• Refine Query
  • Source
  • Publication year
  • to
  • Language
  • 14
  • 6
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • Tagged with
  • 30
  • 30
  • 8
  • 8
  • 7
  • 6
  • 6
  • 5
  • 5
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • 4
  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
11

Intellectual Property Rights in Software : A Critical Investigation from an Ethical Perspective

Schulz, Axel January 2004 (has links)
<p>The development of software was considered until the beginning of the 1990th as a cathedral like product development in closed companies. This way of development changed in the last decade. Open source software (OSS) development challenged this consideration significantly. OSS is produced in co-operation by skilled people, distributed and used by many moral agents. The result, the software itself, can be studied and modified. Herein is the main incentive for people to develop the software. In such a mode of production the freedom to access knowledge and information (=source code) is a necessity to produce the artifact (software).</p><p>Software is a digital entity. The main difference in comparison to natural resources like oil, land, minerals is that it can be used and reproduced without losses. It lacks the capacity of getting naturally scarce. Contemporary intellectual property rights assume implicitly that goods might getting scarce one day. Imbedded in the term intellectual property is also an idea of "fencing" objects. In this thesis I will argue that anartificial"encing"of digital objects might cause unintentional bad consequences for the society. An other quality intellectual property rights are claimed to have is that they serve as an incentive for inventors/authors to produce new inventions and ideas. The practice of OSS development works without such an incentive provided by intellectual property rights.</p><p>The moral conflict, which I attempt to unravel in this work deals with the question to what extend the application of intellectual property rights in software is necessary and how restrictive particular property rights in digital objects should be - if there should be any at all. Knowledge as the factor of production is of the same value in knowledge societies as land was for agrarian societies. The difference is in the mode of production and the un-limitless availability of digitalized knowledge. I argue that the"protection"of knowledge, and software is knowledge, has to be carefully revised in so called knowledge societies.</p>
12

Intellectual Property Rights in Software : A Critical Investigation from an Ethical Perspective

Schulz, Axel January 2004 (has links)
The development of software was considered until the beginning of the 1990th as a cathedral like product development in closed companies. This way of development changed in the last decade. Open source software (OSS) development challenged this consideration significantly. OSS is produced in co-operation by skilled people, distributed and used by many moral agents. The result, the software itself, can be studied and modified. Herein is the main incentive for people to develop the software. In such a mode of production the freedom to access knowledge and information (=source code) is a necessity to produce the artifact (software). Software is a digital entity. The main difference in comparison to natural resources like oil, land, minerals is that it can be used and reproduced without losses. It lacks the capacity of getting naturally scarce. Contemporary intellectual property rights assume implicitly that goods might getting scarce one day. Imbedded in the term intellectual property is also an idea of "fencing" objects. In this thesis I will argue that anartificial"encing"of digital objects might cause unintentional bad consequences for the society. An other quality intellectual property rights are claimed to have is that they serve as an incentive for inventors/authors to produce new inventions and ideas. The practice of OSS development works without such an incentive provided by intellectual property rights. The moral conflict, which I attempt to unravel in this work deals with the question to what extend the application of intellectual property rights in software is necessary and how restrictive particular property rights in digital objects should be - if there should be any at all. Knowledge as the factor of production is of the same value in knowledge societies as land was for agrarian societies. The difference is in the mode of production and the un-limitless availability of digitalized knowledge. I argue that the"protection"of knowledge, and software is knowledge, has to be carefully revised in so called knowledge societies.
13

Patching up the garbage patch: a drop in the ocean? : A comparative study examining low levels of effective multinational cooperation on plasticpollution in the Pacific Ocean.

Sörman Laurien, Elvira January 2016 (has links)
No description available.
14

Seeking the Leviathan, the General Will and the Invisible Hand in Rural Guinea, West Africa: A Science of Human Nature

Bösch, Lukas 26 August 2019 (has links)
The dissertation builds a bridge from the social-philosophical works of Hobbes, Rousseau, and Smith to current game theoretical models explaining social order to two empirical applications in a rural region of Guinea. The work focuses on the central role of natural resources for human societies and uses two empirical studies to test general hypotheses on the drivers of the sustainable exploitation and the equitable distribution of natural resources. The work strictly follows a quantitative empirical approach. After discussing the methodological foundations of statistical causal analysis in a first step, the various approaches are evaluated in a simulation study. Finally, the most successful of these approaches finds its application in the analysis of the empirical data, which was collected during field research in Guinea. In the observational study, socioeconomic data are combined with environmental data to model the influence of humans on the occurrence of wild species that are exploited for economic purposes in the study area. In the experimental study, socioeconomic data is linked to experimental data from a resource distribution game to identify factors affecting the people’s behavior when sharing a common natural resource. Both the exploitation of wild species and the sharing of a natural resource show that the social context is crucial for the understanding of human behavior, as postulated by Hobbes, Rousseau, and Smith: reputation, market integration, inequality and homogeneity of the population, as well as the salience of moral norms and property rights are essential dimensions. / Die Dissertation widmet sich der zentralen Rolle von natürlichen Ressourcen für menschliche Gesellschaften. Anhand zweier empirischer Studien werden allgemeine Hypothesen zu den Determinanten der nachhaltigen Ausbeutung und gerechten Verteilung von natürlichen Ressourcen getestet. Dabei wird in der Arbeit eine Brücke von den Werken der Sozialphilosophen Hobbes, Rousseau und Smith, über aktuelle spieltheoretische Modelle zur Erklärung sozialer Ordnung, hin zu zwei empirischen Anwendungen in einer ländlichen Region Guineas geschlagen. Die Arbeit folgt strikt einem empirischen quantitativen Ansatz. Nach der Erörterung der methodischen Grundlagen der statistischen Kausalanalyse werden die verschiedenen Ansätze im Rahmen einer Simulationsstudie evaluiert. Schließlich findet der erfolgreichste dieser Ansätze in der Auswertung der Daten, die bei der Feldforschung in Guinea erhoben wurden, Anwendung. In der Beobachtungsstudie werden sozioökonomische Daten mit ökologischen Daten verknüpft, um den Einfluss der Menschen auf das Vorkommen von wilden Arten, die zu ökonomischen Zwecken ausgebeutet werden, im Untersuchungsgebiet zu modellieren. In der Experimentalstudie werden sozioökonomische Daten mit Experimentaldaten aus einem Ressourcenverteilungsspiel verknüpft, um Faktoren zu identifizieren, welche sich auf das Verhalten von Menschen beim Teilen einer gemeinsamen natürlichen Ressource auswirken. Sowohl für die Ausbeutung der wilden Arten, wie auch für das gemeinsame Teilen einer natürlichen Ressource gilt, dass der soziale Kontext für das Verhalten der Menschen von großer Relevanz ist, wie von Hobbes, Rousseau und Smith postuliert: Reputation, Marktintegration, Ungleichheit und Homogenität der Bevölkerung sowie die Salienz moralischer Normen und Eigentumsrechte sind entscheidende Dimensionen.
15

Burunge Wildlife Management Area and effects on the villages around- : A case study in Babati district, Tanzania

Hernold, Henni January 2020 (has links)
This study took place in northern Tanzania in Babati district. Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) are establishments that endorse conservation of the wildlife and the environment, development and sustainable land-use in the rural areas. The aim of the organization is to provide local communities with economic benefits and including them in the projects of wildlife and habitat conservation (Kicheleri et al., 2018). However, it is unclear if the aim of the organizations has worked that well in the field. The aim of this study is to analyze some of the local attitudes, of the villages Minjingu, Vilima Vitatu and Kakoi, towards Burunge Wildlife Management Area. This study will also analyze how the membership with WMA has changed the living conditions for the inhabitants in the three villages, by conducting semi-structured interviews on villagers, a WMA secretary and the district council officer. Results indicate that the most common perception villagers have about WMA is that the household income has decreased, and the destruction on land and crops by wildlife has increased. The villagers are unhappy about how WMA handles different situations. Due to this, the majority of the respondents from all three studied villages stated they would like to end the membership with WMA.
16

The Sustainability Of Overconsumption? A Discursive Analysis Of Walmart's Sustainability Campaign

Adams, Kathleen 01 January 2012 (has links)
This study inquires as to whether Walmart’s sustainability campaign represents a sincere and holistic change throughout the company’s global supply chain or if it is simply a public relations campaign which caters to the growing target market of “next-generation” consumers and justifies further expansion into “emerging markets”. A critical analysis of Walmart’s sustainability discourse is presented, using transcribed texts of various corporate and publicitygeared publications. Frequently utilized terms and themes are identified throughout the big-box retailer’s sustainability campaign which convey a distinctly Neoliberal ethos—a political economy which lies at the heart of current practices of institutional unsustainability—and emphasize the role of the atomized individual—who may purchase protection from environmental risks via green products. Other themes, which are commonly associated with sustainability research, are glaringly absent: subsidiarity; human rights; steady-state economics; economic inequity; the precautionary principle. This research aims to shed light on the prospects for the sustainability of green overconsumption, which Walmart is leading the way in promoting, and for the continuation of the modern economistic zeitgeist into the twenty-first century.
17

SME’s participation to Free Libre Open Source Software Communities

Batikas, Michail 04 July 2011 (has links)
Les motivacions entorn al programari lliure han estat sempre un tema de gran interès, sent la pregunta més obvia, "perquè les persones treballen de forma gratuïta?". Les motivacions dels desenvolupadors han estat establertes (per exemple, von Hippel (2001), Lerner and Tirole (2002)). De la mateixa manera que ho han estat per a les empreses grans i petites que adopten programari lliure basat en models de negoci (per exemple, Lakhani and von Hippel, 2003; Fitzgerald, 2006; Krishnamurthy, 2004). No obstant això, un nombre cada vegada més elevat de les PIMES amb estratègies que no estan directament relacionades amb aquest model de negoci estan contribuint a les comunitats de programari lliure. En aquest estudi s'investiga les motivacions d'aquestes empreses des d'un punt de vista de comportament mitjançant un model d'investigació basat en TPB (Theory of Planned Behavior). Hem demostrat que factors com la "obertura" d'una PIME, la importància percebuda del programari lliure, els desenvolupadors (empleats) d'una PIME, juntament amb l'ambient extern, podrien influir en la decisió d'una PIME a participar en comunitats de programari lliure. A més, hem demostrat que es poden identificar algunes diferències entre empreses d'alta base tecnològica i empreses amb poca base tecnològica. Aquestes conclusions poden ajudar governs nacionals o regionals per millorar el disseny de polítiques per tal d'incentivar l'ús i la participació de les empreses en les comunitats de programari lliure. Especialment ara, degut a la forta crisi econòmica que pateix Europa, el programari lliure pot ser una solució adequada per a fomentar la innovació. / Motivations in FLOSS have always been a subject of great interest, by starting with the most obvious question, “why people work for free?”. The motivations of developers have been well established (eg von Hippel (2001), Lerner and Tirole 2002). The same exists also for big and small companies adopting FLOSS based Business Models (eg Lakhani and von Hippel, 2003; Fitzgerald 2006; Krishnamurthy, 2004). However an increasing number of SMEs with strategies not directly related to the Business Model are contributing to FLOSS communities. In this study we try to investigate these motivations under a behavioral perspective by using a research model based on TPB (Theory of Planned Behavior). We demonstrated that factors like the “openness” of a SME, the perceived importance of FLOSS, the developers (employees) of a SME along with the external environment of a SME, could influence the decision of a SME to participate in FLOSS communities. Also, we have demonstrated that some differences can be identified between high tech firms and non high tech firms. These findings can help national or regional governments to design better policies in order to better promote the use and the participation of firms to FLOSS communities. Especially now, in times of heavy economical crisis in Europe, FLOSS can be an adequate solution to foster innovation.
18

Avlagda kläder - avfall eller resurs? : En enkätundersökning om hur studenter motiverar sin användning av olika klädavfallsmetoder / Garment lifecycle - to end or extend? : A survey of how Swedish students motivate the disposal of their unwanted clothing

Lindén, Felicia, Svensson, Madelene January 2022 (has links)
Under de senaste två decennierna har konsumtionen av nyproducerade kläder ökat med närmare 30 procent per person i Sverige. Den ökade konsumtionen har medfört att individers klädavfall blivit mer omfattande och många gånger slängs klädesplagg som fortfarande kan användas i hushållets restavfall även om andra alternativ är bättre. Med utgångspunkt i detta och tidigare forskning som visar att unga människor är en högkonsumerande grupp undersöker föreliggande studie hur studenter vid Jönköping University som är bosatta i Jönköpings kommun hanterar sitt klädavfall. Med en webbaserad enkätundersökning samlades data in för att ta reda på vilka av klädavfallsmetoderna secondhand, textilåtervinning, återförsäljning, ge till familj och/eller vänner och restavfall som målgruppen använder samt vad som motiverar deras val att använda dessa klädavfallsmetoder. Genom att utgå från teorin om bunden rationalitet och tematiskt analysera svaren på enkätens öppna frågor visar resultatet hos studiens 73 respondenter att valet av klädavfallsmetod är komplext och i många fall begränsas av omständigheter. Sådana omständigheter beskrivs av studiens respondenter som bland annat brist på tillgänglighet, tid och information. Resultatet visar också att valet av klädavfallsmetod många gånger inte enbart handlar om att göra sig av med sitt klädavfall på ett smidigt sätt. För vissa fungerar klädavfallsmetoderna även som ett sätt att generera extra intäkter eller för att hjälpa andra människor. En kunskap om och förståelse för varför klädavfallsflödena ser ut som de gör kan vara behjälpligt för såväl regeringar som kommuner i pågående arbete för ett mer cirkulärt samhälle. Senast januari 2025 ska nämligen alla EU:s medlemsländer uppfylla direktivet 2018/851 om avfall som bland annat innefattar krav på separat insamling av textilier. / Over the past two decades, the consumption of new clothing has increased by almost 30 percent per person in Sweden, which has also caused individual's clothing waste to become more extensive. Clothes that are still wearable is often disposed of in the household's residual waste. With this in mind, and with previous research showing that young people are considered a high- consuming group, this study aim to investigate how students at Jönköping University, who live in Jönköping municipality, handle their clothing waste. The empirical data was retrieved with a web-based survey to investigate which of the clothing disposal methods secondhand, textile recycling, private resale, giving to family and/or friends, and residual waste that are used by the target group and how they justify their choice of clothing disposal method. Through a thematic analysis of the open-ended questions in the survey, as well as through using the theory of bounded rationality, the results show that the choice of clothing disposal method is complex since it many times is limited by circumstances. Among the study’s 73 respondents, such circumstances turned out to be, among other things, a lack of accessibility, time, and information. Furthermore, the result shows that for some of the respondents the choice of clothing disposal method is not solely about getting rid of the clothes in a comfortable way. For some, clothing disposal is also about earning some extra money or about helping others. Knowledge and understanding of why clothing waste is handled the way it is and ends up where it ends up can be helpful for governments as well as for municipalities in their ongoing work for a more circular society. By January 2025, all EU member states must comply with the EU Directive 2018/851 on waste which among other things targets the need for a separate collection of textiles.
19

Business Case Studies in Sustainability Practices

Lynch, Sheri L 01 January 2016 (has links)
Protecting the environment for future generations is crucial. Although businesses are under strong pressure to support sustainability, many leaders find it challenging to meet the environmental needs of the present without negatively impacting their economic goals. This paper describes some methods that businesses have adopted to effectively manage environmental issues and offer an opportunity for competitive advantage. In particular, three case studies show ways that the companies have embraced and integrated sustainability into their strategic planning process, which helped them achieve growth and success in the context of social and environmental concerns. The paper shows how these businesses have chosen to embrace sustainability to minimize the negative impact in our environment, society, and economy. The case studies can help managers define and prioritize their sustainability goals, achieve social and economic value, and transform these environmental investments into sources of competitive advantage. This paper can be beneficial to other businesses who desire to move beyond compliance of the law and become proactive in helping our environment for future generations.
20

Les biens communs sans tragédie : effets de la pression sociale et des convictions

Bezault, Vincent 12 1900 (has links)
Pourquoi faire un effort pour la communauté sans rien recevoir en retour? C’est habituellement par conviction ou pour répondre à une norme sociale. En s’intéressant au problème du recyclage, nous définissons un modèle de comportement qui intègre ces deux facteurs. Nous déterminons sous quelles conditions un individu décide d’agir bénévolement, puis nous étudions comment ce comportement se propage dans la population. Cela nous permet de déduire comment un gouvernement doit pondérer ses efforts entre la publicité et la consigne pour tendre vers un taux de recyclage parfait au coût minimal. Nous prouvons aussi que dans certaines circonstances, il est préférable de ne pas encourager la participation au bien public. En effet, à mesure que plus de gens y participent, des tensions sociales émergent entre ceux qui font un effort et ceux qui n’en font pas. Celles-ci peuvent être assez fortes pour contrebalancer les bénéfices attendus du bien public / The commons need not be a tragedy: impact of peer-pressure and opinions Why do people help the community without getting anything in return? Usually, they either hold the firm belief they should do so or they want to follow a social norm. The behavioural model of this paper takes those two factors into account and applies them to recycling issues. It shows under which condition people act selflessly and how this behaviour spreads across the population. This paper then determines how governments must balance advertising and packaging refunding in order to increase recycling rate at minimal cost. It also proves that under certain circumstances it is preferable not to start transition toward cooperation. Indeed, as people progressively start cooperating, the population becomes divided between followers and opponents to this new attitude. As long as this heterogeneity remains, peer-pressure causes a cost that may outweigh the expected benefits of cooperation.

Page generated in 0.0863 seconds