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Whereas the contribution of design thinking has already been appreciated both in academic literature and practice in the West, there have been little serious and comprehensive studies focusing on Hong Kong and China. This case study paper, therefore, reports about the design innovation practice in Fung Group, a Hong Kong-based company whose core businesses operate across the global supply chain for consumer goods including sourcing, logistics, distribution and retailing. The analysis (1) identifies and describes design practices that the company initiated to support service innovation (including new products, processes and business models) (2) identifies challenges in adopting and institutionalising such practices. The results show that the company supports both externally and internally oriented design practices – and loosens the boundary between the two – through the activities in the Fung Academy and a new innovation hub, Explorium, with a particular focus on utilising digital technologies. Specifically, the study demonstrates how the company empowers and involves a variety of stakeholders (individuals, groups, and organisations) in value co-creating practices involving absorptive, collaborative, and adaptive practices that aim to challenge or disrupt current practices. The study uncovers that some of the major challenges in such aspirations lie in the adaptation of design thinking organising logic and mindset to specifics of the Chinese socio-cultural context.

Defining success in mega projects has been a challenging exercise for Australian Defence. The inherent conflict between nation capability building and cost efficiency raises questions about how to appropriately define mega project success. Contrary to the traditional output-focused project methodology, the value creation perspective argues for the importance of creating new knowledge, processes, and systems for suppliers and customers. Stakeholder involvement is important in this new perspective, as the balancing of competing needs of stakeholders in mega projects becomes a major challenge in managing the value co-creation process. In our earlier study reported interview data from three Australian defence mega projects and reported that those senior executives have a more complex understanding of project success than traditional iron triangle measures. In these mega defence projects, customers and other stakeholders actively engage in the value creation process, and over time both content and process value are created to increase defence and national capability. Value created and captured during and post projects are the key to true success. We aim to develop a comprehensive theoretical model the capture the value co-creation process as a way of re-conceptualising success in mega projects. We propose a new framework redefine project value as multi-dimensional, contextual and temporal construct that emerges from the interactions among multiple stake holders over the complete project life cycle. The framework distinguishes between exploitation and exploration types of projects, and takes into consideration the requisite governance structures.

Mercury toxicity mediated by different forms of mercury is a major health problem; however, the molecular mechanisms underlying toxicity remain elusive. We analyzed the effects of mercuric chloride (HgCl2) and monomethylmercury (MeHg) on the proteins of the mammalian thioredoxin system, thioredoxin reductase (TrxR) and thioredoxin (Trx), and of the glutaredoxin system, glutathione reductase (GR) and glutaredoxin (Grx). HgCl2 and MeHg inhibited recombinant rat TrxR with IC50 values of 7.2 and 19.7 nM, respectively. Fully reduced human Trx1 bound mercury and lost all five free thiols and activity after incubation with HgCl2 or MeHg, but only HgCl2 generated dimers. Mass spectra analysis demonstrated binding of 2.5 mol of Hg2+ and 5 mol of MeHg+/mol of Trx1 with the very strong Hg2+ complexes involving active site and structural disulfides. Inhibition of both TrxR and Trx activity was observed in HeLa and HEK 293 cells treated with HgCl2 or MeHg. GR was inhibited by HgCl2 and MeHg in vitro, but no decrease in GR activity was detected in cell extracts treated with mercurials. Human Grx1 showed similar reactivity as Trx1 with both mercurial compounds, with the loss of all free thiols and Grx dimerization in the presence of HgCl2, but no inhibition of Grx activity was observed in lysates of HeLa cells exposed to mercury. Overall, mercury inhibition was selective toward the thioredoxin system. In particular, the remarkable potency of the mercury compounds to bind to the selenol-thiol in the active site of TrxR should be a major molecular mechanism of mercury toxicity.