Manoeuvring between Networks to Lead – A Longitudinal Case Study in the Semiconductor Industry

How organizations exert leadership in interorganizational, predominantly hierarchical networks is well researched. However, there are also networks that are not hierarchical, but heterarchical in nature, i.e. where no organizational actor formally presides over the other member organizations and where leadership is nevertheless practised and accepted by network members. But how exactly is an organization able to lead under these structural conditions and, in particular, to capitalize – in the leadership process – on its membership in more than one network? Informed by structuration theory, we investigate this practice of ‘network manoeuvring’, that is, how an organization skilfully takes advantage of the reciprocal influences between two different forms of networks. In particular, we study Intel de facto leading the SEMATECH consortium (i.e. a heterarchical network) and guiding technology development along its supply chain (i.e. a hierarchical network). Network manoeuvring is enabled in this case by two mutually reinforming practices (i.e. roadmapping and roadmap gap filling) centred around a key resource (i.e. a roadmap as an artefact). Based upon our findings, we provide practical guidance and theoretical insights on how and under what circumstances this kind of manoeuvring in and across two (different types of) networks substitutes for formally legitimated leadership

Umgang mit Unsicherheit in globalen Produktionsnetzwerken und Zulieferketten

Disruptive Ereignisse wie die Finanzkrise oder Fukushima verdeutlichen die Anfälligkeit globaler Produktionsnetzwerke und Zulieferketten. Ein wichtiger grund hierfür ist die meist einseitige Orientierung an vermeintlich kalkulier- und quantifizierbaren Risiken anstatt der zusätzlichen Berücksichtigung genuiner, unvorhersehbarer Unsicherheit. Im Rahmen dieses Projekts wurde untersucht, inwiefern in solche Netzwerke eingebundene Unternehmen auf Unsicherheit vorbereitet sind bzw. damit umgehen. Basierend auf einer systematischen Sichtung der Literatur und von Jahresabschlussberichten sowie Interviews mit Mitgliedern der Arbeitnehmervertretung in Aufsichtsräten wichtiger deutscher Unternehmen in den Bereichen der Metallindustrie zeigt sich, dass primär Risiken und nicht Unsicherheiten vor organisationalem Hintergrund analysiert werden. Dies führt dazu, dass die Unternehmen tendenziell gegenüber disruptiven Ereignissen anfälliger sind. Allerdings bilden disruptive Ereignisse oftmals den Anstoß für Veränderungen des Diskurses und erzeugen sowohl Sensibilität für den Umgang mit Unsicherheit, nicht nur organisational, sondern auch und gerade interorganisational

Field-configuring events: Arenas for innovation and learning?

Field-configuring events and their impact upon organizations, networks and organizational fields have become an important focal point for research. Since the coining of the term (Meyer, Gaba, and Colwell 2005; Lampel and Meyer 2008), the body of research on events such as trade fairs, conferences, or festivals has grown in different disciplinary contexts, particularly management and organization studies and economic geography. The general gist of these studies is that interactions at temporally and spatially bounded sites are marked by “predictable unpredictability” (Lampel 2011) and “allow disparate constituents to become aware of their common concerns, join together, share information, coordinate their actions, shape or subvert agendas, and mutually influence field structuration” (Anand and Jones 2008, 1037). Research on organized events more broadly has a longer tradition in the two disciplines. Previous work in management and organization studies has analyzed events such as board meetings, strategy meetings or committees on an organizational level as sites for strategy making (e.g. Jarzabkowski and Seidl 2008). On a field level, Rao (1994) has examined certification contests as a way of legitimization new organizational forms and Zilber (2007) studied conferences as occasions for making sense of disrupted industry. Research on creative industries has perceived events such as festivals or award ceremonies as sites for the negotiation of values (e.g. Moeran and Strandgaard Pedersen 2011). In economic geography, trade fairs have been conceptualized as temporary clusters (Maskell, Bathelt, and Malmberg 2006) and cyclical events (Power and Jansson 2008), playing an important role in structuring global business exchanges. This literature has elucidated that trade fairs not only afford opportunities for acquiring knowledge through face-to-face interaction, but also for obtaining information by observing and monitoring other participants (Bathelt and Schuldt 2010). Trade fairs, it is argued, create a dense ecology of information and communication flows that provides opportunities for the exploration of market trends and the generation and maintenance of networks (e.g. Schuldt and Bathelt 2011)

Out of Nowhere? Interorganizational Assemblage as the Answer to a Food-Borne Disease Outbreak

The ad hoc formation of interorganizational relationships and networks re- mains a black box for management scholars. We address this phenomenon by investigating interorganizational responses to an extreme event. Hence, we explore how interorganizational constellations of previously unconnected actors formed in response to the large-scale outbreak of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) in Germany in 2011, which killed 53 people and af- fected over 4,000. We present a preliminary model of interorganizational as- semblage and offer propositions that highlight the conditions under which the development of collaborations across organizations is made possible in face of crises

Object Hierarchies for Efficient Rendering

This thesis covers the efficient visualization of complex 3d scenes using various rendering methods such as photo-realistic and real-time rendering. Especially the important role of bounding volume hierarchies is discussed in detail in the context of illumination and visibility algorithms. We present a novel approach for automatic generation of object hierarchies and apply the resulting data structure to several rendering techniques. In the field of ray tracing we describe a novel ray acceleration method that combines objects hierarchies and regular grids. We demonstrate how radiosity computations may benefit from available scene hierarchies to determine the radiant flux between object clusters. Finally, we present an adaptive interactive rendering algorithm that may dramatically reduce the number of visibility tests in an occlusion culling framework for interactive real-time visualization.Diese Dissertation untersucht unterschiedliche Verfahren zur effizienten Visualisierung grosser dreidimensionaler Szenengeometrien, sowohl im Bereich des Photorealismus wie auch bei der Echtzeit-Visualisierung. Hierbei wird insbesondere die Nützlichkeit von Hüllkörperhierarchien bei der Beleuchtungsrechnung und bei der Beantwortung von Sichtbarkeitsfragen herausgearbeitet. Ein neuartiges, kostenbasiertes Verfahren zur automatischen Konstruktion von Objekthierarchien wird präsentiert sowie dessen Anwendung für alle gängigen Darstellungsverfahren. Zusätzlich beschreibt diese Disseration im Bereich Ray Tracing ein neues Verfahren zur Szenenstrukturierung, welches die Vorteile von Hüllkörperhierarchien und regulären Gittern kombiniert. Im Bereich der Radiosity wird gezeigt, wie sich Szenenhierarchien ideal zur Berechnung des Lichtflusses zwischen Objekt-Clustern nutzen lassen und im Bereich Echtzeit-Rendering wird ein adaptives Verfahren vorgestellt, dass die Zahl teurer Sichtbarkeitstests beim Occlusion-Culling deutlich reduziert

BENKLER REVISITED – VENTURING BEYOND THE OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE ARENA?

The organizational principles of open source software (OSS) development have challenged traditional theories in economics, organization research and information systems. In a seminal paper, Benkler (2002) provided a comprehensive framework to structure and explain these OSS principles. Coined Commons-Based Peer Production (CBPP), his framework has inspired a large stream of research on OSS. The objective of our paper is to determine whether CBPP also provides a viable framework to investigate projects of open innovation in non-software related domains. Using a case study approach, we focus on four projects that attempt to operate in line with the OSS phenomenon, but deal with tangible outputs (biotechnology, automobiles, entertainment hardware, and public patent review). We show that in general the CBPP framework is well-suited to explain open value creation in these domains. However, we also find several factors which limit its adoption to non-software related arenas

a methodology for understanding path dependence and path creation

Although an increasing number of studies of technological, institutional and organizational change refer to the concepts of path dependence and path creation, few attempts have been made to consider these concepts explicitly in their methodological accounts. This paper addresses this gap and contributes to the literature by developing a comprehensive methodology that originates from the concepts of path dependence and path creation – path constitution analysis (PCA) – and allows for the integration of multi-actor constellations on multiple levels of analysis within a process perspective. Based upon a longitudinal case study in the field of semiconductors, we illustrate PCA ‘in action’ as a template for other researchers and critically examine its adequacy. We conclude with implications for further path-oriented inquiries

An Ultrastructural Study of Ingestion and Digestion in Tetrahymena pyriformis *

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100141/1/j.1550-7408.1966.tb01912.x.pd

Comparison of Boltzmann Equations with Quantum Dynamics for Scalar Fields

Boltzmann equations are often used to study the thermal evolution of particle reaction networks. Prominent examples are the computation of the baryon asymmetry of the universe and the evolution of the quark-gluon plasma after relativistic heavy ion collisions. However, Boltzmann equations are only a classical approximation of the quantum thermalization process which is described by the so-called Kadanoff-Baym equations. This raises the question how reliable Boltzmann equations are as approximations to the full Kadanoff-Baym equations. Therefore, we present in this paper a detailed comparison between the Kadanoff-Baym and Boltzmann equations in the framework of a scalar Phi^4 quantum field theory in 3+1 space-time dimensions. The obtained numerical solutions reveal significant discrepancies in the results predicted by both types of equations. Apart from quantitative discrepancies, on a qualitative level the universality respected by the Kadanoff-Baym equations is severely restricted in the case of Boltzmann equations. Furthermore, the Kadanoff-Baym equations strongly separate the time scales between kinetic and chemical equilibration. This separation of time scales is absent for the Boltzmann equation.Comment: text and figures revised, references added, results unchanged, 21 pages, 10 figures, published in Phys. Rev. D73 (2006) 12500