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The purpose of this paper is to make a contribution to categorising explanations of non‐compliance of EU tendering directives and to report on a survey study to the impact of these reasons on compliance with the directives.

A literature review resulted in a conceptual model and related hypotheses, pointing at four potential reasons for (non‐)compliance: the purchaser's familiarity with the rules, the perceived inefficiency, organisational incentives to comply, and the expected resistance and readiness of suppliers to take action in case of non‐compliance. The paper uses data from a survey among 147 responding purchasing professionals of the Dutch Ministry of Defence.

The empirical findings indicate that both purchaser's familiarity with the rules and organisational incentives have a positive, statistically significant impact on compliance. Nor the alleged inefficiency of the directives, nor the expected supplier resistance seem to influence the compliance with the directives.

The study is limited in its setting: measuring perceptions of purchasing professionals within the Dutch Ministry of Defence. Future research could combine perceptual data and objective, measurable data on compliance. Future research might include other samples from other public agencies, questioning other respondents than purchasers, measuring factors from other fields and disciplines such as criminology (risk of detection and sanction risks), economy (costs and benefits), public choice theory (legitimacy), sociology (peer pressure), and social psychology (personal values).

A managerial implication of the findings of this study would be that educating and training public purchasers will be an effective tool for increasing the compliance with the directives. In addition, public agencies could try to establish incentives in order to stimulate compliance.

Although many studies have reported on the (limited) effectiveness of the EU tendering directives, little work has been undertaken on the compliance as such, while no empirical studies have been carried out to explain the (lack of) compliance with EU directives. This paper reports on a quantitative study, explaining the (non‐) compliance with the directives. The study could be of value to public policy makers, to public agencies, and to researchers in the academic world.

The following bibliography focuses mainly on programs which can run on IBM microcomputers and compatibles under the operating system PC DOS/MS DOS, and which can be used in online information and documentation work. They fall into the following categories:

The purpose of this paper is to present descriptive characteristics of the historical development of concept networks. The linguistic principles, mechanisms and motivations behind the evolution of concept networks are discussed. Implications emanating from the idea of the historical development of concept networks are discussed in relation to knowledge representation and organization schemes.

Natural language data including both speech and text are analyzed by examining discourse contexts in which a linguistic element such as a polysemy or homonym occurs. Linguistic literature on the historical development of concept networks is reviewed and analyzed.

Semantic sense relations in concept networks can be captured in a systematic and regular manner. The mechanism and impetus behind the process of concept network development suggest that semantic senses in concept networks are closely intertwined with pragmatic contexts and discourse structure. The interrelation and permeability of the semantic senses of concept networks are captured on a continuum scale based on three linguistic parameters: concrete shared semantic sense; discourse and text structure; and contextualized pragmatic information.

Research findings signify the critical need for linking discourse structure and contextualized pragmatic information to knowledge representation and organization schemes.

The idea of linguistic characteristics, principles, motivation and mechanisms underlying the evolution of concept networks provides theoretical ground for developing a model for integrating knowledge representation and organization schemes with discourse structure and contextualized pragmatic information.

This paper aims to explore the meaning of smart office environments from a user perspective by investigating user preferences and expectations.

Eleven semi-structured interviews with the users after moving into a smart office building of a Dutch Municipality and an observation as complementary data were conducted. The data were analysed based on the grounded theory and thematic analysis, combining a reflexive approach to the literature review.

Two main themes were revealed addressing user expectations and preferences for smart office environments: “enhanced interaction” with the social and physical office environment and “sense-making” of the smart concept (or smartness). Within these themes, basic and smart office aspects were identified and classified based on their association with smart office concepts or technology.

The findings reveal the meaning of the smart office concepts from a user perspective by highlighting the importance of user experience on enhanced interaction and sense-making of the smart office concept, equipped with basic and smart aspects.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to qualitatively examine drivers underlying the meaning of smart office concepts from a user point of view. Organisations, environmental psychologists, designers and managers can use the findings of this study to develop guidelines for a successful smart office design.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between organizational characteristics and presence in a board-of-directors (BoD)-network, in the context of the biotechnology industry. Accessing and integrating external knowledge is key to an organization’s success within innovative industries. This can occur through inter-organizational networks such as the BoD-network.

The authors apply a network analysis method (Robins and Alexander, 2004) and a logistic regression to a proprietary database of Belgian biotechnology organizations.

The authors conclude that some organizational characteristics influence the presence of a biotechnology organization in the regional BoD-network. Academic spin-offs, start-ups and small companies are more likely to be part of the regional biotechnology BoD-network. The authors also observe that organizations involved in innovative activities are prominently present in the BoD-network. Interestingly, key actors like universities or academic hospitals are less present in the network.

The authors show that studying full networks and heterogeneous groups of organization leads to a better understanding of the causal mechanisms and dynamics of inter-organizational networks. To better understand the network dynamics in a context as complex as the biotechnology industry, multiple networks need to be studied simultaneously.

The findings in this study allow for the development of policies addressing knowledge transfer, diffusion of management and governance practices, and the initiation and management of collaborative projects through the BoD-network. The authors observe a self-reinforcing dependency between innovative activities and BoD-network membership. This implies that policies aimed at stimulating innovation should also aim at increasing the target organizations’ presence in the BoD-network. Analyzing an organization’s innovative activities and position in the BoD-network allows for identifying those organizations that contribute most to the region’s knowledge transfer network and innovative capacity.

The authors combine two different research streams and are the first to study the complete BoD-network of a biotechnology industry agglomeration.