Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments

This book presents the collection of fifty papers which were presented in the Second International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY 2011 - Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments , held in Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal, from 22ndto 24thof June, 2011.The main motive of the meeting was growing awareness of the importance of the sustainability issue. This importance had emerged from the growing uncertainty of the market behaviour that leads to the characterization of the market, i.e. environment, as turbulent. Actually, the characterization of the environment as uncertain and turbulent reflects the fact that the traditional technocratic and/or socio-technical approaches cannot effectively and efficiently lead with the present situation. In other words, the rise of the sustainability issue means the quest for new instruments to deal with uncertainty and/or turbulence. The sustainability issue has a complex nature and solutions are sought in a wide range of domains and instruments to achieve and manage it. The domains range from environmental sustainability (referring to natural environment) through organisational and business sustainability towards social sustainability. Concerning the instruments for sustainability, they range from traditional engineering and management methodologies towards “soft” instruments such as knowledge, learning, and creativity. The papers in this book address virtually whole sustainability problems space in a greater or lesser extent. However, although the uncertainty and/or turbulence, or in other words the dynamic properties, come from coupling of management, technology, learning, individuals, organisations and society, meaning that everything is at the same time effect and cause, we wanted to put the emphasis on business with the intention to address primarily companies and their businesses. Due to this reason, the main title of the book is “Business Sustainability 2.0” but with the approach of coupling Management, Technology and Learning for individuals, organisations and society in Turbulent Environments. Also, the notation“2.0” is to promote the publication as a step further from our previous publication – “Business Sustainability I” – as would be for a new version of software. Concerning the Second International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, its particularity was that it had served primarily as a learning environment in which the papers published in this book were the ground for further individual and collective growth in understanding and perception of sustainability and capacity for building new instruments for business sustainability. In that respect, the methodology of the conference work was basically dialogical, meaning promoting dialog on the papers, but also including formal paper presentations. In this way, the conference presented a rich space for satisfying different authors’ and participants’ needs. Additionally, promoting the widest and global learning environment and participation, in accordance with the Conference's assumed mission to promote Proactive Generative Collaborative Learning, the Conference Organisation shares/puts open to the community the papers presented in this book, as well as the papers presented on the previous Conference(s). These papers can be accessed from the conference webpage (http://labve.dps.uminho.pt/bs11). In these terms, this book could also be understood as a complementary instrument to the Conference authors’ and participants’, but also to the wider readerships’ interested in the sustainability issues. The book brought together 107 authors from 11 countries, namely from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Serbia, Switzerland, and United States of America. The authors “ranged” from senior and renowned scientists to young researchers providing a rich and learning environment. At the end, the editors hope, and would like, that this book to be useful, meeting the expectation of the authors and wider readership and serving for enhancing the individual and collective learning, and to incentive further scientific development and creation of new papers. Also, the editors would use this opportunity to announce the intention to continue with new editions of the conference and subsequent editions of accompanying books on the subject of BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, the third of which is planned for year 2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments

This book presents the collection of fifty two papers which were presented on the First International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY ’08 - Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments, held in Ofir, Portugal, from 25th to 27th of June, 2008. The main motive of the meeting was the growing awareness of the importance of the sustainability issue. This importance had emerged from the growing uncertainty of the market behaviour that leads to the characterization of the market, i.e. environment, as turbulent. Actually, the characterization of the environment as uncertain and turbulent reflects the fact that the traditional technocratic and/or socio-technical approaches cannot effectively and efficiently lead with the present situation. In other words, the rise of the sustainability issue means the quest for new instruments to deal with uncertainty and/or turbulence. The sustainability issue has a complex nature and solutions are sought in a wide range of domains and instruments to achieve and manage it. The domains range from environmental sustainability (referring to natural environment) through organisational and business sustainability towards social sustainability. Concerning the instruments for sustainability, they range from traditional engineering and management methodologies towards “soft” instruments such as knowledge, learning, creativity. The papers in this book address virtually whole sustainability problems space in a greater or lesser extent. However, although the uncertainty and/or turbulence, or in other words the dynamic properties, come from coupling of management, technology, learning, individuals, organisations and society, meaning that everything is at the same time effect and cause, we wanted to put the emphasis on business with the intention to address primarily the companies and their businesses. From this reason, the main title of the book is “Business Sustainability” but with the approach of coupling Management, Technology and Learning for individuals, organisations and society in Turbulent Environments. Concerning the First International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, its particularity was that it had served primarily as a learning environment in which the papers published in this book were the ground for further individual and collective growth in understanding and perception of sustainability and capacity for building new instruments for business sustainability. In that respect, the methodology of the conference work was basically dialogical, meaning promoting dialog on the papers, but also including formal paper presentations. In this way, the conference presented a rich space for satisfying different authors’ and participants’ needs. Additionally, promoting the widest and global learning environment and participativeness, the Conference Organisation provided the broadcasting over Internet of the Conference sessions, dialogical and formal presentations, for all authors’ and participants’ institutions, as an innovative Conference feature. In these terms, this book could also be understood as a complementary instrument to the Conference authors’ and participants’, but also to the wider readerships’ interested in the sustainability issues. The book brought together 97 authors from 10 countries, namely from Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Sweden and United Kingdom. The authors “ranged” from senior and renowned scientists to young researchers providing a rich and learning environment. At the end, the editors hope and would like that this book will be useful, meeting the expectation of the authors and wider readership and serving for enhancing the individual and collective learning, and to incentive further scientific development and creation of new papers. Also, the editors would use this opportunity to announce the intention to continue with new editions of the conference and subsequent editions of accompanying books on the subject of BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, the second of which is planned for year 2011.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Conceptual Operational Model of Architecture - An approach for capturing values in architectural practices based on Big Data capabilities

The research focuses on the emerging domain of Big Data and the Internet of Things in the context of architectural design and operation. The profession of architecture relies on the use of data in almost all stages of the building cycle. However, this data is often utilised in a trivial manner, without clearly addressing how the data is utilised, when it is utilised, the value of such utilisation and the impact the data has on the design operations and the overall building. Data in architecture mainly serves as a medium of communication to generate a design. Data can only be as good as the technology available at the time it is gathered. Nevertheless, the role of data has changed with the advancement of digital data technologies such as Big Data and the Internet of Things. Digital data is now a driver for businesses and operations in other industries. The investigation of contemporary data utilisation in architecture design reveals that data is not utilised as a driver for the design in most cases and, when it is utilised as a driver, it is not exploited and is not explicitly addressed as part of the business. A knowledge gap in architecture in addressing the utilisation of data and addressing digital data as a driver in design operations is identified. This identification is supplemented by observing that data-driven operations provide the potential for better and more efficient design and business. To fill this knowledge gap and to build a foundation for data utilisation in architecture, this thesis proposes a Data-Driven Operational Framework for architecture, which is the main output of this research and its main contribution to knowledge. The Data-Driven Operational Framework reveals and explains the required components and operations for employing a data-driven design approach in architectural processes and business. In order to develop such a framework, an investigation of current architectural cases that utilise digital data was completed, which is a crucial part of the research. However, it was not possible to investigate these cases without having a thorough understanding of the state-of-the-art data technologies and an understanding of the existing taxonomy of data and the existing taxonomy of value in architectural operations. To build this taxonomy of data, a literature review investigating the terms data, digital data operations, Big Data and the Internet of Things was conducted. To build the taxonomy of value, a literature review of values, value creation and valuation methods in architecture was performed. Also, this value investigation led to the development of a Digital Value Equaliser, which is a conceptual representation that supports the analysis of values in architectural design cases. The case studies were analysed following the coding techniques of Grounded Theory Methodology. The coding procedures were followed systematically and continuously until data saturation was reached. Reaching data saturation led to the development of the Data-Driven Operational Framework for architecture. The Data-Driven Operational Framework has two theoretical applications, the Data-Driven Levels in architectural operations framework and the Data-Driven Impact on the AEC framework. These two theoretical frameworks are the findings of the second part of the research and add to the research contribution. The Data-Driven Levels framework reveals the different automation levels in utilising data in architectural operations. This framework classifies data operations in architecture into six levels according to how automated they are and the degree of human involvement in each operation. The Data-Driven Impact framework shows the anticipated impact of employing data-driven operations on the existing business and cultural models in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC). This shows the required business and cultural changes in operating an architecture business. The Impact framework supports architects to identify what measures and changes are needed to benefit from the use of data-driven operations in their practices and business