LEVERAGING BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY TO REVAMP THE VEHICLE ELECTRIFICATION JOURNEY: PERSPECTIVES OF ACCOUNTABILITY AND ECONOMIC CIRCULARITY

The automotive industry is undergoing a significant transition accelerated by global emission regulations for a phase out of internal combustion engines (ICEs) and a transition toward the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs). While regulatory measures and incentivized adoption for EVs presents opportunities for reducing emissions and promoting sustainability, it also poses complex challenges. The EV industry faces potential production challenges, particularly in the sourcing, manufacturing, and lifecycle management of critical minerals and raw materials for electric vehicle batteries (EVBs). With a heavy reliance on a steady and diversified supply of critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt and rare earth elements, the finite nature of mineral resources poses long-term challenges for EV stakeholders. The recent measures instituted by government regulations do recognize the need for EV stakeholder accountability, requiring substantiated evidentiary proof by way of data collection and analysis mandating resource recapture and reintroduction into circularity, environmental benefits, and real-time data availability. By implementing clear end-of-life requirements such as collection targets, material recovery goals, and extended producer responsibility, EV producers are held responsible for managing the entire lifecycle of electric vehicle batteries (EVBs). Government regulations are aimed at bolstering sustainability standards, and a high degree of accountability for all battery products, showing a clear shift towards circular economic standards. This culminating experience project explores the role of collaborative initiatives and innovative technological frameworks, particularly, blockchain, smart contracts, and Nash equilibrium game theory, in addressing sustainability challenges within the EV ecosystem. The research questions are: (RQ1) How does the strategic application of blockchain technology within a circular economic framework facilitate cooperation among stakeholders in the EV industry, leading to improved oversight, enhanced accountability, and guided decision-making? (RQ2) How can the implementation of private-permissioned blockchain technology, particularly through smart contracts, be strategically employed to enhance transparency, traceability, and sustainability throughout the lifecycle of electric vehicles, within the broader context of the EV ecosystem? (RQ3) Why should EV industry stakeholders engage in a consortium, that is driven by blockchain technology, smart contracts, Nash Equilibrium game theory, and what are the potential effects? The findings for each question are: (Q1) The partnership among RCS, IBM, Ford, exemplified how integrating blockchain into a circular economic framework can establish oversight, ensure accountability, and enable informed decision-making with traceable and transparent data circularity. Ford notably improved its cobalt due diligent management system, marked by a notable forty-six percentage point within one year, demonstrating its commitment to responsible sourcing and regulatory compliance. (Q2) Private-permissioned blockchain networks, especially with smart contracts, automate performance obligations, without an intermediary interaction, strengthening self-governance within a decentralized network. The consensus mechanism, integral to blockchain architecture, enhances accountability among EV stakeholders by validating and authenticating transactions. Opting for a consensus algorithm, emphasizing participant reputation over computational power, reduces reliance on resources while maintaining network integrity. (Q3) EV stakeholders and their tier-1 suppliers, in a consortium, are incentivized to uphold their reputation and branding through adherence to ethical and sustainable practices facilitated in a blockchain network. By doing so, they contribute to the overall stability of the industry and the circular economic framework, as mutual benefits are maximized, unilateral deviations are discouraged, and collaborative dynamics are fostered. The conclusions are: (Q1) EV producers involved in circular economic initiatives can be perceived as collaborative partners that prioritize collective success over individual gain, fostering positive brand associations with teamwork and partnership. (Q2) By aligning incentives, fostering collaboration, and leveraging data-driven insights, EV producers and their suppliers can optimize resource use, minimize waste, and contribute to the transition towards a more sustainable economic model. (Q3) By adhering to ethical and sustainable practices the equilibrium ensures that EV stakeholders maintain trust and credibility, promoting a sustainable ecosystem for the EV industry within the circular economy

A Grounded Theory Study of Leadership Mechanisms for Customer-Orientation Organizational Change

Organizational leaders are spearheading change as an engine to reshape corporate cultures for novel purposes, redefining the significance and meaning of generating value through customer-oriented companies, emphasizing what is most important and relevant to customers. Capitalizing on the value of customer-orientation entails attention toward continuously improving it. The purpose of this study is to explore and explain the dynamics of increasing customer-orientation as an organizational change in a business-to-business technology company setting from the perspective of organizational leaders. By engaging change leadership experts through a grounded theory qualitative research approach, the study resulted in a substantive theory with a set of propositions and framework offering a contextual understanding of customer-orientation change for managerial and scholarly use. The results help advance multi-disciplinary marketing, leadership, and organizational change research associated with the customer-orientation definition and the nature of the leadership mechanisms to affect the change. The resulting theoretical propositions suggest that the organizational change to increase customer-orientation encompasses an aspirational organizational culture shift, an amplification of short and long-term customer value, and continuous adaptation through a management system. The analysis revealed that leaders steer the complex change by adopting second-order organizational orientations involving organizational culture and customer value. The culture-oriented changes center around increasing organizational alignment, agility, and engagement to shape a customer-oriented company. The customer value-oriented shifts focus on building trust, applying a user lens, and creating a 360-learning environment to generate higher customer and business value. Using a change theories lens, the results indicated that increasing customer-orientation entails leading the organization through an interplay of diverse change process modes balancing social construction and prescribed regulation

Ua Ola Loko i Ke Aloha (Love Gives Life Within): Mindful Forgiveness with Aloha

Aloha is more than a greeting of “hello” and “good-bye.” Native Hawaiians believe Aloha is a foundational cultural value encompassing love, compassion, and respect. Mindful Forgiveness is a process of releasing negative emotions and thoughts towards a person, or persons, or event (e.g., COVID, cancer) who has caused a grievance, harm, or offense to increase feelings of hope and peace. In this paper, we explore the role of Aloha in enhancing the Mindful Forgiveness process. Via a peer support group with individuals practicing Mindful Forgiveness, we found that incorporating Aloha values and practices into the forgiveness process helped participants let go of resentment and anger towards the grievance and offender and led to increased feelings of peace and well-being in a cultural context. Moʻolelo (stories) and our lived experiences and other findings suggest that incorporating the values and practices of Aloha into Mindful Forgiveness may deeply enhance the therapeutic benefits of releasing grievances and facilitating healing. Further research is needed to fully understand the potentiality of Aloha in promoting Mindful Forgiveness with Aloha in healing grievances and kaumaha (heavy grief).   &nbsp

Revealing the Vicious Circle of Disengaged User Acceptance: A SaaS Provider's Perspective

User acceptance tests (UAT) are an integral part of many different software engineering methodologies. In this paper, we examine the influence of UATs on the relationship between users and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications, which are continuously delivered rather than rolled out during a one-off signoff process. Based on an exploratory qualitative field study at a multinational SaaS provider in Denmark, we show that UATs often address the wrong problem in that positive user acceptance may actually indicate a negative user experience. Hence, SaaS providers should be careful not to rest on what we term disengaged user acceptance. Instead, we outline an approach that purposefully queries users for ambivalent emotions that evoke constructive criticism, in order to facilitate a discourse that favors the continuous innovation of a SaaS system. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our approach for the study of user engagement in testing SaaS applications

Cultural specificity versus institutional universalism: a critique of the National Integrity System (NIS) methodology

This article provides an assessment and critique of the National Integrity System approach and methodology, informed by the experience of conducting an NIS review in Cambodia. It explores four key issues that potentially undermine the relevance and value of NIS reports for developing democracies: the narrowly conceived institutional approach underpinning the NIS methodology; the insufficient appreciation of cultural distinctiveness; a failure properly to conceptualise and articulate the very notion of ‘integrity’; and an over emphasis on compliance-based approaches to combating corruption at the expense of the positive promotion of integrity. The article seeks to offer some pointers to how the NIS approach could be adapted to broaden its conceptualisation of institutions and integrity, and thereby provide reports that are more theoretically informed as well as being more constructive and actionable

Balancing stability and flexibility in adaptive governance: an analysis of tools available in U.S. environmental law

Adaptive governance must work “on the ground,” that is, it must operate through structures and procedures that the people it governs perceive to be legitimate and fair, as well as incorporating processes and substantive goals that are effective in allowing social-ecological systems (SESs) to adapt to climate change and other impacts. To address the continuing and accelerating alterations that climate change is bringing to SESs, adaptive governance generally will require more flexibility than prior governance institutions have often allowed. However, to function as good governance, adaptive governance must pay real attention to the problem of how to balance this increased need for flexibility with continuing governance stability so that it can foster adaptation to change without being perceived or experienced as perpetually destabilizing, disruptive, and unfair. Flexibility and stability serve different purposes in governance, and a variety of tools exist to strike different balances between them while still preserving the governance institution’s legitimacy among the people governed. After reviewing those purposes and the implications of climate change for environmental governance, we examine psychological insights into the structuring of adaptive governance and the variety of legal tools available to incorporate those insights into adaptive governance regimes. Because the substantive goals of governance systems will differ among specific systems, we do not purport to comment on what the normative or substantive goals of law should be. Instead, we conclude that attention to process and procedure (including participation), as well as increased use of substantive standards (instead of rules), may allow an increased level of substantive flexibility to operate with legitimacy and fairness, providing the requisite levels of psychological, social, and economic stability needed for communities to adapt successfully to the Anthropocene

Balancing stability and flexibility in adaptive governance: an analysis of tools available in U.S. environmental law

Adaptive governance must work “on the ground,” that is, it must operate through structures and procedures that the people it governs perceive to be legitimate and fair, as well as incorporating processes and substantive goals that are effective in allowing social-ecological systems (SESs) to adapt to climate change and other impacts. To address the continuing and accelerating alterations that climate change is bringing to SESs, adaptive governance generally will require more flexibility than prior governance institutions have often allowed. However, to function as good governance, adaptive governance must pay real attention to the problem of how to balance this increased need for flexibility with continuing governance stability so that it can foster adaptation to change without being perceived or experienced as perpetually destabilizing, disruptive, and unfair. Flexibility and stability serve different purposes in governance, and a variety of tools exist to strike different balances between them while still preserving the governance institution’s legitimacy among the people governed. After reviewing those purposes and the implications of climate change for environmental governance, we examine psychological insights into the structuring of adaptive governance and the variety of legal tools available to incorporate those insights into adaptive governance regimes. Because the substantive goals of governance systems will differ among specific systems, we do not purport to comment on what the normative or substantive goals of law should be. Instead, we conclude that attention to process and procedure (including participation), as well as increased use of substantive standards (instead of rules), may allow an increased level of substantive flexibility to operate with legitimacy and fairness, providing the requisite levels of psychological, social, and economic stability needed for communities to adapt successfully to the Anthropocene

Prevention Program Sustainability and Associated Determinants: A Literature Review, Version 1.0

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has made millions of dollars available through the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Grant Program to help communities across the United States develop capabilities to combat terrorism and targeted violence. Given this investment, a key objective is ensuring the long-term impact of these programs, which depends on their sustainment beyond the initial grant. Thus, the purpose of this report is to review the relevant literature on program sustainability and discuss implications for the TVTP Grant Program. We began the review by exploring definitions of sustainability as well as similar social programming concepts, such as adaptation, scalability, and impact. Our review found no consensus definition for prevention program sustainability, suggesting the TVTP Grant Program should develop a bespoke definition guided by strategic program priorities and incorporating other social programming concepts as needed. We then examined the determinants, or factors related positively to long-term programmatic success, of sustainability. All determinants relate to capacity building at two levels: 1. Organizational (Internal). Internal organizational capacity is impacted by (a) internal stakeholder buy-in and engagement, (b) adequacy of personnel resources, particularly in terms of expertise, (c) the presence of ongoing evaluation activities to support adaptations, and (d) support from the funding agency. 2. Community (External). External community capacity is impacted by (a) external stakeholder buy-in and continued engagement beyond the initial award, and (b) the fit between the program offerings and community needs