Engineering Enterprises for Emergent Change

This paper uses work system theory (WST) and two of its extensions to provide an integrated perspective on engineering enterprises for emergent change. This paper starts by explaining six basic assumptions and distinctions related to emergent change. It introduces four frameworks or models related to WST including the work system framework, work system life cycle model, a theory of workarounds, and a work system metamodel. It shows how each framework or model can help in identifying different aspects of engineering for emergent change and also can be the basis of guidelines for that purpose. Overall, this paper provides a unique way to think about the engineering of enterprises. In addition, it explains a combination of concepts and frameworks that provide a path toward engineering for emergent change

Reconfiguration model using knowledge based engineering systems

Globalization has forced enterprises to adapt their products and services to remain competitive in the free market. Manufacture plays an important role in the competitive aspect; it is where an innovation in the production system could lead to business advantage. These innovations usually involve the key elements in manufacturing systems: machines, tools and resources administration. A reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS) is one designed for rapid change in its structure and components, to quickly adjust its production capacity and functionality in response to sudden market or intrinsic system changes. However, reconfiguration alone is not enough since it will provide information to produce a certain item but it won t provide the components that will automate the machine tool for mass production. The process of automation of machine tools is known as retrofit, process being developed and researched in emergent economies. The current retrofit kits are expensive and are not tailor made, thus, they are not attractive for small and medium enterprises. This article describes a solution for fast reconfiguration of machine tools using the Knowledge Based-Engineering System methodology (KBES) that allows to obtain, structure and manage the knowledge generated in a determined engineering process, in this case, the reconfiguration processHincapié Montoya, M.; Güemes-Castorena, D.; Contero, M.; Ramírez-Cadena, M.; Diaz, C. (2015). Reconfiguration model using knowledge based engineering systems. Journal of Manufacturing Technology Research. 6(1):63-81. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/77893S63816

Models of internationalisation: The New Zealand experience

This paper examines the models of internationalisation adopted by thirty firms from New Zealand. Analysis of the international model is based on five key dimensions: firm sector and size; international market scope; market entry and servicing strategies; and speed of internationalisation. Drivers and constraints to internationalisation are also considered in the analysis. Evaluation of these dimensions over time finds evidence of both traditional ‘stages’ and emergent ‘born (again) global’ models of internationalisation, and reveals that over one third of these firms experience dramatic change to their international activities and resources initiated by divestment or change of ownership. We refer to the alternative internationalisation trajectory adopted by these firms as the ‘transformational’ model of internationalisation. The paper makes a contribution to the extant literature by providing synthesis of the New Zealand internationalisation and by building on our understanding of how patterns of internationalisation from a small open economy are changing in response to global environmental pressures

Third-age Entrepreneurs Propensity to Engage in New Venture Creation and Development

Christopher Brown, Diane Morrad, ‘Third-age Entrepreneurs Propensity to Engage in New Venture Creation and Development’, paper presented at the 4th European Conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ECEI), Antwerp, Belgium, 10-12 September, 2009.Increasingly the issues of entrepreneurship and new venture creation have become two of the most important drivers for future success of the UK economy, especially in the current climate of economic turbulence and uncertainty. The creation of an enterprise culture, one that depends on entrepreneurs, is one of the strategic goals of the UK Government’s action plan for micro- and small-enterprises. The development of these enterprise cultures will naturally create a marketplace ‘churn’, one that stimulates both continuous and radical innovations, and as a consequence of this contribute to the overall UK’s overall productivity and sustained economic performance. Yet research on entrepreneurs, and particularly third-age entrepreneurs, their abilities and motivation to start-up new enterprises within the environmental good and services sector is limited.Our research study utilizes qualitative data collection and analysis. We have engaged with 12 small enterprise entrepreneurs who are currently, or have already started-up a new enterprise in the EGS sector. Our research studies on how opportunities and threats influence third-age enterpreneurs’ values, attitudes and practices suggested that both, sector-wide values and practices, as well as the strength of sector-based systems of innovations, significantly influence the effective prediction of venture creation, development and creative destruction practices. It is these third- age entrepreneurs mindset Business Models (BMs), how they perceive they can generate business value and align their business practices around EGS sector opportunities and threats, that both determines their propensity to create new ventures, and their motivation and success in driving new venture creation and development oportunities. A framework is proposed based on our limited entrepreneurial mindset analysis that links their values, vision and actions with a more substantial evaluation of their overall mindset business model.Peer reviewe

Comparative Study on Agile software development methodologies

Today-s business environment is very much dynamic, and organisations are constantly changing their software requirements to adjust with new environment. They also demand for fast delivery of software products as well as for accepting changing requirements. In this aspect, traditional plan-driven developments fail to meet up these requirements. Though traditional software development methodologies, such as life cycle-based structured and object oriented approaches, continue to dominate the systems development few decades and much research has done in traditional methodologies, Agile software development brings its own set of novel challenges that must be addressed to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of the valuable software. It is a set of software development methods based on iterative and incremental development process, where requirements and development evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams that allows rapid delivery of high quality software to meet customer needs and also accommodate changes in the requirements. In this paper, we significantly identify and describe the major factors, that Agile development approach improves software development process to meet the rapid changing business environments. We also provide a brief comparison of agile development methodologies with traditional systems development methodologies, and discuss current state of adopting agile methodologies. We speculate that from the need to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of the valuable software, Agile software development is emerged as an alternative to traditional plan-based software development methods. The purpose of this paper, is to provide an in-depth understanding, the major benefits of agile development approach to software development industry, as well as provide a comparison study report of ASDM over TSDM.Comment: 25 pages, 25 images, 86 references used, with authors biographie

Налоговое или монетарное стимулирование? Эволюционные аргументы в пользу налоговых реформ

Статья посвящена исследованию проблемы обоснования мер регулирования развития эмерджентной экономики - фискальных и (или) монетарных, с использованием методов эволюционного моделирования. Для этого была построена экономико-математическая модель, имитирующая процессы коэволюции развитой и развивающейся стран, связанных через глобальные цепочки создания стоимости. В этой модели каждая из стран характеризуется собственной исходной структурой экономических субъектов, определяемой соотношением предприятий-эгоистов (предрасположенных к консервативному поведению) и предприятий-альтруистов (предрасположенных к инновационному поведению), а также специфическим населением и демографическими процессами. Результаты вычислительных экспериментов показали, что успех того или иного способа экономического регулирования принципиально зависит от особенностей исходного состояния институциональной среды хозяйствования. В институциональной среде с «прозрачными» длинными правилами игры и, соответственно, длинным горизонтом хозяйственного планирования наилучший результат в виде высоких темпов роста производства в эмерджентной экономике дает политика дешевых денег в сочетании с высокими «европейскими» налогами. Иная ситуация наблюдается в более реалистичной ситуации с короткими правилами игры и, соответственно, коротким (не более 5 лет) горизонтом хозяйственного планирования. В этом случае любая налоговая политика (низкие или высокие налоги) в сочетании любыми деньгами (дешевыми или дорогими), в определенном смысле теряет значение, поскольку изначально отсталая инновационная система не позволяет быстро получать высокие результаты, а преимущества экономического роста в отделенном будущем не принимаются во внимание. Вместе с тем, для постепенного формирования лучшей инновационной системы низкие налоги и дешевые деньги имеют важное значение, поскольку создают лучшие условия для выживания предприятийальтруистов, облегчая им инвестиционную деятельность, способную принести многократный прирост технической производительности и экономической эффективности. В любом случае, в контексте эволюционной экономической теории, исходя из проведенных вычислительных экспериментов, налоговая политика в условиях эмерджентных рынков сохраняет свой регуляторный потенциал, и, таким образом, требует дальнейшего реформирования в контексте «новой реальности», основанной на глобальных цепочках создания стоимости.The article deals with the problem of substantiation of the emergent economies development regulatory measures (fiscal and / or monetary), using the evolutionary modelling methods. For this purpose, the mathematical model was constructed that simulates the co-evolution process of the advanced and developing countries, linked by global value chains. In this model, each country is characterized by its original structure of economic entities, defined by the ratio of the egoistic enterprises (predisposed to conservative behaviour) to the altruistic enterprises (predisposed to innovation), as well as by specific population and demographic processes. The results of the computational experiments have shown that the success of economic regulation fundamentally depends on the peculiarities of the initial state of the institutional environment. In the institutional environment with the «transparent» long behaviour and, accordingly, a long economic planning horizon, the best result in the form of average annual production growth rate of the emergent economies is provided by the cheap money policy combined with the high European taxes. A different situation is observed in more realistic short behaviour and, accordingly, short (under 5 years) economic planning horizon. In this case, any tax policy (neither low nor high taxes) together with any money (neither cheap nor expensive), to a certain extent loses its significance, as the initially backward innovative system does not allow to quickly get good results, and the long-term benefits of the potential economic growth are not taken into consideration. However, low taxes and cheap money are important as they create better conditions for survival of the altruistic enterprises, facilitating their investment activities, which can multiply increase their technical performance and economic efficiency. Still, in the context of the evolutionary economics and following the conducted computational experiments, the fiscal policy in terms of emerging markets retains its regulatory capacity, and therefore requires further reforms in the context of the «new reality» based on the global value chains

Capturing complexity: developing an integrated approach to analysing HRM in SMEs

This article presents a framework to evaluate HRM in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), using an open systems theoretical perspective. In presenting an open systems perspective the objective is to overcome the limitations of existing theorising in HRM, in particular to facilitate a move away from the ‘small is beautiful’ versus ‘bleak house’ stereotypes evident in much of the literature concerned with HRM in SMEs. The evidence is drawn from six SMEs operating in the Republic of Ireland, using a case study method. The findings show that a complex interplay of external structural factors and internal dynamics shaped HRM in each of the companies. HRM was not the coherent set of practices typically identified in the literature but rather was often informal and emergent. It is argued that the open systems theoretical framework enables a move beyond mere recognition of the complexity and heterogeneity of HRM in SMEs, towards an understanding, accommodation and explanation of particularistic factors

Business Process Innovation using the Process Innovation Laboratory

Most organizations today are required not only to establish effective business processes but they are required to accommodate for changing business conditions at an increasing rate. Many business processes extend beyond the boundary of the enterprise into the supply chain and the information infrastructure therefore is critical. Today nearly every business relies on their Enterprise System (ES) for process integration and the future generations of enterprise systems will increasingly be driven by business process models. Consequently process modeling and improvement will become vital for business process innovation (BPI) in future organizations. There is a significant body of knowledge on various aspect of process innovation, e.g. on conceptual modeling, business processes, supply chains and enterprise systems. Still an overall comprehensive and consistent theoretical framework with guidelines for practical applications has not been identified. The aim of this paper is to establish a conceptual framework for business process innovation in the supply chain based on advanced enterprise systems. The main approach to business process innovation in this context is to create a new methodology for exploring process models and patterns of applications. The paper thus presents a new concept for business process innovation called the process innovation laboratory a.k.a. the Ð-Lab. The Ð-Lab is a comprehensive framework for BPI using advanced enterprise systems. The Ð-Lab is a collaborative workspace for experimenting with process models and an explorative approach to study integrated modeling in a controlled environment. The Ð-Lab facilitates innovation by using an integrated action learning approach to process modeling including contemporary technological, organizational and business perspectivesNo; keywords

An introduction to STRIKE : STRuctured Interpretation of the Knowledge Environment

Knowledge forms a critical part of the income generation of the system and the complex environment in which actors participate in the creation of knowledge assets merits robust, eclectic consideration. STRIKE - STRuctured Interpretation of the Knowledge Environment affords an unobtrusive and systematic framework to observe, record, evaluate and articulate concrete and abstract elements of a setting, across internal and external dimensions. Inter-relationships between actor and environment are preserved. STRIKE is supported by underlying techniques to enrich data and enhance the authenticity of its representation. Adoption of photography and videography tools provides illustrative and interpretive benefits and facilitates researcher reflexivity. This structured approach to data analysis and evaluation mitigates criticisms of methodological rigour in observational research and affords standardisation potential, germane for application in a verification or longitudinal capacity. Advancing exploratory validation studies, the method is employed to evaluate the knowledge environments of two enterprises in the UK creative sector. These occupy a critical role in fostering entrepreneurial innovation alongside participant self-efficacy. Access Space in Sheffield and the Bristol Hackspace are committed to open software, open knowledge and open participation; sharing peer learning, creativity and socio-technical aims to address broadly similar community needs. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s Picture Theory of Meaning, the knowledge management perspective is abstracted from the STRIKE assessment. It is argued that the tiered analytical approach which considers a breadth of dimensions enhances representation and interpretation of the knowledge environment and presents a diagnostic and prescriptive capability to actualise change. The paper concludes by evaluating framework effectiveness, findings application and future direction

Challenging the Enterprises' Business Model: helping entrepreneurs to understand and interpret opportunities and threats

Christopher Brown, Diane Morrad, ‘Challenging the Enterprises' Business Model: helping entrepreneurs to understand and interpret opportunities and threats’, paper presented at the 15th Annual Edineb Conference, Malaga, Spain, 15-18 June, 2008.Enterprises are presented with ever increasing challenges regarding marketplace uncertainty and ambiguity. They face competitive pressures from local and international sources, their competitors are constantly tweaking products and services to jostle ahead of them, and their customers expect responsiveness and innovativeness to their expressed and latent needs. The enterprises’ very success, and survival, depends on their ability to change their business, market and product strategies to fit these challenges. Underlying these business, market and product strategies is the enterprises’ business model. Simply, business models are an organisation’s understanding and interpretation of how they currently, and in the future, achieve their revenue and profit streams. These business models, used by the senior management and employees, are often based on outdated perspectives of both how the marketplace works and the changing business and customer values expected by their demanding stakeholders. In SMEs the creation, development and creative deconstruction of business models is most often driven by the founding entrepreneur, or subsequent corporate entrepreneurs brought in to provide professional management of these rapidly growing businesses. Interestingly, more recent research has strongly linked entrepreneurs’ mindset, or mental models (Zahra, Korri et al. 2005), associated with the challenges to the enterprise, with their drivers for innovation and changes in their enterprises’ business models. Certainly research has identified the potential value changes, business and customer, that can often facilitate the construction and deconstruction of business value-based innovations (Munive-Hernandez, Dewhurst et al. 2004), and then reflecting these in their overall business processes. This paper discusses the research study, undertaken by the authors, to explore the link between entrepreneurs’ understanding and interpretation of business opportunities and threats, and the potential influence in challenging their mindset business model. The paper begins by discussing the two broad approaches to modelling enterprise strategies and the resulting integrated business models: innovation and process orientations.Peer reviewedSubmitted Versio