Decision making in product design – bridging the gap between inception and reality

Product Design in the modern world is a complex multifaceted discipline comprising of many skills and applications. It also operates in cross-disciplinary contexts both in direct teams but also contributing to strategic business of manufacturers, government/councils and not for profit organisations. It is no longer a purely creative problem solving activity where a good idea or innovation is enough to push forward a new product. For the majority of the design profession the days of design on the back of an envelope are gone. Today design is a structured activity with recognizable and repeatable methodologies and processes. Within this the profession is acknowledging and aligning with the principles of business management. A consequence is that designers are capable of undertaking ever increasingly complex challenges. Education needs to train designers to recognise and operate in these complex situations. As a response Universities now include project or design management within curriculum. ‘The new programme should equip the students with not only the ability to design, manufacture and test design solutions; but also with a firm knowledge of business strategy’ [1] However the authors have recognized a gap within the profession and education for a more structured and validated approach to decision making within the design process. This paper outlines a pilot study within a student project whereby professional decision making tools are introduced to final year students and used to validate selection of appropriate designs from initial concepts against a hierarchy of criteria.Peer reviewe

CSR Reporting and the University

There is currently no mandatory Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting standards for institutions of higher learning (universities) in the U.S. There is also no established governing or regulatory body designated with the responsibility of developing CSR reporting standards for universities. In recent years some universities have prepared and released self-reported CSR reports. However these reports may not be complete, much of the information included in the reports could be outdated, and all of it is subject to bias. Without commonly accepted CSR reporting standards, common reporting format, or metrics, it is difficult to compare the CSR efforts of various universities. Comparing the sustainability reports of two universities might be described as similar to comparing apples to oranges. In a time where social and environmental factors are becoming as important as financial factors, shareholders have a right to expect accountability and need reliable information for comparability. They want to know if universities are being responsible with financial and environmental resources. To stakeholders a more reliable basis for comparability, it is my hypothesis that a common set of CSR reporting standards should be developed by a governing body or regulatory agency. This hypothesis stems from the financial accounting reporting standards required for U.S. corporations and universities that provide a basis for comparability for users of general-use financial statements. This study examines how generally accepted standards for financial reporting have developed and been implemented in the corporate world in the U.S. and if/how that development and implementation might serve as a template for university CSR reporting standards. The study also identifies relatively recent efforts to develop CSR reporting standards for corporations in Europe. Many European corporations now release CSR reports prepared in accordance with The Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) reporting guidelines designated as “G4”. The GRI established certain principles for establishing a baseline for report content and report quality. In order to meet the G4 principles for content, a report should include at least four sections: stakeholder inclusiveness; CSR context; Materiality; and Completeness. To support my hypothesis, I conducted a pilot study based on self-reported CSR reports by U.S. universities housed in a database maintained by AASHE. AASHE assigns each report a score based on overall quality. One of the factors receiving a score was “Completeness”. I chose the completeness principle for two reasons. It is one of the easiest to test because it does not require an evaluation of the report quality and because an incomplete report obviously lacks comparability. The sample included a mixture of private and public universities and universities of different enrollment sizes. An analysis of the pilot study is presented and the limitations associated with the study are identified. Hopefully this study will encourage professionals, and academics alike, to push for the creation of a governing body to implement and enforce a standardized policy for reporting on issues of social responsibility

The making of South Korea's COVID-19 test success. IES Policy Brief Issue 2020/04 - April 2020

At least 120 countries have asked South Korea for COVID-19 test kits and other materials to fight against the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. South Korean biotech firms are shipping the kits everywhere from Europe and the United States to the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The secret to South Korea’s test development and manufacturing success lies in Daejeon. This city is home to Daedeok Innopolis, South Korea’s main R&D cluster, including for biotech. Developed since the 1990s, South Korea’s biotech industry is a textbook case of the country’s industrial policy. It is based on two pillars: public-private cooperation and continuity across administrations. This is what Daedeok Innopolis and South Korea’s COVID-19 test success embody

A study into the factors influencing the choice-making process of Indian students when selecting an international university for graduate studies using grounded theory

Paper presented at the conference in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, July 2007.Universities operate in an increasingly competitive market place facing new and complex socio-technical and economical challenges. For many universities international student recruitment is desirable and necessary for survival. Universities knowledge in this area is often an imperfect tool as the changing environment and diversity of cultures with which it must interact challenge previous assumptions and common wisdom. The overall goal of this study is to identify those factors responsible for influencing Indian students’ choice of international university for graduate studies. The results are based on a longitudinal study that was carried out using the Grounded Theory research method. This qualitative methodology provides a good framework for rigorous and relevant research of emerging phenomena in student mobility. Primary data consisted of unstructured interviews, focus groups and questionnaire surveys among participants of the sample population. The literature was used as a source of secondary data. A narrative style and thick description were used to report the research findings. Four major influencers emerged from the analysis, which are referred to as programme content, international reputation, funding and job prospects and quality. Drawing together these findings the study examines the implications for recruiting graduate students from India and reveals that there are a number of ways in which the university can influence the choice-making process. The results clearly provide a sound basis for future study

The role of the user and the society in new product development

Within the knowledge-based economy several institutions are involved in product innovation processes. Literature study has shown that the most researched and cited are the industry-universitygovernment relations, presented in the Triple Helix model of institutional relations within new product development (NPD). Based on a case study of the Academic Virtual Enterprise, we have put the sole input of these institutions in NPD into question. We have tested and supported the claim that the user and the society are equal partners in the product innovation process. We have put forward the Fourfold Helix model that features a new formation of institutional relations where special focus is placed on the involvement of the user and the society in NPD

Key Issues Facing Trustees of National Research Universities in the Decade Ahead

[Excerpt] Trustees of public and private research universities have a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interest of their institutions. However, actions that appear to be in the private interests of their institutions may not be in the social interest and these institutions are also expected to serve society as a whole. In deciding what optimal policies are for their institutions, trustees must weigh their institutions’ private interests against the interests of society as whole. In the next section, I discuss seven examples of areas in which trustees will need to make these judgments. Privatization is occurring at both public and private research universities, in the sense that the institutions are becoming more dependent on revenue streams generated from third parties. Examples are increased external funding of research, attempts to commercialize research findings through start-up companies and licensing of patents, increased external support through individual, corporate and foundation giving, and increased revenue from big-time athletics. The third parties providing the funding may push for activities or decisions that are not consistent with the underlying academic values of the institution and the trustees. Section III discusses three examples of how such problems may arise and stresses the importance of the trustees retaining fundamental authority. A final section provides some concluding remarks

Does Federal Financial Aid Drive Up College Prices?

The "Bennett Hypothesis" is the theory that : The availability of federal loans -- particularly subsidized loans offering a below-market interest rate and payment of interest as long as the student is enrolled in school -- provides "cover" for colleges to raise their prices, because students can offset a price increase, or at least a portion of that increase, with federal loans.This report examines research that attempts to prove or disprove the Bennett Hypothesis, with a focus primarily on the impact of federal grants and loans on college and university tuition price increases. Section two presents a brief overview of federal student financial aid programs, recent trends in tuition prices, and the economic theory behind financial aid and tuition prices. Section three reviews some of the research that has analyzed the veracity of the Bennett Hypothesis over the years.Section three also describes studies with similar methodologies but contrary findings. The research suffers from limitations in the data used, particularly in the measures of federal aid used as predictors. There are also limitations in the data analysis methodologies employed, including the researchers' inability to fully control for all of the complex factors that go into the decisions that institutions make when determining tuition prices. More details about these issues are presented in this section. The final section summarizes what this body of research tells us about the relationship between federal student aid and tuition prices

Non-business e-commerce in Malaysia: An investigation of key adoption

Problem statement: Non-business EC is a relatively new research niche in the general e-commerce stream. Application of e-commerce by profit oriented organization already become bread and butter but still limited applied in non-business sectors such as academic institutions (as in the present study), non-profit organizations, religious organizations and government agencies. Nowadays e-commerce becomes crucially essential in reducing their expenses and improving their operations.Therefore, application of this new innovation should enhance to no non-business sectors to be livelier.Understanding the key factors of facilitating and adopting the e-commerce in non-business are still need to enrich in particularly within Malaysian context. A field survey was conducted to determine key factors that facilitate the adoption of non-business EC in Malaysian Universities. Approach: One main focus of IT implementation research has been to determine why people accept or reject new technology. The current research will explore why Non-business institutions will accept or reject e- commerce. Since e-commerce adoption decision is a strategic one, a comprehensive list of potential facilitators and non-facilitators for the strategic use of information technology was derived from past research. Thus factors used as the basis for collecting data from 65 schools, centers and units from 5 public universities in Kota Kinabalu and Kuala Lumpur. These data were factor-analyzed to determine the key underlying dimensions of facilitators. On the basis of the resulting 5 dimensions namely, relative advantage, network orientation, information efficiency, innovativeness and competitiveness, regression analysis was done to determine the impact of the 5 dimensions on adoption. Results: They suggest that relative advantage, network orientation and information efficiency are the most important facilitators to the used of e-commerce in non-business sectors. Inhibitors were not estimated eventually, as there were no non-users among the respondents. Conclusion: The results implies the non-business sectors should look into advantages, network orientation and information efficiency as a strategic based for implementing e-commerce in more effective manner to achieve their goals

Training or vacation? The academic conference tourism

The current study concentrates on factors affecting the intentions of academics attending an academic conference. It highlights the importance of academic conferences and academic conference tourism and discusses meetings, the convention industry and also their utility in the career development of academics. Through qualitative research and a review of the literature on conference tourism push and pull motivation factors are suggested. The power of these factors to predict the intention to attend an academic conference is examined through quantitative research and regression analysis. The results indicate that ‘pull’ factors are better predictors of the intention to attend an academic conference than motivational ‘push’ factors

The Tenure Process: A Descriptive Study of Selected Texas Universities

Few things in the professional life of university faculty are more important than the tenure process. Achieving tenure provides the faculty member with the confidence that his or her position with the university will be secure for life. There are exceptions; criminal behavior and elimination of the program come to mind, but tenure allows the faculty member to research controversial areas without the potential for political repercussions that could jeopardize employment. According to the American Association of University Professors: The principal purpose of tenure is to safeguard academic freedom, which is necessary for all who teach and conduct research in higher education. When faculty members can lose their positions because of their speech or publications research findings, they cannot properly fulfill their core responsibilities to advance and transmit knowledge. (2018