Search results

This paper aims to outline the benefits of using resilience assessment instead of command and control mechanisms to evaluate sustainable campus environments.

An exploratory mixed-method design was followed for the purposes of the project. During the first qualitative phase, a historical timeline of the focal system was created. In the quantitative phase, the resilience assessment guided the investigation. To collect data, the case study research strategy included a heuristic process of collecting and reviewing documents, semi-structured interviews, observations and the systematic implementation of the resilience assessment approach.

Based on the resilience assessment approach, it is argued that the environmental status of university campuses can be considered relevant to the local community and immediate environment. Knowledge of the finite resources and their capacity in the context of the social-ecological system may increase the resilience of a campus.

This research study explores the use of an alternative approach to environmental practices at university campuses. The resilience assessment is usually performed on large ecosystems. By applying this approach to a small ecosystem, the study fills a gap in the applicability of the resilience approach.

This research aims to conduct, to the best of our knowledge, the first systematic review of the implementation of Industry 4.0 in BRICS. This review facilitates the identification of main factors that affect the readiness to adopt Industry 4.0 in BRICS and the role of different agents, such as multinationals, the public sector or educative institutions.

Key publications published from 2010 to 2019 have been analysed. A total of 61 papers have been selected from the systematic review.

Three factors of convergence of BRICS to developed economies in terms of Industry 4.0 are identified: (1) the public initiatives that can also result in the attraction of talent from developed countries to BRICS; (2) the role of multinationals and (3) the implication of educational institutions.

This review has some limitations. First, some grey literature, such as reports from non-governmental organisations and front-line practitioners' reflections, were not included. Second, only research studies in English were reviewed

The heterogeneity of BRICS amongst themselves affects the implementation of Industry 4.0 policies. Therefore, public policies should differ among countries to achieve the different readiness of companies within each country. Industry 4.0 cannot be understood as a manufacturing strategy against delocalisation, as emerging countries, such as BRICS, are also aware of the potential of automation.

Based on a systematic review, this article shows that the strategy created by Germany to increase industrial productivity has been also introduced in BRICS countries as a critical factor to improve their competitiveness.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a revolutionary innovation in the construction industry to virtually design and mange projects throughout the building lifecycle. Although Estonia is one of the foremost countries in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector, BIM adoption in the Estonian construction industry is still lagging behind other countries. This paper is part of doctoral research that aims to determine the barriers to BIM adoption and develop a framework for effective implementation of BIM in the Estonian construction industry. The purpose of this paper is to examine the status of BIM adoption, BIM benefits and common barriers to BIM adoption in the construction industry worldwide.

The methodology used in this study is a literature review of journal articles, conference proceedings and published reports from various sources.

This study showed BIM benefits through building lifecycle phases and explored the BIM adoption rate in the construction industry of various countries. Eighteen barriers to BIM adoption were also identified.

The study presented is limited to a literature review – some related literature may have been missed.

The main practical significance of this study is that the findings can be used to inform a further survey to model the barriers to BIM adoption in the Estonian construction industry.

This study offers information on BIM adoption in the construction industry and will form the basis of further research.

Product image formation process is a valuable insight for correct understanding of consumer behaviour. When product is a tourism destination, image formation is even more important due to the inability of pretest the tourist product. This framework gives place to the present research on tourism destination image. The paper starts with a litterature review on the meaning and measurement of destination image divided into two main approaches: the conceptual and the methodological. Secondly, the results of an empirical investigation are reported: it deals with the assessment of attribute‐based destination image of sun and beach resorts on the Spanish Mediterranean coast. The aim and contribution of the paper are to provide an example of one methodological procedure for measurement of destination image (the Principal Component Analysis) which allows, in a first step, to obtain a structure of perceptions on sun and beach destinations. A description of the images of the resorts investigated is also reported in order to understand better perceptions on the tourism market.

In this study, the authors applied a routine dynamics perspective to examine how agile routines enhance efficiency while allowing flexibility in a world of flux. Hence, the authors conducted an ethnographic case study in the IT sector, following a scrum team. The findings indicate that agile routines create affordances for addressing temporal orientations toward the past, present, and future. Within the scrum framework, each routine has a designed temporal orientation, such that the planning meeting is oriented toward the future. Actors enacted this single, temporal orientation through temporal demarcating patterns. However, in some instances, other temporal orientations conflicted with the dominant one. In those cases, actors enacted temporal integrating patterns that embraced multiple temporal orientations. The authors contribute to research on routine dynamics by demonstrating how (1) temporal demarcating enables organizational benefits, (2) temporal integrating enables learning from and anticipating problems, and (3) temporal spaces emerge within routine enactments to solve problems at hand.

DO children know a good book when they see it? This question was debated at the Brighton Conference during the session on Work with Young People. Some delegates said “yes, children choose the best,” but others said “no” and instanced the craze for certain ephemeral authors. To some extent both sides were right, for much depends on the literary foundations laid in early days. Children who had good books in their homes, and had guidance at school and in the public library will pick out the best (with occasional lapses), while others often enough go for the second‐rate every time. Librarians are alive to this and accordingly provide the best picture and easy reading books from the presses and, incidentally, there seems to be a wider choice in this class of literature than for any other age group. On the informative side Harrap's have just published Hippo and Patches, attractively told and illustrated tales of a hippopotamus and her baby, and of a young giraffe, both written and illustrated by Joel Stolper (5/‐ each). Margaret M. Pearson's The Story of Australia (Harrap, 6/‐) gives the main facts of the discovery, early settlement and development of the continent in the form of a brightly illustrated story suitable for reading to the five‐to‐eight year olds. Mishka and the white Reindeer is a charmingly illustrated fairy tale by Alfred Wood (Dent, 6/‐) about a wood‐cutter whose friends were the creatures of the wild. The story is simply told and of the kind that children will read until they know it by heart. Mary Shillabeer's At First (Museum Press, 7/6) is an educational picture book designed to introduce children to the differences of sex by means of brightly coloured lithographs of animals and their offspring. They will love the gay pictures but whether they will lead “to the natural conclusion of the child's own relation to its parents” seems a bit doubtful considering the tender years the book is designed for. Other animal stories which will appeal to the youngest readers are Hester Wag‐staff's The Story of Fuzzy Wuzzy and Woolly Wonder (H. Hamilton, 6/‐), about two engaging bob tailed sheep dogs who play their part in the life of the town and win prizes in the Salvage Drive. The new method of illustration by colour photographs is used in The Friendly Adventures of Button and Mac, by Ursula Hourihane (O.U.P., 8/6), and the teddy bear and Scotch terrier heroes, their bedroom, their picnic with luncheon baskets, crockery, biscuits and all the minute detail children love, are attractively designed in colour, and in line drawings. The stories are designed for the six‐to‐ten year olds. The same age group and probably those a little older will enjoy the fancy in Frank Batchelor's Golden Journey (Newnes, 6/‐) in which a lean tabby, a musical hedgehog and an unaccomplished frog set off to find some money to comfort them in their old age, and the lesson they learn thereby. Another imaginative tale is The Flying House, written and illustrated by C. W. Hodges, about an inventor whose house is suddenly carried away by a balloon while he is showing it to two children. High up in the sky they come to a rocky island, encounter a witch and other strange things, but all ends well. For those who missed Walter de la Mare's The Dutch Cheese, The Scarecrow, and other stories there is now available his Collected Stories for Children (Faber, 10/6) containing these and many other tales, all illustrated by Irene Hawkins. The Brownie Scouts is a Polish children's classic by the late Mary Konopnicka, poetess, novelist and traveller; it is published by the Riverside Press at 10/6. It is in the old tradition of fairy tales with plenty of difficulties to overcome and with lively conversation giving it a modern touch. The brownie people depicted are a likeable lot and should become favourites.

Den Veränderungen auf Tourismusmärkten unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Markteinbrüche der traditionellen Märkte der Alpenländer seit Beginn der 90er‐Jahre begegnen viele Unternehmungen mit massiven organisatorischen, aber auch marktpolitischen Umstellungen. Die Wettbewerbsituationen, denen sich Unternehmungen heute gegenübersehen, haben sich stark verschärft. In Zeiten turbulenter Veränderungen muß Altes konsequent auf seine Brauchbarkeit überprüft, müssen Barrieren zwischen Verantwortungsebenen aufgebrochen und Funktionsbereiche und regionale Einheiten abgebaut werden, um eine innere Dynamik entwickeln zu können. Gilt oben Genanntes ebenso für Landestourismusorganisationen? Wie wird in rezessiven Zeiten mit Marketingbudgets umgegangen? Eine Befragung von 8 Landestourismusorganisationen soll Aufschluß geben über das strategische Marktverhalten bei sich ändernden Wettbewerbsbedingungen. Bei den befragten Tourismusstrukturen handelt es sich um die Dachorganisationen von deutschen und österreichischen Bundesländern, schweizerischen Kantonen und italienischen Provinzen.

Post-merger integration (PMI) has received much attention in recent years due to an increasing number of merger and acquisitions (M&As). Process harmonization plays an important role during the PMI. The purpose of this paper is to find out if there is any methodology available for process harmonization in the PMI phase. From a PMI/M&A perspective, business process management (BPM)/quality management perspective and change management perspective, the existing literature is analyzed.

A structured literature review covering a wide field of publications in the interface of BPM, quality management and PMI-related publications is used to identify process harmonization methodologies after M&A and disclosing interrogations for future research.

There is hardly any connection found between PMI and business process harmonization in literature. While information technology/systems integration in PMI is researched in various publications, a special methodology or integration approach tailored for business processes and management systems is not available despite numerous literatures on PMI, BPM, quality management and change management. Nonetheless, these articles contain relevant recommendations as a part of the big picture. So here lies the optimal starting point for future research.

Although this literature review has regarded publications of numerous databases, limitations might follow the selective citation due to thousands of articles in the field of M&A, PMI, BPM and quality management. Further, process harmonization and standardization have been regarded in largely as synonyms.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no systematic literature review in this interface has been previously published.

This study aims to gain an understanding of success factors and barriers to public private collaboration in the context of zero emission neighbourhood.

Qualitative research method: narrative literature study.

On the basis of the identified success factors and barriers, a model with the following five interconnected themes is developed: (1) supportive public policy, (2) stakeholder management, (3) creation of a common ground for understanding, (4) knowledge sharing and learning and (5) uncertainty management.

The model can be further developed and tested. In-depth conceptual/empirical study on the five themes can shed more light on the topic.

This model is one of the several ways to understand, structure and simplify the reality (of public private collaboration in the context of zero emission neighbourhood). These five themes are arranged in the model in such a way to represent strategic, tactical and operational levels. This model can be useful to identify measures (steps, concrete actions, etc.) To address issues related to the five themes in a given organisational context. Focusing adequately on these five themes can contribute to successful public private collaboration in the context of zero emission neighbourhoods.

This study/model provides an overall, holistic approach to address/improve public private collaborative endeavours in the context of developing zero emission neighbourhoods.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate an unexploited conceptual pragmatic sociological framework for analyses of action strategies among social assistance recipients, who are affected by contemporary politics of retrenchment.

Noting that existing literature on resistance and coping is mostly concerned with either collective public resistance or sub-public individualised coping strategies, the paper turns to theoretical insights from newer French pragmatic sociologist Laurent Thévenot, enabling the researcher to dissolve the stark boundaries between private/public and coping/resistance. The use of the concepts is demonstrated through a case study analysis of the various actions of Danish social assistance recipients, who were recently affected by a harsh workfare initiative.

The empirical demonstration points to a plurality of individualised strategies of action, taken on by the affected social assistance recipients. Thereby it points to some advantages of the proposed framework, as it makes visible the versatility of the contemporary “welfare client”, as he or she dynamically changes the scope of action and moves between the private and the public and between coping and resistance.

The paper applies hitherto unexploited concepts from French pragmatic sociology to strategies of action among welfare recipients in times of welfare retrenchment.