Morphogenetic Service Ecosystems: An emergentist analysis of the mechanisms of service ecosystem transformation

<p>The service ecosystem concept is becoming an influential unit of analysis and set of assumptions describing a systemic, processual and institutional view of service and exchange. This thesis critiques this set of assumptions and the resulting construction of service ecosystems. The critique forms the first of a three-stage approach to metatheorising underpinning this thesis. At the core of this critique is the issue of conflation, which is aligned with the sociological frameworks and underlying assumptions informing this literature. Conflation collapses the multi-levelled and dimensional complexity of the structure of service ecosystems and leaves it devoid of its cumulative organising and effects played out across time. Following the critique, the thesis pursues two objectives. Firstly, a conceptualisation is developed which offers an overarching lens, connecting a critical realist and emergentist social ontology to an analytical framework and a process of theorising built on reconceptualising the constitution of service ecosystems. Secondly, the thesis undertakes an empirical study to actualise this lens, aiming to develop new theoretical insight and sources of explanation of how service ecosystems’ experience change and stability in developing through time. The thesis undertakes an embedded case study of ICT and digital reform in the New Zealand public sector and the enterprise services market, representing government agencies and service providers as a service ecosystem. The intensive case study provides an exploratory and illustrative setting in which to apply the metatheoretical and analytical framework and offers empirically informed mechanisms as theoretical propositions regarding the changing nature of the service ecosystem. The findings reveal four key mechanisms; compression, modes of alignment, ecotonal coupling and refraction. These mechanisms provide insight into the changing composition of the structure of the service ecosystem, the relationships of compatibility, tensions and complementarity between structures, the generative nature of emerging boundaries, and the role of history and layered organisation in shaping the trajectory of the service ecosystem. These mechanisms, informed by the overarching lens, contribute to overcoming conflation by establishing emergent relationality and a processual intertwining of being and becoming. These become the basis of multi-levelled, multi-dimensional complexity and cumulative organising. These foundations then allow the reconceptualising of change, coevolution and boundaries as important structural features. Finally, the under-theorised roles of stability and change, history, process, time and space are informed by these findings. Subsequently, this thesis contributes to: the need for further interconnected metatheoretical and midrange theoretical work investigating how service ecosystems adapt and evolve; the call to strengthen the metatheoretical and critical orientations and foundations of theories in marketing and service research; the critique of sociological frameworks and their theory-laden answers to the constitution of the social world and the terms on which it is to be researched and explained.</p>

Morphogenetic Service Ecosystems: An emergentist analysis of the mechanisms of service ecosystem transformation

<p>The service ecosystem concept is becoming an influential unit of analysis and set of assumptions describing a systemic, processual and institutional view of service and exchange. This thesis critiques this set of assumptions and the resulting construction of service ecosystems. The critique forms the first of a three-stage approach to metatheorising underpinning this thesis. At the core of this critique is the issue of conflation, which is aligned with the sociological frameworks and underlying assumptions informing this literature. Conflation collapses the multi-levelled and dimensional complexity of the structure of service ecosystems and leaves it devoid of its cumulative organising and effects played out across time. Following the critique, the thesis pursues two objectives. Firstly, a conceptualisation is developed which offers an overarching lens, connecting a critical realist and emergentist social ontology to an analytical framework and a process of theorising built on reconceptualising the constitution of service ecosystems. Secondly, the thesis undertakes an empirical study to actualise this lens, aiming to develop new theoretical insight and sources of explanation of how service ecosystems’ experience change and stability in developing through time. The thesis undertakes an embedded case study of ICT and digital reform in the New Zealand public sector and the enterprise services market, representing government agencies and service providers as a service ecosystem. The intensive case study provides an exploratory and illustrative setting in which to apply the metatheoretical and analytical framework and offers empirically informed mechanisms as theoretical propositions regarding the changing nature of the service ecosystem. The findings reveal four key mechanisms; compression, modes of alignment, ecotonal coupling and refraction. These mechanisms provide insight into the changing composition of the structure of the service ecosystem, the relationships of compatibility, tensions and complementarity between structures, the generative nature of emerging boundaries, and the role of history and layered organisation in shaping the trajectory of the service ecosystem. These mechanisms, informed by the overarching lens, contribute to overcoming conflation by establishing emergent relationality and a processual intertwining of being and becoming. These become the basis of multi-levelled, multi-dimensional complexity and cumulative organising. These foundations then allow the reconceptualising of change, coevolution and boundaries as important structural features. Finally, the under-theorised roles of stability and change, history, process, time and space are informed by these findings. Subsequently, this thesis contributes to: the need for further interconnected metatheoretical and midrange theoretical work investigating how service ecosystems adapt and evolve; the call to strengthen the metatheoretical and critical orientations and foundations of theories in marketing and service research; the critique of sociological frameworks and their theory-laden answers to the constitution of the social world and the terms on which it is to be researched and explained.</p>

Method to Address Complexity in Organizations Based on a Comprehensive Overview

Digitalization increasingly enforces organizations to accommodate changes and gain resilience. Emerging technologies, changing organizational structures and dynamic work environments bring opportunities and pose new challenges to organizations. Such developments, together with the growing volume and variety of the exchanged data, mainly yield complexity. This complexity often represents a solid barrier to efficiency and impedes understanding, controlling, and improving processes in organizations. Hence, organizations are prevailingly seeking to identify and avoid unnecessary complexity, which is an odd mixture of different factors. Similarly, in research, much effort has been put into measuring, reviewing, and studying complexity. However, these efforts are highly fragmented and lack a joint perspective. Further, this negatively affects the complexity research acceptance by practitioners. In this study, we extend the body of knowledge on complexity research and practice addressing its high fragmentation. In particular, a comprehensive literature analysis of complexity research is conducted to capture different types of complexity in organizations. The results are comparatively analyzed, and a morphological box containing three aspects and ten features is developed. In addition, an established multi-dimensional complexity framework is employed to synthesize the results. Using the findings from these analyses and adopting the Goal Question Metric, we propose a method for complexity management. This method serves to provide key insights and decision support in the form of extensive guidelines for addressing complexity. Thus, our findings can assist organizations in their complexity management initiatives.

Distributed Computing for Genetic Approximation Algorithms for the Kissing Problem (n-dimensions)

Utilizing distributed computing for genetic optimization algorithms with n-dimensions and kissing numbers in their approximation, helps offload data and increase efficiency in approximation. In order to demonstrate this, we shall utilize mathematical proofs centered around N-dimensional vectors and arrays, as well as exponential dimensional analysis. Utilizing these proofs in optimization algorithms can have processed data offloaded through a shared network of computers running simultaneous multi-threaded computational processes. One can build a computational model based off of mathematical constraints viewed as higher dimensional complexity. Formulating such proofs is based off of degree of certainty versus uncertainty in the approximation, and which processing task should be optimized in order to yield the best result.

A geometric basis for surface habitat complexity and biodiversity

Structurally complex habitats tend to contain more species and higher total abundances than simple habitats. This ecological paradigm is grounded in first principles: species richness scales with area, and surface area and niche density increase with three-dimensional complexity. Here we present a geometric basis for surface habitats that unifies ecosystems and spatial scales. The theory is framed by fundamental geometric constraints among three structure descriptors—surface height, rugosity and fractal dimension—and explains 98% of surface variation in a structurally complex test system: coral reefs. We then show how coral biodiversity metrics (species richness, total abundance and probability of interspecific encounter) vary over the theoretical structure descriptor plane, demonstrating the value of the theory for predicting the consequences of natural and human modifications of surface structure.

Unfolding the Restrained Encountered in Hyperspectral Images

The content of the natural scenes needs to be interpreted which is the primary concern in computer vision. In the advancement of the systems focusing on the intelligent image understanding, the most powerful key is the degree to which meaningful information is extracted by the computer. Moreover with this advancement in the field of image processing, precise and huge information capturing images are desired. The hyperspectral images find its place in such fields of applications. For a single scene, the hyperspectral images (HSI) are composed of hundreds of channels of spectral data. For different materials, with the availability of detailed spectral information, hundreds of contracted bands are collected by hyperspectral sensors. However, with the dimensional complexity, its impact varies from field to field. We reiterate our main focus in this article on providing the various challenges existing relating to HSI and a case study of the current solutions provided for each. A clear depiction of the current issues and approaches in the field of compression as well as some general issues are also discussed towards the end section.

Synthetic glycoscapes: addressing the structural and functional complexity of the glycocalyx

The glycocalyx is an information-dense network of biomacromolecules extensively modified through glycosylation that populates the cellular boundary. The glycocalyx regulates biological events ranging from cellular protection and adhesion to signalling and differentiation. Owing to the characteristically weak interactions between individual glycans and their protein binding partners, multivalency of glycan presentation is required for the high-avidity interactions needed to trigger cellular responses. As such, biological recognition at the glycocalyx interface is determined by both the structure of glycans that are present as well as their spatial distribution. While genetic and biochemical approaches have proven powerful in controlling glycan composition, modulating the three-dimensional complexity of the cell-surface ‘glycoscape’ at the sub-micrometre scale remains a considerable challenge in the field. This focused review highlights recent advances in glycocalyx engineering using synthetic nanoscale glycomaterials, which allows for controlled de novo assembly of complexity with precision not accessible with traditional molecular biology tools. We discuss several exciting new studies in the field that demonstrate the power of precision glycocalyx editing in living cells in revealing and controlling the complex mechanisms by which the glycocalyx regulates biological processes.

Bifunctional oxindole-chromone 4C building block directed asymmetric synthesis of bispirocyclic hexahydroxanthones featuring five contiguous stereocenters and two side-by-side oxindoles

Optically active small molecules based on privileged natural product frameworks and rich in three-dimensional complexity are in high demand.