Global value chain configuration: A review and research agenda

This paper reviews the literature on global value chain configuration, providing an overview of this topic. Specifically, we review the literature focusing on the concept of the global value chain and its activities, the decisions involved in its configuration, such as location, the governance modes chosen and the different ways of coordinating them. We also examine the outcomes of a global value chain configuration in terms of performance and upgrading. Our aim is to review the state of the art of these issues, identify research gaps and suggest new lines for future research that would advance our understanding of how firms are implementing new ways of organizing and managing activities on a global scale

Implementing Productivity Based Demand Response in Office Buildings Using Building Automation Standards

Demand response is an effective method that can solve known issues in electrical power systems caused by peak power demand and intermittent supply from renewable sources. Office buildings are good candidates for implementing demand response because they usually incorporate building management systems which are able to control and monitor various electrical devices, from lighting to HVAC, security to power management. In order to study the feasibility of using an existing office building management system to implement demand response, a simulator for a typical office building has been built which models the energy consumption characteristics of the building. With the help of this simulator, an Indoor Environment Quality based control algorithm is developed whose aim is to minimise reduction in productivity in an office building during a demand response application. This research revealed two key elements of automatic demand response: lighting loads need to be utilised in every demand response scenario along with HVAC, and the control system needs to be able to operate rapidly because of changing conditions. A multi-agent based demand response control algorithm for lighting is then developed and used to test the suitability of two communication protocols currently widely used in office buildings: KNX and LonWorks. The results show that excessive overload of the communication channel and the lag caused by slow communication speeds using these protocols present serious problems for the implementation of real time agent based communication in office buildings. A solution to these problems is proposed

Sustainability of Urban Freight Transport: Retail Distribution and Local Regulations in Cities

Although our urbanized civilization requires freight transport in order to sustain it, urban freight transport is especially recognized for its unsustainable impacts. To reduce the unsustainable impacts of urban freight transport, many local governments develop policies that focus sometimes more on banning or restricting urban transport than on making it more sustainable. In the first part of this thesis we develop a framework to structure the urban freight transport field and to review urban fraight transport sustainability initiatives. The number of initiatives that is succesfully implemented in practice turns out te be quite low. In the review and the following analysis, we try to find the barriers for succesful implementation of the initiatives in practice. In the seond part we examine the impacts of the most commonly used local sustainability policies. Six time-window scenarios and their impacts on the economical, environmental and social sustainability are examined based on a multiple case study. Time-window regulations increase both the environmental and distribution costs. Retail chains are affected differently by time-window pressure and vehicle restrictions due to differences in their logical concept. based on an experiment we examine the effects of retailers' logical decisions in combination with local sustainability policies. Next, we examine the degree to which retailers are able te deal with problems caused by time-windows. Combining the primary and secondary distribution, i.e. factory gate pricing, results in more sustainable distribution operations for the retailer and in less sensivity towards time-window regulations

Organisational culture and the development of IT in further education

Central government funding has assisted the introduction of Information Technology (IT) to many areas of the curriculum through a variety of schemes over the last ten years. The funding has been provided to support a wide range of educational organisations differing in, amongst other things, size, geographical location and ethos. There has been extensive research into the relationship between organisational structure and the organisation's ability to manage innovation in industry and commerce. An attempt has been made to distinguish four organisational types or 'cuItures' and apply these concepts from industrial and commercial organisations to educational institutions. (Handy. 1986). Furthermore Handy maintains that if one particular culture, task culture, is dominant then the organisation is likely to be more amenable to the management of innovation and the introduction of new technology. The researcher has made an attempt to grasp the nature of the organisational culture of an opportunity sample of colleges of Further Education as perceived by lecturers that have been involved in a government funded project to introduce IT to the curriculum. A social psychological approach has been used with the aid of questionnaires, diagrams and focused interviews to elicit the lecturers' perceptions. An attempt to use computer aided analysis of qualitative data has been made with the use of macro commands from a word processing package to facilitate the coding, sorting and retrieval of data. It appears that the preferred organisational culture, from the small sample of lecturers taking part in this investigation, is that of 'task' culture according to Handy's terminology. There was also evidence of shared concerns about the nature and implications of the introduction of IT to the curriculum. It is concluded, however, that organisational culture is a dynamic concept and that a study of a small group of colleges can only provide a snapshot glimpse into the nature of lecturers' perceptions of their organisations' culture. Sometimes there is more than one cultural type perceived as operating in the same organisation and such perceptions as these may vary contingent upon an individual's position in the organisation