| This dissertation consists of a case presentation and analysis of an integrated set of technical and managerial tools related to the assessment of the environmental performance of a network that includes DesignTex, Inc. of New York and Rohner Textil AG of Heerbrugg, Switzerland. The emphasis is on an analysis of the strategic alignment of these tools with the efforts of the network members to pursue a set of competing goals, one of which is environmental sustainability of products and processes. A cognitive network states framework, which was constructed and used in the analysis, is a key feature of this contribution.; The analysis begins with a presentation of technical and managerial tools from a case study of environmental textile design and manufacturing. These tools include such items as environmental life cycle assessment strategies, environmental management systems, environmental indices and evaluations of product and process designs, and environmental accounting systems. The effects of the implementation of these tools were measured using corporate environmental reporting data, such as resource usage and amount and type of emissions.; A descriptive presentation of sociotechnical network alignment processes follows the presentation of the environmental tools. The analysis of the network alignment processes uses an actor network framework and mapping methods to capture how network actors designed and developed the technical tools in addition to strategic and sociotechnical network and distributed cognitive system alignment concepts, such as boundary objects, trading zones, and shared mental models, to analyze how the environmental tools and cognitive network processes functioned and changed dynamically. The results of the analysis provide an answer to the question in the context of the case study of how it is possible for a network of practitioners to design, adopt, and implement a set of industrial ecology tools that act in accordance with a corporate strategy or policy that includes conceptions of environmental sustainability. |
