How Is Knowledge Perceived as Power? A Multilevel Model of Knowledge Power in Innovation Networks

Inter-organizational power relations have long been considered to be balanced in innovation networks, which are viewed as loosely coupled systems. Some recent studies, however, show that innovation networks are asymmetric and hierarchical, and the power of network actors has become a significant but rarely addressed issue. As knowledge is the most important resource in the network, this paper introduces the concept of knowledge power by combining related research perspectives and conducting some fundamental research on it as follows: (1) knowledge power’s origins are analyzed by proposing the term “activated knowledge” and studying the path through which it is formed over multiple levels of the network; (2) a multilevel framework of characteristics of activated knowledge, which is considered the major determinant of knowledge power, is established, and suggestions are offered for how they impact knowledge power; and (3) a multilevel measurement model for knowledge power is built, and the above propositions are tested by mathematical inference. The purpose of this paper is not only to study knowledge power’s formation, determinants, and measurement but also to offer a comprehensive view, combining multiple network levels and multiple research perspectives, that should be useful to researchers conducting future studies in this field.

A method for remanufacturing process planning and control using loosely coupled systems

Remanufacturing is a crucial component for our societies to move toward a circular economy. Compared to new manufacturing, the distinctive nature of remanufacturing is found to have high variability, high uncertainty and, thereby, complexity. Therefore, remanufacturers need to be able to adapt to the complexity and to flexibly adjust their processes. Especially, the ability to remanufacturing process planning and control is important. However, few practical methods supporting that are available so far. Therefore, this paper aims to propose a method for designing teams and processes in remanufacturing based on the concept of loosely coupled systems. In the proposed method, Design Structure Matrix (DSM) is applied to identify loosely coupled sub-systems that enable to localize impacts of changes within themselves. These sub-systems are also regarded as cross-functional teams that reduce coordination efforts among line departments and therefore increase the adaptability against uncertainties. As a preliminary validation, the proposed method was applied to a real case of remanufacturing, and then found to be effective for creating teams and processes for remanufacturing process planning and control depending on given uncertainties.

Organizational couplings: a literature review

The loosely coupled systems (LCS) perspective emerged as a new way to understand the organizational structure from the field of Organization Studies. The purpose of this article is to pres­ent the main features of previous research studies that have addressed the perspective of loosely coupled systems. This article is based on a systematic literature review of 76 papers published dur­ing a 36-year period (1983-2019). The findings indicate that the main concepts studied around this perspective have been loose coupling, tight coupling, decoupling, degree of coupling, and coupling mechanisms, which are analyzed considering the dialectical relationship between distinctiveness and responsiveness. Likewise, the study of organizational couplings has been extensively devel­oped through qualitative methodology with case studies, interviews and documentary reviews. In particular, there are two theoretical frameworks broadly used along with this perspective, the sociological new institutionalism and the theory of normal accidents, which give rise to future research on topics such as decoupling and the normality of accidents, among others. This article contributes to the discussion of organizational ties by highlighting the contemporary relevance of the LCS perspective, its usefulness for understanding current and future organizational issues in the field of Organization Studies, and encouraging greater adoption of LCS analysis in Latin America. Additionally, this paper provides conceptual clarity on the main categories of organizational cou­plings and its operationalization.

New Adaptive Multi-Memetic Global Optimization Agorithm

This paper deals with the Simple MEC (SMEC) algorithm which belongs to a class of MEC algorithms. The algorithm was selected for investigation due to the following reasons: nowadays this algorithm and its modifications are successfully used for solving various optimization problems; the algorithm is highly suitable for parallel computations, especially for loosely coupled systems; the algorithm is not sufficiently studied --- there are relatively few modifications of SMEC (while, for instance, tens of various modifications are known for particle swarm optimization). Authors proposed an adaptive multi-memetic modification of SMEC algorithm, which includes a stage of landscape analysis for composing a set of basic adaptation strategies; software implementation of the algorithm is also presented. Performance investigation was carried out with a use of multi-dimensional benchmark functions of different classes. It was demonstrated that the concept of multi-population along with the incorporated landscape analysis procedure allows making a rough static adaptation of the algorithm to the objective function at the very beginning of evolution process at the cost of small computational expenses. Utilization of memes, in turn, helps the algorithm to correct possible errors of static adaptation during the evolution due to a closer investigation of search sub-domains

Universities and standardization instruments: the willingness to put an end to the organized anarchy

Many sociologists have for a long time based their research on the work published in the 1970s, in which universities were regarded as organisations that operate in a particular way. They were approximated to “organised anarchies” (Cohen et al., 1972) or to “loosely coupled systems” (Weick, 1976 ; Orton & Weick, 1990) which were considered host to “unclear technologies” (Cohen & March, 1974). This article call into question these concepts and confront them with the evolution of the piloting way of contemporary establishments of European higher education. The empirical material for this paper comes from the analysis of texts and reforms initiated in European universities. The paper will show the effects of standardization instruments on academic profession and how these instruments (and notably the learning outcomes approach) transform each segment of the university and generate a deep interdependence between all of them.