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The chapter is based on the Social Foundation project: ‘Digital Pathways to Growth: Competency’ conducted in the region of Zealand in Denmark. The process of creating a multifunctional semantic – a competency model – is unfolded. Informed by social system theory the semantic required to enable dialogue in a polycentric network is analysed. The participants are various small and medium-sized enterprises, across many occupations and tasks, different types of educational and training organisations as well as process consultants from various knowledge institutions, labour unions and industrial interest organisations. The model is designed through a participatory process to help this polycentric network of organisations to build competencies for the digitalisation ahead.

We argue that design thinking and engaged scholarship in the construction of a multifunctional semantics – such as the competency model – is useful both as a practical method and as a semantic research strategy informed by social system theory. The role played by design thinking when developing the competency model as a multifunctional semantic is concluded and the future research outlined.

The research generates knowledge of practical value for networked collaboration in educational ‘ecologies’ as the need increases for stronger links between education, business and research, as well as the involvement of social partners and civil society to increase Europe’s innovation capacity as advised by both the OECD and the EU.

The role that effective maintenance management plays in contributing to overall organizational productivity has received increased attention. Presents the development of a situational maintenance model that may be used to analyse and design the elements of a maintenance system. The situational approach to maintenance builds on contingency theory and considers both internal and external corporate dynamics. Using ideas from total productive maintenance (TPM), discusses how this model may be used to link corporate goals with maintenance policies. Defines design variables for maintenance systems that include the perspectives of individual behaviour, decision support systems, management systems and organizational structure, and corporate culture.

Taking departure in the premise that donor and recipient priorities differ with regard to the marginal costs and benefits associated with attacking global environmental externalities, and hence the relative importance attached to the global environment, this paper seeks to scrutinize specific global environmental transfer mechanisms in the light of proposed definitions of global environmental assistance and global environmental compensation. It is argued that most global environmental transfer mechanisms possess distinct compensatory elements, and that additionality of these transfers is essential in order to ensure that existing development assistance is not crowded out. Specifically, this should be achieved either directly through separation of funds for global environmental and local developmental purposes or indirectly through increased considerations for local development objectives directly in global environmental transfer design.