Towards a Mech-Organic Perspective for Knowledge Sharing Networks in Organizations

We suggest that the development and sustainability of Knowledge Sharing (KS) networks requires an understanding of the interplay between Organizational structure (OS), communications network and KS practices in organizations. We suggest that the application of a fundamental social theory (e.g., The Elementary Theory of Social Structure) is a useful paradigm for understanding the development and management of KS networks from both a theoretical and an applied perspective. We argue that organizations need to design and manage legitimate network (i.e., formal) structure so that it can promote both the development and sustainability of shadow network (i.e., informal and “tacit”) structure. A Mech-Organic Perspective (MOP) based on an understanding of the mechanical (i.e., theoretical and/or applied) and organic (i.e., conceptual and/or subjective) components of communications network is introduced. Implications of MOP for the study, design, and management of learning organizations are discussed

Towards resilience through systems-based plant breeding. A review

How the growing world population can feed itself is a crucial, multi-dimensional problem that goes beyond sustainable development. Crop production will be affected by many changes in its climatic, agronomic, economic, and societal contexts. Therefore, breeders are challenged to produce cultivars that strengthen both ecological and societal resilience by striving for six international sustainability targets: food security, safety and quality; food and seed sovereignty; social justice; agrobiodiversity; ecosystem services; and climate robustness. Against this background, we review the state of the art in plant breeding by distinguishing four paradigmatic orientations that currently co-exist: community-based breeding, ecosystem-based breeding, trait-based breeding, and corporate-based breeding, analyzing differences among these orientations. Our main findings are: (1) all four orientations have significant value but none alone will achieve all six sustainability targets; (2) therefore, an overarching approach is needed: “systems-based breeding,” an orientation with the potential to synergize the strengths of the ways of thinking in the current paradigmatic orientations; (3) achieving that requires specific knowledge development and integration, a multitude of suitable breeding strategies and tools, and entrepreneurship, but also a change in attitude based on corporate responsibility, circular economy and true-cost accounting, and fair and green policies. We conclude that systems-based breeding can create strong interactions between all system components. While seeds are part of the common good and the basis of agrobiodiversity, a diversity in breeding approaches, based on different entrepreneurial approaches, can also be considered part of the required agrobiodiversity. To enable systems-based breeding to play a major role in creating sustainable agriculture, a shared sense of urgency is needed to realize the required changes in breeding approaches, institutions, regulations and protocols. Based on this concept of systems-based breeding, there are opportunities for breeders to play an active role in the development of an ecologically and societally resilient, sustainable agriculture

Managing Mutual Information & Transfer Entropy In Synthetic Ecologies

In this paper we consider transfer entropy and mutual information in terms of their application in the emerging highly interconnected and dynamic synthetic ecologies underpinned by the Cyber. We consider existing models relating to the management of learning and change within organizations and as they may relate to mutual information (MI) and transfer entropy (TE) within socio and info/techno settings, based upon a Mech-Organic perspective. A premise of this paper is that change is costly and that it needs to be seen through a social as well as an info/techno lens. We identify potential improvements to existing models and applications applied to the management of change by considering alternative models and how they may be applied collaboratively within a learning organization

Prolific inventors: who are they and where do they locate? Evidence from a five countries US patenting data se

The prolific (serial) inventors set up the core of the paper. Prolific inventors tend to have a high productivity in terms of inventions (patents) having in general more economic value. The capacity to produce a lot of inventions (patents) is termed “prolificness”. We want to deepen our knowledge about the size of their population, some of their main characteristics, the factors that explain the number patents applied. We exploit a rich data set built onto information available released by the US Patent and Trade Mark Office (USPTO) for the five more important countries as far as technological activities are concerned: Great-Britain, France, USA, Germany, Japan over a long time period (1975-2002). We give insights upon the size of the population of prolific inventors and provide new information about some of their characteristics. We carry out an empirical study in order to explain the prolific inventor patents distribution. We suggest models for estimating the effects of the main variable explaining their productivity. Binomial regressions explaining the inventor productivity after controlling for patent duration and time concentration (among others factors) show that interfirm and international mobility and technological variety (at the inventor level) affects positively the inventor productivity. But there is simultaneity. The overall results suggest that the same factors impact positively productivity with no difference across countries (with exceptions).

From techno-scientific grammar to organizational syntax. New production insights on the nature of the firm

The paper aims at providing the conceptual building blocks of a theory of the firm which addresses its "ontological questions" (existence,boundaries and organization) by placing production at its core. We draw on engineering for a more accurate description of the production process itself, highlighting its inner complexity and potentially chaotic nature, and on computational linguistics for a production-based account of the nature of economic agents and of the mechanisms through which they build ordered production sets. In so doing, we give a "more appropriate" production basis to the crucial issues of how firm's boundaries are set, how its organisational structure is defined, and how it changes over time. In particular, we show how economic agents select some tasks to be performed internally, while leaving some other to external suppliers, on the basis of criteria based on both the different degrees of internal congruence of the tasks to be performed (i.e. the internal environment), and on the outer relationships carried out with other agents (i.e. the external environment)

Establishing an Agri-food living lab for sustainability transitions: Methodological insight from a case of strengthening the niche of organic vegetables in the Vestfold region in Norway

CONTEXT Agri-food systems face complex sustainability challenges, containing conflicting interests, goals, worldviews and fragmented knowledge and decision-making. There is a need for a better understanding of how to turn knowledge about sustainability into actions for change. The complexity of these challenges necessitates systemic, cross-sectorial, and multi-actor processes. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to strengthen agri-food systems associated with organic vegetables in the Vestfold region in Norway by involving actors through a living lab and to generate knowledge regarding the establishment phase of cross-cutting change initiatives. This included exploring how actors from within and beyond the agri-food domain could be selected and recruited and investigating what characterize their perceived understanding of the current situation regarding organic vegetables and their shared vision. METHODS We first drew the boundary of the living lab “system” in relation to improving the situation of organic vegetable agri-food systems. We explored potential participants by developing and applying a procedure for discovering sectors and actors that could contribute to overcome development obstacles. We then used the snowball sampling method and interviewed 48 actors, identifying 80 potential participants. Among these, 30 actors participated in a workshop in which we facilitated co-creative processes for creating a common problem understanding and a shared vision. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS The procedure helped identify change-oriented actors within the agri-food domain. Actors represented small-scale entities who had power to influence their own business, as well as individuals within large-scale entities with limited power to influence change in own organizations. We also discovered actors beyond the agri-food domain who did not originally identify themselves closely with the topic of organic food, such as actors from waste management, education, regional, business, and tourism development, and health and welfare. The diversity of actors contributed to a rich and holistic perspective on the current situation for agriculture and food. They co-created a manifold, but coherent, shared vision, portraying a more collaborative orientation in localized agri-food systems. The gaps between current and future desired situations clearly served as a starting point for action planning and testing. SIGNIFICANCE The study shows crucial steps in establishing an agri-food living lab, including introductory work of bounding the system, selecting actors, and conducting co-creative processes. The study developed and applied a procedure for discovering actors within and beyond the agri-food domain who could contribute to overcoming development obstacles. This procedure can be adjusted and utilized in other settings.publishedVersio