Dynamics of short-term and long-term decision-making in English housing associations: A study of using systems thinking to inform policy design

Incorporating consideration of causal mechanisms of complex policy issues and goals is critical for policy design, but tools to support exploration of the interconnections, trade-offs and unintended consequences of a focused policy issue are limited. Understanding how to undertake systems-based policy design is crucial for designing effective policy interventions. Through a case study with two housing associations (HAs) in England, this paper explores how group model building (GMB) workshops, as a systems thinking tool, can elicit complex causal mechanisms to inform policy design. The paper presents a causal loop diagram (CLD) describing English HAs’ decision-making around sustainable and healthy housing in response to housing policies. The CLD illustrates how frequent policy changes and disjointed objectives can create disruptive challenges for HA's long-term decision-making, increasing short-term decision-making, and compromising the delivery of housing policy goals as an unintended consequence. We argue that the systems perspective of the interlinkages between policy design, specifically inconsistencies and changes, and housing organisations’ reactions highlights the importance of the systems thinking approach of policy design to support HAs’ organisational decision-making for sustainability and social issues. Policy design elements that facilitate HAs’ long-term decision-making are discussed. Through the case study, we contribute to the housing policy literature by explicitly showing how policy changes affect HA's decision-making. We advance the integration of policy design and soft operational research fields by describing the systems thinking approaches are used not only on the content of policy design to enhance a particular policy, but also on increasing our understanding of its process, by generating insights about the nature of decision-making dynamics and challenges faced. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed

Scenarios for the development of smart grids in the UK: literature review

Smart grids are expected to play a central role in any transition to a low-carbon energy future, and much research is currently underway on practically every area of smart grids. However, it is evident that even basic aspects such as theoretical and operational definitions, are yet to be agreed upon and be clearly defined. Some aspects (efficient management of supply, including intermittent supply, two-way communication between the producer and user of electricity, use of IT technology to respond to and manage demand, and ensuring safe and secure electricity distribution) are more commonly accepted than others (such as smart meters) in defining what comprises a smart grid. It is clear that smart grid developments enjoy political and financial support both at UK and EU levels, and from the majority of related industries. The reasons for this vary and include the hope that smart grids will facilitate the achievement of carbon reduction targets, create new employment opportunities, and reduce costs relevant to energy generation (fewer power stations) and distribution (fewer losses and better stability). However, smart grid development depends on additional factors, beyond the energy industry. These relate to issues of public acceptability of relevant technologies and associated risks (e.g. data safety, privacy, cyber security), pricing, competition, and regulation; implying the involvement of a wide range of players such as the industry, regulators and consumers. The above constitute a complex set of variables and actors, and interactions between them. In order to best explore ways of possible deployment of smart grids, the use of scenarios is most adequate, as they can incorporate several parameters and variables into a coherent storyline. Scenarios have been previously used in the context of smart grids, but have traditionally focused on factors such as economic growth or policy evolution. Important additional socio-technical aspects of smart grids emerge from the literature review in this report and therefore need to be incorporated in our scenarios. These can be grouped into four (interlinked) main categories: supply side aspects, demand side aspects, policy and regulation, and technical aspects.

Customer Choice Modeling in Hospitality Service: A Review of Past Research and Discussion of Some New Applications

Customer choice modeling techniques have grown in sophistication and applicability, so that this methodology can be useful for assessing the services and amenities that are market drivers for customers of hospitality businesses. In essence, customer choice modeling is an experimental process that seeks to identify the key market drivers by comparing respondents’ choices among packages of products and services, known as choice sets. By comparing the ratings of various choice set packages, one can assess which features of a product or service are most critical to the purchase decision. Also helpful in customer choice modeling is analysis of existing purchase patterns, which can be collected from point-of-sale devices and web activity. However, valuable though it is, collected data are backward looking—telling what customers did, but not what they will do. In contrast, customer choice modeling can look forward to see what customers might like, provided the experiment is designed correctly

Developing Responsible Research and Innovation for Robots

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.This paper develops a framework for responsible research and innovation (RRI) in robot design for roboticists from a study of the processes involved in the design and engineering of a range of robots including standard manufacturing robots, humanoid robots, environmental scanning robots and robot swarms. The importance of an iterative approach to design, the nature of transitions between design phases, and issues of uncertainty and complexity are examined for their ethical content. A cycle of RRI thinking based on reconnoitre, realisation, reflection, response and review is described which aligns with the general characterisation of robot engineering processes. Additionally the importance of supporting communities, knowledge bases and tools for assessment and analysis is noted

Engage D2.5 Annual combined thematic workshops progress report (priming wave 1)

The preparation, organisation and the conclusions from the three thematic challenge workshops held in 2018 are described. The preparation and expert consultation results are reported for the “Vulnerabilities and global security of the CNS/ATM system” challenge workshop, which is scheduled to take place in March 2019

A decision support system for evaluating local authority housing maintenance strategies in the United Kingdom

Purpose The lack of smart resources management and servicescape strategies within the social housing sector in the late 1970s influenced the rise of successive Governments to consider the restructuring of the traditional ‘cumbersome’ Local Authority based structures and approaches toward more ‘enterprise focussed’ management organisations (Sharp & Jones 2012). This change in central Government policy encouraged Local Authorities to assign through outsourcing their housing stock (including associated asset management services) as part of a Large Scale Voluntary Transfer (LSVT) via a process of compulsory competitive tendering to Housing Associations and / or set up Housing Trusts to increase the accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness of social housing and healthcare provision in the local community. As part of this modernisation process, all social housing and community care providers (also known as ‘Registered Social Landlords’ - RSLs) became subject to statutory audits, inspections and regulation, and performance management, to ensure the service quality delivery requirements. More recently, however, changes in the legislative framework have introduced choice-based letting policy, putting the customer first, service delivery and additionally RSLs are required to act as ‘Corporate Social Landlords’. These changes have focused RSLs attention on the need to sharpen service responsiveness, especially in the area of housing maintenance management (DETR 2000). Previous research (Holmes 1985; Spedding 1990; Johnston 1993; Stewart & Stoker 1995; Olubodun 1996, 2000, 2001; Sagoo et al. 1996; El-Haram & Horner 2002; Kangwa & Olubodun 2003, 2005; Boussabaine & Kirkham 2004; Jones & Cooper 2007; Prowle 2009; Babangida et al. 2012) has mainly concentrated on analysing maintenance management factors at the micro level; developing maintenance models and framework design for operational level. However, in the social housing sector, there have been no studies undertaken to date that have been focused on housing maintenance strategies – for example, how this is formulated, the key drivers of change and the impact on customer orientated service delivery. The purpose of this study is to identify the critical factors that drive the decision-making process in order to formulate responsive housing maintenance strategies and to develop a decision support model to improve customer service delivery of social housing provision. Research methodology Through a process of qualitative case study, pilot questionnaire surveys, workshops and qualitative in-depth interviews, the research has identified how the housing maintenance strategies are formulated and how social housing providers could enhance customer service delivery. The study comprised four phases in order to reflect the key objectives of the research. The first phase comprised a review of literature on social housing provision in the UK, identifying relevant changes in the legislative framework, an assessment of the challenges faced by RSLs and the key factors influencing performance of social housing provision. This phase also included undertaking a case study based on five different RSLs to examine the ‘real problems’ as to how and to what extent RSLs have adopted their organisation in order to meet the changes and challenges which they now face. The second phase investigated the key service factors impacting on housing maintenance strategy design and development through the use of a pilot study questionnaire directed to the asset managers (participating in the survey) and also included a selection of end users of the services (tenants). This phase identified the differences between the perceptions of service providers and the expectations of the service users. A key feature of this phase entailed conducting a workshop to disseminate findings of the pilot study. The workshop also formed a basis for ‘in-depth’ discussions for identifying the key factors, their descriptions, their interactions with each other, their inter-relationships with the tenant type, and their combined impact on formulating responsive housing maintenance strategy. The third phase of the study entailed eliciting qualitative data from the participants using the Repertory Grid (RG) ‘in-depth’ interview technique - a psychology tool in order to gain a deeper understanding of the core important ‘constructs’ and sub-constructs, their characteristics, their inter-relationships in the design and development of effective housing asset maintenance strategies. The fourth phase of this study entailed the development of a decision support system and the qualitative validation of the relationships found to exist between the constructs examined in phase three together with the testing of the model over a period of two months with four of the participating social housing providers. Findings The key findings arising from this research suggest that the design and development of value for money maintenance strategies within the public housing sector, are not solely based on physical factors related to the age, condition, location, construction type for example, but rather it was found that the majority of the asset management decisions made, were dependent upon a multivariate of key factors. The study identified 52 key factors, which when grouped together formed seven key cluster (Customer risk factors, Asset manager risk factors, Tenancy risk factors, Neighbourhood and community sustainability risk factors, Financial and economic risk factors, continuous service improvement risk factors and corporate risk factors) which are both ‘unique’ and ‘novel’ and are identified as having a direct influence on the formulation of housing maintenance strategy. These factors should not be considered in isolation and are more akin to the business success factors. The business ‘Balanced Scorecard’ (BSC) was evaluated and used as the basis for a ‘best fit’ model which was tested against four RSL to confirm its validity and its appropriateness. The responses obtained from these trials has indicated that the BSC provides a working tool capable of enhancing RSL organisational capabilities and service delivery effectiveness but also able to incorporate customer views regarding service delivery. This research makes major contributions to the existing limited pool of knowledge relating to strategic asset management within social housing sector and in addition, provides an insight into how housing maintenance strategy can be developed to incorporate feedback from customers (tenants) regarding the quality and responsive service delivery. The research also demonstrates the potential value of the BSC approach to the management tool capable of generating a competitive edge in line with government policy which is currently directed towards encouraging RSLs to adopt a commercial business approach to their operations. The research also demonstrates that the adoption of a decision support system in the form of BSC has the potential to provide useful assistance to RSLs intending to move away from the traditional public sector approaches to management (a more private sector orientated) approach to their operations. The research also shows that asset managers experience little difficulty in understanding the principles behind the BSC approach and its application. In addition, the cascading effect of BSC in housing maintenance strategy means that the strategy can be converted into measurable actions at the operational levels thereby providing a direct link between strategy and its implementation. Due to the absence of suitable benchmarking data, score rating derived from the RG were adopted by asset managers. This approach was found to be highly sensitive in assessing service delivery constructs. Furthermore, the research revealed that the individual constructs (52 key factors) had a profound influence in relation to the strategy formation and the assessment of customer service delivery. The study found that RSLs need to develop a deeper understanding and awareness of their customers concerns in that these factors may have a major impact in the development of a responsive housing maintenance strategy and overall improvements on RSLs performance. A close link was found between customer profile, their financial standing and their service expectations, patterns of behaviour and their interaction with their RSLs. High performance expectation was found on the part of affordable customers, presumably reflecting a higher level of social and economic dependency within this group and greater need for access to services thereby challenging RSLs to deliver higher standards of performance including housing maintenance provision. Other customer groups were noted as placing demand on their RSLs to adopt more holistic approach to formulation of housing maintenance strategy and embrace business-like approach to service delivery in order to facilitate a smooth transition from traditional public sector ethos to one closely akin to that associated with the private sector organisation. Practical implications The practical implications of this research are, that, if RSLs are to meet the demands of complying with a changed legislative framework, deliver responsive housing maintenance services to reflect the ever-changing customer expectations, and to adopt commercial approaches to the development of housing maintenance strategies, RSLs will need to re-engineer their business processes if the demands are to be satisfactorily accommodated. RSLs must also be prepared to adopt ‘smart business’ practices in the future, given that existing Key Line Of Enquiry (KLOEs) approaches now provide an inadequate tool for assessing performance in housing asset management nor are KLOEs sufficiently robust or possessing a sufficient degree of agility for modelling complex service delivery scenarios. As a result of this research, the BSC model has demonstrated its usefulness and its appropriateness to housing maintenance decision making within the current economic conditions and changed regulatory regime. The BSC model is simple in nature but nonetheless sufficiently flexible to allow factors to be added or omitted to accommodate the requirements and structures of individual RSLs. Academic implications To date, most housing asset management have concentrated on the technical and cost aspects of maintenance management aimed at the micro level and have attached little attention to the needs of strategic management or the potential significance of the customer. These earlier researches have limited application to the needs of strategy management particularly under the current conditions which social housing providers are now required to operate (Sharp & Jones 2012). This study is first of its kind to attempt to evaluate housing maintenance strategy giving considerations to end user ‘the customer’ dimension in service delivery within the social housing sector. This study has adopted a novel approach to this area of research by employing a technique frequently encountered in clinical psychology, based upon the use of a Repertory Grid – a qualitative tool for triadic elicitation of key drivers with a view to providing a robust tool for assisting housing asset managers involved in the development of housing maintenance strategy. The RG personal interviews with senior asset managers revealed hidden and latent factors, which would not have been easily identified had a quantitative questionnaire been used. The hidden constructs which were identified as a result of the applications of this technique are considered to be ‘akin’ to business success factors. Originality This study is also unique in that it has given particular considerations to the provision of housing maintenance service as perceived from the view point of the end users rather than directing itself to the constructional and technical aspects of housing asset management. Also, the research recognises the need for asset managers to become more aware of the implications of social factors and the need for these aspects to be incorporated into strategic maintenance models. A further unique aspect of this research is that it has endeavoured to obtain an insight into the cognitive processes (mind mapping and analytical mental processes) behind the decision making of asset management, in order to identify and understand the nature of the drivers behind these processes to develop a rational decision support model for assisting in the rational formulating of housing maintenance strategy. KEYWORDS Social Housing, Registered Social Landlords, Social Housing Providers, Customer Service Delivery, Asset Managers, Customer, Tenants, Repertory Gri

Systems Approach to the operational challenges in marine services within the port of Durban.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.Modern problems are complex and are characterized by the existence of multiple actors, multiple perspectives, conflicting interest as well as key uncertainties. This dissertation aims to explore the operational challenges of marine services in the port of Durban. The researcher was interested in exploring marine operational challenges and their impact on the maritime industry as well as stakeholder benefits from the operation of marine services. The purpose of employing systems thinking was to recognize relationships and interconnectedness between elements at play in the marine services operations. Understanding behavior of marine services systems was critical for gaining insight into the behaviors and patterns underlying these complex systems. The research questions related to the operational challenges being experienced within the port of Durban; the stakeholders who are impacted by these challenges; and the recommendations that can be made to mitigate the impact of these challenges. The research objectives aimed to explore the dynamics of the marine services’ system. Furthermore, the research aimed to look at how the current levels of offering can be improved within the port of Durban. The research problem statement presented the level of connection between the South African economy and the port of Durban, acknowledging that the port of Durban is the gateway to international markets. Marine systems are complex and dynamic requiring the system thinking approach to understand the structure of the problem situation. A conceptual model of a dynamic marine service system was developed by employing a qualitative paradigm. Data was collected via interviews and observations from purposive marine employees who possessed knowledge and expertise of the global maritime industry. Using a thematic analysis the findings indicated that investment in infrastructure is the main marine services operational challenge confronted by the department. The volume of cargo triggers ship evolution where ship builders begin to build bigger size vessels to cater for volume throughput in international ports. The ship size evolution leads to the gap in the shipping industry and port infrastructure which require huge investments to close the gap

A holistic emotions measurement model : using the viable system model to diagnose workforce emotions

Research Purpose: The current study attempted to redress the ‘narrowness’ in the research on the causes of workforce emotional experiences by utilizing the cybernetic Viable System Model (VSM) framework, and developing a reference model to facilitate the integrated view of the related aspects of affective workplace environment.Methods: Based on VSM distinctions, an analytical tool (named as Holistic Emotions Measurement Model – HEMM) was developed for gauging the broad range of the causes of emotional experiences prevailing in the work environment. It facilitated the joined-up functional and the relational view of the entire working environment adequate for holistic diagnosis of the antecedents of emotions within the work settings. HEMM was tested empirically by conducting survey in Pakistan corporate sector. The development and test of the reference model was guided by the constructivism-positivism philosophy respectively.Results: The functional and relational view of the workplace environment captured by the reference model helped in comprehending the causes of emotional experiences holistically. The field testing results confirmed the potential utilization of the tool in diagnosing the antecedents of affective experiences of the employees while at work.Conclusion: The current study provided an empirical account on the effective utilization of organizational cybernetics principles in the field of organizational behaviour which has remained largely unexplored till date. VSM framework has been proposed as a tool for understanding work environment and diagnosing the causes of the workforce emotions generation, which has enhanced the state-of-art theories on emotions management. The application of the reference model on field provided evidence about the convenient use of VSM in conjunction to Affective Events Theory (AET) as emotions measurement tool

Impact Assessment: Diffusion and Integration

Introduction: As societies and their governments seek tools to help foresee and evaluate the future impacts of their current choices, successful policy foresight can benefit from learning from hindsight – from retrospective studies of the accuracy and impact of RIA and EIA (and other IA systems) on past decisions, both to revise current policies and also to improve the accuracy of IA systems in the future. This chapter discusses the ongoing diffusion of IA, and the pros and cons of combining the array of existing IA systems into a new and better system of Integrated Impact Assessment (IIA) (both prospective and retrospective) encompassing the full portfolio of important impacts