Problem-Solving Behaviours, Organisational Forms and the Complexity of Tasks

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Cross-divisional innovation in large, multi-divisional firms: Economic relevance and managerial actions

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Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)

This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio

Research Directions in Information Systems for Humanitarian Logistics

This article systematically reviews the literature on using IT (Information Technology) in humanitarian logistics focusing on disaster relief operations. We first discuss problems in humanitarian relief logistics. We then identify the stage and disaster type for each article as well as the article’s research methodology and research contribution. Finally, we identify potential future research directions

The antecedents of cross-functional coordination and their implications for marketing adaptiveness

As the gap between accelerating rate of change and organizational capability in responding to it widens, managers face increasing challenges to coordinate and align diverse intra-firm functions. Although coordination across functions in an organization is necessary for integrating complex resources such as responding to uncertainty in business environments, little is known about the internal conditions of a firm in which cross-functional coordination influences marketing adaptiveness. Marketing adaptiveness recognizes the potential conflicting goals of intra-firm functions, and the need to identify disparate but interdependent organizational resources to fit the external environment. In order to account for the potential interactions of multiple conditions in cross-functional coordination, we use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to analyze survey data of 274 managers in Egyptian firms operating in uncertain environments based on the motivation-ability-opportunity framework and configuration theory. The findings show that the causal pathways leading to cross-functional coordination and marketing adaptiveness can be enhanced by resource dependency, cross-functional teams, multifunctional training, and management support. In particular, management support is a crucial condition for coordination in support of cross-functional teams and multifunctional training. While resource dependency is an important internal factor for coordination, a high resource dependency can result in a negative effect on marketing adaptiveness

Quantity versus Quality in Project Based Learning Practices

In the midst of the turbulence wrought by the global economy, it has become common to see projects as an essential medium for achieving change. However, project based learning practices - as a subset of organizational learning practices- have not kept pace with this development. To explore this concern, we have carried out a study on practices adopted by organizations for learning through projects involving nineteen companies from across Europe and from a range of different industries. We use the concepts of variation, selection and retention in organizational learning to analyze our findings and report the challenges faced by project based organizations in each of the areas highlighted. We conclude that time pressures, centralization and deferral are the key characteristics of learning in project based firms and that these impede project based members in learning from and through projects.centralization;deferral;organizational learning;projects;reflection

An agent-based fuzzy cognitive map approach to the strategic marketing planning for industrial firms

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Industrial Marketing Management. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2013 Elsevier B.V.Industrial marketing planning is a typical example of an unstructured decision making problem due to the large number of variables to consider and the uncertainty imposed on those variables. Although abundant studies identified barriers and facilitators of effective industrial marketing planning in practice, the literature still lacks practical tools and methods that marketing managers can use for the task. This paper applies fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) to industrial marketing planning. In particular, agent based inference method is proposed to overcome dynamic relationships, time lags, and reusability issues of FCM evaluation. MACOM simulator also is developed to help marketing managers conduct what-if scenarios to see the impacts of possible changes on the variables defined in an FCM that represents industrial marketing planning problem. The simulator is applied to an industrial marketing planning problem for a global software service company in South Korea. This study has practical implication as it supports marketing managers for industrial marketing planning that has large number of variables and their cause–effect relationships. It also contributes to FCM theory by providing an agent based method for the inference of FCM. Finally, MACOM also provides academics in the industrial marketing management discipline with a tool for developing and pre-verifying a conceptual model based on qualitative knowledge of marketing practitioners.Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (Korea