This paper identifies and analyses a specific psychological barrier that plays a crucial role in explaining why the tourism accommodation sector so far has only made a limited contribution to sustainable development. This barrier represents a so-called social dilemma and relates to behavioural patterns and conflicting interests of relevant stakeholders and their inability to resolve the resulting lock-in. Through presenting and reviewing the outcomes of three empirical studies and relating them to relevant literature, this paper explores the details of this particular social dilemma. It also establishes promising avenues for moving beyond the current stagnation point. The paper concludes that there is an urgent need for more research into the social, cultural and psychological structures and barriers that lock-in the behaviour of relevant stakeholders. However, it is also concludes that actually resolving the dilemma is a shared responsibility of all stakeholders and requires more than just research, for instance setting up galvanising action groups and adjusting tourism and hospitality curricula.
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The role of conveners in initiating and/or leading the formation of cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) has received ample attention in the literature on partnership formation. However, what happens when two organizations jointly take up this role? This question is important in many complex partnerships, such as those on sustainable supply chains. We present a qualitative, longitudinal case study explaining how two organizations together convened the formation of a complex cross-sector partnership, and emphasize the changing roles of each organization individually and their shared relationship over time. We analyze how this process of ‘collective convening’ unfolded, how it impacted the collaboration, and how the conveners coped with the tensions brought about by the constellation of collective convening. These tensions manifested at the interorganizational level in the relationship between the two conveners, but were also fed by each convener’s organizational level dynamics, as these dynamics influenced the collective convening process. A paradox perspective is appropriate to analyze the tensions emerging from the collective convening process and the ensuing organizational response strategies. We contribute to the literature on CSPs by introducing and elaborating on the notion of ‘collective convening’, which reflects a reality in complex CSP formation but has remained largely unstudied in the existing literature on convening. Further, we show how conveners bring their organizational level dynamics to the interorganizational level and how these dynamics influence the CSP formation process in positive and negative ways.
This dissertation increases our insight into the role of the service employee’s intercultural competences in the service to culturally diverse customers. Investigating the effect of the intercultural competences of service employees is of major importance because, as a consequence of globalization, the number of intercultural service encounters has increased dramatically and still does. The delivery of service to a culturally diverse customer-base requires a combination of knowledge, skills and attitude; the intercultural competences (also known as Global Mindset). In this study the hotel sector has been investigated specifically. The hotel sector is an important economic player that continues to grow inspite of economic downturn. The special characteristics of hotel services make the sector also very suitable for the research of face-to-face encounters in an international context. In this dissertation, a holistic approach has been chosen, meaning that in the four empirical studies not only the perspective of the manager, but also that of the employee and the customer was investigated. All three of the above-mentioned are actors in intercultural service according to the argumentation of the ‘service-profit chain’ (Heskett, Jones, et al., 1994). Together, the manager, employee and the customer form the so-called ‘service triangle’ (Bitner, 1990).
In onze visie voeren robots autonoom taken uit op de akker. Ze kunnen zaaien, oogsten, onkruid verwijderen, gewassen monitoren en verzorgen. Hierdoor zijn agrariërs minder kostbare tijd kwijt aan basistaken. Ook zijn er met dit soort robots geen (of veel minder) bestrijdingsmiddelen nodig en rijden er geen zware machines meer op het land. Dit leidt tot minder bodemverdichting en daardoor hoeft het land niet (of minder diep) te worden omgeploegd. Naast een enorme besparing op brandstof leidt dit ook tot een betere bodemkwaliteit en worden nieuwe teelten mogelijk. Agrarische robots zijn volop in ontwikkeling. Er zijn echter nog een aantal uitdagingen die opgelost moeten worden. Eén van die uitdagingen is volledig autonome, robuuste en veilige navigatie. De robot moet kunnen rijden zonder een bestuurder. Het AgriNav project: Agricultural Navigation In dit project werkt Saxion samen met drie pioniers op het gebied van agrarische robots in Nederland. Het doel is om een gedegen beeld van oplossingen voor het navigatieprobleem te ontwikkelen. We brengen daarvoor in kaart welke producten en frameworks er zijn en in hoeverre deze direct te gebruiken zijn. Op basis van de bevindingen maken we een afweging of de navigatie oplossing wordt ingekocht of dat deze zelf wordt ontwikkeld, bijvoorbeeld op basis van bestaande open source projecten. Onderdeel van dit KIEM project is het starten van vervolgtrajecten, zoals RAAK-mkb of RAAK-PRO. Impact Het project “AgriNav” geeft de inzet van kleine autonome zelfrijdende robots in de agrarische sector een boost, waardoor er nieuwe en duurzamere landbouw kan ontstaan. Dit past bij de ambitie van Nederland om voorop te lopen op het gebied van technologie voor voedselproductie. Door het project wordt de kennispositie van het consortium versterkt in zowel de topsector HTSM als AgriFood en de NWA routes “Duurzame productie van gezond en veilig voedsel” en “smart industrie”.
Plastic products are currently been critically reviewed due to the growing awareness on the related problems, such as the “plastic soup”. EU has introduced a ban for a number of single-use consumer products and fossil-based polymers coming in force in 2021. The list of banned products are expected to be extended, for example for single-use, non-compostable plastics in horticulture and agriculture. Therefore, it is crucial to develop sustainable, biodegradable alternatives. A significant amount of research has been performed on biobased polymers. However, plastics are made from a polymer mixed with other materials, additives, which are essential for the plastics production and performance. Development of biodegradable solutions for these additives is lacking, but is urgently needed. Biocarbon (Biochar), is a high-carbon, fine-grained residue that is produced through pyrolysis processes. This natural product is currently used to produce energy, but the recent research indicate that it has a great potential in enhancing biopolymer properties. The biocarbon-biopolymer composite could provide a much needed fully biodegradable solution. This would be especially interesting in agricultural and horticultural applications, since biocarbon has been found to be effective at retaining water and water-soluble nutrients and to increase micro-organism activity in soil. Biocarbon-biocomposite may also be used for other markets, where biodegradability is essential, including packaging and disposable consumer articles. The BioADD consortium consists of 9 industrial partners, a branch organization and 3 research partners. The partner companies form a complementary team, including biomass providers, pyrolysis technology manufacturers and companies producing products to the relevant markets of horticulture, agriculture and packaging. For each of the companies the successful result from the project will lead to concrete business opportunities. The support of Avans, University of Groningen and Eindhoven University of Technology is essential in developing the know-how and the first product development making the innovation possible.
Phosphorus is an essential element for life, whether in the agricultural sector or in the chemical industry to make products such as flame retardants and batteries. Almost all the phosphorus we use are mined from phosphate rocks. Since Europe scarcely has any mine, we therefore depend on imported phosphate, which poses a risk of supply. To that effect, Europe has listed phosphate as one of its main critical raw materials. This creates a need for the search for alternative sources of phosphate such as wastewater, since most of the phosphate we use end up in our wastewater. Additionally, the direct discharge of wastewater with high concentration of phosphorus (typically > 50 ppb phosphorus) creates a range of environmental problems such as eutrophication . In this context, the Dutch start-up company, SusPhos, created a process to produce biobased flame retardants using phosphorus recovered from municipal wastewater. Flame retardants are often used in textiles, furniture, electronics, construction materials, to mention a few. They are important for safety reasons since they can help prevent or spread fires. Currently, almost all the phosphate flame retardants in the market are obtained from phosphate rocks, but SusPhos is changing this paradigm by being the first company to produce phosphate flame retardants from waste. The process developed by SusPhos to upcycle phosphate-rich streams to high-quality flame retardant can be considered to be in the TRL 5. The company seeks to move further to a TRL 7 via building and operating a demo-scale plant in 2021/2022. BioFlame proposes a collaboration between a SME (SusPhos), a ZZP (Willem Schipper Consultancy) and HBO institute group (Water Technology, NHL Stenden) to expand the available expertise and generate the necessary infrastructure to tackle this transition challenge.
