Towards Information Systems Design for Value Webs

In this paper we discuss the alignment between a business model of a value web and the information systems of the participating companies needed to implement the business model. Traditional business-IT alignment approaches\ud focus on one single company, but in a value web we are dealing with various independent businesses. Since a value web is actually a web of services, delivered by IT systems owned by different companies, to ensure alignment we need to\ud specify the services and their properties and then map them on the available IT support in the different companies. Such mappings have to be evaluated in terms of their impact on the profitability of participating in the value web of the different companies. We propose techniques to map services to IT support and show how to do commercial trade-offs

Applying autonomy to distributed satellite systems: Trends, challenges, and future prospects

While monolithic satellite missions still pose significant advantages in terms of accuracy and operations, novel distributed architectures are promising improved flexibility, responsiveness, and adaptability to structural and functional changes. Large satellite swarms, opportunistic satellite networks or heterogeneous constellations hybridizing small-spacecraft nodes with highperformance satellites are becoming feasible and advantageous alternatives requiring the adoption of new operation paradigms that enhance their autonomy. While autonomy is a notion that is gaining acceptance in monolithic satellite missions, it can also be deemed an integral characteristic in Distributed Satellite Systems (DSS). In this context, this paper focuses on the motivations for system-level autonomy in DSS and justifies its need as an enabler of system qualities. Autonomy is also presented as a necessary feature to bring new distributed Earth observation functions (which require coordination and collaboration mechanisms) and to allow for novel structural functions (e.g., opportunistic coalitions, exchange of resources, or in-orbit data services). Mission Planning and Scheduling (MPS) frameworks are then presented as a key component to implement autonomous operations in satellite missions. An exhaustive knowledge classification explores the design aspects of MPS for DSS, and conceptually groups them into: components and organizational paradigms; problem modeling and representation; optimization techniques and metaheuristics; execution and runtime characteristics and the notions of tasks, resources, and constraints. This paper concludes by proposing future strands of work devoted to study the trade-offs of autonomy in large-scale, highly dynamic and heterogeneous networks through frameworks that consider some of the limitations of small spacecraft technologies.Postprint (author's final draft

Development of a community e-portal constellation: Queensland Smart Region Initiative

A community e-portal facilitates dynamic (developing), value (financial and non-financial), constellation (collaborative networks), which supports community integration and economic growth. The OECD has identified that social cohesion rather than narrow economic gain is the most significant outcome for societies where all citizens, through learning and the transfer of knowledge, skills and attitudes, leads to becoming more effective and proactive participants in civil and economic processes. In this work, action research facilitated design, development, and implementation of a community-portal dynamic-value constellation to support networked value chains, community, and local government connectivity. The research gives insights through working closely with stakeholders. The research domain represents a novel value creation model, incorporating technologies and solutions in the context of virtual enterprises, partnerships and joint ventures and other market-driven value constellations, where partners dynamically come together in response to or in anticipation of new market opportunities. Such constellations, however, bring with them significant operational and logistical challenges, about which there has been very little prior knowledge

A Survey on Economic-driven Evaluations of Information Technology

The economic-driven evaluation of information technology (IT) has become an important instrument in the management of IT projects. Numerous approaches have been developed to quantify the costs of an IT investment and its assumed profit, to evaluate its impact on business process performance, and to analyze the role of IT regarding the achievement of enterprise objectives. This paper discusses approaches for evaluating IT from an economic-driven perspective. Our comparison is based on a framework distinguishing between classification criteria and evaluation criteria. The former allow for the categorization of evaluation approaches based on their similarities and differences. The latter, by contrast, represent attributes that allow to evaluate the discussed approaches. Finally, we give an example of a typical economic-driven IT evaluation

Balancing value in networked social innovation

Innovation increasingly takes place through co-operation. Even more so in the case of social innovation, where profit and non-profit organisations collaborate to create solutions for societal issues. For these innovations to become successful, already early in the process it needs to be clear to the participating organisations that they will be able to gain value in return for their investments in the creation of the service proposition. This means that, together with the proposition, a business model needs to be designed, that provides insight in the feasibility and attractiveness of the total proposition, as well as in the value for the various participants separately. Building on existing methods, a 5-step approach was developed to support the process of refining the overall proposition together with the participating organisations, and at the same time checking the balance in value flow for each of them. This paper describes the approach to balance value in networked social innovations using one project as example

Balancing value in networked social innovation

Innovation increasingly takes place through co-operation. Even more so in the case of social innovation, where profit and non-profit organisations collaborate to create solutions for societal issues. For these innovations to become successful, already early in the process it needs to be clear to the participating organisations that they will be able to gain value in return for their investments in the creation of the service proposition. This means that, together with the proposition, a business model needs to be designed, that provides insight in the feasibility and attractiveness of the total proposition, as well as in the value for the various participants separately. Building on existing methods, a 5-step approach was developed to support the process of refining the overall proposition together with the participating organisations, and at the same time checking the balance in value flow for each of them. This paper describes the approach to balance value in networked social innovations using one project as example

Public sector purchasers as curators and value creators in the food system.

The 3P Mentorship Program is a community of practice that convenes institutional food buyers around a shared vision to use the $750 million purchasing power of the Ontario public sector to foster resilient local food systems. Five design principles emerged from the program, which ran as a pilot in 2014-2015 with a cohort of four institutional mentees: a hospital, university, college, and long term care home, each represented by a manager influencing the institutions’ procurement. System mapping and informal interviews revealed that the point of purchase was a high leverage, low friction point of intervention where procurement mechanisms, such as the RFP, make institutions passive consumers of value from the food system. A challenge emerged to design a minimally disruptive intervention that would enable managers to re-claim these mechanisms and to re-imagine their institutions as creators of value, in a position to curate the “reconfiguration of roles and relationships among [the] constellation of actors” for a more resilient food system (Normann and Ramirez, 1993). The pilot generated evidence of the ability of networked institutions to collaborate on a shared vision to increase the social good generated through purchasing, and to play a transformative role in food systems

Organising water: The hidden role of intermediary work

ABSTRACT: The increasingly complex challenges of making water management more sustainable require a critical and detailed understanding of the social organisation of water. This paper examines the hitherto neglected role that 'intermediary' organisations play in reshaping the relations between the provision and use of water and sanitation services. In response to new regulatory, environmental, social, and commercial pressures the relationships between water utilities, consumers, and regulators are changing, creating openings for both new and existing organisations to take on intermediary functions. Drawing on recent EU-funded research we provide the first systematic analysis of intermediary organisations in the European water sector, examining the contexts of their emergence, the ways they work, the functions they perform, and the impacts they can have. With a combination of conceptual and empirical analysis we substantiate and elaborate the case for appreciating the often hidden work of intermediaries. We caution, however, against over-simplistic conclusions on harnessing this potential, highlighting instead the need to reframe perspectives on how water is organised to contemplate actor constellations and interactions beyond the common triad of provider, consumer, and regulator