How, why and to what extent are sustainability disclosures produced in the Norwegian O&G offshore supply companies?

Masteroppgave i Sustainable management - Høgskolen i Bodø, 2010This research paper makes an atternpt to find out the answers to questions of the extent, reasons and mechanisms of 'sustainability disclosures production in Norway within the O&G offshore supply companies, the cluster of the Norwegian Shipowners Association. The problem of sustainability disclosures and accountability of business seems interesting for the detail ed exploration, taking into account the specific contextual peculiarities of the chosen industry. Nowadays the issues of sustainable management and the disclosure sustainability data on the special indicators are considered as quite new dimensions in the process of managing an industrial organization. The O&G industry and its offshore supply cluster in Norway have always been under the widespread attention of different interested groups of society; that is why the issue of sustainability disclosures as a tool to reduce uncertainties between business and society is worth being analyzed in-depth. In order to answer the research question we have accomplished the following tasks. At first, we have represented the operationalization of the central concepts in our work - 'sustainability' and 'sustainability disclosures' from both theoretical and practical points of view. The tas k of defining the extent to which the Norwegian offshore supply companies produce sustainability disclosures has been carried out through a survey of the list of companies, which has shown the distribution of standards and guidelines applied to produce such disclosures basing on the commitment to the national and international legislation and the voluntaryapproaches. The tasks of reasons and mechanisms of sustainability disclosures have being done through the analysis of case studies of two offshore suppliers - Acergy and Technip Norge, which understand and disclose data on sustainability in their own different ways. The results of our research have shown that the sustainability concept of sustainability is operationalized through the lens of 'project engineering' context of the O&G offshore supply operations. The main accent is made on the strategic objectives of quality, health, safety, environment and security within the engineering daily routines in the offshore. The motivation for the regular production of sustainability disclosures bases on the pressure of the most crucial stakeholder groups: the national government, clients, and the employees unions, every of which has the particular data expectations. The mechanisms of sustainability disclosures are characterized by the domination of internal procedural standards and the data disclosure only to particular stakeholders. The framework of international sustainability reporting standards application is represented weak in the offshore supply cluster, but has a potential for development

Ontological analysis of means-end links

The i* community has raised several main dialects and dozens of variations in the definition of the i* language. Differences may be found related not just to the representation of new concepts but to the very core of the i* language. In previous work we have tackled this issue mainly from a syntactic point of view, using metamodels and syntactic-based model interoperability frameworks. In this paper, we go one step beyond and consider the use of foundational ontologies in general, and UFO in particular, as a way to clarify the meaning of core i* constructs and as the basis to propose a normative definition. We focus here on one of the most characteristics i* constructs, namely means-end links.Postprint (published version

Green marketing, green corporate governance commitment, and its impact on firm performance : the case of electronic manufacturers in South Africa.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Marketing))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economic & Business Sciences, 2017The purpose of this research was to study the relationship between firm‟s commitment to green, green marketing capability, green relationship learning, green human resource investments and firm performance for electronics manufacturers in South Africa. Despite the increased focus on on green marketing, there has been little focus on research relating corporate commitment to green and how it relates to green marketing capabilities and firm performance. This study fills this research gap by proposing and testing hypotheses relating firm commitment to green, green marketing capability, green relationship learning, green human capital investment and a firm‟s performance. To answer the research questions, primary data for n=212 respondents covering a range in firm size, gender, race, and age for electronics manufacturers in South Africa was used to test the hypothesis relating corporate commitment to green, green marketing capability, and a firm‟sperformance. The structural equation modeling approach was used to test the model fit and hypothesis testing. The software SPSS 24 was used to analyse the descriptive statistics and AMOS 24 was used to test the research model. The results showed that firm commitment to green was a predictor of firm performance and green marketing capability, green relationship learning, and green human capital investments was found to be mediators in the relationship between firm commitment to green and firm performance. Indeed, the hypotheses stated in this study were found to be true. The main contribution of this study is showing how corporate governance commitment to green can enable firm performance (both marketing and financial) through mediating variables of green marketing capability, green relationship learning and green human capital investment. The study further shows that corporate commitment to green influences green corporate social investment positively. Key words: corporate commitment to green, green marketing capability, green relationship learning, green Human Capital Investment, Green CSI, firm performanceGR201

A survey on energy efficiency in information systems

Concerns about energy and sustainability are growing everyday involving a wide range of fields. Even Information Systems (ISs) are being influenced by the issue of reducing pollution and energy consumption and new fields are rising dealing with this topic. One of these fields is Green Information Technology (IT), which deals with energy efficiency with a focus on IT. Researchers have faced this problem according to several points of view. The purpose of this paper is to understand the trends and the future development of Green IT by analyzing the state-of-the-art and classifying existing approaches to understand which are the components that have an impact on energy efficiency in ISs and how this impact can be reduced. At first, we explore some guidelines that can help to understand the efficiency level of an organization and of an IS. Then, we discuss measurement and estimation of energy efficiency and identify which are the components that mainly contribute to energy waste and how it is possible to improve energy efficiency, both at the hardware and at the software level

Integrating requirements prioritization and selection into goal models

Requirements engineering is the first main activity in software development process. It must address the individual goals of the organization. The inadequate, inconsistent, incomplete and ambiguous requirements are main obstacles on the quality of software systems. Goal Oriented Requirements Engineering (GORE) starts with abstracts high level goals. These goals are refined to lower levels until they are assignable to agents. During GORE analysis, decisions need to be made among alternatives at various positions. Decisions involve different stakeholders which may contradict with each other based on certain criteria. In the context of GORE, the support for identifying and managing the criteria for requirements selection process is required. The criteria are based on stakeholders needs and preferences and therefore stakeholders opinions need to be involved in selection process. It helps to identify the importance of requirement according to stakeholders understandings and needs. It also helps in the understanding of interaction between system and stakeholders (stakeholders involvement in making important decisions) and by documenting the stakeholder preferences early in GORE, helps to identify inconsistencies early in the requirements engineering. Software quality requirements are essential part for the success of software development. Defined and guaranteed quality in software development requires identifying, refining, and predicting quality properties by appropriate means. Goal models and quality models are useful for modelling of functional goals as well as for quality goals. This thesis presents the integration of goal models with quality models, which helps to involve stakeholders opinions and the representation of dependencies among goals and quality models. The integration of goal models and quality models helps in the derivation of customized quality models. The integrated goal-quality model representing the functional requirements and quality requirements is used to rank each functional requirement arising from functional goals and quality requirement arising from quality goals. Triangular Fuzzy Numbers (TFN) are used to represent stakeholder opinions for prioritizing requirements. By defuzzification process on TFN, stakeholders opinions are quantified. TFN and defuzzification process is also used to prioritize the identified relationships among functional and non-functional requirements. In the last step development constraints are used to re-prioritize the requirements. After final prioritization, a selection algorithm helps to select the requirements based on benefit over cost ratio. The algorithm makes sure that maximum number of requirements are selected while fulfilling the upper cost limit. Thus the whole process helps in the selection of requirements based on stakeholders opinions, goal-quality models interaction and development constraints. The thesis also presents an integrative model of influence factors to tailor product line development processes according to different project needs, organizational goals, individual goals of the developers or constraints of the environment. Tailoring is realized with prioritized attributes, with which the resulting elements of the product, process and project analysed are ranked. An integrative model for the description of stakeholder needs and goals in relation to the development process artefacts and the development environment specifics is needed, to be able to analyse potential influences of changing goals early in the project development. The proposed tailoring meta-model includes goal models, SPEM models and requirements to development processes. With this model stakeholder specific goals can be used to support binding a variable part of the development process. This support addresses soft factors as well as concrete requirements.Requirements Engineering ist der erste Schritt im Softwareentwicklungsprozess. Er dient zur Aufnahme organisationsabhängiger Ziele und Anforderungen. Unangemessene, inkonsistente, unvollständige oder mehrdeutige Anforderungen können die Qualität von Softwaresystem stark negativ beeinflussen. Goal Oriented Requirements Engineering (GORE) beginnt mit der Entwicklung von übergeordneter Zielen, welche in weiteren Entwicklungsstufen verfeinert werden, bis sie einer verantwortlichen Person zugewiesen werden können. Während einer GORE Analyse werden an verschiedenen Stellen Entscheidungen über Alternativen getroffen. Diese Entscheidungen betreffen unterschiedliche Akteure, die sich in ihren Ansichten widersprechen können. Im Rahmen von GORE wird die Unterstützung zur Identifizierung und Verwaltung von Kriterien zur Auswahl von Anforderungen benötigt. Diese Kriterien basieren auf den Vorstellungen und Vorlieben von Stakeholdern, daher ist eine Integration aller Stakeholder in den Auswahlprozess erforderlich. Dies soll dabei helfen, die Bedeutung bestimmter Anforderungen auf Basis der betroffenen Personen zu identifizieren und aufzuarbeiten. Darüber hinaus hilft GORE bei der Kommunikation zwischen System und Akteuren durch ihren Einbezug in wichtige Entscheidungen. Durch frühzeitige Dokumentation des tatsächlichen Stakholderbedarfs können Inkonsistenzen im Requirements Engineering frühzeitig ermittelt werden. Die Bestimmung von Software Qualitätsmerkmalen ist wesentlicher Erfolgsfaktor in der Software Entwicklung. Zur Gewährleistung einer qualitativen Softwareentwicklung und eines entsprechenden Produktes sind die Identifizierung, die Verfeinerung und die Vorhersage von Qualitätseigenschaften jederzeit durch geeignete Maßnahmen erforderlich. Goal Models und Quality Models sind wertvolle Werkzeuge zur Ermittlung und Modellierung funktionaler und nicht-funktionaler Anforderungen und Ziele. Diese Arbeit enthält einen Lösungsansatz zur Integration von Goal Models und Quality Models, der dazu beitragen soll, Stakeholder und Abhängigkeiten zwischen Goal und Quality Models einzubeziehen und sichtbar zu machen. Die Integration von Goal Models und Quality Models soll zur Ableitung spezifischer Quality Models beitragen. Somit kann das integrierte Goal-Quality Model, welches die funktionalen Anforderungen und die Qualitätsanforderungen vereint, zur Priorisierung aller funktionalen Anforderung, die sich aus den funktionalen Zielen ergeben, und aller Qualitätsanforderungen, die aus Qualitätszielen resultieren, dienen. Zur Priorisierung der Anforderung auf Basis der Stakeholderbedarfe werden Triangular Fuzzy Numbers (TFN) verwendet. Nach der endgültigen Priorisierung dient ein spezieller Algorithmus zur Einschätzung und Auswahl der Anforderungen auf Basis einer Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse. Dieser Algorithmus stellt sicher, dass unter Einhaltung einer von der Organisation gewählten Kostenobergrenze die maximale Anzahl der Anforderungen umgesetzt werden kann. Der gesamte Prozess dient demnach zur Anforderungsanalyse unter Berücksichtigung verschiedener Interessengruppen, Abhängigkeiten, sowie durch den Einbezug von Grenzen, die sich beim Zusammenspiel von Goal-Quality Models und der Softwareentwicklung ergeben können. Darüber hinaus enthält die Arbeit ein integratives Modell, um Entwicklungsprozesse während der Erstellung von Produktlinien an Einflussfaktoren, wie Projektbedürfnisse, Organisationsziele, individuelle Ziele von Entwicklern oder an Umweltbedingungen anzupassen. Dieses sogenannte Tailoring wird durch Priorisierung von Attributen erreicht, welche verschiedene Elemente des zu erzeugende Produktes, des Prozesses oder des Projektes analysieren und nach Bedeutung sortieren. Ein integratives Modell zur Beschreibung von Stakeholderbedürfnissen und -zielen in Bezug auf die Artefakte des Entwicklungsprozesses und die Besonderheiten einer Entwicklungsumgebung wird benötigt, um potenzielle Einflüsse sich verändernder Ziele frühzeitig während der Projektentwicklung zu analysieren. Das hier vorgestellte Tailoring-Meta-Model beinhaltet Goal-Models, SPEM Models und Requirements hinsichtlich Entwicklungsprozesse. Mithilfe dieses Modells können stakeholderspezifische Ziele dazu verwendet werden, um einen variablen Teil eines Entwicklungsprozesses projektbezogen zu gestalten. Auf diese Weise können weiche Faktoren genauso integriert werden, wie konkrete Anforderungen

Risk management in Norwegian avalanche rescue operations. Managing uncertainty, complexity, overcommitment and the long-term monitoring of accident risk

PhD thesis in Risk management and societal safetyIntroduction: Avalanche incidents commonly take place in adverse environmental conditions, and the expected survival time of avalanche victims is short. These situations require an immediate rescue response, which may pose a serious challenge to the safety of both rescuers and avalanche victims. Historically, the Norwegian rescue service has experienced few serious accidents, but undesirable incidents where rescuers are dangerously exposed in avalanche runout zones seem more frequent. Risk management in the avalanche rescue service is multifaceted, influenced by its multi-organizational structure. Individuals acting in this socio-technical rescue system are easily caught between two imperatives: saving lives and staying alive. The aim of risk management is to maintain equilibrium in rescue commitment. This project analysed whether the Norwegian avalanche rescue system is correctly balanced to withstand the extra load of common risk influencing factors in rescue operations. Aim: The fundamental aim of this thesis was to contribute to new knowledge on factors that are important for risk management and performance in the Norwegian avalanche rescue service. Methods: Mixed methods research was applied to answer the specific research questions. This implied multiple research activities in a combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Study number 1 was a retrospective study to characterize Norwegian avalanche incidents and rescue response (Paper I). A comprehensive study comprising avalanche rescue statistics, cross-case analysis, factor analysis and risk modelling was conducted to gain insight into avalanche rescue performance (Paper II). In a phenomenological study to explore the concept of overcommitment, nine air ambulance crews from five bases took part in focus group interviews (Papers III and IV). Lastly, a systemic safety analysis was conducted in two separate seminars, supported by the insight of six experts in Norwegian avalanche rescue operations (Paper V). The thesis itself is a cross-paper synthesis of results. Results: The studies returned results which contribute to justified beliefs about patient and rescuer safety in Norwegian avalanche rescue operations. Conclusion: A synthesis of results from the various studies indicates that the Norwegian rescue service is vulnerable to common risk sources in rescue operations, affecting the safety of both rescuers and patients. The avalanche rescue system could benefit from a focus on the integrity of already established safety barriers. This implies an interorganizational effort to identify and reach common goals and system requirements. This thesis may serve as input to discussions on risk acceptance levels in the rescue service, the applicability and validity of control algorithms in rescue management and how to adjust the degree of commitment in various rescue missions