Organisational learning, strategic rigidity and technology adoption: Implications for electric utilities and renewable energy firms

This paper examines the implications of strategic rigidness for technology adoption behaviours among electric utilities. Such behaviours lead to heterogeneity in firm performance and consequently affect the electric utility industry. The paper's central aim is to identify and describe the implications of strategic rigidness for a utility firm's decision making in adopting newer renewable energy technologies. The findings indicate that not all utility firms are keen to adopt these new technologies, as these firms have traditionally been operating efficiently with a more conventional and mature technological arrangement that has become embedded in the organisational routine. Case studies of Iberdrola S.A. and Enel S.p.A. as major electric utilities are detailed to document mergers and acquisitions and technology adoption decisions. The results indicate that technology adoption behaviours vary widely across utility firms with different organisational learning processes and core capabilities.

Strategic rigidity and foresight for technology adoption among electric utilities

The variation in the adoption of a technology as a major source of competitive advantage has been attributed to the wide-ranging strategic foresight and the integrative capability of a firm. These possible areas of competitive advantage can exist in the periphery of the firm's strategic vision and can get easily blurred as a result of rigidness and can permeate in the decision-making process of the firm. This article explores how electric utility firms with a renewable energy portfolio can become strategically rigid in terms of adoption of newer technologies. The reluctance or delay in the adoption of new technology can be characterized as strategic rigidness, brought upon as a result of a firm's core competence or core capability in the other, more conventional technology arrangement. This paper explores the implications of such rigidness on the performance of a firm and consequently on the energy eco-system. The paper substantiates the results by emphasizing the case of Iberdrola S.A., an incumbent firm as a wind energy developer and its adoption decision behavior. We illustrate that the very routines that create competitive advantage for firms in the electric utility industry are vulnerable as they might also develop as sources of competitive disadvantage, when firms confront environmental change and uncertainty.

A review and a conceptual framework of the key value drivers of mass customisation

The aim of this paper is to conceptualise the key value drivers of mass customisation in order to provide a structured approach to explain the added value that customers attribute to mass customised products. We assume that the added value of mass customisation is ultimately reflected in an increased willingness to pay. Previous studies show diverse results concerning customers' willingness to pay for mass customised products. We contribute to the existing body of research by suggesting and discussing the influence of general product characteristics and factors of the mass customisation approach on the key value drivers of mass customisation. Furthermore, the development of a conceptual framework offers explanations for the dissimilarity in customers' willingness to pay and advances the knowledge about the value increment of mass customised products as perceived by customers.

Efficiency analysis of information technology and online social networks management : an integrated DEA-Model assessment

This paper analyses the relationship between productive efficiency and online-social-networks (OSN) in Spanish telecommunications firms. A data-envelopment-analysis (DEA) is used and several indicators of business ?social Media? activities are incorporated. A super-efficiency analysis and bootstrapping techniques are performed to increase the model?s robustness and accuracy. Then, a logistic regression model is applied to characterise factors and drivers of good performance in OSN. Results reveal the company?s ability to absorb and utilise OSNs as a key factor in improving the productive efficiency. This paper presents a model for assessing the strategic performance of the presence and activity in OSN.

Application of Agent Technology for Fault Diagnosis of Telecommunication Networks

La presente tesis doctoral contribuye al problema del diagnóstico autonómico de fallos en redes de telecomunicación. En las redes de telecomunicación actuales, las operadoras realizan tareas de diagnóstico de forma manual. Dichas operaciones deben ser llevadas a cabo por ingenieros altamente cualificados que cada vez tienen más dificultades a la hora de gestionar debidamente el crecimiento exponencial de la red tanto en tamaño, complejidad y heterogeneidad. Además, el advenimiento del Internet del Futuro hace que la demanda de sistemas que simplifiquen y automaticen la gestión de las redes de telecomunicación se haya incrementado en los últimos años. Para extraer el conocimiento necesario para desarrollar las soluciones propuestas y facilitar su adopción por los operadores de red, se propone una metodología de pruebas de aceptación para sistemas multi-agente enfocada en simplificar la comunicación entre los diferentes grupos de trabajo involucrados en todo proyecto de desarrollo software: clientes y desarrolladores. Para contribuir a la solución del problema del diagnóstico autonómico de fallos, se propone una arquitectura de agente capaz de diagnosticar fallos en redes de telecomunicación de manera autónoma. Dicha arquitectura extiende el modelo de agente Belief-Desire- Intention (BDI) con diferentes modelos de diagnóstico que gestionan las diferentes sub-tareas del proceso. La arquitectura propuesta combina diferentes técnicas de razonamiento para alcanzar su propósito gracias a un modelo estructural de la red, que usa razonamiento basado en ontologías, y un modelo causal de fallos, que usa razonamiento Bayesiano para gestionar debidamente la incertidumbre del proceso de diagnóstico. Para asegurar la adecuación de la arquitectura propuesta en situaciones de gran complejidad y heterogeneidad, se propone un marco de argumentación que permite diagnosticar a agentes que estén ejecutando en dominios federados. Para la aplicación de este marco en un sistema multi-agente, se propone un protocolo de coordinación en el que los agentes dialogan hasta alcanzar una conclusión para un caso de diagnóstico concreto. Como trabajos futuros, se consideran la extensión de la arquitectura para abordar otros problemas de gestión como el auto-descubrimiento o la auto-optimización, el uso de técnicas de reputación dentro del marco de argumentación para mejorar la extensibilidad del sistema de diagnóstico en entornos federados y la aplicación de las arquitecturas propuestas en las arquitecturas de red emergentes, como SDN, que ofrecen mayor capacidad de interacción con la red. ABSTRACT This PhD thesis contributes to the problem of autonomic fault diagnosis of telecommunication networks. Nowadays, in telecommunication networks, operators perform manual diagnosis tasks. Those operations must be carried out by high skilled network engineers which have increasing difficulties to properly manage the growing of those networks, both in size, complexity and heterogeneity. Moreover, the advent of the Future Internet makes the demand of solutions which simplifies and automates the telecommunication network management has been increased in recent years. To collect the domain knowledge required to developed the proposed solutions and to simplify its adoption by the operators, an agile testing methodology is defined for multiagent systems. This methodology is focused on the communication gap between the different work groups involved in any software development project, stakeholders and developers. To contribute to overcoming the problem of autonomic fault diagnosis, an agent architecture for fault diagnosis of telecommunication networks is defined. That architecture extends the Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) agent model with different diagnostic models which handle the different subtasks of the process. The proposed architecture combines different reasoning techniques to achieve its objective using a structural model of the network, which uses ontology-based reasoning, and a causal model, which uses Bayesian reasoning to properly handle the uncertainty of the diagnosis process. To ensure the suitability of the proposed architecture in complex and heterogeneous environments, an argumentation framework is defined. This framework allows agents to perform fault diagnosis in federated domains. To apply this framework in a multi-agent system, a coordination protocol is defined. This protocol is used by agents to dialogue until a reliable conclusion for a specific diagnosis case is reached. Future work comprises the further extension of the agent architecture to approach other managements problems, such as self-discovery or self-optimisation; the application of reputation techniques in the argumentation framework to improve the extensibility of the diagnostic system in federated domains; and the application of the proposed agent architecture in emergent networking architectures, such as SDN, which offers new capabilities of control for the network.

The state of semantic technology today - overview of the first SEALS evaluation campaigns

This paper describes the first five SEALS Evaluation Campaigns over the semantic technologies covered by the SEALS project (ontology engineering tools, ontology reasoning tools, ontology matching tools, semantic search tools, and semantic web service tools). It presents the evaluations and test data used in these campaigns and the tools that participated in them along with a comparative analysis of their results. It also presents some lessons learnt after the execution of the evaluation campaigns and draws some final conclusions.

The human side of social technology for climate change mitigation and human development: the case of "efficient stoves" in Brazil

Carbon management has gradually gained attention within the overall environmental management and corporate social responsibility agendas. The clean development mechanism, from Kyoto Protocol, was envisioned as connecting carbon market and sustainable development objectives in developing countries. Previous research has shown that this potential is rarely being achieved. The paper explores how the incorporation of the human side into carbon management reinforces its contribution to generate human development in local communities and to improve the company's image. A case study of a Brazilian company is presented, with the results of the application of an analytical model that incorporates the human side and human development. The selected project is an "efficient stoves" programme. "Efficient stoves" are recognised in Brazil as social technologies. Results suggest that the fact that social technologies value the human side of the technology plays a key role when it comes to analysing the co-benefits of the project implementation.

Progress on the development of a technology for silicon purification

The polysilicon market is experiencing tremendous changes due to the strong demand from Photovoltaics (PV), which has by far surpassed the demand from Microelectronics. The need of solar silicon has induced a large increase in capacity, which has now given a scenario of oversupply, reducing the polysilicon price to levels that put a strong pressure on the cost structure of the producers. The paper reports on the R&D efforts carried out in the field of solar silicon purification via the chlorosilane route by a private-public consortium that is building a pilot plant of 50-100 tonnes/year, that will synthesize trichlorosilane, purify it and deposit ultrapure silicon in an industrial-size Siemens type reactor. It has also capabilities for ingot growth and material characterization. A couple of examples of the progress so far are given, the first one related to the recycling scheme of chlorinated compounds, and the second to the minimization of radiation losses in the CVD deposition process, which account for a relevant part of the total energy consumption. In summary, the paper gives details on the technology being developed in our pilot plant, which offers a unique platform for field-testing of innovative approaches that can lead to a cost reduction of solar silicon produced via the chlorosilane route.

Nitrous oxide emissions from European agriculture - an analysis of variability and drivers of emissions from field experiments

Nitrous oxide emissions from a network of agricultural experiments in Europe were used to explore the relative importance of site and management controls of emissions. At each site, a selection of management interventions were compared within replicated experimental designs in plot-based experiments. Arable experiments were conducted at Beano in Italy, El Encin in Spain, Foulum in Denmark, Logarden in Sweden, Maulde in Belgium CE1, Paulinenaue in Germany, and Tulloch in the UK. Grassland experiments were conducted at Crichton, Nafferton and Peaknaze in the UK, Godollo in Hungary, Rzecin in Poland, Zarnekow in Germany and Theix in France. Nitrous oxide emissions were measured at each site over a period of at least two years using static chambers. Emissions varied widely between sites and as a result of manipulation treatments. Average site emissions (throughout the study period) varied between 0.04 and 21.21 kg N2O-N ha−1yr−1, with the largest fluxes and variability associated with the grassland sites. Total nitrogen addition was found to be the single most important deter- minant of emissions, accounting for 15 % of the variance (using linear regression) in the data from the arable sites (p<0.0001), and 77 % in the grassland sites. The annual emissions from arable sites were significantly greater than those that would be predicted by IPCC default emission fac- tors. Variability of N2O emissions within sites that occurred as a result of manipulation treatments was greater than that resulting from site-to-site and year-to-year variation, highlighting the importance of management interventions in contributing to greenhouse gas mitigation

Analysis of the traded volume drivers of the Iberian power futures market

A comprehensive assessment of the liquidity development in the Iberian power futures market managed by OMIP (“Operador do Mercado Ibérico de Energia, Pólo Português”) in its first 4 years of existence is performed. This market started on July 2006. A regression model tracking the evolution of the traded volumes in the continuous market is built as a function of 12 potential liquidity drivers. The only significant drivers are the traded volumes in OMIP compulsory auctions, the traded volumes in the “Over The Counter” (OTC) market, and the OTC cleared volumes in OMIP clearing house (OMIClear). Furthermore, the enrollment of financial members shows strong correlation with the traded volumes in the continuous market. OMIP liquidity is still far from the levels reached by the most mature European markets (Nord Pool and EEX). The market operator and its clearing house could develop efficient marketing actions to attract new entrants active in the spot market (energy intensive industries, suppliers, and small producers) as well as volumes from the opaque OTC market, and to improve the performance of existing illiquid products. An active dialogue with all the stakeholders (market participants, spot market operator, and supervisory authorities) will help to implement such actions.

Understanding the main drivers of value creation in an open innovation program

Innovation has been identified as the single most relevant element in fuelling corporations’ competitive advantage and ultimate value creation. Corporations no longer rely on a single, linear structure of innovation; the new paradigm of open innovation opens up new possibilities of organizing innovation within the ecosystem, thus giving rise to new drivers for value creation. These value drivers have an impact on the strategic position of the firm and have the ability to create superior financial performance. In this paper we explore the close relationship between open innovation and value creation and propose a framework to analyze this process as well as the most critical elements involved.

An Analysis of the Influence of Students´ Technological Culture on Their Technology

decade has raised the interest among the research community on the acceptance and use of these systems by both teachers and students. At first, the implementation of LMS was based on their technical design and the adaptation of the learning processes to the virtual environment, neglecting students’ characteristics when the systems were deployed, which led to expensive and failing implementations. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) proposes a framework which allows the study of the acceptance and use of technology that takes into consideration the students’ characteristics and how they affect the acceptance and the degree of use of educational technology. This study questions the role of the user’s attitude towards use of LMS and uses the UTAUT to examine the moderating effect of technological culture in the adoption of LMS in Spain. The results from the comparison and analysis of three different models confirm the relevance of attitude towards use as an antecedent of intention to use the system, as well as the important moderating effect of gender and technological culture. The discussion of results suggests the need for a more in-depth analysis and interrelations of cultural dimensions in the adoption of educational technologies and learning management systems

A multi-level analysis of innovation diffusion: The case of solar photovoltaic systems in Germany and the disillusion of grid parity

¿Suministrarán las fuentes de energía renovables toda la energía que el mundo necesita algún día? Algunos argumentan que sí, mientras que otros dicen que no. Sin embargo, en algunas regiones del mundo, la producción de electricidad a través de fuentes de energía renovables ya está en una etapa prometedora de desarrollo en la que su costo de generación de electricidad compite con fuentes de electricidad convencionales, como por ejemplo la paridad de red. Este logro ha sido respaldado por el aumento de la eficiencia de la tecnología, la reducción de los costos de producción y, sobre todo, los años de intervenciones políticas de apoyo financiero. La difusión de los sistemas solares fotovoltaicos (PV) en Alemania es un ejemplo relevante. Alemania no sólo es el país líder en términos de capacidad instalada de sistemas fotovoltaicos (PV) en todo el mundo, sino también uno de los países pioneros donde la paridad de red se ha logrado recientemente. No obstante, podría haber una nube en el horizonte. La tasa de difusión ha comenzado a declinar en muchas regiones. Además, las empresas solares locales – que se sabe son importantes impulsores de la difusión – han comenzado a enfrentar dificultades para manejar sus negocios. Estos acontecimientos plantean algunas preguntas importantes: ¿Es ésta una disminución temporal en la difusión? ¿Los adoptantes continuarán instalando sistemas fotovoltaicos? ¿Qué pasa con los modelos de negocio de las empresas solares locales? Con base en el caso de los sistemas fotovoltaicos en Alemania a través de un análisis multinivel y dos revisiones literarias complementarias, esta tesis doctoral extiende el debate proporcionando riqueza múltiple de datos empíricos en un conocimiento de contexto limitado. El primer análisis se basa en la perspectiva del adoptante, que explora el nivel "micro" y el proceso social que subyace a la adopción de los sistemas fotovoltaicos. El segundo análisis es una perspectiva a nivel de empresa, que explora los modelos de negocio de las empresas y sus roles impulsores en la difusión de los sistemas fotovoltaicos. El tercero análisis es una perspectiva regional, la cual explora el nivel "meso", el proceso social que subyace a la adopción de sistemas fotovoltaicos y sus técnicas de modelado. Los resultados incluyen implicaciones tanto para académicos como políticos, no sólo sobre las innovaciones en energía renovable relativas a la paridad de red, sino también, de manera inductiva, sobre las innovaciones ambientales impulsadas por las políticas que logren la competitividad de costes. ABSTRACT Will renewable energy sources supply all of the world energy needs one day? Some argue yes, while others say no. However, in some regions of the world, the electricity production through renewable energy sources is already at a promising stage of development at which their electricity generation costs compete with conventional electricity sources’, i.e., grid parity. This achievement has been underpinned by the increase of technology efficiency, reduction of production costs and, above all, years of policy interventions of providing financial support. The diffusion of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in Germany is an important frontrunner case in point. Germany is not only the top country in terms of installed PV systems’ capacity worldwide but also one of the pioneer countries where the grid parity has recently been achieved. However, there might be a cloud on the horizon. The diffusion rate has started to decline in many regions. In addition, local solar firms – which are known to be important drivers of diffusion – have started to face difficulties to run their businesses. These developments raise some important questions: Is this a temporary decline on diffusion? Will adopters continue to install PV systems? What about the business models of the local solar firms? Based on the case of PV systems in Germany through a multi-level analysis and two complementary literature reviews, this PhD Dissertation extends the debate by providing multiple wealth of empirical details in a context-limited knowledge. The first analysis is based on the adopter perspective, which explores the “micro” level and the social process underlying the adoption of PV systems. The second one is a firm-level perspective, which explores the business models of firms and their driving roles in diffusion of PV systems. The third one is a regional perspective, which explores the “meso” level, i.e., the social process underlying the adoption of PV systems and its modeling techniques. The results include implications for both scholars and policymakers, not only about renewable energy innovations at grid parity, but also in an inductive manner, about policy-driven environmental innovations that achieve the cost competiveness.

Barriers to the adoption of photovoltaic systems: The state of the art

Although photovoltaic (PV) systems have become much more competitive, the diffusion of PV systems still remains low in comparison to conventional energy sources. What are the current barriers hindering the diffusion of PV systems? In order to address this, we conducted an extensive and systematic literature review based on the Web of Science database. Our state-of-the-art review shows that, despite the rapid development and maturity of the technology during the past few years, the adoption of PV systems still faces several barriers. The wide adoption of PV systems-either as a substitute for other electricity power generation systems in urban areas or for rural electrification-is a challenging process. Our results show that the barriers are evident for both low- and high-income economies, encompassing four dimensions: sociotechnical, management, economic, and policy. Although the barriers vary across context, the lessons learned from one study can be valuable to others. The involvement of all stakeholders-adopters, local communities, firms, international organizations, financial institutions, and government-is crucial to foster the adoption.

Assessment of energy efficiency and sustainability scenarios in the transport system

Background Energy Policy is one of the main drivers of Transport Policy. A number of strategies to reduce current energy consumption trends in the transport sector have been designed over the last decades. They include fuel taxes, more efficient technologies and changing travel behavior through demand regulation. But energy market has a high degree of uncertainty and the effectiveness of those policy options should be assessed. Methods A scenario based assessment methodology has been developed in the frame of the EU project STEPS. It provides an integrated view of Energy efficiency, environment, social and competitiveness impacts of the different strategies. It has been applied at European level and to five specific Regions. Concluding remarks The results are quite site specific dependent. However they show that regulation measures appear to be more effective than new technology investments. Higher energy prices could produce on their turn a deterioration of competitiveness and a threat for social goals.