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The resourcing of policing activity is characterised by a level of complexity, particularly where evaluating alternative policy options is concerned. In this paper, a case study using multimethodological modelling to compare alterative policy choice in a group context is outlined with respect to response-patrol officer (RPO) deployment within a UK police force. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The application of a three phase modelling process is illustrated where scenario planning is used to generate the scope of the system elements to be modelled. This is followed by causal mapping to identify the barriers to improving officer resourcing, and system dynamics modelling is used to simulate the impacts of a range of policy options within this policing function. A group model building approach was applied throughout the modelling phases with an expert group to negotiate a shared view of the structure and dynamics of the resourcing policy challenges.

A fully validated system dynamics model emerged from the multi-phase modelling process which allowed a series of alternative future policy scenarios to be explored and evaluated. Useful policy insights were generated by the system dynamics simulation model which suggested more efficient rules for resource allocation in the police force’s RPO function.

The insights from this case study demonstrates that multi-phase modelling has potential application in policy exploration across a range of emergency service providers whose actions are governed by both variable demand and constrained supply of resource.

The study uses VIseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR)-structural equation modeling (SEM) to construct benchmarks for service providers and evaluate a multimethodology practice in the Internet industry.

The data were collected using a survey based on an email/interview with 444 Internet users participating. SEM obtained coefficient values by way of customer expectations for Internet service providers. The authors normalized coefficients and integrated them into the VIKOR method for ranking competitors in the Internet industry.

VIKOR-SEM revealed that network and information quality and security/privacy significantly positively impact customer trust while network and information quality and customer trust significantly positively affect Internet users' value perceptions. Customer services do not affect customer trust, while security/privacy and customer services have no significant influence on customer value perceptions. Though customer services and Internet users' trust and value perceptions directly, significantly and positively affect their commitments, the quality of network and information and security/privacy indirectly, significantly and positively influence customer commitments.

The study was in the Internet industry of Iraq. The results cannot be accurate for the other countries and the service sectors. The researchers/managers can adopt the model in other service sectors to test the multimethodology.

VIKOR-SEM evaluated the changes in customer expectations and service providers in the Internet industry.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct research with children, who have different abilities from adults, in terms of language understanding and level of attention, is a challenging task, especially concerning novel interactive systems such as social robots. Consequently, self-reporting methods are often replaced or supplemented by observational methods that are usually carried out taking advantage of video recordings. However, some limitations make this approach challenging for studies conducted with groups of children in real-world environments, whose relevance is being addressed more and more frequently in human-robot interaction (HRI) research. Thus, there is a growing need for rigorous observation approaches in unstructured test environments.

This paper presents an alternative analysis approach, in relation to an experimental child-robot interaction (CRI) application, which was developed at the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University, China. The proposed methodology is based on the analysis of video recordings of in-wild activities of children with a robot. The methodology has the aim of providing a framework to facilitate knowledge identification and structuring. It was implemented for experiment evaluation and validation purposes and to propose a reference structure for the organization of new experiments and the stimulation of new ideas and activities in the design process.

This methodology provides a logical structure, which can be used to identify the effectiveness or limits of design choices, pertaining to such aspects as the morphology or movement of robots or the choice of their specific role in education, all of which play crucial roles in the design process and could be improved to achieve better results. This structured identification is a practical implication for the design process, above all when it is oriented toward social robots and their interaction with children or elderly senile people. In this case, the outcomes were the identification of important elements of an experiment (psychological profiles of the involved children and possible problems or risks) and their impact on the design process.

The methodological approach, which structures and uses cognitive maps to elaborate multicriteria evaluation models, is not new to the operations research field (where it is defined as a multimethodology application of Soft OR), but it has not yet been applied in the field of HRI studies, to analyze children’s perception of a robot and to identify the factors that can affect a good CRI or to structure knowledge that can be shared to guide the design process of robots for the experience of children playing.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the contribution that problem structuring methods – a branch of the decision support discipline of operational research – have made in helping managers deal with situations of high complexity. The paper reviews the limitations of traditional operational research and argues that problem structuring methods have expanded the entire discipline and significantly contributed to its holistic nature and problem-solving orientation.

The paper provides a critical discussion of the limitations of the traditional operational research approach and examines how the development and successful application of problem structuring methods have opened up a new paradigm of analysis in management science.

In theoretical terms, problem structuring methods have moved the discipline of operational research away from its positivistic epistemology and towards interpretivism and the acceptance of a subjective social reality. In practical terms, they offer managers a broad range of appropriate analytical tools which provide transparency and offer the opportunity to those affected by the problem situation to be actively involved in the entire modelling process within a facilitated environment.

The paper offers a critical discussion of the contribution that problem structuring methods have made while also identifying the challenges they face as they try to achieve higher levels of recognition and acceptance in management science.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the potential of making the systems approach fertile for the future of our world(s).

Underpinned by a significant case study, the idea of the paper is to show how a systems study changed the basis for deciding on an incisive interference planned for a lovely alpine valley. The study builds on a qualitative conceptual model and reverts to a quantitative, system‐dynamics simulation model, as well as standard economic evaluation methods. The decision process is explained with its outcomes and implications.

The study found, among others, the following concrete result: The optimal variant (Case B) required an additional investment for its realization. According to the calculations that were carried out, the period needed for the amortization of the pertinent amount was found to be no more than 0.9 to 1.6 years. It became clear that the most expensive variant was indeed a very good business proposition for the Austrian Republic.

The results of the study were integrated into the General Traffic Plan of the Austrian Ministry of Transportation, Innovation and Technology, i.e. the study's conclusions obtained legal status. This meant a shift toward a long‐term orientation. In addition, new insights for the realization of similar studies and interventions were gained.

The study described in the paper shows both rigor and relevance. It illuminates a methodology that combines the qualitative and the quantitative, as well as careful analysis and powerful synthesis. Beyond the methods and procedures used in the inquiry, its outcomes and impact on the concrete system under study are demonstrated.

Recycling is associated with positive social and environmental impact, but previous studies have overlooked the cost of recycling operations. Based on the dynamic capability view, the purpose of this study was to identify and evaluate risk factors and resilience strategies within the recycling industry, prioritize these factors and identify the optimal combination of resilience strategies and risk factors to improve market performance.

The research questions were addressed in three subsequent studies. In Study 1, qualitative interviews were conducted to identify risk factors and strategies to mitigate those risks. In Study 2, quality function deployment methodologies were implemented via case studies derived from three different companies. Based on the results of Studies 1 and 2, in addition to the use of fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, Study 3 aimed to determine the optimal combination of risk factors and strategies impacting market performance.

The results across the three studies revealed a number of risk factors as well as which risk factors and resilience strategies have the greatest impact on market performance. Specifically, it was found that higher levels of readiness, response and recovery strategies lead to greater market performance, whereas weak readiness, response and recovery strategies, along with low societal, environmental and health and safety risk factors, significantly inhibit performance.

This research extends current understandings of market performance in relation to recycling industry management and offers insight for decision-makers toward combating significant risk factors in business-to-business settings.

Scholars are increasingly acknowledging the importance of conversations in the management of complex projects. Defining dialectics as “the art of purposeful conversation”, this paper aims to rationalise the somewhat disorganised field of dialectics by developing a categoreal scheme.

The authors refer to the current state of research into the conversational aspects of complex projects, and examine the historical development of, and philosophical and scholarly commentary on, the dialectical method.

The categories the authors propose are the Socratic, Conversational, Fichtean and Peircean. They differ in relation to the subject matter of the dialectic; their vulnerability to environmental influences; the degree of structure they require for optimal performance; and the situations in which they might most profitably be applied.

A single categoreal scheme is rarely the last word, and the authors invite other scholars to explore the field in a similar way.

The scheme proposed here is intended to enhance the project manager's approach to conversations, by referring to the specific virtues and limitations of each of the categories.

The informed use of dialectics may help to ameliorate the significant damage done to organisations and economies around the world by failed and underperforming projects.

The authors present the first categorisation of the field, with the aim of equipping the practitioner to think about dialectical approaches in a more systematic way.

Brings together some of the empirical findings from a series of action research projects undertaken in a number of engineering companies. Systems concepts were employed with engineers to assist organisational change. The key driver for each programme of change was the implementation of a new company‐wide strategy for increasing competitive edge in the open market. In each instance, senior management recognised that, while their engineers possessed the “hard”, technical skills to fulfil such a strategy, they did not all possess the “soft”, people‐related skills to cope with the cultural aspects of the change. Systems concepts, such as rich pictures and metaphors, were used to generate new perspectives that would stimulate a more holistic approach to organisational change management.

This paper sets out to describe the development of problem‐structuring methods within operations research (OR) and to suggest that these might define new areas of collaborative activity between library management and OR modellers.

The paper identifies a requirement for the twenty‐first century academic library to be flexible, inclusive and responsive to rapidly changing environments. The use of problem‐structuring methods provides OR modellers with a methodological approach that can assist decision making under just these conditions, and so a management approach that places problem‐structuring methods firmly within library planning processes is suggested.

Since the rapid growth of library OR in the 1960s and 1970s (using primarily statistical and quantitative techniques) there has been a significant downturn in new applications and model developments within the last 20 years. This has coincided with a debate on the future of OR that has moved it away from the application of quantitative techniques, and the new paradigms evolving from that debate could stimulate a regeneration of interest in library OR.

The paper explores a possible future for library OR. The application of OR methods within libraries has undoubtedly had its successes and a wider appreciation of the potential use of problem‐structuring methods within library management could resolve many of the issues associated with planning library operations on the brink of the second decade of the twenty‐first century.