Impact Of Co-location Research Articles

Having a tree in front of one’s home is associated with GREATER subjective wellbeing in adult residents in Melbourne, Australia, and Toronto, Canada

While urban trees can be important determinants of human health and wellbeing in world cities, the specific influence of nearby urban trees upon human wellbeing has not been adequately explored. While many studies have associated urban greenery abundance with wellbeing scores, many measures of urban greenery do not specify the type of vegetation or the impact of co-location. Here we fill this gap by associating self-reported measures of the presence of nearby trees (tree in front of one's home) with validated subjective wellbeing (SWB) scores. We also tested for the mediating role of what people thought about trees and nature, with a focus on the values people associate with urban trees and nature relatedness (NR). We used electronic panel survey data based on a demographic and geographical representative sample of more than 3400 residents living in Toronto, Canada, and Melbourne, Australia. We analysed these data using regression-based mediation and path analyses. We found that having a tree in front of one's home was strongly and positively associated with SWB scores in both cities with similar results (Melbourne, β = 0.17, p < 0.05; Toronto, β = 0.18, p < 0.05), while accounting for NR, values associated with urban trees, and demographics (e.g., age, education, home ownership). The mediating role of NR and values was small. The specific pathways of association between tree in front of one's home, SWB, NR, and values, varied by city, when accounting for demographics. We discuss how increasing the abundance of nearby urban trees in cities may also increase human wellbeing.

The impact of co-location on production knowledge transfer in collectivist and individualist cultures

Purpose This paper enhances our understanding of how national culture impacts manufacturing performance (assembly speed, consistency between teams, etc.) during a production process move. The authors also investigate the efficacy of co-location as a strategy to enhance knowledge transfer from one organization to another.Design/methodology/approach To study the impact of national culture on production process moves, the authors develop and employ a team-based behavioral experiment within and between an individualist society (the United States) and a collectivist one (China). The authors also examine the impact of co-location on knowledge transfer effectiveness within and between these two unique cultures.Findings Interestingly, co-location has little impact on the performance of US recipient teams. Without co-location, Chinese recipient team performance lags significantly behind the US teams. However, firms can overcome these knowledge transfer challenges by co-locating source and recipient team members. These results suggest that firms should assess the national cultural context when considering co-location to manage their production move. There are contexts where co-location may be incredibly useful to facilitate an effective knowledge transfer (e.g. collectivist cultures like China) and contexts where this approach may not be as valuable (e.g. individualistic cultures such as the United States).Originality/valueThis research contributes to the academic literature in several ways. First, while past research demonstrates that national culture can be an essential barrier to information and knowledge sharing, this paper extends these findings showing that co-location may effectively overcome this barrier. After the authors offer and test the merits of co-location, they also establish the boundary conditions of this approach by showing that the effect of co-location on knowledge transfer is contingent on the cultural context. This contribution enhances our understanding of the relationship between national culture and knowledge sharing and has implications for managers developing approaches to transfer knowledge between cultures. Second, the authors develop and execute a novel cross-country experimental design. While cross-country experiments have been done before (e.g. Ozer et al. 2014, Kuwabara et al. 2007, etc.), it is still rare to see such experiments due to them being “technically difficult and costly” (Ozer et al. 2014, p. 2437). This research not only offer insights into how teams of people from individualist and collectivist societies send, receive and comprehend production knowledge. It also documents how these teams convert this knowledge into production results.

Co-location of Formal and Informal Manufacturing and Firm’s Performance: Evidence from India

This study analyses the impact of co-location between formal and informal manufacturing sectors on plant-level productivity. We employ a unique data obtained by merging plant-level data from Annual Survey of Industries (ASI 2011–2012) and Survey of Unorganised Manufacturing and Repairing Enterprises provided by National Sample Survey Office (NSSO 67th round). We find that formal and informal manufacturing plants gain from localisation. Further, co-location with informal enterprises has a positive impact on productivity of formal sector plants; however, we observe insignificant impact of co-location on informal sector enterprises. Additionally, we find evidence that informal sector enterprises benefit from industrially diversified regions. JEL Codes: D24, R12, R3

The impact of co-location in emissions regulation clusters on traditional and vendor managed supply chain inventory decisions

Most of the works studying the response of supply chains to environmental regulations assume all parties are subjected to the same regulations. However, quite rarely the buyers and vendors are co-located and under the same environmental regulations. In this paper, we study the inventory and production decisions of a buyer and a vendor in a multiple buyers-single vendor supply chain with multiple products under various environmental regulations. Our analysis shows that the multiple buyers-multiple products case simplifies to the single buyer-single product case in certain conditions. We find that while a cap-and-trade regulation on the buyer may increase or decrease the economic order quantity of the buyer in traditional supply chains, it always decreases the economic order quantity of the buyer in vendor managed inventories (VMI). We show that while cap-and-trade regulation induces a reduction in carbon emissions of the buyer in both VMI and traditional supply chains, it may increase the carbon emissions of the vendor. Furthermore, we find that although not as widely used as cap-and-trade regulation, carbon cap regulation may decrease the carbon emissions of the buyer and vendor beyond that of a green buyer or a green vendor. In addition, we prescribe actions that the buyer or vendor may take to offset the effects any changes in parameters have on the economic order/production quantities.

Rooting out Poverty: People, Passion, and Place at Station 20 West

This case study summarizes and discusses our project exploring the impact of co-location, connectedness, and community-campus collaboration in addressing the root causes of poverty and our efforts to build capacities in Saskatoon. The site of this study is Station 20 West, a community enterprise centre in the heart of Saskatoon’s inner city that opened in the fall of 2012 as a result of community knowledge, participation, and determination to act for the common good. We share our findings, lessons learned, and project team reflections which underscore the connectedness of poverty reduction and reconciliation, the importance of including those with lived and diverse experience in community-campus engagement (CCE), and the hallmarks of good CCE.

Implementation of Behavioural and Medical Health Management Applications: Reducing High Intensity Medicaid Services Utilization for Individuals with Serious Mental Illness

Health challenges for persons with serious mental illness and comorbid medical conditions are related to application design and usability. An application suite to improve community care was deployed in the community services division of South Beach Psychiatric Center, a large state-run facility in New York, USA. The association between the use of the Medicaid utilization application and changes in the use of Medicaid publicly paid medical inpatient and emergency services was evaluated. A Generalized Linear Mixed Model (GLMM) was developed and applied to assess for longitudinal (5-year) reductions in utilization, the impact of colocation of behavioural and medical health services, and the effects of intra subject correlation, zero inflation, and over-dispersion in the data. Significant reductions in the use of Medicaid paid inpatient and emergency services were observed. Colocation of services was not significant. Significant effects for intra subject correlation and zero inflation were obtained and accounted for in the model.

Physical distance vs. clustering as influences on contracting complexity for biopharmaceutical alliances

We examine whether the presence of alliance firms in the same regional cluster or in close physical proximity influences contracting behaviour of biopharmaceutical companies by enhancing coordination and mitigating the need for control. The literature addressing geographical proximity and alliance contracting fails to make a clear distinction between physical co-location and co-location within a cluster, although the two attributes are conceptually distinct. We find that geographic proximity is not related to contracting behaviour. The impact of co-location within a cluster is more nuanced. Specifically, we find that co-location in the San Francisco Bay Area cluster is associated with less complex contracting; however, co-location in other biotechnology clusters does not seem to be related to contracting behaviour. We believe that the informal business environment characterising the Bay Area cluster, as well as unique roles played by venture capital and law firms located in the Bay Area account for the distinct result.

A modelling tool for capacity planning in acute and community stroke services.

BackgroundMathematical capacity planning methods that can take account of variations in patient complexity, admission rates and delayed discharges have long been available, but their implementation in complex pathways such as stroke care remains limited. Instead simple average based estimates are commonplace. These methods often substantially underestimate capacity requirements.We analyse the capacity requirements for acute and community stroke services in a pathway with over 630 admissions per year. We sought to identify current capacity bottlenecks affecting patient flow, future capacity requirements in the presence of increased admissions, the impact of co-location and pooling of the acute and rehabilitation units and the impact of patient subgroups on capacity requirements. We contrast these results to the often used method of planning by average occupancy, often with arbitrary uplifts to cater for variability.MethodsWe developed a discrete-event simulation model using aggregate parameter values derived from routine administrative data on over 2000 anonymised admission and discharge timestamps. The model mimicked the flow of stroke, high risk TIA and complex neurological patients from admission to an acute ward through to community rehab and early supported discharge, and predicted the probability of admission delays.ResultsAn increase from 10 to 14 acute beds reduces the number of patients experiencing a delay to the acute stroke unit from 1 in every 7 to 1 in 50. Co-location of the acute and rehabilitation units and pooling eight beds out of a total bed stock of 26 reduce the number of delayed acute admissions to 1 in every 29 and the number of delayed rehabilitation admissions to 1 in every 20. Planning by average occupancy would resulted in delays for one in every five patients in the acute stroke unit.ConclusionsPlanning by average occupancy fails to provide appropriate reserve capacity to manage the variations seen in stroke pathways to desired service levels. An appropriate uplift from the average cannot be based simply on occupancy figures. Our method draws on long available, intuitive, but underused mathematical techniques for capacity planning. Implementation via simulation at our study hospital provided valuable decision support for planners to assess future bed numbers and organisation of the acute and rehabilitation services.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1789-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Effect of biogas utilization and plant co-location on life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of cassava ethanol production

Abstract Five types of plants that produce ethanol from cassava in Thailand were examined to identify the best option with respect to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction. We specified the five plant types for evaluating the impacts of biogas utilization and the co-location of ethanol production at existing cassava starch factories and assessed the life-cycle GHG emissions of these plant types. The results showed that the amount of GHG emission reduction in cassava ethanol production depended on the plant type. Substantial GHG savings are achieved by ethanol plants that use biogas produced during wastewater treatment as fuel. Using biogas for steam generation is more effective in reducing GHG emissions than using it for electricity generation. Plants co-located with starch factories have advantages in relation to GHG emissions when compared with stand-alone plants. However, the impact of co-location is limited because cassava starch factories are not energetically self-sufficient. Improvement analysis suggested that boiler efficiency and the energy source for steam generation are key factors for reducing GHG emissions.

The Co-location of YP4 and Centrelink in Bendigo, Australia

• Summary: One expression of partnership between two organizations is the sharing of office space, often known as co-location. In early 2006, case managers employed by Loddon Mallee Housing Services (LMHS), a community-based organization in the regional city of Bendigo, Australia, co-located with the Bendigo office of Centrelink, the Australian government’s statutory income support agency. This article explores Centrelink and LMHS staff and management expectations of co-location as well as the reality of co-location as experienced by the staff involved. It is based on interviews conducted with staff and managers before co-location occurred and again six months thereafter.• Findings: Co-location is a powerful strategy for strengthening inter-agency relationships. The Bendigo example of service co-location provides confirmation of the benefits of co-location suggested in previous literature, including greater respect and trust between professionals from different backgrounds and with different status; informal information exchange, learning and sharing; enhanced feelings of teamwork and belonging; improved morale among staff; and enhanced communication, learning and understanding of roles.• Application: This study found that key issues requiring attention by organizations contemplating co-location include building on pre-existing trust and goodwill; thorough planning, taking into account the potential impact of co-location on third parties as well as client and organizational priorities; attending to logistical details, taking particular account of timelines for connection of telephones and internet access; consulting widely and including all relevant stakeholders in decision-making processes; promoting flexible attitudes and openness to change among affected staff; and seeking to acknowledge and contain rather than remove differences in organizational culture and practice. Compatibility, rather than sameness, should be the goal.