Construction supply chain modeling : a research review and interdisciplinary research agenda

Supply chain management has emerged as a popular and useful concept in the construction industry and research community since the mid 1990s. Research in construction supply chain management draws from a broad range of disciplines, notably: (1) Industrial organization economics to better understand market structure and forces and their effect on firm and supply chain behavior and (2) Analytic modeling of supply chains to improve supply chain performance along metrics such as speed, cost, reliability, quality, etc. Both industrial organization and analytic modeling provide useful but ultimately incomplete perspectives and prescriptions for construction supply chain management. As such, this paper proposes development of an interdisciplinary research agenda that draws from both fields. Towards that agenda, a review of research is presented to introduce the main ideas, relevant literature, and theory and methods in each of the two areas. From these independent reviews, applications that could benefit from a combined perspective are identified and used as a basis for development of an interdisciplinary research agenda.

Construction supply chain management : a research review and interdisciplinary research agenda

Supply chain management has emerged as a popular and useful concept in the construction industry and research community since the mid 1990s. Research in construction supply chain management draws from a broad range of disciplines, notably: (1) industrial organization economics to better understand market structure and forces and their effect on firm and supply chain behavior and (2) Analytic modeling of supply chains to improve supply chain performance along metrics such as speed, cost, reliability, quality, etc. Both industrial organization and analytic modeling provide useful but ultimately incomplete perspectives and prescriptions for construction supply chain management. As such, this paper proposes development of an interdisciplinary research agenda that draws from both fields. Towards that agenda, a review of research is presented to introduce the main ideas, relevant literature, and theory and methods in each of the two areas. From these independent reviews, applications that could benefit from a combined perspective are identified and used as a basis for development of an interdisciplinary research agenda.

Construction supply chain modeling : a research review and interdisciplinary research agenda

Supply chain management has emerged as a popular and useful concept in the construction industry and research community since the mid 1990s. Research in construction supply chain management draws from a broad range of disciplines, notably: (1) industrial organization economics to better understand market structure and forces and their effect on firm and supply chain behavior and (2) Analytic modeling of supply chains to improve supply chain performance along metrics such as speed, cost, reliability, quality, etc. Both industrial organization and analytic modeling provide useful but
ultimately incomplete perspectives and prescriptions for construction supply chain management. As such, this paper proposes development of an interdisciplinary research agenda that draws from both fields. Towards that agenda, a review of research is presented to introduce the main ideas, relevant literature, and theory and methods in each of the two areas. From these independent reviews, applications that could benefit from a combined perspective are identified and used as a basis for development of an
interdisciplinary research agenda.

Constructing the conditions of and environments for interdisciplinary research on perception and action

This paper suggests ways in which art processes may contribute to the interdisciplinary study of perception and action and the relationships between body, person, and environment. Artists-turned-architects Arakawa and Gins serve as the most advanced example of an interdisciplinary research project in terms of coordinating material processes with contemporary findings, methods, and orientations from across the arts, humanities, and hard and soft sciences. In the first section of the paper, I discuss Arakawa and Gins's Reversible Destiny Lofts at Mitaka as an example of their procedural approach to long-term sustainable experimental environments. In the second section, the tactics through which Arakawa and Gins have repositioned art for the nonart purposes and common research goals are posited. Finally, I briefly outline the disciplinary positions and research values needed in order to move toward a more inclusive and interdisciplinary research practice.

Motivations for doing interdisciplinary research: Results from an Australian qualitative study

While the literature provides a strong conceptual justification for Interdisciplinary Research (for example: Klein 1990, 1996; Sherif & Sherif, 1969) and a number of studies document the benefits and challenges of such studies (such as: Slatin, Galizzi, Melillo & Mawn 2004; Rhoten, 2004; Lynch 2006; Jacobs & Frickel 2009), there are surprisingly few empirical analyses of the reasons why individual researchers become involved in Interdisciplinary Research projects. Responding to this gap in the extant literature, the current study was undertaken to identify individual influences and motivations for participating in Interdisciplinary Research projects. In this paper we report findings that emerged from 30 interviews with researchers from a wide range of disciplines, as well as different stage of career, on the major reasons why they are drawn to Interdisciplinary Research. As part of the paper we also report the extent to which participants agreed or disagreed with a variety of pitfalls identified in the literature as potential impediments or deterrents to individuals becoming involved in Interdisciplinary studies.

Research methods, evidence and public health

In theory, our research questions should drive our choice of method. In practice, we know this is not always the case. At various stages of the research process different factors may apply to restrict the choice of research method. These filters might include a series of inter-related factors such as the political context of the research, the disciplinary affiliation of the researchers, the research setting and peer-review. We suggest that as researchers conduct research and encounter the various filters they come to know the methods that are more likely to survive the filtering process. In future projects they may favour these methods. Public health problems and research questions may increasingly be framed in the terms that can be addressed by a restricted array of methods. Innovative proposals - where new methods are applied to old problems, old methods to new areas of inquiry and high-quality interdisciplinary research - may be unlikely to survive the processes of filtering. This may skew the public health knowledge base, limiting public health action. We argue that we must begin to investigate the process of research. We need to document how and why particular methods are chosen to investigate particular sets of public health problems. This will help us understand how we know what we know in public health and help us plan how we may more appropriately draw upon a range of research methods.

Technographic research in online education : context, culture and ICT consumption

Technologically-mediated learning environments are an increasingly common component of university experience. In this paper, the authors consider how the interrelated domains of policy contexts, new learning cultures and the consumption of information and communication technologies might be explored using the concept of technography. Understood here as a term referring to “the apprehension, reception, use, deployment, depiction and representation of technologies” (Woolgar, 2005, pp. 27-28), we consider how technographic studies in education might engage in productive dialogues with interdisciplinary research from the fields of cultural and cyber studies. We argue that what takes place in online learning and teaching environments is shaped by the logics and practices of technologies and their role in the production of new consumer cultures.

Stakeholder engagement strategies : possibilities for the Internet?

The Internet offers companies new opportunities for engaging with stakeholders. This research examines the extent to which companies in Australia, Germany and the UK make use of their web sites to communicate both to and with their stakeholders. Particular attention is paid to the communication of ethical, social and environmental information on corporate web sites. Through a postal questionnaire and interviews, the research examines the drivers for web based reporting, the importance attached to stakeholder communication, complementary means of reporting to stakeholders and the perceived advantages and disadvantages of the web as a communication medium. Despite the technological capabilities of web sites as communication media, we found the main purpose of developing corporate web sites was to raise corporate awareness and improve corporate image and that this is a negative force in the further development of corporate web sites for reporting ethical, social and environmental issues and using web technologies to engage with a broad range of stakeholders.

Integrity and shame

In a recent study, Damian Cox, Marguerite La Caze and Michael P. Levine argue for a complex conception of integrity. But they leave two questions unanswered. The first is whether integrity is of greater importance to the agent's own sense of themselves or whether it is a virtue that is of social significance. The bulk of the literature on this virtue stresses its existential import. However, considerable weight should be given to its social significance. It should be linked to the essentially social reaction of shame, as opposed to the existential and personal reaction of guilt. The second question is whether the virtue of integrity has been analysed in such general terms that no specific meaning can be given to the virtue. Being a person of integrity might just collapse into being a virtuous person. This essay offers a distinctive account of integrity by asking what it is to act from the virtue in particular contexts that require public trust.

Unhealthy landscapes: policy recommendations on land use change and infectious disease emergence

Anthropogenic land use changes drive a range of infectious disease outbreaks and emergence events and modify the transmission of endemic infections. These drivers include agricultural encroachment, deforestation, road construction, dam building, irrigation, wetland modification, mining, the concentration or expansion of urban environments, coastal zone degradation, and other activities. These changes in turn cause a cascade of factors that exacerbate infectious disease emergence, such as forest fragmentation, disease introduction, pollution, poverty, and human migration. The Working Group on Land Use Change and Disease Emergence grew out of a special colloquium that convened international experts in infectious diseases, ecology, and environmental health to assess the current state of knowledge and to develop recommendations for addressing these environmental health challenges. The group established a systems model approach and priority lists of infectious diseases affected by ecologic degradation. Policy-relevant levels of the model include specific health risk factors, landscape or habitat change, and institutional (economic and behavioral) levels. The group recommended creating Centers of Excellence in Ecology and Health Research and Training, based at regional universities and/or research institutes with close links to the surrounding communities. The centers' objectives would be 3-fold: a) to provide information to local communities about the links between environmental change and public health ; b) to facilitate fully interdisciplinary research from a variety of natural, social, and health sciences and train professionals who can conduct interdisciplinary research ; and c) to engage in science-based communication and assessment for policy making toward sustainable health and ecosystems.

'Energetic space' : literary experience and learning

This essay is part of an interdisciplinary research project into literary aesthetics and its relationship with pedagogy. The paper brings cognitive and evolutionary scientific perspectives to bear on literary and cultural theory to address the aesthetic effect (defined as the transporting and transformative power of the literary text) and its potential personal or civic benefits. The paper offers non-transcendentalist explanations for the aesthetic experience, viewing it less as a privileged category of feeling than as an experience available to all symbolic beings. The paper also proposes an original thesis about the virtual and transformative space of reading as one that ultimately epitomises intellectual freedom. The inquiry is lent urgency by the current cultural and political climate in which not only literature but also literary studies, despite its long association with education and its prominent place in the Culture Wars, is in institutional decline.