1,720,969 research outputs found
Supporting the Industrial Symbiosis practice: Emergence and Sustainability of Self-Organized Industrial Symbiosis Networks
Get PDFLa simbiosi industriale è un utile approccio per supportare lo sviluppo sostenibile. Valorizzando scarti prodotti da un processo produttivo come input per altri processi, le imprese possono mitigare l’impatto ambientale dei propri processi produttivi e ridurre i costi di produzione, incrementando così la propria competitività.
Questa tesi si focalizza sulle self-organized industrial symbiosis networks, reti di imprese che scambiano rifiuti tra di loro. Queste reti emergono dal basso in maniera spontanea, come risultato di un processo di auto-organizzazione delle imprese coinvolte. Nonostante la letteratura scientifica riconosca le self-organized industrial symbiosis networks come uno strumento promettente, queste reti sono attualmente sottosviluppate in termini di applicazioni pratiche comparate con le opportunità teoriche. Questo aspetto limita fortemente l’efficacia dell’approccio di simbiosi industriale nell’affrontare le sfide dello sviluppo sostenibile.
Lo scopo di questa tesi è supportare lo sviluppo delle self-organized industrial symbiosis networks analizzando due aspetti che, pur essendo diversi, presentano una forte interrelazione: l’emergenza spontanea di queste reti e la loro sostenibilità nel lungo periodo.
La prima parte della tesi affronta due barriere che frenano l’emergenza spontanea delle self-organized industrial symbiosis networks. Nonostante queste barriere siano riconosciute dalla letteratura scientifica, nessuna soluzione è stata finora fornita. In particolare, ho formalizzato tutti i modelli di business che le imprese possono adottare per implementare l’approccio di simbiosi industriale e ho discusso i possibili scenari di business che possono nascere dalla collaborazione tra imprese diverse, ciascuna della quali orientata al proprio modello di business. Inoltre, ho progettato un meccanismo contrattuale per allineare gli incentivi tra le imprese, ripartendo in maniera equa i benefici economici creati dagli scambi simbiotici, testandone poi l’efficacia tramite simulazione ad agenti.
La seconda parte della tesi è orientata a sviluppare un quadro concettuale riguardo alla sostenibilità delle self-organized industrial symbiosis networks nel lungo periodo, validandolo mediante simulazione ad agenti. Prendendo spunto dalla letteratura in campo ecologico, ho supposto che la sostenibilità delle self-organized industrial symbiosis networks nel lungo periodo possa essere massimizzata quando i network simbiotici sono caratterizzati da un bilanciamento ottimale tra due proprietà: efficienza nello scambio dei rifiuti e resilienza alle perturbazioni. In primis, ho investigato separatamente efficienza e resilienza dei network simbiotici e ho poi validato il mio quadro concettuale.
La tesi è organizzata come segue. Il Capitolo 1 discute lo stato dell’arte riguardo alla simbiosi industriale e alle industrial symbiosis networks attraverso una review critica della letteratura. Inoltre, nel capitolo sono esposte le motivazioni dello studio, le specifiche domande di ricerca e le metodologie adottate. Il Capitolo 2 analizza i modelli di business che supportano la simbiosi industriale mentre il Capitolo 3 è focalizzato ai meccanismi contrattuali in grado di garantire un corretto allineamento degli incentivi tra le imprese. Il Capitolo 4 e il Capitolo 5 investigano rispettivamente le proprietà di efficienza e resilienza dei network simbiotici. Il Capitolo 6 investiga l’effetto combinato di queste proprietà sulla sostenibilità delle industrial symbiosis networks. Infine, sono esposte le conclusioni del mio lavoro.Industrial symbiosis is a useful approach to support the sustainable development. In fact, by exchanging wastes for inputs, firms can mitigate the environmental impact of their production processes and reduce production costs, thereby increasing their competitiveness.
This thesis focuses on self-organized industrial symbiosis networks, networks of firms exchanging wastes for inputs which emerge from the bottom, as the result of a self-organized process undertaken by the involved firms. Despite the literature recognizes self-organized industrial symbiosis networks as a promising tool, these networks are currently underdeveloped in terms of practical applications compared to theoretical opportunities. Such an issue strongly limits the efficacy of the industrial symbiosis approach in tackling the challenges of sustainable development.
The aim of this thesis is to support the development of self-organized industrial symbiosis networks by addressing two different but related issues: the emergence and sustainability over the long period of these networks.
The first part of the thesis is aimed to investigate two barriers hampering the spontaneous emergence of self-organized industrial symbiosis networks, recognized by the literature but unsolved so far. In particular, I formalized all the business models that firms can adopt to implement the industrial symbiosis approach and discussed the possible business scenarios arising from the cooperation among firms, each of them adopting its own business model. Furthermore, I designed a contractual mechanism to align the incentives among firms, fairly sharing the economic benefits stemming from the symbiotic exchanges, and tested its efficacy by adopting the agent-based simulation approach.
The second part of this thesis is aimed to develop a theoretical framework for the sustainability of industrial symbiosis networks over the long period and validate it by agent-based simulations. By taking contribution from the ecological literature, sustainability of self-organized industrial symbiosis networks over the long period is supposed to be maximized when symbiotic networks are characterized by an optimal balance between two features: efficiency of waste exchanges and resilience to perturbations. Firstly, I separately investigated efficiency and resilience of industrial symbiosis networks and then I validated my theoretical framework.
The thesis is organized as follows. Chapter 1 discusses the state-of-the-art about industrial symbiosis and industrial symbiosis networks through a critical review of the literature. Moreover, the motivation of this study, the specific research questions, and the adopted methodologies are presented. Chapter 2 addresses business models supporting the industrial symbiosis approach whereas Chapter 3 is focused on the contractual mechanisms aligning the incentives among firms. Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 are devoted to investigate the features of efficiency and resilience in the industrial symbiosis field, respectively. Chapter 6 investigates the effect of these features on the sustainability of industrial symbiosis networks. Finally, conclusions are provided
The managerial relevance of Social TV: a theoretical and empirical examination
Get PDFThe main goal of this PhD thesis is to provide an analysis of the social TV phenomenon from a managerial viewpoint, supported by an empirical analysis focused on a specific TV show’s case, i.e., “The Voice of Italy”. In the first stage, following the methodology developed by Tranfield, Denyer & Smart (2003) and considering also the so-called “grey literature”, I perform a systematic review of the literature, in order to collect all the research studies focused on social TV phenomenon, thus building an overview of all aspects that have been already analyzed. The “grey literature”, such as papers presented as conference proceedings, dissertations and theses, represents an important source of information since social TV is a recent topic. The review provides a summary of the main gaps and future research directions, in the attempt to further stimulate the academic debate on the topic. Findings are presented by distinguishing the two main aspects concerning the social TV: the technological development, since technology had a key role in the diffusion of this phenomenon and the viewers’ behaviors analysis, relevant both for technology and social strategies development and to understand the impact of social TV experiences across different contexts. Results highlight the need of further research concerning the social TV phenomenon, despite the larger number of applications already developed and tested. On the other hand, it would be relevant also to systematically analyze the factors influencing the viewers’ behavior on social media while watching TV. Moreover, one of the unexplored topics is the value of the amount of data generated around TV shows, therefore it is useful to show how the huge number of data generated while watching TV can be used to offer TV producers valuable insights. In the second phase, I provide a first empirical analysis of data concerning a specific TV show, in order to demonstrate that the huge number of interactions on online social networks allows TV producers to obtain relevant insights to effectively design the TV shows. Indeed, the social TV phenomenon can be positioned within the big data issues. Social media can be considered a relevant kind of external sources useful for innovation for firms, since they generate a large amount of knowledge about customers’ preferences and reactions. Particularly, few works explored how the social media data can be useful for TV stakeholders in order to improve TV show’s quality. Therefore, I analyze the generation of social media traffic defined as the amount of the viewers’ interactions around a specific topic, in order to obtain valuable knowledge concerning all the different elements of the TV show that can be used to increase the social media traffic through a better design of the TV show. Findings highlight that, through the social media data analysis, broadcasters and producers can better design the TV show’s contents as well as the social media elements in order to reach their scope, e.g., increasing the Twitter traffic. Particularly, producers should dedicate a wider space within the TV show to specific TV contents, such as the performances and the web room, and combine different hashtags in order to increase the social media traffic. Finally, in the third phase, data concerning the same TV show are deeply analyzed by considering the different kinds of interactions occurring on Twitter. Specifically, I show that, in order to obtain valuable insights, it is useful to consider three different kinds of interactions, since viewers can post tweets, thus generating original tweets, they can share existing tweets, thus generating the so-called retweets and, finally, they can reply to existing tweets, thus generating a reply. Results show that viewers decrease their posting behavior, while increase their sharing behavior during commercial breaks. Moreover, certain kinds of Social TV strategies have a positive effect on the number of original tweets, while they do not affect retweets and replies. Therefore, TV producers should take into account the different types of online activities and the different relationship between them and TV show’s contents and elements, in order to encourage viewers’ interactions on social network sites
Knowledge management approaches and tools in the Nuclear Energy Industry: Evidences and Implications from Italian Ansaldo Nucleare Spa
No full text
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Crowdsourcing and crowd participation: Incentives in the OR.C.HE.S.T.R.A community
No full textThis chapter provides reflections on extrinsic and intrinsic incentive mechanisms, in order to explore the extent to which they are able to motivate users in starting community building processes. The authors present some results of the research project OR.C. HE.S.T.R. A (ORganization of Cultural HEritage for Smart Tourism and Real-time Accessibility) that means to develop a crowdsourcing community directed towards a smarter valorisation of the city of Naples (Italy). Successful crowdsourcing solutions require activities that both fulfill the communities' administrators' needs and account for individual contributors' needs. Thus, analyzing the incentives that spur users to contribute are critical to designing crowdsourcing applications. The authors set up a field experiment in order to understand which types of incentives are useful to engage users to produce contents for OR.C. HE.S.T.R. A and address specific behavior. The authors shed light on a partly jagged topic and provide some normative suggestions on how to design a crowdsourcing application
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
- …
