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Sustainability in a Digital World pp 85–93Cite as

Humans in the Loop: The Clash of Concepts in Digital Sustainability in Smart Cities

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Part of the book series: CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance ((CSEG))

Abstract

The underlying concepts, values and respective requirements for governance in digital ecosystems and socio-economic systems are considered. Sustainability in ecosystems is discussed as a central notion to illustrate the clash of concepts and to show patterns that connect or separate the digital and the sustainable worlds. Cities and the transition of cities into so-called smart cities exemplify the problem of sustainability and governance. The example of the city as a living lab illustrates the limits of digital control and sheds light on the need for a new generation of system controls that identify and mitigate the rifts, the fears and the unexpected in the process of integration and innovation in socio-economic systems. The study is based on complexity sciences such as cybernetics and on system theory and constructivism in the social sciences in order to embrace fully the problem of social behavior in digital systems.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The principles of cyber physical systems are (a) Robustness and adaptability: a resilient cyber–physical production system must be able to withstand external influences or be capable of adapting to disruptions, (b) Self-regulation and self-recovery: a resilient cyber–physical production system must be able to regulate its production process and recover by itself to the ideal state following a disruption event, (c) Short response time: fast development and implementation of a suitable response is required in order to accommodate process disruptions and minimize the time in disturbed mode, (d) Intelligent components: every component in a resilient cyber–physical production system must possess a component data model, containing information about its manufacturing and assembly operations, (e) Autonomous decision-making: every component is able to exchange information with the manufacturing station in order to negotiate and make decisions autonomously, (f) Redundancy: redundancy is incorporated in the architecture of a resilient cyber–physical production system, either by including several manufacturing stations that are able to process similar manufacturing operations or by including flexible operation sequences in the process that can be alternated according to current needs, (f) Dynamic disruption database: a resilient cyber–physical production system possesses a knowledge database of disruption scenarios and possible countermeasures, and (g) Escalation scenario: an escalation scenario simulation that takes into account several disruption events is required in order to enrich the decision support system (Galaske and Anderl 2016).

  2. 2.

    For an overview on governance of innovation see Gebhardt and Stanovnik (2016).

  3. 3.

    In cyber–physical systems even products develop memories and a communication architecture among themselves—see Internet of Things in Wahlster (2013).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Malik Institute, Geltenwilenstrasse 18, 9001, Sankt Gallen, Switzerland

    Christiane Gebhardt

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  1. Christiane Gebhardt
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Correspondence to Christiane Gebhardt .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fresenius Business School, Munich, Germany

    Thomas Osburg

  2. FranklinCovey Leadership Institute GmbH, Grünwald, Germany

    Christiane Lohrmann

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Gebhardt, C. (2017). Humans in the Loop: The Clash of Concepts in Digital Sustainability in Smart Cities. In: Osburg, T., Lohrmann, C. (eds) Sustainability in a Digital World. CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54603-2_7

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