Search results

The main objective of this research was to combine the integration between two fields of knowledge – future-oriented technology analysis (FTA) and games. This study aims to capture the stakeholders’ actions and decision-making in a procedural, interactive and collaborative way to find a vision of the future.

The framework was designed from a literature review on the related research topics, exploring elements and methods, also how we brought the two fields together. The framework was structured in four steps: exploring – deciding – matching – evaluating. For each phase, deep reflections were described to understand the current situation, identify essential future issues and provide recommendations for action.

One attractive aspect of the FTA-games is the characteristics of each field but combined made it possible to evaluate future developments and trends. The elements present in games can boost FTA activities through interaction, engagement, experiences, collaboration and motivation, among other elements. Systematically, we seek to ensure traceability by identifying challenges, solutions, execution and results achieved and using tools and elements that make prospecting practical.

This article systematizes the connection between two fields in the form of a framework. At each stage of the framework, participants and strategists are challenged to seek solutions to future challenges, allowing these participants to engage in a common cause and make actions tangible. Game elements can be shaped to explore new avenues in FTA activities, as they are used in games in specific subject domains. These fields tend to be fragmented and are not integrated.

This article seeks to answer the question: how should we conceptualise the “gig economy”? In doing so the authors shall explore if gig economy work should be understood as a novel concept that stands alone, a concept that is a subtype, or whether it may in fact be conceptually redundant.

The authors conduct a thematic analysis of interview data drawn from 27 interviews with policymakers, trade union officials, key figures within labour organisations and gig economy workers.

The authors reveal how, from the perspective of key stakeholders, the concept of the gig economy exhibits a lack of “differentiation” from the long-established concept of precarious work of which it is best understood as a subtype.

The empirical findings from the authors’ study should be regarded as limited in terms of being situated in the specific employment context of the UK. Nevertheless, the implications of the study have a broader reach. The authors seek to provoke debate and discussion among scholars across disciplines and contexts working in the areas of precarious work and the gig economy. The authors’ analysis will be of interest to scholars who are concerned with how they conceptualise “new” forms of work.

The analysis offers a novel intervention by revealing how key stakeholders perceive the gig economy through a prism of continuity rather than change and connect it with broader processes of precarity.

This study aims to test the relationship between ageing, professional status and well-being and the moderating role that job resources might have in this relationship.

The authors relied upon the literature on well-being and the job demands–resources (JD-R) model and employed the Copenhagen psychological questionnaire administered to patient care workers in three paediatric hospitals belonging to the same healthcare organization.

The findings, on the one hand, confirm a not-significant relationship between ageing, professional status and well-being; on the other hand, they indicate that job resources have a positive, significant and direct impact on well-being and a significant role in moderating the relationship between ageing, professional status and well-being.

The present paper has manifold academic and practical interesting implications as it contributes to the literature on the well-being of healthcare workers and provides implications to identify interventions for better human resource (HR) management in the healthcare context.

This paper aims to depict the pivotal role played by Rose Schneiderman and Frances Perkins in early twentieth-century labor and safety reform in the USA. The paper also examines the contributions made by these notable women through the lens of stakeholder theory and the feminist ethic of care.

The review process commenced with a comprehensive search for women in history who advocated labor and safety reform and campaigned for safer organizational practices in the workplace. History books, academic journals and newspaper articles, including writings from Schneiderman and Perkins, were the main sources used for this research endeavor.

Schneiderman and Perkins were both instrumental in playing a major role in fighting for labor and safety reform in the early twentieth century, albeit in different ways. Through their work, there was a heightened understanding of organizations’ duties and obligations to their stakeholders and, in particular, to their employees. They also embodied the feminist ethic of care by being attentive to the needs of others, accepting responsibility and demonstrating competence, while being responsive to their needs.

The influential women in management history are often given scant recognition or not recognized at all. This article highlights the contributions of two women who greatly impacted labor and safety through their struggle for the improvement of working conditions in the USA. The originality of this manuscript also lies in the ethical perspective in which it is grounded.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a systematic literature review on innovation and sustainability. To accomplish this aim, a systematic analysis of the literature in the Scopus database was carried out for articles with the terms “innovation” and “sustainability” in their titles. Once identified, articles were analyzed in three ways: the ten most-cited articles; the ten most-cited literature reviews; and the most recent articles. Sustainable development is the central theme of the articles studied. Sustainable development is influenced by the ways that sustainability is measured within the network of which the organizations are a part, including adequate systems, and is mediated by compatible behaviors. Encouraging green innovation is an environmental commitment and managerial concern driven by customer pressure, environmental regulations and cost reductions. Suppliers and customers can contribute or benefit from the value created.

This study was a Systematic literature review. The search terms “Innov * AND sustain *” were defined for the titles of the articles. The analysis was divided into three categories: the ten most-cited articles (without a year filter to form an idea of the impact of the main research in the field); the ten most-cited reviews (these were only filtered from 2009 to 2018); and the 10 most recent articles (all of the articles found were from the year 2018).

The main findings of this study were that network action, mobilization of relevant stakeholders, reinvention of the business model, redefinition with multiple values and a sustainable strategic scope are the mechanisms that effectively contribute to promoting the link between innovation and sustainability in organizations. Sustainable development is the central theme of the articles studied. Sustainable development is influenced by the ways that sustainability is measured within the network of which the organizations are a part of, including adequate systems, and is mediated by compatible behaviors.

This study contributes to the literature by providing perspectives for future studies that may contribute to the sustainable development of organizations. Sustainable development is strongly influenced by the ways that sustainability is measured within the network of which the organizations are part, including appropriate systems, and is mediated by compatible behaviors.

A wearable expert system (WES) is an expert system designed and implemented to obtain input from and give outputs to wearable devices. Among its distinguishing features are the direct cooperation between domain experts and users, and the interaction with a knowledge maintenance system devoted to dynamically update the knowledge base taking care of the evolving scenario. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The WES development method is based on the Knowledge Acquisition Framework based on Knowledge Artifact (KAFKA) framework. KAFKA employs multiple knowledge artifacts, each devoted to the acquisition and management of a specific kind of knowledge. The KAFKA framework is introduced from both the conceptual and computational points of view. An example is given which demonstrates the interaction, within this framework, of taxonomies, Bayesian networks and rule-based systems. An experimental assessment of the framework usability is also given.

The most interesting characteristic of WESs is their capability to evolve over time, due both to the measurement of new values for input variables and to the detection of new input events, that can be used to modify, extend and maintain knowledge bases and to represent domains characterized by variability over time.

WES is a new and challenging concept, dealing with the possibility for a user to develop his/her own decision support systems and update them according to new events when they arise from the environment. The system fully supports domain experts and users with no particular skills in knowledge engineering methodologies, to create, maintain and exploit their expert systems, everywhere and when necessary.

The purpose of this paper is to overcome the confusion generated by a loose definition of the term knowledge artifact (KA) and its impacts on the design of technologies supporting their use.

The paper looks at the conceptual foundations underpinning the concept of KA that are related to the way in which knowledge is conceived, and revisits the outcomes of empirical investigations to shed light on different aspects of the use of KA in various settings.

The paper identifies a class of KAs and its role in relation to other classes of KAs, as it emerges from the empirical investigations.

The focus is on documental artifacts that are, however, widely used in different domains and organizations. New empirical work is needed to consider other kinds of artifacts and their role in knowledge-intense activities.

The paper aims to drive the attention of the designer on phenomena that hinder the acceptance, appropriation and effectiveness of the technologies they design to support a crucial aspect of collaboration.

The paper is original in the following ways: first, documenting the interplay between a kind of KA that is poorly considered in the literature with other classes of KAs; second, highlighting a set of principles that should guide the construction of computational KAs of a different nature.

The explanatory power of Multi-Level Governance (MLG) has been and is being questioned. Two main criticisms have been raised: first, that MLG is ultimately descriptive, not explanatory; second, that MLG is a case of concept stretching, that it is ultimately an umbrella notion rather than a theory. This chapter outlines what ripostes may be provided to such critiques and argues that the progress of the study of MLG and its usage in political science and public policy and management may lie to an important extent in fostering the dialogue with other streams of research (thus filling the gap of some ‘missing linkages’ in the extant MLG literature), like network governance; policy learning; the analysis of policy tools and the tools of government in complex systems; models in strategic management like stakeholder analysis and others.

This volume is a collective contribution by authors from different disciplinary backgrounds who all address, from different angles and by using a variety of research methods, the key question of how to bring into the MLG research agenda a range of disciplines and applied fields of inquiry that have so far only limitedly been used in the MLG stream of research and literature more systematically.

It arises from the volume that theoretical frames like network governance; policy learning; policy tools analysis; stakeholder analysis and others have important potential to further the MLG research agenda. A number of contributions address the transformation of MLG in the European Union (EU), the polity where MLG arrangements where first detected and labelled as such (Marks, 1993). Others apply MLG frames to other institutional settings, including non-democratic regimes.

This volume is a collective attempt to suggest ‘cross-fertilisations’ from other disciplines or applied fields that may lead to unleash more of the potential and promises of the MLG agenda. It is hoped that this work lays some of the foundations for building bridges between the MLG literature and disciplines and theoretical frames that may be effectively brought into the MLG research agenda.

MLG has long gone beyond the academic debate, to become an analytical lens employed by EU and other institutions across the globe. MLG informs the practice of policy-making. By addressing some key gaps in the extant literature and furnishing perspectives to link MLG to disciplines that may provide theories and models to further its analytical potential, this volume aims at contributing to improving the practice of MLG.

The volume is – to our knowledge – the first systematic attempt to bring into the MLG literature a whole range of theories and models that may provide ways forward to the understanding and usage of MLG.

The purpose of this research is using materials to improve the thermal insulation, and reducing the cost. A large amount of energy is consumed by masonary due to cooling and heating. Adding material with certain percentages to the building materials is one of the ways to improve the thermal insulation, and these additives should keep as much as possible the mechanical properties of the building materials. Carbon additives are one of commonly used materials to masonry materials. In spite of the many advantages of using carbon fibers and carbon nano tubes (CNTs) to the cementitious materials, they are very expansive and their thermal conductivity is high.

In this research charcoal (which is a product of burning process) with very low thermal conductivity and cost in the form of micro particles will be used with mortar and compared with short carbon fibers and multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) via thermal conductivity, density and compressive strength tests. This research includes also an effort to build a model of building to evaluate the thermal insulation of the materials used in the practical part. The main building design and performance simulation tool in this research is DesignBuilder.

Results showed that adding micro charcoal particles to mortar resulted in improving the thermal insulation and decrease the rate of reduction in the compressive strength compared to other additives, while adding short carbon fibers resulted in improving the thermal insulation and decrease the compressive strength. Adding MWCNT to the mortar had a negative effect on mechanical and physical properties, i.e. compressive strength, density and thermal insulation.

This paper uses DesignBuilder software to design a model of building made from the materials used in the practical part to predict and evaluate the thermal insulation.

Following the imperative for human-centric digital innovation brought by the paradigm of Industry 5.0, the article aims to integrate the dispersed and multi-disciplinary literature on individual risks for workers to define, explain and predict individual risks related to Industry 4.0 technologies.

The paper follows the question, “What is the current knowledge and evidence base concerning risks related to Industry 4.0 technologies, and how can this inform digital innovation management in the manufacturing sector through the lens of the Industry 5.0 paradigm?” and uses the method of systematic literature review to identify and discuss potential risks for individuals associated with digital innovation. N = 51 contributions met the inclusion criteria.

The literature review indicates dominant trends and significant gaps in understanding risks from a human-centric perspective. The paper identifies individual risks, their interplay with different technologies and their antecedents at the social, organizational and individual levels. Despite this, the paper shows how the literature concentrates in studying risks on only a limited number of categories and/or concepts. Moreover, there is a lack of consensus in the theoretical and conceptual frameworks. The paper concludes by illustrating an initial understanding of digital innovation via a human-centered perspective on psychological risks.

Findings yield practical implications. In investing in the adoption, generation or recombination of new digital technologies in organizations, the paper recommends managers ensure to prevent risks at the individual level. Accordingly, the study’s findings can be used as a common starting point for extending the repertoire of managerial practices and interventions and realizing human-centric innovation.

Following the paradigm of Industry 5.0, the paper offers a holistic view of risks that incorporates the central role of the worker as crucial to the success of digital innovation. This human-centric perspective serves to inform the managerial field about important factors in risk management that can result in more effective targeted interventions in risk mitigation approaches. Lastly, it can serve to reinterpret digital innovation management and propose future avenues of research on risk.