Balancing and integrating basic values in the development of organic regulations and standards: proposal for a procedure using case studies of conflicting areas

The basic aim of the report is to develop a procedure for the integration of the ethical value base of organic farming into standards and regulations. For this it is necessary to identify the core ethical value of organic production, consider their coherence and relate them to existing practice of organic food and farming. Ethical values are per se in need of interpretation. It is therefore also necessary to consider the process of decision-making, when aiming to achieve a coherent integration of such values in the structure of a standard or regulation. In line with the European Action Plan for organic food and farming from 2004 the Project EEC 2092/91 (Organic) Revision supports the idea that delegating a larger role to values and basic principles will help to harmonise the rules, provide room for flexibility in implementation and to simplify the European Regulation for organic production. It is important to include basic values in standards and regulations, because organic farming is value based and all actors/stakeholders have value expectations, including consumers who the regulation wants to protect. Standards and regulations form the basis of a virtual contract between the consumer and the producers. By following the practices set out in the standards, producers give a promise to the consumer to deliver on additional ethical values, beyond the legal minimum standards for conventional agriculture and food. The growing and globalised organic market and the involvement of large companies have resulted in renewed interest in the values and principles of organic farming. There has been concern that the organic food and farming sector is becoming more conventionalised, and has lost touch with its basic values. Thus it will no longer function effectively as a real alternative to general agriculture for consumers, producers and also for policy makers. The report analyses what core ethical value are associated with organic agriculture and should therefore be considered for inclusion in a regulation. This value base is contrasted with the existing Regulation (EEC) 2092/91 and with examples of current practice of organic agriculture in Europe. The implications of including ethical values in the structure of a regulation for decisionmaking are considered. Following on from the European Action Plan a process of total revision of the EU regulation on organic production is underway. A new European Regulation for organic production was adopted by the European Council of Ministers in June 2006 and will come into force in Jan 2009. The text of the near final proposal from December 2006 has been considered in several sections of the report. The report finishes with some conclusions and recommendations for the EU Commission and other standard setting bodies regarding the choice and roles of values in organic standard, the rules for decision-making processes in relation to integrating values, and regarding the ongoing revision of the organic regulation in Europe

Introducing conflict as the microfoundation of organizational ambidexterity

This article contributes to our understanding of organizational ambidexterity by introducing conflict as its microfoundation. Existing research distinguishes between three approaches to how organizations can be ambidextrous, that is, engage in both exploitation and exploration. They may sequentially shift the strategic focus of the organization over time, they may establish structural arrangements enabling the simultaneous pursuit of being both exploitative and explorative, or they may provide a supportive organizational context for ambidextrous behavior. However, we know little about how exactly ambidexterity is accomplished and managed. We argue that ambidexterity is a dynamic and conflict-laden phenomenon, and we locate conflict at the level of individuals, units, and organizations. We develop the argument that conflicts in social interaction serve as the microfoundation to organizing ambidexterity, but that their function and type vary across the different approaches toward ambidexterity. The perspective developed in this article opens up promising research avenues to examine how organizations purposefully manage ambidexterity

Warehouse manpower planning strategies in times of financial crisis: evidence from logistics service providers and retailers in the Netherlands

The economic crisis that is experienced in Europe has a large influence on transport and logistics companies. Since turnover typically drops strongly during a crisis, companies try to reduce costs in order to survive. The study reported in this paper has investigated how manpower planning in warehouses has been used to counter effects of the crisis and what the results are of the measures taken. A survey was carried out among warehouses run by retailers and logistics service providers. The results of the survey show that there is a significant relation between a decrease in turnover and the four investigated manpower planning strategies. Furthermore, the study shows that the most effective manpower planning strategies are flexible planning of employees and balancing the workload. Hence, the study concludes that in particular better operational planning is a key strategy to counter the effects of the financial crisis, which is an important insight for the management of warehouses

Governance-technology co-evolution and misalignment in the electricity industry

This paper explores some reasons why the alignment between governance and technology in infrastructures may be unstable or not easy to achieve. Focusing on the electricity industry, we claim that the decentralization of governance – an essential step towards a decentralized technical coordination - may be hampered by if deregulation magnifies behavioural uncertainties and asset specificities; and that in a technically decentralized system, political demand for centralized coordination may arise if the players are able to collude and lobby, and if such practices lead to higher electricity rates and lower efficiency. Our claims are supported by insights coming from approaches as diverse as transaction cost economics, the competence-based view of the firm, and political economy.Governance; Technology; Coherence; Competence; Transaction costs; Regulation.

EcoBlock: Grid Impacts, Scaling, and Resilience

Widespread deployment of EcoBlocks has the potential to transform today's electricity system into one that is more resilient, flexible, efficient and sustainable. In this vision, the system will consist of self- su cient, renewable-powered, block-scale entities that can deliberately adjust their net power exchange and can optimize performance, maintain stability, support each other, or disconnect entirely from the grid as needed. This report is intended as an independent analysis of the potential relationships, both constructive and adverse, between EcoBlocks and the grid

Requirements to Testing of Power System Services Provided by DER Units

The present report forms the Project Deliverable ‘D 2.2’ of the DERlab NoE project, supported by the EC under Contract No. SES6-CT-518299 NoE DERlab. The present document discuss the power system services that may be provided from DER units and the related methods to test the services actually provided, both at component level and at system level

Optimizing construction of scheduled data flow graph for on-line testability

The objective of this work is to develop a new methodology for behavioural synthesis using a flow of synthesis, better suited to the scheduling of independent calculations and non-concurrent online testing. The traditional behavioural synthesis process can be defined as the compilation of an algorithmic specification into an architecture composed of a data path and a controller. This stream of synthesis generally involves scheduling, resource allocation, generation of the data path and controller synthesis. Experiments showed that optimization started at the high level synthesis improves the performance of the result, yet the current tools do not offer synthesis optimizations that from the RTL level. This justifies the development of an optimization methodology which takes effect from the behavioural specification and accompanying the synthesis process in its various stages. In this paper we propose the use of algebraic properties (commutativity, associativity and distributivity) to transform readable mathematical formulas of algorithmic specifications into mathematical formulas evaluated efficiently. This will effectively reduce the execution time of scheduling calculations and increase the possibilities of testability