Know-how to lead digital transformation: The case of local governments

Local governments are in an ideal position to integrate government, private, and citizen data to deliver beneficial new digitally enabled public services. However, progress toward achieving the benefits has stagnated in many cases. This is because managers lack the requisite know-how to lead the implementation and enactment of integrated enterprise systems to improve the processes of public service delivery, part of a journey called ‘digital transformation’. If digital transformations are to progress, we need more nuanced empirical elaboration of the know-how managers require. To that end, this study reports evidence from case studies in 11 local governments in Canada. The findings provide the empirical basis for a theory of the know-how managers require to lead the implementation and enactment of integrated enterprise systems in support of digital transformation. We then propose a new theoretical model of how to transfer that requisite know-how to managers through public-private partnerships, and thereby mitigate barriers to that transfer

Phylogeny and Biogeography of Hawkmoths (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae): Evidence from Five Nuclear Genes

The 1400 species of hawkmoths (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae) comprise one of most conspicuous and well-studied groups of insects, and provide model systems for diverse biological disciplines. However, a robust phylogenetic framework for the family is currently lacking. Morphology is unable to confidently determine relationships among most groups. As a major step toward understanding relationships of this model group, we have undertaken the first large-scale molecular phylogenetic analysis of hawkmoths representing all subfamilies, tribes and subtribes.The data set consisted of 131 sphingid species and 6793 bp of sequence from five protein-coding nuclear genes. Maximum likelihood and parsimony analyses provided strong support for more than two-thirds of all nodes, including strong signal for or against nearly all of the fifteen current subfamily, tribal and sub-tribal groupings. Monophyly was strongly supported for some of these, including Macroglossinae, Sphinginae, Acherontiini, Ambulycini, Philampelini, Choerocampina, and Hemarina. Other groupings proved para- or polyphyletic, and will need significant redefinition; these include Smerinthinae, Smerinthini, Sphingini, Sphingulini, Dilophonotini, Dilophonotina, Macroglossini, and Macroglossina. The basal divergence, strongly supported, is between Macroglossinae and Smerinthinae+Sphinginae. All genes contribute significantly to the signal from the combined data set, and there is little conflict between genes. Ancestral state reconstruction reveals multiple separate origins of New World and Old World radiations.Our study provides the first comprehensive phylogeny of one of the most conspicuous and well-studied insects. The molecular phylogeny challenges current concepts of Sphingidae based on morphology, and provides a foundation for a new classification. While there are multiple independent origins of New World and Old World radiations, we conclude that broad-scale geographic distribution in hawkmoths is more phylogenetically conserved than previously postulated

Seeking the 'Smart' in Cities: Managing the process of Innovating with IT

A smart city can be defined as a city seeking to address public issues via information technology solutions on the basis of a multi-stakeholder, municipally based partnership. Core to the smart city agenda is realizing a new innovation strategy for municipal governance based on high levels of cooperation among stakeholders to improve the efficiency and quality of public service delivery. Governments can enact an integrated digital platform to support high levels of cooperation among stakeholders with process management, and thereby align cooperative activities with public priorities. Drawing on punctuated equilibrium theory, we examine what know-how enables some city managers to manage implementation of an integrated digital platform for innovating with IT, and what know-how is lacking in city governments that fail to do so. We report evidence from case studies in eleven city governments to identify what knowhow city managers require for the competence to manage such an implementation

The relative importance of olfaction and vision in a diurnal and a nocturnal hawkmoth

Nectar-feeding animals can use vision and olfaction to find rewarding flowers and different species may give different weight, to the two sensory modalities. We have studied how a diurnal or nocturnal lifestyle affects the weight given to vision and olfaction. We tested naive hawkmoths of two species in a wind tunnel, presenting an odour source and a visual stimulus. Although the two species belong to the same subfamily of sphingids, the Macroglossinae, their behaviour was quite different. The nocturnal Deilephila elpenor responded preferably to the odour while the diurnal Macroglossum stellatarum strongly favoured the visual stimulus. Since a nocturnal lifestyle is ancestral for sphingids, the diurnal species, M. stellatarum, has evolved from nocturnal moths that primarily used olfaction. During bright daylight visual cues may have became more important than odour