Narrow Results

Requirements Elicitation (RE) consists of collecting requirements for a future system. It involves engineers who are eliciting information, and stakeholders who are involved in the project to provide information. This research note aims to stimulate research about the impact of stakeholders’ commitment on RE. We define commitment, discuss how it can be measured during RE, and present a first exploratory study that we conducted to build a prototype “commitment matrix”. The matrix aims to clarify what engineers may expect during RE when involving stakeholders who are more or less committed.

Following the guidelines of the European Union (EU), Austria supports scientific research and technological development by publicly funding of research centers. Such centers are positioned between scientific and industrial stakeholders and have to simultaneously fulfill contradictory demands. This paper deeply analyzes the Austrian Center of Competence in Mechatronics (ACCM) and exposes why this publicly funded research center is able to effectively manage these conflicting demands. Using the theory of ambidexterity, the study highlights that appropriate structures and strategies are preliminarily needed. In particular we found that the fundamental abilities for managing contradictory demands are located on an individual level and argue that especially the autonomous, well-educated people and their competences of self-organization enable the research center to be ambidextrous.

Although values in business have a long history, only recently has their pivotal role in innovation and its management become a topic attracting growing attention from both researchers and practitioners. Values-based innovation management is developing into a vibrant field of studies and practice with increasing relevance for innovation managers and entrepreneurs, providing a powerful toolbox of new methods and applications as well as having societal impact. We survey the state-of-the-art discussions in the field, including related concepts and methods and values-based approaches in areas such as innovation consulting and education, business modelling and entrepreneurship. As an introduction to the papers in IJIM’s Special Issue on Managing Values for Innovation, this editorial paper revisits and repositions some widespread assumptions about the nature, functions and potential of values in innovation contexts. We show to what extent values are an inevitable moment of innovation-related activities, requiring contributions from diverse stakeholders in normative, strategic and operational management dimensions. We illustrate their practicality to promote rather than handicap innovation and clarify their potential to change and assume different meanings rather than being static entities. The explanatory power of a values-based approach, its generative potential and its emancipatory impact motivate further research and development. Future avenues for research and development include impact management studies, attention to different levels of values and advancing the methodology and available tools to manage values for innovation in order to achieve more desirable outcomes.

Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is a generic term for approaches supporting the systematic evaluation of alternatives in problems involving multiple criteria and stakeholders. One of the most challenging tasks is to gather preference information from stakeholders in a way that both reflects their true opinions and meets the theoretical requirements of the applied MCDA approach. Various techniques have been used in practice, including interviews and decision conferences. In this paper, we present a new cost-efficient approach in which an analyst generates weight profiles for various stakeholder groups. That is, instead of personally asking specific trade-off questions from the stakeholders, weight profiles are developed on the basis of more general preference information collected from the stakeholders. The potential advantages of this approach are: (i) the collection of the preferences using surveys is less laborious than personal interviews or decision conferences and (ii) the risk of cognitive biases in the weight elicitation can be reduced, because the most challenging task of MCDA — assigning weights to the criteria — is left to the analyst, who should be aware of typical biases and how to avoid them. We developed and tested the approach in a contested public decision-making situation related to the development of a new residential area. We utilised the data gathered from the participants of the workshops (21) as well as the data from a web survey including 177 responds via a randomly sampled closed survey, in addition to 484 responds via an open survey. Four preference profiles each having specific weight distributions to criteria were developed, using a multi-stage procedure. Four development alternatives were compared as based on the developed preference profiles. We were able to realise the MCDA process within a very tight time schedule, create plausible preference profiles and summarise each alternative’s pros and cons from different perspectives. However, we also identified several issues which have to be paid more attention in future cases or require further research.

The implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is examined from various perspectives, as well as the distinctive features of some theories. CSR is a kind of action for communicating with stakeholders to show that companies pay attention to the environment, nature, and society. The theories relating to CSR implementation can be discussed from different perspectives. Agency theory focuses on the relationship between agent and principal and may give rise to conflict of interest. Legitimacy theory places the public as its responsibility. Disclosing information about social and environmental performance is a path for companies to maintain or regain their legitimacy in the society’s point of view. Meanwhile, entity theory focuses only on the satisfaction of the shareholders, hence the company activities are only directed to meet the welfare of the owners. Enterprise theory recognizes the responsibility to the owners and broader stakeholder groups. However, Sharia enterprise theory pays attention in two directions, consisting of vertical accountability to God and the horizontal accountability in direct and indirect stakeholders for humans, the environment, and society.

Climate change is frequently discussed, especially in developed countries. Sweden is one of the leading countries for sustainable development. Even so, the public debate indicates that understanding of sustainability could be difficult. Most leading companies publish yearly sustainability reports. The Global Reporting Initiative standards are widely used as directives for reporting, but in spite of that, sustainability reports vary considerably in quality. There seems to be no agreed transparent structure on assessing company sustainability. The problem could be the lack of understanding of what sustainability and sustainable development mean at an operational level. One way of achieving improved sense-making could be by applying Quality Management principles by substituting customer needs focus with stakeholder needs focus. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion on what organisational sustainability and sustainable development could and should be and how it could be assessed. Quality Management principles based on a customer needs focus are translated to stakeholder needs focus. The process management approach of the outside in combined with the Pareto principle is used to identify global stakeholders and stakeholder needs as a starting point for understanding and defining sustainability at an operational level. A maturity structure based on the stages of understanding, defining, measuring, communicating and leading change is used to organise the content. A preliminary matrix to support the work on sustainability and sustainable development is proposed. This study is an example of how Quality Management could support Sustainable Development.

Stakeholder theory is the heart of interrelated theories of Sustainable Development, Social Responsibility, Quality Management and Organisational Excellence. Their integrity and discrepancy lie in the focus on stakeholders that shifts to different angles in different theories.

The paper’s objective is the comparison of contemporary management theories in terms of stakeholder focus and engagement. The empirical part of the paper presents the results of a study of management approaches implemented in 2014–2018 at 32 major business enterprises of the Republic of Mordovia (Russian Federation) that belong to the industry and service sectors. The study is based on a self-assessment model offered by the international standard ISO 9004:2009 “Managing for the sustained success of an organization — A quality management approach”. After the survey in 2018, standard ISO 9004 was replaced by a new version but has not yet been put into force in Russian Federation (the due date is 01.10.2020).

The results of a self-assessment reflects the level of maturity of key elements of management at the enterprises of the Republic of Mordovia, the factors and the dynamics of its development. A generalised evaluation showed that the management systems are at the third level of maturity. Half of the enterprises adopt a balanced approach to the needs of stakeholders; continual improvement is in the focus of these organisations. At the same time, the management of a number of enterprises is oriented only to the employees’ needs. The results show that the business community is stakeholder oriented but not stakeholder driven, and corporate sustainability is at the initial stage of development. For a region’s sustainable development, the authorities have to find additional incentives for the companies to improve stakeholder engagement and for the development of stakeholder networking practices.

Cruise tourism is strongly growing and destinations have had during the last decade a manifold increase in tourists that go ashore. New quays are developed in several ports of call. To some destinations, the visitor industry is part of their livelihood. WCED stated 1987 that sustainable development includes economic growth but with protection of the environment’s quality.

This paper is a part of a multidisciplinary research programme about how to investigate and contribute to the conditions for economic growth but with protection of the delicate environment in order to balance different spheres of interest, i.e., conduct a sustainable development. In sustainable development and quality management, the stakeholder is an important concept.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a theoretical study of the concept stakeholder. How can a tentative stakeholder model be described in quality-driven sustainability? Is there a paradigm shift in quality management?

This conceptual and discursive paper is based on a literature study departing from quality management (QM) and sustainable management (SM). The paper contains some philosophical discussions and comparative studies of others’ work and thinking.

The field of quality management is changing and literature shows that the meaning of stakeholder is influenced by the field of sustainable development. One conclusion of this paper is that there is a new paradigm of Quality Management.

The paper highlights the importance of interdisciplinary solutions when approaching societal issues, which can generate anomalies and new paradigms.

Cruise tourism is strongly growing and destinations have had a fivefold increase in tourists that go ashore. Investments in development of quays are done in several ports of call. The Brundtland Commission, 1987 meant that sustainable development includes economic growth but with protection of the environment’s quality. This paper was written within a larger interdisciplinary research programme, about how to create conditions for economic growth but with protection of the quality of the delicate environment in order to balance different spheres of interest.

This paper aims to study perceptions of local residents about the development of a new quay for cruising ships. The residents are stakeholders, which is an important concept in quality-driven sustainability. What does a new quay for cruising ships mean to the residents? What consequences can be identified? Does the cruising season affect the residents’ quality of life?

Within a qualitative research approach a survey based on a questionnaire was done. One delimitations in the data collection was made, i.e., residents in Visby, Gotland were asked to participate.

The main results indicate that the respondents have several opinions about tourists in general but don’t see difference between e.g. tourists and cruising visitors. There were both positive and negative consequences emphasized by the respondents. One particular opinion mentioned by a majority of the respondents was that they think the new quay will bring income to Visby and Gotland.

The major implication of the study is to show that visits at destinations also include the residents as stakeholders.

Requirements gathering and analysis is the most important phase of software development. If done properly, it reduces future maintenance costs. It can also stop projects that are unlikely to succeed before costs have become excessive. Different software systems require different approaches to requirements engineering. A mature requirements process can be based on a generic requirements process from which specialized processes can be adapted. We discuss such a generic process. The aim is to achieve for requirements engineering a capability level that is comparable to Level 3 of the Capability Maturity Model of SEI for the software process in general. We survey in some detail the parts of the process that deal with project purpose and feasibility, the techniques of requirements gathering, and the representation of requirements.

Incremental software development replaces monolithic-type development by offering a series of releases with additive functionality. To create optimal value under existing project constraints, the question is what should be done when? Release planning is giving the answer. It determines proper priorities and assigns features to releases. Comprehensive stakeholder involvement ensures a high degree of applicability of the results. The formal procedure of release planning is able to consider different criteria (urgency, importance) and to bring them together in a balanced way. Release planning is based on (estimates of) the implementation effort. In addition, constraints related to risk, individual resources necessary to implement the proposed features, money, or technological dependencies can be easily adopted into the release planning approach presented in this article.

Releases are known to be new versions of an evolving product. However, the idea of a release is not restricted to this, but can be applied to any type of periodic development where a release would correspond to an annual or quarterly time period. The special case of one release called prioritization is of even larger applicability wherever competing items have been selected under additional constraints.

An informal and later a formal problem description of the release planning problem is given. Ad hoc or just experience-based planning techniques are not able to accommodate size, complexity and the high degree of uncertainty of the problem. Plans generated in this way will typically result in unsatisfied customers, time and budget overruns, and a loss in market share. As a consequence of the analysis of the current state-of-the practice, we propose a more advanced approach based on the strengths of intelligent software engineering decision support.

Existing release planning methods and tool support are analyzed. An intelligent tool support called ReleasePlanner® is presented. The web-based tool is based on an iterative and evolutionary solution procedure and combines the computational strength of specialized optimization algorithms with the flexibility of intelligent decision support. It helps to generate and evaluate candidate solutions. As a final result, a small number of most promising alternative release plans are offered to the actual decision-maker. Special emphasis is on facilitating what-if scenarios and on supporting re-planning. Different usage scenarios and a case study project are presented. Practical experience from industrial application of ReleasePlanner® is included as well. Future directions of research are discussed.

The first section of this chapter is an introduction to relativistic complexity (a significant component of the intelligent organization theory). The presence of intense intelligence/consciousness-centricity and 3^rd order stability-centricity in the human world renders complexity relativistic. The impact of the human mental space is so tremendous that complexity is in the mind of the beholder, and predictability becomes highly subjective. In this situation, the state of relativistic static equilibrium may be beneficial. Certain spaces of complexity appear as spaces of relativistic order with surface patterns becoming more apparent. Such spaces must be creatively explored and exploited (higher exploratory capacity) leading to a more advanced level of intelligence advantage. In this respect, effective self-transcending constructions, high self-organizing capacity and emergence-intelligence capacity are significant attributes that the new leadership and governance system in intelligent human organizations must exploit. Holistically, the two strategies focus on concurrent exploitation of intelligence/consciousness-centricity and relative complexity, and optimizing the more comprehensive contributions of the integrated deliberate and emergent strategy.

Many issues/problems that present human organizations (nations, political systems, communities, business organizations, markets) are encountering due to accelerating changes (mindset, thinking, values, perceptions, expectations, redefined boundaries and high interactive dynamics) that cannot be well-managed with traditional knowledge and hierarchical practices are affecting governance and governance systems. Fundamentally, governance deals with power, interest, and conflict. The traditional governance systems are hierarchical, highly directed, controlled and managed, and the relational aspect has not been allocated sufficient priority resulting in extensive disparities. In the current complex dynamical and high interdependency environment, its weaknesses and constraints are highly apparent. The latter includes ‘space-time compression’; incoherency in thinking, values, perceptions, and expectations between the leadership and the other agents; diversification in stakeholders’ needs not accommodated; and constraints of current governance theories. Thus, a new theory that provides a more ‘realistic’ foundation is essential for deeper contemplation.

Primarily, recognizing the inherent strengths of human agents and the fundamental constraints/weaknesses of human organizations is a key foundation towards better adaptation, leadership, governance, resilience and sustainability. In all human organizations, the agents are intrinsic intense intelligence/consciousness sources that could easily transform their behavioral schemata. This observation contradicts the Newtonian/design paradigm, as the organizational dynamic of human agents is complex, nonlinear, constantly/continuously changing with limited predictability. In addition, human agents are self-centric, self-powered, stability-centric, independent and interdependent, network-centric and self-organizing due to high awareness. In this situation, high self-organizing capacity and emergence-intelligence capacity are new niches. However, this phenomenon can create new opportunities, innovation, and elevates competiveness; or destruction.

In particular, effective leadership and governance are spontaneously emerging key requirements in all human groupings — a primary trait for human collective survival. Historically, many organizations disintegrated because of the weaknesses in leadership and governance. Currently, with more knowledge-intensive and higher participative new agents (self-powered intrinsic leadership) possessing modified attributes that are dissimilar from the older generations (also due to the deeper integration of the economic, social, political, and environmental perspective), reduces consensus and collaboration, and renders governance and leadership even more nonlinear or dysfunctional. In particular, the traditional governance systems of more organizations are manifesting their constraints and incompetency, including incoherency due to new values and cultural pressure, and the wider spread of self-organizing networks. The emergent of informal networks is a more commonly observed phenomenon worldwide. Apparently, a deeper comprehension on the diminishing effect of the traditional organizational thinking (political, social, economic), governance capacity, precise strategic planning, decision making, hierarchical structure, communications and engagement, empowerment leadership, management, operations, and the highly nonlinear relational parameter is essential. Apparently, new principles of governance must emerge (intelligent human organization > thinking system + feeling system).

The new paradigmatic path of the intelligence governance strategy that exploits intelligence/consciousness-centricity, complexity-centricity, and network-centricity concurrently, introduces a new basic strategic path towards better adaptive governance and acceptance governance. The latter focuses on integrating self-powered self-organizing governance, reducing direct governance, and increasing e-governance and network-centric governance as a new necessity. In this case, the merits of adopting the intelligence leadership strategic approach simultaneously are more apparent. Hence, the new governance focal points must include more and better interconnected actors, the critical ability of self-organizing communications (supported by mobile/social media development), immersion of leadership nodes in networks (better exploitation of e-governance), increasing coherency of complex networks (exploiting interdependency of network of networks, and better network management), and elevating self-transcending constructions capability (higher self-organizing governance capacity and emergence-intelligence capacity) that better facilitates emergence through multi-level and ‘multi-lateral’ dynamics (complex adaptive networks <=> intelligent networks). Thus, the intelligence governance strategy emphasizes that mass lateral collectivity (acceptance governance) rather than selective enforced hierarchical empowerment as the more constructive approach in the present contact. In particular, the stabilityinducing role of leaders and institutions are critical. Apparently, optimizing the ‘everybody is in charge’ phenomenon (whenever necessary) is a more viable option.

Natural resource management and socio-economic planning in coastal zone to implement sustainable development have become a quite challenging topic. The State Oceanic Administration of China has published the management regulation of the feasibility assessment on the sea area usage since 2008. It clarifies that the feasibility assessment must be carried out for the exclusive usage of sea area in Chinese inland and territorial waters. After that, the technical guide of this assessment has been issued. By taken the usage purpose, scale and characteristics of the sea area into consideration, the feasibility assessment can be categorized into three grades. If a project has different usage purposes on sea areas, the assessment grade should be consistent with the highest one. In this paper, three real cases i.e., Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB), Supporting Facility Project for International Cruise Port at Phoenix Island and Ningde Doumi central fishing port with the first, second and third assessment grade, respectively, are introduced. On the basis of detailed understanding and investigation of the marine resources and the present development situation of each case, this paper analyzes the necessity of the project construction and need of sea area usage, and evaluates the rationality of the site selection, area and period, and the project consistency with local marine functional zoning and relevant planning. After that, the negative influences of the projects are presented, and in terms of the relationship between the project owner and stakeholders, the solution and suggestion of the project sea area usage are proposed. By comparison of these cases, we can conclude that there exist obvious differences on the study scope, evaluating emphasis and data requirement for different assessment grades. It provides a clear view on the feasibility assessment on the sea area usage in China. The system of the graded feasibility assessment which is judged by how a specified project uses sea, the occupied area of the project in the sea (sea area usage) and the characteristics of the area (for example, sensitive or insensitive), balances the rights and interests of the project owner and other stakeholders, and promotes the reasonable usage and sustainable development of the ocean.