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Article
Publication date: 1 January 2006

Greg Hearn and Cassandra Pace

This paper sets out to describe and illustrate an emerging shift in the conceptualisation of value creation in business, namely the emergence of value ecology thinking.

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper sets out to describe and illustrate an emerging shift in the conceptualisation of value creation in business, namely the emergence of value ecology thinking.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper examines shifts in the understanding of value creation in key business, economic and innovation literature and focuses on developments in creative industries at the forefront of technology and innovation – film, TV, computer games, e‐business, mobile phones – to illustrate how business increasingly creates value through ecologies.

Findings

This paper identifies five important shifts in the conceptualization of value creation by highlighting a growing prevalence in the literature of several ecological metaphors used to explain business processes, namely: the shift from thinking about consumers to co‐creators of value; the shift from thinking about value chains to value networks; the shift from thinking about product value to network value; the shift from thinking about simple co‐operation or competition to complex co‐opetition; and the shift from thinking about individual firm strategy to strategy in relation to value ecologies.

Originality/value

This paper synthesizes emerging trends in the literature in relation to value creation and defines the concept of a value‐creating ecology. In the process it sheds light on the structure of next generation business systems.

Details

Foresight, vol. 8 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-6689

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 April 2012

Wahidul K. Biswas

The purpose of this paper is to show how industrial ecology can facilitate the achievement of sustainable development through its incorporation into an engineering curriculum.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to show how industrial ecology can facilitate the achievement of sustainable development through its incorporation into an engineering curriculum.

Design/methodology/approach

A model has been developed for assessing sustainability learning outcomes due to the incorporation of the concept of industrial ecology into undergraduate and postgraduate engineering programs. This model assesses how the Engineering Faculty at Curtin University has included a core engineering unit (Engineering for Sustainable Development) and four postgraduate units (Cleaner Production Tools, Eco‐efficiency, Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Technology) in its undergraduate and postgraduate engineering program, to enable modern engineering education to reflect the benefits of industrial ecology in the implementation of sustainable engineering solutions and decision‐making processes. Using this model, this paper demonstrates how the syllabus, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary assignment tasks, lectures and tutorials have been developed since 2006 in order to develop the concept of industrial ecology in undergraduate and postgraduate engineering education. The paper has also analysed the different teaching methods that have been applied since 2006 to generate increased student satisfaction in these new and challenging subjects.

Findings

The university environment can temper the potential outcomes from increasing the sustainability content in engineering education, given the general lack of student maturity in understanding the value of sustainability objectives together with course limitations on sustainability content and the arduous and lengthy processes involved in changing course curricula.

Research limitations/implications

Since the Engineering for Sustainable Development unit has been introduced only recently, it was beyond the scope of the research to interview graduate engineers who completed this unit to investigate how they have applied the concept of industrial ecology to achieve sustainability outcomes in their workplaces.

Originality/value

This research is distinct in that it investigated the implications of the incorporation of industrial ecology into the engineering curriculum.

Details

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, vol. 13 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1467-6370

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Social Ecology in Holistic Leadership
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-841-5

Article
Publication date: 11 July 2016

Deng-Neng Chen and Ting-Peng Liang

Knowledge has been considered a crucial organizational asset for gaining competitive advantages. It is critical for a firm to maintain a knowledge composition that is productive…

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Abstract

Purpose

Knowledge has been considered a crucial organizational asset for gaining competitive advantages. It is critical for a firm to maintain a knowledge composition that is productive. This study aims to examine the applicability of the diversity–stability principle in ecology to knowledge management and further investigate the impact of knowledge diversity on firm performance.

Design/methodology/approach

A theoretical framework for knowledge diversity and firm performance is proposed; a questionnaire survey was conducted to evaluate the research framework. Fifty-eight valid responses from experts were collected to measure knowledge strength and diversity of 20 enterprises in four industries, and financial indexes of the 20 enterprises from 2008 to 2012 were collected to analyze the research model.

Findings

The results show that higher information technology (IT) capabilities in a firm lead to higher levels of knowledge strength and diversity. The strength and diversity of knowledge in a company can improve average company performance and reduce performance variations.

Research limitations/implications

This paper presents a new perspective that applies the ecological concept of diversity to examine the value of knowledge in organizations. The findings expand our understanding of the role of IT and knowledge in organizational performance. A limitation is that the sample size is relatively small, which may limit the generalizability of the findings.

Practical implications

CEOs and chief knowledge officers can apply the findings herein to assess their organizational knowledge profiles and maintain a healthy knowledge ecology in strategic planning. They should be aware that both knowledge strength and knowledge diversity are crucial to the stability of firm performance.

Originality/value

The ecological view of knowledge management stresses the importance of maintaining a healthy intensity and diversity of knowledge at the macro level and indicates a new direction for knowledge management.

Details

Journal of Knowledge Management, vol. 20 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1367-3270

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1994

Kenneth R. Melchin

This paper explores the links between economic and social structures and ethical norms for economic life. As such, the essay is a contribution to the more general philosophical…

Abstract

This paper explores the links between economic and social structures and ethical norms for economic life. As such, the essay is a contribution to the more general philosophical discussions on the relation between fact and value in the social sciences. I begin with a brief discussion of ethics which highlights the social character of ethical “value” and draws upon the work of the Canadian philosopher, Bernard Lonergan, to introduce a novel way of understanding social structures. The analyses show how economic structures can be understood as cooperative meaning schemes, how such schemes are embedded within a wider ecology of social meaning schemes, and how the dynimic relations among such schemes reveal ethical goals and make ethical demands upon participants who depend upon them for their living. I illustrate these linkages in a discussion of three examples drawn from economic life: a consumer purchase transaction, an ancient trade scheme drawn from the work of Karl Polanyi, and a rather novel approach to economic development proposed by Jane Jacobs.

Details

Humanomics, vol. 10 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0828-8666

Article
Publication date: 2 September 2014

Elias George Carayannis, Audrey Depeige and Stavros Sindakis

The purpose of this paper is to analyze important theoretical work conducted in the research streams of co-opetition and value creation. While innovation is acknowledged as a…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze important theoretical work conducted in the research streams of co-opetition and value creation. While innovation is acknowledged as a desirable and empirically verified outcome of co-opetition between firms, academic research has not systematically examined value creation outcomes of intra-firm co-opetition. This study aims to explore the nature of co-opetitive relationships within the firm. Processes of knowledge creation, differentiation and evolution are presented in the paper.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper examines and compares co-opetitive dynamics in different contexts, by adopting a multi-level approach to help understand and analyze the complex phenomenon of intra-organizational co-opetition. Value creation in an ecology perspective is discussed to enhance the conceptualization of the Quintuple Helix.

Findings

This paper highlights the role of knowledge differentiation as a driver of value creation. In particular, intra-firm co-opetition dynamics are investigated in relationship with knowledge evolution. A theoretical model is proposed via the Dynamics of Ultra-Organizational Co-opetition and Circuits of Knowledge (DUCCK) framework.

Research limitations/implications

This paper attempts to provide new perspectives on the growing academic field of co-opetition and knowledge creation. It complements previous research in intra-organizational settings and offers an alternative knowledge-based view of organizational value creation.

Practical implications

The paper contributes to develop managers’ practices in understanding potential benefits of intra-organizational co-opetition. The paper also brings additional insights for knowledge management (KM) practitioners, by considering the impact of co-opetition on knowledge dynamics.

Originality/value

This paper explores, adds to the existing theoretical knowledge and contributes to the under-researched topic of intra-organizational co-opetition. This is the first attempt to link internal co-opetition to firm’s KM practices.

Book part
Publication date: 25 January 2021

Marnie Badham, Kit Wise and Abbey MacDonald

This chapter examines cultural value creation through the 24 Carrot Gardens Project. Initiated by artist and curator Kirsha Kaechele of the Museum of Old and New Art, the vision of

Abstract

This chapter examines cultural value creation through the 24 Carrot Gardens Project. Initiated by artist and curator Kirsha Kaechele of the Museum of Old and New Art, the vision of 24 Carrot Gardens is to ‘sow seeds of lifelong learning’ in the areas of health, well-being and sustainability across school communities in Tasmania, Australia. What has eventuated over its five years is a complex relationship between the artful ‘gold standard’ delivered by professional artists and a contemporary art museum with an integrated teaching and site-based learning across the arts and sciences. Designed in response to the local environmental, cultural and socio-economic context, 24 Carrot Gardens has contributed to a growing sense of community engagement, interdisciplinary learning and a strong foundation of networked donor investment. With these multilayered interests across a diversity of stakeholders and partnerships, many competing systems of value are at play, with the potential to contribute a new value creation. Firsthand accounts of project contributors are situated amongst the scholarly literature to produce an examination of value exchange and creation including the cultural values identified in 24 Carrot Gardens: artistic and creative, economic and industrial and education and environmental. Following this interrogation of the expressed values in this case study, we offer a foundation for a new framework for understanding local cultural value.

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1996

James B. Sauer

Sustainability has become an important catch‐word in several fields that has stimulated an important body of work on a wide variety of topics ranging from economic development and…

Abstract

Sustainability has become an important catch‐word in several fields that has stimulated an important body of work on a wide variety of topics ranging from economic development and agricultural production to social equity and biodiversity. Few generalizations can be made about such a diverse body of work. However, one can say with some confidence that this reflection has come about in large part from a sense that certain activities constitute a threat to human well‐being through the destruction of the necessary conditions of human survival. This fact has contributed to a rampant pessimism regarding prospects for the future and a rethinking of the meaning of sustainability in the fields noted above. However, acknowledging that sustainability is a rich concept in current thinking about economy, environment, and ecology does not mean that it is clearly understood. Indeed, the opposite is true. For example, John Pezzey, in a recent World Bank study, identified twenty‐seven definitions of sustainability. Even a summary survey of the work about sustainability shows that the term is a multidimensional concept that comprises of a number of interrelated elements, including ecological, environmental, economic, technological, social, cultural, ethical, and political dimensions.

Details

Humanomics, vol. 12 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0828-8666

Article
Publication date: 2 September 2020

Anne Barbara Bottomley

This paper aims to investigate the potential of the “image-idea” of a “circular economy” for re-thinking property in law: In particular, to develop a strategy for making visible…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the potential of the “image-idea” of a “circular economy” for re-thinking property in law: In particular, to develop a strategy for making visible “alternative property practices” of community ownership across the subject areas of business and property law, to enhance the visibility of models of community ownership and interrogate their potential.

Design/methodology/approach

Case study research was undertaken into three public houses to investigate the ways in which the orthodoxies of property and ownership in the academy are challenged by evidence of “alternative property practices” in the community.

Findings

Using this approach renders visible tensions between the logics of economic value and social asset, carried in processes of abstraction and materiality, and mediated within the field of property by the development of techniques for holding property as title and benefit. It reveals the ways in which “property” as idea, practice and technique is used by people seeking to disrupt or defend against the economic logic of profit and investment. It raises questions concerning how property and law is imaged in the academy and it introduces one way of using an image-idea to open new perspectives and potential.

Research limitations/implications

These implications emerge: the partiality of orthodox accounts of property; the importance of thinking property in terms of life-cycle and logics ecologies, field and techniques; how an model-theory derived from one discipline can be repurposed, in a second life, in an other discipline as an “image-idea” to refresh the host discipline; the significance of investigating “community assets” within and for property law and the need for more research into “alternative property practices” and the importance of case studies.

Practical implications

An enhanced knowledge of the development and potential of “community assets” within the academy, and of the potential to promote and support “alternative property practices” with the requisite legal skills and techniques – alongside a consideration of the limits of formal law in terms of policy expectations.

Social implications

The research is of value to community activists in thinking how law can be used to support community development in terms of holding community assets; and the limitations of formal law which then requires an embedded approach considering how the development of practices and narratives can support community initiatives in relation to property held for community benefit.

Originality/value

There has been very little coverage of “community assets” within legal research, especially moving across business and property as subject areas, and no coverage on public houses taken into community ownership. This paper combines an introduction to the relevant legal forms with a consideration of the use of them in practice: considering, in particular, how practices and narratives deployed by and within the community think and present “property” as a means by which to counter the economic logic of profit. All this is made possible through the use of case-studies made visible by the utilization of the image-idea of the circular economy – used here not as a model-theory, but rather as an aid to opening thinking into new territories accessed through new perspectives.

Details

Journal of Property, Planning and Environmental Law, vol. 12 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2514-9407

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 February 2022

Joao Paulo Nascimento Silva and André Grützmann

This article aims to understand the dynamics between disruptive innovations and innovation ecosystems, using disruption business models as a catalyst.

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Abstract

Purpose

This article aims to understand the dynamics between disruptive innovations and innovation ecosystems, using disruption business models as a catalyst.

Design/methodology/approach

This study presents an integrative literature review and a theoretical framework in order to integrate the theories of disruptions and ecosystems.

Findings

The dynamics of disruptive innovation, within an ecosystem, as an essential driver of creating new markets. The effect of creative destruction from a disruption influences business models in a coopetitive dynamic that drives the ecosystem as a whole.

Research limitations/implications

Limited to theoretical research and suggested the application of the proposed model in an empirical study.

Practical implications

Understand the formation of new ecosystems based on the occurrence of a disruption as a way for organisations to prepare for the arrival of this new market.

Originality/value

The contribution of this study is based on joining the literature of disruptive innovation and innovation ecosystem, pointing to a theoretical framework and a flow of Evolution and Adaptation to the Disruptive Ecosystem that integrates this complex dynamic.

Details

European Journal of Innovation Management, vol. 26 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1460-1060

Keywords

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