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The blogosphere can be construed as a knowledge network made of bloggers who are interacting through a social network to share, exchange or produce information. We claim that the social and semantic dimensions are essentially co-determined and propose to investigate the co-evolutionary dynamics of the blogosphere by examining two intertwined issues: first, how does knowledge distribution drive new interactions and thus influence the social network topology? Second, which role structural network properties play in the information circulation in the system? We adopt an empirical standpoint by analyzing the semantic and social activity of a portion of the US political blogosphere, monitored on a period of four months.

In this paper the authors explore ideological influences on the organizational adoption and development of the Managed Learning Environment (MLE), an enterprise level approach to information systems development in Higher Education, that was advocated by UK national agencies such as the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). The authors present three detailed longitudinal case studies. To capture the ideological dimension of MLE we use the concept of Technology Action Framing. They find that the ideological dimension of the technology has a significant impact on organisational socio technical processes by shaping strong and often conflicting attitudes to the adoption of MLE. The findings contribute to better understanding of this pattern of socio technical adoption and development.

Personalisation of media content is not a new phenomenon. Now, however, by configuring our search results and data feeds, algorithms that 'learn' from our digital footprint are determining what we see and hear. Pariser calls this the 'Filter Bubble Effect'. Yet, despite concerns that this effect is a threat to deliberative democracy, we are told there is relatively little evidence to substantiate its existence. This article draws on a case study to argue that this is because the existing research looks for technical effects while neglecting our social lives. If we follow Foucault's reasoning that systems of thought are also technologies, then we can see that material technologies (or what Foucault called 'technologies of production') and immaterial technologies (ideas formed in discourse) can co-constitute filter bubbles. Borrowing language from computing and science and technology studies, this leads to a redefinition of filter bubbles as socio-technical recursion. This case study illustrates just one potential combination of such material and immaterial technologies (namely, search engines and ideas that are encountered and formed during an individual's social life within their culture and class) that can create socio-technical recursion. The article concludes by arguing the advantage of conceptualising filter bubbles in this way is that it offers us a theoretical foundation for breaking out of this recursion by simultaneously challenging the mediums and messages that sustain them.

International audience ; As they result from the dynamic intertwine of social and technical networks Socio-Technical Systems (STS) are a means for structuring, in a participatory way, more resilient organizations. Collaborative information exchange is a key activity for a Socio Technical System to exist and play the main role in steering its evolution. These arguments are the main focus of the paper. An overview of the features of a STS is provided. To ground the discussion, the experience gained at IRES in developing STS collaborative information networks for road safety and health care management is mentioned. Although no data have been gathered so far, clues exist that these projects are raising awareness about STS potential for regional policy management. Even more notably, they are providing a major contribution to a progressively steady shift towards a more innovative processoriented planning approach to regional transport and health care. ; Les systèmes socio-techniques (STS) résultent de l'interaction dynamique des réseaux sociaux et techniques : ils sont un moyen de structurer, d'une manière participative, des organisations plus résilientes. L'échange collaboratif d'informations est une activité majeure pour l'existence de ces systèmes et a un rôle principal dans le pilotage de son évolution. Ces aspects font le sujet de ce papier. Nous présenterons d'abord le cadre de référence conceptuel des caractéristiques d'un STS. Puis, pour situer la discussion dans un domaine pratique de l'action publique, nous mettrons en avant l'expérience acquise à l'IRES dans le développement de réseaux d'information collaboratifs STS pour la sécurité routière et la gestion de services de santé. Bien qu'aucune preuve n'ait été recueillie jusqu'à présent, des indices montrent que ces projets apportent une plus grande confiance dans les possibilités des STS pour gérer des politiques régionales. De plus, étant axés sur les processus, ils fournissent une impulsion majeure pour la mise en place de pratiques innovantes de ...

The concept of boundary object helps in understanding how members of different communities of practice can cooperate without sharing a consensus on their goals or even on precisely what they are doing. Sometimes, however, scholars treat boundary objects as a shorthand explanation for successful cooperation across boundaries. Instead of tracing the network of associations within which boundary objects are nestled, it is assumed that some properties inherent to particular objects secure cooperation. To offset this tendency, this article examines the Irish and Israeli governments' attempts to raise funds in the United States through the sale of quasi-philanthropic bonds in the 1920s and 1950s, respectively. In the Israeli case, the bond served as a boundary object. In the Irish case, in contrast, a similar bond intensified disagreements between the Irish government and key Irish American organizations. The analysis highlights the importance of the entire socio-technical network within which boundary objects are nestled. It points to the importance of creating a zone of indeterminacy wherein boundary objects can maintain interpretive flexibility and facilitate cooperation. Furthermore, the analysis highlights the importance of temporal framing in the construction of boundary objects.

Construction Industrialization (CI) tends to improve industrial performance and contributes substantially towards global sustainability. Considering these merits, many countries and regions, including Hong Kong, have released policies to promote CI uptake. However, those policy interventions ignore the dynamic influence of stakeholders and technologies, which significantly influence the efficient management of CI. In response, this study aimed to objectively depict a real socio-technical system of CI uptake based on a representative case study in Hong Kong. Further, this study identified the critical issues associated with the CI uptake and proposed policy-related recommendations to overcome the key issues. In addition, this study proposed a novel approach based on two-mode social network analysis to facilitate the analysis from a socio-technical perspective. Theoretically, this depicts the interactions of construction industry stakeholders and artifacts within a dynamic, complex socio-technical environment, indicating a new stance for construction management. Finally, this research also provides valuable implications for the government to anticipate the impact of different CI policies on promoting its uptake within the complex socio-technical system.

International audience ; The blogosphere can be construed as a knowledge network made of bloggers who are interacting through a social network to share, exchange or produce information. We claim that the social and semantic dimensions are essentially co-determined and propose to investigate the co-evolutionary dynamics of the blogosphere by examining two intertwined issues: first, how does knowledge distribution drive new interactions and thus influence the social network topology? Second, which role structural network properties play in the information circulation in the system? We adopt an empirical standpoint by analyzing the semantic and social activity of a portion of the US political blogosphere, monitored on a period of four months.

International audience ; The blogosphere can be construed as a knowledge network made of bloggers who are interacting through a social network to share, exchange or produce information. We claim that the social and semantic dimensions are essentially co-determined and propose to investigate the co-evolutionary dynamics of the blogosphere by examining two intertwined issues: first, how does knowledge distribution drive new interactions and thus influence the social network topology? Second, which role structural network properties play in the information circulation in the system? We adopt an empirical standpoint by analyzing the semantic and social activity of a portion of the US political blogosphere, monitored on a period of four months.

International audience ; The blogosphere can be construed as a knowledge network made of bloggers who are interacting through a social network to share, exchange or produce information. We claim that the social and semantic dimensions are essentially co-determined and propose to investigate the co-evolutionary dynamics of the blogosphere by examining two intertwined issues: first, how does knowledge distribution drive new interactions and thus influence the social network topology? Second, which role structural network properties play in the information circulation in the system? We adopt an empirical standpoint by analyzing the semantic and social activity of a portion of the US political blogosphere, monitored on a period of four months.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of lean practices in the service sector.Design/methodology/approach– This paper examines the impact of lean service on firm operational and financial performance. Exploratory factor analysis is used to reduce the data and identify the underlying dimensions of lean service, and partial least squares structural equation modelling is used to test the developed model.Findings– The results indicate that the social bundles of lean service had an independent positive impact on firm operational and financial performance. Furthermore, while the technical bundles had an independent positive effect on only the operational performance, they interacted with the social bundles to improve both the operational and financial performance. The findings suggest that service managers must follow a systematic approach when implementing lean service practices without focusing on one side of the system at the expense of the other.Practical implications– The paper highlights the importance of implementing lean service as a socio-technical system (STS) if service firms are to achieve the best possible benefits from their implementation. The motivation factor (social side) and the customer value factor (technical side) are capable of improving all operational performance dimensions and profit margin even if implemented alone. Therefore, service managers with limited resources are encouraged to start lean service implementation with practices within these factors. However, they can also expect improved operational and financial performance from implementing other factors as they positively interact to further improve performance.Originality/value– Viewing lean service as a STS, this paper incorporates a larger set of lean practices than previous studies and demonstrates empirically their capability of improving service firms' operational and financial performance. It contributes significantly to the emerging literature on lean service by empirically testing the mechanism through which lean service affects firm performance.

Over the past 40 years, implementation of public policy has been developed into a mature but heterogenous field of research. Despite much attention paid to the context in which implementation occurs, studies thus far has only to a limited extent been concerned with how major socio-technological transitions affect the conditions for implementing policy. As societies experience major socio-technological transitions that radically change our ways of living and working, these changes also affect the implementation process. But how? This paper explores how theories of socio-technological changes can be drawn upon to add layers of explanations to a canonized model of integrated implementation. Recent technological developments in the transport sector are applied to this discussion to illustrate the usefulness of the suggested layered approach. The paper concludes by suggesting how the integrated implementation model and implementation theory can be combined.

This paper reconstructs the trajectory of energy efficiency policies in Berlin from the 1920s to today in order to illustrate how the shifting political and socioeconomic conditions of a city can shape urban energy provision and consumption. Taking a long-term perspective on the relationship between urban transitions and energy policy, it investigates how the geo-political turbulence, regime diversity and socioeconomic volatility experienced by 20th-century Berlin influenced strategies of electricity generation and use in the city. Drawing on different ways of conceptualising change to socio-technical systems in the literature, the paper's findings present a more differentiated picture of urban energy transitions than notions of path dependency and transition pathways imply, highlighting the importance of non-linear trends, political contestation and crisis discourses in and beyond the city and their relevance for reconfiguring urban energy systems today. ; Peer Reviewed

This dissertation develops a set of analytical tools and conceptual frameworks to explore the socio-technical implications of transitioning to a low carbon energy future. The chapters here investigate the energy challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa and analyze power expansion pathways in Nigeria and Kenya, outline the development of a novel electricity modeling tool, and conceptualize an energy sovereignty framework to enable people-centered energy planning approaches. Chapter 2 presents an overview of Africa's energy systems and the role renewable energy can play in supporting sustainable development in Africa, with a main focus on the challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa. I synthesize the most prominent papers in the past five years. I review the literature concerning the scale of generation expansion needed to achieve universal access in the region, the challenges of power sector finance, and the need for people-centered planning paradigms. Through an extensive literature review, I assess the capacity expansion needs of the region and highlight the policy lessons that enable private power sector investment such as transparent regulatory and procurement policies. I also present a critique of the socio-political implications of increased foreign investment in the region's power sector. Finally, I present several studies that explore the need for people-centered planning approaches in order to achieve more equitable energy systems for all. I argue that renewable energy presents opportunities to achieve power systems expansion in an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable manner. To do this, Sub-Saharan Africa must adapt its planning strategies to holistically address the technical, economic and socio-political challenges it faces. Chapter 3 takes a deep-dive from an overview of Sub-Saharan Africa to a focus on Nigeria. I develop a first-order capacity expansion model to analyze power expansion scenarios in Nigeria. Nigeria serves as a case of countries with significant electricity demand growth that is constrained by under-developed grid infrastructure. I illustrate how the dependence on natural gas for generation has stifled the nation's power supply, assess the role of renewable energy in meeting the nation's electricity demand growth, and compare the cost of its current power generation expansion pathways to cost-optimized pathways. Using the capacity expansion model, I find that Nigeria's current energy policy, known as Vision 30:30:30, perpetuates this heavy reliance on natural gas and significantly underestimates the role of solar energy in the future electricity mix. I also identify and assess lower cost alternative pathways which do not require any coal and nuclear generation expansion unlike the Vision 30:30:30 pathway. The results show that Nigeria will have to install at least an additional 38 GW by 2030 to keep up with grid-based demand growth alone - about eight times the current operational capacity. This chapter reveals Nigeria's need for an energy policy reform that reduces its dependency on natural gas, eschews coal and nuclear expansion, and harnesses its abundant solar potential using centralized and distributed renewable energy technologies.Chapter 4 outlines my development of a novel open-access electricity modeling tool known as PROGRESS (Programmable Resource Optimization for Growth in Renewable Energy and Sustainable Systems). PROGRESS enables generation expansion modeling for countries with low availability and access to power systems data. The design of sustainable electricity systems needed to fuel development in regions with low electrification rates (such as Sub-Saharan Africa) requires context-specific power system modeling. Modeling data requirements for these regions, however, can be challenging for researchers and other stakeholders to access. This chapter presents a proof-of-concept description to show how PROGRESS works and then presents preliminary results for generation capacity expansion using the case of Kenya.Chapter 5 presents what is, for me, the most critical aspect of this dissertation. I explore how transitioning to low carbon energy systems and achieving universal electricity access will require not only an extensive redesign of the existing energy infrastructure but also a rethinking of energy planning approaches. I argue that innovation in decentralized and distributed energy technology transforms people from mere consumers to prosumers by empowering them to plan for their energy autonomously. I aim to connect the rise of prosumers with long-standing social movements that call for just, fair and sustainable energy systems. I draw from a rich literature of socio-energy concepts that aim to incorporate social and human dimensions into energy planning. I focus on energy justice, energy democracy, and I introduce energy sovereignty. I synthesize how these concepts together emphasize critical considerations for energy planning: "energy for whom, for what, and at whose costs?" I also introduce an additional consideration: "energy by whom?" and I conceptualize its framework in relation to electricity provision. I propose that "energy by whom?" is an essential question for re-envisioning a new energy paradigm and designing a low-carbon energy future.Overall, this dissertation contributes analytical and conceptual tools for low carbon energy systems, which together provide novel socio-technical approaches for planning towards a low carbon energy future, and urge on the paradigm shift to just and sustainable energy for all.