The Role of Dynamic Capabilities While Expanding a Nonprofit Abroad

The purpose of this senior capstone is to research and fully comprehend the dynamic capabilities field of strategic management as well as the experience students at Bryant University’s Zhuhai campus are having. I gained insight into the Bryant Zhuhai student experience by surveying professors and students who have been users of the campus for at least one semester. The data collected from these surveys was analyzed with excel, analysis enabled researchers to identify trends in student experience. The survey questions are tailored to understand the university’s sensing, seizing and transforming capabilities. The sensing question set focuses on uncovering how well Bryant Zhuhai senses students wants and needs, as well as trends in the higher education industry in China. The seizing question set aids us in understanding how quickly the university is able to adapt and innovate to remain current and keep its student’s educations relevant. The transforming question set provides insight into how well the school implements new programs and adjusts to better serve students. Once data has been analyzed the researchers can identify any critical areas needing improvement and develop feasible solutions and action plans that could be implemented to improve The Bryant Zhuhai student experience

Capabilities and Equality of Health I

The concept of capabilities, introduced originally by Sen with the aim to provide a better basis for the theory of inequality, has inspired many researchers but has not found any simple formal representation which might be instrumental in the construction of a comprehensive theory of equality. In the present paper, we present a formalization of the concept of capabilities based on Lancasterian characteristics, whereby a functioning of an individual is a method for transforming an initial position to a final outcome. In this context, we investigate whether preferences over capabilities as sets of functionings can be rationalized by maximization of a suitable utility function over the set of functionings. Such a rationalization turns out to be possible only in cases which must be considered exceptional and which do not allow for interesting applications of the capability approach to questions of health or equality. The conclusion which can be obtained from the predominantly negative results is that a formal description of capabilities much involve ideas which go beyond the simple representation as a family of choice sets.capabilities; characteristics; equality of health

The transformation of earth-system observations into information of socio-economic value in GEOSS

The Group on Earth Observations System of Systems, GEOSS, is a co-ordinated initiative by many nations to address the needs for earth-system information expressed by the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. We discuss the role of earth-system modelling and data assimilation in transforming earth-system observations into the predictive and status-assessment products required by GEOSS, across many areas of socio-economic interest. First we review recent gains in the predictive skill of operational global earth-system models, on time-scales of days to several seasons. We then discuss recent work to develop from the global predictions a diverse set of end-user applications which can meet GEOSS requirements for information of socio-economic benefit; examples include forecasts of coastal storm surges, floods in large river basins, seasonal crop yield forecasts and seasonal lead-time alerts for malaria epidemics. We note ongoing efforts to extend operational earth-system modelling and assimilation capabilities to atmospheric composition, in support of improved services for air-quality forecasts and for treaty assessment. We next sketch likely GEOSS observational requirements in the coming decades. In concluding, we reflect on the cost of earth observations relative to the modest cost of transforming the observations into information of socio-economic value

Exploring Dynamic Capabilities in Open Business Models: The Case of a Public-Private Sector Partnership

The case explores and offers insight into the boundary-spanning dynamic capabilities evidenced by the entrepreneurial CEO of a private-sector family-owned firm from the sensing, seizing and transforming/reconfiguring perspectives during the opportunity identification, evaluation and pursuit of the co-creation of a public-private sector partnership in collaboration with the CEO of a public-sector firm. This partnership, which is situated in a city-region in the North of England, is seen through the lens of an open business model whereby value is co-created and captured outside the boundary of a single firm, and which involves significant financial uncertainty being assigned from the public to the private sector

From Event-B models to Dafny code contracts

International audienceThe constructive approach to software correctness aims at formal modelling and verification of the structure and behaviour of a system in different levels of abstraction. In contrast, the analytical approach to software verification focuses on code level correctness and its verification. Therefore it would seem that the constructive and analytical approaches should complement each other well. To demonstrate this idea we present a case for linking two existing verification methods, Event-B (constructive) and Dafny (analytical). This approach combines the power of Event-B abstraction and its stepwise refinement with the verification capabilities of Dafny. We presented a small case study to demonstrate this approach and outline of the rules for transforming Event-B events to Dafny contracts. Finally, a tool for automatic generation of Dafny contracts from Event-B formal models is presented

The e-government implementation directions in Oman: A preliminay investigation

Electronic government has established itself as the primary enabler for transforming the way government services are offered to citizens. In the gulf countries, public sector transformation efforts are focused towards increasing accessibility, availability, competitive advances and enhancing services in civil administration. The Sultanate of Oman is one such example of the Gulf countries where large investments have been made since 2003 to implement electronic services in the public sector. Using a qualitative research approach, this research investigates the improvements that have been made to facilitate these electronic services in three public organisations, and their resulting impact within the organisations. The empirical results reveal that among others, top management support, integration and IT staff skills and capabilities are the most important factors that facilitate e-government initiatives in the Omani public sector