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The purpose of this paper is the reliability analysis for systems with dependent gamma degradation process and Weibull failure time.

Consider a life testing experiment in which a sample of n devices starts to operate at t=0 and the data are available on failure time and failure-evolving process on each individual, called in some contents wear or degradation. Ignoring the between performance characteristics dependency structure may lead us to different reliability estimations, while the dependency justly exists. In previous research, dependency between the degradation process and hard failure time has been studied in limited detail (special closed form expression). Thereafter, the dependency between two degradation processes with the same structure (gamma process) in a system is considered using the copula function.

The results indicate that ignoring the dependency structure may lead us to different reliability estimations while the dependency justly exists.

This study gives some contributions that evaluate reliability metrics with more than one failure mechanism that may not be independent and possibly follow a different distribution function. The authors have used the copula function as a basis to develop a proposal model and analysis methods. In addition, the authors discussed the identifiability of the copula. Finally, simulation data were used to review the suggested approach.

Effective collaboration and knowledge management are the major contributors of success in the construction industry. Although a huge amount of interdisciplinary knowledge is exchanged in building design processes, there is a lack of tools for representing information flows. Therefore, this paper focuses on the collaboration between architects and structural engineers and introduces an innovative matrix-based tool named “The Layered Dependency Structure Matrix” for modeling and managing the discipline-specific and collaborative design activities. The proposed method is compared with the conventional techniques used in the industry and its application is demonstrated in a beam design example.

This paper aims to analyse the transnational activities of Colombian migrants in the USA; the reasons why migrants engage, or not, in these activities; and the impact of migrants’ transnational activities at the household, community and national levels.

This paper analyses data obtained from focus groups with migrant families and interviews with government officials and an expert researcher, as well as secondary data sources.

The main transnational activities in which Colombian migrants engage in are individually oriented, while participation in collective actions such as philanthropy or membership of political parties and hometown associations is limited. The impact of those activities varies when analysed at different levels. Overall, transnational activities of Colombian migrants can be seen as contributing to the perpetuation of south–north dependency, even if they help improve the socioeconomic situation of migrants and their families.

This paper contributes to the migration–development nexus debate by pointing to the significance of distinguishing the level of analysis (micro, meso and macro) when studying the impacts of transnationalism on development.

This paper deals with the organizing of interactive product development. Developing products in interaction between firms may provide benefits in terms of specialization, increased innovation, and possibilities to perform development activities in parallel. However, the differentiation of product development among a number of firms also implies that various dependencies need to be dealt with across firm boundaries. How dependencies may be dealt with across firms is related to how product development is organized. The purpose of the paper is to explore dependencies and how interactive product development may be organized with regard to these dependencies.

The analytical framework is based on the industrial network approach, and deals with the development of products in terms of adaptation and combination of heterogeneous resources. There are dependencies between resources, that is, they are embedded, implying that no resource can be developed in isolation. The characteristics of and dependencies related to four main categories of resources (products, production facilities, business units and business relationships) provide a basis for analyzing the organizing of interactive product development.

Three in-depth case studies are used to explore the organizing of interactive product development with regard to dependencies. The first two cases are based on the development of the electrical system and the seats for Volvo’s large car platform (P2), performed in interaction with Delphi and Lear respectively. The third case is based on the interaction between Scania and Dayco/DFC Tech for the development of various pipes and hoses for a new truck model.

The analysis is focused on what different dependencies the firms considered and dealt with, and how product development was organized with regard to these dependencies. It is concluded that there is a complex and dynamic pattern of dependencies that reaches far beyond the developed product as well as beyond individual business units. To deal with these dependencies, development may be organized in teams where several business units are represented. This enables interaction between different business units’ resource collections, which is important for resource adaptation as well as for innovation. The delimiting and relating functions of the team boundary are elaborated upon and it is argued that also teams may be regarded as actors. It is also concluded that a modular product structure may entail a modular organization with regard to the teams, though, interaction between business units and teams is needed. A strong connection between the technical structure and the organizational structure is identified and it is concluded that policies regarding the technical structure (e.g. concerning “carry-over”) cannot be separated from the management of the organizational structure (e.g. the supplier structure). The organizing of product development is in itself a complex and dynamic task that needs to be subject to interaction between business units.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse and understand the contemporary management of electronic identification (e-ID) development to: identify and formulate challenges and reflect upon the use of a combination of perspectives. To generate knowledge on this issue, we investigate e-ID development in Sweden from: an e-government systems development lifecycle perspective and a project challenge and critical success factor (CSF) perspective.

This is a qualitative case study covering an analysis of the three years in a larger project focusing e-ID in a public e-service setting. Empirical sources have been face-to-face interviews; official documents and different kind of forums for presentations and discussions in, for example, hearings arranged by authorities; meetings with the coordinating agency, and practitioners’ networks events.

This study concludes that there are significant challenges involved in managing e-ID development because of its contextual and integrated character. Challenges involve the organization and management of the program and can be traced back to e-government, general project management literature and theory on path dependency. Based on this study, we can question, e.g. governance models, centralization and a narrow focus on the technical artefact. Our study is also an illustration of a possible way to analyse e-ID within an e-government initiative.

The present study shows that an e-ID can be considered as a back office-enabler for launching e-services, but also highlights the need for management of the artefact as an integral part of e-service development because it is intertwined with the use of e-services from a user perspective. This aspect together with the insights related to challenges and success factors including path dependency provides implications for future practice of e-ID management and development in particular and information systems artefact development in general.

This paper addresses challenges related to the development of e-ID in a public e-service setting. Few studies have theoretically combined a lifecycle perspective on challenges and success factors related to e-ID development while also focusing different dimensions of path dependency as an example of a challenging area within a program frame. Studying e-ID as a contemporary phenomenon from a contextual perspective in line with sociomaterial thinking – with a focus on the interplay between technology and people –can also help us to understand and discuss artefact development in general.

The systems psychodynamic perspective was used to explore the functioning of a management team at one of the plants of a South African production company experiencing change. The focus was on the impact of social defenses on the leadership style being exercised. During a day long consultation session with the team a dynamic of control and dependency was observed. The transactional culture that can be regarded as “normal,” in this environment, actually became part of a defense strategy, resulting in dependency and a lack of authorization that limited the use of transformational leadership. A lack of clarity in terms of role and boundary definitions furthermore resulted in a struggle in terms of interrelatedness and a lack of interdependent functioning at a system's level.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a method that allows the decollating of formerly monolithic services into separate modules. To provide a semantically equivalent decomposed model, structure and dependencies need to be defined. This fine‐grained image of the service allows an easier configuration and optimisation of single service modules and the service portfolio as a whole.

As an initial point of the work the authors conducted an extensive literature review, transferring insights from other domains that already make use of modularisation, such as industrial engineering and software engineering. The method developed on that basis was evaluated consecutively in use cases conducted with three companies.

As research in the fields of industrial and software engineering has shown, modularisation is a suitable approach for handling complexity. In this paper approaches and concepts of modularisation in industrial and software engineering were identified, adapted, and transferred into the field of service engineering, resulting in a method to modularise services. Additionally, potential positive effects of modularisation were compiled.

The process of modularising in general requires three aspects: an architecture to describe the system's structure; interfaces to describe the interaction of modules; and standards for testing a module's conformity to the design rules. The method presented contributes primarily to the architecture. Further research efforts need to be conducted regarding aspects of interfaces and standards.

Nowadays, service providers are facing growing competition, which requires greater economical efficiency. Furthermore, customers increasingly demand individualised services, which can only be offered by applying the concepts of mass customisation. Both challenges can be met with the application of the concept of modularisation.

While service modularisation is increasingly discussed for the service domain, only little work has been done on presenting a method for a structured description. The provision of a method for describing the architecture of services and service portfolios can be used as the basis for further research regarding optimisation and configuration of service offers.

In this paper, we seek to understand how changes in product architecture affect the innovation performance of firms in a complex product ecosystem. The canonical view in the literature is that changes in the technological dependencies between components, which define a product’s architecture, undermine the innovation efforts of incumbent firms because their product development efforts are built around existing architectures. We extend this prevailing view in arguing that component dependencies and changes in them affect firm innovation efforts via two principal mechanisms. First, component dependencies expand or constrain the choice set of firm component innovation efforts. From the perspective of any one component in a complex product (which we label the focal component), an increase in the flow of design information to the focal component from other (non-focal) components simultaneously increases the constraint on focal component firms in their choice of profitable R&D projects while decreasing the constraint on non-focal component firms. Second, asymmetries in component dependencies can confer disproportionate influence on some component firms in setting and dictating the trajectory of progress in the overall system. Increases in such asymmetric influence allow component firms to expand their innovation output. Using historical patenting data in the personal computer ecosystem, we develop fine-grained measures of interdependence between component technologies and changes in them over time. We find strong support for the empirical implications of our theory.

This paper uses a stakeholder approach to examine how the role of accounting and the status of accountants changed over a 30 year period (1970 to 2000) in a major Australian government trading enterprise. Data are gathered from semi‐structured interviews with organizational participants and documentation. The study provides support for the importance of stakeholders in shaping organizational processes and practices, including accounting practices, and for the effects of changes in stakeholder constituency and agenda on such practices. The study also provides evidence of the roles accounting and accountants may play in implementing a stakeholder agenda, including both instrumental and symbolic roles, and how the status of accountants may rise and fall commensurate with those roles.