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Selling products used to be the standard way of doing business. Traditionally, it is left to the user to transform the purchase of a product into something that fulfils effectively a final-user need. Today, two streams of research – business management and sustainability – normally with very distinct perspectives on the world, have surprisingly converged to form a common conclusion: selling products is old-fashioned business. Companies should switch their focus to selling need fulfilment, satisfaction, or experiences. Or, in other words, selling integrated solutions or product-services. The business management literature argues that, by focusing on the integrated, final-client needs, and delivering integrated solutions fulfilling these needs, companies will be able to improve their position in the value chain, enhance added value of their offering, and improve their innovation potential. In a business world where many products are becoming equally well-performing commodities, this strategy is one of the ways to avoid a sheer competition on price – a type of competition that Europe never can win with emerging and low-cost economies such as China. In that sense, product-services can mean new business for old Europe. The sustainability knowledge stream argues that need-focused solutions could be inherently more sustainable than products. Product-services could offer the value of use instead of the product itself and decrease the environmental load in two ways. First, companies offering the service would have all the incentives to make the (product-)system efficient, as they get paid by the result. Second, consumers would be encouraged to alter their behaviour as they gain insight into all the costs involved with the use. Until today, the connections and interchange between the two research streams have been quite limited. The question of whether product-services truly are the avenue to a sustainable world is still under discussion. This book aims to develop a systematic view on this issue. The potential of product-services to enhance competitiveness and contribute to sustainable development prompted the EU to invest heavily in the theme under the EU's 5th Framework Programme (FP5; 1997-2002). A variety of research and development projects in the field were supported under the umbrella of the Sustainable Product Development Network (SusProNet). These included MEPSS (Methodology Product Service Systems); Home Services; HiCS (Highly Customerised Solutions); Prosecco (Product-Service Co-design); and Innopse (Innovation Studio and exemplary developments for Product-Service). The projects were undertaken by a mix of European research institutions and companies including Orange, Philips and Nokia. Some of these projects focused on developing methods that could help industries change their output from a product to a service. Others focused on the development of new product-services or solutions (HiCS, Prosecco, Innopse), and yet others tried to analyze under which circumstances product-services are likely to be implemented and accepted by consumers (Home Services). One project focused on dissemination of the concept to SMEs (Lean Services). Other projects focused purely on new product-service development, such as Brainfridge (an intelligent fridge managing its supply chain), ASP-NET (application service providers), Protex (intelligent enzymes) and IPSCON (receivers for wireless telephones). New Business for Old Europe brings together the key outputs from all of these groups to present a state-of-the-art collection on product-service development, prospects and implications for competitiveness and sustainability. The book has a number of aims. First, it attempts to bridge the gap between business and sustainability literature to lead to a better-founded understanding of the business drivers for embarking on product-service development, and its relation with sustainability and competitiveness. Second, the book reviews the large amount of studies that have developed toolkits, methods and approaches that can support marketers, product developers and strategists in business to develop product-services, selects the best-practice approaches and analyses any gaps. Third, the book examines what opportunities there are for product-service development in a variety of key areas including base materials, information and communication technologies, offices, food and households. Each chapter in this section discusses the area, developments that will stimulate or hinder the market opportunities for product-services, product-service examples, and typical implementation challenges for product-services in that area. These chapters serve as a quick introduction for companies interested in developing product-services in a specific area. Fourth, the book translates all the lessons into suggested approaches for product-service development by companies. Annexes include a lightweight "product-service development manual" and an alphabetical list of useful underlying tools.
Lecturers and researchers at Saarland University's Europa-Institut present the latest findings and trends of their most important research topics. They discuss the present state of the art in European management, focussing on the areas of marketing & commerce, finance, human resource management & entrepreneurship, as well as European policy.
Old Europe, New Suburbanization? takes us on a journey of rediscovery into some of Europe's oldest metropolises. The volume's contributors reveal the great variety of patterns and processes of urbanization that make Europe a fruitful ground for furthering the diversity of global suburbanisms.
The youthful vigour of urbanization in North America has promulgated a dominant perspective on urban theory, specifically on suburbs, that establishes the United States as the norm against which all other contexts are measured. However, much of the vocabulary surrounding the American experience isn’t applicable to the wider world. Old Europe, New Suburbanization? takes us on a journey of rediscovery into some of Europe’s oldest metropolises. The volume’s contributors reveal the great variety of patterns and processes of urbanization that make Europe a fruitful ground for furthering the diversity of global suburbanisms. The effects of urban history found in such cities as Athens, London, Madrid, Montpellier, and Sofia, varies greatly due to the sheer variety of economic, industrial, land, and expansionist policies at play on the continent. This collection highlights the varied historical and geographical manifestations that have shaped urban areas and provides evidence for new processes of suburbanization.
How well are European firms responding to the new opportunities for growth, and in which global value chains are they developing these new activities? The policy discussion on the future of manufacturing requires an understanding of the changing role of manufacturing in Europe's growth agenda.
In the prehistoric Copper Age, long before cities, writing, or the invention of the wheel, Old Europe was among the most culturally rich regions in the world. Its inhabitants lived in prosperous agricultural towns. The ubiquitous goddess figurines found in their houses and shrines have triggered intense debates about women's roles. The Lost World of Old Europe is the accompanying catalog for an exhibition at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. This superb volume features essays by leading archaeologists as well as breathtaking color photographs cataloguing the objects, some illustrated here for the first time. The heart of Old Europe was in the lower Danube valley, in contemporary Bulgaria and Romania. Old European coppersmiths were the most advanced metal artisans in the world. Their intense interest in acquiring copper, Aegean shells, and other rare valuables gave rise to far-reaching trading networks. In their graves, the bodies of Old European chieftains were adorned with pounds of gold and copper ornaments. Their funerals were without parallel in the Near East or Egypt. The exhibition represents the first time these rare objects have appeared in the United States. An unparalleled introduction to Old Europe's cultural, technological, and artistic legacy, The Lost World of Old Europe includes essays by Douglass Bailey, John Chapman, Cornelia-Magda Lazarovici, Ioan Opris and Catalin Bem, Ernst Pernicka, Dragomir Nicolae Popovici, Michel Séfériadès, and Vladimir Slavchev.
The world economy in which we are living poses challenges that lead to a realization that 'more of the same' will be difficult to sustain. This provides an illustration that, in order to create new or modified knowledge practices, strengthen customer relationships and thus positively influence customer satisfaction, organizations must be flexible in configuring (combining) knowledge and knowledge structures in a way that is appropriate for delivering value to the customer. It must simultaneously develop effective strategies for updating the knowledge of its staff members necessary for underpinning the creation and delivery of appropriate knowledge services. Thus, unlearning (forgetting) becomes a critical means for organizational success. The ECKM community of scholars has already initiated dialogue that links its particular strengths to innovation issues. This conference aims to further that dialogue by attracting leading edge work that leverages the ECKM community's in-depth understanding of learning and unlearning to better understand knowledge management. Our aim is to stimulate breakthrough research streams linking learning, unlearning and knowledge management. How can organizations tailor, use, and extend techniques and tools from knowledge management for improving their business practices and processes? Building upon existing work on knowledge management (KM) and organizational learning, the conference will promote interdisciplinary approaches from computer science and information systems, business, management and organization science as well as cognitive science. Emphasis will be put on systematic learning from experience, KM tools and KM success factors. A special interest belongs to knowledge management initiatives which are lightweight (i.e., do not place considerable additional burden on users and KM experts), allow an incremental adoption (i.e., do not require large up-front investment before any return of investment is at least visible), and are flexible regarding frequent changes in experts and topics. Continuing the success of the ECKM conference series since 2000, the 2015 conference will provide an international communication forum bringing together academia and industry for discussing the progress made and addressing the challenges faced by continuous learning in knowledge-intensive organizations.
Sustainable consumption and production (SCP) was adopted as a priority area during the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 and has since become one of the main vehicles for targeting international sustainability policy. Sustainable consumption focuses on formulating equitable strategies that foster the highest quality of life, the efficient use of natural resources, and the effective satisfaction of human needs while simultaneously promoting equitable social development, economic competitiveness, and technological innovation. But this is a complex topic and, as the challenges of sustainability grow larger, there is a need to re-imagine how SCP policies can be formulated, governed and implemented. The EU-funded project "Sustainable Consumption Research Exchanges" (SCORE!) consists of around 200 experts in the field of sustainable innovation and sustainable consumption. The SCORE! philosophy is that innovation in SCP policy can be achieved only if experts that understand business development, (sustainable) solution design, consumer behaviour and system innovation policy work together in shaping it. Sustainable technology design can be effective only if business can profitably make the products and consumers are attracted to them. To understand how this might effectively happen, the expertise of systems thinkers must be added to the mix. System Innovation for Sustainability 1 is the first result of a unique positive confrontation between experts from all four communities. It examines what SCP is and what it could be, provides a state-of-the-art review on the governance of change in SCP policy and looks at the strengths and weaknesses of current approaches. The SCORE! experts are working with actors in industry, consumer groups and eco-labelling organisations in the key consumption areas of mobility, food and agriculture, and energy use and housing – responsible for 70% of the life-cycle environmental impacts of Western societies – with the aim of stimulating, fostering or forcing change to SCP theory in practice. The System Innovation for Sustainability series will continue with three further volumes of comprehensive case studies in each of these three critical consumption areas. Each chapter of this book examines problems and suggests solutions from a business, design, consumer and system innovation perspective. It primarily examines the differing solutions necessary in the consumer economies of the West, but also comments on the differing needs in rapidly emerging economies such as China, as well as base-of-the-pyramid economies. The System Innovation for Sustainability series is the fruit of the only major international research network on SCP and will set the standard in this field for some years to come. It will be required reading for all involved in the policy debate on sustainable production and consumption from government, business, academia and NGOs for designers, scientists, businesses and system innovators.
The developments in our environment and society has made it clear that the way we run our businesses and govern our nations is not sustainable in the long run. This is also why more and more companies and organizations are pursuing sustainable business through various Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. However, many companies experience that although they facilitate a CSR strategy on corporate level, CSR is often not embedded in their business and/or integrated across their functions. If companies are to achieve the full business potential and performance impact of CSR, sustainability has to be operationalized, targeted and measured across the value chain through empowered employees and in alignment with the business strategy of the company. Though state-of-the-art CSR research, theories and models, the theoretical platform for sustainable business and CSR is presented in this book. However, CSR is carried out in practice, and not just in theory. This is why each chapter is supplemented with practical case examples explaining the way in which different companies and their managers have integrated sustainable business in their strategy and across the organizations’ different functions. As is evident both in theory and practice, the success of CSR integration is highly affected by industrial context, as the unique characteristics of the industry have an impact on the key sustainability challenges and business opportunities of the specific company and industry. In support of this evidence, the book also reveals how CSR can be implemented across private and public organizations as well as small & medium sized entities (SMEs).
This open access book addresses the issue of diffusing sustainable energy access in low- and middle-income contexts. Access to energy is one of the greatest challenges for many people living in low- income and developing contexts, as around 1.4 billion people lack access to electricity. Distributed Renewable Energy systems (DRE) are considered a promising approach to address this challenge and provide energy access to all. However, even if promising, the implementation of DRE systems is not always straightforward. The book analyses, discusses and classifies the promising Sustainable Product-Service System (S.PSS) business models to deliver Distributed Renewable Energy systems in an effective, efficient and sustainable way. Its message is supported with cases studies and examples, discussing the economic, environmental and socioethical benefits as well as its limitations and barriers to its implementation. An innovative design approach is proposed and a set of design tools are supplied, enabling readers to create and develop Sustainable Product-Service System (S.PSS) solutions to deliver Distributed Renewable Energy systems. Practical applications of the book’s design approach and tools by companies and practitioners are discussed and the book will be of interest to readers in design, industry, governmental institutions, NGOs as well as researchers.