Knowledge and Management Models for Sustainable Growth

In the last years sustainability has become a topic of global concern and a key issue in the strategic agenda of both business organizations and public authorities and organisations. Significant changes in business landscape, the emergence of new technology, including social media, the pressure of new social concerns, have called into question established conceptualizations of competitiveness, wealth creation and growth. New and unaddressed set of issues regarding how private and public organisations manage and invest their resources to create sustainable value have brought to light. In particular the increasing focus on environmental and social themes has suggested new dimensions to be taken into account in the value creation dynamics, both at organisations and communities level. For companies the need of integrating corporate social and environmental responsibility issues into strategy and daily business operations, pose profound challenges, which, in turn, involve numerous processes and complex decisions influenced by many stakeholders. Facing these challenges calls for the creation, use and exploitation of new knowledge as well as the development of proper management models, approaches and tools aimed to contribute to the development and realization of environmentally and socially sustainable business strategies and practices

Disaster risk reduction and post disaster infrastructure reconstruction in Sri Lanka

Disasters resulting from natural hazards such as floods, drought, earthquakes, cyclones impact societies in several ways, while damaging lives, infrastructure and resulting in financial and environmental losses. Therefore, prevention of disasters through reducing disaster risk has been critically important to minimise the impact of disasters. A proactive stance to reduce the toll of disasters requires an approach with both predisaster risk reduction and post-disaster recovery. However, the world is gradually shifting from disaster response to a more proactive approach to disaster management. However, integration of disaster risk has been identified as a key priority within the post disaster reconstruction process. Accordingly, the main aim of this paper is to draw attention to the importance of integration of disaster risk reduction in to post-disaster infrastructure reconstruction, which is a part of a doctoral research. Infrastructure reconstruction programs aim to change the vulnerable conditions for the development of the country. It is well identified that all critical infrastructure facilities must be designed to a given level of safety from disaster impact. The research based on which this paper is written aims to reveal the contribution of integration of disaster risk reduction into post-disaster infrastructure reconstruction on economic development. This paper reveals the disaster risk strategies used in general and in specific to the post-tsunami infrastructure sector in Sri Lanka and discovers their success rate. Further, the paper discusses the challenges associated with integration of disaster reduction into post tsunami infrastructure reconstruction projects

Proceedings of the 11th Toulon-Verona International Conference on Quality in Services

The Toulon-Verona Conference was founded in 1998 by prof. Claudio Baccarani of the University of Verona, Italy, and prof. Michel Weill of the University of Toulon, France. It has been organized each year in a different place in Europe in cooperation with a host university (Toulon 1998, Verona 1999, Derby 2000, Mons 2001, Lisbon 2002, Oviedo 2003, Toulon 2004, Palermo 2005, Paisley 2006, Thessaloniki 2007, Florence, 2008). Originally focusing on higher education institutions, the research themes have over the years been extended to the health sector, local government, tourism, logistics, banking services. Around a hundred delegates from about twenty different countries participate each year and nearly one thousand research papers have been published over the last ten years, making of the conference one of the major events in the field of quality in services

The 2P-K Framework: A Personal Knowledge Measurement Framework for the Pharmaceutical Industry

Knowledge is a dynamic human process to justify our personal belief in pursuit of the truth. The intellectual output of any organisation is reliant upon the individual people within that organisation. Despite the eminent role of personal knowledge in organisations, personal knowledge management and measurement have received little attention, particularly in pharmaceutical manufacturing. The pharmaceutical industry is one of the pillars of the global economy and a knowledge-intensive sector where knowledge is described as the second product after medicines. The need of measurement to achieve effective management is not a new concept in management literature. This study offers an explanatory framework for personal knowledge, its underlying constructs and observed measures in the pharmaceutical manufacturing context. Following a sequential mixed method research (MMR) design, the researcher developed a measurement framework based on the thematic analysis of fifteen semi-structured interviews with industry experts and considering the extant academic and regulatory literature. A survey of 190 practitioners from the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector enabled quantitative testing and validation of the proposed models utilising confirmatory factor analysis. The pharmaceutical personal knowledge framework was the fruit of a comprehensive study to explain and measure the manifestations of personal knowledge in pharmaceutical organisations. The proposed framework identifies 41 personal knowledge measures reflecting six latent factors and the underlying personal knowledge. The hypothesised factors include: regulatory awareness, performance, wisdom, organisational understanding, mastership of product and process besides communication and networking skills. In order to enhance the applicability and flexibility of the measurement framework, an abbreviated 15-item form of the original framework was developed. The abbreviated pharmaceutical personal knowledge (2P-K) framework demonstrated superior model fit, better accuracy and reliability. The research results reveal that over 80% of the participant pharmaceutical organisations had a form of structured KM system. However, less than 30% integrated KM with corporate strategies suggesting that KM is still in the early stages of development in the pharmaceutical industry. Also, personal knowledge measurement is still a subjective practice and predominately an informal process. The 2P-K framework offers researchers and scholars a theoretically grounded original model for measuring personal knowledge. Also, it offers a basis for a personal knowledge measurement scale (2P-K-S) in the pharmaceutical manufacturing context. Finally, the study had some limitations. The framework survey relied on self-ratings. This might pose a risk of social desirability bias and Dunning–Kruger effect. Consequently, a 360- degree survey was suggested to achieve accurate assessments. Also, the model was developed and tested in an industry-specific context. A comparative study in similar manufacturing industries (e.g. chemical industries) is recommended to assess the validity of the current model or a modified version of it in other industries

Proceedings of the Conference on Production Systems and Logistics: CPSL 2022

[no abstract available

Organizational Online Participation

As today’s employees demand higher degrees of involvement in terms of how, when, and where they work, open innovation and (internal) crowdsourcing are being widely adopted. Despite recent efforts by many organizations to implement such systems in order to increase the possibilities for organizational participation, studies have only narrowly explored how their design affects employee opinions and communication as well as how organizational culture influences usage and adoption. This thesis investigates the conditions, capabilities and components for the design of organizational online participation systems, applying a Design Science Research approach. Following a literature review on idea generation, collaboration and evaluation in open innovation processes, we outline success factors for open innovation systems. We validate our success factors in practice by conducting semi-structured interviews with 20 experts from mid- and large-cap private and public organizations in Germany. Moreover, we derive three key challenges that guide our subsequent studies. First, we investigate the “Bag of Lemons” approach, a novel rating technique, and compare it to the standard techniques Likert scales and up- and down-voting. Our study with 141 participants in an open innovation engagement at a public-private research organization finds that BOL is perceived as more frustrating than the other two rating techniques, which is partly mediated by the significantly increased information overload. Second, we turn to anonymity in two distinct studies. We analyze the effect of anonymity, as compared to identifiability of user profiles, on communication persuasiveness – operationalized as actual opinion change – in a two-staged online experimental survey with 377 participants. We find anonymity to be a double-edged sword as it decreases perceived social presence, which in turn affects both user involvement as well as perceived user credibility. Thereafter, we investigate the design of a feature for optional anonymous contributions and its effect on participation and the choice of language in an internal crowdsourcing platform. Our analysis of an implementation and five-month test at a public organization with more than 110 employees shows the effectiveness of our “opt-in anonymity” feature as we elicit participation from otherwise reticent employees and no disinhibited language. Third, we analyze the design of an internal crowdsourcing system at this public organization in more detail, focusing on the influence of its organizational culture on usage and acceptance. We assert an IT-culture-conflict, as the organizational values do not match the open and communal approach transposed by the crowdsourcing system. We suggest that organizational online participation is a promising tool to enhance employee involvement, driving innovations and enabling organizational transformation

Formation of media competence as means of influence on emotional, cognitive, and volitional development of personality

The article analyzes the state of modern education, actualizes the need for its qualitative changes and priorities, new requirements for the organization of innovative educational activities of schoolchildren. Theoretical research of scientists on media competence and media socialization of students is analyzed. The essence of concepts «media competence of the student» and «media socialization» is deepened based on the reviewed literature. The article dwells on contradictions as factors of socio-psychological and educational problems, which indicate the understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of the usage of media in the learning process. It also researches the dependence of the world perception of high school students on their presentation of information. The authors highlight the advantages and disadvantages of using media in the learning process, the dependence of students’ perception of the world on its representation by television, cinema, magazines, newspapers, radio and the Internet. Pedagogical approaches and conditions of successful formation of media competence of students, and which make it possible to create a favorable learning environment for emotional, cognitive, volitional development of young people are proposed. The essence and structure of media competence is characterized. The methodical system of high school students’ media competence formation for acquiring moral orientations is researched. The stages of the organization of the formation of media competence of students are defined. It is stated that during the formation of students` media competence a significant role is played by the consideration of methodological and technological factors. To prepare modern students for life in society, we also need to consider his individual qualities, abilities, willingness to use media technologies, solve practice-oriented, research and creative tasks, take into account the peculiarities of perception of media texts by teenagers. The formation of students’ key competencies requires certain innovations in the educational process. It should be organizational content and technological innovations. Therefore, it is necessary not to abandon the media, but to teach the child to consume media products consciously, distinguishing real values from fake ones. Thus, there is an urgent need for further development of media education. Modern media open wide opportunities in the field of education, changing the quality of education and upbringing, the quality of daily life of the child. We conclude that the creation of an integrated system of media education, the formation of the young generation’s media literacy and media competence contributes not only to their comprehensive development, but also allow to use variety of motives, knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes to information. It also promotes the usage of media competence, methods of collection and processing of information, the use of creative abilities in creation of media texts and their evaluation, the manifestation of citizenship and critical thinking. The components, criteria, indicators and levels of formation of media competence, which allow to influence the comprehensive development of students, to avoid negative influence due to purposeful manipulation of media and distortion of messages by them, are established. The use of innovative types of work for the acquisition of media competence by students is suggested

BITE: Recipes for Remarkable Research

BITE: Recipes for remarkable research is an edited field book capturing the research, learning and experiences of an international network of scholars studying effective and creative research environments. The book encapsulates what it is that enables remarkable research, and offers, as Professor Lizbeth Goodman says, “practical, evidence-based instantiations of ideas and innovations” as well as theoretical knowledge. It is set out as a recipe book, with supporting academic papers and case studies.; Readership: Educational Researchers and their student

The Chamber Musician in the Twenty-First Century

In recent research, there has been growing emphasis on the collaborative, social, and collective nature of musical behaviour and practices. Among the emerging hypotheses in this connection are the idea that listening to music is always listening together and being with the other; that music making is a matter of intercorporeality, mutuality, and emphatic attunement; and that creative agency in musical practices is fundamentally a distributed phenomenon. Chamber music provides an ideal context for the testing and actualization of these notions. This Special Issue on chamber music and the chamber musician aims to explore the psychological, social, cultural, historical, and artistic issues in the practice of classical chamber music in the twenty-first century. Contributions are invited on any of these aspects and issues involved in being a contemporary classical chamber musician. Authors are encouraged to contextualise their research by reference to the recent literature on collaborative musicking, and among the topics they may choose to address are the cultural and musical demands chamber musicians face and the implications of these demands for their artistic practice, the ways the twenty-first-century chamber musicians engage with historical practices, the newly emerging musical identities and artistic roles available to them, and expressivity in current chamber music practices