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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 22 August 2022

Euodia Vermeulen and Sara Grobbelaar

In this article we aim to understand how the network formed by fitness tracking devices and associated apps as a subset of the broader health-related Internet of things is capable…

Abstract

Purpose

In this article we aim to understand how the network formed by fitness tracking devices and associated apps as a subset of the broader health-related Internet of things is capable of spreading information.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used a combination of a content analysis, network analysis, community detection and simulation. A sample of 922 health-related apps (including manufacturers' apps and developers) were collected through snowball sampling after an initial content analysis from a Google search for fitness tracking devices.

Findings

The network of fitness apps is disassortative with high-degree nodes connecting to low-degree nodes, follow a power-law degree distribution and present with low community structure. Information spreads faster through the network than an artificial small-world network and fastest when nodes with high degree centrality are the seeds.

Practical implications

This capability to spread information holds implications for both intended and unintended data sharing.

Originality/value

The analysis confirms and supports evidence of widespread mobility of data between fitness and health apps that were initially reported in earlier work and in addition provides evidence for the dynamic diffusion capability of the network based on its structure. The structure of the network enables the duality of the purpose of data sharing.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 35 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 13 May 2021

Byung-Gak Son, Sangho Chae and Canan Kocabasoglu-Hillmer

Catastrophic supply chain disruptions can significantly damage the operational and financial performance of firms. While a growing body of literature on supply network structures

4716

Abstract

Purpose

Catastrophic supply chain disruptions can significantly damage the operational and financial performance of firms. While a growing body of literature on supply network structures has studied what influences supply networks' vulnerability to supply chain disruptions and capability to recover from them, it remains unclear how supply network structures change after major supply chain disruptions. We aim to provide an understanding of how these changes occur.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a natural experiment approach and supply network data from Factset, this study investigates how firms' supply network structures change after experiencing the catastrophic supply chain disruptions caused by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan. We capture post-earthquake supply network changes using the measures of degree centrality and ego network density.

Findings

The results of the analysis suggest that compared to unaffected firms, the affected firms experience changes in their supply network structures tending toward lower complexity measured by in-degree centrality, out-degree centrality and ego network density.

Originality/value

This study contributes to social network theory and the complex adaptive supply network literature by providing empirical evidence of structural changes in supply networks after catastrophic supply chain disruptions. A managerial contribution is made by providing a reflection on why these changes might be occurring and alert firms to the challenges of managing complexity in their supply networks.

Details

International Journal of Operations & Production Management, vol. 41 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3577

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 16 October 2017

Grzegorz Bocewicz, Mukund Nilakantan Janardhanan, Damian Krenczyk and Zbigniew Banaszak

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the reference model of a grid-like supply network that enables formulation of delivery routing and scheduling problems in the context of…

3096

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the reference model of a grid-like supply network that enables formulation of delivery routing and scheduling problems in the context of the periodic vehicle routing problem.

Design/methodology/approach

The conditions for seamless (collision-free) synchronization of periodically executed local transport processes presented in this paper guarantee cyclic execution of supply processes, thereby preventing traffic flow congestion.

Findings

Systems that satisfy this characteristic, cyclic deliveries executed along supply chains are given and what is sought is the number of vehicles needed to operate the local transport processes in order to ensure delivery from and to specific loading/unloading points on given dates. Determination of sufficient conditions guaranteeing the existence of feasible solutions that satisfy these constraints makes it possible to solve the considered class of problems online.

Practical implications

The computer experiments reported in this paper show the possibilities of practical application of the proposed approach in the construction of decision support systems for food supply chain management.

Originality/value

The aim of the present work is to develop a methodology for the synthesis of regularly structured supply networks that would ensure fixed cyclic execution of local transport processes. The proposed methodology, which implements sufficient conditions for the synchronization of local cyclic processes, allows one to develop a method for rapid prototyping of supply processes that satisfies the time windows constraints given.

Details

Industrial Management & Data Systems, vol. 117 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0263-5577

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 6 April 2020

Aoife De Brún and Eilish McAuliffe

Achieving integrated care is a key focus for health systems and has resulted in various structures between and within organisations. The reorganisation of the Irish health system…

3353

Abstract

Purpose

Achieving integrated care is a key focus for health systems and has resulted in various structures between and within organisations. The reorganisation of the Irish health system into hospital networks/groups aims to encourage work across hospitals to integrate care. This study evaluated if collective leadership emerged over time through increased interaction and collaboration following the organisation of hospitals into a network. A secondary aim was to elucidate the potential for collective leadership, through understanding the barriers and enablers perceived by participants.

Design/methodology/approach

This study employed social network analysis and qualitative interviews. Leaders across the hospital group were invited to participate in an online network survey and interviews (analysed using thematic analysis) at three time points over an 18-month period.

Findings

Although there was evidence that some parts of network were beginning to operate collectively, the structures observed were more typical of a hierarchical network. Disruption in the network and uncertainty regarding permanence of the organisational structure had a negative impact on the potential for collective leadership. Yet, progress was evident in terms of establishing building blocks for collective leadership and integration, including developing trust, mutual understanding and creating space for change.

Practical implications

This study contributes to the literature by reflecting on the mechanisms and initiatives perceived as enabling/inhibiting collective leadership. Based on this research, it is important to communicate a clear and consistent message about the plans for the organisations involved and be clear regarding the roles and expectations for those involved in introducing new approaches to leadership and integration. Honest collaboration, openness and certainty in communication will likely be important in order to help create the contextual conditions to enable collective and system approaches to introduce “stepping stones” to change. These conditions include developing interpersonal relationships between leaders, creating time and space for deep and shared reflection, and enhancing trust among colleagues.

Originality/value

A key strength of this study is the linking of leadership-as-networks theory with social network methods to investigate collective leadership in practice. This study contributes to the literature by reflecting on the mechanisms and initiatives perceived as enabling/inhibiting collective leadership.

Details

Journal of Health Organization and Management, vol. 34 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7266

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 28 April 2020

Jialin Zou, Kun Wang and Hongbo Sun

Crowd network systems have been deemed as a promising mode of modern service industry and future economic society, and taking crowd network as the research object and exploring…

Abstract

Purpose

Crowd network systems have been deemed as a promising mode of modern service industry and future economic society, and taking crowd network as the research object and exploring its operation mechanism and laws is of great significance for realizing the effective governance of the government and the rapid development of economy, avoiding social chaos and mutation. Because crowd network is a large-scale, dynamic and diversified online deep interconnection, its most results cannot be observed in real world, and it cannot be carried out in accordance with traditional way, simulation is of great importance to put forward related research. To solve above problems, this paper aims to propose a simulation architecture based on the characteristics of crowd network and to verify the feasibility of this architecture through a simulation example.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper adopts a data-driven architecture by deeply analyzing existing large-scale simulation architectures and proposes a novel reflective memory-based architecture for crowd network simulations. In this paper, the architecture is analyzed from three aspects: implementation framework, functional architecture and implementation architecture. The proposed architecture adopts a general structure to decouple related work in a harmonious way and gets support for reflection storage by connecting to different devices via reflection memory card. Several toolkits for system implementation are designed and connected by data-driven files (DDF), and these XML files constitute a persistent storage layer. To improve the credibility of simulations, VV&A (verification, validation and accreditation) is introduced into the architecture to verify the accuracy of simulation system executions.

Findings

Implementation framework introduces the scenes, methods and toolkits involved in the whole simulation architecture construction process. Functional architecture adopts a general structure to decouple related work in a harmonious way. In the implementation architecture, several toolkits for system implementation are designed, which are connected by DDF, and these XML files constitute a persistent storage layer. Crowd network simulations obtain the support of reflective memory by connecting the reflective memory cards on different devices and connect the interfaces of relevant simulation software to complete the corresponding function call. Meanwhile, to improve the credibility of simulations, VV&A is introduced into the architecture to verify the accuracy of simulation system executions.

Originality/value

This paper proposes a novel reflective memory-based architecture for crowd network simulations. Reflective memory is adopted as share memory within given simulation execution in this architecture; communication efficiency and capability have greatly improved by this share memory-based architecture. This paper adopts a data-driven architecture; the architecture mainly relies on XML files to drive the entire simulation process, and XML files have strong readability and do not need special software to read.

Details

International Journal of Crowd Science, vol. 4 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2398-7294

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 9 December 2019

Qingqing Wu, Xianguan Zhao, Lihua Zhou, Yao Wang and Yudi Yang

With the rapid development of internet technology, open online social networks provide a broader platform for information spreading. While dissemination of information provides…

Abstract

Purpose

With the rapid development of internet technology, open online social networks provide a broader platform for information spreading. While dissemination of information provides convenience for life, it also brings many problems such as security risks and public opinion orientation. Various negative, malicious and false information spread across regions, which seriously affect social harmony and national security. Therefore, this paper aims to minimize negative information such as online rumors that has attracted extensive attention. The most existing algorithms for blocking rumors have prevented the spread of rumors to some extent, but these algorithms are designed based on entire social networks, mainly focusing on the microstructure of the network, i.e. the pairwise relationship or similarity between nodes. The blocking effect of these algorithms may be unsatisfactory in some networks because of the sparse data in the microstructure.

Design/methodology/approach

An algorithm for minimizing the influence of dynamic rumor based on community structure is proposed in this paper. The algorithm first divides the network into communities, and integrates the influence of each node within communities and rumor influence probability to measure the influence of each node in the entire network, and then selects key nodes and bridge nodes in communities as blocked nodes. After that, a dynamic blocking strategy is adopted to improve the blocking effect of rumors.

Findings

Community structure is one of the most prominent features of networks. It reveals the organizational structure and functional components of a network from a mesoscopic level. The utilization of community structure can provide effective and rich information to solve the problem of data sparsity in the microstructure, thus effectively improve the blocking effect. Extensive experiments on two real-world data sets have validated that the proposed algorithm has superior performance than the baseline algorithms.

Originality/value

As an important research direction of social network analysis, rumor minimization has a profound effect on the harmony and stability of society and the development of social media. However, because the rumor spread has the characteristics of multiple propagation paths, fast propagation speed, wide propagation area and time-varying, it is a huge challenge to improve the effectiveness of the rumor blocking algorithm.

Details

International Journal of Crowd Science, vol. 3 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2398-7294

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 13 February 2018

Stanley Frederick W.T. Lim and Jagjit Singh Srai

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the interplay between configuration dimensions (network structure, network flow, relationship governance, and service architecture) of…

14534

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the interplay between configuration dimensions (network structure, network flow, relationship governance, and service architecture) of last-mile supply networks (LMSN) and the underlying mechanisms influencing omnichannel performance.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on mixed-method design incorporating a multiple embedded case study, mapping, survey, and archival records, this research involved undertaking in-depth within- and cross-case analyses to examine seven LMSNs, employing a configuration approach.

Findings

The existing literature in the operations management (OM) field was shown to provide limited understanding of LMSNs within the emerging omnichannel context. Case results suggest that particular configurations have intrinsic capabilities, and that these directly influence omnichannel performance. The study further proposes a taxonomy of LMSNs comprising six forms, with two hybrids, supporting the notion of equifinality in configuration theory. Propositions are developed to further explore interdependencies between configurational attributes, refining the relationship between LMSN types, and factors influencing omnichannel performance.

Practical implications

The findings provide retailers with a set of design parameters for the (re)configuration of LMSNs and facilitate performance evaluation using the concept of fit between configurational attributes. The developed model sheds light on the consequential effects when certain configurational attributes are altered, preempting managerial attention. Given the global trend in urbanization, improved LMSN performance would have positive societal impacts in terms of service and resource efficiency.

Originality/value

This is one of the first studies in the OM field to critically analyze LMSNs and their behaviors in omnichannel retailing. Additionally, the paper offers several important avenues for future research.

Details

International Journal of Operations & Production Management, vol. 38 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3577

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 10 January 2020

Jiwu Wang and Hongbo Sun

This paper aims to obtain optimal specialization mode and level for complex network or system structures. In the e-commerce system, this paper studies the changes of each…

475

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to obtain optimal specialization mode and level for complex network or system structures. In the e-commerce system, this paper studies the changes of each transaction subject in the process of ecological structure based on the income level of each transaction subject.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper aims to research the change of transaction efficiency evolution process of intermediaries. With the improvement of transaction efficiency, intermediaries interact with other transaction subjects at given modes in e-commerce systems. This paper analyzes the relationship between the factors of production and trade and explains the quantitative relationship between them in the form of mathematical modeling. An evolution simulation framework is established to elaborate the simulation process and method of crowd network in e-commerce ecosystem and then sets up the simulation experiment.

Findings

During simulation processes, the changes of data are observed and analyzed to obtain the optimal evolution paths and specialization modes. Furthermore, this paper provides solid supports for the research of the quantitative analysis of ecological structure evolutions.

Originality/value

Evolution simulation of ecological structure is first proposed in the topic of crowd network. It is with the aid of the concept of ecology, the theory and method, simulation of complex network structure and system structure. This paper analyses and researches the evolution process of optimal specialization modes and intelligent level of crowd networks with transaction efficiency changing. The ecological structure optimal evolution paths can be obtained by trend of simulations.

Details

International Journal of Crowd Science, vol. 4 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2398-7294

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 8 March 2022

Mariëlle Blanken, Jolanda Mathijssen, Chijs van Nieuwenhuizen, Jörg Raab and Hans van Oers

To help ensure that children with social and behavioral health problems get the support services they need, organizations collaborate in cross-sectoral networks. In this article…

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Abstract

Purpose

To help ensure that children with social and behavioral health problems get the support services they need, organizations collaborate in cross-sectoral networks. In this article, the authors explore and compare the structure of these complex child service delivery networks in terms of differentiation (composition) and integration (interconnection). In particular, the authors investigate the structure of client referral and identify which organizations are most prominent within that network structure and could therefore fulfill a coordinating role.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used a comparative case study approach and social network analysis on three interorganizational networks consisting of 65 to 135 organizations within the Dutch child service delivery system. Semi-structured interviews with the network managers were conducted, and an online questionnaire was sent out to the representatives of all network members.

Findings

The networks are similarly differentiated into 11 sectors with various tasks. Remarkably, network members have contact with an average of 20–26 organizations, which is a fairly high number to be handled successfully. In terms of integration, the authors found a striking diversity in the structures of client referral and not all organizations with a gatekeeper task hold central positions.

Originality/value

Due to the scarcity of comparative whole network research in the field, the strength of this study is a deeper understanding of the differentiation and integration of complex child service delivery systems. These insights are crucial in order to deliver needed services and to minimize service silos and fragmentation.

Details

Journal of Health Organization and Management, vol. 36 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7266

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 1 May 2019

Gunnar Lucko and Yi Su

Construction projects operate within a risky environment. It materialises as delays, which must be prevented or mitigated to avoid becoming amplified into late completion. But…

Abstract

Purpose

Construction projects operate within a risky environment. It materialises as delays, which must be prevented or mitigated to avoid becoming amplified into late completion. But previous research has largely ignored how structural complexity of the underlying network schedules shapes their resilience.

Design/Methodology/Approach

This research hypothesizes that schedule structure plays a vital role in its ability to absorb or propagate delays. The impact of activity-level local risk factors is represented via activity duration distributions, i.e. probability density functions. The impact of project-level global risk factors is more challenging because they arise via interactions between multiple activities.

Findings

Modelling resilience to local and global risk factors can employ a matrix approach. Simulation shows that delay amplification depends on local structure, not global complexity.

Research Limitations/Implications

Criticality had merely relied upon a single deterministic analysis of a network schedule to categorize activities as having zero or nonzero float from fixed relative duration a dependency structure. Repeated probabilistic analysis with sampled durations gives criticality indices of activities. This research limits itself to network schedules with point-wise relations between activities.

Practical Implications

Managers can use this knowledge to develop schedules that protect their expected project duration with a suitable structural complexity.

Originality/Value

Contributions to the body of knowledge are as follows: It converts the dependency structure into a reachability matrix and adds a correlation matrix to capture how the predecessor performance may impact its successors. It correlates criticality of activities with structural complexity indices. And it ranks activities objectively by their cruciality, i.e. potential delay propagation.

Details

10th Nordic Conference on Construction Economics and Organization
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-051-1

Keywords

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