bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Multiple Dimensions of Media Communication Skills
Authors: Singh Michael , Cui Guihua
Published: February 2012

This chapter develops a conceptually informed and empirically grounded account of professionals navigating and negotiating media communication skills and carving out spaces for transnational, trans-cultural knowledge production and exchange (Singh, 2009). This chapter is intended to help engineering and IT professionals better understand the ways in which different approaches to media communication skills can shape transnational, trans-cultural knowledge flows by illustrating different ways to create East/West or South/North exchanges. This chapter focuses on building grassroots professional partnerships locating media communication skills in bottom-up dispositions to periphery/centre exchanges of knowledge. This chapter concludes with methodological reflections on media communication skills in the life history of a professional in this field to provide an indication of ways of envisioning and designing grassroots or bottom-up approaches to transnational, trans-cultural knowledge exchange.
Coopetition in Supply Chains
Authors: Wood Lincoln C.
Published: February 2012

Supply chain management has been increasingly seen as a strategic tool to improve the competitiveness of companies. Coopetition, the mingling of competitive and cooperative relationships, has been utilised by New Zealand companies in the horticulture industry to help break into and develop new markets. Using a case study various elements of the supply chain are examined from both strategic and operational perspectives for this group of companies and their customers and suppliers. The connections to the customer are shown to be enhanced through careful implementation, as the group of companies act to adjust their entire supply chains to make them increasingly customer-orientated. Significant benefits that are shown to accrue include improved information flow, increased ability to supply, and flexibility to meet customer requirements.
Agile Value Creation and Co-evolution in Global Supply Chains
Authors: Alavizadeh Ali , Djavanshir Reza , Tarokh Mohammad J. , Mohammed Jaby
Published: February 2012

Today’s global economy requires that companies and their supply chains become more agile and lean to address the changing customers’ requirements and market. A global customer-oriented supply chain network cannot be successful without agility and co-evolution. The literature on design, operation, evolution, and agile management of supply chains for such an economy is growing rapidly. However, existing research does not seem to reflect the co-evolutions of different segments of supply chains. This chapter sheds light on the concept of co-evolution and its application in supply chain management, as well as how it can contribute to creating value for all customers. It is worth mentioning that co-evolution and agility are ongoing processes. As technology changes and market varies, new challenges in terms of agility appear and companies should address them and modify their approach accordingly.
Radio Frequency Identification in the Smart Supply Chain
Authors: Lozano-Nieto Albert
Published: February 2012

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a relatively new technology that has emerged from the works of automated identification. RFID is based on the exchange of information between a device called a tag and a device called a reader after the reader queries the tag. The tags can be attached to specific items, boxes of these items, pallets of these boxes, or a combination of the previous, thus enabling the transmission of their contents. Once this information is detected and processed, it can be used as needed by the specific application. Among the different uses of RFID in the supply chain, this chapter focuses on those related to inventory control and the detection of counterfeited products.
How to Market OR/MS Decision Support
Authors: Ueda Masayuki
Published: February 2012

This research examines what decision makers must do to utilize OR/MS decision support. The author investigates OR/MS decision support from a new viewpoint of service. Firstly, OR/MS decision support provides information to aid in decision making, and it is shown that OR/MS decision support shares characteristics with service and can be considered a kind of service. This paper analyzes OR/MS decision support from the viewpoint of what is necessary for high quality service, and the issue of a communication gap is clarified. Through analyzing preceding research in OR/MS (Operations Research/Management Science), the author discovers a communication gap between decision makers and decision supporters. Finally, the author shows that it is effective to utilize “problem specification”, which is a decision-maker friendly description of problems proposed by research group including the author, as one approach to bridge the communication gap.
Perceived Risk Management
Authors: Dubosson Magali , Fragnière Emmanuel
Published: February 2012

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the theoretical work on service-perceived risk management of knowledge-based services (i.e., intangible and heterogeneous) and experience-based services and to suggest a framework that helps to formalize these risks and the value associated with their management, by arguing that this risk management relies on a sequence of risks (Threat, Event, Ignorance and Damage, called the TEID model) and on three categories of control measures (preventative, detective and protective). By categorizing customer-perceived risks, and by integrating control measures and assurances into their offer, providers can design new and valuable services. Service value-chains involve various providers (implicitly or otherwise) who may engender annoyance and damages as risks are a sequence of events. This paper holds the potential to contribute to extending an understanding and management capacity of customer-perceived risks of knowledge-based services. It brings into play a new framework and new risk management process. It also helps with formalizing and making tangible customer added-value.
Hospital Supplier Relationship Management
Authors: Rohner Peter
Published: February 2012

The structural transformation of modern societies (e.g., aging of population, mobility) as well as continuously increasing market dynamics (e.g., mergers, technological advancement) induces health care organizations to reduce their costs while enhancing service delivery. In other industrial sectors this was achieved by optimizing cooperation, coordination, and communication particularly with regard to the supplier base. However, as the pressure to innovate will increase extensively in the next years, similar developments are becoming relevant for the health care supply chain. In this paper, the authors adapt the current findings on supplier relationship management (SRM) to the health care context. The authors analyze theoretical foundations of SRM and explore a particular area of application in health care, namely the ordering of pharmaceuticals by hospitals. Finally, on the basis of a case study, applications of different SRM services are discussed.
Wireless Sensor Network Technology and Its Application Potentials for Service Innovation in Supply Chain Management
Authors: Li Gong , Shi Jing
Published: February 2012

The growing awareness of the strategic value of service along with higher product performance expectations has directed many industries to adopt service centric competitive strategies in managing their supply chains. Service innovation based on currently available advanced technologies has become critical in improving enterprises’ competitive strengths. Wireless sensor network (WSN) technology, which can provide a mobile, scalable, and reliable monitoring solution, is emerging as a tool for service innovation in supply chain management. This paper provides an overview of wireless sensor network technology and discusses how it can benefit modern industries. The fundamental theories of WSN are introduced as well as an overview of the development. The impact of information technologies on supply chain management and service innovation is then briefly discussed. Much emphasis is placed on the feasibility, procedures, and critical challenges of implementing WSN in supply chain management innovation. Current and future applications of WSN are also provided, followed by a case study demonstrating the application potentials of WSN for service innovation in the healthcare industry.
Business Service Scheduling
Authors: Dorn Jürgen
Published: February 2012

The management and predictive planning of the processes to create business services is more difficult than the planning of production processes, because services cannot be produced in stock and customers are involved in their creation. In this paper, the author proposes a method for service scheduling and optimization based on an ontology to describe business services and related concepts. The author schedules operations required to create a service. With each service process and its operations, soft and hard constraints on the execution of operations and the required resources are posted. These constraints are derived from service level agreements. A legal plan must then satisfy all hard constraints. All soft constraints are matter of optimization. Using a tabu search, a near-optimal solution of the service scheduling problem is achieved.
Metaheuristic Search with Inequalities and Target Objectives for Mixed Binary Optimization – Part II
Authors: Glover Fred , Hanafi Saïd
Published: February 2012

Recent metaheuristics for mixed integer programming have included proposals for introducing inequalities and target objectives to guide this search. These guidance approaches are useful in intensification and diversification strategies related to fixing subsets of variables at particular values. The authors’ preceding Part I study demonstrated how to improve such approaches by new inequalities that dominate those previously proposed. In Part II, the authors review the fundamental concepts underlying weighted pseudo cuts for generating guiding inequalities, including the use of target objective strategies. Building on these foundations, this paper develops a more advanced approach for generating the target objective based on exploiting the mutually reinforcing notions of reaction and resistance. The authors demonstrate how to produce new inequalities by “mining” reference sets of elite solutions to extract characteristics these solutions exhibit in common. Additionally, a model embedded memory is integrated to provide a range of recency and frequency memory structures for achieving goals associated with short term and long term solution strategies. Finally, supplementary linear programming models that exploit the new inequalities for intensification and diversification are proposed.
A Hybrid Genetic Algorithm for Optimization of Two-Dimensional Cutting-Stock Problem
Authors: Mellouli Ahmed , Masmoudi Faouzi , Kacem Imed , Haddar Mohamed
Published: February 2012

In this paper, the authors present a hybrid genetic approach for the two-dimensional rectangular guillotine oriented cutting-stock problem. In this method, the genetic algorithm is used to select a set of cutting patterns while the linear programming model permits one to create the lengths to produce with each cutting pattern to fulfill the customer orders with minimal production cost. The effectiveness of the hybrid genetic approach has been evaluated through a set of instances which are both randomly generated and collected from the literature.
Movement Strategies for Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization
Authors: Nguyen S. , Kachitvichyanukul V.
Published: February 2012

Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is one of the most effective metaheuristics algorithms, with many successful real-world applications. The reason for the success of PSO is the movement behavior, which allows the swarm to effectively explore the search space. Unfortunately, the original PSO algorithm is only suitable for single objective optimization problems. In this paper, three movement strategies are discussed for multi-objective PSO (MOPSO) and popular test problems are used to confirm their effectiveness. In addition, these algorithms are also applied to solve the engineering design and portfolio optimization problems. Results show that the algorithms are effective with both direct and indirect encoding schemes.
Improving Switched Current Sigma Delta Modulators’ Performances via the Particle Swarm Optimization Technique
Authors: Fakhfakh M. , Masmoudi S. , Cooren Y. , Loulou M. , Siarry P.
Published: February 2012

This paper presents the optimal design of a switched current sigma delta modulator. The Multi-objective Particle Swarm Optimization technique is adopted to optimize performances of the embryonic cell forming the modulator, that is, a class AB grounded gate switched current memory cell. The embryonic cell was optimized regarding to its main performances such as sampling frequency and signal to noise ratio. The optimized memory cell was used to design the switched current modulator which operates at a 100 MHz sampling frequency and the output signal spectrum presents a 45.75 dB signal to noise ratio.
A Metaheuristic Approach to the Graceful Labeling Problem
Authors: Mahmoudzadeh Houra , Eshghi Kourosh
Published: February 2012

In graph theory, a graceful labeling of a graph G = (V, E) with n vertices and m edges is a labeling of its vertices with distinct integers between 0 and m inclusive, such that each edge is uniquely identified by the absolute difference between its endpoints. In this paper, the well-known graceful labeling problem of graphs is represented as an optimization problem, and an algorithm based on Ant Colony Optimization metaheuristic is proposed for finding its solutions. In this regard, the proposed algorithm is applied to different classes of graphs and the results are compared with the few existing methods inside of different literature.
Page Number and Graph Treewidth
Authors: Xianglu Li
Published: February 2012

Book-embedding of graph G involves embedding its vertices along the spine of the book and assigning its edges to pages of the book such that no two edges cross on the same page. The pagenumber of G is the minimum number of pages in a book-embedding of G. In this paper, the authors also examine the treewidth TW(G), which is the minimum k such that G is a subgraph of a k-tree. The authors then study the relationship between pagenumber and treewidth. Results show that PN(G)=TW(G), which proves a conjecture of Ganley and Heath showing that some known upper bounds for the pagenumber can be improved.
The Analysis of Zero Inventory Drift Variants Based on Simple and General Order-Up-To Policies
Authors: He Jianing , Wang Haibo
Published: February 2012

In this paper, simple and general Order-Up-To (OUT) models with Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) forecast for the AR(1) demand pattern are introduced in the control engineering perspective. Important insights about lead-time misidentification are derived from the analysis of variance discrepancy. By applying the Final Value Theorem (FVI), a final value offset (i.e., inventory drift) is proved to exist and can be measured even though the actual lead-time is known. In this regard, to eliminate the inherent offset and keep the system variances acceptable, two kinds of zero inventory drift variants based on the general OUT model are presented. The analysis of variance amplification suggests lead-times should always be estimated conservatively in variant models. The stability conditions for zero inventory drift variants are evaluated in succession and some valuable attributes of the new variants are illustrated via spreadsheet simulation under the assumption that lead-time misidentification is inevitable.
BDD-Based Synthesis of Reversible Logic
Authors: Wille Robert , Drechsler Rolf
Published: February 2012

Reversible logic became a promising alternative to traditional circuits because of its applications in emerging technologies such as quantum computing, low-power design, DNA computing, or nanotechnologies. As a result, synthesis of the respective circuits is an intensely studied topic. However, most synthesis methods are limited, because they rely on a truth table representation of the function to be synthesized. In this paper, the authors present a synthesis approach that is based on Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs). The authors propose a technique to derive reversible or quantum circuits from BDDs by substituting all nodes of the BDD with a cascade of Toffoli or quantum gates, respectively. Boolean functions containing more than a hundred of variables can efficiently be synthesized. More precisely, a circuit can be obtained from a given BDD using an algorithm with linear worst case behavior regarding run-time and space requirements. Furthermore, using the proposed approach, theoretical results known from BDDs can be transferred to reversible circuits. Experiments show better results (with respect to the circuit cost) and a significantly better scalability in comparison to previous synthesis approaches.
Local Milieu in Developing China’s Cultural and Creative Industry
Authors: Wang Jici , Zhang Chun , Wang Ching-Ning , Chen Ping
Published: February 2012

This paper examines the role of creative milieu and cultural heritages in the development of Chinese cultural industry. Through case study of Beijing’s Nanluoguxiang, where several arts institutions and theaters concentrate, it depicts the birth and growth of a creative place for free artists in the institutional changing of Chinese cultural setting. Based on field survey data from artists, managers and visitors, it shows the spouting and growth of local creativities in a transitional economy needs atmosphere of tolerant and frequent social gathering, especially in spaces like cafes and bars. It also suggests that making a good use of local cultural and creative resources like heritages and folk customs enables the superiority of localization standing out in the wave of globalization. The key findings indicate that the newly-built creative parks might be useful to breed the creative products, but not necessary.
Australian Businesses in China
Authors: Chung Mona , Menzies Jane
Published: February 2012

This paper indentifies a main barrier when doing business with China, the cultural gap, and provides the strategies that companies can use when entering the Chinese market. This empirical study examined 40 Australian organisations in their activities when entering the Chinese market. Alarmingly after 30 years of attempting to do business in China, companies are still not addressing the issue of cultural differences. Companies are also caught by surprises due to lack of preparation how large the cultural gap is between Australian and Chinese business culture. The findings of the study have important implications for businesses considering entry to China, and for Australian businesses already doing business in China. The strategies investigated include human resource strategies, dealing with Chinese staff, relationship building, getting outside support (employing consultants), learning about the culture, and adapting to the culture.
Embracing Guanxi
Authors: Zhang Jilong , Pimpa Nattavud
Published: February 2012

Guanxi is deeply ingrained in Chinese society and business etiquette; therefore, it is critical to understand and appreciate it to gain a commercial foothold in China. This paper explores the fundamental differences between Chinese and Western approaches to business dealings, to identify the factors that make it difficult for Western managerial practises to adopt guanxi. The authors identify the differences in the perception of trust in both societies and how this ultimately leads to clashes in cultures. However, there is also a need for Western practices to be more flexible and appreciate guanxi and its implications if multinational corporations are to succeed in China. The paper concludes by suggesting a possibility for both approaches to co-operate well, given the relative success of each approach in their respective cultures.
Creating a Chinese “Miele”?
Authors: Jungbluth Cora F.
Published: February 2012

This paper analyzes the country-of-origin effects of Chinese brands going international. To approach this topic, the author uses a comparative case study, in which a Chinese manufacturer of white goods, Haier, and a German manufacturer, Miele, serve as examples. Fueled by “China trash” reports in EU and US media, the image of China as country of origin still has a negative connotation. The Chinese government and Chinese companies are working to change this image, since they both regard branding as important means for corporate internationalization. This paper argues that Chinese brands could achieve a similar development as did Japanese and Korean brands in the second half of the last century.
Chinese Investments in Italy
Authors: Spigarelli Francesca
Published: February 2012

This paper focuses on the effects of the Go Global policy in Italy. The main type of Chinese investments, their strategic motivations, as well as the role of ethnic networks are analyzed. The phenomenon is still not significant in quantitative terms, but trends are impressive. Italy can provide an access to western markets and strategic logistic services, as well as to a wide array of distinctive skills/intangible assets in manufacturing industries. At the moment, there is a prevalence of greenfield initiatives, but acquisitions are rising sharply. In geographical terms, the locations chosen by Chinese investors favor areas that offer a wealth of distinctive skills (typically, but not only, district areas), but are not limited to industries in which Chinese ethnic groups are involved.
Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment
Authors: Ilhéu Fernanda
Published: February 2012

In past years, China recorded a fast sustainable economic growth with an estimated average GDP growth rate of 9.7% in the period of 1980-2008, turning China into the world’s second largest economy. With an export oriented economic model, China is the most attractive developing country for FDI flows, both short and long term. In this regard, China has been able to achieve a foreign exchange reserve of US$ 2.2 trillion, the world´s largest reserve currency. Around 50% of this huge reserve is being applied in American bonds, while the remaining supports Chinese health and social security systems, bank solvability, internationalization of their economy, investment in geostrategic positioning, and making foreign aid available to other developing countries. During the 2008 global crisis, China was able to resist better than other major world economies, benefitting from this downturn to implement policies to reduce its economic imbalances. One of these imbalances is the gap between Chinese FDI and OFDI, which is now progressively narrowing. In the near future, OFDI is expected to be larger than FDI, and in this paper, the authors research whether Chinese OFDI can be explained by existing theories or if a new theory is required.
Implementation Concerns of Scholar-Practitioners
Authors: Hughes Claretha , Wang Jai , Zheng Wei , McLean Laird
Published: February 2012

The challenge of combining research and practice in HRD has led to continuing debate on who are scholar-practitioners and how they integrate research and practice in the workplace. This qualitative collective case study provides insights from seven scholar-practitioners to help HRD professionals and researchers understand implementation concerns of scholar-practitioners. The findings reveal scholar-practitioners’ perceptions of their roles, the link between research and practice, and actions they took to overcome barriers and challenges related to integrating research and practice. This pilot study can serve as a benchmark for future studies regarding successful integration of research and practice in HRD.
What is Business Intelligence?
Authors: Foley Éric , Guillemette Manon G.
Published: February 2012

There has been growing corporate interest in business intelligence (BI) as a path to reduced costs, improved service quality, and better decision-making processes. However, while BI has existed for years, it has difficulties reaching what specialists in the field consider its full potential. In this paper, the authors examine disparities in how the constructs of business intelligence are defined and understood, which may impede an understanding of what BI represents to business leaders and researchers. The main objective of this study is to clearly understand this emerging concept of BI. In this regard, the authors analyze articles from the scientific and professional literature to have a comprehensive understanding of business intelligence as both a product and a process. This research proposes a global overview of the conceptual foundations of BI, which can help companies understand their BI initiative and leverage them to the strategic level.
The Importance of Process Thinking in Business Intelligence
Authors: Marjanovic Olivera
Published: February 2012

The growing field of Operational Business Intelligence (BI) has resulted in increasing interest in BI-supported Business Processes (BPs), including their management and ongoing improvement. This has led BI practitioners to consider another field–Business Process Management (BPM)–that is closely related to business performance management. However, current approaches to the BPM and operational BI integration have been limited and reduced to the problem of technical integration of BPM and BI systems. This paper argues that by adopting process- thinking in BI, further opportunities for business value creation could be discovered through systematic analysis of the non-technical aspects of BI and BPM integration, including strategy alignment, human-centered knowledge management, and ongoing improvement of BI supported processes. The authors propose a theoretical framework founded in the related research in BPM, BI, and Knowledge Management (KM) fields, describing the ways it has been used to guide ongoing empirical research in diverse case organizations across different industry sectors.
Data-Driven Decision Making for New Drugs
Authors: Sillup George P. , Klimberg Ronald , McSweeney David P.
Published: February 2012

Two courses, advanced decision-making and pharmaceutical marketing, were combined in a collaborative process to mimic how the pharmaceutical industry determines the potential of new drugs. Integrated student teams worked together to complete semester-long projects and taught each other their respective knowledge areas—marketing and statistics. Real-world data for medical and pharmacy claims payments were “cleaned” and mined by students to analyze usage and cost patterns for anti-hypertensive and anti-hypercholesterolemia drugs currently on the market. Analyses included merging the medical and pharmaceutical data records to derive individual electronic patient records, which were the basis of financial projections for the new drugs. Importantly, the single patient record is congruent with the needs of the stakeholders currently working to reform U.S. healthcare delivery.
Towards Private-Public Research Partnerships Combining Rigor and Relevance in DWH/BI Research
Authors: Cleven Anne , Winter Robert , Wortmann Felix
Published: February 2012

Business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing (DWH) research represent two increasingly popular, but still emerging fields in the information systems (IS) academic discipline. As such, they raise two substantial questions: Firstly, “how rigorous, i.e., fundamental, constituent, and explanatory, is DWH BI research?” and, secondly, “how relevant, i.e., useful and purposeful, is this research to practitioners?” In this article, the authors uphold the position that relevance and rigor are by no means dichotomous, but two sides of the same coin. Naturally, this requires well-defined approaches and guidelines—for scholarship in general and DWH/BI research in particular. Therefore, this paper proposes the competence center (CC) approach—a private-public partnership between academia and practice. The authors illustrate how the CC approach can be applied within the field of DWH/BI and suggest that a close link between research and practice supports both enhancing relevance to practice and strengthening rigor of research.
Historical Data Analysis through Data Mining from an Outsourcing Perspective
Authors: Vleugel Arjen , Spruit Marco , van Daal Anton
Published: February 2012

The process of historical data analysis through data mining has proven valuable for the industrial environment. There are many models available that describe the in-house process of data mining. However, many companies either do not have in-house skills or do not wish to invest in performing in-house data mining. This paper investigates the applicability of two well-established data mining process models in an outsourcing context. The authors observe that both models cannot properly accommodate several key aspects in this context; therefore, this paper proposes the Three-phases method, which consists of data retrieval, data mining and results implementation within an organization. Each element is presented as a visual method fragment, and the model is validated through expert interviews and an extensive case study at a large Dutch staffing company. Both validation techniques substantiate the authors’ claim that the Three-phases model accurately describes the data mining process from an outsourcing perspective.
Business Intelligence 2.0
Authors: Mendoza Rubén A.
Published: February 2012

Business Intelligence 2.0 is an umbrella term used to refer to a collection of tools that help organizations extend their BI capabilities using Internet platforms. BI 2.0 tools can enable the automatic discovery of distributed software services and data stores, greatly increasing the range of market options for an organization. The development cycle for these tools is still in its early stage, and much work remains. However, some technologies and standards are already well understood in order to make a significant impact. This paper provides an overview of the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and related technologies supporting the deployment of web services and service-oriented architectures (SOA). The author summarizes the critical importance of these technologies to the emergence of BI 2.0 tools. This paper also explores the current state of Internet-enabled BI activities and strategic considerations for firms considering BI 2.0 options.
Identifying the Determinants of Customer Retention in a Developing Country Context
Authors: Kassim Norizan Mohd , Ismail Salaheldin , Abdullah Nor Asiah
Published: February 2012

This paper investigates how image, perceived service quality and satisfaction determine customer retention in the retail banking industry in Malaysia. Data was obtained using a self-administered survey involving a convenience sample of 134 retail banking customers in Malaysia. The results show that image is both directly and indirectly related to retention through satisfaction while perceived service quality is indirectly related to retention through satisfaction. The paper concludes that satisfaction is not the sole determinant of retention in retail banking. Some managerial implications of this research find that the interrelationships between the determinants (image, quality and satisfaction) allow bank managers to better understand the dynamics of customer retention formation.
A Conceptual Model of Customer Innovation Centric
Authors: Shaqrah Amin A.
Published: February 2012

Customer innovation centric is not only an important perspective on value-creation, but also a new strategy discipline that IT software companies in Jordan should embrace if they are pursue to enlargement successfully. Furthermore, customer experience, customers’ community, customer knowledge, and customer innovation are influential variables for improving organizational learning from customer. In order to study this impact, the author uses cognitive fit theory to develop a model that describes how these variables will affect the success of organizational learning process to enhance products and/or services development, quality, and internal process improvement.
Customer Relationship Management through Communication Strategy
Authors: Ahmed Abdel Moneim M. B.
Published: February 2012

Changes in today’s organisations are often necessary for survival due to the world becoming smaller and the threat from foreign imports becoming more apparent to businesses. Often the most damaging element of this foreign threat is the low costs at which they can operate. Many factors, including inexpensive labour, exchange rates and economies, make production more efficient and reduce the overall costs significantly to enable a significant competitive edge. For example, Fibres is a polyester manufacturer who faces this threat and has realised the need for change towards more speciality products with differentials other than price. However, this will involve major changes in production, including the production methods and the adoption of TQM to ensure that the differential of quality is utilized. This paper examines communication as an enabler for change and studies the current communication methods within the company against the desired improvement processes from groups within those companies, culminating in a targeted internal marketing strategy to aid future business changes.
Do Managerial Strategies Influence Service Behaviours?
Authors: Ackfeldt Anna-Lena , Malhotra Neeru
Published: February 2012

Based on a review of the extant literature, a conceptual framework for analyzing the associations between managerial strategies (internal communications, empowerment, supportive leadership and professional development), employee job attitudes (organizational commitment and job satisfaction) and prosocial service behaviours (PSBs) is developed. The authors explore the relevance of the proposed conceptual model and testable propositions regarding the associations between managerial strategies, employee attitudes and PSBs by conducting in-depth interviews of FLEs in a travel service organization. Based on the findings of the in-depth interviews, the relationships between managerial strategies, job attitudes and PSBs in the conceptual framework are largely supported.
Adoption of Electronic Payment Services by Iranian Customers
Authors: Keramati Abbas , Hadjiha Bahar , Taeb Rose , Mojir Navid
Published: February 2012

The objective of this paper is to investigate customers’ adoption of Electronic payment services. This study contributes to existing e-payment and adoption research by presenting a detailed description of factors that enhance and inhibit electronic payment adoption. The proposed conceptual model has been developed based on TAM, diffusion of innovation and PCI models, and adding the factors of security, cost, perceived risk, culture, trust, service quality and network externalities. The model has been examined by using a questionnaire within the Iran context. Based on obtained results, practical implications and suggestions for Iran banks and financial institutions are discussed.
Follow the Experts Follow the Experts
Authors: Gagnon Suzanne , Lirio Pamela
Published: February 2012

This chapter explores individual intercultural competence as an enacted capability developed through social interaction and experience with dominant local cultures and minority cultures. The authors employ a knowing-as-practice perspective, following Nicolini et al. (2003), and notions of tacit knowledge within particular domains (Sternberg et al., 1995), to suggest that the study of intercultural experts has potential to inform this area of knowledge. From this perspective, examining practice repertoires used by expert actors can provide a useful complement to cultural intelligence frameworks (Thomas & Inkson, 2004, Earley, 2002) for understanding individual intercultural competence. Drawing on emerging literature on biculturalism, this chapter introduces an approach to researching intercultural knowing-in-practice through a focus on one type of experts, in this case, a group of young, bicultural Canadians. The authors found emotion- and behavioral-based themes that informed these experts’ responses to intercultural scenarios, their responses to proposed in-situ practice. From the findings, the chapter suggests that management can learn about intercultural competence from such experts’ approaches to navigating intercultural conflicts.
Bicultural Managers and their Role in Multinational Corporations
Authors: Kiesel Kathrin , Haghirian Parissa
Published: February 2012

Exposure to other cultures is common through extensive travel, living in ethnically diverse environments, attending universities abroad, or having work assignments in other countries. In places like the US, more and more people cannot fit themselves into certain ethnic categories, thinking of themselves as being “mixed” (Goldstein & Morning, 2000) or bicultural. This phenomenon has been recognized and researched increasingly in recent years. One aspect is the question on how different societies deal with bicultural people. In this chapter, the authors investigate individuals with a bicultural family background and investigate how this biculturality reflects on their role in business. The survey presented in this paper investigates the relevance of bicultural skills and consequently the roles that bicultural managers play in multinational corporations. To investigate this issue the survey was conducted among managers who had one Japanese and a Non-Japanese parent and worked in a multinational corporation in Japan. Japan was chosen, because it is a more controversial issue in Japan than in other industrialized countries.
Understanding the Realities of Contemporary Internationalization of the MNE
Authors: Khan Omar J.
Published: February 2012

While the idea of regio-centric firm behavior had been expounded as early as 1969 (see Perlmutter & Heenan, 1974), research in international strategy and marketing since has mainly gone from a multidomestic focus to a global focus. Reality seems to indicate that more and more multinational enterprises (MNEs) have been implementing regional strategies as opposed to either global or multi-domestic ones. Debate has been active over the last two decades on the reality of globalization and regionalization. This chapter reviews the debate, distills major themes, and offers a structured understanding of the phenonemenon of regionalization vs. globalization as seen in contemporary internationalization.
A Social Capital Approach to Inter-Cultural Differences
Authors: Presutti Manuela , Zambelli Lucrezia
Published: February 2012

This work examines to what extent cultural differences at a level both of intra-organizational multinational network and inter-organizational multinational network are associated with liability of foreignness. The authors propose a conceptual framework where the different dimensions of social capital improve the exchange and combination of resources and knowledge in different subsidiaries localized in dissimilar cultural contexts, by mitigating the inter and intra organizational cultural differences. This in turn reduces the liability of foreignness. The chapter empirically applies this conceptual framework to one of the world’s largest tour operators. It focuses on different moments of foreign growth of selected tour operator, performing an exploratory longitudinal case study. The findings presented have important implications for research in multinational literature because the chapter proposes to originally study the liability of foreignness and cultural differences topics according to a social network perspective of analysis.
E-Democratic Administration and Bureaucratic Responsiveness
Authors: Wang Guang-Xu
Published: February 2012

The Civil Service E-mail Box (CSEB) is one of the windows that facilitate communication between Taiwan’s government and its citizens. According to research, when a government has a user-friendly digital platform maintained by technologically literate public administrators, those public employees would support using such an electronic system to increase governmental responsiveness. This chapter investigates how the perception of e-democratic administration and information and communications technology’s (ICT) level of readiness influence public administrators’ perception of CSEB effectiveness in facilitating communication with citizens. It does this by examining bureaucratic survey data gathered from Taiwan’s Research, Development, and Evaluation Commission (RDEC). Findings show that an unfriendly digital platform, unskilled staff, low appreciation of e-democracy, and lack of readiness on the part of CSEB negatively affect public employees’ enthusiasm in regarding ICT as an effective tool in raising governmental responsiveness in Taiwan.
Congress 2.0
Authors: May Albert L. , Arterton F. Christopher
Published: February 2012

With Congress approaching full adoption of the three major social media platforms – YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook – this study gauges the performance of members’ official channels in terms of building audiences. Despite the popularity of these platforms, a divide exists among a few high performing members and many low performers. Using an index to differentiate performance, the study finds social media success is driven by several factors, party affiliation and ideology being significant. Performance is also derivative of larger political and media forces, and the study shows that the issues confronting government can engage audiences that turn to social media for information, as demonstrated by the congressional debate over healthcare on YouTube. The chapter explores how the utilization of this technology could be an historical step as important as the advent of C-SPAN in connecting Congress to the American people.
A Multidimensional Model for Data Warehouses of Simulation Results
Authors: Mahboubi Hadj , Faure Thierry , Bimonte Sandro , Deffuant Guillaume , Chanet Jean-Pierre , Pinet François
Published: February 2012

This paper examines the multidimensional modeling of a data warehouse for simulation results. Environmental dynamics modeling is used to study complex scenarios like urbanization, climate change and deforestation while allowing decision makers to understand and predict the evolution of the environment in response to potential value changes in a large number of influence variables. In this context, exploring simulation models produces a huge volume of data, which must often be studied extensively at different levels of aggregation due to there being a great need to define tools and methodologies specifically adapted for the storage and analysis of such complex data. Data warehousing systems provide technologies for managing simulation results from different sources. Moreover, OLAP technologies allow one to analyze and compare these results and their corresponding models. In this paper, the authors propose a generic multidimensional schema to analyze the results of a simulation model, which can guide modelers in designing specific data warehouses, and an adaptation of an OLAP client tool to provide an adequate visualization of data. As an example, a data warehouse for the analysis of results produced from a savanna simulation model is implemented using a Relational OLAP architecture.
A Systematic Approach for Managing the Risk Related to Semantic Interoperability between Geospatial Datacubes
Authors: Sboui Tarek , Salehi Mehrdad , Bédard Yvan
Published: February 2012

Geospatial datacubes are the database backend of novel types of spatiotemporal decision-support systems employed in large organizations. These datacubes extend the datacube concept underlying the field of Business Intelligence (BI) into the realm of geospatial decision-support and geographic knowledge discovery. The interoperability between geospatial datacubes facilitates the reuse of their content. Such interoperability, however, faces risks of data misinterpretation related to the heterogeneity of geospatial datacubes. Although the interoperability of transactional databases has been the subject of several research works, no research dealing with the interoperability of geospatial datacubes exists. In this paper, the authors support the semantic interoperability between geospatial datacubes and propose a categorization of semantic heterogeneity problems that may occur in geospatial datacubes. Additionally, the authors propose an approach to deal with the related risks of data misinterpretation, which consists of evaluating the fitness-for-use of datacubes models, and a general framework that facilitates making appropriate decisions about such risks. The framework is based on a hierarchical top-down structure going from the most general level to the most detailed level, showing the usefulness of the proposed approach in environmental applications.
Using Ontologies to Relate Resource Management Actions to Environmental Monitoring Data in South East Queensland
Authors: Hunter Jane , Becker Peter , Alabri Abdulmonem , van Ingen Catharine , Abal Eva
Published: February 2012

The Health-e-Waterways Project is a multi-disciplinary collaboration between the University of Queensland, Microsoft Research and the South East Queensland Healthy Waterways Partnership (SEQ-HWP). This project develops the underlying technological framework and set of services to enable streamlined access to the expanding collection of real-time, near-real-time and static datasets related to water resource management in South East Queensland. More specifically, the system enables water resource managers to access the datasets being captured by the various agencies participating in the SEQ HWP Ecosystem Health Monitoring Program (EHMP). It also provides online access to the statistical data processing tools that enable users to analyse the data and generate online ecosystem report cards dynamically via a Web mapping interface. The authors examine the development of ontologies and semantic querying tools to integrate disparate datasets and relate management actions to water quality indicators for specific regions and periods. This semantic data integration approach enables scientists and resource managers to identify which actions are having an impact on which parameters and adapt the management strategies accordingly. This paper provides an overview of the semantic technologies developed to underpin the adaptive management framework that is the central philosophy behind the SEQ HWP.
Spatial Pattern Mining for Soil Erosion Characterization
Authors: Selmaoui-Folcher Nazha , Flouvat Frédéric , Gay Dominique , Rouet Isabelle
Published: February 2012

The protection and the maintenance of the exceptional environment of New Caledonia are major goals for this territory. Among environmental problems, erosion has a strong impact on terrestrial and coastal ecosystems. However, due to the volume of data and its complexity, assessment of hazard at a regional scale is time-consuming, costly and rarely updated. Therefore, understanding and predicting environmental phenomenons need advanced techniques of analysis and modelization. In order to improve the understanding of the erosion phenomenon, this paper proposes a spatial approach based on co-location mining and GIS. Considering a set of Boolean spatial features, the goal of co-location mining is to find subsets of features often located together. This system provides useful and interpretable knowledge based on a new interestingness measure for co-locations and a new visualization of the discovered knowledge. The interestingness measure better reflects the importance of a co-location for the experts, and is completely integrated in the mining process. The visualization approach is a simple, concise and intuitive representation of the co-locations that takes into consideration the spatial nature of the underlying objects and the experts practice.