Joining forces for public value creation? Exploring collaborative innovation in smart city initiatives

Creating public value is a key goal of public administrations, both in their daily business and in the growing field of smart government and smart cities, which focuses on IT-enabled innovations in the public sphere. However, many public administrations still struggle with such innovations due to complex technologies, high investments, and the numerous stakeholders involved. To address this issue, some local governments in continental Europe have turned to collaborative innovation approaches, partnering with (semi-)public utility companies in the hope that their additional innovation assets will boost innovativeness. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how exactly such collaborations should be governed to ensure that the focus remains on creating public value, as utility companies may have their own agendas. To explore this question, we conducted a comparative case study in the context of smart city initiatives with four cases in Swiss local governments. Drawing on agency and stewardship theory, we then propose a model of public-value-focused collaborative innovation, enabling us to explore various collaboration characteristics and their effects on public value creation. Our findings suggest that both agency- and stewardship-based collaborations increase innovativeness. However, while agency collaborations tend to produce smart city innovations that mainly serve the utility companies' business interests, stewardship relationships lead to innovations that are focused more on public value creation. As such, our study extends the literature on the effects of collaborative innovation on public value, and it provides practical recommendations on how such collaborative innovation should be designed.     

An analysis of policy initiatives to promote strategic research partnerships

Strategic research partnerships (SRPs) have become a salient feature of the US National Innovation System. We provide an overview of SRPs and examine the antecedents and consequences of centerpiece legislation designed to stimulate the formation of SRPs: the National Cooperative Research Act (NCRA) of 1984. NCRA allows firms to disclose their research joint ventures (RJVs) to the Department of Justice, which enabled them to significantly reduce their exposure to antitrust litigation. We estimate an econometric model of trends in RJV filings and find that, as intended by the legislation, the propensity of firms to engage in RJVs is sensitive to changes in the global competitiveness of US high-technology industries. More importantly, our results suggest that the establishment of the Commerce Department’s Advanced Technology Program, which provides financial support to firms that engage in collaborative research projects, induced firms to engage in additional (privately financed) RJVs. This is a spillover mechanism that warrants further attention as national innovation systems evolve.     

Embedded Technical Expression: Code and the Leveraging of Functionality

In this article, I argue that a key problem for understanding the social ramifications of software is an implicit separation of software programs into two separate elements: expressive aspects, which are seen as socially driven and affectual, and functional aspects, understood as scientific and rational. In order to overcome this binary, I develop an alternative framework that examines the ways software expresses best practices, correct behaviors, and social organization. A key element of this framework is an understanding of software programs as simultaneously rhetorical and tangible objects. Given that Western society is dependent on sociotechnical systems in which software plays a crucial role, understanding the complex ways software expresses normative tasks, practices, and social orders is increasingly important.     

Introducing sustainability into university curricula: an indicator and baseline survey of the views of university teachers at the University of Valencia

Many higher education institutions have assumed the role of diffusing knowledge, values, attitudes and behaviours that favour sustainability. A key objective in such work is training university teachers to apply sustainability criteria to their respective disciplines. While university teachers' active participation is essential to achieving this goal, their ideas about and predispositions towards introducing sustainability into curricula are not always understood or appreciated. In this paper, we report on a questionnaire survey at the University of Valencia, Spain, on the current baseline situation for introducing sustainability across the university's curricula. We also report on a measure to periodically review the situation, including progress of and/or decline in introducing sustainability into diverse subject areas, focusing on a series of indicators grouped under the common name ‘π Indicator’. Key findings from the survey include the widespread support for introducing sustainability across the university's curricula; however, as might be expected, significant differences occur in how questions are addressed by staff from various disciplines, including how they relate to departmental perceptions, interpretations and performance of sustainability‐related teaching.     

Social involvement and development as a response to the campus student culture

Given the widely accepted notion of whole person education in Confucian societies such as Hong Kong, Mainland China and Singapore, it is surprising that research literature originated in these societies pays little attention to how students learn and develop through out-of-class experiences at university. There is little research evidence on how the prevailing culture among student social communities (residential halls and student societies/clubs) influences students’ social involvement and development. This paper examines 42 Chinese students’ social experiences and development during their freshman year at a Hong Kong university. The majority of them were intensively involved in out-of-class activities. Their active social involvement was both a response to the culture of student communities and a conscious choice about social experiences at university. As a result, the students attained development in four dimensions: (1) the social competences of interpersonal and collaboration skills and new friendships; (2) the practical competences of time management, organisation, negotiation, decision making and leadership; (3) the intellectual competences of open-mindedness and independent judgment; and (4) the personal competences of self- responsibility and self-confidence. Educational implications are discussed towards the end of the paper on supporting and advising students regarding social involvement, particularly during the first year of university.     

Determinants of Charitable Giving of Business School Alumni

This study investigated the propensity of Business School alumni to donate cash to the alma mater. A logit regression model was fitted to the survey response data from the 1955/56–1990/91 alumni of a large, Carnegie-classified, Doctoral University I public higher educational institution. The marginal probability of giving was found to be significantly related to factors such as time since graduation, major area of degree, willingness to recommend the university to others, household attributes and family ties to the alma mater, the number of other voluntary donors known, and the availability of matching gift accounts where alumni are employed. The logit estimates can be used to predict the likelihood of giving and for selecting fund-raising prospects more efficiently. Potentially rich future research directions are explored.     

Software Engineering Design Principles Applied to Instructional Design: What can we Learn from our Sister Discipline?

The failure of many instructional design initiatives is often attributed to poor instructional design. Current instructional design models do not provide much insight into design processes for creating e-learning instructional solutions. Given the similarities between the fields of instructional design and software engineering, instructional designers could employ the ideas and techniques employed in software engineering to improve their design solutions. Software engineering development and project management methodologies can be employed to develop effective e-learning solutions. Furthermore, software engineering design principles used to develop high-quality software can be applied to planning and enhancing instruction. Fundamental software design concepts, such as abstraction, modularity, reusability, compatibility, extensibility, scalability, and maintainability are all important factors that can potentially lead to the development of high quality instructional solutions. This paper explores the possibility to integrate software engineering design principles into instructional design for e-learning solutions, which not only augment the generic instructional design approach with the best practices from the field of software engineering, but also make the development process more productive and efficient. Finally, this paper illustrates how all of the software engineering design principles are interrelated and can be realized in practice to enhance the quality of instruction.     

Fun with numbers: Alternative models for predicting salary levels

The increasing awareness and concern with equity issues in higher education, along with the escalating litigation, has prompted institutions to undertake salary prediction studies. Four prediction models (built on a males only and total sample) were compared: (1) entering all variables, (2) excluding rank and tenure, (3) using predicted rank and tenure, and (4) using only objective variables. Models were tested using all permanent full-time faculty at a large midwestern university. Using predicted rank and tenure was the most suitable for equity studies. Including all variables yielded the best results for explaining/predicting reward systems. The other two models did not appear appropriate for either purpose. The males only sample consistently produced the largest bias effects. Institutions considering a salary prediction study should find these outcomes helpful in determining appropriate analytical strategies.     

Adult education and the quality of life

The purpose of this study is to investigate the complementary role of adult education in influencing people's objective and subjective quality of life. The analytical strategy used to achieve this end is to estimate parameters in a path model which includes both objective indicators such as occupational status and earned income, and subjective indicators such as job satisfaction and perceived personal wellbeing. The investigation builds on Swedish data and employs the LISREL method in the fitting of the model to the data. The results indicate that adult education positively influences objective indicators of the quality of life. Even though adult education is found torelate to measures of perceived personal wellbeing, the hypothesis that it alsoinfluences the way men assess their life situation and evaluate their subjective quality of life cannot be confirmed.

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Zusammenfassung Zweck dieser Studie ist es, die ergänzende Rolle der Erwachsenenbildung in der Beeinflussung der objektiven und subjektiven Lebensqualität des Menschen zu erforschen. Die analytische Strategie, die zur Erreichung dieses Ziels angewandt wird, besteht darin, Parameter für ein Wegmodell zu finden, das sowohl objektive Indikatoren wie beruflicher Status und Gehalt beinhaltet, als auch subjektive Indikatoren wie Zufriedenheit im Beruf und empfundenes persönliches Wohlbefinden. Die Untersuchung beruht auf schwedischen Daten und wendet die LISREL-Methode an, um das Modell mit diesen Daten in Einklang zu bringen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daß Erwachsenenbildung die objektiven Indikatoren der Lebensqualität positiv beeinflußt. Obwohl man herausfand, daß Erwachsenenbildung zum Maß des empfundenen persönlichen Wohlbefindens inBeziehung steht, läßt sich nicht die Hypothese bestätigen, daß sie auch daraufEinfluß nimmt, wie die Menschen ihre eigene Lebenssituation einschätzen und ihre subjektive Lebensqualität beurteilen.

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Résumé L'objectif de la présente étude est d'examiner le rôle complémentaire de l'éducation des adultes dans l'action qu'elle exerce sur la qualité de vie objective et subjective des populations. La méthode d'analyse employée à cette fin consiste à évaluer les paramètres d'un modèle expérimental qui inclut aussi bien des indicateurs objectifs, tels que la situation professionnelle et le salaire, que des indicateurs subjectifs, tels que la satisfaction professionnelle et le sentiment de bien-être perçu par les individus. Cette recherche s'appuie sur des données suédoises et utilise la méthode LISREL pour adapter ce modèle aux données recueillies. Les résultats obtenus indiquent que l'éducation des adultes influe de façon positive sur les indicateurs objectifs de la qualité de la vie. Bien que l'on juge que l'éducation des adultesa un rapport avec les mesures relatives au bien-être perçu par les personnes, on ne peut vérifier l'hypothèse selon laquelle elleinfluence également la manière dont les gens évaluent leurs conditions de vie et leur qualité de vie subjective.

     

The effects of a structured learning sequence on Children's correlative thinking about biological phenomena

The purpose of this study was to determine if the achievement on correlational thinking tasks could be enhanced by a set of structured training exercises. The exercises were based on Piaget's analysis of the development of correlative thinking in adolescents. The achievement of the ninth grade students was greater than the achievement of the fifth and seventh grade students. However, some of the ninth grade students exhibited difficulty with the equivalence and reciprocal exclusion operations that were necessary for the solution of the correlation tasks. The results of the study suggest that the ninth grade students may be in the transition zone for this particular operation.