Dimensions of Accountability in Inter-organizational Business Processes

Inter-organizational business processes are the basis of a globalized, highly dynamic, and digitalized world, en-abling faster and cost-effective transactions. At the same time, they raise business vulnerabilities. A partic-ular vulnerability is linked to the substantiation of trust between actors in dynamic business relationships, as trust affects interdependencies and complexity. An ap-proach to address this vulnerability is the introduction of accountability mechanisms. Extant research suggests that accountability enables revealing causality and a transparent allocation of responsibilities for each pro-cess step. Thereby, corresponding actors can judge upon misbehavior and verify trust claims. Unfortu-nately, a thorough understanding of accountability and its dimensions accountability in the context of IBP is still missing. To address this gap, we develop a framework with dimensions of accountability. We demonstrate the resulting framework in an industrial supply chain case and derive implications for theory and practice

Bequest of the Norseman - The Potential for Agricultural Intensification and Expansion in Southern Greenland under Climate Change

The increase of summer temperatures and a prolonged growing season increase the potential for agricultural land use for subarctic agriculture. Nevertheless, land use at borderline ecotones is influenced by more factors than temperature and the length of the growing season, for example soil quality, as the increasing lengths of dry periods during vegetation season can diminish land use potential. Hence, this study focuses on the quality of the soil resource as possible limiting factor for land use intensification in southern Greenland. Physical and chemical soil properties of cultivated grasslands, reference sites and semi-natural birch and grassland sites were examined to develop a soil quality index and to identify the suitability of soils for a sustainable intensification and expansion of the agriculture. The study revealed that soils in the study area are generally characterized by a low effective cation exchange capacity (CEC eff ) (3.7 ± 5.0 meq 100 g −1 ), low pH CaCl 2 (4.6 ± 0.4) and low clay and silt content (3.0 ± 1.0% and 38.2 ± 4.7%, respectively). Due to the high amount of coarse fraction (59.1 ± 5.8%) and the low amount of soil nutrients, an increasing threat of dry spells for soils and yield could be identified. Further, future land use intensification and expansion bears a high risk for concomitant effects, namely further soil acidification, nutrient leaching and soil degradation processes. However, results of the soil quality index also indicate that sites which were already used by the Norseman (980s–1450) show the best suitability for agricultural use. Thus, these areas offer a possibility to expand agricultural land use in southern Greenland

Barriers of applying Government as a Platform in Practice: Evidence from Germany

Government as a Platform (GaaP) is a promising approach to the digital transformation of the public sector. GaaP aims at the development of efficient and user-friendly services by exploiting platform principles such as openness, modularization and co-creation. Hence, GaaP claims to deliver a new level of stakeholder participation in the production of public services. However, the success of GaaP is arguably bound to the context of a country. To address the potential impact of a country’s context, the goal of this paper is to identify barriers and measures to overcome them in the application of GaaP in the federal context of Germany. We conduct a literature review and investigate a use case of a German digital government agency by means of documents, expert interviews and workshops. The agency applies GaaP to its architecture management of the federal IT infrastructure. We find five barriers and three measures to overcome. We conclude by discussing implications for theory and practice

Towards “Government as a Platform”: An analysis framework for public sector infrastructure

“Government as a Platform” (GaaP) is a promising approach to the digital transformation of the public sector. The approach sees Government as an open platform on which people inside and outside the government can innovate and co-create better public services. On a technical level, this is enabled by public sector infrastructure that also follows the approach. However, it remains unclear how exactly GaaP can be applied to public sector infrastructure in practice. In order to tackle this challenge, we develop a framework for the analysis of public infrastructure regarding its platform character. We apply the framework to a current public infrastructure project in Germany to demonstrate its applicability and infer possible future improvements. We contribute to literature by integrating GaaP literature with ideas and concepts from general IS platform literature and contribute to practice by providing a tool that supports the application of GaaP

Towards Interoperability of Smart City Data Platforms

We present a comprehensive analysis of the literature on interoperability of smart city data platforms in an attempt to conceptualize interoperability approaches. To this end, we propose a taxonomy of said approaches based on four dimensions with three characteristics each. The taxonomy can be used to classify interoperability approaches. We discuss implications for theory and practice and conclude with a first assessment of individual approaches towards their prospect of success

Modell zur Quantifizierung des Energieverbrauchs und der Treibhausgasemissionen von Biobetrieben

Zusammenfassung Während der Jahre 2009-2011 wurden am FiBL über verschiedene Projekte Grundlagen zur betrieblichen und produktbezogenen Energie- und Klimabilanzierung erarbeitet. Daraus wurde ein Modellansatz entwickelt, mit dem der Energieverbrauch und die Treibhausgasemissionen (THG-Emissionen) auf Betriebsebene abgeschätzt werden können. Aus diesen Vorarbeiten ist 2011 und 2012 das FiBL-Betriebsmodell entstanden, mit dem es möglich ist: 1. detaillierte Klimabilanzen von Schweizer Biobetrieben durchzuführen, 2. zwischenbetriebliche Vergleiche anzustellen und 3. die Auswirkungen von betrieblichen Veränderungen oder Anpassungsstrategien auf die THG-Emissionen zu berechnen. Die grosse Stärke des Betriebsmodells ist seine hohe Flexibilität in Bezug auf die Datenerfordernisse. So werden zur Analyse und Optimierung des Energieverbrauchs und der THG-Emissionen auf Schweizer Biobetrieben – wo vorhanden – betriebsindividuelle Daten berücksichtigt. Fehlen diese, werden Standarddaten verwendet. Im Modell werden alle erforderlichen Betriebsmittel und Prozesse zur Bewirtschaftung eines Betriebes, bzw. zur Produktion von Nahrungsmitteln berücksichtigt. Hauptbestandteile des Betriebsmodells sind das sogenannte Pflanzenbau- und das Tierproduktionsmodell, welche untereinander über innerbetrieblicher Stoff- und Energieflüsse (organische Dünger, Futtermittel, Stroh) verknüpft sind. Bei einer betrieblichen Bilanz werden die Emissionen der einzelnen Module aufsummiert und bezogen auf die funktionellen Einheiten Fläche*Jahr-1 und Produktion (Masse, Kalorien, Protein, Wertschöpfung) ausgedrückt. Der Energieverbrauch und die THG-Emissionen lassen sich für alle einzelnen Verfahren aus dem Tier- und Pflanzenbaumodell (z.B. Weizenproduktion, Milchproduktion) bilanzieren. Durch seine Flexibilität was Datenerfordernisse, Systemgrenzen und funktionelle Einheiten betrifft, ist das Betriebsmodell sowohl für wissenschaftliche Analysen als auch Betriebsberatungen geeignet. Ein grosser Vorteil des Modells ist die Möglichkeit, verschiedene Klimaschutz und Energieeinsparmassnahmen zu modellieren und so betriebsspezifisch die Auswirkungen der Massnahmen zu untersuchen. Derzeit sind 11 Massnahmen implementiert (z.B. reduzierte Bodenbearbeitung oder Weideanteil vergrössern bzw. standortangepasste Umstellung auf Vollweide), weitere Massnahmen können problemlos integriert werden. Weiterhin ist geplant, das Modell auf andere Nachhaltigkeitskategorien (Luft- und Gewässerbelastung, Humusaufbau, Biodiversität, Ökonomie und Soziales) zu erweitern. Bisher wurde das Betriebsmodell nur auf Bio-Milchvieh und Bio-Gemischtbetrieben angewendet. Für die Abbildung weiterer Betriebstypen (z.B. Obst- und Gemüsebau) sind teilweise Anpassungen am Modell erforderlich. Ziel dieses Papieres ist es, die Funktionsweise und Annahme des Modells transparent zu machen und zur Diskussion zu stellen. Dabei gehen wir zunächst auf das grundlegende Konzept ein und stellen danach die unterschiedlichen Module vor. Für Fragen, Anregungen und konstruktive Kritik sind wir dankbar, da dies für uns ein Mittel ist das Modell stetig weiterzuentwickeln und zu verbessern

A Functional ABCC11 Allele Is Essential in the Biochemical Formation of Human Axillary Odor

The characteristic human axillary odor is formed by bacterial action on odor precursors that originate from apocrine sweat glands. Caucasians and Africans possess a strong axillary odor ,whereas many Asians have only a faint acidic odor. In this study, we provide evidence that the gene ABCC11 (MRP8), which encodes an apical efflux pump, is crucial for the formation of the characteristic axillary odor and that a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) 538G → A, which is prominent among Asian people, leads to a nearly complete loss of the typical odor components in axillary sweat. The secretion of amino-acid conjugates of human-specific odorants is abolished in homozygotic carriers of the SNP, and steroidal odorants and their putative precursors are significantly reduced. Moreover, we show that ABCC11 is expressed and localized in apocrine sweat glands. These data point to a key function of ABCC11 in the secretion of odorants and their precursors from apocrine sweat glands. SNP 538G → A, which also determines human earwax type, is present on an extended haplotype, which has reached >95% frequency in certain populations in recent human evolution. A strong positive selection in mate choice for low-odorant partners with a dysfunctional ABCC11 gene seems a plausible explanation for this striking frequency of a loss-of-function allele