Stefan Kleinschmidt, Christoph Peters and Jan Marco Leimeister
While scaling is a viable approach to respond to growing demand, service providers in contact-intensive services (CIS) – such as education, healthcare and social services �…
Abstract
Purpose
While scaling is a viable approach to respond to growing demand, service providers in contact-intensive services (CIS) – such as education, healthcare and social services – struggle to innovate their offerings. The reason is that the scaling of CIS – unlike purely digital settings – has resource limitations. To help ease the situation, the purpose of this paper is to identify and describe the practices used in scaling CIS to support ICT-enabled service innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
The research draws on an in-depth analysis of three CIS to examine service innovation practices. The analysis informs model development for service scaling.
Findings
The analysis uncovers three practices for service scaling – service interaction analysis, service pivoting and service validation – and their related activities that are applied in a cyclic and iterative logic.
Research limitations/implications
While the findings reveal that the scalability of CIS is limited and determined by the formative characteristic of personal interaction, this study and its findings describe how to leverage scalability in CIS.
Practical implications
The insights into the practices enable service providers of CIS to iteratively revise their service offerings and the logic of creating value with the service.
Originality/value
This research identifies and describes for the first time the practices for the scaling of CIS as an operationalisation of ICT-enabled service innovation.
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Ellen Haustein, Peter Christoph Lorson, Eugenio Caperchione and Isabel Brusca
The purpose of this paper is to introduce librarians, faculty, and other interested individuals to contemporary German literature in English translation.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce librarians, faculty, and other interested individuals to contemporary German literature in English translation.
Design/methodology/approach
German‐language authors born in 1950 or later and listed on the Contemporary Living Authors Comprehensive List developed by the German vendor Otto Harrassowitz are searched in OCLC's WorldCat database to determine the existence of English translations. A bio‐bibliographical list is then developed featuring all contemporary German‐language authors who have achieved an English language translation of at least one of their literary works.
Findings
Of the approximately 1,400 writers on Harrassowitz's comprehensive list, a surprisingly large number of almost 80 authors of the younger generation (born in 1950 or later) have been translated into English.
Originality/value
This bio‐bibliography of contemporary German belles lettres (of the younger generation) in English translation is the first of its kind. It can be used by librarians to check their current library holdings and to expand their collections of German literature in English translation.
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Maria Aristizabal-Ramirez and Gustavo Canavire-Bacarreza
Development is a dynamic concept that pertains the evolution of human societies. Over the past few years policy makers, as well as academics, have incorporated a very important…
Abstract
Purpose
Development is a dynamic concept that pertains the evolution of human societies. Over the past few years policy makers, as well as academics, have incorporated a very important, yet sometimes neglected, component in the concept of development which is environmental costs and sustainability. One of the key aspects that affects sustainability is energetic consumption, therefore our aim is to determine if changes in oil, coal, and gas, prices during the period 2000–2010 influenced sustainable development.
Methodology/approach
We modified the Human Development Index (HDI) by adding energy consumption component, and propose what we call the Modified Human Sustainable Development Index (HSDI) which captures a broader definition of sustainable development. Then we employ econometric techniques to study the effects of changes in commodity prices on our index in the short run.
Findings
Our results show a nonlinear effect of commodity prices on our index, low and middle-income countries display a positive effect of prices on our HSDI, with smaller effects in the former ones, while high-income countries do not seem to exhibit a significant effect. While low and middle-income countries are typically commodity producers.
Middle-income countries are able to obtain larger benefits in terms of sustainable development due to a better institutional structure which constitutes an opportunity for them in the aftermath of the crisis.
Practical implications
Middle- and low-income countries should design policies that enable them to take advantage of the rises and protect their economies from the falls.
Originality/value
We address the problem of sustainable development and commodity prices in a post-crisi world, which was not reviewed in the literature. In addition we build a measurement of the Human Sustainable Development Index that considers energy consumption as one of its factors. Which is in line with previous results about energy consumption and the Human Development Index.
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The most significant event for the School has been the announcement of the creation of the National Centre for Management Research and Development. The Centre is due to open in…
Abstract
The most significant event for the School has been the announcement of the creation of the National Centre for Management Research and Development. The Centre is due to open in 1986 and will provide research facilities for up to 20 major projects designed to improve the competitiveness of Canadian business practices.