A systemic framework and analysis of urban water energy

Energy impacts of urban water systems are substantial, but not typically analysed systemically. We develop a new system boundary framework including a utility, the ‘bulk water supply authority’ (SB1); the ‘urban water system’ including water use (SB2); and the ‘regional water system’ (SB3). We use the framework to review existing models and show that most address only one boundary. We apply the framework to quantify thermal equivalents of water-related energy in SB1 and SB2, and identify that over 96% of water-related energy in South East Queensland (SEQ) is outside SB1 and within SB2. Consideration of energy influenced by water use is paramount to systemic energy efficiency and optimisation in the urban water system. Clear articulation of system boundaries will improve modelling and management of the energy impact of urban water. Systemic modelling will help decision makers answer increasingly integrated and cross-system and sector questions regarding water and energy interactions.     

Algorithmic risk assessment policing models: lessons from the Durham HART model and ‘Experimental’ proportionality

As is common across the public sector, the UK police service is under pressure to do more with less, to target resources more efficiently and take steps to identify threats proactively; for example under risk-assessment schemes such as ‘Clare’s Law’ and ‘Sarah’s Law’. Algorithmic tools promise to improve a police force’s decision-making and prediction abilities by making better use of data (including intelligence), both from inside and outside the force. This article uses Durham Constabulary’s Harm Assessment Risk Tool (HART) as a case-study. HART is one of the first algorithmic models to be deployed by a UK police force in an operational capacity. Our article comments upon the potential benefits of such tools, explains the concept and method of HART and considers the results of the first validation of the model’s use and accuracy. The article then critiques the use of algorithmic tools within policing from a societal and legal perspective, focusing in particular upon substantive common law grounds for judicial review. It considers a concept of ‘experimental’ proportionality to permit the use of unproven algorithms in the public sector in a controlled and time-limited way, and as part of a combination of approaches to combat algorithmic opacity, proposes ‘ALGO-CARE’, a guidance framework of some of the key legal and practical concerns that should be considered in relation to the use of algorithmic risk assessment tools by the police. The article concludes that for the use of algorithmic tools in a policing context to result in a ‘better’ outcome, that is to say, a more efficient use of police resources in a landscape of more consistent, evidence-based decision-making, then an ‘experimental’ proportionality approach should be developed to ensure that new solutions from ‘big data’ can be found for criminal justice problems traditionally arising from clouded, non-augmented decision-making. Finally, this article notes that there is a sub-set of decisions around which there is too great an impact upon society and upon the welfare of individuals for them to be influenced by an emerging technology; to an extent, in fact, that they should be removed from the influence of algorithmic decision-making altogether.     

Sensitivity of multi-criteria decision making to linguistic quantifiers and aggregation means

Developments in Multi-Criteria (MCDM) and Multi-Expert decision-making allow for using linguistic quantifiers such as ‘all’, ‘most’, ‘at least half’ and similar terms as quantifiers for the decision. Additionally, new methods of aggregating the various opinions have been developed, giving the decision maker an increasingly large variety of options.This paper presents the concept of linguistic quantifiers and presents a collection of quantifiers with their associated weight functions. This paper explores the effect that the type of linguistic quantifier and the aggregation method used have on the ranking of alternatives. This study utilizes eleven linguistic quantifiers and four aggregation means using four well-documented MCDM problems.The results show that the effect of the linguistic quantifiers varies and some quantifiers have more impact on ranking of the alternatives then others. Additionally, the sensitivity of the decision made to the aggregation method is found to be relatively small. The study finds that the weighted harmonic mean is the most sensitive aggregation function to the changes of linguistic quantifiers. The results of this research allow the decision maker to choose the linguistic quantifier and aggregation method based on subjective belief without impeding the resulting decision.     

Models for national energy policy analysis and planning

Two energy models have been developed that represent the national energy system. One of these is a ‘fuel model’ that includes only the major conversions and investments in the energy sector, covers a time span of 15 years and uses linear programming (LP) techniques. The other is an ‘energy model’ that includes the activities in the energy sector in considerable detail, covers a time span of 24 years, and uses mixed integer programming (MIP) formulation. The Fuel Model has been applied to Turkey for the years 1960–1975, while the ‘Energy Model’ has been used to analyze possible development for the years 1976–2000. Some of the results pertaining to the validation and analysis runs have been presented along with experiences in implementation of the models.     

Improved GDP spatialization approach by combining land-use data and night-time light data: a case study in China’s continental coastal area

Gross domestic product (GDP) reflects a nation or region’s economic growth as a whole, and is the sum of product in the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors of the economy in the area. However, statistical GDP data is problematic in integrated application with geographical data. The GDP spatialization data, which shows the GDP in grid cells and often is obtained by operating a spatialization model, is more useful than its officially published statistical data recorded by administrative units in both spatial representation and application. Thus, there is a need to improve the GDP spatialization models, and to present these models in a way as clear and transparent as possible. In this article, by taking China’s continental coastal area as a case study area, we combined economic census data, land-use data, and night-time light data together, and developed a technique that we call the ‘dynamic regionalization’ method to improve the GDP spatialization products. We then created GDP spatialization models for three sectors of the economy (i.e. the primary, the secondary, and the tertiary sector) in 2000, 2005, and 2010, respectively. We find the following. (1) Because the ‘overglow’ effect of night-time light data has a bad influence on spatialization models, we used land-use data to distinguish the distribution plots of the tertiary sector on night-time light images. Compared with setting a threshold merely, land-use data can more effectively remove the ‘overglow’ effect. (2) Owing to the prominent spatial heterogeneity of GDP distribution in China’s continental coastal area, building one spatialization model for the whole area would probably produce the estimated products with poor accuracy, so the ‘dynamic regionalization’ method was adopted to dynamically divide the whole study area into several subregions, and build separate spatialization models for each subregion. The accuracy assessment showed that the new method improved the accuracy of GDP spatialization data, especially in the area with high spatial heterogeneity.     

The extended ‘chilling’ effect of Facebook: The cold reality of ubiquitous social networking

Prior research has established the phenomenon of the ‘Chilling Effect’ where people constrain the self they present online due to peer-to-peer surveillance on Social Network Sites (SNS). However currently uninvestigated is the possibility that the threat of such surveillance on these sites might constrain the self presented offline in ‘reality’, known here as ‘the extended chilling effect’. The purpose of this study is to examine the existence of this ‘extended chilling effect’. Drawing on theories of self-awareness and self-presentation, the impact of surveillance in SNS is theorized to lead to an awareness of online audiences in offline domains, stimulating a self-comparison process that results in impression management. A mixed methods study of semi-structured interviews (n = 28) and a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment (n = 80), provides support for offline impression management in order to avoid an undesired image being projected to online audiences. The novel finding that the chilling effect has extended highlights the potential dangers of online peer-to-peer surveillance for autonomy and freedom of expression in our offline lives.     

An empirical analysis of the factors and measures of Enterprise Architecture Management success

Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) is discussed in academia and industry as a vehicle to guide IT implementations, alignment, compliance assessment, or technology management. Still, a lack of knowledge prevails about how EAM can be successfully used, and how positive impact can be realized from EAM. To determine these factors, we identify EAM success factors and measures through literature reviews and exploratory interviews and propose a theoretical model that explains key factors and measures of EAM success. We test our model with data collected from a cross-sectional survey of 133 EAM practitioners. The results confirm the existence of an impact of four distinct EAM success factors, ‘EAM product quality’, ‘EAM infrastructure quality’, ‘EAM service delivery quality’, and ‘EAM organizational anchoring’, and two important EAM success measures, ‘intentions to use EAM’ and ‘Organizational and Project Benefits’ in a confirmatory analysis of the model. We found the construct ‘EAM organizational anchoring’ to be a core focal concept that mediated the effect of success factors such as ‘EAM infrastructure quality’ and ‘EAM service quality’ on the success measures. We also found that ‘EAM satisfaction’ was irrelevant to determining or measuring success. We discuss implications for theory and EAM practice.     

Theory of Reasoned Action application for Green Information Technology acceptance

The increase in the use of Information Technology (IT) in recent decades has contributed to additional power consumption as well as a potential overuse of scarce resources. Also, IT is quickly surpassing air transportation in terms of its carbon footprint. For these reasons, increased environmental awareness has increased interest in Green Information Technology (GIT) among IT practitioners. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate behavior for the adoption of GIT applying the conceptual model, referred to as the ‘Theory of Reasoned Action’ (TRA). For this purpose, a survey was conducted among IT professionals from major public and private sector establishments. Findings indicated that behavioral intention influences actual behavior positively. IT professionals with positive intentions towards GIT issues are actually practicing GIT in their work. Results also indicated that external factors such as person related beliefs, sector of respondents’ establishment, and level of awareness have significant impact on attitude towards adoption of GIT.     

Creativity and Innovation in Haute Cuisine: Towards a Systemic Model

The contribution of this study is an increased understanding of personal creativity and the innovation process in haute cuisine, a validation of the socio‐cultural systems view of creativity and a model that accounts for the socio‐cultural dimensions of haute cuisine. In this paper we discuss existing views that conceptualize creativity and innovation in this sector as a sequential developmental process following the principles of operations management. However, based on in‐depth interviews with world‐renowned chefs, we argue for a systemic rather than sequential developmental process view. The reason for this is that the chefs interviewed understand the ‘creativity part’ of the innovation process as an embodied experience often guided by intuition and the ‘innovation part’ as a process of social evaluation greatly dependent on the perception, knowledge and value judgement of the testers from the leading restaurant guides. The main implications of the findings go beyond the haute cuisine sector and open areas for future research on creativity and intuition more generally.     

Formulating information and communication technology (ICT) policy through discourse: How Internet discussions shape policies on ICTs for developing countries

Business-to-business electronic commerce has become a priority area for many international development organisations, particularly since concerns about the ‘digital divide’ have put the policymaking spotlight on the connection between ICTs and industrial development policies. This paper aims to explore the current state and likely future direction of B2B e-commerce in the South African manufacturing sector. The empirical research is based on 120 firm-level interviews, and 31 personal interviews with industry experts. The results suggest that B2B e-commerce is in an embryonic stage in the South African manufacturing sector, and technology and market dynamics are still casting its basic shape. The ability to realise efficiency gains in the B2B electronic marketplace will largely hinge on the climate of confidence and trust that businesses are able to create in their relations with their suppliers and customers. We argue that policy decisions will have a major impact on the kind of environment in which e-commerce will develop and should therefore be crafted with due recognition of its fragile and evolving nature.     

Sustaining and advancing IT careers: Women’s experiences in a UK-based IT company

This article contributes to a growing literature on women in IT occupations. Against a national and international context of women’s longstanding and continued under-representation in senior professional roles in IT, our study at organizational level tells the story of women’s career experiences in a specific UK-based IT company in relation to its culture, processes and practices. Utilising a concept from the gender literature – Acker’s (2006) ‘inequality regimes’ – the study bridges the gap between the gender and IS literature and feminist theorising in order to shed light on the lack of gender diversity in IT. The article specifically shows how components of organizational inequality regimes, namely, ‘organizing processes’, ‘legitimacy’ and ‘visibility’ of inequalities combine and interact to produce and maintain gender inequality in the IT workplace. The implications of this in the sector more generally are discussed.     

Assessment of patient safety research from an organizational ergonomics and structural perspective

The aim of this study is to review patient safety improvement initiatives within a conceptual framework that builds upon principles of organizational ergonomics and emphasizes structural factors that influence patient safety. The literature review included 131 English language published studies of patient safety improvement strategies extracted using Medline, Ovid Healthstar, PubMed and CINAHL searches. Keywords for the search included: ‘patient safety’; ‘medical errors’; ‘adverse event’; ‘iatrogenic’; and truncated options for ‘improve’. The multilevel, hierarchical framework offered in this paper integrates quality management principles and organizational ergonomics theory and organizes patient safety initiatives according to sociotechnical system elements within three structural levels: health policies and associated health care organizations; health care delivery organizations; and health care microsystems. Utilizing the conceptual framework, this review of patient safety improvement initiatives highlights the need for consideration of the impact of all improvement proposals on each structural component within health care systems. The review also supports the need for patient safety research to evolve from exploratory, 1-D reporting to multi-level, integrated research.     

Collaborative Processes and Knowledge Creation in Communities‐of‐Practice

This paper challenges the view of employees’ reluctance to share what they know, thus, attributing the ‘stickiness’ of knowledge to motivational factors. The study investigated informal mechanisms for knowledge sharing, taking a community‐of‐practice (CoP) perspective as a point of departure. A large‐sized organisation in the utilities sector provided the context of the research. Existing CoP theory is advanced by surfacing the motivations for participation in CoPs, by eliciting the contributions informal, self‐organising communities achieve in a commercial context and by documenting the process by which informal community activities become absorbed into the formal organisation.     

Culture,power and politics in ICT outsourcing in higher education institutions

UK public sector policy changes have driven Higher Education Institutions (HEI) towards a competitive and often turbulent market-focused environment. To respond to these dramatic institutional changes, many institutions began to strategically re-focus their management efforts on adapting and surviving in this environment. As part of their efforts, HEIs identified their Information and Communication Technology (ICT) function as an essential function to survive in this environment. This implied that HEIs had to address the institutional role of ICT by defining detailed strategies that aligned the ICT function to the HEIs educational goals. On the other hand, HEIs had to make sure their ICT could support their technology and service requirements, for which they considered pursing a more radical approach, that of outsourcing their ICT to a third party supplier. This research paper reports on embryonic attempts by three British Universities to outsource their ICT, highlighting in particular the ‘cultural, power and political’ issues that arose when public sector institutions follow the example of private sector organisations—by outsourcing to a third party service supplier.     

The role of R&D and corporate governance in Korea: IT firms versus non-IT firms

Recent economic development in Korea was mostly driven by companies in the IT sector. Also, it is widely argued that R&D investment has a positive impact on firm value, especially for IT firms. In this paper, we analyze how R&D investment has contributed to the growth of Korea’s economy by examining the effect of R&D investment on firms’ market value, measured as Tobin’s Q, and investigate whether this effect is different between firms in the IT sector and firms in the non-IT sector. We also account for the effect of another major change experienced by Korean firms: changes in corporate governance structure. We find that for firms in the IT industry, higher R&D investment coupled with high foreign ownership results in higher firm valuation.     

Adapting technology: effect of high-involvement HRM and organisational trust

This study is designed to empirically test a model of high-involvement human resource management (HIHRM), organisational trust, and technology adaptation grounded on social exchange theory in the context of the private banking sector. The proposed model intends to add to the understanding of the effect of HIHRM on technology adaptation via the mediating influence of organisational trust. Frontline employees were surveyed using a self-administered questionnaire. Results from partial least square-structural equation modelling suggest that there is a significant influence of HIHRM on technology adaptation. Organisational trust further mediates the relationship. Thus, this paper finds an answer to the ‘black box’ of human resource management (HRM) practices, explaining how HIHRM influences employees’ attitudes towards technology adaptation. The study can help management have a better understanding of the importance of employee involvement-oriented HRM in introducing and implementing a new technology through the integration of trust processes in the organisation.     

Designing good institutional contexts for innovation in a technology-mediated learning environment

Abstract How to innovate information technology (IT) effectively in a technology-mediated learning (TML) environment remains a problem. To better understand how knowledge sharing (KS) and ‘coordination and support of TML environment’ (i.e. CTML) influence the propensity for TML innovation, this study develops a research framework to delineate the relationships among KS, CTML, and three antecedents of TML innovation – cognizance of technology, ability to explore TML, and intention to explore. In order to test the impact of KS and CTML on the propensity for TML innovation, we collected data from elementary schools of Taiwan through a survey instrument. Our results indicate that KS has a positive effect on all the three antecedents of TML innovation, while CTML exerts a positive impact only on instructors' ability to explore. The implications of the study are discussed, and future research directions are proposed.     

Does SMS text messaging help or harm adults' knowledge of standard spelling?

The recent increase in short messaging system (SMS) text messaging, often using abbreviated, non‐conventional ‘textisms’ (e.g. ‘2nite’), in school‐aged children has raised fears of negative consequences of such technology for literacy. The current research used a paradigm developed by Dixon and Kaminska, who showed that exposure to phonetically plausible misspellings (e.g. ‘recieve’) negatively affected subsequent spelling performance, though this was true only with adults, not children. The current research extends this work to directly investigate the effects of exposure to textisms, misspellings and correctly spelled words on adults' spelling. Spelling of a set of key words was assessed both before and after an exposure phase where participants read the same key words, presented either as textisms (e.g. ‘2nite’), correctly spelled (e.g. ‘tonight’) or misspelled (e.g. ‘tonite’) words. Analysis showed that scores decreased from pre‐ to post‐test following exposure to misspellings, whereas performance improved following exposure to correctly spelled words and, interestingly, to textisms. Data suggest that exposure to textisms, unlike misspellings, had a positive effect on adults' spelling. These findings are interpreted in light of other recent research suggesting a positive relationship between texting and some literacy measures in school‐aged children.     

Computer systems to facilitating organizational learning: IT and organizational context

A comprehensive model that delineates the interrelationships among computer systems, organizational context and organizational learning is absent. This study aims to fill this void. Unlike previous research, this study investigates the role of computer systems, i.e. organizational learning computer systems (OLCS), in facilitating organizational learning. In our framework, we argued that contextual variables mediated the impact of OLCS on organizational learning. In order to test the feasibility of this framework, we conducted an empirical study. This study employed a survey instrument, which contained data collected from 500 organizations in manufacturing, service industry, and academic institutions. A total of 165 usable responses were analyzed. The results indicate that OLCS have a positive impact on the organizational learning processes. Both ‘problem characteristic’ and ‘organizational culture’ moderate the influence of OLCS on organizational learning. The implications of the study are provided, and future research is suggested.