Collaborative process design for waste management: co-constructing strategies with stakeholders

Funding Information: Thanks are due to all UrbanWINS project partners. Also, the authors acknowledge FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology (Portugal) through the strategic project UIDB/04292/2020 granted to MARE - Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre. And to NOVA School of Science and Technology - NOVA University Lisbon, to several other team members Ana Gomes, Pedro Santos and Mario Ramos Waste@nova team members that collaborate in several activities of the project, as well as to Prof. Joaquim Pina and Prof. Ana Silveira. The UrbanWINS project presented in this paper was funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement no.690047.Waste management is currently facing multiple challenges worldwide. The population growth in urban areas and related environmental concerns have increased the need to promote urban sustainability, namely where urban waste is a challenge. Thus, research on efficient waste management to reduce resources overload and to develop more sustainable production and consumption is key. Having this in mind, modern society is now seeking for an active voice and to be part of the decision-making processes that directly affect citizens. Citizens need to play an active role on decision-making to co-construct action guidelines, aiming a higher implementation success for an effective and inclusive management of urban waste. In this sense, UrbanWINS project was developed to promote co-construction and implementation of pilot actions involving citizens. In this paper the authors described the framework developed, and reflect critically on the results achieved.publishersversionepub_ahead_of_prin

Integrating Problem Structuring Methods And Concept-Knowledge Theory For An Advanced Policy Design: Lessons From A Case Study In Cyprus

Evidence suggests that policies frequently fail due, on the one side, to a simplification of the uncertainty and complexity associated with stakeholders’ problem-understanding and, on the other side, due to the lack of methodologies for innovative generation of policy alternatives. This work describes a methodology based on the integration of Problem Structuring Methods and Concept-Knowledge Theory as a mean to transform ambiguity in problem-framing from a barrier to an enabling factor in collaborative settings. This methodology supports the generative design process for innovative and consensual policies. The methodology was implemented for a case of designing water management policy in the Republic of Cyprus

An Integrated Decision Support System for the Sustainable Reuse of the Former Monastery of “Ritiro del Carmine” in Campania Region

Nowadays, many public administrations have abandoned and underused heritage buildings due to a lack of public resources, although the effective contribution of cultural heritage as a driver and enabler of sustainable development is strongly recognized. Currently, investments in cultural heritage have multidimensional impacts (social, economic, historical, and cultural) and can contribute to increasing overall local productivity; improving the wellbeing of inhabitants; and attracting funding from the public, private, and private–social sectors. Lack of public resources has pushed local administrations to favor new forms of valorization of public property that can promote the “adaptive reuse” of historic buildings in order to preserve their social, historical, and cultural values. At the same time, administrations seek to stimulate the experimentation of new circular business, financing, and governance models in heritage conservation, creating synergies between multiple actors; reducing the use of resources; and regenerating values, knowledge, and capital. The objective of this paper is to propose an integrated evaluation model, based on multicriteria analysis, and a financial model to support the choice of an alternative reuse of an ancient monastery in the municipality of Mugnano in the Campania region in order to define a “shared strategy” based on a “bottom-up” approach. This starts from the needs of the local community but does not neglect the historical and cultural values of the heritage building, as well as the economic and financial feasibility. The positive results obtained show that the model proposed can be a useful decision support tool in environments characterized by high complexity such as cultural heritage sites, where the objective is to precisely highlight the elements that influence the dynamics of choice for building shared bottom-up development strategies

Organizational readiness for co-creation of public services in the central and eastern european administrative tradition: Development of the conceptual multi-attribute decision support model

Co-creation of public services and policies is considered a promising practice of re-shaping the traditional relationship between the state and its citizens, businesses and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Nevertheless, there are also warnings that the implementation of the process of co-creation could fail. A possible reason is that the organization is not ready or sufficiently mature to implement the process of co-creation. This paper addresses co-creation drivers and barriers identified through systematic literature review and analysis of case studies from two Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. The aim of this paper is to provide practitioners from CEE countries with a conceptual multi-attribute decision support model for evaluating the organizational readiness for co-creation. The methodological framework consists of three steps. The first two steps, content analysis (i.e. literature review) and case-study analysis, were used to identify and analyze drivers and barriers, which are then used in the last step to develop the conceptual multi-attribute decision support model. The developed model consists of 26 attributes grouped into three categories: Capacity of the organization, drivers and barriers related to internal (public organization) co-creators, and context related drivers and barriers. The key points for practitioners are: •Co-creation drivers and barriers affect organizations at the beginning of their co-creation journey (i.e. in identifying the key co-creation success factor at the organizational level); •Co-creation drivers and barriers serve as guidance to organizations that were unsuccessful in co-creation; •The conceptual model supporting the evaluation of co-creation readiness serves as a tool to those that consider implementing co-creation; •The model offers an insight into a possible methodology for evaluation of readiness in different areas; •For practitioners from the CEE region, co-creation drivers and barriers, together with the conceptual multi-attribute decision support model supporting the evaluation of co-creation readiness, offer a roadmap to successful co-creation

Terrorism Preparedness, Collaboration, and Organizational Culture in the National Capital Region

Abstract Terrorism preparedness is essential for federal, state, and local governments. However, literature indicated that local governments may not be ready to respond to a terrorist event. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine terrorism preparedness levels related to collaboration in the National Capital Region (NCR) of the United States to determine first responders’ perspectives regarding challenges of organizational change. The research questions for this study concentrated on the evaluation of terrorism- preparedness and organizational changes among first response agencies since 2014, Schein’s ideas of organizational cultural change were the theoretical foundation. Four NCR public safety agencies were randomly sampled , and participants provided data by completing the First Response Organizational Terrorism Preparedness Survey, a modified version of Rand Corporation’s Combating Terrorism Survey. The data were analyzed to measure terrorism preparedness and look at organizational leadership challenges since 2014. Regression analysis was used to analyze the independent variables (processes, resources, personnel, and organizational culture) and terrorism preparedness was the dependent variable. Findings showed that first response agencies are slightly better prepared for terrorism today than in 2014, and processes are a stronger predictor than personnel and resources. Organizational culture was not as strong as the other predictors of terrorism preparedness. The findings in this study have potential Implications for positive social change by providing first responders in the NCR with better information about terrorism preparedness to protect communities during a terrorist event

Terrorism Preparedness, Collaboration, and Organizational Culture in the National Capital Region

Abstract Terrorism preparedness is essential for federal, state, and local governments. However, literature indicated that local governments may not be ready to respond to a terrorist event. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine terrorism preparedness levels related to collaboration in the National Capital Region (NCR) of the United States to determine first responders’ perspectives regarding challenges of organizational change. The research questions for this study concentrated on the evaluation of terrorism- preparedness and organizational changes among first response agencies since 2014, Schein’s ideas of organizational cultural change were the theoretical foundation. Four NCR public safety agencies were randomly sampled , and participants provided data by completing the First Response Organizational Terrorism Preparedness Survey, a modified version of Rand Corporation’s Combating Terrorism Survey. The data were analyzed to measure terrorism preparedness and look at organizational leadership challenges since 2014. Regression analysis was used to analyze the independent variables (processes, resources, personnel, and organizational culture) and terrorism preparedness was the dependent variable. Findings showed that first response agencies are slightly better prepared for terrorism today than in 2014, and processes are a stronger predictor than personnel and resources. Organizational culture was not as strong as the other predictors of terrorism preparedness. The findings in this study have potential Implications for positive social change by providing first responders in the NCR with better information about terrorism preparedness to protect communities during a terrorist event

Studying the generation of alternatives in public policy making processes

The design of alternatives is an essential part of decision making that has been less studied in theory and practice compared to alternatives’ evaluation. This topic is particularly relevant in the context of public policy making, where policy design represents a crucial step of the policy cycle since it determines the quality of the alternative policies being considered. This paper attempts to formalise the decision aiding process in two real interventions dealing with alternatives’ generation for territorial policy making in Italy. The aim of this research is to understand what generates novelty within the alternatives’ design phase of a decision aiding process, i.e. what allows to expand the solution space and discover new alternatives to solve the problem under consideration. It demonstrates ways in which novelty in decision processes can be supported by Operational Research/Multicriteria Decision Aiding tools. The two case studies are used to answer the following questions: (i) Why have new alternatives arose during the policy making process? (ii) How have they been generated? (iii) Which consequences did they lead to? and (iv) What generated novelty in the process? The results highlight two main reasons that can expand the solution space within a decision aiding process: (i) dissatisfaction (of the client, of the analyst or of the relevant stakeholders, especially when dealing with public policies) with respect to the solutions currently proposed to the decision making problem and (ii) opportunity for a change in one of the variables/constraints

Operational research:methods and applications

Throughout its history, Operational Research has evolved to include a variety of methods, models and algorithms that have been applied to a diverse and wide range of contexts. This encyclopedic article consists of two main sections: methods and applications. The first aims to summarise the up-to-date knowledge and provide an overview of the state-of-the-art methods and key developments in the various subdomains of the field. The second offers a wide-ranging list of areas where Operational Research has been applied. The article is meant to be read in a nonlinear fashion. It should be used as a point of reference or first-port-of-call for a diverse pool of readers: academics, researchers, students, and practitioners. The entries within the methods and applications sections are presented in alphabetical order