Corporate social responsibility in construction and engineering firms: key elements of effective strategy

Through multiple case studies of firms we argue that firms that have developed corporate responsibility strategies, albeit informally at first, do so by making intentional, informed and collective choices about CSR initiatives. More precisely, we point to the importance of considering corporate identity in making these choices and to the process of adaptive coordination, which includes both responding to and influencing the CSR environment. We conclude that CSR strategic landscape are determined more and more by the astute and careful management of a network of cooperative and competitive stakeholder interests which possess both tangible and intangible value to a firm.

Striving for inclusive design in the built environment: learning strategy adopted by policy implementers at local authorities in England

The research will explore views on inclusive design policy implementation and learning strategy used in practice by Local Authorities’ planning, building control and policy departments in England. It reports emerging research findings. The research aim was developed from an extensive literature review, and informed by a pilot study with relevant Local Authority departments. The pilot study highlighted gaps within the process of policy implementation, a lack of awareness of the process and flaws in the design guidance policy. This has helped inform the development of a robust research design using both a survey and semi-structured interviews. The questionnaire targeted key employees within Local Authorities designed to establish how employees learn about inclusive design policy and to determine their views on current approaches of inclusive design policy implementation adopted by their Local Authorities. The questionnaire produces 117 responses. Interestingly approximately 9 out of 129 Local Authorities approached claimed that they were unable to participate either because an inclusive design policy was not adopted or they were faced with a high workload and thus unable to take part. An emerging finding is a lack of understanding of inclusive design problems, which may lead to problem with inclusive design policy implementation, and thus adversely affect how the built environment can be experienced. There is a strong indication from the survey respondents indicating that they are most likely to learn about inclusive design from policy guides produced by their Local Authorities and from their colleagues.

Modeling growth strategy in a biotechnology startup firm

The top managers of a biotechnology startup firm agreed to participate in a system dynamics modeling project to help them think about the firm's growth strategy. The article describes how the model was created and used to stimulate debate and discussion about growth management. The paper highlights several novel features about the process used for capturing management team knowledge. A heavy emphasis was placed on mapping the operating structure of the factory and distribution channels. Qualitative modeling methods (structural diagrams, descriptive variable names, and friendly algebra) were used to capture the management team's descriptions of the business. Simulation scenarios were crafted to stimulate debate about strategic issues such as capacity allocation, capacity expansion, customer recruitment, customer retention, and market growth, and to engage the management team in using the computer to design strategic scenarios. The article concludes with comments on the impact of the project.

Living to die and dying to live: the survival strategy behind leaf senescence

Senescence represents the final developmental act of the leaf, during which the leaf cell is dismantled in a coordinated manner to remobilize nutrients and to secure reproductive success. The process of senescence provides the plant with phenotypic plasticity to help it adapt to adverse environmental conditions. Here, we provide a comprehensive overview of the factors and mechanisms that control the onset of senescence. We explain how the competence to senesce is established during leaf development, as depicted by the senescence window model. We also discuss the mechanisms by which phytohormones and environmental stresses control senescence, as well as the impact of source-sink relationships on plant yield and stress tolerance. In addition, we discuss the role of senescence as a strategy for stress adaptation and how crop production and food quality could benefit from engineering or breeding crops with altered onset of senescence.

Bank regulation and the process of internationalisation: a study of Japanese bank entry into London

The paper provides a theoretical insight into bank regulation and the process of internationalisation by examining the concepts of regulatory push and market pull within the context of Japanese bank entry into London during the 1980s. Rugman and Verbeke's [(1998). Corporate strategy and international environmental policy. Journal of International Business Studies, 29(4), 819–833] Consistency of Home and Host Government Goals model is utilised to structure the discussion, which centres on a situation where there is a conflict of goals between multinational enterprises (MNEs) and the home government but goal alignment between MNEs and the host government. As such the paper examines a relatively under-researched aspect of internationalisation and concludes that in certain circumstances internationalisation can occur despite great ‘psychic distance’. The paper also argues that although bank regulation can lead to a conflict situation it can also be conducive to the development of a strong home base and the development of firm specific advantages.

Attractive Work Process

Many companies both in Sweden and other parts of the world are since the beginning of the 21st century faceing a lack of work force (1,2,3). The ability to recruit and retain skilled employees is seen as one of the most important questions for the survival and development of the companies (4,5). Labour shortage is seen as the biggest obstacle for expansion for small enterprises in Sweden (5). There is a need for workplaces to be attractive, but how can the attractiveness be increased? Researchers at Högskolan Dalarna have during almost a decennium conducted research concerning attractive work. Based on a modell of qualities that contributes to make a work attractive (6) has a method aiming for raised attractiveness been developed for SME:s. All employees participate by answering a questionnaire about the importance of different qualities and to what degree they are fulfilled. Further discussions at the workplace on what to preserve and what to develop make the base for an action plan.Important experiences:• Discuss and establish the aim of the method with management and employees. • The company must be prepared to follow up and realize the action plan.• Agree about expectations – they must be realistic and practicable.• Reserve time to start the process and to end up in an action plan. • Avoid negative thinking and put problems away. • Take all the time small steps in the right direction.• Keep employees engaged and avoid the manager or process leader to take the command.• Use the strategy with small work groups; it gives better possibilities for participation and outspokenness.• Follow up studies are necessary to keep up the motivation.The most positive aspects of the method is its promoting perspective and that it engages all the employees.1.Rauhut, D. (2002). Arbetskraftsbrist och arbetskraftsinvandring: hot eller möjlighet för ekonomisk tillväxt? Östersund, ITPS, Institutet för tillväxtpolitiska studier.2.Funch, M. and C. Ehrnooth. (2008, 08-10-2008). Labour shortage despite financial crisis? Retrieved 2008-12-16, 2008, from www.norden.org/webb/news/news.asp?id=8113&lang=6. 3.Manpower (2008). Talent Shortage Survey 2008 Global Results: 10. 4.Bakker, A. B. and W. B. Schaufeli (2008). Positive organizational behavior: Engaged employees in flourishing organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior 29: 147-154.5.Kennemar, J. and L. Jagrén (2008). Småföretagsbarometern. Stockholm, Swedbank Företagarna: 23.6.Åteg, M., A. Hedlund, et al. (2004). Attraktivt arbete. Från anställdas uttalanden till skapandet av en modell. Stockholm, Arbetslivsinstitutet.

Machine Learning Algorithms in Heavy Process Manufacturing

In a global economy, manufacturers mainly compete with cost efficiency of production, as the price of raw materials are similar worldwide. Heavy industry has two big issues to deal with. On the one hand there is lots of data which needs to be analyzed in an effective manner, and on the other hand making big improvements via investments in cooperate structure or new machinery is neither economically nor physically viable. Machine learning offers a promising way for manufacturers to address both these problems as they are in an excellent position to employ learning techniques with their massive resource of historical production data. However, choosing modelling a strategy in this setting is far from trivial and this is the objective of this article. The article investigates characteristics of the most popular classifiers used in industry today. Support Vector Machines, Multilayer Perceptron, Decision Trees, Random Forests, and the meta-algorithms Bagging and Boosting are mainly investigated in this work. Lessons from real-world implementations of these learners are also provided together with future directions when different learners are expected to perform well. The importance of feature selection and relevant selection methods in an industrial setting are further investigated. Performance metrics have also been discussed for the sake of completion.

Study of the innovation management process in the development of a discontinuous product case: Motorola RAZR V3

This study will collaborate by bringing some detailed analysis and findings on a special case study of a discontinuous product development process, trying to answer how the discontinuous product development process takes place and the main factors that influence this process. Additionally, it tried to explore some explanations for the difficulties generally faced by the companies to sustain innovation. The case is about the Motorola cell phone RAZR V3, launched in 2004. RAZR V3 was noted by industry experts as game-changing feat of design and engineering, selling more than 110 million units by end of 2008 and recognized as one of the fastest selling products in the industry. The study uses a single case methodology, which is appropriate given the access to a phenomenon that happened inside corporate dominium and it is not easily accessed for academic studies, besides being a rare case of success in the cellular phone industry. In order to magnify the understanding of the phenomenon, the exploration was extended to contrast the RAZR development process and the standard product development process in Motorola. Additionally, it was integrated a longitudinal reflection of the company product development evolution until the next breakthrough product hitting the cellular phone industry. The result of the analysis shows that discontinuous products do not fit well traditional product development process (in this case, stage-gate). This result reinforces the results obtained on previous studies of discontinuous product development conducted by other authors. Therefore, it is clear that the dynamics of discontinuous product development are different from the continuous product development, requiring different treatment to succeed. Moreover, this study highlighted the importance of the management influence in all the phases of the process as one of the most important factors, suggesting a key component to be carefully observed in future researches. Some other findings of the study that were considered very important for a discontinuous product development process: have champions (who believe and protect the project) and not only one champion; create a right atmosphere to make flow the creative process; question paradigms to create discontinuous products; simple guiding light to focus the team; company culture that accepts and knows how to deal with risks; and undoubtedly, have a company strategy that understands the different dynamics of continuous and discontinuous product development processes and treat them accordingly.

Goals Software Construction Process

Generalized hyper competitiveness in the world markets has determined the need to offer better products to potential and actual clients in order to mark an advantagefrom other competitors. To ensure the production of an adequate product, enterprises need to work on the efficiency and efficacy of their business processes (BPs) by means of the construction of Interactive Information Systems (IISs, including Interactive Multimedia Documents) so that they are processed more fluidly and correctly.The construction of the correct IIS is a major task that can only be successful if the needs from every intervenient are taken into account. Their requirements must bedefined with precision, extensively analyzed and consequently the system must be accurately designed in order to minimize implementation problems so that the IIS isproduced on schedule and with the fewer mistakes as possible. The main contribution of this thesis is the proposal of Goals, a software (engineering) construction process which aims at defining the tasks to be carried out in order to develop software. This process defines the stakeholders, the artifacts, and the techniques that should be applied to achieve correctness of the IIS. Complementarily, this process suggests two methodologies to be applied in the initial phases of the lifecycle of the Software Engineering process: Process Use Cases for the phase of requirements, and; MultiGoals for the phases of analysis and design. Process Use Cases is a UML-based (Unified Modeling Language), goal-driven and use case oriented methodology for the definition of functional requirements. It uses an information oriented strategy in order to identify BPs while constructing the enterprise’s information structure, and finalizes with the identification of use cases within the design of these BPs. This approach provides a useful tool for both activities of Business Process Management and Software Engineering. MultiGoals is a UML-based, use case-driven and architectural centric methodology for the analysis and design of IISs with support for Multimedia. It proposes the analysis of user tasks as the basis of the design of the: (i) user interface; (ii) the system behaviour that is modeled by means of patterns which can combine Multimedia and standard information, and; (iii) the database and media contents. This thesis makes the theoretic presentation of these approaches accompanied with examples from a real project which provide the necessary support for the understanding of the used techniques.

A new and improved strategy combining a dispersive-solid phase extraction-based multiclass method with ultra high pressure liquid chromatography for analysis of low molecular weight polyphenols in vegetables

This paper reports on the development and optimization of a modified Quick, Easy, Cheap Effective, Rugged and Safe (QuEChERS) based extraction technique coupled with a clean-up dispersive-solid phase extraction (dSPE) as a new, reliable and powerful strategy to enhance the extraction efficiency of free low molecular-weight polyphenols in selected species of dietary vegetables. The process involves two simple steps. First, the homogenized samples are extracted and partitioned using an organic solvent and salt solution. Then, the supernatant is further extracted and cleaned using a dSPE technique. Final clear extracts of vegetables were concentrated under vacuum to near dryness and taken up into initial mobile phase (0.1% formic acid and 20% methanol). The separation and quantification of free low molecular weight polyphenols from the vegetable extracts was achieved by ultrahigh pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC) equipped with a phodiode array (PDA) detection system and a Trifunctional High Strength Silica capillary analytical column (HSS T3), specially designed for polar compounds. The performance of the method was assessed by studying the selectivity, linear dynamic range, the limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ), precision, trueness, and matrix effects. The validation parameters of the method showed satisfactory figures of merit. Good linearity (View the MathML sourceRvalues2>0.954; (+)-catechin in carrot samples) was achieved at the studied concentration range. Reproducibility was better than 3%. Consistent recoveries of polyphenols ranging from 78.4 to 99.9% were observed when all target vegetable samples were spiked at two concentration levels, with relative standard deviations (RSDs, n = 5) lower than 2.9%. The LODs and the LOQs ranged from 0.005 μg mL−1 (trans-resveratrol, carrot) to 0.62 μg mL−1 (syringic acid, garlic) and from 0.016 μg mL−1 (trans-resveratrol, carrot) to 0.87 μg mL−1 ((+)-catechin, carrot) depending on the compound. The method was applied for studying the occurrence of free low molecular weight polyphenols in eight selected dietary vegetables (broccoli, tomato, carrot, garlic, onion, red pepper, green pepper and beetroot), providing a valuable and promising tool for food quality evaluation.

Optimization Strategies Based on Sequential Quadratic Programming Applied for a Fermentation Process for Butanol Production

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Novel Aspects of the Purpose-Built Materials Strategy: Evidence of Topographic Template Effect and Oriented Attachment Growth Mechanism

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Product development process: Using real options for assessments and to support the decision-making at decision gates

Enterprises need continuous product development activities to remain competitive in the marketplace. Their product development process (PDP) must manage stakeholders' needs - technical, financial, legal, and environmental aspects, customer requirements, Corporate strategy, etc. -, being a multidisciplinary and strategic issue. An approach to use real option to support the decision-making process at PDP phases in taken. The real option valuation method is often presented as an alternative to the conventional net present value (NPV) approach. It is based on the same principals of financial options: the right to buy or sell financial values (mostly stocks) at a predetermined price, with no obligation to do so. In PDP, a multi-period approach that takes into account the flexibility of, for instance, being able to postpone prototyping and design decisions, waiting for more information about technologies, customer acceptance, funding, etc. In the present article, the state of the art of real options theory is prospected and a model to use the real options in PDP is proposed, so that financial aspects can be properly considered at each project phase of the product development. Conclusion is that such model can provide more robustness to the decisions processes within PDP.

Strategy to detect ground control in digital images

The identification of ground control on photographs or images is usually carried out by a human operator, who uses his natural skills to make interpretations. In Digital Photogrammetry, which uses techniques of digital image processing extraction of ground control can be automated by using an approach based on relational matching and a heuristic that uses the analytical relation between straight features of object space and its homologous in the image space. A build-in self-diagnosis is also used in this method. It is based on implementation of data snooping statistic test in the process of spatial resection using the Iterated Extended Kalman Filtering (IEKF). The aim of this paper is to present the basic principles of the proposed approach and results based on real data.