Corporate Social Responsibility and the Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Being currently under the pressure of the various imbalances induced in the natural and social environment and faced with the deficiency of its own incremental growth, the economic system – which is exclusively focused on the economic performance – is currently going through a stage of global structural changes meant to connect it to the simple values of the community, society and even humanity as a requirement for its survival and development through the sustainable competitive advantage. Taking into consideration that globalization tends to quickly standardize technologies and to equalize the rates of profits, the area of competitive advantage is extended beyond the area of economic factors (product differentiation, cost reduction, etc.) in interferential areas, where factors such as social responsibility assumed by corporations become levers to increase competitiveness. Corporate social responsibility circumscribes the company’s set of obligations to the stakeholders (individuals, groups or organizations that are directly or indirectly affected by the actions, goals and policies of the corporation) in a certain system of reference. The multiple groups that make up the reference society of a corporation lead to a multitude of expectations. The legitimacy of these expectations embraces various degrees of validity. Responsibility is a continuous dynamic process meant to harmonize and balance the interests of various groups and the roles they play in relation to and for the purpose of the common good. So far, no system of indicators has been unanimously accepted and no methodology has been crystallized for measuring the effect of the social effort made in the sphere of social responsibility. Nevertheless, research performed over the past years has shown that an ethical behaviour involved in the issues of the natural, social and business environment has an obvious positive influence on the reputation and sales of the corporations. The corporations’ competitive strategies should include – apart from specific goals such as market share, product differentiation or smart promotion – the goal of harmonizing stakeholder expectations. In this context, the commitment to social responsibility becomes an important pillar in gaining the partners’ and the public’s confidence, along with a recognition that would strengthen the company’s market position and its commitment to a competitive sustainable approach.responsibility, social performance, sustainability, competitive advantage

Advances in Intelligent Robotics and Collaborative Automation

This book provides an overview of a series of advanced research lines in robotics as well as of design and development methodologies for intelligent robots and their intelligent components. It represents a selection of extended versions of the best papers presented at the Seventh IEEE International Workshop on Intelligent Data Acquisition and Advanced Computing Systems: Technology and Applications IDAACS 2013 that were related to these topics. Its contents integrate state of the art computational intelligence based techniques for automatic robot control to novel distributed sensing and data integration methodologies that can be applied to intelligent robotics and automation systems. The objective of the text was to provide an overview of some of the problems in the field of robotic systems and intelligent automation and the approaches and techniques that relevant research groups within this area are employing to try to solve them.The contributions of the different authors have been grouped into four main sections:• Robots• Control and Intelligence• Sensing• Collaborative automationThe chapters have been structured to provide an easy to follow introduction to the topics that are addressed, including the most relevant references, so that anyone interested in this field can get started in the area

Clare W. Graves and the Turn of Our Times

Clare W. Graves (1914 – 1986) was a psychologist and visionary who pioneered an evolutionary theory of human values. Based on research concerning differing views of “what is a mature human being,” he developed the idea of a universal progression of value-structures. According to the theory both individuals and societies may be placed in this progression. This paper attempts to summarize Graves’ ideas and his influences on others, while grappling with what I see as some of his theory’s most important problems. Refinements are proposed that bear on the theory as a whole, with a particular focus on how it applies to contemporary postmodernism

Advances in Intelligent Robotics and Collaborative Automation

This book provides an overview of a series of advanced research lines in robotics as well as of design and development methodologies for intelligent robots and their intelligent components. It represents a selection of extended versions of the best papers presented at the Seventh IEEE International Workshop on Intelligent Data Acquisition and Advanced Computing Systems: Technology and Applications IDAACS 2013 that were related to these topics. Its contents integrate state of the art computational intelligence based techniques for automatic robot control to novel distributed sensing and data integration methodologies that can be applied to intelligent robotics and automation systems. The objective of the text was to provide an overview of some of the problems in the field of robotic systems and intelligent automation and the approaches and techniques that relevant research groups within this area are employing to try to solve them.The contributions of the different authors have been grouped into four main sections:• Robots• Control and Intelligence• Sensing• Collaborative automationThe chapters have been structured to provide an easy to follow introduction to the topics that are addressed, including the most relevant references, so that anyone interested in this field can get started in the area

Advances in Robotics, Automation and Control

The book presents an excellent overview of the recent developments in the different areas of Robotics, Automation and Control. Through its 24 chapters, this book presents topics related to control and robot design; it also introduces new mathematical tools and techniques devoted to improve the system modeling and control. An important point is the use of rational agents and heuristic techniques to cope with the computational complexity required for controlling complex systems. Through this book, we also find navigation and vision algorithms, automatic handwritten comprehension and speech recognition systems that will be included in the next generation of productive systems developed by man

Coalition based approach for shop floor agility – a multiagent approach

Dissertation submitted for a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, speciality of Robotics and Integrated Manufacturing from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e TecnologiaThis thesis addresses the problem of shop floor agility. In order to cope with the disturbances and uncertainties that characterise the current business scenarios faced by manufacturing companies, the capability of their shop floors needs to be improved quickly, such that these shop floors may be adapted, changed or become easily modifiable (shop floor reengineering). One of the critical elements in any shop floor reengineering process is the way the control/supervision architecture is changed or modified to accommodate for the new processes and equipment. This thesis, therefore, proposes an architecture to support the fast adaptation or changes in the control/supervision architecture. This architecture postulates that manufacturing systems are no more than compositions of modularised manufacturing components whose interactions when aggregated are governed by contractual mechanisms that favour configuration over reprogramming. A multiagent based reference architecture called Coalition Based Approach for Shop floor Agility – CoBASA, was created to support fast adaptation and changes of shop floor control architectures with minimal effort. The coalitions are composed of agentified manufacturing components (modules), whose relationships within the coalitions are governed by contracts that are configured whenever a coalition is established. Creating and changing a coalition do not involve programming effort because it only requires changes to the contract that regulates it

A study of the experiential service design process at a luxury hotel

This thesis explores the process of designing experiential services at a luxury hotel. These processes were surfaced by means of a methodology that used the principles of jazz improvisation. Due to similarities between experiential service design and elements in jazz improvisation, representing experiential service design through the jazz improvisation metaphor leads to a new framework for exploring the process of experiential service design that is iterative in nature. A gap in the service design literature is that experiential service design is not operationalized in organizational improvisation, and one contribution from this study will be to fill that gap. This study contributes to the field of knowledge by exposing a new perspective on how experiential services can be better designed by adapting some of the design tools from this luxury hotel; a second contribution is a recommendation for how the improvisational lens works as an investigative tool to research experiential organizations. In the process, some new dimensions to understanding complexity are contributed. The research process utilized qualitative research methods. Frank Barrett (1998) identified seven characteristics of jazz improvisation which I have used as a heuristic device: 1) provocative competence (i.e., deliberately creating disruption); 2) embracing errors as learning sources; 3) minimal structures that allow for maximum flexibility; 4) distributed task (i.e., an ongoing give and take); 5) reliance on retrospective sensemaking (organizational members as bricoleurs, making use of whatever is at hand); 6) hanging out (connecting through communities of practice); and 7) alternating between soloing and supporting. This research is grounded in the body of literature regarding complexity, organizational improvisation, service design and experience design. The role of heterogeneous minimal structures that are fluid and optimize uncertainty is central to this investigation. Themes such as sensemaking and the role of story, meaning-making, organizational actors' use of tangible and intangible design skills, and embracing ambiguity in efforts to design experiential services are explored throughout the dissertation. The anticipatory nature of experiential service design is a principle outcome from the data that is incorporated into the new conceptual framework highlighting a "posture of service"

A Holonic Human Cyber-Physical System in Healthcare.

Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineerin

Organization based multiagent architecture for distributed environments

[EN]Distributed environments represent a complex field in which applied solutions should be flexible and include significant adaptation capabilities. These environments are related to problems where multiple users and devices may interact, and where simple and local solutions could possibly generate good results, but may not be effective with regards to use and interaction. There are many techniques that can be employed to face this kind of problems, from CORBA to multi-agent systems, passing by web-services and SOA, among others. All those methodologies have their advantages and disadvantages that are properly analyzed in this documents, to finally explain the new architecture presented as a solution for distributed environment problems. The new architecture for solving complex solutions in distributed environments presented here is called OBaMADE: Organization Based Multiagent Architecture for Distributed Environments. It is a multiagent architecture based on the organizations of agents paradigm, where the agents in the architecture are structured into organizations to improve their organizational capabilities. The reasoning power of the architecture is based on the Case-Based Reasoning methology, being implemented in a internal organization that uses agents to create services to solve the external request made by the users. The OBaMADE architecture has been successfully applied to two different case studies where its prediction capabilities have been properly checked. Those case studies have showed optimistic results and, being complex systems, have demonstrated the abstraction and generalizations capabilities of the architecture. Nevertheless OBaMADE is intended to be able to solve much other kind of problems in distributed environments scenarios. It should be applied to other varieties of situations and to other knowledge fields to fully develop its potencial.[ES]Los entornos distribuidos representan un campo de conocimiento complejo en el que las soluciones a aplicar deben ser flexibles y deben contar con gran capacidad de adaptación. Este tipo de entornos está normalmente relacionado con problemas donde varios usuarios y dispositivos entran en juego. Para solucionar dichos problemas, pueden utilizarse sistemas locales que, aunque ofrezcan buenos resultados en términos de calidad de los mismos, no son tan efectivos en cuanto a la interacción y posibilidades de uso. Existen múltiples técnicas que pueden ser empleadas para resolver este tipo de problemas, desde CORBA a sistemas multiagente, pasando por servicios web y SOA, entre otros. Todas estas mitologías tienen sus ventajas e inconvenientes, que se analizan en este documento, para explicar, finalmente, la nueva arquitectura presentada como una solución para los problemas generados en entornos distribuidos. La nueva arquitectura aquí se llama OBaMADE, que es el acrónimo del inglés Organization Based Multiagent Architecture for Distributed Environments (Arquitectura Multiagente Basada en Organizaciones para Entornos Distribuidos). Se trata de una arquitectura multiagente basasa en el paradigma de las organizaciones de agente, donde los agentes que forman parte de la arquitectura se estructuran en organizaciones para mejorar sus capacidades organizativas. La capacidad de razonamiento de la arquitectura está basada en la metodología de razonamiento basado en casos, que se ha implementado en una de las organizaciones internas de la arquitectura por medio de agentes que crean servicios que responden a las solicitudes externas de los usuarios. La arquitectura OBaMADE se ha aplicado de forma exitosa a dos casos de estudio diferentes, en los que se han demostrado sus capacidades predictivas. Aplicando OBaMADE a estos casos de estudio se han obtenido resultados esperanzadores y, al ser sistemas complejos, se han demostrado las capacidades tanto de abstracción como de generalización de la arquitectura presentada. Sin embargo, esta arquitectura está diseñada para poder ser aplicada a más tipo de problemas de entornos distribuidos. Debe ser aplicada a más variadas situaciones y a otros campos de conocimiento para desarrollar completamente el potencial de esta arquitectura