This investigation starts from the hypothesis that a new approach to new product development is required to meet the future requirements and expectations of customers and consumers and product and service providers. The investigation focuses upon domestic food refrigeration and its position within the retail food supply chain, with the domestic refrigerator as an example of a mature product, the future development of which, it is argued, may depend upon a new approach to new product development. A review of established and emerging new product development strategies suggests that such future requirements might be met through collaboration between organisations from different industrial sectors and across supply chains, and that existing strategies would not support such collaborations. A new methodology, Collaborative Envisioning is proposed which engages the business of academia and the tools of the designer to facilitate multidisciplinary trans-sectoral collaboration. It is further proposed that a demonstration project, Beyond the Fridge, is the most effective test for the methodology. Key participants in Beyond the Fridge are Sainsbury's, Electrolux, 3M, University College Northampton and University of East London. Results from Beyond the Fridge suggest that the Collaborative Envisioning methodology is effective in bringing together partners from different industrial sectors and uniting them around a shared and mutually supported vision of future business. However, the low start-up cost and high level of concept realisation inherent in the methodology have led to some overestimation of the tactical deliverables from an essentially strategic process. In the light of Beyond the Fridge it is recommended that structures are established at the initiation of a Collaborative Envisioning project so that tactical solutions which may be derived from the strategic objective are differentiated and separately funded from the core project. The reflection upon Beyond the Fridge, and the recommendations for future work derived from it, is followed by reviews of evolving consumer demographics and perceptions of food storage and preparation in the home, and recent initiatives to integrate new technologies into domestic and personal products, thus establishing the historical and social context for Beyond the Fridge.

No description available.

This thesis envisions sustainable forestry communities in Northern Ontario. Forestry communities struggle to maintain a quality of life against obstacles such as external (often global) economic pressures on the community’s forestry operation, youth out-migration and lack of local control over their natural resources. Principle aims in this thesis are to understand the built environment of small, remote forestry communities; to propose a vision for community self-sufficiency and long-term sustainability; and lastly, to identify the role of architecture in envisioning a built environment that might evolve alongside principles for long-term sustainability. The design exploration is focused on enhancing the quality of place in the north through effective integration with the boreal forest and its renewable resources. Scandinavian models emerging in towns with similar ecological conditions to Canada suggest that rethinking the use of local ecological resources might lead to appropriate architectural response in the region – one which offers stronger identity for these forestry communities. Such design processes are centered on two main questions: what overall framework will allow communities themselves to self-organize local resources, culture and knowledge towards long-term sustainability and regional identity?; and how can architecture and design specifically contribute to these objectives as well as sustain forestry communities?

This thesis envisions sustainable forestry communities in Northern Ontario. Forestry communities struggle to maintain a quality of life against obstacles such as external (often global) economic pressures on the community’s forestry operation, youth out-migration and lack of local control over their natural resources. Principle aims in this thesis are to understand the built environment of small, remote forestry communities; to propose a vision for community self-sufficiency and long-term sustainability; and lastly, to identify the role of architecture in envisioning a built environment that might evolve alongside principles for long-term sustainability. The design exploration is focused on enhancing the quality of place in the north through effective integration with the boreal forest and its renewable resources. Scandinavian models emerging in towns with similar ecological conditions to Canada suggest that rethinking the use of local ecological resources might lead to appropriate architectural response in the region – one which offers stronger identity for these forestry communities. Such design processes are centered on two main questions: what overall framework will allow communities themselves to self-organize local resources, culture and knowledge towards long-term sustainability and regional identity?; and how can architecture and design specifically contribute to these objectives as well as sustain forestry communities?

No description available.

Although the formulation of organisation strategies is reportedly easier, many organisations struggle when it comes to implementation of their strategies. Given that such strategies are in most cases informed by well researched market data and information, the strategy implementation challenges could then be linked to the role characteristics of strategic leaders, such as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The purpose of this research was to investigate the role of a CEO personality in strategic leadership in order to contribute to addressing the challenges of strategy implementation. The main methodology used was qualitative through unstructured interviews with 13 incumbent CEOs. A quantitative methodology was also employed to assess the personalities of the CEOs using standard personality test. The research found that strategic leadership practices are biased towards strategy implementation than the envisioning which typically supports the building of more resilient strategies. The research found that CEO Personality has a role in strategic leadership and this was suggested by the integrated analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data. Interviewed CEOs also provided lived experiences that support this suggestion. Organisations need to invest in envisioning and understanding the personalities in work places to build more resilient strategies. Further research is proposed to look at personality roles in different industries. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

abstract: Economic development over the last century has driven a tripling of the world's population, a twenty-fold increase in fossil fuel consumption, and a tripling of traditional biomass consumption. The associated broad income and wealth inequities are retaining over 2 billion people in poverty. Adding to this, fossil fuel combustion is impacting the environment across spatial and temporal scales and the cost of energy is outpacing all other variable costs for most industries. With 60% of world energy delivered in 2008 consumed by the commercial and industrial sector, the fragmented and disparate energy-related decision making within organizations are largely responsible for the inefficient and impacting use of energy resources. The global transition towards sustainable development will require the collective efforts of national, regional, and local governments, institutions, the private sector, and a well-informed public. The leadership role in this transition could be provided by private and public sector organizations, by way of sustainability-oriented organizations, cultures, and infrastructure. The diversity in literature exemplifies the developing nature of sustainability science, with most sustainability assessment approaches and frameworks lacking transformational characteristics, tending to focus on analytical methods. In general, some shortfalls in sustainability assessment processes include lack of: * thorough stakeholder participation in systems and stakeholder mapping, * participatory envisioning of future sustainable states, * normative aggregation of results to provide an overall measure of sustainability, and * influence within strategic decision-making processes. Specific to energy sustainability assessments, while some authors aggregate results to provide overall sustainability scores, assessments have focused solely on energy supply scenarios, while including the deficits discussed above. This paper presents a framework for supporting organizational transition processes towards sustainable energy systems, using systems and stakeholder mapping, participatory envisioning, and sustainability assessment to prepare the development of transition strategies towards realizing long-term energy sustainability. The energy system at Arizona State University's Tempe campus (ASU) in 2008 was used as a baseline to evaluate the sustainability of the current system. From interviews and participatory workshops, energy system stakeholders provided information to map the current system and measure its performance. Utilizing operationalized principles of energy sustainability, stakeholders envisioned a future sustainable state of the energy system, and then developed strategies to begin transition of the current system to its potential future sustainable state. Key findings include stakeholders recognizing that the current energy system is unsustainable as measured against principles of energy sustainability and an envisioned future sustainable state of the energy system. Also, insufficient governmental stakeholder engagement upstream within the current system could lead to added risk as regulations affect energy supply. Energy demand behavior and consumption patterns are insufficiently understood by current stakeholders, limiting participation and accountability from consumers. In conclusion, although this research study focused on the Tempe campus, ASU could apply this process to other campuses thereby improving overall ASU energy system sustainability. Expanding stakeholder engagement upstream within the energy system and better understanding energy consumption behavior can also improve long-term energy sustainability. Finally, benchmarking ASU's performance against its peer universities could expand the current climate commitment of participants to broader sustainability goals. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Sustainability 2011

Cette thèse vise à appliquer la théorie de la régulation en fonction des objectifs à l’analyse du comportement innovant au travail. Après avoir examiné l’état de l’art de la littérature sur l’innovation (premier chapitre), nous avons mené trois études empiriques sur des échantillons différents. Dans la première étude (deuxième chapitre), nous avons supposé et montré que la génération proactive des objectifs – incluant les processus de projection et de planification – était positivement liée au comportement innovant, et que l’engagement affectif, en interagissant avec la flexibilité du rôle ou avec le soutien du leader à l’innovation, modérait positivement cette relation. Dans la deuxième étude (troisième chapitre), nous avons proposé et montré que la planification médiatisait la relation entre la projection et l’innovation, et que l’habilitation psychologique et le soutien du leader à l’innovation modéraient positivement la relation entre la projection et la planification. Enfin, dans la troisième étude (quatrième chapitre), nous avons supposé et démontré que l’orientation d’apprentissage, le climat d’équipe pour l’innovation, et la variété dans la tâche stimulaient la performance innovante indirectement, à travers la médiation de la projection et de la planification, et que l’orientation d’apprentissage renforçait la relation entre la planification et l’innovation. Les implications théoriques et pratiques de nos études sont traitées dans la discussion générale. / The present dissertation aims at applying goal regulation theory to the study of innovative work behaviour. After reviewing the state-of-the-art of innovation literature (first chapter), we conducted three empirical studies on distinct samples. In the first study (second chapter), we hypothesized and found that proactive goal generation – which includes envisioning and planning processes – was positively related to innovative behaviour, and that affective commitment, interacting with production ownership or, alternatively, with leader support for innovation, strengthened this relationship. In the second study (third chapter), we proposed and showed that planning mediated the link between envisioning and innovation, and that psychological empowerment and team support for innovation positively moderated the relationship between envisioning and planning. Finally, in the third study (fourth chapter), we theorized and demonstrated that learning goal orientation, psychological climate for innovation, and task variety enhanced innovative performance indirectly through the mediation of envisioning and planning, and that learning goal orientation amplified the relationship between planning and innovation. Theoretical and practical implications of our works are addressed in the general discussion.

Nyckeln till ett framgångsrikt och värdefullt företag är att göra bra investeringar eftersom det är investeringarna som skapar den avkastning som dess ägare får som ersättning (Froot, et al., 1994). Om företaget strävar efter att göra värdemaximerande investeringar måste de därför bedöma vilka investeringar som kan tänkas generera en avkastning som är större än kostnaden för kapitalet som investeras (Brealey, et al., 2014). Detta är den teoretiska grundregeln för all investeringsbedömning (Brealey, et al., 2014). Men eftersom framtiden är fylld av risk och osäkerhet är bedömningen av en investerings ekonomiska värde ingen enkel sak (Sandahl & Sjögren, 2005). I företagens strävan att tämja denna risk och osäkerhet har Mikes (2009;2011) identifierat två olika kulturer, den beräknande kulturen och den visualiserande kulturen. Dessa kulturer präglas av sin syn på vad som är meningsfullt att sannolikhets bedöma och vad som inte är meningsfullt att sannolikhets bedöma (Mikes, 2011). Synen på vad som är risk och osäkerhet kan också kopplas ihop med Knights (1964) definition av begreppen där risk är det mätbara och osäkerhet det omätbara. Med utgångspunkt i Knights (1964) definition av risk och osäkerhet försöker vi i denna studie förstå hur bedömningen av vindkraftsinvesteringar påverkas av företagens syn på risk och osäkerhet. Vi söker förståelsen genom att studera tre olika företag som på olika sätt kan kopplas samman med investeringar i vindkraft. De tre perspektiv vi studerar är dels bankens som lånar ut, dels den privata aktören som enbart investerar i vindkraft och dels den kommunala aktören där investeringar i vindkraft inte tillhör kärnverksamheten.  Vår studie tyder på att de flesta risker som ingår vid bedömning av ett vindkraftverks ekonomiska värde uppfattas som osäkra. Den enda faktor som företagen försöker mäta och sannolikhets bedöma är vinden, detta är därför den enda faktor som kan anses vara en kvantifierbar riskfaktor enlighet Knights definition. Osäkerhetsfaktorerna som det framtida priset på el och elcertifikat hanteras istället med hjälp av kvalitativa metoder. Även om vinden verkar uppfattas som den viktigaste faktorn kan man därför argumentera för att den slutliga bedömningen av det ekonomiska värdet framför allt är en kvalitativ bedömning där erfarenhet och intuition spelar en avgörande roll. De studerade vindkraftsexploatörerna verkar därför tillhöra den visualiserande kulturen. / The key to a successful and valuable business is to make good investments because it is investment that creates the returns that its owner receives as compensation (Froot et al., 1994). If the company strives to make value -maximizing investments they must therefore assess which investments may generate a return greater than the cost of capital invested (Brealey et al., 2014). This is the theoretical basic rule of any investment decision (Brealey et al., 2014). But since the future is fraught with risk and uncertainty assessment of an investment's economic value is not straightforward (Sandahl & Sjögren, 2005). In the companies' efforts to tame this risk and uncertainty Mike (2009: 2011) identifies two different cultures, the calculative culture and the envisioning culture. These cultures are characterized by their view of which areas it is meaningful to assess the probability for and for which areas it is not meaningful to assess the probability (Mikes, 2011). Views on what is risk and uncertainty can be paired with Knights (1964) definition of the concepts in which the risk is measurable and the uncertainty is unmeasurable. Based on Knights (1964) definition of risk and uncertainty, this study tries to understand how investments in wind power plants are affected by the companies’ view of risk and uncertainty. We seek understanding by studying three different companies who in different ways can be linked to investments in wind power plants. The three perspective we study is; the bank who is financing wind power investments, the private company who only make wind power investments, and the municipal where investments in wind power does not belong to the core business. Our study suggests that most of the factors included in the assessment of the wind power economic value are perceived as uncertain. The only factor that the companies are trying to measure and make probabilities about is in their assessment of the wind. We therefore conclude that this is the only factor that can be considered as a quantifiable risk factor according to Knights definition. The uncertainties like that of the future price of electricity and electricity certificates is instead handled using qualitative methods. Although the wind seems to be perceived as the most important factor we therefore argue that the final assessment of the economic value is primarily a qualitative assessment where experience and intuition plays a crucial role. The studied companies therefore seem to belong to the visualization culture.

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