Investigating the Relationship between Governance and Key Processes of the Iran IoT Innovation System

Despite the emergence of unique opportunities for social-industrial growth and development resulting from the use of the Internet of Things (IoT), lack of a well-posed IoT governance will cause serious threats on personal privacy, public safety, industrial security, and dubious data gathering by unauthorized entities. Furthermore, adopting a systemic governance approach, particularly for the IoT innovation system, requires a precise clarification on the concept and scope of IoT governance. In this study, by employing the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach, the role of governance in the Iran IoT innovation system is investigated. Contacting respondents across the seven industries, including Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Healthcare, Transportation, Oil and Gas, Energy, Agriculture, and Banking over the course of three months, the authors performed statistical analysis on 319 fulfilled questionnaires using SPPS and Smart PLS software. Findings show that all IoT-related TIS processes have been affected by IoT governance functions. The main result of this study is the proposition of particular governance functions, including policy-making, regulation, facilitation, and service provision with more notable impact on the indicators of the key processes in the IoT-based TIS.

Systemic Governance of Mountains, Rivers, Forests, Farmlands, Lakes and Grasslands: Theoretical Framework and Approaches

The life community of mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes and grasslands (MRFFLG) and its systemic governance are key components to build ecological civilization in China. It comprises diverse connotations in value, scientific and economic dimensions. Epistemologically, it comes from the Chinese traditional philosophy of harmonious coexistence of heaven, earth and man, and conforms to the Western ecological ethics, complex system science and environmental value theory. Methodologically, as a complex socio-ecological system in which man and nature interact and coexist, the life community of the MRFFLG should be governed coordinately from both narrow and broad views. At the policy level, from the perspectives of narrow synergy among ecological subsystems and broad synergy among the complex socio-ecological system, this paper evaluates the performance indicators of 16 pilot projects of the MRFFLG, and points out that the design of most pilot projects well reflects the narrow synergy of multiple ecological elements, but is short of attention to the broad synergy of green development and ecological civilization. There are two practical ways to promote the systemic governance of the MRFFLG. First, it needs to focus on the coordinated governance of watershed and ecological environment restoration against the background of global climate and environmental change. The goal is to restore and improve the service functions of ecological subsystems and enhance their climate adaptability. Second, in the context of new urbanization and green development transition, it requires a collaborative planning focusing on natural capital and green infrastructure investment, which is aimed at cultivating ecological dividends and realizing ecological economy.

Velosatiksmes pārvaldība Valmieras pašvaldībā: sistēmpieejas izpratnes un pārvaldības attīstība

Cycling and general sustainable mobility has become a topical issue around Europe, and gradually also in Latvia, including Valmiera – a medium size town, which is a research-base for this study where the governance and development of the municipal cycling infrastructure is analysed. The rapid growth of cycling in Valmiera not only highlights some deficiencies in urban infrastructure developments, but also reveals the management problems: the expectations and needs of users of different means of transportation and also pedestrians are not met. Looking towards solving various cycling development issues, it is necessary, first of all, to develop an understanding of system’s approach and the systemic governance of the cycling infrastructure. The urban transport/mobility system must be developed as a whole, integrating cycling mobility in it as an independently and continuously developing component, promoting a process of cooperation between all parties involved. Thus, to facilitate the cycling mobility of inhabitants in Valmiera, the involvement/participation of all the interested parties shall be pro-actively communicated – informed, educated/trained, pro-cycling behaviour encouraged. During this integrative case study, both quantitative and qualitative research methods were applied complementary: analysis of documents, infrastructure observations in the town with photo documentation, survey of inhabitants, also in-depth semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions. Additionally, a participatory observation was conducted through participation in cycling activities, forums, working groups, etc., elaborating suggestions for the municipal planning document - Transport Infrastructure Development Concept of Valmiera.

Cyber-Systemics, Systemic Governance and Disruption of the Criminal Law

Criminal law regulators face difficulties in adapting to technological change. They must often operate in environments of significant uncertainty, with changing policy aims and legislative provisions that fail to ‘move with the times’. Rather than engaging with robust, let alone radical theoretical examination of their actions and structure, regulatory organisations struggle to enforce laws in communities affected by technological or systemic change, often leading to claims of overcriminalisation, inadequacy, regulatory overreach or inconsistency. This article suggests that dealing with disruptive criminality solely through legal instruments is a policy failure. Instead, a radical new framework is proposed, embedded in cybernetics (a transdiscplinary approach to exploring regulatory systems). Such a framework — systemic governance — offers a substantially altered way of managing regulatory relationships that resists disruptive change and challenges regulators to find new ways of engaging with the population they seek to influence.

Social partner involvement in collective skill formation governance. A comparison of Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland

Dual vocational education and training (VET) with social partner involvement in its governance can typically be found in collective skill formation systems. This article reviews the diversity of collective skill formation systems with a particular focus on their systemic governance. In particular, we look at the actors involved as well as how the systemic governance is organised in terms of corporatist decision-making bodies. The article shows that there are important cross-national differences. First, the social partners do not always participate in the decision-making at the political-strategic level. Second, social partner involvement is not always on equal terms (parity), with trade unions in some cases being less strongly involved. Third, differences in VET governance are particularly pronounced at the technical-operational level. Empirically, the article focuses on the five prototypical collective skill formation systems Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Systemic governance of sustainable agriculture: Implementing sustainable development goals and climate-friendly farming

Globally ‘sustainable agriculture’ is increasingly recognized as central to addressing many of our pressing environmental and social issues with current efforts towards ‘sustainable agriculture’ being pursued by numerous global institutions. Johan Rockström’s impactful address ‘Beyond the Anthropocene’ to the World Economic Forum in early 2017 (Rockström, 2017) emphasized the need for humanity to remain in the Holocene for our modern human survival, highlighting ‘sustainable agriculture’ and ‘sustainable forestry’ as fundamental prerequisites to succeed in our transformation to sustainability through planetary stewardship. It is unclear, however, what exactly ‘sustainable agriculture’ is or who will deliver this important public good for humanity. This commentary highlights the significant challenges and collaborative opportunities for developing systemic approaches of governance of ‘sustainable agriculture’ at the farm, nation and international level that could deliver at least six of the Sustainable Development Goals.