Collaborative Network Capacity

Abstract

This article argues that collaborative network success is a function of having the necessary social, knowledge, and financial capital, and the capacity to manage that capital through collaborative governance and knowledge management. This theory is examined through a comparative case study of two early childhood/school readiness networks. The evidence suggests that both collaborative governance and knowledge management enable collaborative networks to use their resources wisely and that organizational commitment to the network, the role of data collection and sharing, and the challenges of information technology all bear further investigation as important components of collaborative network capacity.     

Collaboration,Co-Production,Networks: Convergence of theories

Abstract

This article suggests a framework to study service delivery networks that draws on the theories of collaboration, co-production, and networks combined. We introduce four dimensions of co-production under ‘coproduction-oriented collaborations’. This framework allows us to ‘zoom in and zoom out’ when we study networks. Using the case method approach, the framework is applied to analyse four networks in Singapore. Findings suggest that network process, network structure, and characteristics of actors are crucial to a network’s performance and coproduction’s effectiveness. This article also offers implications for practice that in certain contexts the usage of these concepts is for managerial effectiveness and not for enhancing democratic values.     

The role of Embeddedness in Industrial Symbiosis Networks: Phases in the Evolution of Industrial Symbiosis Networks

Industrial symbiosis (IS) has emerged as a body of exchange structures to progress to a more eco‐efficient industrial system, by establishing a collaborative web of knowledge, material and energy exchanges among different organizational units. However, even given the potential economic and environmental benefits derived from IS networks, the process of emergence and development of these networks seems far from straightforward. The effective operation of such networks relies heavily on aspects such as trust and general reciprocity, aspects insufficiently covered in the IS literature. Based on the theoretical framework provided by social network analysis and economic geography and the empirical data collected through qualitative methods, based on the approach of Grounded Theory, the authors propose a modelling framework to analyse the main mechanisms in the building of trust and embeddedness and identify different phases in cooperation leading to effective IS exchanges. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Modelling of combinable relationship-based composition service network and the theoretical proof of its scale-free characteristics

Existing works on service composition are primarily based on the requirements of service composition, such as describing language supporting service composition, service composition framework, mechanism and method for service composition, and service composition validation. Few works have been carried out from the perspective of combinable relationship among composite services and composition service network. This article emphasises on combinable relationship-based composition service network, i.e. CoRCS-Net. The principles for establishing and modelling CoRCS-Net were studied, and nine combinable relationships among services in CoRCS-Net were investigated and 14 elementary evolving operators for CoRCS-Net dynamic evolution were designed. According to the definition of scale-free network (SFN) and the investigations on its related research achievements, it is supposed that ‘CoRCS-Net is a scale-free network’ in this study. In order to prove the theoretical hypothesis, the concepts of combinable strength and variation of combinable strength were introduced, and combinable strength is used to describe the invoking times of a service being invoked for service composition. First we calculate the real time variation of combinable strength of an arbitrary service in CoRCS-Net, and then obtain the corresponding real time combinable strength and investigate its distribution for all services in CoRCS-Net. It is discovered that ‘like many nature and social phenomenon, CoRCS-Net is “scale-free”, and it is constructed by few “active services” and a great deal of “silent services”. In the process of service composition, the invoking times for majority services are very small, while only few services are invoked frequently, and the probability (or invoking times) for the services in a CoRCS-Net to be invoked for service composition decays as a power-law’.     

Location Decisions of Competing Networks

Early entrants in markets with network effects usually occupy a “central location” and serve agents with “intermediate tastes,” whereas later entrants are niche players. Why would the first entrant choose to become a “general” network, given that later entrants will not have enough room for differentiation, resulting in a more intense competition for market share? In a Hotelling model with two rival networks, we show that for intermediate values of the network externality parameter the location equilibrium is indeed asymmetric: the first entrant locates at the center whereas the second entrant chooses an extreme (niche) location.     

Animal spirits and unemployment: a disequilibrium analysis

The past decade has seen a number of advances in modelling disequilibrium dynamics. This paper draws on separate approaches to disequilibrium dynamics to demonstrate a Keynesian result concerning the formal relevance of “animal spirits” in production economies. Specifically, it is shown that a parameter that can be associated with the “animal spirits” of firms is crucial to the stability of full employment equilibrium in a production economy. This approach to “animal spirits” is different to that taken by recent New Keynesian DSGE-type models, but similar in spirit to “Old Keynesian” approaches, including that of the General Theory. The corollary of the main conclusion is that price flexibility is not a sufficient condition for convergence on full employment equilibrium.     

What drives organic food consumption in Lebanon?

To increase the sparse knowledge about what drives organic food consumers in developing markets, Lebanese consumers' reasons and motives for buying organic food are studied in the framework of means‐end chain theory. A sample of N = 180 Lebanese consumers was interviewed in several retail outlets using a hard laddering questionnaire. The data were subjected to frequency analysis, cluster analysis, and structural equation modelling. Hierarchal value maps constructed from the laddering interviews revealed that “quality of life,” “pleasure,” and “peace of mind” are the main values driving organic food consumption in Lebanon. Frequent organic consumers displayed higher concern for their family's health and for the environment, whereas occasional organic consumers cared more about their own pleasure and were more likely to perceive organic food as a traditional and nostalgic product. Structural equation modelling revealed that “care for nature” and “care for children's health” significantly affect consumers' (self‐reported) purchasing behaviour. The found means‐end chains are a useful basis for marketing campaigns for organic food products in the Lebanese market. One focus of marketing campaigns should be raising consumers' awareness on the environmental benefits of organic production and the fact that it does not allow the use of harmful chemical products.     

Managing the retail operations in the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Morocco

Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and resulting lockdowns have contributed to major retail operational disturbances around the globe, forcing retail organizations to manage their operations effectively. The impact can be measured as a black swan event (BSE). Therefore, to understand its impact on retail operations and enhance operational performance, the study attempts to evaluate retail operations and develop a decision-making model for disruptive events in Morocco. The study develops a three-phase evaluation approach. The approach involves fuzzy logic (to measure the current performance of retail operations), graph theory (to develop an exit strategy for retail operations based on different scenarios), and ANN and random forest-based prediction model with K-cross validation (to predict customer retention for retail operations). This methodology is preferred to develop a unique decision-making model for BSE. From the analysis, the current retail performance index has been computed as “Average” level and the graph-theoretic approach highlighted the critical attributes of retail operations. Further, the study identified triggering attributes for customer retention using machine learning-based prediction models (MLBPM) and develops a contactless payment system for customers' safety and hygiene. The framework can be used on a periodic basis to help retail managers to improve their operational performance level for disruptive events.     

Method towards discovering potential opportunity information during cross-organisational business processes using role identification analysis within complex social network

ABSTRACT

The key to discover potential opportunity information in cross-organisation business processes (COBPs) is to identify the primary roles and actors, i.e. how to obtain their associations according to the interactive behaviours within the complex social networks. The information of roles in COBPs is commonly considered important and explicitly related with activities contained in COBPs. In this paper, we define a role as a configurable resource model integrating the capabilities and knowledge required to the qualified actors. Furthermore, we introduce two networks named as role-based interactive behaviour network and handover of work social network to investigate the information on roles. How to build the complex social network mapped on roles from COBPs is also discussed, and an approach to obtain the potential opportunity information is proposed by combining with the significance of roles and actors. The simulation result shows that the primary roles may not completely correspond to the central position in networks, but they are closely associated with more reliable actors.     

Social Resources

Abstract

This paper advances the ideas that host country nationals, i.e., patriates, constitute an important part of the social environment of an expatriate. Social network theory is used to provide a framework from which to examine expatriate-patriate relationships on the individual, dyad, and group levels. Specifically, it is proposed that expatriate-patriate links, as well as characteristics of the social group in which the expatriate exists, contribute to expatriate effectiveness through their help with shaping work and nonwork networks of information and contacts. It is also recommended that where appropriate, patriate expertise be incorporated into human resource decisions related to the expatriation process. Suggestions on how to accomplish this integration are also offered.     

PRINCIPLES FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A PEDESTRIAN PLAN IN MEDIUM SIZE CITIES

In order to contribute to the effective humanization of the contemporary city and in line with the sustainability of urban areas, this paper focuses on primary pedestrian areas aiming to investigate and demonstrate the benefits of organization and the essential conditions of implementing “pedestrian networks”. The realization of its qualifying character in the urban environment should specify:

• ? The challenge of reinterpreting the idea of the city, due to the transformation of associated “urban forms” and “lifestyles”;
• ? The need to structure the territory, in order to promote the understanding and ownership of the different places that compose a city;
• ? The ability to generate synergies, as a means of affirming the “local” in the context of the “global” opportunities and threats.

It is, therefore, disciplinary useful to test a methodological urban planning “process” with the aim to design and manage “pedestrian networks”, applicable in a range of cities considered of medium size, according to the European classification mainly based on population criteria.     

Benefits of Environmental Stewardship

Abstract

Environmental sensitivity has gained much attention in business organizations; however, there is little empirical evidence on the business benefits from environment oriented measures. Some of the many promised benefits from environmental sensitivity are categorized and rated. The framework proposed by the Management Institute for Environment and Business (MEB) is used to assess company environment stewardship. A pretested questionnaire was used to collect data from 66 business organizations in the United States and from 31 organizations in Pacific Rim nations. These organizations were known to have undertaken at least some “green business” activities. The results suggest that companies showing higher degrees of environment stewardship will derive greater business benefits than organizations which aim at minimum compliance with government regulations in this area. While, compared with American organizations, on the average the Pacific Rim companies show significantly less environmental stewardship and derive significantly less benefits from it, “their efforts in the area have also been rewarded.”     

An improved spanning tree approach for the reliability analysis of supply chain collaborative network

A higher degree of reliability in the collaborative network can increase the competitiveness and performance of an entire supply chain. As supply chain networks grow more complex, the consequences of unreliable behaviour become increasingly severe in terms of cost, effort and time. Moreover, it is computationally difficult to calculate the network reliability of a Non-deterministic Polynomial-time hard (NP-hard) all-terminal network using state enumeration, as this may require a huge number of iterations for topology optimisation. Therefore, this paper proposes an alternative approach of an improved spanning tree for reliability analysis to help effectively evaluate and analyse the reliability of collaborative networks in supply chains and reduce the comparative computational complexity of algorithms. Set theory is employed to evaluate and model the all-terminal reliability of the improved spanning tree algorithm and present a case study of a supply chain used in lamp production to illustrate the application of the proposed approach.     

Daily peak electrical load forecasting with a multi-resolution approach

In the context of smart grids and load balancing, daily peak load forecasting has become a critical activity for stakeholders in the energy industry. An understanding of peak magnitude and timing is paramount for the implementation of smart grid strategies such as peak shaving. The modelling approach proposed in this paper leverages high-resolution and low-resolution information to forecast daily peak demand size and timing. The resulting multi-resolution modelling framework can be adapted to different model classes. The key contributions of this paper are (a) a general and formal introduction to the multi-resolution modelling approach, (b) a discussion of modelling approaches at different resolutions implemented via generalised additive models and neural networks, and (c) experimental results on real data from the UK electricity market. The results confirm that the predictive performance of the proposed modelling approach is competitive with that of low- and high-resolution alternatives.     

Advanced manufacturing systems: supply–demand matching of manufacturing resource based on complex networks and Internet of Things

ABSTRACT

After investigation on the existing advanced manufacturing systems (AMSs), it is found that supply–demand matching of manufacturing resource is one of the common issues to be addressed in all AMSs, and methods for addressing this issue have evolved from P2P (peer-to-peer)-based, to information centre-based, and to platform (or system)-based matching, and are moving towards socialisation and service-based solutions. In order to adapt to this trend, a new method for manufacturing resource supply–demand matching based on complex networks and Internet of Things (IoT) is proposed, and a four-layered architecture for implementing this method is designed. In this method, IoT technology is employed to realise the intelligent perception and accessing of various manufacturing resources and capabilities (MR&C), which enables logical aggregation of various distributed MR&C in the form of services. Then complex networks model and theory are used to realise the efficient manufacturing service management, optimal-allocation, and supply–demand matching. In this article, the specific key technologies for implementing the method are presented, including key technologies for manufacturing service generation and aggregation, manufacturing demand/task management, supply–demand matching of MR&C in the form of services, and value/utility adding based on manufacturing service network (MSN), manufacturing task network (MTN) and manufacturing enterprises collaborative network (ECN).     

General-to-specific or specific-to-general modelling? An opinion on current econometric terminology

It is argued that what is the dominant approach to analyzing systems of cointegrated variables is not well described as general-to-specific (gets) modelling. The gets approach was developed during the last decades predominantly in a single equation framework. For multivariate modelling and especially cointegration analysis the leading approach is better classified as bottom-up or specific-to-general (spec) modelling.     

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Abstract

Within public administration and policy sciences the concept of policy networks nowadays is well accepted. Not much attention has been paid so far to strategies aimed at institutional design. Therefore, in this article, we develop a conceptual framework to study institutional design more thoroughly. We do this by specifying the nature and variety of institutional rules that guide the behaviour of actors within networks. Given this categorization of rules, we identify possible strategies to change network rules. Next, we focus on the strategic context of attempts to influence the nature of institutional rules: the process of institutional design. We conclude with suggestions to apply the conceptual framework to empirical research into the forms, impacts and implications of attempts to change the institutional features of policy networks.     

Getting the timing right: Kairos as the rhetorical framing of time

As organizational actors invoke and create the past, present and future of their organizational contexts in support of proposed decisions, the rhetorical framing of time is central to decision-making. To explain how such rhetorical framing occurs, this paper explores kairos as a conceptualization of the duality of encountering and enabling “the decisive moment.” Following a process of advocating a new IT strategy in a financial firm, we find that kairos appears when the rhetorical framing of time is consistent with dominant interpretations of the interrelations between the past, present and future of the organization. Thus, the paper conceptualizes kairos as constitutive for decision-making; only when the timing is right, will persuasive efforts prevail.     

Networks in Public Administration: Current scholarship in review

Abstract

Network-focused research in public administration has expanded rapidly over the past two decades. This rapid growth has created come confusion about terminology and approaches to research in the field. We organize the network literature in public administration using compact citation networks to identify coherent subdomains focused on (1) policy formation, (2) governance and (3) policy implementation. We trace how these domains differ in their approach to defining the role of networks, relationships and actors and to what extent the articles apply formal network analysis techniques. Based on a subsequent content analysis of the sample articles, we identify promising research avenues focused on the wider adoption of methods derived from social network analysis and the conditions under which networks actually deliver improved results.