How has Japan become a major economic power, a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The consensus has been that, though the Japanese are not particularly innovative, they are exceptionally skilful at imitation, at improving products that already exist. But now two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, turn this conventional wisdom on its head: Japanese firms are successful, they contend, precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. Examining case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, GE, and the U.S. Marines, this book reveals how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge and use it to produce new processes, products, and services.

The knowledge-creating company : how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation

This article examines the function of documents as a data source in qualitative research and discusses document analysis procedure in the context of actual research experiences. Targeted to research novices, the article takes a nuts‐and‐bolts approach to document analysis. It describes the nature and forms of documents, outlines the advantages and limitations of document analysis, and offers specific examples of the use of documents in the research process. The application of document analysis to a grounded theory study is illustrated.

Document Analysis as a Qualitative Research Method

Social Network Analysis

The circular economy concept has gained momentum both among scholars and practitioners. However, critics claim that it means many different things to different people. This paper provides further evidence for these critics. The aim of this paper is to create transparency regarding the current understandings of the circular economy concept. For this purpose, we have gathered 114 circular economy definitions which were coded on 17 dimensions. Our findings indicate that the circular economy is most frequently depicted as a combination of reduce, reuse and recycle activities, whereas it is oftentimes not highlighted that CE necessitates a systemic shift. We further find that the definitions show few explicit linkages of the circular economy concept to sustainable development. The main aim of the circular economy is considered to be economic prosperity, followed by environmental quality; its impact on social equity and future generations is barely mentioned. Furthermore, neither business models nor consumers are frequently outlined as enablers of the circular economy. We critically discuss the various circular economy conceptualizations throughout this paper. Overall, we hope to contribute via this study towards the coherence of the circular economy concept; we presume that significantly varying circular economy definitions may eventually result in the collapse of the concept.

Conceptualizing the circular economy: An analysis of 114 definitions

This paper is based on the premises that the purpose of engineering education is to graduate engineers who can design, and that design thinking is complex. The paper begins by briefly reviewing the history and role of design in the engineering curriculum. Several dimensions of design thinking are then detailed, explaining why design is hard to learn and harder still to teach, and outlining the research available on how well design thinking skills are learned. The currently most-favored pedagogical model for teaching design, project-based learning (PBL), is explored next, along with available assessment data on its success. Two contexts for PBL are emphasized: first-year cornerstone courses and globally dispersed PBL courses. Finally, the paper lists some of the open research questions that must be answered to identify the best pedagogical practices of improving design learning, after which it closes by making recommendations for research aimed at enhancing design learning.

Engineering Design Thinking, Teaching, and Learning

This paper presents an ethnomethodological case study of a student engineering design team during their final year design project. The results were analysed with reference to a theoretical framework, based on Dorst s (2006) model, in which  a  design problem is taken as a paradox, made up out of the clash of conflicting discourses and  the nature of creative design is the forging of connections between these discourses . Three key discourses emerged from the data, that of the  commercial sponsor', the  university , and the  student group . It is suggested that the  commercial sponsor and  university discourses were in conflict, forming the  central paradox at the heart of the design problem. The student group failed to resolve this paradox, and went on to significantly underachieve in their design project. The aim of this research was to explore and describe the complex ways in which design emerges in practice, using Dorst s model of design problems as a theoretical framework. The framework has proved a useful and insightful way of considering how design occurs naturally in interactions between people.

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Design as the resolution of paradoxes: An exploratory study

This paper describes the research in identifying the key data elements that are indicative of the material state of a naval vessel. Naval vessels are long lived complex artefacts, containing in excess of 100 integrated “hard” systems. The systems may be configured to provide a variety of prescribed capabilities and associated command objective. However, the “hard” systems will not fully integrate or function in a cohesive manner without the interaction of “soft” socio-technical systems (e.g. maintenance teams, operators); the two are interdependent and reliant. The In-Service phase will contribute 70% of the artefact’s through-life costs and may comprise an operating period of more than 25 years. The data generated and utilised within each mode will reflect the operational and technical requirements of the numerous stakeholders and the functional state of the vessel.

Information resources for the identification of complex asset condition

A Minimum Mandatory Metadata Set (M3S) was devised for the KIM (Knowledge and Information Management Through Life) Project to address two challenges. The first was to ensure the project’s documents were sufficiently self-documented to allow them to be preserved in the long term. The second was to trial the M3S and supporting templates and tools as a possible approach that might be used by the aerospace, defence and construction industries. A different M3S was devised along similar principles by a later project called REDm-MED (Research Data Management for Mechanical Engineering Departments). The aim this time was to help specify a tool for documenting research data records and the associations between them, in support of both preservation and discovery. In both cases the emphasis was on collecting a minimal set of metadata at the time of object creation, on the understanding that later processes would be able to expand the set into a full metadata record.

Chris McMahon

Papers

Design as the resolution of paradoxes: An exploratory study

Information resources for the identification of complex asset condition

The Minimum Mandatory Metadata Sets for the KIM Project and RAIDmap