Do You Plead Connected? - Understanding How Lawyers Deal With Constant Connectivity

Being available and responsive has become an imperative to accomplish the complex work of knowledge workers and to adequately satisfy today’s business needs. As a consequence, individuals are required to adopt strategies to cope with increasing connectivity levels. We conducted a Q methodological study among 34 lawyers from Switzerland and Austria to examine the adoption of different strategies for dealing with constant connectivity. Our findings reveal four ICT user types, whereof three types successfully deploy a coping strategy while one type fails. We observe that specific determinants such as the work environment, the hierarchical position, the perceived autonomy as well as personality traits have substantial influence on the adoption of a coping strategy

Improving blue economy through industry 4.0: a service science perspective

Desenvolver a Economia Azul pela Indústria 4.0: Uma Perspetiva Service Science O objetivo desta dissertação é a avaliação do impacto das tecnologias digitais “Indústria 4.0” (I4.0), na competitividade da Economia Azul (BE) na União Europeia (EU). Nos Relatórios de 2018 e 2018 sobre Economia Azul a Comissão Europeia apresentou os desafios e o potencial da BE, propondo diretrizes para políticas e, identificou os facilitadores da competitividade nos diferentes sectores da BE no espaço Europeu. Da revisão sistemática da literatura efetuada, verificou-se que a Service Science (S-S), é uma área científica emergente e interdisciplinar que combina a organização dos sistemas, o conhecimento tecnológico com a Sustentabilidade do Planeta, permitindo suportar cientificamente novas abordagens à criação de valor. Ainda da revisão de literatura, foram identificadas diferentes tecnologias digitais, designadas por tecnologias Indústria 4.0. Orientada pelo paradigma pragmatista e utilizando uma metodologia mista de convergência paralela, nesta investigação foi conceptualizado um modelo empírico. Da aplicação deste modelo a onze casos-de-estudo da BE, conclui-se que o impacto na competitividade setorial da BE Europeia poderá ser de 26,5%. Conclui-se ainda, nesta investigação, que as tecnologias I4.0 poderão representar uma oportunidade as empresas da BE, sendo por isso mesmo, recomendável a sua adoção

On the Virtues of a Philosophically Pragmatic Reorientation in Environmental Ethics: Adaptive Co-management as a Laboratory

abstract: With global environmental systems under increasing Anthropogenic influence, conservationists and environmental managers are under immense pressure to protect and recover the world’s imperiled species and ecosystems. This effort is often motivated by a sense of moral responsibility, either to nature itself, or to the end of promoting human wellbeing over the long run. In other words, it is the purview of environmental ethics, a branch of applied philosophy that emerged in the 1970s and that for decades has been devoted to understanding and defending an attitude of respect for nature, usually for its own sake. Yet from the very start, environmental ethics has promoted itself as contributing to the resolution of real-world management and policy problems. By most accounts, however, the field has historically failed to deliver on this original promise, and environmental ethicists continue to miss opportunities to make intellectual inroads with key environmental decisionmakers. Inspired by classical and contemporary American philosophers such as Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and Richard Rorty, I defend in this dissertation the virtues of a more explicitly pragmatic approach to environmental ethics. Specifically, I argue that environmental pragmatism is not only commensurate with pro-environmental attitudes but that it is more likely to lead to viable and sustainable outcomes, particularly in the context of eco-social resilience-building activities (e.g., local experimentation, adaptation, cooperation). In doing so, I call for a recasting of environmental ethics, a project that entails: 1) a conceptual reorientation involving the application of pragmatism applied to environmental problems; 2) a methodological approach linking a pragmatist environmentalism to the tradition and process of adaptive co-management; and 3) an empirical study of stakeholder values and perspectives in conservation collaboratives in Arizona. I conclude that a more pragmatic environmental ethics has the potential to bring a powerful set of ethical and methodological tools to bear in real-world management contexts and, where appropriate, can ground and justify coordinated conservation efforts. Finally, this research responds to critics who suggest that, because it strays too far from the ideological purity of traditional environmental ethics, the pragmatic decision-making process will, in the long run, weaken rather than bolster our commitment to conservation and environmental protection.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Biology 201

The Influence of Strategies Used to Communicate Sustainable Corporate Responsibility on Reputation of a Major Airport

Self-presentation of a corporation as a citizen committed to sustainable corporate responsibility can, according to scholarly findings, help the organization improve its reputation among key stakeholders. The purpose of this case study was to explore the success of one major airport in aligning communication strategies to improve its reputation. The research question involved how effectively a major German airport communicated its commitment to sustainable corporate responsibility to its key stakeholders during 2005--2009. Of particular interest was how key stakeholders perceived the airport\u27s stance towards the impacts of aircraft noise. Corporate documents, newspaper articles, and semistructured interviews comprised the data. Data analyses of documents and interviews included coding segments of texts on key words related to sustainable corporate responsibility. Pattern matching helped aggregate coded text segments into respective coherent and consistent corporate messages. Randomly selected newspaper articles on the airport under scrutiny were coded on a Likert-type scale on how favorably they covered what types of themes. Subsequent qualitative analyses of hand notes fabricated during the coding process revealed how positively journalists wrote about specific events. Results indicated that the airport officials effectively communicated to the airport\u27s key stakeholders regarding economic contributions to public welfare, engagements in neighborhood projects, environmental protection, and noise abatement. Implications for positive social change include the potential for dialogues between the airport and its critical stakeholders that could, in turn, further the long-term friendly coexistence of the airport, its neighbors, and the community

Investigating individual preferences for new mobility services: the case of “mobility as a service” products

In just a few years, the Mobility as a Service (MaaS) concept has gone from an idea discussed by very few, to being a prominent topic in any transportation related debate. However, within this time, there have only been few rigorous studies that explore the various aspects of MaaS. This thesis aims to contribute to existing knowledge by providing empirical evidence on individual preferences for MaaS plans and their components. In doing so, first desk-research is conducted to summarise existing MaaS schemes and outline the MaaS ecosystem. Next, MaaS surveys that are able to capture individual preferences for MaaS products are designed and specific challenges in the design process identified. The MaaS surveys, including MaaS plan stated preference experiments, are applied in two case study areas of London and Greater Manchester. Using the novel data collected, individual preferences for MaaS plans are examined using two distinct studies: (1) a mixed methods research conducted in London, which expands the survey by adding a qualitative (in-depth interview) element to examine user preferences for MaaS plans and the ways individuals choose between them; and (2) a latent class choice model based on data collected from Manchester to examine whether there is heterogeneity in preferences. Finally, implications for industry and policy stakeholders are discussed as well as interventions that can best support the widespread adoption of MaaS. The results of this thesis show there is interest in the concept of MaaS among potential users as many see value in a single app that integrates different transport modes into a single service. In general, individuals are hesitant in purchasing pre-payed MaaS plans and would be more comfortable with a pay-as-you-go product option. While many people are reluctant towards MaaS plans, the results indicate that heterogeneity exists in preferences towards them and there are different user groups based on socio-demographic characteristics and current mobility habits. Smaller, less expensive plans including modes such as public transport and bike sharing can be used to target students or middle-income people with have high overall mode usage. Larger, more expensive plans that include modes such as taxi and car sharing in addition to public transport, will be attritive to individuals who are likely younger, male, well-educated, have higher income and already use many transport modes. Older population groups, individuals with low income and those that do not use any transport modes or are uni-modal are least likely to adopt MaaS plans. The thesis also provides insights into individuals’ preferences towards transport modes within MaaS plans. The analysis showed that respondents classify modes within MaaS plans into three categories: ‘essential’ modes that are pivotal to the individual and which they most likely already frequently use; ‘considered’ modes are those that they would be willing to include but may not yet use; and ‘excluded’ modes are those that they definitely do not want in their plans and would eliminate any plan that included these. Public transport consistently proved to be an essential mode, while taxi, car sharing and bike sharing could be ‘essential’, ‘considered’ or ‘excluded’ depending on the characteristics of the individual. The main contributions of this thesis are the novel data collected in two case study cities about individuals’ preferences for MaaS plans and the findings gained through the analysis providing insights into possible target audiences and product designs for MaaS plans