designed to enable civil society organisations to better understand and measure the values-based aspects of their work [ 30 ]. The core WeValue InSitu process (detailed in Table 1 ) involves the crystallization of shared values, with a facilitator guiding a group of participants with shared experiences, through cycles of tacit meaning-making (using a stage of photo-elicitation and triggering) [ 31 ], until they can articulate more explicitly their shared values, in concise and precise statements. These statements are then linked together in a framework by the participants. In an example case in Nigeria, the results of the WVIS approach hinted at the creation of a culturally-informed protocol through an analysis of the shared values frameworks to find cultural themes for the creation of an indicator tool that was used to evaluate several development scenarios based on their social acceptability [ 29 ].

Furthermore, it has been found that if a group of WVIS participants take part in a specialised focus group discussion (FGD), named Perspectives EXploration (PEX:FGD) immediately afterward the main workshop, then they easily and articulately express their perspectives on the topics raised for discussion - and with allusions to the shared values they had crystallised just prior. In an example from Shanghai, the PEX:FGDs focussed on eliciting perspectives on climate change, which were shown to be closely linked with the cultural themes existing within the shared values frameworks produced immediately prior [ 32 ]. In that case, the PEX:FGDs allowed the cultural themes generated during the main WVIS workshop to be linked more closely to the research question. Those results suggested that the WVIS plus PEX:FGD approach could be used to create a specialised culturally-informed protocol for improved intervention design.

In the study presented here, the WVIS approach was explored for the purpose of creating culturally-informed protocols to inform the planning of interventions within two localities of the UKRI GCRF Action Against Stunting Hub [ 33 ]. The work was carried out in two parts. Firstly, the WVIS main workshop was used to elicit cultural themes within the target communities, indicating key elements to consider to ensure ethical engagement. Secondly, the PEX focus group discussions focussed on life practices related to stunting which we explored for the purpose of tailoring the culturally-informed protocols to the specific purpose of improving the design of an example intervention. The Action Against Stunting Hub works across three sites where stunting is highly prevalent but via different determinants: East Lombok in Indonesia (estimated 36% of under-fives stunted), Kaffrine in Senegal (estimated 16% of under-fives stunted) and Hyderabad in India (estimated 48% of under-fives stunted) [ 34 ]. We propose that, the information about local shared values in a given site could be used to inform the design of several interventions, but for our specific exploration the focus here is a proposed ‘egg intervention’, in which pregnant women would be provided with an egg three times per week as supplement to their diet. This study proposes that identifying shared values within a community, alongside information about local life practices, provides critical cultural information on the potential acceptability and uptake of this intervention which can be used to generate culturally-informed protocols consisting of recommendations for improved intervention design.

In this paper we aim to explore the use of the WVIS approach to create culturally-informed protocols to guide engagement and inform the design of localised egg interventions to alleviate stunting in East Lombok, Indonesia and Kaffrine, Senegal. We do this by analysing data about local shared values that are crystallized using the WeValue InSitu ( WVIS ) process to provide clear articulation of local values, followed by an analysis of life practices discussed during PEX:FGD to tailor the culturally-informed protocols for the specific intervention design.

Study setting

This research was exploratory rather than explanatory in nature. The emphasis was on demonstrating the usefulness of the WeValue InSitu ( WVIS ) approach to develop culturally-informed protocols of practical use in intervention design, in different cultural sites. This study was set within a broader shared-values workstream within the UKRI GCRF Action Against Stunting Hub project [ 33 ]. The Hub project, which was co-designed and co-researched by researchers from UK, Indonesia, Senegal and India, involves cohorts of 500 women and their babies in each site through pregnancy to 24 months old, using cross-disciplinary studies across gut health, nutrition, food systems, micro-nutrition, home environment, WASH, epigenetics and child development to develop a typology of stunting. Alongside these health studies are studies of the shared values of the communities, obtained via the WVIS approach described here, to understand the cultural contexts of that diverse health data. In this study the data from East Lombok, Indonesia and Kaffrine, Senegal were used: India’s data were not yet ready, and these two countries were deemed sufficient for this exploratory investigation.

The WVIS approach

The WVIS approach is a grounded scaffolding process which facilitates groups of people to make explicit their shared values in their own vocabulary and within their own frames (details in Fig. 1 and activities in Table 1 ). The first stage of the WVIS is Contextualisation, whereby the group identifies themselves and set the context of their shared experiences, for example, as ‘mothers in East Lombok, Indonesia’. Subsequently, there is a stage of Photo Elicitation, in which the group are first asked to consider what is important, meaningful or worthwhile to them about their context (e.g., ‘being mothers in East Lombok, Indonesia’) and then asked to choose photos from a localised set that they can use as props to help describe their answer to the group [ 29 ]. After this, a localised Trigger List is used. This Trigger List consists of 109 values statements that act as prompts for the group. Examples of these values statements are included below but all the statements begin with “it is important to me/us that…”. The group are asked to choose which statements within the trigger list resonate with them, and those are taken forward for group intersubjective discussion. After a topic of their shared values has been explored, the group begin to articulate and write down their own unique statements of them. These also all begin with “It is important to me/us that…”. After discussing all pressing topics, the group links the written statements on the table into a unique Framework, and one member provides a narrative to communicate it to ‘outsiders’. The WVIS provides a lens of each group’s local shared values, and it is through this lens that they view the topics in the focus group discussions which immediately follow, termed Perspectives EXplorations (PEX:FGDs).

Schematic of the macro-level activities carried out during the WeValue InSitu ( WVIS ) main workshop session

This results in very grounded perspectives being offered, of a different nature to those obtained in questionnaires or using external frameworks [ 31 ]. The specific PEX:FGD topics are chosen as pertinent to stunting contextual issues, including eating habits, food systems and environments, early educational environments, and perceptions of stunting. The local researchers ensured that all topics were handled sensitively, with none that could cause distress to the participants. The data for this study were collected over 2 weeks within December 2019–January 2020 in workshops in East Lombok, Indonesia, and 2 weeks within December 2020 in Kaffrine, Senegal.

The PEX:FGDs were kept open-ended so that participants could dictate the direction of the discussion, which allowed for topics that may not have been pre-considered by the facilitators to arise. Sessions were facilitated by local indigenous researchers, guided in process by researchers more experienced in the approach, and were carried out in the local languages, Bahasa in East Lombok, Indonesia and French or Wolof in Kaffrine, Senegal.

Development of localised WVIS materials

Important to the WVIS approach is the development of localised materials (Table 1 ). The main trigger list has been found applicable in globalised places where English is the first language, but otherwise the trigger lists are locally generated in the local language, incorporating local vocabulary and ways of thinking. To generate these, 5–8 specific interviews are taken with local community members, by indigenous university researchers, eliciting local phrases and ways of thinking. This is a necessary step because shared tacit values cannot be easily accessed without using local language. Examples of localised Trigger Statements produced this way are given below: (they all start with: “It is important to me/us that…”):

…there is solidarity and mutual aid between the people

…I can still be in communication with my children, even if far away

…husbands are responsible for the care of their wives and family

…the town council fulfils its responsibility to meet our needs

…people are not afraid of hard, and even manual work

Study participants

The group participants targeted for recruitment, were selected by local country Hub co-researchers to meet two sets of requirements. For suitability for the WVIS approach they should be between 3 and 12 in number; belong to naturally existing groups that have some history of shared experiences; are over 18 years old; do not include members holding significantly more power than others; and speak the same native language. For suitability in the PEX:FGD to offer life practices with relevance to the research topic of stunting, the groups were chosen to represent stakeholders with connections to the food or learning environment of children (which the Action Against Stunting Hub refer to as the Whole Child approach) [ 33 ]. The university researchers specialising in shared values from the UK, and Senegal and Indonesia respectively, discussed together which stakeholder groups might be appropriate to recruit. The local researchers made the final decisions. Each group was taken through both a WVIS workshop and the immediately-subsequent PEX:FGD.

Data collection and analysis

Standard data output from the WeValue session includes i) the jointly-negotiated bespoke Statements of shared values, linked together in their unique Framework, and ii) an oral recording of a descriptive Narrative of it, given by the group. These were digitized to produce a single presentation for each group as in Fig. 2 . It represents the synthesised culmination of the crystallisation process: a portrait of what was ‘important’ to each stakeholder group. Separately, statements from the group about the authenticity/ownership of the statements are collected.

An illustrative example of one digitized Shared Values Framework and accompanying Narrative from a teacher’s group in East Lombok, Indonesia. The “…” refers to each statement being preceded by “It is important to us that…”

When these Frameworks of ‘Statements of Shared Values’ are viewed across all the groups from one locality (Locality Shared Values Statements), they provide portraits of ‘what is important’ to people living there, often in intimate detail and language. They can be used to communicate to ‘outsiders’ what the general cultural shared values are. In this work the researchers thematically coded them using Charmaz constructionist grounded theory coding [ 35 ] to find broad Major Cultural Themes within each separate locality.

The second area of data collection was in the post- WVIS event: the PEX:FGD for each group. A translator/interpreter provided a running commentary during these discussions, which was audio recorded and then transcribed. The specific topics raised for each group to discuss varied depending on their local expertise. This required completely separate workstreams of coding of the dataset with respect to each topic. This was carried out independently by two researchers: one from UK (using NVivo software (Release 1.3.1)) and one from the local country, who resolved any small differences. All the transcripts were then collated and inductively, interpretively analysed to draw out insights that should be relayed back to the Action Against Stunting Hub teams as contextual material.

The extracts of discussion which were identified as relevant within a particular Hub theme (e.g. hygiene) were then meta-ethnographically synthesised [ 36 ] into ‘Hub Theme Statements’ on each topic, which became the core data for later communication and interrogation by other researchers within the Action Against Stunting Hub. These statements are interpretations of participants’ intended meanings, and links from each of them to data quotes were maintained, enabling future interpretations to refer to them for consistency checks between received and intended meaning.

In this investigation, those Hub Theme Statements (derived from PEX:FGD transcripts) were then deductively coded with respect to any topics with potential implications of the egg intervention. Literature regarding barriers and facilitators to nutrition interventions indicated the following topics could be relevant: attitudes to accepting help; community interactions; cooking and eating habits; traditional beliefs about malnutrition; sharing; social hierarchies [ 12 , 37 , 38 ] to which we added anything related to pregnancy or eggs. This analysis produced our Egg Intervention Themes from the data.

The Major Cultural Themes and Egg Intervention Themes were then used to create a set of culture-based recommendations and intervention specific recommendations respectively for each locality. These recommendations were then combined to form specialized culturally-informed protocols for the egg intervention in each locality: East Lombok, Indonesia and Kaffrine, Senegal. The process is displayed schematically in Fig.  3 .

Schematic representation of the method of production of the culturally-informed protocol for each locality

The preparation of the localised WVIS materials at each site took 6 hours of interview field work, and 40 person hours for analysis. The 10 workshops and data summaries were concluded within 10 workdays by two people (80 person hours). The analysis of the PEX:FGD data took a further 80 person hours. Thus, the total research time was approximately 200 person hours.

The stakeholder group types are summarised in Table 2 . The data is presented in three parts. Firstly, the Major Cultural Themes found in East Lombok, Indonesia and in Kaffrine, Senegal are described – the ones most heavily emphasised by participants. Then, the Egg Intervention Themes and finally, the combined set of Recommendations to comprise a culturally-informed protocol for intervention design for each location. Quotations are labelled INDO or SEN for East Lombok, Indonesia and Kaffrine, Senegal, respectively.

Major cultural themes from frameworks and narratives

These were derived from the Locality Shared Values Statements produced in the WVIS .

East Lombok, Indonesia

Religious values.

Islamic values were crucially important for participants from East Lombok, Indonesia and to their way of life. Through living by the Quran, participating in Islamic community practices, and teaching Islamic values to their children, participants felt they develop their spirituality and guarantee a better afterlife for themselves and their children. Participants stated the Quran tells them to breastfeed their children for 2 years, so they do. Despite no explicit religious official curriculum in Kindergarten, the teachers stated that it was important to incorporate religious teaching.

“East Lombok people always uphold the religious values of all aspects of social life.”

“It is important for me to still teach religious values even though they are not clearly stated in the curriculum.” – Workshop 1 INDO (teachers).

“In Quran for instance, we are told to breastfeed our kids for 2 years. We can even learn about that ” – Workshop 3 INDO (mothers).

Related to this was the importance of teaching manners to children and preventing them from saying harsh words. Teachers stated that it was important to create a happy environment for the children and to ensure that they are polite and well-behaved. Similarly, mothers emphasised the need to teach their children good religious values to ensure they will be polite and helpful to their elders.

“Children don’t speak harsh words.”

“My children can help me like what I did to my parents”.

– Workshop 8 INDO (mothers).

Togetherness within families and the community

The Locality Shared Values Frameworks stressed the importance of togetherness, both within family and community. Comments mentioned it being important that people rely heavily on their family and come together in times of need to support each other and provide motivation. This was also important more broadly, in that people in society should support each other, and that children grow up to contribute to society. This was also reflected in comments around roles within the family. Despite women being primary care givers, and men working to finance the family, participants stated that they follow a process of consultation to make decisions, and when facing hardships.

“that we have the sense of kinship throughout our society”.

“We have togetherness as mothers”.

“For the family side, whatever happens we need to be able to be united as a whole family. We need to have the [sense of] forgiveness for the sake of the children” – Workshop 2 INDO (mothers).

Attitudes about extra-marital pregnancy

In East Lombok, Indonesia, it was essential to both mothers and fathers that pregnancy happened within a marriage, this was to ensure that the honour of the family was upheld and that the lineage of the child was clear. The potential danger to health that early pregnancies can cause was also acknowledged.

“If they don’t listen to parents’ advice, there will be the possibility of pre-marital pregnancy happening, which will affect the family [so much].

The affect is going to be ruining the good name, honour and family dignity. When the children [are] born outside [of] marriage, she or he will have many difficulties like getting a birth certificate [and] having a hard time when registering to school or family” - Workshop 4 INDO (mothers).

“ To make sure that our children avoid getting married at a very young age and moreover [avoid] having free sex so that they will not get pregnant before the marriage” - Workshop 9 INDO (fathers).

Kaffrine, Senegal

The Major Cultural Themes which emerged from the Kaffrine data are described below. As these are grounded themes, they are different than those seen in East Lombok, Indonesia.

Access to healthcare

A recurring theme amongst the groups in Kaffrine were aspirations of affordable and easy-to-access healthcare. Community health workers stated the importance of encouraging women to give birth in hospitals and spoke of the importance of preventing early pregnancy which result from early marriages. Giving birth in hospitals was also a concern for Public Office Administrators who highlighted that this leads to subsequent issues with registering children for school. Mothers and fathers stated the importance of being able to afford health insurance and access healthcare so that they could take care of themselves.

“That the women give birth in the hospital” – Workshop 11 SEN (CHWS).

“To have affordable health insurance ” – Workshop 10 SEN (mothers).

“To have access to health care ” – Workshop 3 SEN (fathers).

“It is important that women give birth in the hospital in order to be able to have a certificate that allows us to establish the civil status” – Workshop 9 SEN (administrators).

Additionally, Community health workers spoke of their aspiration to have enough supplements to provide to their community so as to avoid frustration at the lack of supply, and mothers spoke of their desire to be provided with supplements.

“To have dietary supplements in large quantities to give them to all those who need them, so as not to create frustration” – Workshop 11 SEN (CHWS).

Another aspect of access to healthcare, was mistrust between fathers and community health workers. Community health workers explained that sometimes men can blame them when things go wrong in a pregnancy or consider their ideas to be too progressive. Thus, to these community health workers the quality of endurance was very important.

“Endurance (Sometimes men can accuse us of influencing their wives when they have difficulties in conceiving)” – Workshop 5 SEN (CHWs).

Another recurring theme was the importance of having secure employment and a means to support themselves; that there were also jobs available for young people, and that women had opportunities to make money to help support the family. This included preventing early marriages so girls could stay in school. Having jobs was stated as essential for survival and important to enable being useful to the community and society.

“To have more means of survival (subsistence) to be able to feed our families”.

“To have a regular and permanent job”.

“We assure a good training and education for our children so that they will become useful to us and the community”.

“ Our women should have access to activities that will support us and lessen our burden” – Workshop 3 SEN (fathers).

It was considered very important to have a religious education and respect for religious elders. Moreover, living by, and teaching, religious values such as being hard working, humble and offering mutual aid to others, was significant for people in Kaffrine.

“Have an education in the Islamic Culture (Education that aligns with the culture of Islam)”.

“Respect toward religious leaders” – Workshop 3 SEN (fathers).

“ To organize religious discussions to develop our knowledge about Islam ” - Workshop 10 SEN (mothers).

“ Have belief and be prayerful and give good counselling to people ” - Workshop 4 SEN (grandmothers).

Egg intervention themes from each country from perspectives EXplorations focus group discussion data

Below are results of analyses of comments made during the PEX:FGDs in East Lombok, Indonesia and Kaffrine, Senegal. The following codes were used deductively: attitudes to accepting outside help, traditional gender roles, food sharing, traditional beliefs, social hierarchies and understanding of stunting and Other. These topics were spoken about during open discussion and were not the subject of direct questions. For example, topics relating to traditional gender roles came up in East Lombok, during conversations around the daily routine. Thus, in order to more accurately reflect the intended meaning of the participants, these were labelled food practices, under the “Other” theme. If any of the themes were not present in the discussion, they are not shown below.

Attitudes to accepting outside help

Few mentions were made that focussed on participants attitudes to accepting outside help, but participants were sure that they would not make changes to their menus based on the advice of outside experts. Additionally, teachers mentioned that they are used to accepting help from local organisations that could to help them to identify under-developed children.

“ We don’t believe that [the outsiders are] going to change our eating habits or our various menus ” – Workshop 3 INDO (Mothers).

Traditional gender roles

In East Lombok, mothers spoke about how their husbands go to work and then provide them with daily money to buy the food for the day. However, this was discussed in relation to why food is bought daily and is thus discussed below in the topics Other – Food practices.

Food sharing

In East Lombok, Indonesia, in times when they have extra food, they share it with neighbours, in the hope that when they face times of hardship, their neighbours will share with them. Within the household, they mentioned sharing food from their plate with infants and encouraging children to share. Some mothers mentioned the importance of weekly meetings with other mothers to share food and sharing food during celebrations.

“ Sometimes we share our food with our family. So, when we cook extra food, we will probably send over the food to our neighbour, to our families. So, sometimes, with the hope that when we don’t have anything to eat, our neighbour will pay for it and will [share with] us.” – Workshop 3 INDO (Mothers).

“Even they serve food for the kids who come along to the house. So, they teach the kids to share with their friends. They provide some food. So, whenever they play [at their] house, they will [eat] the same.” – Workshop 2 INDO (Mothers).

Understanding of stunting

The teachers in East Lombok were aware of child stunting through Children’s Development Cards provided by local healthcare organizations. They stated that they recognise children with nutrition problems as having no patience period, no expression, no energy for activities and less desire to socialise and play with other children. The teachers said that stunted children do not develop the same as other children and are not as independent as children who are the proper height and weight for their development. They also stated that they recognise stunted children by their posture, pale faces and bloated stomachs. They explained how they usually use the same teaching methods for stunting children, but will sometimes allow them to do some activities, like singing, later, once the other children are leaving.

“ They have no patience period, don’t have any energy to do any of the activities. No expression, only sitting down and not mingling around with the kids. They are different way to learn. They are much slower than the other kids .” – Workshop 1 INDO (teachers).

“ When they are passive in singing, they will do it later when everyone else is leaving, they just do it [by] themselves ” – Workshop 1 INDO (teachers).

Specific views on eggs

In East Lombok, Indonesia, there were no superstitions or traditional beliefs around the consumption of eggs. When asked specifically on their views of eggs, and if they would like to be provided with eggs, women in East Lombok said that they would be happy to accept eggs. They also mentioned that eggs were a food they commonly eat, feed to children and use for convenience. Eggs were considered healthy and were common in their house.

“ We choose eggs instead. If we don’t have time, we just probably do some omelettes or sunny side up. So, it happens, actually when we get up late, we don’t have much time to be able to escort our kids to the school, then we fry the eggs or cook the instant noodles. And it happens to all mothers. So, if my kids are being cranky, that’s what happens, I’m not going to cook proper meals so, probably just eggs and instant noodles.” – Workshop 3 INDO (Mothers).

Other important topics – food practices

Some detailed themes about food practices were heard in East Lombok, Indonesia. The women were responsible for buying and preparing the food, which they purchased daily mainly due to the cost (their husbands were paid daily and so provided them with a daily allowance) and lack of storage facilities. They also bought from mobile vendors who came to the street, because they could buy very small amounts and get occasional credit. The mother decided the menu for the family and cooked once per day in the morning: the family then took from this dish throughout the day. Mothers always washed their fruits and vegetables and tried to include protein in their meals when funds allowed: either meat, eggs, tofu or tempeh.

“ One meal a day. They [the mothers] cook one time and they [the children] can eat it all day long. Yes, they can take it all day long. They find that they like [to take the food], because they tend to feel hungry.” – Workshop 6 INDO (Mothers).

“ They shop every day because they don’t have any storage in their house and the other factor is because the husband has a daily wage. They don’t have monthly wage. In the morning, the husband gives the ladies the money and the ladies go to the shop for the food. ” – Workshop 4 INDO (Mothers).

In Kaffrine, the following themes emerged relating to an egg intervention: they were different in content and emphasis to Lombok and contained uniquely local cultural emphases.

Mothers were welcoming of eggs as a supplement to improve their health during pregnancy and acknowledged the importance of good nutrition during pregnancy. However, they also mentioned that their husbands can sometimes be resistant to accepting outside help and provided an example of a vaccination programme in which fathers were hesitant to participate. However, participants stated that the Government should be the source of assistance to them (but currently was not perceived to be so).

“But if these eggs are brought by external bodies, we will hesitate to take it. For example, concerning vaccination some fathers hesitate to vaccinate their children even if they are locals who are doing it. So, educating the fathers to accept this is really a challenge” – Workshop 11 SEN (CHWs).

Some traditional gender roles were found to be strong. The participants emphasised that men are considered the head of the household, as expected in Islam, with the mother as primary caregiver for children. This is reflected in the comments from participants regarding the importance of Islam and living their religious values. The men thus made the family decisions and would need to be informed and agree to any family participation in any intervention – regardless of the education level of the mother. The paternal grandmother also played a very important role in the family and may also make decisions for the family in the place of the father. Community Health Workers emphasised that educating paternal grandmothers was essential to improve access to healthcare for women.

“There are people who are not flexible with their wives and need to be informed. Sometimes the mother-in-law can decide the place of the husband. But still, the husband’s [permission] is still necessary.” – Workshop 1 SEN (CHWs).

“[We recommend] communication with mothers-in-law and the community. Raise awareness through information, emphasizing the well-being of women and children.” – Workshop 1 SEN (CHWs).

“The [grand]mothers take care of the children so that the daughters in-law will take care of them in return So it’s very bad for a daughter in law not to take care of her mother in-law. Society does not like people who distance themselves from children.” – Workshop 4 SEN (grandmothers).

Social hierarchies

In addition to hierarchies relating to gender/position in the family such as grandmothers have decision making power, there was some mention of social hierarchies in Kaffrine, Senegal. For example, during times of food stress it was said that political groups distribute food and elected officials who choose the neighbourhoods in which the food will be distributed. Neighbourhood leaders then decide to whom the food is distributed, meaning there is a feeling that some people are being left out.

“ It’s political groups that come to distribute food or for political purposes…organizations that often come to distribute food aid, but in general it is always subject to a selection on the part of elected officials, in particular the neighbourhood leaders, who select the people they like and who leave the others ” – Workshop 11 SEN (CHWs).

Participants explained that during mealtimes, the family will share food from one large plate from which the father will eat first as a sign of respect and courtesy. Sometimes, children would also eat in their neighbour’s house to encourage them to eat.

“ Yes, it happens that we use that strategy so that children can eat. Note that children like to imitate so that’s why we [send them to the neighbour’s house]” – Workshop 11 SEN (CHWs)”.

Traditional beliefs about malnutrition

In Kaffrine, Senegal, some participants spoke of traditional beliefs relating to malnutrition, which are believed by fewer people these days. For example, uncovered food might attract bad spirits, and any person who eats it will become ill. There were a number of food taboos spoken of which were thought to have negative consequences for the baby, for example watermelon and grilled meat which were though to lead to birth complications and bleeding. Furthermore, cold water was thought to negatively impact the baby. Groups spoke of a tradition known as “bathie” in which traditional healers wash stunted children with smoke.

“ There are traditional practices called (Bathie) which are practiced by traditional healers. Parents are flexible about the practice of Bathie ” – Workshop 1 SEN (CHWs).

Causes of malnutrition and stunting were thought to be a lack of a balanced diet, lack of vitamin A, disease, intestinal worms, poor hygiene, socio-cultural issues such as non-compliance with food taboos, non-compliance with exclusive breastfeeding and close pregnancies. Malnutrition was also thought by some to be hereditary. Numerous signs of malnutrition were well known amongst the groups in Kaffrine. For example, signs of malnutrition were thought to be a big bloated belly, diarrhoea, oedema of the feet, anaemia, small limbs and hair loss as well as other symptoms such as red hair and a pale complexion. Despite this, malnutrition was thought to be hard to identify in Kaffrine as not all children will visit health centres, but mothers do try to take their babies heights and weights monthly. The groups were aware of the effect of poverty on the likelihood of stunting as impoverished parents cannot afford food. Furthermore, the groups mentioned that there is some stigma towards stunted children, and they can face mockery from other children although most local people feel pity and compassion towards them. Malnourished children are referred to as Khiibon or Lonpogne in the local language of Wolof.

“ It is poverty that is at the root of malnutrition, because parents do not have enough money [and] will have difficulty feeding their families well, so it is the situation of poverty that is the first explanatory factor of malnutrition here in Kaffrine” – Workshop 9 SEN (administrators).

“It can happen that some children are the victim of jokes for example of mockery from children of their same age, but not from adults and older ” – Workshop 9 SEN (administrators).

Pregnancy beliefs

In Kaffrine, Senegal, there were concerns around close pregnancies, and pregnancies in women who were too young, and for home births. Within the communities there was a stigma around close pregnancies, which prevented them from attending antenatal appointments. Similarly, there were superstitions around revealing early pregnancies, which again delayed attendance at health centres.

Groups acknowledged the role of good nutrition, and mentioned some forbidden foods such as salty foods, watermelon and grilled meat (which sometimes related back to a traditional belief that negative impacts would be felt in the pregnancy such as birth complications and bleeding). Similarly, drinking cold water was thought to negatively affect the baby. Beneficial foods mentioned included vegetables and meat, during pregnancy.

“ Often when a woman has close pregnancies, she can be ashamed, and this particularly delays the time of consultation” – Workshop 5 SEN (CHWs).

“Yes, there are things that are prohibited for pregnant women like salty foods” – Workshop 11 SEN (CHWs).

In Kaffrine, Senegal, some participants spoke of a traditional belief that if a pregnant woman consumes eggs then her baby might be overweight, or have problems learning how to talk. Despite this, mothers in Kaffrine said that they would be happy to accept eggs as a supplement, although if supplements are provided that require preparation (such as powdered supplements), they would be less likely to accept them.

“These restrictions are traditional, and more women no longer believe that eggs will cause a problem to the child. But if these eggs are brought by external bodies, we will hesitate to take it.” – Workshop 11 SEN (CHWs).

“They don’t eat eggs before the child starts speaking (the child only eats eggs when he starts talking). This is because it’s very heavy and can cause bloating and may also lead to intestinal problems.” – Workshop 4 SEN (grandmothers).

Other important topics – access to health services

For the participants in Kaffrine, Senegal, accessing health services was problematic, particularly for pre- and post-natal appointments, which faced frequent delays. Some women had access due to poor roads and chose to give birth at home. Access issues were further compounded by poverty and social factors, as procedures in hospitals can be costly, and women with close pregnancies (soon after an earlier one) can feel shame from society and hide their pregnancy.

“Women really have problems of lack of finances. There are social services in the hospital; but those services rarely attend to women without finances. Even when a child dies at birth they will require money to do the necessary procedure ” – Workshop 11 SEN (CHWs).

Creation of the culturally-informed protocols

Recommendations that comprise a culturally-informed protocol for intervention design in each locality are given in Table 3 .

The Major Cultural Themes, and specific Egg Intervention Themes drawn out from only 9–11 carefully planned group sessions in each country provided a rich set of recommendations towards a culturally-informed protocol for the localised design of a proposed Egg Intervention for both East Lombok, Indonesia and Kaffrine, Senegal. A culturally-informed protocol designed in this way comprises cultural insights which are worthy of consideration in local intervention design and should guide future stages of engagement and provide a platform from which good rapport and trust can be built between researchers and the community [ 16 ]. For example, in Kaffrine, Senegal, the early involvement of husbands and grandmothers is crucial, which reflects values around shared decision making within families that are noted to be more prevalent in LMICs, in contrast to individualistic values in HICs [ 16 , 39 ]. Similarly, due to strong religious values in both East Lombok, Indonesia and Kaffrine, Senegal, partnerships with Islamic leaders is likely to improve engagement. Past studies show the crucial role that religious leaders can play in determining social acceptability of interventions, particularly around taboo topics such as birth spacing [ 40 ].

The WVIS plus PEX:FGD method demonstrated here produced both broad cultural themes from shared values, which were in a concise and easy-to-understand format which could be readily communicated with the wider Action Against Stunting Hub, as well as life practices relevant to stunting in Kaffrine, Senegal and in East Lombok, Indonesia. Discussions of shared values during the WVIS main workshop provided useful cultural background within each community. PEX:FGD discussion uncovered numerous cultural factors within local life practices that could influence on the Egg Intervention engagement and acceptability. Combining themes from the WVIS workshop and PEX:FGDs allowed for specific recommendations to be made towards a culturally-informed protocol for the design of an Egg Intervention that included both broad cultural themes and specific Intervention insights (Table 3 ). For example, in Kaffrine, Senegal, to know that the husband’s authoritative family decision-making for health care (specific) is rooted in Islamic foundations (wider cultural) points to an Intervention Recommendation within the protocol, involving consultations with Islamic Leaders to lead community awareness targeting fathers. Similarly, in East Lombok, Indonesia the (specific) behaviour of breastfeeding for 2 years was underpinned by (wider cultural) shared values of living in Islam. This understanding of local values could prevent the imposition of culturally misaligned values, which Bernal and Adames (2017) caution against [ 17 ].

There are a number of interesting overlaps between values seen in the WVIS Frameworks and Narratives and the categories of Schwartz (1992) and The World Values Survey (2023) [ 41 , 42 ]. For example, in both Kaffrine, Senegal and East Lombok, Indonesia, strong religious values were found, and the groups spoke of the importance of practicing their religion with daily habits. This would align with traditional and conservation values [ 41 , 43 ]. Furthermore, in Kaffrine, Senegal participants often mentioned the importance of mutual aid within the community, and similar values of togetherness and respect in the community were found in East Lombok, Indonesia. These would seem to align with traditional, survival and conservation values [ 41 , 43 ]. However, the values mentioned by the groups in the WVIS workshops are far more specific, and it is possible that through asking what is most worthwhile, valuable and meaningful about their context, the participants are able to prioritise which aspects of their values are most salient to their daily lives. Grounded shared values such as these are generally neglected in Global Health Research, and values predominant in the Global North are often assumed to be universal [ 14 ]. Thus, by excluding the use of a predefined external framework, we minimized the risk of imposing our own ideas of values in the community, and increased the relevance, significance and local validity of the elicited information [ 28 ].

Participatory methods of engagement are an essential step in conducting Global Health Research but there is currently a paucity of specific guidance for implementing participatory methods in vulnerable communities [ 16 , 44 ]. In addition, there is acknowledgement in the literature that it is necessary to come into communities in LMICs without assumptions about their held values, and to use bottom-up participatory approaches to better understand local values [ 14 , 16 ]. The WVIS plus PEX:FGD methodology highlighted here exemplifies a method that is replicable in multiple country contexts [ 28 , 32 ] and can be used to crystallize local In Situ Shared Values which can be easily communicated to external researchers. Coupled with the specialised FGD (PEX:FGD), values-based perceptions of specific topics (in this case stunting) can be elicited leading to the creation of specific Culture-based recommendations. This therefore takes steps to answer the call by Memon and colleagues (2021) for the creation of cultural protocols ahead of conducting research in order to foster ethical research relationships [ 16 ]. We believe that the potential usefulness of the WVIS approach to guide engagement and inform intervention design is effectively demonstrated in this study and WVIS offers a method of making explicit local values in a novel and valuable way.

However, we acknowledge that our approach has several limitations. It has relied heavily on the local university researchers to debate and decide which participant stakeholder groups should be chosen, and although they did this in the context of the Whole Child approach, it would have been advantageous to have involved cultural researchers with a deeper understanding of cultural structures, to ensure sufficient opportunities for key cultural elements to emerge. This would have in particular strengthened the intervention design derived from the PEX:FGD data. For example, we retrospectively realised that our study could have been improved if grandmothers had been engaged in East Lombok. Understanding this limitation leads to suggestion for further work: to specifically investigate the overlap of this approach with disciplinary studies of culture, where social interactions and structures are taken into account via formal frameworks.

There are more minor limitations to note. For example, the WVIS approach can only be led by a trained and experienced facilitator: not all researchers can do this. A training programme is currently under development that could be made more widely available through online videos and a Handbook. Secondly, although the groups recruited do not need to be representative of the local population, the number recruited should be increased until theoretical saturation is achieved of the themes which emerge, which was not carried out in this study as we focussed on demonstrating the feasibility of the tool. Thirdly, there is a limit to the number of topics that can be explored in the PEX:FGDs within the timeframe of one focus group (depending on the stamina of the participants), and so if a wider range of topics need formative research, then more workshops are needed. Lastly, this work took place in a large, highly collaborative project involving expert researchers from local countries as well as international experts in WVIS : other teams may not have these resources. However, local researchers who train in WVIS could lead on their own (and in this Hub project such training was available).

The need for better understanding, acknowledgement and integration of local culture and shared values is increasing as the field of Global Health Research develops. This study demonstrates that the WVIS plus PEX:FGD shared values approach provides an efficient approach to contextualise and localise interventions, through eliciting and making communicable shared values and local life practices which can be used towards the formation of a culturally-informed protocols. Were this method to be used for intervention design in future, it is possible that more focus should be given to existing social structures and support systems and a greater variety of stakeholders should be engaged. This study thus contributes to the literature on methods to culturally adapt interventions. This could have significant implications for improving the uptake of nutrition interventions to reduce malnutrition through improved social acceptability, which could help progression towards the goal of Zero Hunger set within the SDGs. The transferability and generalisability of the WVIS plus PEX:FGD approach should now be investigated further in more diverse cultures and for providing formative research information for a wider range of research themes. Future studies could also focus on establishing its scaling and pragmatic usefulness as a route to conceptualising mechanisms of social acceptability, for example a mechanism may be that in communities with strong traditional religious values, social hierarchies involving religious leaders and fathers exist and their buy-in to the intervention is crucial to its social acceptability. Studies could also focus on the comparison or combination of WVIS plus PEX:FGD with other qualitative methods used for intervention design and implementation.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request [email protected], Orcid number 0000–0002–1811-4597. These include deidentified Frameworks of Shared Values and Accompanying Narrative from each Group; deidentified Hub Insight Statements of relevant themes.

World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Driving commitment for nutrition within the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition: policy brief. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2018.

Google Scholar  

Victora CG, Christian P, Vidaletti LP, Gatica-Domínguez G, Menon P, Black RE. Revisiting maternal and child undernutrition in low-income and middle-income countries: variable progress towards an unfinished agenda. Lancet. 2021;397(10282):1388–99.

Article   CAS   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Aguayo VM, Nair R, Badgaiyan N, Krishna V. Determinants of stunting and poor linear growth in children under 2 years of age in India: an in-depth analysis of Maharashtra's comprehensive nutrition survey. Matern Child Nutr. 2016;12 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):121–40.

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Beal T, Tumilowicz A, Sutrisna A, Izwardy D, Neufeld LM. A review of child stunting determinants in Indonesia. Matern Child Nutr. 2018;14(4):e12617.

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Hossain M, Choudhury N, Adib Binte Abdullah K, Mondal P, Jackson AA, Walson J, et al. Evidence-based approaches to childhood stunting in low and middle income countries: a systematic review. Arch Dis Child. 2017;102(10):903–9.

Brar S, Akseer N, Sall M, Conway K, Diouf I, Everett K, et al. Drivers of stunting reduction in Senegal: a country case study. Am J Clin Nutr. 2020;112(Suppl 2):860s–74s.

Heidkamp RA, Piwoz E, Gillespie S, Keats EC, D'Alimonte MR, Menon P, et al. Mobilising evidence, data, and resources to achieve global maternal and child undernutrition targets and the sustainable development goals: an agenda for action. Lancet. 2021;397(10282):1400–18.

Article   CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Goudet SM, Bogin BA, Madise NJ, Griffiths PL. Nutritional interventions for preventing stunting in children (birth to 59 months) living in urban slums in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2019;6(6):Cd011695.

PubMed   Google Scholar  

Desai S, Misra M, Das A, Singh RJ, Sehgal M, Gram L, et al. Community interventions with women's groups to improve women's and children's health in India: a mixed-methods systematic review of effects, enablers and barriers. BMJ Glob Health. 2020;5(12)

Muraya KW, Jones C, Berkley JA, Molyneux S. Perceptions of childhood undernutrition among rural households on the Kenyan coast – a qualitative study. BMC Public Health. 2016;16(1):693.

Isler J, Sawadogo NH, Harling G, Bärnighausen T, Adam M, Sié A, et al. 'If he sees it with his own eyes, he will understand': how gender informed the content and delivery of a maternal nutrition intervention in Burkina Faso. Health Policy Plan. 2020;35(5):536–45.

Zaidi S, Das JK, Khan GN, Najmi R, Shah MM, Soofi SB. Food supplements to reduce stunting in Pakistan: a process evaluation of community dynamics shaping uptake. BMC Public Health. 2020;20(1):1046.

Wight D, Plummer M, Ross D. The need to promote behaviour change at the cultural level: one factor explaining the limited impact of the MEMA kwa Vijana adolescent sexual health intervention in rural Tanzania. A process evaluation. BMC Public Health. 2012;12(1):788.

Aubel J, Chibanda D. The neglect of culture in global health research and practice. BMJ Glob Health. 2022;7(9):e009914.

Article   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Myser C. Defining "global health ethics": offering a research agenda for more bioethics and multidisciplinary contributions-from the global south and beyond the health sciences-to enrich global health and global health ethics initiatives. J Bioeth Inq. 2015;12(1):5–10.

Memon R, Asif M, Khoso AB, Tofique S, Kiran T, Chaudhry N, et al. Recognising values and engaging communities across cultures: towards developing a cultural protocol for researchers. BMC Med Ethics. 2021;22(1):47.

Bernal G, Adames C. Cultural adaptations: conceptual, ethical, contextual, and methodological issues for working with Ethnocultural and majority-world populations. Prev Sci. 2017;18(6):681–8.

Glickman SW, McHutchison JG, Peterson ED, Cairns CB, Harrington RA, Califf RM, et al. Ethical and scientific implications of the globalization of clinical research. N Engl J Med. 2009;360(8):816–23.

King KF, Kolopack P, Merritt MW, Lavery JV. Community engagement and the human infrastructure of global health research. BMC Med Ethics. 2014;15(1):84.

Horton R. Offline: is global health neocolonialist? Lancet. 2013;382(9906):1690.

Article   Google Scholar  

Woodward EN, Matthieu MM, Uchendu US, Rogal S, Kirchner JE. The health equity implementation framework: proposal and preliminary study of hepatitis C virus treatment. Implement Sci. 2019;14(1):26.

The Pūtaiora Writing Group. Te Ara Tika Guidelines for Māori research ethics: A framework for researchers and ethics committee members. Health Research Council of New Zealand. (no date). Online, Accessed 5 th May 2023. Available from: http://www.hrc.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2019-06/Resource%20Library%20PDF%20-%20Te%20Ara%20Tika%20Guidelines%20for%20Maori%20Research%20Ethics.pdf

Pelto GH, Armar-Klemesu M, Siekmann J, Schofield D. The focused ethnographic study 'assessing the behavioral and local market environment for improving the diets of infants and young children 6 to 23 months old' and its use in three countries. Matern Child Nutr. 2013;9 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):35–46.

Bentley ME, Johnson SL, Wasser H, Creed-Kanashiro H, Shroff M, Fernandez Rao S, et al. Formative research methods for designing culturally appropriate, integrated child nutrition and development interventions: an overview. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2014;1308:54–67.

Kodish S, Aburto N, Dibari F, Brieger W, Agostinho SP, Gittelsohn J. Informing a behavior change communication strategy: formative research findings from the scaling up nutrition movement in Mozambique. Food Nutr Bull. 2015;36(3):354–70.

Mattes RD, Rowe SB, Ohlhorst SD, Brown AW, Hoffman DJ, Liska DJ, et al. Valuing the diversity of research methods to advance nutrition science. Adv Nutr. 2022;13(4):1324–93.

Robert RC, Bartolini RM, Creed-Kanashiro HM, Verney SA. Using formative research to design context-specific animal source food and multiple micronutrient powder interventions to improve the consumption of micronutrients by infants and young children in Tanzania, Kenya, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Matern Child Nutr. 2021;17(2):e13084.

Sethamo OA, Masika RJ, Harder MK. Understanding the role of crystallizing local shared values in fostering effective community engagement in adaptation planning in Botswana. Clim Dev. 2020;12(5):448–56.

Odii EC, Ebido CC, Harder MK. A values-based approach for generating localized social indicators for use in sustainability assessment and decision-making: test case of brownfield soft reuse in Nigeria. Sci Total Environ. 2020;711:135045.

Podger D, Piggot G, Zahradnik M, Janoušková S, Velasco I, Hak T, et al. The earth charter and the ESDinds initiative: developing indicators and assessment tools for civil society organisations to examine the values dimensions of sustainability projects. J Educ Sustain Dev. 2010;4(2):297–305.

Odii BC, Huang Y, Bouvrie N, Harder MK. Cycles of meaning-making crystallization in the WeValue InSitu process as clear contributions towards transformative learning. J Clean Prod. 2021;304:127024.

Huang Y, Wu W, Xue Y, Harder MK. Perceptions of climate change impacts on city life in Shanghai: through the lens of shared values. Cleaner Prod Lett. 2022;3:100018.

Action Against Stunting Hub. UKRI GCRF action against stunting: alleviating child undernutrition, globally. 2020. URL: https://actionagainststunting.org/ [Accessed 15/08/2022].

UNICEF. Nutrition country profiles . 2010. URL: https://data.unicef.org/resources/nutrition-country-profiles/ [Accessed 10/05/2023].

Charmaz K. Constructing grounded theory. 2nd ed. London: SAGE; 2014.

Noblit GW, Hare RD, Hare RD. Meta-ethnography: synthesizing qualitative studies: sage; 1988.

Stelle I, McDonagh LK, Hossain I, Kalea AZ, Pereira DIA. Nutrients. 2021;13(4):1140.

Muraya KW, Jones C, Berkley JA, Molyneux S. "If it's issues to do with nutrition…I can decide…": gendered decision-making in joining community-based child nutrition interventions within rural coastal Kenya. Health Policy Plan. 2017;32(suppl_5):v31–v9.

Aubel J. Grandmothers — a neglected family resource for saving newborn lives. BMJ Glob Health. 2021;6(2):e003808.

Egeh AA, Dugsieh O, Erlandsson K, Osman F. The views of Somali religious leaders on birth spacing - a qualitative study. Sex Reprod Healthc. 2019;20:27–31.

Schwartz SH. Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. Advances in experimental social psychology. 25: Elsevier; 1992. p. 1–65.

World Values Survey Association. Findings and insights, 2020 [Available from: https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSContents.jsp .]

Inglehart R, Welzel C. Value change and the persistence of cultural traditions. Modernization, cultural change, and democracy: the human development sequence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2005. p. 48–76.

Glandon D, Paina L, Alonge O, Peters DH, Bennett S. 10 best resources for community engagement in implementation research. Health Policy Plan. 2017;32(10):1457–65.

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank the Hub PI, Claire Heffernan, for feedback on a late draft of the manuscript.

The Action Against Stunting Hub is funded by the Medical Research Council through the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), Grant No.: MR/S01313X/1.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Values & Sustainability Research Group, School of Architecture, Technology and Engineering, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK

Annabel J. Chapman, Mahsa Firoozmand & Marie K. Harder

Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

Chike C. Ebido, Rahel Neh Tening, Yanyan Huang & Marie K. Harder

Department of Zoology and Environmental Biology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria

Chike C. Ebido

Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), Dakar, Senegal

Ndèye Marème Sougou

Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah, Jakarta, Indonesia

Risatianti Kolopaking

Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Regional Centre for Food and Nutrition (SEAMEO RECFON) Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia

Risatianti Kolopaking & Rita Anggorowati

International Research Laboratory (IRL 3189) Environnement santé et sociétés/CNRS/UCAD, Dakar, Senegal

Amadou H. Diallo

Department of Medical Records and Health Information, Faculty of Health and Technology, Universitas Bandung, Bandung, Indonesia

Rita Anggorowati

Laboratory of Cultural Anthropology, IFAN, Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), Dakar, Senegal

Fatou B. Dial & Cheikh El Hadji Abdoulaye Niang

School of Education, Languages and Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK

Jessica Massonnié

Department of Learning and Leadership, IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, University College London, London, UK

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

MKH formulated the initial research question and study design. AJC developed the specific research question. Data collection in Senegal involved CCE, NMS, AHD, FBD, RNT, CEHAN and JM. Data collection in Indonesia involved RA, RK, YH and MKH. Cultural interpretation in Senegal Involved AHD, FBD, NMS, RNT and JM. Analysis involved AJC and MF. AJC and MKH wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marie K. Harder .

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate.

The research was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and has been approved by the Ethics Review Board of the University of Brighton, and national ethics committees for research in Indonesia and Senegal. Informed consent was obtained in the local vernacular language, Bahasa, French or Wolof. Participants retained a copy of the informed consent document for reference.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Chapman, A.J., Ebido, C.C., Tening, R.N. et al. Creating culturally-informed protocols for a stunting intervention using a situated values-based approach ( WeValue InSitu ): a double case study in Indonesia and Senegal. BMC Public Health 24 , 987 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-18485-y

Download citation

Received : 27 September 2023

Accepted : 29 March 2024

Published : 09 April 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-18485-y

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Health intervention
• Shared values
• Culturally-informed protocol
• Cultural factors
• WeValue InSitu

BMC Public Health

ISSN: 1471-2458

• Submission enquiries: [email protected]
• General enquiries: [email protected]

Ready to simplify your receipt and expense management process?

Enter your email to sign up for Expensify today!

Turnkey + Decimal case study

At a Glance

Accounting package:

Favorite features:

• Receipt scanning
• QuickBooks Online integration
• Expense management

The best part:

• Saving hours and hours going through expenses and receipts
• Reimbursing contractors quickly– as fast as the next day

Customer since (Turnkey): 2020

Partner since (Decimal): 2020

Turnkey , a nationwide event management solutions partner that’s worked with the likes of Coca-Cola, Subaru, and Whole Foods, turned to Expensify in 2020 at the recommendation of their ExpensifyApproved! accounting partner, Decimal . 

With complex operations, internal staff, and external vendors and contractors, Turnkey needed a solution to keep them from drowning in expense reports and receipts so they could focus on what matters most: running the business. 

Check out how they’re tracking expenses easily by using Expensify. 

From chaos to streamlined efficiency

When Turnkey was a small and growing company, they used accounting software that didn’t cut it for ease of use, and lacked reporting that allowed them to have a macro view of everything. The system required manual entry for expenses and didn’t give them a clear overview of all of their financials. 

As their executive team likes to be extremely hands-on and “in” the business, they knew they needed a better solution beyond clunky software, Excel sheets with too many tabs, and manually entering receipts. 

So, they said goodbye to their days of collecting paper and turned to Expensify at the recommendation of their accounting partner, Decimal – part of the Expensify Approved! accountants program . 

In the words of Paul Baresh, Turnkey’s Operations & Account Services VP, “The biggest advantage about Expensify is the receipt scanning feature.” With so many contractors on the road at any given time, it’s incredibly challenging to expect them to mail in receipts to Turnkey’s headquarters, much less keep track of tiny pieces of paper. Now, paying staff back quickly is a breeze, thanks to the receipt scanning app. 

Saving hours of work – every day

Turnkey hired Decimal to help with their accounting, but because they’re so hands-on with the business, they wanted a tech stack that offered a clear view into their financial processes and business expense reconciliation. Moreover, Turnkey didn’t want to have to ask Decimal every time they needed a report. 

This is no easy feat when just about everything on the expense side is tracked on a project-by-project basis.

That’s why Turnkey loves that Expensify and its direct QuickBooks integration work together for expense management and reconciliation, giving them transparency over every step of the process.

Decimal helps Turnkey keep liabilities to a minimum, and Turnkey uses Expensify to cut down on hours of work by utilizing its automated expense management features.

Before using Expensify and all its features for expense management, Paul explained that just keeping track of receipts, manually entering them into an Excel sheet, and then trying to match them up with bank transactions was a nightmare. It was almost a full time job to make sure all the numbers added up. 

“Expensify saves me hours and hours of work.”

— Paul Baresh

A few of their favorite things

Besides the receipt scanning app , Turnkey appreciates Expensify’s user-friendly platform, made with an employee-first design. When Turnkey switched to Expensify for expense management, they were pleased to learn that most of their contractors on the road were already familiar with the app, meaning the onboarding process was quick, and their staff could get reimbursed right away while busy on the road. 

Turnkey holds events nationwide and has transportation staff driving truckloads of event assets to different locations for each project, resulting in piles of out-of-pocket expenses like fuel, toll fees, and food. Because of this, it was really important to Paul and the internal team at Turnkey to find a solution that would enable drivers to be reimbursed quickly, so they weren’t out of their own personal cash for essential travel expenses.

Along with Turnkey’s contractors, their internal team was able to onboard quickly to Expensify as well, and as a result, with everyone using the same tool, their financial processing kept running smoothly. 

“Everyone loves Expensify because it’s such an easy tool to use for capturing expenses and getting paid back. From our internal employees to our truck drivers on the ground, everyone loves how simple it is to capture their expenses and get reimbursed,” Paul told us.

According to Paul, Expensify “makes life easier because you can customize it to fit your needs. It takes all the headaches out of tracking expenses and reconciles with QuickBooks, which is a huge benefit for our small accounting team.” 

Being an Expensify Approved! accounting partner 

As Turnkey shared, Decimal does the more complicated aspect of Turnkey’s accounting. This involves gathering all the reports from QuickBooks (reconciled from Expensify) and making sure everything’s in compliance. 

Decimal knows that busy people like Paul don’t have time to waste and need an easy tool to track and manage expenses. That’s why they’ve partnered with Expensify and recommend the solution to their clients. 

Decimal’s Partnership Manager, Jared Duffin, told us, “Expensify is one of their top recommendations for expense management because of how much their clients, like Turnkey, enjoy the solution.” He continued, "For every client who uses it, it’s truly improved their entire expense management processes.” 

On top of that, Jared noted that Expensify allows Decimal to flex how each client wants their accounting done. Some are like Paul, who loves to be incredibly involved, whereas others never want to look at a spreadsheet again in their life. 

“It's been great working with Expensify. It's great being able to align with top-tier partners with whom we have good support and connections.”

— Jared Duffin

The final word from Turnkey

So, what’s the bottom line for Turnkey when it comes to using Expensify? We asked them to share a one-liner, and this is how they summed it up: 

“It actually allows you to run your business.”  

And for us, that’s a win every day.

Lindsey Peckham

A native Bostonian (with a 3-year stint in San Francisco in between), Lindsey now calls London home. She still prefers iced coffee over tea, but has a new soft spot for a Sunday roast. When she’s not working on marketing at Expensify, you’ll most likely catch her spending too much money at the local flower market.

Tracking expenses has never been easier

Cut your expense reporting time by 50% with Expensify.

Expensify values your privacy. We’ll never sell your personal information to others.

• Expense Management
• Spend Management
• Expense Reports
• Company Card
• Receipt Scanning App
• ExpensifyApproved!
• ExpensifyHelp
• Expensify App
• About Expensify
• Expensify.org
• Investor Relations

Get Started

• Create a new account

©2008-2023 Expensify, Inc.

The Expensify Visa® Commercial Card is issued by The Bancorp Bank, N.A. pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may not be used at all merchants that accept Visa cards. Apple® and the Apple logo® are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc. Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google LLC.

Money transmission is provided by Expensify Payments LLC (NMLS ID:2017010) pursuant to its licenses .

HPE MyAccount

Your HPE MyAccount provides you with:

• Single sign-on to the HPE ecosystem
• Personalized recommendations
• Test drives and other trials
• And many more exclusive benefits

HPE Ecosystem

Hpe greenlake.

• Cloud Consoles
• Cloud Services
• Data Services
• Compute Ops Management
• Aruba Central
• HPE GreenLake Administration
• Manage Account
• Manage Devices
• HPE Resources
• Support Center
• Financial Services
• Communities

Your open and secure edge-to-cloud platform that powers data-first modernization

Control and harness data across edge to cloud.

A single source of truth from data to make smart decisions and recommendations to customers.

Create your AI advantage by unlocking the full potential of your data.

Hybrid cloud, just the way you need it.

Only the right level of security will do.

• Product types
• Solutions by topic

Accelerate your data-first modernization with the HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform, which brings the cloud to wherever your apps and data live.

• Supercomputing
• HPE Cray Supercomputing
• HPE ProLiant Compute
• HPE Alletra Storage
• HPE Aruba Networking
• HPE Ezmeral Software
• HPE Services
• HPE GreenLake for Networking
• HPE GreenLake for Block Storage
• HPE GreenLake for Private Cloud Enterprise
• HPE GreenLake for Compute Ops Management
• HPE GreenLake for Disaster Recovery
• HPE GreenLake for Backup and Recovery
• Learn about HPE
• Corporate social responsibility
• HPE education services
• Certification and learning
• FREE on-demand developer workshops
• FREE on-demand technical courses
• Customer success stories
• Reference architectures
• Quick specs
• What is edge to cloud?
• HPE GreenLake FAQ
• HPE GreenLake Central user guide

HPE SimpliVity

Step into the future with an intelligent, hyper-efficient HCI solution that’s optimized for your edge, VDI, and general virtualization workloads.

We've reimagined what your HCI can be

Picture a hyperconverged architecture that’s evolved beyond software-defined to AI-driven — and delivers self-managing, self-optimizing, and self-healing infrastructure. By adding the machine learning predictive analytics of HPE InfoSight to our hyperconverged platform, we’ve ushered in the era of intelligent HCI.

cost savings Forrester%20Total%20Economic%20Impact%20of%20HPE%20SimpliVity%20report

vs. traditional infrastructure

data efficiency, guaranteed %3Ca%20href%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hpe.com%2Fus%2Fen%2Fproducts%2Fintegrated-systems%2Fsimplivity-guarantee.html%22%20data-analytics-region-id%3D%22footnote_tip%7Clink_click%22%3EHPE%20SimpliVity%20HyperGuarantee%3C%2Fa%3E

across storage and backup

specialists required

enjoy a simple consumer experience

Not your ordinary HCI

With simplicity that’s powered by HPE InfoSight, the most advanced AI for infrastructure, HPE SimpliVity is ideal for edge, ROBO, VDI, and general virtualization use cases. VM-centric management and mobility, built-in backup and DR, and game-changing data efficiency combine in a hyperconverged architecture that’s optimized from data center to edge.

Drive app modernization with containers

Accelerate your adoption of agile, cloud-native, containerized apps. With HPE SimpliVity, there’s no need for separate systems to power VMs and containers: the Container Storage Interface (CSI) Driver for Kubernetes enables you to easily run everything on a single platform — without additional infrastructure.

Get the most efficient, all-in-one HCI

Take advantage of HPE SimpliVity’s unrivaled efficiency — with HA across just two nodes and enterprise-grade data services and security built-in.

Consume HPE SimpliVity on demand

Leverage the flexibility and ease of use of industry-leading hyperconverged — but in a consumption-based model that delivers exactly the IT you need, when you need it. HPE SimpliVity is now available as a service through HPE GreenLake.

Enable intelligently simple management

Accelerate time to market and bring an end to IT fire-fighting. Software-defined automation simplifies and speeds day 0 and 1, while artificial intelligence predicts and prevents problems to optimize day 2 and beyond.

Enjoy 90% capacity savings, guaranteed

The hyper efficiency baked into HPE SimpliVity improves application performance, frees up storage, and accelerates local and remote backup and restore functions. We guarantee a 90% capacity savings across storage and backup combined — and you enjoy 10:1 data efficiency.

Remain online and recoverable — always

Leverage built-in backup and disaster recovery to ensure business continuity. HPE SimpliVity’s speed and efficiency enable recovery of a 1 TB VM in 60 seconds. Now you can deploy and consolidate workloads on HPE SimpliVity.

Drive savings for edge and ROBO workloads

HPE SimpliVity’s efficient data services, centralized management, and comprehensive data protection and disaster recovery deliver savings of up to 66% versus traditional three-tier, cloud, or other HCI infrastructure.

Our customers

TSPL chose the HPE hyperconverged infrastructure to revamp and streamline its IT operations by consolidating its legacy server and storage environment.

Federation University Australia

Federation University Australia transforms the efficiency and agility of its IT infrastructure to accelerate digital innovation for 25,000 students across four campuses.

Fino Payments Bank

Fino Payments Bank is set to transform the lives of India’s rural population and power the country’s next great economic leap with smart, efficient IT infrastructure management.

Unichem Laboratories Ltd.

Unichem Laboratories Ltd. is lowering the cost and extending the availability of life-saving treatments by accelerating discovery, development, and production.

Chase Center

The Golden State Warriors built Chase Center to exceed fan expectations with a technology foundation that enables choice, control, and safety. Chase Center is a new breed of venue.

Power and protect your virtualized infrastructure

Simplify the VM experience by delivering true hyperconvergence at scale — from edge to data center — with efficiency, resiliency, density, and simplicity.

Reduce capacity requirements with operational efficiency

Operational efficiency reduces capacity requirements and improves application speed and performance. Always-on, inline deduplication and compression only needs to happen once, delivering 90% capacity savings across primary storage and backup – guaranteed! Key features include:

• Data efficiency - Always-on, at inception, inline deduplication and compression guarantees 90% capacity savings across primary storage and backup saving costs
• Application performance - Achieve improved performance from all-flash storage, tiered caching, and always-on, inline dedupe and compression
• Operational efficiency - Operational efficiency frees up 91% of IT organizations’ time to focus on new projects

Achieve resiliency and high availability

Achieve high availability with just 2 nodes. HPE SimpliVity tolerates simultaneous drive failures without data loss, and built-in data protection and disaster recovery features help keep data safe. Key features include:

• High availability - High availability tolerates simultaneous drive failures without data loss and achieves high availability with a minimum of 2 nodes
• Backup - Full logical VM backups with policy-based automation and near zero overhead
• Restore - Guaranteed 60-second restore of 1 TB VM
• Disaster recovery - Automated, multi-site, rapid disaster recovery reduces the risk of data loss and costly business downtime

Leverage high-density resource pools

Flexible, consolidated resource pools are cost effective building blocks for a variety of workloads. The award-winning HPE SimpliVity 2600 provides space-constrained environments with high-density, enterprise grade features and functionality. Key features include:

• Collapse the stack into one solution - Flexible resource pools of compute, storage, and composable fabric networking collapsed into one solution
• Scale - Simple, parallel node deployment to scale out from small to large VM environments in small, 2U increments
• Consolidation and cost savings - Simplify and save: one solution, one refresh cycle, one generalist needed to manage the whole stack

Simplify management with a single interface

Simple and automated operations eliminate the need for specialized IT skills. VM administrators manage the entire IT stack from a single, familiar interface. Back up, clone, or restore a VM in 3 clicks, guaranteed, using policy-based, VM-centric management. Key features include:

• VM-centric management - Policy-based, global VM-centric management with automation, visibility, intelligence
• VM agility - VM creation, backup, replication, and recovery with right-click operations from familiar interface
• VM mobility - Moves VMs quickly and globally from one site to another
• Simple management from one interface - No LUNS, shares, or volumes to manage. Through a single interface, you have a global view into data centers as well as remote and branch offices

HPE a Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader 14 years in a row

Gartner® again names HPE a Leader in the 2023 Magic Quadrant™ for Primary Storage.

Hyperconverged technology partners

Explore the hpe simplivity portfolio.

HPE SimpliVity 380 gives IT organizations the agility and economics of the cloud with the control and governance of on-premises IT and HPE GreenLake for Private Cloud Business Edition integration. It delivers a powerhouse hyperconverged solution optimized to support the world’s most efficient and resilient data centers. This solution dramatically simplifies IT by combining infrastructure and advanced data services for virtualized workloads on a single device.

Do you need a dense platform with built-in security and flexibility that addresses key applications which need performance, availability along with ease of management? HPE SimpliVity 325 provides HCI choice with our 3rd Generation  AMD EPYC™ single CPU processor platform including all-flash storage. Highly dense, the solution is a 1U enclosure that scales in 1U increments and is ideal for remote office or space-constrained locations.

Featured products

Hpe storeonce backup appliances.

Secure your data wherever it lives. Leverage intelligent storage to transform your hybrid cloud data protection with greater simplicity, higher performance, and built-in ransomware protection — all at a lower cost than traditional solutions.

HPE GreenLake for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Empower your remote workforce with secure, scalable virtual desktop infrastructure, delivered as a service.

HPE Alletra dHCI

Built to streamline your infrastructure via data-first modernization, HPE’s disaggregated HCI for mixed workloads at scale unlocks IT agility while ensuring apps are always-on and always-fast.

Adopting hyperconvergence and adapting to the new realities in retail

Accelerate your data-driven transformation with simplivity, hpe simplivity 380 product documentation, technical specifications, advanced data services.

• Built-in resiliency, backup, and disaster recovery for data protection
• Always-on deduplication and compression for reduced capacity utilization by up to 10X — guaranteed %3Ca%20href%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hpe.com%2Fus%2Fen%2Fproducts%2Fintegrated-systems%2Fsimplivity-guarantee.html%22%20data-analytics-region-id%3D%22footnote_tip%7Clink_click%22%3EHPE%20SimpliVity%20HyperGuarantee%3C%2Fa%3E

Flexible federation strategy

• Scale up to 16 nodes/cluster and 96 nodes/federation
• Mix clusters within the same federation — for example, HPE SimpliVity 380 at the core data center and HPE SimpliVity 325 or 380 at the edge

Simple, intelligent management

• Global, VM-centric management and mobility, plus artificial intelligence by HPE InfoSight

Simplify your environment with HPE SimpliVity 380

• Storage-intensive workloads
• Multiple all-flash configuration options (XS, S, M, L, and XL)
• Backup and archive node with hybrid flash storage
• Hardware-accelerated or software-optimized for always-on deduplication and compression

Extend your options with HPE SimpliVity 325

• Small ROBO and edge use cases
• Highly dense, 1U, single AMD processor node with high core count
• Full HPE SimpliVity functionality

Optimize your data center footprint with HPE SimpliVity 325

• General purpose virtualization, edge, and VDI workloads
• Space-constrained environments that need a high-density server form factor
• Software-optimized for always-on deduplication and compression