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One of the open questions is how to ensure the conceptual adaptation in the pervasive system. To answer this question, the authors needed to propose a generic model and a mechanism to describe this system and also need generic and semantic rules to ensure the adaptation. This paper aims to propose a model to describe the pervasive information system. Second, the authors suggest an approach to divide this model so as to describe each category of contextual information separately and ensure the adaptation in the pervasive system. Finally, the authors present examples of semantic rules executed in the pervasive system.

This paper proposes an approach to ensure the conceptual adaptation in the pervasive system. To do it, the authors proposed a model to design the pervasive system and used semantic Web services. They proposed to divide the model to six descriptions related to the pervasive system categories information.

Pervasive information system, conceptual adaptation, semantic Web services and OWL-S are presented in this paper.

The originality of this paper is presented in the purpose of the pervasive information system conceptual adaption in the pervasive system. In this, later, semantic Web services were used to ensure the adaptation by the adding of contextual information in the semantic Web service description.

The concept of vulnerability in climate change literature is underpinned by numerous theoretical contributions across different disciplines leading to disparate understandings of what climate change vulnerability entails, as well as different methodological frameworks for assessment. This multiplicity of contributions helped not only to frame and shape different understandings of vulnerability but also to define the conceptual and analytical elements considered as critical in any climate change vulnerability assessment. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on climate change vulnerability and explore and synthesize those conceptual and analytical aspects considered fundamental in a vulnerability assessment in climate change.

Drawing on existing literature on climate change vulnerability and vulnerability assessment frameworks, the paper provides a review of the conceptual elements regarded as critical in integrated assessments of climate change vulnerability to date.

A review of the existing literature identified nine critical elements in vulnerability assessments: the coupled human-environment system and place-based analysis; key components of vulnerability; multiple perturbations; scales of analysis; causal structures of vulnerability; engaging stakeholders; differential vulnerability; historical and prospective analysis; and dealing with uncertainty. The paper concludes by highlighting some of the remaining challenges and limitations for the development of integrated vulnerability assessment in climate change research.

The paper presents a synthesis that draws on existing literature on climate change vulnerability theory, as well as vulnerability assessment frameworks that attempt to apply those concepts in the assessment of climate change vulnerability.

Recent accounting research has connected the coercive and enabling types of formalisation (C/E) (Adler and Borys, 1996) with the distinction between diagnostic and interactive controls (D/I) proposed by Simons (1995, 2000) to tackle research questions on complex control situations involving both the degree of employee autonomy and patterns of management attention. The diverse conceptual approaches used for connecting C/E and D/I have led to fragmentation in the literature and raise concerns about their conceptual clarity. In this paper, we assess the conceptual clarity of various forms of connection between C/E and D/I. Firstly, we conduct an in-depth content analysis of 59 recent papers, and inductively identify three points of conceptual ambiguity and divergence in the literature (namely, the perspective from which a phenomenon is studied; whether categories capture choices driven by design or by style-of-use; and the properties of control systems). We also observe that the literature proposes various forms of connection (i.e. coexistence, inclusion, and combination approaches). Secondly, we use the three detected points of ambiguity and divergence as assessment criteria, and evaluate the extent to which conceptual clarity is at risk under each form of connection. Based on this assessment, we provide guidelines to enhance the conceptual clarity of the connections between C/E and D/I, propose several research models, and indicate opportunities for future research in this area.

The purpose of this article is to examine the affect of national culture on knowledge management (KM) for multinational companies (MNCs). MNCs often have to decide whether to standardize or adapt their operations. Previous research has found that national culture has an effect in a range of MNC operations, e.g. human resources, marketing. However, there has been limited research on the influence of culture on knowledge management. The aim of this article is to propose a framework for standardization and adaptation of knowledge management processes based on differences in national culture.

The following literatures were reviewed: knowledge management processes, the effect of culture on knowledge management, and the standardization versus adaptation decision in international business. These perspectives were combined to develop a conceptual framework that explores the decision to standardise or adapt knowledge management practices.

There are several key findings. First, the impact of national culture on KM may be understood at the level of KM's processes and sub‐processes, e.g. knowledge creation. Second, the level and nature of impact will vary by process or sub‐processes. Third, the variance by process allows us to isolate the impact and better manage it. Fourth, the impact of national culture standardization versus adaptation decision for KM may be resolved through two competing tensions: pressures for cultural responsiveness and pressures for scope economies. Fifth, while there are conditions where standardization is appropriate and where adaptation is appropriate, at the KM system, process and sub‐process levels, the decision must still be implemented effectively. This leads to four potential outcomes of the standardization versus adaptation decision: appropriate and inappropriate standardization, and appropriate and inappropriate adaptation.

The article's conceptual framework provides managers with guidelines on how to understand the impact of national culture on their knowledge management practices, leading to effective standardization versus adaptation decisions. The main contribution is the notion that the impact of culture may be isolated at the process level, providing more flexibility and manageability. Academics may use the conceptual framework as a basis for further empirical research on the standardization and adaptation of knowledge management practices.

This article is the first to examine the standardization and adaptation of knowledge management practices in an international context. The standardization versus adaptation decision has been explored in other disciplines (e.g. strategy, marketing, human resources) and has been found to be an important international business decision. Our conceptual framework makes an innovative contribution to this debate by suggesting there are two tensions involved: pressures for cultural responsiveness and pressures for scope economies. By understanding the factors underlying these pressures and linking these to knowledge management processes, we suggest that firms may isolate and better manage the standardization versus adaptation decision.

The purpose of this paper is to examine pro-poor urban asset adaptation to climate variability and change. It constructs a conceptual framework that explores the appropriate asset adaptation strategies for extreme poor households as well as the process of supporting these households and groups in accumulating these assets.

Qualitative data are obtained from life histories, key informant interviews (KIIs) and focus-group discussions (FGDs). These data are collected, coded and themed.

This research identifies that households among the urban extreme poor do their best to adapt to perceived climate changes; however, in the absence of savings, and access to credit and insurance, they are forced to adopt adverse coping strategies. Individual adaptation practices yield minimal results and are short lived and even harmful because the urban extreme poor are excluded from formal policies and institutions as they lack formal rights and entitlements. For the poorest, the process of facilitating and maintaining patron–client relationships is a central coping strategy. Social policy approaches are found to be effective in facilitating asset adaptation for the urban extreme poor because they contribute to greater resilience to climate change.

This study analyses the empirical evidence through the lens of a pro-poor asset-adaptation framework. It shows that the asset-transfer approach is an effective in building household-adaptation strategies. Equally important is the capacity to participate in and influence the institutions from which these people have previously been excluded.

Based on a conceptual framework of the linkages between strategic manufacturing goals and complexity, the purpose of this paper is to investigate adaptation processes in manufacturing firms to increasing external complexity.

Hypotheses are tested with statistical analyses (group comparisons and structural equation models) that are conducted with data from the third round of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey.

The study shows that manufacturing firms face different degrees of complexity. Firms in a more complex environment tend to possess a more complex internal structure, as indicated by process configuration, than firms in a less complex environment. Also depending on the degree of complexity, different processes of adaptation to increases in external complexity are initiated by organisations.

Research studies taking into account the dynamics of adaptation processes would be helpful in order to draw further conclusions, for instance, based on longitudinal analyses or simulation studies.

Depending on the level of complexity a firm has been confronted with in the past, different adaptation processes to further growing complexity can be initiated. Firms in high complexity environments have to re‐configure their strategic goals; firms in low complexity environments have to build‐up internal complexity to cope with demands from the outside.

The paper distinguishes between adaptation processes in low and high complexity environments and provides explanations for the differences.

Knowing and understanding the spatial needs of users is imperative for the design of livable and sustainable houses. However, the practical and theoretical difficulties associated with this, especially in social housing, create a shortfall in design knowledge known as user needs gap. To bridge this gap, design researchers over the years, have sought to provide feedback for design decision-making through post-occupancy evaluation studies using preferences and residential satisfaction as constructs. In view of their limitations, this study aims to explore residential adaptations as residents’ tacit means of communicating their spatial needs, and a pathway to understanding residents’ housing requirements.

The study was exploratory in nature and a case study by design using a convergent parallel design within the mixed methods tradition. Activity Theory as used as a conceptual framework. The study involved three strands of research as follows: estimation of the floor areas of the rooms and spaces of the case study designs using the International Standards Organisation intramuros method; a survey of households and their activities using questionnaires; and observation of residents’ adaptations captured photographs and drawings. In all, 43 households out of the 66 apartments in the two case designs were surveyed.

The study found that while the units were theoretically large, they were practically inadequate when average household sizes were taken into account in a space per person analysis. In response, particularly to sleeping requirements of children, residents make different forms of adaptations – normative, such as house sharing, compositional and organizational, as well as add-ins and add-ons including and illegal alterations.

The paper presents residential adaptations as an empirically grounded, contextually embedded and practically useful means of exploring and understanding users’ spatial needs in housing design. Residential adaptations provide a means through which residents communicate their housing needs, albeit tacitly – a means for self-expression, self-extension and self-determination. To theory, the study shows that residential adaptations can be useful as a construct for understanding residents’ spatial needs, though fuzzy. It also helps understand how the tensions in an activity system, may result from contradictions produced by the lurking effect of contextual factors. This makes contextual knowledge, particularly cultural knowledge, critical to the design.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new conceptual framework for smallholder value chains based on complex adaptive systems.

The authors review the application of the framework to three case studies and explore their implications. The authors reflect on the value of a framework based on complex adaptive systems compared to alternative frameworks.

The authors argue that the dynamics of smallholder value chains have received insufficient attention.

By focusing on these dynamics and on the capacity for adaptation among value chain actors the framework provides a new perspective on smallholder value chains.

Complex adaptive systems provide a useful framework for analyzing value chain dynamics.

While metrics are becoming increasingly important for marketing’s relevance, there is also a need to understand how they, as enablers of learning, affect marketing’s adaptive capabilities that ensure its long-term success. Therefore, this study aims to test the association of marketing and financial metrics use and the metric-based orientations of training and compensation, with two key marketing routines – exploitation, i.e. the perfecting of existing activities while allowing for incremental adaptations and exploration or experimentation accompanied by radical adaptation.

The study gathers data from 205 managers and uses partial least squares structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized relationships.

Marketing metrics encourage both forms of marketing adaptation. Financial metrics use discourages exploration. Market orientation and long-term orientation strengthen (weaken) the positive (negative) relationship between marketing (financial) metrics use and marketing exploration. Metric-based training is more positively associated with both adaptive capabilities than a metric-based compensation orientation, albeit weakly.

The study’s central proposition – that different metrics or metric orientations are associated with distinct types of knowledge, interpretations, mindsets, motivations and cultural contexts – provides a deeper theoretical understanding of the pathways by which a metric emphasis affects marketing adaptation.

Marketing managers should emphasize marketing metrics and training more than compensation, to promote marketing exploitation/exploration, while exercising caution in overstressing financial metrics given their negative association with exploration. This latter negative relationship can be weakened (as can the positive one between marketing metrics and exploration be strengthened) with increased market orientation and long-term orientation.

This study addresses the research gap regarding the relationship between metrics as a configurational element of marketing organization and marketing adaptation.

This study provides a comprehensive framework of adaptation in triadic business relationship settings in the service sector. The framework is based on the industrial network approach (see, e.g., Axelsson & Easton, 1992; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995a). The study describes how adaptations initiate, how they progress, and what the outcomes of these adaptations are. Furthermore, the framework takes into account how adaptations spread in triadic relationship settings. The empirical context is corporate travel management, which is a chain of activities where an industrial enterprise, and its preferred travel agency and service supplier partners combine their resources. The scientific philosophy, on which the knowledge creation is based, is realist ontology. Epistemologically, the study relies on constructionist processes and interpretation. Case studies with in-depth interviews are the main source of data.