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This paper presents the architecture of a system for robotic welding of complex tasks. The system integrates off‐line programming, control of redundant robots, collision‐free motion planning and sensor‐based control. An implementation for pipe structure welding made at Odense Steel Shipyard Ltd., Denmark, demonstrates the system can be used for automatic welding of complex products in one‐of‐a‐kind production.

Managing knowledge is a value‐creating process in most organizations and is particularly important in knowledge‐intensive firms. Explores the ways in which groupware might facilitate processes of knowledge creation within a particular type of knowledge‐intensive firm. Based on a case study analysis of an expert consultancy where e‐mail was used successfully for information and knowledge search, and Lotus Notes was used with mixed results in project working, argues that the complexity of articulating the knowledge creation process can be reduced by using e‐mail. Furthermore, e‐mail, when considered in context, is potentially a rich medium for the development of collective knowledge over time despite its purported lean characteristics. Also concludes that, although distributed Lotus Notes databases can obviously alleviate temporal and spatial complexity, this media lacks the richness required for complex processes of knowledge creation. Thus, where temporal and spatial constraints do not exist, there will be substantial barriers for using groupware to support processes of knowledge creation in this type of knowledge‐intensive firm.

It is essential for professionals to have flexible access to information sources and interaction with clients and colleagues. Mobile phones, e‐mail, pagers, laptops, and PCs all aim to facilitate the flexibility necessary for conducting their work. Ideally, professionals with intense demands on their time should not be supported by various information and interaction technologies, they should embed core domesticated technologies. This paper examines how the vision of iniquitous ICT support for professional work meets the harsh realities through interviews with 16 individual professionals from 16 different organisations. The paper aims to answer the question of the applicability and reality of ubiquitous computing in today's work environment and where technology is in terms of limitations for the professional. The study demonstrates that the joint life of professionals and their technologies is not one best characterised by the technical and the social merging seamlessly. It is instead one burdened by constant attention.

Fueled by strong market forces as well as by increasingly ubiquitous and pervasive mobile technologies, shifts in working practices and the application of mobile technologies have been occurring around the turn of the millennium. One such change concerns the work of professionals. This paper discusses the emergence of the mobile professional, through a field study of more than 60 professional workers in Tokyo during 2002. The paper concludes that one must broaden one's conception of mobility and conceptualize mobile professional work in terms of locational, operational, and interactional mobility. Furthermore, some implications for a new design of mobile professional work and technology use are drawn from the analysis of the field study: ICT as mobility‐booster; maintaining multiple ongoing interactions; the importance of personal networks; and places as material foundations for interaction.

Compares experimental (eg. prototyping) and analytical (eg. specifying) approaches in systems design. Derives ′The Principle of Limited Reduction′. Defines this as: “Relying on an analytical mode of operation to reduce complexity introduces new sources of uncertainty requiring experimental countermeasures; relying on an experimental mode of operation to reduce complexity introduces new sources of uncertainty requiring analytical countermeasures”. Concludes that a mixed approach is best, but warns that this is as yet (1992) hypothetical.

The general aim of this chapter is to scrutinize implicit assumptions regarding leadership in the public sector entailed in the normative concept of “good governance.” We draw on the concepts of leadership substitution (Kerr & Jermier, 1977), managerial leadership activities (e.g., Bass & Avolio, 1994), and demands for leadership (Blom & Alvesson, 2014). In our empirical study, we explore fine-grained processes of leadership in several local government organizations, including everyday decision-making and social interactions.

A qualitative study was conducted on the basis of 21 interviews with middle- and lower level managers and their subordinates in five municipal departments in Germany and three in Lithuania.

The results suggest that everyday leadership processes can be considered as the coexistence of leadership substitutes and leadership interventions, initiated by the leaders and their subordinates. Such leadership substitutes like routines, laws, and instructions turned out as particular important constituents of leadership processes.

Results of our study open several new avenues for further research on governance and leadership in local governance organizations. First, future research can proceed with a re-conceptualization of leadership in the context of local governance by drawing on the follower-oriented approaches of leadership and governance. Particular focus on tensions, conflicts, and struggles as well as on the interrelationships between different hierarchical levels of public administration could represent a fruitful extension of our study. Second, the institutional and country-based contexts of local government systems should be taken into account more explicitly while studying leadership practices.

In terms of implications for practice, the results of the study call for an explicit consideration of the everyday activities while implementing “good governance.” Considerations of leadership as process of daily interactions between leading persons, subordinates and codes, structures, process rules, and management instruments should become a necessary element of such concepts, otherwise, important aspects of a “good governance” would be ignored and couldn’t be realized.

Our study contributes to the behavioral perspective of governance structures in the public sector by providing empirical insights from local government contexts and by re-conceptualizing governance and leadership processes. Instead of a merely reductionist concentration on managerial positions and persons, we propose a social-constructionist view on governance that allows for a more fine-grained, context-sensible perspective on governance in the public sector. Concretely, we call for a conceptualization of micro-level governance structures and processes mainly as a result of ongoing order-maintaining and order-negotiating processes between supervisors and subordinates, accompanied by institutions of leadership substitution and interventions from leaders and subordinates.