Search results

This paper aims to propose a novel matrix-based systematic approach for vulnerability assessment.

The proposed method consists of two major steps. First, the power network is modeled as a topological combination of edges (transmission lines, transformers, etc.) and nodes (buses, substations, etc.). The second step is to use an axiomatic design-based index for topology analysis. This index is based on the systematic counting of possible routes from the start (generators) to destination (loads), considering load importance, before and after a disruption.

The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated through an illustrative example and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 14-bus power system. It was shown that the load’s importance influences the results of the vulnerability analysis. The proposed method has some advantages over traditional graph theory such as an explicit description of multiple transmission nodes and assets with multiple conversion processes. Furthermore, it would help the power grid operators and asset investment managers to be better to assess the vulnerable components.

The proposed method can be used in planning, optimization, robustness and hardening of power systems.

The paper presents a matrix-based systematic approach to evaluate and quantify the vulnerability of the power grid’s components.

This paper aims to automatically generate load shedding sequences due to insufficient power supply, to ensure flight safety and complete flight task.

In this paper, a power allocation and load management model, including logical and physical submodels of the distribution system, is first established according to different requirements of the loads in different flight phase and the current total power supply. Then, an optimal load management scheme based on an improved ant colony algorithm is proposed to automatically generate load shedding sequences for both safety-critical and nonsafety critical loads, to achieve a reliable and safe power supply.

To verify the efficiency and feasibility of the algorithm, the proposed method is verified in a virtual simulation platform. Simulation result illustrates that the proposed algorithm is efficient and feasible.

The proposed method can provide guidance on load power supply when the civil aircraft is under abnormal power supply situation.

An optimal load management scheme is proposed by considering different requirements of the loads in different flight phase and the current total power supply.

The objective of this study is to investigate how country risk, different political actions from the government and bureaucratic behavior influence the activities in industry supply chains (SCs) in emerging markets. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of these external stakeholders’ elements to the demand-side and supply-side drivers and barriers for improving competitiveness of Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the way of analyzing supply chain. Considering the phenomenon of recent change in the RMG business environment and the competitiveness issues this study uses the principles of stakeholder and resource dependence theory and aims to find out some factors which influence to make an efficient supply chain for improving competitiveness. The RMG industry of Bangladesh is the case application of this study. Following a positivist paradigm, this study adopts a two phase sequential mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. Qualitative field study is then carried out to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. A survey is carried out with sample of top and middle level executives of different garment companies of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and the collected quantitative data are analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling. The findings support eight hypotheses. From the analysis the external stakeholders’ elements like bureaucratic behavior and country risk have significant influence to the barriers. From the internal stakeholders’ point of view the manufacturers’ and buyers’ drivers have significant influence on the competitiveness. Therefore, stakeholders need to take proper action to reduce the barriers and increase the drivers, as the drivers have positive influence to improve competitiveness.

This study has both theoretical and practical contributions. This study represents an important contribution to the theory by integrating two theoretical perceptions to identify factors of the RMG industry’s SC that affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. This research study contributes to the understanding of both external and internal stakeholders of national and international perspectives in the RMG (textile and clothing) business. It combines the insights of stakeholder and resource dependence theories along with the concept of the SC in improving effectiveness. In a practical sense, this study certainly contributes to the Bangladeshi RMG industry. In accordance with the desire of the RMG manufacturers, the research has shown that some influential constructs of the RMG industry’s SC affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. The outcome of the study is useful for various stakeholders of the Bangladeshi RMG industry sector ranging from the government to various private organizations. The applications of this study are extendable through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

Load forecasting is important to any electrical grid, but for the developing and third-world countries with power shortages, load forecasting is essential. When planed load shedding programs are implemented to face power shortage, a noticeable distortion to the load curves will happen, and this will make the load forecasting more difficult.

In this paper, a new load forecasting model is developed that can detect the effect of planned load shedding on the power consumption and estimate the load curve behavior without the shedding and with different shedding programs. A neuro-Fuzzy technique is used for the model, which is trained and tested with real data taken from one of the 11 KV feeders in Najaf city in Iraq to forecast the load for two days ahead for the four seasons. Load, temperature, time of the day and load shedding schedule for one month before are the input parameters for the training, and the load forecasting data for two days are estimated by the model.

To verify the model, the load is forecasted without shedding by the proposed model and compared to real data without shedding and the difference is acceptable.

The proposed model provides acceptable forecasting with the load shedding effect available and better than other models. The proposed model provides expected behavior of load with different shedding programs an issue helps to select the appropriate shedding program. The proposed model is useful to estimate the real demands by assuming load shedding hours to be zero and forecast the load. This is important in places suffer from grid problems and cannot supply full loads to calculate the peak demands as the case in Iraq.

The importance of co-innovation platforms has been well established, but a valid and reliable instrument to measure the affordances of these platforms for co-innovation behavior has not yet been reported in the literature. A robust, validated instrument to measure co-innovation platform affordances (PAs) will facilitate the conduct of studies across different platforms and contribute to enhanced understanding of co-innovation behaviors, outcomes, and platform design. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize co-innovation PAs, develop a reliable measurement instrument capturing critical facets of co-innovation, namely ideation, collaboration, and communication, and validate the instrument.

The construct of PAs was conceptualized based on the findings from two case studies of co-innovation networks and the key characteristics of social mediating technology affordances. The measurement items newly developed via a case study underwent a two-round exploratory analysis to ensure face validity and content validity. The resulting instrument was subjected to a pilot study and a field study to establish the necessary reliability and validity.

The findings of the study reveal that co-innovation PAs have three distinctive components, namely ideation, collaboration, and communication. Furthermore, the results of the study suggest that PAs are most appropriately operationalized as a second-order construct comprising all three components. The empirical results from the field study show a high degree of confidence in both translation validity and criterion-related validity.

Drawing from co-innovation and affordances literature, this study develops and validates a general instrument to measure co-innovation PAs. The result is a reliable and parsimonious instrument with 12 items. The authors believe that the instrument can contribute significantly to future empirical investigations of co-innovation behavior on virtual platforms.

Co-innovation networks face the important challenge of cultivating collective innovation outcomes while also preserving the interests of individual contributors. Addressing this challenge requires first understanding and then managing individuals’ perception of co-innovation risks. The purpose of this paper is to provide a meaningful approach to addressing co-innovation risks using a valid and reliable model to assess actors’ perception of risk and examine its effect on actor co-innovation behavior.

The construct of co-innovation risk from the actor’s perspective was conceptualized based on a case study of a co-innovation network. The measurement items underwent a pilot study and a field study to establish the necessary reliability and validity. This paper also empirically assesses a nomological network that illustrates the effect of risk on co-innovation behavior with a moderating effect of prior experience.

Co-innovation actors perceived four different individual risks: time, social, intellectual property right, and financial. The empirical results from the field study demonstrate a high degree of confidence in both translation validity and criterion-related validity. Negative effects of perceived co-innovation risk on actors’ continuous intention to ideate, collaborate, and communicate in co-innovation were evident, but prior experience moderated these relationships.

Drawing from co-innovation and individual risk literature, this study develops and validates a general instrument to measure co-innovation risk from the actors’ perspective. The result is a reliable and parsimonious instrument with 15 items, which contributes significantly to future empirical investigations of co-innovation behavior on virtual platforms.

Agile project management methods gain increasing attention of practitioners while they often remain neglected by scholarly research. Specifically, there is little known about how performance factors of agile firms differ from those of traditional firms. Scholars argue that these factors often relate to a firm’s human resource management (HRM). This study aims to analyze and compare the HRM architectures in agile and traditional project-based organizations that lead to high firm performance.

The authors apply fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis on data of 154 project-based organizations of diverse professional service industries in Russia.

This study’s findings suggest that HRM architectures of high-performance agile firms imply a broad use of ability-, motivation- and opportunity-enhancing practices and a high degree of HRM process centralization, while traditional firms adopt more diverse HRM architectures.

Based on this study’s results, the authors stress the importance of ensuring a good fit between a company’s project management approach and HRM architecture. The revealed configurations may also provide guidance for practitioners on designing effective HRM architectures in project-based organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the influence of outsourcing on open-source software (OSS) and further investigate the factors that impact the adoption of OSS in global information technology (IT) outsourcing organizations serviced by Indian IT services organizations.

The authors developed a conceptual model that describes the factors influencing the OSS adoption by using the technology-organization-environment framework. This quantitative explanatory study used self-administered questionnaire to collect data from 482 middle and top management employees of Indian IT services organizations. The authors analyzed the data using partial least squares to test this conceptual model.

The proposed conceptual model identified the factors which play a significant role in OSS adoption such as reliability, legal concern, software costs, management support, OSS support availability and software vendor. In contrast, this study did not find enough evidence that IT outsourcing was a significant determinant of OSS adoption.

The main limitation of the research is that it is focused on global IT outsourcing organizations (clients) serviced by Indian IT services providers (vendors). Hence, the authors cannot generalize the finding to other regions. Also, the analysis is based on the view point of employees in vendors. Views of clients’ employees must be analyzed and triangulated with current evidence.

IT services providers can offer “OSS as a service” for its clients and help them address the gaps in support availability and achieve reduction in total cost of ownership of software.

IT services providers can use this research model to increase their understanding of why some IT outsourcing organizations choose to adopt OSS, while seemingly similar ones facing similar market conditions do not.

This study aims to investigate the factors that enhance the credibility of and confidence in audit value.

Data were collected from 254 institutional investors through a questionnaire survey and were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The findings reveal that the two influential predictors of enhanced credibility and confidence are perceived auditor independence and improved auditor communication. Factors related to auditor–client affiliation, such as restrictions on providing non-audit services, mandatory auditor rotation and the presence of effective audit committees, are identified as creating the perceived independence. Improved auditor communication is linked with improving the audit report and ensuring audit education, thus creating more sophisticated users who better understand the scope and purpose of an audit. Furthermore, independent audit oversight acts as a moderator in the relationship between perceived auditor independence, improved auditor communication and enhanced credibility. Enhanced credibility can lead to greater confidence in audit value.

In the wake of the global financial crisis and loss of confidence in the role of auditors, this study investigates the factors that can enhance the credibility of and confidence in audit value, especially in a non-Anglo-American setting. This study is unique in terms of methodological development, as it uses a higher-order Type II reflective–formative model using PLS-SEM.

While prior research suggests that human resource management (HRM) practices are crucial drivers of a firms' intellectual capital, few studies have tried to deconstruct this relationship and investigate how HRM practices specifically affect intellectual capital resources. Furthermore, prior research treated this relationship as universal and rarely tried to introduce important contingent factors that may alter the mechanisms involved in how HRM practices influence firms' intellectual capital. In this study, the authors examine the relationships between the ability-, motivation- and opportunity-enhancing dimensions of HRM systems and human, social and structural capital and investigate how companies' codification and personalization knowledge management (KM) strategies may alter these relationships.

The data were collected using a telephone survey of 215 knowledge-intensive companies operating in Russia. The paper utilizes partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS–SEM) to evaluate the measurement model and test hypothesized relationships.

The findings indicate positive relationships between ability-enhancing practices and firms' human capital between motivation-enhancing practices and firms' human and social capital and between opportunity-enhancing practices and firms' social and structural capital. The authors’ results reveal the limited moderating role of KM strategies in the relationships between HRM and intellectual capital. While a personalization strategy had no impact on any of the proposed relationships, a codification strategy positively moderated the relationship between opportunity-enhancing HRM practices and firms' structural capital.

The study expands the debates in strategic HRM literature by looking “inside” the HRM–intellectual capital relationship. Additionally, the authors’ findings reveal the complexity of the contingent effect that KM strategies of codification and personalization have on the relationship between HRM practices and intellectual capital. Although some of the relationships were not moderated by the KM strategy of the firm, the HRM–intellectual capital relationship cannot be considered fully universal.