Most technology-based product development programs are becoming more complex and difficult to manage. New technologies, increasingly knowledgeable customers, partnered development projects, differentiated global markets, and more sophisticated product development practices make corporate...

Mass customization is a business strategy that aims at satisfying individual customer needs, nearly with mass production efficiency. It induces a high complexity level because of various customer requirements and a steadily changing environment. However, mass customization has some potential to...

An airport is the gateway which facilitates access to air transport. As a reaction to very diverse attacks on the air transport system during the last decades a broad range of security measures has been introduced to mitigate possible threats. The challenge to provide a trouble free experience...

In this paper, we explore how managing actors’ boundary judgments influence the adaptability of water governance. We approach this question by examining the relationship between the way water managers frame, and act in, complex water issues on the one hand and develop adaptive water governance...

While soft OR tools offer specific solutions to manage complexity in organisations, little is known concerning soft OR tools to deal with self-organisation in communities. This paper describes an action research project where the authors facilitated a process of self-organisation in a developing...

This paper analyses the scientific basis for an appropriate selection of human resources integration methods by considering the socio-psychological aspects (“soft factors”). The focus of this paper is the presentation and analysis of methods used for human resources integration (such as the...

This article addresses a relevant question arising in <i>knowledge-intensive industries: modelling productivity</i>; an important issue of increasing importance in developed economies, (Drucker [Drucker, P. 1999. Knowledge-worker productivity: the biggest challenge. <i>California Management Review</i>.],...

This paper presents a first attempt at an integrated Service Science (SS) and Viable Systems Approach (VSA) analysis of the real-world phenomenon of changing jobs roles. Changing job roles is important to quality of life and yet understudied by systems scientists. Today, individuals changing...

Organizational Learning (OL) is a scientific field characterized by a long history and growing interest, so to be considered a core and promising concept in theory and practice related to the management and the organization of work. This paper addresses the two main issues that have been...

A two-dimensional Cellular Automata model is proposed to simulate the exit dynamics of occupant evacuation. Concerning the exit width and the door separation, we put forward some useful standpoints: (1) exit width should be bigger than a critical value, and the door separation should be neither...