20,680 research outputs found

    Presenting the SCL model: adding value to business strategy through UCD principles

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    This paper presents the Sustainable Consumption Leveraging (SCL) Model and its toolkit, which was developed to help businesses examine their potential for enabling sustainable consumption whilst identifying areas of opportunity to improve their business model and value proposition. The paper begins by establishing the contribution of business towards sustainable consumption and sets out user-centred design (UCD) principles as a valuable approach to leverage sustainable consumption. The relationship between UCD principles and sustainable consumption in a business context was studied through qualitative research. The findings of in-depth interviews with experts, a focus group and a document analysis led to the construction of a theoretical framework, which was used to develop the SCL Model and its toolkit

    Impact in networks and ecosystems: building case studies that make a difference

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    open accessThis toolkit aims to support the building up of case studies that show the impact of project activities aiming to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. The case studies respond to the challenge of understanding what kinds of interventions work in the Southern African region, where, and why. The toolkit has a specific focus on entrepreneurial ecosystems and proposes a method of mapping out the actors and their relationships over time. The aim is to understand the changes that take place in the ecosystems. These changes are seen to be indicators of impact as increased connectivity and activity in ecosystems are key enablers of innovation. Innovations usually happen together with matching social and institutional adjustments, facilitating the translation of inventions into new or improved products and services. Similarly, the processes supporting entrepreneurship are guided by policies implemented in the common framework provided by innovation systems. Overall, policies related to systems of innovation are by nature networking policies applied throughout the socioeconomic framework of society to pool scarce resources and make various sectors work in coordination with each other. Most participating SAIS countries already have some kinds of identifiable systems of innovation in place both on national and regional levels, but the lack of appropriate institutions, policies, financial instruments, human resources, and support systems, together with underdeveloped markets, create inefficiencies and gaps in systemic cooperation and collaboration. In other words, we do not always know what works and what does not. On another level, engaging users and intermediaries at the local level and driving the development of local innovation ecosystems within which local culture, especially in urban settings, has evident impact on how collaboration and competition is both seen and done. In this complex environment, organisations supporting entrepreneurship and innovation often find it difficult to create or apply relevant knowledge and appropriate networking tools, approaches, and methods needed to put their processes to work for broader developmental goals. To further enable these organisations’ work, it is necessary to understand what works and why in a given environment. Enhanced local and regional cooperation promoted by SAIS Innovation Fund projects can generate new data on this little-explored area in Southern Africa. Data-driven knowledge on entrepreneurship and innovation support best practices as well as effective and efficient management of entrepreneurial ecosystems can support replication and inform policymaking, leading thus to a wider impact than just that of the immediate reported projects and initiatives

    London Creative and Digital Fusion

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    date-added: 2015-03-24 04:16:59 +0000 date-modified: 2015-03-24 04:16:59 +0000date-added: 2015-03-24 04:16:59 +0000 date-modified: 2015-03-24 04:16:59 +0000The London Creative and Digital Fusion programme of interactive, tailored and in-depth support was designed to support the UK capital’s creative and digital companies to collaborate, innovate and grow. London is a globally recognised hub for technology, design and creative genius. While many cities around the world can claim to be hubs for technology entrepreneurship, London’s distinctive potential lies in the successful fusion of world-leading technology with world-leading design and creativity. As innovation thrives at the edge, where better to innovate than across the boundaries of these two clusters and cultures? This booklet tells the story of Fusion’s innovation journey, its partners and its unique business support. Most importantly of all it tells stories of companies that, having worked with London Fusion, have innovated and grown. We hope that it will inspire others to follow and build on our beginnings.European Regional Development Fund 2007-13

    Eco‐Holonic 4.0 Circular Business Model to  Conceptualize Sustainable Value Chain Towards  Digital Transition 

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    The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a circular business model based on an Eco-Holonic Architecture, through the integration of circular economy and holonic principles. A conceptual model is developed to manage the complexity of integrating circular economy principles, digital transformation, and tools and frameworks for sustainability into business models. The proposed architecture is multilevel and multiscale in order to achieve the instantiation of the sustainable value chain in any territory. The architecture promotes the incorporation of circular economy and holonic principles into new circular business models. This integrated perspective of business model can support the design and upgrade of the manufacturing companies in their respective industrial sectors. The conceptual model proposed is based on activity theory that considers the interactions between technical and social systems and allows the mitigation of the metabolic rift that exists between natural and social metabolism. This study contributes to the existing literature on circular economy, circular business models and activity theory by considering holonic paradigm concerns, which have not been explored yet. This research also offers a unique holonic architecture of circular business model by considering different levels, relationships, dynamism and contextualization (territory) aspects

    Immersive Telepresence: A framework for training and rehearsal in a postdigital age

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    Flourishing Trim tabs Designing business models that catalyze strongly sustainable enterprises: An exploration of Design variety using tools for collaborative modelling modes.

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    Business models are designed - intentionally and/or by default - by factors that affect the way in which the firm operates in relationship to business’ actors, purpose, place and definition of success over time. The business model, when reviewed as a single unit framework, is effective in providing a lens of experimentation for innovation within that firm (Weiller and Neely, 2013). Part of the research being done in business model innovation is how to develop and use a growing library of visualization tools, participatory design methods and systemic design frameworks in combination with well-researched ontologies. In the context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the pursuit of designing business models with the mission to do good to do well, the tools we use to design with, matter. The tools must allow for the inclusion of participants by adapting to a variety of inquiry modes and cognitive abilities, and support participants in re-framing profit-normative narratives to strongly sustainable business model narratives. In this research I looked to examine the design and development of a dialogic design tool, specific to the Flourishing Business Canvas v2.0 (FBC v2.0), that compliments its use from the perspective of different user cognitive abilities and modes of inquiry. The research questions asked relate to exploring what might be a human centred, systemic design approach to Sustainable Business Model Innovation, and how might we explore the variety of collaborative modelling modes in designing Strongly Sustainable (Flourishing) enterprises? This research frames the Business Model Canvas and aforementioned dialogic design tool as a Graphic User Interface (GUI) in the process of Business Model Innovation. It further hints at the act of modelling, using the tools, as a nascent inquiry into how second-order cybernetics plays out in the exploration of design variety using tools for collaborative modelling modes in the discussion. This is a systemic design research project conducted as design action research. It was enacted via a collaboration between Halmstad University in Sweden and Ghent University in Belgium. It was conducted with the support of the Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab) at OCAD University

    'License to VIT’ - A Design Taxonomy for Visual Inquiry Tools

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    Visual Inquiry Tools are valuable assets to work conjointly on an ill-structured or wicked problem and solve it creatively. With visual inquiry tools, designers can sketch the problem-space of an artifact-to-be-designed and generate solutions in a priori defined ontological elements. While there exists guidance in how visual inquiry tools should be designed content-wise, there is a lack of clarification on the design options available to design them. Subsequently, the paper proposes a taxonomy of visual inquiry tools outlining options for their design. We do this by incorporating a sample of 24 visual inquiry tools developed in the scientific literature corpus as well as 15 through empirical example

    FrontEnd Toolkit: a toolkit to transform IDEAs into intelligent action

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    This FrontEnd Toolkit is about applying Design Thinking to transform new ideas into innovative products, services andbusinesses with an impact. The front end development of new user and customer-oriented solutions is a key opportunity aswell as a significant challenge for organizations and success is built on collaborative approaches. The overall objective is to help policy- makers, project owners, and managers as well as their stakeholders to design and implement projects with real impact. The Toolkit helps to establish an idea’s key value to stakeholders, and supports planning for the creation of high impact projects. It assists in defining complexity, cost, delivery, functionality,and future upgrade potential of a concept and creates new opportunities for partnerships. The Front End innovation is all about purposefully combining different skills, disciplines, and resources with knowledge related to the local innovation ecosystem to gain insights that inspire and help shape a new, valuable offering. The process of creating this constellation of elements involves understanding emerging opportunities,client and user mindsets, needs and expectations. It also involves making sense of the competitive environment, the social and individual constraints and enablers that drive the acceptance and up take of new products, services and business models

    Designing the business models for circular economy : towards the conceptual framework

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    Switching from the current linear model of economy to a circular one has recently attracted increased attention from major global companies e.g., Google, Unilever, Renault, and policymakers attending the World Economic Forum. The reasons for this are the huge financial, social and environmental benefits. However, the global shift from one model of economy to another also concerns smaller companies on a micro-level. Thus, comprehensive knowledge on designing circular business models is needed to stimulate and foster implementation of the circular economy. Existing business models for the circular economy have limited transferability and there is no comprehensive framework supporting every kind of company in designing a circular business model. This study employs a literature review to identify and classify the circular economy characteristics according to a business model structure. The investigation in the eight sub-domains of research on circular business models was used to redefine the components of the business model canvas in the context of the circular economy. Two new components - the take-back system and adoption factors - have been identified, thereby leading to the conceptualization of an extended framework for the circular business model canvas. Additionally, the triple fit challenge has been recognized as an enabler of the transition towards a circular business model. Some directions for further research have been outlined, as well
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