Application of fuzzy AHP approach to selection of organizational structure with consideration to contextual dimensions

The literature of organizational structure design is relatively rich along with conceptual and complex patterns. This complexity arising from the number of elements and numerous relations in addition to the nature of variables. Thereby, the lack of operational decision-making models is felt to propose adequate structural designs in practice. In this article, the researchers employ a fuzzy multi attribute decision making model (FMADM) to select the most suitable organizational structure based on expert’s judgments and by deploying contextual dimensions of the organization. Since the organizational changes especially in the structural levels are along with resistances among involved staffs, the implementation of this model is a supportive tool in addition to help the managers to make a qualified decision and change.©2012 the Authors. Published by De Gruyter Open. Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY–NC–ND 4.0) license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Strategic variables of commercialization of renewable energy technologies

Utilization of renewable energy sources, as domestic and local natural resources, has important role among the energy policies of the governments. However, diffusion of renewable energy technologies have faced with challenges that slow the development plans and affect security of energy supply. As commercialization is an important contributor to successful diffusion and adaptation of a technology, this research studies the role of commercialization of renewable energy technologies and identifies the key factors of commercialization. A decision matrix is also presented to show the best government strategies for successful commercialization of renewable energy products and services. The contributions help researchers and policy makers to focus more on the strategic variables of commercialization of renewable energy technologies.©2015 AIP Publishing. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. This article appeared in Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy and may be found at https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4914078.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Knowledge sharing: a survey, assessment and directions for future research: individual behavior perspective

One of the most important areas of knowledge management studies is knowledge sharing. Measured in terms of number of scientific articles and organization-s applications, knowledge sharing stands as an example of success in the field. This paper reviews the related papers in the context of the underlying individual behavioral variables to providea direction framework for future research and writing.©2012 World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology. Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution(CC BY) license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Anyone may copy, distribute, or reuse these articles, as long as the author and original source are properly cited.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Evaluation of renewable energy development in power generation in Finland

Renewable energy resources have historically played an important role for heat/electricity generation in Finland. Although diffusion costs of renewable energy utilization are higher than fossil fuels and nuclear power plants, other policy aspects and operation costs of renewables cover this gap particularly in high dependent countries to fossil fuels. The current paper discusses the role of renewable portfolio in the Finland's energy action plan during 2011–2020. A system dynamics model is constructed to evaluate different costs of renewable energy utilization by 2020. Results show that total costs of new capacities of renewable energy systems as well as operation and maintenance costs of current systems bring 7% saving compared to total costs of new natural gas power plants (as a sample for second scenario) in Finland.©2013 AIP Publishing LCC. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. This article appeared in Journal of renewable and sustainable energy 5(6) in 2012, and may be found at https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4855095.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Application of creativity techniques in the creation of organizational strategies

The majority of studies in the field of organizational strategies have concentrated on strategy formulation, distinct from strategy implementation. Disunion of these two processes often leads to disappointing results in the implementation of strategy. In such a condition, the creation of a suitable strategy in a way that could resolve the divergence of formulation from implementation is suggested by researchers. This means that the implementers of a strategy turn into the formulators. Therefore, presenting creative ideas and solutions is encouraged between related organizational staff at different levels. Noting that the possibility of emerging creative ideas in organizational meetings between persons from different organizational levels is low, fostering creativity and innovation techniques can be an ideal solution for successful group meetings. In this paper, after introducing the effective criteria that should be considered in the creation of collective action strategies in organizations, the suitable techniques for fostering creativity in this kind of meeting will be ranked based on the Fuzzy MADM approach.©2012 the Authors, licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Development of creativity in concurrent engineering teams

The development of successful new products is today of challenge to most consumer product companies. They have to short their response time, pushing their development processes to move faster while keeping on competitive prices and quality. These caused companies are forced to find effective and innovative approaches as work methods to overcome to pressures. Concurrent Engineering (CE) is one of the approaches to address these managerial and manufacturing dilemmas in new product projects. The basic premise of CE revolves around team working. However, most of the managers especially project managers face with problems when they want to promote teamwork culture, especially in conditions that the project faces with complicated problems. In this condition, a creative team consists of members from different levels of the organizational hierarchy must be shaped. There are always barriers in group meetings that influence growth and diffusion of creative solutions and would be reduced by using creativity and innovation techniques. The first purpose of this study is to identify the effective criteria in success of creative meetings in CE projects. Next, the prioritization of each factor has been analyzed and ranked respectively. Finally, based on the results of previous research of the authors, the useful group creativity and innovation techniques related with team work meetings in CE projects have been ranked by using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) approach.©2012 the Authors. Published by Scientific Research Publishing. Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY–NC–ND 4.0) license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Toward Sustainable Energy-Independent Buildings Using Internet of Things

Buildings are one of the primary consumers of energy. In addition to the electricity grids, renewable energies can be used to supply the energy demand of buildings. Intelligent systems such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and wireless sensor technologies can also be applied to manage the energy consumption in buildings. Fortunately, integrating renewable energies with these intelligent systems enables creating nearly zero-energy buildings. In this paper, we present the results of our experimentation to demonstrate forming such a building and showing the benefits for building users and the society. We create a system by integrating photovoltaic (PV) technology with an IoT-based control mechanism to supply and consume energy. We further illustrate “how the integration of IoT and PV technology can bring added value to the users?”. To this end, we evaluate the performance of our system against conventional ways of energy supply and consumption for a lighting use case in a dairy store. We also investigate the environmental and economic impacts of our system. In our implementation, for the IoT-based control system, we have used a set of sensors, a server, and a wireless network to control the energy consumption. We developed a web application for user interaction and software-based settings. To control the lighting system, we developed an algorithm that utilizes the ambient light, users’ movements inside the store and a historical dataset. The historical dataset was collected from the users’ behaviour as a training set for the algorithm for turning on and off the lights. We also designed an electricity management system that computes the energy generation by the PV panels, controls the energy supply, and imports and exports electricity to the grid. The results show that our system is an efficient approach for creating energy-independent buildings by integrating renewable energies with IoT-based control systems. The results also show that our system not only responds to the internal demand by using domestic supply, but it also (i) offers economic benefit by exporting extra renewable electricity to the grid, and (ii) prevents producing huge amounts of CO2. Our system is one of the first works to achieve a nearly zero-energy building in the developing countries with low electricity accessibility

Toward Sustainable Energy-Independent Buildings Using Internet of Things

Buildings are one of the primary consumers of energy. In addition to the electricity grids, renewable energies can be used to supply the energy demand of buildings. Intelligent systems such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and wireless sensor technologies can also be applied to manage the energy consumption in buildings. Fortunately, integrating renewable energies with these intelligent systems enables creating nearly zero-energy buildings. In this paper, we present the results of our experimentation to demonstrate forming such a building and showing the benefits for building users and the society. We create a system by integrating photovoltaic (PV) technology with an IoT-based control mechanism to supply and consume energy. We further illustrate “how the integration of IoT and PV technology can bring added value to the users?”. To this end, we evaluate the performance of our system against conventional ways of energy supply and consumption for a lighting use case in a dairy store. We also investigate the environmental and economic impacts of our system. In our implementation, for the IoT-based control system, we have used a set of sensors, a server, and a wireless network to control the energy consumption. We developed a web application for user interaction and software-based settings. To control the lighting system, we developed an algorithm that utilizes the ambient light, users’ movements inside the store and a historical dataset. The historical dataset was collected from the users’ behaviour as a training set for the algorithm for turning on and off the lights. We also designed an electricity management system that computes the energy generation by the PV panels, controls the energy supply, and imports and exports electricity to the grid. The results show that our system is an efficient approach for creating energy-independent buildings by integrating renewable energies with IoT-based control systems. The results also show that our system not only responds to the internal demand by using domestic supply, but it also (i) offers economic benefit by exporting extra renewable electricity to the grid, and (ii) prevents producing huge amounts of CO2. Our system is one of the first works to achieve a nearly zero-energy building in the developing countries with low electricity accessibility