Search results for "system dynamics"

What Do Chinese Entrepreneurs Think about Entrepreneurship: A Case Study of Popular Essays on Zhisland

2020

Entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly essential in this current era of the knowledge economy. It contributes to the innovation of products and services as well as improved processes. In the long-run, it can also improve the sustainability of the economy by depicting better efficiency and social goals. To stimulate entrepreneurship, it is essential to investigate the thinking behind entrepreneurship or what entrepreneurs think about entrepreneurship. Such investigations should encompass the mental images of entrepreneurs. In this regard, content analysis, based on the popular Zhisland essays, may be applied to elicit opinions from Chinese entrepreneurs about activities, critical factors …

The way forward : Can connectivity be useful to design better measuring and modelling schemes for water and sediment dynamics?

2018

For many years, scientists have tried to understand, describe and quantify water and sediment fluxes, with associated substances like pollutants, at multiple scales. In the past two decades, a new concept called connectivity has been used by Earth Scientists as a means to describe and quantify the influences on the fluxes of water and sediment on different scales: aggregate, pedon, location on the slope, slope, watershed, and basin. A better understanding of connectivity can enhance our comprehension of landscape processes and provide a basis for the development of better measurement and modelling approaches, further leading to a better potential for implementing this concept as a managemen…

Commercial and financial policies in family firms: The small business growth management flight simulator

2000

An interactive learning environment (ILE) was built to reproduce the budgeting process of a small family-owned entrepreneurial firm and to capture how current decisions affect business growth in a longer time horizon. The ILE matches the accounting-related perspective through which spreadsheet-based budgets are drawn up, with the system dynamics (SD) view. Such a goal has been pursued through a connection of traditional Excel spreadsheets with POWERSIM SD models. Playing the SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH MANAGEMENT FLIGHT SIMULATOR allows one to learn how (a) to draw up a budget based on an SD perspective, (b) long-term goals may be affected by current decisions, (c) business/family survival and gr…

Operational and financial effectiveness of e-collaboration tools in supply chain integration

2004

This paper develops a comprehensive model of supply chain integration and uses it to analyze and assess the operational and financial effectiveness of different e-collaboration tools at various levels of supply chain integration. This model is also used to evaluate the importance of the sequence in which e-collaboration tools are adopted in supply chain integration. Computational results from a validated system dynamics simulation model with different implementation sequences of e-collaboration tools and different financial scenarios show that local financial constraints can also severely impact operational and financial performance of the entire supply chain. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rig…

Special Issue: Enhancing Sustainable Performance in Organizational and Inter-Institutional Systems

2013

Sustainability is not just for Christmas… it’s for life. Sustainable solutions, whether sought in terms of business strategies, social policies, or the exploitation of natural resources have to serve organizations and communities in the long term, sometimes very long term, as well as the short term. Static analysis is unlikely to be able to evaluate candidate solutions fully, and is more likely to focus on the short-term future to the detriment of the longer-term. Sustainable solutions are more likely to be developed from studies based on deep analysis using systems approaches, and from system dynamics (SD) approaches in particular.

Transforming Food Systems at Local Levels: Using Participatory System Dynamics in an Interactive Manner to Refine Small-Scale Farmers’ Ment…

2016

Food systems will need to undergo considerable transformation. To be better prepared for and resilient to uncertainty and disturbances in the future, resource users and managers need to further develop knowledge about the food and farming system, with its dominating feedback structures and complexities, and to test robust and integrated system-based solutions. This paper investigates how participatory system dynamics modeling can be adapted to groups at the community level with low or no formal educational background. The paper also analyzes the refinement of workshop participants’ mental models as a consequence of a participatory system dynamics intervention. For this purpose, we…

Managing information security risks during new technology adoption

2012

Author's version of an article in the journal: Computers and Security. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2012.09.001 In the present study, we draw on previous system dynamics research on operational transition and change of vulnerability to investigate the role of incident response capability in controlling the severity of incidents during the adoption of new technology. Toward this end, we build a system dynamics model using the Norwegian Oil and Gas Industry as the context. The Norwegian Oil and Gas Industry has started to adopt new information communication technology to connect its offshore platforms, onshore control centers, and suppliers. In oil co…

Managing Sustainable Performance and Governance in Higher Education Institutions : A Dynamic Performance Management Approach

2022

This book aims to cover about a decade of research activities devoted to university management, exploring its specific organizational complexity, and adopting systemic approaches to managing its performance generation mechanisms. It also draws on the field experience spent as the academic delegate for scientific support to strategic planning, management control, performance evaluation, and statistical reporting at the University of Palermo, Italy. This work is included in a series on “System Dynamics for Performance Management.” The fast-changing evolutionary process of global higher education systems systematically poses new challenges related to the appearance of innovative elements that …

Simulation models in eGovernment using system dynamics: A literature survey

2016

System Dynamics (SD) is a method to build simulation models using computers, to study the behaviour of systems, and apply what-if scenarios aiming at achieving optimal policy design. To have an overview of the current state-of-the-art of SD use in the eGovernment field; we have surveyed related literature. Our main goal is to uncover the possibilities for future research by clarifying the shortages. The identified literature is not very large. In most of the literature, SD models use was limited to SD practitioners. We discovered low usage of Group Model Building and workshops despite their usefulness in involving non-SD practitioners in the model building process. Additionally, there is a …

Using Group Model Building and System Dynamics Modeling in Health Care Quality Assessment

Introduction & Research Aim Drawing from previous research on performance management, arguing that measurement systems in the public sector sometimes lead to harmful outcomes (Bianchi, 2010, 2015; Bivona & Montemaggiore, 2010), the purpose of this study is to assess the long-term dynamic impact of “ESY-net” (i.e. the Greek public hospitals' national performance measurement system) on the quality of healthcare services. Methods As hospital quality is a quite broad and abstract concept, perceived differently by different stakeholders, we will take a systemic view (Meadows, 2008; Sterman, 1994) and use Group Model Building (GMB) (De Gooyert, 2016, 2018; De Gooyert, Honingh, & Van G…