By not separating product flows from management, we target the little studied problem of how different management practices actually influence the environment. We test the socio-material philosophies actor-network theory, object-oriented ontology and agential realism on the life cycle assessment cases bread and cement, through three examples. We conclude that socio-materiality point out that managers could benefit from an increased contextual understanding of the material and energy flows that their decisions influence. For LCA analysts, it highlights that including actual practices and (...) action networks of people handling the flows could be useful for reaching effective use of LCA flow model results. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to use entrepreneurship to bridge the traditional – progressive education rift. Design/methodology/approach - The rift between traditional and progressive education is first deconstructed into five dualisms. Conceptual question-based analysis is then applied to determine if and how three entrepreneurial tools could contribute to bridging this rift; effectuation, customer development and appreciative inquiry. Finally, pattern based generalizations are drawn from this analysis. Findings – Patterns in the analysis motivate the articulation of an overarching (...) educational philosophy – learning-through-creating-value-for-others – grounded in entrepreneurship and capable of bridging the educational rift. Research limitations/implications Only three entrepreneurial tools were included in the conceptual analysis, signifying a need to explore whether other tools could also help teachers bridge the traditional - progressive education rift. Entrepreneurial tools and the new educational philosophy manifesting entrepreneurship could also need to be further contextualized in order to be useful in education. Practical implications - The tentatively new educational philosophy has been shown to be capable of bridging five dualisms in education which are currently problematic for teachers in their daily practice, and to remedy teacher challenges such as complexity, lack of resources, assessment difficulties, and student disengagement. Originality/value – An educational philosophy grounded in entrepreneurship has arguably not been proposed previously. Contrasting existent educational philosophies, this new philosophy goes beyond learning-through to also emphasize creating-value-for-others. This could facilitate bridging between traditional and progressive education, one of the most important challenges in education. It could also be used to facilitate the infusion of entrepreneurship into general education. (shrink)

Purpose The role of entrepreneurship as a major engine for innovation, economic growth and job creation has made policymakers argue for infusing entrepreneurship into all levels of education. It is argued that citizens must develop their entrepreneurial skills in order to cope with our increasingly globalized, fast-paced and uncertain world. Making the leap of faith from entrepreneurship into education is however rife with challenges and failures. Most attempts have resulted in isolated initiatives impacting only a small number of interested students (...) on higher levels of education. Common challenges to wider adoption are lack of definitional clarity around what exactly signifies “entrepreneurial” education, impeding organizational structures, lack of resources, assessment difficulties and fear of capitalism. To address these challenges, the purpose of this thesis is to articulate and qualify a tentatively new educational philosophy grounded in entrepreneurship, allowing teachers to use value creation as a stepping stone between entrepreneurship and education when attempting to infuse entrepreneurship into education. Result An educational philosophy grounded in entrepreneurship has been defined in this thesis as letting students learn through creating value for others, giving teachers prescriptive advice on what, how and why issues in education. This is inherently entrepreneurial in its reliance on a widespread view of entrepreneurship as being about new value creation for others and constituted by a set of teachable entrepreneurial methods. The resulting process is rich with interaction between people and triggers a multitude of emotional learning events, allowing for more engaged students and deeper learning of entrepreneurial as well as subject specific knowledge, skills and attitudes. Method The tentatively new educational philosophy proposed here was developed through an abductive five-year action research process of constant iterations between theory and practice. A total of nine empirical studies on all levels of education were drawn from, involving a few hundred primary, secondary, tertiary and continuing education teachers, around 2000 students and around 100 different educational institutions in three European countries. Two main action research cycles were conducted, each spanning 3-4 years in time. Theory from entrepreneurship and education guided the research, as well as theory from fields such as psychology, philosophy, anthropology, economics and methodology. A number of methodological developments were made in the research process, such as a new “proxy” theory of assessing entrepreneurial education, a mobile app based experience sampling informed interview technique and analytical frameworks for key emotional events and entrepreneurial competencies. Novelty This is the first attempt that has been made to propose an educational philosophy grounded in entrepreneurship. Questions explored in order to qualify it included why educational philosophy is important when infusing entrepreneurship into education and what is new with an educational philosophy grounded in entrepreneurship. Compared to existing educational philosophies such as traditional, progressive and experiential education, it can contribute with a purposeful movement between often unconnected and opposing philosophical positions rather than being yet another flag on the philosophical playing field of education. Whether this makes it an entirely new educational philosophy or merely a novel combination of established ones remains to be determined. Limitations Some important challenges and limitations with the proposed educational philosophy have emerged. It could be viewed as too excluding to view entrepreneurial education as being solely about education that includes value creation attempts. Asking students to focus on knowledge that can be useful for others could also be viewed as an overly utilitarian emphasis. The interdisciplinary challenge of bridging the two very different scholarly fields of education and entrepreneurship was also shown to be significant. It remains to be seen whether value creation as a stepping stone will allow scholars and practitioners to keep their feet dry when attempting to infuse entrepreneurship into education. (shrink)

In his article Open Problems in the Philosophy of Information 1 Luciano Floridi presented a Philosophy of Information research program in the form of eighteen open problems, covering the following fundamental areas: Information definition, information semantics, intelligence/cognition, informational universe/nature and values/ethics. We revisit Floridis program, highlighting some of the major advances, commenting on unsolved problems and rendering the new landscape of the Philosophy of Information emerging at present. As we analyze the progress of PI we try to situate Floridis program (...) in the context of scientific and technological development that have been made last ten years. We emphasize that Philosophy of Information is a huge and vibrant research field, with its origins dating before Open Problems, and its domains extending even outside their scope. In this paper, we have been able only to sketch some of the developments during the past ten years. Our hope is that, even if fragmentary, this review may serve as a contribution to the effort of understanding the present state of the art and the paths of development of Philosophy of Information as seen through the lens of Open Problems. (shrink)

Up until today, no comprehensive efforts have been made, and principles are yet to be established for the ‘sustainable conservation’ of the built environment – in an inter- and transdisciplinary manner, including systematic integrative modelling and an appreciation of the inherent values of already existing structures and ambiences. Existing built structures and environments are still often seen as obstacles for sustainable development. It may be argued that a more preventive and integrated approach, i.e. an early estimation and a meta-level understanding (...) of the built environment and its processes; its critical loads, inherent qualities, values, threats, life cycles, production chains, recyclability and quantities etc., would rather promote any kind of planning for a sustained future and the proper use of materials by hindering unnecessary material flows - i.e. through their unnecessary/unsympathetic production, exploitation and/or use, that would minimise their negative impact on peoples lives and the environment. This alternative and more preventative approach - earlier the predominant way of handling urban planning, construction and development, was historically much based on the valorisation of costs of manpower, materials, traditional knowledge, techniques and low-energy modes of transportation, compared to modern circumstances. There was also a profound knowledge of economics in more general terms and a well-developed forecasting of future scenarios. Given the demands for a sustained future, it would be reasonable to assume that this knowledge and approach would have a great deal to offer also to the planning and epistemological modelling of our times. (shrink)

Prospective life cycle assessment provides information on the environmental consequences of individual actions. Retrospective LCA provides information about the environmental properties of the life cycle investigated and of its subsystems. In this paper we analyse the links between the choice of methodology and different theories of normative moral philosophy. The choice of electricity data in an LCA of a conference site with local hydropower production is discussed as an illustration. The two types of LCA can be related to different theories (...) on the characteristics of a good action. Each type of LCA, as well as each of the moral theories, can be criticised from the alternative point of departure. Decisions based on retrospective LCA can have environmentally undesirable consequences. On the other hand, prospective LCA can appear unfair and result in environmentally sub-optimised systems. Both types of LCA also have methodological limitations. We cannot conclude that one type is superior to the other, but the choice of methodology should be consistent with the information sought in the LCA. (shrink)

Any enterprise – whether a major corporation, a small family-owned business, a public school, a hospital, or a military unit – needs to develop itself continuously in order to adapt to the challenges originating within itself and from its environment, in relation to its overall purpose or mission. Deliberate development and management of an enterprise manifest complexity that gives rise to a central challenge: how can we obtain a comprehensive intelligibility of an enterprise? One conceptual tool to overcome this challenge (...) is _enterprise modeling_; it supports articulation of an enterprise and consequently intelligibility of its complexity. In this sense, this dissertation presents four novel contributions to enterprise modeling. The first is a proposal for a notion of the model as such. This distinguishes itself from conventional notions as it incorporates the modeling-subject and its relation to the modeled-object, rather than only accounting for the latter. The second contribution is a proposal for a notion of the _modeling process_ by articulation of its general purpose, outcome, process, and structure. This provides guidelines for deliberate design of modeling process in order to obtain desired quality of the result: the models themselves – this is an aspect that is typically forgotten. The third contribution is a proposal for an _enterprise modeling language_ including a set of enterprise modeling constructs for representing an enterprise; examples are an enterprise’s Consumer, Output, Process, Organizational Culture, Rules, and Goals. Compared to other current enterprise modeling languages, this language provides a richer set of enterprise constructs supporting generation of higher comprehensiveness of an enterprise. Finally, the fourth contribution is a proposal for a _multi-modal enterprise modeling approach_; this provides guidelines for construction of enterprise models incorporating enterprise attributes from fifteen distinct areas of human knowing and experience, including numeric, physical, biotic, psychic, economic, aesthetic, and ethical knowing. This proposal supports modeling and consequently also comprehension of enterprises in a multi-disciplinary mode, thus challenging the conventional reductionist, single modal, modeling approaches. The four proposals for enterprise modeling are derived from propositions within Projective Constructivist Epistemology and Multi-Modal Theory and are supported by empirical experience from a set of case studies. Finally, the dissertation presents several questions for further research. One of these proposes the development of a _model-driven enterprise_. This would be based on conceptual models of itself, where active models operate computer-based enterprise systems. Hypothetically speaking, such a model-driven and technology-based enterprise would be endowed with a cognitive capacity, giving emergence to the potential of manifesting behavior and performance transcending those of conventional enterprises. (shrink)