Influence of freight transport purchasing processes on logistical variables related to CO2 emissions: a case study in Sweden

Emissions from freight transport stem from logistical variables such as vehicle utilisation, fuel efficiency, and distance. The purpose is to determine how shippers’ freight transport purchasing processes influence logistical variables. A multiple case study of freight transport purchasing processes was conducted, based on interviews with transport purchasers and providers. Three causes of influence of shippers’ purchasing processes on logistical variables were found: specific requirements, network structure of transport providers, and scope of contract. Specifications by purchasers, especially time requirements, influence several logistical variables (‘mode used’, ‘length of haul’, ‘load factor’, ‘empty running’, and ‘fuel efficiency’). This paper clarifies the implications of transport purchasing on CO₂ emissions in terms of logistical variables, which are understood in transportation research and practice. It describes the effects of shippers’ requirements on transport providers’ execution of transport. The results provide a foundation for shippers to discuss their influence on logistical variables with transport providers.     

The Meanings of ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. An Explanation for the Forbid/Allow Asymmetry

Survey questions worded with the verb ‘forbid’ prove not to elicit opposite answers to equivalent questions worded with the verb ‘allow’ (Rugg 1941). Although ‘forbid’ and ‘allow’ are generally considered each other’s counterparts, respondents rather answer ‘no, not forbid’ than ‘yes, allow’. In order to find out which question is a more valid measure of the underlying attitude, this asymmetry in the answers has to be explained. Experiments show that the asymmetry arises because respondents translate similar attitudes differently into the answering options to forbid/allow questions are equally valid, but the way the attitudes are expressed on the answering scale differs due to the use of ‘forbid’ or ‘allow’. How does this translation process work? The leading hypothesis in forbid/allow research predicts that respondents holding moderate opinions feel that ‘yes forbid’ and ‘yes allow’ are very extreme, causing moderate respondents to prefer answering ‘not forbid’, or ‘not allow’. This article presents the results of 10 experiments investigating the meanings of the answering options to forbid/allow questions. Extreme connotations are shown to only provide part of the explanation for the occurrence of the forbid/allow asymmetry. In order to describe the answering process for forbid/allow questions, well-definedness of meanings proves to be an important additional factor. The meanings of answering options to allow questions are ill-defined compared of those to forbid questions, which causes allow questions to be less homogeneous measures of the underlying attitude than forbid questions.     

Forging a ‘new’ organizational infrastructure for Los Angeles’ progressive community

What margins of maneuverability do urban‐based progressive movements have for affecting policy outcomes in entrepreneurial and neoliberal political systems? This article provides a partial answer to this question by examining how relations developed and stabilized between actors in the different sectors (community based organizations, labor, university) of Los Angeles’ progressive community. Such relations are a necessary but not sufficient condition for affecting policy outcomes. I argue that these relations have resulted from a 20‐year process of interactions between the more innovative agents of each of the sectors. Through their repeated experimentation in building frameworks to coordinate their partnerships, I argue that a variety of complex mechanisms have taken shape that nourish relations and coordinate complex forms of collective action. Functioning as ‘relational platforms’, these coordinating mechanisms have combined to form an emergent ‘organizational infrastructure’ that facilitates both ongoing relational processes and the mobilization of collective resources in politically effective ways. Thus, by examining the organizational infrastructure that makes such a broad based ‘movement’ possible and sustainable, the article offers the reader one insight into how urban progressives have been able to build the power necessary to affect policies in one of the world's most entrepreneurial and neoliberal cities.     

Migrants Encounter Migrants in the City: the Changing Context of ‘Home’ for Second‐Generation Greek‐American Return Migrants

This article looks at the ‘return’ migration of second‐generation Greek Americans to their parents’ homeland, Greece. It is based on interviews with, and written accounts supplied by, 40 participants in the research, all now living in the Athens region. The article addresses two main sets of questions. First, why do they relocate to Greece, what are they looking for, and how do they cope with difficulties and disappointments? Second, and more specifically, how do they react to the fact that Greece is no longer a homogenous hellenistic society, but has become in recent years a de facto multicultural one due to the presence of hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers and their families? Three hypotheses are proposed for this inter‐migrant encounter: returnees, shocked by the ‘new immigration’, view it negatively as upsetting the ‘pure Greek’ homeland they had hoped to find; returnees are more sympathetic because of their own families’ history as immigrants in multicultural America; and returnees differentiate themselves as ‘good’ migrants from Greece’s immigrants who are constructed as ‘bad’ migrants. Evidence from the migrants’ testimonies is found to support all three hypotheses; however, there is more support for the second one. In addition, a fourth outcome was voiced: that of discrimination against Greek Americans who are made to feel, in certain circumstances, outsiders by the ‘true’ Greeks. Suggestions are made for further comparative research.     

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation using the value engineering methodology and Six Sigma tools

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a software solution that integrates the operational processes of the business functions of an enterprise. However, implementing ERP systems is a complex process. In addition to the technical issues, companies must address problems associated with business process re-engineering, time and budget control, and organisational change. Numerous industrial studies have shown that the failure rate of ERP implementation is high, even for well-designed systems. Thus, ERP projects typically require a clear methodology to support the project execution and effectiveness. In this study, we propose a theoretical model for ERP implementation. The value engineering (VE) method forms the basis of the proposed framework, which integrates Six Sigma tools. The proposed framework encompasses five phases: knowledge generation, analysis, creation, development and execution. In the VE method, potential ERP problems related to software, hardware, consultation and organisation are analysed in a group-decision manner and in relation to value, and Six Sigma tools are applied to avoid any project defects. We validate the feasibility of the proposed model by applying it to an international manufacturing enterprise in Taiwan. The results show improvements in customer response time and operational efficiency in terms of work-in-process and turnover of materials. Based on the evidence from the case study, the theoretical framework is discussed together with the study’s limitations and suggestions for future research.     

The Financialization of Housing Production in Brussels

This article focuses on the financialization of housing production in the Brussels‐Capital Region, examining the increased presence and use of financial capital in housing production. Information collected by local administrations when granting building permits is used to undertake a large‐scale examination of companies involved in housing provision in Brussels in the 2000s in order to identify the origins of capital invested in housing development projects and to assess to what extent it can be considered as ‘financialized’. The use of this data set allows me to estimate the ‘market share’ of financial capital in housing production and to analyse the geography of these investments in the built environment. This spatial analysis also provides some insights for a discussion about the possible social consequences of this influx of financial capital into the urban space. The task of empirically ‘measuring’ financialization raises numerous methodological questions. A choice has to be made between a wide range of definitions, both for financial activities and the financialization process. Moreover, for the purpose of quantifying the phenomenon, these concepts are made operational and turned into indicators. In addition to providing information about the investment of financial capital in housing production and the concrete forms it may take in a city such as Brussels, I venture to suggest that this article also contributes to the methodological ‘toolbox’ available to researchers in the field of financialization.     

Applications integration in a hybrid cloud computing environment: modelling and platform

With the development of application services providers and cloud computing, more and more small- and medium-sized business enterprises use software services and even infrastructure services provided by professional information service companies to replace all or part of their information systems (ISs). These information service companies provide applications, such as data storage, computing processes, document sharing and even management information system services as public resources to support the business process management of their customers. However, no cloud computing service vendor can satisfy the full functional IS requirements of an enterprise. As a result, enterprises often have to simultaneously use systems distributed in different clouds and their intra enterprise ISs. Thus, this article presents a framework to integrate applications deployed in public clouds and intra ISs. A run-time platform is developed and a cross-computing environment process modelling technique is also developed to improve the feasibility of ISs under hybrid cloud computing environments.     

Post local forms of repair: The (extended) situation of virtualised technical support

We address the seemingly implausible project of moving the technical support of complex organisational technologies online. We say ‘implausible’ because from the point of view of micro-sociological analysis and the influential work of Orr (1996) there is a consensus that the diagnosis and resolution of technical failures is an intrinsically ‘localised affair’ (i.e., rooted within a specific place and time). Notwithstanding this view, technology producers have been pushing in the recent period to develop online forms of support. Today, and particularly in the area of organisational software, many technical failures are now repaired at a distance. How is this possible given the consensus amongst sociologists? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at a major software producer we show how repair work has been recast and inserted in a new geographical and temporal regime. This has implications for how sociologists of technology conceptualise the nature and practice of technical failure but also the time and situation in which it occurs. We attempt to refocus understandings of technical problems from a preoccupation with their rootedness onto how they are lifted out of local contexts and passed around globally distributed offices in search of requisite specialist expertise. Importantly, whilst virtualisation appears a seemingly effective means to resolve failures it also has negative consequences. Whereas in more traditional types of technical support place-based social relations are seen to bear the burden of controlling and regulating support, in online forms other means have to be found. Our conceptual aim is to move away from a view of repair revolving exclusively around the situation conceived of as a ‘small place’. Rather, since support work is increasingly ‘stretched out’ across a global network of labs connected up by technologies, it now takes place across an extended situation. We work up this notion first to highlight how aspects once seen as central to localist forms of analysis are no longer the only organising features as technical work moves online and second to demonstrate the various ways in which the locales for this work are now mediated by technology.     

The multiplexity of diagrams and prototypes in requirements development

Information systems development (ISD) requires dynamic and flexible ways of working, particularly when developing requirements in collaboration with customers. Although prior research has acknowledged the importance of objects to support ISD practices, there has been a lack of frameworks to help discern the multiple overlapping roles objects play to support requirements development in a variety of ways throughout an ISD project. This paper explores and theorizes this phenomenon by leveraging multiplexity as a theoretical lens to analyze an extensive qualitative data set from a case study at a Swiss multinational banking software provider. Results show how diagrams and prototypes both play the roles of epistemic, activity, boundary, and infrastructure objects as a reflection of how they are used in requirements development. Our analysis articulates how two classical requirements specifications play multiple overlapping roles to support dynamic and flexible ISD practices. Based on these findings, we advance a framework for discerning the multiplex role of objects in practice     

Software for Learning and for Doing Statistics

The community of statisticians and statistics educators should take responsibility for the evaluation and improvement of software quality from the perspective of education. The paper will develop a perspective, an ideal system of requirements to critically evaluate existing software and to produce future software more adequate both for learning and doing statistics in introductory courses. Different kinds of tools and microworlds are needed. After discussing general requirements for such programs, a prototypical ideal software system will be presented in detail. It will be illustrated how such a system could be used to construct learning environments and to support elementary data analysis with exploratory working style.     

Beating the advertising drum for the employer: How legal context translates into good HRM practice

The legal context is constitutive for the legitimacy of HRM practices. In this paper, we use an institutional work approach to investigate how a legal mandate requiring employers to state the minimum pay in job advertisements in Austria was translated into a legitimate HRM practice over time. In this process, HR practitioners translated the law into an HRM practice going well beyond the legal requirements. In contrast to merely constraining HRM practice, we find HR practitioners actively engaging with the legal context. In the discursive struggle over a legitimate translation of the law into practice, actors speaking ‘for HRM’ were mostly HRM consultants and service providers building on an individualist and unitarist frame of reference for employment relations. Our findings contribute to a contextualized understanding of HRM practices by considering the interaction of HR practitioners and legal context.     

Engineering the Financialization of Urban Entrpreneurialism: The JESSICA Urban Development Initiative in the European Union

Urban entrepreneurialism and neoliberal urban governance are assuming new forms under finance‐dominated accumulation. We examine and contribute to theorizing the mechanisms through which urban governance is financialized, taking as a case study JESSICA, one of the European Union's initiatives to implement an ‘urban sensitive’ policy for sustainable and integrated development. Like other initiatives promoting financialization, JESSICA deploys the logic of finance to select and fund urban social initiatives and development projects on the basis of their potential return on investment (ROI). Understanding this process requires placing questions of political economy—how urban governance is shaped by the broader political‐economic context—with questions of governmentality—how stakeholders are enrolled in and come to take for granted new governance initiatives. Following the multi‐scalar institutional infrastructure is crucial to understanding how this works. Taking a relational multi‐scalar approach, we trace how changes at the supranational scale filter down to shape urban policy selection and performance in Sofia, Bulgaria, where we document how ROI calculations conflict with social welfare priorities. Contrasts between the trajectory of financialization of urban governance in the European Union and the United States demonstrate how this is geographically variegated, shaped by the broader context/conjuncture within which such financialization is embedded.     

SOME PRACTICAL GUIDANCE FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PROPENSITY SCORE MATCHING

Abstract Propensity score matching (PSM) has become a popular approach to estimate causal treatment effects. It is widely applied when evaluating labour market policies, but empirical examples can be found in very diverse fields of study. Once the researcher has decided to use PSM, he is confronted with a lot of questions regarding its implementation. To begin with, a first decision has to be made concerning the estimation of the propensity score. Following that one has to decide which matching algorithm to choose and determine the region of common support. Subsequently, the matching quality has to be assessed and treatment effects and their standard errors have to be estimated. Furthermore, questions like ‘what to do if there is choice‐based sampling?’ or ‘when to measure effects?’ can be important in empirical studies. Finally, one might also want to test the sensitivity of estimated treatment effects with respect to unobserved heterogeneity or failure of the common support condition. Each implementation step involves a lot of decisions and different approaches can be thought of. The aim of this paper is to discuss these implementation issues and give some guidance to researchers who want to use PSM for evaluation purposes.     

An industrial network flow information integration model for supply chain management and intelligent transportation

Industrial network flow involves three domains: infrastructure, individual subjects of movement, and planning and control of the movement. Examples include supply chain and intelligent transportation. These traditionally isolated domains can be digitally connected to enhance their performance. Digitization of the infrastructure provides real-time data to facilitate its operation, while digitally connecting the subjects to the infrastructure allows for tailored services and support to particular subjects. Connection of both to the enterprise information systems enables adaptive control for the application (e.g. logistics) at a global optimization level. Previous results in the field cover separate aspects of planning/routing, real-time monitoring, and trip support. Toward this end, a new highway-based subject-infrastructure-enterprise (SIE) information integration model using digital connection is proposed to the field of industrial network flow control for application to intelligent transportation and supply chain management. The SIE model supports industrial network flow control in a way comparable to an adaptive control panel administering an automated material handling system. In this metaphor, the global infrastructure becomes ‘controllable’ similar to factory conveyors and automated guided vehicles. This paper presents a conceptual design substantiated with information requirements analysis. An empirical experiment at locations in New York State shows the technical feasibility of the digital connection envisioned.     

Knowlege networks for innovation in small Scottish software firms

This paper examines the emergence of small indigenous software companies in Scotland, focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of the region's socio-economic infrastructure as a foundation for innovative new business ventures. Following a brief review of some of the accepted wisdom on high-tech start-ups and regional economic development the paper provides some background information on the Scottish region, comparing new firms in the software industry with the foreign multinationals that dominate the local IT industry. A framework - the ‘sociotechnical constituencies’ approach - is then proposed that allows the author to examine networks of specialist knowledge that underlie new business development. Agglomeration effects and the influence of ‘clusters’ of complementary types of knowledge, expertise and innovative competencies at the regional level are at the heart of the analysis. The framework is applied to a sample of local firms, looking at how ‘learning’ via sociotechnical networks underlies their evolution. Policy-makers' attempts to boost the region's new business birth rate and promote the hoped-for ‘silicon glen’ effect are viewed in the light of the study's findings.     

The Global Leadership Life Inventory: development and psychometric properties of a 360-degree feedback instrument

The purpose of this paper is to describe the design of Global Leadership Life Inventory (GlobeInvent), a 360-degree leadership feedback instrument. This instrument is presently used in executive programmes to help identify the operational mode of individual executives. Proper use of this instrument enables the user to determinate those areas of leadership behaviour where improvement is needed.

Because most studies pay attention only to the surface manifestations of leadership, most leadership feedback instruments, in turn, are not concerned with the psychodynamic processes that underlie leaders' character and behaviour. To address this gap, the GlobeInvent is based on a clinical orientation to the study of leadership. This approach provides a more complete analysis of the ‘inner theatre’ of leaders?–?that is, what makes them tick?–?as well as measuring the dynamic, two-way relationship between leaders and followers.

The first step in designing the instrument was to pinpoint significant themes pertaining to exemplary leadership. To that end, semi-structured interviews with senior executives were held. The leadership dimensions that emerged from that process were then tested on an international sample of senior executives. Analysis of the data from the testing confirmed the existence of twelve robust dimensions with a high reliability and internal consistency.

Because the GlobeInvent is a 360-degree feedback instrument, this article addresses differences between ‘Self’ scores and scores given by others (‘Observers’), gender differences in scoring and the influence of nationality, management experience and age on test results. The implications of using such an instrument as a 360-degree feedback tool are reviewed, and suggestions for future research are offered.     

Commentary on Politics of Urbanism: Seeing Like a City by Warren Magnusson

Politics of Urbanism: Seeing Like a City is Warren Magnusson's most recent book. It will find a permanent place as a key contribution in the annals of urban studies, urban politics, political and state theory and international relations, marking a turning point in the way scholars, activists and policymakers see the world. In particular, Magnusson fundamentally questions how we understand and analyse our world from the perspective of the state (the illusion of the sovereign), suggesting we shift instead to the perspective of the city (with its multiplicity of authorities). ‘How welcome should this be?’ is the question that I put to three Canadian colleagues — Roger Keil, Andrew Sancton and Zack Taylor — at the 2011 meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Waterloo, ON, Canada. Their answers follow a summary of this rather concise and very readable book that Serena Kataoka and I prepared to introduce those commentaries.     

Gender: the missing link in industrial relations research

This article extends the critique of how industrial relations research continues to be gender‐blind and argues that it is in part a result of early definitions which relegated ‘personal’ relations as outside the boundaries of the field and in part a result of a simultaneous strategy of acknowledgement and abdication, acknowledging that gender is important while at the same time arguing that gender does not need to be addressed. In order to demonstrate how gender is central to industrial relations, the article uses Antonio Gramsci’s concepts of ‘hegemony’, ‘ideology’, ‘good sense’ and ‘common sense’ to illustrate how patriarchal common sense is drawn on by both managers and trade unionists in negotiations over hours of work in a manufacturing firm in the North ‐west of England. It is argued that in order to include gender as a central feature of industrial relations research, it is necessary to analyse how the interests of capital, labour and patriarchy are embedded in negotiations on the shopfloor.     

The impact of operator involvement in pollution reduction: case studies in Canadian chemical companies

In contrast to most environmental engineering processes, the effectiveness of employee involvement in pollution reduction seems uncertain, ambiguous and far from being clearly established. For companies whose environmental policies have long rested on technical investments, this uncertainty raises several essential questions, namely ‘what is the true effectiveness of this approach?’, ‘to what degree does employee involvement, most specifically operator involvement, make it possible to significantly and measurably reduce environmental impacts?’ and ‘what type of change could this induce in company operations?’. This article proposes answers to these questions based on an empirical study of the preventive and behavioural aspects of environmental management in the Canadian chemical industry. Conducted in three chemical factories from the Montreal region, the case studies show that significant results, often exceeding managers' expectations, could be obtained through the operators' involvement. However, these results and the precise organizational changes that caused them were difficult to identify, measure and foresee. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.