Implementing ‘Site BIM’: a case study of ICT innovation on a large hospital project

Numerous Building Information Modelling (BIM) tools are well established and potentially beneficial in certain uses. However, issues of adoption and implementation persist, particularly for on-site use of BIM tools in the construction phase. We describe an empirical case-study of the implementation of an innovative ‘Site BIM’ system on a major hospital construction project. The main contractor on the project developed BIM-enabled tools to allow site workers using mobile tablet personal computers to access design information and to capture work quality and progress data on-site. Accounts show that ‘Site BIM’, while judged to be successful and actively supporting users, was delivered through an exploratory and emergent development process of informal prototyping. Technical IT skills were adopted into the construction project through personal relationships and arrangements rather than formal processes. Implementation was driven by construction project employees rather than controlled centrally by the corporate IT function.

Factors influencing adoption of improved grassland management by small-scale dairy farmers in central Mexico and the implications for future research on smallholder adoption in developing countries

There have been limited recent advances in understanding of what influences uptake of innovations despite the current international focus on smallholder agriculture as a means of achieving food security and rural development. This paper provides a rigorous study of factors influencing adoption by smallholders in central Mexico and builds on findings to identify a broad approach to significantly improve research on and understanding of factors influencing adoption by smallholders in developing countries. Small-scale dairy systems play an important role in providing income, employment and nutrition in the highlands of central Mexico. A wide variety of practices and technologies have been promoted by the government public services to increase milk production and economic efficiency, but there have been very low levels of uptake of most innovations, with the exception of improving grassland through introduction of grass varieties together with management practices. A detailed study was conducted with 80 farmers who are already engaged with the use of this innovation to better understand the process of adoption and identify socioeconomic and farm variables, cognitive (beliefs), and social–psychological (social norms) factors associated with farmers' use of improved grassland. The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) was used as a theoretical framework and Spearman Rank Order correlation was conducted to analyse the data. Most farmers (92.5%) revealed strong intention to continue to use improved grassland (which requires active management and investment of resources) for the next 12 months; whereas 7.5% of farmers were undecided and showed weak intention, which was associated with farmers whose main income was from non-farm activities as well as with farmers who had only recently started using improved grassland. Despite farmers' experience of using improved grassland (mean of 18 years) farmers' intentions to continue to adopt it was influenced almost as much by salient referents (mainly male relatives) as by their own attitudes. The hitherto unnoticed longevity of the role social referents play in adoption decisions is an important finding and has implications for further research and for the design of extension approaches. The study demonstrates the value and importance of using TRA or TPB approaches to understand social cognitive (beliefs) and social–psychological (social norms) factors in the study of adoption. However, other factors influencing adoption processes need to be included to provide fuller understanding. An approach that would enable this, and the development of more generalisable findings than from location specific case studies, and contribute to broader conceptualisation, is proposed.

Made in Italy. Made in Britain. Quality, brands and innovation in the European poultry market, 1950-1980.

This paper compares the development of the poultry industry in Italy with the UK. Earlier research has suggested that the UK poultry industry developed a symbiotic relationship with the emerging supermarket retailers. Italy had a retarded supermarket sector. Its distribution system favoured small-scale, independent butchers rather than chains of self-service supermarkets. Despite this the Italian poultry industry also modernised, adopting US technologies. The catalyst for this modernisation was technological innovation in refrigeration technologies that enabled Italian consumers and independent retailers to be persuaded of the merits of the new ‘technological’ chicken. While the Italian market has become dominated by AIA and Amadori in recent years, the key innovators were the entrepreneurs that created the company called Arena.

Collaboration model for SSMEnetUK: a service science perspective

This paper aims to design a collaboration model for a Knowledge Community - SSMEnetUK. The research identifies SSMEnetUK as a socio-technical system and uses the core concepts of Service Science to explore the subject domain. The paper is positioned within the concept of Knowledge Management (KM) and utilising Web 2.0 tools for collaboration. A qualitative case study method was adopted and multiple data sources were used. In achieving that, the degree of co-relation between knowledge management activities and Web 2.0 tools for collaboration in the scenario are pitted against the concept of value propositions offered by both customer/user and service provider. The proposed model provides a better understanding of how Knowledge Management and Web 2.0 tools can enable effective collaboration within SSMEnetUK. This research is relevant to the wider service design and innovation community because it provides a basis for building a service-centric collaboration platform for the benefit of both customer/user and service provider.

Rationality of service composition of Workflow Net in a service oriented architecture

Users’ requirements change drives an information system evolution. Consequently, such evolution affects those atomic services which provide functional operations from one state of their composition to another state of composition. A challenging issue associated with such evolution of the state of service composition is to ensure a resultant service composition remaining rational. This paper presents a method of Service Composition Atomic-Operation Set (SCAOS). SCAOS defines 2 classes of atomic operations and 13 kinds of basic service compositions to aid a state change process by using Workflow Net. The workflow net has algorithmic capabilities to compose the required services with rationality and maintain any changes to the services in a different composition also rational. This method can improve the adaptability to the ever changing business requirements of information systems in the dynamic environment.

Hierarchical clustering based web service discovery

This paper presents a hierarchical clustering method for semantic Web service discovery. This method aims to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the traditional service discovery using vector space model. The Web service is converted into a standard vector format through the Web service description document. With the help of WordNet, a semantic analysis is conducted to reduce the dimension of the term vector and to make semantic expansion to meet the user’s service request. The process and algorithm of hierarchical clustering based semantic Web service discovery is discussed. Validation is carried out on the dataset.

The creation and diffusion of innovation in developing countries: a systematic literature review

In this study, we review the literature on the creation and diffusion of innovation in the private sectors (industry and services) in developing countries. In particular, we collect evidence on what are the barriers to innovation creation and diffusion and the channels of innovation diffusion to and within developing countries. We find that innovation in developing countries is about creation or adoption of new ideas and technologies; but the capacity for innovation is embedded in and constituted by dynamics between geographical, socio-economic, political and legal subsystems. We contextualize the findings from the review in the current theoretical framework of diffusion of innovations, and we emphasize how the institutional context typical of developing countries impacts the diffusion itself.