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Energy systems are quickly in transition and their complexity has been dramatically increased. Although there are numerous studies and researches about future of energy in terms of technology or fuels, few studies have been done based on comprehensive socio-technical dimensions of energy systems’ futures. One key question to fill this gap is that how can we consider electricity as a sustainable common good/resource, beyond some conventional considerations related to public or private sector orientation? The purpose of this study is to find an acceptable answer for this question..

To achieve the purpose of this study, after reviewing some relevant studies, key effective factors on the future of energy have been recognized in an expert panel and structurally analyzed by Micmac software based on cross-impact analyze method. Thereafter, four scenarios for transforming the electricity distribution from a monopoly good to a common resource have been developed and described based on scenario workshops method..

Four scenarios for transforming the electricity distribution from a monopoly good to a common resource have been developed and described. These scenarios include “spider grid,” “local grid,” “intermediate grid” and “off-grid.” Furthermore, different dimensions of electricity as a common good/resource have been investigated. As a result, the authors find out that common resource is a creatable concept that can be referred to some goods depending on certain conditions.

Electricity, like any other resource with common characteristics, can be considered and treated as a common resource, depending on the way we generate, share and distribute it, ownership and property rights, management and decision-making mechanisms, social participation processes and governance criteria.

This paper aims to draw on Ostrom’s commons theory to analyse the governance regime of Antarctic as a commons institution. Antarctic is a peculiar territorial space on Earth, which due to its unique characteristics constitutes a global common resource that very much resembles outer space resources. On these grounds, the paper highlights successful, and less successful, arrangements developed in the Antarctic commons to be considered as a blueprint or roadmap towards the governance of outer space resources as a commons.

The paper uses first, the social-ecological system (SES) framework to outline the characteristics of Antarctic as a commons institution, and second, Ostrom’s design principles to assess the commons institution of Antarctic. The Antarctic commons institution is used next, as an analogy to reflect on the challenges outer space global resource face and the way it could be managed.

The paper concludes that Antarctic enjoys a functional, credible and successful commons institution that should reinforce the twofold governance structure it exhibits. Similar cases of global common resources, such as these of outer space, that seek to establish a similar commons institution should take into account issues related the benefits spectrum and the credible commitment of actors to engage in different levels of the governance regime. What matters is not necessarily the form of the regime but rather how the commons as an institution functions, whether it fulfils the needs and interests of the driving actors and, on these grounds, how credible these arrangements are in the eyes of the committed members.

Both Antarctica and outer space are rather unique cases and domains of multiple resources.

The paper provides an analogy to consider sustainable appropriation of global resources (“global commons”) for peace and prosperity to all.

The paper is original, in the sense that according to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no published work has identified Antarctic as a commons institution or has used the aforementioned methodologies to analyse Antarctica as a commons and to employ their findings in providing directions for the design of appropriate governance frameworks for other resources that exhibit the characteristics of global commons, such as these of the outer space.

Building on the resource-based view (RBV) perspective of common resources, the objective of this paper is to empirically examine the impact of container terminals' common resources (i.e. government support and terminal resources) on resource bundling strategies and subsequent effect on service performance.

Using cross-sectional survey data collected from a sample of 216 respondents of Indonesia's container terminals, this study used structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the hypothesised relationships between common resources, resource bundling strategies and service performance.

Government support and terminal resources (personnel and physical), both as sources of common resources when bundled effectively, are found to have positive and significant effect on terminal service performance. The resource bundling strategies fully mediate the relationship between container terminals' common resources and service performance.

The study introduces the notion of common resources to container terminal managers in contrast to the valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable (VRIN) types. It is recommended that appropriate resource bundling strategies can turn the common resources into VRIN resources that can be used to obtain desired service performance.

RBV theorists suggest that resources that are VRIN types can be the source of competitive advantage. However, the resources can also be common, basic and valuable, a fact that is rarely investigated in the literature. These common resources can be bundled judiciously with other pre-existing resources to create VRIN resources. This research enriches the RBV by empirically validating that VRIN resources are embedded within various common resources bundling strategies.

This chapter reconsiders commonly held views on the ownership and management of private property, contrasting capitalist and simple property, particularly in relation to how a firm shareholder governance model has shaped society. This consideration is motivated by the scale and scope of the modern global crisis, which has combined financial, economic, social and cultural dimensions to produce world disenchantment.

By contrasting an exchange value standpoint with a use value perspective, this chapter explicates current conditions in which neither the state nor the market prevail in organising economic activity (i.e. cooperative forms of governance and community-created brand value).

This chapter offers recommendations related to formalised conditions for collective action and definitions of common guiding principles that can facilitate new expressions of the principles of coordination. Such behaviours can support the development of common resources, which then should lead to a re-appropriation of the world.

It is necessary to think of enterprises outside a company or firm context when reflecting on the end purpose and means of collective, citizen action. From a methodological standpoint, current approaches or studies that view an enterprise as an organisation, without differentiating it from a company, create a deadlock in relation to entrepreneurial collective action. The absence of a legal definition of enterprise reduces understanding and evaluations of its performance to simply the performance by a company. The implicit shift thus facilitates the assimilation of one with the other, in a funnel effect that reduces collective projects to the sole projects of capital providers.

Because forsaking society as it stands is a radical response, this historical moment makes it necessary to revisit the ideals on which modern societies build, including the philosophy of freedom for all. This utopian concept has produced an ideology that is limited by capitalist notions of private property.

In 1968, Garrett Hardin identified a class of common goods that suffer under traditional market mechanisms. As a result, institutions become pivotal in defining acceptable consumption behavior. This paper describes the results of an agent-based computer simulation used to study how institutional forces shape consumption patterns. The results suggest common-interested behaviors support a greater population at a higher quality of living; however, exclusively common-interested behaviors result in underutilized commons, and the whole is generally less well off. Overall, when populations generally act in the common-interest, the commons, the population and individuals all experience higher quality outcomes than when they act in generally or exclusively self-interested ways. The paper frames further applications in terms of managing growth for long-term sustainability.

The goal of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to understand the processes by which rural communities are using commons‐based social enterprises to engage global actors and forge local places.

The paper uses a four‐step conceptualization of commons‐based social enterprises within a complex world: deal with communities as complex systems embedded in larger complex systems, understand cross‐scale linkages between communities and other levels of organization, identify drivers of change, and build adaptive capacity to increase the resilience of communities in the face of globalization. The paper draws upon an international set of cases undertaken by the Centre for Community‐based Resource Management to illustrate each step.

Social enterprises are one means by which rural communities are negotiating with global actors through recent processes of globalization. The social enterprise provides a mechanism for rural people to secure tenure for common‐pool resources and allows them to make direct decisions regarding their management.

To further develop the understanding of commons‐based social enterprises will require further integration of theory regarding commons and social enterprises.

States and development agencies lack enabling policies for commons‐based social enterprises that support the multiple goal strategies of rural communities for natural resources.

Commons and social enterprise literature have tended to exist in separate domains and this paper makes a first step toward their integration.

This study was aimed to examine emerging knowledge commons in the public libraries in the Thabo Mofutsanyane District in Free State, South Africa.

A triangulated sample survey was adopted to collect data from the users of the commons using a questionnaire, and data of community member and the library officers were collected using an interview schedule. The study was guided by Hess and Ostrom's Institutional Analysis and Development framework.

The librarians and the commons users recognise the changing nature, roles and services of the libraries without necessarily attributing the changes to the emergence of knowledge commons. Users viewed the commons by the learning opportunities offered by information and communication technologies. They were, however, willing to contribute their resources to boost and enrich the commons; their contributions presently take the forms of volunteering of their knowledge and skill through offering of training sessions to users of the commons. A critical aspect of the commons, namely, participation in the governance and management of the commons resources appears not to be occurring.

To adequately build knowledge commons in the libraries will require formally introducing knowledge commons in the libraries, doing a systems analysis, deciding on the content and their sources, drawing up a programme for nurturing the system including training of relevant staff and then providing basic infrastructures.

This study used quantitative approach to deploy the institutional analysis development Institutional Analysis and Development framework in the study of public library institution. Studies on knowledge commons in public libraries have not been found.

Mainstream economics views the workplace from the perspective of property rights, maximum efficiency, and profit maximization. Economic resources, including human beings, are represented as instrumentalities. Social economics affirms the problem of unmet human material need and the inadequacy of the “invisible hand” solution but does not provide a single paradigm as to how the workplace is reconstructed to meet that need. The key to workplace reconstruction is to shift attention from property rights and personal rights to human material need by recognizing that rights derive from need and that rights are means to the end of meeting need. Describes the seven workplace regimes in which human material need is more salient than property rights, personal rights or organizational types such as sole proprietorship or corporation, and the characteristics of the industrial commons, drawing on Ronald Oakerson′s framework for analysing the natural resource commons.

To determine the normative philosophical legitimacy of territorial claims to the Arctic high seas.

In this chapter I sketch a philosophical guideline for determining the scope of territorial rights based on established theories of territorial claims.

The scope of territorial rights should be limited to a geographical domain within which a group can establish a site of justice. Because currently a site of justice is not possible in the Arctic high seas, no state can extend a territorial claim to that area.

If adopted, this theory would prohibit the establishment of claims to the Arctic high seas made by countries such as Russia, Denmark (via Greenland) and Canada.