An Exploration of Baby Boomer Mass Retirement Effects on Information Systems Organizations

The potential knowledge loss from Baby Boomer generation employee retirements can negatively affect information systems organizations. The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenology study was to explore the lived experiences of the leaders and managers of information systems organizations as they tried to maintain operational continuity after Baby Boomer worker retirements. The impact of this issue was the operational continuity after the Baby Boomer worker retirement. The social impact of this issue was the knowledge loss events that might result in business loss or even bankruptcy. McElroy\u27s knowledge life cycle model was the conceptual framework for this study that included knowledge production and knowledge integration processes within a feedback loop. The lived experiences of 20 knowledgeable participants who had experienced institutional knowledge loss from retired Baby Boomer generation employees were captured through purposeful sampling. Data were collected through individual interviews using either face-to-face or a web conferencing tool such as Skype and analyzed through a modified Van Kaam. Five themes were identified: business climate, delivery practices, work processes, camaraderie, and management response. Significant attributes that added to the body of knowledge were workplace navigation, alternate focus, and outsourcing management. The results of the study may enable organizations to be better able to understand and manage the Baby Boomer knowledge loss effects and subsequently create systems to help maintain their competitive edge and avoid knowledge loss that might result in business loss or even bankruptcy

Literature review of how Telecentres operate and have an impact on eInclusion. Exploratory study on explanations and theories of how Telecentres and other community-based e-Inclusion actors operate and have an impact on digital and social inclusion policy goals

This report includes the results of the research project ‘Exploratory study on explanations and theories of how Telecentres and other community-based e-Inclusion actors operate and have an impact on digital and social inclusion policy goals’. This study was commissioned by IPTS to feed into a forthcoming 2-year research project: Measuring the impact of eInclusion actors on Digital Literacy, Skills and Inclusion goals (MIREIA). The literature review presented in this report was designed to capture the theories and explanations represented in the existing body of research in order to: provide a comprehensive and multidisciplinary landscape on theories and analytical frameworks; analyze the value of these theories and analytical frameworks based on predefined criteria and; Develop recommendations on the most promising theoretical pillars that could inform the future research mentioned above. A two-phase research approach was designed: 1) An extended mapping of the literature from the last ten years in which over 100 articles, reports and books were reviewed, coded and identified the most dominant and/or common explanations in relation to the work of e-Inclusion actors; and 2) a selection, categorization, and in-depth coding of these explanations vis-à-vis different impact areas, as well as in relation to institutional capacity. As a conclusion it has been noted that although a lot of the research on eInclusion is set out to measure impacts, in reality studies often end up with some measures of usage and analysis of why expected impacts were not achieved. In addition, there is a large proportion of available literature on telecenters and other such eInclusion actors which is based more on perceived potential than on demonstrated fact and highly contextualized studies, making it difficult to identify valid or reliable trends. These findings will be taken into account in the development of the different tasks of the MIREIA project.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

Social Innovations in Creative Communities for Sustainable Consumption: is it promising?

In the current discourse on sustainable consumption, there have been major interventions by the businesses and governments, focusing on changing consumer behavior through greening products and services. However, the problem of consumption is not limited to greening products and environmental impacts, but it is also a social issue. Together with the increasing consumption around the world and materialistic aspirations, a decline in well being and happiness can also be observed, particularly in industrialized countries. Recently, the sustainable consumption process has started to draw attention to individual value shifts reflected on peoples consumption patterns and social behavior. To examine and explain phenomenon, examples from creative communities are being analysed. According to some experts on sustainable production and consumption, these creative communities are showing promising outcomes through increasing well being and developing sustainable lifestyles. Still, they have been unable to disseminate their practices to the mainstream markets. This indicates a need for developing strategies to explore the creative communities in terms their values, principles, social innovation strategies, practices and their perspectives of sustainability. Unless these are well understood and an exchange platform is established between relevant actors including citizens, it is unlikely that creative community practices (i.e. sustainable lifestyle cases) will be incorporated the society as a whole. This research addresses the challenges and opportunities facing creative communities, their behaviours and social innovation solutions using both theoretical and empirical studies. The results are based on five field case study communities from the US, Scotland, Sweden and Italy, each with different types of social innovations. The main findings on individual value orientation and action incurring benefits demonstrate the potential of the communities or their practices to be adapted by wider society. Moreover, the nature of their practices, which highly depend on ethical responsibility, transfer of knowledge and networking relations, have shown the potential of linking between creative communitycitizens, external actors-community and between individuals. This can be established through creating relational spaces, which can take varied forms to stimulate social innovation in the agenda of sustainable consumption

Feature Papers "Age-Friendly Cities & Communities: State of the Art and Future Perspectives"

The "Age-Friendly Cities & Communities: States of the Art and Future Perspectives" publication presents contemporary, innovative, and insightful narratives, debates, and frameworks based on an international collection of papers from scholars spanning the fields of gerontology, social sciences, architecture, computer science, and gerontechnology. This extensive collection of papers aims to move the narrative and debates forward in this interdisciplinary field of age-friendly cities and communities

The Role of Modeling in the Analysis and Design of Sustainable Systems:A Panel Report

Sustainability should become a key concern in the next generation of engineered systems. While this expectation is relatively straightforward, the question of how to get there is less obvious. The multi-dimensional and intricate nature of sustainability poses challenges in designing sustainable systems and analyzing sustainability properties. Finding trade-offs between economic, environmental, societal, and technological aspects of sustainability is a wicked problem and calls for advanced modeling and simulation methods. In this paper, we report on a panel discussion held at the 28th Working Conference on Exploring Modeling Methods for Systems Analysis and Development (EMMSAD) with four esteemed experts representing four complementary and often conflicting perspectives on the role of modeling for sustainability – stakeholders, digitalization, degrowth and IT, and ethics. We report the key arguments of the panelists, discuss the roles of modeling in the analysis and design of sustainable systems, and finally, elaborate the conflicts among the perspectives, their effects, and potential resolutions

Doctoral Colloquium

The 2015 iConference Doctoral Colloquium is made possible in part by a generous grant from the National Science Foundation (#1519338). Additional funding was provided by the iSchools.Ope

Succession Planning for Next Generation Business Leaders

The ability to backfill leadership positions has become a key focus of business leaders since 2005 when the baby boom workforce started to age. An aging workforce threatens the capability of business leaders to develop leadership pipelines to ensure business success. Grounded by the social exchange theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore successful strategies that technology services managers used to align core business objectives to improve succession planning at a technology services organization located in Dallas, Texas. Data collection and triangulation included semi structured telephone interviews with 12 technology services managers, company documents, and archival information. Data analysis included the examination of rich text data, coding, and classification of themes using Yin\u27s 5-step approach. Four themes emerged, revealing that these managers (a) created and sustained a leadership talent pipeline for high potential employees for future leadership roles; (b) sourced internal candidates with core leadership competencies; (c) remediated leadership skills gaps through developed relationships and documented processes; and (d) re-engineered the replacement planning process for the internal leadership talent pipeline. Implications for positive social change include the potential for technology services managers to implement effective succession planning strategies that could increase employee morale, enhance profitability and growth, and promote healthy community partnerships