Loretta Bellato, Niki Frantzeskaki, Carlos Briceño Fiebig, Anna Pollock, Elke Dens and Bill Reed
The “tourism living systems” (Tourism Living System – TLS) concept is underdeveloped, with limited relevant theoretical analysis to understand how it can support the…
Abstract
Purpose
The “tourism living systems” (Tourism Living System – TLS) concept is underdeveloped, with limited relevant theoretical analysis to understand how it can support the transformations of tourism systems towards healthy communities and places. This paper aims to conceptualise TLSs and key stakeholder roles for enacting regenerative tourism using a living systems perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
Knowledge synthesis and co-production were used to identify the conceptual framework and its applications. Knowledge synthesis was undertaken through a scoping review of the regenerative tourism literature and supplemented by a consultation exercise with leading regenerative tourism practitioners. Co-production of knowledge involved case study research to assess the conceptual framework's practical applications and revise it with regenerative tourism practitioners.
Findings
The study revealed that regenerative tourism is informed by living systems' thinking. The authors identify five diverse, interdependent and interconnected stakeholder roles from the case studies and scoping review. All stakeholder roles are vital for constituting tourism systems that contribute to the healthy evolution of social-ecological systems.
Practical implications
Real-world case study applications of the TLS framework will guide tourism stakeholders who seek to adopt regenerative tourism approaches.
Originality/value
The study contributes to developing new frontiers in tourism stakeholder roles and paradigms with implications for regenerative tourism futures. The TLS framework challenges industrial conceptions of tourism by proposing a shift in stakeholder roles from extraction to generating new life to survive, thrive and evolve.
Details
Keywords
Rens Brankaert, Elke den Ouden and Aarnout Brombacher
The purpose of this paper is to propose a Living Lab protocol to evaluate interventions for people with dementia in context. The number of people with dementia is continuously…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a Living Lab protocol to evaluate interventions for people with dementia in context. The number of people with dementia is continuously growing, resulting in all kinds of societal challenges. As there is no cure for the diseases today, there is a need to look at alternative ways to combat these challenges, like the design of suitable interventions. These can support people with dementia to live more independent, with a higher quality of life. The protocol is developed over three Living Lab cases. In this, the authors focus on how to involve people living with dementia and the Living Lab stakeholder network.
Design/methodology/approach
Over three Living Lab cases, 26 people with dementia, and their caregivers, participated. In these cases, the authors focussed on three different interventions, namely: a reminder system, a daylight lamp and a mobile interface. Yet, a similar protocol was implemented that was built upon insights from its previous case. Hereby, the authors gathered hands-on insights concerning the design and implementation of a Living Lab protocol. Finally, the authors propose a protocol for those interested in pursuing similar goals.
Findings
For the resulting proposal, the authors found that it is important to actively involve the relevant Living Lab stakeholders from the start of the process. Because, first, care stakeholders protect participants as gatekeepers, and have a general interest in the interventions. Second, for industry stakeholders, the in-context Living Lab set-up needs to be aligned with their needs to gather usable insights for their interventions. Finally, the authors propose to keep the users engaged beyond the studies by facilitating a Living Lab community. This leads to a higher user engagement and a wider pool to select from for future Living Lab sessions.
Research limitations/implications
However, the authors have to be careful to base conclusions on this protocol, due to the limited number of participants and, therefore, the authors suggest this is investigated further. Additionally, the authors feel the role of stakeholders, and who is in the lead, should be investigated further.
Practical implications
By reflecting on three Living Lab cases, the authors propose a ready-to-use Living Lab protocol that can be applied by anybody who is interested to design more suitable interventions for impaired users.
Social implications
The building of a community as a basis of a Living Lab provides opportunities for all relevant stakeholders, and could reach beyond the development of interventions.
Originality/value
The paper provides hands-on insights on applying and developing a Living Lab protocol. This is done by structurally involving relevant stakeholders, while continuously adapting to the user’s needs. Only by continuing to do so, the societal challenges can successfully be addressed.
Details
Keywords
Jeroen De Waegemaeker, Eva Kerselaers, Maarten Van Acker and Elke Rogge
As policy makers address the issue of climate adaptation, they are confronted with climate-specific barriers: a long-term horizon and a high degree of uncertainty. These barriers…
Abstract
Purpose
As policy makers address the issue of climate adaptation, they are confronted with climate-specific barriers: a long-term horizon and a high degree of uncertainty. These barriers also hamper the development of spatial planning for climate adaptation. So how can spatial planners encompass these barriers and steer the general debate on climate adaptation? The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
This research analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of an international design workshop on climate adaptation, and drought issues in particular. Design workshops are originally an educational setting but they are increasingly employed as a tool to explore alternative futures on a complex, real-life design problem. The case study illustrates how climate-specific barriers emerged throughout the design workshop and clarifies how they were encompassed by the participating design students.
Findings
The research clarifies the added value of a design workshop on climate adaptation. The paper highlights specific promising characteristics of the design workshop: the visualization of future adaptation challenges and the current water system, the focus on a regional project instead of sectoral adjustments and the integration of the adaptation challenge with other socio-economic goals. In the case study Flanders, however, the necessary participation of climate experts and policy makers of other domains proved challenging.
Originality/value
The paper argues that a design workshop has the potential to enrich the debate and policy work on climate adaptation. In many countries with low-planning tradition, however, additional tools are needed to help set the “adaptation agenda.”
Details
Keywords
Guy Parmentier, Séverine Le Loarne-Lemaire and Maxime Mellard
This paper aims to identify the factors that influence the evaluation of an idea beyond its intrinsic values, especially those that relate to the presentation of the idea. With…
Abstract
This paper aims to identify the factors that influence the evaluation of an idea beyond its intrinsic values, especially those that relate to the presentation of the idea. With reference to a review of research conducted in the fields of psycho-sociology and psychology and using a qualitative comparative approach, the analysis of 57 pitches of entrepreneurial ideas during two start-up weekends shows that ideas receive the highest evaluation when they are judged to be the best in terms of novelty, feasibility, and relevance. However, our results also show that mastery by ideators of the basics of pitch presentation – especially clear enunciation – is also a necessary condition for acceptance of the idea by the audience. The paper seeks to contribute to the literature by identifying the most favorable configurations for a positive evaluation of an entrepreneurial idea in this type of innovation contest.
Details
Keywords
States that the participation of men and women in the German academic and scientific system is unequally distributed. Shows that the higher the status at the university, the lower…
Abstract
States that the participation of men and women in the German academic and scientific system is unequally distributed. Shows that the higher the status at the university, the lower the female proportion and that women also choose different subjects to men. Asks why more men choose science and engineering and what social cognitive characteristics do women show who opt for a “male” subject. Presents the theoretical background to the above before providing some insights using surveys carried out in Germany.
Details
Keywords
This article investigates the links between universities’ opportunities to shape their research profiles, the changing state interest concerning these profiles, and the impact of…
Abstract
This article investigates the links between universities’ opportunities to shape their research profiles, the changing state interest concerning these profiles, and the impact of profile building on research at university and field levels. While the authority of the Dutch state over research profiles of Dutch universities has increased, university management has considerable operational authority over the inclusion of new research fields and removal of existing research fields. Since all universities have begun to follow the same external signals prescribing applied research, research that has easy access to external funding, and research in fields prioritised by the state, a ‘quasi-market failure’ may emerge, as is demonstrated for evolutionary developmental biology and Bose-Einstein condensation.
Details
Keywords
This chapter provides a survey of alternative methodologies for measuring and comparing productivity and efficiency of airlines, and reviews representative empirical studies. The…
Abstract
This chapter provides a survey of alternative methodologies for measuring and comparing productivity and efficiency of airlines, and reviews representative empirical studies. The survey shows the apparent shift from index procedures and traditional OLS estimation of production and cost functions to stochastic frontier methods and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methods over the past three decades. Most of the airline productivity and efficiency studies over the last decade adopt some variant of DEA methods. Researchers in the 1980s and 1990s were mostly interested in the effects of deregulation and liberalization on airline productivity and efficiency as well as the effects of ownership and governance structure. Since the 2000s, however, studies tend to focus on how business models and management strategies affect the performance of airlines. Environmental efficiency now becomes an important area of airline productivity and efficiency studies, focusing on CO2 emission as a negative or undesirable output. Despite the fact that quality of service is an important aspect of airline business, limited attempts have been made to incorporate quality of service in productivity and efficiency analysis.
Details
Keywords
Michael Seadle and Elke Greifeneder
This editorial seeks to examine the definition of a “digital library” to see whether one can be constructed that usefully distinguishes a digital library from other types of…
Abstract
Purpose
This editorial seeks to examine the definition of a “digital library” to see whether one can be constructed that usefully distinguishes a digital library from other types of electronic resources.
Design/methodology/approach
The primary methodology compares definitions from multiple settings, including formal institutional settings, working definitions from articles, and a synthesis created in a seminar at Humboldt University in Berlin.
Findings
At this point, digital libraries are evolving too fast for any lasting definition. Definitions that users readily understand are too broad and imprecise, and definitions with more technical precision quickly grow too obscure for common use.
Originality/value
A functional definition of a digital library would add clarity to a burgeoning field, especially when trying to evaluate a resource. The student perspective provides a fresh look at the problem.
Details
Keywords
PAUL KAEGBEIN and MICHAEL KNOCHE
At the end of World War II the destruction of German libraries and the political division of the former Reich led in the Federal Republic (BRD) to a planned development of…
Abstract
At the end of World War II the destruction of German libraries and the political division of the former Reich led in the Federal Republic (BRD) to a planned development of research collections and of collection‐based bibliographic tools highly relevant to the present‐day Anglo‐American debate on so‐called holdings and access policies. Unhappily, the authors argue, current financial constraints in the Bundesrepublik after weakening the thrust of acquisitions work now pose a threat to the access tools themselves.
Miriam Barnat, Elke Bosse and Caroline Trautwein
The methodological discourse of mixed-methods research offers general procedures to combine quantitative and qualitative methods for investigating complex fields of research such…
Abstract
The methodological discourse of mixed-methods research offers general procedures to combine quantitative and qualitative methods for investigating complex fields of research such as higher education. However, integrating different methods still poses considerable challenges. To move beyond general recommendations for mixed-methods research, this chapter proposes to discuss methodological issues with respect to a particular research domain. Taking current studies on the transition to higher education as an example, the authors first provide an overview of the potentials and limitations of quantitative and qualitative methods in the research domain. Second, they show the need for a conceptual framework grounded in the theory of the research object to guide the integration of different methods and findings. Finally, an example study that investigates transition with regard to the interplay of the individual student and the institutional context serves to illustrate the guiding role of theory. The framework integrates different theoretical perspectives on transition, informs the selection of the research methods, and defines the nexus of the two strands that constitute the mixed-methods design. As the interplay of individual and context is of concern for teaching and learning in general, the example presented may be fruitful for the wider field of higher education research.