Optimale interventieplanning bij het wegennet vraagt om een integraal beslissingsproces. Allerlei... more Optimale interventieplanning bij het wegennet vraagt om een integraal beslissingsproces. Allerlei soorten beslissingen en diverse soorten informatie komen aan het begin van de besluitvorming bij elkaar. Toch is niet alles te plannen.
ABSTRACT In recent decades, research on the management of infrastructure assets has increased ste... more ABSTRACT In recent decades, research on the management of infrastructure assets has increased steadily. However, there are concerns raised about the contribution of studies to a coherent body of knowledge. There is a call for a more structured understanding of the knowledge that is emerging around the management of infrastructure assets. This paper attempts to answer this call through an empirical study based on the reference lists of over 8200 articles that present their study relevant to the management of infrastructure assets. In so doing, we apply recognised techniques from bibliometric and social network analyses to visualise and identify major and minor topics, where researchers have oriented and contributed. We find that managing infrastructure assets traditionally was object-oriented, such as pavements, bridges, water and utility networks, and that attention is only now emerging on the life-cycle decision-making and organisational aspects, although the latter remains weakly linked with technical aspects. We conclude with shared research orientations in ‘managing’ infrastructure assets.
ABSTRACT In aiming to understand how structures, such as rules, norms, and routines, establish in... more ABSTRACT In aiming to understand how structures, such as rules, norms, and routines, establish inside organizations, scholars now focus their explanation on practitioners who enact a multitude of behavioral logics. Studies adopting this institutional logic perspective apply assumptions about the apparency and dominance of logics and consequently cannot adequately explain, with empirical evidence, how logics coexist or compete for dominance among practitioners. To fill this gap, we open these concepts up to recent academic inquiry as to the dominant logics that practitioners enact. In so doing, we address the still unanswered call by Von Krogh and Roos to collect empirical evidence on dominant logics by operationalizing two concepts: self-reference and self-similarity. We introduce a methodology that involves causal mapping enhanced with statistical tests and graphical approaches. Through an empirical investigation, we show how this method provides the enacted patterns of multiple logics, validates their dominance, and detects internal contradictions and inconsistencies. These findings highlight that if one defines dominant logics in terms of self-reference and self-similarity, causal mapping then generates competing and coexisting logics that practitioners enact.
The economic crisis of 2007 has limited financial resources of governments for public works and s... more The economic crisis of 2007 has limited financial resources of governments for public works and service. For this reason, asset managers of transport infrastructure need to make priorities on their investments. This requires the identification of clear trade-offs between financial and public interests. However, academics have argued that the safeguarding of public interests for infrastructure is in jeopardy, because of ambiguity in the identification of these trade-offs. This paper explores the relation between financial and public interests. Subsequently it develops a conceptual framework to better understand how these interests can be combined in terms of infrastructure investment decisions for asset managers.
Built Environment Project and Asset Management, 2011
Purpose – The aim of this research is to better understand the decisions in infrastructure asset ... more Purpose – The aim of this research is to better understand the decisions in infrastructure asset management at public agencies and the challenges of these agencies to improve the effectiveness of their decision making. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a literature review on asset management at public agencies, a case study was used to investigate the decision making of a provincial
Journal of European Public Policy - J EUR PUBLIC POLICY, 2010
Optimale interventieplanning bij het wegennet vraagt om een integraal beslissingsproces. Allerlei... more Optimale interventieplanning bij het wegennet vraagt om een integraal beslissingsproces. Allerlei soorten beslissingen en diverse soorten informatie komen aan het begin van de besluitvorming bij elkaar. Toch is niet alles te plannen.
ABSTRACT In recent decades, research on the management of infrastructure assets has increased ste... more ABSTRACT In recent decades, research on the management of infrastructure assets has increased steadily. However, there are concerns raised about the contribution of studies to a coherent body of knowledge. There is a call for a more structured understanding of the knowledge that is emerging around the management of infrastructure assets. This paper attempts to answer this call through an empirical study based on the reference lists of over 8200 articles that present their study relevant to the management of infrastructure assets. In so doing, we apply recognised techniques from bibliometric and social network analyses to visualise and identify major and minor topics, where researchers have oriented and contributed. We find that managing infrastructure assets traditionally was object-oriented, such as pavements, bridges, water and utility networks, and that attention is only now emerging on the life-cycle decision-making and organisational aspects, although the latter remains weakly linked with technical aspects. We conclude with shared research orientations in ‘managing’ infrastructure assets.
ABSTRACT Over the last couple of decades, metropolitan areas around the world have been engaged i... more ABSTRACT Over the last couple of decades, metropolitan areas around the world have been engaged in a multitude of initiatives aimed at upgrading urban infrastructure and services, in an effort to create better environmental, social and economic conditions and to enhance cities’ attractiveness and competitiveness. Reflecting these developments, many new categories of ‘cities’ have entered the policy discourse: ‘sustainable cities’; ‘green cities’; ‘digital cities’; ‘intelligent cities’; ‘smart cities’; ‘information cities’; ‘knowledge cities’; ‘resilient cities’; ‘eco-cities’; ‘low carbon cities’; ‘liveable cities’; and even combinations, such as ‘low carbon eco-cities’ and ‘ubiquitous eco-cities’. Each of these terms apparently seeks to capture and conceptualize key aspects of ongoing urban sustainability efforts. Closer examination, however, reveals that the terms are often used interchangeably by policy makers, planners and developers alike. In this article we examine the reflection of the wider policy debate in academic discourse. By subjecting the twelve most frequently encountered categories mentioned above to bibliometric analysis, we aim to identify the distinct conceptual perspectives harbored by each of them.
Although sustainability is on the agenda of many countries and agencies, it is still a great chal... more Although sustainability is on the agenda of many countries and agencies, it is still a great challenge to properly integrate sustainability into major infrastructure projects, like tunnels. This is remarkable, as it is commonly accepted that the construction and operation of these civil infrastructures have a heavy impact on environmental, economic and social sustainability. In academia, the foregone conclusion seems to point to a lack of vision about sustainability with respect to tunnels. This article presents an empirical study that investigates sustainability ideas amongst tunnel practitioners in the Netherlands. The case was used as a practical environment to get access to tunnel practitioners, to explicitly define the meaning of a sustainable tunnel in its development phase. Perceptions of sustainable tunnels were extracted by means of a commonly accepted research methodology called Q-methodology. By applying this method, four perspectives were obtained: perspectives with a focus on energy, resilience, social or a transitional focus. Each perspective highlights distinct focal points on how to operationalize sustainability for tunnel projects. Each perspective is also accompanied by an anti-focus; how sustainability should not be approached, sometimes contrary to other perspectives. These insights help project practitioners in creating awareness for the existence of different perspectives, and subsequently help to focus project management efforts to implement sustainability in specific projects.
Optimale interventieplanning bij het wegennet vraagt om een integraal beslissingsproces. Allerlei... more Optimale interventieplanning bij het wegennet vraagt om een integraal beslissingsproces. Allerlei soorten beslissingen en diverse soorten informatie komen aan het begin van de besluitvorming bij elkaar. Toch is niet alles te plannen.
ABSTRACT In recent decades, research on the management of infrastructure assets has increased ste... more ABSTRACT In recent decades, research on the management of infrastructure assets has increased steadily. However, there are concerns raised about the contribution of studies to a coherent body of knowledge. There is a call for a more structured understanding of the knowledge that is emerging around the management of infrastructure assets. This paper attempts to answer this call through an empirical study based on the reference lists of over 8200 articles that present their study relevant to the management of infrastructure assets. In so doing, we apply recognised techniques from bibliometric and social network analyses to visualise and identify major and minor topics, where researchers have oriented and contributed. We find that managing infrastructure assets traditionally was object-oriented, such as pavements, bridges, water and utility networks, and that attention is only now emerging on the life-cycle decision-making and organisational aspects, although the latter remains weakly linked with technical aspects. We conclude with shared research orientations in ‘managing’ infrastructure assets.
ABSTRACT In aiming to understand how structures, such as rules, norms, and routines, establish in... more ABSTRACT In aiming to understand how structures, such as rules, norms, and routines, establish inside organizations, scholars now focus their explanation on practitioners who enact a multitude of behavioral logics. Studies adopting this institutional logic perspective apply assumptions about the apparency and dominance of logics and consequently cannot adequately explain, with empirical evidence, how logics coexist or compete for dominance among practitioners. To fill this gap, we open these concepts up to recent academic inquiry as to the dominant logics that practitioners enact. In so doing, we address the still unanswered call by Von Krogh and Roos to collect empirical evidence on dominant logics by operationalizing two concepts: self-reference and self-similarity. We introduce a methodology that involves causal mapping enhanced with statistical tests and graphical approaches. Through an empirical investigation, we show how this method provides the enacted patterns of multiple logics, validates their dominance, and detects internal contradictions and inconsistencies. These findings highlight that if one defines dominant logics in terms of self-reference and self-similarity, causal mapping then generates competing and coexisting logics that practitioners enact.
The economic crisis of 2007 has limited financial resources of governments for public works and s... more The economic crisis of 2007 has limited financial resources of governments for public works and service. For this reason, asset managers of transport infrastructure need to make priorities on their investments. This requires the identification of clear trade-offs between financial and public interests. However, academics have argued that the safeguarding of public interests for infrastructure is in jeopardy, because of ambiguity in the identification of these trade-offs. This paper explores the relation between financial and public interests. Subsequently it develops a conceptual framework to better understand how these interests can be combined in terms of infrastructure investment decisions for asset managers.
Built Environment Project and Asset Management, 2011
Purpose – The aim of this research is to better understand the decisions in infrastructure asset ... more Purpose – The aim of this research is to better understand the decisions in infrastructure asset management at public agencies and the challenges of these agencies to improve the effectiveness of their decision making. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a literature review on asset management at public agencies, a case study was used to investigate the decision making of a provincial
Journal of European Public Policy - J EUR PUBLIC POLICY, 2010
Optimale interventieplanning bij het wegennet vraagt om een integraal beslissingsproces. Allerlei... more Optimale interventieplanning bij het wegennet vraagt om een integraal beslissingsproces. Allerlei soorten beslissingen en diverse soorten informatie komen aan het begin van de besluitvorming bij elkaar. Toch is niet alles te plannen.
ABSTRACT In recent decades, research on the management of infrastructure assets has increased ste... more ABSTRACT In recent decades, research on the management of infrastructure assets has increased steadily. However, there are concerns raised about the contribution of studies to a coherent body of knowledge. There is a call for a more structured understanding of the knowledge that is emerging around the management of infrastructure assets. This paper attempts to answer this call through an empirical study based on the reference lists of over 8200 articles that present their study relevant to the management of infrastructure assets. In so doing, we apply recognised techniques from bibliometric and social network analyses to visualise and identify major and minor topics, where researchers have oriented and contributed. We find that managing infrastructure assets traditionally was object-oriented, such as pavements, bridges, water and utility networks, and that attention is only now emerging on the life-cycle decision-making and organisational aspects, although the latter remains weakly linked with technical aspects. We conclude with shared research orientations in ‘managing’ infrastructure assets.
ABSTRACT Over the last couple of decades, metropolitan areas around the world have been engaged i... more ABSTRACT Over the last couple of decades, metropolitan areas around the world have been engaged in a multitude of initiatives aimed at upgrading urban infrastructure and services, in an effort to create better environmental, social and economic conditions and to enhance cities’ attractiveness and competitiveness. Reflecting these developments, many new categories of ‘cities’ have entered the policy discourse: ‘sustainable cities’; ‘green cities’; ‘digital cities’; ‘intelligent cities’; ‘smart cities’; ‘information cities’; ‘knowledge cities’; ‘resilient cities’; ‘eco-cities’; ‘low carbon cities’; ‘liveable cities’; and even combinations, such as ‘low carbon eco-cities’ and ‘ubiquitous eco-cities’. Each of these terms apparently seeks to capture and conceptualize key aspects of ongoing urban sustainability efforts. Closer examination, however, reveals that the terms are often used interchangeably by policy makers, planners and developers alike. In this article we examine the reflection of the wider policy debate in academic discourse. By subjecting the twelve most frequently encountered categories mentioned above to bibliometric analysis, we aim to identify the distinct conceptual perspectives harbored by each of them.
Although sustainability is on the agenda of many countries and agencies, it is still a great chal... more Although sustainability is on the agenda of many countries and agencies, it is still a great challenge to properly integrate sustainability into major infrastructure projects, like tunnels. This is remarkable, as it is commonly accepted that the construction and operation of these civil infrastructures have a heavy impact on environmental, economic and social sustainability. In academia, the foregone conclusion seems to point to a lack of vision about sustainability with respect to tunnels. This article presents an empirical study that investigates sustainability ideas amongst tunnel practitioners in the Netherlands. The case was used as a practical environment to get access to tunnel practitioners, to explicitly define the meaning of a sustainable tunnel in its development phase. Perceptions of sustainable tunnels were extracted by means of a commonly accepted research methodology called Q-methodology. By applying this method, four perspectives were obtained: perspectives with a focus on energy, resilience, social or a transitional focus. Each perspective highlights distinct focal points on how to operationalize sustainability for tunnel projects. Each perspective is also accompanied by an anti-focus; how sustainability should not be approached, sometimes contrary to other perspectives. These insights help project practitioners in creating awareness for the existence of different perspectives, and subsequently help to focus project management efforts to implement sustainability in specific projects.
Despite its growing ubiquitous presence, the smart city continues to struggle for definitional cl... more Despite its growing ubiquitous presence, the smart city continues to struggle for definitional clarity and practical import. In response, this study interrogates the smart city as global discourse network by examining a collection of key texts associated with cities worldwide. Using a list of 5,553 cities, a systematic webometric exercise was conducted to measure hit counts produced by searching for “smart city.” Consequently, 27 cities with the highest validated hit counts were selected. Next, 346 online texts were collected from among the top 20 hits across each of the selected cities, and analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively using AntConc software. The findings confirm, first, the presence of a strong globalizing narrative which emphasizes world cities as “best practice” models. Second, they reveal the smart city’s association—beyond the quest for incremental, technical improvements of current urban systems and processes—with a pronounced transformative governance agenda. The article identifies five critical junctures at the heart of the evolving smart city discourse regime; these shed light on the ongoing boundary work in which the smart city is engaged and which contain significant unresolved tensions. The paper concludes with a discussion of resulting implications for research, policy, and practice.
ABSTRACT Over the last couple of decades, metropolitan areas around the world have been engaged i... more ABSTRACT Over the last couple of decades, metropolitan areas around the world have been engaged in a multitude of initiatives aimed at upgrading urban infrastructure and services, in an effort to create better environmental, social and economic conditions and to enhance cities’ attractiveness and competitiveness. Reflecting these developments, many new categories of ‘cities’ have entered the policy discourse: ‘sustainable cities’; ‘green cities’; ‘digital cities’; ‘intelligent cities’; ‘smart cities’; ‘information cities’; ‘knowledge cities’; ‘resilient cities’; ‘eco-cities’; ‘low carbon cities’; ‘liveable cities’; and even combinations, such as ‘low carbon eco-cities’ and ‘ubiquitous eco-cities’. Each of these terms apparently seeks to capture and conceptualize key aspects of ongoing urban sustainability efforts. Closer examination, however, reveals that the terms are often used interchangeably by policy makers, planners and developers alike. In this article we examine the reflection of the wider policy debate in academic discourse. By subjecting the twelve most frequently encountered categories mentioned above to bibliometric analysis, we aim to identify the distinct conceptual perspectives harbored by each of them.
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