Embedding sustainability in design education: the case of design project on systemic changes for sustainable businesses based on upcycling

Sustainable design education has become a prevalent practice in design education. Ramirez’s (2007) worldwide survey shows that the majority of the programmes have either compulsory or optional modules on sustainable design. In particular, projects in sustainable design studio modules often deal with social or environmental sustainability issues with little attention to the practice of design for systemic changes for sustainable businesses. This paper aims to provide one such case: design project on how to scale-up sustainable businesses based on upcycling through systemic changes. A half-day student design workshop was co-planned and organised by De Montfort University and the University of Liverpool. Second-year undergraduate students in Industrial Design, University of Liverpool participated as part of Product Development 2 module. Throughout the workshop, participating students learned different approaches to sustainable design, production and consumption, challenges faced by upcycling-based businesses in the UK, and how to generate and develop ideas, concepts and system maps to resolve complex design problems involving multiple stakeholders

Systemic intervention for computer-supported collaborative learning

This paper presents a systemic intervention approach as a means to overcome the methodological challenges involved in research into computer-supported collaborative learning applied to the promotion of mathematical problem-solving (CSCL-MPS) skills in schools. These challenges include how to develop an integrated analysis of several aspects of the learning process; and how to reflect on learning purposes, the context of application and participants' identities. The focus of systemic intervention is on processes for thinking through whose views and what issues and values should be considered pertinent in an analysis. Systemic intervention also advocates mixing methods from different traditions to address the purposes of multiple stakeholders. Consequently, a design for CSCL-MPS research is presented that includes several methods. This methodological design is used to analyse and reflect upon both a CSCL-MPS project with Colombian schools, and the identities of the participants in that project

Default risk in an interconnected banking system with endogeneous asset markets : [Version: August 2011]

This paper analyzes the emergence of systemic risk in a network model of interconnected bank balance sheets. Given a shock to asset values of one or several banks, systemic risk in the form of multiple bank defaults depends on the strength of balance sheets and asset market liquidity. The price of bank assets on the secondary market is endogenous in the model, thereby relating funding liquidity to expected solvency - an important stylized fact of banking crises. Based on the concept of a system value at risk, Shapley values are used to define the systemic risk charge levied upon individual banks. Using a parallelized simulated annealing algorithm the properties of an optimal charge are derived. Among other things we find that there is not necessarily a correspondence between a bank's contribution to systemic risk - which determines its risk charge - and the capital that is optimally injected into it to make the financial system more resilient to systemic risk. The analysis has policy implications for the design of optimal bank levies. JEL Classification: G01, G18, G33 Keywords: Systemic Risk, Systemic Risk Charge, Systemic Risk Fund, Macroprudential Supervision, Shapley Value, Financial Networ

Systemic Design in Energy sector: theory and case studies

In the light of the growing concern about climate change, an important part of resource exploitation from industrial society is connected to energy use. Integration of companies through material and energy exchanges lead to a more efficient use of resources as well as financial, social and environmental benefits for the local entities involved, as Systemic Design approach proves. This research analyzes seven best-practices in Sweden, which since the Eighties realizes green energy plants, to understand key-drivers and barriers. Research coordinators can facilitate the creation of self-sustaining network of companie

Some reflections on a knowledge transfer strategy: a systemic inquiry

This paper presents a case study of a systemic inquiry into a knowledge transfer strategy (KTS) by a division of a UK Ministry. Two main points are made. Firstly that it is possible to 'build' a generalisable form of practice as a response to experiences of complexity by initiating a systemic inquiry that fosters the emergence of a learning system. Secondly, that exploring how metaphors reveal and conceal offers scope for shifting the 'mental furniture' of participants as part of a systemic inquiry. This inquiry proceeded with a process designed for the circumstances - there are no blue-prints. A key design aspiration was that those participating might experience a coherence between espoused theory and theory in use in relation to considering the KTS as if it were a second-order learning system. In this aim it succeeded. The inquiry suggested two sets of considerations for the design of learning systems and a potentially fruitful line of further inquiry

Safety Net Design and Systemic Risk: New Empirical Evidence

Recent econometric evidence has noticeably changed views on the desirability and the appropriate design of explicit Deposit Insurance Schemes (DIS). The purpose of this paper is to take a second look at the data. After surveying recent empirical work and providing a theoretical framework, we argue that existing studies may suffer from a selection bias. Building on a new database on explicit deposit insurance compiled by the author, we perform a variety of semi-parametric and parametric tests to see whether and how explicit deposit insurance (de)stabilizes banking systems. We find that the evidence indeed suggests that a selection bias is present. Controlling for this bias leads to a reassessment of recent studies. In particular, making deposit insurance explicit has a rather moderate and, if any, stabilizing effect on the probability of experiencing a systemic crisis.Deposit Insurance ; Banking Fragility ; Systemic Risk

Fictional Game Elements: Critical Perspectives on Gamification Design

Gamification has been widely accepted in the HCI community in the last few years. However, the current debate is focused on its short-term consequences, such as effectiveness and usefulness, while its side-effects, long-term criticalities and systemic impacts are rarely raised. This workshop will explore the gamification design space from a critical perspective, by using design fictions to help researchers reflect on the long-term consequences of their designs

Systemic capabilities: the source of IT business value

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop, and explicate the significance of the need for a systemic conceptual framework for understanding IT business value. Design/methodology/approach – Embracing a systems perspective, this paper examines the interrelationship between IT and other organisational factors at the organisational level and its impact on the business value of IT. As a result, a systemic conceptual framework for understanding IT business value is developed. An example of enhancing IT business value through developing systemic capabilities is then used to test and demonstrate the value of this framework. Findings – The findings suggest that IT business value would be significantly enhanced when systemic capabilities are generated from the synergistic interrelations among IT and other organisational factors at the systems level, while the system’s human agents play a critical role in developing systemic capabilities by purposely configuring and reconfiguring organisational factors. Practical implications – The conceptual framework advanced provides the means to recognise the significance of the need for understanding IT business value systemically and dynamically. It encourages an organisation to focus on developing systemic capabilities by ensuring that IT and other organisational factors work together as a synergistic whole, better managing the role its human agents play in shaping the systems interrelations, and developing and redeveloping systemic capabilities by configuring its subsystems purposely with the changing business environment. Originality/value – This paper reveals the nature of systemic capabilities underpinned by a systems perspective. The resultant systemic conceptual framework for understanding IT business value can help us move away from pairwise resource complementarity to focusing on the whole system and its interrelations while responding to the changing business environment. It is hoped that the framework can help organisations delineate important IT investment considerations and the priorities that they must adopt to create superior IT business value

Design methods for systemic design research

Systemic design is distinguished from user-oriented design practice in terms of its expansive boundaries, its embrace of social complexity, and its preferred objective of systemic integration rather than market differentiation. Systemic design is concerned with higher-order socially-organized systems that encompass multiple subsystems in a complex policy, organizational or product-service context. By integrating systems thinking and its methods, systemic design brings human-centered design to complex, multi-stakeholder service systems as those found in industrial networks, transportation, medicine and healthcare. It adapts from known design competencies – form and process reasoning, social and generative research methods, and sketching and visualization practices – to describe, map, propose and reconfigure complex services and systems. The recent development of systemic design as a research-based practice draws on long-held precedents in the system sciences toward representation of complex social and enterprise systems. A precedent article, published as Systemic Design Principles for Complex Social Systems (Jones, 2014) established an axiomatic and epistemological basis for complementary principles shared between design reasoning and systems theory. The current paper aims to establish a basis for identifying shared methods (techne, in Aristotelian terms) and action practice (or phronesis)

Banking Concentration: Implications for Systemic Risk and Safety Net Design

This paper explores the impact of banking concentration on safety net design –in particular, deposit insurance– and on systemic risk. The paper focuses on a system characterized by high concentration and low total number of banks. Each issue is addressed separately. The first section discusses best practices in deposit insurance design and derives conclusions for the case we are interested in. One is that in this context deposit insurance cannot be thought of as a stand-alone instrument, but rather must be understood as an element of the intervention and resolution policy. The second part of the paper studies systemic risk in such a system, using the Eisenberg and Noe (2001) approach to model and study risk in a network of banks. A working metric of the “too big to fail” situation can be derived in the model. More importantly, this section shows how the risk of idiosyncratic shocks spreading through the system are substantially higher in concentrated systems than in decentralized ones. Finally, the paper proposes and evaluates a specific regulatory measure that successfully contains systemic risk.