244 research outputs found
Leadership, Innovation, and Sustainability
No full textIn this chapter, Verburg explores the leadership challenges associated with sustainability by highlighting the current research evidence on the links between leadership, innovation, and sustainability. There seems to be a lot of conceptual confusion in relation to sustainability leadership. Different authors offer different definitions, focusing on either specific traits, styles or behaviors that they associate with sustainability leadership. Others do not even focus on leadership roles or behaviors as such but highlight the importance of any individual’s personal proactivity in order to drive sustainability agendas. This conceptual confusion may be a significant obstacle to further the field of sustainability leadership. The purpose of this chapter is, therefore, to provide a better understanding of sustainability leadership to enable future studies.Economics of Technology and Innovatio
GTAP-AEZ Land Supply Curves
No full textThe raster files show the spatial extent of areas estimated to be
unavailable for agricultural expansion at the level of 18 Agro-Ecological
Zones (AEZs) under a Business-as-Usual scenario, assuming no
implementation of ZDCs. The AEZs are disaggregated into 37 different
world regions that are based on Version 10 of the GTAP Data Base (see
Aguiar et al 2019). Alternative files showing the spatial extent of areas
estimated to be unavailable for agricultural expansion under a scenario
assuming full implementation of ZDCs are available on request from the
corresponding author (see below) and require the prior written permission
of International Union for Conservation of Nature (see here for more
information: https://www.iucnredlist.org/terms/terms-of-use)
Interactive Imitation Learning of Bimanual Movement Primitives
No full textPerforming bimanual tasks with dual robotic setups can drastically increase
the impact on industrial and daily life applications. However, performing a
bimanual task brings many challenges, like synchronization and coordination of
the single-arm policies. This article proposes the Safe, Interactive Movement
Primitives Learning (SIMPLe) algorithm, to teach and correct single or dual arm
impedance policies directly from human kinesthetic demonstrations. Moreover, it
proposes a novel graph encoding of the policy based on Gaussian Process
Regression (GPR) where the single-arm motion is guaranteed to converge close to
the trajectory and then towards the demonstrated goal. Regulation of the robot
stiffness according to the epistemic uncertainty of the policy allows for
easily reshaping the motion with human feedback and/or adapting to external
perturbations. We tested the SIMPLe algorithm on a real dual-arm setup where
the teacher gave separate single-arm demonstrations and then successfully
synchronized them only using kinesthetic feedback or where the original
bimanual demonstration was locally reshaped to pick a box at a different
height
The EU's Common Agricultural Policy at Fifty: An outside view
No full textTim Josling and Kym Anderso
Tooling as a Service: Agent Based Scenario Development for IT Services Delivery
No full textInformation Technology [IT] is increasingly being integrated into the modern society. Novel IT solutions are Cloud based. Cloud solutions from Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS are examples of services which offer the benefits of cloud computing. For IT providers, leveraging novel IT artefacts may require the development of a new service model. IT services enable new service delivery models and have the ability to disrupt whole industries. Spotify, Airbnb, and Uber are examples of successful businesses using IT driven service models. The academic community researches aspects of IT governance, frameworks, architecture, and business model innovation, management and organisational theories in order to develop a more successful IT service delivery model. The heterogeneous body of these academic theories addresses different parts of the service model development. However, current IT service delivery models lack sufficient support for contextualisation. In a case study at Dutch IT services provider KPN, Agent Based modelling is used to develop future scenario’s for the IT services organisation. With a strong focus on the organisation and the agents in the organisation, the Agent Based modelling approach OperA is applied. By Using semi-structured interviews to collect data throughout the services delivery chain, a future scenario with the IT broker as a new role was developed. Consequently, roles facilitating legacy platforms are expected to discontinue. From the future scenario, a roll-out plan using three phases is developed using the social structure of the organisation model. The environments of the OperA model enable the research to focus on the social structure of IT services delivery and the analysis of interactions between roles. The OperA model is a sufficient model for strategic decision making in IT services delivery. Further work could generate tools to fully automated the validation of the OperA model and connect it to real life phenomena with real time adaption to changes
Spatial indicators of the enabling environments for agri-food sustainability transitions in Europe
No full textEuropean agri-food systems must overcome structural lock-ins to achieve more sustainable modes of production and consumption. Yet European regions are highly diverse, and we lack understanding of how different regional characteristics may enable or inhibit sustainability transitions. This dataset is a set of indicators, at the European NUTS-2 spatial resolution, that together provide information on the regional enabling/disabling environments for agri-food sustainability transitions. The indicators cover different components of the agri-food system, such as farm management intensity, regional product diversity, value chain concentration, and consumer attitudes. The indicators were developed using a range of publicly-accessible data (e.g., from Eurostat, FADN, EU Barometer, and OpenStreetMap). Methodological details can be found at the related publication
The paradox of Operational Excellence leading to Radical Innovations
No full textTechnology, Policy and ManagementValues Technology and Innovatio
“What are the drivers and barriers to innovate in networks?”
No full textRole of innovation in enhancing the competitiveness and economic development of the organization, society, country and world is important. It thrives on the knowledge which is available in public and private domains. However, it is the ability to acquire, synthesize, utilize, and share and use of knowledge which can aid innovation. This thesis intends to present the drivers and barriers of knowledge networks which aid innovation. Sharing and networking of knowledge within the knowledge network can not only improve the ability of network members to grow their knowledge base but also helps in innovation. However successful design, management, and deployment of knowledge network to aid innovation is catalyzed by drivers and challenged by barriers. The main aim of this research is to identify these barriers and drivers within the networks. In order to do so, we conducted case study analysis across 8 cases operational towards innovation. A comprehensive list of barriers and drivers were identified in the study which was consistent with the drivers and barriers identified in the literature review. Other than these, the researcher also identified some of the drivers and barriers which have not been discussed in the literature review. The list of drivers within the network include; environmental factors, technological factors, knowledge exchange, and boundary spanning. The list of barriers identified within the knowledge network include; lack of scale, financial constraints, disruption by external parties, presence of weak ties, lack of organizational commitment, and lack of infrastructure. Some of the new barriers which were identified during case analysis were; lack of proper communication, lack of time to bring innovation within the network, lack of tools which could measure the outcome and efficiency of innovation within the network, lack of filtration in the knowledge which was shared within the network. On the other hand, presence of trust between the network members, coherence within the network members due to proper communication, and marketing strategies to pitch for funding and also the promotion of innovation were some of the new drivers identified.Management of TechnologyInnovation SystemsTechnology, Policy and Managemen
OPTIMIZING THE POSITION OF SENSORS FOR CHARACTERIZING ACOUSTIC FIELDS
No full textPublisher Copyright: © 2023 Samuel A. Verburg et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Characterizing acoustic fields over space is required in sound field analysis, spatial audio, as well as several applications within room acoustics and virtual reality. In order to measure a sound field over medium/large volumes, a large number of sensors have to be distributed over space. In this study we investigate optimal distributions of sensors for capturing acoustic fields in space. The positions are selected to maximize the sampled information and minimize the uncertainty in the reconstructed field. We show that the proposed optimization substantially reduces the amount of measurements in comparison to uniform or randomized distributions. The proposed optimal selection procedure can also be significant for other data-scarce applications.Peer reviewe
Organizational Climate and Performance: 'The relation between organizational climate and performance and an investigation of the antecedents of organizational climate'
No full textIn this study, the relationship between organizational climate and organizational performance is tested for a large multinational company. Besides, I tested what influence management support and organizational unit size have on organizational climate perception. In total, 30.892 employees among 49 operating companies participated in the study. Regression analyses showed that there is a significant relation between organizational climate and profitability, sustainability & growth, EBIT margin, productivity and employee engagement. No relation between organizational climate and employee turnover was identified. Besides, I did not found evidence that the relation between organizational climate and profitability, sustainability & growth, EBIT margin and productivity is mediated by employee engagement. Furthermore, it was found that organizational climate is strongly influenced by management support, and that the relation between organizational unit size and organizational climate is mediated by management support. These results contribute to the literature on organizational climate and performance. Besides, these results are of great value to the business world, as managerial implications have been identified that can be used to improve organizational climate, and thus, company performance.Management of technologyTechology, strategy and entrepreneurshipTechnology, Policy and Managemen
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