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1 – 10 of 502Olga Trunova, Igor Khodachek and Aleksandr Khodachek
This study addresses the implications of smart city development paths (techno-centric and human-centric) by investigating the evolution of a city strategy, focusing on how…
Abstract
Purpose
This study addresses the implications of smart city development paths (techno-centric and human-centric) by investigating the evolution of a city strategy, focusing on how different actors in a dialogue centred on strategic planning documents for Saint Petersburg, Russia, visualised the smart city and then made it calculable.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a case study based on a documentary analysis supported by ethnographic elements relying on the smart city conceptual proposals, the approved city strategy and the artifacts of expert discussions leading to the strategy implementation plan.
Findings
Through the lens of dialogue theory, the authors show how government and non-government actors in different organisational settings devised techno-centric smart city calculations, which arose despite an initial human-centric vision.
Research limitations/implications
While the case study allowed the study to illustrate the depth and richness of the context of the authoritarian Russian state where the role of citizens in public decision-making is rather limited, different and even contrasting results could be produced in other contexts.
Practical implications
There is a gap between a smart city vision and its grounding in calculations. Thus, the human-centric elements require special attention, and the organisation of the dialogue on smart city strategy must enable plurality of voices besides those of government actors.
Originality/value
The case suggests viewing the human-centric and techno-centric perspectives not as dichotomous, but rather emerging consecutively throughout the journey from an initial strategic vision to its implementation in the city's calculations.
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Kateryna Kubrak, Fredrik Milani and Alexander Nolte
When improving business processes, process analysts can use data-driven methods, such as process mining, to identify improvement opportunities. However, despite being supported by…
Abstract
Purpose
When improving business processes, process analysts can use data-driven methods, such as process mining, to identify improvement opportunities. However, despite being supported by data, process analysts decide which changes to implement. Analysts often use process visualisations to assess and determine which changes to pursue. This paper helps explore how process mining visualisations can aid process analysts in their work to identify, prioritise and communicate business process improvement opportunities.
Design/methodology/approach
The study follows the design science methodology to create and evaluate an artefact for visualising identified improvement opportunities (IRVIN).
Findings
A set of principles to facilitate the visualisation of process mining outputs for analysts to work with improvement opportunities was suggested. Particularly, insights into identifying, prioritising and communicating process improvement opportunities from visual representation are outlined.
Originality/value
Prior work focuses on visualisation from the perspectives – among others – of process exploration, process comparison and performance analysis. This study, however, considers process mining visualisation that aids in analysing process improvement opportunities.
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Mika Luhtala, Olga Welinder and Elina Vikstedt
This study aims to investigate the adoption of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the new performance perspective in cities. It also aims to understand…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the adoption of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the new performance perspective in cities. It also aims to understand how accounting for SDGs begins in city administrations by following Power’s (2015) fourfold development schema composed of policy object formation, object elaboration, activity orchestration and practice stabilization.
Design/methodology/approach
Focusing on a network of cities coordinated by the Finnish local government association, we analyzed the six largest cities in Finland employing a holistic multiple case study strategy. Our data consisted of Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs), city strategies, budget plans, financial statements, as well as results of participant observations and semi-structured interviews with key individuals involved in accounting for SDGs.
Findings
We unveiled the SDG framework as an interpretive scheme through which cities glocalized sustainable development as a novel, simultaneously global and local, performance object. Integration of the new accounts in city management is necessary for these accounts to take life in steering the actions. By creating meaningful alignment and the ability to impact managerial practices, SDGs and VLRs have the potential to influence local actions. Our results indicate further institutionalization progress of sustainability as a performance object through SDG-focused work.
Originality/value
While prior research has focused mainly on general factors influencing the integration of the sustainability agenda, this study provides a novel perspective by capturing the process and demonstrating empirically how new accounts on SDGs are introduced and deployed in the strategic planning and management of local governments.
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Hoyon Hwang, Jaeyoung Cha and Jon Ahn
The purpose of this paper is to present the development of an optimal design framework for high altitude long endurance solar unmanned aerial vehicle. The proposed solar aircraft…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the development of an optimal design framework for high altitude long endurance solar unmanned aerial vehicle. The proposed solar aircraft design framework provides a simple method to design solar aircraft for users of all levels of experience.
Design/methodology/approach
This design framework consists of algorithms and user interfaces for the design of experiments, optimization and mission analysis that includes aerodynamics, performance, solar energy, weight and flight distances.
Findings
The proposed sizing method produces the optimal solar aircraft that yields the minimum weight and satisfies the constraints such as the power balance, the night time energy balance and the lift coefficient limit.
Research limitations/implications
The design conditions for the sizing process are given in terms of mission altitudes, flight dates, flight latitudes/longitudes and design factors for the aircraft configuration.
Practical implications
The framework environment is light and easily accessible as it is implemented using open programs without the use of any expensive commercial tools or in-house programs. In addition, this study presents a sizing method for solar aircraft as traditional sizing methods fail to reflect their unique features.
Social implications
Solar aircraft can be used in place of a satellite and introduce many advantages. The solar aircraft is much cheaper than the conventional satellite, which costs approximately $200-300m. It operates at a closer altitude to the ground and allows for a better visual inspection. It also provides greater flexibility of missions and covers a wider range of applications.
Originality/value
This study presents the implementation of a function that yields optimized flight performance under the given mission conditions, such as climb, cruise and descent for a solar aircraft.
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Feng Yang, Shan Zhao and Xiaoqian Zhang
China’s globalizing Internet describes a situation where China is using the Internet as a tool or medium to transmit its voice on the world stage and enhance its influence over…
Abstract
Purpose
China’s globalizing Internet describes a situation where China is using the Internet as a tool or medium to transmit its voice on the world stage and enhance its influence over the global Internet governance system and the global digitalization process. Several concerns, however, exist regarding China’s globalizing Internet strategies. This paper aims to respond to these concerns and enhance the understanding of China’s globalizing Internet strategies.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper will use content analysis to trace the policy development trajectory of China’s globalizing Internet, including policy vision, policy-making agencies and policy tools.
Findings
The Chinese government has issued a considerable number of policies to regulate and promote the development of the Internet since 2014. The key trend that emerged from the analysis of China’s globalizing Internet policy is the cooperation among different agencies. Existing policies have comprehensively used the supply-oriented tools, the environment-oriented tools and the demand-oriented tools; and the last two tools have been used more frequently in recent years.
Originality/value
The analysis results contribute to understanding how China uses digital technology to enhance its influence over the global Internet governance system.
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Elin K. Funck, Kirsi-Mari Kallio and Tomi J. Kallio
This paper aims to investigate the process by which performative technologies (PTs), in this case accreditation work in a business school, take form and how humans engage in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the process by which performative technologies (PTs), in this case accreditation work in a business school, take form and how humans engage in making up such practices. It studies how academics come to accept and even identify with the quantitative representations of themselves in a translation process.
Design/methodology/approach
The research involved a longitudinal, self-ethnographic case study that followed the accreditation process of one Nordic business school from 2015 to 2021.
Findings
The findings show how the PT pushed for different engagements in various phases of the translation process. Early in the translation process, the PT promoted engagement because of self-realization and the ability for academics to proactively influence the prospective competitive milieu. However, as academic qualities became fabricated into numbers, the PT was able to request compliance, but also to induce self-reflection and self-discipline by forcing academics to compare themselves to set qualities and measures.
Originality/value
The paper advances the field by linking five phases of the translation process, problematization, fabrication, materialization, commensuration and stabilization, to a discussion of why academics come to accept and identify with the quantitative representations of themselves. The results highlight that the materialization phase appears to be the critical point at which calculative practices become persuasive and start influencing academics’ thoughts and actions.
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Shamal Faily, Claudia Iacob, Raian Ali and Duncan Ki-Aries
This paper aims to present a tool-supported approach for visualising personas as social goal models, which can subsequently be used to identify security tensions.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a tool-supported approach for visualising personas as social goal models, which can subsequently be used to identify security tensions.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors devised an approach to partially automate the construction of social goal models from personas. The authors provide two examples of how this approach can identify previously hidden implicit vulnerabilities and validate ethical hazards faced by penetration testers and their safeguards.
Findings
Visualising personas as goal models makes it easier for stakeholders to see implications of their goals being satisfied or denied and designers to incorporate the creation and analysis of such models into the broader requirements engineering (RE) tool-chain.
Originality/value
The approach can be used with minimal changes to existing user experience and goal modelling approaches and security RE tools.
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Matthew Li, David Allinson and Kevin Lomas
The purpose of this paper is to identify the impact of traditionally unmonitored energy sources and sinks on assessment of the as-built thermal performance of occupied homes. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the impact of traditionally unmonitored energy sources and sinks on assessment of the as-built thermal performance of occupied homes. The analysis aims to demonstrate the potential scale of uncertainties introduced in a heat balance estimation of the heat transfer coefficient (HTC) when using in-use monitored data.
Design/methodology/approach
Energy flows for two UK homes – one a 1930s dwelling with high heat loss, the second a higher-performing 2014-built home – are predicted using the UK Government’s standard assessment procedure (SAP) and visualised using Sankey diagrams. Selected modelled energy flows are used as inputs in a quasi-steady state heat balance to calculate in-use HTCs as if from measured data sets gathered in occupied homes. The estimated in-use HTCs are compared against SAP-calculated values to illustrate the impact of including or omitting various heat sources and sinks.
Findings
The results demonstrate that for dwellings with low heat loss, the increased proportion of heating demand met by unmetered internal and solar gains informs a greater sensitivity of a heat balance estimation of the HTC to their omission. While simple quasi-steady state heat balance methods may be appropriate for dwellings with very high heat loss, alternative approaches are likely to be required for those with lower heat loss.
Originality/value
A need to understand the impacts of unmetered heat flows on the accuracy with which a building’s thermal performance may be inferred from in-use monitored data is identified: this paper illustrates the scale of these impacts for two homes at opposite ends of the energy performance scale.
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Eveline Maria van Zeeland-van der Holst and Jörg Henseler
The concept of trust suffers from conceptual confusion. The current perspectives on trust within the B2B marketing domain could be visualised as a big box of which the borders are…
Abstract
Purpose
The concept of trust suffers from conceptual confusion. The current perspectives on trust within the B2B marketing domain could be visualised as a big box of which the borders are defined by the disciplines marketing, economics, psychology and sociology. The purpose of this paper is to enlarge the box by introducing neuroscientific insights on trust to the B2B marketing domain.
Design/methodology/approach
By a literature study on neuroscientific insights on trust, this paper examines how neuroscience can help to solve existing problems within trust research and how it can address problems that otherwise might not be considered.
Findings
The neural coordinates of trust not only show that trust entails cognitive and affective elements, but also that these elements are so intertwined that they cannot be completely separated. What can and should be separated are the concepts of trust and distrust: the neural coordinates of trust are clearly different from the neural coordinates of distrust. Furthermore, there are personal differences in the ease of trusting others, which are not only caused by previous experiences but also by differences in resting patterns of frontal electroencephalographic asymmetry and by differences in hormonal state.
Research limitations/implications
Specifically, the neural difference between trust and distrust might shape the future research agenda for trust research within industrial marketing. It is likely that the process of distrust goes quick, whereas trust comes more slow. This is reflected in the dual processing theory, which is seen as a paradigm shift in the psychology of reasoning.
Originality/value
New perspectives and directions for trust research are presented. The distinction between trust and distrust is connected to approach- and avoidance-motivated behaviour, which is highly relevant for deepening the studies on trust within industrial marketing.
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