Sustainable Development

The technological advancement of our civilization has created a consumer society expanding faster than the planet's resources allow, with our resource and energy needs rising exponentially in the past century. Securing the future of the human race will require an improved understanding of the environment as well as of technological solutions, mindsets and behaviors in line with modes of development that the ecosphere of our planet can support. Sustainable development offers an approach that would be practical to fuse with the managerial strategies and assessment tools for policy and decision makers at the regional planning level

Application of system safety framework in hybrid socio-technical environment of Eurasia

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-93).The political transformation and transition of post-Soviet societies have led to hybrid structures in political, economic and technological domains. In such hybrid structures the roles of government, state enterprise, private business and civil society are not clearly defined. These roles shift depending on formal and informal interests, availability and competition for limited resources, direct and indirect financial benefits, internal and external agendas. In an abstract sense, a hybrid is "anything derived from heterogeneous sources, or composed of elements of different or incongruous kinds" (Hybrid). If transition is a process from one state to another, hybrid is a state unto itself. In the context of this thesis Hybrid Socio-Technical Environment means the co-existence of different institutions and policies, state and private business entities, old and new technologies, managerial models and practices of planning and market economies, collectivist and individualist value systems. Rapid technological progress, coupled with shifts in political and economic structures, may produce long-lasting disturbances in a society. Such disturbances are result of the hybrid society's contradictory nature. Some of these disturbances appear in the form of large-scale systemic accidents, such as the Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydroelectric Power Station accident. The rigid and outdated Soviet socio-technical system was broken down into multiple independent systems and subsystems to increase operational flexibility, with very limited capital investment. A twenty-year transition period (1990-2010), proved the survivability of the Soviet system, which was able to perform its primary functions even with partial capacity. However, recent large-scale accidents are clear signs that the system is stretching beyond its limits. Changes in the socio-technical landscape (multiple stakeholders and variety of interests) suggest that the traditional approaches of Reliability Theory, with its inward focus, may not be an effective tool in identifying emerging challenges. The outward-focused System theory approach takes into consideration key characteristics of the changing hybrid socio-technical landscape, as well as motivations of multiple stakeholders. The research concludes that insufficient capital investment and backlog in maintenance shifts are key systemic factors that allow migration of organizational behavior from a safe to an unsafe state. Additional analysis has to be conducted to prove this conclusion.by Azamat Abdymomunov.S.M.in Engineering and Managemen

Data quality assurance for strategic decision making in Abu Dhabi's public organisations

“A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy”.Data quality is an important aspect of an organisation’s strategies for supporting decision makers in reaching the best decisions possible and consequently attaining the organisation’s objectives. In the case of public organisations, decisions ultimately concern the public and hence further diligence is required to make sure that these decisions do, for instance, preserve economic resources, maintain public health, and provide national security. The decision making process requires a wealth of information in order to achieve efficient results. Public organisations typically acquire great amounts of data generated by public services. However, the vast amount of data stored in public organisations’ databases may be one of the main reasons for inefficient decisions made by public organisations. Processing vast amounts of data and extracting accurate information are not easy tasks. Although technology helps in this respect, for example, the use of decision support systems, it is not sufficient for improving decisions to a significant level of assurance. The research proposed using data mining to improve results obtained by decision support systems. However, more considerations are needed than the mere technological aspects. The research argues that a complete data quality framework is needed in order to improve data quality and consequently the decision making process in public organisations. A series of surveys conducted in seven public organisations in Abu Dhabi Emirate of the United Arab Emirates contributed to the design of a data quality framework. The framework comprises elements found necessary to attain the quality of data reaching decision makers. The framework comprises seven elements ranging from technical to human-based found important to attain data quality in public organisations taking Abu Dhabi public organisations as the case. The interaction and integration of these elements contributes to the quality of data reaching decision makers and hence to the efficiency of decisions made by public organisations. The framework suggests that public organisations may need to adopt a methodological basis to support the decision making process. This includes more training courses and supportive bodies of the organisational units, such as decision support centres, information security and strategic management. The framework also underscores the importance of acknowledging human and cultural factors involved in the decision making process. Such factors have implications for how training and raising awareness are implemented to lead to effective methods of system development

Transgovernance: Advancing Sustainability Governance

Political Science, general; Social Policy; Business Ethics; Non-Profit Enterprises/Corporate Social Responsibility; Sustainable Developmen