The Forces of Ecosystem Evolution

Ecosystems are the result of a delicate balance between centripetal forces that push economic activities toward integration, and centrifugal forces that pull economic activities out onto the market. Ecosystems evolve when these forces change. For example, technological complementarities—the main source of centripetal force—are dynamic and may be commoditized, generalized, or standardized over time. Management and coordination also change: for example, open innovation practices enable firms to move innovation activities from the in-house R&D lab out into the ecosystem. This article discusses how such dynamics in technologies and management lead to ecosystem evolution

Assessing Code Authorship: The Case of the Linux Kernel

Code authorship is a key information in large-scale open source systems. Among others, it allows maintainers to assess division of work and identify key collaborators. Interestingly, open-source communities lack guidelines on how to manage authorship. This could be mitigated by setting to build an empirical body of knowledge on how authorship-related measures evolve in successful open-source communities. Towards that direction, we perform a case study on the Linux kernel. Our results show that: (a) only a small portion of developers (26 %) makes significant contributions to the code base; (b) the distribution of the number of files per author is highly skewed --- a small group of top authors (3 %) is responsible for hundreds of files, while most authors (75 %) are responsible for at most 11 files; (c) most authors (62 %) have a specialist profile; (d) authors with a high number of co-authorship connections tend to collaborate with others with less connections.Comment: Accepted at 13th International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS). 12 page

The liminality of trajectory shifts in institutional entrepreneurship

In this paper, we develop a process model of trajectory shifts in institutional entrepreneurship. We focus on the liminal periods experienced by institutional entrepreneurs when they, unlike the rest of the organization, recognize limits in the present and seek to shift a familiar past into an unfamiliar and uncertain future. Such periods involve a situation where the new possible future, not yet fully formed, exists side-by-side with established innovation trajectories. Trajectory shifts are moments of truth for institutional entrepreneurs, but little is known about the underlying mechanisms of how entrepreneurs reflectively deal with liminality to conceive and bring forth new innovation trajectories. Our in-depth case study research at CarCorp traces three such mechanisms (reflective dissension, imaginative projection, and eliminatory exploration) and builds the basis for understanding the liminality of trajectory shifts. The paper offers theoretical implications for the institutional entrepreneurship literature

Macrocalibration in the process of hydraulic modelling of water supply systems

magistrsko del

Addressing Reported Pro-Apoptotic Functions of NF-κB: Targeted Inhibition of Canonical NF-κB Enhances the Apoptotic Effects of Doxorubicin

The ability of the transcription factor NF-κB to upregulate anti-apoptotic proteins has been linked to the chemoresistance of solid tumors to standard chemotherapy. In contrast, recent studies have proposed that, in response to doxorubicin, NF-κB can be pro-apoptotic through repression of anti-apoptotic target genes. However, there is little evidence analyzing the outcome of NF-κB inhibition on the cytotoxicity of doxorubicin in studies describing pro-apoptotic NF-κB activity. In this study, we further characterize the activation of NF-κB in response to doxorubicin and evaluate its role in chemotherapy-induced cell death in sarcoma cells where NF-κB is reported to be pro-apoptotic. Doxorubicin treatment in U2OS cells induced canonical NF-κB activity as evidenced by increased nuclear accumulation of phosphorylated p65 at serine 536 and increased DNA–binding activity. Co-treatment with a small molecule IKKβ inhibitor, Compound A, abrogated this response. RT–PCR evaluation of anti-apoptotic gene expression revealed that doxorubicin-induced transcription of cIAP2 was inhibited by Compound A, while doxorubicin-induced repression of other anti-apoptotic genes was unaffected by Compound A or siRNA to p65. Furthermore, the combination of doxorubicin and canonical NF-κB inhibition with Compound A or siRNA to p65 resulted in decreased cell viability measured by trypan blue staining and MTS assay and increased apoptosis measured by cleaved poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase and cleaved caspase 3 when compared to doxorubicin alone. Our results demonstrate that doxorubicin-induced canonical NF-κB activity associated with phosphorylated p65 is anti-apoptotic in its function and that doxorubicin-induced repression of anti-apoptotic genes occurs independent of p65. Therefore, combination therapies incorporating NF-κB inhibitors together with standard chemotherapies remains a viable method to improve the clinical outcomes in patients with advanced stage malignancies

A knowledge-based framework for service management

peer-reviewedThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how information and communication technologies are used for service standardisation, customisation, and modularisation by knowledge-intensive service firms through the development and empirical validation of a knowledge-based framework. This paper uses 59 in-depth interviews, observational data, and document analysis from case studies of three service-related departments in high-technology, multinational knowledge-intensive business services (KIBSs). Prior research does not conceptualise the relationships between service customisation, standardisation and modularisation. This paper seeks to overcome this gap by integrating insights from research on the role played by both knowledge and information and communication technologies (ICTs) to construct and validate a framework to deal with this gap. It outlines the implications for service firms' use of ICT to deal with increasing knowledge intensity as well as indicating the circumstances under which service knowledge is best customised, standardised and modularised. Further testing in other industries would prove useful in extending the usefulness and applicability of the findings. The originality of the paper lies in developing and validating the first framework to outline the relationship between how service knowledge is customised, standardised or modularised and indicating the associated issues and challenges. It emphasises the role of knowledge and technology. The value of this framework increases as more firms deal with increasing knowledge intensity in the services they provide and in their use of ICTs to reap the benefits of appropriate knowledge reuse.ACCEPTEDpeer-reviewe

Testing in the incremental design and development of complex products

Testing is an important aspect of design and development which consumes significant time and resource in many companies. However, it has received less research attention than many other activities in product development, and especially, very few publications report empirical studies of engineering testing. Such studies are needed to establish the importance of testing and inform the development of pragmatic support methods. This paper combines insights from literature study with findings from three empirical studies of testing. The case studies concern incrementally developed complex products in the automotive domain. A description of testing practice as observed in these studies is provided, confirming that testing activities are used for multiple purposes depending on the context, and are intertwined with design from start to finish of the development process, not done after it as many models depict. Descriptive process models are developed to indicate some of the key insights, and opportunities for further research are suggested

Digital Platforms in the Global South: Foundations and Research Agenda

Digital platforms have become integral to many of the everyday activities that people across the globe encounter in areas like transportation, commerce and social interactions. Research on the topic has largely concentrated on the general functioning of these platforms in terms of platform governance, business strategies and consumer behaviour. Despite their significant presence in the global South, the developmental implications of digital platforms remain largely understudied. In part, this is because digital platforms are a challenging research object due to their lack of conceptual definition, their spread across different regions and industries, and their intertwined nature with institutions, actors and digital technologies. The aim of this paper is therefore twofold: to provide a conceptual definition of digital platforms, and to identify research strands in international development contexts. To do so, we draw from digital platforms literature, differentiate between transaction and innovation platforms and expose their main characteristics. We the present four strands in the form of research questions, illustrated with concrete examples, that can assist to pursue relevant studies on digital platforms and international development in the future

Patterns of sick-leave and health outcomes in injured workers with back pain

Little is known about the sick-leave experiences of workers who make a workers’ compensation claim for back pain. Our objective is to describe the 1-year patterns of sick-leave and the health outcomes of a cohort of workers who make a workers’ compensation claim for back pain. We studied a cohort of 1,831 workers from five large US firms who made incident workers’ compensation claims for back pain between January 1, 1999 and June 30, 2002. Injured workers were interviewed 1 month (n = 1,321), 6 months (n = 810) and 1 year (n = 462) following the onset of their pain. We described the course of back pain using four patterns of sick-leave: (1) no sick-leave, (2) returned to worked and stayed, (3) multiple episodes of sick-leave and (4) not yet returned to work. We described the health outcomes as back and/or leg pain intensity, functional limitations and health-related quality of life. We analyzed data from participants who completed all follow-up interviews (n = 457) to compute the probabilities of transition between patterns of sick-leave. A significant proportion of workers experienced multiple episodes of sick-leave (30.2%; 95% CI 25.0–35.1) during the 1-year follow-up. The proportion of workers who did not report sick-leave declined from 42.4% (95% CI 39.0–46.1) at 1 month to 33.6% (28.0–38.7) at 1 year. One year after the injury, 2.9% (1.6–4.9) of workers had not yet returned to work. Workers who did not report sick-leave and those who returned and stayed at work reported better health outcomes than workers who experienced multiple episodes of sick-leave or workers who had not returned to work. Almost a third of workers with an incident episode of back pain experience recurrent spells of work absenteeism during the following year. Our data suggest that stable patterns of sick-leave are associated with better health