244,738 research outputs found

    Providing value to a business using a lightweight design system to support knowledge reuse by designers

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    This paper describes an alternative approach to knowledge based systems in engineering than traditional geometry or explicit knowledge focused systems. Past systems have supported product optimisation rather than creative solutions and provide little benefit to businesses for bespoke and low volume products or products which do not benefit from optimisation. The approach here addresses this by supporting the creativity of designers through codified tacit knowledge and encouraging knowledge reuse for bespoke product development, in particular for small to medium sized enterprises. The implementation and evaluation of the approach is described within a company producing bespoke fixtures and tooling in shorter than average lead times. The active support of knowledge management in the company is intended to add value to the business by further reducing the lead times of the designs and creating a positive impact to business processes. The evaluation demonstrates a viable alternative framework to the traditional management of knowledge in engineering, which could be implemented by other small to medium enterprises

    The future of information systems-using social systems to create protocols for the virtual environment (systems analysis through social analysis)

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    Information is the medium for communication, power-play, politics, and the building block for knowledge systems. It is associated with social interaction, and can be mediated by technology use. The paper argues that the key to understanding the impact of future technologies lies in the interaction between the social and technical environment. It suggests that future technologies such as virtual reality make necessary a move away from traditional methods of systems analysis and design. The interactive nature of such technology requires a validation in the social environment. The paper proposes the creation of protocols (a set of universally applicable standards) for the virtual environment. It suggests that information systems are split into three protocols: physical, learning, and cultural protocols. Finally it illustrates that their influence over each other can be understood by applying structuration theor

    Entrepreneurial ecosystems: a dynamic lifecycle model

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    The concept of entrepreneurial ecosystems has been used as a framework to explain entrepreneurial activities within regions and industrial sectors. Despite the usefulness of this approach, the concept is under-theorized, especially with regard to the evolution of entrepreneurial ecosystems. The current literature is lacking a theoretical foundation that addresses the development and change of entrepreneurial ecosystems over time and does not consider the inherent dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems that lead to their birth, growth, maturity, decline, and re-emergence. Taking an industry lifecycle perspective, this paper addresses this research gap by elaborating a dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem lifecycle model. We propose that an ecosystem transitions from an entrepreneurial ecosystem, with a focus on new firm creation, towards a business ecosystem, with a core focus on the internal commercialization of knowledge, i.e., intrapreneurial activities, and vice versa. Our dynamic model thus captures the oscillation that occurs among entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs through the different phases of an ecosystem’s lifecycle. Our dynamic lifecycle model may thus serve as a starting point for future empirical studies focusing on ecosystems and provide the basis for a further understanding of the interrelatedness between and co-existence of new and incumbent firms

    THE ROLE OF DEVELOPMENT AGENCIES FOR THE ENTREPRENEURIAL

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    National and local “economic development programs” – programs that provide assistance to individual businesses with tax or financial subsidies, or special public services, in order to increase local jobs or improve local businesses’ competitiveness – have become prominent and controversial. The paper illustrates the basic principles of development agencies that are not invariable and specific structures, rather “ideal- typical” structures that assume particular aspects only referring to a variety of local society answers’. In this sense, a tool as the enterprise incubator could foster the growth of entrepreneurs in regional contexts with a low level of entrepreneurial attitude. The definition of a model of incubator, through the analysis of a specific case study, the Israeli technological incubators, whose outline conditions, resources, vocations, obligations and their incidence on policies of entrepreneurships promotion in Israel are identified, help us to outline factors of success, direct and induced effects on regional contexts, possible new relations introduced among actors, also in a new informational economy perspective. The local context characters, both at human and social capital level and at institutional and infrastructure levels, become decisive factors for productive choices, overtaking sometimes the national level to link directly to global networks. In this way, it seems inevitable a transformation of both the aims and the organisation in a changing context. The role of development agencies has moved from promoting the local demand to structure involved in elaborating solutions in the socio-economic field.SMEs innovativeness; entrepreneurial promotion; incubator; Israel

    Individual emergence in contextual analysis

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    Located within the tradition of Hermeneutic Dialectics (HD) this paper offers an approach which can further an analysis of a fit between information and organizational systems. Drawn upon Information Systems Development projects a relationship between theory and practice is aided through a multi-disciplinary approach to sense making activity. Using a contemporary version of contextual analysis to understand a way in which individuals construct adapt and create meaning from their environment offers a route to improve a systems analysis process. This type of enquiry into contextual dependencies of knowledge creation can help direct a development of systems that have the intention to serve specific organizational actors and their needs. Combining methods outside of a traditional polar divide, sense making research undertaken within a systems thinking arena can enrich understanding by complementing qualitative and / or quantitative analysis with reflective depth. Drawing together interdisciplinary strands through a critical systems thinking approach offers new levels of professionalism for computer- and management-, practitioners or researchers in the 21st Century

    POLICIES FOR THE LOCATION OF INDUSTRIAL DISTRICTS IN ITALY AND

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    Recent global trends have affected significantly territorial and economic policies, especially in advanced-economy democracies, weakening frequently their national sovereignty. This paper, through published data, documentary sources, and interviews, offers a comparative perspective of industrial localisation’s policies in Israel and Italy, focusing on the dualism national decision-making/local practice. Although they have two different political structures, both countries have shifted to greater decentralisation, increased deregulation, and more privatisation. Since the beginning of the State, Israel industrial localisation policy used tools as national and regional planning and fiscal incentives, with the objective of the industrial dispersal. But last years’ profound economic, political, and social changes have led to a transformation of Israeli industrial geography, shifting changes in the government policies, and reinforcing the local-government assertiveness. Developing industrial parks has become a top priority even for rural regional council, with the risk of over-investment in too many industrial parks of too small a size. Similarly, since post-war years Italy concentrated on regenerating the economic periphery, the southern regions, through the “Cassa per il Mezzogiorno”, helping finance and developing irrigation, agriculture and industrial development in the most disadvantaged areas with a policy of investments in infrastructures and financial supports to the localisation of large firms. The change of industrial models, now based on more flexible structures, has brought, almost spontaneously, the “Third Italy” phenomenon, a proliferation of ‘local production systems’ (LPS) where SMEs represent an high share of total employment. Based on an endogenous development model, the success of LPS is not guaranteed unless change and innovation take place among local SMEs and institutions and between the local production system and the external environment, competing areas and other spatial system. For both countries is necessary a comprehensive, strategic and flexible planning and a stable, efficient and no-bureaucratic decision-making process, at an intermediate scale between regional and local.

    Exploring Evolutionary Economic Geographies

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    Evolutionary approaches in economics have gathered increasing support over the last 25 years. Despite an impressive body of literature, economists are still far from formulating a coherent research paradigm. The multitude of approaches in evolutionary economics poses problems for the development of an evolutionary economic geography. For the most part, evolutionary economic geography imports selective concepts from evolutionary biology and economics and applies those concepts to specific problems within economic geography. We discuss a number of problems with this approach and suggest that a more powerful and appealing alternative requires the development of theoretically consistent models of evolutionary processes. This paper outlines the contours of an evolutionary model of economic dynamics where economic agents are located in different geographical spaces. We seek to show how competition between those agents, based on the core evolutionary principles of variety, selection and retention, may produce distinct economic regions sharing properties that differentiate them from competitors elsewhere. These arguments are extended to illustrate how the emergent properties of economic agents and places co-evolve and lead to different trajectories of economic development over space.evolutionary economics, economic geography, Generalized Darwinism, biological metaphors, self-organization
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