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Francesco Calza, Marco Ferretti, Eva Panetti and Adele Parmentola
The paper aims to explore the nature of initiatives and strategies of inter-organizational cooperation to cross the valley of death in the biopharma industry.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to explore the nature of initiatives and strategies of inter-organizational cooperation to cross the valley of death in the biopharma industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted an exploratory case study analysis in the Biopharma Innovation Ecosystem in Greater Boston Area (USA), which is one of the oldest, and most successful IE in the US, specialized in the Biopharma domain, by conducting a round of expert interviews with key informants in the area, chosen as representatives of the different types of actors engaged in the drug development processes at different stages.
Findings
Main findings suggest that cooperation can contribute to surviving the valley of death by reducing the barriers within the drug development pipeline through the promotion of strategic relationships among actors of different nature, including the establishment of government-led thematic associations or consortia, agreements between university and business support structures, proximity to venture capitalist and the promotion of a general culture of academic entrepreneurship within universities.
Originality/value
The authors believe that this paper contributes to the literature by shedding light on the nature of the specific cooperative initiative the barriers in drug development and help to survive the valley of the death.
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Kirstin Scholten, Dirk Pieter van Donk, Damien Power and Stephanie Braeuer
To be able to continuously provide affordable services to consumers, managers of critical infrastructure (CI) maintenance supply networks have to balance investments in resilience…
Abstract
Purpose
To be able to continuously provide affordable services to consumers, managers of critical infrastructure (CI) maintenance supply networks have to balance investments in resilience with costs. At the same time, CI providers need to consider factors that influence resilience such as the geographical spread or the location of the network. This study aims to contextualize supply chain resilience knowledge by exploring how maintenance resource configurations impact resilience and costs in CI supply networks.
Design/methodology/approach
An in-depth longitudinal single case study of a representative CI provider that has centralized its maintenance supply network is used. Data were collected before and after the change to evaluate the effect of the changes on the maintenance supply network.
Findings
This study shows that in this specific CI maintenance context, structural resource choices such as the quantity or location of spare parts and tools, the creation and exploitation of tacit knowledge and staff motivation impact both resilience and costs due to geographical spread, network location and other network properties.
Originality/value
This study extends general supply chain resilience knowledge to a new setting (i.e. CI) and shows how existing insights apply in this context. More specifically, it is shown that even in engineered supply networks there is a need to consider the effect of human agency on resilience as the creation and exploitation of tacit knowledge are of immense importance in managing the network. In addition, the relationship between normal accidents theory and high reliability theory (HRT) is revisited as findings indicate that HRT is also important after a disruption has taken place.
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Junaid Qadir, Mohammad Qamar Islam and Ala Al-Fuqaha
Along with the various beneficial uses of artificial intelligence (AI), there are various unsavory concomitants including the inscrutability of AI tools (and the opaqueness of…
Abstract
Purpose
Along with the various beneficial uses of artificial intelligence (AI), there are various unsavory concomitants including the inscrutability of AI tools (and the opaqueness of their mechanisms), the fragility of AI models under adversarial settings, the vulnerability of AI models to bias throughout their pipeline, the high planetary cost of running large AI models and the emergence of exploitative surveillance capitalism-based economic logic built on AI technology. This study aims to document these harms of AI technology and study how these technologies and their developers and users can be made more accountable.
Design/methodology/approach
Due to the nature of the problem, a holistic, multi-pronged approach is required to understand and counter these potential harms. This paper identifies the rationale for urgently focusing on human-centered AI and provide an outlook of promising directions including technical proposals.
Findings
AI has the potential to benefit the entire society, but there remains an increased risk for vulnerable segments of society. This paper provides a general survey of the various approaches proposed in the literature to make AI technology more accountable. This paper reports that the development of ethical accountable AI design requires the confluence and collaboration of many fields (ethical, philosophical, legal, political and technical) and that lack of diversity is a problem plaguing the state of the art in AI.
Originality/value
This paper provides a timely synthesis of the various technosocial proposals in the literature spanning technical areas such as interpretable and explainable AI; algorithmic auditability; as well as policy-making challenges and efforts that can operationalize ethical AI and help in making AI accountable. This paper also identifies and shares promising future directions of research.
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Pablo Ballesteros-Pérez, Maria Luisa del Campo-Hitschfeld, Manuel Alejandro González-Naranjo and Mari Carmen González-Cruz
Construction projects usually suffer delays, and the causes of these delays and its cost overruns have been widely discussed, the weather being one of the most recurrent. The…
Abstract
Purpose
Construction projects usually suffer delays, and the causes of these delays and its cost overruns have been widely discussed, the weather being one of the most recurrent. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of climate on standard construction work activities through a case study.
Design/methodology/approach
By studying the extent at which some weather variables impede outdoor work from being effectively executed, new maps and tables for planning for delays are presented. In addition, a real case regarding the construction of several bridges in southern Chile is analyzed.
Findings
Few studies have thoroughly addressed the influences of major climatic agents on the most common outdoor construction activities. The method detailed here provides a first approximation for construction planners to assess to what extent construction productivity will be influenced by the climate.
Research limitations/implications
Although this study was performed in Chile, the simplified method proposed is entirely transferable to any other country, however, other weather or combinations of weather variables could be needed in other environments or countries.
Practical implications
The implications will help reducing the negative social, economic and environmental outcomes that usually emerge from project delays.
Originality/value
Climatic data were processed using extremely simple calculations to create a series of quantitative maps and tables that would be useful for any construction planner to decide the best moment of the year to start a project and, if possible, where to build it.
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Rebecca Rogers, Martille Elias, LaTisha Smith and Melinda Scheetz
This paper shares findings from a multi-year literacy professional development partnership between a school district and university (2014–2019). We share this case of a Literacy…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper shares findings from a multi-year literacy professional development partnership between a school district and university (2014–2019). We share this case of a Literacy Cohort initiative as an example of cross-institutional professional development situated within several of NAPDS’ nine essentials, including professional learning and leading, boundary-spanning roles and reflection and innovation (NAPDS, 2021).
Design/methodology/approach
We asked, “In what ways did the Cohort initiative create conditions for community and collaboration in the service of meaningful literacy reforms?” Drawing on social design methodology (Gutiérrez & Vossoughi, 2010), we sought to generate and examine the educational change associated with this multi-year initiative. Our data set included programmatic data, interviews (N = 30) and artifacts of literacy teaching, learning and leading.
Findings
Our findings reflect the emphasis areas that are important to educators in the partnership: diversity by design, building relationships through collaboration and rooting literacy reforms in teacher leadership. Our discussion explores threads of reciprocity, simultaneous renewal and boundary-spanning leadership and their role in sustaining partnerships over time.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to our understanding of building and sustaining a cohort model of multi-year professional development through the voices, perspectives and experiences of teachers, faculty and district administrators.
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